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“Kinda do,” Miller said at the same moment Holden said, “Yeah, kick it down.”
Amos looked from one to the other, not moving until Holden nodded at him. Then Amos shifted past them, kicked the door open in one blow, and staggered back, cussing.
“You okay?” Miller asked.
The big man nodded once through a pale grimace.
“Yeah, busted my leg a while back. Cast just came off. Keep forgetting about that,” he said.
Miller turned back to the room. Inside, it was as black as a cave. No lights came on, not even the dim glow of monitors and sensory devices. Miller stepped in, pistol drawn. Holden was close behind him. The floor made the crunching sound of gravel under their feet, and there was an odd astringent smell that Miller associated with broken screens. Behind it was another smell, much less pleasant. He chose not to think about that one.
“Hello?” Miller said. “Anyone here?”
“Turn on the lights,” Naomi said from behind them. Miller heard Holden patting the wall panel, but no light came up.
“They’re not working,” Holden said.
The dim spill from the corridor gave almost nothing. Miller kept his gun steady in his right hand, ready to empty it toward muzzle flash if anyone opened fire from the darkness. With his left, he took out his hand terminal, thumbed on the backlight, and opened a blank white writing tablet. The room came into monochrome. Beside him, Holden did the same.
A thin bed pressed against one wall, a narrow tray beside it. The bedding was knotted like the remnant of a bad night’s sleep. A closet stood open, empty. The hulking form of an empty vacuum suit lay on the floor like a mannequin with a misplaced head. An old entertainment console hung on the wall across from the cot, its screen shattered by half a dozen blows. The wall was dimpled where blows intended to bread the LED sconces had missed. Another hand terminal added its glow, and another. Hints of color started to come into the room—the cheap gold of the walls, the green of the blankets and sheet. Under the cot, something glimmered. An older-model hand terminal. Miller crouched as the others stepped in.
“Shit,” Amos said.
“Okay,” Holden said. “Nobody touches anything. Period. Nothing.” It was the most sensible thing Miller had heard the man say.
“Someone put up a bitch of a fight,” Amos muttered.
“No,” Miller said. It had been vandalism, maybe. It hadn’t been a struggle. He pulled a thin-film evidence bag out of his pocket and turned it inside out over his hand like a glove before picking up the terminal, flipping the plastic over it, and setting off the sealing charge.
“Is that… blood?” Naomi asked, pointing to the cheap foam mattress. Wet streaks pooled on the sheet and pillow, not more than a fingers’ width, but dark. Too dark even for blood.
“No,” Miller said, shoving the terminal into his pocket.
The fluid marked a thin path toward the bathroom. Miller raised a hand, pushing the others back as he crept toward the half-open door. Inside the bathroom, the nasty background smell was much stronger. Something deep, organic, and intimate. Manure in a hothouse, or the aftermath of sex, or a slaughterhouse. All of them. The toilet was brushed steel, the same model they used in prisons. The sink matched. The LED above it and the one in the ceiling had both been destroyed. In the light of his terminal, like the glow of a single candle, black tendrils reached from the shower stall toward the ruined lights, bent and branching like skeletal leaves.
In the shower stall, Juliette Andromeda Mao lay dead.
Her eyes were closed, and that was a mercy. She’d cut her hair differently since she’d taken the pictures Miller had seen, and it changed the shape of her face, but she was unmistakable. She was nude, and barely human. Coils of complex growth spilled from her mouth, ears, and vulva. Her ribs and spine had grown spurs like knives that stretched pale skin, ready to cut themselves free of her. Tubes stretched from her back and throat, crawling up the walls behind her. A deep brown slush had leaked from her, filling the shower pan almost three centimeters high. He sat silently, willing the thing before him not to be true, trying to force himself awake.
What did they do to you? he thought. Oh, kid. What did they do?
“Ohmygod,” Naomi said behind him.
“Don’t touch anything,” he said. “Get out of the room. Into the hall. Do it now.”
The light in the next room faded as the hand terminals retreated. The twisting shadows momentarily gave her body the illusion of movement. Miller waited, but no breath lifted the bent rib cage. No flicker touched her eyelids. There was nothing. He rose, carefully checking his cuffs and shoes, and walked out to the corridor.
They’d all seen it. He could tell from the expressions, they’d all seen. And they didn’t know any better than he did what it was. Gently, he pulled the splintered door closed and waited for Sematimba. It wasn’t long.
Five men in police riot armor with shotguns made their way down the hall. Miller walked forward to meet them, his posture better than a badge. He could see them relax. Sematimba came up behind them.
“Miller?” he said. “The hell is this? I thought you said you were staying put.”
“I didn’t leave,” he said. “Those are the civilians back there. The dead guys downstairs jumped them in the lobby.”
“Why?” Sematimba demanded.
“Who knows?” Miller said. “Roll them for spare change. That’s not the problem.”
Sematimba’s eyebrows rose. “I’ve got four corpses down there, and they’re not the problem.”
Miller nodded down the corridor.
“Fifth one’s up here,” he said. “It’s the girl I was looking for.”
Sematimba’s expression softened. “I’m sorry,” he said.
“Nah,” Miller said. He couldn’t accept sympathy. He couldn’t accept comfort. A gentle touch would shatter him, so he stayed hard instead. “But you’re going to want the coroner on this one.”
“It’s bad, then?”
“You’ve got no idea,” Miller said. “Listen, Semi. I’m in over my head here. Seriously. Those boys down there with the guns? If they weren’t hooked in with your security force, there would have been alarms as soon as the first shot was fired. You know this was a setup. They were waiting for these four. And the squat fella with the dark hair? That’s James Holden. He’s not even supposed to be alive.”
“Holden that started the war?” Sematimba said.
