Hollowfall by Michael Darling

Author:Michael Darling [Darling, Michael]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Future House Publishing
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 18

The Qube — Conference Room

Advancia didn’t usually pace. She occasionally levitated in a slow circle when she needed to think deeply. Or she tapped into the mind of a calm person and borrowed serenity. Neither of those choices seemed optimal. Instead, exercising her limbs felt like the right way to rid herself of excess tension. So, she paced.

The deep sense of agitation and unease remained.

“Come on, Moon. Where are you?” She said it softly.

Murmuring didn’t help either.

Mostly, she was concerned for Phantom Moon. The mission was important as well, but Advancia wanted to know her friend was all right first. She’d never tell anyone she felt that way about anyone. Especially not Proxy, who was annoying enough without the knowledge that Advancia missed her when she wasn’t around.

Finally, The Watcher came on screen and said, “Moon did it.”

“How is she?” Advancia levitated, trying to sound reserved. “Is she on her way back?”

The Watcher was busy with something and didn’t reply right away.

Maddening.

“Haven’t heard from her yet. But look at these.” He pushed a set of images to Advancia. It was a grid eighteen squares high and thirty-two squares wide. Each square in the grid depicted a different sequence. The images weren’t the smooth replay of a video, but rather a set of photos one after the other, with a short span of time between each image. The images played, a chaotic mess of disjointed, asynchronous pictures.

“The pool worked,” Advancia said. She wanted to ask some technical questions to distract herself from her worries, but there wasn’t time.

“Can you have Proxy analyze these?” The Watcher was responsible for a lot of things. “This is a treasure trove of data from Bloodcrown. It will take days, most likely, to know what we’ve got. Let’s see if there’s anything regarding the Lake scientists first. Anything that will tell us more about Sadia.”

“Sure. We’ll get right on it.”

“Thank you.”

“Let us know if you hear from Moon.”

“I will. And let me know if she contacts you first.”

Advancia paused. She wished she knew where Moon was. If she was alive or dead. “Okay.”

The Watcher said, “She’ll come home, Advancia. She’ll be all right.”

“Okay.”

The 576 little screens continued after The Watcher logged off. They ran for six minutes. After that, some of the screens in the grid stopped working while others continued. When the stream finally ended, Advancia made sure it had downloaded correctly. Then she went to get Proxy and Sadia.

“Ooo-eee,” Proxy said. “What we got here?” She made herself comfortable at the desk in front of the screen, pulling up diagnostics with her gloves and restarting the file.

Sadia looked over her shoulder. “It looks like a lot of little holoscreens laid out together.”

“Our girl Moon used The Watcher’s little bugs to search a laboratory where the Lakes might have worked. We’re looking for information to help us understand where you came from, honey, and how you can bring someone back from the Afterlife like you did.”

“You did all this for me?”

“Well. We certainly will benefit from all the rest of the data we’re getting here.

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