Amos ignored the homicidal tension in the air and looked at the gun. It wasn’t like anything he’d put his hands on before. The grip was hard ceramic with a contact interface running along the seam. The barrel was short and square and as wide across as his thumb. Konecheck loomed up over Sullivan, his swollen face a mask of rage and defiance, which was fine as long as it stopped there. “You going to use that, little man?”

“What’s it shoot?” Amos asked. “Tell me it ain’t one of those riot gear things. They give you real bullets down here, don’t they?”

Sullivan turned to him, the gun still trained on Konecheck. Amos smiled and very slowly, gently put his hand on the guard’s arm and drew it down.

“What the hell are you talking about?” Sullivan asked.

“Plan C,” Amos said. “That thing. Shoots real bullets, right? Not gel rounds or some wimpy shit like that?”

“They’re live rounds,” Morris said. “Why?”

“I was just thinking about how a gun makes a shitty metal punch.”

“Where are you going with it?” Clarissa asked.

“Thinking we’ve got three shitty metal punches,” Amos said. “Maybe we can punch some metal.”

The guns were biometrically linked to the guards in case someone like Peaches or Konecheck got hold of them, so Amos and Rona lowered themselves down into the muck instead of Amos going alone. The black sludge came up to Amos’ ankle, cold and slick. The lowest of the cabinet-like doors had its edge under the dark surface. Amos rapped on the metal with his knuckles, listening to the sound. The beam from the flashlight bounced, filling the shaft with twilight.

“Put a round here,” Amos said, putting a daub of muck on the steel. “And here. See if you can get us some fingerholds.”

“What if it ricochets?”

“That’ll suck.”

The first round left a hole in the steel covering maybe a centimeter wide. The second round, a little less. Amos tested the edges with his fingertips. They were sharp, but not knife-sharp. The black rain had soaked the shoulders of his shirt, and the back of it was clinging to his spine.

“Hey, Tiny,” he called. “You come down here a minute?”

After a short silence, Konecheck’s growl came down. “What’d you call me?”

“Tiny. Just come take a look at this. See if we’ve got something.”