In My Skin (The Obsidian Files Book 3)

by Shannon McKenna

  “Shut the fuck up, Stu,” the other guy muttered. “You’re not supposed to—”

  “Just asking.” Stu waited for an answer, eyes hot with interest.

  Wow. There were so many ways she could answer his question, and now was not the time to indulge in any of them. No matter how desperately this dude needed a lesson.

  Dani gave Stu a secret smile. “Not exactly,” she said throatily. “We’re just programmed to kill, Stu. In fun, different, creative ways. The more blood, the better. The more pain, the better. And yes. We are programmed to like that. A lot.”

  “Ah.” Stu blinked rapidly. “Yeah. Right.”

  The elevator opened onto an active loading dock. People shouting orders, pushing stacks of crates and cases. Bailey shoved out his rolling cart and another guy made straight for the elevator with a loaded forklift.

  “Gotta get these down to the cave,” the guy said. “Hold the door.”

  “One second,” Stu said. “I’m taking her to the auditorium level. Be right back.”

  “Goddamn it, Stu! We don’t have time—”

  The elevator shut in his face. Just her and Stu, with the probing eyes and the dirty mind. Gross, but it hardly registered on the scale of her problems right now. The elevator labored downward.

  “Better make sure they issue you a key card for the elevators right away,” Stu advised her. “You’ll need it for the doors, too. And if they send you down to get something in the cave and you can’t use the elevator, it’s, like, eight flights down that spiral staircase, and it’s slippery down there in the cave. Floods all the time. Big pain in the ass.”

  “Got it,” she said. “Thank you.”

  The doors slid open, and she stepped out into an echoing hallway that seemed empty. But someone could turn a corner any second and start asking smarter questions than these bozos. She needed to move fast.

  She looked at Stu. “Which way to the auditorium?”

  “Don’t they download blueprints right into your head and shit like that?”

  “Not yet,” she said. “I’m a last minute reassignment.”

  Stu shrugged and pointed to the right. “All the way down and make a left. Then go through the double doors and you’re there. Follow the noise. Big crowd today.”

  The elevator closed on his puzzled face, and Dani took off running.

  Chapter 27

  Something loud was going on outside of the protected space in Luke’s mind where he was doing the analog build. Noise, agitation, movement. He needed to come to the surface and pay attention to it.

  But he wasn’t done. The analog had to be perfect. It was all he had.

  Five more minutes would do it. Rivers of lava. Trees burning like torches. Pits of fire. Volcanos exploding. Buildings ablaze.

  His body temperature was soaring. He wasn’t trying to spike a fever, just fire up the furnace to metabolize the cyber-blocker faster than Hale anticipated. To grasp connectivity again. No clue what he’d do with it once he got it, but one thing at a time.

  Hale’s floorshow was about to begin and Luke was the starring act. Sensory info was starting to filter in. Something had been fastened around his head. Voices, talking. He heard Hale bellowing from far away. Felt blows, faintly. His face was being smacked.

  One …more…goddamn…minute. Just one.

  He charged the images with all the emotional energy he could summon, old and new. Ivy. They were putting a helpless child up naked on the block. Dani, shackled to that asshole’s bed. Zade, who risked everything to come help him. Baby brother. Lightning bolts, jabbing deep, making the fire burn hotter.

  A sting in his throat burned, like a wasp had gotten him. A stimulant drug. Fuckheads. It didn’t seem to be affecting the accelerated metabolization of the cyber drug, but it was pulling him back up to the surface.

  He opened his eyes to Hale’s red face and screaming mouth and was weirdly happy to have pissed that prick off so much. Something was squeezing his head, heavier on one side than the other. Cool metal, sticky sensors. An elastic band around his scalp.

  “…son of a bitch!” A head-rocking slap. Hale panted, hairy nostrils flaring, eyes wild with angry excitement.

  “Calm down, Lewis,” said a soft, cooing female voice. “The committee members are out there taking their seats and they can hear you through the curtain.”

  Luke’s eyes finally focused enough to see the source of that voice. He was in a dim space behind a heavy curtain, but still strapped to the wall. Behind the curtain, he felt the energy and heard the low muttering and murmuring of a large crowd. A straining eye roll showed him that Zade was still next to him, in the same condition. Their eyes met.

  The emotion from the contact sent energy searing through his analog. Many memories funneled into one crushing, overwhelming moment, like when Dani used the probe. He saw it all; his brother’s eyes in the crib as he sucked on his bottle, his eyes from across the gym at basketball practice on the day their parents had been executed. His eyes at the Midlands lab when he was strapped down to the table.

  “Just look at that, Oscar.” The female voice again. “All that brain activity showing up on the monitor. You’d think he was playing a Bach fugue, solving calculus equations and engaging in pitched battle all at the same time.”

  “The stun code doesn’t appear to slow down his mental function.” A male voice.

  “It might enhance it,” the woman murmured. “And feel that, Oscar. He’s radiating heat, as if he were running a marathon. I wish I could run some tests right now.”

  The woman next to Hale was maybe in her late forties, but she had that tight, stretched facial perfection that suggested that she was older than she seemed and carefully kept up, bony and sharp. Blood red lipstick, slicked-back blond bun, glittering eyes. Diamonds glinted in her ears. She wore a tailored black dress. Cold, angular beauty.

  But the look in her eyes as she raked his body up and down was anything but cold.

  He’d been lustfully checked out by women and men ever since he was eleven years old, but it was mega-disgusting while stun coded. Her long silver fingernails raked over his throat and chest.

  “You’re the one experiencing the heat wave, Sondra,” the man chided. He was a guy in his fifties, with a narrow, fox-like face and rimless glasses. “Stop fondling him, please. It’s inappropriate.”

  “Don’t be a sanctimonious prig, Oscar. I was just assessing which of the subdermal implants he’d managed to remove himself. Quite a few. Impressive.”

  “We’ll figure that out during the autopsy.”

  “Where’s the fun in that? Don’t tell me you wouldn’t like to fondle him, too.” Her hungry eyes drifted over his chest and belly, and lingered at his crotch. “You know what they say about Braxton’s earliest batches. These two are the last of them.”

  “Yes, yes,” the man said impatiently. “We’ve all heard the legends.”

  “And we have two of them.” She shot her companion a teasing look and glanced in Zade’s direction. “One for each of us. And we don’t even have to share.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” Oscar muttered back. “They’re too dangerous to play with. Put it out of your head and be good.”

  She sniffed. “You think I’ve advanced Obsidian’s research and development by leaps and bound the past eight years by being good?”

  “Where is that murdering sonofabitch?” A new voice, from the side, male and furiously angry. The man shoved Hale out of the way and leaned into Luke, bristling. “Is this the worthless piece of shit that killed my son?”

  “This is the rogue operative D-14,” Hale said stiffly. “And yes, he was involved in that event. I’m very sorry about what happened, Mr. Metzer. Rob was an exceptional—”

  “Shut the fuck up. I am not in the mood for platitudes.”

  This guy was older, with heavy square features and curly gra
y hair. He looked ashy and unshaven and wild-eyed. He grabbed Luke’s chin, his fingers digging in with crushing force. Nails slicing into his skin. “I’m going to tear you apart,” he hissed.

  Take a number, asswipe. Luke wished so hard to say it but he could only stare.

  “Hush, Gerard,” Sondra said. “I’m sorry for your loss, but control yourself. Do not mark him.”

  “Why? Because you want to fuck him, Sondra? I won’t stand for it. No treats. This one is not going to become one of your kinky lab pets. This one dies screaming.”

  “He dies, certainly,” Oscar said sternly. “But no one here indulges their baser instincts today. Do not make me raise my voice.”

  Oscar must have clout, since both Gerard and Sondra subsided. Sondra looked miffed and sulky. Gerard Metzer released his pincer grip but his mouth shook with rage. His reddened eyes rolled in his head. He stank of old alcohol.

  Hale pushed his way back to the fore, rather clumsy in the narrow space. He appeared both nervous and self-important. “Mr. Mittwoch, Dr. Laera and Mr. Metzer,” he said. “I’m honored to have you all back here, but I would have preferred to meet after my presentation, in a private room where we can take our time and talk more freely. My idea was to present the captured operatives to the committee first.”

  “Yes, we noticed that,” Laera said. “I understand you wanting to make a fuss and show off, but we must assess them first. Do you have the control codes?”

  “Of course,” Hale said. “As requested.”

  “Very well,” Mittwoch said. “Go ahead and proceed with your dog and pony show. But we would have preferred to be contacted privately before you organized it.”

  “But I—but the rogues are—”

  “It’s too late now, of course,” Mittwoch said impatiently. “Go out, give them the sideshow they’re expecting. And we’ll take it from there afterward.”

  Hale blinked at him. “Take it from…you mean…you want to take—”

  “The rogues? Yes, of course we do.” Oscar Mittwoch gave Hale a thin, toothy smile. “From here on we’ll do the heavy lifting. We’ll eliminate one of them immediately. We’ll sever the spinal column of the other one, debrief him here and kill him, too.”

  “But…but that’s a waste! Mr. Mittwoch, please reconsider. I’ve initiated a plan to debrief them myself!” Hale’s gaze darted frantically from Laera to Mittwoch and back again. “I have the experience to do it. And the new Manticore operative—”

  “The little girl, yes. We’ll take her as well,” Mittwoch said. “I’ve already assembled a team for her. The labs at Urness Island are far better equipped to deal with her than you are here.”

  “In the meantime, for God’s sake get some clothes on the poor little thing,” Laera said. “She’s no use to us if she dies of shock and hypothermia. And Lewis. Be reasonable. Two Level Twenty-fives? Please. You were never equipped to contain them here.”

  Hale’s chest puffed up. “Our ranks got shredded from combat with the rogues!”

  “No one is blaming anyone,” Oscar Mittwoch said.

  “I am,” Metzer said harshly. “You got my son killed, you fucking moron.”

  “High-level agents tend to die quickly and often in your facility, Lewis,” Mittwoch lectured. “You simply go through them too fast. Don’t think we haven’t noticed.”

  “But that’s finished now! I just got two new squads of Level Fourteens today. They’re out there standing in formation in the auditorium, at the ready, so you damn well don’t need to question my ability to secure—”

  “Fourteens aren’t up to the task of securing those two rogues,” Mittwoch said. “We’ll have them reassigned. The operatives you’ve lost in just the past few days are worth hundreds of millions, Lewis. Do you expect a pat on the head?”

  “I bagged two Midland rebels and a Manticore!” Hale’s eyes bugged in outrage. “You got an excellent return on your investment!”

  Laera’s eyes rolled. “Yes, Oscar. He actually does expect a pat on the head.”

  Luke looked at Hale until the force of his gaze drew the man’s attention.

  Take that, you fuckstick loser. Right up the ass. Mods won’t help you if you’re a pea-brained asshole to start with. From Hale’s face, he could see that the guy received the silent message. His face was beet red.

  Luke channeled concentrated fury into the analog. It was starting to work. Burning away the fog that obscured his connectivity. He couldn’t quite dig in and connect yet—but at least he could feel the waves around him.

  Then he felt them stutter and cut out. The signal wasn’t steady.

  Luke exchanged glances with Zade. His brother’s eyes were shouting, too, but Luke could not decode the message. Only feel the desperate, mortal urgency of it.

  The signal stuttered again. And again. And again. In the same way. A rhythmic riff. He ran it through his ASP, analyzing the pattern.

  It was one of the Midlanders’ own codes. An upside down and inside out Morse code. The dot and dash sequences, but with a reordered alphabet.

  He decrypted the message swiftly. sw door…river canyon…230 feet down.

  The same message, repeated over and over. His people were outside, risking capture and death to help. Jesus. The stakes got higher every fucking second.

  He looked at Zade, and hazarded using his eyelids, since their captors were so self-absorbed. Braxton had left out eyelids from the paralyzed muscle groups for the stun code, being reluctant to let multi-million dollar eye enhancements dry out. Communicating with them was noticeable and obvious, but it was all he had.

  can u hear wifi

  yes, Zade blinked back. crazy freaks gtta luv em

  hang in there he blinked.

  The look Zade gave him blazed with irony. or what

  His baby brother. Smart-ass to the bitter end.

  “Oscar, it’s not strictly necessary to kill them now,” Laera wheedled.

  Mittwoch scowled. “Have you seen the videos? We’re not prepared to contain these two, Sondra. For God’s sake, am I the only fucking adult in this entire group?”

  “It’s not about that. It’s just a shocking waste. The range of his abilities is astonishing. If we could just study—”

  “We can’t,” Mittwoch said harshly. “Not safely. He’s uncontrollable, Sondra. Even with his spinal column severed, it will be a risk to interrogate him. And two of them can pool their abilities and multiply the risk. Under no circumstances will I authorize it.”

  An aggressive sigh from Sondra. A vicious finger snap of frustration. “I’m fucking sick of playing it safe!”

  “Remember what happened to Braxton,” Mittwoch said.

  “Braxton was a psychotic freak, Oscar. And this kind of passive, reactive thinking will drive Obsidian into the dirt!”

  “But not off a cliff,” Mittwoch said. “That’s my goal, Sondra. Avoiding cliffs.”

  She snorted. “We’ll debrief them, I hope? At least? We do want to locate all the other rebels, don’t we? Or are we too afraid of them?”

  “Watch yourself,” Mittwoch said coldly. “You may debrief one. As agreed.”

  “But they’re cyber-inhibited!” she protested. “We have their control codes! We can put them into pods for the debrief! We have the upper hand, Oscar, many times over!”

  “So did Phillip and Jordan Holt. Who are now both dead.”

  “They were idiots!” she hissed. “And this is a tragic waste of resources. These Midlanders actually have the gene mutation that makes Braxton’s extreme gene cocktail potentially viable again. They’re worth whatever research and development will cost. They need to be thoroughly studied.”

  “We can study their corpses.” Mittwoch turned to Hale. “Get on with it. The committee wants a show, and the slave soldiers can always use a reminder about what happens to rebels. Kill-code one of them during y
our presentation and we’ll dissolve the other one’s spinal column and debrief him immediately afterward. Are the meds ready, Sondra?”

  “Yes.” She was still sulking. “Which one do you want to kill first?”

  Mittwoch shrugged. “It’s all the same to me.”

  Metzer came closer, staring up into Luke’s face. “Leave this one alive,” he said. “I want quality time with him before you shred all his nerve endings.” He leaned closer to Luke. “My son had a closed casket funeral because of you,” he growled. “You’re going to learn all about pain before we sever your spine.”

  “Stop it, Gerard,” Mittwoch scolded. “We need his mind clear for the debrief, and his body intact for study. Watching his brother die and having the nerve toxin dissolve his spine will have to be enough punishment for you. Content yourself with that.”

  Metzer shook his head, muttering under his breath.

  Mittwoch looked expectantly at Hale. “Well? Go on. Proceed.”

  Laera let out a petulant sigh and came up in front of Luke, loosening the band that held the monitor and sensors on his head. Her hands lingered on his face as she did so.

  “Such a goddamn waste,” she murmured, running her hand down his cheek, then petting his chest.

  Then Metzer, Mittwoch and Laera sidled away behind the curtain to the wings, where they watched as Hale leaned close.

  “This is for fucking with me and my operatives,” he whispered to Luke. “You get to watch me kill code your brother and sever your spine. Consider yourself spanked, dickwad.”

  No no no no no. Not Zade. Fuck.

  His brain flailed at its bonds. The fire inside him burned hotter and hotter. Lights blazed in his face as the curtain was pulled away to the swelling murmur of the crowd.

  Chapter 28

  Dani skidded to a halt when she reached the lobby outside the closed doors of the auditorium. She tried to walk normally through the double doors, struggling to catch her breath. This place would be full of people capable of hearing her heartbeat and measuring her blood pressure at a glance, for fuck’s sake. All she could do was hope like hell they’d all be concentrating real hard on something else.