“Not fucking North Africa,” Konecheck said. “No way we’d feel that.”
“When the Galveston plant went up, the shock wave was still measurable on its third time around the planet,” Clarissa said.
“Oh, the bitch is a history professor now?”
“The prisoners will maintain silence!” Rona shouted. She was sounding a lot more agitated. Around a corner, a light glowed green, the icon of a thick-legged stick man walking up steps. He wondered how many other people were on this level, still in lockdown, waiting on rescue. How many were already trudging up the stairs on their way out. The guards were playing it pretty close to the vest, but he’d have bet good money that there were a whole lot of people making their own decisions right now.
Morris stopped at the door to the stairway. The readout set into the wall beside it showed a red image of a closed lock until he swiped his hand terminal across it and keyed something into the display that opened. The lock switched to green, and the door slid open. Of course a prison would put the locks on the emergency power circuit, Amos thought. He wondered what else was locked.
A landslide of mud, water, rocks, concrete, and rebar spilled into the corridor. Morris yelped and jumped back, then fell to the ground, grabbing one shin. His pants were ripped, and Amos caught a glimpse of a dark wetness between the man’s fingers. Blood.
“Morris!” Rona said. “Report!”
“I’m gonna need stitches.”
“I’m moving ahead to look,” Amos said, leaving So don’t shoot me as a given. Beyond the door, the stairway was gone. Rubble and dirt were so thick, he couldn’t even tell if the stairs still existed under them. He couldn’t tell where the water was coming from, but it smelled clean. Which meant it was probably the drinking water. Another tremble shook a few stones and a head-sized ball of concrete loose.
Sullivan was muttering a stream of obscenities under his breath that sounded less like anger and more like the first signs of panic. Amos shook his head.
“No one’s getting out that way,” he said. “Not without a few months and a digging mech. We’re gonna have to find another way up.”
“There isn’t a goddamn other way up,” Rona said. “That’s the evacuation route. That right there.”
“Peaches?”
Clarissa’s voice was calm but still a little slurred. “Hard call, Amos. It’s a prison for high-risk criminals. They don’t put a lot of easy egress routes in it.”
“Fair enough,” Amos said. “But say you had to think of something clever?”
“The guards have overrides. If we can get access to the elevator shaft and the car’s not blocking it, we might be able to climb up.”
“Ten stories at one g on a broken hand?” He didn’t mention the possible concussion that was probably screwing with her sense of balance.
“Didn’t say it’d be fun.”
“The access ladders are all locked down,” the escort said. “They put doors across them so no one can get up without permission.”
Konecheck gave a wide, mirthless laugh, and Sullivan trained another of the strange not-quite-guns on him.
“Peaches?”
“I don’t know. Maybe we could find something else.”
Amos stretched his neck, the vertebrae popping like firecrackers. “This,” he said, “is getting to be a long fucking day.”
Chapter Twenty-five: Naomi
H
our by hour, history rolled out, every new moment making things worse. The newsfeeds from Earth and Mars, and then reports from Tycho Station and Ganymede filled with reporters and journalists blank with shock or else weeping. The hammering of Earth took most of the bandwidth: images from an apocalypse. Cities along the coasts of the Atlantic with grinding waves shattering fourth-and fifth-story windows. An army of small tornados forming behind the shock wave’s leading edge. The planet she was so used to seeing glow as the city lights made it a permanent fire, going dark. The field hospital at Dakar where ash and stones rained down upon row after row of the dead. The shaking UN spokesman confirming the death of the secretary-general. The void between the planets was alive with chatter and speculation, reports and theories and then conflicting reports and theories. With the complexity of light delay, it was almost impossible to put events in order. Everything seemed to be happening at once.
Which, she supposed, was how Marco had wanted it.