Read Song to Wake to - Levels # 1 (Paranormal Romance) Page 27
Chapter 1 I Become Myself as I was at First
The two geeks led Fitch along the corridors of the university, swiping passes over a security scanner and passing admin offices and seminar rooms. Their matching cargo shorts flopped around their skinny legs and their sandals flapped on the tiled floor. Fitch stuttered his lope so he didn’t run into the back of them. He had grown a foot in the eighteen months since he turned fourteen and he didn’t know how his own body worked.
The three of them descended stairs until Fitch guessed they were a couple of floors underground. A dingy corridor with flickering strip lights led into a lab area, where the air smelled like sea water and fish. Through half open doors, ranks of aquariums glittered like crystal balls. The corridors narrowed and at another security check a guard with a camera photographed Fitch’s irises.
They climbed more stairs then turned into a small lab, crowded with computers, sensors, readers, papers, and half a bicycle. Fitch scowled. “What a mess,” he said, feeling better about his own shabby awkwardness. He caught sight of his reflection in the glass of an aquarium. His wrists flapped like the joints of an out-of-control crane, so Fitch tugged at the sleeves of his ratty sweatshirt, trying to cover them. His sweater was way too small, though, and he stopped tugging when he felt a seam tear at his shoulder.
“You’re looking in the wrong direction,” Geek One replied. “Turn around.”
Fitch half lowered his eyelids, preparing himself to look totally unimpressed, then failed completely. A metre-square glass tank grabbed his attention from the middle of the room. In it, the size of a microwave oven and festooned with wires, was a brain.
“What in hell’s name is that?” Fitch recognised the intricate ball of raw sausage links as a brain. What he didn’t understand was how it could be so big, matching his torso from waist to shoulders.
Geek One smiled. “That’s the biggest brain ever seen. On earth.”
Geek Two rubbed at his beard. “Probably among the biggest brains ever existing.”
Fitch put a hand to the cold glass and gasped. “It’s an alien brain?”