The Sphere: A Journey In Time by Michelle McBeth Read Free Book Online Page A

the other types of lab workers. As though if we all looked the same, people would just assume we all did the same things. It seemed unnecessary to me. It wasn’t like me putting on jeans was the equivalent of wearing a big “librarian” sign across my chest. And “librarian” didn’t sound anything like what my job actually entailed, aside from the research aspects of it.
     
    I looked around my kitchen for something to take to lunch with me-a well ingrained courtesy leftover from my time before coming to the lab. It was only a halfhearted attempt. I knew Noah would have more than enough lunch prepared for us, so I gave up quickly and headed for the door. As it slid open and I stepped outside I was greeted by a gloomy, ominous looking sky. My favorite kind.

 
    Chapter 5
     
    Noah was on almost the exact opposite side of the living quarters dome. I set out across the central courtyard in a nearly perpendicular path from my own door and wound my way through the copse of elm trees that marked the center of the dome. I paused in the middle of the trees and looked up for a moment. The silence was oppressive. In Stratford there were birds flying about and insects buzzing and people and carts and horses. I had forgotten how artificial this place was while I was gone. There was a low drone in the distance that gave away the presence of some massive power generator, and the faint noise of a few voices also wandering about in the dome, but otherwise it was too quiet.
     
    The sky was keeping most people indoors today. I didn’t understand why, since the rain would never touch us in here. The gloomy blue-gray color reminded me of my later days in Stratford. Once the fall season arrived, almost every day had been cold and gray during my residency there. Stratford was given to frequent drizzle, and I always found the patter of raindrops on the roof of the house to be calming. Here the glass ceiling was so high it was impossible to hear the rain unless it was really pouring. And then it just became another muffled drone that added to the ambient noise level.
     
    I knew I would get used to it again. But for a few days at least, I would feel like I had left the real world behind to come back here, to my carefully constructed, isolated home.
     
    I continued on through the courtyard and nodded hello to the couple of people I passed. I recognized them, but again, could not have named them nor said what they did here. Librarians were probably the most gregarious people in the whole laboratory complex, but we also kept to our own kind. Partly by coincidence, but mostly by direction. We all had offices in the Mission Enclosure, but did most of our research in our own apartments.
     
    I knocked on Noah's door and he answered it with a nonchalance that reflected his difference of opinion in the passage of time. Without a moment’s hesitation I assaulted him with a bear hug and a mocking "It's been forever!" He laughed and stepped aside to let me in.
     
    Noah's place mirrored my own in layout but his decorating style always struck me as lacking. It was sparse, with only a handful of personal touches. His furniture choices were very utilitarian, it gave me an impression of an extension of the White Box and the adjoining rooms of the return chambers. Almost immediately off to the right was his kitchen, which was a mess. He had obviously been cooking. I appreciated that he put in the effort and didn’t just order a fully prepared meal from the lab kitchens. It also afforded me the opportunity to try things I would never think to make for myself. I gave him a curious look and asked, "What have you been up to?"
     
    "I'm trying out a new risotto recipe. I think you'll like it." He lifted the lid off the pan and a puff of steam escaped into the air along with a delicious scent. I couldn’t tell what the colorful bits of food speckling the rice were, but I knew based on past experiences that it would be good. Noah's experiments often were. I