She’d rehearsed the backstory many times. All those tales Zeyla had told her made her realize the importance of a simple cover story. A reasonable explanation for who she was and why she was here.
Tony eyed her. “That’s what you tell people?”
She nodded.
He wiped his mouth. “If we look hard enough for a connection, I think we’d all find they influenced our lives somehow.”
“It’s not like I can help where I came from.” Eliana took a sip of soda.
“Why did you come here, though? Really.”
“To find out everything.”
“About what’s in the vault?”
She was probably supposed to say yes, but Zeyla always told her not to be so straightforward with people. “You have the access now. You’re in charge of who goes in or out.” He could grant her access.
“It has an additional feature.” He studied her for a moment, then rolled up his sleeve. At the crease in his elbow was a needle mark. “Entry is coded to my DNA, and the vault only admits one person at a time.”
If anyone’s DNA should open the vault, it was hers. But was that the kind of significance she wanted her life to have? The only person granted access to all the secretsDominatusstill kept.
Their conversation shifted, and Tony asked her about the other security guards she worked alongside. About their prior experience and the way scheduling worked. She told him all the basics before he got a message on his watch. “It’s Detective Wallace. He’s working the Splitfield murder.” He read the screen. “They officially ID’d the doctor, and the autopsy is complete.”
“Great.” She wiped her mouth with her napkin, unsure what she was supposed to say.
“Don’t you want to know the cause of death?”
“Not really.” Eliana finished her soda. “Should I want to know?”
Seeing the dead scientist had been plenty. With Carlos there right after, she’d escaped lengthy nightmares about a man being nailed to a table and the muffled screams that came from someone with no tongue. Instead, she’d relived that fateful day in high school, the one she didn’t want to remember but regrettably couldn’t forget. Then her dreams had taken a more sinister turn, and she’d had that recurring nightmare from her childhood. She didn’t want to think about any of it.
Tony leaned forward. “Are you okay?”
Conversation swirled in the bustling cafeteria around them. Eliana stood. “I should get back to work. Thanks for lunch.”
He nodded, sitting back in his chair and staring at her with far too much knowledge. “Thank you for explaining things. It was very helpful.”
She crossed the room to deposit her tray and strode out without looking back. The images of the man she’d found dead would always be in her mind. Just because it wasn’t something she would ever forget didn’t mean she had to dwell on the memory.
Walking would clear her head. It always did. Sometimes her mind created scenarios that added to her memories, as if she could augment the past. If she worked hard enough, she had found she was able to—in her mind—convince herself of an alternative truth.
Sure, it was probably a combination of delusion and denial. But if she wanted to avoid experiencing a trauma, why not allow it? Peace was far better than terror.
That was the only reason she hadn’t argued with her parents’ insistence that her life be one of peace, and that she opted for safe jobs.
No one could guarantee safety. Just a little over a year ago, a satellite had fallen out of the sky over California and killed six people when it hit the ground. Cue more cries for technology to be shunted back to the Stone Age. Or the twentieth century, prior to the internet. As if that wasn’t when there were world wars and epidemics.
She stepped out into the main rotunda at the center of the museum and saw a line of elementary students wearing viewing glasses. Each time they looked at a display, an interactive system would play audio that matched the depiction. An explanation, or narrative from firsthand accounts, or a snippet of video would play through the display in their glasses. As an added bonus,their teacher could track each student’s progress through the museum, and no one would get lost.
Choosing to live life abstaining from so much of modern technology wasn’t a moral high ground, although a lot of people chose that route. Humans were humans, and bragging while trying to one-up each other was universal. Instead, Eliana and her family chose to spend their lives pursuing other things rather than give up their minds to an algorithm that wanted to tell them how to think.
A person who paid all the subscription fees could access the North American internet 24/7 and have anything they wanted. But too many folks had seen how the online world overtook the real world and dumped it when things got overtly dangerous. Instead, they chose to be present in their lives and utilize the internet as a tool that made things better—but which would never control them.
Eliana stopped by a display about a castle in Provence, France, and a group of resistance fighters. She shook her head. When she got going about the evils of technology, she sounded like her grandpa Bruce.
A man moved into the space beside her, and the scent of his cologne touched her senses like a warm hug. Too bad it came with so much baggage. She shouldn’t feel the way she did about that scent, but maybe there was nothing she could do about it.
“Hey.” She didn’t look at him. She just kept staring at the display.
