Read Online Captive by K. M. Fawcett - Free Book Online Page B

she hadn’t looked back to notice the “glass” wall was only transparent from the inside, like a window in an interrogation room. How many other houses were concealed behind the hologram murals they passed today?
    She followed him to the back of his living area where he pressed another button on that wall. A section sublimated from solid to gas. A blast of icy air hit her. She shivered.
    “Put on this cloak.” Duncan wrapped the heavy garment around her, then took his eggplant-colored cloak from another peg on the wall. When they crossed the smoky threshold, the room illuminated without flipping a light switch. “This is our master’s apartment.”
    The stark white room nearly blinded her. Brilliant walls, ceiling, and floor shimmered like ice crystals, and appeared to be manufactured from the same material as the breeding box. To her right, a long white table stood as tall as her head, and the cushions of the accompanying chairs came up to her waist. His ceiling must have been twenty feet high. Each step on the staircase leading upward was about knee height.
    Other than some Hyborean-sized furniture and a potted evergreen-type tree in the corner, the room was empty. There were no bookshelves, no knickknacks, no lamps, computers, TVs, nor wires of any kind. The only visible technology was the 3-D holographic pictures on the walls and side table that played short movie clips of other aliens or of Duncan and Tess before starting over again.
    Addy’s breath clouded in front of her. Her teeth chattered and she drew the hood over her head. “It’s freezing in here.”
    “The Hyboreans live in an arctic environment. They’re verra comfortable in the cold. Ferly Mor usually keeps his home about ten degrees below zero on your Fahrenheit scale, which is a wee warmer than outside.” He crossed the alien’s room, jumped onto the couch, and climbed up the back. “Come see for yourself.”
    Addy followed him up, peered through the transparent wall and nearly tumbled backward.
    Outside bustled a monstrous frozen metropolis. Enormous white buildings lined the streets. Hovercrafts skimmed over crystal power. A flurry of Hyboreans rushed down frosted sidewalks sparkling beneath city lights.
    The aliens looked like giant Eskimos wearing fur suits in a supersized, snow-bleached New York City. She imagined the Yard as a large Central Park walled off by the city’s buildings and a hundred-foot-high roof.
    “We’re on the second floor? We never walked up any stairs.”
    “Aye. The Yard is about twenty feet or so deep with dirt.”
    “It’s not the real ground?”
    “No, lassie. That’s the real ground out there.” He pointed down at the snowy street.
    A weight fell on her heart. Tunneling out left her with one less escape option. Lights from distant spacecraft climbed into the starry night sky, where two silver white disks—one bigger than the other—hung full.
    “You have two moons.”
    “Aye. Luna Major and Luna Minor. The Yard’s celestial holograms are synchronized exactly to Hyborea’s thirty-hour day. We’ve twenty hours of daylight and ten hours of darkness.”
    “Hold on. Back up. One day is thirty hours?”
    “Aye. Every new day dawns at one o’clock, or zero one hundred hours if ye prefer. We’ve six days in a week and four weeks in a month. So essentially one month on Hyborea is comparable to a month on Earth. Twelve months make up a year—”
    “Stop. Stop it. Please.” She rubbed her temples to alleviate the dull ache behind her eyes. “Don’t tell me anymore. I can’t take it.” Resting her forehead against the windowed wall, she stared out into the frozen city. An icy chill seeped through her hood. Who cared about Hyborean weeks and months and years? She wouldn’t be around here that long. She was going home to earth to live free 24/7.
    But how the heck would she escape? And where would she go when she got out of this building?
    The alien’s apartment door sublimated, and the monster