Page 7 of Big Bad Red Protector

Then I look at Nina, who is watching me from across the chamber with evidence in her hands and the same conclusion already visible on her face.

Whatever is operating beneath Orpheus Station, it is not afraid of security command.

It isinsidesecurity command.

CHAPTER 5

NINA

The files I'm not supposed to access are stored in a restricted archive partition labeledL7-PRECURSOR HISTORICAL—AUTHORIZED RESEARCH ONLY.

Authorized research only means a clearance level three grades above mine. It also means that when Orrik Dane slides into the maintenance alcove beside me, plugs a device about the size of my thumb into the terminal's secondary port, and says "try it now," the partition opens like it was never locked at all.

"Orrik."

"Hm?"

"If we get caught, I'm telling them you did this alone."

"Nobody's going to catch us." He leans over my shoulder, mismatched cybernetic fingers tapping a quick rhythm against his knee. Two of the fingers are different metals—left hand salvage, from the look of it, repaired in stages across years of hazardous work. "That partition hasn't been audited in four months. Nobody checks archives they don't want people reading."

I met Orrik six hours ago when I followed a maintenance access junction into the wrong corridor and nearly knocked him off a ladder. He'd found the situation funny. Then I'd explainedwhat I was looking for, and he'd stopped laughing and started thinking, which turned out to be more useful than I expected from a man who introduces himself as Scrapjack.

"How do you know it hasn't been audited?"

"Because I would've gotten a security flag when I last ran a bypass through it, and I didn't." He says this with complete comfort. "I've been routing maintenance diagnostics through these partitions for two years. I know which ones are watched and which ones are furniture."

I stop asking questions and start reading.

The records are fragmented. Whatever was here originally, it has been trimmed—not deleted, but pruned. Specific passages cut. Researcher notes redacted to single lines. What remains reads like a conversation with half the responses removed.

But enough is there.

The phraseHomo sapiens bridgeborn lineage markersappears in three separate fragments from three separate research periods. The oldest is dated well before the current war. A secondary reference describesanomalous genetic resonance in human subjects when exposed to sustained Precursor field emissions.A third, more recently redacted, refers toactivation potential in subjects carrying complete marker sequencesand then dissolves into a block of removed text.

Activation potential.

I sit with that until the words stop looking like research and start looking like a warning.

"You've gone quiet," Orrik says. "That either means you found nothing or you found something you hate."

"I found something that doesn't make sense yet."

"That's most of what I find down here." He leans closer to read the fragment on the screen. His expression changes. "Huh. That's not maintenance history."

"No." I copy everything I can reach to my chip and close the partition. "I need to check the Bridge transit sector. There were two of the missing diplomats last logged in that vicinity before their records disappeared."

Orrik's easy energy shifts by a degree. "The transit sector is close to the structure's field emission perimeter. Station regs say civilians need an escort past junction L-six."

"Good thing I'm not a civilian." I close the terminal. "I'm customs."

He considers this. "I know the maintenance catwalks that run parallel to the transit corridors. Better sight lines. And nobody asks maintenance what it's doing on the catwalks."

The catwalk is narrow and industrial, running twenty feet above the transit corridor floor through a lattice of old support struts and relay housings. The Bridge is visible from here through the outer viewport panels—distant but present, massive in the way that geological formations are massive, scaled for time rather than for people.

I am looking at the transit sector below, noting the checkpoint placements and thinking about routing gaps, when it happens.

It is not like going unconscious. It is like something behind my eyes opens.