Page 122 of Homebound
Oh, really.She spread her arms wide, surrounded by decaying machinery and nothing else. “Where do you find liquid nitrogen around here?”
“At the docks,” he replied, like Duh! it was totally obvious.
It wasn’t. “And take it away how?”
“I admit, we need a plan.”
A plan…
An idea formed in Gemma’s mind.
“Simon, I just thought of something.”
“What?” he sounded extremely wary.
“I will go to the docks. I will get myself hired for the day, and get us some liquid nitrogen.”
Simon tried very hard and failed to look like he thought her plan had merit.
“I hate to point it out, but you have a dismal track record of getting work at the docks.”
“I am positive I won’t fail this time.” Gemma was convinced of her success. She knew now where her mistakes with the mushroom man had lain, and she wouldn't be repeating them.
“Suppose you get a job,” Simon said slowly, “but liquid nitrogen isn’t something you can pick up carry away in your pocket.”
She smiled. “No. But I can pour it in a jar and walk away very slowly. You said we only need a gallon, to force-spin the ionic rotors.”
He wasn’t convinced. “It’s dangerous. Inside the docks, you’ll be on your own.”
“We may not have a choice.” She may not be physically strong and combat-ready, but she was able to bluff her way through the dock gates like nobody’s business. She touched his hand. “You can’t get within a mile of the docks. The security’s been increased after Perali tried to steal a freighter. They shoot aliens on sight. Me - nobody will suspect.”
“I don’t like your plan, Gemma.”
“Do you have a better one?”
“I don’t,” he hesitated slightly before adding, “but I have a jar.”
???
The daylight was still lingering when they returned to the Tana-Tana’s prime piece of junkyard real estate they called home. They came up to the place from the back, careful to avoid the street view. Gemma never saw a living soul anywhere around, but Simon had cautioned her time and again that the ruins had eyes and ears where you least expected them.
It was because of the daylight that Gemma spotted something strange sticking from the crawlspace under the building: a pair of feet clad in thick-soled boots. She stopped in her tracks.
“What is this?”
The question hung unanswered between them, and she knew with a sinking feeling what Simon didn’t want to confirm.
“Is this a dead body?”
Hating what she was about to see, she reluctantly approached the dark hollow under the bottom of their shack.
She expected to see a corpse.
What she hadn’t expected was to find a stack of them, a good dozen neatly piled up under the house like split firewood.
Recoiling, she fell back a step.
“Please tell me you didn’t kill all these people.”
