B7 smelled like blood that had sat too long.
Red liquid drained slow from broken tanks, the humming fading to a gurgle, bare concrete cold under Kieran's boots, under Lyra's bare feet where she clutched his leg like she might fall through the floor if she let go. Hundreds of girls lay around the tanks, not dead, asleep, breathing shallow, grey eyes closed, some six-fingered, some five, all pale, as if the second chair shattering had finally let them quiet after twenty years of listening to a tank hum.
In the middle of the floor, where first mother had stood in Elara's green bicycle t-shirt wearing her face, only wet footprints remained, six-toed, leading to the elevator that had no shaft, that now showed Council Hall.
Council Hall, white marble, noon light though it had been midnight in
