So how are we going to test this theory?he writes.
We’re not going to do anything right now. There’s no rush. Let’s take a few hours doing our normal tasks to throw the OS off a bit, in case it’s on alert. Then we’ll talk more after dinner.
He looks at me for a long moment. He’s searching my face for a feeling, for information, for I don’t know what. I don’t think he found it. When he finally nods and stands, there’s a forced calm on his face.
_-* Tasks Remaining: 1799 *-_
He doesn’t come to dinner.
I go and look for him. As I enter theAurora, I don’t hear any sounds of tinkering. Instead I hear something far more ominous: silence.
I pad through the ship and find Kodiak at the very end, by his airlock. He’s got one of the spacewalk helmets in hand, is grinding away at the inside with what appears to be a screwdriver. “Kodiak,” I ask slowly, “what are you doing?”
“Figuring out... what’s on the other side of this screen,” he says as he strains. A fragment of polycarbonate pops to the ground.
“Stop! Stop. Isn’t that going to destroy it?” I ask, as horrified as if it were one of his fingernails that popped off.
Kodiak hurls the helmet down. It rolls into a corner, shards of high-tech carbonite tinkling from it. “Weneedthose helmets,” I say.
“To rescue Minerva?” he says in a mockingly squeaky voice. He shrugs, taking another suit down from the wall, peering into another helmet, screwdriver in hand. “We don’tneedthese helmets if this is all some simulation.”
I speak at full voice, OS be damned. “Whatever this is, it’s not asimulation, Kodiak. Even if we’re copies of ourselves, even if you and I are doomed, at least in this version, we’ll need those helmets.”
“Pathetic,” Kodiak says. “Even after the system has fucked you over, you’re holding on to whatever shreds of lies that it’s left you with. We have tobreakthis manipulation, notbowto it.”
“Break it? What doesthatmean?”
Kodiak gashes a long line down the front of the helmet. The sharp squeal of the fracturing polycarb makes me cringe.
My skin goes rubbery. “And you’ll kill us in the process?”
“No. I’ll prove to our testers that we’re onto them. That we won’t give up control of our destiny. That’s how we’ll pass this exam. Then they’ll have to let us out.”
I watch helplessly as he gashes away at the second helmet.Our only tool to survive if we—or a version of us—get off the ship. The darkness outside hums its outrage. “You don’t know any of that for sure. For both of our sakes, I need you to stop what you’re doing.”
Scrape. Scrape. Scrape.
He puts his whole weight into it, and I’m reminded how his body has been honed as a weapon.
“Kodiak,” I say, tears clogging my voice, “I’m serious. Stop.”
When he doesn’t even acknowledge what I said, hot rage splashes through my cold fear. The back of my neck sparks, sweat dots my brow. I step forward.
He looks up from his work, face gone gray. Then he returns to his labor.
I take another step.
“Stop right there,” he says, again without looking at me.
I take another step.
I kneel beside him.
I lay my fingers over his, over the handle of the screwdriver.
His other hand lashes out, too fast to counter, striking me flat across the temple. I go sliding along the floor.
I’m up and cursing, hurling myself at Kodiak. I launch onto his back, pummeling his thick neck, biting into his salty skin. He shrugs, and that movement of the powerful planes of his back is enough to send me crashing against the wall. I’m right back on him, and this time I have thepresence of mind to snatch the screwdriver before he hurls me off.
