He downed them.
Then waited for them to work while lying on the sofa, music still playing in the background. A little noise – it wasn’t so bad. To have some music in the place.
He felt her warmth still radiating from the spot where she had sat.
Replayed her tongue on his.
You didn’t break out the tongue if you were about to run off. He thought of her next door. Maybe she had her ear to the wall, listening, wondering what he would do. Should he go round? Did she like being chased, literally?
Rolling his head on the arm of the sofa, he closed his eyes. In time. No rush.
It had been quick; no more than a few conversations before slapping her lips on his. She was just being sensible. She was learning from her mistakes.
He sat up, brought up the holo display and scanned for her information in his address book, and there it was, right next to a selfie she must have taken right here, while he was in the bathroom. Her image flashed and a text message arrived.
Caught you looking.
Of course I would look, he thought. It would be strange if I didn’t.
Before he could reply, she wrote “Heading into the link for a bit and then I’m off to bed. Good night, we’ll have to do this again soon.”
“Good night,” he replied.
Her icon greyed out and a little green circle appeared next to it to show was online in the link.
Rylan scratched behind his right ear. He’d meant to get the connection point removed but had never gotten round to it. It was a safe enough device with an auto-closing mechanism that made it waterproof, and a series of fail-safes within that meant it didn’t activate until the plug had been inserted and twisted. It was so small, it was easy to forget it was even there, which he often did.
“Mute,” he called out, and the music stopped. “Off,” he called out next, and the flashing images ceased to exist. A wall of opaque fog pressing high against the window replaced it. From floor to ceiling, it existed; a grey canvas or a shroud.
The envelope of an unopened message flashed in his periphery. Caia, he hoped, and was disappointed when he saw it was Clarisse.
The disappointment flared into momentary resentment until he reminded himself that Caia had done nothing to earn that. Just the opposite, in fact.
He stood and stepped up to the window, throwing the unopened envelope to the glass there. Just looking at it took him back to an hour ago when all he’d wanted to do was drink. He jabbed a finger at it and read the text.
If you change your mind.
At the bottom was a private invitation. It would, he knew, be a gateway to her home address from where he could piggy-back along with all the other poor saps, from one maze to another, before being locked in some kind of hotel; one with a single, stretching corridor and a hundred doors to choose from. The right one would open for him, and him only.
That corridor would also be booby-trapped in case anyone had piggy-backed the piggy. The physics of the world turned upside down too. Perhaps time moved at a tenth of the speed. Or there was no gravity. Something to slow down intruders.
“What are you doing to me, Clarisse?” he sighed, resting his forehead to the glass. He began typing ‘I’m sorry’ and then deleted it.
The last time he’d linked had been with her. They hadn’t swam or sunbathed or any of the normal things people did, and they didn’t much care for the soap operas or staged live-action films; they floated in what Clarisse called the Abstract. It was a kind of therapy. She figured if his mind struggled differentiating between what was real and what was not, than perhaps it was better to make the distinction clear. And so they existed in the plains between the beaches and the oceans and the mountains; in a kind of star-filled flux with no up or down, or anything solid to touch. They floated in dark fluid that swirled nebulas and galaxies at the flick of a hand. There was no air, so he felt no need to breathe. And in time there would be no body, unless he wanted it. Clarisse herself was a glowing sphere. A beacon in the darkness.
They’d still been in the early stages of the therapy when she broke the relationship off.
And he hadn’t been back since.
“I am sorry.”
His home system would’ve recorded that. He could ask it to send it as a voice message, then go to bed. Job done. But he wouldn’t sleep, not with this on his mind, and Caia, and his lack of inebriation.
“You win.”
Link
So… that worked. Caia watched Rylan’s data stream as he tentatively touched base in the link. She wasn’t sure what finally tipped him over the edge – the kiss had been good, so good she felt a little sick to her stomach, but she knew he might also be feeling bad about shouting at Clarisse. Maybe somewhere between the two lay the truth.
If tonight turned out to be successful, part of her was annoyed that it had taken the kiss and the promise of more than that to turn the tables. Kirillion would be pleased, of course, and he would chalk it up to using every apparatus at her disposal. But still. It was cheap. Like a two-bit date with an NPC in a link whorehouse. She yearned for the shower, not to wash Rylan away, but the act.
If Kirillion cared enough, he’d remind her that she’d nailed down Caia’s location, and so therefore Wardle’s too. An act of deduction, not prostitution. And that if the attempt with Rylan had been a bust, she’d have used tomorrow to find and hack the locker-room they were staying in.
It was the only explanation. Clarisse’s time down in the factories and forges did not stack up against her allotted hours. And there was no such thing as overtime maintaining the reservoir system.
They probably weren’t hiding Calix and his friend, not after everything Clarisse had said, but once they had been apprehended it wouldn’t be the worst idea in the world to do another sweep of all the old and disused rooms below the pits.
She swallowed a long draught of water. Here, the lights were dimmed to purple too – not only was it relaxing, but it was also meant to cool any sexual urges. She lay back on the sofa, remembered Rylan’s kiss and how she drew back at the first flicker of hand movement towards her body, and closed her eyes. She hadn’t kissed anyone since Barrick.
The cable for the link draped over the armrest, and the glass of water sat on the table waiting to revive the after-link dry-throat. Then her body went limp.
***
Weightlessness ebbed into a tidal pull. Like a blood cell, she surged into the mass of lightning currents, each finding their own way. This part always invigorated her. She imagined being catapulted from her old alcove in the crawler and up into the clouds and the dead sun and the darkness filled with stars and planets being born before her eyes. Each time anew. Each time a new configuration. Each time a lightning conduit – no, its origin. A flash and she was back down in the city again. In a room. In a square room with plain walls and no windows. A simple room because she hadn’t bothered decorating. Why bother, when a universe of possibilities waited outside the single, simple door.
This wasn’t hers though. Rylan stood before her, his back to her, and when he turned, so did she, like a balloon tethered and destined to travel in his wake. The room was unfocused and the corners in shadow. When Rylan stepped forward the light followed.
He looked around.
She swung around too, strangely eager to see his face, but not allowing it.
I’m not here. Go ahead.
She watched him pause and take a deep breath, chest expanding. He was a little taller here. A little more muscular. She missed the little gut he had in real life.
That’s not real oxygen you’re breathing, but if it helps. Breathe.
She could actually lose herself in this disassociated state. It was her favourite part. Godlike; from a fable or myth that actors enacted in link shows where someone special had supernatural powers. And the best part: feeling immortal. Not having lungs to drown in. No heart to break. No brain to suffocate.
With enough meditation, she’d heard that some had escaped the physi
cal expectations of their body. The first step, they said, was becoming blind.
It’s no joke. Some people poked their own eyes out.
Who had said that? she wondered. Some girl at the orphanage. She hadn’t believed it, but after what she’d seen in the last few months, it wouldn’t be the strangest thing in this city.
Once blind, their mind opened to other forms of sight. The purest, and the most sought after, was the state of complete sight: every angle at every moment in full three-hundred-and-sixty degrees and boy, Caia had tried – she had tried! Breaking free from the body was harder than it sounded. Kirillion claimed he had once been able to see forward and back at the same time, but that was before the sands, and a long time before that too. Even that was a misnomer, he said – the true seer had no concept of forward or back or left or right.
Only of space.
She needed to give Rylan a little space now – she’d floated too close. Let him adjust, she thought. Get his bearings.
***
The door opened as soon as Rylan passed by, swinging inwards. There was nothing special about it; brown wood panelling like all the others stretching down the infinite corridor. He entered and she followed. Inside, spectres of people thronged in a crowd all facing towards a brightly lit stage, the backs of their heads banded with masks, like Rylan’s. He ducked his head despite the mask and veered to the left side of the room. Wood panelled the walls here too. Squares of fibre panelling suspended from the ceiling finalised the office effect.
Corbin Wardle couldn’t have chosen a drabber environment.
She trailed Rylan as he made his way to the front. Every time he looked across – perhaps to see if he recognised any faces, or just to see if any of them were uncovered – she was flung against the wall to prevent him seeing her. Ahead, she spotted Clarisse leaning against the wall, with Wardle just in front.
He’d made himself at least five inches taller than his profile. And he had no facial hair. In fact, with a hood thrown over his head, he could’ve been bald and eyebrow-less. His cheeks were hollow and indented. It was like every part of him had been exaggerated.
Wardle seemed to feel Rylan’s presence as he neared, for he suddenly looked their way, piercing his eyes. Her heart may have skipped a beat if she’d had a heart – she didn’t want those blue-grey eyes to see her. Ever. Here or in reality.
If she’d had a head to shake she would’ve, to free herself of his imposing code – for he surely had sub-routines running in the physical bricks and mortar of this room he’d created. Something that would inure his guests to him. She wasn’t really ‘here’ yet she could feel it, like bugs crawling around beneath her skin.
“Can I speak to Clarisse a second?”
Clarisse practically jumped from the wall, placing a hand on each of his shoulders. Up closer, Caia noticed little things that were different about her, like hair colour – blue and long – and eyes that appeared bigger, rounder. “Rylan?”
“Hey.”
She gave him a hug and asked Wardle to give them a moment. “How are you doing? Physically, I mean.”
“I’m coping. So far. It’s been so long I’ve forgotten what it should feel like.”
Good.
“Well that’s great. Listen, hey, I’m glad you showed up. If you start feeling like you’re about to have a panic attack, just hold on to me, yeah? Just remember our strategy.”
“I don’t wanna stop long,” he said, taking her shoulder and moving her further from the crowd. “I just wanted to apologise. I shouldn’t have snapped like that.”
“Hey, no, I’m sorry. I was way too pushy – but look, all that, it doesn’t matter now.”
It wasn’t telepathy exactly; it was more a sense of Rylan’s physical reaction – she could feel that he wasn’t happy with Clarisse’s response. The outline of his body had been fairly stable up to now, but his hands shimmered slightly. Agitated.
“I almost hit you. Without a drink in me. So yeah. It matters.”
Clarisse placed her hand on his. “But you didn’t. I’m not...” it was her turn to feel agitated. “I’m not saying it was okay. It just took me by surprise, and really, the way I was going on, I probably deserved it. Not to be hit, obviously. But you had already said ‘No’ and I didn’t listen.”
“Yeah, well. That’s all I came here to say.”
“I’m just glad you came.”
“I’m not stopping – look at that guy. Doesn’t he give you the creeps?”
Clarisse shook her head. “It’s just a persona. In case he’s recognised on the outside.”
Caia released her hold on Rylan, floating up and away. She felt like a traffic drone from aboveground, only instead of monitoring vehicles, she was monitoring the rest of the guests. Every few seconds the door opened and in stepped another. With each guest, the room grew larger. More accommodating. She hovered above round heads, hair visible on some who didn’t care about hiding their identity. Others just black shadows. She reached out and touched each one as she passed, knowing them. Some, including Wardle, may hide their faces from the cameras lining every street corner and shop doorway, but they couldn’t hide them here, not from her.
As she hovered, she kept one eye on Rylan in case he could sense her presence. Between each connection she made with someone in the crowd she could appear as a vague apparition to the one who had brought her here. She overheard him say “The last thing I want is to listen to a speech,” and then she briefly connected with a young impressionable mind from sector FF3 – Tarik Dee, recently detached from his parents and now living on his own with his wandering thoughts.
She looked across at the arguing Rylan – to find him missing.
“Let us begin!” boomed Wardle from the stage, standing so tall his head almost touched the ceiling. He had a spotlight aura despite the lack of any visible technology.
“Shit,” thought Caia, spinning around and catching the back of Rylan as he departed the room. “Shit, shit, shit.”
She shot for it but was just too late.
It closed with a clunk.
She was trapped until it open again.
If she could breathe she’d have sighed – maybe her body did on her behalf – no matter, I’m here.
“We... are... not... alone!” His voice was as loud here as it had been near the front.
The pause he gave after the statement stretched and stretched and she understood Rylan’s condition clear as day as her heart stammered. She may have no body here but she knew she was breaking into a sweat back in her apartment.
The room closed in. The bars between the panels of the walls and ceiling suddenly resembled the bars of a prison. The sea of heads were quicksand between her and Wardle – if she rushed him she’d drown. She was sure of it.
Everywhere she looked was a potential booby-trap.
“We... have... a... visitor.”
Get out of my head.
He opened his mouth and that voice of his threw straight across the room as though he spoke, no boomed, right in her ears.
“Or maybe more.” This time a whisper.
More?
“I have footage to show you tonight that will change everything.”
Ah. The room brightened, deepened, opened up. The bars dissolved. Wardle continued, and with each word, condemned everyone in the room to death.
Exhausted
Annora
They hid in shadows and behind mirrors; before monitors and in the plain-clothes camouflage of lowcases and highgrounds. They were forgiving and gentle and understanding. They were ruthless executioners; assassins already hired and trained and upgraded. Scare an old woman into giving you her wallet and they’d let fate play out. Maybe the law would find you. Maybe you would end up in jail. Maybe the old lady would die and get cremated and you’d live another fifty years chewing up one mugging to the next. This wasn’t the authority’s business.
Threaten them though, and they’d snap their jaw around you and keep it locked until every
last drop of blood had been wrung. You’d be singing with the ghosts that some said haunted the link; and how you felt about that depended on how you felt about the dead.
***
Annora, imprisoned by pain and force, despaired. Months had passed since she’d been hoisted into another life that she did not choose and would never have chosen for herself. A laboratory animal was how she felt. First her heart. The scar from the surgery was shorter than her little finger and had healed quickly over the space of a couple weeks. She was a ticking time bomb was how Kirillion had put it. Apt to blow at the next little scare or application of pressure. Next was her link implant behind her right ear; that side of her head in almost constant numbness from persistent localised anaesthetic.
A hole in her head. There was no other way to think about it. She’d reasoned that her mouth was one giant, gaping hole and nothing bad had ever happened because of that.
Maybe a few instances where she should have kept it shut, but a biochemical receptor in her brain?
Okay, okay, she thought, seeing Kirillion’s face. Not in her brain. But near as damn it.
And for what? To poke and prod, slice and dice. They needed her – needed what she had – but neither she nor they knew how to access it with any kind of speed. And they were impatient people. Well, those who cared. Seemed K – as they called him – was leader of an off-set faction, a kind of branch of the elite – as they called themselves – intent on the evolution of this society. As she stared down upon Neon City she could barely grasp the things she saw, the sheer scale of it all, let along wonder what kind of evolutionary step could be waiting.
Whatever it was, she was the key.
Linking her body to their neural net had not worked.
She still had all the answers, and they were running out of options.
Neon Sands Trilogy Boxset: The Neon Series Season One Page 45