Winter World (The Long Winter #1)(7)

I’ve lost all sense of time. It could have been hours. Maybe a day. Two, even.

I’m sure of one thing: I have decompression sickness. Not bad enough to kill me, but bad enough that I feel it every second. I’d really like to vomit right now, but it’s not a good time for that.

The science of decompression sickness goes like this. The ISS and space shuttle are pressurized to 14.7 psi—the same atmospheric pressure you’d feel on Earth at sea level. The EVA suits are pressurized to 4.3 psi—the same atmospheric pressure as on the summit of Mount Everest. So in a matter of seconds, I was blasted from sea level to the summit of Everest. Why is that bad? A rapid decrease in pressure causes nitrogen in the body, which is usually dissolved in blood and tissues, to break out and form bubbles. It’s like opening a can of soda. The contents of the can are at high pressure. When it’s opened, the contents are exposed to dramatically lower pressure. The result? Fizzy bubbles. Carbon dioxide released from the liquid. That’s what’s happened to me: fizzy bubbles of nitrogen are racing around my body. I’m like a human can of soda that was at high pressure and has just been opened and is bubbling away.

Scuba divers have known about decompression sickness for a long time and take steps to avoid it. So does the ISS: we have a protocol we follow before EVAs to prevent decompression sickness. But there wasn’t time. In this case, it was decompression sickness or death.

And at the moment, I feel bad enough to second-guess my choice.

I hurt all over. I feel exhausted, but I don’t dare fall asleep. I’m scared I’ll never wake up.

I cling to life, every second of it. I realize now just how much I want to live. That’s what ultimately matters in a survival situation: the will to live.

Except there’s not much for me to do with that will to live right now. I just watch the debris from the station, searching for clues that there are any other survivors—or any move for me to make.

Every now and then a piece of the station falls into the atmosphere and burns up. They’re like glowing pieces of sand falling through an hourglass, counting down to my doom.

I’m in a decaying orbit. It’s only a matter of time before I, along with the piece of the station I’m tethered to, fall into the atmosphere and burn up as well.

There’s another brilliant flash of light. I assume it’s more debris burning up. But this light gets brighter, not darker. Something is coming up.

A rocket. Barreling toward me.

A capsule disconnects, and its thrusters fire.

It’s coming toward me.

For me.

I watch in wonder. Tears stream down my face. I’m going to be rescued.





Chapter 6





James





The wonderful thing about being in a federal prison is that you get, generally speaking, a little better breed of criminal. Not your common robbers and murderers, who are serving their time in state pens. The denizens of Edgefield and other federal correctional institutions are criminal masterminds. Or at least, criminals ambitious enough to perpetrate crimes that cross state lines or violate a federal statute.

The downside is that they’re likely smart enough to find Pedro and me. My suspicion is confirmed when I hear the dryer at the end of the row swing open. Then the next.

I hear automatic gunfire in the distance. The National Guard has breached. The timing makes sense. They were en route minutes ago. There was no negotiation. They came right in, trying to seize the element of surprise.

The door to my dryer swings open, and a meaty hand swats the sheet away. The man draws back at the sight of me, points a gun in my face, and yells, “Get out!”

I show my hands and carefully move to the round opening. My body hurts all over.

The cadence of gunfire grows louder. It sounds like World War Three out there.

“Shut that door,” the gunman shouts to another inmate. “Get the table in front of it.”

I’m about halfway out of the dryer now. I’d like to get back in. I know what’s coming. Man, these guys are dumb. (I would like to withdraw my previous generalization about the average intelligence of federal inmates.)

“I said, get out!”

As much as I’d like to stay, the gun really sells it.

I stagger out on unsteady legs, like a fawn taking its first steps.

They find Pedro a second later. He comes out too, except he stands proud and sticks out his chest. I like him more and more. I really hope we don’t die here, in the laundry room.

They pat him down and take his radio and the little electric gizmo he used on Marcel.

I slouch against the dryer. Standing hurts.

What I don’t hear—gunfire—tells a story. Whatever war was raging out there is over.

A radio crackles to life—one the prisoners must have taken off another guard.

“To the individuals in the laundry. It’s over. Come out with your hands up. We don’t want any further loss of life.”

The leader of the group of rioters is not what I expected. He’s not muscle-bound or tatted up. He’s a middle-aged white guy with a receding hairline and a day’s growth of stubble. The kind of guy you might see on CNBC telling you why you should buy his company’s stock in spite of a recent earnings report with some very concerning data points. That’s probably what landed him in here.