An Excerpt from The Tomorrow Paradox (Book Two in The Adventures of Mackenzie Mortimer):
Brandy paced back-and-forth across her new room at the
Simulacrum Institute. Her bare feet marked off 12 paces from her cot to the
farthest wall. She realized her bathroom at home was larger than her new living
quarters. She longed for a window or even an unfamiliar face. Days earlier,
Brandy could not have imagined a more confining incarceration than the Serenity
Valley hospital. But at least her hospital room had had a steady influx of
friendly nurses and doctors; this was solitary confinement.
She tried to contact Drake but was unable to access the
neural net. “If only that annoying noise would turn off.” She looked around the
barren chamber. “Not even a holo-vid or anything to read. What am I supposed to
do in here?” She lay on the cot for an hour and tried to sleep, but found she
wasn’t tired. She got up and paced around the room. She measured its length and
width, and then walked diagonally, counting the number of steps from corner to
corner. Brandy sat back on the cot. For several minutes, she hummed in tune
with the ambient noise until it began to give her a headache. Brandy stared at
the wall, the drab gray wall, and noticed a few hairline cracks showing through
the paint. She eagerly examined all the walls, counting and mentally recording
the number of cracks. Before long, there were no more cracks left to count.
Brandy had never been this bored in her life. She desperately wanted to speak
to someone… anyone, but there was no one to talk to. In the hospital, there had
been chatty nurses and high-spirited candy stripers, and Drake had visited her
every day, but in this place… Brandy wondered if she would ever again see her
brother or anyone else she knew.
She lay back on the cot and stared at the ceiling. She
missed Drake and her grandmother, she was lonely, and she was bored to tears…
And it was only her first day at the Simulacrum Institute. Worse, she feared
she would never be released. Brandy Bryant stared down at the lettering on her
nightgown. “Property of Simulacrum Institute.
Do they mean the nightgown or me? It might as well refer to me. They’re in
control of every aspect of my life, as if they own me. Will I ever be free
again, or will I have to spend the rest of my life stuck in this room?”
Time is running out… fortunately, Mackenzie Mortimer has a few more minutes than anyone else!
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