Tyler turned slowly to me, and I wondered if I’d said too much.

“Yes. Yes, they have.” Tyler’s eyes met mine, and even through the glass of the helmet, I could feel the intensity of his stare, but I didn’t know him well enough to know what it meant.

Sweat trickled down my forehead, and I itched to wipe my face but couldn’t. Not in the suit. The salty drops stung my eyes, and I tried to blink them away.

“Ten more minutes, and then we get a break.”

“Okay.” I needed that break. I wasn’t even sure I’d last the ten minutes. I had to get out of this suit, even if for only a second. I needed to be able to breathe. And if I wasn’t mistaken, it smelled as if my hair was frying in here.

I took a breath, aiming my hose in another direction, counting down the minutes to the break. My breathing technique kept me calm and steady despite my growing anger and unease.

“You want to make sure you keep moving. Maximize the power of the 320zpd.”

“Right.” The more I moved the liquid around, the less the ground would open up under me. Or that was Tyler’s theory. I was doing my best, but it didn’t seem to make a difference. Nothing we were doing out here made any difference. Something was off about this whole job.

If the base was really that endangered by this lava, then there would either have to be more than just me out here or I’d have to be scheduled for twenty-four/seven. But neither was happening. There was no way that Jason was going to risk the whole stability of the base just so he could torture me. It didn’t make sense.

Which meant that not only was it bullshit that the bots weren’t working, it was bullshit that this job was even a thing. I would bet my life that they didn’t even need the bots in the first place. That the bots were there to make some risk assessor happy. The base could probably withstand being surrounded by waves of lava.

So I was back to the original question: Why did Jason want me doing this particular job?

I was hot, but on the whole okay out here. Sure, the ground had cracked under my feet, but as long as I stayed aware, I should be okay. It was miserable—I’d give him points for that—but I was mostly safe.

I mimicked Tyler’s waving movement with the hose even though the whole process was an exercise in idiocy. I was feeling more bitter by the second, and it didn’t help my mood that I was fading in this heat. Fast. Each movement was taking more and more effort.