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Jeffrey awoke, with the moon still shining with silver light over his head. He was lying on the soft grass, and it took him a moment to realize that he had passed out. His limbs trembled from adrenaline, and he shivered in the chill of the night air. A wave of nausea passed over him. He gagged and spat out a small mouthful of half-congealed blood. Internal bleeding, he thought, not a good sign.
Clambering to his feet, he started moving again, thoughts already back on his objective. The more he thought about it, the more he realized that the labs were too heavily guarded for him to try something like sabotaging the weapon. Not to mention that he had no idea where to search or what the device would look like. No, there was only one thing to do. And it's really, really stupid, he cringed.
He entered the dark servants' quarters where many of his fellow slaves were sleeping. A few beds were empty, with people gone to do various tasks. Jeffrey went to his bed and stripped the sheets from it.
As he worked, a few servants would come in, give him a passing glance, then go to sleep. He had taken a few sheets from their beds, but if his fellow slaves noticed that they slept on a bare mattress, they gave no indication. Nor did they seem to notice when he shoved them aside to steal the bedding out from under them. As it was, most of the servants slept on top of their sheets fully clothed. Even some of the earlier trial versions subjected to the conditioning required direct instruction on personal maintenance, hygiene, and even when to eat before the process was refined, not that Jeffrey knew it.
A sense of foreboding filled him, and some part of his mind kept telling him over and over that this was a terrible idea. He checked over each length and each knot, testing the strength of his makeshift rope. He rechecked it, then tested it again, slowly gaining the slightest measure of confidence in his plan.
Weary though he was, and with a wicked feeling of corrosive acidity burning in his stomach, in spite of his lack of any food, he understood that his task remained urgent. With a huge, and surprisingly heavy, coil of dozens of tied-together bed sheets looped over his shoulder, he set off out of the barracks. He couldn't find a reasonable way of concealing it but didn't worry. It was early or late enough to avoid being seen. Even with ominous events looming ahead, the thought of not having to return to enslavement brought a tiny smile to his face.
Uprising Page 65