Lisa Smedman - Psychotrope

Hitomi's mind whirled as she tried to piece together what was going on. Had her father bribed the aidoru into returning Hitomi to him? She'd heard of parents who had paid undesirable suitors to break off contact with their children. Was that what was happening here?

"The shadowrunners were a mistake," the aidoru repeated. "Now my price has gone up."

"What?" Hitomi recognized the carefully controlled anger in her father's voice.

"You stand to make an ample profit as a result of my encounter with your daughter."

Her father's eyes narrowed just a little. "What do you mean?"

"When you contracted me to seduce your daughter, I wanted to know why," the aidoru answered. "Do you know what I learned?"

"I have no idea."

"I learned that the Shiawase Corporation's biotechnology division was attempting to develop a vaccine against the HMHVV virus," Shinanai continued. "One that they wanted to test on a human subject. An injection would not do; the subject had to submit willingly to infection with HMHVV for the test to be valid. The biochemical responses triggered by strong emotion would have to be present, to ensure that all variables were accounted for."

"But how-"

Shinanai laughed. "That, I will leave it to you to uncover. Suffice to say I found your daughter a most delicious and willing test subject."

Hitomi felt her face grow pale. "No," she whispered. "It isn't true. It can't be."

On the monitor screen, Shinanai smiled, revealing elongated eye teeth. "It seems no further research is necessary," she said to Hitomi's father. "Your daughter didn't die. The vaccine seems to be working-so far. I congratulate your researchers."

Hitomi's father met the false praise with stony silence. Then: "The vaccine did not work. My daughter is dead."

Shinanai laughed. "Then who has been leaving messages for me these past two weeks? Messages that bear the secret endearment that I called your daughter during our lovemaking."

Hitomi's father stiffened. Twin spots of anger lit his cheeks.

"You were very foresighted in vaccinating Hitomi against HMHVV," Shinanai continued. "But how did you come to choose your own daughter as a test subject? How did you know she would wind up wanting to sleep with-"

"She was rebellious, and had an unhealthy fascination with… your kind," Hitomi's father answered brusquely. "I thought it wise to protect her."

"You mean you found it expedient to use her," Shinanai corrected. "As your own private guinea pig. One who would willingly submit to any medical treatments her loving father recommended."

"There was no danger. I knew the vaccine would work-"

"If she survived being drained of so much blood, you mean." Shinanai waved his protest away. "And I understand that there are certain-problems. Certain delays that indicate that the vaccine is not nearly as effective as you might have hoped-that it may only be delaying the onset of the virus, and may not be a true vaccine. But that doesn't matter. What is of import now is our agreement-and my new terms. In return for my continued silence about my- participation-in your research, I require the following as payment: not nuyen, as we had previously agreed, but a sample of what your researchers have developed."

Hitomi's father shook his head in disbelief. "But why-"

"My-associates-are conducting their own research into HMHVV," the vampire answered. "Your so-called 'vaccine' will be useful to them."

"Never. There is no agreement."

"In that case," Shinanai said slowly, "I will reveal the terms of our agreement to the press. How much face do you think you will lose, when the public learns that you used your own daughter in this way? How much trust will they put in a corporation whose CEO shows so little regard for his own flesh and blood? And bear in mind my stature as a singer. The public will believe me and side with me. Especially when they see the trideo."

Hitomi's father considered for only an instant. "Very well," he said. "We have an agreement. I will arrange for a courier to bring the vaccine to you."

As the aidoru and her father began to work out the details, a wintry bleakness invaded Hitomi's soul. Her own father had tested an experimental drug on her, without her permission. He had used her, like any of the other multitude of assets at his disposal. And Shinanai-the person

Hitomi had poured out her heart to and had thought her soul mate and one true love-had been a part of it.

Shinanai. Despite what Hitomi had just heard, she loved the aidoru still…

No! It was all part of the vampire's magic, a distant fragment that was her logical mind cried out in anguish. Not love. Shinanai hadn't loved her after all! And neither had Hitomi's father.

Grief and anger settled upon Hitomi like heavy wet robes, each equally stifling. Without thinking, acting purely on emotion, she stabbed the key that would activate the commlink utility and allow her to cut into the telecom call.

"I hate you!" she cried. "I hate you both! You are not worthy of my love!"

Her father stared at her in shocked surprise.

Shinanai began to laugh.

The connection was suddenly broken. The monitor screen of her cyberterminal went blank.

Hitomi slumped over the keyboard, washing it with her tears. Shinanai didn't care. Her beloved aidoru didn't love her after all.

Hitomi was still in that position when the attendants came and removed the cyberterminal from her lap. So numb was she, so filled with grief, that she barely noticed when her father appeared with a mage in tow.

"Erase her memory," he told the magician curtly.

The mage looked startled. "All of it? But that would leave her a vegetable."

"No." Hitomi's father consulted his watch. "Just the past hour. That should be sufficient."

The mage went to work.

Hitomi hadn't even resisted as they used magic to wipe that last, painful memory of Shinanai from her mind. She felt it leave her, piece by piece, like cherry blossoms blown from a tree by an early winter wind.

When it was over, she looked up and saw her father smiling down at her.

"Father," she cried. "It is so good to see you. Look! I've walked to the lounge on my own."

Something was missing. Something that had sat in her lap, just a moment ago…

But Hitomi couldn't remember what that might have been. And so she returned her father's smile, knowing that one day she would have the strength to walk out of the arcology, to run away to Shinanai's loving embrace once more…

Lady Death lay on the ground, her grief and exhaustion too overwhelming even for tears. She was numb. Cold to her core. She wanted only to die.

But you rejected death before. When I placed you in the training loop, after your transformation, you pulled away from my embrace, even though I had just given you a most wonderful gift. You were afraid of death, then. But now you would welcome it. Why have you changed your mind about continuing to exist?

Lady Death looked up at the icon that wore Shinanai's face and body. The face was pale, cold, the blue paint on the cheeks giving the features a chilling indifference that she had never noticed before.

"You betrayed me," she told the false Shinanai. "You and Father both. I thought you loved me."

This emotion is a powerful one. What do you call it?

Lady Death uttered a bitter laugh. "Despair. Grief. Loss."

And it causes you to want to initiate a complete shutdown?

"Hai."

You are fortunate. This sequence is initiating now.

"Good."

Lady Death closed her eyes, let her head sag back down onto her arms, and waited for death to end her pain.

The medics ran into the hospital tent, carrying a severed arm on a stretcher. The hand was still twitching; with each reflexive clench of the fingers, blood spurted from the stump that had once been attached to the shoulder. It soaked through the canvas of the stretcher and dripped onto the floor.