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

and at this point...free." Jemila nodded in agreement,
remaining steadfast in unusual silence. Antonio drummed his fingers
restlessly on the arm of his seat. In the corner, Josh and Grace
moved in an impromptu sparring, and at alternate swings, narrowly
avoided crashing into the wall and the divider.
    “ This...of course, is why...my parents
named me...Grace.”
    “ What are we doing here?” Josh stopped
swinging abruptly at the sound of Maeve's question. Everyone looked
at each other and remembered why they had stayed with her in the
first place. “Other than a few scattered memories, I have no idea
how or why we got here.” A few
memories ? What did that mean? She'd just let that slip
before even thinking about it, and now they were all looking at her
expectantly. Waiting for the other shoe to drop. But she wasn't
ready to share her odd visions yet.
    Antonio was the first one to notice that
Maeve had suddenly lapsed into a state of silent confusion. He
quickly cleared his throat, and interrupted.
    “ Well, I don't know about anybody
else, but I think we’re all feeling a bit dislocated and unclear.”
Jemila raised her eyebrows, marveling at the ease of deception. She
was about to put forth her opinion of the whole thing when the
screen on the wall flickered and put into view the face of Colonel
Tarkington. In the background, the container was visible, as well
as about ten crewpersons milling about.
     
    ۞
     
    “ I hope I'm not bothering you, but I
thought you’d...ah, I see you have company.”
    “ You're not bothering anyone. Leif,
Josh, Jemi, Grace, Antonio and I were just trying to figure out how
to kill some time.” Tark’s mouth twisted slightly; he understood
her motive in pointing all of them out, but spoke calmly, no trace
of any embarrassment in his voice or demeanor. He had never visited
them as a group, and had kept his private visits with the rest of
them tacitly quiet. They all seemed to understand, and played dumb
accordingly.
    “ I'm sorry I haven’t had a chance to
meet all of you formally. We’ll have to remedy that soon. We have
some news, though.” He paused, letting that take hold, and then
smiled slightly before continuing. “That's why I’ve called, Ms.
Howard. We’ve gotten access to the entirety of your files.” Maeve
blinked.
    “ Come again?”
    “ Sorry, the computer that was onboard
your, er, ship, it took them a while to recover all the
information. It was badly degraded, I believe was the word used.”
He did not mention that O’Leary and Shirk had also been working
feverishly to locate any information about the container. What they
had found had proven to be a bit troubling. Even more troubling was
how much appeared to have been excised from what information there
was. He was a heartbeat away from telling them to use whatever
means necessary. His hole was getting deeper by the
moment.
    “ Anything of note?” Leif’s presence
loomed up just behind her, as protective as ever. Looking back over
her shoulder, she wasn’t sure how she felt about being hovered over
by him…like that. She looked back up at the screen. The colonel
seemed to be thinking things over.
    “ Why don’t you come to my office and
look things over? I would say that you all should come, but we
might not want to attract too much attention. A lot of personnel
are returning from leave; I’d prefer to keep things as quiet as
possible. Ms. Howard can bring it all back to you, if that’s
okay.”
    “ It’s alright, she can go on her own.
We ought to get settled in our rooms, anyway.” Leif walked around
to face Maeve. “Go ahead. We’ll try to rustle up some lunch in the
meantime.” Maeve studied her friend’s face for a moment or two.
What was he up to?
    “ Okay. I’ll go.” Not that she wasn’t
interested to hear what Tark had to say, but there was some weird
current carrying through that she couldn’t figure out. Leif had
been treating her like a piece of fragile china for the past