I gaped, trying to grasp the fact that Vamp was still standing when she’d told him to get down. Ligong sometimes carried out the televised executions herself.
Her eyes hardened as she glared at him like he was some kind of bug. “On your knees.”
“Vamp, do it!” I hissed, pulling his shirt. I turned to address Ligong, to move her attention away from Vamp. “He’ll do it. It’s okay. He’ll do it.”
Vamp’s face wavered, but he stepped back and got down onto his knees next to Nix while soldiers filed through the apartment and into the bedroom. He put his hands behind his head and laced his fingers.
Ligong stepped toward me, crouching long enough to pull Wei’s little pistol out of my pocket. She tucked it in her belt.
In the bedroom one of the men shined a light down on the old man while the little girl watched from the foot of the bed. The other one leaned in to check his vitals.
“He dead?” Ligong called. The man had turned to say something when a loud, wet snap made them all jump. He whirled back to the bed, but I couldn’t see what made the sound.
Ligong furrowed her brow. “Is he dead or not?”
Her eyes narrowed, and she cocked her head all of a sudden just as I noticed the signal myself. It was another haan, maybe the same one from before. The signal was hesitant, like the first one. Like it was trying to stay quiet.
She has a surrogate cluster, I thought, watching Ligong. There was no way she was a surrogate, though. She used it to keep track of the haan.
“I just picked up an unidentified—”
The signal disappeared. Ligong paused a minute longer, then signaled to one of the soldiers nearby.
“There’s another haan around here somewhere. Find it,” she said in a low voice. He nodded, and signaled to another to join him as he left the apartment.
Ligong turned back to the bedroom, where, to my surprise, the old man sat up, peeling the sweat-soaked blanket off and dropping it onto the bed beside him. He looked up at the soldier.
“Are you okay, sir?” the soldier asked. He still looked a little confused. The old man nodded. He looked to the little girl, who managed a weak smile.
I met Vamp’s eye and he shook his head, not sure what to make of it either. I’d sworn he was dead.
“Get him dressed,” she called in. “Take both of them back to central.”
The soldier nodded. He swatted a scalefly on his neck and approached the bed as the old man fussed with something underneath it.
“What’s happening?” I asked again as they helped the old man to his feet. “Are we being arrested?”
A shadow passed over the window, and the whistle of an airship got louder as the curtains flapped at either side of the TV screen beneath the sill.
The lead soldier took out a scanner and aimed it down at Vamp. He swept it up and down him, then did me and Nix, frowning at the display. As one of the men helped the old man out into the hallway, he clipped the reader back on his belt.
“Okay,” he said to me, “we know you know where the kid is. Talk.”
Realization set in, and I frowned. “Kang.”
Sillith hadn’t sent these guys; Kang had. She was tailing us too, and might even be nearby watching, but if she was she couldn’t move now. Ligong pushed past the soldier and looked me square in the eye.
“Tell us where—”
“How’d he do it?” I forgot myself, and interrupted her. Anger flashed in her eyes, but she kept her voice even as she spoke.
“He spiked your drink with a tracker isotope,” she said. I shook my head, my face burning.
“Son of a bitch…”
“He might have just saved our entire country,” she said. “Show some respect. Now, where’s the kid?”
“Listen, please, there’s more to the story,” I said. “A group of soldiers were conspiring with a haan. My father, Specialist Shao… he’s loyal. He tried to blow the whistle on them and so they pinned that charge on him. Please, I need to—”
“We got him!” a voice boomed from the kitchen. “It’s the kid!”
“What in the hell is that smell?” another voice said in an aside to the first.
Ligong peered through the kitchen doorway to get a look at Alexei, who was still cowered in the closet. “Get him out here with the rest!”
She spoke into her wrist radio again.
“We’ve got him,” she said.
“Ow!” the voice grunted from the kitchen. “He fucking bit me!”
“Soldier, secure that kid and get him in here now!”
There was a struggle, and then Alexei began babbling in Pan-Slav as the soldier hauled him back into the living room by one wrist.
“Alexei Drugov?” Ligong asked. Alexei nodded, his face pale.
“Shit,” a soldier spat from back through the doorway. He coughed, and flies buzzed.
“What is it?” Ligong asked.
The soldier stepped back into the living room, his face twisted into a grimace. What looked like a bloody towel hung from the barrel of his rifle, and I realized it was the remains I’d seen in the trash bin under the sink. I caught a glimpse of what looked like limp, rubbery skin and matted hair before I turned away from it. The little girl looked over at the old man, who looked back.
“What the hell is that?” Ligong asked. She crossed past us, and the other soldiers followed. For a moment, they stood around whatever he’d found, their backs to us, and Alexei, forgotten for a moment, off to one side. I looked at him, and our eyes met.
“Damn it!” one of the soldiers spat, slapping his neck to swat a scalefly.
They were as distracted as they were going to get. I crooked my head, hearts scrolling across the 3i display until I saw the one for Nix and grabbed it.
Nix, can you gate us back to the ship?
He turned, looking back at me. Yes, but they’ll send us straight back when they—
We’ll have to take our chances.
“Vamp, change of plans,” I whispered.
“Sam, what the—”
You take the girl, I sent over the 3i.
I grabbed Alexei by the wrist and dragged him along after me as I bolted toward the window. Vamp, a beat later, scooped the girl up in his arms and started after me.
“Stop them!” Ligong barked. She raised her weapon toward me and fired just as Nix rose to his feet, fanning his suit out in front of us. I heard the round hit it, then two more as she fired again.
The slugs clattered to the floor as I hauled Alexei out the window with me, Vamp hot on my heels. I scrambled down the stairs toward the next floor as Nix came through the window after us and put the girl down on the landing. Through the grate, I could see that the street below was full of security vehicles, and armed soldiers that were clustered around them.
A shot from above glanced off the building face next to me, pelting me with brick powder. Back on the landing, Nix covered Vamp as the two headed down after me.
“Nix, do it now! Open it!”
An airship glided out from behind the building and descended above the street to our level. A pattern of red lasers blinked flashed on the wall overhead and began to glide toward us as the wind sent my clothes flapping around my body. The lasers drifted down past me and I saw a turret follow them to take aim at the stairwell and landing below. I stopped short, causing Nix, Vamp, and the girl to pile up behind me.
The gun spun up and began to fire, bullets sparking off the fire escape and thumping into the brick face where it was mounted. We couldn’t go down the stairs without walking right into the line of fire. I looked up and saw Ligong climbing out the window after us. Over the rail was a several-story drop.
“Stop where you are,” a voice boomed from the airship’s bullhorn.
“Nix!”