Wired (Skinned, Book 3) (33 page)

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breathable and the wireless energy that kept everything humming, including me. The guardians of those ships protected all of us who acted as if the data cloud floated in an impermeable bubble through some alternate, inaccessible realm, as if we weren't living in a virtual world built almost entirely on the switches and circuits and routers floating through poisonous waters and roughing stormy seas.

That, at least, was what we'd heard.

That was the only thing anyone knew about the server farms: rumors. Everyone knew a guy, who knew a guy, who used to work for someone who staffed one of the ships. Everyone had heard something, but no one knew anything. I'd once overheard my father arguing with one of his board members about whether or not the servers operated as independent international entities or were wholly owned American enterprises, and much as he'd tried to disguise it, the truth had been clear: Even he had no idea. Everyone knew--or at least "knew"--that once a month an elite group got access to the servers to upgrade them on behalf of their own corps, but either they were shielded from penetrating any of the ships' secrets, or the ghostly overseers had a way to make them keep their mouths shut. Access to the servers meant access to everything. We were a world of connectivity; a linked-in globe. It was our pride as a human race. And apparently, it worked only if none of us knew how.

"We're thinking too far ahead," I said suddenly.

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Auden laughed quietly. "I wouldn't say that's exactly your problem, Lia."

"No, I mean it. You're right, Jude--"

He held up a hand to stop me. "Moment of silence, please, while I enjoy this history-making moment."

I smacked his arm. Lightly, but not too lightly. "You're right that we have no way of getting on that ship or figuring out what's going on--not by ourselves. And maybe you're right that I'm just guessing. We need more answers. We need help, from someone who knows
exactly
what BioMax is up to--or at least knows how to find out."

That woke him up. "Ben?"

"He's leading the team, right? Whether he knows about phase three or he doesn't, he's going to be there when it happens. So either he gives us the information we need, or he makes sure that
we're
there when it happens, too."

"And why would he do that?" Jude asked.

There was a time when I would have hesitated to ask the next question. This time I didn't. "Do you have a gun stashed here somewhere?"

Surprised, Jude shook his head. That was problematic. I'd counted on him having easy access to a weapon, as he always seemed to. We could get in touch with another of his city contacts, but that meant complications, and time ...

Auden cleared his throat. "I do."

* * *

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"But it's my gun," Auden said, as we were packing up to leave.

"It's safer to leave someone behind," I said. "If anything happens and we need reinforcements--"

"Bullshit."

"Auden ..."

"You don't want me along; just say it."

I didn't want to.

"You don't trust me," he said.

"No, I don't."

"But that's not it," he said.

"No. It's not."

He scowled. "It's not your job to worry about me."

There wasn't time to protect his feelings--and after everything that had happened, maybe that was no longer a huge priority. "You're weak," I said. "The limp, the lung issues, what happens when your body gets too stressed ... You could be a liability."

He didn't flinch. "See? It wasn't so hard to just say it."

"Fine. I said it. So now you'll stay here?"

"Not a chance."

"You're not--"

"I can do this," he said. "I'm not as weak as you think."

"Or you're weaker than
you
think. And we find out at the worst possible time."

"Let him come," Jude said.

"What?"

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"If he says he can do it, he can do it."

"You're kidding me," I said. "What, are you hoping he'll do something stupid and get himself killed?"

"He looks weak," Jude said. "It doesn't mean he is. And you don't get to decide what he's strong enough to do."

"Thanks," Auden said, sounding surprised.

"I'm just saying what's true," Jude said. "I still hate you."

"Back at you."

"It's wonderful that you two are bonding, but this isn't some kind of self-actualization field trip," I snapped. "We can't afford--"

"We can't afford not to use everything we've got," Jude said over me. "Besides, he owes us."

"I can do this, Lia," Auden said.

I shrugged, and waved him out the door. At least he hadn't asked me to trust him.

Jude followed, but Zo hung behind, watching me carefully.

"What?" I said finally.

She paused, looking unsure whether or not to risk it. "So you're not going to try to talk
me
out of coming along?"

"Would there be any point?"

She shook her head.

"Then what are you waiting for?"

For a second I was afraid she was going to hug me. But instead she just smiled and ran past me out the door, practically skipping, as if she were seven again and I'd given her

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the secret password to the big-kids' clubhouse. I told myself that she knew exactly how serious this was and how big a risk she was taking, and that--as she'd proved to me over and over again--she was old enough and tough enough to decide she wanted to take it.

After the accident it had quickly--though maybe not quickly enough--become obvious that I wasn't the same person I used to be. It had taken another year to figure out that Zo wasn't either. But I finally got it. She was, after everything, still my little sister. But she was also Zo Kahn, someone I'd never bothered to know, not really--and now that I did, it was clear that protecting her from herself was neither an option nor a necessity. It was also clear that, as far as she was concerned, this wasn't just my fight. It was ours. So she was going to risk everything for it. And I was going to let her.

It had been easy enough for Zo to hack through the priv-walls on Ben's zone to discover he lived on a modest estate less than twenty miles away. The zone offered a cornucopia of Ben trivia: He lived alone, on the opposite coast from his ex-wife and teenage daughter, who, judging from the number of plaintive messages he sent her and the nonexistent response, wasn't any fonder of her father than I was of mine. The girl looked less like Zo than I'd thought when I first saw her picture--the stringy hair and baggy clothes were the same, but her features were smoother and more rounded. She had the

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same soft, waxy beauty as her father, if none of his impeccable fashion sense.

The house itself wasn't that impressive. It was half the size of ours, with barely any grounds, and what there was had fallen into disrepair. Kudzu crawled up the decaying brick, nearly blocking out the windows, and the weedy, browning lawn clearly hadn't been trimmed or watered in months. The security system was a sad, bargain-basement model--probably because no burglar in his right mind would choose a house like this to burgle when there were so many better options on offer--and Jude had no trouble jamming the alarm, shutting down the electrified perimeter, and easing open the back door.

"You're good at this," I said softly.

"Practice makes perfect," he muttered.

I didn't want to know.

It was well past midnight, and the house was completely dark. Auden, with a minimum of whining, had agreed to wait in the car under the theory that every criminal operation needed a getaway driver. Zo, Jude, and I used our ViM screens to light our way, and took our time making our way through the house, just in case we stumbled across anything relevant. Like a giant blinking poster detailing the logistics of phase three. Or a rabid guard dog.

Fortunately or unfortunately, there was nothing but a bare, personality-free house, with empty walls and furniture that, for the most part, appeared completely untouched.

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The kitchen was empty of both food and standard appliances. Breaking into someone's house was different from breaking into a corp--it felt almost like we were peering inside call-me-Ben's head, and, much as I disliked the guy, I couldn't take much pleasure in the fact that the view was so pathetic. The only sign that someone actually lived here was the occasional pic of his daughter, some from years ago, some clearly recent, the only commonality between them the fact that Ben was never in the shot.

We crept up the stairs, peeking silently into each room we passed. The first was a closet, the second a marbled bathroom, and the third a true surprise: a cluttered laboratory, its tables and shelves filled with spare mech parts, its whiteboard walls covered with Ben's messy scrawl, circuit diagrams dotted with question marks and the occasional exclamation point. Ben may not have gotten much living done in his house, but apparently that was because he was too hard at work. Against my will I felt another stab of sympathy, one that was easy enough to suppress when I reminded myself what he was probably working
toward
. We fanned out through the lab, searching for anything that screamed
death to mechs
, but none of us was particularly well equipped to analyze his equipment or the thrust of his research. Ben was one of the lead techs at BioMax, and had led the team that designed the original download technology--he could be working on anything, and we weren't

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going to figure it out by studying his circuit boards. He would have to tell us.

The next door was the bedroom.

I held the gun. Jude cleared his throat. Ben woke up. There was a moment of sleepy confusion; then he saw the muzzle pointed at his forehead, and bolted upright. I stood at the foot of the bed, about five feet away from him. Far enough that he couldn't do something stupid, like lunge at the gun. Close enough that even I couldn't miss. Zo waited in the hallway, just outside the door, on guard for reinforcements we weren't expecting--and, if it came to that, reinforcement herself if Ben proved somehow, unexpectedly, able to take on me, Jude, and a nine-millimeter pistol. The weapon was just as heavy as I remembered, but it fit more comfortably in my hands this time. The safety was off.

"What is this, Lia?" Ben asked in a low voice. I could tell he was trying not to show fear, but his eyes darted back and forth, from Jude to me to the gun and back to Jude again. He was afraid. His hand inched toward the nightstand.

Jude shook his head. "I wouldn't," he said. "Unless you think your trigger finger's faster than hers is."

Even a low-budget security system came with silent alarm switches that could be conveniently positioned around the house. Maybe Ben had just meant to turn on the light, or reach for his ViM. But there was no point in taking the chance. "I'd listen to him," I said.

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Ben did.

"What are you doing here, Lia? What are you doing with
that
?"

"You think he's talking about the gun, or about me?" Jude asked.

Ben wore a set of checkered flannel pajamas. His quilt was navy, with a thick black trim. For so long he'd been this BioMax boogeyman, always one step ahead of me, ready to cajole or blackmail or smarm his way into getting whatever he wanted. But now he was just a guy. And kind of a sad, small one.

"What's phase three?" I asked.

"What?"

"You're going to the server ship on Sunday. What are you doing there?"

"I told you before, we're dealing with the virus-- Look, is this about Riley?" He sounded almost impatient. "Because if it is, I was just trying to help. I didn't know about the stored file until recently, and this really isn't necessary; I can--"

"Shut up. This isn't about Riley.
What's phase three?"

Ben swung his legs toward the side of the bed like he was about to climb out.

"Don't move," I said.

He shook his head. "You're not going to shoot me, Lia."

"You're so sure?"

"I know you," he said, the same old Ben, sure he knew me

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better than I knew myself. "This isn't you. Him, maybe, but not you."

"I'm choosing to take that as a compliment," I said. "But I'm guessing he will too." Never taking my eyes--or the muzzle--off of Ben, I handed the gun over to Jude. Just once, I'd wanted to see how it felt to have the power over Ben, the control, to know he had to do what I wanted. But I couldn't have pulled the trigger. I knew that, and he knew that.

For this to work we needed someone who could.

"Get back in bed," Jude said. Ben did as he was told. "You want to tell me this isn't me?" Jude sneered. "You want to tell me I don't have it in me?"

Ben was a good liar, but apparently not that good. He gripped the edge of the blanket, tugging it around himself like it was bulletproof. "What do you want?"

"Phase three," I said again.

"You keep saying that, and I'm telling you,
I have no idea
."

We went back and forth several times, until it was made clear that Ben was either far more courageous or more clueless than we'd given him credit for, because even with a gun in his face--wielded by a mech who would have loved nothing more than to pull the trigger on the man who'd delivered the news of Riley's death--he gave us nothing. I'd suspected all along that Ben wasn't behind BioMax's planned eradication of the mechs. He was too impassioned about the technology, too grossly sincere in his desire to help us, in his need to be
liked
. So maybe