Read Online The Darwin Effect by Mark Lukens - Free Book Online Page A

down the hall.
    Abraham ducked out of the way just in time before Ward spotted him. He hurried down the corridor a few feet and then he slipped inside a small supply closet. The closet was nearly empty but it was still a tight squeeze. He closed the door almost all the way, but he left it open just a crack so he could watch Ward.
    He braced himself, expecting the closet door to fly open. He expected Ward to be standing there, staring down at him, screaming at him, demanding to know why he was being stalked.
    But Ward just walked on by.
    This time Abraham got a closer look at Ward as he walked by, even if it was only for a brief moment. Ward’s face still showed no emotion and he stared straight ahead as he continued his purposeful walk. It seemed almost like he was in a trance, or maybe sleepwalking.
    Was he sleepwalking?
    Maybe it was some kind of side effect from the suspended animation, like the short-term memory loss. He would have to ask MAC about it later.
    Abraham made himself wait a few more moments before he left the small closet, just in case Ward might be waiting for him down the hall or at the top of the stairwell.
    But Abraham made it all the way back to his room without seeing Ward again.

FIFTEEN
    C romartie asked everyone to gather in the dining area so they could eat together and talk more about what was going on. They all seemed open to the idea except Ward, but even he grudgingly agreed.
    They sat at the built-in table with plates of freeze-dried food and cans of prepared meals in front of them. They had heated some of the food in the microwave ovens. Ward called these containers of food MREs (meals ready to eat). He said they were similar to what he had stocked at his bunker in Georgia.
    Cromartie didn’t think he wanted to eat, but once the food was prepared he found that he was very hungry. He wolfed down half of his food as he stood at the counter. He turned and watched the others.
    Butler sat at the table with an untouched container of food in front of her. Abraham tried to coax her into eating, but eventually he had to feed her with a spoon. She accepted the food and chewed methodically before swallowing.
    Rolle cut his food into tiny pieces with a determined slowness.
    Ward stabbed at a piece of meat (Cromartie was sure that it was some kind of fake food designed to look and taste like meat) and popped it into his mouth. Like he did everything else, he chewed quickly and forcefully.
    Cromartie couldn’t get the dream he’d had out of his mind. He was sure parts of the dream were his memories, flashes from his past that were all jumbled up together: his wife, his kids, his construction business, even the two shadowy men talking while he lay on a table while most likely being prepped for suspended animation. But there was something else in the dream, the voice of MAC. There were answers on the ship: that’s what MAC had told him in the dream. Maybe it was his own mind in the dream trying to tell him that there were clues here on this ship that he wasn’t seeing because his mind was still somewhat scrambled from the shock of waking up here. Maybe there were clues to their salvation, clues that led to a hope of survival … he just needed to see them.
    But what were the clues? The more he tried to focus on that part of the dream, the more it slipped away.
    Yet he still couldn’t help feeling a sense of hope inside of him, like there might be some kind of chance at surviving this. It was the first positive feeling he’d had since waking up inside of that Plexiglas chamber.
    “I’m telling you,” Ward said as he chewed his food, “that computer’s fucked up.” Ward glanced up at the ceiling as if MAC might be listening to him, but he really didn’t seem to care. He looked at Butler, pointing at her with his steak knife. “That computer could’ve fried us all. Who knows how close we came to ending up like her. Could you imagine the six of us stumbling around the ship in a stupor like