Tool

Chapter Eight

Aurelia knew she really should go back to work. But Jason was taking care of things, and as far as he knew, she was still at the arena. She desperately needed rest, so she headed back to her quarters. Lying in bed, she felt her mind spinning. She was sure Nicholas was out. If he isn't, then he would have been caught by now. A report from someone as important as Jonathon Hansen wasn't about to go unnoticed, and she knew sec Workers would have poured every resource into tracking the clone.

What she didn't know was where to go from here. If Nicholas was in hiding, there was no one she could trust to get a message to him—no one she could send in her place. Besides she trusted no one else to persuade him to come back under the dome. What she would do with him when she got him back here, she wasn't sure, but she'd figure something. Or Jonathon would. Well, once Jonathon realized that Nicholas was no threat to them, he would.

Eventually, she drifted into an unsettled sleep, her dreams plagued with images of suffocation and portable domes that collapsed, caught fire, or unbelievably grew wings and took flight.

***

She managed to drag herself down to the hospital floor after a short rest. Working on automatic, she saw several patients and completed paperwork.

"How was the tour?" Jason asked, jauntily.

"Fine, I guess," Aurelia said, distracted by a form she was trying to fill out.

"You didn't enjoy the pretty boys playing war?" he teased. He keyed his number into a cupboard and took out some supplies.

Aurelia considered telling him off, but what was the point? He only had the same attitude towards clones as everyone else, the conditioning he'd grown up with. It wasn't his fault. Instead, she bent her head over her paperwork and left him to his stock checking. There was no point in fighting with him; he was only excited because he was looking forward to his days off, and besides, she was too tired.

She didn't see him again until an hour later when he knocked on her door.

"Someone here to see you at reception," he said.

For a second, she thought about Nicholas. He'd been to the hospital once before. But it couldn't be him; he wasn't that stupid.

"Shall I bring her through?" Jason asked, destroying any hope that it could be Nicholas.

"Sure," Aurelia said, wondering who it could be. Pretty much the only woman she knew in Lunar was Elza, and she wouldn't need an escort to get to her office.

A few minutes later, her questions were answered when Jason ushered a tall young woman through the door. A woman with purple hair.

"Hi," Aurelia said, trying to appear casual and at the same time as if she didn't know the girl. Jason nodded and closed the door behind him.

"What on earth are you doing here?" she hissed as soon as the door shut.

Tara shrugged. "Checking you out," she said, picking up an instrument lying on the desk. "Making sure you're who you said you were."

"Put that down," Aurelia said. "You shouldn't be here. Why would you want people to connect us?"

Tara looked up, surprised, and laid the instrument back on the desk. "We're not doing anything wrong. Besides, I wanted to check out the hospital—it seems interesting."

Aurelia sighed. Tara was just a kid and a bored kid at that. Aurelia rolled up her screen and put it away. "Come on," she said. "It's my turn to buy you coffee. And we shouldn't talk here. Let's get out."