“This fucker.” Ryker strode to the back of the shuttle, where the survey team said we could stash samples. “Tried to eat us! There were dozens of them that way, all up in the canopy waiting to pounce. Do not go that way.”
Zavir shoved the carcass into the cargo space as the door opened and Roys stepped out.
“Good thing that isn’t the way the team wants to go.” Roys took a gander at the dead plant. “They’ll be happy you brought that. Both of you okay?”
“I’m traumatized,” Ryker replied with a dramatic wave of his hand. “But physically fine.”
“I had a great laugh,” Zavir said when getting on the shuttle. He stopped to give Roys a look. “But you’re pale, Captain. Did the heat get to you?”
“Yeah. Ethin was kind enough to check the perimeter while I got some air,” Roys said, causing the group to release a series of childish taunts that I should respond to.
I didn’t, calmly following everyone into the shuttle where my eyes refused to stray from Roys until I entered the cockpit. The earlier scene replayed in my mind’s eye. He checked the habitat to make sureeverything was fine. It wasn’t weird. Except I kept watching, picking apart every move.
He ate more candy today than usual. He had scratched his arm five times since I started counting, got sick earlier, pale clammy skin… that night he played the viz had been unusual. He was in such a good mood… he called me Lucky. It was weird that he was so open to going back to his office when there was a risk of getting caught. The shuttle too, freezing up like that when we were attacked. He called it a fluke, but Roys never tensed up. Even when we were in the caves, he remained levelheaded. Frequently itching his arms, not taking those damn armguards off…
I was overthinking things, and who cared? That was his business. I knew he was a user. He hadn’t changed. It didn’t fucking matter.
At the habitat, Roys helped Zavir take the specimen into the lab.Maddy invited them in. She acknowledged me with a nod, which I returned. That should have made me ecstatic, but seeing her brought memories of the Colony, of the synthetics we delivered to people we pretended not to care about because that was all we could do to survive.
When a dead body showed up on the side of the street, we never checked because we probably would recognize their face. It wasn’t uncommon to turn up at a drop to encounter a corpse inside. The stench of rot permeated my mind. One never forgot that smell or the glaze of the eyes or the maggots crawling through tissue long abandoned.
I didn’t care. It wasn’t my business. Roys didn’t matter. He was a grown man making his own decisions. He. Didn’t. Matter.
I had no appetite during dinner. I think I spoke, mumbling here or there while a nightmare played on repeat in my mind; waking one morning to discover Roys didn’t join us at breakfast. Walking back to his office to find him slumped over in his chair and seeing his eyes, once an unreal blue, made dull gray. His armguard lay on the ground, revealing veins black as sludge, lips pulled back into a strained smile, lifeless.
Damn it. Damn it. Damn it.
That night, when the dark would not relent its torment, my paranoia carried me to the storage room.
I was wrong. Had to be. I was overthinking things.
“You’re paranoid,” I said outside the storage doors. They opened onto flickering lights. I moved fast in case his commlink would notify him of anyone entering storage. There were dozens of shelves that I scanned. The times I caught him, I thought he had been looking in the corner. On the third try, I opened a box full of rations, and his favorite candy; a box only he checked.
My sweaty hands pushed through the content, meeting the bottom, where my fingers swept against fabric. With eyes clenched shut, I grappled for the oddity and brought out Zavir’s pack. Inside, two vials of moira were missing.
Fuck.
032
Ilayinbedenvisioning those vials and the empty spaces.
Roys used twice. Over the past few days, the times he acted odd — he wasn’t himself, was he? Not all of him, at least. There were pieces of him stitched together. A synthetic filled the empty spaces.
I should have recognized the signs. Itching his arms, refusing to take off those armbands, missing more often, not reacting quickly, getting sick and acting unusual. I ignored the signs because how the fuck could Roys, of all people, still be using? And the subtlety of it, he knew what he was doing, how to get around without being suspected. This wasn’t a one time occurrence.
Part of me didn’t believe he ever used, even after seeing those scars. I couldn’t wrap my head around him being anything different from the captain who got on our nerves, who drove me wild first because he was such a stickler and then because… because he was Roys.
But he had secrets and mistakes, as I claimed in the cave. I would discover them eventually, and I had. Except this secret could have him kicked off the mission. If Elado discovered Roys not only didn’t dispose of the moira but was using it, he would be replaced. Roys couldn’t possibly have the connections to avoid trouble. He may not get demoted, but Corporate might send him to the other side of the galaxy.
Would we ever see each other again? These moments we built together, brick by painful brick, would they come crashing down so we may never see what could have been?
I focused on the scuff mark on my wall made from my frustration toward Roys to begin with. I ran my finger over the mark until the memory made my finger tingle.
Roys made his choice. It was none of my concern.
I willed sleep to take me, but in my nightmares, Roys’ lifeless eyes haunted me.
The next day, the survey team woke early. Their excitement was palpable, nearly intoxicating. Even Arana and Ryker didn’t mind Galya talking their ear off on the way to the shuttle. I took the pilot seat and Iylene in the co-pilot spot, which I was far more grateful for now that I knew what Roys was up to. He sat in the cabin by Elado. Maddy sat next to him, her arms crossed and eyes shut. I had the urge to tell her. She would understand, would know what I was thinking about…
