What I see is terrifying. I hate small, enclosed spaces. Hate them. I think it comes from being in a pod when I was cloned, but I hate being trapped in a small space alone. The sight that greets me is something out of my nightmares. It’s a vent system all right, circular and maybe two feet across. I test the entrance and I can just barely wedge my shoulders in there. It’s going to be a tight squeeze, and I’m going to be in there for a while.
Hot fear flashes through me. I close my eyes for a moment, bracing myself. If I don’t do this, I can’t save Matty. I’ll be dead, carved up so they can make duplicates. I don’t have a choice.
I hop back down from the pod and move to Matty’s side. I steal one of his blasters, the ring, and a garrote. I wrap the garrote around my bicep loosely, put the ring on my finger, and clench the blaster in my teeth. Then, I tear off my dress and roll in the fluid on the floor, greasing my body, and climb my way back up the pod to the vent. My lungs aren’t burning just yet, so I’m guessing I can hold my breath for a bit longer.
I can be frightened later.
After I save Matty.
I haul my slippery body into the vent system. I just manage to squeeze inside. It’s dark and scary and tight, but I wriggle forward a bit more. It’s such a tight fit I can’t turn around to get the cover back on the vent, but I don’t think they’ll be able to follow me. I’m slender and the ooli are short and squat. The other guards we saw were szzt and those are built similarly to Matty. Their shoulders won’t fit.
They’re going to be stuck with me in their pipes.
Now I just have to hope the pipes actually lead somewhere. Squeezing my way along, I slither forward.
CHAPTER 89
MATHIRAS
I wake up with my face pressed to a cold metal floor. My head throbs and there’s a foul taste in my mouth, and my limbs feel heavy. It takes a moment for me to become dimly aware that I’m naked, my chest pressed to the floor and my ass in the air. Even moving my tail feels like effort, and my thoughts feel scrambled. Where are my trou?
Why am I on the floor?
I flop over onto my back—massive effort—and stare up at the unfamiliar ceiling. Memories are sliding back in. Tubes. Lots of tubes full of people. An ooli.
Helen.
No.
They want to carve her up. They want to make clones out of her. And I haven’t been able to protect her.
I have to find her.
Groaning, I stagger to my feet, swaying. “Heellllleeeennnnn…” My mouth feels heavy and loose, and I suspect I’m still drugged. I move forward, surging toward the door to my room, only for a shock to charge up my arm the moment I make contact with the handle. With a cry, I release it and crash back to the ground, blackness swallowing me once more.
When I wake up next time, it’s to see an ooli face peering over me.
“He’s waking up,” the ooli says. A moment later, the ooli is joined by a szzt. Both gaze down at me with interested expressions, and the szzt picks up a blaster and holds it to my nose. The ooli snorts and pushes it away. “Stop that. We need his cooperation.”
“You sure you don’t want to kill him?”
“Not while the female is on the loose.” The ooli smiles at me, his wide mouth creasing his face.
Female on the loose. Helen.
The relief I feel is so strong I burst into laughter. Helen’s alive. Of course she is. My clever, crafty girl wouldn’t let someone take her. I don’t know how she managed to escape the knockout gas they used on me, but I’m going to squeeze the kef out of her when I see her again and shower her with kisses. So damned clever.
I groan and try to focus on the ooli’s face. It’s a different one than before. His green is slightly different, with reddish striations, and I wonder where the first one went. Then, I vaguely remember that I shot the last one. Right, right. I lick my lips. “Water.”
“You can have water soon, but we need your help.” The ooli nods at the szzt. In the next moment, I’m grabbed by the horn and hauled up, and I groan at the pain that lances through my scalp. “Careful, Tazza,” the ooli says. “We need him alive for now.” A moment later, the ooli is in my face again. “You need to call the female.”
I blink and pretend to be dumb. “What…what do you…want…me…to call her?”
The szzt growls.
“No,” the ooli says with a pat to my shoulder. His hands are clammy and I resist the urge to fling them off—not that I can exactly make a sudden move like that right now anyhow. “She has wormed her way into the ductwork. We cannot get to her. We need you to help us lure her back out of the ductwork.”