Chapter 7: What Mara Owes

She knew his name. That was the worst part.

Bram Kessler. She'd heard it in a hundred whispers in the six months after she first came down this tunnel, the king of the Eastline, a man who'd turned a dead subway into a kingdom of forty people and a lot of knives. She'd met him once. It had been enough.

"Let him go, Bram," she said.

"Which one of you do you think is in charge here?" Bram pressed the knife a hair closer. A thin line of red welled up at Tobias's collar. Tobias didn't flinch. He just stared up at the ceiling, jaw tight, breathing carefully through his nose. "Funny thing. When I last saw you, you were crawling out of my tunnel with a bag of my medicine. Cost me a good man, that did. Marcus died eight days later. Fever. Do you remember Marcus?"

"I remember he was dying when I found him. I remember I told you that."

"You told me a lot of things."

"I took the antibiotics because my own patient was going to die without them. I'd have paid you. I didn't have anything to pay with." She kept her voice level. It was the voice she'd used on the ward for fifteen years, the one that said I'm not afraid of you, and neither should you be of me. "That was a year and a half ago."

"Interest adds up."

One of the other raiders laughed. There were more of them now, stepping out of the alcoves, a ragged ring of dirty faces in the flashlight glow. Women, too, and a couple of teenagers. Their coats were patched with road signs and carpet and tarp, every scrap of colour that the ash hadn't eaten. Most of them looked more tired than dangerous. That didn't make them safe.

"I'll make you a deal," Bram said. "Seeing as you're old friends."

"I'm listening."

"You owe me. He" and he waggled the knife, "looks like he can be useful. What do you do, friend?"

Tobias's eyes slid sideways. "I'm an engineer."

"Is that so?" Bram glanced at one of his people, a skinny kid with a shaved head and a sour mouth. "Dev. What do we need, again?"

"The generator, boss."

"The generator." Bram removed the knife, slowly, and sat back on his heels. "We've got a diesel generator that's been dead eleven days. That's lights, that's the water pump, that's the ventilation. Forty people, one tunnel. If it doesn't come back soon, people start coughing. People start dying. You fix it, I call us even. You walk out of here, both of you. No knife, no bad blood."

"How long?" Mara asked.

"You tell me. You've got an engineer." He stood up, wiped the blade on his thigh, and grinned. "Let's say two hours."

"We don't have two hours."

"Everyone's got two hours." Bram's grin didn't move. "That's what the Concord's about to find out, up there."

They put Tobias's hands free but kept two rifles on him the whole way. The raiders' camp was a half mile on, a wide dark chamber where an old station had once been. Mattresses lined the walls. A hundred little cook fires glowed in tin cans. Kids ran between the beds, grubby and loud, and one of them, a girl of about six with a missing front tooth, stared at Mara as she passed and whispered, "Are you the nurse?"

Mara's heart did something strange.

"I used to be," she said.

The generator sat at the back of the chamber, a big squat green machine with a dozen fuel lines snaking out of it. Tobias walked around it twice with a lantern in his hand. He ran his fingers along the housing. He opened a panel, peered at it, closed it. Then he crouched, and for the first time since she'd seen him in the pharmacy, the tired lines in his face smoothed out, and he looked like himself.

"Injector's gummed up," he said. "And you've got water in the fuel. Who's been filling this thing?"

"Dev," said Bram.

"Dev needs a lesson." He rolled up his sleeves. "I need a bucket, a clean rag, and something to siphon with. And somebody to hold the light."

"I'll hold it," Mara said.

She knelt beside him while he worked. It was strange how easily it came back, passing him tools, steadying the lantern, her hands moving a half second ahead of his. They'd done this a hundred times. A leaking sink. A busted lawn mower. The crib, once, when she was pregnant with Wren and neither of them could figure out the instructions. He'd sworn at that crib in three languages. She'd laughed so hard she'd had to sit down on the floor.

"Hand me the wrench. No, the other one."

"This one?"

"The, yeah. Thanks."

Their fingers brushed. Neither of them said anything.

Behind them, the raiders had gone back to their business, though two rifles still watched. Somewhere in the chamber, a baby fussed, and a woman started singing softly. It was an old lullaby, one Mara half remembered. She found she was humming along under her breath before she could stop herself.

Tobias went still.

"What?" she said.

"Nothing. That's the song. The one with the moon."

"It's just a song."

"You hummed it every night for Wren."

"Tobias."

"I know. I know. I'm not saying anything." He turned back to the machine, and she saw the corner of his mouth lift, just barely. "Hold the light a little higher."

Forty minutes later, the generator coughed. Then it roared. Every light in the chamber snapped on at once, bare bulbs hanging from the ceiling on cords, and the whole place erupted in cheers. Kids shrieked. Somebody banged a pot. An old man with a cane sat down on the nearest mattress and openly wept.

Bram watched it all with his arms crossed. When the noise settled, he looked at Tobias for a long moment.

"Well, I'll be damned," he said. "That's a real engineer."

"Told you."

"Debt's paid. You're free to go." He jerked his chin down the tunnel. "I'll give you a guide as far as the stockyard."

"Thank you," Mara said, and meant it.

She was turning to follow when she saw it.

In the corner, hanging off a hook above a workbench, was a little shortwave radio, hissing softly. And pinned to the wall beside it was a big paper map, a road map, the old kind, covered in grease pencil. One spot in the north was circled three times in thick black.

Cradle Valley.

Around it, in Bram's blocky handwriting, were notes. Midnight. Seeds. 2 trucks. 30 men. And below that, a line she read three times, the words going cold in her mouth.

Leave 4 PM. Take the engineer before the Concord does.

Bram had come up beside her. He wasn't smiling now.

"I heard the broadcast too, Holloway," he said softly. "I'm not a fool. Forty people can't eat gratitude. We're going to that vault. And I figure the man who built the lock just walked right into my tunnel."

Behind them, every rifle in the chamber came up at once,