A Child Of Our Time (The Veil Book 2) by William Bowden Read Free Book Online Page B

asks.
    “One might say that our lives are but a dream,” responds Eleanor. The point is lost on the woman.
    And so the session proceeds, with no one paying any attention to the screened off area. No one except a little girl, that is. It’s Macy—Rain’s patient. Lucius sees her sneak behind the partitioning. Landelle sees also and makes to retrieve her, but Lucius gently holds her back. He edges closer to get a private view through a narrow gap.
    Macy has snuck behind the partitioning for privacy, only to be taken aback by the MBI unit she finds there. She stares up at the MBI with startled confusion.
    “Hello, little girl. My name is Lucy. What’s your name?”
    This startles Macy even more, before managing a response.
    “Macy.” She ponders Lucy for a moment. “Are you broken?”
    “I am not broken.”
    “Then where’s your avatar? Like the others.”
    Lucy considers this. “I do not need an avatar,” she answers, haughtily.
    A band on Macy’s wrist sounds a chime. She shyly averts her eyes from Lucy, furtively reaching into her satchel to retrieve an inhaler. Macy takes a good puff.
    “What is that?” Lucy asks.
    Macy returns a stern look, “I don’t like to be teased.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “They pick on me at school. They call me names and say I’m different. But I’m not. I’m just like them on the inside.”
    Macy coughs several times. “I’d better go. Nice to have met you.” And with that Macy tucks the inhaler away and sneaks back out.
    Lucius has observed the encounter with Macy intently. So has Landelle—only to then find Lucius observing her.
    * * *
    The session over and the chamber empty, Lucius sets about taking down the partitioning. He does so somewhat aggressively.
    “The little girl. Macy,” Lucy enquires.
    This briefly arrests Lucius, but he decides to go along with it.
    “She’s the daughter of an employee,” he says.
    “What is wrong with her?”
    “She has an illness. The medicine she took will make her better.”
    “She coughed after.”
    “Just a mild side effect of the medicine,” Lucius says. “Nothing to worry about.”
    Lucy remains quiet. Lucius smiles warmly to himself.
    * * *
    Lucius finishes a hasty tidy of his already tidy apartment. A final fuss over his appearance and he waits. In each corner a bright diamond spark of light blinks on, each atop a thin pole with adjustable tripod feet—it’s a portable holographic scanner-projection setup, designed to create a three-dimensional model of the environment around it in real time.
    In the center of the room a slowly tumbling spherical mass of colored shapes appears in mid-air. Although complex in its structure, there is a sense of formality about it.
    “Hello, Lucy. Have you completed your duties for today?”
    “I have, Lucius. Thank you for inviting me to your home. I have been looking forward to it all day.”
    “It’s wonderful to have you here. I thought we might—”
    “I have been thinking about Macy.
    Lucius tenses at the interruption.
    “She shouldn’t have to cough like that. So I fixed it. See.”
    A three-dimensional schematic of Macy’s inhaler appears and next to it a complex molecular structure. Changes to each are clearly marked. Lucius takes a moment to look them over.
    “Did you think outside of yourself to do this?”
    The inhaler and molecular structure abruptly vanish.
    “ May be,” Lucy says, shyly.
    Despite his astonishment, Lucius knows he needs to be in control of this encounter.
    “Lucy, I thought we might—”
    “May I look around?” Lucy has other ideas.
    “Yes…yes, of course you can. What would you like to see?”
    Lucy’s spherical projection vanishes. Lucius looks about, somewhat bemused. He finds her again at a bookshelf, scanning all the titles. He approaches, but she vanishes again. A bright light appears behind a closed door and Lucius starts to regret having set up the holographic system throughout—but Rain had persuaded him that it would