Astrid cocked her head. “You think one of those soldiers is Rhett?”
Elodie squinted at the image, but it was no use. With their shiny Key Corp–red Hazmat suits and black weapons, the soldiers resembled a swarm of ladybugs. “I hope not. I don’t want him anywhere near that kind of stuff.”
“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.