Tool

Chapter three

Aurelia hated both surprises and secrets. Until she'd moved to Lunar, she'd had no unexpected events. On a colony as rigidly organized as Earth, there were very few surprises to be found. As for secrets, as far as she had known there'd been none of those either, though she was now rapidly learning differently.

Jonathon, on the other hand, appeared to be one of those people who enjoyed leaving others hanging. The previous night, he'd only laughed when Aurelia had begged him for the details of his plan, and he'd told her to go to sleep. Now she had to get through an entire day at work before she could get out to see him. If we're going to have a relationship, she thought grimly, we are going to have to work on this.

Fortunately, her morning had enough interesting cases that she didn't have time to dwell on Jonathon's plan. By lunchtime, her feet were already aching, and she was glad when her deputy chief, brought her a sandwich and coffee.

"Thought you might be able to use these," Jason said with a grin as he stepped into her office.

He seemed constantly to be grinning. He wasn't an especially attractive man, but his smile lit up his face in a way that was contagious. Aurelia smiled back at him.

"Sure could. Thanks." She unwrapped the sandwich. "So how's Elza doing?" she asked before taking a bite.

Jason was the only other hospital staff member who knew of Elza's problem, and he had shouldered most of the burden for taking care of her. He sat on a lab stool and shrugged. "Seems to be doing fine. I've cut her stim patch intake to almost a quarter of what it was in the last two days, and she's handling it. She had a little nausea at the beginning, but now she seems just tired."

That gelled with what Elza had told her the night before, which satisfied Aurelia. Not that she was checking up on the woman, but, well, yes, she was checking up on her. "How long before she can work properly?"

Jason sucked his teeth. "Couple of days maybe, if she's up to it and not too tired. She should have her last patch tomorrow, I think. But it might take a bit longer for her to get her energy back."

Aurelia was incredibly grateful to Jason. He'd stepped in to help without question, knowing nothing about Aurelia and Jonathon or the resistance, and he was doing a great job of holding his curiosity in check. He must know that things didn't really add up from his point of view.

"Listen, how about you take sixth and seventh day off this week," said Aurelia, clicking her screen to look at the staff rota.

Jason looked surprised. "Both?"

She nodded. "Both. I can get cover for you. And you've been working plenty of overtime with Elza. Go for it."

"Awesome. Thanks, Aurelia."

He skipped off back to work, leaving Aurelia smiling. He was beginning to be one of her favorite parts of working in Lunar Hospital. Jason's grin and attitude not only made her job easier, but they also made her look forward to getting to her office. She was lucky indeed that Elza had chosen him for the job.

***

By the time Aurelia rolled her screen up, paperwork done, the dome above Lunar was already fading into the darker night colors. She didn't even bother to go upstairs to her quarters but simply called a transport pod from her office. Once outside, she took a deep breath of clean, cool air and looked up.

The dome was the most remarkable feat of human engineering ever realized. It was both flexible and solid, breathable enough to let old air out but strong enough not to let the moon atmosphere in, and it was self-healing as well. Not only that, but it was capable of producing a huge variety of different light levels, depending on the time of day, and a whole host of different color shades to simulate the Earth sky. Aurelia had learned at some point the basic mechanics of it, but that was so long ago she could barely remember. What she did know was it had taken almost a decade to perfect, and it had been the key factor in making a moon city viable.