The Key to Fear - Kristin Cast Page 0,37
to the curb.
Elodie chewed the inside of her cheek. That wasn’t fair. Astrid worked hard and built tech Elodie could hardly understand how to use, much less create. Plus, Gus had slacked off and not refilled Patient Ninety-Two’s sedation tube. But that wasn’t nearly as big of a mistake as losing the girl completely.
The Pearl turned down a narrow, sunflower-bordered road, their round yellow-rimmed faces stretched up toward the sun. Elodie envied the simplicity of the flowers. Grow, grow, grow. Bloom. Drink in the light and the early morning rain. Return to the earth. They possessed no curiosity, no want, no need to experience something greater than what was laid out before them.
“Think about it like this.” Astrid tucked her foot up underneath her and turned to better face Elodie. “What’s the alternative?” She tilted her pointed chin. “That there’s some big conspiracy going on that you know nothing about?” She snorted. “This is what happens when you read even a single page of a banned book. You make up all sorts of crazy shit in your mind instead of channeling that brain power toward productivity.”
No, Astrid definitely wasn’t reading anything unsanctioned.
Elodie twirled her finger into her scrub top. “You’re probably right.” She was beginning to feel a little silly. Gus had made a mistake, and so had the person who’d picked up Patient Ninety-Two from the Long-Term Care Unit. People weren’t bots. They couldn’t be expected to do everything flawlessly 100 percent of the time. When she arrived at work the next morning, Aubrey’s chart would be annotated and everything would be completely normal.
The Pearl turned into Elodie’s neighborhood and maneuvered down the main windy street that connected every cul-de-sac. Fir and big-leaf maple trees skirted the road, nearly hiding the one or two houses tucked back in each cul-de-sac. The original houses in the neighborhood had been built scrunched together with only a few feet and a sliver of yard separating one family from another. That design had died with most of the neighbors. Before Elodie was born, bots had come through and demolished the majority of houses throughout Zone Two and beyond. Now, where there had been four houses, one house remained, with an expansive front yard and backyard. Neither Elodie nor her friends had played outside much as children, but there was plenty of room if they’d made the decision to forego VR and meetup in the real.
“Now.” Astrid bounced in her seat, jerking Elodie from her thoughts. “I have to tell you all about my VR date with Roxy. She’s the chick from Madrid who I met at that lame worldwide tech ambassadors meeting.”
“The one with the piercings?” Elodie had a hard time keeping track of all the adoring girlfriends who were as in love with the Fujimoto name as they were with Astrid.
Astrid shook her head. “That’s Nadia. Roxy is the one whose hair is always a different color.”
The Pearl stopped in front of Elodie’s house, but she settled into the seat and hugged her backpack like it was a teddy bear and she was at a sleepover. Astrid always had the best VR meetups. Skydiving, creeking, cave diving. It was always something daring and fresh. Elodie didn’t have the guts to try any of those things. What if she splatted against the ground or got stuck in an underwater cave and drowned? Astrid had told her numerous times that dying in virtual reality didn’t mean you’d die in the real, since one was actually happening while the other existed in a computer world, but Elodie didn’t want to try . The word reality was in the name, and from what little she’d experienced of the VR update, it was as real as real life.
“You have to tell me everything,” Elodie squealed. “But first, can we keep driving? I can’t see her—yet—but I can feel Gwen staring at us.”
Astrid pulled her holopad out from the storage pouch nestled inside the armrest. Her fingers danced over the screen as Elodie’s gaze swept along the house and its ordinary mud-brown siding, brick steps, and flat green lawn. Soon she’d move into a house with Rhett. Into a house just as ordinary as this one.
The front door swung open and Gwen stepped onto the porch. Her long hair was swept up in a tight coiffure that didn’t budge as she floated down the steps, her fingers dusting the air with each wave.
“Elodie, dear.” Her practiced cheeriness passed through the window muffled and distorted.
Elodie’s palms went clammy.
Astrid rolled