4
WOBBLE, SQUEAK
OUR GURNEY LOOKS nothing like it did at the start of all this.
We did away with the sheets weeks ago, when stubborn stains settled in for the long haul. A deep dent mars one end of the bed, a scar left over from those first days when we still believed the virus could be stopped by an urgent, slam-into-whatever-necessary trip to Medical. Also, one of the wheels squeaks. Another wobbles.
Leo and Heath spread Mila’s body onto the bare metal bed, cold against cold. Wobble, squeak, wobble, squeak. It never gets any easier to walk with the dead.
I hope the wheels don’t wake anyone. No one needs to see Mila like this, for one. Mostly, I want to keep this quiet as long as I can—people are going to panic.
There’s no one I trust more than Leo and Heath, except maybe Heath’s sister, Haven. What Leo and I are to each other, seeds in a hole, we are as a group. Living here, there’s nowhere to hide when you don’t want to see someone. We know—we’vetried. We’ve torn at each other, tornfromeach other, more times than I can count. We’ve said things we don’t mean, and worse, things we do. In the end, we always settle back together. It’s made us strong.
Zesi, Natalin, and Haven wait for us in Medical. It doesn’t look right, seeing them here, especially in sleeping clothes. I called an emergency meeting, all six of us. I didn’t say why.
I don’t have to.
Natalin springs to her feet. “Is that—no.” Tears well up in her eyes, spill out.
She and Mila were close.
“You said we were immune, Lindley.” Haven turns her face away, wavy blonde hair falling over her eyes like a curtain. The sight of blood spins her stomach. “You said we were safe!”
I did say those things. I said them loud and clear, at a station-wide assembly we called last week. People believe me when I speak, they always have.You have one of those faces people implicitly trust, Leo told me, when the six of us were settling into our roles.You’re the one to lead us.I didn’t argue, and neither did anyone else, because it’s true.
“She’s doing her best,” Heath says, always the first to my defense, unfailingly, for better or worse, often at the expense of his own sister. “Let’s not start blaming—”
“I’m not blaming,” Haven snaps. “I’mworried.”
“Well, get it together.” Leo now. He, more than all of us, has a way with Haven. “Worrying doesn’t change the fact that we have a situation on our hands. Linds”—he’s the only oneallowed to call me that, and everyone knows it—“are there any hazmat suits that aren’t contaminated? And if the answer is no, how screwed does that leave us?”
Even if there were, there aren’t enough for all eighty-four of us who are left. We may have already contracted the pathogen, anyway. It lies low, lingers, then explodes.
Or it did. Who knows what it does now.
“We burned them all, and spaced the contaminated air tanks,” Zesi answers for me, shaking his dark, thick dreadlocks out of his eyes. “Back when we thought that would help.” Before he took over as systems tech, he spent his free time in the crematory. Brilliant mind, strong heart: he does the jobs no one else can, and the ones no one else wants.
“Right,” I say. “So this is where we are.” All eyes are on me, as they so often are these days. I’m finally past the point of my mouth turning dry, finally past nerves that shake my voice—finally mustering a fraction of the composure my mother had when addressing her crew. “It doesn’t matter if it mutated, or if we made the wrong assumptions about the original strand. Mila is dead—anyof us could also already be carriers. We aren’t necessarily screwed without hazmats, Leo. The scrubbers used them at first, but if you remember, Dr. Safran suspected the suits actually made their symptoms worse.”
Five scrubbers in five pristine suits. All dead within the first two days. This is where our theory oflie low, linger, explodeoriginated—Dr. Safran believed the pathogen invaded days, even weeks, earlier than symptoms began to manifest. Turnsout our most recent supply delivery pilot, based down in the States, was infected when he came aboard. Nothing happened for a while, but when it did, it was too late. The hazmats were supposed to keep contaminated air out and clean air in. Instead, the scrubbers ended up dying inside their own personal gas chamber suits, more and more pathogens concentrated in the air as it recycled itself. The insides of the face pieces were worse than anything, Zesi told me. Bloodbubbles everywhere.
“You thinking we should put her on ice or fire?” Heath asks. His piercing gray eyes are still so bright, so alive in the face of death after death. It’s easier to turn a blind eye, some days, pretend away the pain so it won’t feel so raw. For me, anyway. For Leo, too. Heath’s not like us, though. Heath stares at the sun, eyes wide open, daring it to burn him.
“Fire,” I say, mostly because I’m pretty sure it’s what Dr. Safran would do if he were here. Iwishhe were here. “I’m almost positive the mutation’s already started spreading, but if I’m wrong, we should wipe it out in the crematory, destroy all traces of it. Just in case.” I pause, think. “I could do a full autopsy—”
Haven scoffs. “Right, because you’ve had so much experience with those?”
I shoot her a look, although she makes a good point. I could make the cuts, sure, but I’m not experienced enough toreallyknow my way around. My skills are serviceable, if that. “I could do a full autopsy—but—in the interest of limiting my exposureand everyone else’s, I think the best way to go is to stick to blood analysis. Natalin, I’m going to get on that first thing, so our meeting needs to wait until midafternoon at the earliest.”
“Sorry, but can we do it at noon?” she asks. “It’s not looking good, food-wise, and I’m worried—”
“If it’s so bad it can’t wait until three, we should have had that meeting yesterday.”
Ask for cooperation, I’m learning, and forgiveness. Not permission.
Haven and Natalin share a look. They whisper sometimes—about everyone, not just me. I do my best to let it roll off my skin. It’s not always easy.
“What do you want me to tell everyone?” Haven asks. While I’m our designated leader, and the face of our assemblies, Haven is a natural at station-board communications. She makes twice-daily announcements, at nine-morning and early evening, that echo through every inch of our station’s twelve sprawling decks.
