Rivers of Orion by Dana Kelly (a court of thorns and roses ebook free .TXT) 📕

proper physician’s attire, and descended the stairs leading from his second-floor abode. Crossing into the lobby, he quickly scanned his slumbering guests and pointedly cleared his throat. “Time to wake up,” he said. “Come on you vagrants, shake a leg.”

Casey stirred and sat up. She looked at her phone and squinted. “It’s four in the morning.”

“That’s Galactic Time,” said Hector. “The days turn faster here. If you check your local chronograph, you’ll find it’s almost seven.” He grinned. “Yeah, I know, I let you sleep in. You can thank me later. Anyway, we’re in the middle of our winter, and there’s only eight hours of sunlight right now. It’ll be dawn in an hour, so we need to get moving.”

“Why the rush?” asked Edison.

“Why the rush, Dr. Stone? Why the rush? Because I need to run diagnostics on that little orb as soon as possible! I have no idea what I’m working with, so I have no idea what I’ll need,” said Hector.

“Cool ya jets,” said Cajun, and he hunched up to stand. Fog lined the interior of his mask, and his beard was in disarray. “At the very least, we need a moment to get some coffee goin’.” He took a deep breath, removed his mask, and spit-cleaned it quickly before putting it back on. “Much better.”

“There’s no time for coffee,” said Hector. “Coffee can wait!”

Malmoradan groaned as he rolled on his side. “You guys are being way too loud. Quiet down, would you?”

“Hector needs us awake, Pops,” said Shona. She stretched, and she adjusted her mask. “God, I can smell my breath.”

“Just remove the mouth covering to brush your teeth,” said Edison. “The mask will automatically adjust the seals. Make sure you breathe through your nose, or you could end up feeling lightheaded.”

“I’ve done this before,” said Shona. “I know how to work a rebreather.”

Edison cast her a friendly wink and nodded at Mike. “I didn’t say it for your benefit.”

Mike righted the easy chair, lowered the footrest, and yawned as he got to his feet. “What time is it?”

“Too early,” said Casey.

“April and Orin are still sound asleep,” said Shona. “Should we wake them?”

“Probably,” said Casey. She and Malmoradan returned the cushions to their rightful furniture and pushed everything back into place.

“Oh, good question,” said Hector, and his leg clinked as he tapped it. “Real good question. Let me think… I mean, what use could I possibly have for a multi-discipline binary or a psychic? Of course, wake them up!”

Shona frowned. “No need to be an ass about it,” she muttered, and she stooped to gently jostle her companions. “Time to get up, you two.”

“Good morning, guys,” said Orin. He stood tall and strong as he stretched. Turning around, he helped April to her feet.

“Good morning, Orin,” she said, and she smiled sleepily.

“Morning,” said Mike. “I don’t feel even remotely rested. How are you all so chipper?”

“We’re not,” grumbled Malmoradan.

“Mike,” said Hector. “Last night, you were practically begging me to pull an all-nighter. Are we doing this or not?”

“I didn’t beg you for anything,” said Mike. “But yes, let’s do this. Thank you.”

“Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go!”

Hector led his guests along the halls to his diagnostics lab. There, he placed Nimbus within a large, transparent cabinet. Glowing tangles of wire hung within, amidst brilliant filament rods and a crown of magnetically hovering globules. Enthralled by the lightshow, they all watched as the machine assessed Nimbus’s condition. In time, the scanner delivered its report—a floating mass of holographic data points.

Hector shoved his hands deep into his lab coat pockets as he read through each line. “Yup,” he said. “It’s all there.”

“Ya sure?” asked Cajun. “Last I looked, close to ninety percent of his code was damaged, irrecoverable-like.”

Hector clucked and clapped Cajun’s back. “John, John, John. To understand the utility fog, you’ve got to think like the utility fog! Look under the surface, past the veneer of big-corporation diagnostic tools.”

Cajun lifted Hector’s hand away. “As opposed to this backwater rig?”

“What, Daphne? Daphne’s my oracle,” said Hector. “She’s brilliant! See for yourself.”

Glancing over the report, Cajun shook his head. “Not sure what I’m lookin’ for.”

With his fingertips, Hector moved a cluster of data points, arranging them just so. He selected distinct fragments of code. At last, he stood back, regarding Cajun expectantly. “Stand where I’m standing. If you don’t see it, you’re an idiot.”

Annoyed, Cajun moved into position and faced the layered data points. Stacked upon one another, the highlighted fragments formed a complete block of code. “C’est beau…” he whispered. “She is brilliant, but you—ya saw all that in the soup! Now, that’s genius, hear?”

Hector waved his hand dismissively. “I look at this stuff all day. It’s become second nature. Help me prep a slug, will you? We can jumpstart the fog, but it’s going to need something familiar to get its bearings, and that means approximating Mike’s trauma.”

“What kind of slug are you talking about?” asked Mike.

“A body slug,” said Hector.

“It’s a full-body organic prosthesis,” said Cajun. “Not exactly the golden road to immortality some folk had hoped, but they make fine organ farms.”

“Why’s it called a slug?” asked Orin.

Hector sighed. “What do you call a coin with no face?”

Orin shrugged. “A slug.”

“There you go,” said Hector. “Orin wins the prize!”

“Cajun, for all your bellyaching about radiation sickness and empty domiciles, you ain’t at all bothered by organ farms?” asked Malmoradan.

Cajun smiled behind his mask. “Wasn’t always an engineer, ya know.”

“Shona. Malmoradan,” said Hector. “There’s a meat locker in the basement of my field office. That’s where I keep the slugs. Since you’re the muscle, I’ll need you to fetch one of them for me, preferably one that’s close to Mike’s height and body mass. There’s a guy up in room 7608, goes by the name of Xylander. He’s a guide. It’s his job to make sure visitors get to where they’re going safely. Find him and ask him to take you to my field office. Okay? Can you do that?”

“How far away is your field office?”