was no point in thinking about the past. She wasn’t there. She was here. She was now. “The whole time I was up there I was thinking about what you would have said and what I as a citizen would have wanted to hear from you, a Key representative. No one helped me. My assistant pulled me out of my meeting, gave me bullet points, and next thing I knew there was a camera in my face.”
Cath patted her desk. “Sit. Relax.” She smoothed out the crisp sleeves of her blouse. “You did fine.”
Blair slid into one of the uncomfortable chairs facing Cath’s desk. “Just fine? I suppose my inflection was a little off … Like I said, I didn’t have time to prepare.”
A soft grin creased the corners of Cath’s warm brown eyes. “You delivered the message well. It was clear and concise.”
A compliment, but not exactly what Blair was looking for. She forced her spine straight even though every ounce of her deflated. “The whole point was to try and make the citizens feel like we’re on the same team. Like they can trust the Key and, by extension, they can trust me.”
Cath gently folded her slender arms across her desk. “I thought the point was to let citizens know that the city is safe, and that they don’t have to worry about infection or about Eos.”
“Well, yeah. I mean, yes, of course. That was definitely the main point. That goes without saying.”
Black.
Cath cocked her head. “You were told that the city is safe now, weren’t you?”
Did Cath not know for sure? Or was this a test? What if Cath was fishing? What if the powers that be had given Cath information they hadn’t given Blair? Or what if they had told Blair something they hadn’t told Cath? Maybe the corporation was trying to pit them against one another since a new position was opening up soon. Maybe they wanted to see if Blair was able to keep from spilling Key secrets to a person as close to her as Cath.
Well, Blair had never failed a test before, and she wasn’t about to start now.
With deliberate absentmindedness, Blair brushed back a few curls that had freed themselves in front of her eyes. “I hear Holbrook is being put down. That’ll mean his MediCenter Director title will be up for grabs.”
Cath’s gaze fell to her hands. “I can’t imagine what he’s going through. Having the date of your death set, each second ticking by, bringing you closer to the end.” She shook her head. “His heart has been bad for a while, but the whole thing is … sad.” Her eyes glistened when she finally looked up.
Cath cared so much. Blair needed to try to care more too. It might make people warm up to her, and it would be easier to do her job if her employees’ loyalty rested on the fact that they truly liked her.
Blair slumped her shoulders slightly, a mirror image of Cath’s sadness. “Mrs. Holbrook is probably broken up about it.”
“I’ve spoken with her. She understands that it’s time, but that doesn’t make it any easier. To survive the virus just to be put down fifty years later …” Cath plucked at the air with her fingers as her thoughts swallowed her.
Blair studied the ragged edges of her nails. She should contact the old bag’s wife; she was on the MediCenter board, and if Blair had any hope of being nominated for Director Holbrook’s job after they finally put him down, she needed to make nice with whomever she could.
Message to Maxine. Blair thought, blinking long and slow. When her lids lifted, the transparent gray messaging box appeared, only slightly blurring the vision in her left eye. Find Holbrook’s address and send his wife whatever I’m expected to send to a person whose husband is on the bullet train toward death. The bold text appeared as quickly as she thought it, and sent just as fast.
“Blair, you should come too.”
“Sorry, I can’t.” She’d missed what Cath had been saying, but she knew without hearing it that she didn’t want to attend. She loved Cath, but she didn’t particularly like spending time with her. Cath was always doing things that bordered on strange. Okay, to be honest, they were frickin’ weird. Canoeing and running and hiking all out in the real world like some kind of Zone Six dip who couldn’t afford a new VR kit. It was gross.
Cath frowned. “He’s the director of the