“I don’t understand what you’re waiting for,” Suresh hisses. “Dose her!”
Much to Ophelia’s irritation, he has summoned her to the corridor to have this conversation. Why does everything have to be a fight with this team?
Her head is throbbing. She and Ethan took off their helmets a while ago; there doesn’t seem to be any point in trying to isolate themselves after all. But the muscles at the back of her neck are so tight that it’s become difficult to turn to look at anyone. Which is fine, because she’s not particularly in the mood to look at any of them. Other than Liana, her current source of preoccupation. Ethan remains inside what’s left of Ophelia’s office, just to the side of Liana, within reach and able to grab her if need be. But even that’s not enough.
I need to be there, be ready.
“She’s just standing there, looking out a window,” Ophelia says to Suresh again, patience thinning to nothing. “She’s not hurting anyone or showing signs of hurting herself.”
Technically, Liana’s standing there murmuring to herself. Words that Ophelia can’t quite catch. Occasionally it sounds very much like gibberish. Squash. Piccadilly. Remonstrative. Listening sets off an awful clutch inside Ophelia’s gut. She’s not sure if Liana is in there anymore, or if she’s buried so deep by whatever this is that it effectively doesn’t matter. Honestly, Ophelia doesn’t even know which is worse. She used to wonder about that with her father, if the part of him that was decent saw what he was doing, as if he was trapped behind glass and unable to free himself to take control. Her father had a temper; he could be violent with Ophelia and her mother, but never with strangers, never on that level.
Obviously. The mass murder level is generally one and done.
Still, it was hard to know what to do with the contradiction. The man who patiently played with Ophelia for hours, making up stories for her dolls and stuffed creatures, the man who taught her how to take apart and repair the station bot that cleaned the floor on their level, was the same man who terrified her mother on a regular basis, who taught Ophelia—unintentionally—to read the mood of a room with a single glance so she’d know whether she should freeze in place or run. The same man who lost his grip on reality and killed dozens of people.
Eventually, Ophelia had to stop trying to figure it out, which part was him and which was the disease. It was impossible to know—it was all of him and none of him at the same time. He hadn’t been perfect before ERS; he wouldn’t have been without it, either.
She loved him, she hated him, she feared him. It’s all true.
“If I don’t know what’s causing this, I don’t know what effect the sedative will have. It could make her worse,” Ophelia says to Suresh. Liana seems to be functioning on some level between consciousness and sleep. She’s partially aware, able to keep herself from falling over the debris, able to navigate to the window. And yet she’s seeing what’s not there, and how is she seeing anything with eyes that don’t focus?
Ophelia shivers.
“Either way, I’m betting that it’ll keep her from slicing at herself or any of us,” Suresh says, his hands in fists at his sides. Trying not to scratch, if Ophelia had to guess. “What would be so bad about that?”
“Suresh, leave off. She’s doing the best she can,” Kate says. Then she turns to Ophelia. “Doctor, what can we do to help?”
“Ophelia.” Ethan jerks his head, indicating Liana.
Ophelia leaves the corridor immediately, gaze fixed on Liana, though Liana doesn’t seem to be doing anything different.
“The back of her neck,” Ethan says quietly, once Ophelia is close enough.
“The back of her…” Ophelia starts to repeat in confusion, and then it clicks.
She moves closer, and sure enough, familiar-looking raised nodules are spread across the vulnerable skin between the top of Liana’s jumpsuit collar and the upsweep of her hair into a ragged ponytail.
Spreading? Or just presenting in a new manner?
Fuck. Fuck!
“Okay.” With her gloved finger, Ophelia presses gently into one of the bumps. As before, it squirms away from the pressure, and the others scatter as well. This time, however, they seem to congregate together, joining with one another in clumps of two or three instead of simply fleeing the stimulus.
Huh. Ophelia raises her hand to try again.
Liana whirls around, startling Ophelia into stepping back.
“No,” Liana says sharply. Her eyes still aren’t working right, but that word was certainly clear enough.
Ophelia raises her hands in surrender and holds still, until Liana returns to her vigil at the window.
“If we can get a sample, maybe we can see what we’re dealing with,” Ophelia says to Ethan in an undertone. “Or maybe we can … remove whatever it is. It’s near the surface.” A little optimistic, given that the med-scanner hadn’t recognized anything wrong in the blood samples she’d run before. And the similarity to her father’s delusions makes her want to throw up. You’re infected, Little Bird.
But they can’t just sit here and wait for what happened to Birch to happen to Liana, to all of them. In that way, Ophelia agrees with Suresh.
After a moment, Ethan nods reluctantly. “The PMU has a setting for foreign object removal,” he says. “I’ve used it before.”
Good. Then he can do this. The relief that she will not be the one operating—operating!—makes her knees feel weak.
Ophelia retrieves the sedative hypo from the desk, where she had left it within easy reach. Her fingers slip and slide inside her sweaty suit gloves.
She tightens her grip on the hypo as she moves next to Liana at the window, facing her instead of the view of outside.
Liana doesn’t seem to register her presence, just keeps murmuring to herself.
Ophelia lifts her hand and it’s over and done in a second, just a quick push against the side of Liana’s neck, the hiss of the dispensed meds through the skin. She hasn’t done anything like this since the training for her required rotation through Montrose’s private locked wards.
Even then, administering sedatives was supposed to be a last option, to be used only if an orderly or nurse wouldn’t make it in time.
Liana doesn’t react to the injection at first. Certainly not the slow slumping forward or staggering that Ophelia expects.
Liana’s hand flies up to her neck in a belated defense, and she turns toward Ophelia. Her expression holds no betrayal, even when she sees the hypo still in Ophelia’s hand. The blankness of Liana’s face is eerie, particularly in contrast to the frantic jitter of her eyes beneath their half-closed lids.
“It’s okay, you’re okay,” Ophelia says quickly, attempting to reassure her, if she can still hear her.
The pain in Ophelia’s head pulses suddenly, as if the blood is trying to push its way out of her eyeballs.
Jesus, am I having an aneurysm? Right now? She presses the heel of her hand against her left eye, unable to stop herself.
Liana lurches forward, not falling but running. Her elbow clips Ophelia’s ribs as she passes, a sharp, shooting pain that distracts Ophelia from her head even as it sends her stumbling back toward Ethan. He catches Ophelia’s elbow and steadies her before she can hit the floor.
Then he darts around her, fast but not fast enough.
“She’s running!” he shouts to Kate and Suresh.
Kate makes a grab and catches hold of Liana’s arm, but Liana manages to torque herself out of Kate’s loose grasp and then bypasses Suresh’s grab entirely.
“I thought you drugged her,” Suresh shouts at Ophelia, as they take off after her.
“I did!” But the forced breathiness from Liana’s blow to her ribs mutes the anger of her response. Ophelia staggers into the corridor to follow.
“She’s going for the airlock,” Kate calls over her shoulder.
“We can’t let her get outside,” Ophelia says, alarmed, still trying to catch up. The pain in her head is lessening slightly.
“You think?” Suresh asks, already crossing into the central hub after Ethan.
“Shut up,” Kate says to him.
A moment later, though, as Ophelia reaches the entrance to the central hub, a loud thud echoes back toward her, followed by a series of grunts.
When she crosses into the hub, Ophelia finds that Ethan has Liana pinned to the floor about a meter or two from the airlock door, his body weight across her back, holding her down. But she’s still struggling, bucking with her whole body and flailing her arms and legs.
“Ophelia,” he says with gritted teeth. “Hurry.”
She rushes to his side and drops to her knees to hit Liana again with the sedative. But it takes both Kate and Ophelia to hold her arm down long enough for Ophelia to administer it.
“She’s freakishly strong,” Kate pants.
The second dose does nothing except make Liana angrier. She manages to slither forward, and Ophelia catches a glimpse of her face, straining, red, but again curiously empty. No anger or fear or even pain. Thin streams of saliva slip from the corner of her mouth and down her chin.
“Doctor!” Ethan says.
“Okay, okay!” Ophelia leans forward once again with the hypo. This is all she has—three doses per vial. One of them should have easily taken down Liana. It should have taken down Ethan or Suresh, either of them much taller and heavier. Too much sedation might compromise Liana’s breathing.
But this time, Liana finally goes still. Ethan, after a moment, levers himself up cautiously, prepared to drop down again if needed. When Liana doesn’t move, he pushes up to his knees beside her.
“Turn her on her—”
Before Ophelia can finish, Ethan’s already rolling Liana over to her side.
To Ophelia’s shock and horror, Liana’s eyes are open now, her gaze focusing on Ophelia. The confusion and fear Ophelia was looking for earlier run rampant. “What … why?” Liana manages, as tears well up and roll across her face, the bridge of her nose.
“Oh my God, Liana.” She’s back. Ophelia grabs for her hand to comfort her, but her fingers are cold and limp.
“Are you all right? What happened?” Kate demands, crouching next to Liana.
Liana makes a terrified whimpering sound. “I hear it. Don’t you hear it?”
Everyone goes still. The only noises are Liana’s panting and the wind moaning around the hab.
“It’s the wind, love,” Kate says gently. “Just the wind.”
“No, no, no, nooo.” Liana shakes her head, a tiny movement. “It’s in me,” she whispers, just before her body goes limp. Her head lands hard on the patterned metal floor with a reverberating thump.
It’s in me. It’s in me. Liana had one brief moment of awareness before she was gone again. Unconscious, this time, and unmoving.
Thinking as she paces the central hub, Ophelia tugs hard at the delicate chain around her neck, the tiny metal bird in flight, warm against her fingers. Her necklace from Dulcie, whom she might never see again.
The pain in Ophelia’s head has receded to a dull roar. Her ribs ache, but she’s otherwise fine. Except for the overwhelming feeling that they’re making a mistake.
It’s in me.
Maybe Liana noticed the bumps on her arm and never said anything. Maybe she felt them on the back of her neck earlier today.
But Ophelia can’t shake the feeling that Liana was talking about a level beyond the merely tactile.
It’s in me. It’s in all of them now. Just to varying degrees.
“Doctor?” Ethan’s voice brings Ophelia back to herself.
She turns to find him at the A side entrance. He looks exhausted, hair ruffled, a thin red line of a scratch on his left cheek. He and Suresh have moved Liana to Ophelia’s office.
“We’re ready. I would…” He pauses, seeming to search for the words. “I would appreciate your willingness to assist, if it becomes necessary.”
If Liana wakes up. If she doesn’t. Ophelia’s not sure which he means. She doesn’t think she wants to know. She’s so far afield from where she expected to be. That—admittedly overly bright—vision of sessions in an office, with team members walking out feeling relieved, more rested, safer, none of that has even remotely come true.
Instead she’s preparing to help with an impromptu surgery. Of all the kinds of surgery she’s ever considered assisting with, which is to say none, impromptu would be the lowest on the list. She’s never felt more helpless in her life, not even when she was hiding behind that HRU, praying her father wouldn’t find her.
“I think we have to consider this might not be something we can just remove,” Ophelia says.
Ethan raises his eyebrows. “This was your suggestion, Doctor.”
“I know, but with what I saw—what we saw…” Ophelia corrects herself. “We’re talking about multiple systems affected. Movement. Speech. Intent.”
“Sleepwalking is—”
“Involves unconscious rote activity, usually. Maybe acting out a dream or nightmare. Not like this.” Ophelia hesitates. “I’m saying Liana might be in there still, but she was not making the decisions. Not when she was running for the airlock door.”
And that’s what’s going to happen to all of them. Slowly descending into madness, at best. Or quite possibly being perfectly aware but unable to move or speak while something else acts as them instead.
“You don’t know that. You don’t know what she was seeing or experiencing,” he points out. “But even if that’s the case, that’s all the more reason we need to try to save her.”
“She can’t even give consent to what we’re about to try,” Ophelia argues.
Disbelief flashes across his face. “Are you seriously suggesting that we need to protect ourselves legally from trying to save her life?”
“I’m not worried about lawsuits, Ethan! I’m worried we’re going to kill her. I’m not an expert at any of this. Neither are you.” Ophelia already has so many deaths on her conscience, she doesn’t know that she can stand one more. Not if Liana can’t even consent; that seems wrong.
“Sadly, we are suffering a shortage of experts in any number of areas here,” Ethan says wearily. “I still have a responsibility to my people. If it helps, I’m going to do this whether you’re with me or not. Because if we don’t figure this out, none of us are getting out of here alive.” He scrubs his hands over his face. “Sometimes all we have is the ugly decision.”
Ophelia bristles. “I’m not afraid of making—”
“It’s not cowardice. It’s selfishness. You’re still hiding. And I don’t have time for it. You don’t want to be your father, Ophelia? Don’t be him. You don’t like being a Bray? Make your own choices.”
His blasé attitude sets the remnants of Ophelia’s patience alight. “You don’t think I am? I’ve been fighting my whole life. To be better, to do better. You have no idea what it was like.”
“You’re telling me, the kid from the Lunar Valley slums, that I have no idea what it’s like to fight?” He folds his arms across his chest, eyebrows arched. “To be despised and pitied at the same time?”
Ophelia’s face heats. “Being poor isn’t criminal.”
“Neither is being rich,” he says. “Or the child of someone who was criminal.”
He’s right, of course. Neither of those things is illegal, but for the effects of such, they might as well be.
“Who makes the rules, Ophelia? If you’re trying to prove yourself, who decides when you’re done? When you’ve crossed the finish line?”
She rocks back on her heels, breath stolen.
“If she dies”—he jerks his thumb back toward Liana—“but you weren’t involved, does that make it better? Does that make it okay?”
“No, of course not!”
He shakes his head. “Then what are you doing?”
“I…”
He pivots and strides off toward the A side, without waiting for her answer, which she doesn’t have anyway.
Her hands ball into fists. Ethan doesn’t get it. He can’t. It’s not as if she’s cornered the market on dysfunctional families, or even violent ones. But there is something to be said for being the blue-chip stock for both. It’s a unique intersection of self-loathing and societal obsequiousness mixed equally with disgust. How is anyone supposed to claw themselves free of that? She’s done everything she can to make a space for herself, separate from both aspects of her heritage, while still trying to make up for both.
It’s impossible. Who she is always comes back to haunt her, one way or another, literally or figuratively.
But that question. Who decides when you’re done? She feels it resonating through the middle of her, an emptiness vibrating from an unexpected blow, shaking and reordering things as it moves through. An earthquake of personal revelation, impossible to ignore.
He meant it, she’s sure, as sarcasm. But in truth, it never occurred to her.
He’s correct—no one is ever going to come up to her and say, “Enough. You’re enough. It’s okay that you’re Field Bledsoe’s daughter. That you’re a Bray and you’ve been given great privilege despite not deserving it or being wanted by the Brays themselves.”
That will never happen. For a variety of reasons, not the least of which is how few people know those details about her.
Ophelia blinks, processing that.
It’s not that she’s been anticipating this moment, exactly, more that she figured one day she would feel it, that she would reach some point in her life, some threshold or mountaintop where she would look around and realize that she’d accomplished what she set out to do. Attained a position that everyone would universally agree was above critique, beyond failure.
A snort of self-deprecating laughter escapes her, and Ophelia slaps a hand over her mouth, even as her eyes well with tears.
What the fuck, Phe. How did I miss this? Physician heal thyself. There is no finish line because she never set one. She just kept moving the tape with every accomplishment, with every attempt, because no one was there telling her she was done. Telling her she was enough.
But who would have done that anyway? Her mother? No. Her uncle, her grandmother? Please. And there’s literally no one else in her life whose word she could accept, because no one else knows who she is.
Except, now, Ethan Severin.
Who makes the rules? Another of his questions that Ophelia doesn’t have the answer to. But she knows what she wants the answer to be, what it should be.
Me.