Skin Hunter

by Tania Hutley

  “Cale, tell me the truth. Why’d you bring me here?”

  He lifts his head for a moment to look at me, then drops it back onto his paws. Our bodies are close enough to be almost touching. If we were lying with our human bodies this close, I’d be nervous as hell. But when I’m the leopard, I’m too powerful for anyone to hurt me, and I like feeling his warmth. I like inhaling his scent.

  The smell of feline stirs something deep inside me, but I’m not afraid of it anymore. I’m not afraid of anything.

  “The truth.” He considers for a moment, then lets out a long breath that’s almost a sigh. “The truth is that I think you should win the contest.”

  “What?” I blink, my ears flattening with surprise. “Why?”

  “Because I came here on false pretenses. When I entered my name in the contest, I never thought I’d get in. And when I did, I swore I’d derail the whole thing.” His tail gives an embarrassed twitch and he stretches his head forward to rub his whiskered snout against one paw. “I only came here because I thought I could be a saboteur. I was going to do everything I could to stop the contest.”

  “You don’t want to win?”

  “I’m against everything the Morelle Corporation stands for. And after Welcon, there’s no way they should be allowed to release anything that hasn’t been fully tested.” His snout wrinkles. “But all my crazy ideas about sabotaging the contest changed when I transferred into my Skin.”

  “How?”

  “You felt it, didn’t you? The way everything was suddenly so much better, like you’d been half asleep and someone jerked you awake. I’ve played vReal games for as long as I can remember, but I’d never imagined anything like it. And I stopped thinking about ways to derail the contest. I can’t bear to...” His tail rises, then thumps back to the floor. “I don’t know, Rayne. I want to keep being able to wear my Skin, but winning would be like supporting them. It would go against everything I believe.” He lowers his gaze, his eyes troubled. They’re a warm gold, ringed with black. They’re mesmerizing. Cale’s tiger form is even better looking than his human body.

  “I want to win,” he says finally. “But I can’t, not when I’m conflicted. You should win instead.”

  “Why me?”

  “You’ve lived in Old Triton.” He says it in an ‘of course’ tone, like it’s a silly question.

  “So?”

  “Do you agree it’s not fair how the city is divided? Grunts are too busy scratching out a living to ever see the sun. Above them are the consumers who demand more and more products they don’t need. Skins are the perfect example. Where will the factories be? In Old Triton. And the stores will be in New Triton. Will any sinker ever be able to afford one? Of course not.”

  The passion in his voice takes me by surprise. So does the way he said grunts instead of factory workers, and sinker instead of Old Tritoner. Hearing Old Triton slang from him is the last thing I expected.

  “Deiterra has the right idea,” he says. “Over there, I’ve heard everyone’s the same. There are no giant cities, and nobody lives over the top of anyone else.”

  “Maybe,” I say. “For all we know, it could be more crowded than Triton by now.” Still, the idea makes my heart ache. If Triton was like that, my family might still be together. Do they have second child taxes in Deiterra?

  But wishing things were different won’t make them that way.

  “Why do you care so much about Old Triton?” I ask. “You’re a floater. You live in the sun.”

  His beautiful golden eyes look so hurt that I have to turn my face away.

  “We’ve talked enough about me.” His voice is surprisingly gentle. “What about you? Tell me your story.”

  “I want to know if you’re serious about wanting me to win.” I can’t understand how he could bear to lose. To deliberately throw away his chance to be the tiger.

  He cocks his big tiger head and blinks so slowly that I find myself blinking with him, as though his movements are controlling mine.

  “Can you tell what I’m thinking, Rayne?”

  My nostrils flare. His scent’s pure. There’s no hint of anything hidden, nothing but a musky, intoxicating smell of feline, and beneath it, what I’m coming to think of as Cale’s smell. It’s a deep calming scent, so fresh I want to bathe in it.

  It reminds me of when I was a kid, before the factory and the shelter, when Papa was still alive and New Triton was still being built. We lived in a tiny apartment on the eighteenth floor, and the roadway above us hadn’t yet been finished. I’d stick my head out of the window after a rainstorm and I couldn’t smell the homeless people in the streets below. I couldn’t smell Old Triton at all. The air was so crisp I’d look up and imagine it was flowing down from our brand new city.

  But even if I couldn’t catch Cale’s scent, I’m sure I’d be able to tell if he was lying or hiding something by reading the tiny movements of his ears and the flick of his tail. There’s nothing secretive about him.

  And when I look in his eyes, I know what he’s thinking. He’s admiring my leopard. Although my close-up vision isn’t as sharp as my far-away vision, somehow I can see my own black pupils reflected back in his.

  His whiskers twitch. He’s waiting for me to answer.

  “I can’t read minds,” I say, glancing away.

  He stretches his nose toward me. His warm breath ruffles my fur. “We can be allies, Rayne. Will you let me help you?”

  It’s tempting to trust him, but not being wary can get you hurt. I’ve had that lesson beaten into me so hard, I’m never likely to forget it.

  Instead of answering, I shift so his breath doesn’t reach me. “What makes you think I won’t report you and get you kicked out of the competition? One less competitor to worry about.”

  “You won’t.”

  “So confident?”

  His tiger’s lips twitch in a feline smile, and his scent changes a little, becoming so warm I can’t help but move my face closer to inhale it.

  “You’re a good person, Rayne. I trust you.”

  The simple words take my breath away. Where I come from, nothing is that easy. But the way he says it somehow makes it seem possible for two strangers to trust each other. And sitting next to him makes me ache for what he’s offering. Trust. Friendship. An alliance. What if it were possible for me to believe him?

  “Will you tell me about the vReal game, Cale?” I ask.

  “What do you want to know?”

  “Let’s start with everything and go from there.”

  “The best way to get better is to play a lot. Playing’s fun anyway, isn’t it? It’s not exactly a chore.”

  Yeah, it’s easy for him. He earned thousands playing vReal games while I was busy burning half my face off and losing an eye.

  I turn away, and notice moonlight isn’t streaming in any more. In fact, the moon’s disappeared and a golden light is filtering in. “We should go,” I say. “It’s dawn.”

  “I can give you some tips—“

  There’s a noise from outside the training room door. Cale and I scramble to our feet. The door opens. I freeze. It’s Aza. Shit, she’s seen us! No, it’s too dark for human eyes. She’s peering at her band. She makes an irritated sound and turns to the wall, her hand fumbling over the surface, searching for the light switch. That’s right, her band won’t work in here. Looking for the switch to turn the light on manually gives us a few precious seconds.

  Cale and I race for our lab rooms, our paws powering us silently across the floor. I reach my metal pad and skid onto it as the lights flicker on.

  Transfer.

  A second later, I’m back in my human body, in the dark hallway on the other side of the training room, slumped against the wall. Cale comes to life as I sit up.

  “She didn’t see you?” he asks.

  “Don’t think so.” I scramble to my feet, my body stiff. “What’s she doing there so early anyway?”

  He checks his band. “It’s six o’clock. She’s right
on time.”

  “We’ve got to get out of here.”

  We’re both already heading for the door. Cale cracks it open and peers down the hall. “I think it’s safe,” he whispers. “Come on.”

  We slip out. My heart’s thumping as I scuttle toward my room. Even when I get there safely, I’m so jittery it seems to take forever for my door to recognize my band and open.

  “Rayne,” calls Cale.

  I turn, holding my door ajar.

  “That was worth it, wasn’t it?” he asks.

  “I think so.” But I’ve got a sick feeling in my stomach. A place like this has to be filled with sensors and cameras and hidden alarms. How could we not get caught? It won’t have been worth it if I get kicked out.

  “See you at training,” he says.

  I can’t turn back time, so there’s no point telling myself I shouldn’t have gone. Trying not to think about it, I put my blade back in its hiding place, shower and change. I stop for a quick breakfast, then head to the training room.

  When I get on the treadmill, my leopard’s limbs still have as much strength and energy as ever, but my brain is so fuzzy with exhaustion, I can only move at half speed. It’s not so much fun with everyone else there, anyway. Keeping tabs on where they are and what they’re doing is tiring, especially when I see how good they are and all my hope from last night drains out like somebody pulled the plug.

  Aza’s wasp wings propel her up the never-wall faster than I can believe, Sentin close behind her. Brugan tears into the battle-bot, scoring point after point. Cale and I are sluggish and weak in comparison. Doctor Gregory frowns at both of us more than once, but I can’t pick my speed up.

  The whole time we’re training, I keep expecting Director Morelle to come storming in and demand to know what the hell Cale and I were doing last night. But we don’t see her, and nobody says anything.

  When the day finally ends, I barely have the energy to eat before collapsing into bed. My head’s aching, pain shooting into my eye. I’m so tired my body is weak with it. My veins are filled with sand.

  Sleep. Awesome sleep. Beautiful, wonderful sleep.

  Then I’m awake again. Confused. What was that? A knock from the door. That must have been what woke me. Another knock. The room’s dark, the moon high in the sky. What time is it? Not morning. Not time to get up.

  “Who’s there?” My voice is croaky.

  “Rayne?” It’s Cale’s voice. “You want to train again?”

  I groan. But I drag myself up. “Give me a minute.”

  Into the bathroom to splash water on my face. Cold water. I gasp with the shock of it. Yeah, I’m awake now. But I keep looking at my soft, warm bed and thinking how great it would feel to lie back down, how easy to drift back to sleep. Instead I open the door.

  Cale’s got dark circles under his eyes, but he’s grinning. “Want to be the leopard now?”

  I shouldn’t. Dammit, what am I thinking? But nobody said anything about last night, did they? And at the thought of getting back into my Skin, my bed doesn’t look inviting anymore.

  “I’m coming.” I shut the door and leave sleep behind.

  19

  I spend the next three days fighting the battle-bot and running on the treadmill. I spend my nights racing Cale up and down the never-wall.

  It’s too dangerous to break the rules like this, but I can’t bring myself to stay away. Each time Cale comes to my door, I convince myself we’ll get away with it one more night. Exhaustion doesn’t matter. Training is all I think about, all I want to do. At night, when it’s just Cale and me, it’s even better than during the day.

  My beautiful leopard is all I ever want to be. Four paws are natural. Two feet are clumsy and slow.

  I get into the habit of being first in the rec room after the day’s training so I can bolt down my dinner while the rest are still getting organized. Then I head straight to bed to snatch a few hours sleep before night training starts.

  Cale handles the long hours by taking a nap in the morning after stumbling back to his room. He turns up to training later and later each day.

  On the third day he doesn’t show up at all.

  I watch the door for him, and by late afternoon, I’m frantic with worry, convinced that something terrible must have happened. Did he get caught? Has he been kicked out? If so, why hasn’t anyone come for me yet?

  I’m so distracted, my performance suffers. I miss my step near the top of the never-wall, tumbling all the way down and hitting the ground so hard I see stars.

  The hours I spend in the training room usually fly by, but now I’m all too conscious that every hour could be my last.

  Will the director come for me? Will Max? What will I do if they throw me out?

  When training finally ends for the day, everyone else transfers back into their human form. But I can’t do it. I can’t make myself become Rayne, I can’t stand to go back to my hated human form.

  What if I never get to be the leopard again?

  Staring at the training room window, I imagine crashing through it, leaping head-first for freedom and landing four stories down on the ground far below. I could do it. I could steal my leopard. But then what?

  My human body would be left behind. There’s probably a way they could force my mind back into it. They could do whatever they wanted with my body while they hunted down my Skin. If my human body died, would my consciousness live on inside my leopard? Or would it die too?

  “Rayne.” Doctor Gregory interrupts my thoughts. “May I speak with you once you’ve transferred?”

  My body stiffens, my tail dropping and my hair rising along my spine. Is this it? She’s going to order me to leave? But there’s no trace of anger or disapproval in her scent. She heads to one of the labs and starts punching numbers into a machine.

  I have no choice. I can’t be the leopard for good. Not yet.

  With a huge, gut-wrenching effort, I force myself to transfer back into my body. Then I make my slow human legs walk over to her. My dull human nose has no chance of detecting how she feels. Although, now I’m thinking about it, I notice the flowery scent of her perfume long before I reach her. Is it stronger than usual?

  “You wanted to talk to me, Doctor Gregory?”

  She turns from the machine, smiling. “You’re scheduled to get your new eye tomorrow, Rayne. You’ll miss one day of training, that’s all. And you’ll have two real eyes again.”

  My heart lifts and I smile back, hardly able to believe it. No more black, dead cybernetics staring out from one side of my face. No more pain and glitching.

  “Thank you, Doctor. I mean, that’s amazing. Thank you so much.”

  Thanking her isn’t nearly enough. I want to hug her, to swing her around. If only I could tell her how much this means, but I can’t find the words.

  “It’s a shame they won’t have time to do anything about your scarring. I wish we could have—”

  “I don’t care about my scars. I can’t wait to have two good eyes.”

  I float down the hallway, heading for Cale’s room. I need to make sure nothing bad has happened to him. If somebody discovered our night-time training sessions now, before my operation, I’d lose everything. I’ve been foolish to risk so much.

  For the first time, it’s me who knocks on Cale’s door. And typical Cale, he opens his door without even asking who’s there. He wouldn’t last a day in Old Triton.

  “Hey, Rayne.”

  “You’re okay?”

  He instantly knows what I mean. “I was exhausted, that’s all.” He steps aside and motions me in. “I don’t know how you do it, staying awake all day and most of the night.”

  “They’re going to give me an eye tomorrow,” I blurt.

  “Really? That’s great.”

  It’s lucky I’m too excited to sit because his bed’s a mess with the sheets twisted and half on the floor. Clothes are scattered everywhere, giving off his distinctive Cale scent.

  “Hey,” he says. “You�
�ll be able to use the vReal properly now.”

  “Oh. Yeah.” I should be glad, but every minute spent in the vReal is one I don’t get to spend in my Skin.

  “Did I say the wrong thing?” He drags his hand through his already-messy hair.

  “No. You’re right, and it’s a good thing. I have a lot of work to do in the vReal.”

  He hesitates, and when I see him looking at the bad side of my face, I turn away.

  “They’re not going to do your scars, are they?” he asks.

  “Doctor Gregory said they weren’t.”

  He moves toward me, his hand lifted, reaching for my face. I flinch away and his hand pauses. When he reaches out again, I keep still and let his gentle touch brush my scarred cheek. He traces his fingers ever so lightly over the ridges of my ruined skin.

  My breath freezes in my lungs.

  “Tell me how you got your scars?” His voice is as soft as his fingers on my skin.

  I shake my head, the tiniest movement. I can’t breathe, let alone talk. My stomach’s getting jittery. He’s too close. Part of me wants to take off, run away. The other part... I don’t know.

  He frowns as though he can hear the clamor in my head. His eyes are a deep soft brown but I’m sure I can see a glint of gold in them, a hint of tiger. He must see how confused I am, because after a moment he sighs and drops his hand away.

  “I know you don’t trust me yet, Rayne. And that’s okay.” He smiles, but his eyes look sad. “I hate whatever it is that hurt you. I wish our world were different.”

  Without his touch, my lungs unfreeze and I can draw a shuddering breath. “Your world is different.”

  “You’re right.” He sighs and sits down on the edge of his bed. “Did I tell you about the night I spent in an Old Triton jail?”

  “What?” I should probably sit next to him, but instead I lean my shoulder against the wall and link my fingers in front of me.

  He puts his hands behind him and leans back, angling his head up at me. “At a big gamer’s tournament, I started hanging out with a couple of floaters who’d done some work for the Fist. They did small stuff, like digi-bombing on b-Net and virtual tagging, but they knew some sinkers who were real Fist members. They introduced me, and long story short, I went out with them one night to paint Fist slogans on the sides of buildings.” He gives a tight, lopsided smile. “I thought it’d be fun.”