Serotonin Overload by John A. Underwood

Author:John A. Underwood
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: John Underwood

15.

SAPPHIRE SKYE AWAITED THEM in the open, glass-walled room. She sat upright on the couch where Carys Bet had lounged, her back not touching the cushions. Afternoon sunlight slanted across her face, throwing her features into sharp relief. She looked tired and worked up, the tension showing in the thinness of her lips and the crinkled corners of her eyes. She stood as they entered.

“Ah, there you are.” Striding forward, Skye took possession of Sera with a firm hand on her shoulder. Her eyes flicked between them. Sera got the impression this woman missed little. She fought the instinct to hunch her shoulders and kept her expression neutral.

“Sera and I have a little task,” said Skye, steering her apart from the Belter woman. She smiled down at Sera. “I think you’ll find it well suited to your talents. Carys Bet, why don’t you go find Kishiro. The man’s having one of his damned crises of faith in the technical details. See if you can’t reassure him, yeah?”

Skye didn’t wait for an answer. It hadn’t really been a question. She steered Sera out the sliding glass doors onto the terrace. The afternoon was cool and breezy. Sera still wore the thin robe she’d found when she first woke up. She pulled it tighter around herself, wanting her familiar clothes.

“What happened to my jacket?” she asked.

“You won’t need it.”

Skye drew her on inexorably, pulling her across the patio and around a corner of the house. Stone steps descended here, leading down to the lapping sea. At the bottom, a narrow wooden dock jutted out over the water. A stubby metal craft bobbed on the waves alongside.

“Is that a submarine?”

“Submersible, yes,” said Skye, propelling her onto the dock.

The craft sat half-submerged. The orange-yellow hull was pitted and streaked with rust. A circular hatch stood open on the top, six feet back from the front.

“I don’t think I want to go for a boat ride right now,” said Sera, eyeing the dubious craft. It didn’t look particularly safe to her. The ocean looked downright perilous. All those waves, rising and falling and crashing on the rocks, splashing over the dirty yellow hull. Her heart thudded, hollow and fast, nearly in time with the splashing surf.

“Get in, Sera. Don’t make me ask again.” Skye prodded her forward with a hand at the small of Sera’s back. When had she asked the first time? The woman only commanded. “We don’t have a lot of time, here.”

A series of indentations in the side were meant to be steps. The submersible rolled sickeningly on the water when she put her foot on the first one. Sera embarrassed herself with a tremulous whimper. She heard an impatient breath exhaled behind her.

“Take one of your pills and get aboard,” said Skye.

Sera’s hands flapped uselessly over the pocketless silk pants. Where had she left the bottle? “I … think I left them somewhere.” She started to turn around. “I’ll just run back up and find them.”

Skye placed a hand in the center of her chest.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.