This time, I don’t go up. I sprint downward, looping around the corner and heading deeper into the earth.
The basement.
“Augusta?” Edgar’s voice sounds in my ear. “Where are you going?”
“Mainframe,” I pant. I remember Vale saying she would be in the building’s mainframe.
Knight to queen.
The sniper has to follow me. There’s no other choice. He has to assume I’m a deadly threat to his boss.
“You don’t look well,” says Edgar. He flies alongside me, tiny wings buzzing.
“Thanks.” My brain is spinning through everything it knows about dart guns—they can deliver anything from tranquilizers to poisons. I don’t know how long I have, but the harder my heart beats, the faster the drug will spread through my body.
The air cools as I descend into the basement. Dampness clings to the concrete walls. I keep to the shadows, slowing my pace. Emergency lighting glows in lines along the floor. The rumble of the backup generators hums through my bones. I put out a hand to the wall, steadying myself.
The floor wavers beneath me, and at once I’m reminded of the time my family chartered a boat to take us out to sea for fishing. I feel like that now: unsteady and sick to my stomach.
The drug. Whatever it is, it’s taking hold.
“Augusta?” says Edgar. He sounds almost worried.
I swallow. The taste of metal floods my mouth and I have to blink several times to clear my vision.
“Keep my family safe,” I say. “Please.”
It’s a stupid command to give an AI. It’s too open-ended, too widely interpreted. It could mean anything. I expect Edgar to protest or ask for clarification.
“Acknowledged,” he says. And then he zooms into an overhead vent.
And now I am truly alone.
I stagger down the corridor. Everything is swaying, lurching. The floor rises and falls, ocean waves made of concrete and metal.
Steps behind me—the sound of someone running.
Oh, good. I did manage to draw the sniper’s attention.
The mainframe door is only a few steps away. My fingers reach for the doorknob. Cool metal—and then hardness against my knees. Why are my knees on the floor? When did I fall?
My vision goes gray at the edges. I’m at the door but I can’t stand, can’t move, can’t speak.
There is no pain, at least. If this is how I die, then it will be a kinder end than my first.
Nonna. Nonna, Nonna—
A hand on my shoulder. Concrete against my cheek.
Then—
Empty darkness.
16
I am a little surprised to wake up.
Everything comes back slowly. There is the clatter of a keyboard, the scrape of metal against a concrete floor, the murmur of voices.
