Unstrung

by Kendra C. Highley

A soft, warm hum zips through my arms and legs, and I feel floaty. Isn’t there something I’m supposed to be worrying about? It’s there, on the edge, but it swims away, ahead of the sharks that gnaw, gnaw, gnaw on my brain. I need to sit. Anywhere will do. There’s a grocery store next door, and it has a bench out front. The bench is hard metal, but I lie down anyway, curling into a little ball as the warm hum turns into a blaze, burning its way into my organs. My jaw clenches itself shut and my body goes rigid.

  I close my eyes, a scream dying on my lips, on my heart, as the rush takes over.

  * * *

  Sometime later, still stimmed to the sky, I come around enough to realize it’s morning and I’m sleeping outside. My head whirls, but I force myself to focus. I’m in trouble; that much I know. They were after me. I don’t remember who, exactly, but they haven’t come back yet. Did I kill them? There was a stunner…maybe I killed them, maybe I didn’t. I’m not safe, though; I can’t be on the street. Besides, the grocery’s walls are crawling with clowns like I saw on a T-shirt…somewhere. That alone is more than enough to convince me to leave.

  I roll to my feet. My stomach heaves but I have to move. Have to move. I take a few slow steps, then stop. I have no idea where I am. Paranoid panic threatens to paralyze me. I don’t know where I am. I don’t know where…

  Then I see it, rising up taller than the other buildings—a tower with “Hot Russ” on a sign attached to the side. The rest of the words are hidden by the building next door, but I know what it says—Hotel Russet. Home. It’s only one street over. Relieved, I start down the block.

  The pedestrians are giving me a wide berth on the sidewalk. One woman shrinks back like she’s seen a walking piece of garbage. I stop in front of an electronics store and take a look at myself in the window. I have to admit, the lady has a point. I’ve got vomit in my hair and my clothes are damp and wrinkled. A smell follows me, too, like stale sweat. I need to go home, to clean up, to rest.

  I look around, hoping to see someone I know, someone who can show me the way to Hotel Russet. It’s no good. Two men nearby sprout donkey ears, and a child turns into a little pig. She runs squealing down the sidewalk. A woman with a wolf’s face chases after her, turning bared fangs my direction.

  Crash in progress.

  I sink to my knees on the sidewalk in front of the electronics store and the owner comes out to shoo me off. His arms turn to monster claws. I scream for him to get away from me and he waves the claws in my face.

  “Lexa!”

  I put my arms over my head. “Don’t touch me!”

  Voices babble in the background, then I’m hoisted up by my underarms. A strong man who smells like a pine tree throws me over his shoulder.

  “Where are you taking me?” My voice sounds small and pitiful in my ears.

  “Home.”

  I crane my head to get a better look at my kidnapper. Black, curly hair flutters in the breeze created by the man’s long steps. Pine tree, pine tree…the soap at the apartment smelled like pine disinfectant.

  “Quinn?”

  “Who else?” he says. He sounds really mad. “Gears, Lexa. I can’t believe you’d run off like this. It’s dangerous enough for us without you going out to get stimmed when my back’s turned. I thought you said you were done using!”

  I sag against him. “It’s not my fault.”

  “Save it for when you’re not trashed. Right now all I care about is getting you off the street.”

  He marches along, me flopping against his back, for two blocks. As we pass the greasy diner a few doors down from the apartment building, worms start crawling out of his shirt and I rear up, trying to escape them. Quinn mutters curses and tightens his grip on my legs so I can’t get away.

  “The worms, the worms,” I moan. “Let me down.”

  “They’re not real,” he says.

  “Help me,” I whisper.

  He pats the back of my leg, murmuring, “I’m trying to.”

  Quinn can’t carry me through the revolving door at the apartment building, so he puts me down and pushes me through first. I fall into the lobby and crawl toward the front desk. He catches me before I get there and picks me up again.

  The pantsuit lady asks, “What’s wrong with your girl?”

  Quinn laughs, like it’s the funniest joke. “She went to a party. Can’t hold her stuff, you know?”

  “I had a husband like that once. I divorced him,” Pantsuit Lady says. “Good luck with her.”

  “I’ll need it. Thanks again for that second key—she ran off with the first one.”

  Once we’re on the elevator, Quinn puts me down. The underarms of his T-shirt are wet. He rubs his lower back and glares at me. I shrink down into a little ball in the corner of the elevator car. It’s no use hiding, though. When the bell dings, he forces me to my feet and marches me to the apartment, not letting me stop until we’re in the bathroom. Without a word, he picks me up, dumps me in the bathtub and turns the shower on full force.

  I shriek. “It’s cold, you jackass!”

  “Good!” he snaps. “You need to sit in here until you stop seeing worms. I don’t care if it takes two hours.”

  With that, he leaves me in the bathroom. I stay in the tub until the water warms up. My head buzzes like a malfunctioning hard drive, but I’m finally coming down. I strip off my filthy clothes and stand under the shower head, turning the water up as hot as I can stand. It doesn’t stop the chills; my teeth chatter hard as I dry off. I’m so miserable, all I want is to go to sleep.

  When I peek outside, the bedroom is empty. My new flannel pajamas are laid out on the bed and a glass of water waits on the nightstand. The kindness hurts more than Quinn’s anger. Feeling lower than the worms that crawled all over me earlier, I slip into my pajamas and into bed. He’s probably too disappointed in me to care that I plan to join his revolution. He might even think I’m more of a liability than an asset now, after getting caught, stimmed, and almost turned in for a bounty. I’m certainly unreliable. And volatile. And stubborn. And rude. And….

  The litany of unfortunate character traits sings me to sleep as a tear slides from between my eyelashes.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Forgive, But Never Forget

  The little girl sits in the center of her bed in the white room, her hands folded neatly in her lap. Nothing ever changes. Her pale hair frames a sad face. The boy hasn’t come back to see her, and her chest aches. She wishes she could forget him, but she can’t, not even when she tries to, because it hurts so much to be alone.

  She’s finally come to understand that she will die here, in this place will no one to see.

  The floor creaks next to my bed. I wake up fast, startled by a shadow in my room. My face is wet, and my chest is tight with the girl’s despair, but also with panic.

  “Who’s there?”

  “It’s just me,” Quinn whispers. “You’ve been asleep a long time. Think you might want some food?”

  “What time is it?” I struggle to sit up in bed, instantly queasy. “Oh, Skies, food may not be the answer.”

  “It’s six in the evening and you might not feel so sick if you eat something.” Quinn goes to the little window and draws back the curtains.

  Feeble light streams in through the dirty glass. He looks haggard, like he hasn’t slept at all since I left last night. A fresh serving of guilt adds to the nausea.

  I shove my hair out of my face. It tangled all to hell while I slept. “Aren’t you going to ask me what happened?”

  “Do you want to tell me now or after you’ve eaten?”

  So polite, so formal. Not like him at all. “I want to tell you now.” I take a breath. This is so humiliating, I better get it over with. “I took some Exeprin, after we had that fight.” I pause. Was that only last night? “Um, anyway, I had to take two shots because I was behind. After that I went outside to stand in the rain and ran into some trouble.”

  He doesn’t speak until I pour out the whole story. Then he says
, “Gears. You had a really rough time.”

  “That’s it?” I ask. “That’s all you’re going to say?”

  Quinn recoils. “I didn’t think you’d want to make a big deal out it.”

  “But I screwed up. I went outside without thinking about it and nearly got handed over to Maren,” I protest. “Why aren’t you mad at me?”

  “You want me to be mad at you?” he asks. “Just when I think I’ve got you figured out, you do something so strange that I have to start over.”

  “Well…same here!” I jab a finger at him. “We’re not safe anymore and probably have to move and you’re not even mad?”

  “We don’t have to move,” Quinn says quietly. “Not yet. Even if Candle and Jax aren’t dead, you scrambled their brains enough that they’ll never remember they saw you.”

  For a second I can see Candle’s face contorted in pain when I zapped her. And Jax…bucking and writhing on the floor. “Skies, I did, didn’t I?”

  I’ve never hurt anyone that badly before. A good thief never needs a weapon—get in, get out, don’t hurt people. Sick, I close my eyes and wrap my arms around my belly.

  “Lex, you did what you had to.”

  Quinn’s trying to sound reassuring, I know, but it doesn’t help. I shake my head back and forth, hoping the memories will slosh out of my head into oblivion. It doesn’t work.

  “I know what to do about this.” He sits on the bed next to me. “But you’re not going to like it.”

  He’s finally realized he’s better off without me and is going to kick me out, just like Turpin did. I tell myself it’ll be okay, that I deserve to be punished for last night. I’ve almost made myself believe it when Quinn does the exact opposite of what I expect.

  He gives me a hug.

  “What are you doing?” I say, my face pressed against his collarbone.

  “According to my research, this is what male humans do when female humans are upset.”

  His tone is so dry that I start to laugh. “Are you kidding me?”

  “About the research or the hug?”

  “Either, both,” I say.

  He strokes the back of my head, tangling his fingers in my hair. “What do you think?”

  “I think you’re full of shast,” I murmur, closing my eyes.

  “You’re right about that,” Quinn says.

  Sighing, I pull away from him. “Thank you.”

  He stands. “Don’t thank me yet.”

  “Why not?”

  Quinn waits until he’s at the door before answering me. “Because I took your key to the apartment. I know you didn’t mean for any of this to happen, but I can’t take chances. You might decide a hit is more important than staying out of sight.” His smile softens the blow of the words. “We’re in this together, and you will stay clean. Promise?”

  I can’t promise him I’ll stay clean forever. Even now the stims tickle at my nerves, telling me what fun we could have together. But I can promise Quinn that I want to try. “Okay.”

  And this time, it’s not a lie.

  * * *

  After dinner I tell Quinn, “I’ll go after the primer with you.”

  He drops the plate he’s washing into the sink. “Are you sure?”

  “Yes, I’m sure. If we don’t free the others and end this for good, we won’t be safe anywhere. Being ambushed by Candle was proof enough of that. Maren won’t stop looking for us. I prefer a straight up fight to hiding for the rest of my life.”

  “Me, too.” Quinn dries his hands on a dishtowel then rejoins me at the table. “If this were one of your jobs, where would you start?”

  “I’d start by determining where the object is and figuring out the easiest spot to break in,” I say. “But we don’t know where the primer chip is.”

  “It could still be at Maren’s,” Quinn says.

  I shake my head. “You haven’t been thinking like a criminal long enough. After a break in, people usually move sensitive items to more secure locations. We need to find someone who can tell us where the chip is now.”

  “What about the Precipice office uptown? Maren’s lab there is high-security. That would be a good place to start.”

  “No.”

  “No?” Quinn asks. “Seriously, throw me a bone here.”

  I lean back in my seat and close my eyes. “We shouldn’t guess about where it is. We have to be sure, and the only way to do that is to get the location from someone who knows. Turpin seemed to think we had inside help, and that’s why we ended up with the K800 plans. I think he’s right.”

  “A mole of some kind, then.”

  “Right. Any ideas?” I ask. “You lived with Maren. Know of anybody with a grudge that might be willing to help us?”

  “Besides every artificial working for her?” He raises his eyebrows. “No, not really. To be honest, I didn’t get out of the lake house much, except when they needed me to find an escapee.”

  “Wait…” Stars, how could I be so stupid. “That’s how you knew I was hiding in that bedroom the night I broke in. You could see my halo in the dark.”

  His grin is devilish. “I wondered how long it’d take you to figure that out.”

  I forget all about planning for a minute. “You have enhanced vision…what else can you do?”

  “I can stand on my head,” he says, grinning wider.

  “Don’t be an idiot.” Without warning, I fling a glass of water at his head. To my surprise, he dodges it easily and every drop splashes the kitchen counter behind him. “That would’ve hit most people dead in the face.”

  “Guess I forgot to mention I’m fast.”

  “And I can climb most anything—walls, trees, light posts,” I say slowly. “There’s something else…I’m good with my hands. Whenever my cat lines tangle, I can pick out tiny knots without magnification if I have a quiet place to work. I do it all by feel. I even untied myself at Candle’s with my hands behind my back. That was after she stimmed me up.”

  “And you’re very quiet,” Quinn adds.

  “Thank you!” I say. “Jole always said I was loud.”

  “He was teasing you.”

  While I’m mulling that over, Quinn throws a plastic salt shaker at me, his hands moving in a blur. I duck, but it still grazes my shoulder. “You are fast. Skies. But how?”

  “Made that way.” He heaves an impatient sigh. “You really don’t remember, do you?”

  “About before? I really don’t.”

  “Okay. Well, the engineers were toying with giving us special abilities. Not superhero shast, but above-average human skills. We never get sick, at least from infections, and we’re strong for our size. Basically, we don’t have much in the way of genetic flaws.” Quinn taps the side of his head. “Which is why Maren puts security programming into our nervous systems—to make sure we understand pain.”

  I think about the plans for the K800 models. “They’ve gone a step further—the chip says the 800s will have genius IQs. And they’ll be kids, with the ability to grow up.”

  “They made us the same way,” Quinn says. “We’ll age to about twenty-five, like the guards you saw at Maren’s. After that, we’ll live for years at peak physical performance because our cells don’t decay as fast.”

  “But doesn’t that seem like a lot of work for little payoff?” I ask. “They have to clothe, house and feed us while we mature.”

  “Children learn faster. The human brain—even the synthetic version—isn’t entirely understood, but everyone knows kids absorb information at a rate adults can’t achieve. That’s what I heard anyway. Besides, they don’t have to raise us as long as human children. I was eight years old when I came online. That’s as close to being born as we experience.”

  “I don’t remember my ‘birth’ at all.” I say. “Do you remember yours?”

  Quinn shudders. “Yes.”

  “What was it like?”

  “Maybe forgetting is a good thing, Lexa.”

  I’m sure it is, but now I have to
know. “Tell me anyway.”

  He goes to the window. His hands shake until he laces his fingers together behind his back. “We start out as blanks. I don’t remember being put together, but I’ve seen how it’s done.” Quinn gives me a dark look. “And I won’t explain how that works.”

  I nod. Yeah, I don’t think I want to know about body part assembly.

  “After we’re put together, the finished body goes into a kind of prep room for sentient downloading. That’s what I remember—that last bit of my time in prep. Becoming aware, terrified and totally alone.”

  “The white room,” I mumble, not sure why I’m thinking about it.

  “Yes,” Quinn says, coming back to kneel in front of me. “The white room. Tell me about it.”

  Startled, I blurt out, “A little girl with white hair, she’s trapped in a white room, there’s no sound at all and it’s not cold, but it’s not warm…I have nightmares about her, especially after I take Exeprin.”

  “She’s wearing white clothes and lives in a room with white walls and furniture, right?” he asks, his eyes gleaming with excitement. “What else?”

  “She’s scared, alone. She thinks maybe she’s being punished.”

  “How old is she?” Quinn asks. “Can you tell?”

  “About seven, maybe eight. Her skin is pale, too, and her eyes are this creepy, washed-out light blue. It’s like she’s a ghost or an echo or something.” I start to shake, finally understanding what the girl’s been trying to tell me all this time. “But she isn’t, is she? She’s me…in the prep room.”

  “Yes.” Quinn takes my hands in his. “It sounds like your memories are coming back.”

  I yank my hands out of Quinn’s. “But the little girl’s hair is white! And her skin…I don’t look anything like her!”

  “She was your blank.”

  Oh, Stars, I can’t even comprehend that. I rake my fingers through my hair, reassuring myself it hasn’t lost its color. “Shast…how is that even possible?”

  “Artificials start out colorless. As the engineers finish the download process, we’re injected with pigmentation stimulators, specific to each model, and that changes our skin, our eyes, and our hair.”