Changeling by Stephanie Flint

Author:Stephanie Flint
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: YA lgbt romance, queer, lesbian, cyberpunk, fairy tale, snow white, queen, science fiction, lgbtq, genetic engineering, augmented, dystopia, dystopian, dystopian romance, talking animals, technology, future, action, adventure, cinderella
Publisher: Infinitas Publishing
Published: 2021-08-18T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 21

The rest of the afternoon goes terribly. I manage to get most of the soup stain out from the carpet, but it takes far too long to find all the soggy articles on the Network and print fresh pages. The nearest printer is three floors below me, since most people don’t bother with hard copies and my floor has been abandoned.

Worse, it’s lonely. Achingly lonely, without noise other than the air vent and occasional plane flying overhead with a supersonic boom. The silence is deafening. I’m starting to think President Saito is trying to drive me mad... actually mad, not the excuse Dr. Johnson came up with.

I’m coming back up on my fifth—and hopefully final—run downstairs when I hear a strange cooing coming from my office. I slow down... there’s a free NEL tagged in the Network.

Silber?

It dawns on me that I’ve never actually seen his Network tag, since I’ve only ever met him at the Snow estate. At first, I freeze. I can’t let Dr. Johnson know I’m meeting with him.

But then I realize it would be odd if I didn’t. Everyone already knows I’m friends with NEL, and while I’m not supposed to initiate contact outside of the company, there’s no reason that they can’t initiate contact with me, especially since they don’t know President Koenigin was murdered. This is my chance to get a message out.

I’ll have to be careful. It’ll have to be coded... somehow...

I hurry into the room and find the gray pigeon strutting on my desk, pecking at a stray lentil. He turns in a quick whump of feathers to face me.

“Verdi, Verdi!” He puffs out his chest. “Took me a while to find you. But I’m here to cordially remind you of tonight’s ball.” He bows formally, his wings outspread and touching the two remaining piles of papers on my desk. These, however, aren’t so precariously stacked.

I hold up my hand. “There’s been an... incident.” I swallow hard, hoping Dr. Johnson doesn’t cut me off right now. But then, she can’t. Not without making everyone suspicious. And since Silber is one of Maria Snow’s friends, if he sees me go unconscious, Maria might recognize the symptoms of the sleeping poison.

“Incident?” The bird twists his head, staring me down with one beady eye. “What kind of incident?”

“The kind I can’t talk about,” I say, emphasizing “can’t.” The bird hops closer to the edge of the desk. “Until it’s been resolved, I won’t be able to go to the ball.”

I’m hoping he doesn’t let me down so easy.

He rears his head back in indignation. “Can’t go to the ball? Ludicrous! Ludicrous! For what reason can’t you go?”

I tell him the honest truth. “House arrest.” I tap the Network augment behind my ear. “I can’t leave without my augments going haywire. It’s not...” I can’t think of anything to say that indicates the nature of what happened and won’t give me away to Dr. Johnson. “If I was to go outside the building, or if anyone thought I was outside, it would go badly.

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