Chapter 32
title: "Sector 7 Bleeds" wordCount: 3187
The air in Sector 7 tasted thin and metallic, and Cass's mother was on the floor with her fingernails blue.
Cass dropped to her knees beside the couch where Mara had collapsed, one arm trailing off the cushion, the other clutched against her chest. Her lips had gone the color of old bruises. The apartment's oxygen monitor blinked red—eighteen percent and dropping.
"Mom." Cass grabbed her shoulders, shook once. "Mom, wake up."
Mara's eyelids fluttered. Her chest rose and fell in shallow, rapid movements like a bird's.
The emergency broadcast crackled through the wall speakers: "Sector 7 residents proceed to designated emergency exits. This is not a drill. Oxygen levels critical. Proceed in an orderly—"
Cass hooked her arms under her mother's and dragged her upright. Mara's head lolled against Cass's shoulder. She weighed nothing. When had she gotten so light? Cass shifted her grip, got one of Mara's arms around her neck, and half-carried her toward the door.
The corridor outside was chaos.
People stumbled from apartments clutching children, oxygen masks, whatever they could grab. An old man in a bathrobe leaned against the wall, gasping. A woman ran past with a baby pressed to her chest, the infant's cries thin and reedy in the depleted air. The emergency lighting cast everything in red.
Cass pulled Mara into the flow of bodies moving toward the emergency airlock three levels down. Someone shoved past them. Mara's feet dragged. Her breathing had gone ragged, each inhale a wet rattle.
"Stay with me." Cass tightened her grip. "Three levels. That's all."
Mara's lips moved but no sound came out.
The stairwell was packed. Bodies pressed together, everyone trying to descend at once. The air here was worse—seventeen percent according to the monitor at the landing. Cass's own lungs burned. Her vision swam at the edges.
A man two steps below them had an emergency oxygen canister. He held it to his face with both hands, breathing deep. His daughter—maybe six years old—tugged at his sleeve, her face pale, her lips starting to turn.
Cass looked away and kept moving.
They made it down one level. Then another. Mara's weight increased with each step as her muscles went slack. Unconscious now. Cass locked her arms around her mother's chest and dragged her down the stairs one step at a time, Mara's heels bumping against the concrete.
The crowd thickened at the second-level landing. Someone had fallen and people were trying to climb over them. A woman screamed. The fallen person—a teenage boy—wasn't moving.
Cass pushed through the press of bodies, using Mara's weight as a battering ram. Someone cursed at her. She didn't stop.
The emergency airlock was visible now, fifty meters down the corridor. The crowd had formed a bottleneck, everyone trying to force their way through the narrow entrance. Security officers in respirators tried to maintain order but people weren't listening. A man threw a punch. Someone else went down.
Cass's lungs felt like they were full of glass.
She made it to the edge of the crowd and stopped. There was no way through. Not carrying Mara. Not without—
The man with the oxygen canister pushed past her, still clutching it to his face. His daughter stumbled after him, her breathing shallow and fast. She couldn't have weighed more than forty pounds. Her lips were blue.
Cass watched them disappear into the crowd.
She looked down at her mother. At the scar on Mara's temple from the surgery. At her slack face. At the dog tags around Cass's own neck, hidden under her shirt, the metal warm against her skin.
Eli's tags.
Eli, who had died in a maintenance accident that wasn't an accident.
Cass shifted Mara's weight and pushed into the crowd.
The man with the oxygen canister was ten meters ahead, forcing his way toward the airlock. His daughter had fallen behind. She reached for him but he didn't look back. His eyes were fixed on the airlock door.
Cass caught up to the girl as she stumbled. The child's breathing had gone shallow. Her eyes were unfocused.
The man reached the airlock entrance. A Security officer tried to scan his ID but he shoved past, still clutching the canister. The officer grabbed his arm. The man swung the canister like a club. The officer went down.
The crowd surged forward.
Cass hooked her free arm around the girl's waist and pulled her close. The child was too oxygen-deprived to resist. Cass dragged both her and Mara toward the airlock, using the chaos of the man's violence as cover.
They were five meters from the entrance when someone grabbed the oxygen canister from Cass's peripheral vision. Not the man who'd brought it—someone else. A woman in her thirties with blood on her face. She pressed it to her mouth and breathed deep.
The man who'd brought it turned. Saw her. His face went white with rage.
He lunged for the canister. The woman twisted away. They grappled. The canister fell and rolled across the floor toward Cass's feet.
Cass looked at it. At Mara's blue lips. At the girl in her other arm, barely conscious.
She looked at the airlock, three meters away.
She left the canister on the floor and kept moving.
Behind her, the man and woman fought over it. Someone else joined in. Then another person. The crowd around them scattered and pressed tighter at the same time, everyone trying to get away from the violence and closer to the airlock.
Cass reached the entrance. A Security officer—not the one who'd been hit—blocked her path. He wore a full respirator. His eyes were hard.
"ID," he said.
Cass couldn't reach her pocket. Both arms were occupied. "My mother needs—"
"ID or you don't get through."
"She's dying."
"Everyone's dying." He didn't move. "ID."
Cass looked past him into the airlock. Saw the people already inside, pressed against the far wall, waiting for the door to seal. Saw the oxygen monitors showing twenty-two percent. Breathable. Safe.
She looked at the officer. At his respirator. At the baton on his belt.
"Please," she said.
His hand moved to the baton.
Cass shifted Mara's weight and drove her knee into his groin.
He folded. She pushed past him, dragging Mara and the girl through the entrance. Someone behind her shouted. Hands grabbed at her jacket. She twisted free and stumbled into the airlock.
The space was packed. Thirty people, maybe forty, all pressed together. The air here was better but not good. Nineteen percent. The inner door was still open, waiting for more people.
Cass lowered Mara to the floor. The girl collapsed beside her. Both of them were breathing but barely.
The officer she'd kicked appeared in the entrance, one hand pressed to his groin, the other reaching for his baton. His face was twisted with pain and rage.
"You're not—" he started.
A hand appeared on his shoulder. Pulled him back.
Soren stepped through the entrance.
He wore a Security captain's uniform and a respirator. His eyes found Cass immediately. He didn't look surprised.
"Close it," he said to someone behind him.
"Sir, there are still—"
"Close it now."
The officer hesitated. Soren pulled a tablet from his belt and entered a code. The outer door began to slide shut.
Through the narrowing gap, Cass saw the corridor beyond. Saw the crowd still fighting to get through. Saw the man and woman still grappling over the oxygen canister. Saw a child—not the girl she'd saved, a different child—standing alone in the middle of the chaos, crying.
The door sealed with a hydraulic hiss.
The inner door opened. Oxygen flooded in. Twenty-two percent. Twenty-four. Twenty-six.
Cass's lungs expanded. The burning eased. She looked down at Mara. Her mother's chest rose and fell more steadily now. Her eyelids fluttered.
The girl beside her was breathing too. Deep, gasping breaths.
Soren crouched beside Cass. He pulled off his respirator and handed it to her.
"For when you go back out," he said.
Cass stared at him. "Why are you here?"
"Finn sent me." Soren's voice was quiet. "Said you'd need help getting her out."
"Where is he?"
"Going after Marcus." Soren stood and offered his hand. "We need to move. This sector's not stable. The filtration system is still failing."
Cass looked at the sealed outer door. At the people on the other side. At the child she'd seen crying.
"How many?" she asked.
Soren didn't answer.
"How many people are still in there?"
"Doesn't matter." His hand stayed extended. "You can't save them. You can save her."
Mara's eyes opened. She looked at Cass. Her lips moved.
"Cass," she whispered. "Eli—"
"Don't talk." Cass took Soren's hand and let him pull her up. "Save your strength."
"Eli knew." Mara's hand found Cass's wrist. Her grip was weak but insistent. "About Marcus. About what he was doing. That's why—"
The lights flickered.
An alarm started somewhere deep in the sector. Different from the evacuation alarm. Lower. More urgent.
Soren's tablet blinked red. He looked at it and his face went pale.
"We need to go," he said. "Now."
Finn found Marcus in the central filtration hub, three levels below the main engineering deck. The space was massive—a cathedral of pipes and processors and monitoring stations. The air here was cold and smelled like ozone and metal.
Marcus stood at a terminal in the center of the room, his fingers moving across the interface. He didn't look up when Finn entered.
"I wondered if you'd come here or go with her," Marcus said. His voice echoed in the vast space. "I'm glad you chose correctly."
Finn stopped ten meters away. His hand moved to the wrench in his belt—the only weapon he had. "Shut it down."
"Sector 7's filtration?" Marcus glanced at him. "It's already done. Oxygen levels are stabilizing. The survivors are being evacuated."
"The survivors."
"Two hundred and forty-three people." Marcus turned back to the terminal. "Out of eight hundred and twelve. Better than I projected, actually. The panic response was slower than expected."
Finn's hand tightened on the wrench. "You killed five hundred people."
"I saved two hundred and forty-three." Marcus entered another command. "And I prevented the deaths of six thousand more. The equation balances."
"There is no equation." Finn moved closer. "You're just a murderer with a calculator."
Marcus smiled. It didn't reach his eyes. "You sound like your mother. She used to say the same thing. Before she understood."
"Understood what?"
"That someone has to make the hard choices." Marcus stepped away from the terminal. "That someone has to do the math and accept the results, no matter how ugly. Your mother couldn't. That's why she left. That's why she's dead."
Finn's vision went red at the edges. He pulled the wrench from his belt and closed the distance between them in three strides.
Marcus didn't move. Didn't flinch. He just watched Finn approach with that same calm expression.
Finn raised the wrench.
"If you kill me," Marcus said quietly, "six sectors fail simultaneously. Sectors 3, 5, 9, 12, 14, and 18. Eighteen thousand people. Dead in forty minutes."
Finn stopped. The wrench trembled in his hand.
Marcus reached into his pocket and pulled out a small device. A biometric monitor. It was clipped to his belt, a thin wire running under his shirt.
"Heart rate monitor," Marcus said. "Connected to the filtration control system. If my heart stops, or if the signal is interrupted for more than thirty seconds, the failsafes disengage. All six sectors. Simultaneously."
"You're bluffing."
"Am I?" Marcus gestured to the terminal behind him. "Check for yourself. The code is already in place. The triggers are armed. I'm not the problem anymore, Finn. I'm the only thing preventing catastrophe."
Finn looked at the terminal. At the lines of code scrolling across the screen. At the biometric readout showing Marcus's steady heartbeat.
"You made yourself essential," Finn said.
"I made myself necessary." Marcus's voice was soft. Almost gentle. "There's a difference. Essential implies the system can't function without me. Necessary means the system won't function without me. Not safely. Not without killing thousands."
"So what? We just let you keep killing people?"
"You let me keep saving people." Marcus sat down at the terminal. "You let me do what needs to be done. What you're not strong enough to do. What the Council is too cowardly to do. You let me make the hard choices so you can sleep at night and pretend your hands are clean."
Finn's grip on the wrench loosened. The weight of it suddenly felt impossible.
"How long?" he asked.
"How long what?"
"How long have you been doing this? How many people have you killed?"
Marcus was quiet for a moment. His fingers moved across the interface, pulling up files. Dates. Numbers.
"Sector 11, three years ago. Four hundred dead. Sector 8, eighteen months ago. Six hundred. Sector 15, eight months ago. Three hundred." He looked at Finn. "And now Sector 7. Five hundred and sixty-nine, final count. The system just updated."
"Jesus Christ."
"He's not here." Marcus turned back to the terminal. "Just me. Just the math. Just the choices no one else will make."
Finn looked at the wrench in his hand. At Marcus's back. At the biometric monitor on his belt.
He thought about Cass. About her mother. About the five hundred and sixty-nine people who'd just died because he'd been too slow. Too weak. Too afraid to make the choice that mattered.
He thought about his own mother. About what she'd said before she left. Before the accident that wasn't an accident.
"Some equations don't balance," she'd told him. "Some choices aren't choices at all. They're just evil dressed up in numbers."
Finn lowered the wrench.
Marcus nodded. "Smart boy. Now go. Go find your girlfriend. Go comfort her. Go pretend you're the hero because you didn't kill me. And when the next sector fails, when the next five hundred people die, you can tell yourself it wasn't your fault. That you did everything you could."
"This isn't over."
"It never is." Marcus pulled up another screen. More code. More calculations. "But it's over for today. Sector 7 is sealed. The survivors are safe. The system is stable. For now."
Finn backed toward the exit. He couldn't take his eyes off Marcus. Off the biometric monitor. Off the man who'd made himself unkillable by threatening to kill thousands.
"One more thing," Marcus said without turning around. "Cass's brother. Eli. He figured it out. Came down here just like you did. Stood right where you're standing. Had the same choice."
Finn stopped. "What did he do?"
"He tried to be a hero." Marcus's fingers paused on the interface. "He tried to disable the dead man's switch. Thought he was smart enough. Fast enough. He wasn't."
"You killed him."
"The system killed him. I just wrote the code." Marcus resumed typing. "Tell Cass I'm sorry about that. He was a good kid. Brave. Stupid, but brave. Just like her."
Finn's hand tightened on the wrench again. His whole body shook with the effort of not moving. Not attacking. Not trying to be the hero Eli had tried to be.
He turned and walked out.
Behind him, Marcus kept typing. The sound of the keys echoed in the vast space like a heartbeat. Steady. Inevitable. Unstoppable.
Cass sat beside her mother's bed in the emergency medical bay. The room was crowded—thirty beds, all occupied, people on oxygen and IV drips and monitoring equipment. The air smelled like disinfectant and fear.
Mara's color had improved. Her lips were pink again. Her breathing steady. But her eyes were closed and she hadn't spoken since they'd brought her here.
The girl Cass had saved was three beds over. Her father had found her. He sat beside her now, holding her hand, crying. He hadn't looked at Cass once.
Soren stood by the door. He'd been there for twenty minutes, watching the corridor, his hand never far from his sidearm.
"Finn's on his way," he said. "Just got the message."
Cass didn't respond. She was looking at her mother's hand. At the IV line. At the monitor showing her heart rate and oxygen levels.
All normal. All stable. All fine.
Five hundred and sixty-nine people were dead and her mother was fine.
"You did what you had to do," Soren said quietly.
"Shut up."
"You saved her. That's what matters."
"I said shut up."
Soren went quiet.
Cass looked at the girl three beds over. At her father. At the way he held her hand like he'd never let go.
She thought about the oxygen canister. About leaving it on the floor. About the people who'd fought over it. About whether any of them had survived.
She thought about the child crying in the corridor. About the door sealing. About the sound it had made.
Mara's eyes opened.
"Cass," she whispered.
Cass leaned closer. "I'm here."
"Eli." Mara's hand found hers. Her grip was stronger now. Urgent. "Eli knew about Marcus. About what he was doing. The sectors. The calculations. All of it."
Cass's chest went tight. "What?"
"He tried to stop him. Went to the Council. They wouldn't listen. Said Marcus was too valuable. That the system needed him." Mara's eyes were wet. "So Eli went after him himself. Tried to disable something. Some kind of failsafe. Marcus caught him."
"The accident."
"Wasn't an accident." Mara's grip tightened. "They killed him, Cass. The Council. Marcus. They killed him because he tried to do the right thing. Because he tried to save people."
The monitor beside the bed beeped steadily. The IV dripped. Somewhere in the medical bay, someone coughed.
Cass looked at her mother. At the tears on her face. At the truth in her eyes.
She thought about Eli. About his dog tags around her neck. About the way he used to ruffle her hair and call her "little scavenger" and promise her everything would be okay.
She thought about Marcus. About his equations. About his dead man's switch. About the way he'd made himself necessary.
She thought about Finn, wherever he was, whatever he'd found.
"Mom," she said. "What else did Eli know?"
Mara opened her mouth to answer.
The lights went out.
Emergency lighting kicked in a second later, bathing everything in red. An alarm started. Different from before. Deeper. More urgent.
Soren's radio crackled. A voice came through, distorted by static: "All Security personnel, Code Black. Repeat, Code Black. Central filtration hub. Multiple casualties. Chief Engineer Marcus Osric is—"
The transmission cut off.
Cass was already moving. She pulled her hand free from her mother's grip and ran for the door.
"Cass, wait—" Soren started.
She didn't wait. She hit the corridor at a full sprint, her boots pounding against the metal floor, her lungs burning, Eli's dog tags bouncing against her chest with every step.
Behind her, Mara's voice, weak but clear: "Cass, he knew about Patient Zero too. He knew what they did to—"
The medical bay door slid shut, cutting off the rest.
Cass ran.