Part 3

　　Casting Off

　　18

　　There were numbers on each of the pockets. Juliette could look down at her chest and read them, andso it occurred to her that they must have been printed upside down. They were there for her to read,and for no one else. She numbly¹ stared at them through her helmet visor while the door behind herwas sealed. There was another door, a forbidden one, looming² in front of her. It stood silently as itwaited to be opened.

　　Juliette felt lost in this void between the two doors, trapped in this airlock full of brightly coloredpipes jutting³ from the walls and ceiling, everything shimmering⁴ behind plastic-wrapped shrouds⁵.

　　The hiss⁶ of argon being pumped into the room sounded distant through her helmet. It let her knowthe end was near. Pressure built against the plastic, crinkling it across the bench and walls, wrappingit tightly around the pipes. She could feel the pressure against her suit, like an invisible hand gentlysqueezing.

　　She knew what was to happen next—and part of her wondered how she had gotten here, a girlfrom Mechanical who had never cared one whit about the outside, who had only ever broken minorlaws, and who would’ve been content for the rest of her life to live in the deepest bowels of the earth,covered in grease and fixing the broken things, little concern for the wider world of the dead thatsurrounded her …

 

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