Air and Accusations

"Step back from the tailgate," I told Margit.

My voice came out flat. Too flat. The sort of quiet that usually preceded an academic expulsion hearing.

Margit Ványzsa did not step back. She remained seated behind the cracked safety glass of Buggy Three’s cab, her gloved fingers resting on the vinyl wheel. She looked at the sliced rubber filter in my hand. Her expression had the blank, curated serenity of a bank clerk denying a widow’s loan.

"Is there an operational issue, Doctor Folyosy?" she asked through the cab’s sliding vent.

"You know the issue."

I held the canister up to the halogen work lamp mounted on the roll bar.

The cut along the outer diaphragm was clean. A three-millimeter surgical incision, angled at forty-five degrees to bypass the primary intake mesh without tearing the outer foil seal. It was designed to fail only under negative inhalation pressure—specifically, when a wearer entered an active spore cloud and took their first deep breath.

"A manufacturing defect," Margit said smoothly. "Standard consortium surplus often exhibits vulcanization decay."

"Consortium surplus uses synthetic neoprene with cross-hatched reinforcement cords," I said. My thumb traced the serration marks along the copper collar. "This is vulcanized butyl rubber from the 420-series bio-rigs. The incision was made with a carbon-steel number-ten blade. More precisely, the exact scalpel model issued in the Geo-Stabilization core-sampling field kit."

Margit did not blink. "A coincidence."

"Your kit is sitting in crate seven," I said. "Would you like me to swab the blade for butyl polymer residue?"

She adjusted her cuff. "We are eighty meters below ground, Lórágy. Consortium logistics audited those crates in Hangar Nine. If your equipment failed inspection, that is an administrative oversight between you and the supply depot."

"This wasn't an oversight."

"Then file a formal grievance when we reach the surface," she said.

My teeth clicked together.

I wanted to smash the canister through her windshield. I wanted to drag her out by her pristine high-collared jacket and make her breathe the sulfur air leaking around the blast shields. But anger without leverage is just theater, and theater wastes calories.

"There are three people on this expedition," I said. "Two of my bio-canisters are dead. If we hit another heavy vent below Shelf Two, my lungs will turn to wet ash in forty seconds."

"A regrettable risk of fieldwork," Margit replied. "My geological team requires our full allocation of filters to monitor the tectonic fault lines. The charter is explicit on quota priority."

"The charter requires mutual life-support redundancy."

"Under normal operating conditions," she said, and clicked the cab window shut.

The latch engaged with a sharp metallic snap.

I stood on the wet iron grating of Shelf One, breathing the bitter, copper-tainted mist of the breach. My knuckles were white around the dead canister. Behind me, the massive cableway cradle groaned against its emergency snubbers, dripping dark oil onto the stone shelf.

A boot scuffed the iron plate to my left.

Orsolyzsa Kenderesy stood three feet away, leaning against the buggy’s rear fender. She had stripped off her heavy canvas outer jacket, leaving only a grease-streaked gray undershirt. The collar was torn along the left seam, exposing the jagged, puckered line of an old shrapnel scar running across her collarbone. Fresh blood from our skid across the grating was drying in a dark smear against her skin.

She was watching me with that maddening, half-amused detachment she wore like body armor.

"You done presenting your thesis?" she asked.

"She sabotaged them," I said. My chest felt tight, the sulfur burn sitting heavy in my trachea. "Before we even cleared the surface gantry. She intentionally crippled our breathing reserves to force an early turnaround."

"I know."

"You know?"

Orsi pulled a curved pocketknife from her belt and began cleaning the sulfur grit from under her thumbnail. "Margit’s quartermaster spent twenty minutes hanging around your equipment pallets while you were arguing with the crane operator about torque specs. I saw him slip his hand into the foam baffles."

I stared at her. The heat in my jaw flared hot and sharp. "You saw him tamper with the crates? And you said nothing?"

"I was hired to guide the rig down the shaft, Doctor. Not to babysit consortium turf wars."

"This isn't a turf war! It's murder!"

"It's corporate budget management," she corrected calmly. She blew a fleck of stone dust from her blade. "If you turn back at Shelf One, Margit keeps the entire exploration grant for her rock drills. If you die below Shelf Three, she claims hostile environmental factors and collects the insurance rider. Either way, she wins."

"And you let her cut our air?"

Orsi stepped forward.

She didn't hurry. She moved with that predatory, economical stride that made every room feel too small for her. She stopped six inches from my chest. She smelled of scorched brake lining, sulfur brine, and clean cedar soap.

"Nobody cuts my air," she said softly.

Her dark eyes held mine. I tried to look away, tried to focus on the mechanical failure of the filters, but the proximity did something irritating to my pulse. She had a small smudge of black graphite grease right above her left eyebrow.

"We have two good filters left," I said, forcing my voice into an orderly cadence. "Two. For a six-stage descent. Even if we rotate shifts on the buggy's internal compressor, the duty cycle will burn out the scrubber seals before we reach Station Two."

"Follow me," she said.

She turned and ducked under the heavy steel chassis of Buggy Three.

I crouched down, the cold iron grating biting into my knees. The underside of the vehicle was a maze of hydraulic lines, drive shafts, and reinforced leaf springs.

Orsi reached into the narrow void between the secondary fuel cell and the middle trunnion axle. Her fingers found a hidden spring-latch behind the mudguard. With a sharp tug, a false floor panel dropped open, revealing a sealed zinc storage tube strapped directly to the vehicle's structural spine.

She unscrewed the brass end-cap and pulled out four heavy, cylindrical canisters wrapped in oiled butcher paper.

She tossed one at my chest.

I caught it purely on reflex. The weight was substantial—nearly a kilogram heavier than consortium standard. I tore the paper away with my thumb.

The metal beneath was painted a dull, matte olive. Stamped into the side was a faded serial number: MD-88-SPEC-OP. Below that, someone had used a cold chisel to score a deep X through the national ordnance crest.

"Third Mountain Division issue," I said, looking up from the canister to her face. "Long-range subterranean rebreather units."

"Active carbon-palladium matrix," Orsi said, sliding the remaining three into her canvas rucksack. "Rated for high-density organophosphate spores and volcanic sulfur. Eighteen hours of continuous draw per cartridge."

"These are military contraband."

"They're working filters."

"Where did you get military surplus rated for Division commando units?"

"A friend with poor inventory control," she said.

"Orsolyzsa, possessing unregistered military ordnance carries a ten-year sentence in the penal quarries."

She leaned back on her heels, resting her forearms on her knees. Her grin was sharp, dry, and entirely devoid of remorse.

"Then you’d better not report me to the provost marshal, Doctor."

"I am an academic fellow, not an informant."

"Good. Because if you blow the whistle, you'll have to do it while holding your breath."