Come on. Come on.
The last screw popped free.
The vent cover released. She yanked the cover aside and hauled herself up. Her arms screamed, the metal edge biting into her palms. Her shoulders barely fit. She had to twist sideways, scraping her ribs, exhaling hard to make herself smaller.
She was halfway in when the door slammed open.
Jen pulled her legs up into the vent shaft, twisting to hold the cover in place with shaking hands. She fought to slow her breathing, her heart thumping so loud it might give her away.
“Clear,” one man said. “Nothing.”
“Check behind the chemical storage.”
Footsteps. The scrape of something being moved.
Her arms shook from holding the vent cover. She screwed her eyes shut, the metal biting against her clenched palms.
Don’t drop it. Don’t breathe. Don’t move.
“Clear.”
“Bitch can’t have got far.”
“Copy that.”
The footsteps retreated. The door clicked shut.
She waited. Counted to sixty. Then sixty again.
Her arms were aching. She couldn’t hold the vent much longer.
Silence in the closet below.
Her arms gave out. With a shuddering exhalation, she lifted the vent sideways, letting it fall against her chest.
They’re gone.
Her eyes burned, and for one awful moment she thought she might cry, which was stupid and useless. So she bit down hard on the inside of her cheek until the feeling receded.
Keep moving. If I stop, they’ll find me.
She got two screws back in—just enough to keep the façade intact, but her hands shook so hard she had to try twice to seat each thread.
She had a plan now.
The armory.
She needed a weapon. The torque wrench in her belt was solid steel, but it wouldn’t do much against automatic weapons.
She crawled deeper into the shaft. The metal was freezing under her palms. Sharp seams scraped her knees and shoulders, the space so cramped she couldn’t even straighten her arms. A headache had clamped around her temple. The walls pressed closer. And her brain wasn’t listening to any kind of rationalization.
She paused every few feet to swallow panic and force her breath to slow. It didn’t help. Her breath was warm and muggy in her face, slowly suffocating her.
The vent system connected to the HVAC network. She’d reviewed the schematics six months ago when one of the air handlers had been making a grinding noise that kept half the crew awake. The ducts ran through every level, every section. If she could get to the main trunk line, she could move through Seven without being seen.
The vent shafts weren’t marked. No helpful arrows or labels. Just endless metal tunnels that all looked the same.
But she knew Seven. Eighteen months of nothing but steel and electricity and salt water did that for you. The hum of the coolant pumps two levels down. The rattle of the ventilation system in the east quadrant. The slight vibration in the deck plating when the gyrostabilizers spun up.
