Then again, he does have a mate and kit to think about.
We’ve been in worse situations before, so I’m not panicking. The trick of being a good corsair is that you know the situation is going to get ugly, and you adjust your plans accordingly. There’s always a way out. There’s always an exit. There’s always an escape plan—you just have to wrap your brain around it. Knowing that Helen is somewhere out there distracts me, though. She can take care of herself. I know she can. I just hate the thought of her scared or worrying.
I move around the room, testing the wall panels with little taps of my fingers to see which ones are hollowed out and where the service-bots come in to clean the floors and make the bed. When I find it, I pry the panel off with my nails and pull the bots out, tearing them apart down to their components. I find the system memory card, snag it, and then jog over to the wall panel by the door. I know it’s barred, but I can do a lot even from my room, if given half a chance.
With the bot’s access, I work on hacking into the main system on the ship. I’m locked out of access to several areas, but I’ll worry about that later. For now, I look up what I can. I find a schematic of the ship and I’m not surprised to see that most of the interior itself has been converted into labs to house the clone batches. There’s a few laboratories on the far end of the ship along with personal quarters, and there’s another set of personal quarters across from the one I’m in.
There are no barracks that I can find, which is…interesting. Odd, but interesting. I know there are guards. Does that mean there aren’t many? Where are they keeping them when they sleep? I try to access the vids on the ship, and I’m blocked. All right then. I keep poking around, trying to access what I can, and find the computer authorizations.
Four names. One is simply “Mistress” and the other three are coded. Those must be the scientists. So the guards have no access to anything? Are they even guards, or just more clones? I frown to myself, drumming my fingers on the panel.
A hiss comes from above.
Ah, kef.
I glance up, and sure enough, a fine mist is spraying in from a spout near the ducts. They’re going to keep me passed out in the hopes of luring Helen, are they? I hold my breath for as long as I can, unplugging the bot’s chip-set from the control panel and hiding it in a pocket. I kick the now-broken bots back into the wall, and then replace the panel. My lungs burn, and I take a deep, gulping breath. Immediately, I get dizzy, and I stagger toward the bed.
I’m going to be keffing useless if they keep this up. But for now, they want me alive, so that’s something at least.
Leaning heavily against the bed, I cast one last look around the room, hoping for something to catch my attention. Some sort of mask, or a cloth I can use to filter gases, something. Of course there’s nothing. My vision grows hazy, and I shake my head to clear the blackness edging into my sight.
Something moves outside of the window.
I scrub my eyes, wondering if the gas I’m being given causes hallucinations. Because I could swear I just saw Bethiah drift past my window in an environmental suit and helmet.
CHAPTER 91
HELEN
As I crawl through the ducts, I try to plan things. Planning helps me focus on everything but the situation I’m in. So I think about how I’m going to get Matty back to the shuttle. I think about how many necks I’ll need to break to get him free from the room they’re keeping him in. I think about how horrified Adi will be when I return to the Little Sister, naked and greasy. He’s going to have so many things to tell Jade, and I picture that conversation, too.
In short, I think about everything but the too-tight tunnel I’m squeezed into.
Mathiras’s scent drifts through the ship. It was on one end, and now it’s on the other, so I crawl in the new direction. My elbows hurt from pressing against the metal surrounding me, but I can ignore that. My focus is Mathiras. I’m not leaving this ship without him, and I don’t care if it means leaving everyone else behind. He’s the only one that matters.
I slither through the ducts as quietly as I can.
It takes me a long time to find him again. I don’t know how long I’ve been in the ducts at this point. It feels like forever. My stomach growls and my mouth is dry. At one point, I passed some pipes with condensation and licked them just to wet my mouth, but it left a metallic taste on my tongue. I’m going to have to come out of my hiding spot at some point, but when I get to Mathiras’s room, I don’t get out and join him. Something about it strikes me as wrong. He’s asleep on the bed, his hands folded calmly over his chest, his body straight and his expression peaceful.