Incubation (The Incubation Trilogy Book 1) Read Online Free PDF Page A

breathe, watching for his chest to inflate again. Come on , I urge silently. Nothing.
    I slump, and stare blindly ahead. He was an outlaw , I tell myself. That doesn’t make me feel any better. Wyck puts an awkward arm around me, but I stay stiff. The fight has moved away from the train and it’s quiet now, except for sniffles and heavy breathing. Dusk is falling and soon it’s hard to make out faces. We’re all still, waiting. Halla, two toddlers sharing her lap, slips her hand into mine and I squeeze it.
    “‘I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me,’” Halla recites quietly under her breath.
    Wyck jumps up like a spring compressed too long. “I’m going to find out what’s happening.” Before he can move, the train’s announcement system crackles and Proctor Fonner’s voice flows calmly through the speaker.
    “Everything is fine. There is nothing to worry about. Our IPF commander assures me the threat is neutralized. Resume your seats. The train will start up again momentarily. Our Kube medical team will meet us on the platform and assist those needing medical care. All others are to report directly to their rooms and remain there. Curfew is in effect until zero-six-hundred tomorrow morning. Anyone caught breaking it will be subject to severe discipline. Thank you for your bravery and control under difficult conditions. Well done.”
    Like robots, we push ourselves up and settle on the bench seats. It’s too dark now to assess the damage to the compartment that was hit. Apparently it wasn’t knocked off the tracks because we’re underway with a grinding sound within ten minutes. At the Kube transport station, we file off the train quietly. The proctors are waving us along, directing us into the Kube, but I glimpse the starburst hole in the side of the first compartment, the metal curved inward in sharp, jagged triangles. I see splattered blood and someone’s lower leg jerking before the medical cadre hustles up and sets a screen between us and the damaged train car. I swallow hard.
    “—damn laser scalpel is cutting out,” a tense voice growls from behind the screen. “The energy pack isn’t—”
    On the words, Wyck darts away and around the screen, pulling the ever-present tool pouch from his belt. The proctors let him through; everyone knows that Wyck can fix anything.
    Looking around as I follow Halla inside, I try to see if anyone I know is missing. I don’t see Yuna—her ginger head is usually easy to spot—or the six-foot-seven Dal. They’re already inside, I tell myself. Safe.
    The Kube’s living quarters are laid out with four towers connected by a central dining and common area on the first floor. “Tower” is something of a misnomer, since the complex is only four stories high, but that’s what we’ve always called them. The building was once an office complex, but the government repurposed it as an InKubator, which helps explains why the vibe is impersonal and utilitarian rather than homey. Proctor Fonner’s personality has a lot to do with that, too, I’ve always suspected. The northeast tower holds the infants and nursery children. The southeast tower houses repos five to ten years old, and the southwest tower is for the proctors and staff. Halla and Wyck and I, along with the other eleven- to sixteen-year-olds, live in the northwest tower. Gleaming white subway tiles lit by overhead fixtures make the common area, the building’s former lobby, almost painfully bright. I blink. Obedient to the direction of the proctors, who seem tenser than normal, I let myself be herded toward the elevators. I get into the glass capsule, squished against Halla and some younger girls.
    When the doors whish open on Halla’s level, she gets off slowly. When the others have passed her, she turns around and mouths “Please” to me before the doors shut again. Her brown eyes shimmer with unshed tears. For a moment, I’m puzzled, but then I remember