Page 24 of Spread Me
Saskia doesn’t hesitate in her reply. “Do you already know what you’re going to do with it? The thing in the exam room, I mean? No? I didn’t think so.” She says it matter-of-factly. “And what about the rest of us?”
Mads blinks at her, their eyes sharp with the adrenalized alertness that comes on the other side of extreme fatigue. “The rest of us,” they say. It’s not a question.
Jacques drops his head into his hands. “Fuck. She’s right.”
Whatever understanding the three of them are sharing, Kinsey’s on the outside of it. She’s tired, sure—her brain has been fried by several days of near-compulsive masturbation, on top of the shock of what’s happened to Domino. She can understand all the reasons for her lack of comprehension and still hate the outcome, especially when the outcome puts her behind the rest of her team.
“Let’s not make any assumptions,” she says, which is what she always says when she needs someone to explain something to her but doesn’t want to ask for clarification.
Saskia gives her a knowing smirk that saysI’m onto you. It’s gone before Kinsey can ask what it’s about. “Right,” Saskia says slowly. “Well. This lichen went into Domino’s body, got them sick, and then—this is the idea, isn’t it?—consumed and replaced them?”
“Duplicated them,” Mads says. They sound nauseated. “It made a copy. I don’t know how that’s even possible, but—”
“We don’t need to know how it’s possible right now,” Jacques says. “That’s a question for later, when we’ve got it contained. When we’re safe. Right now all that matters for our purposes is that it can happen.”
“And we need to make sure it didn’t happen to any ofus,” Saskia says with an elegant nod. “Because we all got sick, too, which means the lichen probably infected us the same way it infected Domino.”
Kinsey’s stomach sinks. This is the thing they all understood before she did. It probably came to mind for them right away, she realizes, because theydidall get sick. Saskia, Mads, Jacques, Nkrumah, and Domino all had the same vomiting, the same coughing, the same fever.
None of them know that it didn’t touch her.I’m different,she thinks, and the thought has an unwholesome glow to it, a smugness and a certainty that she doesn’t want to let herself embrace. She can’t help wondering whether the virus passed her over for the same reason it turned Domino’s underarm into a wet, fuckable hole.It likes me.Warmth climbs her throat, radiates into her cheeks. She covers her face with her hands, tries to look devastated.
When she looks up, Saskia is staring at her. Smiling at her. It’s a small, secret smile, a barely there smile. AnI know what you’re thinkingsmile.But she can’t know,Kinsey thinks—and then Saskia is looking at Mads and Jacques, her expression returning to its usual calm neutrality. A moment later, Nkrumah comes back coated in dust and announces that she’s calmed down, and the moment is so thoroughly gone that Kinsey can’t be sure it ever really happened at all.
“Everybody gets a biopsy,” Nkrumah announces.
Jacques jumps to his feet. “Absolutely not.”
“It’s the only way to confirm who’s infected.” Mads nods at Nkrumah. “I think it’s the right call.”
“Boss?” Jacques glares at Kinsey. “Tell them we’re not doing that. I don’t want—”
“Even in a clinical setting,” Saskia cuts in before Jacques can finish, “biopsies are risky. If something goes wrong,you could introduce the pathogen into our systems. Why don’t we start with a visual inspection first, to see if we can spot any obvious signs of infection?”
Jacques gives a single, decisive nod. “See, that makes sense. That’s what my dermatologist does—plays spot-the-differences. The only thing working in our favor right now is the fact that the lichen’s not good at this,” he adds.
“Oh,nowyou’re willing to listen to your dermatologist?” Mads mutters.
“I don’t know if I agree that it’s ‘not good at this,’” Kinsey says thoughtfully, ignoring Mads. “That Domino duplicate was a decent first draft. It was flawed, sure, but that’s just because the lichen couldn’t have known yet that there’s such specificity to the distribution of mouths and eyes on the human body.”
Nkrumah pulls Jacques’s rum out of the storage closet. The sound of the wind outside howls into the room as she opens the door, gets swallowed up again when she closes it. “Whether it’s good or not isn’t the point. The point is that it’s notperfect.” She grabs a packet of powdered apple cider mix, studies it, puts it back unopened. “The lichen is still figuring out what goes where. Or maybe it doesn’t care what goes where.”
“Fine, that works as a starting point. We check to see if we all look like we’re supposed to, right?” Mads says. “Nkrumah, there’s cocoa mix behind the plates.”
“That’s not better.” She pours a generous amount of rum into a mug and takes a pull. “We should lock down until we know who’s who. Nobody leaves the station, nobody goes anywhere alone. We stay in pairs at the very minimum. Sound good?”
“Keycards,” Jacques says decisively. “Everybody put them on the table.”
Kinsey hesitates. “If we give up our keycards, we won’t be able to run away. Unless we prop the airlock doors open, which doesn’t feel safe, either. Especially with the sandstorm.”
“The sandstorm is starting to chill out. It’s red outside, so shouldn’t be too long before we’ve got daylight out there,” Nkrumah says, and it’s too easy for Kinsey to picture her standing outside in the bloodred whirlwind, screaming into the storm as sand scours her throat. “It’s just for now,” Nkrumah continues, slapping her keycard down onto the table. Saskia follows suit right away, followed by Jacques and Mads. They all stare at Kinsey until she gingerly sets her own keycard on top of the pile. Nkrumah gives a nod of satisfaction. “Okay. Let’s do it. Clothes off.”
Kinsey freezes. The others have seen her naked before, sure, but not the same way they’ve seen each other. They know each other’s bodies intimately. Mads knows what Saskia tastes like. Jacques knows how Saskia’s thighs feel against the sides of his head. Nkrumah has felt Saskia’s throat beneath her palms. Kinsey isn’t part of that body of knowledge. For them to see her naked, up-close, intent—that will be new for everyone.
She realizes she’s staring at Saskia, wrenches her gaze away. Scolds herself for getting distracted by things that aren’t her business. “You heard Nkrumah,” she says. “Clothes off. Are we doing this in pairs, or by committee?”
“Pairs,” Mads says. “That makes the most sense. Me and Jacques, since we’ve never been romantic. No emotional conflict of interest to keep us from being honest about what we see, right?”
Jacques holds a hand to his heart in mock outrage. “You wound me, Mads.”
