“Sure, yeah.” I want to ask about their progress in Control, too, but now is obviously not a good time for that. “Talk to you in a bit.”
I busy myself with cleaning the lab station, calm myself with the familiar rhythm of clearing the table of scopes and trays, wiping it down with disinfectant until it sparkles. The whole process takes less than two minutes, but it’s two minutes well spent. My head feels clear again, too.
I buzz Heath before I have time to talk myself out of it.
“Hey,” he says, picking up immediately. “Find something?” He’s so different from his sister in that way, and I’m grateful for it—when Haven and I have our tense stretches, she freezes me out.
“Where are you?” I say, nudging my stool into its hiding spot under the table. “Leo says you found the girls?”
“Yeah, I’m with them now. Starboard-side lab.”
“What? What were they doing in there?” There’s hardly ever a good reason formeto go into SSL, let alone two fourteen-year-olds who have nothing to do with cold storage. “Never mind, don’t answer that, I’m going to ask them myself. Staywhere you are and don’t let them leave.”
He doesn’t protest, but then, he never does. Heath genuinely loves being on the receiving end of orders like this—he’s said so on a couple of occasions. He takes a lot of joy in following well, on followingthrough. I guess he’s had a lot of practice, having Haven for a twin. She’s just the opposite.
The lab door slides shut behind me. Portside, we call this one—even when our station was new and running smoothly, full of brilliant, vibrant minds, Portside was the more heavily trafficked of the two. It was where active experimentation happened, where 90 percent of the equipment was installed, since we often ran tests forNautilusbefore they received their equipment upgrade. SSL, on the other hand, occupies twice the space for a tenth of the science. Which isn’t to say it’s small—Portside itself is quite expansive, taking up half of this deck. It’s just that SSL takes up theentirestarboard side of its deck.
For the life of me, I can’t imagine why Yuki and Grace would go to SSL. Not for anything useful, not that I can think of. Maybe for its beauty? Its mystery? SSL houses rows and rows of glowing pillars, so ethereal and white like starlight. It takes two people to wrap arms around each pillar, that’s how thick they are—but for their expanse, they’re mostly just filled with chilled, transparent gel. Tiny sprigs of plant life dot each pillar with green, floating embryos put on pause, waiting for the day when Radix is ready to be fully terraformed.
As I enter my universal access code to get into SSL, that brings up another question: How did Yuki and Grace get inhere in the first place?
I weave in and out between pillars, find Heath and the girls in the dimly lit lab station in the middle of the room. The station is a wide white oval rimmed with thick countertop ledges, all storing a limited range of equipment—Yuki and Grace sit cross-legged on top of the counter, quietly staring at their hands. Nothing seems out of place, so at least there’s that.
“What exactly is happening here?” I let my question dangle, resist the urge to fill the silence when it goes unanswered.
Heath stands, his back against the oval’s curved inner wall, his arms crossed. I join him, mimic his pose. We’re like a set of twin statues.
It’s so quiet, so still, we might as well be caught up in the cold storage pillars with the countless sprigs of plants. Life, put on hold.
Do I break them with questions? Pile on the guilt until they splinter beneath it? Either of those would be effective, I think, for this single moment. But what about tomorrow? What about pulling this problem up at its roots rather than simply tearing off dead leaves?
I uncross my arms, hope it makes me look approachable rather than like some sort of commanderly force. “You’re not in trouble, okay?” It takes effort to soften the edges in my voice, especially after this day. Yuki glances up at me—progress. “We were just worried when we couldn’t find you. And we didn’t think to look... here.”
“How did you—” Heath starts, but I hold up a hand to cuthim off. His tone is too sharp.
“Heath and I know you were at the pool earlier—”
“We didn’t know about the check-in until we were already at the pool!” Grace cuts me off, finally emerging from the silent pose she’s maintained since we arrived. “We would’ve come, but we were dripping wet.”
So theydidhear the announcement? And they still didn’t come? I could absolutely give them an earful for this. Could, possibly should. I’m torn—but they obviously already know it was wrong to skip it, otherwise they wouldn’t be acting so weird. Is that theonlyreason they’re acting weird, though?
“Forget about the check-in for now,” I say. “Heath found blood near the steps. Did one of you fall or something?”
I found no trace of the virus when I studied the blood sample, so I definitely don’t want to ask any leading questions to give away that I studied it in the first place—we’d only end up on a slippery slope ending in questions aboutwhyI studied it. I’m not about to discuss Mila with anyone who can’t even be bothered with mandatory check-ins. I’m not about to discuss Mila, period.
“I got a nosebleed,” Yuki says shyly.
“She gets them a lot,” Grace adds. “Always has.”
Yuki nods, the more soft-spoken of the two. “My dad was—did you know my dad?”
“Her dad was a nurse,” Grace says, making Yuki blush. “He let her do this all the time.”
“Let her dowhatall the time?” Heath asks, adopting my purposefully patient tone. “This isn’t Medical, so what does your father have to do with it?”
Yuki’s cheeks are cherry-blossom pink now. “Pillar Ninety-Seven,” she says. “It’s full of witch hazel. Well, half full now. He’d extract a sample here and there, whenever supplies were low, and mix it with some other things to help my nose stop bleeding.”
I try to stifle the surprise on my face—all of this is news to me, and wow, so many rules broken all at once. Like, so manymajorrules broken, and not just by these girls. “He taught you how to do it, too? And gave you the access code?”
