Wired (Skinned, Book 3) (2 page)

12

on the synthmetal waves. "Don't you ever get ... tired?" I didn't mean tired of dancing. And they knew it.

"Never," Felicity said, twirling in place. Her red hair furled around her head like a cloud of fire.

"But don't you ever ..." I chose my words carefully. No mention of cameras or privacy, nothing that would burst the delicate vidlife bubble. "... feel like a break?"

"Break from what? This is life." Pria giggled. She threw her arms in the air, where they flickered and whorled like ribbons in the wind. She'd been vidlifing for two years without a day off, and I wondered if she even knew the difference anymore. What would she do if the voice in her head went silent and left her on her own?

"Come on, pick someone," Pria urged me. She twisted me in a slow circle, her pointed finger hopping from a weeper with huge biceps and teary hangdog eyes to an albino blond to an artfully scruffed guy, bare from the waist up and dosed out on Xers, who happened to be a dead ringer for Walker, my org ex. Not going to happen.

"Look, I already have--" I stopped, reminding myself that for these fifteen days Riley--or, more specifically, Riley-and-me--did not exist. No one wanted their vidlifers tied down, at least not with an outsider, and certainly not with another mech, a random from a
city
who'd never been to a club and, if he had, would have spent the night sitting in a corner, still and silent as his chair. It would be different if

13

Riley had agreed to go on the vidlife with me. It might have been an appealing novelty act, he-and-she mechs, a matched set ready and willing to show off how anatomically correct--how lustful, how passionate, how
human
--the walking dead could be. But Riley never would have agreed to something like that, so I hadn't asked.

Him
, the voice in my head decided for me, as my eyes settled on a punkish banger a few years older than me, his spiked hair tipped with metal studs, silver bangles ringing both arms from wrist to elbow. The silver decals striping his neck marked him as a skinnerhead, one of those fetishists who claimed to crave eternal life as a mech--but didn't crave it enough to actually cut open their brains and download them into a computer. Covering yourself in mech-tech was the newest trend, at least among those who weren't trolling the streets looking for a mech to bash, and sometimes--fine line between love and hate and all that--among those who were. This loser clearly considered himself on the cutting edge. Someone out there on the network apparently thought that made him my perfect match.
Go for it.

It didn't take much.

My come-hither glance was rusty, but it got the job done. Or maybe it was the pinpricks of golden light at the center of my pupils, the dead mech eyes flashing under the neon strobes, the taunting glimpses of synflesh beneath the on-and-off transparent material of the flash shirt. What skinnerhead could resist a skinner?

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I love Riley
, I thought, as the skinnerhead began to grind his hips against mine.

But:
Tell him you want him
, the voice in my head commanded.

"I want you," I breathed. The skinnerhead smiled like a wolf.

He pressed his left hand--nails coated in metallic silver, of course--to my bare shoulder. His fingers spidered down my back, and I hoped it was too dark for the cameras to see my face. He twisted me around, pressing his sweaty chest against my back, his groin against my ass, and wrapped his arms around me, one hand cupping my breast, the other squeezing my waist, his lips at the curve where my neck met my shoulders, breathing in my artificial skin.

Riley and I had talked about this. We'd discussed the obligations, weighed pros and cons, set boundaries. But boundaries were hard to specify in advance. No nudity, fine. But what about a skirt that barely covered the curve of my thigh, what about silver-tipped fingers creeping beneath the netsilk, what about legs tangled in legs ... arms encircling chests ... what about lips?

It's just an act
, I had said, we had agreed, I reminded myself now.
Means nothing.

His lips were on mine. Sucking. Slobbering. His tongue in my mouth, something wet and alien, probing soft places it didn't belong. I counted to ten. Ignored the squishing and smacking sounds, focused on the music. Counted to twenty,

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closed my eyes as his tongue slurped down my chin, up my cheek, explored the caverns of my ear, his body still grinding against mine, slow, slow, slow even as the music gathered strength and speed, a hurricane of beats. We were the calm at the center. I counted to thirty. Thought about the big picture, the message it would send, another divide between mechs and orgs crumbling to the ground, another thing we had in common: desire, need, want. Thought about the computer that was my brain and the body that was only a body, mechanical limbs woven through with wires, fake nerves that let me feel but made nothing feel real. Counted to forty, and his tongue had no taste, because I couldn't taste; his hair, his neck, his sweat had no smell, because I couldn't smell. I counted to fifty, and when his lips moved down my breastbone to the dark shadow beyond, I threw my head back and tried to smile.

And then I got to sixty and pushed him away, so hard that he stumbled backward, wheeled his arms for balance, and toppled into a klatch of lip-locked vamp-tramps. "Can't spend it all in one place!" I shouted, and let the crowd fill the spaces around me, so by the time he got to his feet, I was gone.

"Let's talk about the Brotherhood of Man." The interviewer flashed a saccharine smile. "Unless it's too difficult for you."

I shook my head. After two weeks in the vidlife, "difficult" had taken on a new meaning; this didn't qualify. "I'm here to talk," I said. "About whatever you'd like."

16

"We all know the story of how the Brotherhood began," the interviewer said, then immediately disregarded her own words by regaling us with the gory details: the Honored Rai Savona's noble quest to preserve the sanctity of human life, his abdication of the Faither throne in favor of a small, grassroots, antiskinner organization that helped the poor, fed the hungry, and, incidentally, advocated for the eradication of those of us with artificial blood running through our artificial veins. As the interviewer moved onto the "tragic downfall" portion of events, the vidscreen behind her flashed images: kidnapped mechs strung up on poles at the altar of Savona's temple, the "mysterious" explosion at the edge of the temple complex, the destruction of a facility that was never supposed to have existed in the first place--and then the final image, Savona's right-hand man standing before the adoring masses, apologizing for the transgressions of the supreme leader. Promising a kinder, gentler Brotherhood under his new kinder, gentler leadership. Auden Heller, the best weapon the Brotherhood had against the skinners, because his ruined body, his artificial limbs and dented organs, were all permanent reminders of the damage we could wreak.

"Lia, how did it
feel
--"

I steeled myself, waiting for her to ask me about Auden, though she'd been told he was off-limits.

Or about Riley, who had burned in the explosion but was back now, a different body but the same mind, containing

17

an exact copy of all the memories of the previous Riley, every memory but the memory of how he died. Every mech had an uplinker, and we used them daily to upload a copy of our memories to a secure server, just in case. But unless you were uploading at the moment your body was destroyed, that memory would be gone.

"--when Brother Savona came out of hiding and surrendered himself to BioMax?" she concluded. Then she leaned forward, as if--misinformed about my technical specifications--waiting for waterworks.

"I was surprised."

"Because you were among those who believed that he'd died in the explosion?"

Sure, we'd go with that.

I nodded, wishing I were free to answer honestly. The only surprise was that a cowardly nut job like Savona would deposit himself on BioMax's front doorstep and beg for judgment. The only thing I
felt
was disappointment that he was still breathing.

"And how did you
feel
"--insert predatory smile here--"when corp security operations officially pardoned him for any role he may have played in the unpleasantries at the temple?"

BioMax had released its own official account of "the unpleasantries," one in which Brotherhood fanatics had nearly slaughtered a building full of their own, not to mention a handful of innocent mechs. (Of course it was the
mechs
who

18

had nearly massacred all those orgs. But that kind of truth was counterproductive, and so we all kept our mouths shut.)

"You have to weigh Brother Savona's past behavior against his expressed willingness to repair the damage." The script had been easier to memorize than it was to choke out. "Brother Savona's voice obviously has a wide reach, and now that he's had his revelations--"

"You're referring, I assume, to his statements expressing regret for the way he treated the skinners, and his pledges of tolerance? You believe he means what he says?"

I believed that there was nothing anyone could do to Savona now that BioMax had decided he made a better savior than he did a martyr. He'd signed back on to the Brotherhood as an unofficial consultant--right-hand man to his former right-hand man--and the rest of us were supposed to forgive and forget.

"We prefer to be called mechs," I told the interviewer. "'Skinner' is derogatory." Out of the corner of my eye, and just beyond the camera's sightline, I saw Kiri raise a hand in silent warning.

"Of course," the interviewer said. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean--"

"I know." No one ever
meant
. "And to answer your question, Brother Savona and Brother Auden have a message of tolerance and equality that I'd like to think we can all believe in. All I want is to show people that mechs are no different

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from anyone else--we're regular people. If the Brotherhood can help get that message out, then I'm all for it."

"You're a very big-hearted girl," the interviewer said.

I could have reminded her about the wireless power converter nestled where my heart should be. But I didn't.

Day seven.

Halfway there.

Not going to make it.

"You skank!" Cally shouted, and launched herself at Pria.

"Not my fault you couldn't give him what he wanted!" Pria screeched, squaring off to face the charging blonde. She crouched and grabbed Cally around the knees, flipping her head over heels. Which put Cally in perfect position to gnaw on her thigh.

Pria went down.

Hands clutched at tangles of blond hair, yanked. Violet nails raked across pale skin. They hissed, they slapped; teeth were bared, backs were arched, saliva was sprayed. There was some very unladylike grunting. Soon the two interlocked, writhing bodies rolled across the mansion's marble floor, a monstrous eight-legged beast.

Sometimes these fights ended at the hospital; sometimes they ended in bed. (Or in the closet, the pool, the shower, the rug--any and every conceivable surface.) Whatever the audience wanted.

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Now
, the voice commanded.
Tell them.

"You're both brainburned," I said. "You want to kill yourselves over Caleb? Go for it." The voice gave me the storyline, but--usually--I made up the words myself. A miniature measure of freedom in my zombie life. "You know who'll really love that? Felicity. Because then she gets him all to herself."

The writhing creature froze, then separated itself into two discrete bodies again, every eye, ear, and molecule trained on my next words.

"Of course, she's already got him," I said.

"That bitch!"

"That skank!"

"That tramper!"

"I'll kill her."

"Not if I kill her first."

"I'll kill
you
first, if you try that."

The truth: Felicity had never touched Caleb. I didn't know if I was lying because I wanted him for myself, because I wanted Cally or Pria for myself, or because I wanted trouble. The voice would tell me, soon enough, and then that would be the new truth.

The fight temporarily over, and Felicity marked for death, we were free to move on to more pressing concerns.

"Mini or maxi?" Pria demanded, hanging the two dresses over her curvy frame. "There's a rage at Chaos tonight and we are
there
."

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"Maxi," I said. "Definitely." Because that day I was supposed to be hating on Pria, and the billowing black and white gown made her look like a pregnant cow.

"That's
my dress
!" Cally spit, grabbing it out of her hand.

Pria looked clueless, but only for a moment. Then her face transformed--narrowed eyes, tensed muscles, slight upturn in her puffy lips. A masterful dose of pure spite. "So what if it is?" she snarled. "Looks better on me, anyway."