“What fire?”
“Thirty seconds!”
I haul open the hatch door. The blast of air that punches into t
he hold blows Razor’s hood off his head. I scoop up Teacup and press her into his chest.
“Don’t let her die.”
He nods.
“Promise.”
Nods again: “I promise.”
“Thank you, Razor,” I say. “For everything.”
He leans forward and kisses me hard on the mouth.
“Don’t ever do that again,” I tell him.
“Why? Because you liked it or because you didn’t?”
“Both.”
“Fifteen seconds!”
Razor maneuvers Teacup over his shoulder, grabs the safety cable, and shuffles back until his heels touch the jump pad. Silhouetted in the opening, the boy and the child over the boy’s shoulder, and five thousand feet beneath them, the limitless dark. The Earth is my charge.
Razor releases the cable. He doesn’t seem to fall. He is sucked out into the ravenous void.
73
I HEAD BACK to the cockpit, where I find the pilot’s door unlatched, the seat empty, and no Bob.
I wondered why the countdown stopped; now I know: He changed his mind about the whole bailing issue.
We must be in range, which means they don’t intend to shoot us down. They’ve marked the location of Razor’s drop, and they’ll stay with the chopper until I bail or it runs out of fuel and I’m forced to bail. By this point, Vosch has figured out why Jumbo’s implant is on this aircraft while its owner is in the infirmary being treated for a very bad headache.
With the tip of my tongue, I push the pellet from my mouth and lick it onto my palm.
Do you want to live?
Yes, and you want that, too, I tell Vosch. I don’t know why and, hopefully, I never will.
I flick the pellet from my hand.
The hub’s response is instantaneous. My intent alerted the central processor, which calculated the overwhelming probability of terminal failure and shut down all but the essential functions of my muscular system. The 12th System has the same order I gave Razor: Don’t let her die. Like a parasite’s, the system’s life depends on the continuation of mine.
The instant my intent changes—Okay, fine. I’ll parachute out—the hub will release me. Then and only then. I can’t lie to it or bargain with it. Can’t persuade it. Can’t force it. Unless I change my mind, it can’t let me go. Unless it lets me go, I can’t change my mind.
Heart on fire. Body of stone.
There’s nothing that the hub can do about my snowballing panic. It can respond to emotions; it can’t control them. Endorphins release. Neurons and mastocytes dump serotonin into my bloodstream. Other than these physiological adjustments, it’s as paralyzed as I am.
There must be an answer. There must be an answer. There must be an answer. What is the answer? And I see Vosch’s polished, birdlike bright eyes boring into mine. What is the answer? Not rage, not hope, not faith, not love, not detachment, not holding on, not letting go, not fighting, not running, not hiding, not giving up, not giving in, not not not, knot, knot, knot, naught naught naught.
Naught.