Page 58 of Rupture

“And you think you are? Everything’s black and white with you. Good guys, bad guys. But Thea’s not?—”

“Not what? Not responsible? Those were her nanobots, yes? The ones that took down the Io’s crew?” His voice dropped lower. “The ones that could kill us all?”

Rose dug her nails into her palms. “You don’t know her. You don’t know what she’s been through.”

“No,” he agreed, surprising her. “But I know what we’re going through right now.” He gestured toward the med bay doors ahead. “And I know what those poor fuckers in the biome went through. What they are still going through.”

They walked in tense silence for several steps.

“I may be an asshole, but I’m an asshole who keeps his people alive. That includes you now, whether or not either of us likes it.” The emergency lighting carved harsh shadows across his face, highlighting old scars she hadn’t noticed before. Whatever else he was, this man had survived things that should have killed him.

“Was that almost an olive branch?” She studied his profile, looking for a crack in his armor.

“Don’t push it.” But there was less heat in his voice. They’d reached the med bay doors. “Just…whatever she says in there, remember which side you’re on.”

Rose pulled the photograph from her chest pocket, the one she’d been carrying since she found it in Thea’s room. She smoothed her fingers across her sister’s smiling face.

For the first time since this began, she wasn’t entirely sure what side that was.

33

Roseblinked as she entered the med bay. The harsh fluorescent strips cast an institutional glare across the space, a harsh contrast to the dim emergency lighting permeating the habitat corridors. Duke was attending to one of the Io’s crew, a middle-aged man whose skin had taken on a waxen yellow hue. But his eyes were open.

Rose’s heart leaped. “They’re waking up?”

Duke straightened, pulling the stethoscope from his ears, a groove deepening between his eyes. “They are but…”

He turned to the man lying in the bed, whose hands lay limp on the bedsheet. “Please excuse us.”

Duke tugged a thin curtain on rings around the bed.

Rose was grateful when he motioned them to the far side of the room, where they could talk in some semblance of privacy.

“They’re awake, but there’s damage.” Duke’s voice dropped, professional calm warring with concern. “I’ve got them all sedated. They all woke up around the same time and, for a moment, it was a bit hairy. Pressure of speech,irrational behavior, extreme irritability. The symptoms are all indicative of frontal brain damage, although none of them has suffered any brain injury.”

Rose’s fingers balled into fists. Her sister’s research had done this.

“I haven’t come across this before, but my team has.” Duke rubbed the skin between his eyes. “When the Ceto cyanobacteria was first discovered.”

“Fuck yes. The Ceto habitat.” Luca bounced from foot to foot, his mouth thinning to an imperceptible line. “Some of the crew went batshit crazy. Killed our commanding officer, Chief Hayne.”

“God, Luca I’m sorry I didn’t know?—”

Luca paid her scant attention. “The Io crew. They’re infected?”

“We’ll know more once we get them to the surface. The sooner the better.” Duke waved at the limited equipment around them, his frustration clear. “The facilities here are for emergencies, not in-depth investigation. And this?” He glanced at the curtained beds. “This definitely needs an in-depth medical investigation.”

“We need answers from my sister,” Rose said, her throat hurting.

Luca’s smile didn’t reach his eyes. “Finally, we agree on something.”

“How is she?”

Duke glanced over Rose’s shoulder to the furthermost curtained bed on the far side of the room. “It’s hard to assess. She’s not cooperating.” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “She’s pissed off, but it’s different from the others. If I had to take a guess, I’d say she’s not infected.”

Not infected.

“Well, what a surprise,” Luca muttered under his breath. The hum of medical equipment almost masked his words, but not the acid in them.

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