Chapter 12
CHAPTER TWELVE
NORA
A shuffling beside her ear jolted Nora out of a deep sleep.
She heaved, and her body, moving faster than she could think, rolled over on a hard bed that was somehow worse than her bunk, and threw up.
She moaned wretchedly, spitting up bile. It vaguely occurred to her that this wasn’t the first time, but the fuzziness inside her head didn’t let her feel much embarrassment.
A noise caught her attention. She looked up and was greeted by her own reflection, distorted in the curved black reflective glass of a helmet.
Someone sat beside her. They wore a fitted, armored black suit that matched the helmet. Blue lights glowed over their throat and along the panels of their armor.
A dark room. Amber lights. And this…person.
If this was hell, then the rumors had been quite overstated. She’d never read the Bible, but she had sometimes glanced at religious pamphlets thrust upon her in the Abeona’s dining hall. Nowhere did they mention that Hell smelled of ozone and had delightful ambient lightning.
The person moved, reaching out a large, gloved hand.
“Thank you,” she said, letting them help her up. Their other, ungloved hand—grayish white with neat nails like a human’s, except they were black—steadied her shoulder, its heat like fire even through her shirt.
Once she sat stably, they scooted back to the opposite wall and leaned against it.
What a helpful yet strange demonic processing agent.
She looked around the room, a little disappointed it wasn’t warmer. So this was hell, then. None of her uncle’s hopes had been enough to get her to Valhalla. He’d wasted a shuttle, a dose of Sonoret to sedate her, and expensive emergency rations.
A sudden heaviness crushed her. She looked down, looking for the necklace Joe had given her, only to find herself swaddled in blankets. Even though her arms were slow to respond, held down by the Sonoret still sloshing in her mind, she managed to wriggle one free.
The person sat up straight, and for the first time, Nora noticed how large they were. The suit, though armored, moved fluidly over their body, revealing a strong, what she thought was masculine, shape.
She blinked a few times, much calmer and giddier than she had any right to be. He was still there.
“Am I really fucking dead?”
The person cleared their throat, then spoke in a deep voice. “Alive,” he said. “Cold. I make warm.” He spoke with an unnatural cadence, halting mid-word, and had an accent Nora had never heard before. Like a blend of Eastern European and Middle Eastern.
And he sounded young—with none of the gravel of an older man’s voice but still rich in its tone.
“Oh,” she said, unhelpfully.
Glancing around the room again, Nora fought to focus.
Though it didn’t help that her mind felt like it was floating three feet behind her, she remembered the promotional videos for Valhalla.
Everything was white walls and chrome. If not for the large windows opening onto the rust-colored landscape of Mars, she didn’t know how anyone could survive it without going insane.
She didn’t recognize this room—or the man’s suit. A small part of her brain screamed that she should be terrified, that maybe this wasn’t where she was supposed to be. That something had gone wrong.
If I’m not dead, then maybe this is a special room for quarantine.
“I’m drugged,” she said, satisfied with her own reasoning, sinking back into the cozy blankets that smelled of raspberry. “I think I’m still a little fucked.” She should’ve eaten that damn sandwich.
When the man said nothing, she tried to move again. Her ankle twinged. She pulled the blanket up, revealing that her left foot was wrapped in a shiny cooling ribbon and that both her socks were missing. She wiggled her toes to make sure they worked.
They did. Good.
Still, the alarm inside her head blared, but she couldn’t be bothered to care. Except for her left foot hurting, she was okay. She wasn’t alone. Things could be much worse.
Nora giggled, then quickly covered her mouth. “I’m sorry.” An impulse, even though she didn’t think she’d done anything wrong yet.
The man looked at her but didn’t speak. Or, at least, she thought he was looking at her—she couldn’t see past the visor.
Giving him a small smile, she said, “So…is this quarantine? Is that why you’re suited up? I need a comm terminal. I need to send a message to my uncle, Joe Shaw. One of the Abeona’s HyperGate engineers. He’s still on the Abeona. Something happened—”
Her vision blurred as she remembered Joe’s tear-streaked face and his bloody knife. She swayed forward.
The man abruptly stood up.
A shiver slithered down Nora’s spine as he rose to his full height. About seven feet tall, if she had to guess. He went to the corner of the room, where her purple work pack and ready-to-eat meals sat in a neat stack. He picked up the top package.
“Have you heard from Joe?” Nora asked again, watching his grayish-white hand flip the meal box over. “Maybe his message didn’t get through. I’m Nora Shaw from Abeona Space Terminal. Number 1178. Joe—”
“Slow,” the man said. “Talk slow.”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” she said, her face getting hot.
He didn’t respond, preoccupied with the meal box, growing increasingly agitated.
She tried to stand, but a sharp pain shot up her leg, making her cry out.
With inhuman speed, the man suddenly appeared beside her, catching her before she hit the ground. “No move,” he said. “Foot hurt—not broken.”
Her breath went ragged at the way he said “broken.” Hadn’t the angel from her dreams said something like that?
“Can you… Could you please tell me your name?”
Gently, he set her down on the bed, pulling the blanket over her legs. He set the meal box beside her, then backed away to the far wall.
Just as she opened her mouth to ask again, panic rising at his hesitation, he spoke.
“Aihr-rick.”
Nora let go of a sigh, embarrassingly relieved. “Eric?”
“No.”
He repeated the previous pronunciation. Two syllables, but with two distinct vowels for “Aihr,” requiring a twist of the tongue that Nora had no hope of replicating.
“Eric.”
The man shook his head, then said something clipped, as if it were a command to someone other than her. The ship?
Tapping the wall behind him, he dragged a gloved finger against it. His suit and the wall interfaced, recording his actions.
Nora watched, rapt and breathless. The videos on Valhalla had never shown tech like this.
The man stopped, turning his head from left to right as if checking over what he’d done. He pressed his finger twice against the wall, then stepped away.
Written in glowing yellow script, pulsing as if the wall breathed, was a single word: airik. He’d gone back to draw the dots over the i’s.
Not knowing what else to do, Nora lifted her arm, giving an awkward wave. “Hi, Airik,” she squeaked, wincing when she heard the mispronunciation again. “Airik,” she tried again, horrified that she couldn’t get it right. “Airik… Air—”
“Good. Fine. Enough.” He waved his hand, as if whatever she managed would have to do.
Her eyes remained glued to his name on the wall. “It’s good to meet you…Airik. I’m Nora—”
“Shawnora from Abeona Space Terminal. Number 1178. I know. Eat.” He pointed at the box beside her.
“Um, it’s Nora. And I’m not hungry. Are you going to be with me for long, because I need to speak to Davis immediately—they’re the commander, right? Joe said—”
“Slow,” Airik said, his voice quiet but tense. “I understand…slow.”
Goose bumps rose on her skin, hearing the slight rumble of a growl. “C-Can I please speak to Davis?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“No Davis. Only me. And…Ed’un.” He motioned around them as if to indicate their location.
Pain throbbed behind her eyes. “Is Ed’un another colony on Mars? Because that means I crashed—”
“Crashed. Yes, you crashed. But now—safe. Eat. Drink.”
Nora sat frozen as Airik came to her. He shredded open the meal box—not using the pull tab but using the sharp points of his gloved hand—and handed her the package. “Eat. Now.”
She stared at her own reflection in his helmet, her rounded eyes illuminated by the lights, so she could see how stupid she looked.
A wave of anger inflamed her.
Maybe it was the drugs. Maybe it was that she’d let Joe do this to her. Maybe it was because she was mad that she’d lived through a perfectly incredible way to die.
She smacked the food out of his hand. “I said I want to speak to Davis.” Immediately, a wave of nausea hit her as she realized what she’d just done, but damnit, she was over thirty years old and had to learn to stand up for herself at some point.
Airik stared at his still-open hand, then down to where the food pack lay on the floor beside his large boot. Slowly, his head swiveled to her, as if in disbelief.
Her heart pounded as he stepped toward her. All body and height, defiance and command. “No. No Davis. No one else. Only me.”
“W-What do you mean, no one else?”
“Here is empty. Dead causing.”
Nora pushed up on the bed, wincing as her ankle twisted.
“Why not good at calm?”
If Nora’s arms weren’t mush, she would have pulled off his helmet and slapped him like she’d slapped the food.
She took a deep breath and spoke slowly, just like he’d asked: “Airik, please tell me where I am. I’m getting scared, and you know, I’m already having a pretty shitty day.”
He looked at her, tilting his head.
“Please,” she begged.
He leaned down, so their heads were level. “How you come here?”
“I don’t know… Please, Airik.” As much as she fought it, she couldn’t help crying after hearing her own desperation.
Something about her tears finally prompted him to move. He waved over the wall where he’d written his name. The wall shimmered, like a pond disturbed by a pebble, rippling until it cleared into something like glass.
Oh, fuck.