“Copy,” she said, letting her suit amplify her voice. It had taken her years to remember that people couldn’t see her nodding her head while she was encased in metal and petroplas.
Thanks to rescuers’ exclusive access to GSAR’s vast collection of security-system emergency keys and overrides, it only took her a few moments to breach the business’s front door and duck inside. Outside of the hearts of the rescuers, those keys were probably GSAR’s most valuable asset.
Other than the corner to Taz’s right, which was occupied by a huge denscrete block that looked like it had crashed through the ceiling, the rest of the room seemed inviting. Soothing colors, springy wood floors, mirrored walls. A scattering of shoes, plus upended tables with broken crockery under them and cushions scattered about, made it look like the aftermath of an exuberant pillow fight.
Shen, Moyo, and Rylando followed right after her. Moyo planted herself in front of what looked like a vault door to what was now the storeroom, nose to the seam where it met the floor. The hellhound loved meeting new people.
Shen made a lightning-fast run around the room and disappeared into what the plans said should be a kitchen, then returned to sit next to Rylando’s foot and look up at him alertly. He smiled and patted her head. “Yes, Shen, people will soon need herding.”
Taz laughed. “She loves having someone to look after, doesn’t she?”
“Yes,” Rylando agreed with amusement, “and telling them what to do.”
Her suit flashed an alert. “My scans say the door is a standard internal pivot-hinge. The frame is bent at the upper left corner. I think I can straighten it enough to free the door.”
He nodded. “Anything above us we should know about?”
She checked the plans as she focused deep scans upward. “Roof is solid denscrete and intact.” She pointed to the block that had cratered a hole in the corner. “I don’t know where that came from. Building headspace storage, maybe? Nothing on the plans.” She stepped closer and extended her mech suit’s vertical jacks. “Please ask Moyo to move for a minute.”
Rylando and Shen stepped back into the middle of the room. Moyo rose and crossed to stand beside them, but her attention remained on the door.
The jacks snugged into the doorframe, then slowly expanded to lift pressure off the frame. She kept an eye on the ceiling scans. At the bottom, the springy wood buckled and splintered, but the plascrete subfloor held. The moment the readings said the frame evened out, she hammered the door once on the non-hinged side. It bounced open with a crash. Only her armored fist stopped it from unhelpfully banging closed again.
When she retracted the jacks, the frame sank, but held firm. The thick vault door would probably never close again. “Scans clear.” She marched backward four long steps and stopped.
Before Rylando could move, a bronze-haired man came out of the storeroom. Once away from the door, he bent over, breathing deep. “Grácias a Diós para aire fresco!” Very likely the owner of the Spanish-accented voice from their first contact. Sweat rings dampened the armpits of his casual green tunic.
Taz knew the storeroom had plenty of fresh air, or they’d have all been unconscious, but the stress of the situation had probably made it seem stuffy.
Rylando moved closer to the opening. “I’m coming in with medical equipment. I have two trained rescue dogs with me. If it’s okay, they’d like to make friends.”
“Yes, of course,” said a soft, feminine voice from within.
Taz stayed in her suit but retracted her helmet. Distressed people responded better to a human face than a hunk of metal, even though she’d printed flower designs on the outside.
Within a few minutes, five barefoot adults and one barefoot teenager carrying a clingy toddler stood in the main room. Taz’s scans said none had major injuries, but she’d prefer to confirm that with the better medical scanner from Rylando’s medical pack.
Shen ran through the group like they were an agility course, then vanished into the storeroom after Rylando. Cheerful, friendly Moyo circled the group slowly. When she caught someone’s eye, she sidled closer. People found themselves smiling and petting the big, goofy head before they realized she’d suckered them into it.
Zero-heads like Captain Bhayrip thought animals were a nuisance. In Taz’s opinion, teams like Rylando’s should be a part of every rescue involving people.
The soft-voiced, brown-skinned woman wearing a loose tunic and pants introduced herself as Vangeli, the co-instructor of a meditation class. Her serene nature seemed to be a good model for the others, though it might also be her active empath talent.
Taz had no intention of asking. For one, it helped the other victims as much as Moyo did, especially people like the claustrophobic man. For another, despite a decade of Central Galactic Concordance anti-discrimination laws, smart minders didn’t announce their talents to strangers. Just like Taz had never admitted to anyone that she was more than just the telekinetic the CPS thought. She was also a sifter.
That talent had shown up several years after her teke, long after her CPS testing and training ended. Once she’d realized she wasn’t warping toward delusional, she’d secretly researched how to use it. She’d gotten pretty good at telling when someone was lying or about to get violent, and could usually sense activated minder talents in others if she was close enough. However, she mostly tanked at being able to affect the brain chemistry in anyone.
High-level sifters could dope people to insensible, or flood them with happy hormones like they’d taken la-la chems, or make them trusting and talkative during interrogations. She could barely sense brain receptors at all. Her trauma-medicine training didn’t offer much about the nuances of neurotransmitters and hormone generation.
She didn’t dare ask the CPS, or they’d put her on heavier minder drugs that required more stringent monitoring. Her current drug-evasion method of taking the drugs, getting tested, then dosing herself with a black-market reverse wouldn’t work if they checked more frequently than once a quarter.
Rylando’s tone sounded in her earwire. “Could you call in the floater? Casualty is a female, broken leg and dislocated hip. Tried to heal herself with her minder talent and nauseated herself.”
“Will do,” Taz subvocalized. “In the meantime, I’ll get names for the records.”
“Good idea.”
Sending detailed navigation instructions to the self-propelled emergency-medical capsule waiting outside only took a few seconds. Once she stepped out of her mech suit, she realized she had a rapt audience in the teenager, who’d handed the toddler off to what looked like the mother.
She grinned. “If we have time, I’ll show you how it works.”
The boy started to nod, then glanced toward this bronze-haired man and dropped his gaze.
“Is that a hellhound?” asked the woman now holding the toddler. A Spanish accent softened her consonants. “Such bright colors.”
Taz chuckled. “I know, right? Subcaptain Delroinn says she’s a teenager experimenting with her style.” Rylando traded with the commercial body parlor on the space station to keep Moyo from looking like a nightmare menace. He said it hurt Moyo’s feelings when people were scared of her.
The actual teenager in the room, whose hair and glittery surface skin art put dazzling interstellar spectra to shame, rolled his eyes.