Ophelia’s father remains in front of the now unlocked door. “Good,” he says, beaming at her beatifically. If there were ever a moment she was truly certain that this is not solely the result of her own broken mind, it’s right then. The real Field Bledsoe doled out praise like semiprecious gems. Rarely, and with the expectation that each should be treated as more valuable than it was.
She doesn’t waste time trying to convince her brain that he’s not actually there; instead she dashes around him to shove open the door.
Out in the corridor, Kate is bending over Ethan, the gun clutched in her bloodied hand. He lies perfectly still on the corridor floor, blood pooling beneath his right shoulder. But it appears mostly red, not yet thick with the black gunk.
Ophelia skids to a halt. Kate looks up at her and then at something next to her, her brow furrowing suddenly. Her gun hand comes up.
Automatically, Ophelia raises her hands. Or tries to. They hover around her waist, drifting and uncertain.
Sweat visibly dampens Kate’s forehead. “I didn’t mean to,” she says. Her eyes have lost focus, with that staring-far-into-the-future look to them. Her attention jitters between Ophelia and whatever she’s seeing next to Ophelia.
Ophelia can’t stop herself from looking, but there’s no one there.
“He did it. He grabbed it. I wasn’t trying to hurt him. I wanted to hurt her,” Kate cries.
“Kate. Get the medikit and PMU. Now,” Ophelia says. So far, the words she hears herself saying match the ones she’s trying to say.
But Kate doesn’t seem to hear Ophelia, listening instead to something Ophelia can’t hear. Then Kate ducks her head, cringing, lifting her hands to cover her ears. “I know, I know!”
As soon as she retreats to the central hub, Ophelia rushes toward Ethan. His eyes open as she kneels next to him, his face contorting with pain when she accidentally jostles him.
“Probably shouldn’t have tried to argue with her,” he says, panting.
“Probably not when she has a gun.” Ophelia leans down for a better look at his wound. There’s a gaping hole in the space between his shoulder and the upper part of his chest. Not his heart. That much she knows. That much any child with a grasp of basic human anatomy would get. But there’re veins and arteries and important shit in that area as well.
“Projectile weapons? Really?” Ophelia mutters in frustration.
“Lower tech means less chance—”
“Of technical failure in unforeseen circumstances. Yeah, well, I hope you feel the same about lower-tech treatment, too.”
“Great bedside manner, Doc,” he says, coughing.
Fuck. And we’re losing breathable air. Ophelia stands up and with some effort manages to shoulder the bunk room door closed. That will keep it from getting any worse, at least.
“I am not the right kind of doctor for this,” she reminds Ethan as she returns to his side, trying to think.
Apply pressure. I need to apply pressure. But when she reaches for him, her hands lurch in the correct direction and then stop, hovering in midair.
Ophelia can feel them, but at a distance. It’s like a malfunctioning pair of robotic arms covering her own, only she can’t control them or remove them. It’s terrifying, to see part of your own body as something Other.
She lets out a breath, and the one she draws in feels too thin. She needs help.
Her father was gone when she shut the door. But he is, after all, a visual disturbance, a representation intended to trigger action, Ophelia suspects.
She focuses on an empty section of corridor. “Hello? Can you help me? I want to save him. And save your … people in there.” She doesn’t think they’re people so much as portions of a whole, but if they’re trying to relate to get desired results, then she’s going to do the same.
Ethan frowns up at her. “What are you—”
“Shhh.” She focuses on the image she wants to send. These entities—whether organic or technological—clearly get some things out of her head. So, this time, Ophelia shows them. Blood pumping out of the wound, her hands pressed over it, keeping the blood and the black flecks inside. The mental version of a child’s drawing.
Simplistic. But the best she can come up with. She’s not sure what else to do.
The sensation that follows most resembles the ripple of chills across her skin, only it’s on the inside. Something is moving inside her, along her forearms and up toward her shoulders.
Nausea rises hard in her, and she has to push down the urge to vomit. It’s in me. They’re all in me.
A sharp pain pierces her right eye, and she raises her hand instinctively to press against it, half expecting to feel the ooze of sludge down her cheek. But the pain vanishes after a second or two, and her hand is still pressed against her closed eyelid.
A hand she was able to control. Ophelia lowers it quickly and presses both hands down on Ethan’s wound. The blood is slick on her palms, cooling fast, just like before. On the garden terrace floor.
“You’re okay, you’re okay.” Ophelia recites the words, not sure who she’s trying to convince.
Running footsteps echo through the central hub. Ophelia tenses up, though she has no idea what she can do in defense.
Kate emerges from the doorway a moment later, the medikit tucked in one arm, with the PMU sticking out, the gun still in the other hand.
She heard Ophelia’s request. Or she heard someone telling her.
“Here.” Kate drops it all near Ophelia with a clatter.
“There. See, he’s going to be fine. She’s going to do it.” Speaking to someone else, she gestures at Ophelia with the gun, and Ophelia flinches.
But almost as soon as the fear fades, fury takes over. This part isn’t entirely Kate’s fault; she’s not herself. But her lies, her deception, are what landed them here. This team would never have been assigned to Ophelia, and Ava would still be alive, if Kate hadn’t gotten involved. People are dead because of her. And the rest are all infected, possessed, whatever the proper term is.
Ophelia’s vision darkens at the edges, narrowing with building rage. Her chest tightens until it feels like a scream is coiled beneath her lungs.
“It wasn’t my fault,” Kate insists to whomever she’s seeing. “If you had done exactly what I told you, you would have been fine!”
Ava. She’s talking to Ava. Or a projection of her. Once again, these things seem to zero in on the people and situations that evoke the strongest emotions in an individual.
But based on the way Kate’s face flushes with shame and anger, the invisible entities are not accepting that answer.
Neither is Ophelia.
She reaches out and grabs the PMU. Kate doesn’t even seem to register the movement.
Setting it in place over Ethan’s shoulder, Ophelia moves out of the way. Closer to the medikit.
“Assessing,” it announces. “Blood loss. Projectile injury. Please remain still!” it lectures Ethan, as he falls into another coughing jag. His breathing slows then, his eyes slipping shut.
“Ethan, stay with me,” Ophelia whispers. She slips her hand toward the medikit while Kate is distracted, splitting her attention between the PMU and whomever she’s seeing in the hallway. Kate’s listening to it. Them.
Right there within reach, any number of ampules. Drugs that Ophelia could load into a hypo and try to administer. She doesn’t trust that Kate will give the gun up willingly, even if Ophelia could push them back out of her consciousness temporarily with a stimulant.
So sedative it is. Knock Kate out, take the gun away. But the gleam of the instruments in the black fabric Kellerson pack, right on top, draws Ophelia’s eye. Like a delicious secret in the dark.
A few years ago, her sister Dulcie was obsessed with a QuickQ game show called Old School Olympics. Participants competed to churn butter, dial an actual phone, drive a car with no automation—without any previous instruction. One of those episodes involved throwing axes, apparently a normal leisure activity at one time.
Part of Ophelia wishes she’d paid more attention to that ridiculous notion. The idea of being able to strike harm from a distance sounds remarkably appealing right now.
Still, one quick slice across the tendons at the back of Kate’s knee and she’d be on the floor. Easy enough to pull the gun away then.
Why stop there? Knock her down and punish her. This is her fault. They’re going to die here because of her. Why shouldn’t she lead the way? The image in Ophelia’s head is perfectly clear. Another blade clutched in her hand, only this one sinks into Kate’s suit-covered chest, once, twice, and then five times, leaving blood to well up slowly, followed by the black ooze.
The prospect offers a grim sort of satisfaction, like letting loose the leash on the monster and watching it (finally) wreak the predicted havoc. Horror is there, too. At both the idea and the gratification of her lowest impulses. But in a dimmer fashion.
Ophelia swallows hard. She would like to blame it on the entities, on the influence of its version of her father. But that’s not entities in her head; that’s her. The shortened temper, the rage at being defied or thwarted. She is her father’s daughter in that.
But not in everything. And she gets to choose. This reminder helps ease some of the tension in her chest.
So when Ophelia slips her hand into the medikit, she bypasses the Kellerson pack. You’re making a mistake, her father—her real father—sneers in her head. Too weak, just like your mother.
Ophelia doesn’t love her mother’s choices, either, but she knows which ones she can live with.
“Coagulation patch applied,” the PMU says, and Kate jolts, swinging back toward the PMU with the gun. “Seek immediate medical attention at the nearest silver-grade medical facility.”
Ophelia takes her opportunity and slams the hypo spray into Kate’s calf, once, then twice. It doesn’t escape Ophelia’s attention that the motion is an uncomfortably close parody of stabbing Kate, just like her own imagination served up to her.
Kate stumbles back, her eyes going wide. The black flecks there are more visible in her paler irises.
“No, no,” Kate says thickly. “I need to … I need to…” She sits down abruptly, looking rather shocked to find herself on the ground.
Ophelia reaches across and takes the gun gingerly from her grasp, and Kate doesn’t fight her. A second later, Kate slumps over entirely, falling on her side.
“Ethan.” Ophelia shakes his uninjured shoulder. “Are you still … you?”
His eyes flutter open. He seems dazed, but he nods. “You’re still not the right kind of doctor,” he says.
She’s not sure it’s a coincidence that Ethan and she were both the last ones to take off their suits and helmets that first day in the hab and that now they’re the only two left standing, metaphorically speaking.
Ophelia rolls her eyes. “Still you.”
“But I don’t think…” He hesitates. “I don’t think for much longer. I can hear them.” His throat works, the sharp Adam’s apple bobbing with emotion. “My sisters. They’re asking me to come to them.”
Shit.
After chucking the remaining sedative to the floor, Ophelia reloads the hypo with an ampule of stimulant, double-checking to make sure she hasn’t screwed it up.
Then she hits herself and Ethan each with a dose.
He sucks in a breath sharply and starts coughing. “Wow, that is—”
“Better than coffee.” Her laugh comes out jittery sounding, as well it should, since it feels like her heart is going to explode in her chest.
“You need to get up now, if you can.” Ophelia pulls the PMU out of the way and then steps over him to his good side. She offers her trembling hand and he takes it. “You need treatment on the Resilience. This won’t be enough.”
He gives a muffled grunt as she pulls him to his feet. “What makes you think they’re going to let us—”
Ophelia squeezes his hand tightly and shakes her head. They’re in their heads, but she’s not sure they understand what’s happening at all times. Either way, better not to spell it out for them.
With care, Ophelia loops his arm around her shoulder. She’s not much good as support—too short for that—but she might be able to keep him from falling face-first, should it come to that. “We’re going to go find Suresh,” Ophelia says aloud, hoping Ethan understands.
And either he does or he’s enough out of it that it doesn’t occur to him to push back. “What did you do to Kate?” he asks, when Ophelia manages to get them turned around and facing the correct way.
“She’s asleep for now. I gave her a sedative.”
He frowns down at her. “But you said—”
“A gun, Ethan,” Ophelia says sharply. “I was doing my best after the mission commander got himself shot. I didn’t think that talk therapy was going to get us anywhere, and you definitely do not want to see my hostage negotiation skills.”
“Fuck. Okay.” He nods.
“I’m going to get you to Suresh,” Ophelia says, avoiding the mention of Suresh being on the lander—step one of their long-overdue retreat. “Then I’ll come back for her.”