Blue Hearts of Mars (32 page)

I raised the pass to my chest. It whirred and twisted, binding with the fabric of my clothes. Mei did the same.

“Be sure to check with me on your way out,” Emil said as we walked away. “And tell Jaska hello from little Emil,” he called after us.

As we rode the escalator up to the balcony, Mei whispered, “Little?” She glanced back down at the bulky man, sitting there with the glossy black desk surrounding him and security holograms flickering behind him. “That has to be a joke between them.” She turned back to me. “How long do we have before they realize that we didn’t go to Jaska’s office?”

“Less than fifteen minutes.” I took a deep breath, willing the trembling in my hands to stop. It would look really suspicious if I couldn’t be casual.

It’s just your average stroll through a multi-trillion markka company. I do this all the time, I told myself.

There were others waiting at the elevators—several men and women in business attire. Mei and I were silent as we boarded the elevator and punched in our destination. The 27th floor. This was the floor where the hearts were built and stored. And it required the same clearance that visiting Jaska Koho required. I wasn’t related, but apparently Sonja knew the man—they’d had a . . . well, a fling, according to Sonja. But he was married. So it was something she guarded. She visited him in the day, from time to time, claiming a relationship to him—cousins. The woman had a DNA mask just for that purpose. Something she’d made before leaving Synlife. She had me slip the mask over my thumb before leaving her apartment. The DNA mask blended perfectly with my skin. I stared down at my thumbs as we rode up to the proper floor, going over what I’d do next.

“I feel like I’m in a holo-film,” Mei whispered, watching me study my hands.

“Yeah,” I said, absently. “Just remember what you need to do if anything goes wrong.”

“Right, take the heart and run,” she said. “I got it. Don’t worry about me.” She flicked her hair over her shoulders, rubbed her hands together, and grinned. “I love this crap.”

“Be careful, Mei. This is for Marta. Not us. Her life depends on how well we pull this off.”

“Yeah, yeah, right.” She cocked her head at me. “It’s all under control, Retta.”

The elevator dinged and the doors opened.

*****

It was as Sonja said it would be. The elevator opened straight into a room full of glass chambers that had robotic arms within working on half-built hearts. The lights over the long, wide room were tinted blue and a few people in lab coats and goggles were bent over Gates next to glass chambers, buried deep in their work.

The entire floor stretched on like that: chamber after chamber filled with synthetic hearts; gauzy, red tissues being knit together across a thin, fine framework. We stood there unnoticed, mouths gaping, before Mei slipped away, hiding at the end of one of the rows of a column of tables. I followed before any of the technicians saw us.

“We have to get to the other end,” I whispered to Mei as I crouched beside her. “That’s where the finished hearts are.”

Mei nodded and gestured that she would lead.

We scrambled down to the next row, looking for an empty aisle. The room was filled with a mechanical hum, making it hard to hear where the technicians were. I peeked around the corner, my shoulder butting against the thick leg of a table. There were two technicians nearby, their faces nearly touching the glass partitions of the chambers. I twisted back and motioned Mei to move to the next row. When it was clear, we jumped across the aisle to hide behind the next row of tables.

This time Mei looked before I even had a chance to tell her what to do. “It’s clear,” she hissed back at me. I motioned for her to head down the aisle.

She crept down the aisle, keeping her back hunched and her head lowered. Though the tables were about four and a half feet tall, we didn’t want to risk being seen, so we kept our bodies close to the floor and our noise to a minimum.

Soon we came to a point where the tables became cabinets with sliding doors on them. This was expected. It meant we were where the finished hearts were kept. Near the end of the row, I paused and slid a cabinet door open and pulled out a small metal box. Heart-sized. An empty cryo-container. From here, the hearts would be moved to the floor Mei and I had seen months ago where they would be introduced to blood, and eventually, put into the chest cavity of the androids.

I glanced to my right and Mei was already opening one of the glass chambers. Still crouching, her hand was stretched up to release the top panel. I cringed as the chamber let out a hiss as pressurized air escaped. It was noisy. I knew it would be. But still. My heart raced as I looked left and right, checking to see if we’d been discovered. Holding my breath, I opened the cryo-container and dialed in the proper settings.

I tried to hang on to the container and rise up to get the heart, but Mei shook her head. “Let me,” she whispered, taking the container. This would be the most dangerous part: we would risk being seen.

“One, two, three,” Mei counted soundlessly, then she stood slowly, surveying the room through the walls of the glass chamber. She hesitated. I held my breath.

After a moment, she pulled the lid of the chamber up, held the open end of the cryo-container down and lowered it into the chamber. I watched with wide eyes as the heart seemed to float up into the container, slowly, as the different air pressures interacted, and the red organ settled inside, and the lid of the container slid closed.

Mei smiled as she lifted the container out and began to hand it to me.

“Hey!” The shout made us both jump. Mei nearly dropped the container. “You! What do you think you’re doing?”

Mei froze in place, staring at whoever had caught us. I couldn’t see the owner of the voice.

“Run, Mei, run!” I urged from where I knelt beside her.

She looked down at me.

Suddenly she was shoving the container into my arms. “Go! You go! I’ll distract them.” Her eyes were wide and slightly crazed as she pushed me away.

“That’s not the plan,” I hissed. “You go.”

“No, Retta, your sister needs you. Deliver the heart. I’ll be OK.”

They were coming. I could hear more shouts rising from the distant corners of the room, over the sound of machinery. I stared at Mei, feeling something rip inside me.

I clutched the cryo-container to my chest, tears stinging my eyes and fear blasting through my heart. “Thanks,” I said, touching her foot with one hand as I turned to head back up the aisle.

“Bring that over here,” a voice demanded angrily. It was male. Commanding. Mei looked up.

“Catch me first,” she said, taking off in the opposite direction from me.

I held the container tightly to my chest as I began crawling back the way we’d come. My pulse thundered in my ears as I hurried along. I prayed that Mei would provide enough distraction to allow me to escape. A commotion rose around the room as I crept on my knees toward the elevators, one hand clutching the container like a football.

I thought I’d make it out without much of a fight, when a voice nearby made me jump out of my skin, “There’s another one here!” I looked up. A technician dressed in a long-sleeved lab coat and skull-covering cap stood at the end of the aisle, blocking my way to the elevator. “Give me that.” The voice was soft and female. She held out her hand and beckoned me. “Give it here.”

“I need it,” I whispered, thinking maybe to appeal to her sympathy. “For someone who’s dying.”

The woman hesitated for just a moment. She tilted her head to one side, her goggle-covered eyes glinting in the blue light. She beckoned again. “You’re just a kid. Give me the container and I’ll let you go. No more trouble than that.”

I stood up and shook my head. “You don’t understand. It’s my sister.”

This made her pause. “It’s stealing. I can’t allow that.” She shook her head, almost like she was trying to convince herself.

I saw no way around it. I knew what I was made of, and Marta’s life was on the line. The woman facing me down looked relatively small, certainly no bigger than me.

I pretended to give in, surrendering to her logic. Letting my shoulders droop in defeat, I walked toward her slowly. She remained still, managing to look triumphant even with her eyes hidden and her face covered in a mask.

I made as though to begin handing her the heart, but then, at the last possible second, as she reached her arms out to take the container from me, I brought it close to my chest, lowered my shoulder, and charged her.

If she hadn’t been wearing goggles, I know I would have seen her eyes widen in shock. I became a battering ram and I put every ounce of my rage about the injustice of what was happening to Marta into it.

“What are you do—” she protested as I connected with her, sending her careening into a wall of supplies. She crashed against the wall and collapsed. I stared down at her as bottles and boxes fell onto her head and lap.

She was swearing as I ran for the elevator. At least she was conscious. But where were the other technicians? I’d seen at least four when we came in.

I jabbed at the call button as I scanned the room, standing on my tiptoes to see further into the long, cavernous room. I caught a glimpse of Mei climbing atop a table on the far side of the room as technicians jumped for her. As I scrambled into the elevator, she was throwing glass jars at them, laughing madly.

I got off the elevator and glanced over the balcony edge down at the security station. Emil was still there, but he was standing up as though agitated. I took a deep breath and made a run for the door, keeping my eye on him.

As I neared the foot of the escalator, he was heading toward me.

I held onto the cryo-container and dodged him, putting other people between us as I bolted for the doors.

“Hey, does Jaska know what you’re doing?” he shouted after me.

For Marta, I thought, getting a fresh burst of speed. I crashed against the doors and they spilled open.

I was on the street, hoofing it away from the building. I ripped the security pass from my shirt and the wig from my hair and cast both into the street without a second glance.

“Come back!” Emil yelled.

I kept going. People stared. They moved out of my way when they heard me coming.

“I’ll find you! I have your name!”

I wanted to laugh.

*****

I made it to the hospital in thirty minutes after catching the commuter trolley. Sonja was waiting near Marta’s room just like she said she would be. There was a doctor with her and they were deep in conversation when I approached them. I held up the cryo-container.

Sonja’s face brightened when she saw it. “Wonderful. I knew you could do it.”

“My friend Mei was caught,” I said, shaking my head.

“We’ll take care of her later,” Sonja said, patting me on the shoulder. “This doctor has agreed to help me with the surgery.” She gestured to the doctor standing beside her. I hadn’t seen him before. His dark eyes glittered intelligently, narrowing as he nodded at me.

“Thank you,” I said politely. His name tag flashed at me.
Dr. Stebing.

“It’s the least I can do,” he said with a hesitant smile.

“But there is one problem, Retta,” Sonja said, pulling me aside. The doctor turned and moved away, allowing us to converse privately. “You haven’t told your father yet. He was surprised to see me. Will he be OK with this? If not, I’m afraid we can’t do it.”

I slapped my forehead. In all my hurrying and rushing about, I’d forgotten to even mention it to my dad. I hadn’t wanted to get his hopes up before asking Sonja. “I’ll go talk to him now. If he doesn’t agree to it, he’s a moron.”

“Well, that’s certainly not going to convince him.” Sonja tapped her lip with one finger. “Let’s make sure he’ll allow it before we go any further. And use a more diplomatic tactic, Retta.”

“Yeah. Right. Of course. I’ll go talk to him right now.” Sonja took the cryo-container from me. I stared as she walked off with it, feeling a strange reluctance to see it go. It was Marta’s last hope.

Dad and Marta were watching a teenager drama about a group of kids living in an abandoned mining operation on an asteroid when I pushed the door open and entered the room. Marta’s face had gotten even more gaunt. I gulped down my fears and found a smile for her. She grinned weakly back.

“We’re watching
Haunt
, Retta,” she said with a faltering grin. “Stay and watch it with us.”

Dad looked over at me. There was a storm on his face.

“That’s great,” I said trying to sound breezy. “A little bit of onscreen drama to distract from our own dramas, right?”

Dad was looking daggers at me. I tried to brush it off, focusing on Marta.

“Yeah, I’ve missed some episodes, but I think I’ve figured out what happened in those,” Marta said, her brow furrowing in concentration. She sighed and coughed.

I touched her blanket-covered shin. It felt swollen and puffy. That was unexpected. I resisted jerking my hand away in surprise. “Don’t strain yourself,” I said, forcing down a worried exclamation.