“Sounds good.” My timer is about to go off, a conveniently true excuse for me to cut this call short. “Got to rush the labs if I want to make it on time—I’ll see you in a bit.”
“Want Haven to tell them thirty or forty-five minutes instead?”
I do, but that would push my meeting with Natalin. “No,” I say. “I’ll be there. Don’t start without me.”
Haven’s announcement echoes over the speakers just as my timer beeps.Mezzanine in fifteen, everyone! Anyone who doesn’t show will be put under curfew for the next two days.
Even though my timer’s gone off, the plate isn’t quite ready. I have to wait another minute before sliding it under the electron microscope. When I do, vivid purples and pinks light my sample into something otherworldly, beautiful and bright. I focus with the knobs, try to get a better look.
I’m positive my process is correct; it’s my analysis I’m less sure about. Things don’t look like I remember. Almost like the sample is too old to give clear results, but that can’t be right—we pulled it just this morning, and it was definitely in the cooler that whole time. Maybe I messed up the concentration of the stain somehow, tried too hard to rush it. Maybe I should haveasked more questions when Dr. Safran was alive to answer them.
Before the virus hit, he mostly spent our time teaching me how to heal the living, not how to study the dead.
After a few more minutes of fumbling with the microscope, I give up. If the mutation kills as quickly as the original strain did, it won’t be long before we have more blood to test. And if it doesn’t, it’s possible we have a different virus on our hands entirely. One that isn’t so contagious, maybe.
I clean the station, get it ready for next time.
I’m fairly certain next time will come soon.
11
HEARTBEATEN
IT’S GOOD THE balcony has a railing.
Meetings in the mezzanine were never this empty when my mother stood over them, in this very spot. It feels ridiculous to continue with the formalities from before, to put ourselves in this high place like we know everything about everything. As a population, we’re less than half what we once were, in number and in age, in nerve and in hopes. We’re all in this together.
But Haven was persuasive.Formalities will help, she said, when our six first joined forces.If we want them to listen to us, we need to act like we’re worth listening to.
So, here we stand, behind our railing.
From below, seventy-eight sets of eyes stare up at us, a full spectrum: patient to compliant to desperately irritated. Seventy-eight, assuming Yuki and Grace are among them. I scan the room, don’t see either girl, but that doesn’t mean too much. I’m commander now, but I’m not infallible. Quite the opposite.
“Thank you for your patience,” I begin. I was late. “We won’t keep you long.”
My amplified voice echoes over the clean, curved walls of the mezzanine. Silver and steel, backlit in varying shades of blue, this deck has always been one of my favorites. The station’s architects added sleek touches, designed it to feel light despite its hard heaviness. This room was never meant for mandatory check-ins—it was a place where we assembled to hear of the latest victories in the terraforming efforts on Radix, and of the samplesNautilusbrought back from the fringes of the universe for the team here to examine. It was a place to celebrate being alive, and the hope of future life. Now we simply number our people who are not yet dead.
“In just a few minutes,” I continue, “Leo and Zesi will come around with tab-screens—you know the drill.” Line up, thumbprint, leave. “Please arrange yourselves by residential wing and wait quietly until you’ve checked in. After that, you’re free to go.”
I bow my head deeply, hold it for two seconds—my mother’s closing gesture. The commotion begins, everyone shifting into their check-in groups. I turn, eager to leave the balcony. Eager to escape.
“Where’s Mila Harper?” a voice rings out.
Akello Regulus. Extremely tall, extremely dark, extremely kind.
He loved Mila like a sister. She loved him, too.
I knew we wouldn’t be able to keep her absence quiet for long, but I’d hoped it wouldn’t be quite this public when the news broke. Our excuse that she’s helping out in the lab won’t work, not ata mandatory check-in like this—she’d be obligated to show up, just like everyone else. Lesson learned: be more proactive next time. Tell the people who will notice so they won’t make a scene.
I hate that I have to think about a next time.
Haven steps up to the microphone. She knows how sick I’m getting of all the questions. “Mila Harper isn’t feeling well at the moment,” she says. “We were in contact with her in the early hours of this morning, and she’s been excused from this mandatory meeting.”
I sigh, brace myself. This is why I hate lies. Haven worded it carefully, but saying Mila isn’t feeling well—in the wake of a viral crisis? No.
Silence turns to whispers, whispers turn to a low hum, and then, all at once, the questions erupt. “What do you mean, she isn’t feeling well?” and “Is she going to die?” and “Is her sickness airborne?” and “You told us we were immune; why did you tell us we were immune?” It’s lava, and I can’t run. I can never run.
Haven’s cool voice cuts through the noise. “No,” she says. “I should have worded that more thoughtfully, my apologies. Mila came down with a migraine last night, a bad one—I’ll spare you the messy details of her nausea, but in short, we feel it’s in her best interest to rest in her room, where it’s quiet.”
