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She wondered why all the trees didn’t have leaves. Probably they had, at one point.
The leaf stopped swinging, the dots of light settling in a pattern on her shoe. She thought about what this place must have looked like when the park was still open, all this color and light. It must have been beautiful.
And then she heard a noise.
Eliana froze. Her hand went to her gun and her head flushed with nightmares.
The noise was a soft, mechanical buzzing. A robot sound. Without thinking Eliana yanked the gun out of her coat and cocked it and waited, telling herself she was ready.
The buzzing faded away.
Eliana breathed hard. After a minute or two passed she dropped the gun to her side. The artificial forest no longer seemed beautiful but u
She forced herself to move on.
The path led to a metal gate overgrown with flowerless vines. She walked under the archway and into what must have been the Fairy-Tale Village. She was surrounded by gingerbread houses and faded metal statues of elves and gnomes and fairies.
The stillness felt like it could choke her.
She went up to one of the cottages and knocked. The door nudged open. Eliana gripped her gun tighter. “Hello!” she called out. “My name is Eliana Gomez, and I’m just looking to speak with someone.”
No answer.
Eliana crept in, her footsteps stirring up dust. The cottage was full of broken furniture and the glitter of shattered glass. And dust thick enough to make her sneeze. She thought she saw something small moving jerkily in the shadows, but when she moved in to investigate, she found nothing but smeared tracks in the dust, miniature footprints marching up to the wall.
Unsettled, she went back outside.
“Now what?” she said.
Her voice echoed. She checked two more of the cottages but found them as run-down and abandoned as the first. She followed the path to the edge of the Fairy-Tale Village, where she found a tangle of thorny plants that she thought might be roses, although there were no blossoms anywhere. She sat down on a nearby bench and lay her gun across her lap. Took a deep breath.
That buzzing began again. Closer.
Eliana leapt to her feet and spun around with the gun. But she didn’t see anything.
The buzzing stopped.
She rubbed at her forehead. Her adrenaline had her body drawn tight like a coil about to spring. She checked her watch, and her arm was shaking. She had over three hours before the next train would arrive in the amusement park. And she’d heard the city kept the front gate locked, so she couldn’t just walk back out onto the street. But maybe those rumors weren’t true.
She left the Fairy-Tale Village and walked until she found another signpost. This one pointed her to the Snow Village, concessions, the Ferris wheel, and the Ice Palace. She decided to try the Snow Village. The path twisted through snowdrifts carved out of painted cement. Eliana sweated beneath her coat and sweater. Not from heat—it was freezing here—but from a vague, unshakable sense of dread.
The Snow Village loomed up ahead. Behind it rose a huge white art deco structure Eliana could only assume was the Ice Palace. It seemed high enough to touch the top of the dome.
A speck of darkness slid down the Ice Palace’s side.
Eliana’s skin prickled. Nothing emerged from the Snow Village cottages. She slunk forward, cautious, holding her gun in front of her at an awkward angle. It occurred to her that if she was going to find someone—something—it would probably be in the Ice Palace. The speck of darkness was most likely a maintenance drone, and there might have been others with it, others that could lead her to an andie if she didn’t scare them off and if she could figure out how to ask.
But despite all that, she shivered at the thought of going to the palace, even with her gun. The cottages, she decided. The cottages would be safer.
She knocked on the door of the first cottage with her foot. No one answered, but the door nudged open a little, just like the door in the Fairy-Tale Village had done. She stepped inside. There was no dust and broken furniture here. The room sparkled with electronic parts, all set out on shelves and tables, lined up in neat rows like in a grocery store. Eliana fought the panic rising in her throat like bile; she fought the urge to run. Instead she slid forward, gun lifted, her finger on the trigger.
Footsteps sounded behind her.
Eliana screamed and whirled around. Her finger curled and there was a dazzling flash of light and a loud reverberating bang and a sharp burning pain in her ears. Her arms jerked back and slammed into her forehead. A man stepped forward and slapped the gun out of her hand, and it went clattering across the floor. Eliana stumbled backward, shaking. Half of the man’s face was missing, the skin blasted off and charred at the edges. Beneath it was dull burnished metal.
She screamed again.
The man picked up her gun and shoved it into the waistband of his pants, then grabbed her by the arm and yanked her up to standing. She tried to struggle against him, but his grip was too strong.
“Come along,” he said, in an even, pleasant voice.
A voice she recognized.
“Luciano?” she said, suddenly struck with a painful, piercing guilt.
He looked at her. With only half his face she could hardly see that it was him. “Yes. Hello, Miss Gomez.”
He led her out of the cottage and through the Snow Village. Eliana pulled against him, but he didn’t let her go, and her guilt was replaced with a trickle of fear.
“Please, Luciano—I’m sorry I shot you. I didn’t mean— I thought you were—”
“You thought I was some other robot,” he said, still in that even, pleasant voice. His grip tightened on her arm.
Eliana yanked against him. It didn’t work. Her vision blurred with tears, refracting the light from the floodlights and the glittering white paint. Luciano didn’t say anything more; he kept walking. Her arm felt like it was being pulled out of the socket as she stumbled after him, her fear now so palpable, it was a physical pain.
Maybe Marianella wasn’t her friend at all. Maybe there was a reason cyborgs were so distrusted. Maybe, maybe, maybe.
Maybe Eliana was going to die.
Luciano took her to the Ice Palace, winding through fake glass glaciers covered in thick gray moss. When they came to the entrance, he pressed his hand against a sensor and the door swung open. Eliana choked back sobs.
“Where are you taking me!” she shrieked. “What are you going to do with me?”
He looked at her then, his eyes fierce and glittering and strangely human.
“I really didn’t mean to shoot you,” she whispered. “I didn’t—I just want to talk to someone about— Please. Lady Lu—Marianella is my friend.” Eliana could taste the lie on her tongue.
“Please be quiet.” Spoken in that same reasonable voice. “You’ll wait here.” He took her to a small, narrow room. A maintenance drone squatted on the floor, lights glowing red. Luciano let go of her arm. She curled herself up against the far corner, eyes damp, her arms wrapped around her chest.
Luciano knelt down beside the maintenance drone and moved his fingers over its spine, too fast for her to see. Then he stood up and looked at her.
“He’ll watch you,” he said. “Don’t try to leave.”
Eliana tried to push down her fear. “Wait!” she shouted. “I just need to speak to Sofia. Just let me do that. I don’t want to—”
“Wait here,” Luciano said, and then he left.
Eliana slumped down the wall, drawing her knees into her chest. The maintenance drone blinked its lights at her, and she thought about watching the dismantling after the blackout. It had been the same sort of robot as this one. She remembered how cold she’d felt afterward. She wondered if the robot would feel the same way, watching her die.