Page 67 of Sky Song
“Lyle, this can’t be true. This Aeshac you know and Simon can’t be the same person. It’s too great of a cosmic coincidence. It smacks of a conspiracy theory. We both begin to sound like Kim.” She stopped abruptly.
“Yeah, Kim.”
“Are you telling me she’s part of this whole secret lab thing?”
“That I don’t know, but her disappearance is concerning. Human experimentsaretaking place. I trust Aeshac’s intel on that. Is Kim involved? Possibly. Does she know anything? Even more likely. Would be nice to get a hold of her. Alive.”
No, no. None of it was true. Yet Cricket could not deny that some degree of weirdness was happening at the lab.
“Lyle, you’re scaring me.”
“Don’t be scared, my hearts. Be aware.”
Cricket knew with certainty that she didn’t fully believe Lyle, even as she handed him a face shield and an overcoat like the ones she normally wore at the lab.
“Why do I need this?”
“To blend in. Especially the face shield. In case, you know, you get lost in the hospital hallways again.”
He grunted before putting the protective gear on, complete with the foot coverings and rubber gloves.
“How do I look?”
“Like an alien in a hazmat suit.”
“My favorite style.”
Like the previous time, they snuck into the lab in between shifts, having arrived at the back of the hospital in a rider that Lyle procured God only knew where. He also drove, which, in retrospect, was another bad idea in a string of bad ideas Lyle somehow convinced her to go along with. He had been careful and followed all the driving rules, and still managed to near-wreck them - his spatial orientation was truly deficient, and he had gotten confused by the sensory input from other riders, pedestrians, and even trees.
Cricket checked the clock as they huddled at the computer terminal.
“Quick, we don’t have much time.”
“Don’t you think I remember? You said that thirteen times.”
Cricket accessed the hospital computer system by entering a security code, then paused. “Where do I go? Patient records?”
“No, wait.” Up close, she saw his pupils dilate as he scanned the information on screen which must look like mumbo-jumbo to him. “Let’s start with research results. Who’s responsible for the research arm at this place?”
“The ones that organized the symposium, of course. Dr. Nura and… Dr. Ragberg.”
“Where do they keep their records?”
“Here.” She opened up the main file. Her heart sank. “It’s a lot of records.”
“Check the dates. Aeshac escaped Earth six years ago, so let’s not worry about anything before that.”
“Six years ago, I came to Meeus. Do you know how I came here?”
“No, sky song, I don’t.”
“Simon’s mate Gemma gave me the passage chip he had stolen for her.”
“Why would she do that?”
“She wanted to stay with him.”
“That’s crazy. If it were me, I would’ve taken that passage and hightailed it out of there before Aeshac could say my name. I would’ve run him over while at it.”
