by Shanon Hunt
“What can I getcha?”
She closed her eyes, a wide smile crossing her face. “A venti iced skinny hazelnut macchiato, sugar-free syrup, extra shot, light ice, no whip.” It rolled off her tongue like the lyrics of a song. Her heart hammered. This was so familiar somehow. So real.
The barista nodded as she jotted notes on the side of the large plastic cup. “I like your style.”
Layla inhaled the Starbucks smell as she surveyed the small shop, enchanted by every detail. She sauntered over to a display stand and picked up an oversized ceramic mug with the Starbucks logo on the front. It had some heft to it. If she swung downward with enough—
“Here you go, miss.”
She fumbled the mug but caught it just before it hit the tile floor.
“Wow, great reflexes.” The barista pushed a large plastic cup across the counter.
Even though she had no idea what she was about to taste, her mouth watered. The lid popped off as she wrapped her fingers around the cup, splattering a few droplets of the creamy drink onto her sleeve.
The barista grabbed a paper towel. “Oh, god, I’m so sorry. I must not’ve pushed it on all the way.”
“Hey, Cruella, you know caffeine works a lot better if you ingest it, not wear it?”
She dabbed furiously at her expensive wool dress. “The goddamn barista didn’t put the cap on tightly. I need your sport coat.”
“What? No way.”
“Ms. Stevens, are you ready?” Her assistant handed her a leather folder with A.S. inscribed in the corner.
“Ry, give me your fucking sport coat. Austin and I have to be in that board meeting in three minutes.”
“Fine, but I want it dry cleaned. Your BO will scare off the ladies.”
“Are you okay?” The barista waved her hand in front of Layla’s face.
But Layla could only stare blankly as a sense of wonderment bubbled up inside her. She couldn’t remember Ry’s face, but Austin… She remembered this—well, a little bit. This was her poisoned life. She was Allison Stevens. She wasn’t sure who Allison was, but she was certain of one thing: She hadn’t been a submissive little schoolmarm. She’d been someone with power and influence—a board meeting, for heaven’s sake. Maybe she’d been as important out there in the poisoned world as James was inside the Colony.
She took a long pull from the straw. God, nothing had ever tasted so good.
She finally addressed the barista, who was eyeing her with suspicion. “Gotta get to work. Thanks so much.” Maybe she’d said those same words to a barista in the poisoned world.
She clutched her drink to her chest and stepped out into the chaos. The big glass door swung closed behind her, cutting off the comforting aromas of the peaceful haven. She wrapped her lips around the straw for another sip when a new smell gusted around her from the street.
She grimaced and tossed her macchiato into the trash. Time to get to work, indeed.
The smell of death was in the air.
61
October 2022, Mexico
“This is not a good idea.” James tried to keep his voice low as Stewart led their guests down the narrow hallway toward the stairs. They were leaving the safety of the observation room to get a firsthand experience of the Gallery.
“Oh, it’s fine,” replied Stewart, his inner petulant child rearing its pouty head. “All you do is worry, James. You need to live a little. It’s perfectly safe. The furos target cancer and AIDS—so unless any of you guys are hiding something, you won’t even be noticed.”
The tasteless joke was infuriating. Stewart was first and foremost a showman who considered people—all people, whether they were terminal cancer patients, members of the Chinese Ministry of Health, or as was the case today, agents from the US Department of Defense—as mere captive audiences to feed his perpetual appetite for attention. His self-serving desire to give them the full experience, to walk them down the pedestrian mall and through the casinos, was not only compromising the program but putting additional lives at risk.
“The Gallery was built by set designers for Universal Studios. Finished just—what, James?—six weeks ago? It’s a replica of a section of Fremont Street in Las Vegas.” Stewart paused with his hand on the doorknob, no doubt trying to build suspense.
“Packing so many in here seems like an unnecessary security risk,” Colonel Shaffer noted dryly.
“No risk whatsoever,” Stewart said. “It’s mostly recruits and inductees—the new, young ones. They view it as a reward, a night on the town. They visit a costume department, just like a real movie set, and get all decked out for the night. It’s the real deal.”
“And the targets are your people as well, yes?”
“We include a small number from our sick lots—residents with HIV, cancer, hepatitis—then we bring in the furos and let the fury begin.”
The colonel looked as though he’d bitten into something sour. “I understand you’re simulating the real world, but I’m not sure I see the need for such spectacle. Las Vegas?”
“We conducted extensive research to see what would appeal to the broadest group of men and women in their twenties. Other than Disney World, the Las Vegas experience transcends race, culture, and socioeconomic status. Everyone loves Las Vegas.”
Stewart flung the door open and stepped to one side. “And remember—what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.”
James forced himself not to wince. The impious manner in which Stewart presented the Gallery was yet another signal that he didn’t fully understand what they were creating. James had observed nearly every simulation run since the Gallery was built, but unlike Stewart, he’d also supervised the cleanup. Blood had to be removed, and damaged furniture replaced. Bodies had to be located and disposed of in a respectful way—James insisted.
“We’ve recreated the Gallery at our two largest sites, China and the Philippines,” Stewart continued. “Huge successes. Maybe even more so than this one.”
James hung back, scrutinizing the scene with a jaded eye. Flashing lights and backlit slot machines sucked the recruits in. Even without real money, gambling was irresistible to so many of this young generation. It was the dream of winning, the fantasy of living on a yacht or driving a Lamborghini they craved, even though they knew it wasn’t real.
But somewhere among the indulgent party-goers, the predators lurked. And today, his beautiful girl would be one of them.
Someone howled with delight as the overhead display ticked up hundreds, then thousands of dollars. God, he was already edgy.
Stewart was still working through his tour speech. “ …not provided with weapons. They don’t need them. Instead, they use everyday objects from the environment: a knife from a restaurant kitchen or a belt from their own body. This serves two purposes. First, they’re less likely to be noticed. Imagine someone approaching you while brandishing a gun or a long knife. It would cause a panic. And second, it allows them to be nimble. The furos don’t know when they might come upon a genetically compromised target. We are training our soldiers to think and act in the moment.”
That was another misnomer that Stewart liked to tout, one that warranted a wider discussion with the council. The praefuro predators were not trained in any type of combat. While they were extraordinarily intuitive and quick, the risk existed that they might underestimate a mark and get hurt or even killed.
But Stewart refused to discuss it. Show me one example where a target got the upper hand, James. They’re inferior to normal humans, so they’re doubly inferior to my furos. It was a dumb argument. Stewart believed the praefuro had superpowers, but they very much did not.
James caught a glimpse of Keisha, Stewart’s favorite. My blueprint, he often called her, as if she were a prototype robot and not a mere mortal. Her presence meant the praefuro had entered the Gallery. His eyes darted from person to person, his heart hammering. His stomach flip-flopped as if he were a teenage boy on his first date.
Layla was here.
62
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br /> October 2022, Mexico
The target was covered in maggots that squirmed in and out of what remained of her exposed bluish-green flesh and bubbled up under her light blue silk slip dress. Her arms brushed against her skirt to give it an extra-sexy swish, but Layla’s attention was locked on the worms dropping off the woman’s dead skin, leaving a trail of slime that would be squished into the red carpet by the hordes inside the crowded casino.
Despite that, the target was surprisingly poised, if not particularly graceful, clicking through the gaming area on six-inch stilettos. Why did women wear stilettos, anyway? They offered no support or balance. But the target moved with the confidence of a young woman who’d spent hours curling face-framing strands teased from her elegant loose bun. It was a shame she couldn’t see herself the way Layla saw her, decaying from the poison inside her. She might have opted to stay in tonight.
Eva popped into Layla’s head so suddenly, she jolted. “Layla, do me a favor. Stay closer to the pedestrian mall. I can’t help you in the—”
Layla pulled the earpiece and dropped it into an abandoned glass of wine. She’d chosen her target, the woman in the blue dress, whether Eva liked it or not.
She followed the target through a black-curtained doorway. A thunderous roar coming from the oversized speakers inside assaulted her overly sensitive ears. Thump, thump, thump. It vibrated her entire torso. The only light in the room came from a spotlight directly above the deejay and a handful of colorful pinspot lights over the dance floor, which was packed so tightly that when the dancers jumped in unison to the beat, the whole room pulsed like a human heart the size of a whale.
Body heat had warmed the room by at least ten degrees, and the pungent smell of sweat nearly distracted Layla from her mark. The target was walking the perimeter of the thrumming mass toward the bar. Layla slowed her pace and glanced upward at the tiny red dots in the dark corners of the room. Was Stewart watching her? Evaluating her?
Nerves got the better of her, and she veered in the opposite direction. She opened the first door she came to, hoping it led to a restroom. No luck—a staircase. The bitter smell of beer wafted up from the darkness below. Storage, perhaps. Part of her wanted to descend the stairs, find a nice, cool corner, and hide. Certainly that part of her was stronger than the part that wanted to get anywhere near those sweaty bodies on the dance floor.
But an even bigger part of her wanted to purge. To purify.
She eased back into the club. The target leaned over the bar, resting on her elbows with her back to the crowd.
Layla slid up to the bar next to her. She was petite, her small neck and shoulders bare except for the thin spaghetti straps crisscrossing her bare back. She was dressed for sex, but her body language made it clear that she wasn’t ready to flirt. She wouldn’t be getting lucky tonight, because Layla could smell her. The woman in the blue dress was filled with poison, all the way to her DNA, and humanity couldn’t take the chance that she would pass those poisonous genes to a new life.
It was Layla’s job to make sure of it.
She is the plague. She must be purged.
The urge to grab the vile creature by the throat was almost too much to resist, but Layla didn’t want to strangle her. What she wanted was to claw at her face, tearing off chunks of foul flesh. She wanted to shred her torso with a knife, making sure that every drop of poisoned blood was spilled on the floor, then crack her skull, removing her warm, spongy brain and stabbing it repeatedly until there was nothing but an unidentifiable mass of tissue and blood.
The fantasy sent a tremor of excitement through her, and she dug her fingers into the bar to regain control. Her skill wasn’t torso shredding; that was how the ragers worked. They were practically animals, completely unable to control themselves. She, on the other hand, was a shepherd. A good shepherd knew how to cull the unfit from her herd to save it. It was her mission.
It wasn’t personal; it was business.
Her body relaxed and her mind cleared, just as Keisha said it would. With each flash of the strobe, her gaze fixed on objects around her: several half-filled wine bottles. Stacks of highball glasses next to a tray of fruit slices. A cutting board of lemons and a thin-bladed knife. A glass shelf against a mirrored wall. A softly lit neon sign advertising Absolute Vodka, its electric cord stretched to the nearby outlet.
The barstools emptied as people surged onto the floor for a hit song, leaving only herself and the target at one end of the bar, and at the other end, a man with a neatly groomed soul patch under his bottom lip. A player, Layla thought, by his posture and the way he eyed Layla’s target, his lip turned up in a wry smile. He was waiting for his moment to approach.
But Blue Dress still wasn’t sending out signals. She ordered another gin and tonic and kept her gaze on her glass, sipping frequently.
Liquid courage. The expression popped into Layla’s head. She could hear her own voice from the past, then the voice of Allison Stevens: I need some liquid courage before I can dance.
The room brightened as the music changed from a thumping base drop to an electric synthesizer. Laser lights swung wildly up one wall, across the ceiling, and down the other wall. The crowd erupted in cheers, and the jumping gave way to suggestive gyrating, arms and legs coiling around each other like slithering snakes.
The bartender leaned onto an elbow to hear Layla over the music. “Can I get you something?”
“Club soda, please,” she hollered back.
By the time the drink appeared, the target had gulped down her second drink and started a third. She took one last slurp and faced the dance floor, back arched and chest thrust forward. It was an invitation Soul Patch couldn’t refuse. He drifted over and spoke into her ear. She took his hand and allowed him to lead her onto the floor.
A whiff of fresh lemon distracted Layla, and she studied the bartender as he picked up a lemon and sliced through it. Out, in, out, in. Four slices through a whole lemon.
That would work.
The deejay bellowed into the microphone. “Put your fuckin’ hands up!” The lights dropped again.
Now. It was time.
The pull came from somewhere in her gut. Her mouth watered, and she wiped away the saliva with the back of her hand.
She is poison.
The beat moved through her body, and her heartbeat slowed to match.
Thump, thump, thump, thump.
She swung her right arm over the bar, knocking over a stack of highball glasses. She didn’t hear them break as they crashed to the floor—they may have simply bounced off the rubber floormat—but the bartender dropped his knife next to the sliced lemon to clean up the mess.
Thump, thump, thump.
Three steps to the left. She palmed the knife and kept moving.
Thump, thump, thump, thump.
Four steps onto the dance floor. The erratic flash of the strobe light was making her dizzy, but she wriggled toward the middle of the pack, grimacing at the heat, sweat, and body odor.
Thump, thump.
She must be purged.
The target and her partner were chest to chest, their hands in the air.
The earth must be purified.
Layla moved in behind Soul Patch, reached her left hand around his waist, and squeezed his genitals. He spun around. Her right hand slipped the blade ever so gently beneath the Blue Dress’s spaghetti straps and whisked back.
The top of the silky dress fluttered to the woman’s waist. She shrieked. One arm flew up to cover her chest and the other clutched the dress to keep it from slithering to the floor.
Layla moved in to help, putting one arm around her and easing her off the dance floor. “I gotcha, I gotcha.”
“Oh my god,” she panted. “I don’t know what happened.” Her fingers trembled as she fumbled with the fabric, trying to reposition it over her chest.
“Don’t worry at all. It was so dark in there, no one saw anything.” She opened the door that led to the basement storage room and gently pus
hed the woman inside.
“What’s this?”
“Turn around. I’ll retie your straps for you.”
The target held her dress in place as Layla pulled the straps over her shoulders. Layla spread her feet to secure her stance and pulled, dragging the woman backward by the straps as she buried the blade of the knife in her neck, neatly, just below the base of the skull.
The target crumpled into a heap on the cool cement floor. Layla could’ve taken time to verify the thing was dead—to listen for breathing, feel for a pulse—but she didn’t need to. Within seconds, the stench of the poison had dissipated.
Just like Jonah’s last moments.
She studied the location, depth, and angle of the knife before retrieving it. She hadn’t been one hundred percent confident that the little blade would be sharp enough or that she would be strong enough to sever a human spinal cord. The stiletto heels had been the deciding factor. Tugging the target’s straps, which forced her to topple backward, had given Layla the perfect angle for an upward thrust with the added advantage of gravity.
Elementary, my dear Watson. She smiled at the clever expression, not quite sure where it came from.
Layla breathed in a deep satisfied breath, enjoying the subtle aroma of beer, uncontaminated by the smell of decay. She felt lighter, as if she’d purged a weight that she herself had carried. One fewer inferior human on the planet, thanks to her. One small step closer to purifying the human race.
She tugged at the blue dress, which ripped easily with a bit of force, and cleaned the blood smearing the knife and her fingers. She gave it another tug toward the stairs. A nudge with her foot sent what remained of the target tumbling to the bottom.
Bummer that Stewart and his guests had probably missed her skillful slaying. How would she prove she kept up her end of the bargain?
She pocketed the knife.
Perhaps the next target.
63
October 2022, Mexico