“I don’t know what to do.”Elodie felt the words leave her mouth, but wasn’t quite sure what she’d said.Astrid informing her of her fate while in VR was fitting.They were together yet apart, anywhere and nowhere, doing everything and nothing.That had been Elodie’s life—putting one foot in front of the other on a predetermined path, warmly cocooned in the illusion of choice.
The silver boxes on Astrid’s toolbelt caught the sun as she bent her legs and rested her chin on her bare knees.“Can I ask you a question?”She paused.“You have to be real with your answer.”
Elodie bit the inside of her cheek.Isn’t that how all of this started?Her wanting,needingsomething real.She rubbed her hands up and down hergoosebump-fleckedarms and mentally shook herself.Maybe she and Aiden still had a chance.Astrid and her father had both stood before the Council while Astrid took back everything she’d said.That had to mean something.Maybe not to Council Leader Darby, but he wasn’t the only Council member.It had to mean something.
Astrid dabbed the back of her hand against her nose.“What was it like?”She glanced at the sandy concrete beneath her feet.“The kiss.”The words were whisper soft, as if she’d had to force them from herlips.
Elodie bristled.“Like we were magnets.”She hugged her knees against her chest, folding herself in half as feelings too big washed over her.“I couldn’t pull away.”Elodie’s cheeks were molten.“I didn’t want to.”
Astrid stared at her, wide eyed.“Did it feel...”She swallowed audibly.“Good?”
Elodie blinked.She had expected disgust, but she hadn’t been prepared for curiosity.Embarrassment dragged its hot fingers down herneck.
Being lost and found and lost again.Bare and whole.Everything andmore.
But that was too big, too much to lay at Astrid’sfeet.
“It was...”Elodie breathed in the crisp air.“The most amazing thing in the world.”
Astrid opened her mouth and closed it as if testing the breeze before she spoke.“Sometimes I get this feeling...”
The space around them rippled, the very fabric of this virtual reality shaken out like a rug.For a moment, Elodie thought it was the power of the memory.
Astrid surged to her feet.“It’s a hack.They’re trying to get into our locked VR space.”
Elodie stood.“A hack?But who—?”
The building behind them shivered before breaking apart into perfect pixilated squares and collapsing in a heap of flashing cubes.
Astrid stumbled away from the disintegrating landscape.“El, I’m exiting.Get someplace safe.I’ll findyou.”
Shadows stretched against the sand as the sun waned and a deep unsettling black poured into the sky like spilled ink.
In the real, Elodiewassomeplace safe, tucked into one of the many hidden rooms of the Eos warehouse she’d discovered after running to Aiden at dawn.She needed to get back to him now.Back to her body.Like she’d done a hundred times before, Elodie focused on exiting the program and bringing her hands, herrealhands, to the headset resting against herears.
There was nothing.Nothing but gusts of wind blowing sand through wild strands ofhair.
Elodie tried again to exit.Her fingers scraped down her cheeks.
“Aiden!”Her voice quaked as the gentle blue sky succumbed to the black and the ground went soft beneath her feet.“Get me out!”Again and again Elodie tried to focus her panicked thoughts on escaping, on her body, on being anywhere but the haunting black, the sand stinging her face.But nothing changed.Her fingers dug against her cheeks, tangled in herhair.
This was real.The pain and the panic.The wind and the dark.Tooreal.
“Elodie!I can’t get out!”Astrid was still next to her,rightnext to her.Arms and hands against hers.Skin searching for skin, for safety.
White light burned through the dark.Elodie winced, squeezing her eyes shut against the blinding spotlight glaring down atthem.
Astrid let out a gasp as a line ofgun-wieldingKey Corp soldiers emerged from the dark.“Run!”she shouted.
Elodie took off after her.Her feet no longer sank into the sand as the dark enveloped them and they sprinted further into nothingness.
From under his visor, the lead soldier’s voice boomed, “We have orders from the Council.Come willingly and we will not use force.”
The soldier was just a few feet away, as if Elodie and Astrid had been standing still instead of running for their lives.He pulled a scanner from his vest and waved a red beam over Elodie’s right side.“Sending Benavidez’s last known coordinatesnow.”
Astrid charged between Elodie and the soldier.“Your overlords let loose some code that has us stuck in here until what?”she asked.“We tell you where we really are?Then we’ll each come out to find guards waiting for us?The whole thing is a little dramatic, don’t you think?”Astrid nudged the tip of the soldier’s drawn rifle.“I mean, what’s the point in this?You want to prove you’re a big man?Break the rules and bring in a weapon?We’re in VR.Hello?This will hurt me about as much as falling off atwenty-storybuilding—which I’ve done.Didn’t make a lasting impact.”She held up her hands and did a quick spin.“So tell whoever the fuck is in charge that they need to let us out of this freak show.”She pressed her palm against the gun barrel and pushed.
Elodie’s chin quivered.“Astrid, don’t.”
