The deck shuddered beneath Aris's boots as an echoing crump rolled through the steel ribbing of Sector 7G. A geyser of superheated steam belched into the corridor ahead, reeking of burned rubber and scalded lichen. Red emergency beacons replaced the cold glare of the ceiling strips, painting the bulkhead doors in oscillating ribbons of rust. On Aris's wrist, the brass gears of the Omen-Dial ground together with a sound like broken teeth. [SECTOR 7G COLLAPSED - STRUCTURAL COMPROMISE: LEVEL 3] [PENALTY APPLIED: OXYGEN MIX DEPLETED BY 12% IN LOWER TIERS] [CASCADE THREAT: 37 MINUTES UNTIL RESIN SEALS VAPORIZE] The metal collar control unit bounced against Aris's hip as he sprinted down the spiral rung-stairs into the lower bunks. The atmosphere was turning foul, thin and sulfurous, catching in the back of his throat like ground glass. Coughing refugees pressed against the wire fences, their hands gray with soot. Below, where the scavengers slept on damp canvas stretchers, men and women were screaming, clutching water skins, or stomping out embers dropped by shattered overhead conduits. At the mouth of the ventilation shaft, a heap of twisted alloy grating smoldered in a puddle of oily sludge. And lounging against a buckled stanchion ten paces away, wiping soot from his jaw with the back of an augmented, brass-plated hand, stood Mandor Karta. "Look who decided to crawl out of the observation tower," Karta drawled. His voice scraped through the haze, thick with false calm. "The master mechanic arrived too late. The mountain shakes, Aris. These cheap pipes of yours were bound to split." Aris did not slow down. He lifted his left wrist, presenting the ticking face of the Omen-Dial toward the wreckage. A fan of pale blue light swept across the pulverized shaft, mapping the torn flanges, the soot streaks, and the thermal residue baked into the sheared bolts. [CHEMICAL RESIDUE IDENTIFIED: NITRATED BLASTING RESIN, BATCH 04-B] [DISPERSAL PATTERN: CONTACT CHARGE, INTERNALLY PLACED] [SURFACE FINGERPRINT MATCH: 94.2% TO LABELED PROFILE 'KARTA, M.'] Aris lowered his arm. The glow settled on the smoldering floor between them. "Blasting resin. You took it from the secondary excavation bins when you returned from the terrace skirts yesterday morning. You thought the soot would blind the scanner. Just like you thought I wouldn’t notice when you shorted the perimeter tripwires three winters ago back in the foundry clan yards." The corner of Karta’s mouth twitched, skin tightening against his bionic cheek-struts. "You can't prove a damn thing with that toy, scholar." Aris reached for the transmitter strapped to his vest. He flipped a toggled copper switch, then dragged a brass rheostat downward with deliberate slowness. High-voltage arcing sputtered around Karta’s neck. The heavy steel collar snapped shut against the brute's jugular, spitting blue sparks into his collarbone. Karta’s legs went slack. His massive frame slammed into the grated floor with a bone-jarring rattle. A thick, strangled groan escaped his mouth, his augmented knuckles clawing at the decking as three hundred volts scrambled his motor nerves, seizing his lungs. "Get up," Aris said, stepping over a puddle of scalding condenser run-off. "Get up and tell them how the pipes just split on their own." He cut the current for half a second. Karta gasped, saliva stringing from his lips into the grease. "Cur... you miserable little scrap-counter..." Aris engaged the dial again, dialing the amplitude higher. Karta convulsed violently, his spine bowing, the hydraulic actuators in his elbow grinding as his bionic arm twitched out of control. Several refugees shrank back from the mesh wire, their murmurs dying into terrified silence. Citra appeared at the fringe of the crowd, her face soot-streaked, leaning against a support girder while watching her former guard captain thrash on the deck. "You thought you'd choke the hydroponics, force me to open the emergency larders, and slip out with the reserve packs?" Aris leaned down until his nose was an inch from Karta's ear. "You spent ten years kicking clerks into the slag ditches because you had the company badge. Now you answer to me. You will always answer to me. Beg for your breath, Mandor. Say it into the deck." "Aris! Stop it!" A trembling hand seized Aris’s sleeve. Pak Tua stumbled into the smoke, his small chest heaving, a copper-nosed wrench held limply in his grip. Soot caked the deep crevices around the old man's mouth. "Aris, let him go! The men are watching—look at them! You're turning them into beasts if you treat them like this! We need to patch the duct before the heat cooks the lower cabbage beds!" Aris shook off the old man's grip with sharp savagery. "Get away from me, old man!" Pak Tua caught himself on the iron lattice, breath hissing between dry gums. "He blew my ducts!" Aris snarled, the Omen-Dial clicking frantically against his forearm, projecting numbers that dipped lower into amber warnings. "He tried to burn down the only thing standing between these pigs and the silt-fog! You want me to give him an extra blanket and a bowl of broth? Mercy here is suicide!" "Cruelty here is poison," Pak Tua whispered, rubbing his arm where Aris had shoved him. "You're becoming the very thing that drove us down from the heights." Aris didn't answer. He released the dial on Karta’s collar. The former guard slumped face-first into the soot, wheezing weakly, too broken to spit the blood from his tongue. Aris ignored the silent, sullen stares of the refugees watching from behind the mesh partitions. He turned his attention back toward the blown vent. The smoke was beginning to clear, sucked upward by the Kubah's struggling auxiliary extractors. He stepped through the charred opening to assess the structural damage behind the collapsed duct. There was no ruptured cooling line. The duct had been empty. Aris froze. His boots crunched on bits of plastic casing and copper wire that didn't belong to the ventilation grid. The blast hadn't been aimed upward into the primary air channels. The force of the charge had been shaped, focused horizontally by a heavy iron deflector plate bolted to the opposing bulkhead. He rounded the partition wall into the dark corridor beyond. The smoke cleared just enough to reveal the true target. The heavy steel vault that secured their scavenged seismic drills, pneumatic picks, and five crate-loads of compressed-air slug throwers didn't have a lock anymore. The blast had severed the hydraulic locking pins from behind, peeling the six-inch blast door outward like a tin can. The racks inside were barren. Every last rifle was gone.

Sabotage in the Lower Bunks