The World Never Ended novel · Chapter 10 of 24

Chapter 10: The Rig

At four on Friday the crew was in black and the ballroom was full of cables.

The Sandstrom estate had a stage at one end and a wall of video screens behind it.

A hundred and twenty round tables stood dressed in cream and gold.

I sat in the back of the white truck with my bandaged hand in my lap.

The brass key lay in my other palm, with Audra's name on it in my father's writing.

Shane had run the stamped number twice and found nothing yet.

I put it in my pocket, because whatever it opened would have to wait until tonight was done.

Through the headset Shane had given me, I listened to them work.

"Screen two is clear," said the young tech.

"I've got the house loop. Forty minutes of baby photos and a thing with a violin."

"Can you cut the violin?" the man in the leather jacket said.

"I can cut the violin."

"Cut the violin."

"The medic wants to know if you've eaten," Shane said to me.

"Tell her yes."

"She says she can hear you lying."

"Tell her I had a banana."

"She says that's not a meal."

The medic's voice came on the line, flat and kind.

"You have a cut hand and an empty stomach, Cora. Eat the sandwich."

I looked at the sandwich beside me.

I ate it.

"Thank you," said the medic.

The man in the leather jacket cleared his throat.

"I brought something," he said. "You can say no."

He climbed in the back of the truck and set a folded gray suit on the bench.

It was a hazmat suit, with the mask hanging off it by one strap.

"I thought we could put the old gear on the stage for the reveal," he said.

"I thought you might want to see it go the other way."

"Which way?"

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