James Corey - Nemesis Games

“And do what? Shut down the Ring?” Naomi said. “Start making your cheap bone drugs again? What do you think shooting a Martian politician’s going to do for ‘our people’? How does that help anybody?”

Marco didn’t laugh, but he softened. She had the sense that she’d said something stupid, and it had pleased him. Despite it all, she felt a twinge of embarrassment.

“I’m sorry, Naomi. We’re going to have to take this up later. But I really am glad you’ve come back. I know there’s a lot of harsh between us, and that we don’t see the world the same way. But you’ll always be the mother of my son, and I will always love you for that.”

He lifted a fist to the guards. “Make sure she’s secure, then get ready for hard burn. We’re heading to the fight.”

“Sir,” one guard said as the other took Naomi by the elbow. Her first instinct was to resist, pull back, but what would the point have been? She pushed off for the lift, her jaw tight, her teeth aching.

“One thing,” Marco said, and she turned, thinking he was speaking to her. He wasn’t. “When you lock her down, make sure it’s someplace she can watch a newsfeed. Today everything changes. Wouldn’t want her to miss it, yeah?”

Chapter Twenty-two: Amos

Reports at this hour are that a massive asteroid has impacted northern Africa. The Oxford Center in Rabat, five hundred kilometers west of the event, is estimating eight point seven five on the Richter scale at the epicenter.”

Amos tried again to lean back in his chair. It was an uncomfortable little piece of furniture. Just crappy lightweight plastic to start with, then molded in a factory by a machine that didn’t have to sit in it. His first guess was that it had been designed specifically to be awkward and ineffective if you tried to hit someone with it. And then they’d bolted it to the floor. So every five minutes or so, he placed his heels on the textured concrete and pushed back without even knowing he was doing it. The chair bent a little under the pressure, but didn’t get more comfortable, and when he gave up, it bounced right back into its old shape.

“— unseen since Krakatoa. Air traffic is being severely affected as the debris plume threatens both civilian and commercial craft. For further analysis of the situation on the ground, we are going now to Kivrin Althusser in Dakar. Kivrin?”

The screen jumped to an olive-skinned woman in a sand-colored hijab. She licked her lips, nodded, and started talking.

“The shock wave hit Dakar just under an hour ago, and authorities are still taking stock of the damage. My experience is that the city is devastated. We have reports that many, many of the local structures have not survived the initial shock. The power grid has also collapsed. The hospitals and emergency medical centers are overwhelmed. The Elkhashab Towers are being evacuated as I speak, and there are fears that the north tower may have become unstable. The sky… the sky here —”

Amos tried to lean back in his chair, sighed, and stood up. The waiting room was empty apart from him and an old woman in the far corner who kept coughing into the crook of her elbow. It wasn’t what you’d call a big place. The windows looked out on an uninspiring two hundred meters of North Carolina, bare from the entrance facility to the perimeter gate. Two rows of monofilament hurricane fencing blocked the path to a two-story concrete wall. Sniper nests stood at each corner, the automatic defense and control weapons stiller than tree trunks. The building was low – a single story peeking up out of the ground with administrative offices and a massive service entrance. Most of what happened here happened underground. It was exactly the kind of place Amos had never hoped to be.

Good thing was, when he was done, he could leave again.

“In other news, a distress call from the convoy carrying the Martian prime minister appears to be genuine. A group of unidentified ships —”

Behind him, the admin door swung open. The man inside looked like he was one hundred kilos of sculpted muscle and also tremendously bored. “Clarke!”

“Here!” the coughing old woman said, rising to her feet. “I’m Clarke!”

“This way, ma’am.”

Amos scratched his neck and went back to looking at the prison yard. The newsfeed kept on being excited about shitty things going on. He’d have paid more attention to it if the back of his head hadn’t been planning the ways he’d have pushed to get out of here if they’d sent him, and where he’d have died trying. From the parts he caught, though, it sounded like a good day for reporters.

“Burton!”

He walked over slowly. The big guy checked his hand terminal.

“You Burton?”

“Today I am.”

“This way, sir.”

He led him to a small room with more chairs bolted to the floor and a table too. The table was solidly made, anyway.

“So. Visitation?”

“Yup,” Amos said. “Looking for Clarissa Mao.”

The big guy looked up under his eyebrows. “We don’t have names here.”

Amos opened his hand terminal. “I’m looking for 42-82-4131.”

“Thank you. You’ll need to surrender all personal effects including any food or beverages, your hand terminal, and any clothing with more than seven grams of metal. No zippers, arch supports, anything like that. While you are inside the prison grounds, you are subject to reduced civil rights, as outlined in the Gorman code. A copy of the code will be made available to you at your request. Do you request a copy of the code?”

“That’s all right.”

“I’m sorry, sir. I need a yes or no.”

“No.”

“Thank you, sir. While in the prison, you are required to follow the directives of any guard or prison employee without hesitation or question. This is for your own safety. If you fail to comply, the guards and prison employees are authorized to use any means they deem necessary to ensure your safety and the safety of others. Do you understand and consent?”

“Sure,” Amos said. “Why not?”

The big guy pushed a hand terminal across the table, and Amos mashed his thumb onto it until the print read. A little indicator on the side of the form went green. The big guy took it back along with Amos’ hand terminal and shoes. The slippers were made out of paper and glue.

“Welcome to the Pit,” the big guy said, smiling for the first time.

The elevator was steel and titanium with a harsh set of overhead lights that flickered just a little too quickly to be sure it was really flickering. Two guards apparently lived in it, going up and down whenever it did. So that seemed like a shitty job. At the tenth level down, they let him out, and an escort was waiting for him: a gray-haired woman with a wide face, light armor, and a gun in her holster that he didn’t recognize. Something beeped twice as he stepped into the hall, but none of the guards tried to shoot anyone, so he figured it was supposed to do that.

“This way, sir,” the escort said.

“Yeah. Okay,” Amos said. Their footsteps echoed off the hard floor and ceiling. The lights were recessed into metal cages, making a mesh of shadows over everything. Amos found himself flexing his hands and balling them into fists, thinking about how exactly he’d have to bounce the guard’s head against the wall in order to get the gun off her. Nothing more than habit, really, but the place brought it out in him.

“First time down?” the escort asked.

“It show?”

“Little.”

From down the hall, a man’s voice lifted in a roar. A familiar calmness came over him. The escort’s eyebrows went up, and he smiled at her. Her lips turned up in answer, but there was a different assessment behind it.