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  "Were they armed?" asked Bigmouse.

  "Yeah. I can see it. A pistol, left hand."

  "What make?" asked Bigmouse.

  "It's just a shape. A… silhouette. For a frame, no more than that."

  "So where did they go?" asked Stabler. She was staring right at him. "Bloom, come on. Please. What the fuck's with you today? Where did they go?"

  The audios crackled. Bigmouse turned away to report their sit to Huck on the secure link.

  "Someone came out of that doorway," he repeated to Stabler. What was that look on her face? Pity? It made him want to scream.

  "Fuck," said Preben.

  They looked at him. He was staring down into the inspection pit.

  He went and stood beside Preben.

  A young woman was tangled at the bottom of the pit, face-down. Her head looked like it had been dipped in blood.

Best guess was she'd come out of the side room, the shop store, and fallen into the pit diving out of the way of his gun. His shots had missed her because she was already falling by the time he fired. He'd killed the peg board instead. He'd almost blown her head off.

  She'd hit her hairline against the pit wall falling into it, almost scalped herself. There was a loose flap of skin, and blood everywhere, excessive amounts that had, at first, looked like a killshot to the skull.

  They'd got her up out of the pit using a backboard from the medical suite, and Preben had cleaned and sealed her scalp wound. She didn't wake up. They made her comfortable.

  "No name tag," said Stabler.

  "The clothes are settlement standard," said Preben. "She's a local."

  "Scared local," Stabler agreed.

  They both looked at him.

  "She had a weapon," he said.

  "Yeah, where is that?" asked Preben.

  The girl looked very pale, pale as death. Her breathing was so shallow, you could scarcely see it. They'd made her comfortable on a couch in a shelved alcove off the hub.

  He bent down beside her. He could smell her blood, tacky on her weatherproof jacket, matted in her hair and along the sealed tearline. She was small, with a heartshaped, symmetrical face and tight features. He wondered what her eyes were like. Her hair was dark, almost black, and thick, but cut back to a bob.

  "No name tag," he said. "No brooch. You've looked in the pockets?"

  "Nothing," said Stabler.

  "The tag pocket's empty, too. See?"

  He pointed at the small, plastic window pocket on the breast of her coat. It was empty.

  "She could have taken the tag out," said Stabler.

  "Maybe it's not her jacket," said Preben. "Maybe it's not anybody's jacket."

  "Why would she take the tag out?" he asked.

  "Fuck is going on?" asked Stabler. "Nes, what? You think you've brought down a paramilitary here? What the fuck? Is that what you're saying?"

  "She's a station tech. A local," said Preben.

  "We don't know that."

  "We know you scared her so bad she fell in a hole and brained herself," said Preben.

  "Cicero," Stabler began.

  "What?" he asked.

  "Cicero says he wants to talk this out with you as soon as Eyeburn's secure," she said, with reluctance. "May have to write up a formal. I mean, discharging a weapon at a local."

  "You know it wasn't anything like that," he said. "Freek
^®
, Karin! I showed you the playback. Red flag. She had a weapon."

  "I didn't see a gun," said Stabler. "We didn't find a gun."

  "You saw it!"

  "I saw something. A shadow. Her hand, maybe. A torch."

  She looked at him. It wasn't even clear from her expression that she wanted to help him. They could all feel how wired he was. It was as though they didn't know him. As though he wasn't himself.

  "We don't even know who she is," he insisted. It felt stupid.

  He got up and walked away, balling his fists to stop them quivering. He banged the door into the restroom, slammed it behind him. He looked at the windows, just soft slabs of colourless daylight, the mesh grilles choked with dead blurds. Except the end one. The blurds there littered the floor under the sill. The bleach-masked bad stink lingered.

  He took off his glares and squared up to the mirror. It had a crack across it. His face looked back, drawn and white. His tan had gone, and the blue in his eyes had dimmed. He looked like a crazy person.

  "Whoever you are," he said, "whatever your name is in there, stop it. Stop freeking
^®
me up! I mean it. You've got to stop. I can't think! I can't centre! Freek
^®
it, man!"

  He took a breath, another, sucking hard, fighting panic.

  "I don't get scared," he whispered. "I just don't. Not ever. I get pumped. I get ready. Not scared. Never scared. Freek
^®
are you doing to me? Are you such a freeking
^®
baby you're infecting me with your fear? It's in me, man! It's leaking into me! Is that you? Are you too freeking
^®
scared for this? Get out, then! Get the freek
^®
out of me! I mean it! Get out of me and leave me be so I can do this!"

  Another breath.

  "I need to do my job. If this is you, you're stopping me. You're freeking
^®
me up. If this is the process, then that's got to stop. End of. Finit. Tell them. Tell them to yank you out of me."

  No one answered, but the snake in his belly knotted again.

  "I nearly shot that girl. I nearly shot her because you made me crazy. As it is, that head wound. She could die anyway."

  Nothing.

  "Freek's
^®
sake! Are you hearing? Are you in there?"

  "Fuck are you talking to?" asked Stabler. She was in the doorway of the restroom, holding the door open. The new look on her face he liked even less than the old one.

  She took a step towards him.

  "Who were you talking to, Bloom?"

  "No one. Myself."

  "What the fuck is up with you?"

  "Nothing."

  "Don't give me shit, Nes. I need to know. What is up with you?"

  "I– Nothing. Nothing. I'm wealthy. I'm golden."

  Stabler shook her head.

  "I never thought it would be you," she said. "I never thought it would be you. They say sometimes people break when they finally get to the Hard Place, and it's often the last person you expect. But I never thought it would be you."

  "I didn't break," he said. "I haven't broken."

  "Then I don't know what the fuck this is," she said. "We've only just started, Bloom. We haven't even gone hot, and you're cutting loose at civilians."

  "It isn't like that," he said.

  "What the fuck is it like, then?"

  "It isn't like that," he said. "I didn't break."

  "You're fucked," she said. "You should have seen it this morning, and stepped out. You should never have got on the boomer. You were fucked up first thing when I saw you, and you're fucked up now. You had no right to do this to us, Nes. No right."

  "I'm okay."

  "Oh please! What is it? Is it drugs again? I thought you'd kicked that."

  "It's not–"

  "It's something. That freaky limp, that look on your face. You're not even talking to me the way you talk to me!"

  "Karin–"

  "Shut the fuck up, Nestor! I'm going to speak to Cicero. No. No.
You
have to talk to him. Get him on the secure. You have to let them evac you before you get one of us scorched."

  "No–"

  "Nes, you've got to, and it would go much better for you if it came from you. If it was voluntary. They'd probably get you assessed, sort you out and get you back on active. If I speak out on this, you're gone. Out of service."

  Preben appeared in the doorway behind her. He eyed them both suspiciously.

  "Bigmouse found something," he said.

Bigmouse was sitting at the primary position in the hub.

  "Personnel list," he said, nodding at the box. "It was tucked into one of the housekeeping files."

  He splayed his fingers across the touchscreen and opened out four tiers of panes with small headshots and bio data.

  "Seventeen residents," he said.

  "It doesn't show children," said Stabler, "but there are clearly children here."

  "So the list's not complete," said Preben.

  "It may only show employees," said Bigmouse. "Here, see? AnniMari Tuck. Says she has two kids, but it doesn't show pictures of them."

  "So do they live here, or does she just have two kids somewhere?" asked Stabler.

  "I can sweep the station again," said Preben. "Count beds and cots."

  "Where the fuck did they all go this morning?" asked Stabler, mainly to herself. "Why was it just her left behind?"

  "She's not here," he said.

  The three of them looked round at him. He pointed at the display with a jut of his chin.

  "She's not there. She's not one of the seventeen."

  "It could be her," said Stabler, tapping one of the panes.

  "No, not if you look at it," he said. "The nose and cheeks are wrong."

  "Her, then," said Preben, indicating another.

  "Really not."

  "It could be," said Stabler.

  "It's not. She's not there."

  He stared at them.

  "Maybe that's why she isn't wearing a name tag. To make sure we can't compare it to the manifest."

  "We already said this list doesn't show everyone," said Preben. "She might not be an employee. She might be a guest, a visitor. A sister. A girlfriend."

  "Or something else," he said.

  "Shut the fuck up," said Stabler. "Isn't it bad enough you made her crack her head open?"

  He was going to answer, but a storm blew up outside. A boomer, swinging in.

  They went out. The sky was bigger, clearer, but the rain was scattershot. Out to sea, the dark rumour of a real rainstorm loitered along the horizon.

  
Pika-don
was descending, whipping up spray. It settled, gear struts creaking, in the middle of the station yard, aerosolising mud like a smokescreen. Then the rotors began to power down, the noise dropped and the spray fog began to waft away.

  Cicero dismounted through the starboard hatch, followed by the PO and a private called Martinz.

  He strode across the mud towards them.

  "Inside!" he ordered. "Except you, Stabler."

  They went back inside. Stabler came to the gate and stayed talking to the sergeant.

  "Doesn't look good for you," Bigmouse said to him.

  "Shut up," he replied.

They waited inside, in the hub, then Cicero joined them, bringing Stabler and Martinz.

  "I want a word," Cicero said to him, then got the others busy stripping out all the data they could locate in the station system.

  "Stabler says you're a little rattled," Cicero said quietly, when they were face to face in the hallway outside the hub.

  "I'm wealthy, sergeant."

  "You looked off this morning," said Cicero.

  "I'm fine. I was fine then. I'm fine now."

  "Not what Stabler reckons. She's worried. Says you're jumpy."

  "I'm not."

  "Now's the time to say it, Bloom. Right now. She's looking out for you."

  "I'm wealthy, sergeant."

  "So tell me about this woman," Cicero asked.

  He explained the incident as best he could. He let Cicero borrow his glares so he could review the playback for himself.

  "It's not clear she did have a weapon," said Cicero. "
She's
not even clear. You looked for a gun?"

  "Preben did. So did Stabler."

  "You didn't, Bloom?"

  "I wanted to get her out of the pit and patched up, sergeant."

  "Look, Bloom, I think this is one of those things. Just one of those damn things that happens sometimes. From the replay, I can't see you did much wrong at all, unless you were already spooked or wired. But if she's a civilian, and it looks like she is, there will be a report. Write-ups. She may even file for damages, who knows? I'm going to need the medic to take a blood sample from you, and check you out. Are you on anything you shouldn't be?"

  "No."

  "Really no?"

  "No, sergeant."

  "Nothing in your system you don't want me knowing about?"

  "No, sergeant."

  "Okay, Bloom. We should take a look at her too."

  He led Cicero over to the alcove.

  The girl was gone. There was a faint smear of blood on the upholstery, and a whiff of antiseptic gel lingering in the air.

  "Where is she, Bloom?"

  "I… I don't know, sergeant."

  "Nobody thought to watch her?"

  He didn't know what to say. He went with, "We didn't, sergeant. We were trying to find out who she was."

  "We'd better find her."

  "I'll start looking."

  Cicero shook his head.

  "Not you, Bloom."

  He turned and called out to Martinz, Preben and Stabler. He told them to mount a search.

  "Go and sit down somewhere. Keep out of trouble," Cicero told him. "I'll get the medic in from the boomer to do your bloods."

He went back to the restroom so he could pace and stop his hands from shaking while he waited for the medic to come inside. An exam, any exam, would reveal things, the needle tracks and pinpricks from the biologic tests the corp's people had run on him. He didn't know what part of the process might show up in a blood test, but they'd shot him full of all sorts of shit to prep him for the reposition match, and some of that had to be detectable.

  He was screwed. He'd gambled, and he'd lost. His career was in a place that smelt worse than the station restrooms.

  It was airless. The stink of damp and excrement was nauseating. He went to open a window, let some air in. The mesh grilles, thick with blurd husks, were bolted in place.