I
“Mommy?” The little girl closed her small, shaking hand around pale fingers stretched across the hospital bed. Fingers of the woman Elodie Benavidez had failed to save.
Elodie’s chest tightened, her breath thick and hot.
“Mommy!” The little girl tugged, but her mother gave no response. Her hollow stare remained fixed on the ceiling.
Elodie’s paper apron crunched as she forced her legs to carry her through the open door and into the cramped exam room. “Come with me, sweetheart,” she said, her voice muffled by a thin mask. The warmth of the girl’s fever seeped through Elodie’s gloves as she grabbed the little girl’s wrist and pulled her away from the bedside.
“No!” the girl screamed. Her tiny, shrill voice cracked the stillness of the room. “My mommy’s sick!” She yanked her arm free and threw herself against the gurney, wrapping her petite body around her mother’s dangling, motionless arm. “She’s sick,” she sobbed, burying her red cheeks against the corpse’s naked shoulder. “Help her!”
“Sweetie, she’s gone.” Elodie tried to push back her own despair, but it clung to her voice like clay. She swallowed hard. “They all are.”
“Mom—” The girl seemed to choke on the realization. “Dead?” Her breaths came in shallow, panicked gulps. “Like Daddy?”
Elodie had read the woman’s chart. Her husband had been the first in their home to be infected. He’d died three days later. The virus had burned through him, used him up until nothing remained. Nothing but a flesh-covered sack of liquid jelly.
Elodie squatted, her eyes awash in unshed tears as she offered a delicate nod. “We have to go.” The little girl winced when Elodie extended her hand. “Please, come with me.”
The child shook her head, her blond hair matting against her sweat-stained cheeks and forehead. “She told me she wouldn’t leave me.” Sobs choked the girl’s words, and they came out small and clipped. “She’ll wake up.” She rubbed the heels of her hands against her eyes. “Mommy doesn’t lie. You’ll see.”
“Oh . . .” Elodie’s voice came out a whisper as she wailed on the inside. She’d been assigned Long Term Care duty, and this was part of it. She stiffened, quieting her grief as she rose to her feet and smoothed out her crinkled apron.
The little girl clamped her eyes shut and bowed her head in one final plea. “Mommy, wake up.” Her sweat-dampened hair slipped off her shoulders in tangled clumps. “Please, wake up.”
Readying herself, Elodie let out a hot breath against her mask before clamping her hands onto the girl’s shoulders and jerking, forcing her to release her mother’s arm. The little girl bucked and kicked, but Elodie’s grip only tightened. “You can’t stay here,” she grunted. “We have to get you into quarantine.”
Elodie wanted to cry, I’m sorry! I wish I could fix it! I wish I could do something! but knew it would be useless. The girl was already infected. Elodie felt it in the heat of her skin and saw it in the broken capillaries inking thin red lines across the apples of her cheeks. In a few days, this girl would end up like her parents.
Elodie dragged her from the room, her little arms flailing for something to grab onto. “Mommy, wake up! Mommy!” She clawed at the metal doorframe, gripping it as if her strength could somehow bring back her mother.
Elodie yanked, and the little girl’s grip broke free.
Arms outstretched, she screamed for her mother.
“Simulation complete.” A smooth, calm voice interrupted the screaming of the girl, the heat of her flesh, her mother’s vacant, endless stare, the hospital and its tang of death. The girl froze and became weightless in Elodie’s grip, became colored air. “Simulation terminated,” the disembodied voice announced as the scene in front of her blurred briefly before disappearing to reveal the real-life space around her.
Elodie had tucked her petal-pink bed cover meticulously under the mattress the same way as every morning per her mother’s instruction. Her rock collection was lined up on her windowsill. The early morning sun’s rays shone through the measured two-inch space between each stone, casting a gap-toothed shadow against the uncluttered surface of her desk. Everything in her room was perfect. Yet Elodie felt hollow, carved out, her insides replaced with a wriggling ball of nerves.
She pushed against the armrests of the desk chair she’d rolled to the center of her room before beginning the simulation, and tried to stand, but her legs melted under her and she collapsed to her knees, hands trembling as she tore free from her updated headset and visor.
A holographic image appeared near the foot of her bed, carrying the same three-dimensional weight, three-dimensional realness, as the little girl in the simulation. Elodie stared down, half expecting the small heel of the hologram’s pointed shoes to leave a divot in the plush carpeting. Elodie blinked up at the woman, whose short hair barely dusted her sharp chin as she glanced down at Elodie and claimed that cool voice. “Simulations such as these are necessary to illustrate the flaws in the medical systems of the past. The virus, Cerberus, originated in a hospital, and spread quickly to those in uninfected facilities because of inadequate to nonexistent containment protocols. Would you like to further review the points learned within the lesson fifteen simulation?” With her hands gently clasped in front of the white pencil skirt she always wore, the hologram blinked down expectantly.
A sob stuck in the back of Elodie’s throat.
“Elodie, do you wish to review this lesson or proceed to the practice exam?” With a warm smile she tucked her hair behind her ear and cocked her head slightly. Although her hair was the same deep brown as Elodie’s and her skin the same rich tan, the hologram (newly nicknamed Holly by the citizens of Westfall) looked empty. At least she did to Elodie. Everyone else had marveled at how lifelike she appeared. This spokesperson for the Key Corp had always been smart, but she had also always been a voice—only a voice. Now, with her most recent update, she was a person. A person with a name. The face of the Key Corp and, in the same moment, absolutely no one, nothing but lights that were beamed from projectors the size of pinheads that had been planted throughout almost every home, building, street, and bridge throughout Westfall.
Elodie swallowed past the lump in her throat and brushed her damp hair back as she stood. She was glad she’d taken a shower before beginning her lesson, as the line of nervous sweat dampening her brow was indistinguishable from her wet hair. “I’m done for today. I don’t want to be late.”
Holly nodded. “I’ve bookmarked your place, so we can pick back up whenever you’re ready. Don’t forget, your final exam for this quarter is in four weeks.”
“I know. Thanks, Holly.”
Holly’s Key Corp–red blouse shimmered as she waved politely. “See you at the MediCenter, Elodie,” she said. Her image blurred and then vanished as quickly and soundlessly as she’d appeared.