Chapter 12
Ver

I know there is no hope as soon as I see Aryl’s face. Aiyo, her features are quivering with rage. Her usually radiant skin has gone bloodless and sallow.

“That prune’s holding us here until the trial, whenever that is,” she seethes, melting onto her lumpy cot. “And we can’t do anything to change the outcome if we’re shut up in here . . .”

The screen on the back of the door turns white and displays a message.

“Bail is online,” I say. My body trembles when I see the figure by my name: three months of my paycheck.

There is a swish sound as Aryl kicks her leg out in front of her. She grabs it with her cuffed hands, pulls it toward her face, and stretches her hamstring. She tilts her head back to read the bail posting, upside down.

“Four thousand Feyncoins. I don’t even have two thousand,” she says.

“Your family?” I ask.

Aryl flinches and looks away. “Let’s not go there.”

Before I even have time to be curious, a cramp hits so hard I cannot speak. Pounding, expanding in my gut. These pains come out of nowhere after I miss my medication, especially when I am menstruating. I lie back on my cot in the fetal position and rock myself. I wish for Ma, how she would drape herself over me when every part of me hurt. Squeezing the pain out.

“Ver?” Somehow I register Aryl’s voice, her warm hand on my shoulder. But I am still voiceless.

In pulses, the pain subsides long enough for me to open my eyes. Gradually it ebbs away to a point where my central nervous system is online and allowing me to think. Strange that I can be fine in any given moment, then in galaxies of agony the next. It depends on how I slept, what I have eaten, the movements I make, the drugs circulating in my bloodstream, and my emotional state. A panic attack, for instance, will bruise me from the inside out.

“I have to get out of here,” I say, even though every word wounds my pride. “The security bots confiscated my medications.”

Aryl’s face changes. Her eyes widen with pity, which I hate, even when it gets me what I want. She masks it with sarcasm. “Well, unless your people on Three have an illicit fund that’ll cover your bail . . . ?”

I do not smile. “Why does everyone think I am either poor as dust or drug-ring royalty? I give every spare Feyncoin from my paycheck to my mother. She spends it all. So I am trapped here.”

Aryl arches one eyebrow into a parabola of judgment. I regret my words. This girl knows too much about me already. Now she will assume, correctly, that my mother spends much of my money on drugs. Happy Patches, squares that adhere to the roof of the mouth and dispense painkilling opioids and mood-boosting nicotine. They are expensive, and legally available only to patients with chronic pain diagnosed by a physician—which is also expensive—so most people get them on the street.

“My parents are always sending money to my aunts and uncles on Two,” Aryl says. “I’ve seen how much pressure it puts on them.”

I blink at her.

“My cousin hurt his back lifting lumber,” Aryl continues. “Two lumbar hernias. He’s on painkillers. The surgery’s expensive and might not work.”

“Keep him away from patches,” I say.

When Ma is flying, she cares about nothing else. When she stops, the pain in her hands and back returns, and all she wants is to fly again.

She was not always this way. Once she was fiery and loving, determined that I would leave Three and earn a better life. When I was small, Ma used the extra money from her paycheck to buy me real eggs from G-Moon Two, so I would grow up strong, or at least smart. None of that mass-synthesized albumin goo from the food factories for me, though Ma herself ate it all the time.

“Sounds like you’re speaking from experience,” Aryl says.

Again, I say nothing—which any reasonable person would take as a yes—and watch her face change. She looks disgusted with herself for baiting me.

“I’m sorry,” Aryl says softly. “I was hoping you wouldn’t say something tragically alien like that, but then you did.”

For the first time, I think her words match her thoughts. “We can be as tragically alien as we want with each other,” I say.

To my surprise, we both start laughing. The sound is manic. Like we are announcing to all the Gui moons that we are the killers the police think we are. Feeling that you do not belong on the moon you stand upon is never funny. But it is a relief when someone else knows what that is like. Even if she is the only other suspect in the death of someone you loved.

Beep! Beep! The room’s buzzer sounds. The laughter dies on our lips. Did someone hear us? Will we be punished for making noise?

“Hello?” I call out.

“Oh, Ver-hai, don’t be scared,” singsongs a sad, sweet voice. A voice with a regional Three-er accent, heavier and thicker from the weight of loss. The last voice I expected to hear.

Aryl rockets to her feet. “Jaha?” she cries. “Please believe me, I didn’t do it—”

“I know you didn’t, Aryl-hai,” says Jaha, affectionately calling Aryl “child.” “That’s why I came to the station. I’ve paid bail for both of you. I’m taking you home.”

White is the best color at self-defense. White objects reflect all the visible wavelengths of light, absorbing nothing, and send the photons scattering.

On Three, it is also the color of mourning.

Jaha Linaya has arrived at the police station dressed in white from head to toe, a sash thrown over one shoulder, crossing a structured bell-sleeved dress. Star-shaped earrings sit inside her dozen ear piercings. A glowing LED hoop loops through her left nostril.

This is the drabbest I have ever seen her look. Her everyday outfits are colorful. Her long braid is space-dark; her skin, a deep shade of brown, usually glows. Today, shadows like slashes sit beneath her enormous black eyes. Makeup cannot cover her exhaustion. She looks like she can barely hold herself upright. Something more than the infant girl strapped to her chest is weighing her down.

Despite these warning signs, Aryl cannot stop smiling. She looks too glad to see Jaha. As if we will all troop back to lab and simply put this murder accusation behind us.

“Miranda, tell them the rules,” Xenon says to the green-haired officer on his left. Although she looks young, her face is narrow, her eyes cruel. Her badge reads Det. Miranda Card; she must be a junior colleague of Xenon’s. Why else would she take his orders?

She shoots him an annoyed look before turning her frightening eyes on Aryl and me. “Ms. Linaya’s bail payment has been processed, and you’re free to go until your trial, which will take place five days from now. I’m working with Detective Xenon on your case, and I swear on all our lives, justice will be done.”

The words barely register in my head. I have less than a week to clear my name. An impossible task.

“Don’t try to run off. We’ll be monitoring your locations with every scan of your identifying features,” Detective Card adds. This means our fingerprints and retina scans, which are needed to pass through transport checkpoints. “And we’ll retain possession of your personal effects until after your trial.” So we will not get our flexitabs back. Or my medications.

Card approaches me, and I try not to flinch. Click, twist, snap! Her hands are rough as she unclasps my cuffs. Aryl gives me an uneasy look. She is probably thinking that as terrible as Detective Xenon’s interrogation tactics were, Detective Card’s might have been even worse.

“If they’re declared innocent at their trial, I want all that money returned to me,” Jaha says to Detective Card. Card snorts mockingly and walks off with Xenon.

That was too easy. So easy, I am disturbed. Jaha showed up just as my body was beginning to fail. Just when Aryl and I had found the one common denominator between us.

Now that I walk free, I worry that the usual chill between Jaha and me will return. But she hugs me and Aryl one at a time, loosely, so we do not crush baby Dimmi. The hugs seem to be equal in magnitude; Jaha is careful not to show a preference for one of us in public.

When I see the baby, face scrunched up in sleep, I feel like crying. Dimmi is nine months old, and her little pink mouth looks just like Cal’s. The miracle of inheritance. Will this child ever know how amazing her father was?

Aryl and I follow Jaha out of the station and onto the busy street. The balmy evening air soothes my lungs, a welcome contrast to the dry, filtered stuff blasting through the police station.

“I’ve gotten you two out, but Cal’s stuck in the medical repository.” Jaha’s voice is flat, her eyes cold spheres of glass. “They’re cutting him open. Taking samples of this, biopsies of that. They even asked me for the backup password to his hand, since it can no longer be activated by his voice.” Her voice breaks. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to unload on you two.”

Aryl puts a hand on her arm. “Don’t worry about it.”

Jaha takes a deep breath, as if pushing the reset button on her emotions. “Ver-hai, how are you feeling?”

Even though the solicitousness is embarrassing, I appreciate that she has asked. Has broken the silence between us. If I were not sick, what would we talk about? The fact that I was hopelessly in love with her husband?

“Fine,” I lie. My spine has gone crackly-stiff. Sparks of pain are shooting down my legs. I want to ask Jaha to call a hovercab, but I am hesitant to ask for favors. It will be a short walk to campus anyway.

“I’ve ordered more of your meds,” Jaha says, taking in my slumped posture. “The police are keeping the ones you had. They want to examine them chemically. The new ones should be delivered by drone to our home tonight.”

“Thank you,” I say flatly.

“We’re going to your apartment?” There is dramatic surprise in Aryl’s voice. I wonder if she is feigning it—if she knew the invitation was coming.

Jaha nods, as if this was obvious. “Don’t you want some time away from campus? Your dorms are surrounded by reporters wanting to interview you. I’ve got food, privacy, and doors that lock.”

As always, Jaha is prepared. But I cannot trust her.

When I first got to G-Moon One, she ordered ergonomic leg supports for my lab bench. She nagged the Institute housing officers to make sure I was given a ground-floor room in the part of the dorm complex closest to BioLabs, and she pressed for frequent maintenance checks of the BioLabs elevators to make sure they would never malfunction. She moved the lab supplies I used most onto shelves at my eye and chest level so I could easily reach them.

But that was before Cal started talking to me more than anyone else. Before he began ordering drone-delivered dinners for two during our late nights in lab. As the person who reviews lab finances, Jaha knows about that.

“There’s something else,” Jaha says now, lowering her eyes. “It’s not easy to admit. But I need people with me at home. I don’t want to be alone.”

Aryl winces but nods. She tries to catch my eye. I give nothing away.

I cannot worm out of this one. Jaha has paid for our freedom, at least temporarily, and in return, she is asking for our company. If I know anything about Jaha Linaya, it is that she is too smart to make underwhelming bargains like that. She wants something more from us.

Aryl might be ignorant of her plans . . . or they could be working together. Jaha has helped Aryl cover her truancy in lab, doing menial procedures for her while she was out dancing. It would not be beyond her to cover for Aryl now.

I will not sleep tonight.