A quick glance at the guards proved they were not paying close attention. She picked up a pencil and circled a section of the report, and wrote next to it:
Did you tell him?
“It’s braking at an incredible rate,” she continued. “I didn’t think it would be possible.”
Natalie was nodding, slowly, and took the pencil. “I see what you mean.” She added below Tania’s words:
We saw the image, he knows it’s a new elevator. I could convince him it’s months away.
As she wrote, she said, “Have you calculated the arrival time?”
Her voice sounded false to Tania, like an amateur actress in a bad play. Tania took the pencil back and erased the words they’d written, then flipped to another page.
“Take a look at these numbers,” she said, pointing out a random bit of useless info.
She wrote:
Can’t let the station suffer that long. Have a plan. We need to talk alone.
She underlined the last word and said, “The deceleration rate negated all our predictions.”
Natalie picked up the pencil and added:
I have an idea.
She erased the writing and turned to a random page in the folder. “How long will it take to recalculate?”
Tania had no idea what Natalie was thinking, but caught her wink and went along with it. “Eight hours, roughly.”
“Let’s get started, then.”
Four hours later Tania paced her room, waiting anxiously for Natalie to arrive.
They had pretended to work at the data analysis for thirty minutes, to give an appearance of effort, before telling the guards that they needed to give the computer time to run simulations. The guards were willing to wait it out, but Natalie said she’d rather be returned to her quarters to rest.
When the guards pushed Tania into her own room and locked the door, she expected to hear them continue down the hall with Natalie to do the same. Instead they had gone in the other direction.
Her imagination ran wild. Had Natalie been taken to be interrogated? Could she handle something like that? Tania knew the answer was no. Natalie probably knew her limits, too, which explained why she’d decided to play the willing informant.
Her mind returned to the instructions Neil Platz had left in the envelope. A chill ran down her spine. An astonishing plan, far bolder than she could ever concoct on her own.
Footsteps outside the door. Heavy.
They were early.
Tania realized she was still fully dressed, and as the door was unlocked she abruptly flipped her light off and sat on the edge of her bed, running her hands through her hair to appear as if she’d been napping.
The door opened to the silhouette of a soldier.
“It hasn’t been eight hours, has it?” Tania asked, forcing her voice to sound groggy.
“Blackfield said you can use the showers if you want,” he said. Then he sniffed the stale air of the room. “’Bout damn time, too.”
“Remind you of Darwin?”
The guard actually smiled, if only for a second, and moved aside to allow her to exit the room.
She pulled a towel from her closet and stepped into the hall. The showers on this level were connected to the restrooms, and the guard followed her in.
Tania whirled on him. “You’ll wait outside, or take me back to—”
“Relax,” he said, walking past her, down the aisle of lockers to the large open shower. The tiled space was square in shape, with six showerheads poking out of three walls. “Just doing my job,” he said, checking two corners that were hidden from view of the door.
Satisfied, he came back to the door and pushed it open. “You’ve got twenty minutes,” he said, grinning slightly.
Something in that grin worried her. For a moment she stood in place, unsure what to do.
Before she could decide, the door opened again, and Natalie entered, carrying a towel of her own.
Tania whispered, “What’s going on?”
Natalie stepped in close and gave her a quick embrace. “When the water’s on,” she said, so quietly that Tania barely caught it.
With that Natalie set her towel on the metal bench in front of the lockers and began to undress. Tania stood in place.
“Come on, hon,” Natalie said. She smiled in an odd way as she padded down to the shower and turned on a faucet.
When the water’s on. Tania kept her head still and looked about the shower room. They were listening. Or worse, watching.
Natalie drenched herself under a fountain of steaming water, running her hands through her hair as if nothing was wrong.
Stomach aching from nervous dread, Tania shrugged off her jumpsuit. She stood naked with her arms tight across her chest, and took a quick glance back at the door. It remained closed. Finally she walked to the shower.
Steam from the hot water already obscured Natalie’s body.
Tania turned on the showerhead next to Natalie’s and set it as hot as she thought she could take it. Her friend reached a hand out to her. Tania took it, expecting a friendly squeeze, but Natalie pulled her until their bodies were touching, warm water spilling over both their shoulders. Natalie’s arm slipped around her waist, pressing them together.
“What are you—” Tania started to ask, before their lips met. Natalie kissed her urgently, with passion, not like a friend. Nothing like a friend.
Tania could do nothing but stand there, frozen in place, lips closed tight.
“Relax,” Natalie whispered. “Russell is only allowing this because he’s hoping for a good show. The mist should leave most of it to their imagination.”
Tania understood, then. Natalie had been playing to Russell’s perversion the moment he’d found them in the computer lab.
Her night spent in the bowels of Nightcliff filled her mind. She’d somehow convinced herself that the wall-sized mirror was just that, and that no one sat on the other side of it. A lie she had needed to make it through that night, and the weeks since. But in her heart she knew Russell had been watching.
Tania squeezed her eyes closed and forced the memory away, for Natalie’s sake. To expose her ruse now would have terrible consequences for both of them.
She became aware that her arms were held out as if a Jacobite preacher groped her. Shaking with stage fright, she returned Natalie’s embrace as best she could. Under the torrent of scalding hot water, she managed to relax her shoulders a bit.
Natalie pulled Tania’s head to her shoulder with one hand while caressing the length of her back with the other. Then she whispered in her ear, “Russell is recording this, so speak quietly.”
With nervous uncertainty Tania tried to find a place for her hands on Natalie’s back. Somewhere that implied familiar affection, she hoped. “He trusts you enough to let us alone? Natalie, my God, how did you convince him? What did you have to do?”
“Shhh,” Natalie whispered. She held on even tighter than before, as if Tania might slip and fall. “It’s not what you think. He’s just saying things to rile you.”
“If they’ve hurt you … abused you—”
Natalie gripped the back of her head. “He just wants you to think that. No easy way around this, so here it is. I’ve been working for Alex Warthen for almost six months now.”
Tania tried to pull away, to fight, at the confession. But Natalie held her too tightly.
“Please listen. Alex blackmailed me. He wanted to know about the research going on here, and in exchange lifted me out of a terrible life in Darwin. It seemed harmless enough, until I mentioned that Neil met with you in private, and he wanted me to find out why. I refused, and his offer of help turned to threats. Please believe me.”
For a long time Tania stood in shocked disbelief. A well of conflicting emotions churned in her mind, but the longer she stood there under the warm water, in Natalie’s arms, the further they receded, until one was left.
“I forgive you,” Tania said. “I forgive you …”
Natalie broke into racking sobs, going to her weakened knees, pulling Tania down with her in the process. It was Tania’s turn to lead the embrace. She eased her friend to the floor, sat facing her, and offered a shoulder.
Natalie buried her head there, sobbing.
Tania let her cry, and shed a few tears of her own. Neil dead or captured, and now her closest friend had admitted betrayal. Her home for so many years had become a prison, run by the man she hated most in the world. A man who, if he had his way, would soon control the new ship sent by the Builders.
Sitting there on the wet floor, wrapped tightly in her best friend’s embrace, Tania had never felt more alone. She felt as if the station around them had disappeared, revealing the cold emptiness of space.
Tania had to finish Neil’s plan. And, no matter what, she knew she could no longer trust Natalie. It drove a knife in her gut to admit that to herself.
Resolve building, she put her lips against Natalie’s ear and whispered. “What now? Are you going to tell Russell—”
“Of course not,” Natalie said. “He’s a monster. I told him you were keeping me in the dark, but perhaps if I could sleep with you … again …”
“I’d give up the secret in the heat of passion?”
Natalie began to shake. “He’s promised me to his guards, if I don’t tell him.”
Tania tensed, overwhelmed by rage. She began to stand.
“No,” Natalie said, gripping her arms, “No!” She managed to bring Tania back to her sitting position. “He’s watching, remember that. If he thinks we’re just in here plotting …”
“I … I’ll kill him. Alex, too.”
“You won’t, Tania. I’m sorry, but we’re not fighters.”
“We are when we’re cornered …” The image of Skyler, shooting the face off a subhuman, burst into her mind. Decisive, instinctual. No second guesses. “Listen, you have to give him a false location for the Elevator.”
Natalie sat very still. “He’d find out, and then kill us.”
“He won’t have the chance,” Tania said. She wanted nothing more than to share the information Neil had provided her, but Natalie had been lying to her for months. Tania realized she forgave her, yes, but her trust was shaken. “I … have a plan. It’s a good one, but we have to convince Blackfield to go to the wrong place.”
“He’ll find out! He’ll get there and find no Elevator.”
“Don’t worry about that. It’s part of the plan.”
Natalie nodded, wiping her nose. She even smiled, if only slightly.
Tania remained there with her, on the cold tile floor, letting the warm water rush over her. It wasn’t long before a guard entered.
“Time’s up,” he said.
To Tania’s amazement, he waited outside while they dressed.
Precisely eight hours after the simulation had started, Tania was escorted from her room.
Anchor Station had never been quieter. Even the Nightcliff regulars were mercifully devoid of lewd comments.
Their pace remained brisk, however, and Tania could feel the emptiness in her gut grow as they drew close to the computer lab.
The stop was brief, but long enough for Tania to review the “results.” She made a quick show of it, and then declared herself ready to speak with Russell.
They left the lab and the guards led her to White Level, to the station’s lone luxury cabin. A room normally reserved for Neil Platz. From what Tania had overheard from the guards, Russell spent most of his time in there, using the computer terminal to scan the stations various security cameras. For his own amusement, Tania thought, not anyone’s security.
When the guards knocked on the opulent double door, Tania willed herself to be calm.
“Enter,” said Russell from inside.
The two guards each opened a door, leaving Tania between them to make a strangely grand entrance.
“Join us,” Russell said. He sat at a small table, adjacent to a window that dominated the rear wall of the room. A half-eaten breakfast sprawled before him. Outside, the shell ship floated in partial illumination, the rest obscured in ever-moving shadows from Anchor Station’s rings.
Natalie sat with him, her food untouched, looking disheveled, like she hadn’t slept. She kept her eyes locked on the alien fuselage outside.
Tania approached the one remaining chair slowly. “I prefer to stand,” she said.
“Nonsense, eat something.”
Tania glanced at the chair. Every instinct told her to resist, to show him she could be strong, that he couldn’t win everything.
Russell smashed his fork against the table. The flash of anger made Tania jump. “Sit. Now.”
She slowly lowered herself into the chair, watching Natalie. Her friend hadn’t even blinked at the noise. She still stared out at the alien relic.
They had made a deal, hours earlier in the shower, that Natalie would avert her eyes when they next saw each other if the deception had held.
“Nat, give your woman a kiss good morning,” Russell said through a mouthful of artificial egg.
Natalie turned at this, smiling sadly at Tania and giving her hand a squeeze.
Russell burped and said, “That’s no kiss.”
Natalie seemed to wake up, or drop out of some state of hypnosis. “Haven’t you seen enough already?”
“What, the shower? That was highly disappointing.” He cut off Natalie’s retort before it could come. “So tell me, Tania, when will my new Elevator make landfall?”
“Don’t you mean the council’s new Elevator?”
He chewed a bite of food with his mouth open. “Tell me before I get angry, please.”
