Ophelia grips her safety restraints tighter, teeth rattling in her head so hard she’s not sure she’ll have any left by the time they land. Her chest aches with the pressure of increasing gravity, and her palms are sweaty inside her envirosuit gloves. Correction: all of her is sweaty.
The central part of the lander is a circular space with four bolted-down chairs, where she, Suresh, Kate, and Liana are all strapped in at a reclining angle. A short ladder leads to the command area above, where Birch and Commander Severin are seated. Another ladder on the opposite side of the space leads down another level, where they will exit through the airlock.
It’s like plummeting to the ground in a child’s version of an old-fashioned space shuttle, just thin metal between Ophelia and a horrible death. Bright flickering light, like flames, flashes outside the tiny circular window, her only view outside from this compartment.
“Seven minutes,” Birch calls over the noise. The lander rattles ominously around them, sounding dangerously close to flying apart.
Ophelia squeezes her eyes shut. If only they could skip this part, stay in cold sleep until they’re where they’re supposed to be.
Not that being planetside is going to be so much better.
Planets are, for lack of a more precise term, dumb. The way they just sit there—all vulnerable, with no protection—in outer space. It took Ophelia years to get used to living on Earth, just being out under an open sky, where anything can fall on you, where the air might just suddenly vanish without so much as a warning alert. It’s just a giant rock with no shield or propulsion. At least on a ship or space station, people stand a chance of getting out of the way of an asteroid or any other trouble that comes their way. Planets are always one significant collision away from being knocked out of orbit for good.
“All right, listen up, people. This is a standard residency package.” Severin’s voice, smooth and even despite the chaos around them, sounds in her ears through the in-helmet comm channel.
She forces her eyes open to find his image on the primary display inside her helmet, the others alongside him in smaller squares. Presumably her internal helmet camera was reflecting her image back to them in much the same way.
“Six weeks on and then we’re out of here. Surface mapping, core samples, and—”
Next to Ophelia, Liana straightens in her seat and her hand shoots up as if she’s been electrified.
“Yes, Liana, core sampling is yours if you want it,” Severin says. Fondness mixed with amusement softens the harsh lines of his face, and Ophelia draws in an involuntary breath. It’s a view into what he would be like in an unguarded moment, a moment when the weight of responsibility he carries is lifted. He’s almost handsome. In a dark and broody sort of way.
She needs to get out more, clearly. Working too much—or an undetected oxygen shortage—has damaged her brain.
Liana pumps her fist in triumph, while Suresh shakes his head from across the lander. “Always volunteering for extra work,” he tuts at her. “Have I taught you nothing?”
“Keep talking, pod boy,” Kate murmurs.
He makes a sour face, while Liana snickers.
Their interplay makes an odd longing thump in Ophelia’s chest. This level of camaraderie takes years—and a level of mutual vulnerability—to develop. Something she’s only ever had with Julius. Except, obviously not.
The thought of all those Sunday mornings sends a staggering bolt of pain through her. Of arriving sleepy and being greeted by Julius with a cup of coffee in hand for her, of reaching across the table to cut Marlix’s pancakes, of ganging up with Jonathan to tease Julius about his relentless need for a “civilized table,” which always seemed to include fresh flowers, crisply pressed napkins that would have brought her grandmother’s housekeeper to tears, and more silverware than any of them would ever use, considering one of them was a toddler.
Ophelia knew, of course, that it was all in reaction to Julius growing up eating scraps and street cart food, split among his siblings so that no one was ever hungry but no one was full either. In the same way, he knew that her reaction to her childhood was to rebel against the strictures of formality, which usually translated to wolfing down meal-paks at work or eating a cup of noodles on her ride home.
That’s what it means to be known. And why it’s a mistake. It only gives you an opening to hurt more. Because now she knows what it’s like to have that closeness and to lose it.
At least she was smart enough—cynical enough, Julius would say—to keep the truly important parts of her past, the dangerous parts, to herself.
“We’ll be launching the surface mapping drones as soon as the weather clears,” Severin continues.
“We’re going down without updated surface data?” Kate demands.
“Storms are too frequent and too powerful. We had to take our launch window when we could get it,” Severin says. “But as far as mapping, we’ve got what came in the acquisition packet from Pinnacle.”
Pinnacle? Ophelia works to keep her expression even. No wonder Severin was so cranky with her earlier.
“Which reminds me … Communication is going to be extremely limited once we’re BOG,” he says.
It takes her a moment to parse that one—“boots on the ground.” Her patients, by the time they got to her, were accustomed to speaking to “civilians.”
“So send your messages as soon as you can. We’ll be cut off except for when the storms break temporarily,” Severin says.
His tone is matter-of-fact, but that doesn’t prevent a shiver from creeping along Ophelia’s skin. Isolated on a dead planet and trapped with strangers by storms.
All the more opportunity to work without interruption, she tells herself firmly.
“Lyria 393-C is tidally locked, so we’re landing in the terminator zone, target site 43B, near the remains of what was likely the largest city on the planet, also known as…” Severin’s mouth twists as if he tastes something bitter. “Vatican City II.”
Ophelia grimaces. Pinnacle is so terrible at naming things. Just … zero imagination. Even though they have an entire department dedicated to branding and naming.
“The most recent ghost station is Pinnacle’s, so that’s the one we’re hoping to use,” he continues.
His words send a jolt through her. “Wait. We’re staying in a Pinnacle facility?” The question is out of her mouth before she can consider the wisdom of interrupting.
An extra beat of silence passes. “Is that a problem, Doctor?” Severin asks mildly. But there’s a weight to his question that makes her feel like she’s being judged.
“Of course not,” she says quickly. What else is she supposed to say? There’s no choice now. But she hasn’t stayed in a Pinnacle facility since …
No, no. No!
“It’s fine,” she says, if a bit too loudly.
“Glad to hear it,” Severin says dryly. “As I was saying, the plan is to use their station for our stay. It’s a big one. Central hub and a dozen connected hab modules.”
Severin’s image in her helmet shrinks to the corner as a schematic pops up in the center, showing a layout of the station. It resembles an old-fashioned clock face, with the central hub in the middle and the connected hab modules as the “numbers” around the outer edge. But the modules aren’t placed quite evenly all the way around, so it’s a bit more like that melting clock painting. Still, it’s the largest station she’s ever seen or heard about.
Of course it is. It’s Pinnacle.
What’s odd, though, is that they’ve sold the planetary rights at all. Collecting planetary rights is a badge of pride for Pinnacle, particularly the ones with alien ruins. They’re rare enough to be a big deal, even if, as far as Ophelia knows, Pinnacle has yet to gain any technological advances from what they’ve found. In most cases, there’s no tech to be found. It seems those civilizations never even made it as far as humans did before dying out.
Kate splutters with a laugh of disbelief. “What were they doing, permanently moving in?”
“I have no idea.” Severin’s gaze flicks to her in the helmet display, and Ophelia senses trouble, a spark of mischief or perhaps challenge in those dark eyes, before he speaks again. “Perhaps Dr. Bray can illuminate us.”
She opened the door by questioning the facility, and now he’s making sure she pays for it. Asshole move.
“Dr. Bray?” Liana repeats softly, her voice rising at the end.
In another moment, another situation, the way her gaze and Suresh’s whip around to focus on Ophelia might be funny. It’s not as if she’s hidden her last name—she’s introduced herself multiple times for God’s sake—but hearing it in this context, obviously, means something more.
The lander gives another hard jolt, and she clutches at her safety straps again, fresh sweat beading on her upper lip.
“Three minutes,” Birch says loudly. Does he sound even more terse than before?
“Wait, wait. Bray, like the Pinnacle Brays?” Suresh asks, eyebrows raising to his vivid hairline. “Richest fuckers on Earth?”
Second richest. Pinnacle, the company her mother’s family founded a century and a half ago, still hasn’t conquered the second coming of the Carnegies—known as JPC Enterprises—despite their best efforts.
Ophelia won’t argue the “fuckers” part, though.
Her great-great-grandfather was one of the earliest developers of the technology behind the QuickQ implant, specifically the wiring interfacing with the brain. It was meant to be a way to give patients suffering from degenerative diseases their voices back, helping them communicate and interact with the world even as their bodies failed them. What it ended up being, though, was sold for a shit ton of money.
So, instead of helping people who were losing the ability to communicate, now pretty much every brain in the solar system is wired and online every minute of every day. And the Brays still make money off all of them, not just the devices but also the user information gathered. Every search you run on your QuickQ, every keyword in your calls, is sold to someone who wants you to buy their crap.
Pinnacle has since moved on to exploring new avenues of revenue in space, from mining asteroids to new scientific discoveries. But the base of their wealth is still that one invention that commoditized humanity.
It’s a family success story retold—and toasted to—every year at the holidays.
“Fuckers” is probably the best word for them, yeah.
“No, no way. That doesn’t make sense. It’s a common enough last name,” Liana points out. “And the youngest one, she’s too young to be…” She hesitates, glancing over at Ophelia. “Too young to be you,” she finishes awkwardly.
“No, no,” Suresh says with impatience, sitting forward. “The other one.”
“The one that’s a model?” Liana asks doubtfully.
No, that would be Portia. Ophelia’s first cousin, Darwin’s daughter. Portia is a model/influencer/actress, who still somehow never seems to have any occupation other than spending money. A bitchy thing to say, possibly, but when Ophelia was a scrawny eleven and Portia an overfed and overindulged ten, Portia had trapped her in the smaller wine cellar at Thanksgiving and stabbed her with a fork because she’d overheard her father saying Ophelia’s blood was “contaminated” and Portia wanted to see it.
Ophelia can sit here and wait for them to run down all the various, possibly appropriate-aged women associated with her family tree, or she can end this torture.
She clears her throat, realizing belatedly that she sounds eerily like her grandmother in doing so. “He’s referring to me,” she says. “My mother is Regency Bray.” The oldest daughter of the oldest daughter. It occurs to Ophelia for the thousandth time that this would be so much easier if she could have just changed her last name. But that remained a complicated and potentially risky endeavor, and for more reasons than just the family tradition of keeping the Bray name no matter what.
Suresh snaps his finger and points at her. “Yes, the one that showed up out of nowhere.”
After all these years, Ophelia doesn’t even flinch anymore. She’s not sure whether that’s a sign of improvement or cause for increased concern.
“I was born off-planet,” she says, the words flowing out without hesitation. “My mother was on a charitable outreach mission to the terraforming colony on Celestia when she met my father.” She braces herself for questions. People always have questions about Celestia.
Liana’s mouth drops open. “The cult?”
Kate kicks at Liana in remonstration, though strapped in as they are, it’s more a gesture than an effective deterrent.
“‘Cult’ is … a strong word,” Ophelia says. “It’s a privately owned endeavor. They wanted to make it on their own without a corporate sponsor.” Which they hadn’t quite succeeded at. Everyone can be bought—you just have to find the right price. If that’s not the official Bray motto, it probably should be.
Suresh opens his mouth to say something, but Ophelia cuts him off. “My family history and connections are irrelevant here. I signed a nondisclosure and noncompete agreement, as we all did.” Montrose—their employer—and Pinnacle are technically competitors, if only in the same way that a teacup Chihuahua and a Cane Corso are both technically canines. “I have no information on what Pinnacle is doing. I am not and have not ever been part of the family’s plans.” Her words are a little too sharp, but she can’t seem to stop herself.
It’s so strange. The outside world views her as part of them, one of the enigmatic, excessive Brays, while the Brays themselves cluster together with their backs turned against her, pretending that she doesn’t exist. Or trying to, anyway.
“I am here to help,” Ophelia says, trying to wrench the conversation back on track. “Most of my patients are R&E team members. Once we’re settled, I’ll meet with each of you to create a plan to address your needs. Some of it may be talk therapy or exercise—”
“Hear that, Birch? We’re going to be running in circles around the inside of the hab,” Suresh says with a sneer. “Getting our sweat on.”
“A little busy here,” Birch says tightly, as the shuttle gives another tremendous jolt.
“I also have the latest iteration of the immersive reality sleep bands from Montrose,” Ophelia says. “They’re portable now, and—”
A collective groan from Kate, Suresh, and Liana rises, startling her. Okay, no, the bands aren’t the most comfortable, but their ability to simulate a soothing and familiar environment that is indistinguishable from the real thing is invaluable. Want to sleep in your childhood bedroom? No problem. Get your best rest in a hammock under the stars? That can be arranged.
Ophelia lifts her chin in defiance, though the gesture is likely lost behind her helmet. “It’s important. An earlier and more active intervention makes a big difference. Especially when it comes to ERS.”
“ERS,” Suresh snorts. “Right.”
Ophelia goes still. “I’m sorry?”
“ERS doesn’t exist,” he says. “Just a bunch of crybabies who can’t handle the job.”
She jams her tongue against the back of her rattling teeth to keep the spew of furious words inside. It’s not the first time she’s heard that, but it never fails to enrage. Oh, do go on, Suresh. Please tell that to all the families who’ve lost loved ones to ERS. Like Ava Olberman’s daughter. Please tell that to all the therapists and doctors struggling to keep ERS in check. Explain how it doesn’t exist to all the children who have to watch their parents devolve into monsters who don’t even—
Ophelia forces herself to draw in a deep breath. This is just Suresh, being an instigator again. She makes a mental note—this is definitely something worth exploring in a session with him, what drives him to behave like such a jackass.
But no matter his motive, giving him what he wants, outrage and defensiveness, will only reinforce this unhealthy and morale-damaging tendency.
She pushes her anger down, deep down, with everything else that does not serve her or her purpose here.
“Sleep deprivation can be a major contributing factor for ERS, along with extensive cold sleep travel and isolation. And in your case, you have the additional issue of grief and loss,” Ophelia says. Suddenly no one is looking at her, through her helmet display or across the lander. “So we’re going to work on that. Together.”
Silence holds for a moment.
“Is it true that your dad has private roads just for driving his air-veh?” Kate asks.
Ophelia blinks. But she should have expected this. “Hamilton Beck is my stepfather, not my—”
“And he only drives it once and then buys a new one?” Kate continues.
“What about your dogs?” Liana asks. “I heard that your dogs have a house to themselves, like, with a personal chef and—”
Fuck me. “I don’t have any dogs,” Ophelia says. “My aunt might be the one who—”
“—true that you own the ocean, like, the actual body of water?” Suresh joins in, showing genuine interest directed at her for the first time, rather than sheer disdain.
Irritation swells in her. Crashing and burning on the planet’s surface below suddenly seems preferable. People have always been curious about her family, even the wealthy kids at the private school her grandmother insisted on, back when she first came to Earth. But most of those in the upper-crust and highly competitive strata preferred to pretend they knew it all and then whisper behind her back instead.
Where is Severin with his inconvenient need to defend, this time? Ophelia glances down to find his image still in the bottom corner of her helmet screen, his expression both amused and a little too smug. Of course, this is classic territorial behavior. These are my people, not yours. God, why did he have to be such a … man about it?
“Again, that is my family,” she says, working to rein in her exasperation. “Not me. I live in a two flat in—”
“It’s not the ocean, you twat,” Kate says, scoffing at Suresh. “Just a part of it. In exchange for their technology to turn the saltwater into drinkable stuff.”
Ophelia is fairly certain this isn’t true, but knowing her family—or perhaps knowing them as little as she does—she can’t rule it out.
Suresh flips Kate the finger, though the gesture is muted by the lander shaking and trembling around them such that his hand is barely aloft for a moment. “Is it true about the vault?” he asks. “That you have to provide a bone marrow sample for it to unlock?”
Her mouth falls open. “Bone marrow? Vault?” That’s a new one. “What … There is no vault.” And if there is, she certainly would not have access to it. Among other things, her controversial life choices—Working for a living! For a competitor! Living on her own instead of at one of the family compounds!—seem to herald an unpredictability that they view as a threat.
Her uncle—and her grandmother before him—seems to be of the philosophy that ignoring your problems is more dangerous than keeping a distant, disapproving eye on them and inviting them to Christmas dinner, for the photo op if nothing else.
“Again, I don’t have much, if any, contact with—”
“Thirty seconds,” Birch announces. A few more tooth-chipping seconds pass, and the lander’s shaking slows, along with all the accompanying rattles, squeaks, and alarming popping sounds. Ophelia can’t see much of anything from the window, across the circular space, but there seems to be less of that alarming “We’re on fire!” light from the outside.
Thank you. She lets out a silent breath of relief at the reprieve, from both the shaking and the interrogation.
Until Birch continues with his question.
“Is it true that one of your patients killed himself by jumping out of your office window?”