“Left here.”

She slips in a puddle of gore, nearly loses her footing.

“Turn right.”

She’s whispering to herself as she runs, but I can’t make out the words.

A prayer maybe?

“Here! Here!”

She skids to a halt, slams the heavy bulkhead door shut behind her, spinning the wheel to lock it in place. Damp, hollow thuds hit the metal moments later. Grant fumbles in her haversack, draws out a wrench, jams it into the lock. Frustrated screams get muted by case-hardened steel, but they’re still awful enough to make her shrink back from the door, make me wish I brought a second pair of pants to work today.

“God,” she breathes. “Oh, god …”

“You must be quick. They will find another way in. The envirosuit, Kady. You must go where they cannot follow.”

Grant nods, backs away from the bulkhead, still reverberating from bleeding knuckle impacts on the other side. The AI gives her directions, and she creeps down to a small locker room off the main server arrays. Cams here are fritzing again, audio sounds like it’s underwater. But if you listen hard enough, you can still hear them screaming.

Grant pulls the envirosuit out of the locker, looking it up and down. A glance lets her know it’s too big for her. But not quite big enough …

“How am I supposed to put this on over my hazmat suit?”

“You cannot. You will need to take your hazmat gear off.”

“But that means I’ll be breathing contaminated air.”

“You will need to hold your breath.”

You have to wonder if the AI knows the virus probably doesn’t need oxygen. That the computer’s just trying to keep her going any way it can. You can see it in Grant’s eyes. The question. What’s the point of dodging infection if she’ll likely be dead soon anyway? Why cling to the hope that there’s anything beyond this?

But still, she somehow does. With all the odds against her. With the whole ’verse gone to shit. Still, she readies herself, sucking in a handful of deep, rasping breaths before gulping down a lungful and stripping off her hazmat gear. She fumbles with the envirosuit, dragging it up around her legs. Her cheeks are turning pink as she slips on the gauntlets, slaps the seals into place. Dragging her hair from her eyes, face bright red as she tugs on the helmet, stabbing the suit controls at her chest and purging the contaminated air inside.

She waits, starting to shake now, vainly hoping the virus in the Alexander’s air supply can’t survive without oxygen as long as she can. And finally, with blue lips and fluttering eyelids, finally she engages the oxygen supply, sweet, sweet O2 rushing into her lungs as she sinks to her knees, great heaving gasps shaking her whole frame.

She sits quiet for a while, then. Catches her breath.

Sighs.

“I recognize this level now.” Baby blues peer out through the visor of her bulky helmet. “Deck 231. It’s the level where Ezra planted my codewyrm into your memory core. It’s how I got access to the Copernicus medical records.”

“Yes.”

“This is his suit, isn’t it? The suit he wore to get access through the hull breach?”

“How did you know?”

“It …”

She tries to wipe at her face, and I realize she’s crying.

“Kady?”

“I used to wear his T-shirts to bed all the time.” She shakes her head. “To remind me of him when he wasn’t around. The suit smells like they did.”

“I am sorry. I truly am.”

She doesn’t say anything. Just closes her eyes and holds her breath. And suddenly, every cam in the room dies. Just like that.

At first I thought it was a power hemorrhage. But checking the logs, you can see it’s no glitch. The AI shut down the feeds.

It’s almost like … it was giving her privacy or something. In the middle of all this carnage and blood and death, where every single second counts, this psychotic killing machine that’s X-ed out thousands of people somehow finds it within itself to give Grant a few moments with nobody watching.

Just one minute alone with her tears.

It’s fucking weird, chum …

COUNTDOWN TO LINCOLN INTERCEPTION OF ALEXANDER FLEET:

8 hours: 42 minutes

CURRENT DEATH TOLL ABOARD BATTLECARRIER ALEXANDER SINCE ATTACK AT KERENZA:

2,499

PERCENTAGE OF REMAINING BATTLECARRIER ALEXANDER PERSONNEL AFFLICTED BY PHOBOS VIRUS:

99.87%

COUNTDOWN TO FAILURE OF ALEXANDER LIFE SUPPORT SYSTEMS:

11 hours: 37 minutes

Surveillance footage summary,
prepared by Illuminae Group Analyst ID 7213-0089-DN

Grant slips in through a service hatch on deck 99 almost two hours after she disappeared off internal cams. She leans against the wall, hands on knees, exhausted. Her face is swollen with blood—not knowing the difference, her heart was still pumping against gravity that just wasn’t there. Catching her breath, she stabs at the airlock controls, but a flashing red light signals it’s still unsafe to remove her helmet.

“What’s wrong with this thing?” she demands. “Why won’t it cycle?”

“It cannot. The hull in this sector is breached.”

“Shit.”

“Quite.”

She sighs. “Well, it’s not like I could take my helmet off out there anyway.”

“Indeed. And no oxygen means no afflicted.”

“I’ll break out the champagne.”