Chapter 4
Look, Mom, She's a...
I watched until Astrid appeared in front of me, cutting off my view of them and where they were heading next.
“Who was that hottie checking you out?”
My roommate grinned from one ear to the other and leaned against the glass display freezer as she checked over her shoulder to get one more glimpse of the pair.
“I’m assuming that’s not his girlfriend, considering…”
She shuddered.
That action with that crude remark ripped me back to the here and now.
I may have had the same thought, but I never would have said it out loud.
Astrid, on the other hand, had no filter and would always say the worst about anyone she could.
Then I’d get mad and try to tell her why that wasn’t okay, which would end up in an argument no one could win. We’d done it on repeat for years.
I didn’t have the mental capacity for it today.
“How long were you watching for?” I asked. My voice was still too breathless, but my body temperature was returning to somewhat normal. “Didn’t feel like saving me from Mr. Stares-Too-Much?”
I checked the digital receipt on the monitor again to answer her question.
“Thaddeus Tsai.”
Astrid’s jaw practically unhinged from the rest of her face, her fluorescent pink lipstick making the enormity of her gaping expression even more poignant.
“No way!” she screamed way too loudly, startling a passing elderly woman. “What is he doing here?! You have got to be joking!”
Astrid rushed around to my side of the counter to check the screen.
Then she turned back to me with that same gaping mouth.
“Do you have any idea who Thaddeus Tsai is?” She waved a hand and frowned.
“Of course you don’t. You never know anything.
Well, luckily, you have a friend like me who knows he is probably the richest bachelor in the whole Tower.
His company is about to finance the millionth level. ”
She sighed and stared off through the market as if her gaze could bend around the corner to find her dream man. “He is so much taller and hotter than I thought he would be.”
I shook my head but made sure not to laugh at her. While I only cared about getting Azazel’s head on a platter, Astrid only cared about finding a wealthy, elite husband. In the end, we both wanted to get to the top.
Same as every other Citizen.
I looked back at the screen where Thaddeus Tsai and Marsha Walton’s names were still displayed.
Thaddeus Tsai was an obstacle I hadn’t accounted for, and I was smacked in the gut with the possibility of needing to rework even an inch of my plan as the desire to find out more about him threatened to squeeze itself into my schedule of plot against Azazel and plot against Azazel.
Maybe I could even run into him again to see what he did or said next.
“I like it when you look at me. Your eyes are so much greener than—”
Greener than what?!
What am I even supposed to do with that?
Nope.
No!
Even his taking up this much space in my head was unacceptable.
He was a distraction I couldn’t handle right now.
Or ever.
I had avoided distractions so well up until now.
Zade was easy to avoid because I could yell at him, and he would give up.
My voice box apparently didn’t know how to yell at this Thaddeus guy, and something told me he wouldn’t give up on anything he wanted.
My only consolation was that he couldn’t want me, a dual-blood. Not with his status.
But his not wanting me didn’t prevent my body from responding to the low tenor of his voice.
It also wouldn’t stop him from crushing me under his size one-jillion shoe if his glaring was an indication of his anger toward me—anger being much more likely than wanting.
My vision blurred, and the sound of rushing blood flooded back into my ears. Now it was I who was peering out from the shop as if I could see around corners and find them.
N. O.
Want or anger?
Neither mattered because the likelihood of seeing someone from the 800K level down here again was on par with the potential for the Void to hold life outside The Tower—not happening.
But the possibility of me making it to the 800K level was already an integral cog in my climb to—
“Hello…Tower to Elle. Where’s my cone?”
Astrid had a hand on her hip and a well-tweezed brow arched high.
“Oh, yeah,” I murmured and cleared the till before moving to prep her usual.
Astrid started tapping on random icons on the register display.
“Also, my ‘rents are having a dinner party tonight, so I gotta go. Wanna come keep me company and slip laxatives into Sebastian’s soup?”
I shook my head and muttered a “too tired tonight” as I balanced the last scoop on top of her triple.
My hands still shook, and the stupid scoop wouldn’t release the ball of ice cream.
I swatted her hand away from the screen and exited the most recent transaction that she had managed to pull up once again as I handed her the cone.
“Lame!” Astrid griped.
She pouted but took the cone and immediately flashed her smile again. Astrid rummaged through her puffy white shoulder bag and pulled out a brown envelope. “Oh, yeah. Here…”
The envelope was a small square sealed shut with the red wax seal of a barren tree. My name was scrawled across the other side in loopy black letters that bled in spots where the pen stalled too long.
“What is it?” I asked as I flipped it over once more to examine the seal.
Astrid shrugged and held up her palm to take a selfie of herself with ice cream so she could lie on Pulse about how she could eat a triple-scoop and still stay in shape. “Some letter that was delivered for you on my way out the door. Thought you would know.”
A small niggling in the back of my skull told me this was not something I wanted to open in front of her, so I casually crammed the thing into the side pocket of my bag that I wasn’t supposed to have lying under the counter but appropriately stored in the employee lockers in the back room.
“Probably just junk,” I said quickly. “Anyway, you go have fun at the party. I'll sneak an extra tub home for you and leave it in the freezer.”
Astrid’s face lit up at the sound of ice cream, and then she slapped me on the side of the shoulder.
“Just make sure you help me eat it because if I get fat, I’ll,” she lowered her voice to a whisper, “Murder you.”
I laughed and nodded. “That’s what I’m here for. To get fat so you don’t have to.”
“Alright, best friend!” Astrid turned on her heels and wiggled her fingers in a wave over her shoulder. “Gotta go do some magic on my face and then wow everyone at the party!”
Then she waltzed off in the same direction as Thaddeus and Marsha with a sway of her hips that sent her mini-skirt flouncing about provocatively.
I wilted away at the parlor for another four hours, shoveling the overpriced dessert into the mouths of the starving rich, meanwhile cringing at the deduction to my credits account when I splurged for the cheapest car on the MagFlux for the ride home despite it being only a tenth the price of a single scoop of Hold His Horses.
At least the train car back to my dormitory was empty enough for me to spend time reading the news updates.
I accessed The Tower Chronicles in my Visex and read the words in a daze.
The phasing out of Nexcom will enter its final stage next month, and anyone wishing to transfer their data to their Visex needs to do so quickly.
The article went on to assure all Citizens that the transition would be smooth and not affect the efficiency and ease of The Tower’s functioning.
I wondered for a whole moment if anyone cared about the Founder’s opinions, considering we didn’t even know who he was.
How am I supposed to care about someone I’ve never even seen?
Occasionally, I glanced beyond the news to see everyone else around me in a similar daze as they watched movies, played games, or read novels that only existed in their mind’s eye—literally. The only one who might not have had the implant was the infant asleep in the pram at the end of the car.
According to an article on Tower News Network, the cult known as The Way was once again active and trying to recruit followers.
Still, Prisca Ofer—the Commander and Azazel’s wife—was monitoring the situation closely and had complete control.
Poor cult members would probably be used as some cover-up for her husband’s political blunders.
Speaking of her husband…
Azazel announced a new resolution that was picking up steam. All dual-bloods would be mandated to bear a mark that would help prevent others from accidentally procreating with them.
I let a laugh slip out, but tried to cover it up as a cough. That only freaked out the germaphobic bloodist next to me even more.
They should mark all of us dual-bloods with the same garish staff mark I’ve had since birth. No one seemed to be able to get rid of it, so if they figured out how to replicate it, the dual-bloods would be easy to identify and avoid. Problem solved—no more accidental mutt-banging.
My laugh had drawn more than just the attention of the fat asshole beside me. The stares ratcheted up, and there was a good chance the other passengers were reading the same article as me. When it turned from stares to mutters, I finally fastened that last button on my polo to hide the mark better.
That didn’t stop them.
“Is she..?”
“Which lines do you think she tangled?”
“Look, Mom! She’s a m—”
“Shhh! Don’t stare.”
I was a professional at ignoring others’ attention and continued browsing news sites until I got bored, then transitioned to searching up random ideas on the darkmos.
I might have started spelling out Thaddeus’s name in the search bar, but I quickly backspaced that distraction the hell out of my life and went back to TNN to read more articles.
When my stop finally arrived, I hopped off the train at Babel Institute Girls’ Dormitory Level H with a sigh of relief. The platform was empty, so I could make it to my dorm without any more eyes on me, or so I thought.
But that unease, prickling at the back of my neck as I passed through the exit gate, had me searching my surroundings again.
The Institute dormitory wasn’t so much a single building as it was a web of bubbles floating alongside each other in the central chamber of The Tower. I slept in H613-1, which meant a ten-minute walk from the station to our hovel gate.
Though Astrid and I were technically roommates, we didn’t actually share a room. We shared a hovel. Four capsules connected via thin hallways to a larger sphere that served as the common space.
I made it to the gate of H613 with my feet dragging along the hyperglass pathway.
I could hear my muscles groan as I lifted my thumb to the lock sensor, but I hadn’t gotten it close enough to unlock before something moving to my right had me freezing and then whipping to look toward an outstretched manicured lawn that ran into the wall of our hovel’s yard.
There was nothing there and nowhere for anything to hide.
No tall stranger with swimming onyx lakes in his eyes.
Stop it, Eliana.
I let out a pent-up breath and looked back to press my thumb on the sensor.
It was taking too long.
Way too long.
My knees danced up and down with impatience as I waited in silence for that…
Doo-da-doo.
Ugh. Finally.
I pushed the door open, slid inside, and shut it behind me in one fluid movement. I listened for the automatic lock to slide into place. Silence followed.
See, nothing to put on a show about.
With my adrenaline coming down, I barely managed to kick my shoes off and stumble my way from the common area to my suite and onto my unmade bed. I don’t remember falling asleep, but I assume it was instantaneous with the moment my body hit the mattress.
That’s also when the dream most likely started.