Key to Fear

by Kristin Cast

  “Even if he is, they have such intense sanitation procedures that there’s no way Rhett could get infected.” Astrid’s gaze slipped to something out of Elodie’s line of sight before she continued. “Key soldiers are always safe. No one fights against them and no germs can get to them. It’s pretty much a no-risk job.”

  The scene on the bridge froze and dissolved into the gray hold screen before blinking white. Elodie opened her mouth to speak, but the Key’s red logo unfurled across the small box in her vision.

  Astrid resumed twirling the ends of her glossy ponytail. “You getting this?”

  Elodie nodded as a woman strode into view, but it wasn’t Holly. The woman’s hourglass hips swished hypnotically as she took her place. She clasped her slender, earth-brown hands in front of her hips and locked her hazel eyes on the camera.

  “Good morning, citizens. By now, I am sure you have heard about the attack on our city.”

  Elodie’s brow furrowed. “She sounds so familiar . . .”

  “Like Holly?” Astrid let out a slight grunt of admiration. “That’s Blair Scott. The hottest thing since VR. Like, Icarus-too-close-to-the-sun hot. Blair developed Holly’s new coding, and as a signature, used her own vocal pathways in the new-and-improved Holly.”

  Elodie adjusted her beanie, hiding her grimace behind her hand. She barely noticed the other pedestrians racing by in either direction. The thought of creating a weird voice-twin made her skin crawl.

  Blair continued. “Eos is trying to shake us, but they will fail. Westfall and its citizen are stronger than their hate. While we do not yet know how the attack on Tilikum Crossing happened or why, this is what we know for certain—

  “You. Are. Safe.” Her tender smile lifted her round cheeks but stopped short of her eyes. Those remained unchanged—smooth and fierce.

  “Mere moments after the attack, the Key Corporation activated Westfall’s intense containment protocols, and we are pleased and thankful to be able to say that our city is one hundred percent free of any infective agents, and no one outside of the immediate attack zone was exposed to any pathogens.”

  Elodie released a stored breath and scooted out of the way as a group of button-down-clad men approached.

  “Another win for the Key!” one of the men cheered as they passed by.

  Had Elodie really been standing in the middle of the sidewalk like a dolt? Mentally, she shook herself and continued her walk to her office building as she resumed listening to Blair Scott.

  “We are safe, and we owe that safety to the Key, and the more than five decades of work they have put into protecting us. That is why we know for certain that the corporation is truly the key to health, the key to life, and the key to our future.”

  Recognizing the end of a Key Corp message, Elodie focused on ending the feed. “Doesn’t it bother you how they’re always saying that? The key to our future. It’s creepy, right?” she said as Astrid’s image expanded to full size.

  Astrid shrugged. “It might seem a little intense if it wasn’t true, but isn’t it just a fact? I mean, if it wasn’t for the Key, we wouldn’t even be here. Our species would have died out forever ago.”

  “Fifty years ago,” Elodie corrected.

  “Since you and I have only been here for seventeen, it might as well have been forever ago.” Astrid punctuated with a flick of her ponytail. “Either way, we’re alive because of the Key.”

  “You’re totally right,” Elodie said, more to remind herself than in response to her best friend.

  The gray stretch of pavement beneath Elodie’s feet abruptly changed to rust-red brick when she reached the front of the MediCenter. “I’m at work. I’ll call you after,” she said, suddenly remembering she could finally remove her hat. She yanked it off her head and stuffed it into her backpack before shaking out her dark curls. Instead of cascading around her shoulders in beautiful waves as she’d imagined, her wet hair splatted against her shoulders in two damp clumps.

  Astrid’s eyes widened for the zillionth time that morning. “Is your hair wet?”

  Elodie scooped her hair off her shoulders, leaving behind two wet shadows across her top. “I took a shower. It’s no big deal.” If she’d had more time, she would have taken another one after her nursing lesson. She needed a real shower after that nightmare; needed to feel the steaming torrent of water against her skin. She needed to feel clean.

  “Hmm.” Astrid pursed her pale pink lips. “I don’t want to say it’s weird, but, you know,” another shrug. “It’s weird.”

  “You’re weird.” Elodie batted down her insecurities with a forced chuckle.

  “Thank you much.” Astrid grinned, straight and shiny. “Hey, even though everything is good now, don’t take the MAX home. Take a Pearl.”

  Elodie snorted. “Yeah, maybe I’ll think about it in twenty years when I’m head of the nursing department. I get that you work with your genius dad, but us normal people don’t make thousands of bits each year to go spending on fancy Pearl rides.”

  The rosy red of Astrid’s cheeks deepened. Bits. That was the one thing that would embarrass Astrid every time. Each coin her family made seemed to add to her shame. Elodie didn’t understand. If she had that much money, she’d be long gone. Across the ocean and deeply rooted in foreign lands. Westfall would become nothing more than the place she’d come from. The place that made her unique, different from everyone else. Her stomach clenched with the lie. As much as she wanted to believe she’d be anywhere else, her place was in Westfall, with Rhett, in the MediCenter, with her plain, safe life.

  Astrid pulled a thick curtain of hair across her face like a mask. “Shut up,” she teased, releasing the dark strands. “We’re working on a new Pearl prototype and need people to test it out. I’ll send one to pick you up. For free.”

  “A prototype? I’ll have to figure out if I would rather die in a fiery ball or test my luck in some horrible germ attack.” The men and women laying on the bridge, X’s on their chests, flashed behind Elodie’s eyes. “You know what,” she cleared her throat. “That was stupid. Don’t listen to me. I’ll take your free ride.”

  Astrid plucked the air with a delicate wave. “Later, later.”

  The image filling the side of Elodie’s vision went gray and disappeared as she ended the call and stared up at Westfall’s downtown MediCenter building. Bronze sconces framed the smooth concrete facade, their tines stretching toward the sky like points on a crown.

  Elodie’s clear plastic cuff flashed green as she approached the spotless glass doors. They opened noiselessly, their shiny gold handles glinting in the dappled sunlight. How long had it been since anyone had actually touched them? The handles on all of the entrances in the remaining buildings in Zone One were now nothing more than metal jewelry for doors.

  The scent of fresh pine, of the forest after a rainstorm, swirled through the air.

  “Is this one of those experiments where someone stands in the middle of the walkway to see whether or not people are gullible enough to start a line behind them?”

  Heat flooded Elodie’s cheeks and she flicked her gaze to the pavement behind her and the owner of the deep, silky voice and source of the piney scent. How had she missed those giant boots clomping up behind her? The boots moved, leaving a dusting of dirt across the red brick. Elodie grimaced. Who even knew where to find that much dirt?

  “You are going in, right?” The owner of the boots spoke again.

  Elodie jerked forward and absentmindedly shook her head at the dingy, mud-splattered yellow laces. “No. I mean yes.” She forced her attention to the ground beneath the nearly silent shuffling of her brilliantly white sneakers. Maybe she did get lost in her thoughts way too often. “Yes, I—” The glass door clanged surprisingly loud when Elodie smacked into it.

  The heavy boots clomped up behind her, bringing with them more of the crisp evergreen scent. “Oh, shit. A
re you okay?”

  Elodie’s vision danced as she waited for the doors to reopen before attempting to walk through them again. “Yeah.” She rubbed the side of her head and stayed facing forward, refusing to look at whoever had just witnessed what had to be the most embarrassing moment of her life. The doors opened and Elodie concentrated on proceeding as calmly and incident-free as possible to the bay of elevators. “Eleven,” she squeaked after scanning her cuff beneath the elevator’s control panel.

  The heavy, crunchy footsteps continued to shadow her. Elodie pressed her eyelids shut and held her cool palm against her flaming cheek as she waited to see which elevator would descend first.

  Another beep of the control panel. “Twelve,” the boots’ owner said with a muffled groan.

  Or maybe Elodie was the one groaning.

  Her eyelids fluttered open and she cast a sideways glance at the dirty brown boots waiting by her side. There was no way she could board an elevator and ride all the way to the eleventh floor with that forest scent, with someone who had just watched her walk into a door. Not with the morning she’d been having. She smoothed her wet hair over the tender knot forming on the side of her head.

  An elevator chimed its arrival, and Elodie darted away from the opening doors and the heavy boots.

  Today seemed like a really good day to take the stairs.

  IV

  “And the key to our future. The key to our future. The key to our future.” Blair bit down on her nail, silently scolded herself, and then clasped her hands in front of her as she hurried down the MediCenter’s glass-lined corridor. “Damn. I could’ve done better. That’s the worst part about going live. There’s no opportunity to make adjustments or edits.”

  “Nonsense. You did great.” Blair’s new assistant’s words were rushed and breathy as her short legs worked to keep up. “Really, Ms. Scott, you are an asset. A real asset. Everybody thinks so.” Her assistant’s constant need to please made Blair’s teeth hurt.

  “Your name,” Blair snapped her fingers. “I’ve forgotten it already.”

  “Wyndham, Ms. Scott. Maxine Wyndham.”

  Sure, Blair might seem a bit tough, and may have gone through more assistants than years she’d been alive, but that was only because none of them were a right fit. She needed someone dedicated. As dedicated as she was. And that wasn’t easy to find.

  Blair would have a cot brought to her office at Westfall’s downtown MediCenter, which served as the Key Corp headquarters of the New American West Coast, if it meant a greater career edge. She’d once considered curling up on her plush throw rug, but felt it would create the wrong optics. Each one of the assistants Career Placement had assigned her had pretended to feel the way she did, but it was obvious they didn’t possess the same strain of dedication Blair had coursing through her veins. She’d even weighed letting her brother give it a shot, but she knew how that would end.

  The Leightons, Blair’s parents, had both worked hard for the long, prestigious titles they’d tacked in front of their surnames. After their deaths, Cath Scott had adopted Blair, and the Key had pressured her to take Cath’s last name. Unity, that’s what the corporation had been striving after. That’s how battles were won and power reigned, and Blair understood those facts completely. It was a fair trade-off. The silver lining to her unbelievably stormy life. A new last name that practically oozed power in exchange for her fate as an orphan. Even if she’d had a choice, she would have taken that name. Cath had not only completed a doctorate but had also risen to director of Career Placement at the MediCenter. That made Blair as close to an example of born and raised in as anyone was going to get.

  But, for some reason, every assistant placed with Blair assumed that her desire to be on top meant that she needed some kind of yes person. That, however, was not how the saying went. Behind every strong woman was a sea of strong women, not behind every strong woman was a sea of yes-minded drones. Why didn’t anyone understand that?

  Blair turned down the corridor that led to her office and stopped short of the door. “Ms. Wyndham.” She swiveled to face her pretty new assistant. “I appreciate all you’ve done . . .”

  Black.

  She categorized the lie immediately. Although, black was far from the worst kind. Blair was always lying to someone. Like luggage on a trip, lies followed her to each destination. She had to pack them up every night just to unload them in the morning. To keep track, she’d developed a sort of guide. It also served as a guilt meter—Blair felt it was the least she could do to make note of how guilty she should feel if she ever decided to turn that part of herself back on.

  Red lies were lies that, if they were corporeal, would draw blood. And then there were black lies. Blair would never feel anything about black lies. They were empty holes of nothingness. Words slid so gracefully into conversation that their absence would have been felt more seriously than their addition.

  Blair hooked a soft smile to the corners of her lips and continued. “But I really don’t think you’re right for this position.”

  Maxine’s cheeks flushed and the tip of her thin nose turned pink. “I don’t understand. I thought everything was going well.”

  “It is . . .” Black. “But our styles are too different.”

  Maxine’s nose twitched, and she rubbed her red, puffy eyes.

  Blair forced her palms flat against each other to keep them from balling into fists. People where always hemorrhaging their feelings all over the place. If Blair could keep hers buttoned up, there was no reason why others couldn’t also. “Now, Maxine, please don’t cry.”

  “I’m not.” She pulled a handkerchief from her pants pocket and dabbed her eyes.

  Blair dug her pinky nail into her palm, relaxing slightly as a jolt of pain sparked up her arm. “Really, tears are nothing to be embarrassed about.”

  Black.

  Blair unclasped her hands, unfolding herself in an attempt to look more open and approachable. “So far, what I need and what those assigned to me have been able to supply have been two vastly different things. It’s nothing personal.”

  “This,” with the square of fabric Maxine gestured to her sliminess before slipping the handkerchief back into her pocket. “Is because of my allergies. They always flare up this time of year and turn me into a leaking mess.”

  “Oh.” The revelation stung. Blair possessed an uncanny sense for sniffing out others’ lies, and this had the air of truth. She didn’t necessarily want to make people cry. But she did want people to want to work for her so badly that the thought of getting fired would at least have them on the verge of tears.

  “If I’m honest, Ms. Scott, and, may I be honest? Actually . . .” Maxine waved her hands as if erasing the question. “I’m going to be honest whether or not you want to hear it. This style doesn’t work for me either. When I received word that I was assigned this position, I was ecstatic. We’re both twenty-three and I am in awe of what you’ve been able to accomplish. I thought working for you would be an amazing learning experience. Then I heard about the ways your past assistants had treated you. So, in order to work with you, I became that. And I have to say that I really don’t like it. You’re great, but you already know that. I hate being the person who follows you around with the sole purpose of managing your ego. It’s insulting.” Her pointed chin lifted. If not for the fact that Blair was a head taller, Maxine would have been looking down the end of her nose at her new boss. “Insulting to both of us.”

  Blair inhaled, slowly and deeply.

  “Ms. Scott,” Maxine continued, “I do want to stay, but only if I’m able to be honest with you. I also have a lot of connections and can—” Blair held up a finger and Maxine’s jaw clamped shut.

  There might be a nice balance with Maxine. A fiery subservience Blair could enjoy.

  Blair scraped her gaze down the petite young woman, her straight blond hair, snowy complexion, an
d pointed heels. “Call me Blair.” Her office doors opened with a hiss as she passed her cuff under the scanner. “And, Maxine, when the bots come by with my coffee, tell them I want it black.”

  V

  From the second Aiden stepped off the elevator and into the twelfth floor Career Center Receiving Area, he regretted everything. Okay, maybe not everything, but a lot. What he regretted most of all was that he had used up all of his free passes. The next step was getting shipped off to Rehab. How had he reached the end so quickly?

  “Next citizen, please.” The Holly that haunted the MediCenter pointed to a line of low-tech lighted arrows built into the floor. They flashed green, leading him to a wall of private booths. The accordion doors opened automatically, and Aiden stepped through the Violet Shield’s stream of purple light, before plopping down on the metal stool protruding from the floor like a tooth.

  The computer screen in front of him flashed white and gray and then white again before the Key Corp’s red logo faded into view and uncoiled before him, staining the small booth with its tendrils of red light. “Welcome,” the computer’s robotic voice croaked. It was different from Holly’s, not as alive or real, though hearing Holly always brought goosebumps to his arms and a heaviness against his back as if he was being haunted. “Please scan your citizen identification cuff and state the reason for your visit. I understand complete sentences.”

  Aiden tapped the toes of his boots against the floor. “You don’t, actually. But it’s good to see you again. I’ve been reassigned to janitorial duty. At least, that’s what the message said this time.” He scanned his cuff and left the computer to sift through the extra words he’d provided. Each time he’d visited the career center, he’d said something a little different to test the computer’s abilities. It said it understood complete sentences, when what it meant was that it understood certain words spoken in a certain order. But that was probably too much explanation and actualization for such a low-tech device to comprehend.