Human Error

BOOK 2 // THREE: Mandatory Procedure

            The dining hall was a lot to take in. I wasn't sure what the building had once been, but if it hadn't been a catering facility at one point, they'd done an exceptional job of transforming it. On one side of the room there was a food hatch, self-serve, with giant vats of whatever was on offer. I soon realised there were no options – just food or no food.

And there was no doubt about which one I'd pick that morning.

Breakfast wasn't even too bad. I couldn't complain about the slices of toast and heap of egg on my plate, even if both were pretty bland. It was edible and filled the hole in my stomach, which was all I really cared about.

Beside me, Jace seemed slightly more disenchanted: he was spending a lot more time pushing egg around with his fork than actually eating it. He didn't come close to finishing it. Before he even got there, Nova appeared behind him and muttered something in his ear which caused him to get up immediately, sparing no thought for the food left on his plate. I noticed the stare she gave him as he scraped it into the bin – it was clear she had a problem with wasting food – but it didn't stop them disappearing from the dining hall together.

From that moment on, all I could think about was where they might've gone. With Nova's new attitude, it should've been easy to forget how things stood between her and Jace – but when they disappeared like this, it was anything but. I was still having trouble wrapping my head around it. She was his mystery girl, the one he'd been looking for all this time. He'd told me he loved her, whether or not she knew. As much as I knew it made me seem pathetic, the thought of them alone together for the first time in two years made me feel sick to my stomach.

I needed to stop thinking about it.

If only it was that easy.

"Hello, there."

The gentle voice, somewhere close behind me, brought me out of my own head. I glanced over my shoulder to see a woman of around sixty stood with a tray of her own. She had a kind face, her soft features broken up by wrinkles, framed by greying hair which had been pulled back into a loose bun. The look on her face seemed to radiate warmth, even in such a cold room.

"Hi," I said, since I didn't really have anything else.

"You must be Astrid," she said. "Is that right?"

I didn't know what to make of the fact everybody seemed to know my name; it was a little strange to feel like a celebrity in a place I hadn't even known existed. Still, she seemed nice enough, so I wasn't going to overthink it.

I nodded. "Yeah, that's me."

"Would you like some company?"

"Uh... sure," I said. After a beat of hesitation, I moved my tray to make room on the table. This seemed to be enough encouragement for the woman; a few seconds later, she'd set her own tray down and lowered herself into the seat beside me.

"I'm Maggie," she told me, and a flicker of recognition reminded me that this was a name that Nova had mentioned earlier. "It's lovely to finally meet you. And..." She glanced over her shoulder. "Where did Sylvie get to?"

Suddenly, there was the sound of rapid, pattering footsteps on the tiled floor, and I looked up to see a girl rushing towards us. The plate on her tray skidded precariously with each movement, and I was almost expecting it to go splattering on the floor. However, a few seconds later, she came to a halt and slammed it down on the table, taking up the seat beside Maggie.