Chapter 52
EXCERPTS FROM MALAM
Iam careful to be quiet when I get back to Lily’s home after delivering the sword. I don’t want to wake her. My poor love has been dealing with my volatile emotions recently, and she certainly deserves the sleep.
I should be in bed with her, but this task can’t wait. Instead, I pull on the clothing I stole from the center. My disguise from when I was there to remove Chaosta all those months ago. It is a happy accident that I still have it, one less thing to deal with on this mission.
I get ready to leave, but can’t help myself; I need to check on Lily. As I stand beside the bed and see her sleeping, I feel my emotions stabilize. I don’t know what I’d do without her.
I lean down and gently kiss her forehead. She mumbles and smiles in her sleep, and it takes all of my inner strength to pull away from the bed I’ve begun to think of as my own. I make myself leave the bedroom and transport myself to a dark alley outside the treatment center.
I shake off thoughts of her as I walk through the front door. She doesn’t belong anywhere near the upcoming violence.
I move confidently past the front desk and into the hallway that leads to the rest of the treatment center. The guard at the front desk just nods to me, recognizing my outfit if not me. My lack of hesitation makes him feel comfortable. Humans are stupid.
It doesn’t take me long to find an empty terminal, and I hack past the security screen and locate Chaosta’s records. I may not be a talented hacker, like some of our people. However, I am capable of simple hacking with small things like this.
When I was here last, I only scanned for one thing.
Back then, I needed to know what medications they were giving her so I knew what care she would need as she recovered.
At the time, I was distracted by the sheer volume of antipsychotics and other mind medications they had been giving her.
I was careful to avoid looking at everything else since that seemed like an intrusion of her privacy.
Now that I believe portions of this record are a lie, it doesn’t feel as much like an intrusion as it did, so I read the entirety.
It takes nearly an hour, and while there are some inconsistencies, nothing here tells me what actually happened. I lock down the terminal, choking back the growl that wants to emerge from my throat. This is going to take more time than I had hoped.
I walk back out through the front door, still not raising suspicion. Once I’m out on the street, I light a cigarette and walk for a bit. The air is already poisonous, adding a little more to my lungs can’t hurt. Besides, I am immortal and not plagued by human conditions.
Smoking is a new thing for me, a way of coping with the increased stress I’m under in the race to try to save my people. As unhealthy as it is, there are many worse things I need help coping with.