“I’m not calm,” I say. Calmly. “I just don’t want to do anything rash.” My eyes look up around us, then back to Kodiak, beaming a message:let’s not say anything more until we’re in the blind room.
“I think rash is exactly whatiscalled for,” Kodiak says. He punches the wall again before stalking out of the room.
“Where are you going?” I yell after him.
Rover whirs into motion, taking off after Kodiak. “Please help me stop him,” my mother’s voice says. “Do not let him compromise our mission because of psychological failure. We are only days away from Minerva! There are only three tasks left to accomplish!”
With Rover gone, the half-printed panel glares at me. I have to choose: I can go investigate the bodies, or I can go after Kodiak.
I go after Kodiak.
He’s not difficult to find, not with his heavy reverberating footfalls. He’s right before the orange portal that leads to his half of the ship, curled up and clutching his knees. Though he says something, I can’t make out the words.
“What?”
When he looks up, his eyes are empty. “Release it.”
“I didn’t close it,” I say. “The orange portal should just open.”
“It doesn’t.”
“OS,” I call, my eyes never leaving Kodiak, hands fluttering as I try to decide whether I can touch him. “Open the orange portal.”
“It is my decision that allowing you to access the ‘blind room’ would permit you to continue your unauthorized activities. I have sealed theAurorato maintain mission integrity.”
“You are not authorized to make these sorts of decisions,” I say.
“Override,” says Kodiak.
Silence.
“Override,” Kodiak repeats.
The door remains closed.
“Shit,” I say.
Kodiak nods, before letting his head drop back to his knees. “That is the most intelligent thing you’ve said for a while.”
_-* Tasks Remaining: 3 *-_
We spend a good half hour sitting on the floor outside the portal, past words. We’re at the mercy of forces beyond our control, like when we were at the bottom of the ship’s reservoir.
What can we do? OS has cut us off from half the ship—the half with our offline area, our laboratory, our access to the unfiltered radio transmission from Earth. OS could close more doorways, sealing us off even further. I’m not sure why it would, but I realize I don’t really know the first thing about what’s going on in its digital mind. All I know for sure is that we’re completely at its mercy.
I also know this: if OS closes all the doorways in the ship, I don’t want to be separated from Kodiak.
I lie beside him, turned in his direction, head pillowed on my biceps so I can watch him. I want to protect him. Not that this soft fragile body of mine, so reliant on its blood and its heart and its lungs, could hope to defend him from Rover and OS.
Kodiak’s eyes are closed, long lashes interlocking. One of those lashes has fallen free, and rests on his cheek. Gently as I can, I pluck it away, hold it in my palm. My eyes trace the strong line of his forehead, his nose, the hair that curls at the back of his neck. I wonder what he’s thinking, wish that asking him might get me somewhere. Kodiak lets out a groan, his shoulders and ribs shuddering. He presses his head even tighter to his knees, giving it a good bash as he does.
“Shh,” I say, putting my hand on his shoulder.
He shifts his body away.
I don’t try to touch him again. I lie there, listening to hisbreathing hitch and release, hitch and release, then finally become even as he falls asleep. Although I don’t let my body contact his, I do extend my arms and legs so they’re grazing the wall. Rover would have to wake me to get to Kodiak.
_-* Tasks Remaining: 2 *-_
