First Shot

by Bokerah Brumley

  Sick. So sick. My mother is insane.

  My dizziness passes, and I struggle against my bindings. They did that to Tonick. They made him change. Right? He couldn’t have possibly been an artificial the whole time, could he? How would I have missed that?

  She crosses the room and presses a button, freeing my arms.

  “You’re free to get up; free to go, really,” she says. She waves a hand to someone behind me. Two figures stroll in, holding Tonick between them. His head lolls from side to side. His jacket is ripped and he’s missing a boot. Wherever his skin is still attached, he’s scraped and bruised and there’s a dent in the artificial side of his forehead. “If you do, I’ll kill him.”

  They drop him on the floor. His moans echo across the whitewashed room.

  “You’ll murder him anyway.” My sight blurs again, but from tears this time. I shouldn’t care about him after what he did to me, but I do. “Both of us.”

  The woman shrugs. “If you stay, I’ll wipe his memory, drop him off at his bar, and let him live.”

  “What kind of deal is that?” She can’t possibly think I’ll choose that.

  “If you refuse, I’ll make you watch me take him apart piece by piece.”

  “I don’t care.” I cross my arms. “He betrayed me. He gets whatever he’s got coming.”

  “They can’t feel, you know.” She watches for my reaction, but I don’t give her the pleasure of one. “So strange...” Her voice trails off, and she tilts her head to the side. I’m an experiment to her, a specimen.

  “I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about.” I’m lying.

  “I had no idea he mattered to you. Or that it would matter to you that we sent that decoy Pink.” She leaned toward me. “His programming will never change. He will never be anything other than what I made him into.” The blow cuts like a knife.

  “None of it matters,” I counter. Lying again.

  “You moaned his name in your sleep, crying through a nightmarish episode or two. Terrible dreams.” She raises an eyebrow as if to challenge my indifference.

  I set my jaw and grit my teeth. I won’t admit to anything.

  “Very well.” She snaps her fingers. One of the uniformed guards jabs a stick into Tonick’s side.

  Tonick. I love you. I blink fast enough to send the tears away, but I can’t keep up and one drop escapes, leaving a trail down my cheek. I love you.

  He howls as a jolt of electricity hits him. The noise shreds my soul.

  He feels pain. He has to. So many lies. So much deception. Tonick. I’m sorry.

  Everything in me flexes at his eerie wail. I have to breathe through the sounds to keep from adding my cry to the air. Tonick’s voice cracks and then increases in volume as the other guard joins the first. I clamp my hands over my ears. I don’t want this. Not really. She’s called my bluff, and I’m losing it. Webs of energy pass over him in waves until his screams die out and he no longer moves.

  She’s laughing, hand pressed over her belly. Tears stream down my face.

  When the guards finish, they drag Tonick from the room, and she points to me. They thrust their sticks into my side. My silence lasts less than a minute, and then I’m screaming and writhing on the floor. They’re going to kill us both.

  Chapter Fourteen

  LOCUS: UNKNOWN

  Date: Unknown

  Time: Unknown

  “I NEVER MEANT TO BE your mother,” she says. She leans close. “Do you even remember me?” She squints into my face.

  I’m upright in the middle of the room. I don’t know how many days they beat me, studying my ability to heal. Weeks maybe. I try to force words out, but I can’t. My lips are stitched shut by a dragon-fire injection that made me black out.

  “You were an experiment. I could never convince him that you were never meant to be our daughter, only a means to an end, a way to move up the ranks in GenCor. He had unique markers in his DNA, and I used the only other DNA I had free access to.” She points at herself, and then continues, “He thought my attentions meant something else.” She pulls a syringe out of a tin beside the table. “I dumped him in the UnderCity.” She focuses on a point over my shoulder. “I should have ended him.”

  She says, “You heal better than any of the others, and the higher-ups want an army of self-healing artificials for their campaign.” Her eyes twinkle. “You’re the key. I knew you would be.” She’s beaming at me like I’ve made her proud. She’s disgusting. I pull away.

  Suited guards circle us, standing between an audience in the theater and her experiment. It’s a row of artificials, all identical to my Tonick, reminders of what wasn’t. My eyes shift, and she notices. “These aren’t the only ones. Later, I’ll introduce you to the others. You’ll recognize her.” She waves. Three of her henchmen step forward, and two grab my shoulders and press me against the backboard. The third steps as close behind me as he can. Added insurance that I’ll hold still. I kick at her, but the move lacks conviction.

  My heart is worn out. I’m broken, and I don’t want to survive much longer. “Do it already.” I blow out my breath in a long sigh.

  She turns to the crowd, holding up the syringe. “Test nine. This is a nanocompound that will mutate the human blood cells so that they can bind to an artificial body. We will rebuild this Pink at a cellular level and then combine her DNA with an artificial’s android frame.”

  “Stars are lucky in the UnderCity,” a familiar voice whispers behind me. “Stars lead the way to a brave new day. I found it. I found the file. I found the way out.”

  I twist to see. One guard presses a finger to the face shield of his helmet. He sounds like his old self, and relief weakens my knees. Maybe I didn’t lose him after all.

  “For Teq,” he says, and presses something round into my hand. Then he spins away with his arms outstretched. He’s holding a bloody square of something in his hand.

  I bite back the cry that wants to escape. He’s holding the epidermis label from his back. He’s cut it out of his skin, and it’s a tattered mess on his palm. Somehow, he’s him again.

  He throws the brown patch at the woman who made me. It hits her feet, splattering in a bloody mess. “Here’s your label. I won’t be needing it anymore.” And then he bounds into the group of scientists and announces, “GenCor can suck my—”

  “That is quite enough, 06042000.” My mother’s eyebrows climb her forehead, and she squishes her lips into a straight line, pushing her glasses up the bridge of her nose. They’re all staring at him like he’s sprouted mortality.

  His flamboyance is so out of place and her expression is so comical that I laugh, a weird barking laugh that sounds half mad even to my own ears. I’m hysterical or in shock. I’m not sure which. Both, probably. All I know is that I love that crazy barkeep. He’s unbelievably unbalanced, but I love him.

  “Seize him,” she says. It takes three seconds for anyone to move.

  While they’re all befuddled by the aberrant artificial in front of them, Tonick tugs two boom candles from the back of his waistband and flicks the starters with his thumb. Flaming chemical balls burst out at them. He’s perfected the art of distraction.

  GenCor feet start moving, slowly at first, and then a stampede. Acrid gunpowder smoke clouds the air. None of these MidHeighters are used to dirty air, so they’re all overcome with coughing fits.

  To me, it smells like home. I glance at my hand, and my smile grows. Resting in my palm is a six-pointed incendiary grenade, a copper fireball from the UnderCity. We’re going out with my favorite sort of bang.

  I blame my genes. This lucky star will take out the whole room, my mother included.

  Tonick disappears in a surge of fifty artificials. I scramble across the slick tile. A few more seconds and I’ll have picked out the explosion location. I scan the room, trying to remember what he taught me.

  “Jin,” he yells. “Now would be good.” He swings at an artificial and knocks the helmet off the automaton.

&nb
sp; This high up, if I set it close enough to the window, it’ll blow out the glass and maybe some of them will get blown up or blown out by the wind. I spy a column and dash to it. I slam the explosive onto the support, and the countdown begins.

  One minute. We’ve got to get down forty floors in one minute.

  “Okay, ready,” I answer him. “Let’s get out o—” Vice-like fingers close around my throat, cutting off the rest of the sentence and my air supply. My mother’s lip is curled in a grotesque expression.

  “How dare you?” she screeches at me. “I made you.”

  “Jin!” Tonick’s voice is panicked. “I’m coming!”

  Her grip tightens, and her face pinches as I claw at her hand. She’s going to kill me. Black spots swim in my vision, swirling around me. My eyeballs bulge, and I swear I can feel blood vessels bursting across my face.

  And then Tonick—my Tonick—bursts out of the chaos and slams into my mother, knocking the three of us to the ground. I lie there, sucking at the air, coughing and retching.

  Tonick is the first to recover. He grabs my hand and yanks me to my feet. “Let’s go.” My mother is crawling after us.

  I stumble after him, but she catches my ankle and I slip to the floor. When Tonick turns, he lets lose a string of curses. “You can’t have her,” he bellows, then stomps her arm, bends down, and snaps her arm in two. Her blood-curdling scream echoes in the room.

  My mouth falls open. I’ve never seen him destroy. The Tonick I know loved Teq gently and took care of me from the first day I met him. Tonick scoops me up. I lay my head against his chest, but I know it’s all over. We can’t get down far enough before the explosion. We have no place to go.

  “They never counted on me figuring out how to rewrite my own programming. They didn’t know about the file he hid in my memory banks.” He glances down at me. “Love changes things,” he says. And I can’t help the thrill that moves through me. I hope that means what I want it to mean. “We’re going to make it,” he says. “Dyad’s waiting in the hall.”

  “But...” I whimper. Dyad’s a traitor, too.

  “It was all a part of the plan,” he adds. “She’ll be there, Jin. We’ll make it. We’ll find the stars.” He clutches me to him.

  I’m so glad my best friend is a motorcycle.

  Chapter Fifteen

  LOCUS: UNKNOWN

  Date: Unknown

  Time: Unknown

  TONICK SETS ME ON MY feet beside Dyad. She’s lit up in orange and white, a beacon in the flickering light of the floor. On the other side of the wall, my mother is screaming curses, demanding that artificials capture her project. We don’t have much time.

  “Greetings, Jin and Tonick,” Dyad says, as though we aren’t standing in a building that’s about to explode. “Your escape is ninety-five percent complete.”

  Our names sound better linked like that. And then I blush. We aren’t out of danger yet and I’m getting romantic. I don’t even know if he wants me. The last time he said he loved me, his brain was falling apart.

  Tonick climbs on first, then scoots as far back as he can, and I settle on the seat in front of him, his arms caging me in. I check the date and time on the screen. I didn’t lose as much time in the belly of GenCor as I thought I might have. That makes me feel somewhat better.

  “Did you get the extra?” Tonick gives Dyad a pointed look.

  “Dermis acquired.” Her expression is smug as she answers Tonick. I don’t ask what she means. I’m just about full up on secrets that I can’t handle.

  “Ready?” Tonick leans forward, his front pressing against my back, his exposed metal cheek resting against mine. I relish the strange sort of comfort.

  “I have initiated a lockdown procedure in Maria Stella’s office, all surgical sections, and I have selected our destination.” The avatar lowers goggles over her eyes, and straps shoot out of Dyad and around our legs, buckling us in. “We’ll have a head start, but it’s going to get a little bumpy.”

  The rear tire squeals, and smoke pours out from beneath it. And then Dyad launches forward like a ReProd running from GenCor.

  A group bursts into the hallway, and an angry mob of artificials pours out behind them. They’ve already worked through Dyad’s lockdowns. “They’re coming,” I say. I try not to scream.

  “I understand.” Dyad makes a sharp right, and then we’re headed straight for a wall. “Please hold on,” she intones.

  “What are you doing?” Tonick asks as we head straight for the closed metal doors of a service elevator. “What are you doing?”

  “Dyad?” I scream at her.

  She doesn’t answer, but I can feel the RPMs ramp up and the bike bolt forward.

  Oh no. She’s not going to stop. Tonick leans back and forces me back with him.

  And then there’s a ding and the two doors separate to reveal...

  No elevator. The shaft is empty. They can’t possibly be going to...

  “This is the plan?” I scream, and then my throat constricts.

  “Dyad?” I squeeze my eyes shut as our trio leaps from the flooring into the empty air.

  We’re free-falling down an elevator shaft. She’s miscalculated. We’re all going to die. It’s been a nice life, but what a miserable way to end. Surely, this isn’t going the way it should.

  We land with a thud, and I open my eyes.

  “We are in the elevator shaft in the corner farthest from the explosion. In the next thirty seconds, the bomb will go off but will not hinder our egress.” Dyad’s avatar rubs the backs of her fingernails on her jacket.

  “You know your stuff,” I say, and hope it’s true.

  Doors ding and open, but Dyad doesn’t move. The metal doors slide closed, and then we’re a trio waiting in the dark. Tonick presses his face to mine and squeezes his arms around me. I lean into him. He shifts to make it easier for me to press against him, and I flush. Maybe he does love me.

  “Cut that out, you two,” Dyad quips. “I don’t need the distraction of keeping track of your vitals. Wait until you get out of the building at least.” Tonick’s laughter echoes up and down the elevator shaft, and now I’m blushing. And thankful for the darkness.

  The whole building sways from side to side. Cracks spider down the walls of our private panic room. The safety lights flicker and then turn red. Amid the sound of running feet, screams, and shouting, alarms blare outside. GenCor’s world is crumbling.

  When the doors slide open a second time, Dyad announces, “Lobby.”

  In that moment, I decide I love her smirk.

  GenCor Invisi-Communique

  ***Begin***

  RE: Headquarters

  Above ground compromised.

  RE: Research Level

  Unaffected.

  ***End***

  Chapter Sixteen

  LOCUS: ALTER EARTH

  Bostgo Sector

  UnderCity

  GenCor Hospital

  Date: 13 Pentian

  Time: 0800

  CHUNKS OF CEILING FALL on the floor in front of us, exploding across the shiny marble. The elevator we’re riding on top of has stopped at the ground floor, but we’re on the second level of GenCor’s UnderCity lobby, facing a staircase that will lead us out the front door. The suspension cable strains as the building rocks once more. If we wait much longer, our ride is going to drop into the basement.

  Dyad creeps forward, edging her front tire out onto the floor. Tonick shoves his boot into the opening of the next level down to keep it from closing. We’re hung between floors somehow. He leans out over me, looking first one way and then the other. It’s quiet. Like the calm before the storm.

  Pop. Snap.

  Cracks shoot up through the thick glass walls that surround the two-story lobby. The fissures glow like neon in the artificial daylight. A shatter is imminent, but every seam, every joint is reinforced by riveted metal.

  Last year, during Sextus, a small army of UnderCity dwellers attacked the building. They wanted med
ical care but never made a dent. Tendrils of smoke curl toward us, emerging from the shadows like reapers’ fingers. A cable strand as thick as my ankle snaps. The fiber hits three sides of the elevator shaft, sending a spray of concrete shrapnel down on us.

  “What are we going to do?” We’ve made it this far. Terror twists my stomach. We’re so close to freedom. We can’t wait for an opening. We have to make one. My pulse pounds in my ears.

  “Don’t worry,” Tonick says. “Trade me places.” The straps loosen and disappear into Dyad once more.

  Sure. The building is falling down around us. I won’t worry.

  I don’t say any of it, but climb off Dyad and dance in place while Tonick scoots forward. I avoid looking at his ripped face. I’m not ready for that truth.

  I take his seat, and Dyad fastens us both in place. It’s not warm like I expected. That’s new. Either his programming that makes him seem human is starting to fail or he’s turned it off. I wrap my arms around him, and my fingertips land in rips in his shirt and skin. The cold of the metal beneath my fingers is another surprise, but it doesn’t make me recoil. He’s still the knight who rescued me. He’s just fashioned from metal instead of bone.

  Dyad creeps forward a few more inches, and Tonick leans forward again. Ahead of us, small circles pop open and flashing red lights push through.

  “All occupants must exit the building through mandated procedure. Once free of danger, please wait for retrieval by the Corp patrols.” The recorded voice repeats the warning.

  GenCor is on lockdown, and we’re trapped in the bottom of an imploding box.

  No, thank you.

  I won’t wait for the corrupted Corp to drag me back to GenCor.

  We should have gone out through the Swank lobby at the top of the GenCor building. They never would have expected us to exit through the Crest. I bet they didn’t make that end a fortress. Surely they have some cred-burning flying apparatus on standby up there.