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“The access ladders are all locked down,” the escort said “They put doors across theet up without permission”

Konecheck gave a wide, e not-quite-guns on him

“Peaches?”

“I don’t know Maybe we could find so else”

A like firecrackers “This,” he said, “is getting to be a long fucking day”

Chapter Twenty-five: Naomi

Hour by hour, history rolled out, every new s worse The newsfeeds from Earth and Mars, and then reports from Tycho Station and Ganymede filled with reporters and journalists blank with shock or else weeping The haes fro the coasts of the Atlantic with grinding waves shattering fourth- and fifth-story s An ar edge The planet she was so used to seeing glow as the city lightsdark The field hospital at Dakar where ash and stones rained down upon row after row of the dead The shaking UN spokes the death

of the secretary-general The void between the planets was alive with chatter and speculation, reports and theories and then conflicting reports and theories With the coht delay, it was al see at once

Which, she supposed, was how Marco had wanted it

The events in other places – things that would have been shattering on any other day – see out on Earth Yes, there had been an atte Yes, an OPA cell had taken control of the ports on Gany on between Martian escort ships and an unknown force near the Hungaria asteroids, but Earth was dying The sense that so vast had descended on all humanity was inescapable

Outside, in the co with delight In her assigned quarters, she watched with a growing nu else After half a shift, she turned the screen off Her own face reflected in the emptiness that followed looked like another stunned reporter searching for words and failing She pulled herself out of her crash couch and walked out to the coalley that her brain kept trying to recognize it, failing, and trying again An utterly unfamiliar space would have been easier than this architectural uncanny valley

“Hoy, Knuckles,” Cyn said, rising froehst, yeah?”

She , but Cyn didn’t sit back down Not the question of a friend wondering where she was going, but of a guard deed her expression more carefully

“This asn’t it? This hy he wanted me?”

“Marco son Marco,” Cyn said, and his voice eirdly gentle “He thought we should get you, so did, yeah? Why does why ht here”