Chapter
8

“Oh, this is just perfect.” Enraged, Kahayn dodged around the security director and made for the gurney. The suited figure was still writhing, but she couldn’t see who or what was inside. The faceplate, which she assumed was clear, was shiny with a thick layer of soot that had an astringent smell and smeared like oil when she touched her finger to it.

Cursing, Kahayn snatched up a large square of gauze. “Give me a hand here,” she said to the tech as she leaned down hard on the patient’s right arm and started scrubbing at the faceplate, “grab that other arm, get it out of my way. The rest of you, I need a crash cart, stat, and get me an ET tube. As soon as I get this clear, I want this guy wired for sound. Call anesthesia, get them down here, we’re probably going to intubate.”

“Stand down, Colonel!” said Blate. His bullish face was a mottled purple. “That’s an order!”

“You don’t outrank me, Blate.” Kahayn threw the nurses a look. “Go.”

This seemed to be all the nurses were waiting for; they moved fast, one nurse racing off for the crash cart, and the other whirling toward a wall-mounted comm.

“Arin.” Kahayn craned her head over her shoulder. “Did you check for explosives?”

“Colonel Kahayn!” Blate, again. “You are ordered—!”

“Shut up, Blate.” Kahayn tossed aside one stained gauze and wadded up another. Residue’s sticky like tar, like he’s been in a chemical fire, maybe a fuel depot that went up—but this suit, I’ve never seen anything like it. “ Arin, what about it, is he packed? What about contamination?”

“No.” Arin came alive. Taking the distance in three loping strides, he relieved the tech, leaning down hard on the patient’s arm. “Get me restraints,” he ordered, and then to Kahayn: “No explosives, and the suit’s not radioactive as far as we can tell.”

“What about scanners?”

“Colonel,” said Blate.

“Scanners are a nonstarter,” said Arin. The tech returned with brown leather restraints and Arin got busy belting down the patient’s left arm. “The suit’s impervious, maybe lead-lined. We can’t see anything.” Arin threw a restraint around the patient’s left leg as the tech took the right. Then Arin crowded next to Kahayn, threaded leather through a buckle and cinched down the right arm, tight, midway up the patient’s forearm. “Can’t call up anything on tomography, either.”

“We’ve got to get this suit off.”

“Yeah, but those lights, the ones going to red on his wrist, they bug me.”

“You’re thinking countdown?”

“Maybe.” Arin peered at Kahayn over his glasses. “No way to be sure, right? Except we crack it and hope we don’t go boom?”

“That is precisely why you must release this intruder to me,” said Blate.

“Forget it, Blate. Write me up.” She grabbed another gauze. The patient’s faceplate was smeary, but she caught a glimpse of a face. Almost there. “Better yet, arrest me. I haven’t had a decent night’s sleep in a week.”

“This isn’t funny, Colonel.”

“Blate, you idiot! You think the Jabari or an Outlier have the technical know-how for a suit like this? And this junk, this crud on his suit and faceplate, this is for real! This isn’t just charcoal smeared on for effect to trick a couple of your sentries. This guy’s been toasted; he’s been in some kind of fire, and…” She gasped, peered more closely at the faceplate then, cursing, fumbled up a pair of gloves and snapped them on. “Forget this, forget this, I need hands here!”

“Idit!” Arin said. “What about a bomb?”

“No, it’s the suit! Don’t you get it, Arin?” Frantic now, she was running her gloved fingers along the lip of the helmet searching for a catch, a way to get this thing off! “He’s been in a fire! This is a protective suit, and that means he’s had air, but look at the lights! He’s got no air! That’s what they mean! He’s out of air! Let go, let’s go, let’s get him out of this thing now now now!”

She’d found two nibs, felt them give when she pressed down, and gave the helmet a twist. Then she heard a hiss, barely a sigh of escaping air and a suck of suction, a wet sound eerily like the sound of a primate’s cranial cap being pulled away. And then she heard the man’s tortured, agonized wheezes; saw the open mouth and flare of bloodied nostrils as he worked hard trying to pull in air; and then the smell hit her, metallic and very strong.

“My God, there’s blood everywhere. Arin, get a tube down him and bring up the tomos,” and then she and the tech were tugging at the neck of the suit, fumbling with catches, peeling the suit away, jerking them free of the restraints. She registered the clothes underneath, a uniform of some kind and an odd piece of gold jewelry on his left chest, but then she couldn’t think anymore about it because the nurse rumbled in with the crash cart. Whipping around, Kahayn tossed the tech a set of scissors. “Cut his shirt and trousers away, I want these clothes off; I’m going to throw in a CVP line; we need some access, let’s go, let’s go!”

“No!” It was Blate, just behind, and then she heard the unmistakable metallic snick of metal on metal. “Stand down, Colonel! Now!”

The room went so quiet that Kahayn could hear the slow drip-drip of blood from the helmet and the man in his death throes—and he was dying, he would die, there was no question because there was all that impossibly bright red blood, and the bulge of his jugulars and pink foam that frothed his lips. She saw the tech, who stood with his scissors caught in mid-snip; her gaze clicked to Arin, who’d gloved and stood, frozen, with an endotracheal tube in one hand, and in the other, a shiny metal laryngoscope with its curved blade out and locked into position. And then Kahayn turned, knowing already what she’d see.

She was right, but that was no consolation. Because there was Blate, of course, and there were his soldiers.

And there were three rifles centered on her chest, aiming right for her heart.