Adam Crain's Arc

Chapter 7 of 8

Adam started to rise with his hands open, the words already lining up in his mouth. He knew this guard's face from the corridor rotations. He knew the man had a sister in the farm crews and a debt at the commissary. Adam could work with that. He drew a breath to start talking. He never got the chance. Willem came up from the crouch fast and low. His shoulder caught the guard under the ribs and drove him into the side of the vehicle. The headset on the guard's collar clattered loose before he could key it. Willem hit him once at the jaw and the guard went down on the concrete and stayed there. Willem picked up the headset, thumbed it off, and pocketed it. He looked at Adam. "Couldn't risk the talk," he said. "He was already keying it." Willem pulled Adam past the broken vehicles to the back wall of the bay. He pressed a panel Adam had taken for a junction box. A seam Adam had not seen split open, and a heavy door swung inward on quiet hinges. Inside was a narrow room. A cot against one wall. A folded stack of clothes. A sink and a toilet behind a curtain. A small shelf of canned food and water jugs. On a crate at the foot of the cot sat a screen, split into four feeds, showing the bay outside, the hatch corridor, the atrium statue, and the door of the security office. "I've been building it for months," Willem said. "In case." He shut the door behind them. The bolt slid home with a soft weight. Adam sat down on the cot because his legs would not hold him. He looked at the food, the screen, the clothes folded in his size. "You did this for me," he said. It was not quite a question. Willem knelt in front of him and put his hands on Adam's knees. He leaned up and kissed him, slow, with his mouth open and steady. When he pulled back he did not look away. "It's always been for you, my love," he said. Adam took Willem's face in his hands. "Then we stop running," he said. "We get something on Hanover. Something the council can't ignore. We make her the one with the footage to lose." Willem nodded once. He turned Adam's hand over and pressed his thumb against the ring on Adam's finger. "I've watched her office for three weeks," he said. "I know who goes in after hours." On the screen, the guard on the concrete had not moved. The feed by the security office door showed a light still on inside. Adam watched it and felt the shape of the next thing they had to do settle in his chest.