Astrid twisted the length of her ponytail, only adding more tangles to the nest. “It was a germ stack. The shield is on in case it’s airborne.”
The same hard lump Elodie had felt earlier that morning returned to the back of her throat. “Where—” She cleared her throat in an attempt to break through the fear tightening her airway. “Where is it?”
Astrid’s lips firmed into a thin line. “Tilikum Crossing.”
Elodie pressed her back against the cold seat. “That’s a major MAX stop. Everyone traveling across the river switches trains there.”
Astrid’s eyes were wide and frantic. “It went off right before the train doors closed. Whatever was in the stack . . . it’s trapped in there with all of those people.”
Elodie stiffened. These kinds of things didn’t happen in Westfall. These kinds of things happened in other cities. Far away cities. Cities that weren’t filled with kind, rule-abiding citizens.
She chewed her bottom lip. She didn’t need to ask who’d set it off. She already knew the answer.
Astrid’s dark gaze fell and she let out a shaky breath. “It was Eos.” Again, she mussed her hair. “Two seconds and I’ll have the feed to you.”
Silence stuffed Elodie’s ears as she stared through Astrid at Holly standing in the middle of the train with her perfect smile, blinking through a test that was not routine after all.
Do something! she wanted to scream at the holographic woman who was everywhere and nowhere—the face and voice of the company that had saved their species from extinction. The Key Corp had set up rules to keep its citizens safe, but Elodie began to feel that protective shell crack. She shuddered at the thought of what could come in.
The MAX slowed to a stop. When Holly instructed all passengers to disembark, Elodie leapt out of her seat and darted through the open doors, the image of Astrid projected ahead, as though she raced backward through the crowd. With their Violet Shields engaged, the other riders purposefully hurried to their destinations. Were they really supposed to just go on? Everyone acting like nothing was happening when just a few miles away, living, breathing human beings were already marked as dead? Those citizens would never see their families again. They’d never see anyone again. The Key would take them into quarantine where they’d be put into a medically induced coma while bots monitored them until they inevitably died of whatever disease was packed into the germ stack. If they were lucky, the Key would put them out of their misery. Either way, no one ever survived Eos.
“Just sent it your way. Pull it up. It’s wild.” Astrid leaned back, cradling her head, her fear quickly sliding away, lacing itself with the glassy-eyed amusement of a spectator.
Elodie paused, hesitated. She didn’t want to watch the feed. It wasn’t going to be wild. It was going to be heartbreaking, nauseating, sad. She exited the MAX stop and walked with purpose down Third Avenue.
Astrid waved her hands in front of her face, her image drifting through other pedestrians also learning about Tilikum Crossing on their own private screens and text messages. “El? Helllloooo? Where arrrrrre youuuuu?”
“What? I’m right here. Obviously. You can see me.” Elodie forced one foot in front of the other, forced herself to match everyone else’s pace.
“Physically, sure, but mentally.” Astrid tapped her temple. “Light years away.”
“Can’t I take a few seconds to think about things?” An escaped clump of damp hair slapped against Elodie’s cheek, and she tucked it back under her beanie. “Serious stuff is happening right now, and I need a minute.”
“You can take as long as you want, as long as you aren’t thinking about Vee again.”
“Vi,” Elodie corrected automatically.
“I knew it!” Astrid clapped. “I knew you were still reading those books. Getting lost and daydreaming about those ridiculous stories. All books like that do is cause problems. And they’re banned, Elodie. They’ll get you into so much trouble. You have to stop.” Her ponytail swished from side to side to punctuate her point. “I mean, next you’re going to tell me you believe in New Dawn.”
Elodie quickened her pace. Her gaze darted suspiciously at the passersby, monitoring every little reaction for fear they’d somehow heard Astrid’s side of their private conversation, though she knew it was only in her field of vision, pumped into her eardrum via implant. “I was not daydreaming. Plus, I don’t do that anymore. I turned all of those”—she checked her surroundings before whispering—
“illegal books over to the Key’s librarian myself.” It wasn’t exactly a lie since she planned on doing just that as soon as she finished the entire series. “So there’s no reason to talk about it again.” Her brow furrowed. “And I would never say that I believe in New Dawn.”
Astrid smoothed a finger over her perfectly plucked eyebrow. “Well, they’re both made-up stories.”
“But one is a book,” Elodie whispered. “It’s art, Astrid. And the other is a lie Eos created to drum up recruits. Not the same at all.” She shook her head and Astrid’s image moved in unison with the motion. “Play the feed,” Elodie commanded her vidlink before Astrid had a chance to comment.
A gray rectangle appeared above Astrid’s image. The shape bisected the translucent panel covering the left side of Elodie’s vision and created two separate panels—the lower was Astrid, and the upper was the live feed of Tilikum Crossing.
The first thing Elodie noticed was all the people lined up, each on their backs with their arms in an X across their chests. Hazmat-clad soldiers pointed guns at each person while trash can–sized bots sped around the bridge spraying every surface with liquid.
Her breath hitched in her chest and her legs ceased moving. This time, she couldn’t force herself forward. She couldn’t make her body blend in with the others who moved around her, swerving so as not to bump into her, not to touch her, everyone a little more cautious, a little more anxious, as the morning news spread. Maybe they could do all these things at once, their bodies continuing through the world on autopilot while their minds attended to more important matters, but Elodie couldn’t do it all. She felt too much.
The drone transmitting the live feed didn’t supply audio and was too high above the scene for Elodie to tell whether or not the eyes of the men and women lying on the bridge were closed out of fear, obedience, or death.
Elodie’s fingers tingled. “Are they dead?” she finally heard herself ask.
Astrid’s ponytail slid from her shoulder as she shrugged dismissively. “If they aren’t now, they will be soon.”
Elodie wanted to run until Westfall was nothing but a distant haze, but she would only be able to go so far. The Key had locked down the city at the threshold of Zone Seven. And for good reason.