Read Ages in Oblivion Thrown: Book One of the Sleep Trilogy for Free Online

for a while,
until it was obvious that Maeve needed to go back and rest. She
tried to seem a bit worse off than she was, to be honest. Being
around all of them, had proved to be more wearing than she’d
anticipated. It was primarily that she’d spent all her time trying
to get over that obstacle in her brain, to seek out the answers she
knew must surely be there. In terms of effort, it was akin to
climbing a never-ending rope.
    The nurse pushed her back toward her room.
The five left sitting around the room wore expressions of
disappointment and unhappiness. None of them was sure what they had
anticipated.
    “ It’s like we’re right back where we
started. She isn’t any better.”
    “ But she was, before they herded us up
and made us into freezies.”
    “ I suppose, but Leif, man, this
complicates things.” Antonio was the most vocally dissatisfied, as
usual.
    “ She does?
Gimme a break. The fact that we’ve been gone for over two hundred
years doesn’t strike you as more of a complication?”
    “ Well, as far as we know, our original
mission may still exist.”
    “ Antonio, you are nuts.”
    “ Wouldn’t you rather have a purpose
than admit we’re….”
    “ Dude, we are useless. Consider the reality of this. We’re
behind in everything. It’s like being born a second time. We have
no skills, no understanding of life in this time…I’d rather just go
off and try to eke out a retirement.”
    “ They didn’t mean to do this to us. I
cannot aceept that we were abandoned with no guidance.” Jemila was
still the voice of reason. Josh sat back, his eyes closed, trying
to stay out of it. Grace was crocheting a sweater, waiting for a
moment to stick an oar in.
    “ We were never supposed to be stowed
away on some far away moon, either. Yet, there we were.” Leif was
giving himself a manicure, man style. Jemi’s mouth twisted as she
tried not to watch.
    “ They didn’t have that capability when
they put us under. I think we must have been moved.” She was tired
of sitting. They all were.
    “ And the other two?” Josh watched
Leif’s reaction carefully.
    “ They said it was Wallace and
Ramirez.” Leif shrugged. “They have no leads on that.”
    “ You sound remarkably not unhappy
about that.”
    “ I don’t not know what you mean by
that.” Leif refused to meet Josh’s even gaze.
    “ She’ll notice, sooner or later, if
you keep up the goo-goo eyes every time she comes in the room.”
Grace batted her eyelashes to punctuate the point.
    “ Lock it up, Gracie. It’s none of your
business.”
    “ Oh, okay. After ages of pissing and
moaning about it, suddenly it’s nobody’s business.” She held up her
hands in mock-defense. “Never saw a big guy so afraid of nothin’
before.”
    “ We are getting sidetracked, people.”
Josh was the only one Leif never argued with; the others had
learned to take the same cue. They never argued with him
either.
    “ Well, what do we do, then?” Antonio
knew what he wanted to do; go curl up in bed with as many books as
he could, with a giant pizza by his side.
    “ The CO here has offered to keep us
under wraps until we get that figured out. We should just keep
getting ourselves back in fully working order, I think.”
    “ Oh, alright. Whatever. I still want
pizza.” Antonio plodded back to his room. The girls headed back to
Grace’s room, presumably to discuss everything that had just
happened. Josh hung back, eyeing Leif from across the
room.
    “ What is it?” Leif was resigned to
hearing whatever Josh had to say. There was little other
option.
    “ That’s your plan, then? Admit
everything?”
    “ Not you, too.”
    “ Dude, you have to admit that coming
at her with this may not be the best ever timing.”
    “ I already waited a long damn
time.”
    “ Try longer.”
    “ Frick. Fine. I’ll give it a few more
weeks.”
     
    ۞
     
    Time continued to bleed away for Maeve, as
she steadily improved, and put her whole focus into