Holding my breath, I wait to be apprehended again, but it’s clear after several moments that I’m entirely alone here. The place is deserted, and through an observation window, I note that the control room is empty. I move forward tentatively to a steel bench in front of the clear-fronted, lighted lockers lining the walls. I try the latch on a few, but they’re all locked. To my left, there’s a shower room—a lavare. I raise my shaky hand to my wet hair; a shower is a moot point now. Instead, I hunt around for something to wear that will hide my hair.
In a bin near the door, I find discarded cherry-red, industrial overcoats. They must use them to wear over their clothing when they go out to inspect the dishery. I rummage through the bin, drawing one out. It’s enormous. I toss it back in and hunt for another that’s a little smaller. When I locate one, I try it on. It reaches all the way to my ankles. I pull up the attached splash-guard hood, shrouding my hair. I pull the harbinger from the waistband of my pants, and tuck it into the outer pocket of the trenchlike coat. I tiptoe over to a door on the adjacent wall, leaving a trail of wet toe prints on the floor behind me.
The door slides up automatically as I approach. I hesitate as people run by, too preoccupied to even glance my way. I watch them for a few minutes, but it’s clear that they’re abandoning their posts at the dishery as fast as possible. Cautiously, I enter the sterile, white corridor. Merging into the chaos around me, I leave the dishery behind.
CHAPTER 6
HANG ME UP TO DRY
A fem-bot voice, piping through the audio system, calmly states, “All active-duty personnel are ordered to report to assigned combat stations. Code Amber. Enemy infiltration is detected. All noncombat personnel are ordered to seek shelter in your designated areas—follow protocol Alpha Indie.” The voice pauses for only a few moments before it restates its message. “All active-duty personnel . . .”
I run down the bright white corridor with no thought of direction, guided purely by fear and adrenaline. When I come to the end of it, I search the wall and ceiling for some kind of marker that will help me find the detention area. Nothing! There’s nothing!
The tap of booted feet hurrying to their assigned positions in the battle echo the flight of my rapidly beating heart. In the next corridor, everyone I come across is outfitted in combat gear. The light that runs down the center of the wide passage is flashing from white to amber here. There are several hallways, but I continue straight ahead.
When I turn onto a new passage, a holographic male figure materializes in my path. I stumble to a halt at his country-club smile, recognizing his handsome visage as being one of a Rafian actor with a role on Violet Shadows, a soap opera program that women seem to follow religiously here.
“Welcome to the Beezway, the express superhighway to get you to where you need to be by the most efficient means possible. Shall I call for your transport?” he asks me.
My mouth opens, and then shuts as I think of a response to that question. Finally I murmur tentatively, “Yes?”
The actor’s image gives me a toothy grin. “Excellent! Please scan your wrist communicator into the kiosk to call your vehicle to our current location.” His holographic hand gestures to the lighted, cylindrical docking station near a wall of glass ahead of us. I begin to realize that he’s a glorified valet-slash-doorman.
I hold up my bare wrist to him. “I don’t have my wrist communicator available—I misplaced it.”
With a genuine look of concern on his lighted face, my attractive companion replies, “I’m sorry to hear that. Shall I call for a general mode of transportation for you?”
“Uhh . . . sure,” I say with my bottom lip rolling out.
“Please state your destination.”
I falter for a moment. Where do I want to go? Where would Trey go? I wonder. He’s looking for me—I know it. When the Alameeda attack starts, though, he’ll go to the detention center to try to free our friends. “I want to go to the detention center . . . where prisoners are held?” I ask him, keeping my face averted beneath my red hood as a group of soldiers run past us.
“Please wait one moment while I input your destination,” he says apologetically.
As I wait, I walk a few steps away to the wall of glass that separates us from outside of the ship. Beneath the window, a concrete tunnel shelters a lavender channel of light. The channel is a superhighway, ferrying all sorts of hover vehicles along its wide berth in two directions. The highway acts as a link between buildings and around the perimeter of the ship.