As word of the damage to the com system spread, Odinga stuck his head in, face going ashen at sight of the fractured electronics. “It had to be Sheena and Felicity. Tomaya and Breez insist they left to ‘free their friends.’ They had to have let Felix out. Then Felix killed Anna and—”

“My son never hurt anyone!” Kevina shrieked the words. “He was locked up, you fucking lunatic.”

“Sheena and Felix are downstairs in the tube,” Michaela insisted. “Felix has a hatchet. Why aren’t you listening to me?”

“In the tube?” Yosh asked, something stunned and broken behind his eyes. “What are they doing there?”

“Looking at the slime.” Michaela grabbed him by his coat to get his attention. “Listen to me, damn it. Someone smashed the com to disable the safeties and opened the UB hatch.”

“But where’s my son?” Mikoru had a crazed look in her eyes.

“And where’s Felicity?” Odinga couldn’t tear his eyes from the smashed com. “We haven’t even told her that her father’s dead yet.”

A wail started in Michaela’s throat, only to be drowned by a flutter in her chest that turned into a sob.

“What are we going to do?” Iso asked as she came wandering down the hall. “Where’s my daughter?” She fixed on Michaela’s stricken face. “You’re the pus-fucking Director. Do something!”

Michaela tried to answer, tried to think, but her chest felt like it was being squeezed. Try as she might, she couldn’t catch her breath. All she could do was gasp for air that didn’t come.

82

The Pod was no longer a sanctuary. The once-familiar halls, rooms, and ceiling had become a version of an impossible hell. Her people—the team she’d kept safe for all those years aboard Ashanti—were screaming at each other as if they’d gone insane. And maybe, with the slime cells in their brains, they had. And through the madness scampered the barefoot children, fleeing, giggling in joy as they skipped away from their parents. Chasing down the stairs after a naked and green-skinned Breez, Michaela had been horrified to see the little girl dart through the tube hatch. When Michaela pulled up at the top of the stairs, it was to see Breez dive headfirst into the slime and vanish without so much as a ripple.

At the point of despair, Michaela had fled to the safety of her personal quarters. Thankful to have the locked door between herself and whatever mayhem was breaking loose beyond, she lay in a fetal position on her bed, curled protectively around her aching left arm. Her bedside light shone on the white duraplast walls.

Duraplast. Not even that would save her.