Up Against It - M. J. Locke [150]
“I’m through!” she gasped. “I’m through. I’ve been reborn. Just like the birth canal, all over again.” She lay on her back beyond the bottleneck, and her light reflected on the roof of the small tunnel. All three laughed in relief.
Amaya got out her tools and loosened the bolts that secured the maintenance panel to the mouth of the stovepipe. She took a crowbar from her kit, hooked it against the edge of the panel, and used it to brace herself against the air that rushed past her—forced the panel farther open, and tumbled into the main tunnel. Then she braced herself and slammed the bulkhead back into place. Geoff could tell she was leaning against the wall by the now-closed vent, waiting till the room repressurized. Finally she removed her helmet. “I’m in.” Then— “Shhh!” she hissed. “Quiet.”
She stood up, tucked her helmet under her arm, and adjusted her mini-cam, mounted at her right temple. Geoff caught a glimpse of what she saw: a sudden, shadowed movement across the intersection of this small chamber’s mouth with the main passage.
“One of the maintenance robots?”
“It was moving too fast. And the shape and color weren’t right.”
“Stand fast. Kam!” Geoff said, and looked up the hill. Kamal was still there, keeping watch. “Are they inside the mine?”
“No. They’re crowded around the professor’s instrument. The mine entrance is still sealed.”
“Could someone have gone in before we got here?”
“They wouldn’t be able to open the lock without the code,” Kam said.
“Unless they hacked it,” Geoff said. “Or cut through.”
“I’m going to take a look,” Amaya whispered. Brandishing her crowbar, she cautiously rounded the corner. “Bikkuri shita!” she gasped.
“What is it?”
“Nothing,” she said in a disgusted tone. “It’s your damn skeletons.”
Geoff saw: the glass skeletons had escaped containment. One cavorted here; another leapt there; a third tumbled through the air. As she approached the machine shop by the mine entrance, Geoff saw numerous others, scampering about. She whacked one with her crowbar, and it exploded. “Just like virtual golf,” she said, and whacked another.
Two others crawled out of a large puddle at the base of the assembler fluid vat while Amaya worked. They seemed to be lasting longer than they had been at the much higher gee in Heavitown.
“The floor is coated with glass turds,” she said. “Kuso! You and your stupid art project.”
“Yeah.” He sighed. “Sorry.”
She went over and squatted by the vat, and Geoff saw through her cam that the tank valve had a slow leak. He remembered crashing into it during his fight with Ian. Amaya patched the leak with duct tape from her utility bag. “That should do for now.”
“If we’re going to go talk to those people down there,” Kam said, “we’d better do it now. They seem to be finished with their tests. They’re wrapping things up.”
“What? So soon? They can’t have finished their soundings yet. Let me see!” Geoff bounded up to where Kam was in two big leaps. Kam made room for him—he bellied up to the ridge and took a look through Kam’s binocs. Sure enough, they were folding up the equipment.
Kam was looking at him. “Geoff…”
“What?”
“We could just … you know…”
“What?”
“Let them leave.”
Geoff said, “Kam, either they are legit, in which case they need to know sooner rather than later that this claim is taken. Or they aren’t, which would mean Professor Xuan is in deep shit, and we have to help him.”
“So why not call the police?”
“We will, if they’re secretly criminals. But Moriarty himself said all the paperwork’s in order. The police are as swamped as they were yesterday, and they are still going to treat us like a bunch of punks. Like they always do. Unless we have some kind of hard proof. To get that, we need Professor Xuan.”
Kam sighed.
“Amaya,” Geoff said, “I’m giving you access to my view. Stand by. If there’s trouble, we’ll alert you, and you know what to do.”
“Have several spud guns loaded and primed in the lock,” she said. “Open the mine entrance only on your signal. Be prepared to shut the door behind you the instant you enter. If it comes to that.