The Cloudy Skulls (Cloudy Sandbox Book 1) Read Online Free
Author: Eva Harper
so damn convenient. And Keswick had a smarmy smile, too.
My help wasn’t really needed after that, the soldiers were more than capable of hauling their bags down to the dormitories and from then on the noise of fifty soldiers unpacking and getting to know each other and their new environment took over. Despite there still being senior officers on base the excitement of the situation won them over and they were acting like lunatics as they argued for the prime bunk beds and sets of drawers for the few personal belongings they were allowed. I made a token appearance to make sure everything was proceeding in an orderly fashion and when I saw that it wasn’t I decided to just let them get on with it and wandered off to find Keswick and see how far he’d got with diagnostics. If indeed he’d even started yet.
My judgement of him was harsh, possibly; I found him hard at work in one of the corridors, sat cross legged on the floor with one of the wall panels removed, and poking around inside testing connections and tapping away at a larger version of our PCDs that he had plugged in to the mainframe.
I crouched down beside him but he didn’t look at me or even acknowledge me. ‘How is it going?’
‘Fine,’ he said.
Okay. Well "fine" was better than horrific, I supposed. ‘I’m in charge of this base, I’m going to need a little more to go on. If this is a fault then I’m not letting you go until it’s fixed. I can’t compromise the safety of my squadron if the power fails and we have nobody qualified to fix it on site.’
‘Well might I suggest then, Komatsu, that you put in a requisition for an engineer to be stationed here. Because things like this happen, it’s a fact of life. These bases are built quickly and cheaply and the parts fry, or the wiring isn’t quite right, or the soldering metal isn’t of good enough quality. If something goes wrong you call Central UR and they’ll assign an engineer to you, but you wait patiently like everyone else.’
He still wouldn’t look up at me and I wondered if it was because he didn’t like me, or because he didn’t want to face my red eyes. If he’d just been attacked by victims I supposed the eyes would have been an unwelcome reminder, so I gave him the benefit of the doubt. ‘But you can’t find a fault at the moment?’
‘So far no, it seems to be an isolated incident.’
‘Thank you,’ I said as sincerely as possible. He ignored me.
I walked down the corridor and out of the front entrance, into the chilly night air. The sky was pitch black and a blanket of stars shone down on me. In the safe zones city lights are on all hours of the day so the sky never really gets dark at all, and you never really get to see actual stars because of the smog and light pollution. Out here in Japan, where virtually the entire country is plunged into darkness, you can see everything clearly. It wasn’t total darkness, though, there were little luma panels spaced evenly around the outside walls of the base, so I was able to see the shadow Parker cast just before he turned the corner and greeted me.
‘Thought I heard footsteps,' he said as he nodded back the way I had come. ‘Walk with me?’
I fell into step beside him, and we began a slow walk past a store house. The wind whipped at my clothes and I wished I’d thought to wear a warmer jacket, but I hadn’t really intended to come outside. Something had just drawn me there, but now I was with Parker whatever feeling I'd had was gone.
‘How are your kids settling in?’ he asked suddenly, breaking the stillness.
‘My kids?’
‘Kids. Your soldiers. Trust me, give it a week and you’ll feel like a single parent. They’ll fight, they’ll mess around, they’ll be untidy, they won’t do as you say.’
‘You’re really selling this position.’
Parker chuckled and placed his hand on my shoulder as we walked. I stiffened but said nothing; it wasn’t him at all, I’m just not overly fond of
My help wasn’t really needed after that, the soldiers were more than capable of hauling their bags down to the dormitories and from then on the noise of fifty soldiers unpacking and getting to know each other and their new environment took over. Despite there still being senior officers on base the excitement of the situation won them over and they were acting like lunatics as they argued for the prime bunk beds and sets of drawers for the few personal belongings they were allowed. I made a token appearance to make sure everything was proceeding in an orderly fashion and when I saw that it wasn’t I decided to just let them get on with it and wandered off to find Keswick and see how far he’d got with diagnostics. If indeed he’d even started yet.
My judgement of him was harsh, possibly; I found him hard at work in one of the corridors, sat cross legged on the floor with one of the wall panels removed, and poking around inside testing connections and tapping away at a larger version of our PCDs that he had plugged in to the mainframe.
I crouched down beside him but he didn’t look at me or even acknowledge me. ‘How is it going?’
‘Fine,’ he said.
Okay. Well "fine" was better than horrific, I supposed. ‘I’m in charge of this base, I’m going to need a little more to go on. If this is a fault then I’m not letting you go until it’s fixed. I can’t compromise the safety of my squadron if the power fails and we have nobody qualified to fix it on site.’
‘Well might I suggest then, Komatsu, that you put in a requisition for an engineer to be stationed here. Because things like this happen, it’s a fact of life. These bases are built quickly and cheaply and the parts fry, or the wiring isn’t quite right, or the soldering metal isn’t of good enough quality. If something goes wrong you call Central UR and they’ll assign an engineer to you, but you wait patiently like everyone else.’
He still wouldn’t look up at me and I wondered if it was because he didn’t like me, or because he didn’t want to face my red eyes. If he’d just been attacked by victims I supposed the eyes would have been an unwelcome reminder, so I gave him the benefit of the doubt. ‘But you can’t find a fault at the moment?’
‘So far no, it seems to be an isolated incident.’
‘Thank you,’ I said as sincerely as possible. He ignored me.
I walked down the corridor and out of the front entrance, into the chilly night air. The sky was pitch black and a blanket of stars shone down on me. In the safe zones city lights are on all hours of the day so the sky never really gets dark at all, and you never really get to see actual stars because of the smog and light pollution. Out here in Japan, where virtually the entire country is plunged into darkness, you can see everything clearly. It wasn’t total darkness, though, there were little luma panels spaced evenly around the outside walls of the base, so I was able to see the shadow Parker cast just before he turned the corner and greeted me.
‘Thought I heard footsteps,' he said as he nodded back the way I had come. ‘Walk with me?’
I fell into step beside him, and we began a slow walk past a store house. The wind whipped at my clothes and I wished I’d thought to wear a warmer jacket, but I hadn’t really intended to come outside. Something had just drawn me there, but now I was with Parker whatever feeling I'd had was gone.
‘How are your kids settling in?’ he asked suddenly, breaking the stillness.
‘My kids?’
‘Kids. Your soldiers. Trust me, give it a week and you’ll feel like a single parent. They’ll fight, they’ll mess around, they’ll be untidy, they won’t do as you say.’
‘You’re really selling this position.’
Parker chuckled and placed his hand on my shoulder as we walked. I stiffened but said nothing; it wasn’t him at all, I’m just not overly fond of
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