These Lifeless Things

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The botanical gardens. The botanical gardens. Quick, where is that on the map? Pull it up, check the drone photos…

“Emerson?”

I look up, dazed. “Wha?”

“We’re just breaking for lunch, if you want to come.”

I lower the book to my lap with trembling hands. I should be wearing gloves. No. Wait. The scanner can filter out my fingerprints. But that means I’ll have to wait until I—

“Em!”

Winnie stoops and taps my wrist briskly with her sharp, painted fingernail. The pain is bright and minute as a wasp sting, and brings me back to myself, back to the cool gloom, the ceaseless breeze. The patch of sunlight I have been sitting in all morning has become shadow, violet and even scarlet around the edges from the dust in the air.

“Are you all right?”

“I found… I think I found,” I correct myself professionally, “I think I may have found a… a primary source.”

“Christ! Are you sure?”

“No. I don’t know.” I’m cradling the book, I realize, in both hands, close to my torso, as if I’ve picked up a small animal. “There’s no date. The book itself was published fifty years pre-Setback. But it talks about the sentinels. About things in the dirt…”

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