Twenty-Seven
Camp Peary, Virginia
Traumstadt, for all its falsity, was not silent as they approached the winter market. The holograms roamed like real people,
their cheeks even pinking in the cold. Deckard’s attention to detail was so excellent as to be almost eerie. Giselle could
swear she even felt warmth radiate from their bodies as they drew closer.
Nadiya, by contrast, was not offering much warmth—physical or otherwise. She kept a distance from Giselle, matching her pace
but not allowing herself to come within an arm’s length. Her gaze also refused to linger on Giselle for more than the briefest
moment. It made the situation awkward, particularly considering that they were supposed to be posing as friends on a frivolous
spring break.
Giselle tried to quell the nervousness in her stomach as they wound through the maze of stalls. She smelled baking bread and
roasting meat, heard the splash of the oil from the fryers. The flaky crust on the sausage rolls got snagged by the wind and
fluttered away. This was far beyond any technology she had encountered at Valeran—even during the exhibition.
And the realness of it all seemed to be taking its toll on Nadiya. She walked without her usual fluid dexterity, more focused
on keeping her eyes on the ground than on maintaining her balance. Her motions were tremulous. Giselle’s heart winced.
She had no idea what would turn out to be consequential, so as they traversed the market, she tried to commit everything she
could to memory. Well—she didn’t have to try. The trying would come later when she reported it all to Klaudia. Klaudia, who intimidated her tremendously. She had dismal visions of stammering and tripping over her words as Klaudia stared her down with cold gray eyes.
But it was not as excruciating as being ignored by Nadiya. Through some cruel and inexplicable twist of fate, Julian Joyce-Young
III had turned out to be her only friend.
Giselle was observing a family—a mother and father swinging their toddler between them while he squealed with delight—when
Nadiya’s voice broke the air.
“Watch out!”
Instantly she turned. Nadiya had crashed bodily into one of the holograms, and the force had sent her sprawling to the ground.
She pushed herself up onto her elbows as Giselle rushed to her side, pulse pounding.
The hologram muttered something disdainful in Russian and then stomped away.
Giselle offered Nadiya her hand but Nadiya ignored it. Her face was pale.
“It’s not possible,” she said quietly.
“What?”
“The hologram was solid.” There was a quiver in her voice. “It knocked me over.”
Giselle swallowed. “Are you sure . . . are you sure you didn’t just trip?”
Nadiya gave her a black stare. She rose to her feet, but her movements were still shaky, uneasy. Giselle couldn’t help but
recall how she had looked during the exhibition, hunched over on the ground, screaming. The memory struck her like a blow.
Until this moment she had been thinking about winning, but now she wondered if she should be more focused on surviving.
“Let’s just go,” Nadiya said, shaking her head. “Somewhere less . . . crowded.”
Giselle didn’t argue. She allowed Nadiya to lead her out of the center of town, the voices of the holograms fading into the distance.
She wondered if Nadiya, too, was recalling the brutal end of the exhibition, if it had made her too fearful of the holograms to be reasonable.
Giselle would hardly have blamed her. A smoldering sense of anger lay low in her belly.
How could Professor Blanchard have done that to her? Why had Dr. Iver allowed it?
They came to the edge of the market and the path that led toward the residential streets. There was a slight incline and Giselle
felt the strain in her calves. Nadiya marched on ahead, ponytail bobbing, dark hair lifted by the wind.
The cottages edging the cobblestone road were something out of a fairy tale. They had rickety chimneys, each wafting smoke,
peaked wooden roofs and ivy wreathing the trellises. The vines should have been dead and brown in the winter, but Deckard
had neglected that particular element of realism. Maybe he was trying to emphasize the whimsy and charm of the setting—but
for what purpose?
Nadiya paused and allowed Giselle to catch up. She asked, “Do you see anything that seems significant?”
Giselle couldn’t tell if it was a rhetorical question. She studied the houses, making note of the markers on their doors and
mailboxes. Maybe some clue lingered there. But it was nothing she could discern at present.
“No,” she admitted. “It just looks like Barbie’s Dream German Village.”
The corner of Nadiya’s mouth twitched, as if she were trying not to smile. “I think that’s what Deckard was going for.”
“But why?” Giselle’s gaze skimmed once more over the houses. “Why this setting, for the mission? He could have built anything, sent us anywhere. What’s so important about this place?”
“I think,” Nadiya said slowly, “that you’re asking the right questions.”
The snow fell and gathered on the cobblestones. Flakes of it caught in Nadiya’s hair and melted. There was something overwhelming about the scale of it—how it came down so thickly that it blanched the air itself. How many snow machines did Deckard have?
They continued down the road, past streetlamps that flickered on and off, as if uncertain of whether it was night or day.
Maybe it was difficult for their wiring to make sense of the artificial light. Giselle herself wasn’t sure of the real time
outside the simulation.
As they passed, Giselle tried to peer through the windows. She was curious to see whether there were holograms inside—Deckard
was so committed to making the charade seem real, down to every detail.
Through the window glass she saw families. Mothers pushing their toddlers in toy cars. Fathers reclining in their armchairs.
A puppy nipping and nosing the carpet.
The feeling of homesickness that welled up in her was painful. Her earlier conversation with Julian had brought her own family
to mind. Her sisters—how were they faring without her? Was someone remembering to feed Huck his special kibble? Was Meemaw
still hiding her whiskey bottles in the toilet tank? And her mother—
Giselle squeezed her eyes shut and scrubbed her cheeks. The last thing she wanted to do in front of Nadiya was cry.
Nadiya was watching the family inside the house, too. Her eyes danced, but the emotion in them was too fraught for Giselle
to fully understand.
Yet the question rose to her lips before Giselle could stop it. “Do you miss him?”
“Who?”
“Dr. Iver. You said he was like family.”
“Like family,” Nadiya repeated. A beat of silence passed, and her gaze clouded. And then she said nothing more.
Giselle regretted mentioning Dr. Iver at all. He had tormented Nadiya with her own worst memories, allowed her to be broken and humiliated in front of a crowd. And now he had ordered her off on this mission, its purpose mysterious, its execution potentially dangerous.
That simmering feeling of anger returned.
Turning away from the house, she and Nadiya continued down the street. At the end was a cluster of pine trees, garlanded in
snow, and hills too steep to scale. The maps of Traumstadt that Deckard had provided showed that the arena stretched on for
another half an acre, but it seemed inaccessible.
“I suppose that’s it, then,” Giselle said. She wasn’t sure if she felt disappointed or relieved.
“Let’s get back to the lodge.” Nadiya’s voice was flat. “You can recount everything you’ve seen to Klaudia.”
Giselle’s stomach quivered with the same sort of nervousness she remembered feeling during her first few pageants—standing
before the judges with shaky knees and sweaty palms.
“What do you think of her?” Giselle blurted. “Klaudia?”
“I think she’s an excellent strategist,” Nadiya said. “I think she was chosen for a good reason.”
The insinuation hung in the air. Unlike you.
In another time, in another place, Giselle would have turned away, a flush rising to her face. But now the anger rose from
an ember to a flame.
Her voice trembled as she said, “All I ever did was care about you, Nadiya.”
“I know,” Nadiya replied immediately. “It’s one of your worst qualities.”
“Excuse me?”
“You care about everything—especially things you shouldn’t. That sleazy creep in the jailhouse? I saw how you looked at him.
Like you should be apologizing to him. You were even making eyes at Julian this morning.”
“I was not making eyes at him,” Giselle bit out. “You should know that. You saw . . . you know what happened with Bonnie. You know the
real reason I was in that cell.”
Nadiya’s gaze flickered, but only for a moment. “More proof of my point. You threw your life away for some girl who didn’t
even care that you ended up in jail for it. She should have been there trying to get you out. Not Dr. Iver. Not me.”
“You weren’t exactly there out of the goodness of your heart,” Giselle snapped.
“No,” said Nadiya. “I wasn’t. I was there because Dr. Iver told me to come. I did what he wanted me to do. I said what he
wanted me to say.”
I think you already are more than this. Had that line been scripted? Just a manipulation tactic? Giselle’s throat burned.
“Fine,” she said. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe I care about things I shouldn’t. Maybe I blew up my whole life for nothing. But
at least I didn’t go on living a lie. Shutting everyone out. Pretending not to feel. At least I’ll never wake up in the middle
of the night next to some man I could never love. At least I’ll know that I tried. I’ll know what it was like, even for a
moment, to—”
She cut herself off, choked by a sob. A sudden wind picked up and her teeth chattered, just like they had that night under
the cold and indifferent moon, her feet carrying her away from the trailer and into the star-pricked darkness. She remembered
it all. Just as she remembered her arms around Nadiya, the hum of Nadiya’s heartbeat through her skin.
It was too much. It was always too much. So this time Giselle was the one who fled, chased by the deepening flurries of snow.