Page 1 of Now Until Forever
Chapter One
Eliana Jaxton stared the protestor down while a cold spring breeze drifted down the streets of Chicago and flipped up her collar so that it tapped her cheek. Trying to get her attention. The crowd around them jostled, and picket signs swayed above the heads of the gathered throng in front of the museum, a huge white building with columns that looked down on passersby.
“Excuse me!” she called out.
Every day it was the same. Eliana tried to get to work, and these people were in the way.
Right now, a man blocked her path.
“You’re too young.” He shook his head. “You know nothing about what the world was like before.” His dark brows rose, challenging her to argue with him. He wore a gray sweater and jeans under a heavy brown overcoat, his hair gray and his face craggy.
Overhead, the sky hung like a low ceiling, making her want to duck her head and get inside. Was there any point in arguing back with this guy? Still the words fell from her lips. “I don’t have to be there to know what happened. It’s called ‘history class.’” She reached up and touched the edge of her hairline. Justenough to alleviate the itch, but not enough to dislodge the light-brown wig she wore.
“Hah,” the man said. “History? What they teach you in schools isn’t history, it’s propaganda. Everything on the internet has been curated so it’s only what they want you to know. The internet used to be free! Information was fair game.”
“I didn’t come here to argue.” She pointed at the museum. “I’m late for work.”
“You work there?” He raised his voice to the people around him. “She works there!”
Shoot.
The crowd around them tightened.
Eliana wanted to step back, but there was nowhere to go.
“This place needs to be torn down!”
“It should be burned to the ground!”
“Bring back the Cyber Cold War!”
Eliana frowned. “I’m not part of them, or whatever you guys are. I’m punching a clock. Trying to get paid just like anyone.”
Sort of.
“We’re the truth seekers!” the man yelled over her head, a rallying cry to the people around him. “Free information!”
The crowd yelled, “Free information!”
“Cyber Cold War!”
But the museum had free entry, so the information that was hallowed in those halls—a warning and a wonder—was free. Their protest didn’t make sense. The only thing that did make sense was the history she knew—the Cyber Cold War she’d learned about in school, the same way she wanted to learn the history inside the museum.
“We’re the ones who will usher in the future. Who will tear down the past and destroy those who threaten our freedom! Free information! Free information!”
With the crowd distracted, she dipped her head and wove between a couple of guys. She hurried across the street to the stone steps and the columns that flanked the Shrine entrance. Eliana ducked to the right, down a barren walkway that skirted around the building, where she found a door with a coded entry.
Eliana clicked down the metal keys in order and entered.
Chaos and noise snapped shut, leaving silence in its wake. The kind of quiet that echoed. The difference was as stark as the one between who she was outside these walls and who she had become once she took the job.
Outside of Chicago, she was Eliana Hope Banbury Jaxton, which she’d always thought was far too much name for one person. Inside the Shrine, she was Hope Adams, a security guard hired six months ago. Today her boss was going to promote her to head of security—whether the director knew it or not—and Hope Adams would graciously accept the position she’d been vying for since she started here, and she would have what she wanted.
Finally.
Eliana took her timecard out of the slot and lowered it into the wall unit. The unit punched the time on the card. 8:02. She put her card back in its slot.
Carolena rushed in the door, her cheeks flushed. She did a flyby and barely got her card punched before she tossed it back in the direction of the slots.
