by Kayla Olson
“It’s the food,” Heath finally says. “After all that, after we risked our effing lives for them, no one will eat it because someone let it slip that it may be contaminated.”
“I did not let anything slip,” Natalin shoots back before I can get a word in. “It isn’t my fault Evi and Elise overheard me talking with Haven—”
“If you’re going to let them live with you, you’re going to have to figure out how to keep confidential information confidential, Natalin.” I’ve never seen Heath so full of pent-up fury. There’s a reason he took on the role of peacemaker, peacekeeper: he isn’t often moved to anger like this.
I bite down on my temper before it flares. “Evi and Elise know enough to know the food could be contaminated—they don’t know why, right? They don’t know . . . about Nautilus, do they?”
“They know everything,” Heath says, eyes trained on Natalin; she dips her head, lets her long, dark hair fall like a curtain between them. Heath shifts his eyes to me. “They. Know. Everything.”
Blackness creeps in at the edge of my vision, panic closing in on me. I take a breath. “Everything, everything?” That all our recent deaths—that there was no mutation at fault, at least for those—that they were all—
“They overheard me talking to Haven about the food, that’s all,” Natalin says, as if my thoughts had been tattooed on my face. There’s no sting to her words for once; she only sounds tired. “They know we were running out. They know how we got more. They know everyone on Nautilus is dead, and they’re afraid of dying, too.” She kneads her temples. “And they messaged someone about all of these things, probably a lot of someones, and basically . . . now everyone knows.”
“And no one will eat,” Heath says.
“Yeah.” Natalin tucks her hair behind her ear, eyes sparkling in the electric white light of Orb 2. “It’s . . . a problem.” I’ve never seen her this close to cracking before, never seen her this raw.
“This . . . ,” I begin, but quickly find I’m at a loss for words—there are too many places to start. “This is everything we’ve been trying to avoid. I mean, exactly how bad is it? Everyone knows—no one will eat—you’ve got to be exaggerating, right? There are just a few friends that Evi and Elise told who are being a little pickier than normal—right?” I sound slightly unhinged, even to myself, but can’t slow my voice down, can’t keep it from rising. “Please tell me it isn’t as bad as it sounds.”
“I’m sorry, Lindley—I—”
“You what?” I snap. “You forgot you had two nine-year-olds living with you? You forgot they could understand every word you say? How could you be so careless? What else have they overheard?”
“Linds . . . ,” Heath says, like I should stop. Like I should’ve stopped much earlier.
“No. Don’t tell me this isn’t a big deal—”
“Linds, I agree with you. I agree,” Heath says. “It is a huge deal, but blaming Nat isn’t going to help anything.”
“Like you have room to talk? Didn’t I just walk in on you arguing about the exact same things?”
Heath recoils. “You have no idea what you overheard.”
“Care to enlighten me?”
Heath stands now, makes me feel small by the way he towers a foot taller than me. Natalin sits still as a statue, her cheeks wet with tears. I can’t remember ever seeing her cry before. Perhaps I should have swallowed some of those words after all.
“None of us are perfect, Linds.” Heath’s eyes flicker in the light, searching mine. “Not one of us.” There are a million shades in his gray irises, like: Anger. Forgiveness. Frustration. Patience. Panic. Hope. Exhaustion.
None of us are perfect.
You’re not perfect, I hear.
How does he do it? How does he always know?
I’m not perfect. I desperately wish I were.
“We have to do what we can, okay?” He’s softer now, but no less intense. “We’ve gotta move on and work with what we’ve got.”
It’s not lost on me that he still hasn’t answered my question about what exactly I’ve just walked in on.
I let it go. For now.
“I shouldn’t have gone off on you like that, Natalin.” My words echo, echo, die.
“I don’t want them to starve.” Her voice is a dull knife, twisting. “I would never have compromised that information on purpose.”
“I know,” I say.
Because I want to believe her. Because I know, more than anything, that I’m giving everything I have to keep as many people alive as possible. Because I want to believe she and I aren’t so different at the core—that we clash so often because we both care passionately about the station, and our passion takes an equal-but-opposite approach. I want to believe her. I do.
But the truth is, I don’t know.
I’m halfway around the catwalk, trying to sneak a secret glance at the water panels before I leave, when Natalin calls out: “What are you doing with the test tube, by the way?”
I think fast, fast. “Running levels on the water, just to make sure the filter’s working properly and we’re all clear to drink it.” True enough. I’m not about to tell her what I’m specifically testing for—even if I did trust her fully, it seems unwise to stress her out about the water when people are already refusing the food.
“Didn’t Zesi already double-check all of that?” she pushes back. “He tinkered with things for a good ten minutes after he got the filter to work.”
I adjust my hairpins, smooth down the nonexistent flyaway wisps. Is she trying to keep me from running another test? Did Zesi really spend ten minutes checking levels, or did he spend some of that time lacing the water with poison? Or—did Natalin put something in the water, after Zesi had finished? Did Heath help her?
Surely not, right?
“We can never be too sure,” I say, giving her a tight-lipped grin. “Better safe than sick.” Or dead, I think.
“You’re wasting everyone’s time,” Natalin says, “running the same tests twice instead of trusting that Zesi did it right in the first place.”
“You’re really going to lecture me about trust right now?” I struggle to tame my voice, to keep it from flaring like it did before. I . . . don’t succeed. “You couldn’t even keep confidential information to yourself, Natalin, and now it’s spread like wildfire through the station. You want me to trust someone did his job the right way, when we’ve just established that none of us are perfect? I don’t think so.” A buzz comes in, and it’s persistent, but I ignore it. “You’re right, though, it is a waste of everyone’s time. I really should be figuring out how to feed everyone, since you royally screwed up and no one will eat.”
She doesn’t deny it. She doesn’t say anything, and neither does Heath. I take the merciful silence, check the levels on the filter panels like I came down here to do, even though everything is a blur right now and I’m shaking.
Losing control, as it turns out, is a fast track to feeling worse, not better. A lump crawls into my throat, curls up there. I can’t even bring myself to apologize, the pride—fear—embarrassment—is so thick. My buzz screen vibrates again, but I just . . . I can’t.
I blink back my tears. Try to make sense of the panels. All the numbers, all the charts: they look just as they should. Nothing overtly out of normal range, no blood-red WARNING notifications.
My buzz screen goes off for the third time, and finally, I answer: it’s Haven. “Hey,” I say. “Everything okay?”
For all her urgency in trying to get through, she’s quiet on the other end. “Haven?”
“We—we’re all trying not to add more to your plate right now,” she says, which is news to me. “But . . . you should know . . . there’s been another one.” She pauses for a second, for two more. “Another death.”
The news knocks the wind out of me. When will this end?
I’m quiet, and for once, Haven doesn’t press me. Vaguely, I’m aware of Heath in the background, and of Natalin. Who? Heath is saying, a
nd Natalin: In the mezzanine—and there’s already a crowd? They’re not talking to each other. Both are pacing, hands to their ears. On calls of their own, with Leo and Zesi, presumably.
“In the mezzanine?” I ask Haven, and she affirms it. So much for our lockdown—it’s not quite as effective if people choose to do their own thing and ignore it. I take a deep breath, squeeze my eyes shut. “I’ll be there in five.”
50
LIVING IN NIGHTMARES
INDIGO SUTTON: ANOTHER new name on the list. Another new body, undisturbed, when the six of us arrive.
Though the mezzanine is full—practically everyone on the station is here, defying the lockdown order, to a party none of us were invited to—I’ve never seen it so silent. It’s like the life slipped out of everyone all at once, not just the thin frame lying motionless on the floor in the center of some invisible circle no one dares to breach.
It’s not hard to piece together what the scene must have looked like just minutes ago. Half-empty liquor bottles—and empty-empty liquor bottles—stand in silent judgment all around the room; there are innumerable shot glasses and too-full tumblers and not a piece of food anywhere in sight.
“Have you all had a good night?” I scan the room, meeting as many eyes as possible before they turn down toward the floor. “Did the vodka take the edge off?” More eyes avoid mine.
I’m dangerously close to losing it on the entire station, just like I lost it on Natalin. Deep breaths: one, two, three. Four.
One breath for every one of us who no longer breathes.
I cross the invisible barrier, kneel to examine the body.
A single glance is all it takes to realize: this death is not like the others. I don’t even have to run tests to confirm it—I will, of course, but I don’t have to. There are no bloodbubbles, no Nautilus-style nosebleeds, no pretense of virus-related cause. This is what happens when fear turns to escapism turns to too much to drink, in too small a body, with too little food to offset it. It is a poisoning, but not the kind I feared, I’m almost sure of it: this is chaos in motion.
We’re all losing it a little. We’re all losing it a lot.
I open my mouth to speak but can’t find the words or the breath or the anything I need to reassure them this is all going to be okay, because I’m not sure it is, and I’m not sure it will ever be, and shouldn’t I have all the answers? Shouldn’t they have someone who can give them the peace they need—the peace they deserve?
I want to.
I want to.
Haven clears her throat. “We’re going to get through this.” I immediately recognize this as her good morning voice, her let’s start the day right! voice. Fortunately, it is tempered to minimal brightness, the perfect mix of hope and realism that even I need right now.
If I can’t give them what they need in this dark moment, perhaps Haven can. Normally, it would irritate me to have her step in like this—to give a statement when I, their acting commander, should be the one doing it.
Right now, all I am is relieved.
“We’ve been living in nightmares lately, every single one of us,” she goes on. One by one, people begin to look up. Look at Haven—like they couldn’t look at me. “It’s time to wake up. Do you want to end up like this?” She gestures to Indigo’s lifeless body in front of us. Gives us a minute to see her, really see her:
Indigo, with her long black hair and long black lashes and lips that always had a kind word for everyone—with her beautiful voice, often found singing in harmony with Sailor Salvato as he played his guitar in the alcove. I scan the room, find Sailor in the crowd. His face is all numb shock.
“Do you want to end up like this?” Haven repeats. “Like Indigo?” Her words hang in the air. “Do you think we put you on lockdown for no reason? Are you trying to die?”
“We’re not trying to die.” A deep voice speaks up from the far side of the room. Jono Deering: everything about him is exaggerated, from his height to his long black bangs to the kohl he uses to line his piercing green eyes. “We’re only trying to forget.”
“Try a little more responsibly next time,” Leo says, and not gently. His voice catches me off guard; I didn’t realize he was so close behind me.
The words are incendiary, flame to a fuse: everyone erupts at once.
Who gave you all the power?
Is it true we can’t eat the food?
Is it true Mila died from the mutation? What about Jaako? Kerr?
Is it true is it true is it true
Is it true
Is it true
Is it?
Each voice is a hammer to my skull, driving nails down deep to where they stab at my conscience. I want to shout NO—no, it is NOT true! None of those things are true!
But then I’d be forced to tell them what is.
They aren’t ready.
I’m not ready.
A small voice in my head, pinned to death by the sharp tip of a nail, whispers: You’ll never be ready. You’re not meant to be ready for something like this. Serialized murder is not a thing that should happen.
So what am I waiting for?
If I’m honest, I want to fix it without them ever having to know the truth. Without them ever having to know this fear. This heartbreak. Because it is heartbreak: whoever is doing this simply would not have done it before. The virus broke us all, when it comes down to it, some more than others. This . . . what’s happening now . . . it’s like a heartbreak virus: when one heart breaks, it wants company, so it breaks another—which in turn breaks more—and more—and on and on from there. We all end up cracked.
“I’ll try it,” Haven says, her voice cutting through the noise in my head and outside it. “Someone bring me a couple of pouches of Nautilus food, and I’ll try it, right here in front of you all. This paranoia needs to end, or else you’re all going to starve.”
Natalin throws a grateful look her way. I wish I’d thought of the idea, but at least one of us did. This is good—this is a start.
I volunteer to retrieve a sampling for her just so I can get out of the mezzanine for a few minutes, walk off my nerves that are so on edge. What I don’t count on is how they insist I take someone with me—anyone who is not in our core six—as witness, to prove I’ve actually pulled the food in question from the Nautilus supplies and not from a high corner of our own pantry. A petite girl named Story Lutheborough, with delicate dark skin and bouncy curls and bright-eyed wonder despite all that has happened—how?—steps up to join me.
We set off together, quick steps through empty corridors, to retrieve a meal from the storage pantry where the Nautilus crates are stowed, as informed by Natalin. I can tell Story wants to take advantage of our alone time—prod me with questions, pry the truth out with sheer persistence—but, to her credit, she reads me well enough not to. To my credit, I’m in full commander mode right now: shoulders back, eyes trained on the path ahead, unsmiling. I make myself a wall, and it works. No use throwing pebbles at iron and expecting it to collapse.
I let her choose Haven’s meal. All the options look the same, really, in their SpaceLove packaging, each stamped with NAUTILUS SHIPMENT 1032C-2B in gray-purple ink. She plucks a crowd favorite from the shelf, mashed sweet potato, along with a notoriously disgusting smoothie made of beet, parsley, spirulina, wheatgrass, carrot, celery, and spinach.
“Let’s get this over with,” Haven says as soon as we return, and I couldn’t agree more. I need to get to toxicology as soon as possible, need to take care of Indigo’s body before too much time passes.
Everyone watches eagerly as Haven eats the potatoes straight from the pouch, ingesting half the contents in a single squeeze. Story massages the smoothie pouch—as if that will help its texture or flavor at all—before handing it over.
I’m sure not even Haven likes this particular combination, but it’s obvious she’s determined to take it in and keep it down. “See?” she says, after a forced swallow. “Not terrible.” A couple of fourteen-year-olds near
by stifle drunken giggles; Natalin cuts her eyes at them and the giggles come to an abrupt stop.
Haven gulps down the rest of the smoothie before she can think twice about it. When she’s finished, she hands the empty pouches back to Story. “Show them,” Haven tells her.
“Nautilus shipment,” Story reads. Her voice is loud and clear, unexpectedly authoritative for such a young person, and for such a small frame. And lucid—no way she could’ve been drinking as much as the others tonight. Nice to know we’re not all spiraling in self-destructive ways. “And”—she squeezes both pouches, holds them up on display—“she downed all the food.”
This seems to satisfy the crowd, so I step in for an announcement before they start to disperse. “We’re going to need you all to keep clear of the mezzanine for the rest of the night so we can . . . take care of things,” I say. “If any of you would like dinner, you know where to find it—find Natalin if you have any issues with the dispensers in your cabins. And I know we’re having a rough season right now, but please, everyone—please take care of yoursel—”
A loud thwack cuts me off: Haven.
She’s passed out cold, and she’s hit the floor hard. The barest rivulet of blood seeps out from where her temple connected, starts to pool, dyes her golden-blonde waves dark red.
“Everyone out,” I say, tears springing to my eyes despite my increasingly complicated relationship with Haven. “Everyone out!”
But no one moves.
Everyone is slack-jawed and gaping for one single second as we all realize, collectively: we’re screwed.
“NOW!” I yell, putting some grit into my voice. Heath and Zesi and Leo herd them out the various exits; Natalin kneels down beside me, beside Haven. She’s not dead—not yet, anyway—and the bleeding doesn’t look as bad as it did with the initial shock, once I take a closer look.
But.
This.
Is.
The.
Last.
Thing.
We.
Need.
“Do you know how to fix this?” Natalin asks, her face drained of all color. “Is it . . . fixable?”