“You know, just because I said you’re cute doesn’t mean I want you to put your hands all over me.” Bugz stopped. She didn’t know if this was an overreaction, but she was a little freaked out things were moving so fast. Should she take back what she’d just said, or at least apologize for the tone in which she’d said it? She didn’t know, so she simply continued walking.

After a moment, she realized she enjoyed a certain power over Feng. She tested the limits of this new feeling by lording it over him as she strode ahead. She grinned as she looked down at her feet. She was leading and he was following.

CHAPTER 24

Bugz ran up to an old chain-link fence whose posts sank lazily into the forest floor. In one fluid motion, she jumped onto the fence, pulled herself to the top, and vaulted over to the other side. For that briefest of moments, she looked exactly like her ’Versona. She turned to see Feng climbing the fence and trying to look cool while doing it. She smirked.

The square-fenced perimeter defined this forest clearing. Inside sat a dozen trailers. Fragments of painted words like TCO and ISO-3 peeling from their walls bore testament to their past usage.

Bugz walked up to a trailer and forced the door open with some effort. “C’mon.” She motioned to Feng as she disappeared into the shadows. Inside the trailer she pulled her phone out, the amber screen illuminating the space around them with an eerie glow. Feng followed closely behind her and pulled his phone out too.

They walked down the narrow hallway and saw piles of file folders scattered everywhere on the floor. Black mold swept across the debris, slowly claiming new territory. Further into the trailer, they passed an administration desk and a bank of cubicles. A giant banner along one wall read Wash your hands! A matching sign on the far side spelled out N100 masks required. Bugz and Feng climbed up on the desks and made a game of jumping over the cubicle walls. They arrived at the end of the trailer. It joined another, and Bugz forced this new door open. She and Feng stepped in and stopped still in their tracks. This room never ceased to amaze Bugz.

Rows of hospital beds lined the trailer on both sides, each with racks and dollies where medical equipment had clearly once been installed. Dangling cables and wires suggested the equipment had been removed very quickly. A ventilator tube snaked out onto the floor from underneath the closest bed.

“You know what this place is?” Bugz asked.

“Let me guess.” Feng sounded awestruck. “This is where your people did isolation in the 2020s during the pandemics.”

“Bingo.” Bugz stepped forward slowly. “They called it the farm. ‘Get sent to the farm, you don’t come back,’ they said.”