Ages in Oblivion Thrown: Book One of the Sleep Trilogy (28 page)

“What’s your MOS now?”

“Oh, you caught that, ha! Finished
my degree and moved up in the world. Sorta. I do counseling.” He’d
missed Leif’s sharp intake of breath. “They sent me here, said this
would be a therapeutic facility.”

It had taken several weeks for
Leif to be sure that Josh was being honest. In that time, Josh had
developed his own suspicions. They only ever shared their thoughts
when they could slip past what they hoped was the outside edge of
surveillance.

By then, everyone else had
arrived, and seemed oblivious to anything strange or ominous. As
Leif had observed slowly, he’d seen that none of them had families.
No outside attachments. Each had a particular skill set within
which no one else overlapped.

By his reckoning, the only person
who seemed not to fit the mold completely…had been Jemila. It had
never made sense to him why such a cheerful person had been in the
midst of a group of introverted, anti-social misfits. And now Maeve
was back in a mess. Things seemed to be going back to where they
had been.

۞

Maeve sat up in her bed, slowly,
carefully. She was testing her limitations after fighting through
the ether to get back to consciousness. It had been difficult to
get free. She felt fragile and weak. Some of that must be the
medications she’d been given. Gradually, she started moving her
toes, fingers, feet, legs, hands, arms…everything worked. Bruises
were fading from all over her body. She peered down to where there
had recently been a knife wound; new skin stretched shiny and pink
over it. How long had she been asleep for?

Her fingers sought out the small
probes stuck to her skin, pulling them off to drop onto the floor,
one by one. A light began to flash on the monitors, after which a
nurse soon arrived. She frowned at the sight of her patient sitting
on the edge of the bed.

“You’re supposed to sleep for
another few hours. Let’s get you back relaxed and I’ll give you
another dose of your meds.” Maeve cocked her head; acknowledging,
but not looking.

“I must decline treatment. I wish
to be released.” The nurse laughed in surprise.

“Um, I don’t know if I can
authorize that. If you leave against orders, I have to get one of
the docs to sign off. Wouldn’t you rather lie down and finish
up?”

“No. I have to…get back to my
friends.” The word came off her tongue ponderously. It was a
foreign object in her mouth, and she wanted to pull it out, as if
it was a stray hair. The nurse shrugged and went off to look for
the on-call. She wondered whether this one had gotten a knock on
the head. She had the oddest way of talking.

۞

Dmitry had not found Tark. To be
fair, he hadn’t looked terribly hard or long. He was tired. Bed was
seeming more and more to be the much smarter option. By the time
he’d stopped walking, he was in the aquarium with no memory of how
he’d gotten there. And there was a cup of coffee in his hand that
he didn’t really remember buying.

It was times like these that he
missed an actual day to night progression. Even with the lights
programmed to follow normal seasonal patterns, it wasn’t the same.
He missed sunset, the phases of the moon, and even thunderstorms.
He had to work hard at not letting the days become one massive
blur. When he thought it through, he realized that he’d always
tried to do that in the most backwards manner possible. Partying,
women, fights…it had been trying to feel alive through
anesthesia.

He wasn’t certain where his future
lay yet. It had been difficult to reinvent himself after almost
ruining his career. Tark had held his hand through most of that.
Their friendship had survived all the storms and sabotage that
Dmitry could summon up. Where would it go if Dmitry left? He was
thinking about it, had been for a while. The difficulty up until
now had been that never-ending sense of obligation to Tark. It was
like trying to please yet another parent in some ways. He did know
that his friend would be happy and wish him well if he got his own
command. The same might not hold true if Dmitry left to go fight
some shadow war.

Where had that
thought come from? It felt strange but not unwelcome. After all,
hadn’t he just been thinking that he was homesick, in a way? He
didn’t necessarily want to go back as a tag along to Maeve and her
motley crew, though. That would be awkward in at
least
two
ways.

Wallace and Leif. The former
wasn’t much of a problem, except that he wasn’t going away. The
latter, a problem. The guy was an easy six foot seven. Dmitry
remembered thinking initially that Leif wasn’t too much bigger than
he was, but that must have been wishful egotism. Plus, he was built
like a rock wall, on top of being completely overprotective of
Maeve. Dmitry was beginning to suspect the guy was in love with
her.

It wasn’t a completely crazy
thought. The question was how far it might have gone in days past.
She’d told him a little about Wallace, very little. Perhaps she
hadn’t wanted to bring Leif up, since he had been the one still
around. He suddenly realized that Maeve didn’t know that Wallace
was on the station. She thought he was dead.

His head was swimming. Again,
these thoughts seemed like they were coming from some unknown
place. Hell, he’d even been thinking that it was time for him to
tell Maeve about Rebecca. Now there was a conversation he thought
he’d never have with anyone. His first wife…he’d thought she would
be the last, given how it ended. What was he saying? She was the
last. He wasn’t interested in going down that road
again.

He blinked. He was in front of his
own door. Still in uniform, he wondered how many salutes he might
have missed while walking around in a stupor. Time to get some
sleep, for god’s sake. This was getting ridiculous.

۞

Maeve. She reminded herself that
this was who she was.

Somewhere deep inside, she put her
hands over her ears. “You’re not me!” She screamed it as loud as
she could. The debris pinning her down shifted a tiny bit. This was
a good sign, so she set to work, putting all her strength behind
freeing her legs.

She felt something stir within. It
was time to move. She had to get to where she was meant to go.
First, however, she had to find the rest of her team. They would
certainly be up to date on any alterations to the mission. She had
not been able to watch them as closely as she would have liked. The
other, the weak one, had blocked her, somehow. It was
unanticipated. Even so, she had been able to sort out where she
was. Another unexpected event. She was not entirely sure how to get
back to Earth.

The on-call had signed her out,
grudgingly. She was no longer in any particular danger,
health-wise. He had tried, to no avail, to get hold of the station
commander to let him know. The nurse touched his elbow and
whispered in his ear as Maeve walked carefully out the
door.

“Station XO was in here with her.
Maybe try him?”

“Good idea.” He walked back into
the nursing station and made the call.

Maeve walked the corridors. She
had no idea where to go.

“Get out of my head.” Maeve was
beginning to feel pissed. Beyond pissed. Who the hell did this
bitch think she was? And where the hell had she come from? She
wasn’t an idiot, she knew it wasn’t a real person. It too was a
construct. A something placed in her mind to do some sort of job. A
mission. That’s what it was. It was a sleeper, in the manner of
which the old school spooks had always searched. They’d found a
way, evidently. What had they done to her?

She could sense the other fighting
in the distance. No need for concern there. She knew how to handle
her if she got free. It was in the programming.

“Maeve?” There was someone
standing in front of her.

“Yes.”

“What are you doing out here? It’s
dangerous. We haven’t caught the guy who hurt you.” The voice
questioned her with some odd edge to his voice that she did not
know how to classify. She had forgotten…not known? Which was it?
“Are you okay? You don’t look quite right.”

“I am well.
Please direct me to…my friends.” She had to search for that
word.
My team
had
almost come out of her mouth, but she had known that this was not
correct.

“What? Okay, alright, whatever.
They’re staying at the theater. I’ll take you.” The someone, whose
voice was familiar, began to walk. Clearly he expected her to
follow, so she did. “I have to warn you, though, there are a couple
new people with them.”

“People? Such as?”

“Some people you may know. Look, I
don’t want to get in the middle of anything. I just wanted to
help.”

“This information is not
helpful.”

“Now look, I know something isn’t
right with you. You shouldn’t have left the clinic.” He kept
walking, though she could sense that he was ready to do something
else.

“I am well.”

“You said that already. What’s
going on with you?”

“Please direct me….”

“To your friends. Yeah, you
already said that too. What the hell is wrong with you?”

“It’s not me. That’s what’s wrong.
She doesn’t even know who you are.”Maeve wanted to weep with
frustration.

“Nothing is wrong. I need to speak
with them.” She finally categorized his voice. He was the station’s
executive officer, with whom the other had spent not insignificant
time. He would need to be disengaged. She was in the process of
calculating how best to rid herself of him when he stopped
suddenly. He remained motionless for a few moments, his back to
her.

“Look, I don’t know where we’ll be
in a week, let alone a year from now. I’m willing to take it day by
day.”

“I do not follow your meaning.” He
turned around heatedly. She did not flinch.

“I care about you, dammit! In
spite of myself, and how outlandishly weird this whole situation is
at moments…you’re all I can think about.” She narrowed her eyes.
She assessed and compared his words to her programmed
responses.

“You are attempting to distract or
detain me.” The man became angry. She could see in his eyes that
she had been incorrect, but it was immaterial. He was detaining
her, even if unintentionally.

“I’m taking you back to the
clinic. Something is not right with you.” He moved to put his hands
on her, intending to heave her over his shoulder if necessary. To
his shock and dismay, she immediately blocked him. In another
second he was on his back, ears ringing. He saw stars, he fancied.
She leaned over him, taking hold of his uniform collar
tightly.

“Harming you is not necessary…yet.
Stand down.”

“Maeve, what the hell?”

“She is no longer…I no longer care
for you.” She turned on her heel quickly, and ran. Dmitry was left
sitting on the ground. In spite of himself, his cool exterior
crumbled away, leaving behind a familiar darkness. He indulged in
several minutes’ worth of self-pity and bile as he slowly stood
up.

He wasn’t sure whether he’d
cracked his head on the ground, or whether she’d clipped him. The
world tilted a little, and he gingerly felt around to see where the
damage was. Right temple, he found. It throbbed when he touched it.
How in the hell had she gotten the drop on him like that? She
should have been weak and woozy herself. It was as though she’d
been possessed…everything snapped back into focus.

“Shit.” He
thought back to the last thing Maeve had said. How had she said
it?
She is no longer
. Right after he’d said her name. He shook off the cobwebs
and dug out his earpiece, jamming it into place. “Get me the
colonel, now. I don’t care what he’s in the middle of, get
him!”

۞

It was approximately the middle of
the night. Everyone had remained in Mrs. Han’s library after
raiding her kitchen one last time. They tried to sleep, with
varying degrees of success. Worry and regret seemed to hang in the
air; together, they chased away any real chance of rest. It seemed
as though they’d been there for hours, if not days, when Mrs. Han
opened the door and walked in. She turned and looked over her
shoulder, waving at someone just outside. After a moment, Maeve
walked in, and everyone sighed a tiny bit of relief. It was
short-lived.

“Our mission is active.” Her face
was unreadable. Wallace frowned in confusion. He stood to make
himself known to her, only to see Leif frozen in pale
dismay.

“What’s wrong?” He found himself
whispering for no apparent reason.

“Depending on how you look at it,
nothing and everything.” Cryptic as a cat, Leif continued to watch
her closely. What else was new?

Wallace jumped nearly out of his
skin. Maeve had materialized right next to him, looking at him both
curiously and appraisingly.

“You were thought to be
dead.”

“That was probably a relief to
you.”