Defending Elysium: A Cytoverse Novella (The Skyward Series) by Brandon Sanderson

Author:Brandon Sanderson [Sanderson, Brandon]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
ISBN: 9781938570278
Publisher: Dragonsteel Entertainment, LLC
Published: 2021-11-23T00:00:00+00:00

9

“I do not know what this means,” Denise said, staring at the menu with her wide eyes. She looked up, confused.

“You can’t read?” Jason asked.

“No,” Denise replied.

“Here, let me help,” Abrams offered, reading down the list of choices.

Jason sat back, allowing himself a slight smile. The kid was showing an almost chivalrous devotion to the amnesiac woman. She was passably attractive, in a sickeningly innocent sort of way. Abrams was just betraying the inherent predisposition of a young human male; he had seen a woman in need and was trying to help her.

Denise raised her hand awkwardly in an odd gesture as Coln read. “I still do not know what it means.”

“None of the words sound familiar?” Jason asked, leaning forward with interest.

“No.”

“But you can speak,” Jason mused. “What do you remember?”

“Nothing,” Denise said. “I don’t remember anything, Mister Flippenday.”

Jason cringed. “Call me Jason,” he mumbled as Abrams asked the girl what kind of food she liked. She, of course, didn’t know.

She should have remembered more. Most amnesiacs remembered something—if only fragments. “What do you think?” Jason whispered.

“It’s odd,” Lanna said. “She’s changed, old man. Whatever they did to her, it was pretty thorough.”

“Agreed.”

Abrams ordered for the girl and himself—choosing, Jason noticed, two of the most expensive items on the menu. He knew that Jason would be paying. At least the kid had style.

As he sat, Jason thought back to the strange man in the café. The man couldn’t have access to cyto—in a hundred and fifty years, no one had discovered the ability besides the PC. But what if someone had? What if they had learned about Denise, and had captured her to try and learn what she knew? What had they done to her to get at her knowledge?

His pondering led him nowhere. Eventually the food came, and Jason began to eat. He preferred simple meals with little mess, so he had ordered a tossed pasta dish with a very light sauce. He ate quietly, thoughtful as he watched a man a short distance away haggle over his bill with the waiter.

He shouldn’t have been worried about the ambassador’s death. The police would probably find that the murder had been committed by some xenophobic activist group. They were prevalent. There were those who hated other species because of assumed superiority, those who hated them because they thought the aliens were too arrogant, and those who hated them simply because they were different. The student exchange program, where human children would be sent to other planets to learn of other species, had been defeated three times in the United Senate.

The ambassador’s death probably wasn’t related to Denise. Jason should leave—there were too many things that demanded his attention for him to waste time chasing false leads. This trip had taken far too long already.

Jason paused. Denise had turned and was staring at the man who was arguing about his bill. He raised his fist at the waiter, uttering a few epithets, then finally slapped down some money and stalked out of the building.

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