Immunity

by Erin Bowman

  Burke: You forced them into the same cell. They grew attached. There are ten rats here, all hosts, who have been paired off in isolation for a week, but we’ve seen no change. Same with the rabbits.

  Farraday: Maybe it’s different with our species. Our brains are far more complex.

  Burke: I want to try a human subject.

  Farraday: It’s too risky. The animals can be easily contained, but look at how many times Thea alone has tried to escape. You say you’ve got Academy volunteers—Radicals. Even if they’re young, with only a year of military training, that training will still make them impossibly hard to control.

  Burke: So we don’t use a solider. We use someone on board.

  Farraday: We are not using my daughter.

  Burke: You misunderstand me. We use the pilot.

  Farraday: She’s nineteen. It might not work. We don’t know where the cutoff is. This isn’t an exact science, Christoph.

  Burke: I don’t care. Put the pilot in isolation and inject her. If it doesn’t take, space her for all I care. I need results before I can move us to the next stage.

  Farraday: Sir, I think we should run a few more tests on the hosts we have. Maybe take one of them out on the shuttle like we proposed—fly Coen away from Kanna7, while Thea stays on the station. Monitor their communications when greatly separated. See just how far their telepathic abilities can stretch.

  Burke: We’ll do that, too. See to it first thing tomorrow so it’s out of the way. But regardless of the results, these abilities are useless to our cause if Thea and Coen are two flukes who can host what no one else can. We must confirm that every human within a certain age bracket is viable, and Vasteneur arrives in thirty-six hours. I want results I can share. Now, are you fully committed to the Radicals, Doctor?

  Farraday: You know I am.

  Burke: Then inject the pilot during the long-distance communication test. If you fail to do it, I will use your daughter in her place.

  The conversation faltered, and Coen heard what sounded like footsteps and a door opening.

  Thea’s thoughts became a whirlwind as Farraday returned with the guards. The men unstrapped Thea from the operating table, escorted her from the room. She relayed their progress to Coen. When each turn brought her closer to the cell, he began to relax. By the time she was stepping from the central elevator and onto their holding floor, an unseen gas was tugging at Coen’s senses. He succumbed to it, slumped on his side.

  The next time he woke, Thea was beside him, her skin cool and soft. He kissed her shoulder. She stirred, her thoughts reaching him in a wave—fear for Nova, interest in the shuttle test Burke had mentioned, relief to be back together. He shared them all.

  But he also had an idea, something that had come to him when Farraday had mentioned the long-distance communication test. Coen would be moved onto a ship—the very thing they needed to steal. It was the opportunity they needed, delivered on a platter.

  He was about to share the detailed plan with Thea when she said, Don’t bother. I can see it right now. It’s a good one.

  It requires trusting an outsider.

  Honestly? She looked up at him with those wide, glassy eyes. I think we’re out of other options.

  The next morning—the day of the communication test—Thea was brought to the showers while Coen was lugged off to Docking. It would take time for the Radicals to transport him into position and for the ship to detach from Kanna7. Her being allowed to shower in the meantime was a blessing; it made their escape possible.

  It was a good plan. Thea had meant what she said the previous night. Coen would overpower the ship’s personnel while Thea made a run to meet him. But the entire plan hinged on one unpredictable outcome: whether Amber Farraday could be trusted. Without Amber’s help, it was unlikely Nova would make it to the ship unassisted and they needed Nova aboard it. There was no way Thea was trusting a Radical to fly her to safety.

  But what if Amber was caught moving Nova to the ship? What if she hesitated and threw the timing off? What if Amber said she wanted to help, but instead went to her father and told him the plan? Everything would crumble.

  Thea and Coen had run through these concerns all night, but they kept coming to the same conclusion. Even with the risks, this was the best chance they had. Waiting meant Nova would face injection.

  Thea turned on the shower but didn’t undress. Instead, she wrote the plan down on the paper Amber had left. Every last detail. If Amber was in agreement, there would be no time for Thea to confirm it. The communication test was already in the works. It was now or never.

  A guard yelled the one-minute warning, and Thea slid the note into place.

  Then she loosened the buckle beneath her chin and cautiously—silently—lifted the hot cap from her head. A shock would run through it the moment she didn’t emerge from the locker room when shower time was up, but it would be resting in the ventilation system by then, harmless and out of reach.

  Thea turned to the vent cover beside the fogged mirror and began to unfasten the screws.

  Amber woke early, excited for the day ahead. Between the regen bed and daily exercises, Nova’s progress had begun to expedite. She could walk the full length of the therapy room on her own. Slowly and shakily, but she could do it.

  The pilot’s demeanor had changed with the progress. More optimistic. More upbeat. She still woke with nightmares some nights, and her mood could sour without warning, but that wasn’t the real Nova. Amber could see how the pilot went elsewhere in those moments, how she was battling a shadow within herself, a sort of demon that might never leave but she might one day learn to live beside.

  On her way to the showers, a pair of guards rushed past Amber, hands on their intercoms. “Start the sweep on level . . .” she caught before they were out of earshot. When she entered the locker room and pulled Thea’s note from beneath the sink, she understood.

  Amber read the note several times. The escape plan was meticulously detailed.

  She glanced at the vent beside the mirror, back to the note, to the vent again. The screws were in place, but loose. It didn’t matter that Amber could see a dozen ways in which the plan could backfire. It was already in the works. She needed to get to Nova.

  Not bothering to shower, Amber burst from the locker and collided with a white lab coat. And not just any white lab coat—her father’s.

  “Come with me,” he ordered.

  “I have a PT session with Nova.”

  “This is more important.”

  He snapped his fingers and beckoned her like a dog. Afraid to look suspicious, Amber followed.

  They took the elevator to the research labs, where her father swiped them into the clean room she’d entered a week earlier. Several Hevetz geneticists waited inside, along with Burke. “Just find her,” the lieutenant was snarling into his comm. “It’s not like she can get far.”

  Amber needed to get out of here. She had to meet Nova. Every moment she wasted was a moment that pushed Thea’s plan off course.

  The door clicked shut behind her, and Burke regarded Amber’s father. “Finally. You’re here. Should we continue?” He motioned toward the wall of windows that looked out onto the lab beyond. On the other side of the glass, Nova was strapped to a chair, struggling against the restraints. Her face was red with effort.

  The air in the room seemed to thin.

  Amber knew what this meant and yet she didn’t want to believe it. This couldn’t be happening.

  “It’s safest if you do it, sweetheart,” her father said. “If anything goes wrong, you’re a good candidate for a host. It won’t destroy you the way it could the rest of us.”

  Nova glanced up. Their eyes locked through the glass.

  A hand materialized in front of Amber. Her father held a portable blood transfusion set. The filter was labeled Sadik, Althea, and its contents were red.

  Nova quit struggling as the door creaked open and Amber stepped through. The medic had put on a clean suit, her face visibl
e through the visor. A vial flashed in her hand. Nova saw the tubing next, the needle. She thrashed against her restraints.

  “Don’t do this,” she begged.

  “I have to. They’re all back there, watching me.”

  The faces leered at Nova through the glass windows, eager, anxious. The same faces that had pulled her from her bed this morning and strapped her to this chair. She’d tried to fight them, but even with her improving strength, she’d been too weak.

  Amber was staring at Nova’s bare arm. One of the Hevetz scientists had already rolled up her sleeve and cleaned the injection site at the inside of her elbow. She’d tried to fight that also, but once her wrist was tied to the armrest, it was pointless.

  “Please don’t do this,” Nova said again. “There’s no guarantee I can host it.”

  “I know.” Amber glanced up, tears in her eyes. “What else am I supposed to do?”

  “You should at least knock me out first!” Nova said, shouting to the faces at the window. “I’ve seen infected victims break free of restraints like this so they can get to another potential host.”

  “They’ll gas the room if they need to,” Amber explained, “but they want to see the natural reaction in humans, regardless of the outcome. They need to know the process of transition—every step.”

  “You think this chair is going to stop me?” Nova kept yelling. “I will tear your fucking limbs off, you bastards! I’ll tear you apart regardless of what this does to me!”

  “Nova, stop shouting.”

  “Don’t tell me what to—”

  “Nova! You’re making this worse.”

  “They’re trying to kill me!”

  “I don’t know what else to do!” Amber gasped out. She was crying now. Nova couldn’t stand to look at her.

  “How about don’t do it?” she snarled.

  “It’s not that simple.”

  “Yes, it is, Amber. Don’t do it. Crack the vial. Spill the blood.”

  “They’ll just get more.”

  The medic sobbed behind her visor, eyes puffy. Suddenly, Nova was furious.

  “You don’t get to cry about this, Amber. I’m the one getting screwed here. Me, not you!”

  “I’m sorry,” Amber said, and began to unroll the IV cord.

  Nova nearly screamed. This was how she was going to die—at the hands of the people who were supposed to be her saviors, strapped to a chair on a remote space station? She’d escaped Achlys, killed her own cousin, and spaced Dylan Lowe from an air lock for this?

  Amber’s hand trembled as she struggled to straighten the IV cord.

  “I know you think there’s no way to avoid this,” Nova said, forcing her voice to remain even, “but you just haven’t discovered the solution yet.”

  “It’s impossible. If I walk out, one of them will come in in my place. If I spill the blood, they’ll get more.”

  “Impossible is just an excuse not to try.”

  “You’ve told me that before.”

  “If I could remember who told it to me to begin with, I’d tell you about them also. They seem smart. Unlike . . .” Nova glared at the men at the window. “Typical Radicals, risking the safety of the entire universe to get the Trios its independence. They won’t stop until they get what they want, will they?”

  Amber’s head jerked up, her eyes finding Nova’s. “Say that again.”

  “They won’t stop until they get what they want?”

  Amber’s brow wrinkled behind the visor, her face taut with concern. A shadow passed over her features. “They won’t stop until they get what they want, so you understand why I have no choice, why I have to do this?”

  “No,” Nova said. “I’ll never understand this.”

  Amber grabbed Nova’s wrist, and she flinched. This was really happening. This was how it was going to end.

  She struggled as the needle moved closer to her vein. She yanked at the restraints and bucked her seat and threw every last bit of energy she could into fighting the inevitable. And just before the needle touched her skin, the medic fumbled it. Amber stooped to retrieve the syringe and dropped it again. She glanced up at Nova, and winked.

  The first wink of the day, and there was no reason for one given their circumstances.

  Time seemed to slow.

  “Permission to take my gloves off?” Amber asked, turning toward the window. “I’m not used to doing this type of work in a full suit.”

  Nova watched as Farraday and Burke discussed the risks. Amber would be exposed to the room, but she could probably host it anyway. If this made it easier . . .

  Burke’s voice finally projected over the intercom. “Go ahead.”

  Amber unzipped the gloves from her suit and let them fall to the floor. Then she pushed her sleeves back. Once they were bunched up around her biceps, she moved closer, so close the visor of her helmet brushed Nova’s forehead. The medic’s back was to the window, her body blocking the men’s view of Nova. Amber’s grip on the needle was now steady and true.

  Nova’s pulse was a jackhammer in her head. She was sweating. Her limbs were jelly. But that wink . . .

  The needle brushed her skin.

  And just as Nova was thinking the wink had meant nothing but good-bye, Amber turned the syringe on herself. The needle hovered above the crook of Amber’s elbow for a fraction of a second, then she pressed the plunger on the vial. The blood rushed into its new home.

  Amber stared at the needle, barely believing she’d gone through with it.

  “What the hell are you doing?” her father yelled through the intercom.

  Nova was still staring, too. But what other option had Amber had? It was as the pilot had said—they won’t stop until they get what they want—and Amber refused to potentially damn her own patient. Now her father and Burke had their experiment. And she had the power on her side.

  Amber pulled the needle from her arm, let it fall on the floor as she turned to face the window. Her father was still screaming her name, red in the face. Burke looked dumbstruck with glee. The other men yapped madly.

  Increased strength, eyesight, hearing.

  “I can hear everything you’re saying,” she announced.

  They froze behind the glass.

  “You said it took hours to appear in the animals,” Burke said, his voice still transmitting to Amber’s side of the glass. “And our video records from Achlys show Thea didn’t present immediately.”

  Her father’s response was quieter, barely audible: “Maybe it’s faster in certain humans.”

  It wasn’t. Amber felt no different. She couldn’t hear most of what was being said in the clean room, only what was being projected via the intercoms, but she’d never let them know it.

  Amber picked up her gloves and pulled them back on. Lowered her sleeves and zipped them into the gloves so that she’d be protected if they pumped a sedative into the room.

  “I’m going to move toward the door now. You will all gather near the far wall. If anyone comes near me, if anyone tries to follow me, I will attack.”

  “Amber,” her father said pleadingly.

  She released Nova’s ankle and wrist restraints and offered her a hand. The pilot stared like Amber had gone mad. “Nova!” she urged.

  A sedative might not work on Amber in her suit, but it would bring Nova to her knees. And Amber didn’t have the superpower strength to carry her. Not yet.

  “But where . . . ? How?”

  Amber glanced at the clock on the wall. There was still time to carry out Thea’s plan. It was supposed to be Nova’s escape—the pilot and her friends—but they’d have a fourth passenger now. Amber had seen the line she needed to cross to fall in with the Radicals, and she wasn’t willing to cross it. She was her father’s enemy now. Burke’s, too.

  “We’re going away,” she said to Nova, and because she was feeling extra cheeky, she winked.

  Amber extended her palm and, when Nova took it, towed her out of the seat. She moved for the exit, the pilot fo
llowing behind her. Nova would be tired in a matter of minutes, but right now, Amber needed her to look strong.

  She shoved the door to the clean room open. The men had shuffled away, gathering at the far end of the room as instructed. Half the scientists refused to look her in the eye.

  “Give me your stun gun,” she said to her father. He always carried one, hidden behind his lab coat and holstered to his belt. Burke had a more powerful model—a true military weapon that would shoot bullets—but her father was the easier target. “Put it on the floor and slide it over.”

  He did.

  Amber snatched it up, training it on the men. “And your key card,” she told her father.

  “Don’t you dare hand that over,” Burke snapped.

  “It would take me approximately three and a half seconds to infect you all. Hand it over, now!”

  Dr. Farraday removed the card from the lanyard at his breast pocket and slid it across the floor. “Where are you going to go, Amber?”

  “Anywhere but here.”

  He looked sad, broken. His mouth was a crooked grimace. “There’s nowhere they can’t track you.”

  “I guess we’ll see.”

  Amber snatched up the key card and fired a stun blast at the nearest scientist for good measure. The man jerked wildly, stumbling into his colleagues, and Amber pulled Nova into the hall.

  Thea crawled through the vents, blinking sweat from her eyes. They’re starting to vent a sedative through the system, she told Coen. Burke’s orders. He’s trying to push me toward Docking.

  She could feel his smile, even though he was currently off-station, on a SBT-1200 called Halo, to be exact. The model was slightly smaller than Odyssey, but more powerful.

  Good. They’ll be waiting to apprehend you on the wrong end of the station. Did you get a mask?

  Yup. Swiped it from a storage closet. Next stop is the cargo hold for an EVA suit, then the hangar. Thea squeezed around a corner, moving easily through the gassed vents thanks to the mask. How are you doing?

  We’re still “waiting for the other host to get into position.”

  The Radicals on Halo hadn’t told Coen that half the station was on lockdown, then, that Thea was missing and guards were sweeping Kanna7 for her. When they’d drawn up their plans, they’d worried Coen might get interrogated about Thea’s location. But the fact that the Radicals were keeping him in the dark, on Halo, was ideal. Burke was playing right into their hands.