Lily needs you.
I said that. I remember saying that.
Finish the upload. Save my daughter.
I held my breath. Thirty seconds. A minute. Two.
The burn in my lungs. The spasms in my chest. The gray creeping in at the edges.
Three minutes. My knees hitting the floor.
Four minutes.
Nothing.
I open my eyes.
White haze. The halon is still thick. I can barely see the server racks. The LEDs are pulsing in a steady rhythm. Synchronized. Calm.
Phoenix is contained. The upload worked.
Something is wrong.
I look down.
Hands. Small hands. Arms extending from those hands, limp. A body slumped across mine, face pressed into my shoulder.
Dark hair.
Julianna.
She's not moving.
"No."
The word comes out wrong. Rasping. My throat is raw, my lungs still recovering from minutes without oxygen. But myhands work. My hands find her shoulders, push her back, turn her over.
Her face is slack. Lips blue. Eyes closed.
The mask is on my face. She put it there. She took off the mask to give it back to me.
Now, she's not breathing.
"No. No, no, no."
I can't take the mask off. If I do, I die too. The halon is still thick, still displacing the oxygen in this room. She understood that. She understood when she ripped it off her face and pressed it to mine what would happen.
She chose this.
She finished the upload. Saved Lily. And then gave me back the air I gave her.
I can't do CPR in the halon. I can't breathe for her if there's nothing to breathe. I can't?—
The door.
The corridor has ventilation. The halon dump should be localized to the server room. If I can get her out, if I can get her to air …
I gather her in my arms.
