You tell Okonkwo the computers will save the air faster than a cartridge. She looks at you the way a teacher looks at a volcano poster with spelling errors. Then she lets you go, because arguing burns oxygen too.

The bridge is a drum of alarms that cannot agree. Mira’s words come out a half-beat late. “Cadet. Headache. That is CO2, not bravery.” You feel fine, which is the first symptom of not being fine. Your thoughts arrive wearing slippers.

Jax Rivera, the intern, has a screen that is a blur you keep trying to make into a map. A tiny killer-whale sticker grins from one corner of the lid. The yellow air number on the slave panel—still alive on battery—keeps climbing. A cartoon brain in your training app once fell asleep on a number like that.

Mira pinches the bridge of her nose. “We can still send you back to alley and do the boring chemical thing. Or we can keep stacking jobs while our blood turns into a bad group project.”

You grip the seat so the tumble does not look like dancing. The breaker row is right there. So is the hatch back to the pipes.

Okonkwo’s voice on the handheld, dry: “I can hear you being sure. That is the CO2 talking. It is not a compliment.”