Juno set the blackened core on a piece of broken tile and moved her hands away from it.
The hospital technician leaned closer without touching. A blister had risen along the casing where the last charge had gone through. On one side the metal was pale and crusted; on the other, it had melted around the contact like wax around a wick.
“Nothing left?” he asked.
“Nothing we can use.”
He looked at the barrier housing behind her. Kellan had carried it back from the bus route with soot ground into his sleeves. Now its good ribs stood against the corridor’s weak outer section, carrying ordinary timber between them. People passed inside the braced turn, slowly and in the order Tessa had worked out. The sight should have satisfied Juno. The housing was still doing useful work.
It did not stop her hearing every blow against the hunters’ barricade.
“We have a battery,” the technician said.
She almost reached for her tools before asking where it had come from.
