Conrad Edison and the Anchored World (Overworld Arcanum Book 2) (47 page)

Sarah's eyelids were telling him
SOS
.

"Tell me something useful," Max said, more to Sarah than to Barnes.

Barnes stared at him. "Useful in what way, Constable? Useful in comforting you in this troubling time, or useful in making a case for your sister?"

Max continued to shine the key disc. "Anything. Why solitude, for example?"

"For committing classified high crimes."

Sarah changed her blinking pattern. Max struggled to remember what Dad had taught them.

"Sometimes it's not safe to talk or write," Dad said. "You never know who might be watching and listening."

Max used to think it was just a fun game to play with Sarah when they were little. Now it had turned into something deadly serious.

"Is the key ready yet?" Barnes asked.

"Almost." Max watched Sarah from the corner of his eye.

She blinked the same pattern over and over.
Mech S45A12. Airlock.

What the hell is that supposed to mean?

"I believe that's good enough," Barnes said.

"But—"

"Enough," the administrator said in a firm voice. "If it damages the lock, I will have mechworks replace it."

Max stood slowly, buying time and hoping his sister added something new to her cryptic message. What if he'd completely misinterpreted her blinks? Panic trapped a breath in his throat, but he forced it down. "This way." He pressed his star-shaped badge into the indention next to the thick metal door guarding the cellblock and stepped back as it swung open on creaking hinges.

"Reckon I'm good to go?" a hopeful Barlow McGee asked from the barred holding cell on the right. His eyes went wide with fright when he saw the man in a white lab coat step inside behind Max, and his mouth dropped open when he saw the girl fitted with a silencer around her throat. "Is that your sister, Max?"

"Quiet, Barlow," Max said. "Sleep off the alcohol and you'll get out soon enough."

Barnes's lip curled with disgust. "Science Division business. Face the wall and close your eyes."

Drunk as he was, Barlow knew to shut up and follow instructions. He rolled over on the cot and even pulled the blanket over his head.

Max stared at the drunk for a moment and thought of all the times he'd pulled the blanket over his head so he could ignore the obvious and just get on with doing what he was told. At one time, he'd solved real crimes and taken people to justice, but most of the time it felt like the lab coats told him what facts to use and what outcome they expected. He'd long since stopped caring and just went through the motions.

He was still going through the motions, but this time it was different. This time he cared.

Max passed barred cells and steel doors with reinforced windows for dangerous criminals—all of them empty except Barlow's. He stopped in front of the door at the end of the hall—the one without a window. A glance back at his sister's frightened eyes nearly caused him to revolt. It wouldn't take much to overpower Barnes and throw him into the cell instead of Sarah.

But then what? In City 7 there was no place to go and no place to hide. Five square miles of space under the dome was nothing if the lab coats wanted to find someone.

The key clicked into the shallow slot and the door creaked open, revealing a small padded room with a stainless steel toilet in the corner. A terrified squeak betrayed Sarah's fear. Barnes shoved her inside. She retaliated with an awkward donkey kick, catching the lab coat in his rotund stomach.

Barnes grunted and doubled over. Sarah's lip curled into a satisfied smirk.

The lab coat snarled and bared his teeth. Max shut the door before he could retaliate. If Barnes hit his sister, his corpse would feed the daughter, but Max would end up going out the airlock and feeding the father too.

"Enjoy the rest of your life," Barnes spat at the door. He held out his hand. "Give me the token."

"What if something happens and I need to get to her?"

"You're not authorized to open that cell until I say so." Barnes bobbed his hand up and down. "Key, now."

It was the only copy, but what choice did Max have? He handed it over and walked Barnes back to the front, hoping Sarah's kick to the administrators round belly didn't hurt Max's chances to speak with the governor. "Will you talk to Alderman when you get back?"

The administrator rubbed his paunch, glaring back down the hallway at the closed vault. Max shut the main door, blocking the view.

Barnes snapped back to him. "It won't make a difference, you know." He offered a patronizing smile. "Your sister might as well have jumped out of the airlock herself." He jerked open the exit. "Good day, Constable."

Max's legs buckled the moment Barnes left. He slumped against his desk. The room suddenly seemed dimmer, less real. His chest felt as if the parts were grinding together, organic gears that didn't quite mesh. Max locked the front door, opened the main cell, and ran back to the vault.

"Sarah," he moaned. "What the hell did you do?" Max banged his fists against the unyielding metal. "What the fuck did you do?"

"Everything all right down there, Constable?"

He'd forgotten about Barlow. Teeth grinding with impotent rage and sorrow, Max walked back to the low-priority cells and unlocked the door. "Go home, Barlow."

"Promise I won't drink like that again, sir." He hiccupped and held up forefinger and middle finger in a V. "Father's honor."

"It wasn't the drinking that got you in trouble Barlow, it was the fight." Max led him to the front office.
What a joke.
Last night Max had complained about going out after hours to break up the fight. His biggest worry had been rounding up a rowdy drunk who landed himself at hotel Planck nearly once a month. Now his sister faced a death sentence and had only hours to live.

Someone banged a fist on the front door. "Max?"

Max groaned. He'd forgotten Scarlett was outside.

Barlow puffed out his chest, oblivious to the knocking. "Jenkins deserved to be punched. He claimed McCoy swill is better than Hatfield. Ain't no reckoning to that, Constable!"

"You punched a man because he likes one swill better than another?" Max hadn't bothered investigating the details of the fight. "Swill is swill, Barlow." He was about to shove him out of the door and let Scarlett in when something about Sarah's message made a connection. "You're a mechanist, right?"

The old man's bloodshot eyes brightened. "Sure am. Used to be a lab mechanist 'til I started enjoying the swill too much."

Max hated to broach a sensitive subject, but did it anyway. "Because your wife fed the daughter."

Barlow stiffened and a single tear ran down his whiskered cheek. "Sums it up, Constable. They tossed her in the grinder and fertilized the farms with her bones. I reckon your sister is braver for feeding the father. I wouldn't have the stones to face the airlock or the red sand."

"The father is cruel, but so is the daughter." Max didn't reckon either way was braver. You ended up dead both ways.

Scarlett banged on the door again. "Max, open up!"

The reason for the original question came back to Max over the roar of blood in his ears. "What's a mech S45A12?"

Barlow scratched the stubble on his chin. "Oh, that's a toughsuit the brassworks mechanists wear. Keeps 'em safe in the heat and steam and the bad air."

This bit of information instantly clarified Sarah's code. She wanted one of those special suits left in the airlock for her. She actually planned to survive on the surface.
What would it matter?
There was nothing out there. The lab coats said it would be centuries before the outside was habitable. Meanwhile, Governor Alderman told everyone to shut up and keep working for the future.

Why get her the suit? How would he sneak it into the airlock? Could he hide it inside?

"Constable?" Barlow snapped his fingers. "Maybe you need some swill."

Max flinched. "How hard is it to get one of those suits?"

"A level four could get it anytime." Barlow squinted. "Why? Thinking of switching jobs?"

Max had been down to the brassworks to investigate a death. The place was a nightmare of steam and grinding machinery, where the solar power was converted into electricity for the city, the sewage treated, and methane pumped into pipes for gas energy. The men and women who worked there were paid extra, but had half the lifespan. They worked hard, drank hard, and once they couldn't work anymore, fed the daughter or the father.

He remembered wearing a special airtight heat-resistant suit before going underground and looking at the scene. He realized he had the perfect excuse to get one now.

"No, I have to look into an accident," Max said offhandedly.

"By the way, Marshal Birch is real thankful for the meds you got—"

"Don't mention it, Barlow." Max put a finger to his lips. "Don't ever speak of it again."

The drunk nodded. "You got it, Constable."

Max held open the front door. "Behave, Barlow."

"Reckon I will," the old man said. "I gotta stay useful. Ain't quite ready to see the missus just yet." Barlow stepped onto the gray concrete street and ambled away.

Scarlett pushed inside before Max could shut the door, her big green eyes angry. "Max Planck, you'd better tell me what's going on right this instant."

"Sarah's gonna feed the father today." The words seemed unreal, spoken by another man who wasn't Max, but looked just like him. He watched Scarlett carefully, waiting for her to gloat.

"They're putting her out the airlock?" Scarlett's cheeks went red. "She isn't the Planck that deserves it."

And there it is.
Max slammed the front door and locked it, too sick with worry about Sarah to engage Scarlett in a war of words right now—too angry to admit she was right. Max would trade places with Sarah in an instant, but that wasn't going to happen.

First he needed to let Sarah know he understood her message. For that, he needed Scarlett out of the way. Max shuffled through the gray complaint forms on his desk and found one from last week. "Farm Four is having problems with a rowdy ranch hand not doing his work. Can you handle this today? I need time to think."

Deputy Flynn took the form and looked it over. "You're giving me busy work, Max." Her eyes narrowed. "I'm surprised you didn't already refile this one." That was her euphemism for erasing the magnetic form and never looking into the complaint.

"It bears investigating, Deputy."

"The hell it does, Constable." She poked his chest with a finger. "Last four feedings were travesties, and you knew it. Science Division said they're guilty, and you rubberstamped them without a second thought." Scarlett took her finger off his chest. "I don't know what happened to your conscience, Max, but it sure looks like the lab coats finally found it buried in your black soul."

Max trembled with rage and grief. Her words cut him to the bone. Not just because of Sarah, but because she was right. He put a lid on the boiling emotions and pointed to the door. "Go do your job."

Scarlett's eyes softened. "You tell Sarah hello for me, okay?" She unlocked the front door and stopped. "I knew you had a soul in there somewhere, Max. The sad part is, when Sarah feeds, I don't know if you'll keep hold of it, or lose it for good." The door slammed shut behind her.

Max stared at the closed door for a long moment. Having a conscience or a soul made this line of work too hard. He'd stood up to Science the first year. Then Alderman sentenced his parents to feed. No son should have to put his parents out of the airlock, but he had. Father damn it all, he'd done his duty, but this time he would feed before he put Sarah out to die.

He locked the door then ran back down the hall to the vault. Pressing his hands to the cool metal, he imagined transmitting hope through it to her. "I understand your message, sis. You want me to get a special suit from the brassworks."

A muffled cry of relief reached his ears.

Salt bit into his eyes. He blinked away tears. "I'll figure out how to hide it in the airlock, but what good will it do on the outside? There's no place to go in the city and even fewer places in the sand."

She managed another strangled sound.

Max leaned his head against the door and let the tears drip straight down to the gray concrete floor. He thought back to the last time he'd seen his sister—thought real hard. Had she ever mentioned doing or thinking anything treasonous? She was a lab coat—one of them! They were nearly immune to punishment. Hell, she was practically paired with Governor Alderman's oldest son, Robb, and the man thought of her like a daughter.

He thought for an instant about going straight to Robb and asking for help, but Max suspected the spoiled man-boy had already filled his old man's ear with tantrums. Robb didn't like anyone taking away his toys. Still, it wouldn't hurt to try.

Suit first.
Max checked his wristwatch.
Seven A.M.
The morning was passing by fast and he had ten hours to save his sister's life.

The Martian Chapter 2

Max grabbed an evidence duffel bag from the closet and the bladewheel from its charging socket next to the door. Outside, he unfolded the metal pedals from the sides of the carbon fiber shield covering the single sixteen-inch wheel. With a practiced smoothness, he balanced his feet on the pedals and leaned forward. The internal gyroscope sensed the tilt and activated the motor on the electric unicycle. It was one of the few luxuries afforded his office. Most civvies had to walk.

The streets were clear, nearly everyone at work, so Max leaned forward, urging his ride to top speed down Main Street. Everywhere he looked was gray, gray, and more gray. It all blended together, especially on a dim morning like this. The founders built most everything in Central from reinforced concrete. Some joked it was so the scheduled rains could just wash all the grunge down the drains without any fuss.

The buildings hugged one another on the tightly packed avenue. Next to the constable's station stood the central medical center, past that the emergency response unit, and then the commissary, each labeled plainly with white signs and black letters.