Key to Fear Read online

  “You were.” Elodie meant to sound more excited, but the words spilled out flat and glum.

  “Damn fucking right, I was!” He slapped his chest so hard Elodie winced. “And they’re going to have a team out there filming to show the big guys at Key Corp. Key News might even be out there too.” He sucked his teeth and rocked back onto his heels. “Your man could get pretty famous off this.”

  Elodie’s feet stopped swinging. “Off killing?”

  “My favorite thing to do.” He winked. “Now, get over here and let me show you how to be a lean, mean, monster-killing machine.”

  Elodie slid off the stool, but her feet stayed glued to the pavement.

  “I put in a request for unlimited ammo to go along with the Glock. It’s lighter. Way easier to handle. We can stay here until you hit the target.”

  She crept forward, twisting the plastic-banded earmuffs between her clammy hands.

  “El, can you imagine if we were out in Zone Seven together? Lighting shit up and wreaking havoc?” Rhett’s eyes glazed for a moment before he blinked himself back to the present. “Controlled havoc, of course. Even someone as high up the chain as I am has his orders. Too bad, though. My team and I would destroy some shit real nice if I was in complete control.”

  Elodie was tired of listening. Tired of guns and death and destruction and who this brick of a man kept revealing himself to be.

  “There’s the bot now.” Rhett rubbed his palms together, pausing as Elodie extended a trembling hand and placed the earmuffs on the table. “You don’t have to be scared.”

  “I’m not scared.” She picked at the edges of her short fingernails. “It’s just that my career, everything I’ve worked for and believe in, is about protecting and maintaining life. Guns serve no purpose but to end it.” She dragged her tongue across dry lips. “I don’t like them.”

  “Gah, El, you’re being such a girl about the whole thing.”

  There it was again. Her gender used as a way to patronize. Disliking guns had nothing to do with being a woman and everything to do with what she stood for and how she felt. Why couldn’t he see that?

  She stiffened. “It really doesn’t have anything to do with—”

  “You know, we had that talk this morning and I realized that I was being kind of stuck in my ways, so I come surprise you at your house, but you weren’t happy I was there, and then I bring you out here—a place that civilians aren’t even allowed—and you’re totally unappreciative. I don’t know what to do with you, Elodie.”

  She hugged her arms around her middle. All of that was true. She hadn’t realized she was being ungrateful, but now that he’d said it . . .

  Tears pricked her eyes. “I’m sorry. I’m not trying to be difficult.”

  Her relationship would be easier if she would stop telling Rhett she wanted something and then hate it when he delivered.

  “El, hey, don’t be like that. I don’t want you to cry.” Rhett scratched the back of his head. “How about this? I’ll use your gun, finish up all the ammo the bot brought, then I’ll take you back home. You can clean yourself up and later tonight we can meet up in VR like we usually do.”

  She brushed away a tear and nodded.

  Rhett hooked his thumb through his belt loop. “Yeah, maybe we could go to ancient Rome and dress up in those bedsheets you like to nerd out in.”

  “Togas.” She chuckled.

  “Whatever.” Bullets tinkled like bells as Rhett arranged the boxes of ammo on the table. “It’s not my favorite time period, but you got a kick out of it last time we went.”

  It wasn’t anyone’s favorite time period. Most citizens hung out in futuristic VR realms, but Elodie was a sucker for the past. It also didn’t hurt that the historic realms were sparsely populated.

  “What about Paris?” She tingled with the thought.

  He shrugged. “Whatever my girl wants, she gets.”

  A small, muffled part of her told her that was far from the truth, but she stuffed the voice back into the trenches of her mind.

  “It’s the city of love,” she said with a sigh. “Or it was at one point.”

  Rhett lined up his shot, relaxed, and then lined it up again. “What is that supposed to mean?”

  “It’s romantic.” Elodie traced the stitching along her collar. “Couples used to go there and climb the stairs of the Eiffel Tower or watch it twinkling at night. They’d even kiss,” she whispered. “I’m pretty sure that’s where that term French kissing came from.”

  “See, that kind of stuff is what was wrong with people from the past.” Rhett adjusted the earmuffs around his thick neck. “They were all over each other, touching and hugging, smashed together traveling to work and wherever else. And since that apparently wasn’t bad enough, they had to rub their disgusting, wet mouth holes all over each other too. They were out of control and practically begging to be wiped out.” He slid Elodie’s earmuffs closer to her.

  Elodie pressed the squishy muffs against her ears and crossed back over the yellow line, flinching at the first round of gun blasts.

  She wasn’t asking to kiss. She didn’t understand the need any more than Rhett and was fully aware of the risks involved. Mixing her saliva with Rhett’s could very well spawn another pandemic and wipe out Westfall. All Elodie wanted was a nice, romantic adventure that would assure their arrival to romancia-landia, and Paris seemed like a great place to start.

  “Survive that, you monster fuckers!” Rhett roared over the cracks of gunfire.

  Elodie grimaced.

  Maybe Rhett wasn’t built for romance.

  XX

  Sparkman swung her legs over the edge of the bed. Her boots hit the ground before her alarm had a chance to sound. She fastened the belt yawning open like the mouth of a single-toothed snake above her hips before pressing her fists together, each knuckle cracking. Her strawberry-blond braid brushed her shoulder blades as she stretched her neck, then her arms, and then her legs.

  She always slept dressed. Ready to go. Ready for anything.

  Her alarm finally caught up to her and blared through the one-room apartment, reverberating off the barren beige walls and the thin glass of the twin windows stretched against the far wall like eyes. She wasn’t sure why she even set the alarm anymore.

  The old-fashioned coffee pot gurgled to life, hissing and popping as the first drops hit the heated glass. Except for one space, Sparkman’s place was low tech. No bots, no holoscreens or holopads, and, better yet, no Holly. All day Sparkman worked with computers, the MediCenter’s Holly assessing and offering advice. Holly was a babysitter, Normandy’s spy, and the old kook took pleasure in the fact that Sparkman knew it. All day Sparkman yearned for the quiet of her modest home and the peace that zipped up around her like a sleeping bag.

  Sparkman fastened the blackout drapes shut. They were her only furnishings, if she was desperate enough to call them that, which she hadn’t found in an alley or abandoned building.

  She opened the door to the closet, or what should have been the closet, and leaned forward, resting her broad chin against the chinstrap worn smooth from repeated use. Orange light, the same orange of the rising sun, burst across her retina.

  Three beeps sounded.

  She was in.

  Four holoscreens activated in succession, lighting the inside of the dark closet. Sparkman slid her only chair across the cracked linoleum floor and settled into it as four pixelated shadows each found their seats and did the same.

  She twined her fingers and rested her hands against her lap before announcing herself to the group. “Sparkman, here.”

  “And Whiskey.” The voice came from the first screen.

  “Delta.” From the second.

  “Zulu.” The third.

  And finally, the fourth, “Echo.”

  The board members had each called out their sign.
Their voices had been altered, with a robotic tinge, a kind of hollowness only perceptible to those trained to hear it. Only top-ranking Eos members knew each other’s identities, as well as the identities of everyone involved within their sect of the organization. And Sparkman wasn’t at the top.

  “Sparky!” The first holoscreen flashed a little brighter as Whiskey spoke. “Tired of working with good ol’ Normandy?” There was a drawl to Whiskey’s voice. A kind of lilt Sparkman couldn’t quite place through the filter. “We could sure use you here in my department.”

  For years Whiskey had tried to lure Sparkman away from Normandy, but she had to see this assignment through, for the good of Westfall’s citizens or not. Normandy experimented on people. On children.

  “He’s looking for another one,” Sparkman began without acknowledging Whiskey. “A child. Younger this time.”

  Whiskey’s blurred squares bounced with a presumed nod. “Jumpin’ right in, are we? Gotta respect a woman who gets down to business.”

  “Another child?” Echo’s voice was whisper-soft. And when she spoke, everyone listened.

  Sparkman’s fingers clenched. “Yes, ma’am. Aubrey Masters, Patient Ninety-Two, passed yesterday afternoon.” Only at the MediCenter did Sparkman call the men, women, and children strictly by their assigned numbers. In her home and in front of the faceless board members of Eos who she trusted with her life, the ninety-two souls weren’t numbers. They were human beings.

  “There is nothing we can do.” Echo’s screen lightened as she spoke. “It’s terrible, but we mustn’t intervene. We must allow Normandy to choose another.”

  Delta’s screen flashed as she cleared her throat. “Echo’s right,” she said, clipped and clear. “We shut Normandy down now and they’ll have someone in his place in a matter of days. The doctor might think he’s irreplaceable, but I’ve seen many young people readying themselves to take over the Genetic Technology divisions. In a few years, Normandy will be obsolete.”

  But a few years wasn’t now, and now was all Sparkman had. She knew Eos had a plan. A grand, all-consuming plan to right many of the Key’s wrongs, but how long would that take? How many children would she have to watch die?

  Sparkman stiffened. “There’s more. Aubrey was . . .” she paused, unsure of how to describe the remarkable little girl. “Different.” Sparkman set her jaw, displeased with the vagueness of the word, but unsure of how to elaborate.

  Echo’s pixelated form shifted. “Different how?”

  Sparkman had asked herself the same question. She pressed her fists together, cracking her knuckles. “The science behind Aubrey’s changes is unclear. As Normandy gets closer to perfecting the serum, he becomes more secretive. What I witnessed yesterday was unlike anything I’ve seen before. She’s a child. Even partially awake, she was stronger than I am. She seemed . . .” Sparkman focused on Echo. To sway the body, she needed the head. “More than human.”

  Whiskey’s screen flashed with a huff. “Fucking fuck. The Key let Normandy have free rein of the GenTech Unit and this is what they get.”

  “Tell the Doctor they’re coming.” Sparkman interjected. “She woke up and said, tell the Doctor they’re coming.”

  Zulu’s screen brightened. “Who’s coming?”

  Sparkman shook her head. “I’m not sure Aubrey even knew where she was.”

  “Your suggestions, Sparkman?” Echo was stern and soft and calm and confident.

  Sparkman’s braid grazed her back as she nodded. “We need Aubrey,” she said, her gaze intent and unwavering.

  Whiskey grunted. “You said she was dead.”

  “But she’ll be in Cold Storage.” Zulu spoke for the first time. “If I can get her to my lab, I can work backward. Figure out what Normandy’s been developing while the Key has had its head turned.”

  There was silence, all members instinctively awaiting Echo’s response.

  “Sparkman, you have a plan.” Echo didn’t phrase it as a question. She didn’t need to. Sparkman was always prepared before she reported in to Eos. “I assume you’ll need access to the End-of-Life Unit. We have someone who can get you in. Someone young and eager who won’t be suspected.”

  Eos blanketed the globe with eleven total board members, soldiers in every unit of each MediCenter around the globe, and operatives within different careers. Sparkman had only ever spoken with Echo, Zulu, Whiskey, and Delta, the heads of the North and Central American factions of Eos. And those four were the only people out of the eleven to know Sparkman’s identity. Layers of protection. That way it was more difficult for one person to bring down the entire resistance organization.

  Once again Sparkman nodded and clenched her fists, cracking her knuckles. “As always, I will work with anyone you trust.”

  “Good,” Echo said. “Let’s get started.”

  XXI

  Elodie drummed her fingers along the hard cover of the nursing textbook that hid her deepest, darkest secret. She’d pulled it out to catch up with Vi, but the bright empty space of Patient Ninety-Two’s former room drew her attention like a flower to sunlight.

  Elodie’s toes tapped feverishly against the tile. Since she’d arrived that morning, she’d waited for one of the doctors to come tell her what had happened with Aubrey. Through Holly, she’d submitted four status update requests. It wasn’t odd to follow up on transferred patients. Elodie had done it many times. Currently, she had update requests pending for each of her patients that had been transferred to different units in the blur of activity that had filled the previous day. It was comforting to know that some of her patients would eventually leave the MediCenter healthy and alive. It made her job worth doing.

  But each time Elodie had checked Aubrey’s status update in the queue, Holly informed her that it had been deleted. It wouldn’t have been that big of a deal if they’d also been read before being deleted, but if that was the case, why hadn’t Elodie been contacted?

  She’d have to go about it a different way. “Holly, has there been any activity on Patient Ninety-Two’s file?”

  “Let me check.” Holly’s disembodied voice paused for a moment before continuing. “Yours is the final entry on Patient Ninety-Two’s chart. Would you like me to read you the entry?”

  With a groan, Elodie massaged the tightness in her neck. “How is it possible that mine is the last entry?” She chewed her bottom lip. “Holly, can you take down an email for me?”

  “I’d be happy to.” Holly’s crisp voice rang out over the steady clicking and whirring of the LTCU bots. “Who would you like me to send it to?”

  “The director of the MediCenter.” Elodie held her breath. She was doing it. She was really doing it. She was going to jump over everyone and go straight to the one person in the entire city whose words could affect real change and get her real answers.

  “While Director Holbrook still holds the title of MediCenter Director, he will soon be inactive, and therefore is no longer able to respond to any messages.” Holly regurgitated the facts, her computer-generated emotions unable to harness the finality of the statement. “I can send it to his assistant; although, I cannot be certain that it’ll be answered by or forwarded to the new director.”

  “Crap. I completely forgot about Holbrook. How could I forget something as huge as that?” Elodie dropped her chin against her palm. “Because I’m stuck in my own little bubble, so wrapped up in my own feelings that I’m oblivious to the outside world.” Her cheeks heated. Had she really intended to send the director an email? She would have been demoted for sure, bringing something so trivial as incomplete paperwork to the attention of the leader of the city. Jeez, she was being unreasonable.

  “Never mind, Holly. I’m going to get back to my job.” Elodie leaned back in her chair, swiped Patient Ninety-Two’s files clear from the holoscreen, and pulled up the care chart for her only current patient.

  The elevator chime
d its arrival as the doors slowly hissed open. All of the what ifs Elodie was only beginning to tamp down roared back to the surface. They were finally here to tell her what had happened to Aubrey. Elodie calmly pushed her chair away from the control panel and stood. She wasn’t the emotional young nurse who had almost made a spectacle of herself by calling in the director of the MediCenter. No, she was the cool and collected, mature lead nurse who cared about her patients and wanted to make sure they were doing well after leaving her care.

  As she completed her about-face, Elodie took a deep breath, flipped her hair, and smiled. The elevator doors had closed, and no one was there waiting to speak with her.

  “Hello?” She whirled around a little more frantically than she’d meant to. Her calm facade was cracking.

  Still, no one answered. No lab coat–clad doctor or holopadwielding assistant caught the corner of her eye. There was . . . no one.

  Elodie gingerly lowered herself back into her chair. Her gaze remained fixed on the shiny elevator doors.

  I’m losing my mind.

  But elevators didn’t travel to whichever floor they felt the urge to visit. A floor had to be requested by a person or a—

  “Ouch!” Elodie jerked backward and grabbed the toe of her sneaker. She blinked down at the bot clicking and whirring and repeatedly ramming into the leg of her chair.

  The familiar bot stilled, let out a hiss, and then resumed knocking its stumpy square body against the chair. The glass tubes in the bin attached to its front clanked with each repeated run in.

  With a grunt, Elodie hefted the motorized cube. “You’re from the medi-pump lab. You’re not supposed to be up here.”

  It beeped in response and began vibrating as its wheels rapidly spun, searching for a solid surface.

  “Okay, okay.” A strip of white fluttered out from the bot’s shiny yellow frame as Elodie lowered it back to the ground. She lunged forward and grabbed the paper before the bot spun around and headed toward the elevator. She had almost balled up the strip of paper and tested her aim by tossing it the long distance to the incinerator pail, when scratches of handwritten text caught her eye.