She sat up and studied her room with an odd sense of detachment. Everywhere she looked were expensive things—the crystal vase with its ever-young roses, the closet filled with delicate, colorful dresses, the custom-made vanity cluttered with gleaming pieces of tech. All the trappings of her life, everything that made her Eris Dodd-Radson.
She started to lean back onto her pillows and cursed aloud as something sharp dug into her ear. Her mom’s earrings. She’d forgotten all about them.
Eris unscrewed the right earring and held it out on her palm. It was so beautiful; a glass sphere glowing with whorls of color, like the eye of a coming storm. A beautiful, rare, expensive present from her dad to her mom. Suddenly the earring and everything it stood for struck Eris as unbearably false.
She pulled back her arm and hurled the earring against the wall with all the strength she had. It exploded into a million pieces, which scattered over the floor like shards of glittering tears.
RYLIN
AS THE LAST guests stumbled from Cord’s party into a waiting hover, Rylin heaved a sigh of relief. The night had felt endless—cleaning up all those drunk kids’ messes, pretending not to notice how some of the guys looked at her. She was exhausted, and her head still pounded from being yanked out of the communal. But thank god she was finally done.
Stretching her arms overhead, she wandered to the windows in Cord’s living room and gazed hungrily at the horizon line in the distance. The view screens in her apartment were so old that they didn’t even look like windows anymore, more like garish cartoons of a fake view, with a too-bright sun and overly green trees. There was a window along the side of her monorail stop at work—Rylin’s snack stand was at the Crayne Boulevard stop, between Manhattan and Jersey—but even that was too close to see anything except the Tower, squatting like a giant steel toad that blocked out the sky. Impulsively she pressed her face to the glass. It felt blissfully cool on her aching forehead.
Finally Rylin peeled herself away and started upstairs, to check in with Cord and get the hell out of there. As she walked, the lights behind her turned off and the ones ahead of her clicked on, illuminating a hallway lined with antique paintings. She passed an enormous bathroom, filled with plush hand towels and touch screens on every surface. Hell, the floor was probably even a touch screen: Rylin was willing to bet that it could read your weight, or heat up on voice command. Everything here was the best, the newest, the most expensive—everywhere she looked, she saw money. She walked a little faster.
When she reached the holoden, Rylin hesitated. Projected on the wall wasn’t the action immersion or dumb comedy she had expected. It was old family vids.
“Oh, no! Don’t you dare!” Cord’s mom exclaimed, in vibrant 3-D.
A four-year-old Cord grinned, holding a garden hose. Where was this, Rylin wondered, on vacation somewhere?
“Oops!” he proclaimed, without an ounce of contrition, as he turned the hose on his mom. She laughed, throwing up her tanned arms, her dark hair streaming with water like a mermaid’s. Rylin had forgotten how pretty she was.
Cord leaned forward eagerly, sitting almost on the edge of his leather armchair. A smile played on his lips as he watched his dad chase his younger self around the yard.
Rylin retreated a step. She would just—
The floor creaked under her feet, and Cord’s head shot up. Instantly the vid cut off.
“I—I’m sorry,” she stammered. “I just wanted to let you know I’m finished. So I’m heading out.”
Cord’s eyes traveled slowly over her outfit, her tight jeans and low-cut shirt and the tangle of neon bracelets at her wrists.
“I didn’t have time to go home and change,” she added, not sure why she was explaining herself to him. “You didn’t give me much notice.”
Cord just stared at her, saying nothing. Rylin realized with a start that he hadn’t recognized her. Then again, why should he? They hadn’t seen each other in years, since that Christmas his parents had invited her family over for presents and cookies. Rylin remembered how magical it had seemed to her and Chrissa, playing in the snow in the enclosed greenhouse, like a real-life version of the snow-globe toy her mom always got out for the holidays. Cord had spent the whole time in some holo-game, oblivious.
“Rylin Myers,” Cord said at last, as if she had stumbled into his party by chance rather than been paid to work it. “How the hell are you?” He gestured to the seat next to him, and Rylin surprised herself by sinking into it, pulling her legs up to sit cross-legged.
“Aside from being groped by your friends, just great,” she said without thinking. “Sorry,” she added quickly, “it’s been a long night.” She wondered where Hiral and the gang were, if they’d finally noticed her disappearance.
“Well, most of them aren’t my friends,” Cord said matter-of-factly. He shifted his weight, and Rylin couldn’t help noticing the way his shoulders rippled under his button-down shirt. She sensed suddenly that his carelessness was deceptive, that beneath it all he was watching her intently.
For a moment they both stared at the dark screen. It was funny, Rylin thought; if you’d told her earlier that her night would end here, hanging out with Cord Anderton, she would have laughed.
“What is that?” Cord asked, and Rylin realized she was playing with her necklace again. She dropped her hands to her lap.