The robot dragged her uphill toward Dejope, and her fight turned to panic. “Let me go! You have no right!”
Students were fleeing all around, and the centaur wasn’t stopping them. Why me?
No, they weren’t all fleeing. A couple of dozen ran toward her—toward the centaur, and she glimpsed purple in their clothes. They carried clubs, maybe other weapons, brave but stupid. The centaur’s control module spun in their direction. She put her free hand to her ear to be ready for the sonic blast. Instead she heard a tiny noise, and one of the students flew as if he had been jerked from behind. A bullet?
A centaur can do anything, and it won’t matter.
The robot didn’t slow down, dragging her straight toward the building.
A door opened, and the robot threw her inside. She tried to shield her face with an arm as she hit the floor and slid. She was climbing to her feet before she stopped. The door had shut behind her. She ran to it, tugged on the handle, and beat her fists on the glass. Locked in again.
Her left shoulder felt wrenched, and her right elbow and thigh ached with bruises. Her wet clothes had mud and grass stains. Her phone was still on her wrist, though, and it still worked.
She could break out again. She ran to the office and grabbed the dumbbell. This time she’d throw it right through an outside window. No more sneaking around. No more being discreet.
“Don’t try it,” her phone said.
A drone buzzed on the other side of the window.
“Who are you?” she said. That voice had to be a human being, even if it was filtered to sound metallic.
“Stay in Dejope or die,” it said.
Did she recognize that voice? Maybe. It didn’t matter. She was going to die of the cold regardless.
“Go upstairs and help your sick friends.”
“Who are you?”
“They need your help. Everyone’s left and they’re alone.” The voice gloated. Machines didn’t gloat, at least not very well.
“Let us out so they can get real care.”
No answer. And her phone didn’t work for anything else. Well, she might as well survive for as long as she could, and maybe she’d spot another opportunity for freedom. She set down the dumbbell and took the stairs to the second floor. She passed no one on the way. Although most people had escaped, voices were murmuring in the lounge. She walked in, wet and bedraggled.
Hetta turned and looked shocked. “You’re back?”
“A centaur hauled me back. I guess I’m important.”
She wrung her gloved hands. “Is help coming?” The expression on her face and in her voice begged for the answer to be yes.
“I don’t know. I was talking to someone, and I asked for that, and”—she shook her head—“well, I don’t think so.”
“They’re really sick.” Hetta took a deep breath. “Drew was going to get help.”
Avril tried to come up with something to say that wouldn’t sound like blood splashing into lake water. “They stopped him.”
“Stopped?”
Avril felt too sorrowful to say anything more precise. She looked down and shook her head again. “I’m sorry.”
They stood silently, and in the silence Avril imagined the gloating in the voice on her phone again. If somehow she survived, she would get a different phone and smash the one she had into bits with a hammer. In the meantime, she had one way to fight back. “Can I help?” she said.
“Yeah.” Hetta sounded defeated. “We put them in separate rooms to protect them from secondary infections. Drew … recommended that.” Her voice choked at his name. She gave Avril some instructions, a mask, and some gloves. “Make sure they’re comfortable, mostly. We can’t do much more. Do you want to check on Shinta first?”
Avril found her awake in her bunk, and staring through half-open eyes at the ceiling. Her lips had no traces of blood, but they looked bluish.
“Hey, Shinta. I’m back. Need anything?”
She looked, blinking. “Oh. Hey, Avril. I’m okay.”
“Want something? Water, food?”
“Tea? Can I get tea?” she asked like a little girl hoping for a favor—Shinta, the mighty athlete. It hurt to hear.
“Anything you want.”
In the kitchenette, she stared at the phone strapped to her wrist as she worked. That was how they had tracked her and found her, and it proved that she was more valuable than Drew, but she couldn’t imagine why. With every breath, as she boiled water in a microwave and found a tea bag and a cup, her anger grew. Since she was going to die anyway, she felt less afraid, maybe like a soldier on a suicide mission—or rather, the fear didn’t matter anymore. It was only doubt, and now she had a certain future. When her phone started mocking her again, she was going to have a lot to say.
She served Shinta the tea, ready to talk with her about her family, about the weather, about anything but the situation, to make her feel cared for.
Shinta pointed. “There’s a camera,” she said, her voice hoarse. A crawling camera clung to the ceiling next to the light fixture, white like the ceiling, barely noticeable. Some sadist was watching on the other side. Maybe they enjoyed seeing students suffer and die. That didn’t surprise Avril.
“I’ll take care of it.” She got a winter glove from the closet to protect her hand because those cameras sometimes fought back with shocks or needles on their legs. She hurried to shove over a desk, climbed on it, and, with a fast swing of her arm, grabbed the camera.
Even through the glove, it felt like holding a tiny squirming porcupine. She threw it on the desktop and stamped. The crunch felt like victory.
“You shouldn’t have done that,” her phone said.
She jumped down to the floor. “Why? Do you enjoy watching sick people die?” She left the room so she could talk without disturbing Shinta, and lowered her mask so she could speak loud and clear. “Does that make you feel high and mighty?” No answer. “I know
