The Empty Pod

"Give me the mask, Sisaqa."

Pomaq's voice scraped against the steel mesh of the hoist cage.

I kept my fingers clamped around the harness of the stolen respirator. I wanted the outer gate unlatched, and I wanted my boots in the sub-level water before the emergency batteries in Qhari cut out for good.

"You can't even stand straight," I said.

He leaned against the buckled wall of the cage, his left forearm pressed hard against his lower ribs. The impact on the buffer springs had taken a toll. Every breath he drew came short and jagged, whistling through his teeth.

"I know the bypass sequence on the pod locks," he said. "You don't."

"I have the master override keycard." I held it up between two fingers. "And unlike you, my lungs aren't currently punctured by my own skeleton."

"They're cracked, not punctured."

"A distinction that will matter for about four seconds once that coolant gas hits your throat."

I stepped past him, my shoulder brushing his chest. The narrow cage smelled of rust, damp wool, and the sharp copper tang of his sweat. Even bent sideways with fractured ribs, he moved with that stubborn, infuriating certainty that used to drive me crazy during our third-year clinical rotations. He didn't yield an inch.

He caught my wrist.

His grip was rough, his thumb pressing directly against my radial pulse. My heart jumped beneath his skin. I told myself it was just adrenaline from the five-story drop. It was always easier to blame adrenaline.

"Look at the floor out there," he muttered, nodding toward the observation grille.

I looked.

Six inches of murky floodwater covered the corridor concrete. Above the dark surface rolled a sluggish, ochre fog, thick as curdled milk, hugging the lower two feet of the hall. It spilled from a ruptured overhead refrigeration pipe fifty yards down, swirling around the reinforced blast doors of the Qhari intensive ward.

"Halothane and fluorocarbon refrigerant," I said, reading the yellow tint. "Dense. It pools at floor level."

"Which means if you trip, you drown in solvent before you hit the water." His fingers tightened on my wrist. "Let me take the line."

"No."

"Sisaqa—"

"You're splinting your diaphragm, Pomaq. You take three deep breaths in that fog, your intercostals spasm, and you drop." I pulled my hand free, stepping into his space until our jackets touched. "Then I have to drag two hundred pounds of stubborn surgeon through toxic sludge while my sister suffocates in a locked box."

He stared down at me. The penlight in his right hand threw sharp shadows across the angle of his jaw, highlighting the dark stubble and the tight line of his mouth.

"You always did calculate the math to make yourself the martyr," he said quietly.

"Three years ago you called me a parasite. Make up your mind."

"I was angry three years ago."

"And you're concussed right now."

I lifted the heavy rubber mask and pulled the straps over my head. The silicone sealed tight against my jaw, the intake valves clicking with a dry, mechanical flutter as I drew my first filtered breath. The world shrank to the oval frame of clear polycarbonate and the harsh rhythm of my own lungs.

I slung the portable oxygen condenser across my left shoulder. The dual lithium battery packs added ten solid pounds against my spine, but the green status LED blinked steady and true.

Pomaq watched me. He didn't try to grab the harness again. Judging by the tight set of his mouth, he knew the numbers as well as I did, even if his pride fought every single digit.

He reached out, his bare fingers catching the edge of my collar to straighten the condenser's carry strap so it wouldn't pinch my neck. It was an automatic, clinical gesture. He used to do the exact same thing with my lead apron during fluoroscopy labs.

I stepped back before I could lean into the contact.

"Stay inside the hoist," I said, my voice muffled behind the twin filter cartridges. "Keep the manual cable crank locked. If Ch'aska's detail tries to lower the counterweights from above, drop the secondary safety pawl."

He lifted the steel pry bar, resting its chisel tip against the floor plates. "You have six minutes on those charcoal canisters in high concentration."

"I need four."

"If you're not back in five, I'm coming in with a wet rag."

"If you come in with a rag, I'll hit you with the pry bar myself."

I heaved the iron drop-bar out of its floor sockets and shoved the hoist gate outward.

Cold water rushed over the tops of my work boots, soaking through canvas and wool in a biting shock. The ochre vapor parted around my shins like heavy grease, curling upward in lazy tendrils that smelled faintly of sweet chloroform and burnt electrical insulation.

I moved forward along the right wall.

Visibility died three paces from the hoist. The yellow fog swallowed the narrow beam of my flashlight, turning the hallway into a featureless amber void. I didn't rely on sight. I brought up the hospital blueprint schematic in my mind and reached out, finding the heavy insulated conduit along the right-hand wall.

The unlagged copper coolant line meant twenty yards. The double valve junction for the oxygen riser marked thirty-five.

The floor beneath my feet was treacherous, littered with broken ampoules, sodden chart binders, and dislodged ceiling baffles. Every step sent sluggish ripples through the contaminated water. My shins burned where the chemical runoff seeped through my torn trouser cuffs.

I ignored the sting. I focused entirely on the image of Pod 04.

Misk'illa's face. The thin, transparent tubing taped to her cheek. The way she used to trace geometric patterns on the glass whenever visiting hours ended.

Four minutes.

My fingers struck cold, heavy steel. The blast door of the Qhari Intensive Isolation Ward.

The primary pneumatic seals had partially vented, leaving the heavy sliding panel jammed six inches ajar. Yellow gas was leaking through the gap, hissing softly against the jamb.

I hooked my fingers into the recessed emergency pocket and braced both boots against the concrete sill. I pulled with everything I had.

Metal screeched against metal. The door groaned along its track, fighting the buckled frame before sliding back eighteen inches—just wide enough for my shoulders.

I slipped through and sealed the gap behind me with a rubber doorstop kicked into the runner.

Inside Qhari, the air was clearer. The positive-pressure ventilation had failed, but the room's high-efficiency ceiling scrubbers were still weakly humming on emergency circuit power.

The ward was dead silent.

Rows of cylindrical isolation pods stood in two neat ranks beneath flickering red emergency strips. Most of the transparent canopies were cracked open, their life-support monitors dead and dark, their IV lines trailing across the dry linoleum like discarded twine.

I sprinted down the central aisle, the water sloshing out of my boots with every stride.

"Pod zero-four," I whispered into the rubber mask. "Zero-four."

I found the unit in the far corner, tucked beneath the auxiliary intake duct.

The heavy plexiglass canopy was down, locked firmly in place by the hydraulic sealing levers.

"Misk'illa," I breathed, dropping to my knees against the metal frame.

I swung the condenser off my shoulder, setting the unit on the bedside tray, and reached up with both hands to wipe the thick layer of condensation from the curved viewing pane.

The pod was empty.

The clean white sheets were stripped to the bare mattress. The central ventilator circuit was neatly clamped with surgical forceps and disconnected at the intake manifold.

My hands froze against the cold glass.

Taped to the outside of the viewing window was a laminated patient tag. Across the clear plastic, written in bold, hurried strokes of yellow grease pencil, were three lines:

PATIENT 114 - MISK'ILLA

EVACUATED TO SUB-BASEMENT SUMP

SURGICAL TEAM BRAVO - 05:30

She wasn't dead. She was just further down.

I peeled the tag from the plexiglass and shoved it deep into my jacket pocket. I hoisted the ten-pound oxygen condenser back over my shoulder, the nylon strap biting familiarly into my collarbone.

There was no negotiation left on this floor. The only way forward was back through the yellow mist to Pomaq, then down into the foundation pipes.

I turned toward the cracked blast door and started walking.