Sleeping Beauty (Not Quite the Fairy Tale Book 7)(3)
Aurora wasn’t going to let them direct this conversation; she’d opened it that way because if someone asked for previous results now, it would make them sound incompetent. They knew it, she knew it. This was just a game of words and the most manipulative amongst them would win. Simple.
“Since then, we’ve run three thousand, two hundred and seventeen simulations. We’ve also cryogenized and awoken ten new subjects, all similar to our King in height, weight, and age. All of them have come through with flying colors.”
“But none of them have been frozen for years.”
She turned to Viola Edwards, a thin weft of an old lady with a tongue sharper than the average blade, and she smiled. It wasn’t like she hadn’t expected that question.
“I’m glad you pointed that out. One of our subjects has volunteered for an experiment you’ll find fascinating.”
Aurora gave a signal and one of her assistants closed the heavy curtains surrounding the throne room, where the Council, in its delusion of grandeur, liked to hold their meetings.
No one sat on the King’s throne, or his wife’s, for that matter, but they’d otherwise made themselves quite at home.
At the foot of the elevated platform where the thrones were raised, there was her father’s chair, practically as impressive as the King’s. His six advisors were seated at his side behind a long rectangular stone table.
Back in the day, the Council had been composed of three individuals chosen by the King, three elected by the House of Lords, and the King’s Hand, chosen by the people.
When King Rupert was in power, the Hand had been Mark Stephenson, Aurora’s great-grandfather. He became Regent and somehow managed to make his office hereditary. As for the advisors, they were all handpicked by the Regent; no one else got a say.
Aurora loved her father dearly, but after her last fiancé confessed that he believed him capable of anything to keep his power, she’d observed his doings, and regretfully, she had to agree. Anyone who was proactively supporting the King’s return had no hope of a political career in the Kingdom. They’d had countless arguments about it and each time the reasons he found seemed more ludicrous. “This man has no notion of the world as it is now, dammit! What if he came back and forbade women from doing the jobs they pleased because in his day it was the way? You can say goodbye to your office and start shopping for a husband!”
Aurora just shook her head, exasperated. Yes, women had less power a century ago, but King Rupert had been the one who had given them the right to vote, study, and work in practically every job of their choosing.
This time, the verbal sparring wasn’t going to be full of bollocks: everything they said was recorded so her father would watch his mouth. Which was why she would win. She had every fact on her side.
Eager to start making her point, she gave a hand signal to one of her colleagues standing at the far end of the room. Aurora had installed a white screen behind her and Thomas fired up a projector. The screen opened on a shot of her lab, dated two years ago, only a couple of weeks after their last meeting on the subject.
“Meet Hugo Ross,” she said, and the collective attention did suggest that they knew exactly whom she was talking about, but she nonetheless finished the introductions, “a pirate in every sense of the term. He hacks into government sites, banks, anything he likes. And in his spare time, he roams the sea hunting for treasure. His last voyage he acquired an artifact that belonged to the Ferren crown. When he tried to sell it, we captured him and condemned him to ten years of prison. His sentence had been reduced to two years, so long as he agreed to serve the crown.”
She played her video and they saw the tall, rather impressive man getting undressed, revealing all of his musculature and the scars marring his skin. Then, slowly, he removed the advanced prosthesis that replaced his left hand and walked into a capsule similar to the King’s.
“Who’s authorized this?” Peter Gerald grumbled.
He was head of the legal department and knew that something regarding a Ferren prisoner should have been under his authority.
Aurora smiled sweetly, replying, “Why, you, sir. Surely you recall I’d asked for your signature?”
Except that she’d worn a top with a neckline much deeper than her usual style, so he probably remembered nothing except the shape of her boobs. Regardless, she hadn’t quite told him in which way she intended Ross to serve the crown.
“Mr. Ross has been in carbonite freeze for two years, twelve hours and thirty three minutes,” she said, after a quick glance at the watch on her wrist. “Sure, it’s not a hundred years. But it’s still an extended amount of time. If he pulls through,” and she didn’t doubt he would, or she would never have risked it, “there’s no reason to believe that our King couldn’t.”
The frustration of the crowd before her was almost comical; it was obvious that they wanted to find something to say, but couldn’t. They’d argued that a few days or a few weeks of experiments weren’t relevant, last time, and when pressed, they’d said that if a subject survived the process after a considerable amount of time – over a year – they’d consider that particular question settled.
Of course, they’d believed no one would voluntarily relinquish their life for over a year. Aurora knew differently. Truth was, if she had been an acceptable subject, she wouldn’t have hesitated to volunteer. She’d known right then that finding someone suitable would be possible. Not easy, but possible.