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Nanoshock

Page 8

by K C Alexander


  The screens covering his desk looked like gibberish to me, charts and shit, each different in data and format. Such a goddamn workaholic, he studied projections while in a projection. The sun caught in his close-cropped hair, picked out the brown sheen buried under black. It made the array of freckles that covered his cheeks and nose stand out.

  Those freckles, cute on anybody else, did nothing of the sort for him. Cute and harmless weren’t words that even existed in Reed’s vicinity. Why he hadn’t zapped them out of existence mystified me.

  Why I liked them so much mystified me, too. I liked his face – top and lower lip full enough to put me in mind of a girl’s, a wide nose and sharply angular jaw. He wasn’t a soft-looking man. Given the sharp bone structure under his dusky skin, I suspected a genetic blend of anglo, black, and a handful of other landmarks from Native to mexi.

  Striking as hell. Dangerous as masturbating with the barrel of a Sauger 877, safety off.

  The hunger riding my high made that sound like a great idea.

  Instead of waiting, I crossed the large callbox, slammed both hands on the other side of his desk. Right through two of his projections. The visuals flowed seamlessly around my forearms.

  The contact tingled. Underneath my palms, it felt more like plain, featureless metal. I didn’t have the kind of filters that could connect wholly with Reed’s. Whatever he could feel, whatever he’d programmed in, I couldn’t tell.

  “What,” I repeated, slowly and loudly like he was too stupid to put it together, “the fuck do you want?”

  A gaze dark as motor oil and sharp as knives lifted, settled on my face. He didn’t smile. “You,” he repeated in deliberate mimicry, “are late.” I hated when he did that.

  “Gosh, I’m sorry.” My eyes widened, fake concern. “I was just stopping to get a sweet little tie for our meeting.” Partial truth. I did, in fact, have a tie on.

  He wasn’t the type to rise to my bait. But he sure did like to dish it. “It’s casual Friday.”

  I snorted, eying his suit. “Guess you missed your own memo.”

  “You clearly did not read mine. Where is your report?”

  “You got one.”

  “But not yours.” One eyebrow lifted in an obscene amount of self-control.

  In contrast, I smiled like I’d just fucked a nun and got away with it.

  Oh, wait. I did.

  “Does that report say whose ass I didn’t ream?” I leaned forward enough that he got an up-close view of my smile. And down my shirt. Not that he looked, the frigid bastard. “Does it include the fact your intel sucks in a big way?”

  “It says,” he said flatly, “you failed to negotiate with the source.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Your operator sucks, too. The source failed to negotiate with me.” Now I raised both eyebrows. “And speaking of. Want to explain to me how a Good Shepherd knew to approach you with my name?”

  “No.” He swiped a hand over the projections. They winked out, leaving the surface of the custom desk gleaming. “It’s not relevant.”

  When my smile faded, it faded fast. Settled into a thin line. “Try again.”

  “Why?”

  “Because part of our deal,” I snapped, “is no leaks. None of your shit up in mine. Less than three weeks after that agreement, someone hit up your shit for mine. Follow now?”

  He tilted his head. Appraised my expression. I’d have loved to punch him, but I didn’t dare do it in projected space. Damn filters. Filthy rich nutless wonder.

  Malik shrugged. “He didn’t know he was talking to my people.” When he flicked his fingers at me, I read it as get the fuck off his pretty fake desk. I did not. Now Malik’s lovely mouth hardened. Good. “His bad luck that his supplier of choice set him up with one of my scouts. Your bad luck he knew your name.”

  Oh, fuck him. Scouts were corporate versions of splatter specialists, but whose specialties revolved around stealth and murder. They’re often used to infiltrate SINless territories, especially in the rack. Naturally, their heads subsequently show up in corporation turf, usually without attached appendages. As a matter of principle.

  “A scout,” I repeated. I finally pushed up from the desk, folded my arms across my chest and glared at him. “In an area where somebody knew to ask about me. You want to do the math, or should I?”

  He did not math. He only watched me steadily. Patient as a serial killer stalking his prey.

  Malik Reed was the kind of man who used silence as a weapon. Wait long enough, and people back down or fill the silence with more than they want to say.

  Bitch, please. That tactic had never worked on me. And I was reaching a high that took my anger and rolled it right into hunger. Blood, sex, laughter and unfuckingtouchable. If I got any more zen, I’d pass the shit out.

  Bring it.

  I barely kept a straight face when he mirrored my stance. The material of his tailored vest crinkled as he folded his arms over it, drawing attention to the athletic expanse of his chest under all that prim button-down and dark gray tie. Not too wide of a build, a defined triangle from shoulders to hips, with long legs and pristine clothing to cover it all.

  He wasn’t even close to the size of the heavies I’d worked with, but nothing to scoff at. Unless you counted the fact he’d probably gotten it from a personal trainer.

  I’d scoff at that all day long.

  Malik was aggressively handsome in a way that screamed authority and power, not parties and charm. And he didn’t, I noted, do anything to alter his avatar. My snatch did a little dance of fuck he’d be a good lay.

  The jackwagon hit all the buttons I had – the good and the bloody.

  “My scouts,” he finally informed me, “have nothing to do with our agreement.”

  Meaning hands off his business, huh? Yeah, right. “You’re correct,” I replied, setting my jaw. “They don’t. Which means they’re fair fucking game, so get your screwheads out of my turf or I’ll take matters into my own hands.” I uncrossed my arms to point a metal finger at him. “And if you ever, ever withhold job information from me again, I will take my contract and jam it so far up your ass, you’ll be shitting fine print for a week.”

  A ghost of amusement flitted through his eyes. “It’s a verbal contract.”

  “One that says I get job details.”

  “Unless it’s need to know.”

  “Push it,” I shot back, “and then tell me how need to know feels in your anal canal. You want boots on the ground, you won’t fuck me over next time.” I put the finger away before I forgot I was in virtual space. The urge to take his face in my hands all but overwhelmed me.

  Whether to stroke it or crush it, I still wasn’t sure.

  Maybe both.

  “Oh?”

  I snapped out of my imagination. Glared at him, even as my lips twitched. Crush. Ooze. So delicious. I cleared my throat. “I meant what I said. Get your jackwagons out or I’ll hand-deliver them.”

  “And if it costs you your position in my department?”

  I opened my mouth, but hesitated just long enough that he inclined his head. That damned humor was back, like I amused him in some absent way.

  Goddammit.

  “Give me a reason not to tell,” I demanded.

  “Give me a reason to remove them,” he replied. Didn’t even miss a beat.

  “Their lives aren’t enough?”

  “No.”

  “Because you think I won’t find them?” I demanded. The tilt to one corner of his mouth said it all. I sighed, dropped my arms. “Malik, you’re an asshole.”

  “I have one.”

  I wanted to laugh so badly. I half-turned away, scrubbing at my face with my meat hand. The chill between my physical body and the projected one prickled. “Did you just project me to flaunt that asshole at me?”

  “No.” The fact I heard his footfalls on the virtual carpet only strengthened my initial impressions. He’d paid big creds for this thing. I glanced over my shoulder to find him so much
closer. Within reach closer.

  Right. So my cunt straight up drenched in meatspace. That’s how fucking good my high was – and how infuriatingly sexy I found him.

  “I called you,” he said in his smooth, aggressive baritone, “because your pet police officer failed to achieve his mission.”

  “How did…” I caught myself, curled a lip at him as I turned around to face him again. My hands tucked at my hips. “Never mind. You spying motherfucker.”

  “I have not ever fucked my mother,” he returned. Deadpan. So serious.

  I snorted a laugh, slapped my flesh hand over my mouth and tried to glower instead.

  Malik checked the understated, too-expensive watch at his wrist. “I’ve located the parent company of Battery’s tech center.”

  Agh, cunting sinners.

  “Chopshop,” I growled through my fingers. “Who is it?”

  He ignored that with way more aplomb than the detective had. “Rest,” he ordered. “Recover from your injuries, and sleep it off.” He folded his hands behind his back. “Tomorrow, you will come to my office and we will discuss it.”

  There. The first spike of fury cracking through my high.

  I took a step closer, fists clenching at my sides. “What did I just say, Malik? Don’t you fucking hold info from me.”

  “I’m not.” His thick black eyebrows lifted. “I am setting up an appointment.”

  Ooh, I hated him. I turned back around. “Go suck a necro cock,” I shot back. “I’m going to find out who leaked my business. And,” I added, voice thinning to ice and deadly promise, “if I find out it’s one of yours…” I left the threat unspoken.

  He extrapolated the threat, and took it farther. “What if,” Malik replied slowly, deliberately, “the two are connected?”

  I paused. Frowned. “What do you know?”

  He stared at me. Silent. Judging, the ass.

  I was not playing this. “Guess it’s not important, then,” I sneered. “I’ll find out on my own.”

  He didn’t so much as move a muscle. Just two words, delivered in that same aggressively blunt authority. “With what?”

  In the reality of the Mecca, somebody ran into my chest. Rebounded, howling with laughter. My own nails bit into my palm, echo of the rage roiling under my skin.

  I was so boned. I was backed into a corner and Reed knew it. I’d seeded what I could. Only had Indigo and Reed to sic on the trail of the leak, and here Reed was stringing me along. Lucky was gone. His vast network of contacts may have helped, nose to the ground sort of thing, but I had no idea where he was now.

  With what, he asked? With nothing.

  I saw red. And the fact it came with a core of hurt pissed me the tits right off.

  I whirled, arm lifted before the rest of me caught up with the stupidity. High on the shit Shar’d given me, pissed at the shit Malik was giving me, and already hurting like hell. His words hit worse than a bullet and they shouldn’t have.

  I was made of tougher stuff than that.

  My protocols, though. They weren’t.

  Malik Reed goddamn smiled as my flesh fist collided with his sternum. A part of me wanted so bad to break it. The rest of me knew I’d get nowhere in this box.

  Sure enough, with little more than a mild ripple of sensation at my knuckles, the box froze. Both of our avatars flickered, his leaving lag trails behind as he turned away like I was nothing. Something popped in the back of my head, the haptic signal gone haywire, and I swear to shit, I heard something that sounded like a hollow, digitized laugh.

  Snapped into bone-deep embarrassment, jacked up into a white-hot burst of anger, I tried to disconnect. Couldn’t get a grasp on the signal. With a head to toe prickle, pins and needles shooting outward from the base of my skull, the room shattered, taking our connections with it. I came back to reality with a full-body jerk, careened wildly into a small group. Sweat on my skin and a fierce pain in the back of my head.

  My chipset knocked back on me so hard, a surge of bile rose in my chest.

  Arms caught at me. “Whoa,” laughed a guy, his short hair glittering under the lights. He grinned at me, a mouth full of rainbow teeth in neon. “I’ll have what you’re having!”

  A thin arm around my waist effortlessly put me back on my feet. Belonged to a lanky type whose androgynous features parted on a good-natured grin. “See ya.”

  The third with them was broadshouldered and heavily muscled. Taller than me by about four inches, even with my heels on. I knew her. Kilo. Never worked with her, but rumor on the street marked her a reliable heavy.

  She stared at me. The thick ridge of metal carved into her ebony jaw lit with its own red light, shifted like she was going to say something. She didn’t. Her eyes gave nothing away. Not warmth. Recognition. Nothing.

  I grinned right back at her, straightened my poorly knotted tie with more sass than she probably liked. Rubbing the spot over my chipset, I turned and gave up on the fucking world for a while. Appointment, my ass. Discussion, my ass.

  And a high burned out because Malik Reed wouldn’t take me seriously. Now my frequency was shot, no ability to make or receive projections until I got it fixed. How I’d get it fixed was something else entirely. I had one doc, and she belonged to Mantis anyway, so no.

  I missed Lucky. I missed him bad enough to think it often. My personal streetdoc, my mentor, my zen. He’d know what to tell me.

  He’d kick my ass until I figured it out.

  I clutched at my chest where it felt like I battled a constant hollow hurt.

  The only cure I knew was a higher high, a jacked up night, and a thrashdance to get me through.

  All three could be acquired. Right. Bleeding. Here.

  There’s an art to entering a thrashdance floor. A mix of instinct and reflexes that gets you over the border. You learn by failing. A metric fuckload of times. I nailed it. Ducking a fist and sidestepping a knee, I threaded my way into the center of the pit and breathed in the music. The body odor of too many people in too little room, blood and elation. You lose yourself. You become part of the problem.

  You bleed and you crack and you lay down hurt because laying down hurt feels good.

  Colors of the people around me, the glossy shine of chrome and glitter and tech refracted from every angle. Painted lips and streaming hair shining in strobe. What the drinks I’d inhaled didn’t manage, the drugs did. Tabs tucked between my lips, sucked off fingers belonging to strangers. Another injection I scored and jacked into the side of my neck. It hit like a heat wave and freezer burn at the same time, took the wild tangle of limbs and made them shine.

  The crazy that happens to your brain when the nanos are riding higher than you is all kinds of fucked up. Losing it is only one of many, many effects. But I can say this: there’s no cunting room for guilt.

  10

  Something scaly had died in my mouth. It was the only explanation for the taste of it as consciousness blurred slowly into existence. I couldn’t manage enough saliva to swallow it down, either.

  I was all too familiar with this feeling.

  Pounding head. Limbs aching like a son of a bitch. My ass was raw and my junk throbbed. I knew what that meant, too.

  One hell of a night.

  My lips twisted up into a grin as I rubbed the crust from my eyes. There wasn’t much light, only a fluorescent line built into a seam under the domed ceiling. Wasn’t much room, either, just enough to get on your knees. Any more and you’d crack your head. Which someone had done, judging by the smear of hair and blood above me.

  A hand tucked against my chest. My naked chest. I looked down. Shit. Somewhere along the way, the bar in my nipple had been torn out. Probably thrashed out. My nanos had healed it, but it’d scarred. Not a good sign for the state of my shit last night, and probably the same issue with the bullet I hadn’t gotten removed. I’d have to get it redone.

  A warm body curved back to back against mine, too awkwardly placed to belong to the hand I stared blearily at. With ef
fort, I put together the pieces.

  One arm. Inked in black. Attached to a lithe body with small breasts also inked. White skin too perfectly pale to be anything other than enhanced, and scars she’d left untouched. Mark of the badass. Her short green hair spiked out in all directions as she slept the sleep of the damned. Didn’t know her name. Really liked the plating covering her right ribs, though. Bone reinforcement merged with extra armor. That was debilitating injury recovery stuff. Definite saint.

  I vaguely remembered licking the seam between tech and flesh. She’d really liked that.

  I turned my head with effort, wincing when my brains sloshed around inside.

  Black hair. Lean muscle under swarthy skin. My nervous system clenched so hard, I almost swallowed my tongue. Until I realized the lighting painted his skin darker than it was, and I had not – thank the cunting gods of whatever the hell – fucked Indigo. That was a conversation I did not ever want to have.

  Instead, as I propped up on my flesh elbow and saw the remains of one wolf ear still attached by a wire, I swallowed a snort.

  Lance, huh? A curious glance down his body clarified why exactly they called him that. Too coincidental for a birthname, unless he’d been deliberately enhanced in the womb. Or enhanced himself later. Either of which were not the weirdest thing I’d ever heard of.

  Amused and aching, I slowly scooted out of the tangle of flesh and sheets, braced one hand on the ceiling and reached for my discarded clothes. Wasn’t expecting the arm I reached with to roll back on me in nerve-shattering rebuke.

  “Fuck,” I hissed, snatching the metal back to my chest. Cradling it didn’t help. The nerves at my shoulder had long since seared to barbecue, which had immediately burned out any feeling when my arm had blown off. Far as I knew, not every amputee out there experienced this. Then again, we didn’t talk about it, either.

  Cauterized nerves didn’t stop my stupid brain from filling the metal with some sort of ghostly echo – a desperate search for missing meat. When the thing lashed back at me, it screamed.

 

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