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“What? I just told you this is probably a trap. Cabrera’s men are likely waiting for you. And even if they’re not, there will be city investigators.”
“I’ve beat his men before,” Marianella said. “I can do it again if necessary. And the investigators can’t stay out for so long in the cold. I’ll wait until they’re gone.” She paused. “Besides, I know the dome. I know how to hide.”
“No.” Sofia shook her head. “Absolutely not. It’s too dangerous.”
“Too dangerous?” Marianella snapped. “You didn’t think it was too dangerous when I accompanied Eliana into the city!”
Sofia’s expression flashed with anger. “Of course I thought that was too dangerous. But there wasn’t anything I could do to stop you. And this is different. This is worse.” She paused. “You have to stay here until I’ve taken care of Cabrera.”
Marianella flushed. She didn’t know how to respond to the idea that Sofia cared for her so strongly.
“I’ve devoted myself to that agricultural dome for almost a year,” she said. “You wouldn’t understand. You just want to ship all the humans to the mainland. I’ve told you, the ag dome is the only way for independence that will work. And it isn’t stupid to want to find out if it’s been destroyed. To want to know for certain.” She trembled. “Sofia, if you care about me—”
“Fine,” Sofia said. “You’re going to sit here and play at being human and not listen to reason, so just go.”
“I’m not playing at being human,” Marianella said.
“You’re acting like one,” Sofia said. “But if you’re going to leave, at least take a maintenance drone with you.”
Marianella could not stop shaking. Sofia leaned forward and kissed her on the mouth. “Don’t let him find you,” she whispered.
With that, Marianella left.
* * * *
Even the train going in and out of the amusement park was shut down, so Marianella walked. It took a long time, to weave her way through the city. The streets were deserted, the shops all closed, the houses shut up tight. Marianella’s feet echoed against the sidewalk, and she remained alert to the possibility of Ignacio’s men crawling out of the shadows. But she never saw anyone.
Maintenance drones scuttled on the dome glass overhead, casting thin wavering shadows over the sidewalk. They were following her. An army of drones to keep her safe.
Through her icy dread, a surge of warmth pulsed in Marianella’s heart.
It took her almost an hour to reach the nearest exit. While she walked, she thought about the agricultural dome, about everything she’d done to see it built. All the money she’d invested, all the robots she’d programmed. All so she could prove to the world, to herself, that she was human after all.
Maybe Sofia was right. Maybe she was only playing at being human. The thought made Marianella’s chest hurt.
Marianella thought the exit might be blocked off, guarded, but no one was there. And why would they be? It was winter. Any human would die in the cold before they had a chance to escape.
A drone dropped down from the ceiling and landed at Marianella’s feet. She pressed her hand against its sensor, and it told her in its jittery language that it was to keep her safe. Marianella closed her eyes. She thought about Sofia sitting in the operations room, how beautiful she was in the computer’s harsh lights.
Marianella prayed to the Virgin Mary, and yet she saw Sofia’s face in her thoughts.
“I’m ready,” she said to the maintenance drone, and it opened the door for her, and they stepped out into the cold.
She hadn’t dressed as warmly as she should have, but her anxiety moved her forward, parallel to the wall of frozen light that was the city, past the private domes glowing in the distance. Ice formed over her hair and shoulders. Araceli would have to repair her again after this. She didn’t care.
As they approached the agricultural dome, she smelled smoke.
She stopped. Her body vibrated infinitesimally, keeping her human parts warm.
“No,” she whispered, although she had known all along.
She ran.
She ran through the swirling snow, her movements clumsy and rough. The maintenance drone whirred behind her. She realized she was crying and that her tears had frozen to her cheeks like tiny icicles. The agricultural dome loomed overhead, another orb of light in the winter darkness, like the light from a human heart.
It was broken.
Marianella screamed, and her scream was lost with the wind. The dome’s glass was scorched and shattered. Half of it was gone. For a moment she could only stare. Then the maintenance drone chirped at her, and bumped against her leg like a cat, and she stumbled forward, blind in the snow.
She didn’t care if anyone saw her. Didn’t care if Ignacio’s goons would be waiting for her in parkas and personal heaters. She was drawn toward the dome on a thread of tragedy—she didn’t want to see, but she had to see. She had to.
Marianella came to the dome’s shattered edge. Antarctica had gotten in. All her plants were flash-frozen, snapped in place by coats of ice. Snowdrifts billowed over the crops and the empty paths. Nothing, not even a human in a parka, could survive in here.
She stepped inside. Her feet crunched through the snow and the ice. The standing part of the dome blocked most of the wind, and so the air was still and hollow, even though she could hear the air’s whistle and howl as it moved past the gap in the glass.
She was numb. Disbelieving. Like she was trapped in a dream.
She walked past each of the crops in turn: corn, wheat, sorghum, potatoes, grapes, apples. The plants were still green beneath the ice, but she knew that wouldn’t last. In a day’s time they would be yellowed and dead.
Marianella wept, more icicles forming on her cheeks. The maintenance drone nudged her. She ignored it. She walked every path in the food dome, and then she walked to the train station. The tracks were empty. It was warmer here, farther away from the gaping hole in the glass. Warm enough that her frozen tears began to melt.
She stood for a moment on the platform, listening to the wind. Then she jumped onto the tracks. She was unsteady on her feet from staying too long in the cold. The maintenance drone followed, beeping warnings at her.
“I know you can ignore Sofia’s programming,” she said out loud.
More beeping. She sighed, pressed her hand on the sensor to get it to shut up. She expected a message from Sofia, but instead there was an image, relayed by one of the maintenance drones in the main dome. At the place where the train tracks crossed over into the main dome stood a trio of men with guns. They were dressed like police officers, but that didn’t mean anything.
“Well, then we’re going around the side,” she said.
The maintenance drone fell silent. They moved together over the tracks. When they came to the dome’s edge, they veered off into the ice. Marianella didn’t feel the cold anymore. She only felt the empty nothingness that had appeared the moment she’d seen her shattered agricultural dome.
They weren’t so long in the snow this time. The nearest entrance was not guarded, and when they came back inside, back into the flood of yellow heat, Marianella let out a soft frustrated sigh and slumped down on the gravel, her limbs jerky and limp. In any other circumstance the gravel would have been cold to the touch, but now it was like the surface of the sun.
The maintenance robot sat beside her as she waited for the ice to melt. The drip, drip, drip of ice off her clothes and hair felt like surrogate tears. It pooled around her. Her insides began to feel normal again, no more shaking or vibrations. She doubted that would last.
Still, she sat there for a long time. When she finally stood up, her clothes were soaked through and her hair was plastered like wet ribbons to the side of her face. Her thoughts were cloudy, except for one, a single sentence that repeated over and over—