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“Good.” Eros nods.
“You can take my Gorsca,” I offer.
“Wait.” Nico raises his chin from his tablet. “Atlas has just issued a decree. Everyone needs to stay in place or go immediately to their home, if they aren’t home already. Only emergency personnel are to be out.”
“Decrees don’t apply to me. I’ll get my cloaking solo from Zaffiro,” Eros says.
“Eros, I know you want to find your brother, but—” Annabelle cocks her head.
Holter cuts her off. “Belle is right. Knowing you, you could get into the flooded dome. But it’s too dangerous.”
“You know, never mind. I have something else that might be better. A small personal cloaking device.”
“What?” I turn to him. “How can that even exist?”
“Yeah, well, it does.” Eros takes long strides down the hallway where Annabelle has her office. There are several mostly empty rooms. Eros ducks into one and rummages through a pile of dirty laundry, pulling out a small, green-painted tin with no lock. He opens it, takes out five small discs, then fastens them around his body and clicks a button. “Exists.” He vanishes. Other than a shimmer in the air, there’s nothing there.
“Right, but that doesn’t mean you should use it. Please, Eros. I’m sure Atlas won’t leave the order on for long.” She turns to me. “Right?”
“It won’t last,” I confirm.
“Please, getting hurt yourself isn’t going to help your family,” Annabelle says to the shimmering spot.
Eros reappears. He pulls the discs off his body. “Right, right? Okay, Sunshine. I’m being reactive. I’m not going to do anything rash.”
“Let’s get cleaned up and then see what Tristan Bellucci was willing to risk his life for.” I nod at the door, where Nico and Holter are standing. We move together down the long corridor to the living room.
Eros drops to the sofa and runs a hand down his face. “My brother should have known better. Why did he try to escape through the docking dome? It doesn’t make any sense.”
“Maybe he was going after someone?” Annabelle says.
“Maybe,” Eros whispers.
Nico gets out a second tablet, and Holter studies what looks like an older block. “First report is calling it an accident. They’re spurting nonsense about Atlas’s trident hitting a frequency high enough to shatter the glass. Which is pure nonsense.”
“The sharks above the dome, the ones that are trained to make the shadows, they were swimming in a different pattern. They normally swim in circles during these things, at least from what I can remember from past years. But there was no pattern right before the whole thing happened.” Eros splays his legs open, and Annabelle’s small robe flops to the side. Annabelle sits down next to him and pushes his legs shut.
“Whoa, I hadn’t noticed that, but then I had just finished my speech when you made your call down to the floor. The chamber and the whole mess about the trident had me worked up.”
“This list is down to seven missing. Two dead.” Nico says. “Tristan Bellucci and a parking valet from Seolfor are confirmed dead. Your brother is on the list of still missing. But a male from Stele is off it. They found him alive, pinned beneath a solo.”
Annabelle smiles at Eros. “There’s hope.”
“I should get dressed. I might take another shower.” Eros squeezes her hand and leaves the room.
“That’s a good idea.” Annabelle smiles. “Do you want me to help?”
“Yes but no.” Eros shakes his head and quietly leaves the room.
Holter wanders to the other side of the room. Pots clatter, and the refrigerator opens and slams shut. He drops a large wooden cutting board on the counter and pulls out a knife... I sit next to Nico and lean over his shoulder. His brow furrows, and he scowls at me. “What? I don’t have my block. It’s locked up in the lock boxes in the administrative building?—”
Nico raises his hand. “That’s motive... information. People kill for less all the time.”
“Fuck.” I nod. “You’re right. I don’t have anything tidal-wave-causing on my block. But others? Others...”
“Sure as hell do,” Nico finishes.
I take my bag with Tristan Bellucci’s things over to the table and open it. It looks like a regular human bag, but when it’s closed, the flap seals, making it watertight. My notes from my speech are there. Everything is analog in the chambers. Most don’t bring anything in. The fact that the Vitrom had so much is surprising. There are two books, one of which is printed in a language I don’t recognize. The other is a journal full of handwritten code. Numbers, some letters, a few symbols.
