Whatever qualms Noemi might’ve had about stealing appear to have vanished. “Come on—let’s move.”
Genesis must train its soldiers well, because Noemi never slows her pace as they run the considerable distance back to the warehouse areas, despite the ominous dark corridors and damaged cables hanging from the ceiling. Abel remains beside her, subtly guiding their way back, ready to knock aside any obstacles, whether inanimate, mech, or human. After the first few minutes, the crowd finally thins—people have had time to run close or run away—and the warehouse areas of Wayland Station are all but deserted.
“You memorized the whole station’s layout?” Noemi says, apparently slightly amazed to find themselves in the right place amid the chaos.
“Downloaded it.” Abel shrugs. “For me, there’s no difference.”
“Amazing.”
Abel may not be perfect at interpreting human emotions, but he’s almost certain that wasn’t sarcastic. Noemi spoke out of genuine admiration.
He’s proud to have proved himself to her, but why? Noemi Vidal is his destroyer. She will be the cause of his death. Her opinion shouldn’t matter. It will of course be easier to deal with her from now on because she’ll finally listen to him—but he doesn’t think that’s it.
Irrelevant.
They dash into the warehouse section of the base, which is even more deserted than Abel’s most optimistic projections. However, the emergency lighting is sparse—only the faintest glow of light at the base of each wall illuminates the area. He adjusts his optical input, images pixelating until they resolve into clear night vision. Noemi puts one hand on his shoulder, trusting him to guide her.
The lack of power creates other difficulties. “We need to travel down one level,” he says. “The lifts are no doubt shut down.”
“Then we need to find a repair tunnel, maybe within a service corridor—”
“Too slow,” Abel says as he leads her to the lift. He pushes his fingers into the crack between the doors, shoves his hands through, and shoves outward. Fortunately lift doors are easier to open than the ones in the pod bay; after only a few seconds, they give, sliding sideways to the sound of grinding metal.
“Correct me if I’m wrong,” Noemi says, “but it looks to me like that’s just an empty shaft.”
“There are sensors every few meters.” He gestures, in case she can see them in the darkness. “They protrude from the walls enough for handholds.”
“For a mech, maybe. Not a human.”
“You need only hold on to my back.”
Noemi hesitates, but only for an instant. When she wraps her arms around his shoulders, Abel takes note of the new sensations—her warmth and weight, the subtle scent of her skin. It seems important to catalog every individual aspect, even the sound of her gasp as he leaps into the shaft and quickly scrambles down to the warehouse level.
Manual levers allow him to open the doors more easily from the inside. More emergency lights shine in this corridor, enough for Noemi to function—and yet she holds on to his shoulders for a moment longer than necessary, gathering her breath.
But only a moment. Then she’s the Genesis soldier once more, striding along the long, shadowy warehouse corridor. “This looks familiar. We’re close, but we have to work fast.”
“Alacrity is essential,” Abel agrees, remaining half a pace behind her. “But why does the proximity to our earlier work area matter?”
“Because the authorities are going to search that area any moment now.”
Paranoia is not an uncommon human reaction to stress, so Abel doesn’t comment.
Noemi comes to a stop before the spare parts area, which turns out to have a storefront, albeit one less glitzy than most others on Wayland Station, just one step more polished than the warehouses around it. “Which of the security systems is still on?”
“You noticed both? I had not thought you were so observant.” A flash of irritation shows on her face, and Abel realizes he’s being condescending again. During his long isolation, he appears to have developed some character flaws. Swiftly he adds, “Both systems are likely to remain operational. But I believe I will be able to take them offline.”
Noemi nods, and Abel opens his mind to frequencies and signals undetectable by human bodies. When he finds the security system’s hub, he slips in code of his own, designed to work along with the system rather than fight it—simply putting it in normal daytime operating mode, ready to welcome new “customers.” But when he adjusts his vision to other wavelengths to make sure the entire system is down, he realizes he’s failed.
“The primary system is off, but the secondary system is hardwired in,” Abel says. “You won’t be able to see it, but there’s a laser grid approximately ten centimeters above the floor tiles. If we trip any of those lines, we’ll set it off.”
“But we can step over them? That won’t activate the alarm?”
“Correct. I should of course be the one to do this.”
“Wait—no. We’re both going in.”
“I’m more than capable of retrieving the T-7 anx on my own.”
Noemi hesitates, then shakes her head. “You could slip out a back entrance, if there is one—”
“No.” He takes a step closer to her. For some reason, it feels very important that she understands this. “My programming is clear. You are my commander. Unless and until I have another commander, I will protect you no matter what. That means keeping you out of jail. That means fulfilling your mission. That means making sure you have enough to eat. Everything. Anything. I protect you.”
Their eyes meet for a full second before Noemi slowly says, “Okay. But I’d still like to go in. If anyone sees me hanging around out here, it’s going to attract attention.”
No one is likely to enter this area, but her point is valid. “Very well. Watch where I go and try to exactly match my footsteps.”
Perhaps that sounds too much like giving his commander an order. But Noemi either doesn’t notice or doesn’t care as she focuses completely on their task. They both remain silent as Abel slides apart the see-through doors, and the metal scrape of the tracks echoes loudly in the corridor.
To Abel, the interior of the store looks like something from the earliest eras of photography; everything appears in black, white, or shades of gray. Like Casablanca—but he can’t afford to be distracted by that now. Colors only exist on other frequencies; he has to remain focused on the laser. He steps over carefully, gets a couple of tiles ahead, then waits for Noemi to follow. As he glances back, he sees that she puts her foot where his had been, precisely, every time. Few humans are so observant.