Exo: A Novel (Jumper) (56 page)

I smoothed my expression. Contempt was too strong. I remembered Dad’s scars and the story of his time in these people’s hands. I thought Gilead was insane, but that was not a comforting realization.

He waxed philosophical. “I’ve always found it
fascinating
that young people have such a sense of immortality. It’s probably—”

“Evolutionary?” I said. “Oddly enough, I’ve had this exact lecture from my mother.”

“I don’t think she took it in quite the same direction I’m going,” Gilead said. “Ms. Pope, let’s have Mr. Trujeque up again. I think we could benefit from a
practical
demonstration.”

Damn
. “You really don’t want to do that.”

“Oh, I really think I do.”

“Let me rephrase that then,” I said, watching the guards unlatch the grate. “I don’t think the results you will get are the one you are expecting.”

They pulled the grate open. It was a lot harder, apparently, to get someone out of the oubliette than to put them in, especially if you wanted them conscious. The guard reaching down had to pull back up, one hand to his face. His eye was swelling shut.

Mr. Gilead was not pleased. “What happened?”

“Lucky kick,” the guard said. “Should’ve cuffed his legs. I’ll get ’em.”

He bent back to the grate and Mr. Gilead said, “Wait.” The volume of the speakers increased. “Mr. Trujeque, if you do not stand up and cooperate I will have Ms. Pope cut one of your girlfriend’s ears
off
. Either one, Ms. Pope. Lady’s choice.”

“Joe,” I called. “
Both hulls
.”

“Huh?” he said. “Down
here
?”

“Trillion to one!” I took three deep, fast breaths.

“What is
that
supposed to do?” Hyacinth said, taking the knife back out of her front pocket. She was making a show of it, using her thumb to swing the blade out slowly until it locked open with an audible “click.”

Over the speaker Gilead said, “Mr. Trujeque, your girlfriend is about to lose an ear. Don’t you think—”

Hyacinth took a step closer and I twinned.

To space.

The air rushing out of the chamber staggered the guards and Hyacinth, though she kept her knife. Sound was leaving with the conducting medium and the last words I heard over the speaker were “Kill her n—” I was holding my throat open, letting the air leave my lungs.

Two seconds.

I suppose they could have built the window to withstand pressure from
both
sides. They’d been so busy making sure it could withstand
anything
that they’d failed to consider what happened when it was up against
nothing
.

The steel frame and mirror pulled away from the wall, bolts tearing from the concrete, and the frame folded along the lower left corner where bolts still held. Papers and books and
a person wearing a tie
blew through the opening, falling to the floor around me. An older man clung to the counter just inside the other room, his face constricted with rage. He was screaming words, I think, but I couldn’t hear them and I was pretty sure I didn’t want to hear them.

Five seconds.

The far room was full of fog that streamed toward me revealing wainscoting and wood panels, built-in bookshelves, a mahogany bar. There was a brief rushing sound as the air from that room rushed through me, temporarily raising the local pressure, then the sound hissed away again. Hyacinth pulled her hand back and lunged toward me.

Seven seconds.

The door visible in the far wall of the next room was steel in a steel frame and probably opened out.
It
withstood the pressure, but the wall next to it did not. Books, shelves, paneling, metal studs, and Sheetrock blew toward me. Another wave of air hissed by. Hyacinth’s blade flashed forward, reflected intensely bright sunlight, then passed from sight, followed by her arm, her head and shoulders, and then the rest of her, disappearing into silence.

Nine seconds.

One guard was on his knees, fighting to stay up, and the other was lying on his side, blood streaming from his mouth and nose. He’d let go of the grate to the oubliette but the rush of air had been keeping it open. Now it started falling.

Eleven seconds.

I could feel water boiling off of my tongue and my head swam, but all my concentration was on the twinning, on maintaining this hole into vacuum. The grate slammed back into its frame and though I couldn’t hear it, I felt it distantly through the chair.

Thirteen seconds.

My sight was tunneling in and I saw the last upright guard fall forward onto his face, definitely unconscious, making no effort to catch himself with his ar—

*   *   *

“—ent. Cent!”

Joe had his hands on both sides of my face, looking into my eyes. His hands were still cuffed but clearly not still behind his back. I tried to lift my hand and realized I was still locked in that damn chair.

“Hmmm?” I said.

“Are you okay?”

“How … long?”

“Uh, long? Oh, how long were you out? It’s only been a minute or two since you … you did that thing.”

I shook my head, trying to clear it. I was still having trouble thinking but I couldn’t tell if it was from the depressurization or the earlier electrocution or whatever they’d drugged me with to transport me here from Tri-City.

Wherever
here
was.

I scanned the room. There was one guard lying on the floor, bloody mouth, clearly dead. The older man—Gilead?—lay across the counter with his head partway into
this
room, staring fixedly at nothing. I didn’t see the other guard or the man who’d blown into the room.

Or Hyacinth.

“How’d you get out?” I asked.

He pointed with both hands at the grate. “I got the cuffs under my legs and in front of me as soon as those assholes dumped me down there. I don’t
think
I ever lost consciousness, but I sure got dizzy.”

“I saw the grate shut!”

“Yeah. Saw that, but thank God, it didn’t latch.”

“Where’s the guard and that other guy?”

“When I popped up out of the hole, the other guard was just coming around, so I snagged his collar and pulled him down headfirst while he was still groggy and used him as a step stool to get the rest of the way up. He was just getting turned around when I stuffed the guy in the suit down and they got tangled. I got the grate latched before they could get unstuck.”

“Unstuck?”

“Unwedged. It was tight down there with just
one
of me. What happened to that Ms. Pope? Did she book?”

“She did leave,” I said. “Can you get out of those cuffs?”

He bent down and picked up an automatic pistol. “It was on the floor. I guess the guard drew it but passed out before he could decide what to shoot. The dead guy still has his.” He put the grip in my hand.

“I was going to try and shoot the chain myself but it was really awkward.” He pulled his hands apart stretching the handcuff chain taut. “I figured you could fire and I’d hold the chain in front of the muzzle.”

Did this idea sound bad because I was still dizzy or even though I was still dizzy?

Even though
, I decided. “Why don’t you go look for a handcuff key in the guard’s pockets?” I said.

Joe stared down at the gun, his mouth open. “Or maybe I could go look for a key in the guard’s pockets,” he said brightly.

It was not in his pockets but it was on a key ring clipped to his belt. Fortunately, this included a key that fit the massive padlock on the back of my chair. Once that was off, Joe twisted the released lever and all seven restraining cuffs—ankles, wrists, elbows, and neck—opened.

I nearly fainted when I staggered upright, but a few deep breaths and Joe’s hand on my elbow steadied me.

I checked both men’s pulses just to be sure, wrist and throat. These weren’t the first dead men I’d ever seen, but Gilead and the guard were the first ones I’d
killed
. I didn’t know how to count Hyacinth.

“Stroke maybe? Looks kind of old,” said Joe peering at Gilead. “The guard … well, he held his breath, clearly. Embolism.”

“I think so. Don’t know about Gilead.” I shut away the view of both corpses by burying my face in Joe’s chest and putting my arms around him.

He squeezed back. “Let’s get out of here,” he said.

Oh, I wanted to,
so bad
. I shook my head. “Not yet.” I gestured at the guard and the grate. “There could be people out there who got caught in this.”

Joe looked at me like I was crazy, but when I didn’t say anything else, he picked up the automatic pistol again.

“Do you even know how to fire that?”

He pointed at the trigger, then the muzzle. “It’s a Glock. You squeeze that part, things come out of that part. Very fast.”

At least he wasn’t pointing it at me or himself, but my face was expressing doubt.

He pulled the slide half back and showed me that there was a bullet in the chamber. When he held the gun down and to the side, he did
not
put his index finger in the trigger guard, but held it straight along the frame above.

Maybe he wouldn’t shoot himself. “Okay.”

“Do you want the other gun?” He tilted his head toward the dead guard.

“Not really,” I said.

He took the magazine from the other gun and the two spare clips from the guard’s belt.

We couldn’t open the door, the one that looked like it belonged on a submarine. “Maybe they do it remotely,” I said, pointing my chin at the observation window.

Joe eyed Gilead’s corpse and said doubtfully, “We could climb through.”

I shuddered.

I jumped us past the body into the paneled room. There were files and books and papers and a computer workstation. I knew Dad would really like to see this stuff, but I couldn’t be bothered. I didn’t open the door into this room, but walked through the torn wall into a hallway.

There were three cells, empty, no bars, just steel doors with reinforced-glass inspection windows and pass-through slots for meals.

“I woke up in one of those,” Joe said. He rubbed his right buttock. “They stuck me with a needle when they grabbed me.”

We found an elevator. There was only an “up” call button. Joe pushed it and it opened immediately. I glanced inside—three floors G1 to G3. We were G3. Joe moved to enter and I blocked him, shaking my head.

The stairs weren’t marked, but the door to the stairwell opened outward and the catch had ripped during the “evacuation,” so it was open.

On the next level up, there was a dining room and a kitchen and three bedroom suites, luxurious, in the manner of the observation room below. Two of the suites showed signs of occupancy. Several containers had exploded in the kitchen, and flour and dry cereal and some sticky liquid were sprayed across the floor.

On the top level there was another kitchen, more institutional, a dining/TV room and several small rooms that screamed servants’ quarters. Things were scattered up here, too, and we heard voices from the other end.

Two paramedics came up the hall, one pushing a gurney and one carrying a trauma bag. The uniforms looked all right but their faces looked demented.

Worry will do that.

I stepped out into the hall.

“We were just leaving,” I said.

Mom jumped the five yards to me, her arms on my shoulders, peering at my face. The uniform she wore was too big, the pants cuffs were rolled up and the shirt bunched at the waist. “Are you all right? What did they do to you?”

“Why is your uniform wet?” I asked.

Dad saw me and his knees buckled before he caught himself and leaned heavily against the gurney.

When Joe heard Mom’s voice, he stepped around the corner, Glock no longer held at the ready.

Mom took in his split lip and bruised face. “What did they do to
both
of you?”

Joe grinned. “You should ask what Cent did to
them
!”

Dad straightened. He looked like he’d aged ten years, I thought, but in a light voice he asked, “Okay. What
did
you do to them?”

“Nothing,” I said. “A
lot
of nothing.”

*   *   *

Mom wanted Joe and me medically checked, but I was reluctant. I’d probably feel different by tomorrow, but after the day I’d just had, there wasn’t a doctor on Earth that I’d trust. Fortunately I knew one off the planet.

Flight Surgeon Rasmussen-Grebenchekova heard our stories, shook her head, and checked us over for barotrauma, paying special attention to our ears, sinuses, and lungs.

We had our exam in the Destiny module so she could use the ultrasound unit to give our sinuses, lungs and, in my case, heart a look.

“The voltage went from arms to legs? Yeah, you could have had fibrillation.” She did an electrocardiogram and a neurological assessment, too. “For a person who should be dead twice over,” she said, “you’re looking all right, but there could be delayed effects.”

She gave us a both a stern look and said, “For the barotrauma I recommend a high-oxygen environment for the next forty-eight hours.” She grinned. “I happen to know you have such a facility available.”

“Yes. And when you’ve got an hour or two,” I said, “we’d love to have the newlyweds over for dinner.”

“The newlyweds would be delighted. I’ve been curious about your resident.”

“Really? We’re looking for someone interested in monitoring her long-term progress. It would help, I suppose, if that person knew how to handle themselves in microgravity and just happened to have a specialty in space medicine.”

She stared at me, her face still. “Don’t say that if you don’t mean it. Misha and I are slated for retirement. Our chances of another mission from either of the space agencies is exactly nil.”

“I
do
mean it. I’d love to get Misha’s input on our upcoming solar-panel installation.”

“Well then, I think we could say that once Misha and I are officially retired from our respective agencies you will find us very interested in your future
endeavors
.”

*   *   *

The restaurant was in Stanville, Ohio, and the
spécialité de la maison
was the soft-serve ice cream dipped in a chocolate coating that seemed more like wax than cocoa, but Dad insisted.