14
MELATI WENT TO GET changed and left the ISF ring via the lift. She found the large hall eerily empty except for a couple of bored enforcers hanging around at the lift doors. A sign above the lift said that a shuttle from the Interstellar Beacon Station was due in two hours and then the first ship from New Pyongyang just before change of shift. The calm before the hordes of refugees came in. Where would StatOp house them all? Not in the disused and dilapidated BC block?
She found many of the miners in the next hall, queuing up to get through the checkpoint. The crowd hummed with unhappy voices.
“It’s getting worse,” a woman said behind her. “My sister said they asked her for ID and imprint.”
“They haven’t caught the criminals yet, then?” Another woman.
Someone further down in the cr
