Supernova Read Free Page B

tolerate. He lowered the jack to the floor and looked around
frantically for something that could act as a makeshift seal. He tried to press
the lid back into place, but only succeeded in dislodging it further.
    Oh,
shit.
    He
looked at the body, at the face serene in eternal sleep, and wondered for a few
seconds if she had voluntarily signed up for this.
    Then her
eyes opened.
    “Fucking
gods!” Taz sputtered. He instinctively backed away and crashed into a clothes
rack displaying twenty-second-century Ragma monks’ robes.
    Zombies, he thought at first, as his
panic rose. As a green recruit, he had ended up assigned to a mission on Corlon
where a biochemical weapons plant had exploded. While the workers affected by
toxic spores were technically still alive, they had lurched around and tried to
bite each other’s faces off. He had been ordered to aim for the head.
    He also
had an overactive imagination and a penchant for the cheesy zombie vids they
showed at Rubidge Station’s cinemas. This was more like a scene out of one of
them rather than the Corlon disaster.
    With
shaking hands, he aimed his regulation laser pistol at the coffin, where
muffled thumps pounded from the interior, followed by a weak, bewildered “Hello?”
    Taz had
never heard of a talking zombie. He lowered his weapon slightly, but didn’t
move towards the coffin.
    The lid
lifted, and the exhibit’s—the woman’s—head peeked out, her dark hair
disheveled. She saw Taz, and her eyes took in the laser pistol. She looked at
him with a beseeching plea in her eyes, which Taz now saw were green and more
than a little dazed. Her mouth moved, as though struggling to find words.
Finally, she croaked, “Please don’t kill me.”
    Taz
lowered the weapon to his hip but didn’t holster it. He cautiously approached
the coffin. “Who are you?”
    She
coughed, a dry, hacking sound, and spoke again. “Where am I?”
    “Tell me
your name.” Taz thought about which sectors were pissed off with the Commons
Fleet this year. At least three, he figured. What a brilliant way to infiltrate
a ship: Make the spies appear like dead museum exhibits.
    “Lily
Stewart,” the woman replied. “Can you help me up? My legs are numb.”
    Taz
brought up the weapon again and aimed it at her heart. “Who do you work for?”
    She
managed to lift her knees and she wiggled her feet to get the circulation
going. “I was working for Lazarus Cryonics,” she said. “Please help me up. I
need some water.” Her eyes focused, and she saw the weapon trained on her, and
held up her hands in surrender. “I’m not a threat, I promise,” she said. “I don’t
even know where I am.”
    Taz
peered in the coffin. Beside her was a small black satchel made of an
unfamiliar fabric. It was large enough to conceal a weapon. “Give me your bag,”
he said. “Lift it out and drop it on the floor.”
    She
looked surprised. “My purse? You can have it, just please don’t hurt me.”
    Taz had
to give her credit for acting the part of a ditzy stowaway. Her eyes kept
drooping and he saw the fine tremors in her hands as she lifted the bag and let
it fall to the floor. Taz poked it with his foot, then bent down to turn it
over with the barrel of the laser pistol. The bag’s contents spilled across the
floor.
    “Hey!”
she protested. “That’s a new phone!”
    A
palm-sized device with a flat screen was on top of the debris that fell out of
the bag. There was also a collection of old-fashioned metal keys, a paperback
book, some tubes that looked like cosmetics, slips of paper, and a pink wallet.
    There
was something very wrong with this picture. Not just because a supposedly dead
exhibit had resurrected itself, but because the charade was so well done.
Whoever was employing her had done his homework. A bound book , for the
gods’ sakes!
    She had
hoisted herself up and pulled herself out of the coffin, gracelessly crawling
to the floor. “Where am I?” she repeated.
    Taz didn’t
reply.