EIGHTY-ONE: Hopeful

            Arous stood in the courtyard of the HaleSpa looking up at the full moon.

            “Where did Ricci place her? Where?”

            There was only one room that overlooked the courtyard with barred French doors.

            “That must be it.”

            She turned to the fountain pooling a little water into her hand. She took her water bottle and filled it.

            “That should get me around.”

            Instead of porting to the hall where she suspected her mother’s room was. She ported to the closet near the stairwell which turned out to be a good idea; it had a sink and she just came right out the leaky faucet. There was a lounge just across the hall from the closet; the lounge was a suite which she could walk in one side and out the other.  The other side opened right across from her mother’s room.

            There were Spartan Guard posted outside the room. She walked from the closet to the lounge and looked up and down at the rows of lockers. A hoveh-stool slept in the corner. Arous shifted into what she could remember of Novice Hopeful as she grabbed a jacket out of her locker. There was a hair on the lapel of Novice Hopeful’s jacket, follicle intact. Arous smiled and cleared her throat.

            The stool bobbed to life at the sound.
            “Novice Hopeful, I just undressed you and you weren’t wearing that.”

            “I know I had an accident with the clothes replicator in my hoveh. Can you get me another care suit?  I just got called in.”

            “Very well. I’m so sorry your weekend off has ended this way.”

            “All in a day’s work.”

            The stool bobbed up, up, up to the top row and over a half dozen columns and finally came down with a care suit.

            “Funny, that looks a little tight on you.”

            “That clothes replicator must have done more damage than I thought,” said Arous, a little shaky in Intern Hopeful’s voice. “Oh, and there’s something sticky on the floor just outside the room across the hall.  Mop it up will you?”

            “My pleasure to serve.”

            Arous’ skin wavered and readjusted based on the image she’d read in the stool’s memory as it scanned her. 

            “Thank you for brushing your hair with your jacket on, Novice Hopeful. Lucky for me. Even a retina or DNA scan won’t stop me – I’m that good as Skin-dancing.”

            She walked down the hall and past the Spartan Guard with a smile and a wink. She walked into the adjacent room and shut the door. She put her hand to the wall to feel the vibrations. Something was going on. She wet her palm from the water in her water bottle and put her hand to the wall.

            “Misamen!?!”