She asked for the count again, the counting itself and not just the figure.
Sera took the request up to the Tern and sent it down the antenna to the dome, and Nemi’s voice came back an hour later, not printed this time but live, on the Tern’s link, crackling and thin, relayed down the lift shaft to the clip on Mara’s collar. She had moved it there from her wrist that morning, so she could hear it with both hands in the work.
“You want me to count the hospital again,” Nemi said. “The whole thing.”
“The third floor. You said count it twice. I counted your figures twice and they don’t agree with each other.”
“No,” Nemi said. “They don’t. That’s why I said it.”
Mara waited.
“The records say the third floor is empty,” Nemi said. “The hospital’s own register. Third floor, closed, evacuated, heat cut. It’s been on the register that way for a month. I went up there to look for blankets, the first week after the streets were sealed, because the register said it was empty and I thought there’d be stores.” A pause. “It isn’t empty.”
“How many?”
