Gridlock: A Cybershock Story

by Nathalie Gray

  Don’t talk. Don’t ask. She didn’t want to know herself.

  He tensed. He pulled his face away from the top of her head and looked at her. “This is not safe. I cannot lose control of my emotions, Steel. Ever.”

  She’d never heard someone say her name that way. He made it sound good, like a classy lady’s name when she was anything but. He made her feel like a real woman and not some street girl with little schooling and even less class. Even if she wanted to hear his voice again, that gentle caress, she placed her hand against his mouth and rested her forehead against her knuckles. He couldn’t talk. It’d mess everything up. Maybe if she doubly silenced him, he wouldn’t state the obvious and wonder what the hell she was doing.

  “Don’t.”

  Before she changed her mind or psyched herself out of it, she pulled her worn T-shirt over her head, letting it fall where it may, then yanked her pants down to her ankles and kicked out of them. Dante stood silently, hands at his side and eyes averted. She framed his face, kissed him on the mouth. With tentative fingers, he traced her shoulder, her arm and wrist, followed the contour of the large dragonfly tattooed on the inside of her arm and came back up to gently run his fingertips along her neck. A pleasant shiver hardened her nipples.

  “I did not mean—”

  Steel interrupted him with another kiss. This time, he returned it. Long hands cupped her head and nape and held her in place as Dante deepened the kiss. She didn’t care that her bottom lip or swollen eye throbbed. She didn’t care about anything. Just human contact. Just sharing something with a man and being held by him. He made his lips snowflake-light. She barely felt the touch, even as his heat seeped into her skin. He was so hot. Incredibly hot. His erection pressed between them. By widening her stance a little bit, Steel cradled his penis between her legs. It rubbed against her sex, burning hot.

  Steel pushed down on his shoulders. They had so little time. Anything could happen to steal this moment. Her life was a garden of broken little moments. Although never one as beautiful as this. He got the hint and knelt. She followed him, kissing him all over his chiseled face, his neck, licking and mock-biting. She couldn’t control it, couldn’t stop it. They ended up on the lavatory floor, with water falling around them like hot rain. They rolled around, hands on each other, legs intertwined. She braced her arm so she’d land on top, straddling his waist to rub herself against his penis, twisting her hips increasingly harder. His flesh against hers. So hard, so hot.

  Steel raised herself, guiding him inside. As she sank on him, she exhaled a long breath that seemed to go on forever. He likewise breathed out, eyes closed, hands on her hips. Slowly at first, then with more vigor, she ground herself against him. Their lovemaking was strangely silent. Water landed on his sinewy chest and flowed in rivulets along his perfectly shaped arms. He was perfect everywhere. Perfect and hard and hot and didn’t make demands or try to keep her underneath as some of her former flames had done. He just let her be.

  Heat gathered in her sex. Close now. His grip on her hips turned demanding, fingers digging in. A buck almost unseated her. Steel squeezed her knees harder. Together they rocked and writhed, thrust and twisted. She froze for a second, her eyes shut. Beneath her, Dante wrapped his arms around her, brought her against his chest then bucked his hips in powerful, quick drives. She came on a snarl, which he took with a deep kiss. A short moment later, she felt the telltale hardening of his embrace. Then he, too, came.

  Steel couldn’t—didn’t want to—look him in the eyes, so she rested her forehead in the crook of his shoulder and stayed there until their breathing returned to normal. Her kneecaps ached from rubbing against the tiles.

  “I have never been intimate with a woman.”

  His whispered admission made her want to smile and cringe at the same time. Why was he sharing this? She wasn’t his girlfriend or something. But she appreciated that he did tell her, if only to not make her feel dumb for starting it all in the first place.

  Bright blue eyes stared at her steadily when she sat upright. His scarred chest called to her, so she caressed him there, made her hands gentler than she’d ever done, as though the man were fragile. Ha. He’d taken a shot in the chest at close range and barely had a bruise to show for it.

  She pulled from him and rolled onto her side facing away. He followed her. She felt him kneel behind her. His hand was comfortably hot when he rested it on her hip. “Did I hurt you?”

  Steel smiled in spite of herself. “You weren’t my first.” Man, she wanted a cigarette bad enough to go out and steal some. His heat left her. He’d moved away. Why did that make her feel more alone than she was already?

  Climbing to her knees, she found him sitting on the floor with his back against the wall. Muscles twitched on his chest as he rested his head on his joined hands. Dejection, confusion, pain. She saw it all on his face.

  Steel joined him. Leaning in, she whispered, “Let me go,” against his ear. Her tears tasted salty. She hadn’t let tears come in years. “Please.”

  He took her wrist, kissing the dragonfly tattooed on the inside of her forearm. He released her. Didn’t say a word.

  Tentatively, Steel stood, picked her things off the floor and didn’t turn until she’d reached the doorway, where she retrieved her pack. Still he sat with his back against the wall, head cocked to the side, looking at her. His eyes had welled. Because of the shower or something else? He closed them, pinched the bridge of his nose and waved.

  “About the monorail,” she ventured, barely above a whisper. “Don’t be on that train, okay? There has to be another way.”

  Silence answered her. Steel backed out of the room. Surely he’d come after her. He was just testing her, to see if she’d take the bait. No way, no fucking way, he was going to take a chance on her keeping her mouth shut. She would, but he didn’t know that. How could he trust her? She knew his plan. He’d told her too much. He knew that, right? He’d change his mind as soon as she was out of sight. Yet he could have killed her any time he pleased and hadn’t. As if he wanted someone to know what had been done to him and what he was going to do to them in return. As if he’d needed to share that. Had it been his plan all along? What had changed his mind? Steel wasn’t the most trustworthy-looking person around.

  What a mind screw.

  She reached the bedroom, frantically grabbed the rest of her meager possessions and slipped her boots on. Out in the corridor again, she tried every door until she found one that led to an airy hall of dusty woodworks and cracked marble. Whatever the building had been, it looked like a main entrance to her. Double doors with bronze handles beckoned her. Steel took a deep breath and pushed against one. It clicked open. Nothing happened. No security alarm wailed, no gas shot at her from unseen jets, no poisoned darts or pressure plates. Just night air and the smell of rain.

  A shuttle flew overhead and left heat vortices in its wake. She closed the door, ensured it was locked. A faint hiss and a click made her start. She’d thought no security system guarded that door. She’d been wrong. Steel backed off the stone steps to look up over the porch. A blue glow passed over the large building’s façade. He had let her leave. Not just physically, but by deactivating whatever system he had protecting his home. It was on once again, she could tell by the tiny vibrations that hummed off the stone and metal parts. No going back in.

  She turned her back to it all, shouldered her backpack and walked across the deserted street toward the south, toward the bridge and her future. She didn’t look back to see if he watched her through a window. In case he was. In case he wasn’t.

  Maybe after she made her drop and got her credits, she could come back. Steel smiled. For the first time in her life, she looked forward to seeing someone again. Feeling this way was stupid and juvenile, for sure. Dangerous at best. So what? She kind of, sort of, liked the crazy hermit.

  Unless he chose to implement his plan before she had time to see him again. Why did the only man she’d ever kind of, sort of, liked have to
be a killer nicknamed the Cardinal who was planning to blow himself up in a thousand pieces?

  Hands in the pockets of her bomber jacket, she quickened her pace. Not much time left. Her future waited.

  Chapter Four

  The plastic stool dug into her butt. She’d been waiting for hours and had had to buy three refills of tea that tasted like dishwater. When was Leech’s man going to show up?

  Steel angled one hip up the stool to allow circulation to tingle back in her cheek, then rolled to the other hip. Along the outdoor cookshop counter, more people like her huddled around their plastic bowls and plastic utensils. Metals were becoming a rarity. No people in the mines. Plastic was easier to make for the machines that had replaced workers. Everything was disposable now, humans most of all.

  On a dirty screen protected by a metal grille, she idly watched whatever was on the air. One channel, one news source, one version. She’d stopped long ago following the news. It was never good. And that night’s forecast wasn’t any better. Another couple of deaths related to the sky metro—if the Grid would let workers repair the damn thing, there wouldn’t be so many deaths—and more rain.

  Just as she was bringing her bowl of stale tea to her lips, a human news anchorman, or a damn good replica, interrupted the weather to announce a shocking development about the string of murders afflicting a couple of the biggest corporations up top. As though she cared what happened to the super rich and enhanced? She snorted as the channel showed footage of demolished buildings and destroyed shuttles with charred remains sticking out. No one reported anything from down below, why should she care what happened up top? By her side, a man slurping his noodles voiced a matching opinion to his neighbor, who nodded sullenly. Same old, same old.

  Steel was about to head back to the disgusting toilets for one more trip when the news showed brand-new footage taken, according to the time stamp, two hours prior. It showed someone wearing a flowing red garment running out of a building seconds before the thing blew up. Bricks showered the street and pelted the aerial camera. Steel froze in her seat. The camera zoomed down to follow the figure but lost it in the chaos. Nausea gripped her when the camera spun around, flew over the wreckage and above the head of a few survivors who stumbled out, bleeding and confused.

  “I was down with him until he did that,” her neighbor muttered. “That’s just screwed up, that, going after a shelter.”

  She’d never been good at speed reading, but even she could read the headline in big bold letters the color of blood as it blazed across the screen from one end to the other. The Cardinal Targets the Poor.

  Steel clenched her teeth against the nausea tightening her throat. Sour-tasting saliva forced her to swallow repeatedly. She couldn’t stop watching the footage as it ran in a continuous loop, couldn’t stop watching Dante rush out of the building moments before it blew up. He even waved at the aerial camera! The quality was bad because of the movement. She couldn’t see his face or what he held in his hand. An old-fashioned gun? Maybe the detonator. Could be anything.

  The man by her side leaned closer to her. He smelled worse than the bathroom she’d been forced to use. “They’ll want his skin now, eh.”

  She roughly elbowed him away from her. “Piss off.”

  “And here I thought I could offer you a drink.” He threw her a slanted gaze.

  Steel froze. The backpack felt suddenly heavy and awkward, balanced on her lap under the counter. “What did you say?”

  “I said I’d like to offer you a drink, bitch.”

  She let it slide as she took a good, long look at the man who’d just spent the better part of an hour sitting by her side yet not talking to her or indicating in any way he was Leech’s contact.

  “I used to have a bag like that.” He rested a hand on her thigh. She fought the urge to kick him in the ankle and run off.

  “Yeah, it’s a nice bag. Just big enough.”

  “You mind I take a look at it?”

  Steel tightly held on to one strap of her backpack as she pulled out the smaller bag inside to show the man. As if anyone around cared what went on. He nodded and fished inside his felt jacket. Steel tensed, ready to yank her bag out of his hand.

  “Would you mind selling it?”

  “How much you willing to pay for it?”

  He grinned. Grayish teeth like a broken fence. “Three thousand.”

  She bristled. “That’s two thirds what Leech said.”

  Her contact shrugged. “Either you sell the bag here or you go back home with it. I’ve always wanted to live on a street corner. Lets you see bad stuff come in from two sides.” He grinned again.

  Rage warmed her cold hands and numb arms. Leech was going to get an earful when she got back. “Fine. Three thousand. He’s gonna hear about it.”

  The man laughed. “I’m sure he will.” He turned back to watching the screen and shook his head. “Someone, somewhere, will fuck with that man real good. I wouldn’t want to be him.”

  “My boss?”

  “No, him.” He raised his chin toward the screen, which was still showing the carnage in high-contrast with “The Cardinal” splashed in red letters. A contact number blinked below the name. It’d be easy to walk across the street, punch the numbers in the relay and wait for security to show up. But she wouldn’t be like Dante. She wouldn’t say one thing and do the other. She couldn’t believe she’d fallen for his audacious plan for revenge, that he didn’t have anything against regular folks, only the Grid. Screw that. He was just like every other thug out there who wanted to hurt people, period. No big lofty ideal behind Dante’s actions. Petty malice like the worst of them.

  Steel averted her gaze from the screen. She couldn’t watch the man with whom she’d shared something so special as he killed a bunch of innocents. He deserved to have someone punch that number and rat him out. It wouldn’t be her, but someone out there would do it.

  “I hope he rots in jail,” she snarled, shocked at the venom in her tone. He hadn’t done anything to her. Except betray her trust. Ha. The one time she actually believed in someone. That’d teach her.

  “Here, for that nice bag.”

  She quickly counted the strips of plastic the man proffered under the table, even paid for her tea using one of them to see if they worked. They did. The man smiled, grabbed the bag from the gaping opening in the backpack and left without another word.

  Feeling sullied and angry—mostly at herself for falling for such a bald-faced lie—Steel made her way back home. This time, she took the sky metro since she wasn’t worried her backpack would draw attention. She wasn’t dressed like someone who had three thousand credits in her pockets.

  As she waited for the lift to take her down to the ground level, Steel spotted a comms relay, brand new, glistening out of the grungy wall. She approached the relay, looked at the keypad and its glowing number. Just five digits, a number easy to remember. Her fingers tingled.

  The five digits flashed in her mind. If he didn’t follow his principles and lied through his teeth, why couldn’t she?

  Dante placed the cup of tea on the counter. The red of his garment clashed against his pallor. Veins showed through the skin. He checked his guns again, the pair clasped to a harness around his torso and the smaller gun in the holster strapped to his forearm. Another sortie was due, one near the good side of town. A brand-new implanting clinic had opened its doors, and Dante intended to shut them permanently. The bag at his feet would make sure of this. Enough explosive to level the building.

  Across from him in the kitchen, an empty stool marked the place where Steel had sat only hours before. He had never felt solitude as acutely as he did now. No smell of vinyl stirred the air, no sound of boot heels dragging on the terrazzo. No bleached-blonde head bobbed into view, scowl firmly in place on the pointed face and slender arms crossed defensively. She had occupied his home and his life for barely a day yet he felt her still, like a ghost. A surly one.

  He wondered if…

  N
o, he would not follow that chain of thought.

  Steel would not come back. It was not her style. No more than looking back over her shoulder. He had hated himself for it but had nonetheless waited to see if she would turn and look up. She had not. Dante smiled. She was stronger than he was. By a long measure.

  A hiss pulled him out of his musings. Then a metallic clang. Pulse rockets.

  Dante only had time to dive below counter level before an explosion tore through the kitchen. Broken plaster and bricks went flying. Something burning hot landed on his leg. He pulled off the bit of molten metal, cutting his fingers in the process. He crawled to his bag and pulled it to him. Voices from outside the walls called commands and orders while the wail of hovercraft grew in intensity. Another explosion rocked the very foundation of his home. Loud, grinding noises heralded a mechanical saw the size of a shuttle cutting into the steel structure. Dante did not wait to see if it could slice through the I-beams. He floundered to his feet, bag in one hand, and rushed into the partly demolished corridor leading to the observatory. Jumping off the roof would prove dangerous, but better than becoming trapped like a rat in his own home.

  Devastation followed him. Metal claws dug into the ceiling and ripped it off its support structure. Large chunks of concrete fell into the void the machine had just created. Footsteps resounded from ahead. Tiny red lights zigzagged against the wall. Dante sent his mind outward like a bullet. Wails of pain erupted amidst the machine noise. He did not relent. Like a dorsal fin cutting the water, he rushed forward among the security responders, running almost too fast for them to see. His muscles burned with the effort. Something gave in his ankle, but for the adrenaline, Dante only faintly felt the pull. Some parts of his body had suffered worse alterations than others, his joints being his weakest points.