Malik led her up curling stairwells through the draughty older parts of the hospital, towards the roof. Here, the sounds of sirens echoed in more easily from the outside world.
"You landed your craft on the roof?" Vera asked her. The other woman had been dourly silent since they'd left the breakroom.
"Only place I thought there wouldn't be looters," said Malik. She hesitated a moment, in front of a keyed door, before Vera opened it for her. Another moment's hesitation as she stepped through, a frozen posture, gaze blank yet eyes saccading at imagined data input. Vera knew that look. She'd worn it herself many times, up until a few scant months ago.
Malik caught her looking. "Sorry. Just couldn't remember what my route down here was for a second. I'm fine in the air, but ten minutes in a city and I'm lost without a GPS."
"Malik, how are you still augmented? Has the signal... Did you..."
"No," said Malik, "I didn't go all Jack Nicholson, if that's what you're asking." They stepped out into a hallway, and Malik led her maybe ten meters before they stepped back into another stairwell.
"I... am afraid I don't understand."
"Jack Nicholson, he was the dad in The Shining." Malik turned her head to frown at Vera in teasing concern. "Wait, have you never seen it? It's a classic."
"Before my time," muttered Vera. "And yours, as well."
"Ha! Right. Lady, you have no culture."
At least she's calmer, thought Vera. Malik didn't seem like the type to go to pieces, but personal danger wasn't the same at all as watching friends or even strangers suffer or die. The end of the world as you knew it could hit people hard, especially if it started with those closest to home.
She shut off memories of Olaf and all of her other colleagues still in the ER ward as rapidly as they emerged.
Triage.
"How exactly are you unaffected, Ms Malik?"
"Got an expert looking out for me. The latest firmware upgrade was a trojan horse. Sarif's IT guy manages firmware upgrades for everybody, he's too paranoid to dole them out until he's sure they're stable. So he figures out there's something wrong with the upgrade, holds off on loading it until he's sure about it, and that's how everybody at Sarif got out from under that particular boot." Malik glanced back, smiled momentarily. "He even sent out a blanket warning to our collaborators. LIMB included."
"Impressive."Faint relief at the idea that Sarif and the Detroit LIMB clinic were probably all right, equally faint disgusted guilt at the idea she could care more about the few people she knew who had been miraculously spared than the countless strangers who had not been.
"Yeah, he's an arrogant jerk half the time but he's worth it. I don't think we're ever going to hear the end of it after this."
There was a security team coming up behind them, movements brisk and urgent. Vera waved her pass at them and they went by without a word. One of them was even cogent despite their long hours on shift to recognize her as they went by, nod once in respect.
"Malik, what exactly happened to Jensen?" It wouldn't do much for Malik's mood, but now seemed the best time to broach the subject. The hospital was locked down enough that they didn't need to worry about their own safety and Vera wanted to know what happened before she reached Jensen.
Malik paused for a moment on the stairs, and her grip on the rail went taut. "You'll see," she said tightly.
"Ms Malik, I'd prefer to go into this informed. What exactly happened?"
The other woman shook her head, but at Vera's motions to do so she resumed the walk upwards. "I don't. I wasn't there, Doc. I just showed up afterwards. I found him...floating."
"At Panchaea," Vera guessed.
"How'd you know?"
"I didn't."It wasn't much of a guess. She should have known Adam would head straight like a heatseeker for the epicentre of whatever catastrophe was unfolding.
The stairwell terminated with a doorway, dimly lit by an old bulb that they'd never seen fit to replace with the LED lighting that tended to be standard these days. This wing of Akranes was old. It was locked for everyone but maintenance and building operations; Vera could see light flickering through a neat bullet hold Malik had made through the lock. She could hear the rain pounding outside, see the door rattling gently in its hinges.
Malik held the door for her. "He wasn't conscious. I don't know how long he was." Her voice rusted, fell apart starting at frayed edges, trailed off.
"Why did you come to me?" Vera asked.
Malik shrugged. "I didn't know who to trust anymore, and he said we could probably..." she trailed off, had to restart. "We've had powerful enemies for a while now but, Vera, he was right there when it all went down. Who knows what he-what someone might think he-"
Despite it all, something in her woke up as she saw Malik's VTOL. She found herself running, fingers catching on the big chopper's frame so that she swung around the cargo hold hatch in record time.
Dim, golden light lit the bay from the floor lights, and it put Vera in mind of a chapel. Her breath hushed. She made the last few steps silently, but the figure inside noticed anyway. He turned his head to look at her, motion smooth as a servo.
He was draped on the floor of the VTOL, covered in a foil emergency blanket, the bay just wide enough for him to lie across it. His glasses were retracted.
Adam Jensen stared at her without any expression whatsoever for a very long moment, and finally began to cough out laughter. "Vera," he managed.
There had to be surprise hidden underneath all that gruffness somewhere, but as per usual Vera couldn't read Adam worth a damn. Behind her she could hear the tinny claps that Malik's boots made as she trod up the grated metal steps into the VTOL behind her.
"He woke up a few hours ago," said Malik, "but he's-he can't..." she trailed off.
Adam finished for her, with the faintest hint of a grimace. "I'm paralyzed from the neck down."