Scowling down at my empty plate, I decide to visit Avrell. I haven’t entirely forgiven him for what he’s done, but I’m willing to put up with his presence as long as it offers a distraction from my thoughts. After discarding my plate in the cafeteria, I waddle my way to his office.
“Come in,” I hear from inside after I press the little buzzer button to announce myself.
I find Avrell squinting at a computer screen and muttering under his breath. The dark slashes of his brow lift when he realizes it’s me. “Grace. I wasn’t expecting you. Is everything okay? The mortling—”
“Is fine. That wasn’t what I wanted to talk about.” I take a seat at his desk because even the small amount of exertion has tired me out.
He places the tablet on his desk and sits on the corner. “Okay. What can I help you with?”
I notice photos of the other human on the screen, the one they haven’t been able to wake from a coma. Finding it easier to speak about things that aren’t so personal, I point to the tablet. “Still no luck?”
Avrell scratches his temple with a pen, which he tucks behind his ear. He crosses his leg at the ankle and gestures to the tablet. “Feel free to look. I haven’t had much luck with any of my tests so far—which if you knew me, would illustrate how thoroughly frustrated I am.”
“Unable to inseminate her also?” I say with a sardonic twist of my lips. Okay, so I was still a little bitter, even though I was starting to come to terms with everything. Just because I’d accepted what had happened didn’t mean I’d given up holding him responsible.
He doesn’t respond to that, because what is there to say?
The woman in the photos is mid-twenties, like the rest of us. Her hair is dark brown and falls around her shoulders in perfect ringlets. I resist the urge to finger my own lank mud brown locks. Her caramel-colored skin is flawless. I have no doubts if—or when—she wakes up the morts are going to be fighting over her.
When I realize the creeping, tense feeling inside me is jealousy, I scoff mentally. I’m not jealous. I don’t want to be mated to anyone. The baby I carry will go to loving parents and I’ll go back to my life—my real life. The one I worked so hard for that seemed to matter so much before I woke up here.
“I’ve tried every method available to me to wake her, but none of them have been successful.”
“How are her stats?”
Already I can feel my brain turning on, coming to life. It’s as though my neurons are electrified. Problems I can solve, solutions I can find. This is my happy place. My muscles relax and the baby even seems quiet as though it’s anticipating finding the answers alongside me. I have a brief image of me teaching a little wild-haired mortling who has my eyes and Sayer’s hair how to conduct experiments before I force it to the back of my mind. There’s no use imagining what will never happen.
“Stable, though her brain activity was weak until recently.”
I make a humming noise in the back of my throat. “Did you scan her brain for any damage?”
Avrell nods. “There was some swelling, though it’s gone down since we removed her from the cryotube. Otherwise, her vitals have been consistent.”
While tabbing through the scans and data, I mutter, “Perhaps she had a bad reaction to the stasis itself. Some people don’t handle it well. Or maybe she was injured in transit and it’s just not showing up on the scans. If her brain activity is increasing, maybe the injury is healing itself?”
“That’s possible and likely the cause. Do you mean to say you’ve heard of others being injured in cryosleep?” Avrell asks.
“It happens on occasion, though they don’t like to talk about it. They’re prisoners after all and people don’t normally care what happens to them so long as they’re punished.” I squint at the brain scans, wishing I had a physical copy or if Avrell will be open to letting me repeat his tests.
It feels good to be back in a lab, even if it isn’t my own. It feels right, which only reaffirms my decision to leave as soon as I have the baby. I don’t belong here. I don’t fit in. Despite what happened between Sayer, Jareth, and me, they’re already a unit and they don’t need me butting in.
“The prisoners,” Avrell prompts and I have to resist the urge to bat him away like I would a fly. “Who doesn’t like to talk about it?”
“Everyone, I guess.” Though I wish he’d focus on the issue at hand. “Would it be possible for me to examine the patient?” I wonder aloud. Then I notice the look on his face. “What?” It’s not out of the ordinary for me to completely lose the thread of a conversation when the gears in my brain are working. “Did I say something?”