Chapter 2
Chapter two
Why the hell was a person walking through a category five storm?
Thunder boomed, shaking the building around her, and Wynn’s fingers flexed on the binoculars. It made no sense. But there they were, heading slowly toward her more than a kilometer away.
She lowered her binoculars, her eyes seeing nothing on her own through the rain. Lifting them, the masculine shape lurched, made red, orange, and yellow by the thermal setting.
He stumbled forward, and her breath hitched. Was he hurt? The rain had almost knocked her out of the hovercart, so it had to be doing worse to someone walking in all that mud.
Lightning flashed, blinding her for a moment. She lowered the binoculars and bit her dry lip. Should she go get him? She turned, looking toward the main entrance and the hovercart parked there. She could put on a clean UV-suit and drive out there to pick him up.
But.
She hesitated. There had been no notification of a visitor. No one had even checked on her from the research station, though that wasn’t unusual. They’d always left them alone out here, even before Foster’s death.
If the person wasn’t from the research station, then who the hell was he?
She reached for her PALM, intending to check for updates, when she remembered she’d taken it off for decontamination. There were some spares somewhere.
Setting down the binoculars, she checked beneath the holotable’s cupboards and found a container of unused PALMs. She pinched the top one.
The gossamer filament clung to her left hand, the plugs inserting into the tiny ports at her thumb, pinkie, and middle finger. Connected to her body heat, it turned on. A CORE insignia rotated above her hand while she waited for it to connect to the grid.
But the icon kept spinning and spinning. Storm must be interfering with the grid. No updates then. Huffing out a breath, she removed the PALM entirely, and tossed it on the terminal beneath the window.
She picked up the binoculars again. The person was there, closer now, but slowing. He had to be from Research Station 214, right?
The assumption didn’t lessen the unease crawling up her spine at having a stranger approach on foot. It was just so… unheard of. Especially in conditions like these. Lightning flashed and thunder boomed, underscoring the thought.
The hovercart probably wouldn’t even work in this sort of downpour, too waterlogged after leaving it outside instead of parking it in the shed. She lowered the binoculars and tried to see through the deluge of rain, but saw nothing but gray.
And someone was stuck out there.
She waged a war inside her mind, contemplating suiting up and retrieving him while simultaneously talking herself out of it. Limbs frozen in indecision, she stood there, waiting, watching, not knowing which way to go or what to do.
A familiar itch crawled over her skin, one she knew would tighten into a sensation of spinning, of losing control, and she’d need to find something to grab onto for focus. A need that she had buried for the past few years because she had this outpost, this purpose, and Foster as a friend.
The beasts had taken all of that away from her.
The thought sent her spiraling further. Wynn set the binoculars aside, and grabbed her forearm over the straight, raised scars that marred her skin. She curled her fingernails into her flesh until pinches of pain erupted.
It should have focused her, but it wasn’t enough. The world spun faster, obscuring her vision; the sensation of falling filled her chest. Her exhales escaped her lips in short bursts.
Foster had destroyed her kit long ago—laser scalpel, regenerator, regeneration gauze—almost immediately after he found her in the midst of an “episode” as he’d called it. But since his death, she’d made a new one, had needed to.
She’d tried to be strong like he’d asked her to be, but his death had changed everything. Now, reality felt disjointed, spinning, fragmented, and the lure of searing pain promised to make it all go away, to make the ground beneath her feet feel solid again.
She dug her fingernails in further, knew she probably drew blood, but didn’t look down. She kept her eyes trained on the cascading rain and wind as it whipped around the outpost, and tried to breathe through shortened inhales.
Fuzziness invaded her sight, and a buzzing noise rubbed the insides of her ears, making her want to scratch her brains out. The spinning continued, getting faster and faster. It would only get worse if she didn’t do something now. She needed her kit.
She stepped backward, away from the blurring landscape, when her feet jerked to a stop.
A form emerged from the pounding rain. Clad in black, the man solidified against a gray world.
If she hadn’t already noted his route through the binoculars, she would have thought it a figment of her imagination.
The fingers digging into her arm relaxed. Was he wearing a helmet? Or…?
Another flash illuminated the terrain, but didn’t shed more light on the puzzle. Shaking her head, she grabbed the binoculars, fiddled with the settings so she could see better, then choked on a gasp. There was no helmet.
Drenched from head to toe, his black jacket hung past his knees. Dark glasses covered his eyes.
He’s not wearing a UV-suit.
Her mind blanked, then a tumble of thoughts cascaded one on top of another.
No one could survive a walk across Earth’s surface without protection. Then add the acid from the rain? He would have been exposed to a staggering amount of radiation during the past hour.
Her ribs squeezed tight as her stomach churned. Wynn tried to make sense of why a person would do this to themselves, but she found no answers.
And still he headed toward her.
She lowered the binoculars, no longer needing them to see. The man stumbled again, and she inhaled sharply. No wonder his pace had slowed the closer he walked. The radiation sickness would have gotten worse the longer he remained in the elements.
She needed to help him.
The binoculars slipped from her fingers to land on the terminal.
Thunk. Wynn spun, then darted toward the main entrance and the spare UV-suits stored in a wall compartment.
She grabbed the first one, shoving her legs through the pants and into the boots with shaking hands.
The four crescent-shaped marks she’d just gouged into her skin glared an angry red at her, but she ignored them as she stuffed her hands in the sleeves, then gloves, and shoved her neck through the helmet closure.
She zipped and snapped everything into place.
A flick of her thumb, and her helmet engaged. Then came the agonizing task of making sure every section was airtight and secure. She slapped the control panel on her arm, waiting for the suit’s systems to blink on her visor, but it never did.
She’d left her replacement PALM in the lab, and now her ocular implant had nothing to sync to. She looked down at the control panel on her arm instead. It blinked green.
Inhaling a deep breath, she pressed the panel beside the doors. It slid open, and she hurried into the second part of the decontamination zone. Once the doors behind her sealed tight, the next ones opened.
Relentless rain, buckets full, splattered against the outer door like it tried to break it down.
Lightning attacked her fields, but she could see the faint blue-green glow that meant the shielding was operational.
Another crack of thunder drowned out the sound of her deep inhale.
Wynn entered her ID to open the outer door.
Wind suctioned inside the small space, almost knocking her over. Rain slapped her legs and pounded through the grated floor. She hadn’t even taken a step outside and water coated her visor.
Wynn gripped the door frame and pushed herself onto the landing.
Her boots slipped, and she grabbed the railing to keep from falling.
Each of her downward steps felt like she walked on something breakable, something uncertain.
The outpost’s exterior lights illuminated a path around the building about two meters wide.
One step forward took the energy of four. Her boots sank into centimeters of mud. Water pooled around her ankles. A river ran beneath the outpost, taking islands of dirt along with it. Another boom of thunder shook her entire body.
Gritting her teeth, she trudged forward. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. How could she help him when she couldn’t even walk properly?
Wynn plunged ahead, concentrating on the next step, the next stumble. Finally, she cleared the edge of the building and paused. She swiped the rain from her visor and scanned the horizon.
He was gone.
Her breath caught in her throat. He couldn’t have just disappeared.
Maybe he’d passed on the other side of the building to aim for the next outpost a hundred kilometers away.
An unhinged laugh burst from her lips at the thought. No way.
The laugh turned into a scream when a tall figure lurched toward her from beside the building.
She jumped away, and almost fell ass-first into the mud as thunder roared.
Lightning streaked across the sky, brightening the terrain.
His hand pressed against the exterior of the outpost, his body listing awkwardly.
His glasses, a thick band, completely blocked his eyes.
The urge to run, to flee this bizarre scenario, abated when she took in his abused state. Any exposed skin, especially on his cheeks and forehead, was red and raw. The pain must be excruciating. She reached for him, tucking herself under his armpit to take his weight.
“Lean on me,” she said, though it would be hard to hear her through her helmet. “Come inside.” Her voice shook, then broke, her mind trying to understand why he would put himself through this.
A suicide attempt? Her heart squeezed painfully. Why here? Why now?
He stumbled again, and the force almost brought her to her knees. Gritting her teeth, she aimed toward the door.
Thunder cracked. Wynn jumped, then focused ahead. Impossibly, the storm increased in strength. She focused on the next step, on keeping the man leaning on her from falling into the mud. Each breath strained her lungs from the effort.
It seemed a full day passed before they reached the bottom of the steps. He grabbed onto the railing, relieving some of the strain of his weight. But he stopped instead of climbing upward.
“We need to get inside.” The faster they could go through the decontamination process, the quicker she could make him comfortable.
Because…
There was no happy ending, no miracle solution, for what was about to happen to him, and she didn’t have the equipment to put him in stasis.
Straightening, she pushed those thoughts aside, instead focusing on what she could do.
“We need to get you inside,” she repeated, louder this time. “I have medicine and painkillers.”
He turned his head, like he could hear her through the pounding rain and rumbling thunder. His skin was worse now, blistered, and she swallowed against the hard, dry lump in her throat. The rest of his body would be the same.
She placed her boot on the drenched step, almost slipped, then nudged him upward beneath his armpit. A groan trembled through him.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, but didn’t stop her momentum as she nudged him upward.
Through the combined effort of her pushing and him pulling himself up along the railing, they reached the slick landing. Without her PALM to swipe, it took two attempts to punch in her code before the outer doors of the decontamination zone opened. They stumbled inside together.
Wynn reached for the inner panel, pressed the controls, and sealed them inside. Mist flooded the room in a great rush of air, coating them in a white sheen. He braced a gloved hand against the wall, head bent. She remained where she was, supporting his weight.
Beep. Contamination levels popped up on the control panel, the numbers the highest she’d ever seen. The rush of wind swirled around them with more vigor, the next wash of cleansing fluid thicker. Moisture dripped from their bodies in thick clumps.
She looked up at him, encountering her reflection in his dark glasses, the shape of her visor warped, her face pale behind it. His ravaged jaw clenched and flexed. The chemicals at this stage were meant for outerwear, not the skin.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” she kept murmuring, though he probably couldn’t hear her with the noise of the storm and hum of the decontamination process. “We just need to get through this before I can…” Her voice trailed off, because she could count her options on one hand.
The cleansing deluge finally stopped, and the next set of doors opened. Wynn adjusted her footing and shifted her body forward, guiding him over the threshold into the second decontamination room.
As soon as the door closed behind them, his knees buckled, and he was too heavy for her to stop his fall.