Free 0692321314 (S) by Simone Pond Page B

Boulevard were far behind them.
    “See, I told you I could take them,” she said, gloating.
    Marion remained silent.
    Grace glanced over at her best friend and noticed a bullet hole in her forehead.
    “Marion!” Grace slammed on the breaks and shook Marion, trying to wake her up. She pumped on her chest and gave her mouth-to-mouth, but her efforts were pointless—Marion was dead . . .
     
    The program ended, and Grace woke up in the assembly room. Many of the cadets were still plugged in. Sweat dripped down the sides of her face, and she felt sick to her stomach. That did not go well. Claustrophobia started to set in, and she needed to get some air. She jumped up and exited the assembly room as fast as she could.

8
    GRACE FOUND A courtyard where she hoped to find some solace from the jarring experience of the virtual aptitude test. Though none of it was real, seeing that bullet hole in Marion’s head was unsettling. She pulled out her tablet and chimed Marion.
    “Hi.”
    “There you are.” Marion wrote back. She added a dancing smiley face.
    “Oh, good. You’re not mad at me.”
    “Nah, I know how much combat meant to you. I get it.”
    “I’m happy for you.” Grace added a regular smiley face.
    “You better be happy for me!”
    “I’m sorry for being a jerk. And for getting you killed in the virtual.”
    “You got me killed?!”
    “Yeah, sorry.” Grace added a sad face.
    “You wanna get out of this place and go check out the city?”
    “Yes! Starving!”
    “Meet me in the lobby.”
    The girls met in the lobby and took a transporter to the heart of Silicon Valley. That might have been a mistake, because when they stepped out into the bustling whirlwind they were hit with a barrage of stimuli—multi-leveled solar walkways, commuter tubes, restaurants, shops, advertising orbs, and thousands of people swarming about. Some of the city dwellers shoved by them with a grunt. They scooted off the main pathway to a less busy one, and found a tramlift where they rose above the crowds and got a better view of the city.
    “This is like New Los Angeles times a million.” Marion gaped at the city’s moving parts.
    From a few hundred feet up, Silicon Valley sparkled like a mosaic made of mirrors. Commuter tubes zipped around the gleaming city in turbo-charged figure eights. At the center of the metropolis, Silicon Valley Academy reached high above the other structures.
    “I don’t know where to look,” Grace said, holding onto the bar with both hands.
    One of the floating advertisement orbs drifted toward them and slowed down. “Good afternoon, visitors. Would you like a tour of the city for one thousand e-credits?”
    Grace wasn’t about to get swindled by the floating advertisement. “No thanks,” she told the orb, then looked at Marion. “We’ve got our tablets; we don’t need to pay for a tour guide.”
    Grace activated her tablet and searched through the apps, finding one for a virtual tour guide. She selected the option and a hologram of a perfectly-coifed woman wearing a navy blue skirt and blazer appeared. Her hair was pulled up into a twist and her name badge read LINDSAY.
    “Please select the type of tour,” Lindsay said with a hospitable smile.
    Grace and Marion laughed, not knowing what to say.
    “Might I suggest a historical route?” Lindsay asked.
    “Sure, why not?” said Grace.
    “Please exit the tramlift at the next stop.”
    They followed the virtual tour guide as she escorted them off the main drag into an older part of the city. They walked down a traditional cement sidewalk—one that didn’t move—toward what Lindsay called a business park. As they walked along, Lindsay spewed out details about their surroundings.
    “This section of town is modeled after the original industrial parks that date back to the 1950s all the way through the Internet bubble of the 1990s. In 2006, Silicon Valley was known as one of the most inventive places in America. In 2027, the city was