AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“You’re very wise, Anna. That is a great advantage. You don’t have to struggle as much as Gemma did by adjusting to being a clone. She died before DJD Clone Corp began growing us inside vats for commercial use.”
“That would be a shock to wake up in the future and learn how much has changed. I bet that was really difficult for her.”
“Big worried about her mental state for a while.”
“Well, you and your friends can be assured that I’m only feeling blessed and thrilled. There’s no depression to be found here. Just nervousness about how your friends are going to react to me.”
“They will like you, Anna. I am the one nervous to see them. It has been a long time since I’ve been home.”
“I still don’t understand why you all had such a hard time living together after you were freed from Clone World or why you left your home base in the first place.”
“It was a lot of factors combined,” Fig admitted. “I told you that we never had any days off while working on Clone World. All of us were kept extremely busy at first after we moved onto the station, getting everything up and running. Once that was done, though, we had nothing but time on our hands. Freedom had been a dream that started to feel like a nightmare. Boredom set in. Tempers grew shorter.”
“I can understand that.”
He squeezed her hand and then released it, tapping at something on his control console. “I left to find adventure, but mostly, I just discovered loneliness.”
“Why didn’t you go back home?”
“Part of me was searching for a reason to live.” He smiled at her. “I found you.”
“Yes, you did. Lucky me.”
“I’m the lucky one. I need to let Big know we’re approaching. Buckle in tight.”
Anna did as he said and watched as they flew toward one of the many craters on the gray, dull surface. She’d seen dozens of them in that area. They were all massive dark holes. “How do you know which crater is the correct one?”
“It looks like a map to me. One I know well.”
They flew into utter blackness as Fig took them into one of the massive craters. It was far deeper than she’d imagined. He used sensors instead of his eyesight since she couldn’t see anything out of the front viewscreen.
“Don’t we have exterior lights on this shuttle?”
“I didn’t want to frighten you as I weave through the large asteroids we’ve seeded inside to protect the station. It can look as if we’re going to crash into them. We’re not.”
“I trust you. What does seeded mean?”
“We pulled large meteors inside the crater and secured them in place. Anyone scanning will only see huge masses of rocks. They hide the station and are buffers in case any other meteorites manage to land inside our crater. They’ll hit them instead.”
“I’m going to stop asking questions about that now. There’s a saying on Earth that comes to mind. I can’t fear what I don’t know about.”
“That’s a false statement. Ignorance means not being aware of a danger, but it can still harm you.”
She laughed. “That’s true enough, but you get the point, right? I don’t want to think about how you keep the station safe or what could possibly go wrong. It might give me nightmares later.”
“Understood.” He paused. “I’m about to dock.”
Anna stared out the front, still not seeing anything. It remained pitch black. She felt heavy vibrations from the shuttle, but then everything stilled. Even the engine sounds ceased. The sudden silence felt eerie.
Fig stared, shutting down parts of the console. “We’re safely docked and secured. Are you ready to meet everyone?”
“You forgot to let anyone know we were here.”
He unbuckled from his seat and stood. “I sent a ping. They are aware that we’ve arrived. Big would have been tracking us as soon as we entered this solar system. The ping was just a formality to let them know everything is fine.”
Anna unbuckled from her seat, and Fig took her hand. “A formality, huh?”
“Yes. To assure them that I’m not under duress. There are security protocols we carefully follow.”
