Winter Halo (Outcast 2)

“As you would be.” She stepped back and eyed the wound. “Report to medical and get that attended to. Then you can go home.”

I glanced at her, unable to hide my surprise. “Really? My shift hasn’t officially finished yet.”

“It will be by the time you go to medical and fill in the required report.” She hesitated. “Are you planning to stay on in the job, or leave like some of the others? Because I’ll need to pass that decision on to personnel.”

“Staying,” I said. “I need the job.”

“Good lass.” She patted my shoulder lightly. “Rest up, and I’ll see you back here on Friday.”

“But I need the money—” And time was tight.

“It’s full pay,” the woman said. “So just rest up and relax.”

I couldn’t exactly fight the decision given Sharran wouldn’t have, so I thanked her profusely and then headed down to medical. It turned out she was right about the amount of time it would take—it was nearly an hour and a half later by the time I’d been patched up, done the incident report, and left the building.

I sent a silent message to Cat and Bear, then headed back to Sharran’s place. I stripped and chucked the tunic in the laundry chute, then stepped into the shower to wash away the odorous scents that clung to my skin. Once I’d redressed in my own clothes, I checked the autocook to see what was available, finding a surprising range of breads and proteins. It might be the oldest machine I’d ever seen, but at least it was well stocked. I ordered a stew and toast, and the rich smell of meat and cooking bread soon filled the room, making my mouth water in a

nticipation. It had been a long night, and the only break guards were allowed was the occasional bathroom stop.

Cat and Bear still hadn’t returned by the time I finished, so I sent them another message telling them to wake me on their return, and settled down to get some sleep.

The sting of their excitement woke me a few hours later. They swirled around me, both of them talking at the same time, creating a whirlpool of sound, color, and trepidation.

They might have liked the assignment, but they hadn’t actually liked what they’d seen in Winter Halo.

I waited until they’d calmed down, then said, “Where did that stranger go?”

Images flashed into my mind. The stranger had disposed of the light shield in the elevator and gone up to the twenty-seventh floor. It was another floor of laboratories, but this time all of them were filled with people. He walked into one labeled SCREENING and handed the medikit containing the blood samples to the technician, then left and made his way to the thirtieth—and top—floor. Here he walked down another of those solid corridors with only the one exit. This led into an office that dominated one-half of the entire floor—and one in which he was the only occupant.

“What else was on that floor, then?” I asked, surprised.

Coming to that, Cat said.

More images rolled. The stranger pulled up a light screen and made a call. The woman on the other end had broad features, dark hair and skin, and eyes that were the green of a newly unfurled leaf. It was a startling combination, and one I’d seen before. Not just because this was the woman I’d followed into the false rift that had led me into Government House, but somewhere else. Somewhere deep in the past.

I frowned, but the information of where remained elusive.

“What did they talk about?”

He was asking about the break-in at Government House, and whether the rift should be dismantled and moved, Bear said.

“And are they planning to do either?”

No, Cat said. The woman said security had been tightened and that she’d retune the rift to only allow both of them to use it for the time being.

Which meant any possibility of doing a search of that building via the rift was now out of the question. Not that I actually thought the children were being kept at Government House, despite the fact that the Carleen ghosts had said the government ATV that had collected them from Carleen had been headed toward Central.

“Did they talk about anything else?”

She asked about the dissections.

I blinked, even as a sick feeling began to churn my gut. “What dissections?”

Neither spoke. They simply showed me. On the twenty-ninth floor, there was a room that held six gleaming metal tables. On each of these lay an orange-haired woman. They were all hooked up to mediscan units that were now acting as their hearts and their lungs. Each woman had had her skull removed and a series of electrodes and probes attached directly to her brain. They were all dead; it was only the machines keeping their bodies alive.

I closed my eyes and took a deep, shuddering breath. I knew well enough just how the déchet had been created; knew because I’d witnessed scenes not unlike this in the lead-up to the war, as human scientists extracted and then refined the cells and neurons responsible for both shifting and psychic skills.

But that had been well over a hundred years ago, and it was a sight I’d hoped had been relegated to pages of history and long forgotten.