Genesis Code, (Book 1, Genesis Series)

Chapter 34

Laura immersed herself in work and had little or no time off during what Brett described as a "hectic" period in the calendar. Nobody knew when the double shifts on Level Five would end, but everyone hoped it would be soon. In no position to negotiate an early release from duty, Laura accepted that Brett needed her.

Though she could barely keep her eyes open, she decided against taking a fifth Actigen pill that week. She had just twenty-four hours remaining in her current double shift before she could go home; she could make it. Laura would try to squeeze in an hour's sleep in the Energy Restoration room on Level Two.

Her head pounded. Just one more day, she reminded herself. Chris and Janine's behaviour had soured her mood but something else played on her mind. The Taggart files.

The grey partitions encasing her isolation booth did nothing to ease her headache. Even her rearrangement of the items on her desk—a family photo, a fake plant and her communication device—couldn't distract her.

Maybe a drink of water would help.

At the top of the room, she requested water from the H2O replication terminal. ​The woman from booth sixteen arrived with a disc in hand and deposited it in the vacuum tube. The tube made a sucking noise that probably meant the disc was on its way to Gilchrist's office. Sixteen returned to her seat without looking at Laura.

Laura drained the tiny cone-shaped cup and requested a second refill. But the hydration effects barely took the edge off her pounding head. She returned to her workstation and sat down, sick of the pain but also of her colleagues' indifference to her. She closed her eyes and devised new plans to get off this planet. Yet, the files about aliens and autopsies, and some investigator she'd never met, crept into her thoughts.

The transfer to Exilon 5 would rescue the human race from an Earth past saving. But now this race called the Indigenes had shifted the World Government's focus away from the transfer programme. It wasn't clear from the files what they planned to do with the race, only that the investigation, led by Bill Taggart, appeared new.

How long must she wait for her own transfer to Exilon 5? Her Seasonal Affective Disorder turned her need for sunshine into a necessity, not a luxury.

But where would she be heading? To a planet already occupied by a violent Indigene race?

Two words stood out from the latter files: "Intelligence" and "Adaptability". For any race to survive, they needed both.

The image of the alien named in the files as Stephen stuck in her head, along with Bill Taggart's naturally aged face. Would she recognise either of them if they passed her on the street?

According to the files, the investigations continued to gauge the Indigene's level of threat to the human population. But with hundreds of millions having transferred to Exilon 5, how could this discovery remain a secret? It's not like the World Government had the resources to start again.

The government had to stay and fight. It's what Laura would do if she was in their position.

Couldn't the Indigenes just live somewhere without humans interfering? The planet, twenty times the size of Earth, could easily accommodate both races. Was that the reason for the ongoing investigation, to determine that? She had no idea if the Indigenes could live alongside people, because the reports left out their side of the story.

Lunchtime came around and Laura clocked off from the system. Even after her humiliating experience with Chris and Janine a week earlier, she'd persisted with taking regular lunch breaks. She refused to let her former colleagues' petty behaviour drive her away. She simply went when she knew they wouldn't be there. And given the abuse she attracted recently in her less-hostile Level Four uniform, the replication terminal across the road was not an option.