Wired (Skinned, Book 3) (3 page)

It's
your
dress,
the voice decided.

So that's what I said.

Then I added the part about the pregnant cow.

And then I was on the ground, with my hair in Pria's hands and my artificial flesh beneath her nails.

Good luck breaking the skin,
I thought, gifting her with a light sucker punch that would give her plenty of material for the cameras.

It had been made clear to me that the audience loved a fight.

Especially when the skinner lost.

"Every skinner--I'm sorry, mech--has an understandably conflicted relationship with the Brotherhood, but I think it's safe to say that yours is more conflicted, or certainly more
complicated,
than most," the interviewer said. "After all, its current leader, Auden Heller, is a former classmate of yours, isn't that right?"

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You know it's right, you disingenuous bitch.

I should have known better than to believe Kiri when she said the interviewer had agreed to my terms. Easy to declare a subject off-limits when you're backstage--so much the better to launch a sneak attack once the cameras are rolling.

I smiled.

"Yes. We were in school together for about ten years."

"And you were close?" she said.

"Briefly."

"Until that day at the waterfall--"

"I don't talk about that."

"That's understandable," she said, sounding sympathetic. She patted my knee.

I let her. I even let her regurgitate the story of the waterfall, and how Auden had nearly died trying to save me, the skinner who didn't need saving. My fault, and so--in his mind, and the minds of the Brotherhood's brainwashed masses--the fault of every skinner.

"It must be
so hard
for you," she said. "I'm sure you wish you could talk to him, apologize for everything that's happened. Is there anything you'd like to say to him now?" she asked, eyes hungry. "Anything at all?"

I wasn't about to ruin everything by exploding on camera. Two weeks of misery were
not
going in the garbage just to give myself the luxury of self-pity. Or privacy. I'd given the latter up for fifteen days, and the former up for good. But I couldn't play along.

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I glanced off camera. Kiri's lips were moving, and, like a ventriloquist's dummy, the interviewer began to speak. "Looks like we're out of time," she said, stiffly. I was surprised the sweat running down her face didn't harden to ice. "It's been a pleasure to have you with us. Please come again."

I smiled like I meant it. "Anytime."

Maybe I was the better actor after all.

Day fifteen.

"You survived." Kiri swept me off as the interview ended. That was code for
You didn't screw up.
I didn't know whether she meant the interview or the whole two weeks; I was too tired to care.

One more night and I was free.

I couldn't thank her for the save--not without revealing her interference to the vidlife audience. So I just raised an eyebrow, and she mirrored the gesture with her own.
You're welcome.

"She wanted me to talk about myself," I chirped. "What's better than that?" Code for
I know I'm already dead ... but kill me now. Please.

"Ah, the Lia Kahn we all know and love," she said. "Sure you're not too tired to hit this gala tonight?"

A star-studded night with the crème de la crème of high society, pretending not to notice that the crème was

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made with soured milk? We both knew there was only one acceptable response.

"Me? Miss a party? As if."

No one told me the party was underwater.

A transparent bubble sucked us below sea level. The orgs were intrigued, pressed against the clear walls, watching fish meander by and algae lick at the glass. This was all new to them, an adventure. But I'd stroked through the deep; I knew what it was like to lose myself in the silent dark of the water.

I knew what was hiding beneath the ocean's surface--I'd seen the dead cities and their bloated bodies, and I knew that only algae and jellyfish could survive in the bath of toxic sludge. But the transparent dome was surrounded by an elaborately fake ecosystem, sparkling water clear enough to show off rainbow coral reefs and fluorescent schools of fish. It was the perfect match for the garish undersea spectacle that lay
within
the dome, synthetic algae undulating from the floor, sparkling lights floating in midair, stars hung so low you could flick them with a finger and watch them float across the room, as if we were all buoyant, gravity temporarily suspended. Holographic reefs and ridges projected from every surface, the illusion broken only when the occasional dancing couple floated right through it. Literally floated, thanks to the buoyancy generators beneath the floor that lifted them on a cushion of air. The party was a gala, which normally would have meant fairy-tale finery

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but this time, apparently--for those more in the know than I--demanded a more nautical touch. Mermaids drifted by on hovering platforms, their hair architectured to float above their heads. There were org-sized sharks with gnashing teeth and of course the obligatory skanked-up efforts, in this case nude body stockings wired to project shimmering scales across bare abs, chests, and asses.

I wandered, waiting for my orders, wondering what all these people would do if they saw what life underwater was really like, how the ocean had transformed the org world: the pale, swollen flesh, the rusted cars and broken windows, and all the detritus of life interrupted. And then I imagined the transparent dome over our heads cracking, a spiderweb of broken glass spreading across our sky, the water trickling down, like rain, and then breaking through, a hail of glass and a gush of water washing everything away. I imagined the costumed mermaids writhing and flailing, trapped in their tangled hair, their cheeks puffing with one final breath, bubbles streaming out of their mouths and noses until there were none left. I imagined their corpses floating slowly to the surface, leaving me one by one until I was alone with the wreckage. It would be like being the only person left at the end of the world.

I shoved the vision from my mind. That wasn't my fantasy; that was
his
. Jude's. A world purged of orgs.
Purified,
he would have said. I didn't want to think about the things he would

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have said, or the things he'd dreamed about, but I did, more than I would have liked to admit.

Which is probably why, at first, I thought it was my imagination.

A shock of silver hair bobbing over the crowd. The razor-sharp cheekbones, the unbearable smirk. Slitted golden eyes, resting on mine for an impossible second, flickering away, and then he was gone.

Never there,
I told myself, and danced. My mech mind processed music as little more than syncopated noise. There was none of that wild abandon I'd once felt, the loss of body and self in throbbing notes. Only silent commands, from brain to limbs.
Twist. Turn. Jump. Wave. Shuffle. Shimmy.
The motions looked seamless; I knew, because I'd practiced in a mirror. It turned out there was nothing too hard about building a smooth surface for yourself. If you knew the steps, if you knew which muscles to move, if you knew how to smile and how to speak, if you knew your lines and played your part, then it didn't matter what lay behind the pose.

The hands that slipped over my eyes were cold.

The whisper in my ear was familiar.

"Miss me?"

Remember they're watching.

I grabbed his wrists, dug in my nails. Knowing it would make him smile. Then turned around slowly, fake smile fixed on my face. He had one to match.

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"Didn't expect to see you anytime soon," I said casually, lightly.

Because he was a fugitive, accused of trying to blow up a laboratory full of orgs. He was guilty; I knew, because I'd helped him--and because I'd stopped him. Not exactly the safe, harmless face I wanted to present to the world.

He nodded, his eyes flickering toward the fly cam hovering above my shoulder, and his full lips curled upward.

"I've been around," he said. "Maybe you haven't been looking."

Riley would be watching this, I realized, keeping my face blank. Riley, who knew only the story I'd told him, a fairy tale in which he'd never betrayed Jude, never seen cold hatred in his best friend's eyes.

You were supposed to stay gone forever
, I thought.

The skank fish spotted him and began to swarm. Girls distinguishable only by their hair color rubbed up against him, and he let it stretch on, grinning at the lame flirtations, complimenting one on her scales and another on her elaborate wings, forgoing what I would have thought would be the irresistible urge to point out that fish don't fly. He was weirdly good at it, juggling them with an oozing grace, meeting their eyes with a gaze intense enough to convince them of their special place in his heart, fleeting enough to leave hope beating in the hearts of the rest.

He's what you want tonight,
the voice commanded me. Then it gave me my first line.

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"Want to dance?"

Before I finished the question, Jude's arms were around me, and we were floating across the dance floor.

"So you've decided the high life isn't so bad after all," I said carefully. Jude twirled me out, our fingers linked tightly so I couldn't escape.

"What's not to love?" We turned and turned. Lights flickered overhead, mimicking the effect of sunlight on water. "I can see how glad you are to have me back."

I couldn't see anything in those cat-orange eyes. I only knew that he wanted something, because Jude always did.

This is all for us,
he'd always said. The good of the mechs, not the good of Jude. Just a coincidence, then, that they were so often the same thing.

"We've got a lot to talk about." He dipped me so low that my hair brushed the floor.

"I'm not much for talking these days." I shot a mischievous glance directly into the camera buzzing over our heads.

"And the world sighs in relief."

"Well, you know what they say; talking's overrated."

Which meant
shut up
.

Not an instruction he'd ever been inclined to follow. "When you're feeling chattier, let me know. I'll be a mile past human sorrow, where nature rises again."

"You're an enigma, wrapped in a moron, shrouded in pretension," I said, sweetly as I could muster.

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"I aim to please. And, since I gather you do too--" He shot another look at the hovering cameras, and I stiffened, waiting for him to spout some anti-org drivel that would ruin all my work.

He leaned toward me, one hand tight around my waist, the other latched on to my shoulder. His voice was low, but the mics would catch it, as they caught everything, and he knew it. "Let's give the people what they want."

Maybe if I'd known it was coming, I could have ducked out of the way.

Maybe I did know it was coming.

I didn't duck.

Just for the cameras,
I told myself.

His lips were as cold as mine, his eyes open, watching me.

No different from any of the others,
I told myself.

His lips were so soft.

His chest was silent, an empty cavity pressed against the emptiness of my own. A perfect fit.

This is harmless,
I told myself.

It couldn't have lasted more than a few seconds. And then I remembered what fifteen days had almost made me forget: that I could act, that sometimes the puppet could pull her own strings--and that the people liked a fight.

I slapped him.

He saw it coming, like I did; and he let me, like I did. There was a sharp crack, but he didn't flinch. There was no

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angry red welt left behind on the synthetic flesh. Like nothing had happened.

"When you want me, you'll know where to find me," he whispered. And let go. He melted into the crowd before I could stop him. Not that I would have tried. I told myself I wanted him gone, for good this time.

I almost believed it.

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HAPPY TOGETHER It was proof that we still made sense.

The party raged till sunrise. The glass dome had come equipped with an artificial dawn, orange-yellow light creeping over the dragging dancers and silvery fish--technology that was, for the most part, wasted on the unconscious. I spent the final hours of the vidlife pretending to sleep, my legs slung over one snoring ogre's brawny shoulder, my head in a voluptuous jellyfish's lap. The last holdouts had dropped of exhaustion one by one, bodies tangled where they fell. Once the society olds had slipped off to sleep, the stilted elegance of the early evening had given way to a b-mod-induced ecstasy, bodies floating on Xers, blissed-out orgs bamboozled by the artificial undersea and imagining they were dancing with the fish. I couldn't take behavior modifiers any more than I could drink the putrescent pink Aqua Ambrosia or eat the dolphin-shaped canapés, and I didn't get tired. But I'd learned that orgs don't trust people--or things--that don't sleep. So for the vidlife audience I'd closed my eyes and waited for day.