Touch

by Camille Picott

  Sulan

  Episode 4: Touch

  Book Description

  From a young age, Gun has trained in the way of Anderson Arms. He learns to manipulate, steal, blackmail, and kill—whatever it takes to accomplish the mission set by his father. Gun despises the work he does and the wreckage it leaves behind.

  His newest assignment is to befriend a Virtual High student and infiltrate Global Arms. His target is Sulan Hom, the daughter of a renowned Global scientist. Gun approaches the mission with detached coldness, the same method he uses for every assignment.

  But it isn’t long before he finds a budding friendship with Sulan. The more time he spends with her, the more he begins to care for her. Soon, Gun vows Sulan will not become one more mission casualty.

  The more he delves into Global Arms, the more Gun realizes the true danger that awaits Sulan. Determined to keep her safe, he works behind the scenes to protect her. Will it be enough to keep Sulan safe? And will he ever be able to win her trust after deceiving her?

  Sulan

  Episode 4: Touch

  By Camille Picott

  www.camillepicott.com

  Published by Pixiu Press

  Windsor, CA 95492

  Copyright 2018 Camille Picott

  Contents

  Book Description

  Sulan

  Episode 4: Touch

  Contents

  1 The Dimple

  2 Father

  3 Family

  4 Assignments

  5 Infiltrate

  6 Percentages

  7 Plant

  8 Another Way

  9 Double Date

  10 Brunch

  11 Birthday

  12 Victory

  13 Gone

  14 Balor

  15 Code

  16 Infiltrate

  17 New Assignment

  18 Proposal

  19 Permanent Guest

  20 Collusion Underground

  21 Golems

  22 The Hole

  23 Test

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Visit Camille at

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  Other Works by Camille Picott

  1

  The Dimple

  William Gunther Anderson, Junior, learned the power of the dimple at a young age. He got his first car with that dimple from a much older woman who had no business flirting with him. When Gun flashes his dimple, all roads open for him.

  William Anderson, his father, also perceived the power of Gun’s dimple early on. He tutored his son in the art of deception and flattery, steering him in directions that benefited Anderson Arms. Gun, for all that he had taken upon himself to hone his skills and cultivate his playboy image, considers himself a well-trained dog.

  He once used the dimple to charm his way into the trust of a corporate rival’s daughter, then promptly hacked the family’s company security system and stole data on all their contracts. The girl—he can’t even remember her name now—never suspected, although she went ballistic when he broke up with her. His father chalked up the episode as collateral damage. Gun never let on how bad he felt about it.

  The dimple gets him invitations to exclusive parties and rides in private jets. It gets him extravagant gifts, everything from fine wine to hand-tailored clothing to, yes, even cars.

  There had been exactly three cars.

  The dimple only failed him once in his twenty-two years. It wasn’t the sort of failure one looks back on with a grimace and forgets about over time; it’s a colossal failure he can’t escape, no matter how much time passes and no matter what he does.

  Even though Gun broke up with said failure over three years ago, the women’s bitterness didn’t fade. He thought her accident—the grisly result of him blowing her off at a party over a year after they broke up—was the culmination of an unhealthy obsession. He’d been wrong.

  Very, very wrong.

  ***

  That failure now stands in Vex before him and Sulan. Said failure is dressed in a pale pink business suit with matching feathery pink wings. Her dark-winged cybermercs fan around her like petals of a gothic flower.

  Claudine Winn.

  Brown hair falls in a perfect cascade to her shoulders. She looks prettier in Vex than she ever looked in the real-world, despite the generous retainer fee she paid her plastic surgeon. Or perhaps it was because of that retainer fee that she’d never been pretty in Gun’s eyes.

  “Good work, Miss Hom,” Claudine says. “My cybermercs have spent weeks trying to track down this young man. And here you help us catch him in a single night. I will overlook the fact that you violated Global protocol to do so.”

  At her words, something inside him cracks. Not his Short Stuff. Surely Sulan didn’t betray him to Claudine. He flicks a glance at her.

  Sulan is decked out in a ridiculous avatar, a getup with skin tight red leather and breasts the size of watermelons. He sees through the avatar to the girl underneath, though; he’d know her eyes and facial expressions anywhere, no matter the avatar that holds her.

  Now he sees pure hate radiating from Sulan’s eyes, and it’s all directed at Claudine. That look is enough to tell him she didn’t willingly betray him.

  His feelings for her swell. She’s still his Short Stuff, even if they have issues to work through.

  “Leave Sulan out of this,” he says to Claudine. “This is between us.”

  Her cold, dark eyes—the only part of her that is an exact replica of her real-world body—land on him. He wonders, not for the first time, if she suspects who Sulan’s training partner really is.

  What else explains the tenacity with which she’d come after him in the past months? The traps she set for him in Vex? And why she hit him with enough Dream Dust to bring down three men? The GABA—gamma-aminobutyric acid—flooding his system will make him violently ill in a short time.

  Claudine eyes gleam at his plea. “I was hoping you’d say that.”

  She flicks her wrist. The cybermercs close in on Gun and Sulan, brandishing their Decoders. The Decoders are for him, of course. Claudine is determined to get to his true Vex Identity.

  Gun readies his Black Tech defense system. Nate and the Dread Twins worked on this avatar for weeks. It may have failed when he broke into Collusion Underground, but it’s more than a match for Claudine.

  As the first of the mercs strike him, the words HOT LAVA DEPLOYED flash across his vision.

  Hot Lava is a Dread Twin concoction, a Black Tech defense that scrambles the code of the offending avatar. Not only does it eject avatars from Vex, but it scrambles their code so thoroughly there’s no way for them to return to Vex quickly.

  One by one, the mercs attack and the Hot Lava takes them out. They melt around him, their avatars collapsing into lumpy goo before evaporating from Vex. Gun ignores the many avatars shedding off his body, each layer of protection peeled away one after another. Although, he does wonder if Nate had been drinking when he sees the caterpillar avatar with machine gun legs.

  A red light flashes in his vision, warning Gun he has only a few protective layers remaining. Soon, Sulan will know the truth of who he is.

  Even if he could log out of Vex—which he can’t, not with the Dream Dust—he wouldn’t. He’s tired of lying to Sulan. He wants honesty to exist between them. It’s the only way he’ll ever win her heart, even if it means taking a giant step backward now.

  Bracing himself, he lets the last protective avatar slough off. He forces himself to face Sulan and look her in the eye, to let her know she’s at last meeting the real Gun.

  “You,” Claudine hisses.


  “You’re his son,” Sulan whispers. The devastation on her face is almost enough to level him. “William Anderson’s son.”

  The look in her eyes fills him with regret. He senses her withdrawing from him. Why hadn’t he told her the truth way back when? Why had he let things get so far out of hand? And why, why hadn’t he ever told her how he feels?

  He wishes things were different. He wishes they had privacy to talk. Time to talk.

  Neither are in the cards.

  “I’m sorry I lied to you, Short Stuff.” He’d say the words a thousand times if he could. They don’t even begin to convey how mashed up he feels inside.

  Claudine lets out an inarticulate shriek and raises her arm. A Constrictor shoots out of the sleeve of her pink jacket, a green snake with a gaping jaw hinged open to macerate his avatar and fry all his connected hardware.

  Gun is ready for this. In fact, he’d been banking on this particular offense. Certain facets of Claudine are predictable.

  He’s not looking forward to what comes next. Still, it has to be done. It’s the only way to protect Sulan from Claudine. Sulan knows too much.

  His father is going to flay him.

  REFRACTOR flashes across his vision. A mirror materializes in his hand. He raises his hand, cupping the mirror. The Constrictor hits it. The Refractor shatters the code, reforms it, and then reverses its trajectory. All in a millisecond.

  The Constrictor flies back toward Claudine, wrapping around her like a vise. She writhes and screams, her wings crumpling in the grip of the serpent. The creature twists tighter and tighter, crumpling her body like an aluminum can. Bits of code flake away in swirls of glowing white.

  Within seconds, she’s reduced to nothing more than brittle bits of code.

  In the real-world, Gun feels his stomach cramp. Bile works its way up his throat. He takes a deep breath, holding on to his last few moments with Sulan.

  “Short Stuff.” He steps toward her.

  “Stop. Don’t come any closer.”

  He will never let on how much those words hurt. Instead, he extends one hand as if meeting her for the first time.

  “My name is William Gunther Anderson, Junior. My close friends call me Gun.” No reaction from Sulan. He pushes on, desperate to fill the silence between them. “I may look different, but you know me. What we have is real. I wouldn’t have come for you at the League auction if what I felt wasn’t real.”

  She stares at him, the hurt shining in her eyes, but all she says is, “What-what did you do to Claudine?”

  She needs to know the truth. No more lying.

  “Claudine is—was—computer code,” he says. “After her accident, her consciousness existed in Vex only. The code that was Claudine has been destroyed by the Constrictor. She’s gone.”

  He leaves out the part about the Constrictor also frying Claudine’s life support. Sulan has enough on her mind; she doesn’t need to be bogged down with the gory details.

  Her jaw drops. “You—”

  “She released the Constrictor,” Gun says. “I merely turned the Black Tech back on her.” He steels himself, knowing their time is almost up. He’ll work more on his apology the next time they meet. For now, he needs her to understand the danger she’s in.

  “Listen to me, Sulan. Claudine knew you and your friends were planning to sneak into Vex with homemade tech. She and Reginald Winn have probably been monitoring your every move. The only reason they didn’t put an end to it is because Claudine wanted to get to me.”

  He watches her face, seeing when everything clicks into place. The hurt in her eyes is replaced by a new emotion: horror.

  “Mr. Winn might kill me.” Sulan swallows. “Gun, I . . .”

  His stomach knots. He only has a few more seconds before his body rebels from the Dream Dust and Nate pulls him out of Vex.

  He takes her by the shoulders. “Listen carefully to me. You’re in way over your head. I didn’t realize you knew so much about Project Renascentia. You must assume Reginald is aware of the information you have. He likely would have intervened sooner if Claudine hadn’t been hell bent on using you as bait to catch me.”

  “Mr. Winn is part of the League, too?” she asks, eyes widening.

  “No, Short Stuff.” Gun’s mouth tightens. “Claudine and Reginald aren’t with the League. They are the League. You have to get out of the Dome. Now.”

  He barely manages to get the words out before his dinner comes up. One second, Sulan stands before him in her ridiculous loaner avatar, the next, his headset is yanked off.

  He doesn’t even get to say goodbye.

  Nate, his best friend and personal assistant, rolls him sideways as Gun spews all over his bed. Expensive pieces of steak come up.

  “Damn, bro,” Nate says, propping a pillow behind Gun to keep him on his side. “Maybe you should have fasted before going after Claudine.”

  2

  Father

  Three empty flumazenil syringes lay in his wastebasket, each of them administered by Nate to combat the Dream Dust attack. Gun is glad they stockpiled the stuff when they first learned about Dream Dust tech.

  “Good thing you dumped her when you did.” Nate is tall and wiry like his father, with light brown hair and eyes. He’s almost as good a fighter as he is a hacker and programmer. “I can’t imagine how much more psycho she’d be if you’d dated for a decent amount of time. Do you want me to get Dr. Fitz?”

  Dr. Fitz is the Anderson family’s doctor. Gun shakes his head and works his mouth. Much of the paralysis has faded and he can at last speak.

  “Sulan.” The words come out slurred but intelligible. “Sulan in danger. Claudine—Claudine—” His throat seizes up, closing around the words he wants to say.

  His fist spasms around the bed sheet. Nate’s eyes flick from his hand to Gun’s eyes.

  “What happened to Sulan?” Nate knows how Gun feels about her.

  “Constrictor,” Gun says. “Claudine. She’s— She’s—” This time, when his mouth fails him, he slams his fist against the bed.

  Gun closes his eyes, fighting for control. He isn’t any good to Sulan if he can’t keep it together.

  Her face swims before him. When she realized who he really was, when she learned their friendship was based on a lie—the memory of the look in her eyes still knocks the breath out of him. He has to make it up to her somehow. He has to save her from Mr. Winn.

  “Dead.” Gun grinds out the word. “She’s dead.”

  Nate freezes, eyes rounding. “Sulan?”

  “Claudine.”

  Nate’s face pales. “Claudine is dead?”

  Gun nods. At least killing Claudine bought Sulan a little time.

  Nate stares at him, mouth hanging open. Then he lets out a string of cuss words.

  “This is bad, Gun. Mr. Winn will be out for blood.”

  Gun nods again. “Sulan . . . danger.”

  Nate gets to his feet, pacing back and forth. “Okay,” he says. “I should get the Dread Twins. We need to find the Global compound.”

  “Yes.”

  Nate points a finger at him. “When you can speak again, I need the whole story. Every detail. You killed Claudine.”

  “I did.”

  Nate curses again. “You know your dad is going to kill you, right? For real this time. I hope you have a good explanation.” He scowls at Gun. “You couldn’t have picked worse timing. Your dad’s been in a mood ever since the last Skeletex prototype failed.”

  Without waiting for a response, he grabs Gun’s tablet off the nightstand and dials up the Dread Twins.

  “I need you guys to sweep North America again,” Nate says without preamble. “Use whatever means you have. Call in any favors. We need to know where the Global compound is. Whatever it takes, you need to find it.”

  Lox, one of the twins, says, “We’ve already done four sweeps. None of our contacts has seen any sign of them. None of our drones has picked up anything. Global is cloaked and self-sufficient.”

&
nbsp; “Try again.” Nate’s voice is icy. “And then try again.” Without another word, he signs off and tosses the tablet aside. He paces back and forth.

  “Nate—”

  His friend whirls on him. “I have to tell your dad.”

  Gun closes his eyes. “Yes.”

  “I’m giving you another injection. When he comes storming in here, you’d better be able to talk better than you can now.” Nate jams the syringe into Gun’s arm, depresses the plunger, and then stalks out the bedroom door.

  Gun sighs and closes his eyes. He is not looking forward to confronting his father.

  ***

  Thirty minutes later, William Anderson strides into his son’s bedroom. His face is ruddy with rage, dreadlocks swinging around his shoulders.

  Maia and Margaret—Gun’s sister and mother—follow. Maia is full figured with dark skin that almost matches their father’s. She specializes in intelligence and surveillance. Margaret, nearly six feet tall with reddish hair, specializes in agriculture.

  The two hover in the bedroom doorway, not brave enough to invade the father-son combat zone. Nate hangs back with them.

  “Is it true?” Anderson roars.

  Gun nods, meeting his father’s eyes without flinching.

  “You killed her? Damn it, son, this isn’t good. Reginald will hunt down our entire family.”

  “You’ve wanted Claudine’s blood for weeks,” Maia says. “That was the whole point of keeping our permanent guest.”

  “Reginald and Claudine’s blood,” Anderson snaps. “Both of them. At the same time. Leaving one alive is sloppy and makes for complications.”

  “We’re just going to have to get to Reginald before he gets to us.” Maia braves two steps into the room, squaring her shoulders.

  “Killing him is preferable, if we can find the slippery bastard,” Anderson snarls. “The problem is finding him. He has a lot of hiding places.”

  Gun works his throat, irritated the flumazenil isn’t working faster. “Sulan,” he croaks. “Need . . . to find her.”