Bubble

Chapter 24

The gravel crunched beneath my feet as I headed towards the science building, my hair still damp and wavy from my day at the lake with Will. I had forgotten my plexipad at the lab, and I needed to have it before work the next morning so I could finish reading the briefing on the new project I was going to start. The night was completely black; the moon wasn't out and the only light illuminating the area was given off by the few porch lights that were still on. A rather eerie silence filled my ears, and the air was a tad cooler than it had ever been, indicating the approaching wet season.

Pulling my sweater around myself tighter, I smiled, thinking about the first time that I would get to see it rain. Real rain, that is—not the acidic and toxic liquid that puddled down on Earth a sparse few times a year. I had seen people in old movies spin around with their arms out, trying to catch a drop on their tongue as the water fell to the ground in sheets. I wondered what the rain would taste like. A million other questions zoomed through my mind about all the weather in Eos that I had yet to experience.

I rounded the corner to the building and began to start towards the double doors when I froze in my tracks. A military team had rounded the other corner, covered in their plastic-looking armour (not to be deceived as actual plastic, though, as it was stronger than any metal known to man), and their sonic guns were raised. They paused when they saw me, and then dad emerged from the middle of the pack. He was also clad in gear, and gave a hand signal for the rest of the men to continue into the building.

"Emma, I need you to come with me," he told me, guiding me a good twenty metres from the labs with his arm around me. Worry was apparent in his face, and he glanced nervously back at the science building in his security mode. "I need you to stay here, and do not, under any circumstances enter the labs, okay? Promise me, Emma?" I nodded my head and dad jogged through the doors with his gun raised in front of him.

Minutes of silence passed, and I bounced nervously on my toes as I sucked my lower lip between my teeth and began to nibble on it. What was going on? The labs were practically my home, and something was going seriously wrong if the military was getting involved. It couldn't have been a chemical spill, because there would have been evacuations, and there was a hazmat team for those reasons.

The doors burst open, shattering my thoughts, and the group of soldiers walked out, dad following them with...

I gasped as I attempted to take in the scene before me. Dr. Truman—sweet, innocent Dr. Truman—was being led out of the building by dad, her hands bound together with a plastic tie.

"Dad!" I shouted.

He handed the bound woman to another soldier, ordering him to detain her until he got back.

"Dad! What is going on?!" I demanded, rage burning in my eyes as I confronted him.

He raised his hands and signaled for me to calm down. "The system was being hacked again, and we were able to trace the signal this time. It was originating from an office in the labs, so we followed it. Dr. Truman is the breach, Emma," he explained slowly.

I shook my head in denial. "No. That's not possible," I cried.

Dad tried to pull me into a tight hug. Dr. Truman had become an amazing mentor to me, and it seemed impossible that someone like her would plot against a place that she had worked so hard to help flourish. Dr. Truman worked hard everyday to make sure that Eos's citizens were safe and healthy, so why would she ever do something that could harm them? It didn't make any sense.

"I have to go, sweetie. Go home and get some sleep. I'll be there in a little bit," he told me, handing me the plexipad in his hand that I hadn't even noticed he was holding. He gave me a small smile before I turned and headed home. Betrayal stabbed at me as I ran angrily down the street, tears blurring my vision. It upset me that I could have ever trusted Dr. Truman. I questioned anything that I had learned from her: all the advice and praise. Was she lying about all of that too? Just as I had begun to trust people there, this had to happen. A few salty drops slipped down to my lips, and I wiped them away. I hoped that rain didn't taste like tears.