Close Remembrance (The Krinar Chronicles 3)

Chapter 5

The next morning, Mia again found herself alone in the lab. Saret was still traveling and hadn’t sent her his feedback, so she continued learning about the other projects until her stomach rumbled, reminding her that it was time to eat.

Getting up, she stretched and requested a popular Krinar stew for lunch. The intelligent lab building provided it five minutes later, and Mia sat down to eat at one of the floating table-planks.

For some reason, her thoughts kept turning to the conversation she’d had with Korum yesterday and the Resistance fighter she’d helped capture. Leslie was going to undergo mind manipulation, and Mia couldn’t help wondering how much the girl would be changed in the process. She couldn’t imagine someone tampering with her thoughts, feelings, and memories, and she felt bad that another person would be subjected to something so invasive. Surely there had to be a better way to dissuade Leslie from her futile fight against the Krinar. Perhaps someone could talk to her, explain that the Krinar didn’t have any sinister intentions toward Earth . . . Of course, it was possible that the girl’s hatred of the invaders went too deep to allow for rational thinking.

Sighing, Mia finished her meal and went back to the data storage unit. As she was about to pull up the infant mind development project, she paused, remembering a tidbit Adam had mentioned to her at some point. Saur – the K who’d tried to kill Korum – had once been an apprentice in this very lab, and he was supposedly quite good at mind manipulation. If some of his old projects were still stored here, they might help her gain a better understanding of what was going to be done to Leslie.

Suddenly excited, Mia ordered the unit to locate all the data that Saur had added. There was a lot, but she had plenty of time to kill.

Making herself comfortable, Mia dove into the intricacies of the tampered mind.

Five hours later, she got up again, deeply puzzled. She’d just begun to scratch the surface of everything Saur had worked on, but none of it was directly related to memory erasure. There were plenty of notes and recordings on behavioral conditioning and memory implantation – but only brief mentions of intentional memory removal.

If Mia understood it correctly, Saur had never even done memory wipe simulations, much less had any practice with live subjects.

Frowning, Mia stared at the data unit, oddly disturbed by what she’d just learned. Something didn’t quite make sense to her. If Saur didn’t know how to erase memories, shouldn’t Saret have said something about that to the Council? Her boss always knew who was working on which project; he was the one who gave everyone their assignments.

Maybe she was wrong. Maybe there was some other data storage place that she didn’t know about where other projects were kept. It was possible: Mia was still new and learning her way around.

It was also possible that Saur simply hadn’t bothered inputting some of his projects into the common database. Adam had mentioned once that the dead apprentice was a bit strange – a loner who didn’t get along with anyone else. He could’ve easily had trouble following the lab’s protocol.

Still, Mia couldn’t shake an uneasy feeling in her stomach, a nagging sense that something wasn’t quite right with this picture. She needed to talk to Korum and soon.

Pausing to send Korum a brief holographic message telling him that she’d be home in a few minutes, Mia headed toward one of the exit walls.

And as she was about to walk out, the wall in front of her dissolved, and her boss came into the lab.

“Well, hello there,” Saret said, looking down at her with a smile. “You didn’t go home yet? I was hoping you’d get a chance to take it easy, with all of us out and about these past couple of days.”

Mia smiled back, trying to hide her nervousness. “No, I was just brushing up on some of the other projects here,” she said, staying as close to the truth as possible. “The one Aners is working on is really interesting. You know, with the infant mind development?”

“Sure.” Saret’s smile changed – becoming almost indulgent, Mia thought. “That’s a great project for you to get involved with. We can talk about it later, once you and Adam are done with your current task.”

“Great!” Mia injected the appropriate amount of enthusiasm into her voice and tried to ignore the way her palms had begun to sweat. “I’m really look

ing forward to it. Thanks again for giving me this opportunity.”

“Of course.” Saret’s brown eyes gleamed as he took a couple of steps toward her. Pausing less than two feet away, he said, “I’m glad you’re having a good time here.”

Mia nodded, still maintaining a big smile on her face. Maybe she was being an idiot, but the vibes she was getting from her boss today made her decidedly uncomfortable. All she wanted was to go home and talk to Korum about what she’d learned. Most likely, there was a good explanation for everything, but on the slight chance there wasn’t, she didn’t want to linger in the lab any longer than necessary. And it was the second time Saret had acted almost . . . weird.

“Okay, then,” she said brightly, looking up at his darkly bronzed face. “Please take a look at the report when you get a chance, and I’ll head on out for now. Unless you need me?”

Saret smiled again. “I always need you,” he said, and there was an unusually soft note in his voice. “But you must have your rest, I understand . . .” And Mia’s heartbeat spiked as he leaned even closer, his eyes seemingly glued to her exposed shoulder.

“All right then –” she backed away, “– I’ll see you soon.” And turning around, she took a step toward the wall leading to the outside.

“Is anything wrong, Mia?” Saret was suddenly in front of her, blocking the way. “You seem worried.”

Every hair on Mia’s body was standing on end. “Sorry,” she said insincerely, forcing a quick laugh. Even to her own ears, it sounded fake. “I’m just thinking about going to New York to see my roommate, that’s all.”

“Oh, is that right?” Saret cocked his head to the side. “And when are you planning to go?”

“Oh, it won’t be for long.” Mia cursed herself for blurting out that tidbit and prolonging the conversation. “We’ll go on one of the rest days –”

“So why are you so anxious?” Saret asked, a strange look in his eyes. “Is it because you found something you shouldn’t have?”