“Move,” Alma says, surprising me by appearing at my elbow. She looks at Adombukar. “Hello, sir.”
She reaches inside her skinsuit, digging into an inside pocket. When she withdraws her hand from the material, a long blue vial is in her grip.
“What is that?” I ask.
“Pavi extract,” she says, as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world.
“Pavi?” I say. “Alma, where did you get that?”
She uncorks the thick vial. “I swiped it from the engineer that came to dissolve Jaquot’s bed. I thought it might come in handy.”
I just stare at her.
“Stand back as much as you can, sir,” she says, and with quick, slightly awkward movements, she sprinkles the liquid on the bars of the cell, stretching high to reach the top of the cell, and crouching to make sure it reaches the bottom. It only takes a few drops. She stands back and I follow her lead, the pavi extract already beginning to hiss. The dust rises from the cell like fog.
Adombukar steps through the opening Alma has created before the dust has fully cleared. I stand before him as my father did that night in the main dome. I could take the tranq gun from Alma right now and put an end to all this, avoid the trouble that I know I’m in. But the screen with the Solossius diagram glares at me like a glowing white eye, the dreadfulness of that tower forcing me to turn away.
“Let’s go.”
I expect the hallway to be filled with guards, buzzguns aimed at the place on the wall where we appear. But it’s empty aside from the sound of the alarm.
“What do we do now?” pants Alma, the vial of pavi extract recorked but still in her hand, tranq gun in her other hand. These aren’t the tools I expected us to be using in the labs.
Adombukar groans. He’s barely standing, leaning against the smooth white wall for support. My mind prickles: he’s trying to show me something, but I don’t understand it. It’s jumbled, the shapes fuzzy, lacking distinction. The spots on his forehead cluster and disperse again and again.
“Something’s wrong,” I say, returning to his side, the alarm grating on my ears. I take hold of his arm to help him, expecting to feel him enter the tunnel to show me what he’s trying to communicate, but he’s weak.
“It’s probably the tranquilizer,” Alma says. “Remember how disoriented the kunike was when Dr. Depp woke him up with the blue thing?”
She’s right. Adombukar feels dizzy, his mind blurred and unfocused. Who knows what else they’ve done to him while he’s been a prisoner here.
Adombukar’s energy pulses: he manages to push one image through the tunnel and into my mind. The kawa. I recognize its smooth shape, can almost feel its mass, heavy in my palm. I know what he wants, even if I don’t know why.
“He needs the egg,” I say.
We grasp Adombukar by the arms, walking on either side of him as we half guide, half drag him down the hall. Without realizing it fully, I find that I’ve opened the tunnel as we walk, passing him different things through it: hope, warmth, light. I show him my last memory of Rasimbukar, even though I couldn’t see her face: her presence out in the trees, demanding his return. Hold on for her, I tell him, wrapping the feeling of the words in comforting shapes. Your daughter is waiting.
We turn a corner, returning to a hallway that has actual doors and windows on either side.
“We’re getting closer to the front,” Alma says.
Wait, Adombukar tells me, and I freeze at the corner, Alma following suit. He’s listening: his energy, though weak, pricks toward the hall ahead. Then I see them. The guards appear at the intersection of the next hallway, fifty paces ahead. There are six of them, faces covered by black mesh masks that I’ve never seen. Armor of some kind? Or just for intimidation? If the latter, it’s effective. One of them lifts his finger to listen to his comm. Then they raise their buzzguns and start down the hall toward us.
My mind is humming. I don’t have time to figure out the source of it. Instead I try to focus on Adombukar’s presence in my mind. He’s trying to tell me something, but with the buzzing and the blaring alarm, I can’t hear him.
“In here,” he finally says out loud, nodding weakly at the door to our left. “Here.”
Alma’s already opening the door. It’s not a lab, just a scrub room. The door slides open and she shoves me and Adombukar inside. Outside, the guards’ footsteps break into a jog. The door slides shut.
“What do I do! What do I do! They’re coming!”
“Break it!” I yell. “I don’t know! Just . . . break it!”
She still holds the tranq gun and aims it uncertainly at the door. The darts won’t do anything, I think frantically.
“Smash the scanner!” I cry over the buzzing in my head. Adombukar leans on me heavily. His skin has begun to turn stark white to blend in with the scrub room’s walls. I wonder if he’s doing it on purpose or if it’s automatic, danger compelling his body to hide. The sight of it gives me goose bumps, the deep brown leaking away.
Alma switches her grip on the gun from the handle to the muzzle. Using it as a hammer, she bashes it against the square scanner panel: once, twice, three times. On the fourth strike, sparks fly, the display screen flashing irregularly before going dark.
“Kawa,” Adombukar whispers.
“That’s only going to hold them off for a little while,” Alma says, dropping the tranq gun, which is as smashed as the scanner now.
“Through here,” I say, nodding at her to come help me with Adombukar. When we’re supporting him on both sides, we stagger toward the second door of the scrub room, which opens on its own, designed to be touchless for hygienic purposes—there will be no breaking the scanner to keep them out. Behind us, on the other side of the door, I hear the muted voices of the six guards. I try to think of a plan beyond this next room, but the buzzing in my head has intensified and I can barely focus.
As we step through the doorway, I see why. We’re in the containment room. I gaze around the large space, the endless rows of different-sized cages with their deathly quiet captives lying motionless in each one. I feel all of them: their fear, their loneliness, their anger, pulsing through the tunnel and widening my mind with their mass. My head feels as if it might split.
Adombukar collapses. His energy is sapped, his body too weak from his time in the cell, away from the jungle and the light of the sun. I drop to my knees, Alma joining me. We’re both crying, and it doesn’t occur to me to feel ashamed. Alma balls her fists.
“What do we do, O? We can’t carry him!”
“I don’t know!” I sob. I can’t get my emotions under control. The guards are probably only minutes away from breaking through the door, and we’ll be right here, a heap on the floor.
“Does he need water? Maybe he needs water! Like when we’re in the jungle,” Alma says.