First Shot

by Bokerah Brumley

  “In other news, cleanup of the rubble from GenCor’s catastrophic collapse has started. The president of GenCor, Maria Stella, went on to assure the inhabitants of Bostgo that the incident was an isolated one. Medical services will continue as normal...”

  They’re blaming the implosion of the GenCor building on a cloud of flammable sewer gasses. Most of the Swanks have never seen anything lower than MidHeight. They’ve never seen the smog or the death rot. The bullshit excuse doesn’t make sense, but it flies.

  Once they pin the blame on the UnderCity dwellers, the Swanks will sign off on any crackdown they don’t have to see. The razing might murder thousands. It’ll be a good excuse to hunt for the lingering Pinks.

  There’s nobody to care except Jin and me. MidHeighters and Swanks don’t want to upset the pecking order. UnderCity dwellers are too busy surviving to listen to the news.

  I am able to pick up a long string of reporting before the signal dies out. In a different world, I might be addicted to the newswire. But here, in this world, news isn’t truth, and truth doesn’t make the news. It’s hard to guess what’s really going on based on the words they transmit, but I can’t believe they’ll let Jin stay lost. They haven’t announced her on the newswire. That’s something. Once they get things settled down, they’ll come for her. I need clues to their next move.

  Before I can rotate through the wavelengths, a whisper floats across my positrons.

  Tonick, help me.

  My heart clanks against its framing. This time it’s not Teq’s voice in my head.

  It’s Dyad’s.

  Chapter Twenty

  LOCUS: ALTER EARTH

  The Cabin

  Date: 14 Pentian

  Time: 0900

  CUE THE SEXY ROBOT on my roof. Tonick’s thumping around. He sounds like a stray dog, trying to make himself comfortable before he lies down, but it makes me feel safe. He’s up there, taking care of things. Forever is a luxury we don’t have, but for a moment I close my eyes and feel the dream sink into my bones.

  I saw him naked. It’s not what I wanted. The morning light woke me as soon as it came in the window. I didn’t know the sun could do that. Then colors spread across the sky as I dressed down to my boots. I even found my cuffs. I wanted to see the sunrise for myself...not...that.

  That’s not true. Not that long ago, I wanted to see that. Then he had a breakdown. But it was good up until that part. A smile spreads across my face. He obviously liked that I saw him anyway. With a little more warning, I might have liked it, too. He enjoyed me well enough before he lost his brains and started babbling Teq’s name. I frown. He said he heard her. If he did...I still don’t know where he disappeared to when Teq was captured.

  What did he see? Did GenCor drag him to MidHeight? It’s a question that he hasn’t answered yet. The truth turns in my belly. Morbid thoughts twist through my mind. I don’t know what to make of it. Instead of warm fuzzies, I see Tonick, transformed. He’s standing on top of a mound of rubble, his processor lights blinking in the smoke from the destroyed building. It chills my blood. He’s one hack away from turning on me. That’s reality.

  More banging comes from the space above me. He’s probably trying to see if he can pick up her signal again. He cries out, and I freeze. What now?

  Thud. Thud. Thud. Long strides across the roof, toward the front edge of the porch, almost like Tonick is running. I follow, curious. Then he falls and lands hard on the ground.

  He doesn’t look back, and his pace doesn’t slow. “I’m coming, Dyad,” he bellows. He disappears between the trees.

  My knees weaken, and my mouth dries. I sway as dark spots populate my vision. A wave of prickles rolls across my face. Dyad’s in trouble. My heart stops and then my pulse races. I don’t know how they know we’re here, but I won’t hide from the danger.

  It’s me they’re after. In a pink-haired heartbeat, I’ll trade Teq and Tonick for me.

  GenCor didn’t wait for us to make it back to Bostgo. GenCor came to us.

  I scan the room. This is my fault. Dyad can’t fight them alone. I have to help. There must be some sort of weapon that I can use. There’s nothing but a metal skewer by the fireplace and a small stool with a broken leg. I grab the lackluster sword and shield, bolting from the cabin.

  Stopping at the edge of the splintered decking, I hold my breath. There’s no sound. No singing birds. I grimace, pulling air through my teeth. A final silence waits in the air. It’s a heavy sensation I can’t shake. It hurts to breathe. You can’t have them. They’re mine.

  “Get off her.” Tonick’s voice comes from ahead of me and to the right—down the path that led us home.

  For half a second, I hesitate. It could be anything. Anyone.

  “Get the hell off my smartbike.” Tonick isn’t backing down.

  Whatever it is out there has Dyad.

  My Dyad. I leap from the top step and sprint toward him.

  Around the slight corner, I come to a clearing I didn’t notice on the way in. I duck behind a thick-trunked tree. Tonick is facing me, his hand outstretched as he eases toward a figure that sits astride Dyad. Long tubules extend from the tips of the attacker’s fingers into Dyad’s gelatinous screen, and dark hair trails down her back. I can’t tell if she has an implant or if she’s an android like Tonick. His gaze doesn’t stray from the hacker, but I can tell he sees me by the barely there stutter in his stride. The stranger doesn’t seem to notice.

  “Don’t you worry, Tonick,” she says. “Just come back with me. We’ll get your programming cleaned up, and you can live as long as your parts will let you.” I can’t tell who has Dyad, but there’s something familiar about her pale face, so different from both of ours. Dark hair trails down her back.

  “Who made that promise?” Tonick inches closer. He doesn’t have the advantage of surprise that I do. The hacker doesn’t yet know I’m here.

  “Maria Stella.”

  “Now, Wiskee—”

  I can’t hear the rest of what Tonick says over the surge of adrenaline. I bite down on my tongue to keep a gasp from escaping. My mother sent her. I gag on the memory of blood-slicked walls and sharing her deathbed.

  Wiskee.

  I saved her, but Tonick killed her. It’s a question he hasn’t answered. I scowl. My eyebrows go lower and lower. She doesn’t have pink hair glued into starfish dreads this time. She’s not hiding. Did Tonick call her here?

  I saved her. He killed her.

  My fingers curl into fists. Treachery. Lies. I’m shaking as I step around the tree. Tonick’s eyes widen. His hand lifts even farther. He’s telling me not to do it, but I have to know. I have to look her in the face. I need to know if it was her treachery or his.

  One step, two steps, three...and then I’m flying through the air.

  I land on her back with my arms around her neck. The jolt knocks her leg out from under her, and Dyad falls over. Wiskee’s leg and mine are simultaneously pinned beneath the incapacitated smartbike. The fall yanks Wiskee’s hacker tubules from Dyad’s screen.

  Dyad’s avatar shakes her head and then presses a hand to her temple.

  Tonick leaps forward, landing on Dyad’s handlebars. His weight sends pain shooting through my leg, but I tighten my hold on Wiskee’s neck. She yanks on my arms, flailing about. Tonick crawls forward, shifting Dyad. I bite my bottom lip to keep from crying out.

  Wiskee doesn’t react, just keeps jerking on my arms. Her skin feels real beneath my hands, but I can’t tell whether she’s a ReProd or a bot. One or the other.

  Tonick straightens over us as we struggle.

  “It’s a trap,” Dyad screams beside us. “Wiskee is one of them.”

  No longer at Wiskee’s mercy, Dyad screeches warnings in rapid succession as she catches up to the moments she lost while paused.

  This time, I’ll kill Wiskee. For Dyad. For Tonick.

  I let go of her neck and press my fingers into her eyeballs until fluid leaks out onto her face, and she howls. Th
en I pull down until the skin rips. My fingers graze hard metal.

  “Move, Jin,” Tonick says. “Let me.” Something flashes in his eyes. “I won’t let you carry that weight.” His eyebrows raise in a wordless plea. “Let me finish it.”

  I release Wiskee and scoot back, still partially pinned beneath Dyad but as far back as my leg will let me get. Wiskee lifts her hands as Tonick lifts his boot. He brings his heal down. Hard. And then again. And again. Until there’s an electric fzzz-pop and Wiskee’s garbled voice moans Tonick’s name. He stares at her, his boot heel raised.

  “Do it again, Tonick,” she whispers. “That feels so good.” She whimpers, and I dry-heave.

  Tonick groans Teq’s name and then mine, but the sound isn’t coming from him. It’s coming from Wiskee. She’s replaying the sound track of their time in bed. Then she twitches and the sex tape comes to a halt. “GenCor wants you,” Wiskee starts up again, this time in a singsong voice. “You belong to GenCor. We aaaaaall belong to GenCor.”

  “I don’t. Not anymore.” I make a fist and hit Wiskee in the back of the head. My knuckles splash in a puddle of fluid that’s collected on the back of her head. I don’t know if Wiskee is even conscious enough to hear me, but I won’t let the lie stain the air.

  “Tonick will bring her to me.” It’s my mother’s voice from Wiskee’s mouth.

  Breathing hard, I press my lips together and jam my fingers in my ears. “Make it stop.”

  Tonick shakes his head, as though coming out of a fog from the memory Wiskee is replaying. He lifts his foot and then smashes his heel against her face once more. She wails once.

  And then it’s quiet. Death is in the air, but maybe Wiskee’s will be the only one today.

  We stare at each other. Tonick’s blue eyes are bright, the mechanical irises still and focused on me. I shift, but I still can’t move out from under Dyad. “You killed her.”

  Tonick flinches and averts his gaze. “Twice.” He turns away and wipes his hands on his pants. The hems are wet from Wiskee’s fluid, his boots splattered with red.

  “With good cause,” Dyad says. “She tried to reprogram him.”

  My shoulders sag. The smartbike sounds like her old self. My best friend’s first order of business is to banish all doubts about Tonick, doubts I’d been trying to crush on my own.

  I love her.

  I study Tonick’s shoulders. He’s got his back to us, peering down the trail that was supposed to keep us safe. “Is this the same one?”

  Tonick studies her. “I don’t know.”

  “Can you help me up?” Dyad’s lights flash. “Or at least install a set of arms with an opposable thumb?”

  Tonick pivots on his feet. He’s smiling. “I think arms are a long way off.” He crosses to us, lifts Dyad as though she weighs nothing, and sets her on her kickstand.

  I shimmy out, dragging my leg behind me, whimpering. I fight the darkness that threatens. I can’t pass out. I can’t.

  My foot smacks the floor, and I cry out.

  The lower portion of my appendage is covered in red, skin peeled back to expose muscles and bone. It’s not the normal shape. In the middle of my shin, the bone disappears altogether. I shouldn’t stand on it.

  “Doesn’t look good, Jin,” he says.

  “Tell me something I don’t know.” It’s bad. It’s crushed, and it’s going to test the limits of my self-healing ability. “It’s not bad yet,” I lie.

  Tonick shrugs. “Give it time.”

  “Pinks have genetic programming at the cellular level. Their physiology is such that a series of endorphins is released once wounds reach a certain severity. These megadoses of endorphins combine with adrenaline to mask the sensation of pain.” Dyad recites it as though it’s well known, and Tonick nods. I guess he knew it, too.

  I didn’t know that about myself, but I don’t admit it already hurts like hell. “In that case, I should get back to the cabin.” Judging by the tatters my leg is in, I’m going to want to be unconscious.

  “We’ll take you,” Tonick says. “Dyad can give you a shot of painkiller anyway.”

  “Examine her first,” I say.

  “That’s not necessary.” Dyad backs away.

  “Do it.” I cross my arms.

  Tonick looks like he wants to argue, but he doesn’t. He runs his hands over Dyad, his circuits blinking in time with Dyad’s lights. His mouth is moving, but I don’t hear any words. I’m sure he’s checking over Dyad.

  Still seated beside her, I study pseudo Wiskee’s body. Her dark hair stretches out from her bashed-in face; red fluid leaks from beneath her imitation epidermis. It spreads beneath her like blood. One busted eyeball hangs from the socket, lying on her cheek. The optic nerve, now a frayed wire connection, sparks. Her mouth moves in a weird repetitive motion, mimicking a function that her programming can no longer complete. Hack tubules still extend from her fingernails. I scoot back a little more.

  Tonick approaches and then kneels down by the dead bot. He flips Wiskee over, his movement rough, his expression hard. His face is tight and his nostrils flare. He raises one of her arms and shoves his finger in a socket beneath her armpit. “Accessing her processors.”

  “Is that wise?”

  “I’ll be careful,” he says. “I have to get anything I can.”

  Once he decides something, it’s useless to fight with him. It’s always been that way. Maybe because he’s got AI. Maybe because he’s Tonick.

  I shift, and pain shoots through my leg.

  Dyad doesn’t argue with him either. Finally, he shoves Wiskee away from him. “Teq is alive,” he says, and his voice cracks. “They say they’ll let her go if we come in.”

  My knees buckle, and tears blur my vision. Of course Teq is alive. She’s a part of us. They wouldn’t kill her. She’s too valuable to them. But they won’t let her go. They’ll keep us all. I swallow the lump in my throat. “What else?”

  He kicks Wiskee. “This one is a scout.”

  “There’s more coming?” More Wiskees or more GenCor? I decide it doesn’t matter. They’re the same. Horror clogs my throat until I have to step back. It might be more Tonick.

  Tonick nods and crosses his arm. “There was a message. From your mother.”

  Even more good news. “What did it say?”

  “Come home. Your father misses you.” He grits his teeth.

  And then I’m sobbing. My father. Teq. They aren’t dead. They aren’t free.

  Everything is wrong. I want forever in the forest. I want to grow old with Tonick. I want to be free of GenCor. Dead might not even be the end of it for me.

  I’m the center of a web of conspiracies. My mother knew what my father was doing the whole time. She let him believe he would save me. I lift my chin, wishing for the return of the good feelings from the morning. The forest spins around me as a hint of pain creeps across my skin.

  Dyad parks beside me, and I put my hand on her so she can jab me with a needle. It’s the medicine for my leg. I take a deep breath, waiting for the painkiller to seep through me. Everything slows, and Tonick seems farther away.

  “Cut it off,” I say, reaching for him but missing. He doesn’t know yet. “It’ll grow back faster than it’ll rebuild.” Or it won’t. But I’m a ReProd. I’m a Pink. It’ll grow back. It has to. Tonick needs to know that I know what has to happen. I give him my permission.

  Tonick freezes. “You want me to amputate your leg?”

  “It’ll grow back.” I sigh. I have more to say, but my mouth won’t work anymore.

  Tonick lifts me onto Dyad and climbs up behind me. I retreat into the numb fog of the meds.

  The trees aren’t beautiful anymore. They’re knives against the sky. They’re a tiny, green closet GenCor wants to keep us in.

  We aren’t an army. We aren’t even enough to defend our home on the bayou. But we have no choice. We have to go back anyway.

  When I wake, it will be time to take down the GenCor Goliath.

  GenCor Invi
si-Communique

  ***Begin***

  RE: Pursuit

  Possible detection.

  Stand by.

  ***End***

  Chapter Twenty-One

  LOCUS: ALTER EARTH

  The Cabin

  Date: 14 Pentian

  Time: 1500

  BEEP. BEEP. BEEP.

  The beeps continue at a steady pace. The smartbike is monitoring Jin for me. Jin’s blood pressure keeps falling. Her cardiac rate is sporadic, and it’s getting worse.

  “You have to go back,” Dyad says.

  “Maybe.”

  The metallic scent fills the cabin, fills my mind. It’s not the way Jin is supposed to smell. I pull another bandage from the med-supply kit and wrap it around her from the thigh down. Then I rummage through the bag again, looking for more combat gauze. Fresh out.

  Cut it off. I hear her voice in my mind. It’ll be faster. I don’t know if it’s my own brain that’s pushing the nonsense at me or if it’s Dyad.

  I don’t want to. I can’t do that to you. I love every part of you.

  “You have no choice, Tonick.” Dyad stares at me from her screen. Her arms are crossed, and her mouth is pressed into a thin line. “You have to amputate.”

  “I can’t do that.” As I stare at the mangled mess of her leg, the truth punches me in the face. If I want to keep Jin, she has to lose her leg. Even if we manage to stop the bleeding, there’s so much that could still go wrong. If it’s a straight cut, I can cauterize it all at once.

  Beep. Beep. Beep.

  Jin has been unconscious and bleeding since we brought her back to the cabin.

  I don’t have time to think about that right now. Jin needs me. She’s resting on a wheeled stretcher I found downstairs. I’m sure it’s uncomfortable. Once we get the bleeding stopped, I’ll move her to the bed, tuck her in, and kiss her on the forehead. A med bag is hooked up to her, the self-setting needle patch positioned over the main vein in her arm. I couldn’t have stuck her. She’s been asleep the whole time.