Free Winterbay by J. Barton Mitchell Page A

about ten feet above them. A single bridge connected it to the tanker, ending in a steel door set into its exterior.
    The girls stared at the bridge hesitantly, the reality starting to sink in. Before, the Machine had been an intangible, arbitrary goal, maybe something that didn’t even really exist, and Mira’s anxiety had been reserved for her fear of Armitage, but now, staring at it in the dark, taking in the size and scope of … whatever it was, things were feeling much more immediate. And ominous. What the hell had she gotten herself into?
    “You were in the room, you saw the chair,” Reiko casually stated next to her. “Left the door cracked, must have run out of there pretty fast.” Her voice was calm and level, holding no indication of threat or malice, but Mira felt her blood turn to ice regardless. She had no way to know what Reiko’s intentions might be. Mira was still valuable to her boss—she had his artifacts, and according to him she was the one person who could get him what he wanted—but still, she’d seen a lot more than she should have. “You must really need that plutonium.”
    Mira swallowed. “Why do you say that?”
    “You had a chance to leave. You didn’t take it. Even though you saw what you saw.”
    “Is that what you would have done?” Mira asked back, trying to keep the shakiness out of her voice.
    Reiko shrugged in the dark. “Don’t know. Not sure what it is you need it for, but whatever the reason, simple truth is you want it too bad. You’re gonna screw it up.”
    “So I’ve been told.” Mira felt a tiny sliver of desperation under her fear. It was more or less exactly what Olive had said. She looked at Reiko, and Reiko looked back. “Don’t suppose you’d let me slip out the back door, then?”
    Reiko smiled and shook her head.
    Mira nodded. It didn’t matter; she’d made her choice an hour ago. “It doesn’t bother you? Working for someone like him?”
    Reiko’s stare turned dark. “You don’t know who’s been in that chair or why. Sometimes you have to make hard choices. Sometimes people need encouragement to do the right thing.”
    “Is that what he tells you? Is that how you justify dumping bodies into the lake?”
    “You don’t know me. And you don’t know him.”
    “I know enough. I know you think of him as a father, but the truth is, he stole what little youth you had, sent you away to a brutal place where you learned brutal things and came back like some sort of tool for him to use. And you know what else? I know if you hadn’t have gone to the White Helix, if you’d told him no, you would’ve ended up right back with those same kids your brother gave—”
    Reiko’s knife flashed so quick and smooth from her sheath, the only thing that registered in Mira’s senses was the sudden feel of the cold blade against her throat. She didn’t say anything else, just tried to keep her eyes on Reiko’s.
    The Asian girl studied her with an unreadable look. “You don’t know me . And you don’t know him, ” she reiterated slowly. Only the fire in her soft voice gave away that the girl was feeling any emotion at all under the surface. She stared at Mira a second more, then nodded toward the bridge. “We got things to do.”
    The knife flashed back into its sheath, and Mira turned, feeling her heart beating wildly. What else was new? Ever since leaving Midnight City, Mira had been holding on by a thread, trying to keep everything from falling apart. The feeling the ground was about to give out beneath her was a constant sensation now. Everything she did was one desperate gamble or another, and the worst part was, she didn’t see any light at the end of the tunnel. Not yet.
    If she could get that plutonium …
    Maybe Reiko and Olive were right, maybe she did want it too badly, but it didn’t change anything. It was what she needed, what she had to have, and she would keep going until she did … or until the end.

Trust
    The bridge swayed