Suddenly she couldn’t escape the stench that clung to her hair, of the bodies she’d had to crawl through outside. Every breath she took, she smelled the odor of death. Desperate now, she searched for Lumina’s face, moving from one row of cots to the other. From one lifeless body to the next. The marks of brutality were everywhere. Mottled yellow bruising. Scratches and ripped flesh. Bite marks.

She couldn’t help imagining what had happened. So many people, turning on each other like rabid animals. Like Soren in Ag 6. Her mother had been trapped in this.

Where was she?

Aria heard a faint voice and spun. Someone approached. She tensed, ready to hide, but then she recognized the voice and froze. Was that Doctor Ward? Lumina’s colleague? He entered the room, glancing through his visor in her direction, and then stopped. Hope surged through her. He would know how to find her mother.

“Doctor Ward?” she said.

“Aria?” For a moment they stared at each other. “What are you doing here?” he asked, and then answered his own question. “You’ve come for your mother.”

“You have to help me, Doctor Ward. I need to find her.”

He came toward her, leveling his intense gaze on her. “She’s here,” he said. They were the words she’d wanted to hear, but the tone was all wrong. “Come with me.”

Aria followed him through the metal halls. She knew what was happening. She knew what he was going to tell her. Lumina was dead. She had heard it in his voice.

She followed him, her head spinning with dizziness, her legs heavy and slow. This wasn’t real. It couldn’t be. She couldn’t lose Lumina, too.

He took her into a small, bare room with a heavy airlock door that hissed as it closed behind her.

“The storms kept us away,” Ward said. A muscle by his Smarteye twitched. “We were too late.”

“Can—can I see her? I need to see her.”

Ward hesitated. “Yes. Wait here.”

When he left, Aria staggered back. Her helmet clacked against the wall. She slid to the floor. Every muscle shook. Tears ached behind her eyes. She tried to press her palms into them, but her hands smacked into the visor. She panted, her breath loud to her own ears.

The airlock door slid open. Ward pushed a gurney into the small chamber. A long black bag made of thick plastic lay on top. “I’ll be outside,” he said, and left.