Equinox (15 page)

She went to the bathroom, throwing her underwear in the cleaner.

The shower stung the cuts on her back and arms and when she got out and looked in the mirror, she was shocked at what she saw. Her face was pale with dark circles under her eyes, the freckles scattered across her cheekbones standing out in sharp relief. Red fingerprint-shaped marks dotted her neck.

I killed a man
. The thought was in her head before she could lock it out. All the saliva in her mouth dried up and she sat heavily on the closed lid of the toilet, battling the urge to vomit again. She wrapped a towel tightly around herself and stared at the dark tiled floor.
Don’t think about it. Not yet. You couldn’t help it
. She tried to focus on Aunt Essie, on Riley, on anything else. She listened to the drone of the cleaning unit working on her underwear. After a minute she was able to get up.

She hunted through the room for her clothes, but found nothing, so she went to the kitchen still wrapped in the towel.

Dalton was sitting alone at the table with a cup in front of him. He got up as she came in.

“Hey, how you feeling?”

“Naked. Have you got any pain blockers?”

“Um, yeah, somewhere.” He moved quickly, pulling open drawers and rattling things around.

The rattling made her head throb and she sat down in the chair he’d vacated.

“You passed out on the way back,” Dalton said. “Had to carry you in. You don’t remember?”

Rosie shook her head. His cup was full of tea and she took a sip. It was still warm and heavily sugared. Dalton returned with pills and water.

She swallowed two. “Where’re my clothes?”

“I’ll get them. The doctor took them off, not me, in case you were wondering. He wanted to make sure you were okay.”

Rosie shrugged. After everything that had happened, Dalton seeing her without her clothes seemed insignificant. She didn’t care one way or the other, which was a bit weird because normally she would. She took another swallow of his tea. “Can I have this?”

“Yeah, I made it for you when I heard the shower.” He sat down across from her. “Doc left instructions that you’d need sugar. I said you were sweet enough, but …” Rosie gave him a blank look. The faint smile he’d been attempting faded quickly. “Are you okay? You’re all cut up and–”

“Where’s Aunt Essie?”

“In the room next to yours. The doctor took the metal out and patched her up.”

Rosie got up. “Can I have my clothes? I want to see her.”

“She’s on a knockout drip; she won’t be awake.”

“I don’t care.”

“Sure thing, Pilot Girl.” He got to his feet.

“Stop calling me that.” Rosie knew her tone was curt, but the nickname was suddenly grating.

“Hey, sorry.” He looked wary. “I’ll get your clothes. Just, um, go see your aunt.” He went for the door and Rosie felt terrible. He’d rescued her, even made her tea and here she was snapping at him.

“Wait–” She paused as he turned back. She felt tongue-tied and her head was killing her. “Um, thanks for coming to get us yesterday, and for bringing the doctor. For everything.”

“Yeah, no problem.” His smile was hesitant though. “So Riley’s really gone?”

“Looks like.”

He exhaled softly and tapped a fist on the doorframe. “Go see your aunt. I’ll bring your clothes in. Then we’ve got to talk.”

Aunt Essie was still asleep like Dalton said. She seemed very small and pale in the large bed. A drip was connected to her arm and a medibot in the corner beeped, tracking her heartbeat. Rosie eyed it suspiciously as she approached the bed. It scared her how close she’d come to losing Aunt Essie again. She put her hand in her aunt’s. It was cool, limp.

Rosie felt lost. Riley was gone, her aunt injured. They weren’t safe. Not any more. But she didn’t know what to do. She couldn’t just sit around waiting for Essie to wake up. Eventually, Helios would find them. God knew where Riley had gone. She couldn’t believe he’d just skipped out on them without leaving any clues behind.

She put her aunt’s cold hand to her forehead and took in a long unsteady breath. There was a knock on the door and Dalton poked his head in, holding her clothes.

“Here.” He tossed them on the bed. “I’ll be in the kitchen.”

Rosie slipped into her now-clean clothes. Her tank top had tiny holes peppered across the back and one of her pants’ side pockets was ripped down the seam.

When she went back to the kitchen, Dalton was stirring something in a large white bowl.

“I made you some soup with beef,” he said. “Sit down. And don’t argue – doctor’s orders.” She didn’t think she could eat anything. But Dalton’s stern expression made her swallow her protest and she sat.

He put the bowl in front of her and she was immediately assaulted by a rich meaty aroma. Her mouth watered and she took a hesitant spoonful. It stayed down. She was suddenly starving. She’d had real beef only once before, at an Orbitcorp party her aunt had been invited to, and the reaction of her body to high-quality protein was intense. She finished the bowl in a few minutes flat.

“Want some more?” Dalton said, one eyebrow raised.

Her stomach gurgled. “Better not. Do you get meat like that often?”

“Often enough.” He seemed embarrassed.

Rosie rubbed the side of her head. It was still throbbing, despite the pain blockers.

“So what about that doctor,” she said. “Is he … will he keep his mouth shut?”

“He’s paid enough never to mention anything he does for us. Ever.”

Rosie found it hard to believe there was enough money in the world to stop anyone talking to Helios if they came looking.

“Dalton?” She leaned towards him. “Are you sure he’s safe? You said before you were worried about your dad being part of Helios.”

Everything about his posture screamed a reluctance to answer. “My dad doesn’t know about him.” Dalton stared at the tabletop. “He’s my mother’s doctor. That’s all he does – works for her. He would never say a word about any of it.”

“Your mum?”

Dalton nodded. “He basically keeps her alive. She’s addicted to …” He flicked open a palm, his mouth twisting. “Well, just about everything. Has been for the last eight years.”

Rosie didn’t know what to say but he didn’t seem to expect anything. A terrible sadness was in his eyes as he glanced at her then away.

“Hey, are you okay?” Rosie felt a twinge of worry. She’d never seen him like this before.

He sighed. His voice was unsteady as he said, “I, um … I used to have an older brother. He died.” He stopped, swallowed. “She …”

“She wanted to forget,” Rosie said quietly.

“Something like that.”

Rosie knew how that felt. “How did he die? If you want to tell me; you don’t have to.”

“No, I think you of all people would understand,” he said bleakly. “It was the MalX.”

“Oh,” Rosie whispered. He was standing close enough that she could touch him and without thinking about it she took his hand. Pain tightened his features.

“It wasn’t meant to happen,” he said. “My father. He has this way he thinks his sons should be. Chris wouldn’t fall in line. It wasn’t even–” His mouth tightened. “They used to argue, all the time, about how the Bankers, the Rims, even the Ferals got to be where they are. Chris was all about the company doing things to help them and Dad, well–” He made a bitter noise. “I think you can guess what he thought.”

“What happened?” Rosie said.

Dalton shrugged. “An argument got too heated, so Dad thought he’d teach Chris a lesson. He had his boys take Chris out to the old city, where the Ferals live, and left him there. Dumped him out of a boat without any protection. Nothing. Of course Dad says he didn’t know the mozzies hadn’t been sprayed there yet, but …”

“You don’t believe him?” Rosie said.

Dalton looked down at their hands. He brushed his index finger against hers. “I don’t know,” he said quietly. “I want to. Chris caught the MalX there. I can’t believe Dad would–” He stopped.

“I’m sorry,” Rosie said.

“It’s not your fault.”

“I know, but–”

“It’s his fault.” His face hardened. “And if it turns out he really is in with Helios … then he knew about the MalX, didn’t he? He might have even been involved in making it.”

Rosie understood now what drove him, why he was here, and it made her sad, because she knew how it felt to lose someone to that terrible disease.

When her mum had died–

Her train of thought was suddenly cut off as agonising pain slashed through her skull. She gasped, almost falling off her chair.

“Rosie!” Dalton grabbed her. He sounded panicked. Consumed by pain, Rosie clutched her head. Then suddenly she saw the words, again in green, a map, and more words, splicing the blackness of her closed lids. She froze, eyes tightly closed as she struggled to make sense of it.

Don’t … Rosie … backup … of … disa … rance … Nation tech … decod … alive … iley
.

The pain blinked off like a light. There was a sharp, high-pitched whine then everything went black.

She came to on the floor. Her head was in Dalton’s lap and he was calling her name, his hands cradling her face.

“Rosie!”

“Okay, okay, I’m awake.” She blinked, trying to focus.

Dalton looked terrified. “Christ, you scared the crap out of me! You just dropped.”

“Yeah, well, good catch.” She pushed his hands away and tried to sit up, but a wave of dizziness made the room tilt and she pitched sideways.

“Whoa.” Dalton caught her and lifted her back up and onto the chair. “You going to stay upright?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. Stop hovering.”

He complied only as far as letting go of her. “What the hell happened?”

“I …” Rosie wondered if she was going to sound crazy. “I saw words behind my eyelids.”

“Words?” Dalton’s eyebrows rose so high they almost met his fringe.

“I know it sounds nuts, but it was …” She glanced around the kitchen. “Have you got something I can write on?”

He went to one of the kitchen drawers and came back with a tablet. Rosie powered it up. She was beginning to get an idea of what might have happened and she didn’t like it. Not one bit. She typed up the line of disjointed text she’d seen and showed it to Dalton, watching as he read it over, his lips slightly parted and a frown between his eyes.

“Don’t … Rosie … backup … of … disa … rance … Nation tech … decod … alive … iley. That last word looks like Riley,” he said.

“Yeah, it does.” She rubbed her eyes. They felt gritty and sore, like she’d been up all night playing virtual games. “He put an implant in me when he was here the other night. He
said
it was just a tracking device in case Helios took me from Senate Prime.”

“You think it’s something else, like a cortex implant?”

“It would explain why I see words when my eyes are closed.” Rosie could hardly believe Riley would have done this without telling her. A cortex implant was serious tech. It was the most secure way to store information because it was stashed in the one place most people couldn’t get at – inside your skull. The only way to access it was by knowing the activation code – which she didn’t – or by using the kind of sophisticated tech only Helios or the Senate would have. Or Gondwana Nation.

“But if it is a cortex, it shouldn’t produce garbled information,” Dalton said.

“Maybe the explosion at Riley’s did something to it. Besides, I don’t know the activation code, so why am I seeing anything?”

Dalton thoughtfully slapped the tablet on his palm. “One of the words is backup and another one looks a hell of a lot like it could be disappearance. Could Riley have set it up to activate if he took off?”

It was the kind of thing he might do. Rosie put an elbow on the table and rested her forehead in her hand. Had Riley put a whole lot of stuff in her brain?

“Hey,” Dalton said, “there’s a basic scanner on the medibot in with your aunt.”

Rosie raised her head. “Good idea.” She got up so fast Dalton put his hands out to her in alarm.

“I’m fine.” She grabbed his hand, tugging him after her to the hallway.

The medibot was still in the corner. Swallowing her nervousness, Rosie flipped open its lower storage unit, searching for the scan wand. She sat at the foot of her aunt’s bed trying to stay as still as possible while Dalton ran it slowly over her skull. A bio map of her brain appeared on its screen.