This Splintered Silence

by Kayla Olson

  The main reason I even wanted to call this meeting, before Haven came in and heaped more terrible news on, was to tell them about Shapiro, about Vonn—ugh. I’m tempted to dismiss them all, stay here all night until I make successful contact with Vonn’s fleet. But have I not learned my lesson? In this, at least, I can try to rely on more than just myself. Not even a murderer will want to suffer an attack at the hands of Vonn—I hope—or be relocated when they discover we’re merely unattached youth and not a hostile team of Antarctican agents—so I take a leap of faith and rely heavily on one fundamental assumption: that everyone in this room has a strong sense of self-preservation, at preserving their own freedom.

  Not that freedom awaits the guilty, if I have any say in the matter.

  “Sorry,” I say. “One last thing, before we go.” I fill them in on the good news first—that relief is on its way, even as we speak!—that we just need to stretch our food supply a little longer, and we’ll be in the clear. Natalin, especially, perks up a bit at this.

  And then I drop the bad news.

  “So . . . what do we do?” Zesi says, when I’ve finished telling them about the attack fleet headed our way.

  “At this point, there’s not much we can do.” I survey the vast expanse of buttons on the control deck. “Are we equipped for defense, Zesi, do you know? And if so, are you capable of deploying it?”

  He stares, unblinking, at the control deck. “No scientist or engineer worth anything would strand us up here without a way to protect ourselves,” he says. “I’ll figure it out.” If anyone could do it, Zesi could. He’s been connecting invisible dots since most of us were still learning the alphabet. He’s frighteningly brilliant.

  I make a two-second snap decision: it would be smart to not leave him alone in here. “I can reach out to Shapiro, attempt to explain before it’s too late—and I plan to continue my attempts at direct contact with Vonn’s team. Anyone want to take shifts with me tonight?” I want to delegate this completely, but what if someone answers and we can’t manage to convince them we’re not war-prone Antarcticans? Maybe they’ll hear traces of my mother in my voice, like Shapiro did before. I can’t stay up all night, though. I need help, much as I hate to admit it.

  “Nat and I will take shifts with you,” Haven says, obviously pleased I’m taking her advice to make this more of a team effort. “Want to sleep while I take the first one?”

  I glance at Natalin, who looks the furthest thing from alert right now. “I’ll take the first,” I say. “You can relieve me at four, and I’ll take over again when it’s time for you to make morning announcements at eight. Good?”

  And then we break again: Natalin floats off to her bed to sleep off the day, as does Haven, so she can rest up for her shift. Leo and Heath head out to deal with the latest bodies—it’s beyond pointless to bother with autopsies at this point, when our time is being stretched in so many different directions. Just in case, I have them put them on ice instead of fire. Zesi and I settle in at Control; he’s already pulled up two sets of Lusca blueprints on his pair of display screens.

  I make mindless work of clearing the old coffee mugs away, something easy and well within my control, something to do while mentally preparing for tonight; for tomorrow. I pour the dregs down the sinks in the nearest facility, and rinse off the days-old grime until the mugs are far past the point of being clean. I use a white cotton cloth to scrub them until they sparkle.

  When I finally take a seat on my stool, on the opposite end of the control deck as Zesi, I’m ready to begin.

  I log back into my mother’s private message inbox, jam my finger at Vonn’s garbled contact handle.

  No answer, again. Even the most advanced tech can’t connect in deep, dark space. Fine by me—I need time to think of how to navigate my call with Shapiro, what I could possibly say to convince him I’m a competent leader after all of this, what I could possibly say to convince the board to let us keep our home. And I need time to think about tomorrow morning, how I’ll lay out the stark, bleak truth to the entire station about six of the seven we’ve lost. So very many delicate, dreadful conversations.

  This is going to be a long night.

  55

  MESSAGE FROM THE DEAD AND DYING

  SOMETIME AROUND TWO-MORNING, I give it a rest. Not a permanent rest—just a much-needed one. My body needs to move.

  I haven’t yet worked up the nerve to have my difficult conversation with Shapiro, and my attempts at getting through to Vonn have proven fruitless. I’ve been circling an idea, though. Earlier, Haven broke the news about the recent deaths right here in Control—there’s no way the vid-feeds could’ve been tampered with since then. I’ve been here the entire time, and Zesi’s been completely wrapped up in file after file of complicated blueprints and diagrams.

  I want to go through the footage, but how do I do that with him sitting four feet away? What if he is our murderer and I see him poison Sailor and Emme and Nieva right there on the screen? What if he sees me see it? We’re alone together in the dead of night.

  This is what I’ve been thinking about for two hours.

  I keep thinking maybe he’ll doze off, or use the facilities for more than just half a minute. Hasn’t happened yet.

  “Lindley?” Zesi says, breaking our silence.

  “Hmm?”

  “Maybe it’s time you try Nashville?”

  I’m surprised it took him this long to bring it up, honestly. I had hoped that if I just waited, I’d feel ready, but each passing hour has only served to heighten my nerves.

  I glance at the clock, do quick math. “Isn’t it, like, four-morning there?”

  If anyone can get through to Vonn’s fleet once it’s out of dark space, surely it would be Shapiro. I wouldn’t put it past Vonn to ignore even him, though—especially given what Vonn said in his last message, that he and Shapiro disagree about what’s going on here on the station. That Vonn’s taken it upon himself to go over his head to the rest of the board.

  Even so, it makes sense to try.

  I’m going to have to come clean about my lies at some point . . . I just hope I don’t accidentally flip things to Vonn’s favor in the process. What if my attempt to tell the truth backfires and makes Shapiro inclined to believe the enemy really has invaded our station? How am I supposed to prove I’m the actual daughter of Commander Linsey Hamilton, and not just an Antarctican looking for a way to hide her true identity?

  Still. These are flimsy excuses and I know it.

  “Okay, fine,” I say, tapping back into the private message inbox, ignoring the piercing look Zesi’s giving me. It’s like his eyes are burning holes through my conscience. “You’re right. I’ll try that first.”

  Even if it is four-morning, Shapiro won’t want us to destroy each other. I put the call through before I can talk myself out of it. It rings, rings, rings—longer than usual, for sure. On the fifth ring, finally, someone picks up.

  “Hello?” I say. “This is Commander Lin—”

  “Julian Shapiro’s department,” interrupts the voice of what can only be an intern slapped with a string of graveyard shifts. She can’t be much older than I am, from the sound of it. Her voice is full of sleep. “Please state your clearance code?”

  “This is Lindley Hamilton, daughter of—”

  “Your clearance code, please?”

  My heart beats in my throat. My only guess—the same code my mother used for the passcode to this private inbox—is definitely the wrong one. Clearance codes are an entirely different level of complicated, company-issued garbles of letters, numbers, and symbols meant to be unguessable and unbreakable; I know this because Dr. Safran made an offhand comment about it during our final day together, how he’d memorized the entire periodic table as an eleven-year-old and could teach me nearly anything I’d need to keep the station running. Just don’t ask what my clearance code is, he said. They change every year—started losing track after the first four. Never needed mine anyway, though, not once
. Ask your mother for hers if you want to cover all your bases.

  I wish I’d had the chance. His mind was slipping even then, because my mother was already long gone.

  “I’m aboard the space station Lusca, and this is an emergency,” I say, my voice rising. “Could you please connect me with—”

  “I’m sorry,” she says, not sounding the least bit sorry to keep cutting me off. “Due to a recent breach of security protocol, I cannot speak further or connect you unless you provide the correct clearance—”

  I end the call.

  Zesi lets out a long, loud exhale. “Well.”

  It’s the beginning and the end of his commentary on the matter.

  I should do something. I should do anything besides sitting here, staring at the message log like it could, at any minute, produce magic answers to all our problems. If only. I slip into the facilities, close myself inside its claustrophobic walls. Take my time. Put my head in my hands, wait for it to stop spinning.

  We are alone up here, we are going to die, my best is not enough—and it never will be.

  I’ve made a thousand mistakes.

  The station deserves better.

  Surely there is a way to salvage this. Surely we can make it four more days, until our shipment comes, without getting destroyed—or without destroying each other.

  Surely.

  When I finally come out again, Zesi’s standing right outside the door. He holds his buzz screen in my face, so close the words blur. “What the hell?” he says.

  “What? What is that?” I pluck the buzz screen from his hand before he can protest, take a closer look for myself.

  Do not tell them the truth, the message on the screen reads, or one of you will be the next to die. The virus has mutated, and it’s getting worse: that’s the official word.

  “Zesi . . .” A chill races up my spine, splintering like ice between the bones. “What is this?”

  My eyes shift on instinct up to the name at the top: Mila Harper.

  “What were you doing in the bathroom?” he asks, a vaguely accusing tone to his voice that’s completely unlike him. “Do you have your buzz with you?”

  For a split second I’m speechless. “Are you implying that I sent this?” I shoot back. “How do I know you didn’t send it?”

  “That’s not an answer.”

  The clothes I’m wearing right now have only three pockets, total, and I turn all of them out. “I left my buzz on the control board, where I’ve been sitting all night. Check the facilities if you want, but you’re not going to find anything.”

  I don’t ask him to turn his pockets out—he’s not stupid. Far from it, actually. If he’s somehow the one behind this message, not to mention everything else, the evidence will be long gone by now.

  He beats me to the control board, holds my buzz up so I can see it. “Looks like you got it, too.”

  A second message flashes onto the screen while he’s holding it—from Haven this time. What the eff is this message? Tell me I’m not the only one who got this? A screenshot pops up right on its heels, identical to the one Zesi and I received.

  I take my buzz screen from Zesi, type out: I got it, and Zesi did, too. Same exact thing. I hit enter, then add, Try to sleep a little more before your shift, k? No luck here yet.

  She writes back immediately: How am I supposed to sleep when Mila is haunting us from beyond the dead????? x.X

  Srsly, you need to try, I type out but delete it immediately; it’s likely to rub her the wrong way, especially at this hour. I decide to go with If you figure it out, let me know when you get here instead.

  I sit down on my stool, bury my face in my hands. Do not tell them the truth, or one of you will be the next to die. I could spin out another theory: Did someone plant a bug here in Control? Did someone plant a bug on one of us? Could someone have figured out how to eavesdrop through . . . the pipes? But at this point, it only seems like a way to put off the truth I’m so reluctant to accept.

  Only the six of us were in this room tonight.

  Only the six of us know about our plans to come clean with the station.

  One of the six of us sent this message. One of the six of us is willing to kill a close friend in order to keep their secret safe.

  This . . . I . . . I can’t.

  I didn’t think it could get worse. This is beyond worse.

  “What, so we’re just . . . not going to talk about this?” Zesi says. His blueprints and diagrams have gone dark, and he’s pacing pacing pacing pacing. He’s frantic, and I wish I could go back to trusting what’s right in front of my eyes instead of assuming everything is a vicious lie. Someone is a vicious liar, that’s the only thing I know for sure.

  I have to get out of here.

  “No.” My reply is sharp and short.

  I zip my zipper all the way up to my neck, tug my hood up over my head so there’s nothing in my peripheral vision. I want to disappear.

  “What are you going to do?” he asks. “What are you going to tell everyone?”

  The doors slide closed, eating his words.

  56

  FEAR IS A PILE OF FEATHERS

  UNSURPRISING: THE REC center’s jogging track is deserted when I arrive. It’s nearly half past two-morning. Not only is the track deserted, I have yet to see another soul on this entire deck. Good. I may only be able to run in circles—not away, like I’d prefer—but at least I’m able to run. And run alone.

  I pound a fast rhythm, until the neon art installations on the wall are nothing but a blur of bright streaks. I run and run and run, like I’m flying on wings made of fear and adrenaline, shedding dead weight as I go:

  First, the paranoia—for this moment, at least, I can breathe.

  Then, the numbness that’s turned me to stone.

  Next, the sting of betrayal.

  I leave these behind, knowing they’ll chase me down and climb back on the very second I stop, but for now, it feels good to forget.

  It’s harder to shed the anger. Anger fuels my every step, my every thought, my every breath. I just can’t get past why someone would do this—or how. Not how as in death by belladonna cocktail, but how as in I cannot comprehend the mind of this killer. I imagine the mind of a murderer to be a twisted, tangled thing, the good parts suffocating while the terrible ones thrive the only way they know how: take, take, take. No remorse, no regret. Survival, and misery-loves-company, and if I’m dying inside, you get to, too.

  That, I get. What I cannot wrap my thoughts around is how that twisted and tangled mess could possibly exist inside a person I’ve known my entire life. Haven, Heath. Leo, Zesi. Natalin. We’ve grown up together, here, inside the same walls, forever. We’ve experienced everything together. We lost our parents together.

  More than anything, that is the thorn that digs. I want nothing more than to be able to erase everyone’s pain: to stitch up the places where the things we love have been torn away. To heal. I want to make it better—I know what it feels like to wake up in the dead of night, sweating cold from nightmares. I would give anything to take all the nightmares away.

  I do not understand the instinct to create them.

  Why, why, why, why: my feet beat the word into the track. And this latest message—does whoever sent it really expect me to blatantly lie after we’ve resolved to tell the truth? Lying would do nothing but hand over even more power. It’s not like it would prevent the deaths altogether—it would only prevent certain specific deaths.

  I’ve already lost too many people I love, but I am the leader of this station. I cannot, will not, prioritize my own comfort above everyone else’s.

  That’s the heart of a killer, not a leader.

  I run until everything burns, legs and lungs, and then I run more. I don’t stop until I feel peace with my decision. It’s a tough spot I’m in, and whoever’s pushed me here knows it—something terrible is going to happen no matter what I do. The deaths will keep coming, I’m sure of it.

  There’s very
little left I can control, very little I can do to ease my conscience. As I work through my options, I realize there’s really only one I can live with: turn the target on myself. If I continue on with our original plan—tell the station the truth—perhaps the killer will come for me, and not another of our core six. It’s a risk, for sure. They may not take the bait at all . . . or if they do, I may not recognize what’s happening until it’s too late.

  I’ll just have to see them coming. End it before it begins.

  I’ve been fumbling in a dark and chaotic world since the moment my mother left it. Nothing is like it was before, nothing is sure—not anymore.

  But if there’s one thing I know, it’s this: I’ve been ruled by fear for far too long now.

  I refuse to bow down any longer.

  57

  SHADE UPON SHADOW

  “WHERE WERE YOU this morning?” Haven greets me just outside the doors to the mezzanine balcony. “Not like you to no-show.”

  I haven’t even peeked inside and the noise is already earsplitting. It’s a relief: I’ve been dreading the possibility of silence. “Needed some space,” I reply. I adjust my hoodie, try to make it look fresh after being worn for so many hours in a row.

  “You could’ve told me before I dragged myself out of bed in the dead of night,” she says. “You could’ve left the passcode or Vonn’s contact info behind, at the very least. You should’ve—”

  “I know,” I cut her off. “I should have.”

  I woke, on a patch of barren rec center floor, to the sound of Haven’s voice echoing from the speakers. She gave the morning announcement as planned, put out the call for our station-wide meeting.

  It was only after the announcement that I noticed all the missed messages on my buzz screen. Tons from Haven—Where are you??? and How do I call Vonn?? Instructions, plz? and Are we still going forward with our announcement, in light of that certain disturbing message we received last night??? Mixed in with those were a slew of missed calls and other texts from Leo, Heath, and Natalin when they woke up to the mysterious threat from “Mila”—all equally freaked out, all with their questions questions questions—and a set of messages from Zesi, wondering where I’d disappeared to, if I would be coming back, Sorry Lindley I can’t stay awake any longer, headed to bed now, and on and on.