Chapter 4

It was dark by the time I got back to the underground cooling station. But San Riva had no night. The heat above soaked down through the concrete, and the station was a pot slowly coming to a boil. Smoke had clogged the filtration system, the fans had stopped, and the indicator lights on the cooling pods went out one after another.

The floor in the center of the hall was packed with people. Some were alive, only unconscious. Some lay under silver emergency blankets and would never open their eyes again. I saw Noah kneeling in a corner, holding a woman's hand. His mother. Daniel crouched on the other side, his face buried in his feverish daughter's hair, his shoulders shaking.

Julian arrived with his crew just in time to see it. He stood in the doorway, his uniform still clean, still carrying the cold, filtered smell of the dome up on the ridge.

Nobody welcomed him.

Daniel looked up, his eyes red. "Captain, this afternoon my daughter was still asking me when you'd be back."

Julian opened his mouth. "Daniel, I didn't know the Lower City would—"

"Mara told you." Noah shot to his feet, his voice raw. "She told you from the start."

Everyone turned to Julian. Bracing myself on the wall, I walked slowly up to him. "Evelyn told you too. She called to you from inside the old water conduit. You heard her."

The blood drained out of Julian's face. "Where is she?"

I held his gaze. "Behind the water gate you sealed yourself."

He took a step back, as if he had lost his balance.

That was when Celine stepped forward. She wore a clean white sun wrap, not a speck of ash on her face. "Mara," she said softly, "I'm heartbroken too. But there's one thing I still can't work out." She looked around at the crowd. "Why today, of all days? Why exactly when my project review was happening and the civil defense crews had left the Lower City? And why does Mara seem to have known everything in advance?"

The hall went quiet. Julian looked more conflicted with every sentence she spoke.

Celine went on. "Mara has always been in charge of the sensors and the alert system. If she really did change the data, shouldn't we find that out first?"

I watched her. She did not even need to raise her voice. All she had to do was plant the suspicion. Someone else would turn it into a weapon for her.

Daniel's fists slowly closed.

Noah stepped in front of me. "She saved us."

Celine pressed her lips together, her eyes reddening slightly. "I never said she didn't save anyone. But what if she caused the disaster in the first place?"

Julian lifted his head, and the familiar coldness pressed the pain in his eyes back down. I knew he was about to choose the easiest answer to believe again.