“Right,” Nasha says. “If Marshall has the bomb—”
“Marshall doesn’t have it,” Berto says.
“You don’t know that.”
“Yeah,” Berto says. “I do. Mickey’s still alive. If Marshall had the bomb, Mickey would be seventy kilos of slurry right now.”
“But—”
“No,” Berto says. “You two are overthinking this. Marshall isn’t some kind of super-villain from an adventure vid. I know you think he’s a monster, Mickey, and from your perspective I guess he probably is, but he’s also a down-the-line administrator who is very focused on keeping this colony alive. If he had the bomb, he would have ordered you to feed the fuel elements back into the reactor. If you refused, he would have shoved you into the cycler, pulled a new you out of the tank, and ordered him to feed the fuel elements back into the reactor. What he would definitely not have done was wasted valuable time playing some kind of fucked-up mind game with you. So, the fact that you’re still alive tells me that Marshall definitely does not have the bomb.”
“We thought about all that,” Nasha says. “Remember, though: Marshall pulled two copies of Mickey out of the tank this week.”
Berto shrugs. “So Mickey says, based on one unconfirmed sighting. I’ve known cryptids with a better evidence base.”
“No,” Nasha says. “We’ve got confirmation on that part, at least. Quinn Brock admitted that he pulled two copies within a few hours of each other five days ago.”
“Huh.” Berto leans back in his chair and scratches his chin. “That’s interesting. Does it change anything, though? I mean, did Quinn tell you what Marshall did with them?”
I shake my head. “He didn’t know. He did say Maggie Ling was with Marshall, though. If Marshall told me the truth about that whole spoiling business, I guess they might have been dealing with whatever damage was done to the reactor itself by that mess. I don’t have a ton of confidence in Marshall to tell me the truth right now, though.”
“Maybe,” Berto says. He sits silent for a moment, then shakes his head. “No. No, I’m not buying it. If Marshall has the bomb and he’s already used copies of Mickey to feed the fuel back into the reactor, what possible reason would he have to keep you around? I think I’m back to my original position. The fact that Mickey is alive is proof positive that Marshall doesn’t have the bomb.”
Nasha looks at Berto, then at me. I shrug. He makes some good points.
“Fine,” Nasha says. “Marshall doesn’t have it. Who does?”
“Well,” Berto says, “I guess there’s an off chance one of our people might have found it and then not turned it over.”
“Why?” Nasha says. “Why would anyone do that?”
Berto shrugs. “Didn’t know what it was? Wanted to keep it for themselves? Planning to strong-arm Marshall into tuning the cycler to make whiskey instead of slurry? I don’t know, Nasha. I’m just throwing out the possibility.”
“No,” Nasha says. “I’m not buying that one at all. If one of our people had found the bomb, they would have either turned it over to Marshall or accidentally killed us all by now.”
“Okay,” I say. “Marshall doesn’t have it. Nobody else has it. Where…”
I trail off. Berto is grinning now, hands folded behind his head.
“What have you been telling Marshall for the past two years, Mickey? The creepers have the bomb, right? Congratulations, buddy. Looks like those little fuckers finally made you an honest man.”
<Mickey7>: Hello?
<Mickey7>: Are you still listening?
<Mickey7>: I know it’s been a while, but …
<Mickey7>: Please.
<Mickey7>: We need to talk.
“I’M COMING WITH YOU.”
I pull my head out of the gear locker I’d been rooting through. Nasha is standing there, arms folded across her chest.
“I’m not going anywhere,” I say. “I was just—”
Nasha rolls her eyes. “You’ve got an overloaded pack and two rebreathers laid out on the floor, Mickey. What am I supposed to think you’re doing here?”
I sigh. “Marshall called me in after breakfast. He wanted an update on the negotiations.”
“Okay. What does that have to do with the fact that you’re packing up for some kind of expedition?”
“I told him things were at a delicate point.”
“And?”
“And he told me negotiations of this magnitude are best concluded face-to-face.”
Nasha breaks into a grin. “Do creepers even have faces?”
I dig back into the locker, pull out a box of protein bars, and stuff it into the pack. “Not the point. The point is, I’m going into the labyrinth, and you’re not invited.”
Nasha shakes her head, pops the locker next to mine and pulls out a rebreather, then walks over to the weapons rack and pulls down a linear accelerator.
“Seriously,” I say. “You can’t come with me, Nasha.”
She straps the accelerator across her back and picks up a burner. “Yeah. I heard you.”
“I haven’t talked to them in two years. For all I know, they’re just gonna tear me to pieces as soon as they see me.”
“Seems totally possible. What’s with all the gear?”
That stops me.
“It can’t be more than a half-day’s walk to get where you’re going,” she says. “Why are you packing like you’re going on a journey?”
“Oh. Well. If they don’t immediately tear me to pieces, I’m thinking this might actually take some negotiation, and I doubt they’ll have anything for me to eat.”
“Huh,” she says. “Fair point.”
She pulls a pack from her locker, digs around a bit, then pulls out a half dozen tubes of slurry and stows them away.
“Nasha. Stop.” She turns to look at me. Her eyes are slitted and her mouth is a thin, hard line. “Look, there is a very good chance that this is going to end badly, okay? You can’t come with me. You’re not an Expendable.”
“Neither are you,” she says. “Remember?”
And the hell of it is, I actually hadn’t remembered, not until she said it. I haven’t uploaded in over two years now. Even if Marshall winds up pulling another Mickey Barnes out of the tank when I’m dead, it won’t be me.
Nasha’s face softens. She takes a half step toward me and touches my shoulder with one hand. “You’re not an Expendable, babe. You’re just Mickey Barnes now. That means you don’t have to die for me anymore.” She puts one hand behind my neck and pulls me to her until our foreheads touch. “That means you don’t get to die for me anymore.” She kisses me softly, and then brings her mouth close to my ear. “I’m coming with you,” she whispers, “and if you give me one more word of shit about it, I’ll break both of your legs, and then neither one of us will go.”
THERE ARE TWO entrances to the creepers’ labyrinth that I know of. The closer of the two is the one I came out of on the night two years ago when Berto left me to die. It’s only a couple of klicks south of the dome, and not too far from the place where the bomb was hidden. The other is the hole that got me lost down there in the first place. If we had air transport, I’d probably go for that one. I definitely got the impression, just based on the layout of the place, that that one is more of a central hub. We don’t, though. Our lifters are grounded until further notice, and after making a few discreet inquiries Nasha tells me that they’re not making exceptions for colony-saving expeditions.
So we head out through the main lock, and we start walking.
The temperature has dropped at least fifteen degrees since yesterday, and the sun is a wan yellow smudge behind a high, thin layer of clouds. I’m carrying a pack stuffed with twenty kilos of food, water, and basic survival gear. Nasha is carrying two handheld burners, a long-barreled linear accelerator, and a wider range of ammunition types than I’d known existed. I’m not sure what good she thinks all of that is likely to do if the creepers decide to take us, but it makes her feel better to have it.