I smiled, even though she couldn’t see it through my mask. “Are you the base commander?” I asked.
“I’m the interim commander. General Morius is away. I’m Lieutenant General Kora Imbor.”
“May I call you Ms. Imbor?” I asked. “Lieutenant General is a mouthful.” When she nodded, I continued, “Ms. Imbor, we have received a credible threat that one of our last two shipments was compromised. I was dispatched to verify the authenticity of such a threat.”
I watched her connect the dots. “I have House Rockhurst nanos, as do all base personnel.”
“It is merely a precaution,” I soothed. “Have any of your workers experienced any recent illness or strange behavior? Aggression, fear, anxiety?”
She frowned. “A few of the miners attacked their guards yesterday morning,” she said slowly. “The guard was bruised, but he recovered. The perpetrators have been dealt with.”
Dread wrapped sharp claws around my heart. “Killed?” I asked.
“No, but they’ll wish they had been by the time their punishment is over.”
“I will need to examine them, too,” I said firmly. “But first, if you wouldn’t mind following the light with your eyes.” I held the light up before she could protest and she tracked it. I quickly shined it in each of her eyes, then clicked it off. “I don’t see any signs of illness,” I said.
The elevator opened and Ms. Imbor breathed out a silent sigh of relief. She might be feeling better, but once Ian and I descended, we’d be trapped. I reached out for the signals flying through the air, but they were just typical base messages, nothing to indicate they were on to us.
We stepped into the elevator and Ms. Imbor pressed the only button. The ride took nearly twenty seconds. Just how deep underground were we? Ian—Noah, I reminded myself—was tense beside me.
The doors opened and I half expected a platoon of soldiers to be waiting for us. Instead, we were greeted by a wide stone and plastech corridor. Two meters in was a guard’s station with a body scanner. It was protected behind thick metal bars. A wide metal door was set into the wall on our right.
Ms. Imbor strode forward toward the guard and waved her arm over the chip reader. The gate popped open. She held it and gestured to the chip reader. “Scan in, please,” she said. I waved my right arm over the reader and Ian—Noah—scanned his left arm. The guard briefly looked at our IDs before he waved us through the scanner.
I passed through cleanly, but Ian wasn’t so lucky. “Please hand over your weapons,” Ms. Imbor said. “They’ll be returned to you when you leave.”
Ian grumbled under his breath, but removed two blasters and a long knife. When he went through the scanner again, it didn’t go off. I didn’t know how many weapons he had left, but the loss of two blasters hurt.
Ms. Imbor led us to her office. I made sure she caught me peering closely at the few people we passed. Her office was a small room, sparsely furnished, but nicer than most front-line bases. She settled behind her desk and waved me to the chair in front of her.
“You think I have a rogue virus spreading through my base,” she said without preamble. “One that can overcome nanobots.”
I held my hands up in a placating gesture. “No one is saying that,” I said. My voice was still muffled by the filtration mask I hadn’t removed, underscoring the inherent lie in my words.
“There might be a small issue with a few of the workers,” I continued, “that might result in erratic behavior. MineCorp sent me to be their canary. I hired Noah here”—I hiked a thumb over my shoulder at Noah—“to protect me if there is a problem. And of course you will be compensated and the workers replaced. If needed.”
“You expect me to shut down mine operations while you play doctor because of a rumor?” she asked, an impatient edge in her voice.
“No, of course not,” I said immediately. “Give me the locations of the last two shipments of workers and I will go to them. And I wouldn’t be here if the executives didn’t think it was worth checking.”
“Did your bosses tell you exactly how deep our miners are?” she asked with a skeptical frown.
“Err, no, not exactly,” I said. “They decided expediency was preferable to in-depth knowledge.”
“It’s over an hour trek to get down to the working mine levels,” she said. “Then anywhere from ten minutes