by Kristin Cast
“Vaughn,” Chad continued, a hoarseness clawing at his voice. “I’m out here in flame retardant gear issued by the corporation and specially made to withstand these conditions. And, I have to say, I am having a hard time maintaining my cool.” The view widened to again encompass the reporter as he brushed a gloved hand down the red Key Corp zip-up suit. “These soldiers, our soldiers, are out here protecting our community while wearing at least fifty pounds more than I am. I do not know how they’re able to handle it. It’s—” Another cough. “It’s mighty impressive. If you see one of these amazing people in the street, give them a big thank you. It’s the least we can do for what they’re doing to protect us.”
A crack splintered the smoke-filled air.
“Look out! Look out!” a soldier shouted over the flames as he ran up to the reporter.
The camera jerked as the soldier herded Chad and the cameraman to the safety.
The view went blurry for a moment before the camera stabilized and refocused on the flame-filled field behind them. The charred carcass of a two-story tall tree slammed to the ground, spraying fiery black bark into the air.
“I didn’t see—man, that—close.” Chad’s voice cut in and out as he adjusted his microphone. “Thank you.”
The camera expertly swooped back to the reporter as he regained his composure and turned his attention to the helmeted soldier. “What’s your name, soldier?”
“Major Owens.” He holstered his flame thrower and adjusted the straps of the large square pack hooked over his shoulders. “Rhett Owens,” the soldier said, looking past Chad at the line of flames behind them. The once brilliant red stripes streaking the arm of Owens’s uniform were now the same stale, muted red of dried blood.
Chad motioned to the faceless man. “Major, we’d be on our way to the MediCenter if it wasn’t for your quick action.”
“It’s my duty.” The helmet bobbed with a nod. “And I’m proud to serve Westfall and the Key.” Sweat streaked through the soot plastering his neck.
“Can you tell me what these duties mean to our community? Our citizens would love to hear firsthand.” Chad dragged a gloved hand across his own forehead before adjusting his facemask.
Rhett removed his helmet and secured it under his arm. “Leaving this zone and the lands beyond to grow wild would only result in another outbreak. We have all heard the term concrete jungle. Cerberus nearly eviscerated our species because of the wildness of the concrete jungle in cities like Westfall. This”—he lifted a gloved hand toward the ferocious flames burning brilliant orange and yellow and red behind him—“would be a true jungle where Cerberus and who knows what else would thrive and mutate. We are lucky enough to have great minds within the Key Corporation, who have recognized this threat and who send teams like mine all over the globe to ensure these wilds—concrete or nature made—will never get so far out of control that they again threaten us.” Rhett’s golden amber eyes bored into the camera. “We truly do have the Key to thank for our continued survival.”
Blair’s lips twisted into a satisfied smirk. “Well, well, Major Owens. Perhaps we should chat.” An assistant, even one as skilled as Maxine, could only help a woman like Blair reach a certain level of power. There were some things—so few Blair could count them on one hand—only a male protégé could provide. Like a spider, Blair had left many dried-up, shriveled husks of men in a trail behind her.
The “live” footage ended, seamlessly transitioning back to Vaughn in his light-drenched studio. “I don’t know about you,” the anchor said, “but I for one am supremely grateful for the Key and soldiers like Major Rhett Owens who risk their lives to keep us safe.” The camera angle changed, and Vaughn shifted his attention without missing a beat. “And our gracious Key Corp is hosting the annual Rose Festival at Waterfront Park this weekend. We’ll report live and cannot wait to see you there, where we all will show our gratitude.”
The image froze on Vaughn and his overly active eyebrows.
Blair tented her fingers and swiveled her chair away from her desk to look out her windows. Soon, she would own this city. She’d earned it, and, more importantly, she’d burn anyone who got in her way.
XXIV
If Elodie hadn’t read ahead in her nursing textbook (the real pages, not the pages of Vi hidden inside), and learned all about coronary events, she’d have thought that she was about to keel over from a massive heart attack. The muscle inside of her chest had never beat as hard as it beat now. She sucked air through her nose and released her breath through pursed lips.
Why was she so amped? It wasn’t like Aiden would be waiting for her when the elevator opened to the Long-Term Care Unit. They weren’t meeting in VR until after work. Her heart seemed to skip a beat. Elodie couldn’t wait. She was more excited than she had been the first time she’d toured the MediCenter, and she hadn’t thought anything could top that.
Since their skateboarding friend get-together, she and Aiden had communicated through handwritten notes attached to delivery bots. It was sweet and cute and mysterious and left her feeling like she was breaking the rules. In short, their new friendship was already frickin’ amazing.
The elevator reached the LTCU and Elodie nearly bounded over to Gus and the control panel.
“What’s got you so chipper this morning?” Dandruff swirled off Gus’s shoulders as he pulled on his rain jacket in his usual speedy effort to leave the moment she arrived.
Elodie dropped her backpack onto the floor and practically wiggled in place in an attempt to tamp down her excitement. “Just happy to be alive, I guess.”
Gus groaned heavy and deep. “That makes one of us.” He flipped up the collar of his jacket as he shuffled toward the elevator. “Everything’s been the same. Checked off all my duties.” He scanned his cuff and the metal doors opened immediately. “Oh, you got another one of those paper notes.” He motioned toward the folded slip resting on the corner of the control panel. “You do know what all this tech is for, right?”
Elodie plucked the note off the glass top and didn’t bother to answer Gus as the elevator closed and whisked him away to be a dark cloud over someone else. No matter how much he tried, Gus couldn’t ruin her mood. Nothing could make—
Something came up. Not going to be able to make it to the VR meeting.
—MM
Aiden had done it again, canceled on her just before they were supposed to get together.
Elodie dropped into her chair.
It was weird that she and Aiden had sent so many notes but hadn’t actually seen each other since the Waterfront. Elodie saw each of her other friends nearly every day. Sure, that list really only included Rhett, who had been chosen for her, and Astrid, who she’d known since grade school—but still, either through vidlink or VR, they were never out of contact for more than half a day.
After she and Aiden had their in-person meetup, Elodie had suggested a VR date—a simple friend get together. Where didn’t matter. She just wanted to see him again. In a totally innocent, building-a-friendship sort of way. But Aiden had no-showed each scheduled meetup, leaving Elodie and Astrid (eager to meet the note-writing oddball) to wonder whether or not he was truly as nice as he seemed.
Every morning at work, Elodie would arrive to a disgruntled Gus, and a sealed note with a perfectly reasonable explanation as to why Aiden wouldn’t show up. If they’d first met in VR instead of in person, Elodie would have thought that he’d hacked his avatar and altered his appearance, which would explain why he didn’t want to meet in the real. But they’d met in person first, and there’s no way Aiden could have faked those long lashes, emerald eyes, or sculpted arms.
She shook her head.
Why was she thinking about how great his arms looked under his slightly too tight T-shirt? She was engaged. Although, as Astrid had told her many times, engaged wasn’t married. And she was pretty sure that her rule-abiding friend was ref
erring to the way Elodie’s mother talked about Rhett as Elodie’s husband, since the second they’d been matched. Plus, Astrid had no room to comment on the subject. The only reason the Key hadn’t matched her was because of what the Fujimotos could produce for the corporation, which didn’t yet include Astrid or her sister Thea settling down to add to the world’s population.
But none of that was the point.
The point was that if anyone should have wanted to flee after their utterly embarrassing real-life meetups, it would have been her, not him. She’d been the one to run into a closed door, and to fall on her butt the second she stepped on a skateboard. So what the hell was his problem?
She surged to her feet and stomped toward the elevator. Her hands snapped to her hips and her foot tapped as the metal box took its sweet time.
Had she done something to make Aiden want to only speak to her through written messages? She shook away the thought as she entered the elevator and headed down to the End-of-Life Unit. The notion that any of this could be her fault was ridiculous. The only thing Elodie was guilty of was meeting his level of enthusiasm and friendliness.
The elevator opened, exhaling a cloud of annoyed anticipation along with Elodie.
This was a much better line of thought than swooning over the way the rain had shimmered against his dark umber skin.
With the memory, her hands slipped from her hips.
“Stop it, Elodie!” she scolded herself aloud, and glued her fists back on her sides as she wound through the brightly lit bowels of the MediCenter.
The End-of-Life Unit’s glossy metal doors loomed ahead.
Holly blinked to life in front of the Violet Shield that covered the doors. “Hello, and welcome to the End-of-Life Unit. Only authorized citizens and MediCenter employees are allowed entry. Please scan your cuff.” With a sweep of her holographic arm, she motioned to the scanner next to the door.
“Oh, no, I don’t have authorization.” Elodie tucked her wavy hair behind her ears. “I’m just here to see someone. An employee, not a—you know.” Elodie swallowed as Holly’s unseeing eyes blinked down at her. “A dead person.”
“I’m sorry. You’ll have to contact the Unit Lead to gain authorization.” Holly’s still smile never reached the pointed corners of her brown eyes.
“Actually, is there any way that you—”
The Violet Shield flashed and Holly vanished as the metal doors slid open. Aiden rushed out, his tennis shoes squeaking against the floor as he halted in front of her.
“What a crazy coincidence!” Elodie nearly shouted as the doors closed behind him. She needed to get a handle on her excitement. There was a reason she was here. “I didn’t realize until after I’d come all the way down that I’m not actually authorized to enter. Who knew it would be so hard to get into the morgue? It’s just full of dead people.” Her laughter clanked in the space between them. “I mean, like, somewhere in my brain I knew that I couldn’t just walk in, but that was buried pretty deep under a lot of other useless info. Not useless for everyone. You obviously need to know who can and cannot enter your unit.” Another bout of strained laughter. “But, yeah. It’s a good thing that you came out.”
Aiden’s usual pine scent barely pierced the bleach tang in the hall. A thin line creased his sweat-dotted forehead as he stared blankly at her.
“So, ta-da.” She could have crawled away and died of embarrassment.
Aiden shoved his fists into the shallow pockets of his pants. “What are you doing here?”
Her heart quavered beneath her ribs. “Thought I’d visit. Figure out face-to-face why it’s so difficult to meet up.” She rubbed the collar of her shirt between her thumb and forefinger. “Plus, you said I should come down sometime. We work the same shift. I mean, it’s not like it was a special trip or anything.” But it had been a special trip. With the passage of every floor, she’d nearly told Holly to stop the elevator and take her back up to her unit. This was Elodie’s foray into spontaneity, and Aiden was sucking all the air out of it.
“Who’s watching your unit? Is Gus or someone up there?” Aiden shifted, peering at the empty stretch of hallway behind her. “Don’t you think you should get back to your patients?”
Anxiety gnawed at Elodie’s back as Aiden glanced down the hall to either side, then continued to crane his neck to look behind her to where the corridor turned.
“Is everything okay?” she asked. “Did I do something to make you all weird? Well, weirder than normal, anyway.” Another awkward chuckle tripped past her lips.
“Yes. I mean, no.” Again, he studied the space behind her. “You didn’t do anything. Everything is fine.”
She whirled, seeing nothing but the empty hallway. “What are you looking at?”
“Nothing.” He swiped at the sweat beading against his forehead. “Thanks for coming down. You should go back to your unit. I’ll, uh, I’ll meet up with you later.”
“No, you won’t.” Elodie pulled her shoulders back and jutted her chin into the air. “That’s the whole reason I’m down here. You keep saying that we’ll get together in VR and then you don’t show, and I’m left all confused and annoyed. It’s stupid and I don’t like it.”
A droplet of sweat slid down Aiden’s brow. “Seriously, Elodie. You should leave. What if something happens in your unit?”
She clenched and unclenched her fists. “Nothing is going to happen.”
“Aubrey’s dead,” he spat.
His words smacked into her, and she took a step back. In one of her notes to Aiden, she’d told him why she’d been in the basement the day they’d met, and how she knew without a doubt that the file on the little girl, Patient Ninety-Two, hadn’t simply been misplaced. But she hadn’t thought, hadn’t considered, that Aubrey Masters was dead.
He unhitched his gaze from the empty hall and it fell to the floor. “I could have said that a million different ways.” His shoulders drooped. “That was shitty of me.”
Elodie’s fingers were numb. “How did she . . .” The final word wouldn’t leave her lips. She squeezed her eyes shut against the memory of Aubrey’s small, scared cries.
Had the girl been alone when it happened? Had she been crying for her mother?
“I’m not even supposed to know that much.” He remained slumped, only lifting his green eyes to meet hers. “What I do know is that your patients need you. You should be in the LTCU.”
“And you should stop trying to tell me what to do.” Her eyelids snapped open as she threw the words at him. “Someone in there knows what happened—” Elodie’s voice cracked and she sucked in a breath to keep from breaking. “Ask them. Find out!”
“Elodie—”
A boom thundered through the corridor. Elodie snapped her attention to the empty hallway behind her. Something crashed, unseen around the sharp turns. The MediCenter was filled with safeguards, and all employees took precautions, but lab accidents sometimes still occurred. Alarms sounded, and a crew would arrive within minutes for cleanup and to treat anyone injured in the blast.
But who’d be working with anything that volatile in the morgue?
Elodie stood in a sea of pure white, but the sterile lights and bleach-scented hallway couldn’t protect her from what was coming, couldn’t save her from the boots slapping against tile just around the corner.
Her limbs frosted, and each blink, each breath came in slow, underwater motion. Maintenance couldn’t be here this fast, and those did not sound like the shoes of a doctor echoing through the sterile chamber.
Closer. Closer.
Elodie remained fixed in the pregnant, panicked moment until Aiden’s quick movements caught her attention—she’d forgotten he was next to her.
“Eos,” she said, and the word rode on haggard gulps.
Aiden released his inhale, calm and slow. “I know.”
“We can make it back in
to your unit.” Elodie’s whisper came out a quivering, rushed jumble. “Holly!” she hissed. “Open the door.”
Holly appeared, cheerful and vibrant. “Hello and welcome to the End-of-Life Unit.” Her jovial voice loud and grating against Elodie’s need for sanctuary. “Only authorized citizens and MediCenter employees are allowed entry. Please scan your cuff.”
“Aiden, we need to get in!” Elodie’s throat burned as sobs threatened to break free.
“Holly, leave!” Aiden said, and Holly’s pleasant grin remained fixed as she nodded and blinked from sight. Elodie’s stomach hollowed, and her heart knocked against her ribs. “What are you doing?” The question was a screech of fear. “It’s Eos. They’ll—” Elodie struggled to pry the words from her throat. “They’ll kill us.”
“You should be more worried about the Key.” Aiden produced a clear plastic die from his pocket and rolled it on the floor beneath the scanner.
Elodie’s inhale stuck in her chest as she stared down at the die. “Will that help us?”
Footsteps hammered closer . . .
“Trust me, Elodie.” Aiden’s throat bobbed with a thick swallow. “Let’s go!” He darted down the side hall and disappeared around a corner.
Nerves exploded in Elodie’s legs and she sprinted to Aiden’s side, away from those echoing bootsteps, and pressed her back against the wall.
He’d asked her to trust him.
Boots thundered closer . . . closer.
She didn’t have a choice.
A woman’s voice called out, clipped and strong. “I can only divert Key attention for another five minutes.”
Eos had arrived, just around the corner, at the ELU door. Tears scraped Elodie’s eyes as she pressed herself against the wall in hopes that it would swallow her whole. These five minutes would be her last. “We’re going to die down here. They’ll set off a germ stack or—” A whispered sob escaped. “They’ll shoot us. We’ll end up in boxes in your unit.”
“None of that is going to happen.” Aiden peered around the corner before jerking back. “Eos won’t hurt us.”