by Meg Collett
“I need a—” Before Beau even finished his sentence, his handler, a thin woman with dark eyes and heavy brows, pushed a tumbler of liquid in his hand. Wren recognized the smell of whiskey in the glass.
“Only a sip,” his handler said.
He downed the glass in one swig and handed it back to his handler, who in turn passed it on to an assistant hovering nearby.
“Three minutes!” someone shouted.
This was the first time Wren had seen Beau in person, up close. His cologne burned her nose, and his hair looked like plastic with the amount of product in it. His black suit was velvet, his tie blood red.
When he noticed Wren beside him, he gave her a sloppy smile and winked. “Good to see you again, Sloane.”
Even through his heavily slurred words, Wren heard the lurid purr of his voice. His arm slid around her waist like an eel, and he palmed the swell of her butt as if he’d explored her curves in the dark before and knew where to find the flesh he wanted.
Wren pushed his arm away. “Better watch the drinking,” she said with a closed-lipped smile. “I’ve heard it’s been affecting your performance lately.”
At her shoulder, Hutton laughed long and low. She raised her finger at Beau and shaped a curving hook out of it. Wren had seen Mak make the gesture at overbearing male admirers before and knew it implied a dysfunctional appendage. She joined Hutton’s laughter.
Beau’s face reddened. His handler pulled him a few steps away from Wren and Hutton.
Hutton bumped Wren’s shoulder. “Good one, Sloane. That’ll haunt him every time he gets between the sheets for months.” She snorted.
Wren grinned beneath Hutton’s approval. On their other side, Viksyn Viper and her handler got into position. Wren’s grin fell away as Vik’s eyes caught on her.
“Two minutes!”
Roman stood on Vik’s other side, drinking from a plastic water bottle with his handler.
“Good to see you actually made it,” Vik said, drawing Wren’s attention from the dark scruff along Roman’s jaw and her thoughts of how it would feel against her skin.
“Hello to you too, Vik.”
The skin beneath Vik’s eye twitched. In person, her face was even more of a study in contrast: the hollows beneath her jutting cheekbones, the heavy slant of her brows, the overly lush quality of her lips. “You’re looking thin, Sloane. Getting off serk is hard work, right? What is this, like the fourth or fifth detox you’ve done?”
“No serk. Just free radicals. You should look into the process. I bet it would really help your complexion.”
Vik frowned sharply and traced the skin along her cheek, which was heavily covered in makeup. She whirled on her handler. After a hushed conversation, her handler waved over a stylist.
Past Vik, Wren found Roman watching her. He’d seen the entire exchange, and the look on his face wasn’t approving. He looked away from Vik as her stylist frantically powdered her skin.
Too late, Wren remembered his suggestion to be careful about tearing Vik down.
“T-minus one! Live countdown in thirty. Places!”
The crew swung into position, leaving only the cast, their handlers, and the cameramen with mounted cameras and their sound guys in the center of the conservatory.
“Just smile and look pretty,” Hutton whispered. She fluffed out the bottom of Wren’s gown and tucked a piece of hair behind her ear. It almost felt motherly until Hutton added, “Screw this up and you’ll be dead in a matter of weeks. Got it?”
Wren shoved down the spike of fear. After three weeks with Hutton, she knew this was her handler’s dark version of a pep talk.
“Got it.” Wren pushed Hutton’s hands away.
She scanned the line of cast members. Everyone was there: Delphine and Daphne Deep in their matching slivers of material strategically wrapped around their bodies to cover their private bits; then Roman, Vik, and herself; Beau swayed beside her, finishing off another drink; Foster Banks stood on Beau’s other side; and Kruzer Gem tugged on the sleeves of his jacket as his handler fiddled with something beside his ear.
Everyone was in position on the cast side, and Wren glanced back just enough to see the crew. Maddox had his spot behind a barrage of rolling monitors, his wide backside crammed into a folding director’s chair. The lights were dimmed behind him and the crew at his back, and she couldn’t spot Bode or any of his security. He really had a knack for disappearing into the crowd, but she’d bet money he was tucked into a shadow, tracking everyone without them noticing. He was probably watching her right now.
“Thirty-second countdown starts now! Prepare positions!”
The film crew lifted their cameras. With their faces hidden behind their equipment, they looked more machine than man. Unconsciously, Wren leaned toward Hutton, but she’d returned to the perimeter of the room. Only the cast remained in the cameras’ field.
“Five. Four. Three. And live!”
Wren knew her cue. The cast walked to the dome’s windows that overlooked the main street below. Wren put her hand against the cool window. Outside, camera drones hovered and circled, collecting shot after shot of the cast against the glass. Wren looked down, down, down at the cheering crowd waving black-light signs.
A boom sounded across the city. A second later, a blast of fireworks erupted high in the sky, and the crowd cheered. She couldn’t tear her attention away from the fiery radiance rocketing into the sky like shooting stars, one after another. They came in every color: blue, red, green, purple, and some so white, so bright that Wren had to avert her eyes. The bursts of light shone on her face and danced across the glass before her.
The fireworks crept up so high in the sky that Wren wondered if Mak could see them from her high-rise in Sunshine Heights.
A closer rumble vibrated the window. A few cast members stepped back, laughing uncertainly, but the cameras stayed on them, so no one said anything. Wren glanced over her shoulder; Maddox remained in the shadows, his attention locked on a monitor.
More fireworks exploded in the sky just a few streets over. Everyone but Wren jumped back from the glass. The windows muted the sound, but the vibrations traveled up her shins and settled deep in her bones.
A few of the cast, including Vik and Beau, moved completely out of the live stream. She heard Vik worriedly ask, “Are they supposed to be this close?”
“They’re hurting my eyes,” Beau whined to his handler.
Across the street, from the water treatment facility’s helicopter pad, a series of pops and flashes burst in rapid succession. The fireworks rocketed straight into the sky, almost faster than Wren could track. The lights vanished somewhere directly above the dome, and the only sign of the disappearing fireworks was their building screech.
Some of the crew flinched and slapped their hands over their ears to block out the wailing. The cast members who hadn’t left the live feed skittered away from the glass as it shook. Wren leaned in close and heard a crack snaking through the thick pane.
“Cameras to the ground!” Maddox shouted.
“We can’t shut off the live feeds once they start!”
The screech grew into a high-pitched scream. Wren peered up at the sky. A resounding boom rattled her teeth, but the sky remained dark. Fireworks should have followed the boom, but there was nothing but a thick black veil in the sky that blocked the moonlight.
A hush fell over the dome.
“I know the feeds can’t be shut off,” Maddox hissed, “but turn those cameras down. Show nothing. Cut audio now.”
“Audio off!”
“Live feed ends in thirty seconds, sir!”
Wren heard a faint whooshing sound. She pressed her ear to the glass. “What’s that noise?”
“Sloane! Get back from the glass!” Maddox shouted.
Before she could move, drops pattered against the window like rain. They dripped down in front of her face, streaking red along the curved glass dome.
“Sloane,” Maddox said. “Step back.”
More drops pinged off the glass like they’d fallen from somewhere very high and splattered into crimson tears. It wasn’t a trick of the light from below. The drops really were red. The downpour grew until it was deafening.
Wren sought out a clean spot to see through and looked down. The crowd on the street was just realizing something was wrong. The live feed played Wren standing against the glass, her hand pressed to the window and her face haloed in a clean circle, when the first drops hit the crowd. From the topmost floor, Wren saw them collectively cringe away as if they could escape it.
“Ten seconds to termination, sir!” With the audio cut, the crew was yelling back and forth and sending the cast down to the lower floors.
Below, the crowd screamed.
Wren stepped back. The billboards outside still displayed her image, the live feed only delayed by a couple seconds. Wren’s gaze swept across the red-stained glass.
Red like blood.
The drones outside caught her questioning glance, her eyes scanning the blank parts where the red hadn’t streaked down, and relayed it back to the billboards, to millions of televisions across the world. They all saw understanding dawn on Wren’s face as she realized the blank parts formed letters. They were too big and bold for her to struggle reading them, and she deciphered the word a second later.
The drones caught her shocked face and the movement of her lips as she read, “VidaCorp.”
“Live feed terminated!”
The words spelled VidaCorp. VidaCorp in blood.
19:
“Get someone out there to clean that shit off!” Maddox yelled. Crew rushed out of the conservatory, their hands to their earpieces as they ran, screeching instructions. “Handlers, get your cast to their rooms! No one is to move without my approval!”
Wren stared through the red-streaked glass to the water treatment facility. A security team converged on the brightly lit helicopter pad with guns drawn. There were no Links, meaning it wasn’t USPD. It left only VidaCorp’s security as the ones clearing the helipad, even though there was only the ruined remains of the self-deployed firework casings.
Someone grabbed her arm and spun her away from the windows.
“Why are you just standing here? You should be downstairs!” Sweat covered Maddox’s face, his headset was wrapped around his neck, and his shoulders quaked with heavy breath. He released her to rub his left shoulder.
“Is your arm hurting?” Wren asked, thinking heart attack, but Maddox ignored her.
“Where’s Hutton?” He pulled her away from the windows and toward the stairs. Wren dodged an abandoned camera, her eyes skittering across the dark floor. Something glinted in the corner.
“Hey, wait a second.” She hauled against Maddox’s grip, stopping him.
The shadows in the corner shifted. A person crouched, half hidden behind a large fern. Picking up her gown’s skirt, Wren hurried over as fast as she could while wearing heels.
“Who the hell is that?” Maddox asked from behind her.
Wren pushed the plant away, revealing the person’s face. She recognized Kruzer Gem from her training with Hutton. He was the young genius who’d invented the extremely popular social app everyone was using.
“Hey, there,” Wren said. “You okay?”
Tears streamed down his face. His trembling chin rested on his knobby knees, and his tuxedo pants were too short, as if he hadn’t bothered with a fitting before putting them on tonight. A few freckles dotted his round button nose.
“Too loud. Too loud.” He flinched. “Very, very loud.”
“Oh, Kruz.” Maddox came up behind Wren. “I’m radioing Becca. Hang tight, bud.”
Kruz nodded jerkily as Maddox commed his handler.
Wren crouched beside Kruz and took his hand. “Did the loud noises scare you?”
He raised a hand to his ear, and Wren leaned forward to see. In the darkness, she recognized the small device curved around the back of his ear—a hearing aid.
“Too loud,” he whimpered again.
“I understand.” Wren squeezed his hand. “It’s okay now, though. The fireworks are over, and your handler will be here soon to adjust your hearing aid.”
Maddox turned back to them, dropping his hand from his headset’s mic. “Becca’s on her way. Let’s get you out from there.”
Kruz sniffed, but his tears were drying up. He took Maddox’s offered hand, and Wren stepped back as Maddox pulled the slight young man to his feet.
“Thank you.” Kruz’s eyes briefly met hers before darting away.
“You’re welcome,” she said, drawing his attention again, and when she smiled at him, he relaxed and looked as if he were seeing a sunset for the first time in his life.
“Better not let Roman see you staring at her like that,” Maddox teased.
“Don’t tell,” Kruz said, blushing.
“Your secret is safe with me.” Wren winked and his blush spread to his ears.
Maddox kept most of his attention on the windows, and he still looked clammy and anxious, but he was trying hard to keep Kruz calm and reassured. That simple kindness elevated him quite a few notches in Wren’s opinion.
“There you are!”
A pretty handler rushed across the room straight to Kruz. The corners of her eyes were wrinkled with smile lines, like Wren’s mother’s had been. With one arm around Kruz’s shoulders, she adjusted his hearing device. “We had it turned up for the live show,” she explained to Maddox in a rush. “Sometimes, he can’t hear what you’re saying.”
“It’s fine, Becca. Let’s just get him downstairs.”
“Will he be okay?” Wren asked, looking between Kruz and his handler.
“Yeah.” She squeezed his shoulders. “Let’s go rest, okay, Kruz? Sound good?”
“Too loud.”
“I know, but it’s fixed now.” She looked up at Wren. “Thank you for calming him down.”
“No problem. Can I get him anything?”
The handler’s eyes widened. Sloane would never have made such an offer, but Wren held her ground and kept her smile in place as she waited for the handler’s answer.
Recovering, she said, “No, thank you, Miss Lux. I’ve got it.”
Maddox took Wren’s arm again. “Come on, Sloane. I need to check with Security and ensure the building is secure.”
Kruz and his handler hurried away. Maddox waited a beat before following. They started down the stairs, and Wren had to lift her dress and focus on not falling in her high heels. For all the disapproval radiating off him, Maddox helped her navigate the steep spiral steps, but Wren wouldn’t apologize for offering to help Kruz simply because Sloane wouldn’t have.
“Where the hell is Hutton?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t seen her since the start of the live feed,” Wren said, concerned. Where exactly had Hutton gone?
She couldn’t help it. Her thoughts instantly went to the Whitebirds. Of all the people in Sloane’s life, Hutton had probably been the closest to her, even more so than Roman.
“She’s always been a pain in my ass,” Maddox muttered, his words not meant for Wren.
“What do you think that was?” she asked after he’d finished calling a few directions into his headset. He had a special USPD unit waiting for him in the lobby, ready to come up and sweep the set.
“Nothing good.” They reached the bottom of the stairs on the bedrooms’ level. The atrium was dark, aside from a few ceiling lights. Beneath the bedroom doors, light spilled out from the narrow gaps. “You’re good to find your room?” Wren nodded. “Okay. Go straight there. I’ll deal with USPD. Good grief. Let’s hope the show isn’t canceled.”
He left her there and waddled on his bad leg toward the stairs. Frowning, Wren watched him go. The Whitebirds wouldn’t want the show canceled and neither would Hazen; he’d said as much when he initially told her about the Whitebirds. She bit her lip and glanced around, but no one came out of their rooms and none of the black halls’ pocket doors
slid open.
It seemed foolish not to tell Maddox about the Whitebird threat, but Hazen thought they’d sniff out the anarchists too quickly for it to matter. This left her in a predicament. Maddox had told her to go to her room, but she might never get another opportunity like this. The attack had happened over at the water treatment facility, and if anyone else was moving around, even crew, it could be a clue as to their involvement. Wren couldn’t pass up the chance. She slid off her heels, picked up the hem of her dress, and opened the first black hall door she found.
And smacked straight into Bode.
“Whoa there.” He caught her with a loose arm around her waist.
“Oh, hey.” She pushed a piece of hair out of her face and offered him an innocent smile.
It didn’t work. “What are you doing out here? Shouldn’t you be in your room? Where’s Hutton?”
Isn’t that the question of the night? Wren thought. “I had to help Maddox. Where are you going?”
“The helipad.” He stepped back into the hall and she followed. “Hazen can only hold off USPD for so long, and he wants me to look at the scene first.”
Bode said the words with more than just a hint of pride—and determination. He hurried down the hall, and Wren padded after him in her bare feet, the material of her dress swooshing around her legs. “I want to come,” she said.
“You really should—”
“You know why,” Wren said before he could finish. She wouldn’t be sent to her room. He and Hazen needed her help, and this was her helping them.
“Fine, but we’ve got to hurry.” He peeked down at her dress. “Can you keep up?”
Wren lifted her hem higher, the dress’s slits sliding higher up her legs, but it gave her more room to move. Bode jerked his eyes up from her legs, but not before Wren noticed how his gaze had lingered. She was grateful the black hallway lights were dim; only the power-saving lights flicked on as they moved beneath them.
They rounded a few corners and came to the building’s side wall, or so Wren thought. All the turns had left her completely lost. Bode stopped at a pair of smooth metal doors. Only after he’d punched in a code on the reader did the doors open, revealing an elevator.
