Red Running Deep by Beth Barany

Author:Beth Barany
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Firewolf Books

FOURTEEN

Janey rushed down the empty hallway. “Kim, can you check the guest rooms for Orlando? I’ll check the hallway vids.”

“Yes, hold on. And I’ll send staff to converge on your location.”

“Fine.” Janey waved on the wall screen to examine the hallway videos for anything at all. Footage scrolled. In the few seconds before Janey entered the hallway, Orlando had stepped into the hall, then disappeared.

His cloaking device. It was flawless. She couldn’t see him at all. He was probably still in the hallway.

“Orlando!” she called. “Come back in. We can talk about it. Running only makes you look guilty.”

Yet why would he show her the inside of the panels if he was guilty of planting the black stuff? She’d never would have found it if he hadn’t shown it to her, but he was still hiding something from her.

Janey watched the screen as she talked, hoping for some anomalous reading or blip. Nothing. She scanned the hallway, flipping through wavelengths with her ocular implant as she went. There. Something that didn't show up in the vid at the far end of the corridor, at the wall.

Then it was gone. She blinked to zoom in with her ocular implant. There it was—a shimmer or a blur. It disappeared again. She dashed in that direction.

She reached out, in case he was still there, and touched air. At waist level, there was a panel like the ones he’d shown her on the level above.

She didn’t have a tool to open it, so she scanned using various frequencies to see through to the other side of the panels. The area wasn’t full of tubules for the water, energy, and air systems. Instead, it was empty. Some kind of passageway.

Her heart pattered with excitement. She called up the map for the tunnels. Yes, directly on the other side of this wall was a tunnel that led downward to the lowest level, right to the station’s escape pods.

From the elevator, Goldberg, Clark, and Cho approached her.

“Chief, where do you want us?” Goldberg asked.

“Does anyone have a screwdriver?”

Cho handed her one, quizzically.

“Thanks. I want you to head down to the machine shop, aft entrance,” Janey said. “But don’t go in, and don’t let anyone past.”

“But no one uses that area,” Clark said.

Janey lifted an eyebrow.

“Right, good place for someone to hide, Chief.” He nodded.

“Get going,” Janey said.

A chorus of “Yes, Chief” followed, and they hustled off toward the staff elevator.

Janey went to work and used the screwdriver to take off the panel.

She called out, just as they were approaching the elevator. “One of you replace this panel, please, once I’m through.”

“Where are you going?” Goldberg asked, concern in her voice.

“In.”

Goldberg trotted back and watched her go headfirst into a tunnel space a little wider than the diameter of her body. A tight fit, but it would widen out soon, Janey knew. With a snick, Goldberg replaced the panel.

Janey commed Kim. “I’m in one of the tunnels on the eighth level. You’ll lose my signal soon.”

“I still see you,” Kim said.

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