Chapter 23
Over the next few days, I tried to formulate a plan to escape the surrogate center. I needed a partner to help me, but none of the girls were nearly as smart and brave as Sorrel had been; if any of them had once been smart and brave, those qualities had been stamped out through cycles of capsulation and recovery. Leslie and the other girls dragged around Room 73 and the courtyard like old women, waiting for their next dream-capsule adventure to begin. Those recently awoken arrived at our room at various times of the day and night, always escorted by the coat-dress woman. She would help them to a bed, take off their boots, and provide a clean washcloth for their flushed and sweating faces.
I’d been living among the beleaguered sorority for a few days when the coat-dress woman t
