Immunity

by Erin Bowman

  There was soft air on her cheeks.

  Blinding light.

  And then the silhouette, bent over the pod, reaching in to grab her.

  “She’s waking!” Amber yelled for the second time, and just like the first, no one responded.

  Nova’s heartbeat went wild on the monitor. No, not wild, Amber told herself as she scanned the readings. Sixty-five beats per minute. Totally stable, a wonderful resting heartbeat. It just seemed frantic compared to the average forty-one beats per minute that Amber had grown accustomed to hearing during the coma.

  Her father’s comments about quarantine rang in Amber’s mind, and she darted for the clean room that separated the room from the hallway. Inside, with both doors sealed, she removed a suit from its hook and pulled it on over her clothes in a hurry. Bulky and cumbersome, it was built for the average-sized male. Amber bunched the sleeves up, stuffed her hands into gloves, and pulled a helmet on before racing back into the room.

  The pilot was now fully alert, wide-eyed and pawing at the casing of her bed. Amber grabbed the lip of the lid and lifted.

  Nova sat up, pulling at the IV and tearing sensors from her forehead and chest.

  “Wait! Stop!” Amber lurched forward, grabbing the pilot’s arms. Her limbs had been roped with muscle when Paramount’s crew first wheeled her into IC2. Now, two months later, they lacked any definition. Amber overpowered her easily.

  Nova panted, staring like a child. It was the first time Amber had seen the pilot’s eyes open. They were a rich warm brown, like fresh earth.

  “Do you know your name?” Amber asked.

  “Nova Singh.” The pilot’s voice cracked on the words, and though everything about her expression was meek in the moment, her answer was confident. That was good.

  “Why are you in a suit?” Nova added, her eyes working over Amber. “Where’s Dylan?”

  Amber could only guess that Dylan was someone important to Nova back home or a deceased member of her crew, left behind in the Fringe. She decided to tackle only the first question.

  “The suit’s a precaution. There’s a slight chance you may be infected or . . . compromised somehow. I’ve been told to interact with you only while wearing—”

  “Infected with what?” Nova’s eyes went to the sealed door behind Amber. “Where am I? And who the hell are you?”

  “You don’t know me?”

  “Should I?”

  Amber frowned. “What do you remember?”

  “There was a rescue mission to Achlys.” Nova bit her bottom lip, concentrating. “I remember the crew and the transit and the landing, which was a bitch. I’ve never had to set a ship down on such a pock-ridden, crater-filled, angry slab of land. Black Quarry was missing. Their ship was . . . It was awful. Something bad happened. I don’t know what. It’s all blurry.”

  None of what Nova was saying made sense, especially a rescue mission to Achlys. There was nothing on Achlys. Still, Nova’s lack of memories was concerning. It wasn’t uncommon for coma patients to suffer brain damage.

  Trying to hide this fear, Amber unlatched the hinges on the corners of the medbed’s base and folded the sides down so the unit became more bed than coffin. She propped up the pilot’s pillow and helped Nova sit.

  “I’m wearing a diaper,” the pilot said, staring.

  “Yes, well, being comatose isn’t very glamorous. There was a catheter before, but during transit to the new facility . . . Well, Paramount’s gear had to stay on the ship, so we had to improvise.”

  Nova seemed to suddenly realize she was naked save for the disposable wrappings and a military sports bra.

  “Who undressed me? Who’s been . . .” She glanced again at her hips, the question dying. “I’ll use the bathroom on my own now. I’ll do everything on my own”—she swung her legs over the edge of the bed—“starting with finding Dylan.”

  “You’re not strong enough yet. Nova, wait!”

  “I’ll decide what I can and can’t do!” She slid from the bed and her legs promptly buckled.

  Amber caught her beneath the underarms, keeping the pilot from collapsing fully to the floor. Even in her frail state, she seemed to weigh a ton.

  “We’ll need to run some tests, get a sense of your state—both mental and physical. It’s going to be at least a day before we can get you in PT to start rebuilding muscle.” Amber tried to help Nova back onto the bed, but the pilot put her arms out, refusing aid. “Fine! Stay on the floor.”

  This was the girl she’d tried so hard to connect with, had been so concerned about during cryo. Someone who was so desperate to communicate earlier and now wanted nothing to do with her. Nova had been through a trauma, of course. A trauma she couldn’t even remember. But Amber still couldn’t help feeling stung.

  She watched as Nova attempted to drag herself back onto the bed. It was too high, her arms not yet strong enough to hoist her onto it. She wouldn’t quit, though. She struggled until sweat beaded on her forehead. Finally, when Amber started to worry that the exertion might not be good for someone who’d just come out of a coma, she said, “Can I help you yet?”

  Nova glared, her eyes edged with fire. “Yes,” she snarled. Then she looked down at her feet and grumbled, “Please.” Amber returned to the other girl’s side and helped her onto the bed. “It’s not easy for me to ask for help,” the pilot practically whispered.

  Amber nodded. “I doubt any of this is easy. You’ve been through a lot.”

  “If I have, I don’t remember it.”

  Because her arm was still around Nova’s back and she didn’t know what else to do with it, Amber squeezed the pilot’s shoulder reassuringly. “They might come back—the memories.”

  Nova glanced up. Her eyes were big again, hurting. “Does that happen often? With coma patients?”

  Amber pulled her arm back and nodded. The truth was that so many coma experiences were different, but she said, “Yeah. All the time.”

  A knuckle rapped on the door. Through the thick panel of glass, Amber could make out Felix, also suited. Felix was responsible for caring for Decklan Powell, the Hevetz pilot who was the very first bit of cargo the Paramount crew had picked up before flying into the Fringe for the second package. Caring for Powell was possibly an overstatement. Felix basically just watched him and shoved food through a slot in the pilot’s door. It was always locked. Amber had looked through the small window once, curious about the man on the other side.

  He’d been sitting on the floor, arms resting on his knees. His jaw was square, his gaze stern. A tiny scar in the shape of a teardrop marked his forehead just above a brow.

  Amber wondered how long they intended to keep him in isolation, but she never pressed Felix for an answer. Generally speaking, Amber tried to avoid Felix—both in Paramount’s sick bay and now in this quarantined section of their new accommodations. He’d developed a crush on her for reasons Amber couldn’t fathom, and his flirting was about as impressive as his inability to read social cues. Felix was nice enough, but he was almost ten years older than Amber, and that was enough to creep her out.

  “You were calling for help?” he asked via the intercom system that allowed conversation between quarantined rooms and those outside, but then his eyes found Nova. “Oh, she’s awake!” Nova continued to stare at the door as though she’d seen a ghost.

  “Is she okay?” he asked. “I think she’s trying to kill me with her mind.”

  Amber rolled her eyes. “Can you watch her for a minute?” It wouldn’t be hard work, seeing as Nova could barely move on her own and Powell’s room was just across the hall, but Amber didn’t want to be insensitive and say this aloud in front of the pilot. “I need to let my dad know she’s up. He’s not answering his comms.”

  “Sure,” Felix said with a wink. “Anything for my favorite colleague.”

  Amber forced a smile and darted for the exit. She hit the button to open the door with the back of her fist, and Nova let out a small sob.

  “Oh my god.” The
pilot pressed a hand to her mouth, muffling her words. She was still staring at the door, now open and revealing Felix’s fully suited body on the other side. “I killed her.”

  “Killed who?” Amber asked.

  “Dylan. She was sick and I purged her from the air lock.”

  It came back to Nova in fragments.

  The knock on the door had started it, triggering an image of Dylan throwing a palm against an air lock’s window. From there, the images continued, speeding by so quickly Nova could barely interpret them.

  Dylan’s body suctioned into space. Her bloody nose and hemorrhaging eyes. A smile. A broken ankle. An engine room where Nova should have abandoned the other woman.

  Toby, coming after them.

  The halls, swarming with infected.

  Nova had made it to an elevator with Dylan in tow, then boarded a shuttle. There were two other people on it. Thea and Coen. Nova had flown from Achlys with them, Black Quarry’s ship detonating in their wake.

  The next memory was of a space station, a construct of her mind during the coma. She’d stayed there with Dylan until the escape pod had appeared. Nova had climbed into it and awoken in this suffocating room, in this foreign body. Her legs didn’t feel like her own. Her arms were made of jelly. She glanced down at the bracelet on her wrist. Thin and delicate, a string of silver. It was Dylan’s. She remembered now.

  A wave of emotions crashed down on her: love and loss, but anger, too. Disgust. How could she feel so many things for the same person?

  Love is complicated, she remembered someone saying once, but she couldn’t recall who.

  “I want to talk to whoever’s in charge,” Nova said, but when she raised her head, only the male medic remained. Behind his suit’s visor, she could make out a small ≠ tattoo beneath his ear, a popular symbol of the Radical movement.

  “Not sure if that’ll be possible till Amber gets back,” he said.

  “Amber. Was that who was helping me?”

  “Yeah. Amber Farraday.”

  The name rattled around Nova’s skull. She’d heard it before and yet she hadn’t recognized the girl. Strawberry hair that fell around an oval face. Skin almost pearlescent behind the visor of her hazmat suit. Deep dimples that had appeared when she’d smiled. Nova would have remembered a face that pretty.

  “Is the rest of my crew here?” she asked.

  “The hosts? Yeah, they’re here.”

  “They’re sick?”

  “Nah, more like immune. Actually, that’s not the right word, either.” The medic scratched his chin through his suit. “I don’t really know what’s going on. They don’t let me visit the research level.”

  Another wave of emotion hit Nova: loyalty and compassion, an urge to help these friends she could barely remember. They were most definitely friends, though. She was certain of it. And hosts, according to the medic. Dread coiled in her stomach as she remembered the bloody-eyed hordes from Black Quarry.

  Merely sitting had rendered her exhausted, and Nova leaned back, all but falling into the pillow. The ceiling was white with recessed lights spaced out at even intervals. Having the strength to walk again sounded absurd. She’d be staring at this very ceiling for months. Recovery was impossible.

  Impossible is just an excuse not to try.

  Someone had told her this once, too. The same someone who’d warned her about love.

  Nova closed her eyes and tried to remember.

  The offer had been a lie.

  Hands fisted, Coen stared at the photo of Gina. Contact with a family member, as promised, Farraday had said when he slid the photo beneath Coen’s door. They must have found it in his backpack from Achlys.

  A photo wasn’t what Coen had expected based on Farraday’s original offer, and he doubted Thea had, either. And yet here he was, staring at the very photo of Gina that he’d packed before sneaking onboard Celestial Envoy as part of the Black Quarry crew. The same photo that had kept him sane when he was alone, all the others dead. Gina’s face, smiling up at him. He’d talked to her so many times in that abandoned Witch Hazel bunker, telling her that he’d left to help, promising he’d return no matter what, all while staring at her slouched shoulders.

  Between them, a tumor was growing along her spine. When he’d left, she was beginning to lose feeling in her arms and legs. It was possible she had no sensation left in them. She’d been in chronic pain for months, and yet she’d managed to smile for this photo.

  This photo in which Coen was grimacing.

  This photo that was now his only contact with her.

  Coen’s fist lurched out, striking the wall. Pain exploded over his knuckles and was gone, all too brief. He punched again, his arm a sledgehammer he longed to drive through the wall. But this new cell was impenetrable. He couldn’t dent it.

  He kept punching anyway, the pain coming in quick bursts. He punched faster, not letting his body recover from the ache. A wetness covered his knuckles. Flecks of it spattered his face.

  Coen was suddenly back in the hospital room, hearing Gina’s diagnosis for the first time. His parents were stoic beside him. Gina had forced a smile from the bed, as if the state of her condition wasn’t dire, as if the treatment the doctor had just described was something his family could afford. He didn’t understand how they were all so calm. The unfairness of the situation was so immense it suffocated. He’d gone wild then, too. Not in that moment, but later, once the doctor had left. He’d put a hole in the wall beside Gina’s bed.

  Coen, she’d said, and he’d kept punching, ashamed that she needed to console him, that he wasn’t the one doing the comforting. Coen, stop.

  But he couldn’t—not then and not now, as he continued to punch the cell wall, so much less forgiving than the hospital’s. Flecks of blood sprayed from his hands, his knuckles aching with pain.

  Coen.

  Another punch.

  Coen, stop!

  He had to get it out. The anger and the helplessness and the fear. If he didn’t, he’d break right now. He’d collapse and never get up.

  Coen, listen to me!

  “STOP!”

  He froze, glancing over his shoulder. His current cell was the opposite of Paramount’s in almost every way. This new facility was almost blindingly white. White floor tiles, gleaming walls, pale cot, and stark bedsheets. One of the walls was a thick panel of glass, allowing him to see into Thea’s cell on the other side.

  She stood there, the butt of her fist still pressed to the material. Probably she’d been pounding on it as she begged him to stop.

  That isn’t going to solve anything, she said, looking at his fist.

  He saw the blood for the first time. He’d felt it earlier, been glad for it even, but now he saw the mess. The butchered state of his knuckles, the spatters on the floor and smears on the wall.

  It won’t, he agreed. But it felt good.

  He wiped his knuckles clean on his T-shirt. It already had a few blood drops on it, and there was no sense ruining the bedsheets. His hand was already healing, the raw state of each knuckle smoothing over with fresh skin.

  He hated this thing he’d become. It had cursed him. Burke and Farraday, the entire research crew—they were never going to let him go home.

  I’m sorry about Gina, Thea said.

  Me, too. Who would you have contacted?

  Does it matter? You won the prize. Tension crackled around her. She was still mad about earlier, in the boxing ring.

  Oh come on, Thea. You attacked me first! You wanted to win just as badly.

  She turned away, moving for her cot on the far wall. She pulled the sheets down and climbed in, putting her back to him.

  Why’d you tell me to quit punching the wall, then? If you’re so pissed, why not let me beat my fist to a pulp?

  Still facing away from him, Thea said, It was impossible to sleep with you making so much noise.

  Her words were cool, but Coen could sense the falseness to the statement, a wrinkle in his intuition. The truth wa
s she was still angry about earlier, but she didn’t like seeing him hurt, either.

  He’d make things right in the morning. But tonight—tonight he’d earned the right to sulk.

  He scooped up the picture and crawled into bed, talking to Gina just as he had all those nights on Achlys. He told her he’d be home soon. If he didn’t say it aloud, he feared he might forget how to believe it.

  Come morning, Thea ignored Coen. Not because she was still angry with him, but because she was busy memorizing what was sure to become a routine.

  First, the guards gathered in the hall. The doorframe to her cell was a slight seam in an otherwise pale wall—no visible hinges or handles or access pads and certainly no door windows—but Thea could hear their heartbeats on the other side. Shortly after they arrived, the gas started.

  Things went foggy for a few minutes and when she came to, Thea was wearing the hot cap and collar again. The guards had entered the room to secure them after she’d passed out.

  Thea, I’m sorry, Coen said for the nth time as they were guided through hallways.

  She blocked him out, focusing on the route. Their cells were on a windowless hall that led to a central elevator if you knew where to turn (first right, third left, right, right, straight until elevator). From there, the guards brought them to the research and testing room two flights up. Levels were labeled by number only, with the cells held at thirty and research at twenty-eight.

  Thea’s theory was solidifying. They were underground. If she managed to get to the top level, they might have a chance of escape.

  How long are we going to willingly go along with all this? Coen asked as they were ushered back into research.

  Until we have a chance at escape that might actually pay off.

  Oh, you’re talking to me again.

  I’ll stop if you don’t watch it.

  She wasn’t truly angry with him. She understood why he’d fought her yesterday. It was the same reason she’d attacked him first. His speed had terrified her when he’d countered back, the way his eyes had gone elsewhere and his expression had steeled. But he’d cushioned her fall, and she’d known he wouldn’t hit her the moment she’d thrown her arms up. Her brain had jumped ahead, analyzing the position of his wrist, the angle of his arm.