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Iapetus
. “The word Garner gave me. What’s it for? What does it do?”

“If you think you can get something out of me, then I’m sorry to disappoint you. I don’t
know what it’s for. It’s something Okwembu needs, that’s all.”

“Some kind of destruct code, is that it? She going to blow up the station?”

“Maybe.”

The ringing in my ears has gone, replaced by a dull roar. I don’t know whether it’s the blood rushing through my veins, or something else entirely.

“I don’t know what made you think this way,” I say, “but they’ve brainwashed you. Even if we don’t
deserve to live on Earth, we deserve a chance. The people here aren’t monsters. They didn’t kill the planet. Amira, these are
innocent people
.”

“They aren’t innocent. No one here is. Everyone deserves what’s coming.”

I cut her off. “What about me?”

She falls silent. I keep talking: “You saved me once, Amira. If you believed we all deserved to suffer, you would have left me with the men in that
corridor. But you didn’t, did you? And after all we’ve been through, all we’ve done together, you want to throw it away?”

Prakesh has been gone too long. He should have come back by now. But even as the thought occurs, I realise a part of me wants him to stay away. I don’t want anyone to see this. Any of it.

Right then, I see that Amira has shifted ever so subtly, rocking back on her heels.

To anybody else, it would be something almost imperceptible. But I’ve been running with Amira for long enough, and in one horrible moment I understand what she’s about to do.

“No,” I whisper. With a cry of triumph, she launches herself towards me.

I pull the trigger.

The sound of the gunshot fills the room. The whole world.

The bullet takes Amira in the stomach. She makes the oddest sound – a kind of
phuh
. Her grace and agility vanishes, sucked out of her, her body becoming a flying rag-doll, crashing to the ground. The fabric of her tank top is soaked with blood.

As she rolls to a stop at my feet, she begins screaming. She clutches her ruined stomach,
sweat beading her forehead.

I drop to my knees, pressing down on her stomach, causing her to howl in pain again. I’ve gut-shot her. I didn’t even aim. My hands are drenched in seconds, slick and hot with her blood.

“I have to stop the bleeding,” I say. “We can get you to a hospital. I think there’s one near here. If we just …”

She reaches up and grips my hand. For an absurd moment, I think
she’s going to continue attacking me, but she doesn’t. The pain is written on her face, rippling under the surface, but it’s been shrouded by a kind of calm.

“You don’t have to do that,” she says. A tiny sliver of blood trickles from the corner of her mouth.

After a moment, she says, “I was told to kill you first, then Garner. Not to wait, not to talk, just to do it. But I couldn’t. I couldn’t.”

“Amira …”

Her voice, husky now, coming in bubbling gasps. “You mustn’t stop Okwembu. This has to happen. It needs to happen.”

The anger is back, all at once, like a light turning on. Blinding, white-hot fury erupts and I slam my fist on the ground next to her head. She barely flinches.

“Why do you keep saying that?” I scream. “There are
people
on this station. People with lives, with families.
Who the hell are you to say that they should die?”

She doesn’t reply. I’m crying openly now, the tears dropping off my cheeks onto Amira’s chest.

I should let her die. In pain.

The thought shocks me, but I can’t shake it. She lied to me, to the Dancers. She betrayed us in the worst way possible. She deserves this.

“Everything you taught me,” I say. “Was it all a lie too? Was everything leading
up to … to this?”

Something changes in her expression. Like a barrier falling away.

“No,” she whispers. “When I saved you … that wasn’t a lie. And you became everything I hoped you would be.”

Blood pools around her. I reach for her hand again, grip it tight. She gasps in pain, a noise which becomes an awful moan. My hatred cracks, then shatters.

Amira closes her eyes. Her face is a pale, ghostly
white, and it seems like all her will leaves her at once. “You need to get to Apex.”

“I can get there from here. Maybe the code will let me in somehow.”

“No,” she says. The air whistles out with her voice, obscuring
her words. “That’s not what the code does, I’m sure of it. You can’t get in from the adjoining sectors. It’s more secure than here. It has to be. Even if you could somehow find a
way to get the doors down, you’re running out of time.”

She opens her eyes again, and looks at me. For a moment, I’m back in that corridor, seeing her hold out her hand to me, her eyes burning with life, as if daring me to accept. The same fire is in her eyes now, her hand gripping onto mine.

“Riley,” she says. “You have to run the Core. It’s the only way you’ll get there. You have to.”

“I
can’t do it.”

“You have to,” she says again, the pain adding an edge to her words. “Run fast. Get ready for the gravity change. Don’t stop. Whatever you do, don’t stop running.”

“Amira …”

But what else is there to say? I feel as if I’m in zero gravity already, tumbling out of control.

“There’s only one other thing I need to ask you,” she says. “You need to finish it.”

I shake my head, stunned.
“I’m not. I can’t.”

“You’re better with a gun than I thought you’d be. And I’ve seen people shot in the stomach before. The pain is bad now, but it’ll get worse. A lot worse.”

Her voice cracks on the last words. Amira – my beautiful, strong Amira – is begging.

I’ve picked up the gun without realising it. Slowly, I move it to her forehead. I touch it to her skin as delicately as she touched
it to mine.

“I’m sorry,” she says.

I pull the trigger for the second time.

I’ve met death in the past. My father, blown to pieces thousands of miles from home. My mother, wasting away to nothing. Gray and Darnell, and the lives they took. Yao. Grace Garner. But I’ve never felt anything like this. It’s as if something has reached into my gut and just torn it away. It’s worse than the hottest anger, worse than anything I’ve ever felt, and as I stare at Amira,
see her eyes, glazed over, robbed of their power, I know, deep down, that the feeling will be with me forever. I’ll feel it when I awake in the dark, and everyone around me sleeps. I’ll feel it when I’m hurt, or when I sense someone standing behind me, ready to strike. I’ll feel it in my bones and my flesh and my heart. The tears come. And this time the trickle becomes a river, then a flood.

I’m still there, bending over her body, when Prakesh arrives. He stops in the doorway, his eyes wide. Someone else is with him. A stomper. Royo.

Royo has his stinger up, sweeping from left to right. Prakesh wraps his arms around me, pulling me away. My sobs turn to screams, racked with the worst pain I’ve ever felt, and I bury
my head in his chest. He says nothing. Just holds me close.

“So,”
says Royo at length. His stinger isn’t quite pointed at us, but it’s held ready. “I have two dead bodies, and no answers. If I don’t get the second, there’s going to be a few more of the first.”

“What happened, Ry?” asks Prakesh.

Slowly, between sobs, I tell them. About Amira and Garner. And Okwembu.

When I’m finished, Royo looks at me. “Why should I believe you?”

“What?”

“How do I know you
didn’t just kill them both?”

“You think this is an act?” I scream at him. But Prakesh raises a hand. His voice is calm.

“She’s telling the truth. I know she is.”

It can’t be enough. Surely not. But Royo is silent. He seems to be weighing his words carefully.

“My gut’s kept me alive on this wreck of a station my whole life,” he says. “It’s telling me to trust you, so I will, but that trust
can be rescinded if or when you do anything to make me doubt you. If you’re telling the truth, then we need to go. I don’t know how long we’ve got until that monster in Apex does whatever he’s going to do, but it’s not long.”

“He’s right, Ry,” Prakesh whispers to me. He’s still holding me tight. “We’ve got less than twenty hours left. The station’s getting worse – the heat’s starting to build
up already. And there’s nothing more we can do here.”

I feel dizzy. My nose is clogged, my eyes wet. But I nod, silently, and he releases me. Behind us, Amira’s body lies sprawled across the floor.

A thought occurs to me. “Garner. Is she …”

Royo clears his throat. “She’s gone. I’m sorry.”

Prakesh says, “Maybe I’m misreading things here, but if
Okwembu is behind all this, maybe there’s a way
we can let people know. Maybe we can stop her without having to go anywhere near Apex.”

“Not a chance,” replies Royo. “I’m not saying I believe that woman” – he indicates Amira – “but if the head of the council is responsible, we can’t get anywhere near her. I’ve seen the security in Apex. After those riots all those years ago, they weren’t taking any chances. You can lock the entire place down.
So even if we did somehow get the word out that she’s doing it, there’s not a lot we could do about it.”

I force myself to concentrate. “If we can get to Apex, maybe we can figure out how to use the code Garner gave me. It’s the only way to stop this. I’m sure of it.”

Prakesh frowns. “You don’t think that maybe it’s a way for Okwembu and Darnell to finally destroy the station? Something they
needed for their endgame? If it is, then why don’t we just drop off the radar? Hide out somewhere?”

“No,” I say. “She wouldn’t have started all this unless she could finish it. Not Okwembu. Iapetus isn’t her way to destroy Outer Earth. It’s the only way to stop it from happening. This was all about making sure there’s nothing to stand in their way.”

“Was Amira really serious about going through
the Core? There has to be another way round.”

Royo laughs, a sound with no humour in it. “Even if we wanted to, there’s no way. Chengshi is tearing itself apart right now. Along with Apogee, Tzevya and every other damn sector on this station. It’s going to pieces out there.”

My eyes stray to Amira’s hand. The missing fingers, stolen by frostbite all those years ago.

A thought occurs to me.
“How did you get here?” I ask Royo.

“They assigned me to guard the Air Lab entrance. We got
an alert from a smoke alarm. I came to check it out.” He gestures to Prakesh. “Met your buddy when I came in.”

Silence falls over us. I think of the sun. Of wanting to feel its warmth on the back of my neck. I think of what it feels like to run, to lose myself in speed and the air rushing past my face.
I think of the Devil Dancers: Carver, Kev, Yao. I think of the Nest. It seems like a million years ago.

I think of my father, of how he died. Fighting. So that the human race could keep going.

And then, finally, I think of Amira. How, at the very end, she once again told me what I had to do.

I turn to Royo. “How do we get to the Core entrance?”

“The monorail. Maybe there’s a train near here.
We could use it to bypass the worst of the rioting and get back to Apogee.”

“You can drive a train?” I ask, incredulous.

“No,” replies Royo. “But I’d say now would be a great time to learn, wouldn’t you?”

Darnell slams Okwembu up against the control room screens, their faces inches apart.

“You call that subtle?” he screams at her, his words made metallic by the narrow room. “Now it’s even worse. Now she’s got a stomper escort.”

“It doesn’t mean anything,” Okwembu says. Darnell’s hands move to her throat, but she gets her fingers up just before he grips her neck.

“Oh really?” he says,
tightening his hold. “You heard them. They know what’s behind that retinal scanner. The whole point was that no one but us and our sleepers would ever know. Now
she
knows,
she’s
still alive, and
she’s on her way over here
.”

He lifts Okwembu up, so her feet are off the ground, then slams her back against the screens. One of them cracks, spitting sparks. A shard of glass scratches a thin line across
Okwembu’s forehead. Darnell squeezes, his thumbs hunting for her windpipe. Okwembu has her hands up, two fingers the only thing between her and strangulation.

She raises her eyes to meet his, and pulls her fingers away. “So kill me,” she says, her voice thin and hoarse.

Her eyes refuse to leave his, and Darnell’s fingers pause, just touching the skin above the scooped hollow of her collarbone.

“Go ahead,” she says, her voice brimming with venom. “You can do it all yourself. Isn’t that right? Set up the comms feed, run the camera, even figure out everything the control room can do. You don’t need me. I’m not useful any more, am I?”

In the silence that follows, Darnell can hear his heartbeat, feel the blood pumping in his ears.

There’s a tiny ping, an alert from one of the screens.
It’s a long moment before Darnell glances down at it. He drops Okwembu, and she crumples to the floor, coughing, holding her throat. Darnell kills the pinging, his fingers leaving dark smudges on the surface of the screen.

“Someone’s coming in through the Core,” he says. “They’re opening the Apex-side doors.”

Okwembu looks up at him, her face expressionless. After a moment, she rises, and begins
swiping through camera feeds, hunting for the Core access in the upper level of Apex.

“It’s not Hale,” Darnell says. “It’s too soon.”

“True. Although I’m surprised it’s taken the protection officers this long to get here.”

The camera viewpoint appears, just in time to catch the vast doors opening. There’s no sound, but they can see people slipping through the gap in the ceiling, dropping to
the floor. Stompers, dressed in bulky thermal suits, their movements slow and uncoordinated.

Darnell glances at Okwembu, his eyes narrowed. “You told me those doors were sealed.”