One of the lab coats tapped something on his tablet and headed for the door.
“Ms. Hale, if you’ll come this way, we’ll take you to your quarters,” he said, a little too quickly.
Kyper growled. The man startled and hurried past us, giving the carrier a wide berth.
“Where am I?” I asked.
He blinked. “What do you mean?”
“I mean this sure as hell doesn’t look like Kansas and I left my blue dress back at home,” I retorted, Kyper let out an angry merow that punctuated my sentence.
“Centauri-Prime is the name of the facility,” he said, already moving again. “Most of us just call it Purgatory.”
“What is this place?”
He hesitated. “They didn’t tell you?”
“The suits that hired me didn’t even bother to tell me I was going to space.”
“Ah,” he said, then stalled. “Well. You’re not just in space. You’re about four light-years from Earth. This is Alpha Centauri.”
I paused. Just a little one. Just enough to make Kyper hiss as his carrier bumped against my leg.
I didn’t say anything. I just caught up and kept walking.
“What kind of creature is in there?” the lab coat asked.
“An opinionated feline,” I said. “Right now, he thinks you all need fired.”
“What’s his name?”
“Kyper.”
“Kepler? Like the belt?”
“No. Kyper.”
We reached a door in the facility that had an access code. He punched in some numbers.
“Code is 21598, these are your quarters.”
“How many people know the code?”
“Everyone, these used to be storage rooms until Marvin blew up an apple on one of our sponsor’s suits the last inspection and they decided we need a babysitter. They’ve been fully renovated though. I’m sure you and Kepler will be happy.”
“Kyper, and I want the code changed immediately. Can I do it myself or do I need someone with an IT degree?”
“You could do it yourself yes, but the last person that did put half the lights out.”
“Right, get IT down here. Until then I’ll just wedge the door,” I said ducking inside. The lab coat stood there looking confused.
No comments:
Post a Comment