The Watchers: A Space Opera Novella Read Online Free Page A

unaware, only focused on Branden’s little scrunched face. His eyes are closed, but his little lips keep making the cutest sucking motion. The pressure on the nipple hurts, and she can’t feel any milk leaving. She’s not sure if she should be able to.
    Karon kisses his wife on the forehead, trying hard not to alarm her. He walks over to the official, keeping his hands down at his sides his palms open. Buy time. That’s the objective.
    “Excuse me?” he asks.
    Gino steels himself, and looks him in the eye. The father deserves that much. “The test was positive. I’m sorry.”
    “What— What does that mean?” Karon rubs his face, not believing he is here in this moment. It doesn’t feel real.
    Gino tries to speak several times and fails. He can’t do it looking at the father’s eyes. He isn’t cut out for this job. “He’ll be raised in a special facility, under the care of trained professionals to ensure those tendencies are not encouraged or ignored.”
    The child will be taken from his parents. He’ll be an orphan of the state, an orphan against his parents’ will. The child will never know them; the parents will be forbidden access, the government afraid of upsetting the child.
    “When?” Karon chokes out. Time. He needed time.
    Protocol dictates not backing the parents into a corner. Ela had been right. Gino tries to think of an answer to diffuse the situation. Karon is a large man, his arms like Gino’s thighs.
    A first smile, a first word, a first birthday, all this will be denied to Sumiko and Karon. The loving arms of a mother, the strong bastion of a father—denied. Will the child ever know where he came from? It’s outrageous. His parents want him so much, love him so much. A child should never be separated from their parents.
    “A few hours,” Gino lies.
    He lies , I blurt into Karon’s mind. They’re already coming!
    ADRENALINE. Official unarmed. The left guard’s knee looks weak. The right guard is old, slow. Karon grips his head and lets out an anguished scream.
    Sumiko looks up in time to see Karon unleash a vicious kick to the left guard’s knee. It buckles. Before the guard hits the ground, he slams the official against the wall, into the way of the other guard. The remaining nurses flee the room.
    Sumiko immediately puts it all together. The door leads to the hallway, the hallway leads to the lobby, the lobby to their vehicle. How far can she get in this condition? She surveys the room for supplies. Blankets, diapers, hats, wipes all under the mobile crib. Where are her clothes?
    Karon uses both hands to prevent the right guard tangled with the official from raising his gun. The two struggle. Karon slams his head into the bridge of the guard’s nose. Blood flows. He disarms the guard and coldcocks him with it.
    Sumiko clutches Branden tenderly as she rushes across to the closet that hold her clothes. No, she needs to put Branden down. She grabs the mobile crib and sets him down. He cries. Where did the warm, rhythmic source go?
    Gino wrestles with Karon. This is only going to make it worse, his wife needs him.
    Karon sweeps out the feet of Gino, catches a hold of Gino’s head and smashes it as hard as he can into the faux wood floor. Crack . Gino never moves again, his consciousness winks out.
    Zap !
    Pain tears through Karon’s left side, below his heart. He falls to the ground.
    The crippled guard had shot. The guard is terrified, he just saw Karon kill the official bare handed. He brings the gun up to fire again. A medical bin flies out and hits him across the jaw. He can taste blood, the warm metallic— Zap . The guard’s consciousness is ripped away.
    The officials coming to take possession of Branden land in the parking complex. There are two of them, both uncertain, nervous. They plan to meet with police on the way. The older one, Harris, thinks it’s a stupid idea to offer the parents another baby as a consolation prize: going first to the head of the adoption list.