Page 95 of Coldwire
“Looks like mud.”
“Look closer.” I stick my foot at him, and he grimaces, closing his hand around my ankle to keep my shoe at a distance. The floor is solid, virtual upcountry is unchanging, and I am here, I am present. The thought strikes me, suddenly and without prelude, that Kieren must have known I had Wakeman Syndrome all along given how calm his reaction here is. He’d already recognized it back in the tenth grade.
He’s never told on me.
A knock thuds outside the bathroom door. Kieren and I both jolt, and he releases my ankle. When I call,“Come in,”Rayna pokes only her head through.
A coy expression instantly crosses her face.
“Hello,” she says. “Didn’t realize we were having a party in here.”
“You were invited,” I say.
“Lost my invitation. Someone must have wanted it to be an intimate gathering instead.” She pushes the door wider, bobbing up and down on her toes. “We’re almost at the city center. Am I free to do work of my own today, or do you want to get me in trouble some more?”
I grimace, clambering to my feet. I go slow, in case the movement triggers any further response. My breathing behaves. As does my stomach.
“Do what you need,” Kieren answers for me, emerging first. “I haven’t a clue what Lia and I are doing, since we threw off the entire plan we were given.”
“We can make some calls,” I say.
Kieren starts walking toward the front. He bellows,“Hailey!”and Hailey startles awake, lifting off the seat in her shock.
“What?” she demands. She scrubs her hand along her brow. Kierenhas an identical habit, especially when he’s tired. As different as the siblings look on a surface-level palette, they have the exact same dark brows that don’t move an inch no matter how hard they’re itching. “Who’s here?”
“No one. We’re almost in Threto.”
The city is waking up alongside us as the bus enters city limits, early-morning joggers filing down the sidewalk and buildings dimming their holograms to make way for the rousing white sun. The air has gotten muggy inside, so I lean over one of the back seats to crack open a window. It doesn’t help much. I pick up smoke in the distance when I inhale. It’s not the sharp, acrid smell of downcountry, but there’s definitely something burning in virtual today.
“First stop,” Kieren calls from the dashboard. “Art museum.”
I pull away from the window, leaving it open. “What are we doing at the art museum?”
“Nothing. It’s just the first stop that was already on the tour.” He’s frowning when he turns around. He must be sifting through other locations on his display, because I get a rapid series of notifications as he sends links along to me. “It seems like a viable public place to buy some time. Virtual is busy today. Another day, another wave of some virus breaking out downcountry, and Medaluo always does quarantine periods in Threto. Everyone is going to be buying extra day passes to come up.”
I grimace. That means security is going to be tighter and personnel doubled. For most people who aren’t regular users, a quarantine means using rainy-day funds to purchase weeklong access to upcountry. Otherwise, there’s nothing to do but sit at home all day and eat up food that they’ll have to replenish.
“Maybe this is good news for us,” I say, walking to the front and joining Kieren. “Upcountry turns slightly delirious if everyone is plugging in with an infection.”
“I doubt the engineers at the Threto data center are daily users,” Kierensays. “They’re not getting infected by an outbreak if they rarely leave their Pods.”
“If all the main sights are so crowded,” Hailey interjects, “can we stop for breakfast?”
We’ve entered the city. The bus ambles through the streets, passing breakfast shops with lines wrapped around the block, large steaming baskets propped over an open flame and flat egg cakes flipped on enormous circular grills. Corporate employees wearing business casual weave their bikes along the sidewalk, staying off the narrow road to make room for the few vehicles that have come down from the overhead expressways. These roads weren’t really made for cars, never mind a tour bus. Many pedestrians purposefully stop to stare daggers at our bulky vehicle.
“What do crowded tourist sites have anything to do with breakfast?” Kieren asks.
“Keeping up energy,” Hailey replies easily.
“Keeping up—”He cuts himself off, not finishing the flabbergasted echo. “Lia and I have phone calls to make.”
Hailey sighs. “Boring.” She clambers onto her seat, facing the other way. Rayna is still hovering near the back. “Let’s do breakfast?”
Rayna blinks. “Me?”
“I’m looking directly at you, Rayna, so yes, you.”
The five-story structure of a museum appears within view, a flag of Medaluo fluttering on its roof. Its stone columns hold up the heavy structure, tall exhibit posters unfurled between each entrance. I open the first link that Kieren sent me, and my display fills with a hand-drawn map. Threto’s art museum is less than a ten-minute walk away from its data center. This city has chosen the exact opposite location from Upsie: rather than the silence of its industrial outskirts, Threto’s data center blends in with its commercial epicenter. Along the same road, there’s a historic rice ball factory that’s been operating in Threto for a hundred years.
