The God Codex

19. Chipped

BOOK OF MIA: 2081

Chapter 19: Chipped

I chomp on a piece of apple from the fruit bowl on my food tray. I eye Huff and I eye Puff, the two guards I've dubbed thus. One because he huffs a lot, like this little detail of 'keeping an eye' on me is boring — boring and beneath him. And Puff, because that one looks like he is always midway through a bee sting allergy. His face is always red and puffy. Could be from living in our hazardous world.

They have become unshakable shadows this past week as I recover in the general ward. I haven't yet seen Nate at all, despite demanding it several times. Guess it fell on deaf ears. Geeta, the only nurse they trust near me, tells me he is recovering and should be fine. Just a little 'complication' during surgery, nothing 'fatal'.

Nothing 'fatal', and 'not to worry', in the same sentence as a 'little complication'? Damn right, I'm worried. I have to see him for myself. If something happens to him while I sit here with my extra security, dad will have a few things to say, and there's no way I can face his parents.

Tonight. That's my plan. Tonight I'm going to give Huff and Puff the slip. I don't know how yet, but I'm working on it. Once I slip them, I will locate Nate and see for myself whether I need to worry.

I crunch the apple and glare at Huff from my lonely table. The entire mess hall is full of others with their breakfast. At least let me mingle, but nooo... They can't have that, Dr Hill's orders. Who the hell does that woman think she is? The dictator and I'm the dictatee? Is that even a word, dictatee?

I crunch another piece, pondering. Bet Nate would know, since he's the one with a freakish computer brain. That's Nate. "So how many floors are in this bunker?" I ask Huff and Puff. Is it obvious what I'm trying to do? I hope not.

Huff doesn't even throw me his usual sneer.

I turn to Puff. "When was this place built?"

Nothing. I don't even get a puff. How rude.

These days, I feel like I'm talking to myself. Besides the hour or two with Dr Hill while she runs weird tests on me or with me, I have limited human interaction. To be honest, I'm creeping myself out. I'm beginning to wait for her sour face with a smidge of eagerness. At least she talks to me, even if it is to ask questions — really random questions — or jab needles in my arm, or hook me to this machine or that. My arms would look like a mosquito feast if I didn't heal fast — unusually fast. My fastest vanishing needle hole? One minute. One damn minute and bam — nothing. My skin is as good as new — and she didn't even notice! I'm disappointed.

Huff's radio crackles with an order from Hill that I am to be brought to her lab immediately, and without ceremony, they snatch away my food and I get dragged to my feet. Marching orders.

"Move it!"

"All right, all right. I'm going." I shrug Huff's gruff hand away and ponder if I should change his name to Gruff. The man needs moisturiser. Bucket-load of moisturiser!

As we near Dr Hill's lab, I notice the dark little alcove we always pass. Whenever I ask these numb-nuts where it leads, they ignore me, or say "None of your business!"

But it is my business. Something about that alcove calls to me. Like all the answers lay there. How silly does that sound? For old times' sake, I ask again, "Go on. You can tell me. Where does that lead?"

I'm ignored again. But I don't need an answer, anyway. Geeta told me on the second night of tests. Something about it being a private lab of the scientist who founded the facility, Dr Amoure, Armour, or Moore? — or something like that. Geeta had mumbled the name, perhaps on purpose, so I couldn't catch it.