by Tania Hutley
“A clouded leopard,” the director says. “Over the synthetic skeleton we’ve grown living flesh, with real muscles, tissue, and organs. Much of this clouded leopard is biologically identical to one you would have found in the wild. Before their extinction, of course.” She strokes her hand over its fur. “However, we did make several enhancements. It’s larger than the original animal, the surface of its skin has a ceramic plating, and its fur is impregnated with carbon fiber nanotubes as a form of armor.”
Armor? So the leopard’s been built to fight? Whatever I expected, it sure wasn’t this.
“That’s not all, Rayne. Its claws are titanium, sharp enough to be lethal. With practice, you’ll be able to traverse walls that are almost vertical.”
“Does it have its own consciousness?” asks Sentin, blinking behind his glasses. He speaks even slower than most floaters.
“Not as such. It doesn’t have what we would normally refer to as a brain.”
The director beckons me close enough to touch the animal’s fur. It feels luxuriously thick and soft, not like armor at all. And the leopard’s chest is moving in and out, so it’s definitely alive. How can it be breathing if it doesn’t have a brain?
“Susan, has Rayne had the nano transceivers injected?” asks the director.
Doctor Gregory checks her band. “Over two hours ago.”
“Good. Then she’s ready for the CTU.”
Behind the leopard is a long bench and lots of screens displaying numbers and graphs. There’s also a large chair that’s covered with hundreds of short rubber tentacles, all sticking up. The doctor takes something off the bench, and my heart lurches when I see it’s a weird-looking gun.
Director Morelle keeps talking. “The Skin’s automatic functions, such as its heart beat, breathing, and so on, are controlled by its brain stem and central nervous system. And to eliminate the need for a digestive system, it’s fueled by a high-density nutrient solution.”
I’m listening, sure. But I’m also watching Doctor Gregory walk toward me with the gun. Every grunt who’s ever spent time in a shelter probably has the same reaction to guns as I do. When a stomper pulls one out, the grunts who survive are the ones who run fastest.
“Thank you, Susan,” says the director. To me she says, “This delivery device will inject a chip, implanting it into the top of your spinal column, at the base of your brain.” She taps the back of her head. “But don’t worry, it won’t hurt a bit.” She smiles as though she’s cracked a joke. Someone titters. Aza, I think.
Doctor Gregory touches my arm and I jump.
“It’s okay, Rayne,” she murmurs. “Really.”
My heart’s pounding so loud she can probably hear it. She leaves her hand resting on my arm, the other one still holding the gun up as though she’s about to fire it at the ceiling. I hope she does. Anywhere but into my brain.
“Sit down, Rayne.” Doctor Gregory motions to the tentacle chair.
No way. I’m not getting onto those tentacles, and I’m sure as hell not getting a chip shot into my head. I’m not going to move. But she tugs on my arm and steps forward, and somehow I find myself following. What choice do I really have, anyway? I’ve got Rayne’s band around my wrist. I’m wearing the clothes they gave me. I signed the forms.
Remember the money. Five million credits. What could I do with five million credits? Set my mother free. Get William and Tori back. Make us all safe.
I can do this.
Sitting in the chair is like climbing onto a giant sea anemone. The tentacles move underneath me, creeping me out. But once I’m in it, the chair tilts back so I’m lying flat and it feels incredibly comfortable, like floating.
Someone’s behind my head. Director Morelle or Doctor Gregory? I’m too nervous to look.
Something presses against my scalp. Something hard. The muzzle of the gun.
I close my eyes.
Chapter Six
“Open your eyes, Rayne.” It’s Director Morelle’s voice. “Keep your eyes open. Don’t shut them until I tell you.”
The gun doesn’t make a sound, but there’s a sudden pain and then a tingle in the back of my head. It feels like my brain is itchy.
In spite of the director’s command, I screw my eyes shut. I get the weirdest sensation in my brain, as if my thoughts are pulling away from me. Like my mind’s reaching out for something. No, like it’s being tugged.
Then I’m falling sideways with the same dizzy feeling I had after the stomper punched my ear. I clutch the chair, only I can’t feel my hands and I’m not sure if I’ve moved at all. Bright light floods my vision, though I didn’t consciously open my eyes. My stomach lurches, but the feeling is gone and then back again in an instant, like a switch flicking on and off. Colors blur and spin. I’m going to throw up.
Then I find something to focus on, a light, faded blue that’s an oasis of solidness in the center of the swirling sensation. Concentrating on the blue makes the spinning slow, until finally it stops.
Cale’s T-shirt. That’s what the blue is. And as soon as I make out its entire shape, the rest of the room comes into focus.
I can see.
But I’m looking at the room from a different angle than I was a few moments ago. And now that everything’s in focus, it’s almost too sharp. Shapes are so defined they leap out at me. Reality’s been switched onto a higher setting.
When I take in the others, it’s the tiny details that leap out. Small things I wouldn’t have noticed a few moments ago. Brugan’s mouth gapes open and saliva glistens on his teeth. A hint of darkness peeking from under Cale’s sleeve is a bruise. On one arm of Sentin’s glasses is a tiny switch. And the blue of Aza’s eyes is now so bright it almost hurts my eyes.
Eyes.
How come I can blink two good eyes without any ache or flicker? There’s no annoying black spot where one of the sensor arrays in my cybernetic eye has blown.
And I can see the tentacle chair. I can see myself lying on it. There I am, with Director Morelle and Doctor Gregory both standing behind me. I can smell everyone in the room. Distinctive smells, but all tangled up in each other.
Could I be dead? No, I feel alive. Really, really alive. Someone fiddled with the controls and turned everything up. But I’m not me anymore. I’m the leopard. Somehow I’m seeing through the leopard’s eyes and my thoughts are inside its head.
“Open your eyes, Rayne.” Director Morelle’s talking into my ear. I hear her as though she’s right next to me, but she’s a few feet away, bending over my body. The sensation makes everything start to spin again.
“Open your eyes now.”
My eyes must already be open because I’m looking around. But my body’s lying in the tentacle chair with its eyes closed. Can I open them? How can I?
The room lurches, and I squeeze my leopard eyes shut. I’m flying sideways again, only this time it feels more like being sucked through a tube that gets narrower and narrower. There’s nothing to hang onto, because I have no body to hang on with. But I must have a stomach, because I’m queasy, and I must have eyes, because I can open them. Now I can blink, and is that the ceiling above me? As it settles into place, I feel the familiar ache of my cybernetic eye.
“Are you okay, Rayne?” asks Doctor Gregory.
“No!” It comes out as a yelp.
Doctor Gregory chuckles and pats my shoulder.
The director says, “It’s disorientating at first, but you’ll learn to control it. As long as you’re close enough, you’ll be able to transfer your consciousness in and out of the Leopard Skin at will.”
My fists clench as I will myself not to blink.
“Try again, Rayne. Transfer back inside the leopard. Go into your new Skin.”
I take a breath and force my fists to uncurl. Stop pounding so hard, heart. Stop churning, stomach. I’m not going to throw up. Not in front of the others.
Five million credits. I can do this. I can be the leopard. I’m the clouded leopard.
The tran
sfer’s not as bad this time, although my brain still feels like it’s being sucked through a grinder, and vomiting is still a strong possibility.
But when I look out of the leopard’s eyes, everything’s in such sharp focus that I forget to feel sick. Things that are too close are hazy around the edges, but I can see the entire training room in perfect detail. In the far corner, a spider’s spinning a web, its front legs working like knitting needles. Surely there’s no way a regular person could see that?
The tangle of smells hits me again, each scent strong and distinctive. If it were pitch black in here, I’d probably still know who was in the room.
“Hello Rayne,” says Doctor Morelle, looking at leopard-me. “Can you move your head?”
The others gape at the leopard. I try to ignore them, thinking instead about what the director’s asked me to do. I’ve got a leopard’s body. Four paws and a tail. But the best part is that I have no pain. In my own body, I’d become used to ignoring the aches, but without them I feel light and free.
I turn my head and Cale’s scent sharpens. Not with fear, but something else. Excitement maybe? Fear smells bitter, with a tang of overripe fruit and sweat. I know that’s how it smells because I’m still getting a faint whiff of it from my own body, although that’s starting to change. My fear’s disappearing.
“Very good,” says Director Morelle.
I swing my leopard head to look at her, then lift a paw. Put it down. The other side. Can I walk? I’m not sure. I’ll need to think about how that might work with four legs.
Tail. I can sense it there, sticking out behind me like an extra limb. It feels weird, but by concentrating, I manage to move that too. It’s strange being able to twitch it from side to side. Will it sway as I walk? I want to walk. I want to feel how the leopard moves.
“Excellent!” exclaims Director Morelle. “Now transfer back to your own body again, Rayne. Get used to the feeling.”
I can hardly bear to look at the reclining chair where my body is lying. My eyelids have drifted up and my ugly cybernetic eye is peeking out. Instead of the glimpse of white with a green iris that’s on my good side, my damaged eye socket contains a small, shiny black lens with visible circuitry behind it. My cheek is a ravaged hollow surrounded by scar tissue, twisted ridges that cut across my face. No, it’s not a face, it’s a dystopian landscape. My mouth’s slack and slightly open, sagging on one side, and moisture glistens at the corner of my lips. I can’t see the pain that’s become a constant part of living in my body, but I know it’s there.
What if I don’t want to go back to that body?
“Think about being yourself again,” says the director. “You can do it.”
I want to object, to refuse. I’m only beginning to discover this new world, and the last thing I want is to cut it so short. But the expression on Director Morelle’s face makes me hesitate. While the others have turned to my human body, waiting for it to come back to life, she’s still staring at leopard-me. Her lips have twitched up, and her smug, knowing smile unnerves me. She looks like she knows exactly what I’m thinking. Like she’s playing some sort of game, and I’m a chess piece that she’s just moved into place.
Her look sends a cold shiver down my spine.
I think about being in my own body again, and after another sickening rush, I am. The first thing I do is shut my slack mouth and wipe it. The second thing is to lift my head and look at the leopard. It’s huge and powerful. So beautiful, I have to fight the urge to transfer right back into it.
“How was it, Rayne?” asks Cale. The four of them stare at me with open curiosity as the back of the tentacle chair lifts up so I can climb out of it. The trace of envy in Aza’s expression gives me a stab of triumph. Not so repulsive anymore, am I?
“Incredible.” It was so much more than that, but how else can I describe it? Running my fingers over the back of my neck, I can’t feel the chip.
The others all turn back to the director, except for Cale. Smiling, his gaze lingers on my face. For a moment, caught up in the elation I still feel from being the leopard, I smile back. Then I remember where I am—who I am—and jerk my gaze away.
Why would a floater, my competitor, want to be friendly? There’s no possible reason. He’s just trying to unnerve me. In the scale of people I’m ever likely to trust, floaters are way down the list, and men least of all.
“Who wants to go next?” asks Director Morelle.
“I do.” It’s Brugan who shouts loudest.
The director nods at him. “Come this way.”
Doctor Gregory sticks close to me as I follow everyone else over to one of the other doors, I suppose so she’s ready to grab me if I accidentally transfer back into the leopard. I want to be the leopard again, but I’m also curious to see what the others’ Skins will be like.
Is the Skin Hunter contest a battle between Skins? It could even be a life-or-death fight. Perhaps if just our thoughts have been transferred into the Skins we can’t actually get hurt.
All I know for sure is that I have a chance not to be me anymore. And that’s the best thing I’ve ever felt.
Chapter Seven
I’m not expecting Brugan’s Skin to be like mine, but I’m not ready for how different it is.
It’s man-shaped, with a bear’s head that’s covered with shaggy black-and-grey fur. Its torso is hairless and human, with bulky muscles. A thick pelt starts again at its waist. It’s standing upright, but its legs are more animal than human. Its hands are claws.
Is it a mix of man and bear? Its nose is sharper than a bear. More like a wolf.
“Brugan’s Skin combines the DNA of several animals, with a skeleton that’s basically humanoid in structure,” says Director Morelle. “Most of the DNA is from a wolverine, an animal known for its strength and ferocity. It has another name: the devil bear.”
“Devil bear,” repeats Brugan, drawling the words in his floater accent. He scans our faces to check we’re all impressed.
“Wolverines are excellent climbers. We also mixed in some characteristics from other members of the Canidae family to enhance its range of movement. You’ll notice how wolfish its face is? And there’s some grey fox in there too. Wolverines are fairly small animals, but we’ve manipulated the DNA to make yours the largest and strongest of the Skins, Brugan. It looks quite bear-like, don’t you think? The name Devil Bear sums this Skin up nicely.”
Brugan nods, smirking. He’s as puffed-up as though he designed the Skin himself.
No wonder he’s pleased. The animal in front of us is a savage beast. I bet it could tear me to pieces in the time it takes to blink.
There’s a tentacle chair in this room too, and Brugan gets in it without hesitation. As soon as his chip is implanted, his eyes shut. It’s weird watching the devil bear come to life. One minute its eyes are dull, then it’s looking around. I wonder if he has a wolverine’s vision and sense of smell, like I had the leopard’s?
Like me, he gets to transfer in and out of the Skin a couple of times. He turns its head, blinks, and moves its hands. I can’t tell whether he’s as reluctant to go back to his human body as I was, but when he gets up from the chair, I notice he keeps staring at the devil bear. Just as I kept turning to look at my beautiful leopard.
At the next door, Director Morelle turns to Sentin.
“Sentin, your Skin is highly specialized, designed specifically for climbing. It uses both reptilian and human DNA.”
Reptilian? Maybe this Skin will give me a hint of what the contest will be. I wonder if the different Skins will have to fight, or work together?
Director Morelle opens the door, and I gape at Sentin’s Skin, which is the most bizarre yet. Its body is human-shaped, and covered head-to-toe with jewel-green scales.
It has enormous round eyes set deep into its face, a flat nose that’s barely more than a slight bulge, and no ears that I can see. Who’d have thought a mix of lizard and man could look so regal? Whether it’s the shape of the head, or the amaz
ing eyes that shine silver and have a black pupil that’s a vertical slit instead of round, it’s definitely a proud face.
Sentin’s Skin is as tall as Brugan’s, but not as muscled. More wiry. Its arms are longer than human, and its hands are oversized. Its fingers are long and thin, but rounded at the ends, each one ending in a bulb.
Although it’s standing on its back legs, its stance is crouched and I wonder if its knees won’t fully straighten. Then I see its feet. They’re just like its hands. Long lizard hands where its feet should be.
“We used a complex mix of reptile DNA for this Skin,” says the director. “Its scales come from a chameleon, and its strength from a komodo dragon.” She turns to Sentin. “I think you’ll find your Skin’s senses quite startling at first. You’ll be able to see colors invisible to humans, right into the ultraviolet spectrum. Your Skin has no sense of smell. Instead it has sensors that can detect heat and cold with such accuracy, your heat-mapping ability may be of more value than your improved eyesight.”
Sentin’s eyes glint. Though his face doesn’t show much, I can tell he’s pleased. And why wouldn’t he be? As amazing as my leopard is, I wish I could transfer into his Skin to find out what invisible colors look like.
When Sentin transfers into it, the reptile’s head moves quizzically, as though questioning what’s around it. His tongue flicks out, long and blue, then his scales shimmer and change color, becoming a deep turquoise flecked with gold. His silver eyes blink slowly, but the lid comes up from underneath instead of down from the top. The simple act of blinking makes his Skin seem so alien that I get a strong pang of anxiety. Brugan’s Skin I can understand: it’s a big, mean powerhouse. But Sentin’s? I have no idea what his Skin is capable of.
“Aza, your Skin is next.” Director Morelle leads us to the next door. “I think you’ll be happy with it.”
When it’s revealed I can see why.
Aza’s Skin is gorgeous. And nightmarish. A dazzling killing machine. Its body is stick-thin, even thinner than Aza herself, and covered with sleek black armor... or is it a shell? It looks organic rather than metal. Its layers cover the body in a complex pattern.