Robin Wasserman - Shattered

“Like you used to?” I reminded myself that she was no different from any other stuck-up bitch who thought she was in charge. And that was something I could use.

“No one knows Riley,” Sari said. “You’ll figure that one out yourself.”

“Seems like a pretty pathetic attempt to get him back.”

She snorted. “Why would I want him back?”

“Right, you’ve got Gray now.”

Sari rolled her eyes. “Gray was convenient. Now he’s not. A girl like you probably understands exactly how that goes.”

“Don’t pretend you know anything about me.” There had been guys who were toys, guys who were power plays, guys who were placeholders or just something to play with before I got bored, but that was over now. Mechs played by different rules. And I didn’t play at all.

“I know freaks like you and Riley belong together,” she said. “I’ve moved on.”

“To what?” I glanced pointedly at Mika. “Him?”

Sari burst into surprised laughter, then cut herself off as Mika’s face flushed red.

“What’s it feel like?” she asked abruptly.

I struggled against the rope binding me to the chair. “A little tight, actually. Feel free to untie—”

“Not that. You know. Sitting around, knowing you’re not going to die. Never get ugly. Sick.”

None of the orgs in my world—my former world—got ugly when they got old. It’s like the pop-ups said: a nanojection a day kept the wrinkles away. And there was always a lift-tuck every few months when things started to sag.

“At least you’re starting out ugly,” I said. “So you’ve got nothing to lose.”

Sari bared her teeth, but before she could do anything, the door eased open. A thin, vertical strip of face appeared through the crack. An inch of pale lip, split by a deep red scar, a sharp nose, hooded brown eyes. “Let’s go!” the mouth commanded. “Things to do.”

Mika scrambled, tipping me off. This was the final puzzle piece, the alpha to their pathetic betas. Riley’s replacement. Sari glanced at the door, eyes shining. She smirked at me. “This is all Riley’s fault, you know.”

“I doubt that.”

She jerked her head toward the shadow behind the door. “You piss off Wynn, you pay. Riley knew that then, and he knows it now. Ask him. If you ever see him again.”

She left me alone.

“Riley?”I VM’d. But again there was no answer. Possibly he was out of range. Gone to get help. Or just gone.

Mechs feel fear, just like orgs. Sharp, imminent fear, a red, flashing danger sign, like when you’re hurtling toward the earth at a hundred miles per hour. And when the fear’s sharp enough, it overpowers that annoying voice, the one wanting to know If I’m afraid, why aren’t my hands shaking? Why aren’t my teeth chattering? If I feel fear, why don’t I feel fear? You don’t think about it, because when the danger sign’s flashing brightly enough, you don’t think at all.

Fear I felt. But not the thing that comes after the fear, the thing that shows up when the door closes and the noise stops and you’re just waiting—and waiting—for something to happen. The tight-chest, stiff-neck, rigid-muscle, can’t-breathe thing that serves as a constant reminder that Something Bad is on its way.

I never noticed it when I was an org—that’s part of being an org, having the luxury not to notice anything—but some emotions are more inside your head than others. Happy , that’s a brain feeling. But sad ? That’s in the body. In the gut and the throat and the jaw. Anxious too. Worried. Nervous. All the feelings your brain would escape from if it could. So your body grabs hold and doesn’t let go. Org minds can go to as many happy places as they want, but their bodies always drag them back down to sweaty palm–ville.

Org bodies. Not mine.

So when I forced my mind to something else—clothes, in this case, and the new morphdress I was considering, almost solely for the pleasure of watching Jude’s face fall as its skirt transformed from mini to maxi before his eyes—it went.

I can’t escape, the train of thought went. And they can’t kill me. They can’t hurt me in any way that counts.

So why think about what was going to happen next?

Why not just stop being afraid?

And then the lights went out.

I’m not afraid of the dark, I told myself, then repeated the words out loud. My voice sounded strange, floating through the black. Disembodied.

It was just curfew, I thought. Nothing more mysterious or dire than that.

I’m not afraid of the dark.

It was what the dark meant. The cities were primitive. Energy ran through wires, snaking through the air or buried in the ground, safe from those who would steal it, abuse it, use it up. Unlike out in the real world, where energy was wireless and, as long as you could afford to pay, there for the taking, as much as was needed. That was the world I was built for. That was the world that powered the converter in my chest.

I’d last three days, maybe four. But that was it. Then no more power, which meant… what?

As long as the artificial brain was intact, it sent out a signal that interfered with the functioning of any other brains with the Lia Kahn pattern. It was how BioMax ensured that I remained Lia Kahn, the one and only. The memories I stored every night were guaranteed to stay locked away in storage. Until the brain in my head was destroyed and the signal failed, giving BioMax the automatic go-ahead to download Lia Kahn into a brand-new body. No harm, no foul.

But power failure meant I stayed in this body, even if it was useless. Maybe indefinitely, an unconscious lump of parts. And maybe that was the plan. Toss me out with the garbage—or keep me around, a life-size doll, to do with what they would.

None of the mechs I knew had played around with power failure. Maybe my brain would stay active while they did whatever they did. Maybe it would be like being trapped underground, blind and frozen, forever.

I said I wasn’t afraid of the dark.

I say a lot of things.

“Lia.”It was Riley’s digitized voice in my ear, low and urgent. The VM link only worked within a few miles, which meant they hadn’t taken me too far away. “Where are you?”

“Trapped.”I wiggled my fingers. If I’d been an org, they probably would have gone numb by now. “I don’t know where they brought me.”

“I shouldn’t have left you alone. I never thought Sari would—”

“It’s done,”I said. “Where are you?”

“They tried to…”A pause. “It doesn’t matter now. I got away. It was too easy—I think they let me. You okay?”

“They can’t hurt me.”

“They won’t try.”He didn’t sound as sure as I would have liked. “They’re not after that.”

“So what do they want?”

“It’s complicated.”

It was always complicated.

“There’s this guy Wynn,”he said. Then stopped.

Keep talking, I thought. And not just because I needed to know. His voice, even in this monotonic form, was warm, something to hold on to in the dark.

“He thinks he runs things around here,”Riley said finally. “And I… pissed him off.”

“I heard.”Sound tough, be tough. That was the rule. “So he wants some kind of revenge?”

“He wants me,”Riley said. “And Jude. For you. That’s the trade.”