Chapter 2

Ottilie's POV

"Ottilie, what the hell are you playing at?!" Kieran grabbed my wrist, his face inches from mine.

"Let go." I met his glare and coldly wrenched my arm free. "You're not even wearing your hazmat suit. Are you trying to drag outside contaminants into the bio-pods and ruin the entire immortality project?"

Before he could scream again, I turned toward the sterile locker in the corner. Using my back to block his line of sight for half a second, I reached into my pocket and popped the cork off a micro-vial.

Inside was invisible UV tracking powder. Once it hit fabric, it wouldn't come off without industrial dry-cleaning.

"Can you hurry up?!" he growled from behind.

"Hold your horses." I slipped on the hazmat suit and pivoted toward him—but my right foot "slipped" on the polished floor. "Damn it—"

Losing my balance, I pitched violently forward, straight into his chest.

"Watch out! Are you crazy?!" Kieran instinctively reached out to push me back.

In the moment of impact, the open vial palmed in my hand brushed across the back of his left shoulder. The powder bled invisibly into the dark grey fabric.

It was placed directly in his blind spot. He’d never see it.

"Did you forget your meds today?!" he spat, finding his footing.

"The floor was slick," I said deadpan, brushing off my hands and walking straight toward the final airlock to the underground levels.

Instead of swiping my keycard, I bent down and pulled a thick, dust-covered paper logbook from the bottom rack.

"Come here. Sign this."

"Are you taking the piss?" Kieran’s eyes widened, his breathing heavy. "The scanners log our entry automatically, and you want me to write in some ancient ledger?! If the bacteria dies because you wasted time, whose head is it on?!"

I slammed the pen down onto the metal desk. The clack echoed like a gunshot.

"Six months ago, the mainframe crashed and half the digital access logs vanished. Three senior researchers took the fall for that. The Everlight block is the most highly secured zone in this station. I’m not stepping through that door without a physical carbon copy."

"Listen to me, Ottilie!" he stepped into my space, trembling with rage. "This project is our careers. It’s the entire station's funding. You want to play by the book now?!"

"Precisely because it's so important, you need to sign." I stared directly into his eyes, not yielding an inch. "Sign the damn book, or go down there and fish out your ice-spores yourself!"

In the suffocating silence of the airlock, I could hear his heavy, ragged breathing. For ten agonizing seconds, his eyes were venomous.

"Fine. You win." He hissed through his teeth, snatched the pen, and scrawled Kieran Holt across the yellowed page.

I took the pen back, signed my own name, and then smoothly pinched the edge of the page. Riiiip. I tore out the bottom carbon copy, folded it, and tucked it deep inside the inner pocket of my thermal suit.

His signature was secured to my chest. The UV powder burned onto his shoulder.

From this second forward, nobody was going to call me a lunatic dancing with ghosts.

"Let’s go save your career," I hit the green release button.

With a heavy mechanical groan, the industrial elevator dropped us toward the negative-forty-degree depths of B3.

A chime pierced the dead silence as the cab doors parted. The extreme cold rushed in like blinding white wolves, the biting frost seeping right into our bones.

We stepped into the B3 corridor. Besides the hum of the ventilation fans, there was only the sharp crunch of our boots on the steel grating.

"You, go to the control room," Kieran ordered without looking back. "Pull the data out of pod number four from last month and send it to me."

Word for word. Exactly like last time.

"Data backup? Is that really necessary?" I sneered, completely ignoring his command. I shoved my hands in my pockets.

"What the hell are you two doing down here?!"

A harsh voice cut through the corridor like a whip.

It was Davis, the medical assistant.

My heart sank. My hand was already in my pocket, sliding up my phone to hit record: "Davis? Perfect timing—I need you to witness a manual handover—"

"Ottilie!" He matched toward me, face pale with fury. "Are you out of your mind?! No unauthorized recording devices are allowed in B3! Are you trying to sell our data to a rival corp?!"