Dead Space by Kali Wallace (top romance novels txt) 📕

“It’s been broken forever,” Hunter put in. “David filed about fifty reports asking for a surveillance specialist to come fix it.”

I had never heard of a Parthenope surveillance system being down for so long, in any part of any station, without the company jumping to fix it. I wondered why Sigrah hadn’t mentioned it. It seemed like a rather important detail to leave out when we were supposed to be identifying a killer.

I said, “The Overseer should also have been throwing warnings to HQ constantly.”

Van Arendonk made a frustrated noise. “I can only see what the Overseer is showing me, but it doesn’t appear to have been a priority. It’s a low-shielding zone that’s off-limits to crew, so nobody has reason to spend much time there.”

That wasn’t good enough. There had to be something else going on to make the Overseer dismiss the danger of leaving a large portion of the station, a dangerous potion of the station, unwatched. But the lack of tunnel surveillance was only one part of the problem. “Somebody had to be in the wrong place during the attack. Maybe it looks like they were in their private quarters or taking a fucking piss or—fuck me, or anywhere surveillance doesn’t reach.”

“Marley,” van Arendonk said, “listen to me. I have tracking data for everyone at the time of the attack. Everyone.”

Fuck. That wasn’t possible. He had to be missing something. He might only have access to the tracking data, but the Overseer had a whole lot more than that, and it would flag any inconsistencies. There were ways to falsify surveillance and tracking data with a deepfake, but it was basically impossible to do quickly or with little notice. I had never heard of it being done successfully in a station run by an Overseer. There would be evidence that the ID scans or cameras or data lines had been tampered with. There would likely be glitches all over any audio and visual recordings. Parthenope’s stations had too many cameras, too many audio recorders, too many sensors, too many ID trackers for convincing fakery. There would always be something the Overseer could flag as suspicious. A footstep where none should be. A shadow with no source. Complete silence in a room where a person should be breathing.

I was grasping at straws. “So who was alone and not moving? In a room by themselves? Where does the Overseer pick up any audio-video misfit?”

“I am quite far out of my depth here,” van Arendonk said.

“There has to be something. Look again.”

“By all means, Safety Officer Marley, please come back here and look for yourself. This is a task better suited to an analyst, don’t you think? I should contact HQ for expanded data access.”

I started to snipe back at him, even though he was right, but Adisa spoke first.

“There’s another possibility,” he said. “There could be somebody else here.”

For a long moment, nobody reacted.

Hunter let out an uneasy laugh. “What? You mean, on Nimue?”

“A stowaway? Doing, what? Sneaking around the station?” I wanted to laugh too, but Adisa was not joking. His suggestion was completely serious. I started to shake my head. “That’s not possible. There’s too much surveillance. Even the transportation . . . it’s not possible.”

“It’s not likely, but it’s always possible,” Adisa said. “It’s something we have to consider.”

It wasn’t as though a stowaway could have just happened by, parked a ship, and sneaked inside. Nimue was eighteen hours from the nearest station. Nobody could approach unnoticed. There was only one place for a ship to dock, and it was under constant surveillance. Even getting from the ship to the cargo transport tunnels, if that’s where somebody meant to hide, would have them passing by countless points of Overseer security and surveillance. And that was before they reached the tunnels, where they would have to remain inside a protective suit constantly to avoid the radiation. They would need food, water, warmth. They would need a way to communicate.

Mary Ping had asked, What are you doing here? Not Who are you? or What do you want? The person in the mech suit was not a stranger.

It had to be one of the ten crew members left on Nimue. A sophisticated surveillance hack, maybe, but behind it would be a face we already knew. Somebody we could identify and confine. Somebody we could find and stop before they killed again.

“I need to get back to the Overseer,” I said.

“Please do,” said van Arendonk. “It’s growing impatient with my clumsiness.”

Adisa said, “Hugo, get over to Res to help Ryu keep an eye on the crew. Sigrah and Delicata especially. We’re heading back now.”

“Good. I’ll—”

Van Arendonk’s voice cut off abruptly.

“Hugo?” Adisa said.

There was no reply. Silence. Not a chirp, not a crackle, nothing.

“Hugo? I didn’t catch that.” He lowered his radio slowly. “If he’s right—”

An earsplitting wail interrupted him. It was so loud and so high it made my prosthetic ear squeal in protest. Lights flashed with startling, searing brightness. There was another blast of sound before the Overseer’s voice came from the radios and nearest control console.

“Warning. The station is being placed on lockdown due to the potential for exposure to harmful radiation.” The words echoed in stereo, just a beat offset from one another. “Warning. All personnel must find their way to a safe room immediately.”

“What?” I said. “What the fuck is happening?”

“Warning. The station is being placed on lockdown due to the potential for exposure to harmful radiation.”

My hand went to the radiation sensor at my belt. The values were still within the safe range. On the high side of the safe range, but not high enough to trigger a warning. The station alarm screamed again.

“Nearest safe room,” Adisa said to Hunter. “Where is it?”

“Warning. All personnel must find their way to a safe room immediately.”

“Shit, shit.” Hunter unsnapped her tool bag from the railing and slung it over her shoulder. “The furnace control room is closest. Over there, there’s a ladder. All the way up. Come