“Then you hitched a ride back here with the Raleigh team, gambling that we’d buy this whole amnesia and psychotic break story and you could hide in the Tower.” He waves his hand around, as though conjuring an image from thin air. I stiffen, hands clenching against the urge to hit him. “You know, some people think you murdered your crew for a larger share of the find before taking that escape pod.” The results are always the same: the visions, pain, and memory loss are likely psychological, not physical in origin. Not to mention all the “exploratory” diagnostics and procedures over the last three weeks in the Tower. And during the month-long return trip to Earth, the Raleigh’s MedBay staff tested me for every virus, bacteria, and parasite under this sun. “I’ve told you everything I remember.” My skull fracture is, according to the Tower doctors, healed. He was just an investigator for my employer the last time I saw him, but now he is apparently the head of the whole QA Department. But we need you to help us help you.” He nods at me in encouragement, his familiar face wreathed in wrinkles I’m not yet used to. Max Donovan, my other visitor, clears his throat loudly. He’s been in here every few days since the Raleigh search and rescue team dropped me off into Verux’s care three weeks ago. It’s not difficult to do these days, but with Reed, a junior investigator from Verux’s QA Department, I’m almost always clear. An older, executive-type in a black suit and a vintage watch paces just behind him, supervising our conversation, with a thoughtful-and yet still disapproving-scowl. “I said, you lied to us.” Reed Darrow leans forward impatiently. “I’m sorry, what did you say?” My tongue feels thick, unwieldy. Resolutely, I turn my gaze away from the hallucination and attempt to refocus my attention on the living visitors across the scarred and battered plastic table from me. His hand waves frantically in a “come here” gesture, his eyes wild with panic. My head is throbbing again, a white-hot line of pain from the back of my skull down to the right side of my jaw, and a dead man is signaling me from across the common room. Verux Peace and Rehabilitation Tower, Earth, 2149

Dead Silence by S.A. Barnes