‘Don’t touch me,’ I say, backing away. ‘Don’t come any closer.’
He looks puzzled by my fear. Of course he is. He probably doesn’t know what it is to be afraid, to be as hopelessly outmatched as this. A rabbit cornered by a wolf. The fountain pen in my fist suddenly feels like a child’s toy. I could stab him in the side, and he’d probably just pull it out and laugh.
‘I’m not going to hurt you.’ His voice is low and calm.
‘What did you do to Agnes?’
‘What do you mean?’ He steps closer, and I back into the bookshelf. Nowhere to go, no way to fight. Not until the slice blows, which could be any second. Or it could be far too late.
‘My friend,’ I say. ‘You shot her.’
‘No I didn’t.’ He steps closer. ‘I shot the gun out of her hands, but I didn’t hurt her.’
‘Liar.’
His eyebrows rise. ‘If I killed her, then who do you think braided your hair and changed your clothes? It certainly wasn’t me.’
I raise one hand to the back of my head, where my waist-length dark hair has been washed, brushed and knotted into a fishtail braid. My skin is clean, and I’m dressed in a black cotton T-shirt and shorts with the Cartaxus logo printed across them.
I didn’t even notice.
I open my mouth but don’t know what to say. Last summer Agnes taught me how to do a fishtail braid when I said I was sick of my hair and planning to shave it off. She’s braided it like this a dozen times, nimble fingers drawing my unruly dark hair into clean, glossy knots. My skin and hair are scented lightly with her lavender soap, the kind I helped her make a batch of last month in her basement.
The soldier isn’t lying. Agnes must have survived. So why the hell isn’t she responding to my comm?
‘Wh-what happened after I passed out?’
The soldier smiles. He’s handsome when he smiles, but it doesn’t make me less afraid of him.
‘We put you in an ice bath in her basement,’ he says. ‘We had to lower your temperature for twenty-four hours to let the healing tech work. She washed you and changed you into those clothes. She cooked me soup, and we decided you’d feel better waking up somewhere familiar, so I brought you here.’
‘Then why won’t she answer her comm?’
‘I have no idea. She was packing when I left. It looked like she was leaving.’
I grit my teeth. That must be a lie. Agnes would never leave without telling me. She’d leave me a note, a comm, a message. She wouldn’t abandon me.
Pop.
I let my eyes dart to the window, where the freezepak lies hidden. There are still no signs of heat, no jets of gas. I need to stall the soldier longer. His head is turned to the window, his brow furrowed.
‘Who are you?’ I blurt out, trying to distract him. ‘Why are you here?’
He narrows his eyes, staring at the window a moment longer, before turning his gaze to me. ‘My name is Lieutenant Cole Franklin. I’m here because a week ago your father’s laboratory and research files were hacked by the terrorist organization known as the Skies.’
I almost laugh. Terrorist organization. We’re not the ones with the drones and soldiers, with screaming jets and long-range missiles. We don’t bury landmines around our bases or shoot people who come begging for food. Hacking Cartaxus’s servers is the most aggressive thing we do, and we’re not even particularly good at that.
‘I don’t know anything about that,’ I say.
‘Your father was in the laboratory –’
‘He hasn’t talked to me in years. I told you – I don’t know anything.’
‘Miss Agatta, your father is dead.’
I freeze. The words hang in the air. My heart gives a single panicked thump before I grab hold of myself.
‘You must think I’m an idiot if you expect me to believe that.’
The soldier tilts his head. ‘Whether you believe it or not, I’m telling you the truth. The terrorists infected our servers with a virus that caused the genkits in your father’s lab to self-destruct. Your father was caught in the explosion along with most of his staff. I’m very sorry for your loss, Miss Agatta.’
I swallow, scanning the soldier’s face, searching for a sign that he’s lying. There’s nothing – no nervousness, no flickers of guilt. But that doesn’t mean anything. He’s a trained Cartaxus soldier, so lying must be second nature to him. I straighten, squaring my shoulders. ‘You said the Skies did this?’
He nods. ‘The attack used a sophisticated computer virus that infected most of our systems. Some of them have been permanently corrupted.’
I let out a long, slow breath. He’s definitely lying. I’ve launched hundreds of hacks with the Skies, and our attempts were anything but sophisticated. They were smash-and-grab jobs. Kick down the doors and steal everything shiny. We never came close to destroying genkits or corrupting files.
‘So you’re a messenger?’ I ask. ‘That’s very kind of Cartaxus, to send someone out to deliver the news in person.’
‘That’s not why I’m here.’
Of course it’s not. Novak told me something big was going down at Cartaxus – something involving me. Maybe my father tried to escape, maybe he refused to follow their orders, and they’ve sent someone out here to see if they can find some leverage.
But I won’t give it to them. My grip tightens on the fountain pen. It won’t do much harm, but it might buy me some time if I jam it in the soldier’s face. I shift my weight, preparing to swing my arm round, but before I can move, the soldier’s hands fly out.
The room spins. There is pressure on my arms, a sudden blur of light. In the time it takes me to register what’s happening, I have been picked up and spun round, and the fountain pen is gone.
‘What the …’ I gasp, grabbing the bookshelf to steady myself. I’ve never seen anyone move that fast. I didn’t even know it was possible. I blink, shaking my head, waiting for my vision to stop spinning.
The soldier throws the pen across the room. ‘I wouldn’t try that again if I were you. I don’t want to hurt you, Miss Agatta, but if you don’t cooperate, I’ll be forced to improvise.’
I don’t want to hurt you. Another lie. That’s all Cartaxus does. They lie and crush anyone who tries to resist them. Anger bleeds through me. I step closer, glaring at the soldier. ‘You can threaten me all you like, but you’re a fool if you think I’m going without a fight.’
The soldier’s brow creases. He opens his mouth just as a hiss starts up beside me, followed by a rapid series of pops.
The sound of human cells beginning to blow inside the slice of flesh hidden in the window.
There’s my escape, right on time. The soldier turns to the boarded-up window. We’re close enough that I can see the spark of panic in his eyes and smell the air wafting from his skin. He smells only of soap and sweat and laundry detergent, without a single hint of sulphur.
My captor is not immune.
I’d smell it if he was. That sharp, sour scent that clings to your skin as long as you’re protected from the virus. The soldier is going to get infected unless he turns and runs. Judging by the sound of the slice, he needs to run fast.