He exhaled. Aly had never admitted that to anyone, and he was terrified she would make fun of him for playing make-believe. But she didn’t.
“Well, let’s not make up this moment then.” Kara smiled. “Let’s both agree to remember it happened this way.”
“Deal.”
Aly didn’t know if they should shake on it or something else, but instead he did the whole “after you” gesture. They got on their hands and knees, crawling forward through a dark maze of twists and turns. Pavel rolled ahead in his most compacted shape, a dim beam of light shining the way.
But the silence seemed big in such a small space. There hadn’t been a whole lot of chitchat since they got off the ambulance, and he guessed it wasn’t going to start now. Aly was pissed at himself—he’d been stuck in his own head, while Kara had some brain condition and was probably worried sick about her mom. Had he even said thank you?
They snaked around a sharp turn and hit an offshoot of the tunnel. There was a rounded grate secured with an old-school padlock, and it opened just enough for the two of them to crawl out and crouch in front of it. It was so tight, Kara’s knees brushed his, and it felt like the universe had narrowed down into the spot of skin where they touched.
Aly tried to ignore the heat and looked through the metal grating, where he could barely make out some sort of generator in the dark. “Pavel, can you scan for NX frequencies?”
“I detect one in proximity, but the diameter of my reach is only ten meters.”
“Okay, not terrible,” Aly lied, since being on the same planet as an NX was terrible. They had built-in heat sensors that detected subtle changes in temperature, but Pavel had his newly uploaded signal jammer on—meaning he could clone those temperature stats to report back “all normal.” So long as no one saw them, they wouldn’t be detected by temperature.
He waited for his eyes to adjust to the dark, straining to see past the generator. Kara shifted; a strand of light filtering in through the grate highlighted her eyes and lips, and cast a shadow over everything else. Her irises looked different, lighter. He’d never spent this much time with someone without some sort of memory trade, or a cube-to-cube transfer, so he could see and feel a piece of her life, and she could do the same.
He wanted to know something about her, anything, before this crazy suicide mission took hold. But every question he thought to ask, every way he thought to say it—it all sounded dumb in his head. He settled for: “Are you ready?”
When she nodded, Aly motioned for her and Pavel to follow. As soon as they were out, they made their way around the generator and down a labyrinth of alleyways, between machines the size of a small craft and conveyor belts the whole length of a football field. It was so tight they had to run single file. When they turned the corner he stopped so quickly he nearly went sprawling. There was an NX droid ahead of them, probably just outside of Pavel’s detection diameter.
They ducked into the corner. Aly’s brain was a blur of calculations and contingencies: the angle of its vision, how to move in and out of its blind spot as quietly as possible. A cold surge of terror worked its way through his body, like a block of ice was forming around him.
The droid kept coming. Aly pressed himself against the wall, like he could disappear into it. God, they were going to die. He’d willingly walked into a UniForce-occupied refinery and thought he could walk out with a neuroscientist and a girl on his arm. Chalk this up under worst idea ever.
As if Kara could read his mind, she grabbed his hand and squeezed so hard he felt her nails dig into his skin. Aly’s blood felt carbonated. It ran through his body and gave him a fizzy feeling—urgent, like his muscles would pop and spring.
Closer . . . closer . . .
“Hey!” Someone hailed the droid from the far end of the hall. He had a crisp capital accent. “You’ve new orders to patrol the south perimeter.”
The droid turned immediately and walked out the other way, following the man. Aly dared a glance and saw the man disappear around the corner. He was wearing khaki—the color of the Tasinn uniform.
“Holy taejis,” Kara said, and melted down onto the floor, exhaling.
Aly let out a deep breath. Kara started to laugh quietly—the nervous kind—and he did too. It was like exhaling all the tension stored up in his muscles, in the folds of his brain, and it felt deliriously good.
Too good, probably. Because no one noticed when a UniForce soldier turned the corner and stood right in the center, his jaw slack.
“You.” He was looking straight at Aly with wide-set eyes that wrapped halfway around his head.
Aly could hardly believe it.