Despite the hurt, I’m on my feet as soon as I can, sudden momentum almost pitching me to the floor before I’m back up. It’s like I’m drunk on PepsiRum again, hands pushing against the walls when I stagger too near, my desperate movements bringing me to the orange portal.
I pound against it, busted finger lancing anew as I bang my wrists against the metal. “A body! Kodiak, I found a body!”
“What are you saying you found?” my mother’s voice asks. “Can I help?”
I don’t answer. OS is definitely not the one I want to talk to right now.
“You need medical attention,” OS continues. “The injury on your finger appears severe, and your pulse is spiking. The ship’s systems are as normal. If you believe you have seen something unusual, it could simply be a trick of your mind’s eye. We both know that humans are more than capable of hallucination in stressful circumstances.”
“Kodiak, speak to me!” I cry.
“Kodiak is not answering,” OS says. “You must come to the infirmary. Your finger might be broken. Your pulse is dangerously elevated.”
“What was that back there?” I gasp.
“It was nothing.”
“You didn’t even ask me what I saw.”
“What did you see?”
I bang on the portal again. “Kodiak!”
The doorway opens.
I scramble to all fours and look up to see Kodiak standing over me. His handsome face is tear-struck, his shoulders slumped. “What is it?” he asks.
“The uninhabited areas. I went in, to figure out what I could, but I... I came across...”
“Spit it out. What? You came acrosswhat?”
“A body! A dead body, hanging from a rack. Like grocery meat.”
Kodiak snorts. “That’s ridiculous.”
“I know it’s ridiculous!” I say. “But that doesn’t change the fact that Isawit, right there, like a dead body or a zombie or I don’t know what, Kodiak. But something impossible is going on in here, and we have to figure out what it is.”
“Impossible sounds about the word for it,” Kodiak says, arms crossing.
“Ambrose is hurt,” OS says. “He entered the engine room, which is not intended for human occupants, and damaged his physical form in the process. Help me get him to the infirmary.”
Kodiak scowls at the ceiling, but when he looks back at me his expression is softer. I’m the enemy of his enemy. He lifts my chin, so he can look at the wound on my cheek. “You really beat yourself up. What happened to you?”
I hide my hand behind my back. “It’s nothing. I’m not going to the infirmary, Kodiak. I don’t trust the ship.”
“Of course we should trust the ship,” Kodiak says. “Don’t be crazy.” His eyes have a gleam in them. The gleam says:don’t talk like that here.
He gestures toward his quarters. “Come on, let me take a look at your finger.”
“I know what I saw,” I say as I step past him.
“Hold on,” he says, grabbing my elbow. The rough pad of his thumb strokes my cheek. “Seriously. What happened?”
“My face touched the exterior wall,” I say. “It was cold.”
“More than cold. You’ve gotten frostbite,” Kodiak says. “Ambrose, you have to be careful.”
“It’s fine,” I say, shrugging him off.
