“Look, I already have—” I stopped, reminding myself that for these fifteen days Riley—or, more specifically, Riley-and-me—did not exist. No one wanted their vidlifers tied down, at least not with an outsider, and certainly not with another mech, a random from a city who’d never been to a club and, if he had, would have spent the night sitting in a corner, still and silent as his chair. It would be different if Riley had agreed to go on the vidlife with me. It might have been an appealing novelty act, he-and-she mechs, a matched set ready and willing to show off how anatomically correct—how lustful, how passionate, how human—the walking dead could be. But Riley never would have agreed to something like that, so I hadn’t asked.
Him, the voice in my head decided for me, as my eyes settled on a punkish banger a few years older than me, his spiked hair tipped with metal studs, silver bangles ringing both arms from wrist to elbow. The silver decals striping his neck marked him as a skinnerhead, one of those fetishists who claimed to crave eternal life as a mech—but didn’t crave it enough to actually cut open their brains and download them into a computer. Covering yourself in mech-tech was the newest trend, at least among those who weren’t trolling the streets looking for a mech to bash, and sometimes—fine line between love and hate and all that—among those who were. This loser clearly considered himself on the cutting edge. Someone out there on the network apparently thought that made him my perfect match. Go for it.
It didn’t take much.
My come-hither glance was rusty, but it got the job done. Or maybe it was the pinpricks of golden light at the center of my pupils, the dead mech eyes flashing under the neon strobes, the taunting glimpses of synflesh beneath the on-and-off transparent material of the flash shirt. What skinnerhead could resist a skinner?
I love Riley, I thought, as the skinnerhead began to grind his hips against mine.
But: Tell him you want him, the voice in my head commanded.
“I want you,” I breathed. The skinnerhead smiled like a wolf.
He pressed his left hand—nails coated in metallic silver, of course—to my bare shoulder. His fingers spidered down my back, and I hoped it was too dark for the cameras to see my face. He twisted me around, pressing his sweaty chest against my back, his groin against my ass, and wrapped his arms around me, one hand cupping my breast, the other squeezing my waist, his lips at the curve where my neck met my shoulders, breathing in my artificial skin.
Riley and I had talked about this. We’d discussed the obligations, weighed pros and cons, set boundaries. But boundaries were hard to specify in advance. No nudity, fine. But what about a skirt that barely covered the curve of my thigh, what about silver-tipped fingers creeping beneath the netsilk, what about legs tangled in legs . . . arms encircling chests . . . what about lips?
It’s just an act, I had said, we had agreed, I reminded myself now. Means nothing.
His lips were on mine. Sucking. Slobbering. His tongue in my mouth, something wet and alien, probing soft places it didn’t belong. I counted to ten. Ignored the squishing and smacking sounds, focused on the music. Counted to twenty, closed my eyes as his tongue slurped down my chin, up my cheek, explored the caverns of my ear, his body still grinding against mine, slow, slow, slow even as the music gathered strength and speed, a hurricane of beats. We were the calm at the center. I counted to thirty. Thought about the big picture, the message it would send, another divide between mechs and orgs crumbling to the ground, another thing we had in common: desire, need, want. Thought about the computer that was my brain and the body that was only a body, mechanical limbs woven through with wires, fake nerves that let me feel but made nothing feel real. Counted to forty, and his tongue had no taste, because I couldn’t taste; his hair, his neck, his sweat had no smell, because I couldn’t smell. I counted to fifty, and when his lips moved down my breastbone to the dark shadow beyond, I threw my head back and tried to smile.
And then I got to sixty and pushed him away, so hard that he stumbled backward, wheeled his arms for balance, and toppled into a klatch of lip-locked vamp-tramps. “Can’t spend it all in one place!” I shouted, and let the crowd fill the spaces around me, so by the time he got to his feet, I was gone.
“Let’s talk about the Brotherhood of Man.” The interviewer flashed a saccharine smile. “Unless it’s too difficult for you.”
I shook my head. After two weeks in the vidlife, “difficult” had taken on a new meaning; this didn’t qualify. “I’m here to talk,” I said. “About whatever you’d like.”
“We all know the story of how the Brotherhood began,” the interviewer said, then immediately disregarded her own words by regaling us with the gory details: the Honored Rai Savona’s noble quest to preserve the sanctity of human life, his abdication of the Faither throne in favor of a small, grassroots, antiskinner organization that helped the poor, fed the hungry, and, incidentally, advocated for the eradication of those of us with artificial blood running through our artificial veins. As the interviewer moved onto the “tragic downfall” portion of events, the vidscreen behind her flashed images: kidnapped mechs strung up on poles at the altar of Savona’s temple, the “mysterious” explosion at the edge of the temple complex, the destruction of a facility that was never supposed to have existed in the first place—and then the final image, Savona’s right-hand man standing before the adoring masses, apologizing for the transgressions of the supreme leader. Promising a kinder, gentler Brotherhood under his new kinder, gentler leadership. Auden Heller, the best weapon the Brotherhood had against the skinners, because his ruined body, his artificial limbs and dented organs, were all permanent reminders of the damage we could wreak.
“Lia, how did it feel—”
I steeled myself, waiting for her to ask me about Auden, though she’d been told he was off-limits.
Or about Riley, who had burned in the explosion but was back now, a different body but the same mind, containing an exact copy of all the memories of the previous Riley, every memory but the memory of how he died. Every mech had an uplinker, and we used them daily to upload a copy of our memories to a secure server, just in case. But unless you were uploading at the moment your body was destroyed, that memory would be gone.
“—when Brother Savona came out of hiding and surrendered himself to BioMax?” she concluded. Then she leaned forward, as if—misinformed about my technical specifications—waiting for waterworks.
“I was surprised.”
“Because you were among those who believed that he’d died in the explosion?”
Sure, we’d go with that.
I nodded, wishing I were free to answer honestly. The only surprise was that a cowardly nut job like Savona would deposit himself on BioMax’s front doorstep and beg for judgment. The only thing I felt was disappointment that he was still breathing.
“And how did you feel”—insert predatory smile here—“when corp security operations officially pardoned him for any role he may have played in the unpleasantries at the temple?”
BioMax had released its own official account of “the unpleasantries,” one in which Brotherhood fanatics had nearly slaughtered a building full of their own, not to mention a handful of innocent mechs. (Of course it was the mechs who had nearly massacred all those orgs. But that kind of truth was counterproductive, and so we all kept our mouths shut.)
“You have to weigh Brother Savona’s past behavior against his expressed willingness to repair the damage.” The script had been easier to memorize than it was to choke out. “Brother Savona’s voice obviously has a wide reach, and now that he’s had his revelations—”
“You’re referring, I assume, to his statements expressing regret for the way he treated the skinners, and his pledges of tolerance? You believe he means what he says?”
I believed that there was nothing anyone could do to Savona now that BioMax had decided he made a better savior than he did a martyr. He’d signed back on to the Brotherhood as an unofficial consultant—right-hand man to his former right-hand
man—and the rest of us were supposed to forgive and forget.
“We prefer to be called mechs,” I told the interviewer. “‘Skinner’ is derogatory.” Out of the corner of my eye, and just beyond the camera’s sightline, I saw Kiri raise a hand in silent warning.
“Of course,” the interviewer said. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”
“I know.” No one ever meant. “And to answer your question, Brother Savona and Brother Auden have a message of tolerance and equality that I’d like to think we can all believe in. All I want is to show people that mechs are no different from anyone else—we’re regular people. If the Brotherhood can help get that message out, then I’m all for it.”
“You’re a very big-hearted girl,” the interviewer said.
I could have reminded her about the wireless power converter nestled where my heart should be. But I didn’t.
Day seven.
Halfway there.
Not going to make it.
“You skank!” Cally shouted, and launched herself at Pria.
“Not my fault you couldn’t give him what he wanted!” Pria screeched, squaring off to face the charging blonde. She crouched and grabbed Cally around the knees, flipping her head over heels. Which put Cally in perfect position to gnaw on her thigh.
Pria went down.
Hands clutched at tangles of blond hair, yanked. Violet nails raked across pale skin. They hissed, they slapped; teeth were bared, backs were arched, saliva was sprayed. There was some very unladylike grunting. Soon the two interlocked, writhing bodies rolled across the mansion’s marble floor, a monstrous eight-legged beast.
Sometimes these fights ended at the hospital; sometimes they ended in bed. (Or in the closet, the pool, the shower, the rug—any and every conceivable surface.) Whatever the audience wanted.
Now, the voice commanded. Tell them.
“You’re both brainburned,” I said. “You want to kill yourselves over Caleb? Go for it.” The voice gave me the storyline, but—usually—I made up the words myself. A miniature measure of freedom in my zombie life. “You know who’ll really love that? Felicity. Because then she gets him all to herself.”
The writhing creature froze, then separated itself into two discrete bodies again, every eye, ear, and molecule trained on my next words.
“Of course, she’s already got him,” I said.
“That bitch!”
“That skank!”
“That tramper!”
“I’ll kill her.”
“Not if I kill her first.”
“I’ll kill you first, if you try that.”
The truth: Felicity had never touched Caleb. I didn’t know if I was lying because I wanted him for myself, because I wanted Cally or Pria for myself, or because I wanted trouble. The voice would tell me, soon enough, and then that would be the new truth.
The fight temporarily over, and Felicity marked for death, we were free to move on to more pressing concerns.
“Mini or maxi?” Pria demanded, hanging the two dresses over her curvy frame. “There’s a rage at Chaos tonight and we are there.”
“Maxi,” I said. “Definitely.” Because that day I was supposed to be hating on Pria, and the billowing black and white gown made her look like a pregnant cow.
“That’s my dress!” Cally spit, grabbing it out of her hand.
Pria looked clueless, but only for a moment. Then her face transformed—narrowed eyes, tensed muscles, slight upturn in her puffy lips. A masterful dose of pure spite. “So what if it is?” she snarled. “Looks better on me, anyway.”
It’s your dress, the voice decided.
So that’s what I said.
Then I added the part about the pregnant cow.
And then I was on the ground, with my hair in Pria’s hands and my artificial flesh beneath her nails.
Good luck breaking the skin, I thought, gifting her with a light sucker punch that would give her plenty of material for the cameras.
It had been made clear to me that the audience loved a fight.
Especially when the skinner lost.
“Every skinner—I’m sorry, mech—has an understandably conflicted relationship with the Brotherhood, but I think it’s safe to say that yours is more conflicted, or certainly more complicated, than most,” the interviewer said. “After all, its current leader, Auden Heller, is a former classmate of yours, isn’t that right?”
You know it’s right, you disingenuous bitch.
I should have known better than to believe Kiri when she said the interviewer had agreed to my terms. Easy to declare a subject off-limits when you’re backstage—so much the better to launch a sneak attack once the cameras are rolling.
I smiled.
“Yes. We were in school together for about ten years.”
“And you were close?” she said.
“Briefly.”
“Until that day at the waterfall—”
“I don’t talk about that.”
“That’s understandable,” she said, sounding sympathetic. She patted my knee.
I let her. I even let her regurgitate the story of the waterfall, and how Auden had nearly died trying to save me, the skinner who didn’t need saving. My fault, and so—in his mind, and the minds of the Brotherhood’s brainwashed masses—the fault of every skinner.
“It must be so hard for you,” she said. “I’m sure you wish you could talk to him, apologize for everything that’s happened. Is there anything you’d like to say to him now?” she asked, eyes hungry. “Anything at all?”
I wasn’t about to ruin everything by exploding on camera. Two weeks of misery were not going in the garbage just to give myself the luxury of self-pity. Or privacy. I’d given the latter up for fifteen days, and the former up for good. But I couldn’t play along.
I glanced off camera. Kiri’s lips were moving, and, like a ventriloquist’s dummy, the interviewer began to speak. “Looks like we’re out of time,” she said, stiffly. I was surprised the sweat running down her face didn’t harden to ice. “It’s been a pleasure to have you with us. Please come again.”
I smiled like I meant it. “Anytime.”
Maybe I was the better actor after all.
Day fifteen.
“You survived.” Kiri swept me off as the interview ended. That was code for You didn’t screw up. I didn’t know whether she meant the interview or the whole two weeks; I was too tired to care.
One more night and I was free.
I couldn’t thank her for the save—not without revealing her interference to the vidlife audience. So I just raised an eyebrow, and she mirrored the gesture with her own. You’re welcome.
“She wanted me to talk about myself,” I chirped. “What’s better than that?” Code for I know I’m already dead … but kill me now. Please.
“Ah, the Lia Kahn we all know and love,” she said. “Sure you’re not too tired to hit this gala tonight?”
A star-studded night with the crēme de la crēme of high society, pretending not to notice that the crēme was made with soured milk? We both knew there was only one acceptable response.
“Me? Miss a party? As if.”
No one told me the party was underwater.
A transparent bubble sucked us below sea level. The orgs were intrigued, pressed against the clear walls, watching fish meander by and algae lick at the glass. This was all new to them, an adventure. But I’d stroked through the deep; I knew what it was like to lose myself in the silent dark of the water.
I knew what was hiding beneath the ocean’s surface—I’d seen the dead cities and their bloated bodies, and I knew that only algae and jellyfish could survive in the bath of toxic sludge. But the transparent dome was surrounded by an elaborately fake ecosystem, sparkling water clear enough to show off rainbow coral reefs and fluorescent schools of fish. It was the perfect match for the garish undersea spectacle that lay within the dome, synthetic algae undulating from the floor, sparkling lights floating in midair, stars hung so low you could fl
ick them with a finger and watch them float across the room, as if we were all buoyant, gravity temporarily suspended. Holographic reefs and ridges projected from every surface, the illusion broken only when the occasional dancing couple floated right through it. Literally floated, thanks to the buoyancy generators beneath the floor that lifted them on a cushion of air. The party was a gala, which normally would have meant fairy-tale finery but this time, apparently—for those more in the know than I—demanded a more nautical touch. Mermaids drifted by on hovering platforms, their hair architectured to float above their heads. There were org-sized sharks with gnashing teeth and of course the obligatory skanked-up efforts, in this case nude body stockings wired to project shimmering scales across bare abs, chests, and asses.
I wandered, waiting for my orders, wondering what all these people would do if they saw what life underwater was really like, how the ocean had transformed the org world: the pale, swollen flesh, the rusted cars and broken windows, and all the detritus of life interrupted. And then I imagined the transparent dome over our heads cracking, a spiderweb of broken glass spreading across our sky, the water trickling down, like rain, and then breaking through, a hail of glass and a gush of water washing everything away. I imagined the costumed mermaids writhing and flailing, trapped in their tangled hair, their cheeks puffing with one final breath, bubbles streaming out of their mouths and noses until there were none left. I imagined their corpses floating slowly to the surface, leaving me one by one until I was alone with the wreckage. It would be like being the only person left at the end of the world.
I shoved the vision from my mind. That wasn’t my fantasy; that was his. Jude’s. A world purged of orgs. Purified, he would have said. I didn’t want to think about the things he would have said, or the things he’d dreamed about, but I did, more than I would have liked to admit.
Which is probably why, at first, I thought it was my imagination.
A shock of silver hair bobbing over the crowd. The razor-sharp cheekbones, the unbearable smirk. Slitted golden eyes, resting on mine for an impossible second, flickering away, and then he was gone.
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