Angela F

Archiwum

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give the mild euphoric high killed off what other long-term
cumulative psychotropic effect it had.
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Thomas was still looking at him. "I wouldn't dream of
invading your personal space," Jordan finished off, lamely. He
touched the back of Thomas' neck. "You don't feel so well."
Thomas didn't answer. He didn't have to. He cleared his
throat and changed subjects. "He's hoping we'll attack it."
And Jordan let him. "Which means he probably knows
where you are. You should move everyone again." It wasn't
exactly his imagination that two of the men guarding the
compound glanced up in their general direction, but Jordan
knew they were far enough away and the ground was hot
enough to hide their heat signature.
"Patrice still doesn't think anyone but miners are sick."
"Patrice is a moron," Thomas said.
"Let me tell him."
"If he doesn't know it already, Jordan, his head is in the
sand."
Jordan supposed that was true.
Eventually, the men looked away and one removed his
filter-mask to pop a Dose. There was no reason to suspect
that the air here was bad. Thomas had been sick for a while,
but he was the only non-miner that Jordan knew who had
contracted the sickness without being in the mines at all. That
just meant there must be others hiding it well.
"He wants you," Jordan said. The communication shed was
nothing but fly paper. "Do you see the masks?"
Thomas crawled to the edge of the small rise they hid
behind and looked down. "They started wearing them a week
ago."
Jordan nodded.
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"Is that what you wanted me to see?"
Thomas nodded. Jordan went to turn, but Thomas took
hold of his arm. "Have you seen him?"
"Tavish? My father made sure I was the one who picked
him up."
Thomas swallowed and looked away. "How does he look?"
"Good. He said he wouldn't serve you up. I have to think
he won't."
The guards had moved away, though their laughter rang
against the hillside. Jordan and Thomas both waited for the
sound to stop echoing. "He wouldn't," Thomas said, softly.
Jordan was silent for a long time. "How's Gibb?" he asked,
trying to make his voice sound casual.
Thomas groaned, then clamped his hand over his mouth.
Gibb had been the man who had recruited Thomas, when he
was still young and stupid, and had promised him how easy it
would be to end Patrice's reign. Thomas had believed him, no
matter how much Jordan had tried to talk him out of it, and
Thomas had been paying for it ever since. Jordan and Gibb
had been ... detained together, Jordan for warning Thomas to
get out while he could and Gibb for getting caught in the raid
that Thomas escaped and it hadn't taken Gibb four days to
crack. After he had, he'd been allowed to "escape" and rejoin
them in their new hiding place in the hills. Jordan felt Patrice's
fingerprints all over him.
That was three years ago. They'd had to work out an
uneasy alliance. Gibb had the charisma, but not the technical
skills. Thomas had the technical skills, but not the patience or
stomach for the sacrifices leadership needed. Fox wouldn't
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work with Gibb, either, so it killed Gibb that he needed
Thomas's connections at the very least.
"Gibb is hell bent on attacking. He thinks if he takes the
communication center, he'll have Patrice by the throat."
Jordan laughed, but muffled the sound out of instinct. "If
he thinks a shed in the middle of nowhere will bring Patrice to
his knees, he deserves to be taken again."
"Shall I tell him you said that?" Thomas asked.
Jordan rolled his eyes. "I would really rather you didn't,"
he said. He didn't need to stoke that fire any more than it
already was.
He took the bullet back to just outside the mines again,
and slid into the line of exhausted miners returning to the
Alpha Site for the morning. Jordan sat low in his chair,
angling the cold conditioned stream of air to his face, and
slept the rest of the way to the city.
* * * *
No buzzers went off in the middle of the night to tell Tavish
to check an incubation tray or a generator. He dressed in
slacks and a white lab coat that had his name printed on the
breast. He was about to leave in search of some form of food
when someone knocked. Tavish half expected it to be Jordan
but then realized Jordan probably had a few hundred things
more interesting to do than take more judgmental abuse from
Tavish.
"Just as well," he told himself. He hadn't realized he'd
spoken out loud until the short, mousy man looked at him
expectantly. "Just as well as what, sir?" he asked.
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Tavish stared, but only for a second. The man's white
uniform with so crisp it didn't sit next to his skin along the
arms. His nose was pointed, abnormally so, and despite the
fact that surgery for corrective vision was as common as
sublingual spray, the man still wore round eyeglasses. The
metal that held them to his face was as thin as spider
webbing. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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