Crashed (4 page)

Scared.

Bliss.

Raw jolts of emotion as if there was no body, no bed, no Lia Kahn, only the roiling froth of
joy grief terror pain joy
.

There was no "I."

"I" was an illusion, evanescent, a null spot at the eye of the hurricane, an emptiness that drew its reality from the storm swirling around it.

There was want. A surge of need, pain and pleasure welded together, craving, and the sweet excruciation of denial, giving way, finally, inevitably, to satisfaction.

There were no stories and no faces, but then I saw his face, amber eyes flashing, spiraling silver making his flesh shimmer in the light, lips curled, knowing.

Lips.

I reached out. I wanted. I
needed.

"Sweet dreams, I take it?" he said, catching my wrist just as my fingers grazed his cheek.

I was awake.

DAMAGE

"I have seen the truth."

I yanked my hand away. "What the hell are you doing?"

"I should be asking you that," Jude shot back. "I just wanted to see if you were in here--no one asked you to molest me."

I sat up, trying to shake off the effects of the dreamer. After, everything felt hollow. Shadows flickered in corners, like the dream was lurking out there somewhere, waiting to reclaim me.

"As you can see, I'm here," I snapped. "Now you can get out."

Jude smiled and perched on the edge of my bed. I hopped to my feet, keeping the bed between us.

"If you really hate me as much as you like to pretend, why move in with me?" he asked.

"You and twenty other mechs," I pointed out. "It's not like we're playing house."

"We're playing something." He shook his head. "At least you are."

"That's exactly your problem. You think this is all just a game."

Something flashed across his face, gone too quickly for me to interpret. "If I thought you were stupid enough to believe that, you wouldn't be here. Or at least, I wouldn't be here with you."

"So being stupid is the key to getting you out of here? I could give it a try."

He stood up and headed for the door. "Don't start shaving IQ points on my account. There was just something I thought you'd want to see."

"I'm sure it can wait."

"Not quite an
it
," Jude said. "More like a he."

"I've had enough new people today," I said, wondering how much time had passed, if Seth and Quinn were still down at the pool together. Wondering whether the dreamer had somehow known what I was thinking--or was I only thinking it now because of the dreamer?

"Not quite new either," Jude said. "But if it makes you feel better, I doubt he'd want to see you either."

"Who?"

"Auden."

The vidroom wasn't off-limits to the randoms, not exactly, but it was known who belonged there and who didn't. When Jude and I arrived, Riley was sitting on one of the two red couches, stiffly upright and awkward with the usual black cloud hovering over him. It made a certain perverse sense that he and Jude claimed some kind of no-holds-barred, for-richer, for-poorer, in-sickness-and-in-health, not-even-death-did-part-them friendship: One never bothered to speak for himself, while the other couldn't shut up.

Quinn and Ani were sprawled on the other couch, Quinn's hand casually resting on Ani's knee as if to say,
This is mine
.

When I feel like it, that is
.

I wondered if she'd told Ani about Seth, or invited her to join in. I doubted it.

If you're planning to live forever, monogamy is an impractical standard,
Jude liked to say. How convenient for him.

"Where is he?" I peered around the room as if he'd be hiding behind the furniture.

"He who?" Jude asked.

"You know who."

He didn't say anything.

"Auden." I'd barely spoken his name since it happened.

"Did I say he was here?" Jude gave me the wide-eyed innocent act.

I wanted to punch him.

"I'm out of here."

"Wait." Jude's smile vanished. "You really do need to see this." He nodded at Riley. "Play it back."

Each wall of the vidroom was covered with a ViM screen, flickering with a constant stream of images that the Virtual Machine interface yanked from the network. Most defaulted to random, but one wall was programmed to pull up any vid that mentioned the words "mech-head," "download," "Fran-kenstein," or "skinner
.
"

It seemed important to know who was talking about us.

Usually it meant a haphazard collage of muted video: Faither protests, fame-whore newbie mechs selling whatever was left of their souls for a shot on a vidlife, the latest ruling on what we could do, where we could go, what we could own, how human we were. The usual. But when Riley swept his finger across the console, the jumble of images gave way to one large, familiar face, paler than I remembered, his dark eyes like black voids in his flesh.

"It posted about half an hour ago," Jude said. "While you were . . .
sleeping
. The 'Honored' Rai Savona has found his calling." His mouth twisted around the word "honored
.
" Understandable. I could have thought of a few choice adjectives that would have better suited the sanctimonious nutjob. "Honored" was the one he'd chosen for himself.

Savona was standing at a podium, and when the camera panned back, it was clear he'd assembled an audience of hundreds to hear whatever it was he had to say. "Honored friends," he began, smiling out at the crowd. "Today marks both an ending and a bright beginning as I say farewell to the cause I have served willingly for the last ten years and turn the page to a shining future. As of this morning I am stepping down as the leader of the Faith Party." Mumbles percolated in the crowd. "It's with great sadness that I leave behind such a loving community--"

"I'd be sad too if I got fired," Quinn muttered.

"But I'm unable to turn a deaf ear to my true calling--"

"Obsession," Jude spit out.

"Which is why I'm pleased to announce to you the formation of the Brotherhood of Man. Providing social services to the needy, a place of peace and solace for lost souls, and dedicated, above all, to defending the unique glory of God's creation over those who seek to encroach upon it."

Jude scowled. "Translation: Even my crazy Faither friends aren't crazy enough to declare war on download tech, so I'm going it alone. Because I'm going to prove I'm the biggest crackbrain of all, if it's the last thing I do."

It wasn't a surprise; in fact, now that it had happened, it seemed inevitable. After the religious wars a few decades ago, the whole God thing became a serious fashion don't. Some people just couldn't let it go--but that didn't mean they were spoiling for a fight. The Middle East was a crater and Italy was toxic; the world was running out of places to blow up. Smart move for the Faithers to ditch Savona once he started waving his pitchfork.

"We will destroy the technology robbing our nation's youth of their very lives and souls, deceiving heartsick parents across the country with the illusion that their departed children have come back to them, seducing the whole and healthy into throwing away everything, and for what? A false promise of immortality! Hell on Earth, trapped forever in the purgatory of iron and steel."

In person, Savona's stare was magnetic. I'd found it impossible to turn away even when he was telling me I shouldn't--and by his standards
didn't
--exist. But the advantage of watching him on-screen was that we could turn him off. "Tell me again why we're watching this crap?"

Jude frowned. "Wait for it."

Ani shot me an odd look, equal parts pity and concern, then turned away the moment I caught her eye.

"I have seen the truth," Savona said, peering into the camera. "And I have seen the danger. Not just to our souls, to the very fabric of human society, but to ourselves, to
yourselves
. The danger is
real
, and it is imminent, and this is why we must
act.
Self-protection is a moral imperative." He hung his head. "But words are empty.
Words
are meaningless. I offer you more than words. I offer you evidence of the danger. A young man who's faced the abyss and barely lived to tell the tale. This brave young man's story called to me, as it will call to you. As the Brotherhood moves forward, we will all look to him as a beacon. A light in the darkness, a reminder of what we stand to lose if we fail."

I knew. Before the camera panned across the stage, settling on a thin figure emerging from behind the curtain, tracking him as he hobbled toward the podium, I knew. He shook hands with Savona, then looked out over the audience, his eyes finding the camera. Finding me. They were a brighter green than I remembered--then I realized he wasn't wearing his glasses. He'd been the only person I knew who wore glasses, because no one in their right mind would turn down the simple med-tech to fix myopia. But then, no one in their right mind would allow that kind of defect to slip into their child's genetic code in the first place, not when they had the credit to fix it. As I understood it, his mother hadn't been in her right mind, not with all the talk of preserving God's natural plan. When she died, he'd kept the glasses, a tribute to the woman, I thought, not an embrace of her insanity.

Except here he was, embracing the Honored Rai Savona. No glasses.

"I'm Auden Heller," he said, his voice raspy and hoarse. "And this is the story of how I almost died."

I could feel them all staring at me, waiting for me to react. But I kept my face blank. That was the serious advantage to mech life--when you were disconnected from your body, it couldn't give you away.

They've already watched this,
I thought.
They all know.

Which meant it would be useless to run away or shut it off. I would only look weak. I would stay; I would listen. It was no more than I deserved.

And I wanted to see him. Even like this.

Auden eased himself into a chair next to the podium. His movements were slow and careful, as if to protect brittle bones. "I hope you don't mind if I sit," he said, his voice amplified by a hidden microphone. "I get tired so easily now. Rai wanted to do this over the network, so I could speak from my home, but I told him no." His voice rose, some of the color bleeding back into his pale face. "It's important that we be here together, in person, celebrating one another's humanity. Without electronic barriers, without
machines
, keeping us apart."

"Impressive ventriloquism, isn't it?" Jude murmured. "You can barely see Savona's lips move."

I jabbed an elbow into his side. "Shut. Up."

"I used to think this was my fault," Auden said, gesturing down at his ruined body. His cheeks were hollow, his face etched with scars that he must have had the doctors leave intact for effect. He was thinner than he'd been before, and, bent by a twisted spine, his left shoulder dipped below his right. He wore short sleeves, and the skin on one arm was markedly darker than on the other, the telltale sign of a transplanted limb. His hand lay in his lap, its fingers half-curled, and I flashed on the last time I'd seen him, when I rested my hand in his and he hadn't even realized it. The nerves transmitting the sensation had dead-ended at his severed spine. "I was naive," he continued. "When I met the skinner, I believed its disguise. I thought it was my friend. It's very good at simulating human emotion--they all are. And emotional exhibition stimulates emotional response. That's how we're built. If someone smiles at you, you instinctually smile back. Even if that someone is a machine. You forget." He broke off coughing, his whole body spasming. Savona took a step toward him, but Auden got himself under control. And he told the story.

Our story.

I couldn't look at him while he spoke. Telling the world how he'd befriended me after the download. Telling thousands of strangers how he'd assured me I was human, I was still
me.
Telling Ani and Quinn and Riley about the day I'd leaped off the edge of the waterfall. How he'd nearly died trying to save me, the mech who would never need saving.

My fault, for letting both of us forget what I really was. Jude had helped me see that. I couldn't blame Auden for seeing it too.

"I believe it didn't mean to hurt me," Auden said. I wondered if he knew I was watching. If he thought about me at all--but then I realized he must think about me every day, every time he collapsed after walking up a flight of stairs, every time the nerve implants jolted his muscles into action with a painful blast of electricity or his transplanted liver failed. I'd spent a lot of time pumping the network these past few months. I knew what doctors could fix and what they couldn't. "Just as I believe the skinners don't want to damage society. They honestly believe they're harmless. But I learned that motives don't matter." He raised one arm and used it to lift the other one, the limp, discolored one. "The skinner I took as my friend didn't chop off my arm. But I still lost my arm because of the skinner. I nearly lost everything." He left out the part where he'd wanted the download for himself and been denied, thanks to a genetic tendency for mental instability that might never manifest itself--unless it already had. Believing that, at least, would have made it easier for me to watch.

Auden began coughing, his face going red and flushed with the effort to suck in enough air. When he spoke again, his voice was ragged. "It doesn't matter that the skinners mean us no harm. Some things create danger just by existing. But our eyes are open. Our spirits are willing." The crowd began to cheer. "Together, we will face the threat!" he shouted over the roars. "And together we will defeat it!"

Jude muted the applause.

"He doesn't mean it," I said, though even I was aware how lame it sounded. "He's been brainwashed by that lunatic."

"Or he's just trying to hurt you," Riley said quietly. "The way he thinks you hurt him." He was the only one not looking at me. His eyes were still fixed on the screen, where Savona was helping Auden off the stage.

"You don't know anything about it," I snapped, but of course he did. They all did now.

"He's an arrogant little bastard," Jude said. "Always was."

"Shut up," Ani and I said together. She brushed Quinn's hand off her leg and stood up. I backed away. Ani was into hugging, and I didn't want anyone touching me.

"I'm going to my room."

Jude raised his eyebrows. "Twice in one day?"

I shrugged. He thought he knew everything. Let him.

"Stay," Jude said. "This is going to get ugly, fast. We need to be ready."

"You be ready. I'll be in my room."

Jude ran a hand through his shock of dark hair. "Why can't you just--"

"Let her go," Riley said. He still wouldn't look at me.

"She shouldn't be alone," Jude said in a low voice.

"Let her go," Riley said again.