Lauren opened her eyes, to find herself back inside the pod. Immediately, her instincts kicked in, and she pulled the handle as hard as she could, knocking the pod open forcibly.
Outside, Richard turned around quickly to see what the problem was. He was just fixing some leftover damage on a transformer on the living room’s ceiling. “What’s wrong?” He asked.
“Oh,” Lauren sighed, much more comforted. “I just didn’t like waking up alone like that. Not again.”
Richard smiled and turned from the electric box. “Hey, no worries, right?” He mused. “We’re out of the pods, now.”
“Not by choice.” Bradley called out over the intercom. The sound of the older man’s gruff voice wiped the smile off of both of their faces. “It was due to a cataclysmic event that would have resulted in the termination of both your lives.”
“Jesus, man, ever let people talk in peace?” Richard called out angrily.
“Adam, please,” The overseer called out into Richard’s earpiece. “Let’s just re-align this circuitry without any other problems.”
Richard quietly finished wiring the mainframe when he had noticed a large black wire.
“Which system does the black wire operate?”
The overseer paused. “It’s the most important one. It is in control of radio transmissions. Now close the box so I can lock it remotely.”
Richard sighed, grabbing the lid from the side of the wall. As he closed it, Richard bent the lid’s bottom corner ever so slightly as he locked the box into place. He heard the padlock slam shut within.
“Thank you, Adam. No further assistance needed.”
“No,” Richard said slyly. “Thank you.”
The black wire was just barely visible from the now-open gap between the lid and the interior of the box.
--
“Alright,” Director Bradley mumbled as he looked at his watch. “Where the hell is Graham?”
Just as he said it, the elevator to the surface stopped on their level, and Mr. Newton himself stepped out. He locked at attention, but Bradley was far too tired to stand on ceremony.
“Forget it, Newton,” He muttered as he passed his assistant. “Just take the COM. See you in the morning.”
Graham relaxed himself as he moved forward, in the opposite direction of his superior. “Good night, sir. See you then.”
The elevator ride to the surface was surprisingly fast. The only two stops were at B54, which was one of the many floors that handled regulatory taxation on the Oceanic Territories, and B14, which held the only floor designed to handle inquiries of the government; the most underfunded floor in the governmental center.
Director Bradley pulled out his cell phone as he exited the elevator, and immediately called his wife. By his calculations, it was about ten in the morning in Turkey, so an answer was to be expected.
The phone rang twice before a woman’s voice came over the receiver.
“Hello?”
“Hey honey,” Bradley said absentmindedly as he made his way to punch out.
“Hi sweetie,” His wife cooed. “How’s work?”
“Good, good, just finishing up the tax brackets for next fiscal year, you know? Lots of paperwork.”
“Well, Mr. Director of Propaganda,” Bradley’s wife joked, saying Director of Propaganda sarcastically, as if it was the most grandiose title on earth. “How long before Mrs. Director of Propaganda gets to see you?”
YOU ARE READING
Prima Vita
Romance"this...this is really happening, isn't it?" Lauren was never normal. Her life has been a mixture of tragedy and pain. And now, she was flying in a spacecraft with a man she had never met, to a planet she had never been to, and a past that she can n...
