“Yes, still me,” I say again, battling both frustration and fear. One minute he seems fine. Well, fine-ish. Coherent enough to understand what’s going on and reason through a way to assist. But the next, he’s just… gone.
The disparity turns my insides to ice.
What must it be like in his head? Are we surrounded by peopleI can’t see? Is listening to me like trying to hear a whisper across a crowded room? What if I can’t find a way to help him? What if he’s lost in that other version of the world—that permanently crowded room—forever?
My mind immediately projects a vision of Kane in the gray Verux Peace and Harmony Tower pajamas, sitting alone in the corner of the common room, muttering to himself.
The mental picture is so real that my stomach knots with dread.
But I know, in reality, even that image is too optimistic, at this point. We would have to get off this ship first, for him to be confined at the Tower.
Which brings us back to this fucking door.
“I need your help,” I say to Kane, working to keep my voice steady and calm. My thigh muscles are already twitching from holding this position. I tip my head toward the door. “I’m going to pull from the bottom. If a gap opens on the side, I need you to pull, too.” I don’t know how powerful that QuikLok is. It looks like I should be able to create at least a small opening.
Kane’s expression shifts from bewildered to determined. “Okay.”
“Okay,” I repeat in relief, though I suspect this moment of clarity from him may be brief. “Here we go.”
I lock my fingers around the bottom edge of the door and lean back, pushing against the floor with my feet for additional leverage and strength.
The right side of the door lurches toward us an inch or so, and Kane immediately lunges for the small opening, wedging his fingers inside. Together, we pull, me with extra determination that he should not lose his fingertips in this exercise on top of everything else.
Sweat trickles down my spine, and my feet are tingling from my cramped position. And my fingers are starting to slip.
“This is pointless,” Reed says loudly from behind us.
It’s hard not to want to redirect my energy toward shutting him up, but I focus.
“The QuikLok is designed to prevent this exact kind of tampering,” he continues.
And maybe on a working ship, a military ship, or a hab, he’d be right. Metal doors, metal doorframes. But I’m betting, praying, even, that the wooden doorframe—part of that oh-so-luxurious environment for the Platinum Level civilian residents—is prettier than it is strong. Plus, the force of QuikLok expanding so rapidly in a contained space, that had to do some damage, right?
Just as my fingers are beginning to lose their grip, the door gives suddenly with a loud pop, flying back several inches. The unexpected release dumps me unceremoniously on my ass and sends Kane stumbling back.
I look up in relief, to find that the door is now open.
Sort of.
The top half is open about six inches, while the bottom is about half that, leaving the door leaning drunkenly inward.
I push myself up to my feet and grab the newly released edge of the door. Kane, without being asked, follows my lead. Pulling together, we manage to scrape it back another few inches.
We can make it out now. Elation is a bright spark in me, mixed with the nauseating low tones of fear over what’s next.
I step back, grab my helmet and the tool kit from the LINA, just in case. I attach the tool kit through the loop at the top of its case to one of the hooks at the waist of my suit. Just like a regular workday. “Let’s go,” I whisper. It seems likely that if Diaz left anyone stationed nearby, they would have heard us struggling with the door, but why take the risk?
I nudge Kane through the opening first. He gets stuck for a few harrowing seconds but manages to squeeze through. Then I follow.
Or I try to.
Most of my body is out in the hall but all forward progress stops when my helmet rams into the edges of the door and frame. Unlike our bodies, it has no give. The rounded bubble shape is completely inflexible.
And the opening is simply not large enough.
“It’s not going to fit,” Reed hisses at me.
He’s right.
