Miron awoke on a bed in the infirmary. Another man lay next to him, muttering and twitching in his sleep. He raised himself up on his elbows and saw Rurik and a female orderly on the far side of the room, leaning over another patient. Miron managed to work himself into a sitting position before the doctor heard him move and came over. Stubble lined the doctor's gaunt cheeks. "Slow down, Commander. There are some drugs in your system that will take a little time to wear off. How do you feel?"
"What drugs?"
"Sedatives. You've been sleeping for the past fourteen hours."
"Fourteen hours?" He grabbed the doctor's coat and pulled him closer. Though his vision narrowed and the world spun, he forced himself to speak: "Don't ever give me sedatives again. Those are for the crew. Do you understand?"
A calm nod. Miron released the man's coat and almost fell back. Rurik waved off the orderly, who turned away after an acerbic stare at Miron.
"I'll respect your wishes, Commander, but if you intend to remain effective, you're going to have to give yourself some consideration," Rurik said. "I'd heard you were helping out the engineers, but no one told me you were working double shifts there in addition to your Control time, and regular visits to all ship's departments. If they had, I'd have found you and told you to slow down."
"Everybody's working hard."
"Not this hard," Rurik replied, his tone decisive. "You need more sleep, or you will break down. If you have trouble managing that, then it's time to reconsider your stance on medications."
Miron looked away. "How is Ilari?"
Rurik answered him in an even tone: "She's over there."
"She's comatose," the orderly said with an edge.
Miron ignored the woman. "What's wrong with her?"
The doctor hesitated. "Commander, have you read her file?"
"Not entirely."
A brief look of grief and regret passed over the doctor's face. "I suppose it wouldn't have made much difference. This isn't the first time Ilari's experienced an incorporeal attack. When they salvaged the Relentless, she was the only survivor. They found her in an equipment locker. She'd locked herself in and broken the handle, but she must have changed her mind, because she'd torn her nails off trying to get out again." He shook his head. "They should never have sent her back out here. She even requested a transfer out of shipboard service, but they rejected it."
Miron felt a sensation like ice water washing over his skin. He looked at Rurik. "One of them was in the airlock with her."
Sorrow crumpled Rurik's face. He looked for somewhere to look. "Yeah."
"Help me up."
Every limb felt drained and weak, but once he was off the table, he was able to walk slowly without assistance. They came to Ilari's bed. Deep circles underlined her eyes, and broken blood vessels discolored the pallid skin of her sunken cheeks.
"Can you do anything for her?"
Rurik gave him a searching look. At Miron's raised eyebrows, he turned to the orderly. "Esfir, Alyona's sedatives should be wearing off. Go check on her, please. She's in her bunk."
Esfir demurred, looking back and forth between Miron and the doctor. Lacking an argument to refuse, she said, "Yes, sir," and marched out.
Miron nodded after her. "What's her problem?"
"She thinks she should have gotten my posting. She also thinks you had something to do with her not getting it." Rurik turned back to him. "To answer your question officially: no, I can't."
"What does that mean?"
The doctor looked down at the fleet hand. "I've seen this before. She looks asleep like this, but her mind isn't. It's broken, stuck on repeat. Whatever she saw in that airlock, she's still seeing it. Except now, she can't even move."
"And you can't do anything?"
Rurik hesitated. "I didn't say that."
"Get to the point," Miron demanded.
"Fine." Rurik faced him. "We could end her life."
He stared, fear stirring in his gut. The suggestion was unthinkable, but the doctor's expression left no doubt he was serious. "What's wrong with you?"
"I'm not joking. Her mind is gone, Commander. It will never work again. All she can do now is..." He shrugged. "Suffer. They can keep her on heavy meds when she wakes up, maybe get her stable enough for simple labor." The doctor's voice turned bitter. "She won't be alive. But at least she'll be productive."
Miron looked back at the motionless fleet hand. "Are you sure?"
Rurik lifted his eyebrows and walked away. He picked up a tablet and fiddled with it. "Not the first time I've patched somebody up I shouldn't have. The Commonwealth needs its citizens." He shook his head, eyes on the tablet.
Miron swallowed, looked around the room. "Okay."
The doctor didn't look up. "Okay, what?"
"I said okay. Put her to rest. Just make sure it's painless."
Slowly, Rurik put the tablet down. "Are you sure?" he said, suspicion in his eyes.
Miron glared at him. "Don't be dense."
Rurik straightened with a deep breath and nodded. "Thank you―"
"Don't." Before the doctor could speak again, he escaped as fast as his battered body permitted.
*****
Shura paced across the room while Kirill sat at the table, still playing quietly. The auditor's words kept repeating in her head, threatening to drown her in panic each time. No matter how much she thought about it, she could think of no way to escape being caught. Ermolei would give her up; it would be forced out of him. Once they knew, one simple test would confirm that Kirill wasn't supposed to have lived. Then they would take him away. She would be interrogated, then sent off to die fighting the floaters.
They had to get away.
A distant memory sprouted in her mind. She'd heard a story once, of people who had fled the auditors by running away to the northern forests, far from the inhabited Districts. She didn't know if those people still existed, or if they ever had. She embraced the thought regardless, her mind desperate for any choice besides surrender.
She stopped pacing and took a deep breath to try to stop her body from trembling. They were coming. She couldn't do anything about that. But maybe she could avoid them, at least for a while. Why not try?
Other than hiding Kirill, she'd never broken the law. After he'd been born, she'd taken extreme care to avoid drawing attention, and the thought of defying the auditors drew a fresh spike of terror. It would be easier to submit. But she'd made her choice years ago, when she'd committed a crime to save her son.
Now she'd commit more.
Finally armed with a purpose, the nervous energy she'd built up materialized into specific actions. She took a bag and stuffed it with anything she might need on the run: snack packs, blankets, all their clothes, clean or not, a tablet with internal memory capacity that she used whenever she had to work outside network coverage. She only had two bottles to fill with water and nothing but snacks for food, but she had a plan for that.
"Aman," Kirill said.
"Yes, cub," she said, out of breath. She stuffed a tube of stimulant tablets into her pocket. She never took them, even on whole-day shifts, but she'd never run from law enforcement before.
"Smiley says we're leaving home."
She stopped working and came over. "How does he know that?" she said, failing to keep the tension from her voice. "What did he say?"
Now his fear had nothing to do with the auditors. He shrank back. "That's what he said, that we're leaving."
Her frustration fled, and for a moment she felt only a bone-deep fatigue, so intense each breath demanded an effort. "Well, he's right. We have to go. That man will come back to take us away. To hurt us."
"Why?"
In a weary reflex, she kneeled and hugged him. "That's hard to explain, cub," she whispered. "One day I will. But today, I need you to make sure that you do everything I tell you, whenever I tell you. Just do it. Okay? You promise?"
He nodded. As she returned to packing, she realized her plans had a flaw. She had to get to work to engineer her escape, but she couldn't bring Kirill on the commute. Where could she leave him? The daycare in the complex knew she got called in sometimes, so they would take him unscheduled, but what if the auditor found him there? What if they took him straight to the doctor and tested him before she got back?
She'd have to leave him with someone. Arina was her neighbor, and although they weren't friends by any means, they'd helped each other out in the past. "Kiri, take your clay. You're going to stay with my friend for a while. You know, the one with the long hair? You remember playing with that little girl, Saila?"
"Where are you going?" he asked in a small voice.
She came to him. "I have to do some things so we can get away. I'd take you with me if I could. I'll come get you as soon as I can. Before the evening. Then we'll leave, you and me. Okay?" He gave a timid nod, but she saw the doubt in his eyes. "Be brave, Kiri. For me. You just promised me you'd do whatever I told you, right? "
"Yes, but..."
"I know, it's hard. But it's going to be okay. Now, when you get there, I want you to play quietly. Don't tell Arina or Saila about what's going on, okay? That's very important. You can't tell them anything, because they won't understand and you'll frighten them." She took his hand to lead him outside, leaving her bag by the door on the way out.
Arina lived a few doors down. She answered the door on the first buzz. Shura had summoned her best apologetic smile, but the look on Arina's face when she opened the door erased all trace of the charade. "What's wrong?" she asked.
The other woman's bloodshot eyes flicked back and forth between her and Kirill. "Nothing," she said, and hugged herself. "Nothing. What do you want?"
"I got called in to work, and I was wondering if you could watch Kirill for me. I―"
"I can't," she cut in. "Just take him to daycare."
"They won't take him," Shura said before Arina could close the door. "They don't have a work schedule for me today, the office didn't bother sending one. I just need to have him somewhere safe for a few hours."
Arina gave a nervous laugh, tainted with hysteria. "Then you don't want him here!" She caught herself and looked away, blinking rapidly. As Shura tried to think of what to say, Arina's breath hitched. She turned back to them. "Did you have a visitor today?"
"A visitor? No, I―" An memory flashed in her mind. Arina, at the infirmary, coming out of the examination room with Ermolei. Smiling. Quiet words exchanged. The vicious look at Shura.
She smiled through the realization. "We don't get a lot of visitors. Listen, I don't want to give you any trouble. I'm going to try the daycare again. They're just going to have to take him." She looked down at Kirill. "Say bye."
"Bye."
She walked away, not looking back, her heartbeat thundering in her ears. She wasn't sure how, but she knew with icy conviction that Arina had been visited by the auditors. She clenched the fist that wasn't holding Kirill's hand. Who else? It couldn't be anyone who had Ermolei as their doctor. All of his patients would have been questioned, and she didn't dare trust them.
She stopped in the middle of the hallway, afraid to pursue her next thought. She had no friends, but someone did owe her a favor. It had been a long time, and what she would ask for was out of proportion. She wouldn't normally dream of asking this of her. She most likely wouldn't even be home.
Why not try?
They had to walk to the next wing of the community complex and ascend two flights of stairs. She had trouble recalling the exact apartment, and still wasn't sure when she hit the buzzer. After she hit it twice more, a woman opened the door, looking at Shura and Kirill without a hint of recognition. "Yes?"
Shura gave her a brilliant smile. "Hi, Dorei. I'm sure you don't remember me, but maybe you recall that time a few months ago when your survey reports weren't uploading?"
Dorei hesitated, then recognition cleared her eyes and she gave a rueful smile. "I remember now. You're Shura, right?"
She tried to keep the relief from her voice: "That's me. Do you have a moment?"
Dorei nodded slowly. "Okay. Come in."
Shura led Kirill inside. The apartment was identical to hers except for the light blue walls. Dorei closed the door and came over. "So what's going on?"
"I need your help. I've been called in to work. They didn't update my work schedule and the daycare won't take my son. Is there any way you would be willing to watch him for a few hours? I'll be back before the evening."
Dorei's light smile faded. "I guess you figure I owe you one."
"No," Shura said. "I know it doesn't compare. I'm just asking for your help."
Dorei's tone was laced with irritation. "This is my day off. I haven't had one in eighteen days and I don't even know when I'll have another."
"I know. I'm really sorry. I'll be happy to cover a shift for you some time."
The other woman looked away. "Shit."
"Please," Shura whispered, her throat tight. "I don't have anywhere else to go."
Something got through to Dorei. She breathed deeply. "All right," she said, bending down to smile at Kirill. "He looks like a friendly guy." She waved at him. Kirill stared at her and lifted one hand in reply.
"Thank you. So much. You have no idea how much this means to me." She kneeled before her son. "Kiri, you're going to stay here with Dorei. She's very nice. Remember everything I told you, okay? I'll be back soon to pick you up."
She walked to the door, but his terrified voice stopped her: "Amannn...!"
She squeezed her eyes shut. She had to do this. She faced her son, holding his clay in both hands. "Kirill. Remember. You have to be brave." She turned away from his gleaming cheeks and fled the apartment. Once the door closed, she crouched down and choked back her sobs. Cheeks wet, she got up and ran, all the way up the stairs to the roof access door, pausing only to flip the lock open before running back down to her apartment. After collecting her bag and changing into her uniform, she raced to the tube platform underneath the complex.
The ten-minute ride through the tunnels gave her plenty of opportunity to contemplate her doubts. She figured the refugees living in the forest were probably real, since she couldn't be the first to try to escape the auditors, and surely some would have gotten away. Still, joining what would amount to a colony of criminals inspired a new set of reservations. She had no idea what kind of people they would be. Could she risk taking Kirill into such circumstances?
She shifted her stance where she leaned against the wall. Her usual shift started later in the day, so she didn't know most of the people standing or sitting in the tube car. A few glanced her way, no doubt wondering why she carried a bag. As usual, no one spoke, but she still kept her eyes averted and made sure her expression reflected her mood. Outside, the pitch of the air rushing past the vehicle changed in a telltale sign of another tube car passing by. The sound triggered a wave of claustrophobia. She tried to breathe through it, fighting off the panic.
She knew she had no choice if she wanted to live, if she wanted to keep her son with her. The fact that there was no legal way out of her situation still rose up to grip her throat at random moments. Still, a part of her relished the freedom of breaking the rules. She'd considered her plan over and over again, and she felt sure―she knew―it had a good chance to succeed. If she didn't screw up. If no one figured her out. If the auditor didn't return early. If everything went right, she would be free before nightfall. She just had to take a chance.
The doors slid open, revealing the bustling grey platform of the Communication Network Maintenance Depot and a pack of tired workers waiting to go home. She slipped out before anyone else, weaving through the crowd like any other day, bag held before her. Ahead, others converged on the lines for the check-in points. She went with the flow for a while, then cut between two stations and headed for the elevators. Her back tingled with tension and she fought to keep from looking back, trying to carry herself as she always did. She'd seen other people skip check-in before, but she'd never learned why. Hopefully, no one would think twice about seeing her do it.
When she finally reached the elevator and turned around, no one paid attention to her.
The vehicle hangar made up a third of the lowest above-ground level of the massive Network Communications building. By this time, the field maintenance shifts had already collected their vehicles and left. She found only the hangar supervisor in the office, working at his desk. The hangar beyond the tall windows stood mostly empty, the overhead lights illuminating only three bright red aircraft parked in a corner. Zinoviy looked up as she approached, the scowl on his bald, round head even deeper than usual. "What are you doing here?"
She dropped her bag and leaned on the counter, pouring all her frustration into her voice: "I'm having a shit day. I need a PAV checked out, right away. There's a bunch of relays out in the green sector, and they want me to go fix them."
His flat expression made it clear he'd been waiting for her to finish talking rather than listening. "You think you're having a shit day? Your idiot colleagues keep setting these things down like dirty laundry. I got three airborne vehicles with micro fractures in the landing gear that should be out making checks. And then I got three techs I'm being told aren't coming back, so I guess it all works out, except the work doesn't get done, and that's going to end up being my fault somehow. But please, tell me about your problems."
She gave a sigh, silently cursing herself for antagonizing the man. "I'm sorry, Zin. I know it's a messed up day for everyone. But I really need to get out there."
He frowned, glanced at his display. "I don't have a work order."
"That's..." She hung her head and shook it. "They call me out of bed for this shit and they can't even get the orders in right." She raised her eyes and gave him a long-suffering look. "It's a disaster up there, Zin. They're going to rip me to shreds if I don't get the damn things fixed, and they're not going to give a shit there was no work order."
Zinoviy shrugged. "I'll call Lavrenti―"
"I wouldn't," she blurted out. She swallowed and gave him her best wry smile. "I don't want you to get in trouble. He's busy chewing up the regional for letting this happen―he only stopped long enough to tell me where I'm going. It's your call, but I don't think he wants to hear from anybody right now."
Zinoviy looked suspicious. She added urgency to her voice: "Come on, Zin. I'm late as it is. They didn't even bother sending an updated schedule, so daycare wouldn't take my son. I had to leave him with some woman I barely know, and I just don't want to deal with any more shit. Can we just get this over with?"
His eyes hardened, and her gut tightened as she realized what he was going to say. "I got to confirm it, Shura. I can't just sign out PAV's on anybody's say-so. Besides, I don't even have a vehicle for you. Those aren't serviceable."
"I'm not anybody," she said, coloring her tone with disbelief. "We've been doing this for nine years." She came around the desk to stand behind him. "Can we check again? Maybe they just put it in."
Zinoviy turned back to his display. Before his hand could slip into the control glove, she stepped forward, grabbed his collar with both hands, and slammed his head into the desk with all her strength. He still moved, so she pulled him back and did it again. Blood leaked from his nose and a purple bruise spread across his forehead, but he was still breathing. "Asshole," she muttered as she pulled his chair back and gave him a shove, sending him toppling to the floor.
It took a few more precious seconds to push him as far under his desk as she could manage. Her hands shook as she dug in his pocket for the key card. Once she found it, she grabbed her bag and ran out the door leading to the hangar, choosing the closest of the three sleek, twin-rotored PAV's. She tore off the service tag without another thought; heavy landings had never been her problem. With a swipe of the key card and confirmation of her credentials, the bright red aircraft hummed to life and initiated its preparations for flight. She left it working while she stuffed her bag into the tiny cargo compartment behind the cockpit, then ran to open the massive doors leading outside. Behind her, the engines awoke with a rising whine.
As soon as she'd run back and strapped herself in, a chime alerted her that the PAV was ready for flight. She took hold of the controls. "Come on," she muttered as the strip of daylight before her grew wider. The doors had only opened halfway when she nudged the control stick to pull her craft off the ground, then guided it forward and out through the gap.