flash fiction

Aloha poets,
Another flash fiction from my novel, "The Outpost." Enjoy


Cooper walks down the long stairs across the rock cliff above the lab complex, far below lies the link station-LiStX.
"Another renovated oversized pill box out of our warlord past," he thinks.
Dense tropical shrubbery sets the old structure into a natural camouflage against the rocky coastal terrain. He smells the cool air of the beach below, and the ocean beyond. The view is an overload of multiple blues and greens in the midday sun. Then, in an instant, the ocean looks different. It has been, what, almost a year now, and the greens are a lighter tinge, a shade of yellow.
"Oxidation," he says.

Cooper arrives at the station and enters the front door with a single mind.
"How's the project?" A friendly girl's voice comes from the screen.
Everyone here is either a scientist or a student of science. Anonymity is not easy at a science station such as this, though it has nothing but a motion activated cold screen-MacS. Cooper doesn't mind, though. Everybody knows each other by link, things run smooth that way.
"It's OK," Cooper replied.
"What do you need, Dr. Cooper?"
"I need to log into the frame terminal at ComTrxx."
"The array displays are down in that zone." She held her eyes there for him a little longer than usual.
A sensation rushes through Cooper. He knows that this won't be easy. "I have to tell you something, and you must swear to me that you won't tell anyone."
A crooked smile comes to Jamie's face."Sure, Dr. Cooper," she said.
Cooper looks her square in the eyes. "I've received transfer orders from a woman who has no record of ever being born."