Read The Watchers: A Space Opera Novella for Free Online Page B

long were you there?”
    “An hour.” Maybe?
    “How many people did you Watch?”
    “Thousands.”
    “And none knew of the events of Evaga?”
    “No.”
    “What is the key to making the consciousness projectors work?”
    “I— I don’t know.” Should I know? I don’t feel like I ever did. Should they know?
    Polston. That’s her name. And Delphine. Occupiers, enemies.
    She asks more questions rapid fire about my time on Strata and Evaga. I answer. She doesn’t slip in anymore questions directly about the Watch, but I’m wary. It’s slowly starting to come back to me.
    The Regency is here to steal the projectors. The DNA profiling law was a convenient cover. It’s really not all that surprising, but still frightening when confronted with it.
    Through it all I can’t stop worrying about Branden and Sumiko. I had called off the crawlers, given them opportunity. Are they okay?
    “Watcher Emre, you are dismissed until thirteen hundred tomorrow,” Councilor Polston says.
    I stand and waver a little unevenly. My legs are shorter than I remember. “As you wish.”
    I leave and wander the hallways, putting my thoughts in order. After the moist air of Strata and the clutter of the manufacturing floor in Evaga, the hallways are empty, barren: lifeless.
    Sumiko’s a survivor. She made it to that building without being caught. She was smart enough to dump her vehicle. I was able to give her a clear enough picture of what was happening, wasn’t I? I wander in these thoughts for … some time, I’m not sure how long exactly.
    Eventually, Renya smoothly saddles up next to me. “Easy, Emre.”
    Easy ? I look at her quizzically.
    “You’re chewin’ your lip off.”
    I stop, wondering where I picked up that habit.
    “Dinner tomorrow?” Renya asks me, holding her hands together—a signal.
    I clasp my hands behind me to show I acknowledge. “Sure, what are we having?”
    “Split-pea soup, but there’s no Rye bread. It’s still in transport, and there’s concern it may have spoiled.”
    “Damn, I’ve been looking forward to Rye bread.”
    “I know,” she says sincerely, with something akin to compassion in her eyes. “See you then?”
    “Wouldn’t miss it.”
    Renya breaks away as swiftly as she came.
    Interesting. Joslyn’s back and wants to meet tomorrow. As punishment once for some shenanigans I did, all she allowed me to eat for a month was split-pea soup. Plus, the Regency hasn’t supplied the data on our origins (the “Rye bread”) yet and the Directorate thinks it’s tainted and doesn’t want us to look at it.
    I continue to wander the hallways for a bit, pondering these developments before heading to bed.

CHAPTER FIVE
    I’M BACK in the conference room where we met Ambassador Elkier, but it’s shorter than normal and I’m in a consciousness projector. The viewing port looks out over the Old Industrial part of New Florence on Evaga.
    An impossibility. A dream.
    I find a clock: 14:32. I look away and study the room: the oval table, the brown leather chairs are all the same. But the projector I’m in is made of wood, it smells spicy and floral, moist, alive. It reminds me of home. I look back at the clock: 10:12.
    Definitely a dream.
    I school my mind. This is the trickiest part, when you first realize you’re dreaming. If the conscious mind, awakened at this realization, rejects too strongly the setting from the subconscious, the dreamer will wake.
    Lucid dreaming is almost a byproduct of our training. Our minds are trained to accept bizarre inputs, thoughts of thousands of individuals, processing their senses as if our own. I feel my conscious mind slide into the passenger seat, able to process and still give direction, but willing to go where the subconscious is going to take it.
    I stand and consider what to do. I feel the need to talk to someone, which means finding another person. But do I go deeper into the station or through the window to Evaga? The station or Evaga?
    It’s not