The Pearl maneuvered off the highway and onto the nearly emptyfour-lanestreet that led to Elodie’s neighborhood.
“No,” said Elodie.“Do you think that your dad could use his connections at the MediCenter to get me an update on a patient?”
Astrid stilled in the way she did whenever she felt Elodie about do something she wouldn’t agree with.“Why don’t you ask for an update yourself?”Astrid said, her voice stony and low.
“I tried, but Holly still showed this patient as being in my unit.”Elodie adjusted the hair tie around her wrist.“She’d just been transferred, so it might not have updatedyet.”
“Problem solved.”Astrid clapped.“I’m sure Holly will have all the info when you go in tomorrow.”
Elodie pressed her chin against her backpack.“Yeah, but there was something weird about the whole thing.”
“Weirder than the guy you met in the basement?”Astrid waggled her sharp brows.
“Astrid, I’m serious.The transfer team came a lot faster than usual, and they didn’t wait for me to sign off.And when I called their unit director, she said they’d never received the transfer order.”
Astrid crossed and uncrossed her slender legs.“Then who came and gother?”
Elodie threw up her hands and glanced out the window, distracted by the holographic blue and orange MAX logo floating in front of the transit center like ahuman-sizedbutton.
Astrid’s brows pinched and she shook her head as if brushing away a thought.“I’m sure someone on the transfer team made a mistake and will come find you in the morning and have you sign off.No biggie.”
The MAX red line pulled into the station and the platform was flooded in hazy purple orbs as the train doors opened and citizens poured into the suburbs of Westfall’s Zone Two.
Elodie pressed her back into the seat.“It’s against protocol to transfer a patient without a signoff.”
“Then that person will totally pay for their mistake.”Astrid resumed twirling the ends of her signature pony.“It doesn’t seem like as big of a deal as you’re making it.You’re not the one who’s going to get reprimanded.”
Elodie let out a breath as she studied the lines of white stitching on the upholstered ceiling.Astrid didn’t get it.People in the MediCenter didn’t make those kinds of mistakes.There were protocols in place to make sure nothing fell through the cracks, certainly not entire patients.They were dealing with people’s lives, not just making sure vehicles found their passengers without requiring them to walk to thecurb.
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, Gushadslacked off and not refilled PatientNinety-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-borderedroad, their roundyellow-rimmedfaces 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 beforethem.
“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 PatientNinety-Twofrom theLong-TermCare 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 everycul-de-sac.Fir andbig-leafmaple trees skirted the road, nearly hiding the one or two houses tucked back in eachcul-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 thereal.
“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 wordrealitywas in the name, and from what little she’d experienced of the VR update, it was as real as reallife.
“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 ordinarymud-brownsiding, brick steps, and flat green lawn.Soon she’d move into a house with Rhett.Into a house just as ordinary as thisone.
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 eachwave.
“Elodie, dear.”Her practiced cheeriness passed through the window muffled and distorted.
Elodie’s palms went clammy.
