“Not the senior officers?” Ethan asked.
The female guard gave a slight sneer, which made Ethan think he’d hit the nail on the head.
“Do you feel all right?” Velda was watching them carefully. “No side effects?”
The question must have taken them deeper than they wanted to go, because the one guard’s expression tightened. “Just eat your food.”
They stepped back a little way, putting some distance between them.
Velda turned her gaze to his, and Ethan didn’t like the fear he could see on her face.
“Let’s eat,” he told her. “Better to have energy.”
She nodded, focused on her food, but he could feel the tension coming off her and he slid his foot to touch hers.
She looked up at him, sighed, and went back to her food, but she pressed her foot even closer to his in response.
“This is totally mad,” she murmured. “Experiments? Have you ever heard of the Cores involved in anything like this?”
He hadn’t, and that worried him. Either their intelligence was totally useless, or this was a relatively new endeavor for the Cores.
Neither option filled him with confidence.
11
Velda had barely finishedher meal when Ritter called them back to the medbay. Ethan had eaten fast, and then spent the rest of his time studying the layout of the room and the few people left in it.
She guessed he couldn’t help himself, but there was very little way she could see out of this. And that really frightened her.
When they got to the medbay, the guards strapped them to the same beds they’d woken up on, and Velda looked around to see what had changed since then.
Ritter had brought a large metal box into the room on a trolley, and beside it was a small device with a line of lights along the top, although they were currently unlit.
This was it? This was his equipment?
She eyed the big box, but couldn’t really tell what was in it.
“Did you tie the crew down when you experimented on them?” Ethan asked.
Ritter looked up from the screen he held in his hand. “Yes. Although with you and your companion, it’s both to keep you stillandprotect me from any attack, whereas I didn’t have that worry with the crew.”
He put the screen down and picked up two blindfolds, came over to secure them. “Top secret, you understand.”
Velda said nothing, and just before her eyes were covered over, she saw Ethan’s fists clench.
Ritter was probably right to secure them to the tables.
She heard a sound, which she assumed was the box being opened, and couldn’t help lifting her head and shoulders up, in anticipation of what, she didn’t know, but lying back passively just wasn’t in her makeup.
“You need to lie flat.” Ritter pushed her shoulder down and then she felt something cold and small land in the hollow between her throat and her clavicle. It felt like it disappeared a moment later.
She waited, expecting to feel something, for there to be some reaction, either within or without, but there was nothing.
“Velda?” Ethan’s voice sounded calm.
“All good. You?”
“All good.” His tone was neutral, and she wondered if he was as surprised as she was at the lack of pain, discomfort or weirdness.
