AllFreeNovel
Share Us
With that first task done, Kaia scrolled through the data on her card and opened up some old footage. It only took a few minutes for the familiar vids of her family back on Artega Seven to lull her rattled mind. Soon she was locking the tablet and wedging it under her mattress as she rolled to her side and finally fell asleep.
* * *
Kaia slept like a log for close to fourteen hours, according to the time on her bracelet. She wasn’t sure what time it was on Riker 109 anymore, but onColossalit was 0700—morning.
She allowed herself the luxury of another quick shower, refusing to sully her clean clothes with her sweat. Damn, she was already getting spoiled. She’d found a nook under the sink, where Orion had extracted tooth powder the night before, and within it a hairbrush.
She scowled at herself in the mirror at the memory. She’d forced herself to take it when she was sick—his relishing in her illness. Each condescending stroke of his hand along her heaving back, his scorching fingers against the nape of her neck, made her want to elbow him in the ribs as she’d hunched over the toilet.
But she took it. Like a good little “princess.” That was what he wanted, after all. He wanted to loom over her like a ghoul while she was at her most vulnerable. Well, she’d give him that. She’d give him whatever she had to, for as long as she had to. Because the little brother she’d killed was waiting, and she had a promise to keep and a murder to atone for.
Kaia spent twenty minutes jerking the brush through the knots in her wet hair until it lay flat and untangled back on her scalp.
By the time she put on the fresh clothes and stood before the hydra station, trying to figure out if the thing dispensed nutrigel packs. But all she could find were liquids of various kinds, and she wasn't about to burn through her water ration first thing in the day. She wasn’t about to drink that coffee shit again either. Kaia frowned, reexamining the buttons even as her stomach made itself known. She normally only needed one or two nutripacks a day. Recent events must’ve taken a lot out of her because her stomach was growling in that way that’d earn her dirty looks in public on Riker 109.
If there was no nutrigel in the dispenser, there must be a cafeteria somewhere. Kaia eyed her comms bracelet. She could chime the girl—what was her name?—for directions. Instead, Kaia slipped the thing off her wrist and left it on the desk. She was almost certain there’d be a tracker inside it, and she’d rather not get followed.
The hallway was wide and warmly lit, though the level of foot traffic Kaia witnessed didn’t seem to live up to the expansive construction. The first person Kaia saw was a woman in an outfit similar to her own, walking in the other direction. The smile the woman offered made Kaia freeze and turn around to watch her retreating form.
Was she supposed to know this person? The thought that came to mind first was quickly disregarded as senseless, but still it appeared—did the woman know of her somehow? Was she another one of Loran’s rats in the colony? Kaia rubbed her achy wrists, twisting out the tension. She was just being paranoid, a fact confirmed when the next person she passed offered a similar smile and a nod. These people didn’t know her. Why were they acknowledging her at all? Didn’t they have anything better to do?
Kaia built a mental map of the space as she traversed various hallways. She still hadn’t found a cafeteria, and by the time a fifth person—a kid—asked her how she was doing, Kaia decided to take advantage of these people’s weird friendliness.
“Hey, kid.” She paused, and the boy stopped. “Where can I get some nutrigel around here?”
His nose wrinkled. “Nutrigel? Why?”
“For… food.” Was he stupid?
“Uh, I dunno about that, but there’s a café if you take the next right about fifty feet away.”
“Thanks.” Kaia headed in that direction. She hadn’t heard it referenced in that way before, but she was pretty certain “café” must have been colony slang for “cafeteria.”
She was wrong. Kaia realized when she found herself standing in front of Cozy Corner Café.
“What the fuck…” she muttered under her breath.
The place was tiny, practically a hole in the wall. Through the glass screen she saw five round imitation wood tables. Each table was of a different design. None of the surrounding chairs matched, as if they’d just thrown together a bunch of random shit for people to sit on.
How was this place supposed to feed anyone? Kaia assumedColossalwould have multiple cafeterias. But this cluttered little hole was way too small to be practical. And the woman beckoning her behind the counter was way too happy-looking to be a cafeteria attendant.
Kaia entered, pausing to peer at the large menu handwritten in white on a black board pinned to the wall.
“Early riser, dear?” The attendant put a set of cutlery on the countertop, white napkins folded with a fork and knife.
“I guess. You got nutrigel?” Kaia scanned the menu, but all she saw were things she had no interest in trying: omari eggs in various styles, hash browns, whatever the fuck that was, other names that were unfamiliar to her.
The woman scanned Kaia up and down. “You’re new?”
Kaia wasn’t sure she wanted to answer that. Colonies rarely took visitors or new residents from outside of the system. Would it spell trouble if she revealed herself to the first stranger she met? “You got nutrigel or what?”
“We don’t eat that here, honey. Only on expeditions or flight missions. How about something off the menu instead?”
Kaia’s throat contracted with the memory of the “steak” Orion had put in front of her before. She didn't know what most of the things on the black board meant, but what if it was that again? Kaia racked her brains for that other thing she ate: the salty potato strips.
“I don’t know… You got fries?”
“No, and the burger joint doesn’t open until the afternoon. How about you let me pick for you? I can do something nice and mild, nothing crazy.”
