“If I get out of here.”
Somehow, she wasn’t so afraid of him anymore. The Cardinal had been more than fair thus far and hadn’t tried anything. What little she’d seen told her he wasn’t some sadistic monster, just someone with a huge axe to grind with the system. Whatever his reason to blow up the Grid, or try to anyway, it involved the system itself and not people in a general sense. She could respect that.
As she kept walking, she identified the noise. Water dripping. Remnants from a shower? Steam filtered from an empty doorway where the access panel—one of the Grid’s ways of keeping its eye on people—had been disabled. Actually, completely destroyed, not just disabled. In fact, there wasn’t a single sign of the Grid’s presence in the place. No computerized voice impassively chiding an offender for some minor detail. None of those pesky media bots the Grid had commandeered decades ago for easier access. Not even a comms relay anywhere in sight. So the man seemed even more of an underground pariah than she was.
How did he keep his implant from interconnecting with authorities and divulging his whereabouts? Maybe he didn’t have one, as improbable as it was. Everybody was connected now. Except those like her. Born in the gutter. But there was one good thing about not having an implant—the Grid couldn’t ID a person it didn’t know existed. Many times she’d slipped away quietly because scanners couldn’t pick her up for lack of implant. No nanochip to betray her presence, her ID or what she’d had for breakfast that morning.
She peeked around the doorjamb. White tiles for walls and floors, a peeling ceiling, no windows. Steel gingerly ventured into the room made slick with steam. Light spilled from another doorway she hadn’t noticed. With the angle, she could see a corner of that smaller room. A row of crooked lavabos and a couple of rusty and lime-encrusted showerheads stuck down from the ceiling. And in the middle, her host.
He stood with his back to her, naked except for a towel wrapped around his middle. She hadn’t known what to expect, but never this. He was pale and sinewy, with silvery discs down his spine. Steel gaped when she realized the discs were in fact ports. The skin around some of them was angry, red and swollen. She’d seen people with a data port for a more complete interface with the Grid—there were always those who couldn’t be alone in their head and had to be in constant connection with a billion other people. But she’d never seen a dozen ports. Who the hell jacked themselves up that way? Infection had settled in some of them. And this was what the man was doing right now, applying gel patches onto his nape. He couldn’t reach the port between his shoulder blades and arched to give his hand another extra centimeter downward. Wiry muscles corded on his shoulder and side. Ignoring the jab of arousal his lean body triggered shouldn’t have been so damn hard.
Steel took a step back. Her fingers tingled, her heart beat fast. She didn’t know him. He’d killed almost half a dozen men without even touching them. No one in their right mind would get close to him. Yet as she watched him struggle to reach his injury, she couldn’t help the lump in her throat. She knew what it was like to be alone, to need someone even just for a short while and for something simple and yet to have no one there. She recalled the noodle packet and the mug of hot water he’d left for her.
Shit.
She’d regret this, she was sure. If she lived.
Steel cleared her throat. “Um, there’s one… You missed one. It looks infected.”
His hand came down. He didn’t turn around or jump or look startled, although he’d obviously heard her.
A small step brought her inside the lavatory. She gestured to his mid-back. “That one, it’s, um, it’s worse than the others.”
He angled his head slightly but didn’t meet her gaze. What the hell was she doing? Since when did she give a damn?
After sliding her backpack off her shoulders and setting it by the doorway, Steel approached slowly, her naked feet creating plop-plops on the wet floor. Her hands shook when she reached for the sheet of gel patches on the lavabo behind him. Her forearm brushed against his wrist and she shivered. He felt so hot. She’d never touched someone as warm as he was, or as hard. His skin felt almost like stone, smooth and heated under the sun. She had a sudden impulse to lean her cheek against his back and close her eyes. Steel quickly pushed down the irrational thought.
She peeled off a patch. “My hands are clean.” She had no idea why she’d said something so idiotic. “I’m going… Um, it’s going to be cold.”
Around the ports, the man’s skin looked feverish, with faint bluish veins snaking around each metallic disc. Whoever had installed these hadn’t cared shit about the recipient’s comfort, because some of the tiny claws dug way too deep and out wide. Had he been fitted with those ports up at the bunker? Obviously, he wasn’t one of them, although he’d been born up there, which didn’t make him an ally, no matter how courtly he spoke or decently—so far—he behaved. She didn’t know the first thing about him. Except for the hot water. He hadn’t needed to do that, yet he had.
A translucent patch of gel trembling between her fingers, Steel let it gently touch his skin, where it adhered right away. Normally, meds would seep into the skin to fight the infection, and within hours he’d be good as new. Except those ports looked old, and the infection deep, and Steel suspected it’d take more than a patch to heal them.
She finished applying the patches to his back, which meant she had nothing to do with her hands. Damn, why the sudden nervousness? She’d never been shy. She raised her gaze from his sinewy back and athletic shoulders and caught him looking at her in the stained and cracked mirrors. No expression whatsoever. What was he thinking about? Usually, she could pick up hints of a person’s mood, if they looked about to flip out or whatever. She’d learned early on the value of observation. Not that it’d helped avoid Six’s violent outbursts. That guy could be Mr. Cool one second then a maniac running with knives the next.
The man kept looking at her, probably trying to weigh and gauge her the way she did him. She’d done something nice for him, and she didn’t even know why.
Don’t ask why.
“I have not asked you your name,” he whispered. She kept forgetting about his peculiar voice. So gentle and barely above a whisper, so incongruous to the scene of carnage he’d left behind in the sky metro.
She exhaled. “It’s Steel.”
“Is that what your parents named you?”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because the kind of parents who would guard the sanctity of their child’s body by not letting the authorities implant a chip into them would probably not name their daughter Steel. Not that it does not fit you.”
How had he known she didn’t have a chip? Had he…?
“I ran a quick scan while you were unconscious, before I brought you into my home. That is why I know you do not have an implanted ID chip. Through your clothes. I would not take liberties with an unconscious woman.”
She was starting to believe at least that about him. So far, he hadn’t hurt her, and the devil knew he could have.
“My parents didn’t protect my sanctity,” she retorted. “They just couldn’t be bothered to bring me to the implanting clinic. Probably too high to make it off the couch.”
“Then you are older than I had guessed. The Grid has since then fixed such mobility issues with roving medical teams under the guise of a community outreach program. A clean term for what I would I call these impromptu and oftentimes violent visits. Raids.”
“So, should I call you Cardinal or Your Highness or something?”
“A Cardinal would be called Your Eminence. But Dante is sufficient.”
So the guy had a sense of humor. Not so bad. Steel let a smile slip. “Dante. Okay.” She motioned to the broken showerhead dangling pitifully from the ceiling. “Why don’t you fix that?”
She could have fixed that thing in minutes if she’d had the inclination and if this was her place. She didn’t and it wasn’t, but it still bugged her to look at it.
He followed her gaze. “I have not had the time yet. Hunting down ruffians is a time-consuming affair.”
Ruffians? Not a word she heard often.
Forcing her gaze on his face was hard when he turned and displayed a fine network of lean muscles that knotted and played under the pale skin. She wasn’t fast enough to stop the gasp in time when she got a good look at his front. What the fuck?
“Science,” he whispered, “can be a sharp instrument in the hand of the unsympathetic.”
“Scientists did that?” Steel indicated with her chin the collection of scars crisscrossing Dante’s chest, snaking up his biceps, pock-marking his throat and slashing his belly in neat ten-centimeter partitions. As though someone had sliced him open, sewed him back up then did it again lower. She’d seen scars and what people could do to one another, but never something like this. Never this. “Up there, in the bunker? They did that?”
“Scientific objectives, unfettered by humanity, yes.” He pointed to one thick scar that ran diagonally along his left pectoral. “How long does a man have without a functioning heart? Or how fast can a synthetic replica beat before the rest of the body begins to shut down? My heart will outlast the rest of me by a millennium.”
Steel hid the shiver with a shrug, unable to take her gaze from the awful mark. “That’s just demented. Who gives a shit?” She cursed, shook her head.
“It needs to know everything about us. Information is the new gold.”
“Who’s it?”
“The new golden ratio, the alpha and omega, the all and the void. Gods used to fill this space. Even they were supplanted. The Grid took it all. And its thirst for knowledge is insatiable. It needs to know us to better control us. Everything, even the most sordid or inconsequential detail. We created it, and it has since then recreated us in its image. Men born of data.”
“The Grid and its data can kiss my ass,” Steel blurted. She froze out of habit. No one in their right mind would talk that way. But he wasn’t anyone regular, was he. He’d already shared how he wanted to blow the thing up.
Ordinarily, should a passerby or roving bot pick up such dangerous words, they’d be standing at the closest relay and alert security. She half-expected to have a squad of security responders descend on the room and take her in for evaluation. She’d tasted that sauce before and didn’t like it one bit. Pigs. But then again, there weren’t comms relays anywhere near, not visible ones anyway. They were completely off the waves in this place. No one would hear them.
No one would hear her.
Dante’s mouth quivered at one corner, as if he were unused to smiling. “A dangerous position to share with anyone. I could turn you in and reap a handsome reward.”
“Says the guy who’s planning to drop a train on top of the bunker. Yeah, well…” She shoved her hands in her pockets.
He drew near, which forced her to fight the urge to take a step back. As if she had proximity alerts built in, every nerve ending fired flight-or-fight responses. Maybe if she hit him hard enough, fast enough, she’d stand a chance. But then again, where the fuck could she go? She didn’t even know where the door was. Any door. By the time she stumbled onto one, he’d have caught her. Timing was, indeed, everything, and now wasn’t the time for silly heroics. She willed her body to relax. Almost succeeded. This Dante guy had killed people without touching them. She should keep that in mind instead of fantasizing about the fireworks his stunt would cause should it work.
“Do you fear me?” he whispered.
“Yes. I saw what you did.”
His blond eyebrows shot straight up, as though he hadn’t expected the response. Or the honesty. “Have I not treated you with respect and the utmost civility?”
“Is that before or after you shot me with my own gun then dragged me out of my home to keep me a prisoner in yours?”
This time, Dante smiled wide. “You are right, and I apologize for resorting to such drastic measures. I am usually more circumspect. And expedient.”
“What do you mean?” She couldn’t focus much. He smelled of soap. She hadn’t had a soap-smelling man near her in…ever.
He leaned closer. She stopped breathing. “I usually just kill people outright,” he whispered right into her ear. His words triggered another slew of instinctive reactions. Kick. Punch. Bite. Breathe in his clean scent.
“Then why didn’t you, huh? Want to play with me first?” She should have known. Pig. Hairs rose in waves on her arms. She swore to everything that was holy, or used to be, that if he tried to touch her… Steel balled her fists. “You’re thinking you’d like to get a piece of this? Huh? You’re gonna lose some DNA in the fight, I’ll make damn sure of it.”
“Why would you think such a thing? Has it ever happened to you, has a man ever taken something you were not willing to grant?”
“That’s how men work,” she snarled. “That’s what men do.” She’d had it done to her enough times to form a pretty solid opinion.
“True. Humankind takes what it wants, whether it belongs to them or not.”
“They? You’re part of ‘them’ too, you know.”
“Barely.” Dante straightened. “But that is not my way.”
“What is your way? Why am I here? Why tell me about your home up there and about your synthetic heart and your big plan? Everything you tell me puts another nail in my coffin. You said you had to think. So? What are you going to do?”
He set his intense gaze on her, all but stopping her heart. She wouldn’t want to be on the receiving end of a Stare of Doom from the man. “I do not know.”
All hope left.
“Which does not mean I must kill you. Only that I must rethink some aspects of my plan.”
“I don’t want no part in it, okay? You leave me out of your stuff.”
He smiled again, this time only with his mouth while the rest of his face looked set in stone. She swallowed hard. The man was scary. Probably a lunatic. Just her luck.
“Of course not. This is my journey, which I have chosen for myself. Besides, this train ride will only be one-way.”
“Oh.”
“Indeed.”
Chickenshit. Anger bubbled over. She’d had a rough time too. Did it mean she was just going to roll over and let them give it to her? Fuck no. She’d fight. Every day and every time, she’d fight it. No suicidal heroics and a great big ball of fire. It was one thing to blow up the Grid, but it just rubbed her the wrong way that he’d sacrifice his life doing it. It was stupid and cowardly.
“Why? Can’t you remote control the thing?”
“Not without the Grid knowing. It has to be done physically, by a person no machine can track. Me.”
“So, instead of fighting it, you’re just gonna quit.”
“Quit? I should think making a big crater where the bunker used to be would qualify as something other than surrender.” His mouth thinned.
“It won’t suddenly get better because the bunker is gone. That’s just—” She shrugged and let it go before she said something stupid and got her ass kicked—or killed—for it. It wouldn’t be the first time her opinions landed her in trouble.
“The Grid made a freak of me, Steel.” Despite his murmur, she felt the rage swelling. A headache squeezed into her eye sockets. “It stole every shred of humanity I had.”
“It made freaks of us all.”
“Do you want to know what sort of monster they created?” His voice rose, broke as soon as it crossed the whisper register.
Dante’s eyes suddenly narrowed. He gripped her arm, squeezing hard. Steel would have fought back, but a wave of pain washed over her, through her, as if fire burned through her mind and left nothing but ashes in its wake. Agony. She couldn’t think. Her mind was being crushed. Nausea assailed her.
And with the same speed as it’d begun, it was gone.
Intense cold replaced the burning sensation, and Steel experienced uncontrollable shakes. His hand, kindly this time, supported her by the elbow and guided her to the corner
of the lavatory. Steel could barely keep her eyes open and her teeth from grinding. Hot water hit her from above. The sound drowned the hammering of her heartbeat in her ears. Violent tremors rocked her, and she would have fallen had it not been for him.
“Forgive me,” she heard him whisper over and over. “I lost control.”
She wanted to curse him out, tell him she wasn’t in the business of forgiving people, that forgiveness was stupid and dangerous, that it hadn’t done a good thing for her in all her fucking, miserable life, that empathy would only get one hurt worse. She wanted to yell all that. She said nothing.
Dante encircled her in arms that felt rock-hard and pressed her against a chest that was just as firm. Steel fought it. With all her heart she fought the urge to let her head rest in the crook of his neck. But in the end, she lost that battle. With a sigh and one last shudder, she rested her forehead against him. Perfect fit because of their nearly identical height. As though they’d been built for this.
Steam enveloped them in a patchy white fog that hid the broken tiles and the peeling ceiling, and kept the ugliness of the world out of sight. The thin barrier felt like a cocoon against danger and despair, and acted as a mask to hide what had been done to him, to her. The Grid had stolen a lot from them, but right then it didn’t matter.
As if of their own volition, she snaked her arms under his and hugged him. Hard. She just wanted to be held. Just once. Just for this one time. Even by a man who called himself a monster. She knew men more monstrous than he was and who thought they were good guys. Slowly, he returned the embrace, as though unsure or inexperienced, then with more assurance he melded her body to his, until they practically formed one. One of his hands came down low in the small of her back, its heat creating shivers that tightened her belly and thighs. She didn’t know how long they remained thus, standing under the hot water—it didn’t run out after two minutes, like in her home—holding on to each other like drowning people, but after awhile, she squeezed a hand between them and pulled the towel loose. It fell around their feet.
Gridlock: A Cybershock Story Page 4