The critic dimpled at him in a practiced way and said, “I’m sure I will! This is all so exciting!”

Niko kept her face expressionless but rolled her eyes internally. Trust the rich to be spending more time worrying about fucking than getting away safely. No doubt Takraven had a clone body elsewhere, ready to be activated and his memories, or at least his memories up until his last backup, poured into it if the current body should die. That tended to make someone blasé about dangerous situations, although when push came to shove, she’d seen the survival instinct activated as strongly in a clone body as in any more singular form. No one liked to be obliterated, even if they knew they’d be re-created later.

The station shuddered again. “Are we being taken over?” Thorn asked.

It was a valid question. TwiceFar Station suffered frequent takeovers and turnovers, but almost all of them were bloodless.

“Too much damage for takeover,” Niko answered. “Whoever or whatever is doing this is trying to destroy the station. Nothing short of that. Skidoo, what’s the chatter on comms?”

“The station information net is being down, with available no news is being. Everything is being diverting to life support and the escape systems,” Skidoo said. “Directive is to being evacuating as quickly as possible. The explosions random are being, no pattern to them, no way to is predicting. Is getting out; is being doing so fast.”

Exiting the lift, they moved quickly, steps keeping time with the shrill whoop whoop whoop of the level’s alarm system as they took a slanting corridor down. Beings scrambled through the hallways around them, each intent on its own escape. A cloud of Fizziks zipped along, the tiny creatures that made up the group separating and flying past them at top speed, leaving behind a chitter-chatter and an odd, waxy smell.

Only two corridors to go, Niko was thinking, when the walls shook and groaned, the station’s underpinnings crying out in protest that echoed once again throughout the massive structure. With a crash, the nearest wall crumpled outward, the unexpected surge slamming into Arpat and smashing him against the other wall as Thorn and Talon, the two standing nearest him, leaped away.

Niko rushed to his side. He lay in a heap, lanky limbs outstretched, the immaculate black and white formal suit flooded with scarlet stains. The air reeked of copper and smoke. Lolola screamed and collapsed against the wall; Milly knelt beside her.

Niko held her hand to Arpat’s neck, searching for the pulse fluttering there, a weak pitter-patter. She swore. “Lassite!” she snapped over her shoulder.

He approached warily, tucking the red hood back, his tongue sampling the air. “He is dying, I can feel it,” he said. “We are forbidden to pass a certain edge, and that is where death crouches. I cannot heal him.”

“Cannot or will not?”

They stared at each other in silence.