Page 54

The lines in the corners of his eyes deepened as he sat the curved cap on my head. Something pinched. I hissed through my teeth, frowning up at him.

“Page fifty-four.” His voice rumbled through me.

I blinked, not following. “Huh?”

“On page fifty-four of the contract it states the main synapse node may cause mild discomfort.”

“Right, yeah. Of course.” The fucker knew I hadn’t read the contract.Jerk. Big, beautiful, jerk.

After one last adjustment, he stepped away from the chair, giving me the once over. “As soon as you close your eyes, we’ll begin.”

I wondered if I looked like Medusa with all this shit attached to me. Guess I’d find out in the replay recordings. Khor Drath strode across the room. My eyes took in every flex and shift of his back muscles before he settled behind his desk. He tapped on his terminal, and the lights around the perimeter of the room darkened, circling me in a ring of light.

Fortifying myself, I took a deep breath and closed my eyes.

chapterfive

At first,nothing happened. Of course it didn’t. I was displayed like a lab specimen in an experiment, spotlight included. With my eyes closed, I became aware of the low hum of the recording equipment in the room, the flow of air from an atmosphere purifier, and the way my shaky breaths sounded in my head.

I tried to calm myself, taking a deep breath in through my nose, then exhaling through my mouth. It didn’t really help. My fingers shifted on the chair arms, the leather squeaking. I inhaled again, forcing my shoulders down into the chair, embracing the fact I needed to chill out if I actually wanted to fall asleep.

What should I dream about?

As soon as I had the thought, the dark behind my eyelids deepened. The subtle noises around me faded away. A strange sensation tugged at my nape and fingertips. The chair beneath me disappeared in a swooping motion. I opened my eyes.

My surroundings passed by me in a blur, like I was in a worm hole, or blasting through space in a pod with an invisible hull. Colors and stars swirled. I caught snippets of images—people, settings, objects—and when I concentrated, those images became clearer.

I rode a rainbow unicorn through a field of blue sunflowers.

I stood atop a mountain, clouds twirling around my feet.

I waited at the starting line of a space race in my very own cruiser.

I shot beyond Earth’s solar system in the interstellar tour space transport.

Jordan and I floated in bright green water along with the rest of the tour group. That had been our first stop, the one with the porpoise-like creatures who tickled our toes.

My chest panged painfully at how content and happy I’d felt right then. I moved on.

Jordan eating breakfast at the dining table.

I almost passed the moment to the next one, when I forced myself to back up and keep hold. This wasn’t a dream, it was a memory.

My feet settled onto hard ground. I was home. On Earth. Six months in the past.

I’d never remembered my dreams looking or feeling so real before, but this apartment appeared almost exactly as we’d left it a month ago to take our interstellar journey, complete with dirty dishes stacked beside the sink, the half-folded laundry from a basket spread across the sofa, and Jordan drinking coffee while reading the morning media reports off his tablet at our little eat-in table.

Someone burst through our front door, making me jump backward. My spine hit a hard object that shouldn’t be there, and I spun around. Khor Drath stood behind me, his skin tones colorful, matching the load of clothes strewn across the surface of the sofa in yellows, greens, and bright blue. My heart jumped into my throat.

“What are you doing here?” I panted, shocked by his close proximity in my memory.

Loud excitement on the other side of the room smothered the question. I spun back to the scene. The person who had burst through the door was me. The old me. And I held the interstellar tours poster in my hand, the one I’d ripped off the train station wall. I shook it in Jordan’s face.

“We need to do this! It’ll be amazing!” I’d thought the trip would give us a change in focus, take us away from the day-to-day drudgery that had become our lives.

Jordan looked up from his tablet slowly, measured, like I’d inconvenienced him with my presence.

I didn’t need to listen to this conversation, I’d lived it, but watching the scene from this angle, I saw the grimace cross his face.He hadn’t wanted to go.He barely paid attention while I told him all the reasons we should do it. How come I’d never noticed this before? That he didn’t care what I cared about? That no excitement remained between us?