Displaced

Chapter 122

Sofie Ramaut had felt fear many times since thatfateful day when the ancients' machine had plucked her from the library and dropped her inside a dark and dusty underground room, but this time felt different. This wasn't the cold spike of terror that she was now all too familiar with, that adrenaline-tinted fright that accompanied those moments of sudden heightened peril. No, this was closer to a suffocating dread combined with murky hopelessness, like how she imagined she might feel if her doctor had told her that she had manifested a fatal and incurable cancer, except in this case the doctor couldn't say just how far along the process was or how much time she had left.

"What do we do?" she muttered into her hands. "What do we doooooo?"

"I don't know," Blake admitted. "I've been trying to think of something but..."

He shook his head wearily. "I got nothing."

Gabriela let out a long breath and rose to her feet.

"Gabby?" Sofie asked. The look of grim determination on the woman's face was like a shining lighthouse beacon piercing through the pouring rain of their despair.

"Blake, go get some rest. You won't be any more help as you are now."

The man nodded silently.

"Sofie, I'm sorry, but I need to be able to read everything you both read," Gabby continued. "Can you help me?"

"You're right," Sofie sighed, "but I can't speak Spanish."

"Then you'll have to read it all to me and I'll write it down."

"Give me a moment and I can make something for you to type with," Blake offered.

"Fine, but then you go sleep, got it?"

"Yes, ma'am. But, and I cannot stress this enough, no word of this leaves this room. If this got out, it could cause all sorts of problems. That means no telling Arlette, Sofie; no telling your hot friend, Gabby. I'm not even going to tell Sam. Got it?"

"Wait, so you don't have any answers, but we also can't look for help from other people?" Gabby protested.

"Letting anybody else know right now is too much of a risk," Blake argued. "Even Arlette might tell her elf boyfriend; she trusts him too much and he might tell anybody if he gets drunk enough. If the public learns about this—or even just the ministers, for fuck's sake—I don't even know what might happen, but it wouldn't be good."

"What am I supposed to tell Chitra, then?" Gabby objected. "We ran all the way back here together; she's going to want an answer."

"Lie, then," Blake replied. "Or just tell her that you can't tell her—whatever you need to do, as long as you just don't tell her the truth. If she's really your friend, she'll understand."

Gabby scowled, clearly frustrated.

"Look," Blake reassured her, "I'm not saying we don't tell anybody ever, just not yet."

"...Alright."

Not long after, Sofie found herself sitting in her chambers with her notes in her lap and a Mexican woman typing furiously beside her. Gabriela's gaze shifted back and forth between the screen and the keys with a near-myopic focus, her twin pointer fingers roving the keyboard for their desired targets. Sofie found Gabby's two-finger-search-and-destroy typing method absolutely adorable, and the sight made her want to giggle despite the tenor of the situation.

"Let's break for a little," she suggested. "I need to get some water."

Gabriela leaned back and nodded, letting out a tired sigh. "Just for a bit."