by Kyla Stone
Willow shrugged, taken aback by the outburst and not sure what to say. She shifted uncomfortably. “It’s not easy for any of us.”
Celeste lowered her leg. She hunched her narrow shoulders and gripped the counter with both hands like she wanted to rip it out of the wall. “I’m not like you. I don’t belong.”
Willow fought down a hot spark of anger, but she couldn’t keep the sarcasm out of her voice. “Please tell me more about how it sucks to be you.”
“Never mind.” Celeste wiped furiously at her eyes. A single tear slid down her flawless cheek. “My life wasn’t perfect, you know, whatever you think.”
Willow felt a pang of sympathy. She did her best to ignore it. Damn it. She couldn’t. She leaned against the cold bathroom wall and sighed. “Try me.”
Celeste glared at her for a minute beneath her long lashes, probably deciding whether to simper some stupid nonsense or actually say something real for a change. She picked up the razor, put it down again, then finally took a deep, shuddering breath. “Okay, fine. My mother was the CEO of a huge biotech company, before—before the Grand Voyager. It was a big deal, even in this day and age, you know? An African-American and a woman? She was a workaholic and a perfectionist, and she still believed they’d rip that title away from her the first chance they got.”
Celeste took a swig from the water bottle and wiped her mouth primly. “You’ll probably think this is crazy, but some of the wealthiest families are—were—using marriage to consolidate their power. My mom hired this match-maker, had me all set up to marry Jefferson Kellogg, the son of the BlueTech holoscreens founder. It would be this young-love, fairy-tale wedding. All pre-planned for maximum reach and media coverage, of course. The vloggers would eat it up. More importantly, it would fortify our family’s future, create a tech dynasty.”
Willow frowned, understanding dawning. “But aren’t you—”
“Gay? Yeah, I am.” Celeste pulled on her tight, forest-green suede pants and tugged on a pair of white silk socks. “But that didn’t fit into my mom’s plans.”
“Why didn’t you just say no?”
“Have you ever met my mother?” She glanced at Willow, as if remembering who she was talking to. “She would’ve cut me off. From my credit accounts, my share of the company, the inheritance. Everything.”
It would be hard for someone like Celeste to even consider such a possibility. Willow wouldn’t be poor if she had the choice. No one would. Worse, the pressure from a parent to be something you weren’t, to sacrifice an essential part of your identity for their own selfish gain…that would suck. No matter how much money you had.
Willow didn’t know what to say. Things were easier when everything was black and white, when the elites were rich bitches, not real people with real problems. She shoved her bangs out of her eyes. “At least now you can be whoever you want to be.”
Celeste turned back to the mirror. “Yeah,” she said slowly, “I guess I can.”
Willow pointed to Celeste’s boots, a pair of white designer stiletto heels. “I hope you weren’t planning on wearing those.”
Celeste huffed. “There’s no reason to be ugly.”
“No, but there are several very good reasons to be able to run.”
Thirty minutes later, Celeste had a practical but attractive pair of thick leather knee-high boots sans heels. They met up with Amelia in the makeup section of the department store.
Amelia held up an expensive-looking, curved glass bottle. “Perfume!”
“Hallelujah!” Celeste said.
“Try some, Willow.” Amelia held out the spritzer. “You’ll forget for half a second that we all smell like a pig sty.”
But Willow had stopped paying attention to them. The exterior window adjacent to the mirrored perfume counter was broken in the left corner. Safety glass kept most of it intact, but there were a few holes—bullet holes, her mind registered numbly.
A faint scream filtered through the window.
She raised her finger to her lips. “Shhh!”
Celeste and Amelia immediately fell silent. Willow dropped into a crouch, crept to the window, and looked out.
A shopping plaza was located across the massive parking lot. Dozens of bodies were piled in front of a sporting goods store. Five figures emerged from the darkened entrance of the building. They were dressed from head to toe in personal protection gear—yellow pressurized suits and helmets. Two of the figures carried a body between them and tossed it on the pile.
Willow sucked in her breath, fighting down revulsion mingled with fear. What the hell were they doing?
Another scream echoed through the air. Two more yellow-suited figures strode from the store, dragging a woman between them by her arms. Her blonde hair was short. She wore a long polka-dotted skirt and a ratty jean jacket with red patches. She struggled to stand, to wrench herself away from her captors. They tightened their hold and dragged her to her knees, turning her so she faced Willow. She looked up at her captors, her mouth open as if begging for her life.
The red patches and polka dots weren’t designs. They were blood. Blood leaked from the woman’s ears and trailed down her neck. Blood smeared her eye sockets and rimmed her mouth.
“She’s infected,” Amelia breathed beside her.
“Stay down,” she hissed.
“What are they doing?”
“I—I don’t know.”
One of the figures tossed something on the pile of bodies. It ignited in a whoosh of flame. Another one shook a can of paint and sprayed several red X’s encased in circles over the doors and exterior walls of the sporting goods store.
The woman screamed louder, writhing in an attempt to escape. A third figure held a syringe. He strode up to the woman and jammed the syringe into her neck. Within seconds, she slumped forward, her head hanging limp.
The two people who’d forced the woman to her knees picked up her body like a piece of trash and threw it on the pile of burning bodies.
Amelia gasped. Celeste covered her mouth with her hands. Willow continued to watch, numb and disbelieving, unable to look away.
Celeste moaned. “Why did they do that?”
“They’re clearing buildings,” Willow said. “Disinfecting.”
Amelia leaned back against the wall. She was breathing hard. “They didn’t have to kill her.”
She hated even thinking it, but it made a dark, twisted sort of sense. “In their minds, that woman could continue to spread the infection as long as she was alive. There was no hope for her anyway.”
“Maybe—but the way they’re doing it is…barbaric.”
Her stomach churned. Acid burned the back of her throat and she gagged. The acrid stench of charred and burning flesh filled her nostrils. Human flesh. Human bodies. They were real people, with families and lives and dreams and…her brain stopped.
“Do you think those are the Pyros?” Amelia asked.
Willow backed slowly away from the window. Did those people have flaming skull tattoos on their necks, too? She hoped not. She prayed to every deity under Heaven that they never ran into those people. “Whoever they are, we should stay very far away from them.”
8
Micah
“We should sleep here.” Micah gestured to the rows of designer sleep pods in the Dream Sleep store located on the second floor of the mall. “Too bad these things need electricity and a net connection to work.”
“You ever slept in one?” Gabriel asked as he cleared the large store, checking around and beneath each pod, the dead holo display ports, and behind the counters. This store had no external windows, the shadows dark and deep.
“Nah, but I always wanted to try the floating-in-outer-space feature.”
“Me too.”
Micah’s new boots squeaked on the tile floor. He opened the fanciest pod—a sleek, egg-shaped Dream 3000 model. “Never mind. They don’t even have mattresses.”
“It’s all in the haptics, I suppose.”
“I guess.
But I’d still take a real mattress any day.”
Gabriel grinned. “Me, too.”
Micah had worried it would be awkward between them when Gabriel suggested they pair up to clear the top floor of the mall. But they had slipped easily back into their old rapport. Micah still wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not.
He missed his brother like a hole inside his chest, like a phantom limb that still ached long after it had been severed. In times like this, when he suddenly felt close to the brother he hardly knew anymore, it made the ache pulse with fresh agony.
“Hey, look at this,” Gabriel called from across the store. He stooped behind the counter and held out an oblong-shaped object in his gloved hands. Micah couldn’t make it out in the dim light until he was closer.
He brightened, his face breaking into a smile. “No way. A violin.”
Gabriel clutched it almost reverently. It was old; the wood was dull with scuffs and dings, but all the strings were there. Nothing looked broken. “I found it beneath this old blanket. There’s a pillow, sleeping bag, and a few cans of beans.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t touch it. It could carry the virus.”
Gabriel shook his head. “Whoever left this stuff hasn’t been back in a couple of weeks. There’s dust, see?” He wiped his finger over the neck of the violin and showed Micah the print he’d left behind. “The bow is here, too.”
Micah thought of Amelia, the permanent indentations on her fingertips from her years of playing, how she still practiced when she thought no one was looking—her hands fingering imaginary strings, her chin cupping an invisible instrument. “Amelia will love it.”
Gabriel hesitated, then thrust the instrument toward him. “You should give it to her.”
“Why? You found it.”
“She wouldn’t want it from me.”
Micah just stared at him.
A pained expression crossed Gabriel’s face. “I don’t want this tainted for her in any way, you know? It’s the one thing she loves. It’ll be better if you do it.”
Micah took the violin, wrapped it in an extra sweater, and tucked it gently into his pack. “Thanks.”
Before he zipped his pack, he took out his copy of Jack London’s The Call of the Wild. He felt like the dog, Buck, thrust from the life he knew and hurled into a harsh, brutal world where danger lurked everywhere, every moment filled with peril. They were savages, all of them, who knew no law but the law of club and fang. Was that the world they lived in now, where morality was a handicap? Where the struggle to survive meant only the ruthless survived, the ones willing to kill before they were killed first?
“What’s that for?” Gabriel asked.
Micah smoothed the pages and placed it on top of the sleeping bag. He didn’t believe that. He wouldn’t. They were humans, not animals. “We took something. In case anyone comes back, we should leave something in return. Otherwise, it feels like stealing.”
“You and your books,” Gabriel said, his voice suddenly gruff. He cleared his throat. “This store is cleared. Let’s go check the next one.”
They moved carefully, always alert, clearing each store, checking each new section of clothing racks, shoe, purse, SmartFlex displays, and jewelry counters. In one department store, dozens of mannequins had been knocked down, their molded heads bashed in.
When they were finished, Jericho gestured to them from the first-floor atrium. In the center of the mall was a tall open area featuring a zero-grav zone play area for kids. Three stories of balconies were connected by slim escalators crisscrossing each other.
“We’re sleeping in the furniture store called Fieldwell’s,” he called up to them. “Enough sofas for everyone. I’ve already instructed everyone else, but if things go sideways, first rally point is Peachtree Suites, a smaller hotel located ten blocks behind the Westin Peachtree Plaza.”
Micah nodded. He remembered passing the glittering, cylindrical skyscraper. Every time they bunked down for the night, Jericho always gave them an emergency rendezvous point, just in case.
By the time they reached the furniture store, the sky had darkened. The drizzling rain had turned into a downpour, battering the roof above them with a steady roar. Outside, the wind howled.
Celeste sauntered in at the same time, her face contorting in disgust as she took in their surroundings. She smoothed her hair as she jutted her lower lip. “We’re staying here? The decor is so…common.”
Silas shot her a withering stare. “I apologize if the accommodations aren’t up to your standards. Would you rather have the presidential suite? How else may we serve you? Turn-down service? A chocolate on your pillow, m’lady?”
Celeste snorted. “Oh, go to hell.”
“I think we’re already there, princess,” Silas drawled, smirking.
Celeste sighed extravagantly and flopped onto the closest leather sofa, her arm over her face. “I just want one night in a real sleep pod. Is that too much to ask?”
Micah ignored their squabbling and moved further into the room. Fieldwell’s was an enormous, rectangular building with an airy, three-story ceiling. Clusters of fancy furniture formed sections with narrow marble pathways snaking between them. The entire back wall featured retrofit SmartHome features.
He picked up a digital brochure, somehow still working after all this time. It hadn’t even been four months, he realized with a jolt.
He turned the brochure over in his hands. The words ‘Imagine Yourself Home’ glittered across the front flap. There was a scanner to scan customers’ SmartFlexes so the giant holo ports on either side of the display table could project your own avatar—pulled from your own stored photos—maybe of you waking up and stretching to a refreshing sunrise over a glittering ocean, or of you lounging with smart, sophisticated friends, a cocktail in your hand, a beatific smile on your flawless face.
In newer buildings designed within the last few decades, every aspect—floors, walls, ceilings, appliances, entertainment systems—was carefully calibrated to the homeowner’s preference. Visual, auditory, and sensory entertainment in every room of the house, at your fingertips or voice command. The shades raised automatically when the user sat up in bed, the coffee already percolating, the food printer hidden discreetly within the fridge busy scrambling reconstituted eggs and spitting out perfectly browned toast.
The SmartHome ordered groceries before you needed it, automated its own maintenance, self-cleaned, scheduled transports for morning and evening pick-up and drop-off, and coordinated your outfits with the SmartCloset add-on.
What the SmartHome couldn’t do, the included service bot could, also customized to any preference—blonde or brunette, male or female, black or Asian or Latino. All of which so disturbed him, he threw the brochure on the floor like it were on fire.
Only the wealthy elites could afford any of this. The studio apartment Micah had shared with a friend before joining Gabriel on the Grand Voyager was dull and dingy, no matter how many times he’d scrubbed everything until his fingers were raw. The ceiling leaked. The power sputtered on and off, and in the summers the heat was overwhelming, the ancient, groaning air conditioner unable to keep up.
He wandered through the maze of furniture. The sofas boasted discreet fingerprint identifier pads, the posh cushions calibrated to individual comfort preferences—thick or thin, dense or feather-bed soft. He couldn’t help thinking of Goldilocks.
But this world of glitz and glamour was over now. The Hydra virus didn’t care how rich you were or who your parents were. It didn’t care whether you were barely scraping by, half-starved, or the owner of three private jets. It destroyed everything and everyone in its path.
Well, not everyone. They were still here. He felt the weight of the violin in his pack and smiled to himself. Someway, somehow, they would create the world anew. They would start with people, not things. And they would do a better job this time.
Micah found Amelia heating pouches of pasta over a small gas stove they’d found in their scavenging
a few days ago. She’d placed the stove on top of a cut-crystal coffee table worth more than a year’s wages on the Grand Voyager. It seemed fitting, somehow.
She tucked a short, ragged tendril of hair behind her ear as she looked up at him. Shadows smudged the fragile skin beneath her eyes. “Hey.”
“Are you feeling okay?”
She hesitated, as if debating whether to tell him the truth. She pressed her fingers over the bridge of her nose and winced. “Headache. I’m hoping it won’t turn into a migraine. I’d be pretty useless for a while.”
He swung the pack from his back and squatted next to her. He shoved his glasses up the bridge of his nose, clearing his throat nervously. “I can’t make it go away, but I do have this.”
She gasped when he pulled out the violin. She tugged her mask down and grinned at him in delight. “Where in the world did you get it?”
For half a second, he debated whether to tell her that he’d found it. The way she was looking at him, her tired eyes shining, her face lit up with pure, unadulterated joy—it did something to his insides.
His heart beat a little harder in his chest. He wanted her to keep looking at him. He could gaze at her forever.
But he couldn’t lie. And she was stronger than Gabriel gave her credit for. She didn’t need protecting, not like that. He bit the inside of his cheeks. “Gabriel found it and thought of you.”
Her smile dimmed, but only slightly. “He asked you to give it to me instead.”
He nodded.
She ran her hands along the delicate neck, the curved body, each individual string. She sighed and held it against her chest, her eyes closing in pleasure. “When I was sick, I thought I’d never get to play again. Thank you.”
“Thank Gabriel.”
She opened her eyes. “I will. But I can thank you if I want to.”
He flushed, his cheeks warming. “Will you play for us?”