The Breach

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

The speakerphone went to static. Paige stared at it for less than a second, and then grabbed a pair of jeans from the floor and threw them at Travis. By the time he caught them, she was reaching for her own clothes.

"You seem to know more than I do," he said. "Mind sharing?"

"I have a guess," she said. "With gaps."

"More than I have." He stepped into the jeans and pulled them up.

Paige buttoned her own pair, then slipped her shirt over her head and grabbed the rifle again.

"Do the words Tangent or Breach mean anything to you?" she said.

"No."

"Then I couldn't explain it if we had an hour-" The hum of an automatic weapon sounded through the nearest air vent. "And we don't have an hour."

She opened the cabinet front of her nightstand and took out a.45, along with two spare magazines.

"Do you know how to shoot a gun?" she said.

He nodded. She took a step toward him, then stopped, sizing him up one last time. More gunfire, and a small popping explosion, transmitted through the ductwork. She came forward and handed him the pistol and ammo. Already she was on her way out of the room, grabbing the backpack and shouldering it as she went.

He followed, as his most obvious question finally surfaced. "How the hell did I get here?"

Paige checked the hallway outside her bedroom, and looked satisfied that it was clear. "I'm pretty damn curious about that myself," she said, and moved out of the room. With the rifle shouldered, Paige made her way toward the living room, ready to kill anything that appeared in front of her. She wasn't crazy about turning her back on the man with her-she realized she hadn't even asked him his name-but the situation demanded a few risks. Whoever he was, her own choice of attire a few moments earlier-none-seemed to imply that she trusted him.

The living room was clear. Beyond the door, shouts echoed along the primary corridor.

How could she have possibly made it back to Border Town alive? She'd been strapped down on a makeshift torture table, probably halfway dead, surrounded by enemies in the most remote place she'd ever seen. How had three days taken her from that place to her bedroom, standing around in the buff with some guy she'd never met before, who hadn't heard of Tangent?

Had her father survived, too?

Hope and fear pulled her concentration in opposite directions, neither useful right now. Facing the door, she blocked off both feelings, then glanced over her shoulder at the stranger.

"Don't shoot anything I'm not already shooting at," she said, then added, "unless it shoots at you first."

The guy shrugged, not even trying to hide his disorientation.

She found herself staring at him a second longer. He wasn't bad-looking. Then she turned and crossed to the door, and with a steadying breath, pulled it open and stepped through.

People were running in the corridor, all of them Tangent personnel. They were confused, partly by the explosions but more so, Paige thought, by their own fractured memory. Only a few-those who belonged to the detachments-carried weapons, but even these were looking to others for direction, and finding no help.

If her guess-her guess with gaps-was right, every one of them had just skipped over three days of memory in an instant. Three days. The interval of the Jump Cut. How the hell had it affected the entire building?

And how had Pilgrim made that happen? Obviously, the raid was coming from his people. Pilgrim himself was probably with them.

The Jump Cut's effect should only last a few minutes. That was the upside. The downside: Pilgrim would know that. Would plan for that. Would seek to take control of Border Town in those few minutes.

Down the hall, smoke poured from the seams of the elevator doors. At that moment another explosion, from somewhere in the uppermost levels, set the walls vibrating. People nearby flinched, maybe expecting the ceiling to come down. Maybe it would. Paige noticed a few of them staring at her as if she were a ghost. On some level she understood the logic of that, but it was one more thing she couldn't afford to dwell on right now.

What would Pilgrim have to do, to get control right away?

That was easy. The nerve center of the building, Security Control, was right below Defense Control. With the Whisper-there was no question he had it with him-he would know the codes for every system in the building. Systems that could be used against them easily.

She turned to the nearest group of armed operators, meaning to call them to her and lead them to the stairs. They could reach Security Control in about sixty seconds. But before she could say anything, jets of white gas erupted from the ventilation system overhead. For a moment she thought the fire suppression system had kicked on and begun pumping halon through the vents. Then she got her first smell of it.

Not halon.

Of course. Of course Pilgrim would trigger this system. So fucking simple a move.

She spun, thinking to shepherd the others into her residence, already aware that it was a dead option: the vents in there were pumping the stuff out too. She met their eyes, one by one-some of them were already succumbing to the gas-and settled on the stranger's gaze for some reason. Confused as he must be, he had a tight leash on his fear. She wondered again who he was.

Then her knees gave, and just as her vision failed, she saw him step forward to catch her, and then everything was gone.