fill the vacuum.
“Help me anchor him to the ground,” said Father.
The lifeline slack was everywhere, floating all around them. Victor pushed as much of it to the side as he could, getting it out of the way. Then he hit the switch on Marco’s waist belt to initiate the magnet. He and Father lowered Marco’s body to the floor. Father grabbed two anchor straps and put one across Marco’s chest and another across his legs, anchoring him flat against the floor. By then the airlock was almost full of air.
“As soon as we get the all-clear,” said Father, “take his helmet off nice and slow. Don’t jerk it. We need to be easy with his neck.”
Victor nodded, and they both got into position.
Father looked at the time counter on the wall and saw that there were twenty seconds before the room was fully pressurized. “Close enough. Go.” Father began taking off his own helmet while Victor delicately unhinged Marco’s. When he finally got it off, the all-clear sounded, and the light above the exit to the cargo bay turned green.
Father felt Marco’s neck for a pulse while Victor fumbled to get his own helmet off.
“Call Isabella on your handheld,” said Father. “Get her here now. Tell her I can’t find a pulse and he’s not breathing.”
Victor’s hands were shaking as he dialed the code on his handheld. Marco was dying. Or maybe already dead. Father tilted Marco’s head slightly back and began giving him rescue breaths. Isabella didn’t respond.
“She’s not answering,” said Victor.
“She’s probably already treating people or moving to the fuge. Find her. Get her here now. Have her bring her kit if she has it with her. Go.”
Victor detached his lifeline and was up and out of the airlock in an instant, launching himself across the cargo bay to the hatch on the far side of the room. The siren was loud inside the ship, and only the emergency lights were on, leaving much of the room in darkness. No one was in the cargo bay, but Victor found plenty of people out in the hall, a main thoroughfare on the ship. Everyone was wearing their emergency air masks and moving down the hall toward the fuge in an orderly fashion as they had been trained. Babies and small children were crying behind their masks, but their parents held them close to their chests and spoke words of comfort. Everyone seemed alarmed, but Victor was pleased to see that no one was panicking. Most people were upright, wearing greaves, but a few like Victor were flying, calmly moving with the crowd.
Victor scanned the faces but didn’t see Isabella. Knowing her, she would be one of the last people to head for the fuge. As a trained nurse, she would stay behind and help anyone who had been injured in the collision, making sure everyone got to the fuge. She was the closest thing El Cavador had to a doctor, and she had even performed a few surgeries over the years, though only in life-threatening situations and always as a last resort.
Victor spotted a familiar face. “Edimar!”
Edimar saw him and pushed her way through the crowd to reach him. Her air mask covered her entire face. “What happened?” she asked. “Why are you in a pressure suit? Were you outside? Where’s your mask?”
“Have you seen Isabella?”
Edimar pointed back up the way she had come. “She was helping Abuelita. Why? Who’s hurt? What happened?”
Victor didn’t wait to answer. He was already away, pushing his way past people, going against traffic, using the handrail to pull himself forward. Edimar called after him, but he didn’t turn back. Several people shouted at him as he brushed past them, but Victor didn’t care. Marco was dying. He wasn’t breathing. Every second counted.
The deeper he went down the hall, the thinner the crowd became. With more room to move around, Victor began launching himself forward, moving faster, covering more ground. He reached Abuelita, his great- grandmother, who was being helped down the hall by two of his uncles. “Where’s Isabella?”
They pointed farther up the hall. Victor shot forward, panicked. There were very few people now. What if Isabella had gone into someone’s room to help them and Victor had passed it? Or what if she had taken another passageway down to the fuge and Victor had missed her?
He saw her. She was ahead in the hall, putting Victor’s cousin Nanita’s arm in a sling.
“Isabella!”
She looked up. Victor grabbed a handhold on the wall, stopped himself, and motioned for her to come. “It’s Marco. He’s not breathing.”
She grabbed her bag and launched toward him. “Where?”
Victor turned his body and launched down the way he had come. “Airlock. Cargo bay.”
“He was outside?”
“We were putting on some plates when the corporates attacked.”
“Corporates?”
He told her what he could as they flew down the corridor. He had to shout over the wail of the alarm. The crowd was thin now. Most people would be in the fuge. They reached the cargo bay. Isabella went through first. They flew down to the airlock. Maybe Marco is fine now, thought Victor. Maybe Father revived him. We’ll get there, and Marco will be up and coughing and sore maybe, but he’ll be alive, and he’ll thank Father and me for helping him, and then we’ll all go down to the fuge together and laugh about what a scare it had been.
But Marco wasn’t fine. Father was still giving him rescue breaths. Nothing had changed. Marco was still lifeless. Father saw them and moved aside for Isabella to take over. Father looked exhausted and afraid and out of breath. “He’s not responding to anything,” he said.
Isabella slid her greaves up to her knees and knelt on the floor beside Marco, opening her bag and moving quickly. “Help me get his suit off so I can get to his chest.” She had scissors in her hand and began cutting away his suit. Victor and Father tore the fabric away as Isabella cut through Marco’s undershirt. Victor watched the chest, willing it to rise on its own, to move, to show a little life. It didn’t.
Isabella slapped sensors onto his chest and slid a tube over Marco’s mouth. The machine started giving him breaths, and Marco’s chest began to rise and fall. It didn’t give Victor any comfort. The machine was doing all the work. Isabella pulled a syringe from her bag, bit off the needle cap, spat it away, and stuck the needle into Marco’s arm. She flipped on a second machine, and Victor heard the sustained beep of a flatline. His heart wasn’t beating. Isabella pressed a disc to Marco’s chest. She squeezed the handle, and Marco’s body twitched. Victor thought for half a second that whatever Isabella had done had revived him; that Marco was coming around and jerking awake. But he wasn’t. His body became still again. Isabella jolted him three more times. Four. Still the flatline persisted.
Isabella looked lost. She removed the disc from Marco’s chest and pushed it away. Her hands went back in her bag. They came out with the bone pad. She placed it on Marco’s chest, and the skeletal structure appeared on the screen. Isabella slowly moved the pad up to Marco’s neck and held it there for a long time, her face just inches from the pad. Finally, she switched off the pad and looked up, defeated.
“His neck is broken. It severed his spinal column. I’m sorry.”
The words felt hollow to Victor, like words from a dream. She was telling them that Marco was dead, that there was nothing more she could do. She was giving up.
No, Marco couldn’t be dead. Victor had been with Marco just moments ago. They had been working together, laughing.
Father was speaking quietly into his handheld, calling someone down to the airlock.
“There has to be something we can do,” said Victor.
“There isn’t, Vico,” said Isabella, removing the tube from Marco’s mouth.
“So we’re just giving up?”
“I can’t fix what’s broken here. He was dead before you brought him in. I’m sorry.”
Victor felt numb. His fingers were tingling. Marco was dead. The word hit him like the Juke ship had. Dead. Why had the corporates attacked them? This wasn’t the Asteroid Belt. This was the Kuiper Belt. The family had left the A Belt for this very reason: to get away from the corporates.
How had they gotten so close without us detecting them?
Victor looked down at Marco. He has a family, Victor told himself. A wife, Gabi, and three girls-one of whom, Chencha, was just a year younger than Victor.
Father disconnected the lifeline from the back of his own suit and moved for the door into the cargo bay. “Let’s go, Vico.”
