Any hope Zed had of making a grand escape was gone now. He found himself strapped into a launch seat as Johns finished his pre-flight checks. The launch system had been so heavily automated that it took little effort from Johns to initiate the launch process.

  Whatever security measures were in place had clearly been taken care of. Johns even had the foresight to trigger the fueling of the ship remotely before they’d even arrived, removing any chance that Commander Jones might clip their wings by simply turning off the fuel pumps manually. Now, short of blowing up the ship with Zed in it, there wasn’t much anyone could do to stop the launch.

  Zed realized he had not prepared for the possibility that he wouldn’t be rescued. He hadn’t accepted a scenario where he would end his day blasting into space as a hostage.

  “…three, two, one,” Johns said calmly.

  The ship's engines ignited, and the invisible hand of gravity pressed Zed into his seat. He glanced sideways out the window to see the reinforced walls of the crater fall away, replaced by a Martian horizon. The ship rolled as they gained altitude, and soon all Zed could see was the ever-darkening sky.

  The rest of the short flight passed like a dream. Zed saw the curve of Mars below. He heard and felt the metallic clunk as they docked with the Attic station. He just kept waiting, waiting for something to stop them. Someone had to rescue him. This couldn’t be his fate. But who could intervene? He was as far from help as he could possibly get.

  As Johns pushed him through the hatch into the station, something finally clicked in his brain. He could either make a choice and take action now, regardless of how things might turn out, or live with the consequences of his inaction, which, for all he knew, could mean death as a lab rat.

  When he thought of it in those terms, everything became much simpler.

  Zed made a mental tally of his options. He’d gained one clear advantage now that they were in orbit. His gel-cast ankle was no longer a disadvantage. Johns’s weight, however, was.

  In microgravity, Sir Isaac Newton was more than ready to play. If Johns pushed himself, his momentum would carry him like a floating freight train, but, like a train, he couldn’t exactly turn on a dime.

  Zed realized he wasn’t entirely sure what a dime was and suppressed a nervous chuckle.

  “What’s so funny, lad?” Johns said amiably.

  Zed rotated to face Johns as he continued to float backward along his original trajectory into the waystation. Johns had taken off his flight suit helmet.

  “What’s a dime?” Zed asked.

  Johns cocked his head.

  “Oh, well a dime was—“

  With all his strength, and the added weight of his gel cast, Zed stretched his body straight as a board, kicking Johns full in the face with both feet. He used the impact to launch himself through the airlock and into the station.

  Johns was momentarily stunned, but Zed couldn’t afford a glance back to see if he’d done any real damage. As he floated into the station at a hazardous speed, he looked frantically for any sign of an emergency exit. While on Earth, that would have just meant a convenient door with a lighted sign above it for use in case of fire. In space, it meant escape bulbs.

  If there was anything Zed had learned from his pre-mission training back on Earth, it was what to do in case of an emergency. Escape bulbs were the standard way to exit a ship or station in orbit if something went wrong, and Zed had run more drills on how to use them than he cared to remember. He had dreaded every repetition then, but the knowledge that had been seared into his brain was priceless to him now.

  Traditional escape pods were heavy and took up far more space than was practical for the number needed at scale. No one wanted an orbiting version of the Titanic to play out, so along came the escape bulb: an escape pod that took up little more room than the escape hatch it was connected to and could be inflated when needed. When fully expanded, the pod could carry three passengers. Even its heat shield was inflatable. The only truly solid pieces were built tightly around the hatch, including a minimal thruster package, parachutes, and life support. There were no windows or controls. Everything was automated. They weren’t exactly comfortable, but they would save your life, and that was all that was required.

  “Zed!” Johns bellowed behind him. “Come back here! You don’t understand what you’re doing!”

  The Attic was larger than Zed remembered. It was just a hub and had no permanent crew, as it was almost entirely automated. No doubt, with all the other systems Johns had compromised on the ground, he had ordered the Attic to prepare the ship that would return him to Earth as well.

  Zed came to a hub with branching passages. He paused, looking for the small signs stuck to the walls that indicated where each opening led.

  “You and I are unique among humans, Zed!” Johns' bellowing voice echoed down the narrow passages. He was getting closer now. “Come with me and you can really explore what that means. You go back there, and you’ll just be stuck on Mars forever. An oddity at best and a lab rat at worst.”

  Zed’s eyes locked onto what he’d been searching for. He hurled himself down the passage at a speed that would crack his head open at the next junction if he missed a handhold, but this was no time for caution. He risked a glance over his shoulder as he took the next turn. Johns came into view. He spotted Zed and flung his mass after him with surprising agility.

  This must be what a minnow being chased feels like, Zed thought, his heart hammering against his ribs.

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  Zed finally arrived at his target destination: a row of tightly spaced hatches laid out along the planet-facing wall of the passage. There was no way he was going to be able to get the hatch open, get himself inside, and launch the bulb before Johns came tearing around the corner. He searched the walls, his eyes jumping from feature to feature, praying for anything that could help fend off the great white shark of a man who was hunting him.

  A spot of red hanging on the wall caught his attention. It was a good old-fashioned fire extinguisher. Zed felt like he’d seen more than one film where an astronaut used one of these as a makeshift propulsion device. That had always seemed incredibly silly to him, and now that he’d actually experienced microgravity, he could only imagine how uncontrollable it would be. Thankfully, he didn’t need to launch himself anywhere.

  Zed ripped the extinguisher tank off the wall and positioned himself so that he was floating free in the middle of the passage with his back to the entrance Johns was about to blast through. He clutched the small tank against his chest with his left hand, and in his right, he held the spray hose. Zed waited, reminding himself to breathe.

  The sounds of Johns pushing himself off handholds grew in a steady rhythm behind Zed. It took everything in him to float there and not look over his shoulder. When he saw Johns’s shadow grow and surround him, he didn’t so much as blink. He waited. Zed felt Johns’s hand grip his shoulder. Still, he waited. Only when Johns began to turn him around did he finally act. Without looking back, Zed aimed the nozzle over his shoulder in the direction of what he hoped was Johns’s face and pressed the trigger on the extinguisher.

  The noise was deafening in that small space. Johns cried out and immediately let go. Zed found himself thrown forward, his body spinning out of control. The chemical smell of the spray burned in his nostrils. Just as he thought, fire extinguishers made for a terrible propulsion system. Between the spinning and the cloud of extinguisher spray that he now found himself in, it was a miracle that he managed to grasp a handhold and bring himself to a stop. Zed followed the red light to the nearest bulb entrance. Flipping up the button cover, he pounded his fist down on the glowing red button and heard a loud bang as the bulb began to rapidly inflate just outside.

  Johns was roaring now. Zed could only just make out his flailing shadow in the white mist. Even a lucky hit from those giant fists would crush his skull.

  The button turned green, and Zed pressed it again with hungry desperation. The hatch swung open slowly. He grabbed the door latch, forced it open the rest of the way, and pushed himself into the bulb, legs first. As he floated through, he reached for the inner latch, intending to use his momentum to pull it closed behind him. Before his fingers could grasp the handle, Johns appeared in the doorway like a ghostly apparition.

  At a glance, Zed could see that his aim had been true. The skin around Johns’ right eye was discolored and distorted. The eye itself was red and bleeding. Without gravity to limit its flow, streams of blood etched their way in all directions along Johns’ broad face like crimson lightning. Some had made their way to his lips, giving his twisted grimace a ghoulish red tint.

  Zed dove for the hatch, but before his fingers could grasp the handle, Johns's fist wrapped around his forearm like a bear trap. Zed gasped in pain, certain it would break.

  “Stop struggling, lad, and this can all end,” Johns said, drops of spittle and blood spraying from his lips.

  “I’m not going to stop. You’re just going to have to kill me,” Zed hissed. Then he saw it. Just like Unen had pieced together his mother’s affair when he’d first taken the mushroom, now it took every moment with Johns and showed him the man in a fresh light, free of Zed’s own filter of anger and betrayal.

  “Johns, I know you really were my friend," Zed almost couldn't believe the words coming out of his own mouth, but he knew it to be true. "I know you weren’t faking it all along. You saved my life. Twice, in fact. You made me feel welcome when I needed it most.”

  Johns's grip tightened. Zed’s breath caught in his chest, but he forced himself to keep speaking.

  “You started to use me at some point. To manipulate me. Something pulled at you that made that compromise possible. And then I found it, and whatever had been nudging you started driving you. I don’t know what you were offered, but you better believe this. That number was the price of your soul.”

  The pressure from Johns’ vice-like grip was almost unbearable, but he had stopped tightening it.

  “So, you betrayed me. You betrayed a whole planet. I don’t know if you’re a murderer yet, but you worked with one. You let it happen, and that’s just as bad. I’m sure you justified things however you had to. Everything would be fine. You’d get paid. Your betrayal wouldn’t cause any permanent harm, not really.”

  Zed breathed deeply, fighting back unexpected tears. Johns remained silent.

  “The sad thing is, I don’t even hate you, Johns. I’ve had better examples than you today to show me what a waste that would be. I still think the Johns I knew in the beginning is in there. If this thing in my head is doing to you what it’s doing to me, then self-deception is actually pretty hard. If you’re going to choose to kill me, it’ll be with full knowledge of what you’re doing and what you are. I have to believe there’s enough care for me left to keep you from crossing that line. If I’m wrong, I’d rather die now than be a prize for whatever monster is waiting at the other end of this little trip.”

  Johns still said nothing, his face a mask of rage and blood. The lights signaling the bulb's readiness flashed around the door, adding to the eerie tension.

  Zed knew his life hung in the balance, but for some reason, he felt strangely at peace.

  “It’s awful, you know,” Johns said, barely moving his lips. “Taking that stuff made the world my oyster. You’re right, though. It broke open things inside me I never wanted to see. Never.”

  Johns shook his head, and Zed felt a tremor coming from the hand that still gripped his forearm.

  “You’re right, Zed. I guess there are some lines even I won’t cross now. You should have been smarter, Zed,” Johns said, wiping at a stream of blood that was tickling his nose. He didn’t loosen his grip on Zed’s arm.

  “Here’s the problem, lad. That so-called monster I’m about to sail off to. They’re expecting to see me and those samples, but they also expect to see you. I’m not going to kill you, but I can’t let you go either. That would cause more trouble for me than I’m prepared to accept, especially since Andy will also be absent.”

  Johns’ grip began tightening again, shattering Zed's momentary peace.

  “So here’s what’s going to happen. At some point, I’m sure they’ll eventually get communications patched up. They’ll put in a call to Earth and relay the whole sorry tale. What you tell them about what happened up here will be exactly this: You wounded me, I tried to kill you, but only managed to break your arm.”

  With one swift motion, Johns twisted and removed Zed’s left glove.

  “But my—” Zed was cut short by a crack that he felt as much as he heard. He looked at his left arm and saw that Johns was no longer holding it. It was, however, bent at an odd angle at a spot where there was no joint. The pain burned like an ember in his arm, threatening to burst into flame at any moment.

  “Nothing in life is free, Zed. You may live just long enough to wish you’d come with me. Good luck. I suggest you strap in. These things aren’t known for their smooth landings.”

  Johns closed the hatch. A launch countdown timer started.

  It felt like swimming through mental jello, but Zed forced himself to get positioned in one of the chairs and strapped in as best he could. He tried not to hyperventilate as he realized what the high g-force emergency burn the bulb was about to make would do to his freshly broken arm. Zed prayed for unconsciousness to swallow him.

  The engines ignited with a terrible force, sending Zed plummeting toward the surface of Mars.