Page 11 of 20% Blood 80%
Silver shook his head, tangled waves falling over his shoulders. “You look good to me.” His voice came out an octave lower than normal, and hecoughed to clear his throat. “Shower then? There’s not really enough room in here for the both of us.”
I passed him the bucket after squeezing a clean sponge full of water over the gash in my thigh. “I’m all yours.” Hellfire, I needed to let more pain out. I’d been compartmentalizing it for too long, and now it was wreaking havoc on my mental filter, especially when I couldn’t interpret what he’d meant by me “looking good.”
“Sterling Peoples, if I may continue, there are several pressing tasks… When the recycler is back online, the sprinkler system will need calibration, and then—”
“Is it always like this?” I grunted as Silver reversed the transport chair over the lip and out of his delicious-smelling pod.
Silver leaned in to be heard over the black grates humming beneath the wheels. “Like what?”
“This—” I gestured around the space. “—nonstop?”
He didn’t answer as C’s chirpy voice rattled off another task.
I huddled into the chair, pressing my hands into the arm grips as he hustled us back to the hovertube faster than my body could handle. “So…you’re it? The one person keeping this place functional?”
“Well, I don’t know how functional it is, but I’m definitely a one-man show.”
“There’s no one else left?” Even though I’d seen the bodies and the obliterated surface levels with my own eyes and smelled the moldering stench of decay around us, I needed him to say it out loud.
His jaw tightened, visible in the hovertube’s mirrored finish, the low light warping his face into a monster’s. “Yup.” He poppedthe p.
A pang of hopelessness ripped through my chest, and I clutched the pocket my com should’ve been in.D’iver, please tell me you’re on your way.“But someone’s coming, right?”
The doors to level ten slid open, and a blast of heat wafted toward us. If level ten was this hot, what would level nine be like? I liked heat, but not that much.
“You tell me!” he bit out. “I haven’t had contact with the outside world in months.” Silver sped the transport chair down the dark corridor, the only light coming from the small blue track lights lining the floor.
“Well, my brother will come.” Just as soon as the warnings were lifted. Or sooner if I could retrieve the communicator from my pleasure craft. I reached back and rested my hand over his on the chair handle, squeezing before letting go.Of course he’s angry. Who wants to be reminded of their precarious—our precarious—situation?
Stilted conversation over, we reached the room C had suggested, and I released a shaky breath when the path remained free of bodies. A gift from Sola.
A sterile room opened before us, black surfaces gleaming, overhead lights flickering.Please let the revive gel be charged.
5
Ican’tbelieveIjustleft him there.
My skin crawled, anxiety eating at my nerves. I tapped my wristport screen. It had been two hours, or suns, as the locals from Tern would say, since I’d abandoned D’alton in the temporary med bay to fend for himself. His confused copper eyes as I bolted back to level thirty-one with a quick “Reach out to C and she’ll let me know if you need anything,” haunted me.
I felt like a total schmuck as I cranked my torque wrench around the water recycler’s loose plasmasteel coupler. The musty aroma of tree pollen filled the air, and fluffy seeds as big as beach balls landed like clouds on my shoulders.
I had no idea why I was fucking around repairing shit in the Tig biome when I hadn’t spoken to another living being in months. And a few short floors up, the answer to my loneliness lay injured and in need of a helping hand. Bright red carrot-shaped things grew among the lava rocks where I knelt, black tufts bursting from their tops. Rows of navy and oyster colored…squash, maybe, dripped from long vines overhead, brushing my shoulders as I angled between them.
My knuckles jammed against a sharp-edged bolt. “Damn it.” I dropped the torque wrench and cradled my stinging hand. Why the hell was I wasting time I didn’t have keeping this biome going, anyway?
I inhaled a deep breath of air so clean I wanted to bathe in it. That was why. Because I could breathe down here. Free. Easy. I shuddered at how much breathing unmasked outside level thirty-one still unnerved me.
By some miracle, I’d forced myself not to reach for the full oxy tank when I’d wheeled D’alton to level ten. But no matter how busy I kept myself, nothing stopped my mind from free-falling whenever I remembered the day the spores had released their lethal virus. And I remembered often. Like, multiple times a day often. If I hadn’t left D’alton behind the second I did, the oncoming panic attack threatening would’ve made me useless.
Sweat that had nothing to do with the humidity broke out on my brow as I bent to pick up my tool and gave the coupler one final wrench. That oughta do it. “C, repairs to the water recycler are complete.” She already knew, but saying it out loud made the accomplishment more meaningful.
Fresh guilt weighed down my tight shoulders. Would D’alton be ready to move to a room on level nine yet? Maybe I could redeem myself. But, fuck, would he want to talk about being rescued again? The idea did my head in. Hope had turned into a dangerous slipknot tightening around my neck many times since those first alarms had splintered my mind. Best to just get by one day at a time.
“Excellent work, Sterling Peoples. The sprinkler system will now require recalibration to all the biodomes.”
My eyelids shuttered closed as I breathed in more oxygen-rich air. Exhaustion dimmed my wits, even more so than at the end of a harrowing day of boot camp with Earth’s Special Forces Western Division. I should have been in bed already, but I still needed to wash a pair of coveralls and rustleup something to eat. The recalibration could wait until tomorrow. No matter how dead on my feet I was, sleep wouldn’t come without knowing D’alton was safe.
A long tuber squished under my boot as I gathered my tool belt and shuffled toward the glass door that sealed the biodome shut. Mouthwatering melon infused the air, and a memory of competing to see who could spit watermelon seeds the farthest—me or my loud-mouthed neighbor—flashed through my mind. Would the yellow-marbled fruit make me puke my guts out like the last innocent-looking plant I’d tried? I continued on. Not worth the risk.
