Shield by Rachael Craw EPUB & PDF – eBook Details Online
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- Author: Rachael Craw
- Language: English
- Genre: Science Fiction
- Format: PDF / EPUB
- Size: 2 MB
- Price: Free
PROLOGUE
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The dream is always the same. I’m walking down a blank concrete corridor,
the ceiling soaring above me, the narrow walls of the Affinity Project
compound looming in. Close behind me, the heavy tread of boots and the
cold kiss of a gun barrel pressed to the back of my skull. I don’t need to turn
and look. The hostile signal crackling in the bandwidth, the soap-clean
scent, the atmosphere of brooding, godlike judgement – it’s Benjamin. My
throat thickens because I know where he’s taking me.
We come to the steel door of the ReProg room and my heart is a
jackhammer. I’m cold but stink of sweat. The door slides open on a stark
room of black glass walls. A reptilian chair hangs suspended from the
middle of the ceiling over a grated drain set in the sloping floor. Strapped in
the reclining seat, Miriam. A shove from Benjamin and I stumble forwards.
He doesn’t follow me. The door closes with a hollow clang, cutting off his
signal.
The ache of longing for my mother is all sharp edges. I can’t take my
eyes off the breathing tube hooked over her jaw. I swallow reflexively as
though the hard plastic presses against the back of my oesophagus. Miriam
wears a short papery surgical gown and this is the point where I realise I’m
wearing a surgical gown. The cold hurts my feet and my naked skin puckers
with goosebumps.
Miriam’s wrists are rubbed raw by the chair restraints, ankles and thighs
too. Her eyes are closed, shadows beneath, and though I can hear her slow
pumping heart I hold my breath to see her chest rise and fall. There is no
sign of her in the bandwidth and the absence of her signal makes me shake.
The Symbiosis drains from the wall of glass opposite the chair, a rush of
black liquid extracted into hidden tanks – it leaves the glass pristine. I’m hit
by the blast of signals belonging to those on the metal platform in the
observation room. The five members of the Affinity Project’s Executive
Council. Reform-hating Robert Knox: the sadistic Chair with his silvering
brown hair and cleft chin, glowers from the middle of the line-up. On the
far left my father: Ethan Tesla, tall, stern, marble-hard, his disappointment
and anger throbbing in the bandwidth. His black eyes drill me. Your mother
is a vegetable because of you.
My joints seize. My stomach hollows. Did he say that aloud – your
mother? I scan the faces of the other members of the Executive for some
hint of acknowledgement. Some sign that the big secret we’ve been keeping
has spilled into the light. No one reacts but I’m breathless anyway. If they
find out Miriam and Ethan are my parents, and worse, that I’m the child of
a Synergist relationship – bam. They’ll claim me as lab equipment on
account of my telepathic potential. I look again at my father’s hard eyes and
I don’t understand.
The scene fissures and my head spins. A guttural moan startles me and I
whirl towards the chair.
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