1527 hours
The air pressure at Earth sea level is approximately 14.7 pounds of pressure per square inch. The air in the gaming dome was held at a pressure closer to 10 pounds per square inch, still dense enough for easy breathing, close to the cabin pressure of a jetliner. The dome, roughly the diameter of a football field, held a volume of about 175,000 cubic meters of oxygen, imported nitrogen and helium left over from He3 mining.
When members of Piering’s A team tried to avoid the ambush by exiting and reentering the dome through another lock, the air pressure had been stable. When Gruber’s unfortunate mistake with the explosive device shattered the inner door and damaged the outer, it was as if the air was a living thing, seeking a path of exit, testing and pushing against the outer door as emergency blasts of Liquid Wall sought to heal the breaches before they became fatal.
But (and there is no way to put this delicately) there had been human beings in that airlock. When the inner door exploded, what remained of Gruber and Enroy was spread around the lock like a layer of lumpy raspberry jam and shredded pressure suit fabric. Nozzles that should have spread Liquid Wall evenly and swiftly were twisted by the blast, and jammed with human debris. Damage to the outer door became the weak point attracting every pressurized molecule of the oxygen-nitrogen-helium mix.
The crack deepened, and split, and the outer wall breached. Instantly, the airflow pushed against the opening, deepening, widening, and then ripping the door from the inside out.
The gaming dome became a screaming hell.
The warning klaxon was drowned out by the howl of air, and for the first time in her memory, Celeste panicked. Their men scrambled toward the open bubble above them, and Celeste screamed, her hands slipping on the ladder as she tried to climb in. Already, in mere seconds, the air was so thin that her lungs felt as if they were going to explode. Within moments, even if they made it into the bubble, it too would contain an atmosphere so thin that their lungs would hemorrhage no matter what they did.
She slid down the ladder, knocking Shotz back, furious at herself for losing focus. She fought to keep her head, vision swimming as she pulled herself up and into the bubble.
“Alexander!” she screamed. No one used Shotz’ given name, ever. She had barely used it even in their intimate moments. But some part of her, looking back through the hatch where he was six rungs below her, knew that there was a last time for everything.
She couldn’t breathe. She saw him struggling to lift himself, one agonizing rung at a time. She watched him stretch out his arm, hoping, and yet knowing hope was lost.
He grabbed the door, designed to close from inside so that air pressure would keep it sealed… and swung it closed on himself.
Celeste rolled over. She saw Thomas Frost reach the far door linking them to the next bubble, and turn the manual wheel to open it. When it opened, air from the next bubble blasted in like a bomb burst and sent him rolling.
The three of them flopped onto their backs, gasping like beached trout. She cursed her weakness, cursed the fear that coursed her veins like waves of lava. Cursed the shame she felt. Decades ago she had sworn that she would never allow herself to feel shame. She had been a child in war-torn Montreal, bereft of mother or father and forced to steal, and worse, just to survive. All gentleness had died within her then…
Until a man harder than the hate that sustained her had recruited her to a quixotic dream called Neutral Moresnot, a fantasy of creating their own nation. Somehow, this wild man had awakened a heart she had thought long dead.
She crawled up onto all fours, and staggered against the doorway, trying to peer down into the depths of the dome. Just machinery. She couldn’t see the ladder, but knew that Shotz’ strong hands no longer clutched at its rungs. Knew that somewhere far below them, he lay dead, blood foaming his nose and mouth. His hands, his loving hands would never again hold her. Touch her.
Celeste screamed, and screamed, until Fujita touched her shoulder, perhaps intending comfort. She wheeled, smashing him with a backhand. The sumo-sized Asian fell back, eyes wide, staring up at her as if viewing his own death.
She felt disconnected from herself, floating above her own head in some odd way. Shock, she recognized dimly, struggling for clarity. I am in shock.
She should have begun breathing deeply, slowing herself. Begun normalizing the systems now pumping overtime. But didn’t. She embraced this floating sensation, and dreaded its retreat. Dreaded what would happen when she plunged back down into grief.
She heard her own voice: “Can we… get his body?”
Fujita shook his head, eyes still focused on her face. “No. We have no pressure suits. We can’t open the door,” he said. “I think it’s over. The gamers could all be dead, Celeste. We need to-”
Shrieking, she lifted Fujita and slammed him into the wall. On Luna, the explosive uncoiling of her leashed rage and grief was almost enough to break bones.
She pushed her forearm against his neck, and Fujita struggled, barely able to breathe but afraid to fight back. He knew what would happen if he did.
“Shotz is dead,” he whispered in graveled tones. “Everything is blown to hell. We don’t know what to do-”
“Yes, he’s dead,” she said, the words ashes on her lips. “But I am alive. I am in charge now. This is all you need to know.”
His eyes locked with hers. The entire world achieved an eerie clarity: She saw every vein, every imperfection in his irises. She knew his mind, knew that he wondered if she was still entirely sane.
She didn’t know either. And frankly, she didn’t much care.
“Jeee-zus,” Scotty whispered. Darla’s eyes were wide as walls, arms folded tightly together. The other gamers were confused, startled, but none of them understood the enormity of what had just happened. No one who had spent time on Luna, or outside the protective envelope of Earth’s atmosphere, who had ever been near a pressure seal failure, let alone an explosive decompression, could feel anything but terror at the sound of that klaxon.
He had seen the fleshy results of mine accidents, construction failures and ignorant tourists. It wasn’t pretty: The human body is 60 percent water, and in vacuum, water boils.
“What happened?” Angelique asked.
“I’m not sure. Let’s make a guess: The pirates mined the doors, and our rescuers triggered a mine.” Scotty said.
“Damn,” Wayne said. “That means-”
“That people died out there. Probably our people. We need to move. The Pirates might be shaken enough to slow them down.”
“What if they aren’t?”
Scotty thought about that for a moment. “Then I really, seriously doubt that they’re in a good mood. We need to move. But only bubble to bubble now. No more moving in the in-betweens. There’s no air out there anymore.”
Fortunately, their path through the G-level bubbles down to H allowed them to move from one sealed environment to another. These were all unfurnished and unpainted Liquid Wall bubbles, none modified for gaming, most of them empty or crammed with crates. Every time Scotty opened a door, they tensed.
“Scotty?” Ali asked. “If the dome is breached, what then?”
“It depends on the size of the opening,” Scotty said. They stood on a sealed catwalk, a bubble used primarily to connect two other bubbles. Here there were no windows, and the walls dampened sound. “If it’s the size of your fist, the dome can heal itself. Some kind of threaded epoxy resin, I think. Larger than that, and if the mechs are operating, they will automatically try to fix it. Then there are work crews from Heinlein. I don’t know what’s going to happen here. We better assume we’re on our own, though.”
When they reached the next door, Scotty turned the manual wheel. It opened with a slight hisss that suggested the pressure level between bubbles wasn’t equalized. The sound made his skin creep, and he was happy when his crew was all in, and they could seal the door behind them.
“This is 100-G,” Darla said, dropping to her knees. “There should be an exit port to H level. From there… well, hold on to your butts, but Mama thinks we can take a shortcut to the end of the game.”
“What was supposed to happen?” Wayne asked.
She narrowed her eyes. “That would be telling…” Then the absurdity of her reply struck her, and she sighed. “Oh, fudge it. There was loads of running and jumping and fighting and climbing. And you would have rescued Professor Cavor from the caves, and then struggled to reach the sphere. You know, the spaceship. And from there… Game over.”
“So what do we face between here and the bottom?”
“I don’t know everything…” Her fingers scratched at the floor, and then she made an ah-hah sound, opened her multitool and pried harder. A popping sound, and the white tile slid up, exposing a steel-plated maintenance door. “But keep your eyes open,” she said. Her fingers found a ring and tugged, and the plate came up. Looking down she said: “Here we go!” and dropped down.
One at a time, they followed.