I stop pacing. Or, drive them crazy.
Max said this thing causes paranoia, fear, hallucinations. Ghosts. But I’ve been living with most of those things my whole life. I saw my mother on this ship before the engines were even on. That was no weapon-induced hallucination.
Maybe some of what I’ve experienced on board is due to Verux’s device—the woman under the bed, a ghost or a hallucination, I don’t know—but some of it is just… me.
Thoughts race ahead of me, almost out of my reach.
The first time I experienced theAurora,I was better able to handle it. I tried to guide Kane and the others. I was used to seeing things that no one else could see, used to having my perception of reality uncomfortably altered. Perhaps my damaged hearing—that partial deafness on my left side—also makes me less vulnerable to the vibrations. I don’t know for sure.
Either way, it’s an advantage. Of sorts.
What if it’s one we can use? If Nysus figured out a way to crank up the noise dampeners to help cut the effects, what would happen if I could figure out how to shut the dampeners off? Maybe even increase the vibrations by revving the idling engines.
It returns in a flash, then, stealing my breath.
“It has to be mechanical. The engines go faster, the effects get worse. That’s not aliens or ghosts.” Nysus’s whispered words reach me through the dimness of the mostly darkened bridge. I’m lying on the floor, my vision haloing around what little light there is, and my head pulsing with every heartbeat. Waves of agony cascade through my whole body. Next to me, I sense a presence, movement, but I can’t quite bring myself to turn my head to look. Not just out of pain but fear of what I might see.
“Something to do with sound or vibrations. That’s why the dampeners are redlining, trying to keep up with it.”
The recaptured memory ends abruptly, leaving me gasping.
They were on the verge of figuring it out… and I left. For reasons I still don’t understand.
Not that it matters now. And nothing at all will matter, including my vague outline of a plan, unless we can find a way out of this room.
I turn to Kane and move to kneel next to him. “Still me,” I say. Though I wonder if his hallucinated version of me would say anything different.
He nods, but he looks as if he doesn’t trust his own eyes. I let go of his hand and walk away; as far as his jumbled brain is concerned I may or may not be the same entity from a few moments ago. I understand that.
“Do you have anything in here? Supplies? Tools?” I press.
His gaze darts away from me, his attention focused on an empty corner. “She wouldn’t do that,” he says to no one, his breath ragged. “Just because you did!”
“Kane,” I try again.
“That was different!” he argues.
With one final glare at whoever he sees there, Kane gets up and shuffles across the room. He digs under a pile of clothing and then reaches beneath two of the stacked mattresses, pulling out a dark object. A case, of some kind.
He hesitates for a second before bringing the item over to me. It’s only when he holds the case out to me that I recognize it. One of our tool kits from the LINA, her designation and Verux’s name printed in bright red letters across the front.
I take it, and even as I open it, I know what I’ll find. A collection of small tools—screwdrivers, wrenches, utility knives, plastic ties, even a microblade saw—all arranged neatly by size and color coded.
Of course one of the pockets is empty. The largest screwdriver—the one with the blue handle—is missing. Because it’s in Nysus’s head, downstairs. Driven in through his ear, in an attempt to end his suffering, or at least the voices whispering to him.
I wince but manage to nod at Kane. “Thank you.” Now I knowwho Kane must have thought he was speaking to a moment ago: a hallucination of Nysus warning him of what I might be planning.
Screw that. Hell yeah, I’m going to try to use these tools to escape, but this time, we’re going through the fucking door.
29
The second-largest screwdriver does nothing against the now-hardened substance Diaz poured through the door’s mechanisms. I can’t even get bits of the excess to chip away. All it’s doing is dulling the edge of the tool.
And the microblade snaps in two without making a dent in whatever it is. What I wouldn’t give for a plasma drill now.
“You’re pushing too hard,” Reed insists, supervising over my shoulder. “It’s QuikLok. We make it for the colony habs, a way for them to secure rooms or criminals. You can’t jab at it like that. I supervised the quality testing for it.”
I grit my teeth and stand. Slapping the broken blade pieces in his hand, I gesture toward the door. “Be my guest.”
