Skin Hunter

by Tania Hutley

  As I’m about to spring to a beam on the next level, I catch a movement to the side. I jerk my head around and another pain sears through my bad eye. My vision goes blurry. Shit! I blink furiously until my sight clears enough to see what was moving.

  It’s only an insect.

  I must be more jittery than I realized. Startled by a bug.

  But the bug doesn’t look like anything I’ve seen before. Its body blends in with the metal beam so I only see it when it moves. I stretch my head forward for a closer look. The thing’s body is made of nuts and bolts. Its legs are nails and wire, all different lengths. A little robot, thrown together from bits of scrap. Its uneven legs are jerking up and down to drag it forward.

  Weird.

  It’s coming straight for me. Its hinged mouth drops open as though it means to take a bite out of me. Surely this metal bug can’t hurt me?

  Rather than sticking around to find out, I spring to the next ledge. Chains are dangling over the beam, short lengths that twist over and around it in loose loops, so I have to be careful where I set my paws.

  Though I’ve only climbed two levels, when I look down, I’m amazed at how far below the ground is.

  A clanking sound makes me jump. A length of chain slides toward me, scraping along the metal beam. It’s moving by itself. What the hell? And now another chain is moving.

  Suddenly, all the chains on the beam come to life. The links at my feet slither across the metal surface like clanking snakes. The closest chains lift their metal ends from the beam to strike at me. Heart thumping, I jump back to evade them.

  Cold metal touches my back paw and loops around it. I leap sideways, yanking my leg free. The chains are moving faster. One flies at my eyes. I jerk my head just in time and it cuts into the side of my face. Ouch!

  My breath comes short and hard, and blood runs hot over my face. I’ve got to get off this ledge. As the chain draws back for another strike, I barely have time to leap sideways, scrabbling for a narrow, sloping beam, the only one I can reach.

  Pain sears through my bad eye as I jump. The beam I land on slopes on a steep angle, but I dig my claws into the metal, and though I’m teetering, I’m safe. The chains on the beam I came from have collapsed and lie completely still. Dead. As though I imagined the whole thing. But the side of my face is throbbing and sticky with blood, and my bad eye feels like it’s on fire.

  A scratching sound from above makes me look up.

  Hundreds of mechanical bugs crawl over the beam above me. It’s so thick with them, it’s writhing. They’re all different. Spiders, crickets, beetles and centipedes. A mass of moving bolts, screws, nails, wire, and shards of metal and glass, crawling over each other as they work their way down the beam toward me. Like one creature, their mouths gape open at once.

  I’ve got to get out of here. There’s another beam beside me, but the one I’m on is at such an angle that when I let go to jump, I slide backwards. Too late to stop, I leap anyway, trying desperately to reach the next beam in spite of the awkward angle and my lack of momentum.

  My front claw touches metal, but the rest of me doesn’t make it. I fall, twisting in the air so I’ll land on all four paws. I have time to brace as the ground rushes at me.

  I land hard. Pain explodes through my bad eye. I curl up and my hands fly to my face, hitting the helmet instead.

  “Game Over,” says the female voice in my ear. “You made it to level three of one hundred and sixty levels. Your time was twelve minutes and thirteen seconds. You scored 3 points.” The voice pauses as though to let me take in the information. Then the woman asks, “Would you like to play again?”

  “No.” It comes out as a groan. Not being able to practice the game will give me a serious disadvantage in the competition, but the pain in my eye is so intense, I can’t go on. I can barely unclench my teeth for long enough to tell the machine to turn itself off.

  I can only pray the doctor was right about the vReal not doing any permanent damage to my cybernetics. If I break my eye, I can’t afford another.

  12

  The others had high scores. Even allowing for exaggeration and lies, they progressed much further through the game than I did. When they laugh about the little metal insects on the first few levels and compare notes about how much bigger and nastier they became further up the tower, I say nothing.

  What’s the point in complaining when there’s nothing anyone can do about the way the vReal messes with my cybernetic eye? I’ll just have to be train harder than any of them in my real Skin, that’s all.

  I can be better than them, I know I can. After all, I have a lot more to lose.

  And when I finally get to transfer back into my clouded leopard for real, the euphoria makes up for the morning’s disappointment. Being in my Skin is even better than I remembered. I’ve never been able to see this well, even before I lost my eye. And the smells around me create a 3-D map, with scents lingering where the others have been, leaving a trail that lets me track their movements.

  One scent is stronger than the others.

  Cale.

  Watching the saber-toothed tiger walk from its lab room, I can’t help but admire the beauty of it, the easy grace of its movements. But the Skin’s scent disturbs me. It calls to me, stirring something so deeply imprinted in the leopard’s body that it feels like pure instinct.

  The tiger’s beautiful head swings to look at me, his gaze finding me so quickly that I know he senses me as well as I do him. His eyes are golden. They hold mine for what seems a long time, sparking a heat that spreads through my belly into my limbs.

  But a feline attraction based on scent is the last thing I need. Deliberately, I turn my back on Cale, then head to the other side of the big training room where his scent can’t confuse me.

  We’re competitors. Enemies. Nothing will ever make me forget that.

  It’s easy enough to put him out of my mind as I lope across the floor, moving far more easily than I did yesterday. I hardly need to concentrate on moving four legs instead of two. Already it feels natural.

  And I never imagined my vision could be this good. Looking through the leopard’s eyes has brought the world into sharp focus. Until now, I may as well have been living inside a bubble, with everything around me murky and faded. This is waking up. This is being alive.

  After finding out we’ll need to hone our climbing skills for the contest, the others want to get straight onto the big silver climbing wall, so Doctor Gregory calls us all over to explain how it works.

  “We call it the never-wall,” she says with a smile. “Because it’s never just a wall. In fact, it’s made up of nano-particles which can instantly bond to form shapes, then break apart and reform. It’s set to morph automatically as you climb, so its landscape is constantly changing.” She pauses, looking around as though to check we’re keeping up. No doubt the others are, but if she can read my leopard’s expression it must be blank. “Aza, I had the morph feature switched off yesterday, but as you’ve already had a little climbing practice, would you help me demonstrate how it works?” When Aza nods, she says, “Please jump to the first platform.”

  The wasp leaps gracefully. Her wings beat hard, but she still has to clutch on and pull herself up. Her determination to fly hasn’t got her there yet.

  She clings to the wall, her black wasp face turned to Doctor Gregory. Then her head jerks back to stare upward.

  Above her, some of the shapes that jut from the wall are changing. They melt away or transform into new platforms, ramps, or beams. The change ripples downwards, a waterfall of movement. Aza pushes off and leaps to a newly-formed beam as the one she’s on gets sucked back into the silver wall. A ladder forms where she was clinging, growing out of the wall in place of the old platform.

  “You can get down now,” Doctor Gregory calls.

  Aza’s wings slow her fall so she lands lightly.

  The wall’s motionless now Aza’s off it, the platforms frozen in their new positions. Doctor Gregory sa
ys, “The never-wall senses movement and will adjust itself accordingly. If you’re not climbing quickly, it gives you more time before reshaping.”

  “But Aza wasn’t moving,” objects Cale. “It still morphed.”

  “Yes, but it did so slowly.” She smiles. “It’s not designed to let you rest.”

  Slowly? If that was slow then I can’t imagine what fast must be like.

  As soon as Doctor Gregory nods that he’s free to get on, Brugan jumps onto the never-wall. It’s not a smooth, gliding jump like Aza’s but a heavy, clumsy leap. He hits the wall hard and only just grabs the first platform. Hauling himself onto a rail, he swings across it to catch hold of a ladder. Above him, the wall is changing. The changes travel down and across at a steady rate. He must see the ripple coming, but Brugan doesn’t jump away. Instead he climbs faster, like he’s running to meet it head on. The ladder he’s on is sucked away one rung at a time, but still he scrambles up. At the last minute, he leaps for a ledge.

  Too late.

  He falls, crashing to the floor, then jumps straight to his feet, his devil bear eyes blazing, daring anyone to laugh. None of us do, though Aza gives a quiet, barely-there sigh. Maybe the others feel the same as I do. Why laugh when I’m likely to hit the floor just as hard and fast as the devil bear did?

  Brugan launches himself back at the silver wall, leaping as though the platform he’s aiming for is an enemy he’s determined to destroy. Aza does a much more graceful leap, and Sentin follows, clinging so easily with his elongated fingers and toes that it’s clear this is what his Skin was designed for.

  Looks like Cale’s going to try climbing as well, which is a good reason for me to do something else. Besides, the speed I managed yesterday was intoxicating. I want to find out how much faster I can run today.

  I start out doing a circuit of the training room, then get brave and move to the treadmill. It automatically matches my speed so I can go as fast or slow as I want. I start with a slow lope and build to a run that’s not quite flat out, a little pulled back from top speed, but still it feels so totally exhilarating that my tongue lolls out of my mouth and the corners of my mouth pull up in a feline grin.

  The leopard’s heart beats faster than my human one, and now it’s speeding. But it feels good, not like I’ve overdone it, but as though I’m just getting started. My paws pound soundlessly over the black rubber as my limbs stretch out and back. Blood pulses hot through my veins... this is bliss! I wish I could run forever. I’m so fast that if I wasn’t on a treadmill I’d be a blur. Nobody could ever catch me.

  “That’s it for today,” calls Doctor Gregory. “Time to finish up.”

  I have to force myself to stop. Already? Time goes too fast in the training room.

  The others are still climbing, and I sample their scents on the air.

  Aza’s doing the most incredible jumps, leaping from ramp to ramp, her wasp wings a red blur of motion. She lands lightly, clinging on with hands and feet for a split second before vaulting to the next ramp. Though the wall’s constantly changing, her timing’s perfect.

  Sentin slithers up a vertical bar, ignoring the horizontal ones on either side. His limbs bend at just the right angle to hold his streamlined body against the smooth bar. He easily pulls himself to the platform above, barely glancing up to see which shapes are changing. His Reptile Skin is faster than I could have imagined.

  Cale’s quick too, jumping from ramp to ramp like I did when I was playing the game in the vReal. He totters on a ramp that’s starting to morph, but instead of dropping he stretches out and stabs his claws into the next one, just managing to pull himself over.

  He doesn’t seem as good at anticipating the changes as the other two. But when he twists his body and leaps again, I’m impressed by how agile his saber-toothed tiger is. His long tail’s helping, acting as a counterbalance to keep him stable when he leaps. Can my leopard do that? I won’t know until I try.

  Brugan’s lowest on the wall. His fur-covered legs power him up fast enough, but he keeps misjudging the morphing platforms, falling several levels before grabbing hold again. He climbs more like a person than an animal, gripping with his clawed front hands and pushing with his back legs. He’s clumsier than the others, but the devil bear looks solid and tough.

  Doctor Gregory calls again, and reluctantly the others jump down and head back to their lab rooms. I linger, watching them transfer back into their own bodies, making sure Brugan leaves before I do, and stretching out my time in the Leopard Skin for as long as I can.

  I’m the last to leave the training room, and Max is outside, standing stiffly, hands by his sides, like he’s practicing for stomper academy. As I go past he murmurs, “Sewer rat.”

  If my blood wasn’t still pumping hot from being the leopard all day, I’d ignore him and walk past. After all, it’s not like he hasn’t insulted me before.

  Instead I stop dead and meet his gaze.

  “Careful, sewer rat,” he says with a sneer. “Watch your back.”

  Being threatened by a shark like him should make me run, but the fearlessness from being the leopard is strong. Still, I can’t quite believe my own nerve when I move my face closer, tilting it slightly sideways so he’s staring into my black cybernetic eye and nightmare of scars. The mess the super-heated fluid made of my face is hard to look at, especially on the side that’s angled toward him. I’ve seen enough disgust and turned-away faces to know most people can’t handle it.

  My bad eye shows no emotion. It’s a hard lens on top of a mass of circuitry. A lens so dark it’s like a black hole, sucking away light. It’s bad enough on its own, but staring out of the mass of scar tissue that runs in a fleshy, hollowed-out waterfall from my eyebrow to jaw, splashing across to the cheekbone on the other side... yeah, it even gives me chills.

  “What are you looking at, freak?”

  I don’t reply, just let the silence stretch on while I stare at him. Waiting... hoping... to see what I’m looking for.

  There.

  A slight shadow, a hint of uncertainty ghosts across his eyes.

  “Crazy bitch,” he mutters, and his feet shift back.

  It’s enough.

  I turn and walk away. Steps slow. Pace measured. My heart’s beating wildly, but it’s not from fear. It’s from jubilation. A vise I hardly knew was there has loosened from around my chest.

  From my first day in the shelter all those years ago, I’ve spent every minute being afraid. Surrounded by grunts with blades, and stompers with guns, my fear has kept me alert. Kept me alive.

  Until now.

  Now for the first time, those ice-cold fingers have loosened from around my heart.

  I’m not afraid.

  Without fear, I hardly know who I am. I’m becoming someone new. Something new. And damn, does it feel good.

  13

  When we go to the rec room for dinner, the rest of us eat like we’re starving, but Aza picks at a tiny bit of food, then moves over to the empty space by the holo. She starts stretching, standing with her legs straight and bending over so her head’s against her knees. She’s flexible, that’s for sure. She’s got to be a dancer or some kind of performer.

  Brugan stares at her with his mouth open and his fork hovering in mid-air. A lump of food drops onto the table, but he’s too busy gobbling her up with his eyes to notice. His expression makes my stomach clench. I’ve seen men look at women like that too many times in the shelter, and it always means trouble.

  I force my gaze back to my food, but my appetite has faded. I can’t believe how Aza can just ignore him. It’s like she doesn’t even notice his expression.

  Aza’s band goes off and it’s a relief when she sits down on the couch to talk. A hologram of a guy’s head appears, hovering in the space above her band. His tweaked face makes it obvious he’s a floater. Her boyfriend? Her brother? His lips move, but no words come out. None I can hear, anyway. She must have an implant, which is why she can hear him and we can’t.

 
Then Aza’s lips start moving without her making any sounds either. A silent conversation. I’ve heard about sub-vocalization implants, but this is the first time I’ve seen them in action. Nobody in the shelter could afford implants like hers, but it’d make the place a lot less noisy if they could.

  After a minute or two of soundless talking, she disconnects and the guy’s head shrinks back into her band. Then she stands up again, not looking in our direction although we’re all watching her. Facing away from us, she sinks into the sideways splits, then shifts her torso so she’s looking forward over her front leg. Her chest goes down and touches her knee. Her tight little T-shirt has tugged up, and her snug jeans have ridden down so her lacy underwear shows.

  I don’t want to look at Brugan, but my eyes move against my will.

  He’s drooling. No, it’s a piece of rice stuck in the corner of his mouth, trembling between those fat lips. Still, he may as well be drooling. The look on his face makes my face feel hot. Man, I so want to let him have it right now. But I know exactly what Tori would say. “Don’t be so damn stupid, Milla. Keep your head down, unless you want it kicked off your shoulders.”

  Aza straightens her torso and then twists so she’s looking over the opposite leg. Again she bends forward. This time, her back is angled more toward us. Her jeans have ridden down so low, I can see the line of her butt crack under the skimpy lace.

  My gaze goes back to Brugan and he must feel it, because his head turns. “What are you looking at?” he growls.

  Sorry Tori, I can’t keep quiet.

  “You’re the one who’s staring,” I snap.

  “I’m not.” He puffs up his fat lips, glancing around at the others for support.

  “Don’t lie, Brugan. I’ve noticed how you watch me.” Aza pushes herself gracefully to her feet and turns to face us, but she barely glances at him as she lifts her arms over her head and stretches.