Wired (Skinned, Book 3) (14 page)

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I was shouting.

"Fine," I said. "So I'm mad. Congratulations, you figured me out."

"You're not mad at me."

"No kidding."

He took my hand and pressed my palm between his. "I love you," he said.

It was the first time.

That wasn't how I wanted it, like blackmail. Words to shut me up.

But I wanted it.

"You believe me?" he added.

I nodded.

I love you, too.
I hadn't said it either. And I didn't want to say it now. Not so close to the lie he was about to make me tell.

"I'm worried," he said. "You get that?"

I nodded again, then raised my head and met his gaze. That was how you lied, if you wanted it to work. Head on. Fearless. I knew what was coming.

"Promise me you'll wait," he said. "Think about what you're doing. When you're ready, I'll be there. I'm with you. You believe me?" he asked again. I nodded. "So promise me?"

I didn't cross my fingers. I didn't try to avoid the question or offer a nonanswer that, in retrospect, could technically be considered some flavor of true. No excuses, no escape. I lied.

"I promise." And then, because I hadn't said it and the

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silence was hanging there, growing between us, because I needed a truth to cancel out the lie, because it
was
true: "I love you, too."

He kissed my forehead, and then I tipped my face up and he kissed me for real, his eyes tightly shut.

He loved me, and I loved him, but he left when I told him I needed to be alone, and as soon as he was out of sight, I linked into the network.

And then I voiced Jude.

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WHAT LIES BENEATH I didn't ask to be saved.

The coordinates Jude sent took me deeper into Anarchy than I'd ever been before. I texted Zo that I'd meet her back at Riley's, then wove my way through the manicured gardens into a deserted area of densely overgrown brush. Cloudy water from a sewage pipe trickled into a runoff creek, and after staring blankly at it for a moment, I realized it was probably the closest thing the park had to a waterfall. Coincidence, or Jude's twisted sense of humor?

It took him two hours to arrive, which gave me plenty of time to do all that thinking Riley had urged me to do. I finished even more certain than when I'd started. This was the right thing to do. For me, and for all the mechs. Not to mention for my father.

I couldn't go to the authorities, not with what I had. There were no authorities anymore, not objective ones, at least. The secops were all owned by one corp or another--and my father was on half of their boards. The rest of the BioMax execs

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probably had the other half covered. I needed something splashier than what I had, something that could tear the whole corp apart and take my father down with it. I needed to dredge up the corp's deepest, darkest secrets--and then sell them to the highest bidder. No "authorities" were going to give me justice. That was something I'd get for myself.

"I'm in," I said, as soon as Jude appeared from behind the trees. "But I have some conditions."

Jude laced his hands together behind his head and leaned against a tree. "Let me guess--you'll help me find the download specs if I help you find the dirt on dear old Dad."

"Where did you get the flash drive?"

"Aikida," Jude said. It was rare for him to give up information so lightly, without demanding something--even if it was just abject supplication--in return. "They've been keeping tabs on the BioMax crew for quite a while."

"Is there more?"

He shook his head. "You've got everything I've got."

"Then how did you know about my father?"

"I'm a good guesser. I take it I was right?"

I didn't answer.

"Sure you don't want to take some time and think about it?" he asked. "Wait until you
calm down
?"

His emphasis tipped me off. "You talked to Riley."

"He wanted me to promise that I wouldn't drag you into my--how did he phrase it?--'insane delusions.' Which is a

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little redundant, if you ask me, but I assume you'll agree that language has never really been his strong suit."

He's only trying to help,
I told myself.
He loves me.
But this wasn't the way to do it.

"What did you tell him?"

Jude shrugged. "What he wanted to hear. That I understood. That I would never pressure you into anything. That I'll stay away until you're feeling more like yourself--and if you come to me, I'll walk away."

"You lied?"

"I lied."

My surprise must have shown on my face. Jude had always made one thing clear: His bond with Riley was inviolate.

"I don't see why he should get to make decisions for you when he's doing such a crap job of running his own life," he added.

"He is not."

"Oh, so you
approve
of his sweet little houseguest?"

"I wouldn't say that."

"Right, because you're not brain-dead."

It was a relief to know I wasn't the only one who saw Sari as a threat, but I wasn't about to let him think this meant we'd forged some kind of alliance, the two of us against Riley. There was no line between us; there was no triangle. There was me-and-Riley, and then, outside of that, irrelevant to that, there was Jude. "Riley trusts her."

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"Riley has a blind spot when it comes to pretty girls," Jude said. "Maybe you've noticed."

That fell under the category of Not Going to Dignify with a Response.

"What?" he said.

I smiled sweetly. "Trying to remember how I ever found you tolerable."

He shrugged. "Crisis makes for strange bedfellows."

"Never. In a million years--"

"It's an expression!" He held up his arms in surrender. "So much for the education of society's future elite."

"I
know
it's an expression," I snapped. "I'm just beginning to reevaluate whether I even want to be your metaphorical bedfellow."

"Your choice," Jude said. "Unlike some people, I get that."

"So do I." Zo's voice floated from beyond the bushes. She stepped into the clearing. "Or don't I get a vote?"

"What are you doing here?" As if I even had to ask. It was a shame that all spying these days was done by machines, because back in the dark old days of international intelligence agencies and invisible agents slipping through the shadows, Zo would have been a world champion.

"I heard you talking to Riley," Zo admitted.

"That tends to happen when you're hiding under a bench."

"Behind a tree," she corrected me. "The point is, I heard you."

"And then you followed me."

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"It's a good plan," she said. "I knew you were lying about not going through with it."

"I guess little sister knows you better than Prince Charming," Jude said. He held out a hand to Zo, then raised hers to his lips with elaborate chivalry. "So this is the famous Kahn Junior.
Enchanté.
"

"And this is the famous Jude. Huh. I thought you'd be taller." She extricated her hand, which flew immediately to her tangle of hair and tucked the unruly strands behind her left ear. I groaned. This was Zo's version of blushing. She probably didn't even notice she was doing it. But--I could see it in his eyes--Jude did.

"And I thought you were a Brotherhood head case," he said. "So I guess our reputations precede us."

She ignored him. "You're taking me with you," she told me.

"I'm not going anywhere."

"When you take him down," she said. "Him and the whole corp. I'm going with you."

"She's spunky," Jude said. "You sure she's related to you?"

"Is he always this big an asshole?" Zo asked.

"Definitely related," Jude said.

This time we both ignored him.

"So?" she prompted me. "Do we have to fight, or do you want to save the energy and give in now?"

"Why would we let
you
in on anything?" Jude asked, replacing his charm offensive with a real one.

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"Oh, you two are a
we
now?"

When he didn't crack a smile, much less fire back, Zo realized he wasn't joking. "What's his problem?"

"You," Jude said.

"Yeah, I'm an 'org.'" She made finger quotes around the word. "Deal."

"You're an org who went along with Savona's crap," Jude said. "Who decided we were subhuman, and treated your sister like dogshit you scraped off the bottom of your shoe."

Zo squared her shoulders. "I did what I did. I didn't know--"

"That it could have been
you
?" Jude finished for her. "Changes things, doesn't it?"

"I didn't know what it would mean to join the Brotherhood," Zo said firmly. "And I didn't know ... Lia. My father's mistakes have nothing to do with that. Neither do you."

"She's right," I said. They looked equally surprised. "We could use her help."

Jude rolled his eyes. "She's twelve."

"She's seventeen," Zo said. "And she's in."

Jude sighed. "Fine. She's in." He smirked at her. "But you owe me one."

She scowled back--Zo's version of batting her eyelashes. "So collect. I dare you." The scowl morphed into a brilliant, triumphant smile when it was clear he was out of ammunition. "In that case, can we get out of here and go plan this thing somewhere

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civilized?" she added. "I realize you two don't care, but it's about zero degrees out here and I haven't eaten since breakfast."

I let her tromp through the mud ahead of us, which gave me a chance to dig my nails into Jude's arm and, quietly but firmly, make one thing clear. "My sister is
off-limits.
"

"She's an org," he said, as if that settled the issue.

"Like that would stop you."

"Jealous?"

"Screw you."

"Then we don't have a problem."

"Jude ..." I let it hang there, my tone the best threat I could muster.

"She's a big girl," he said. "Seems like she can protect herself. In fact she seems a lot like you."

"She's nothing like me."

"Really? Huh." Jude put on his
thoughtful
look. "Funny, because she definitely reminds me of someone."

I knew what he was thinking, because I'd been thinking it too, ever since the day I met him.

You
, I thought, but I would never say it out loud, especially not to him.
She reminds you of you.

Waiting was interminable. As was playing along, playing the roles that had been written for me: Riley's dutiful girlfriend, keeping her simmering rage under control; BioMax's willing stooge, putting aside her personal feelings for the sake of a

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greater cause. This was key, Jude assured me, when I balked at showing my face the next morning for a weekly meeting with Kiri, Ben, and my father. I had to find out what he'd told them, and if they knew that I knew; I had to pretend I was past it, over it, somehow beyond it, or risk losing all access. It seemed like a wasted effort--if they knew, then it was over. Ben might be dense, but surely even he wouldn't believe that I'd forgive the corp for what they'd done, no matter how many "proud to be a mech" soliloquies I may have delivered at their beck and call. But when I arrived for the meeting, Kiri hadn't yet arrived, and Ben seemed neither surprised to see me nor overly solicitous. There was only one small, irrelevant matter to be dispensed with--"Your father says an important matter's come up that he has to deal with, and he'll have to step away from our project for a bit; he said you'd understand"--before we got down to business. I did understand. As far as my father was concerned, this was a family issue, and we would deal with it--or hide it--as a family. My father loved his boundaries, his neat little compartments. This time he'd left all of them vulnerable.

Good.

Ben and I sat there, on our own, waiting for Kiri and doing our best to ignore each other's presence. He buried himself in his ViM screen while I pretended to focus on mine, trying not to leap across the table, wrap my hands around his throat, and force him to tell me what he knew.

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But I had to do something.

I started pacing, which seemed like the kind of thing you were supposed to do when you were nervous and frustrated and killing time. But I realized, as soon as I started wearing a track in the rug--seventeen steps to the end of the room, turning on my heel, then back again--that there was a reason people were always talking about pacing but never actually did it. It was boring. And more than a little odd-looking.

"What are you doing?" Ben asked, finally looking up from his screen.

"Nothing." I returned to my seat, taking the long way around so I could catch a glimpse of what he was staring at so intently, just in case it was something I wasn't supposed to see. Which it was, but not in the way I'd expected. "She's a little young for you, isn't she?" I teased.

The girl in the pic couldn't have been more than seventeen. She was pretty, if not in a particularly flashy way. Except for the brown hair, she looked a lot like Zo, though it may have just been her scowl.

"I wouldn't have thought that was really your style," I added. Ben's tastes ran to conspicuously expensive suits that were always fashion-forward, if in the blandest of ways, and I'd never seen him less than impeccably attired. The girl on the screen was wearing some kind of faded flash dress two sizes too small, and
not
in the "oops, my button popped!" kind of way.