Chapter 2
Ver

If a chemical reaction is stalling, add a catalyst. It will nudge the molecules to cooperate without itself undergoing a permanent change. The reaction will run faster.

I wish there was a catalyst to make my body run faster. Or run at all.

This is why I hate emergencies. Why I panic and cry and sometimes wet my pants. Because I cannot run, and when the people around me do—bump thump, I am hurt. That is how it has been since the pain started. How it will always be.

There were plenty of emergencies back home. But I thought that by coming here, to G-Moon One, I would find safety. Aiyo, I hate being wrong.

When the alarm tunnels into my ears, I drop the chemically treated bone marrow sample I am holding. The tissue pops out of the dish. Splat! Onto the floor.

No! My head is exploding with alarm like a sealed bottle in an autoclave. That was the only sample I had prepared. Weeks of work that someday could have helped someone like me—lost!

The yellow emergency lights flick on with a hum. I cannot process what Cal is saying, but I can identify his expression as shock. After a moment, the face I love turns away from me. His hands cover it up.

“Sorry! Sorry!” I say, stooping down to clean up the mess. Have to save what I can.

Cal trudges off toward his office, wringing his hands over our lost work. He must need to deal with the frustration alone. I know he is not angry at me. He understands that my physical limitations can make me clumsy. He has never treated me like I am inferior to anyone else.

The alarm is still screaming. I look up from the mess to apologize again . . . but Cal is lying on the floor, folded in the fetal position. His face is hidden.

I blink, and he is still there.

Even as I inch toward him, panic rising in my chest, a blur flashes by me. Aryl Fielding. Running across the lab, throwing her sliced tissue back in the freezer, and grabbing me around the waist. My lower back squeezes, seizes, as she hustles me toward the exit, her curls bouncing in front of my face.

I did not ask to be manhandled! Why did she show up to lab tonight, of all nights? “Put me down!” Seething, I thwack her arm with my cane. “I cannot leave that experiment!” Or Cal.

“You think I want to leave mine?” Aryl shouts over the alarm. Normally her voice is lazy and low. But now it is angry, like the violet lightning on the churning, gassy surface of our moons’ planet, Gui.

Aryl wrenches open the heavy lab door with her free hand. Its motion sensor is not working. Nothing in the dark hallway indicates that anything is wrong. No fires, no sparks, no explosions. No people.

With rage still singeing my insides, I whack Aryl’s arm again. Hard as I can.

“Ow!” she cries. “Lay off the stick!”

“What about Cal?” I shout. “He is still in there!”

“Cal can take care of himself.”

“No! I saw him—he collapsed, just after the alarm went off. He must have passed out!”

Aryl’s body stiffens. “For Pangu’s sake,” she mutters and plunks me back on my feet. “I’ll go back and get him. You get out of the building.”

I shake my head. “With this alarm, the elevators will be stopped. You will need to help me down the stairs. I should not go alone. Fourteen stories. At eighteen steps per story, that is two hundred fifty-two steps. If the probability of my falling on any given step is—”

Aryl throws up her hands. “I get it, genius. You’ll end up faceplanting. Wait for me here, then.”

She dashes back into the lab, leaving me to bump behind her as fast as I can. My cane clatters against random objects in the blackness.

“Cal! Cal!” I cry. The air is empty. I search with every sense, desperate for a sign of him. Maybe he left through a secret exit. Maybe he is safe.

The alarm dies and the lights blaze back to life, burning my eyes. I sway on the spot, waiting for my vision to return.

And I hear Aryl screaming.