Equinox by Lara Morgan Read Free Book Online Page A

sometimes Rosie didn’t know if she could keep coming to see him.
    He let out a long breath. “Tell me about the Academy. Have you made any new friends?”
    Rosie tried to tell him, making it sound as good as she could. She told him about the party planned for the end of the week by Dalton Curtis’s father. It seemed to cheer him up. She invented friends she didn’t have, and made no mention of Riley, or what she’d been doing for him. There was no way her dad was strong enough to cope with that. She stayed to eat with him, making jokes about that quality of the soy curry.
    By the time she got home it was after dark. The strain of keeping up happy conversation had left her exhausted and she just wanted to sleep. There wasn’t any sound coming from the apartment and no lights were on. Aunt Essie must still be out.
    Rosie swiped the lock and pushed open the door. Something had been shoved underneath. The toe of her shoe hit it and sent it skittering across the floor. What was that? She kicked the door shut and turned on the light. A sliver of opaque plaspaper was on the floor. She picked it up, blowing off the dust. It was palm-sized and, as she looked at it, words materialised, generated by the electric charge of her hand.
    Play me
.
    Rosie frowned. Play me? Play what, the thing she’d kicked a moment ago? She peered around, searching the living area with apprehension. Something metallic caught the light just under the leg of the sofa. She dropped her bag on the coffee table, got on her hands and knees and pulled it out. It was a small vision storer, disposable, barely the size of her thumb tip.
    Who would shove this under the door? Her heart began to beat too fast. She went to the digi unit in the wall opposite the sofa and pushed the vision storer in. A holo screen sprang up. Her mouth dried. A 3-D image of her dad appeared. He was lying in a hospital, a medibot beside him and the red rash of the MalX spreading over his chest. Then she saw herself come into the room, and her chest contracted.
    She knew what this was.
    This was the hospital they’d fled to with her dad after they’d got back from Mars. She knew what was coming next.
    She watched herself carry a bag of blood to her dad’s side. Then she saw herself attaching that bag of blood to her dad’s drip. It was Pip’s blood. He’d come back to the hospital to give it to her and it had been the last time she’d seen him. It was Pip’s blood that had cured her dad.
    Rosie took a trembling step back. Her legs hit the couch and she slumped on it, her gaze fixed on the vision. Whoever had sent this must know what it meant. They would know that if the Senate saw this they would ask her questions she couldn’t answer. And worse, if Helios got hold of this, it would be bad, very bad. It was clear proof that Pip was around, that he was using his blood to cure and that Rosie might even know where he was.
    The image wavered, then it blanked out to be replaced by words.
    The Senate hasn’t seen this
.
    Helios haven’t seen this
.
    Yet
.
    Rosie hugged her arms around her chest, feeling cold. The words vanished and more appeared.
    I’ll be in touch
.
    The holo disappeared and Rosie sat staring at the space.

CHAPTER 6
    “You’ll need all of these, plus you’ll have to put in an application for a zero-g suit. We don’t loan them out any more, too much damage.” The Academy assistant glanced briefly at Rosie as she handed her the stack of research download tags. “That will be five thousand and sixty-five. Are you charging or do you have an account?”
    “Account,” she said. The woman’s expression didn’t change as Rosie pressed her thumb to the pad. This was the second lot of research material she’d had to access this week and the continuing cost made Rosie queasy.
    It was Thursday and the resource shop was crowded with students loading up on their course requirements. Since she’d received the vision, Rosie had been checking her com for the promised