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 chimed 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.

Salmon Springs Fountain. 4:30.

—Your Neighborhood Mohawked Moleman

Elodie squealed a high-pitched bleat of excitement. She clapped her hands over her mouth. This is exactly what Astrid had mentioned.

Would you want to talk to him again in real life?

Elodie had never answered the question; instead, she’d just reported on her horrible gun-filled non-date date with Rhett. She hadn’t thought there was a reason to say anything about Mr. Mohawk, er, the Mohawked Moleman. When would she actually ever see him again?

Today. The word chimed between her ears. Four thirty. Salmon Springs Fountain.

Elodie placed the strip of paper on her textbook.

What would Vi do?