Immunity

by Erin Bowman

  They were studying the hosts, trying to replicate them. And there were only two other young people at this facility: her and Nova Singh.

  Amber turned and fled from the lab.

  The instant Thea heard the sedative hissing in the filtration vents, she took a final, deep inhale and held her breath.

  She’d been returned to her cell, but Coen’s was empty. They’d brought him to a different holding area, just as she’d feared. Now that Burke knew they could communicate telepathically, they’d been separated. Which meant she’d have to leave him behind.

  Only temporarily, she reminded herself. Once you’ve got help, you can return.

  Thea focused on stilling her body. She let everything go limp, willed her pulse to slow. The more relaxed she was, the longer her held breath would last.

  A minute after the sedative had begun, she slumped to the floor, feigning a loss of consciousness.

  Three minutes after the gas had begun, the temptation to gasp down air was strong, but she suppressed it. The guards were entering the room.

  Even with her eyes closed she could sense their positions. One at the door, two at her sides; all three pulses beating lazily. They were used to this procedure by now and had nothing to fear. The leads from Thea’s collar clicked free and the guard set them on the floor while he unlatched the collar itself. Then he moved on to the cap.

  Her chest burned now.

  She wanted air.

  She thrust the thought away, locked it behind a door where it couldn’t tempt her. After today, they’d wait ten minutes before entering her cell, and she’d never be able to hold her breath that long. This was her only chance.

  The latch beneath her chin loosened. The cap slid free.

  As soon as the sensors were no longer in contact with her skin, Thea reacted. Her eyes shot open and she grabbed the cap from the guard. Shocked, he scrambled away, moving like a crab. She threw out a leg, tripping him. Then she was on top of him, slamming the cap onto his head. The guard by the door was already hitting the shock button in a panic, and as soon as the cap made contact with the other man’s skin, he writhed in pain beneath Thea, then went limp.

  One down, two left.

  Static danced in the corner of her eyes. She yanked the mask off the shocked and unconscious man, and pulled it on. Breathing clean air at last, Thea grabbed the collar from where it had fallen on the floor and hurled it at the nearest guard. It clipped him in the head, causing him to buckle. In his panic, she retrieved one of the collar leads and jabbed it into his gut. Then she spun and struck the final guard still standing by the door. Another spin back to the first man. Thea grabbed his mask and yanked it up and off his face. Spinning back to the door, she struck the guard there again and removed his mask as well.

  She watched them grab at their throats, sputter and cough.

  Her attack had lasted no more than six seconds, executed with such precision the men hadn’t even cried out or alerted anyone via comms.

  She stepped over the guard at her feet and fished the key card from his pocket. It was attached to an extractible cord pinned to his pants, and she broke the line with a yank, then waved the card before her cell’s door.

  It slid open.

  The hall was empty.

  Thea crossed the threshold and began to run.

  First right, third left, right, right, straight.

  Straight, straight, straight until she was at the end of the hall, the elevator waiting just ahead. She summoned it by slapping the button. Leapt back as the door opened.

  In the ready stance Coen had taught her, she waited for a small army to emerge from the lift, but like the hall, it was eerily empty.

  They must have seen what had happened in that cell. The guards might not have had a chance to shout for help, but Thea knew there was surveillance. Maybe she’d face obstacles when she reached the lobby.

  She darted into the elevator and hit the button for the very first floor.

  The doors slid shut. The car ratcheted upward.

  When it eased to a halt, she strained her hearing, listening for heartbeats. Nothing. No one. Were they just going to let her waltz out of here? It felt too easy.

  The door opened. She stepped out.

  The hall was white, lit with track lighting and tubing that ran the length of the corridor. There were no windows. It was all wrong. This was supposed to be the lobby. The level above ground.

  A sign opposite the elevator marked the way toward Docking (right) and Central Command (left).

  Her heart plummeted as she ran toward Docking. It couldn’t be. She was in the Trios. They were already home, underground at some research base. But then the hall dead-ended in a ring, and as Thea ran through the curving corridor, she got her first glimpse of a window. No, an air lock. A ship was docked there. And not just any ship, but the UBS Paramount, its credentials displayed on a screen beside the docking port.

  An alarm kicked on, a robotic voice announcing a Level 1 Lockdown. Thea barely registered it. She staggered on, to the next docking port. It held a freighter. The next, a smaller transit ship. The fourth was unoccupied, its edges framing what waited beyond.

  Star fields. Stars and nothing else.

  This wasn’t an underground research facility.

  It was a space station, and there was nowhere to run.

  The guards approached from behind—an army of heartbeats and clanking boots, too many for her to fight. When the first shock from a ray-rifle struck her back, she was still staring at the stars, transfixed.

  He yelled for Amber to wait and caught up with her in the hall, his hand closing over her wrist. She hadn’t bothered to shed the suit—just rushed straight through the clean room and into the hall beyond. She’d been running for the elevator as if the research facility were a place she could escape, as though her key card got her to all levels.

  “You better explain,” she said, wheeling on her father.

  “It’s not what it looks like.”

  “I fucking hope not!”

  “Language,” he warned.

  “Dad, it looks like you’re doing some sort of genetic testing on rats. Testing that you plan to do on humans, eventually, too. I don’t know what the end goal is, but I know what I saw. Increased—almost inhuman—brain activity in a compatible host, and uncontrollable, violent, destructive behavior in the others.” She remembered Nova’s nightmare the other night. I was back there. They were everywhere. They were attacking me. “I didn’t sign up for this. This was supposed to be an enrichment year studying alongside you at the university. This is something else. There’s no way it’s legal.”

  “We are on the verge of something huge here.” His eyes gleamed with excitement. She’d seen this before, when new treatments were developed or a cutting-edge medicine hit the market. He’d get drunk on the wonder of it all.

  “Who’s on the verge of something—Hevetz? Did Burke partner with them? Is the surveillance he’s running on Casey related?”

  “No. Burke’s just trying to find someone who’s caused trouble in the past—a company, I think—and fugitives always head to the Inansi Desert because security is lax. This is about Burke assiting Hevetz.”

  “Why? Why would Burke—why would you—help Hevetz with random research?”

  “I think you know the answer to that.”

  Her thoughts drifted back to her argument with Nova the other day. There was one thing that united everyone on this ship. One goal that every Radical had in common.

  “Trios independence,” she whispered.

  “This contagion . . . ,” her father went on. “With the right host, it can create supersoldiers. Exceptional strength, hearing, and eyesight. Even telepathic capabilities. And that’s just what we’ve confirmed in the past few days.”

  “And in the wrong host?” Amber prompted. “I saw those containers. The rats had ripped each other apart.”

  “We know who can host it now.”

  “No, you have a hypothesis. Dad, if this gets
out, this entire facility will be in jeopardy. There’s no one on the full-time staff who can be considered ‘in their youth.’”

  “We know what we’re doing.”

  “Seriously?! How can you know what you’re doing with a contagion we know nothing about?”

  “Everyone here has been working toward independence for decades, Amber. Some longer than you’ve been alive. You want what’s best for the Trios, don’t you?”

  She thought of her home, her friends, her entire world. The UPC was a bad deal for anyone who didn’t call the Cradle home. She’d devoured enough documentaries and articles and think pieces to see all too clearly what could become of the Trios if its citizens continued to let Union laws strip them of their strengths, forcing them to share their energy, their life force, with the Cradle.

  But what was happening to Thea and Coen—Trios citizens themselves—wasn’t good for the Trios, either. And independence could create new problems, as Nova had pointed out.

  “Don’t you?” her father repeated.

  “Of course,” she said quietly.

  “Then you will stay in your lane and do what you’re told, end of story. This could be a turning point for the Trios, the edge we need to break free of the Union. The Cradle has always had an equally matched military, but with these hosts, the Trios will be unstoppa—” He froze, a finger going to his ear. The intercom there flashed green, transmitting. Amber watched a storm spread over her father’s face.

  “Level one? I’ll be right there,” he said to the person on the other end. Then to Amber, “I have to go.”

  “Dad, I’m not comfortable with this. I want out.”

  “We can discuss this later.” He was already backing down the hall.

  “At least tell me this facility is secure; that if this gets away from you, it will be contained.”

  “Oh, I should think so. I thought you were told after cryo. Amber, we’re on Kanna7, one of the Trios’s research and development stations. We’re orbiting our sun from beyond the Lethe Asteroid Belt. There’s no one around for over three hundred million kilometers.”

  A month after word of Thea’s death, the programmer entered the lab to find that Sol had left his personal Tab at one of the stations. Unlike the devices she worked on for the drive, the tablet had a live connection to the Interhub.

  She pounced on it, and in seconds had opened a ghosted channel and run a basic search on Thea’s name. What came back matched everything from Sol’s feeds. The report of the girl’s death, two follow-up stories on the tragedy, a death certificate filed in Eutheria’s Hearth City. Disappointment throbbed in her chest.

  It wasn’t that Naree wanted Sol to be keeping anything from her, but she’d hoped for more concrete evidence that Thea was alive and well, even if only through murmurs on conspiracy forums. The galaxy, however, was concerned with more pressing matters: increased taxes on basic meds and growing tensions between UPC loyalists and the Radicals. Some conspiracy theorists were crowing about a big shake-up in the coming months. Even mainstream news outlets were predicting the same.

  The programmer sighed and cleared out the search, beginning a new one for Dylan Lowe, the forewoman of Thea’s internship program. Nothing recent came back. She moved on to Dr. Lisbeth Tarlow. Plenty of papers written on the late doctor and coverage from her infamous involvement in Achlys’s Witch Hazel operation fifty years earlier, but nothing following her death.

  On the programmer went, working her way down the list of deceased Hevetz employees. She’d all but given up hope when she typed in the final name—Nova Singh—and hit return. There were the standard follow-up stories and the expected IDs, school records, and Academy scores. But the most recent item, a military medical record, was dated just days after the initial report of the crew’s death.

  Average citizens didn’t have access to such content, but the programmer had the locked file open in a matter of minutes, only to find it was scrambled, a shell of what had once been recorded. She scrolled through the illegible lines.

  At the bottom was one note that made sense: deleted per Trios Military Guideline XVI, Section C (invalid entry by a medical intern); deletion approved by Lieutenant Christoph Burke, UBS Paramount.

  The programmer looked up the guideline, frowning. Invalid entries were rare, but could occur during training exercises or in cases where systems went offline and data recorded manually by a medic was stored publicly by accident, instead of on private military servers. But why a Union battleship would have an intern aboard was beyond Naree.

  Poking around the military channels, she located the Paramount’s current position: a derelict space station on the outskirts of the Trios system. According to internal memos, Burke was there for training sessions with his unit. He’d made several updates to his superior officer, but none mentioned Nova Singh. There was, however, mention of Hevetz scientists assisting in the training.

  She killed the connection, sitting back in her chair. This was it, the cover-up she’d been searching for. If Nova Singh was alive and well on Kanna7, it was possible Thea was being held there as well.

  The programmer needed eyes on that station—her eyes. She needed a working flux drive.

  III

  The Bond

  Kanna7 Station

  Orbiting Sol 2 from beyond the Lethe Asteroid Belt, Trios System

  COEN RIVLI HAD BEEN IN a new cell no more than an hour before he was capped, collared, and dragged back out of it. He blinked the harsh light of the research lab from his eyes after being shoved through the doors.

  A giant tank of water sat in the center of the room. Beside it, several steps led to a platform at the tank’s lip. Thea stood there, stripped down to her underwear and tank top, her collar in place, but no cap on her head. A guard held the metal leads attached to her collar, pushing her toward the tank. Her energy was white hot with terror.

  What happened?

  Coen? she managed.

  That was it. Just his name as a question, her eyes wide. Then she was submerged. A lid slammed down on the tank, locking her in. Her hands came up against the glass, reaching for him, but this wasn’t like in their cells. Even if he put his palms to that glass, it would be no comfort to her. Thea’s head snapped up, searching. Her fingers flew over glass. There was no way out, and yet she still searched.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Coen shouted at Farraday. “She’s going to drown.”

  “She can hold her breath for an impressively long period of time. Who knows how long, really. We intend to find out—first with her, then you.”

  Inside the glass, Thea’s dark hair fanned out around her face, rippling in the water. The harsh lighting of the room gleamed pearlescent on her skin.

  I held my breath. The gas. In my cell. Took a guard’s mask and ran. They caught me. It’s a space station. We’re on a space station.

  The words hit him like individual blows, each one worse than the previous. They were truly isolated. There was no escape.

  For a split second, he was angry—that she’d left him, that she hadn’t tried to seek him out before running, that she’d failed yet again. Then came the fear. It was crushing, her panic in the back of his throat. Her pulse, ticking up wildly as she tried to conserve air.

  Lieutenant Burke strode in, calm and authoritative. He fell in line beside Farraday, staring at the tank with interest.

  Thea was near the top of it now, her mouth and nose angled upward, trying desperately to find air that didn’t exist.

  I can’t—Coen!—help—I can’t . . .

  She opened her mouth to try to shout something, or perhaps to gasp for air, but there was nothing but water. Coen watched a giant bubble of air billow from her mouth—the one thing she needed, escaping.

  “You have to let her out!” he shouted.

  “It’s barely been four minutes,” Burke said coolly. “She held her breath for longer in her cell, and fought off guards in the process.”

  Thea was pounding on the glass now. But it was u
seless, her energy spent, the fight leaving her.

  Please . . .

  Her eyes fluttered.

  Coen . . .

  Her mouth fell open.

  “She’s drowning! Fuck! Get her out of there! Get her out now!”

  “Four minutes and twenty-three seconds,” Farraday said, reading from his Tab.

  Thea’s body went limp, sinking to the floor of the tank. Her shirt mushroomed, her hair billowed.

  “Goddammit, get her out!”

  He could feel the connection to Thea slipping. It wasn’t like when she stepped out of his reach during the communication tests, moving beyond the range of their abilities. This was different—and terrifying. It was a tether stretched to its greatest limits, ready to snap. It was a cord about to be severed. And once it broke, there would be no fixing it. Her consciousness was completely gone, her pulse barely a whisper and growing weaker with each moment. And the guards were doing nothing. Burke and Farraday were pouting, like she was a malfunctioning piece of tech, not a human life.

  “Get her out,” Burke said finally.

  The guards fished Thea from the water and dragged her down the steps. She was limp, head lolling.

  Burke gave an order to revive her, but the men simply set Thea on the ground and looked at each other. They didn’t want to touch her, let alone breathe air into her lungs. “CPR!” Burke snapped. “She’s too valuable to lose.”

  The guards were still regarding each other, neither brave enough to make a move, when Thea’s pulse went silent.

  A fire lit inside Coen, and he surged forward. The movement was so fast, so sudden, that the guards holding the leads to his collar were caught by surprise. Coen burst free, the leads trailing behind him, the collar digging awkwardly into his neck.

  “Let him get to her!” he heard Farraday yelling at the guards.

  He was on already his knees, pushing on Thea’s chest as a guard slipped a hot cap back on her head. He’d saved her like this once before, damning her in the process. He prayed he could save her again.

  There was water in her mouth, her nose, her lungs. She drifted in a thick fog.