The Dream Thief, Kari Kilgore [reading well TXT] 📗

encouraged to volunteer around here. We had to put on heavy coats and tuck in everything we could, and we just grabbed it. Once the Director was convinced our arms wouldn't go all the way through, they put a big cloth around it. We all dragged it back to a new cell. I hope they threw away the damned key."

"Merciful Crown," Karl whispered.

He clapped his hand over his mouth, horrified at what had just come out of it. He sounded like his grandmother. George shook his head, but he didn't look upset.

"No, don't feel bad," George said. "You'd be amazed just how many people were saying a lot more than that. The thing certainly looked like it came straight from The Pit. The loudest and most elaborate calls for mercy didn't seem to help any of them a damned bit. I'll tell you the worst part, even worse than that poor woman. I wish they'd told us to block up our ears. I haven't stopped hearing the way she screamed. The way it screamed, I mean, especially after we got hold of it. I'm afraid that sound did something to my brain as bad as what happened to people's skin."

Karl couldn't argue with that even if he'd wanted to. That was the worst part of the experimental medicine wing, part of his rounds after his latest promotion. The part he’d never take new recruits along for. Even with the supposedly soundproofed doors, the screams came right though.

"I'm sorry, Georgie. I didn't mean to drag all that up."

George shrugged. "Eh, I guess I need to talk to someone about it, and everyone else who wasn't there would want me strapped in a jacket for even trying to explain it. I just hope I never see another one of those things. But I know..." Karl waiting, holding his breath. He wasn't sure he wanted to know. "I know with as many monsters as we have here, there probably are worse ones all around us."

"Are they okay?" Karl said. "The ones who got hurt, I mean?"

"Too soon to tell, I guess," George said. "I don't want to imagine how much worse it would have been if that thing got out during the day. They're doing everything they can, but regrowing skin is never going to be an easy thing, is it?"

He glanced around and leaned closer to Karl again. "What I was up the rest of the night wondering is how much is it true that what goes around comes around? I mean, if these ’sters are linked to whoever made them, did that person have some kind of breakdown and that made the thing go nuts? Or did the thing going nuts have an effect on the person walking around out there like nothing could ever go wrong?"

"Is that why we're not supposed to kill the things?" Karl said.

"That's what I've heard," George said. "The way the Director was freaking out once she came on shift yesterday didn't give me any reason to think otherwise. My first thought was definitely to kill the thing, if nothing else to put it out of its misery."

Karl shivered, sure he wasn't hiding it very well. "If they're matched up, shouldn't we warn whoever it is? Out in the Gate?"

"I don't know if they are or not, but if they're not, refusing to kill it doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Certainly not if you heard..."

George jerked his chin at something over Karl's shoulder, and Karl turned to see the lanky, bearded lead mechanic walking toward them.

"Hate to break it up over here," Tommy said. "But we gotta fix that damned leak sometime today. It's gonna get a lot worse in here before it gets better. The way things are going, you might want to head out in case something blows up."

"Sure thing. Thanks, Tommy." George nodded at the mechanic, then picked up his tray. "Listen, Karl, if you want to tell me about whatever you found, I'm ready to listen. Nothing about yesterday made me a more loyal employee of our fine Columns here."

Karl grabbed his own tray and followed George.

"Want to meet me after dinner?" Karl said. "The commons in my building is usually deserted by about nine unless there's a critically important card game going on."

"Make it tomorrow night, and you've got a deal. I have to at least try to get some sleep tonight or they'll have to lock me up in here."

Chapter 6

The next day was a lot calmer, but a full day with his nine remaining trainees left Karl wearier than ever by the time he escaped to the commons area between the residential wings to wait for George.

Even more than his own meager apartment, Karl was glad his mother had never seen these rooms. The scuffed and dull hardwood floors were clean enough, with sanitation crews sweeping through every few days same as in the rest of the non-patient buildings. The fireplace in each adjoining room brought a much-needed coziness even if the tools and fittings were sturdy black steel rather than his family's gleaming brass.

But the most careful cleaning wouldn't hide the sofas hopelessly out of fashion. The scratchy fabric and shapeless design were never the highest quality to start with. Karl suspected the heavy wooden tables and chairs scattered around for card games or quick meals were older than he was.

The best thing about this shared space, about any of the spaces where he'd spent the last decade of his life, was the books. Each room in the commons had at least one wall covered with shelves full of dozens of well-worn volumes in a dizzying array of subjects.

The fact that the collection had no discernible pattern of arrangement or age made browsing for something to read even more satisfying. A brand new pulpy fiction title next to a fifteen-year-old anatomy text next to an ancient history of Alterra kept Karl's curiosity fairly under control.

The books weren't going to do a damned thing for