Just a ghost girl

Number

"This is all of the questions we have for you." said the blond woman finally.

I almost screamed from the relief. It had taken hours for them to ask the same question over and over again. Many times had I considered disappearing on them but they would probably have just rescheduled and next time they would also be asking why had I disappeared on them. And that session would have taken double of the time. 

But I was thanking upper powers that it was over. I waited for the interrogators to back their bags and leave, but none moved a muscle. It was a little bit of a problem since I would have wanted to ask Nicolas to send Matteo a message that I wanted to see him. But I didn't want to ask it in front of the interrogators because I was afraid they might then ask me more questions.

"Is there something else?" the blond woman asked when I didn't leave.

Now it would be odd if I didn't ask any question. I tried to figure out some kind of question. What would a normal person ask in a situation like this? What had Rebecca asked after her hearing? She had probably asked nothing, but what could it be. 

"Did they managed to capture all of the rebels?" I asked, "Do you think they will come again?"

Not to make any seen but I was quite proud of my double question. I think it nicely showed that I might be worried because they were after a technology that was attached to me. That seemed to be quite a normal question to ask.

"You don't have to worry about things like that," the bald man answered, "Everything has been taken care of and this won't ever happen again."

Well, I haven't waited for them to give me a direct answer. It would really have surprised me if they had said that most of the rebels got away but they had managed to capture the leader of the group. I assumed that they had gotten Dylan either alive or dead, I kind of wished alive. But I was quite certain that the rest of them had escaped. Otherwise, the leader of the base would have kept a speech about how all of the intruders had been captured. They liked to show off like that.

I wondered what it means that everything had been taken care of. Was there high-tech security 24/7 watching over my body or had they managed to follow the escaped rebels to their hiding place and destroyed it? My head started to spin again. I really should stop asking questions from these people, even fake questions because then there would always be ten more questions after their stupid answers.

"Good to know. Bye!" I said and left the room.

I went through the floor because I didn't want to see Melissa's smug face. She was probably very happy that I was in so much trouble that I had been in a hearing for almost a working day. If I hadn't been a ghost I would have been exhausted to a dead. There hadn't been any breaks probably because I wasn't human but you would have thought they would have wanted some bathroom or coffee breaks. 

Now I needed to find Matteo. First I checked the information table just to see if there was anything special programmed for today. Sometimes there were coffee breaks or breakfasts where people could meet the leader and his family and ask questions or tell of their troubles. Unfortunately, today wasn't anything like that. It would have been too lucky to happen.

Then I checked everywhere I was allowed to go. No luck either. He was probably on the upper floors learning the duties of a leader. It might days for him to appear. I sighed heavily and went back to my room where I laid on the ground staring at the ceiling. 

In my memories, I and Matteo had been always together. We had met every day and had done everything together. Of course in classes, we had been separated because of the age difference but during breaks, we had always seemed each other. Our mothers were friends and we had been together ever since I had been born. 

People always said that we were an odd match. Matteo was calm, tall and very smart. And when I say smart he has an IQ higher than some famous genius people have had. He is also very charming and of course, people love him, girls want to be with him and men want to be him. I don't believe there is anyone in the base who has negative feelings towards him. 

I was on the other hand a quiet girl, book smart but not street smart at all. People would probably have not known I excited if Matteo hasn't always been hanging around with me. Hardly anyone knew my name they always called me Matteo's puppy. That's how people saw me a dog following the prince. But I didn't care as long as Matteo wanted to be with me I always sought him. 

With Matteo, my life had been worth living. He was able to get me out of my core and enjoy life. With him, every day was an adventure and you would never know how the day would end. A smile came to my face but faded away immediately. That had been our lives before the accident but now it was like this. I was alone in my room and wasn't able to even contact him.

Time had stopped. The clock wasn't ticking because I was so bored. I had had so great plans and the first time it would have been me suggesting an adventure. But it was like the universe were against me. I felt very lonely. The only friends I had was out of my reach. The only one able to comfort me wasn't here and it would probably take days before I would run into him.

Someone knocked on the door. I jumped up. Could it be Matteo? Did we have some kind of mystical connection and he had rushed over me knowing I needed him? Butterflies in my stomach  I said:

"Come in!"

I tried to hide my disappointment when Rebecca said, "Excuse me",  and stepped in. She blushed her whole face red so I failed badly.

"Oh, Rebecca," I said and tried a bring a smile to my face, "What brings you here?"

She blushed even more if that was possible. I had never seen a person see as red as she was. There was a long silence before she answered:

"I just wanted to come and thank you!"

She bowed a little which made me feel uncomfortable. I scratched my head. 

"There is no reason for you to thank me," I answered. 

She came closer and tried to grab my hands but they went just through mine. She blushed again and took a step back.

"Of course I should. The rebels might have shot me to death if you hadn't shown up."

I was quite sure that the rebels had just tried to scare her to tell them what they wanted to know. But it wasn't something I could tell her. I saw a bandage on her head where one of the rebels had hit her.

"How's your head?" I asked.

She lifted her hand on her head.

"It's fine, just a couple of sticks. "Nothing compared to if I had been shot."

I nodded and silence fell between us. We knew each other only by name mainly and I had never been very good at small talk. People made me feel awkward. That's why I had only one friend. If Matteo had been there he would have kept up the conversation.

My eyes wandered to the tablet on the wall. Then I looked at Rebecca and got an idea.

"Since you are here, could you do me a favour?" I asked.

She flinched first but hurried then to say:

"Of course, what do you need?"

I pointed at the tablet.

"Could you call Matteo for me?" I said and lifted my hands, "I cannot touch the screen myself."

"Why don't you use voice command?" She asked, "I use it almost always."

"It doesn't recognise my voice, " I said, " I think it thinks I'm just another machine and won't react to my commands."

Again Rebecca blushed and said:

"Happy to help."

She went to the tablet and opened contacts.

"Do you have his number?"

"It's not saved in there?"

She shook her head:

"There is only your parent's numbers and someone called Nicolas."

Chills went through my body and asked:

"Can I see?"

Rebecca took a step back and I went looking at the screen of the tablet. There truly was just my parent's and Nicolas's number. This was odd. Why didn't I have Matteo's number. We had always texted and called each other when not meeting face to face. The only trouble I had ever got (before running away) was when answering his text during class time. 

"Well thank you anyway," I said after a long silence.

Rebecca had looked very troubled so thought thanking her. It was not her fault that my tablet had lost the number.

"I have to go," she said, " But if you need something don't hesitate to find me."

I nodded. I kept my eyes on the list of numbers I had. It was a kind of a sad list to have in your contacts. I should have had at least a couple more friends, shouldn't I? There was definitely something wrong with me. 

"Maybe the machine is new?" Rebecca said when opening the door, " If your old one broke and that's why your other contacts are missing?"

I forced myself to smile.

"That's probably how it is."

Rebecca gave me a small smile back and then left. I sighed heavily. Could she be right and that be the reason why I didn't have Matteo's number? I wanted to believe it because all the other ideas I got weren't any good. Now more than ever I needed to find Matteo and have a talk with him.