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Nothing, but the happy whir of the centrifuge. Even little Wren must have been holding his breath. In the darkness and honeyed-buzz, Cass lost all orientation, felt herself spinning slowly in every direction at once, slipping across the frictionless floor without moving. Her forehead thunked hard against something. A wall? No, the floor. Or was it the ceiling? It was warm. Much too warm.
    A spark of light. Something moving in the darkness. Piercing cold in her hand, tiny, a splinter of icicle thrust through her palm. Wren. Lips to her ear. Calling her.
    “Take it, Mama,” his voice floated in nothingness. “Take it.”
    Quint. In complete darkness, somehow, impossibly, miraculously, he’d found what she needed. Cass moved heavy arms, threw open her coat, raised her shirt. The device implanted in the right side of her abdomen snicked open, accepted the tab, sealed itself. It would metabolize soon.
    Maybe soon enough. Maybe not.
    Gradually, the room slowed its spin, and Cass could tell she was lying on the floor. It was a start. She felt Wren lie down, curl up next to her. Clammy, trembling. Her mothering instinct wanted to soothe him, but a more powerful instinct refused. Survival.
    Outside, in the main room, the barest suggestion of sound: a light scuffling. Someone had found the doctor, shifted his corpse. It was then that the centrifuge completed its work, with a click that sounded like the racking of a shotgun, a beep like a klaxon. Reflexively, Cass squeezed Wren to her.
    Silence. Nothing. Then dread. The false wall decompressed, unsealed, slid open. The blue-white light bore down, pinning them to the floor.
    In the doorway stood the tall man.
    Cass felt Wren bury his face; her side, where his small body pressed against hers, grew warm, wet. The tall man glared down upon them, silent, sharp features like a bird of prey before the kill. His eyes locked with Cass’s. Smoldering.
    The pain was receding, but the quint hadn’t taken hold yet.
    “Fedor,” she rasped. “You’re too late. Overtapped. Me and the boy.”
    Fedor did not react.
    “Go home. Let us die in peace.”
    No reply, no hint that Fedor had heard her.
    “We’ll die together,” she bluffed. “The way it should be.”
    “Not yet,” Fedor replied, robotically. His eyes unfocused, stared through or beyond them.
    “I’ve got them,” he said, pimming someone far removed. “Yes, and the boy.”
    It was a one-sided conversation, but Cass knew to whom Fedor spoke.
    “ Da, OK, OK.”
    His eyes refocused on Cass.
    “He says I bring the boy,” Fedor said, with an Eastern European accent and a smile like a corpse with its lips stretched back over its teeth. “You? You may die.”
    Cass tensed, willed the quint into her bloodstream, pleaded with her nerves to accept the chems. Fedor took a step into the room, and then stopped. Held, like a wolf catching an unfamiliar and unexpected scent.
    “Everything alright in here?” came a voice from the main room.
    Fedor turned slowly on one heel. Cass forced herself to an elbow, peered around Fedor’s legs to see who had spoken. He was just sitting there, on the steel table in the middle of the main room, like he’d been there all day, hands on his knees, feet dangling.
    “Reckon not,” said Three, glancing to the crumpled remains of the doctor.
    “Doctor’s closed, friend,” Fedor answered, emotionless. “Time you go somewhere else.”
    Three sniffed.
    “I’d rather not.”
    Fedor advanced on him a few paces, drew up to his full height.
    “Not a request, friend,” said Fedor. “There is private business here.”
    Three shrugged.
    “I’ve got some business with the two of ’em myself. Maybe you can wait outside.”
    “I don’t think you understand, friend.”
    “I don’t think you understand, friend .”
    Three leaned slightly to one side, made eye contact with Cass.
    “Hey kid,” he called.
    Wren made no initial response, but Cass nudged, encouraging him. He peeked up, terrified. Three