Wanted and Wired

by Vivien Jackson

  Get your fucking hands off him, she screamed silently, but she kept her body still. When Bigbelly shifted, presumably to retrieve whatever he was planning to use to incapacitate or bind her, she tightened her core, pressed hard with her right thigh, and threw her weight sideways.

  The thug fell against her, shoving her to the floor with his gigantic bulk. Her breath huffed out, and she couldn’t suck it back in right away, but she didn’t let herself panic over that. Instead, she yanked, and her left arm came free. Blocking the pain, she shoved her fist beneath the bed and grabbed the snubby.

  Her first shot took Heron’s assailant above the left eye.

  “What th—bitch!” Bigbelly reached for Mari’s hand and the gun, but he was still holding her right arm, trapped between their bodies. His leather vest had ridden up, and her knuckles were jammed against the flaccid warmth of bare skin. She felt for the fleshiest part—and there was plenty to choose from—and sank her ragged fingernails deep, twisting at the wrist.

  Her captor howled and reared reflexively away from her grasp. Mari rolled, coming to her back halfway beneath the bed. She fired twice without a clear view and the third time steady. Was the third shot took him down.

  In the quiet that followed, white feathers fluffed into the air all around her. Those bullets had torn Heron’s duvet apart, but Mari didn’t even wipe the feathers from her face. She scrambled to her feet, confirmed that both the mercs were dead, and popped the cylinder on her gun. One bullet left. Mari just hoped that would be enough to get them out of there.

  “Hold on, Heron. I’m coming for you.”

  Mari’s heel slipped in blood as she hauled one of the attackers aside, and when she got behind Heron’s chair, the gore got only uglier. That wobbly-eyed asshole had made two trenches on either side of the port in his head, finding wires and splicing them with whatever com they’d jury-rigged. Mari used gentle fingers to unlace the wires. She cleaned up the blood with her robe and sash, dabbing away already stickifying bits and muttering all sorts of nonsense to him under her breath. God, she wished she knew more about biomachines. Please, please, please.

  Finally, when she couldn’t stand it anymore, she reached down, below his jaw, and pressed her fingers to his throat.

  A pulse pushed back against her finger pads.

  “I’m still here,” he said, looking down as if he were getting his bearings. “How are you holding up?”

  Mari laughed, but it cracked on the way out. Kind of like a sob, if she were a sobbin’ kind of girl. “Nice of you to check in, partner. Yeah, I’m good. Can you move? I just made a lot of noise, and even shitholes like the Pentarc gotta have security. I need to get you out of here before they come lookin’ for us.”

  “I can move.” Heron tilted his head slightly from side to side, as if he were sighting in his eyes, even though he didn’t have discernible cyber augments there. He palmed the chair arms and leaned forward, and Mari rushed around to his side, just in case he lost his balance. He looked up at her and grinned.

  That familiar grin bloomed comfort all through her innards, and she let herself hope they were going to get through this.

  “They didn’t hurt me, querida. Just jacked me for a little while. You needn’t worry over me.”

  Mari raised a hand, thought about touching him again, and then dropped it. She’d only be doing it to reassure herself, to gain that point of contact. And considering how violated he must be feeling, she couldn’t subject him to another unwanted touch. Not even a caress.

  “You don’t even know what all they did to you.”

  He stood, a lithe, uncoiling movement that brought his body, warm and solid, within breathing distance of hers. A tang of blood whiffed below his usual scent. “I’ll let you know the details once I’ve completed my diagnostic.”

  “That should be any minute now, though, right? It takes you, like, five hot seconds to check out my bios.”

  “That’s because I have you loaded in active memory.”

  “Eh?” What she wouldn’t have given for some plain speaking from her partner. For once.

  But he got her frustration, or must have, ’cause his half smile looked a little sheepish. “Guess you could say you’re always on my mind.”

  This time, her laughter barked, a full-out, tension-killing cackle. Considering the crappy situation they were in at the moment and the danger they still had to navigate through, letting loose a laugh like that was nothing short of a miracle. And it felt so good. Almost but not quite as good as a quick fuck in his shower, though she was willing to let go of that plan. With some regret.

  “Thank you for pulling the wires, by the way. That disconnected my invader.” He bent and retrieved the wad of metal doodad they’d rigged him with. After taking a quick look at the device, Heron cracked the case, exposing a rainbow of circuitry. He ripped out a couple of transistors and some other trash, replaced a couple of the wires, and then held it out to Mari. “Can you plug it back in?”

  “Um, no.”

  “It’ll help us get out of here faster.” He crouched in front of her, pivoting so that the back of his head was even with her waist. She’d envisioned so many scenarios that had Heron kneeling in front of her, right at hip level, but this particular situation had never come up.

  “I don’t get why you want to do this,” she said, even as she obeyed. She wanted to know why and what would happen now. If he was going to shut down again and start hosting other personalities, for instance, she would toss this little bit o’ Frankenstein gadgetry into the wall disposal right now.

  “They bypassed my wireless circuits and damaged a lot of hardware in the process, but if you stick this device back in, exactly where it was, I can get our coms up again.” He reached back, framing her hands with his, guiding her placement of the tech. “Don’t worry. I have repaired it.”

  At his direction, Mari pinched two wire ends together and twisted. Two more twists, and his fingers eased atop hers, stopped directing. He folded the skin flaps back over his skull, which did little to repair the gouge of ugly.

  She was mildly surprised when Heron, instead of shrugging her off and standing up, grabbed her hands tighter.

  He smiled up at her, triumphant and vicious. “I’m in.”

  “You’re in where? The cloud?”

  “Ah, no. The arcology.” He rubbed the pads of his thumbs over her knuckles, and Mari contained a full-body quiver. “Logged in like this, for all intents and purposes, I am the Pentarc.”

  Oh. Probably why he kept a room here. Hugantic processor core that he could log into without touching the cloud, without being tracked or tagged? For a post-human with a neural as expansive as Heron’s, that must be a little like stretching after a long, cramped, depressing sleep.

  But before Mari could ask another question—and yes, she had one primed—Heron put one hand under her elbow and mouthed a word she didn’t catch, and then the lights went out.

  All of ’em.

  Interior-facing units like this had no windows, and Heron wasn’t the type to keep a free-fae nightlight on his shelf, so no lights meant zero visibility. Mari needed a second to get her bearings. His grasp steadied her.

  “There,” said Heron. “This spire is in lockdown, so our exit down the corridor should be unimpeded. No innocents will get caught in any crossfire. I’ve also shut down the vertical lifts.”

  “But we have to get down to the tenth floor of the other spire, right? Meaning we’ll have to take the fire escape. Can do, partner.”

  “No. Meaning you have a coil of static rope and some descenders in your clothes duffel, beneath those, er, ruffled bloomers. I presume you know how to use them. The lines, not the underpants.”

  It was a testament to the remaining danger in their situation—and her lingering concern for him—that Mari did not follow up on his mention of her lacy underthings. Instead, she stowed that nugget f
or later.

  “Fire escape would be safer,” she observed.

  “Rappelling is quicker.”

  “We on a timeline I don’t know about?”

  He squeezed her hand. “Law enforcement entered the underground before I could shut them out. Four vans, and their drones are covering the fire escapes. They currently believe that they have us cornered and all exits blocked.”

  “But they don’t?”

  “Querida.” She could hear the grin in his voice, and it made her just a little wet in the nethers.

  And boy howdy, was she glad she hadn’t mouthed anything indicating that under her breath. She’d forgotten for a moment that she was wearing the subvocal rig. Thing could get a girl into a heap of trouble.

  Heron guided her through the doorway and out into the hallway beyond. On the way, she bent and retrieved the duffel she’d dropped when the door had come crashing in. Heron was right: she had some random equipment in the bag, including some pitons, harnesses, and line. No useful weaponry, though, just the sniper kit in pieces and very little in the way of bomb-making stuffs. Even if she put the H&K together, it wouldn’t be as effective as Heron’s snubby in close-in combat. Alas. The single bullet was a craptastic last line of defense, but Mari had survived worse.

  She knew the lockdown had cleared folks out of the main corridor, whatever few folks actually called this dump home, but Mari still picked her way along, not wanting to trip or step on anything prickly with bare feet.

  “Hey,” she subvocaled, “you know that head-augment light-lampy thing you did on the way up? Mind doing it again?”

  “Not a good idea. Feds have visual recon, and a team is on its way up the maintenance stairs. They’re currently two floors down, but their drones will be sweeping in advance.”

  She heard his response just inside her ear, like it moved along the bone. Clearly, he was using some kind of subvoc, too, but she hadn’t seen him equip anything, and she hadn’t noticed a rig like hers when she was fiddling with all those wires inside his skull.

  “You know I have visual-only targeting, too, right?” If Mari had been using her out-loud voice, it would’ve been wry.

  “When you need them, the sights will be there. Promise.”

  The further they went on, the more Mari thought that either Heron had memorized the Pentarc blueprints or his augments enabled him to see in the dark, even without lighting things up, maybe with some kind of back-of-the-eyelids heads-up? Or did he have a built-in GPS? There was so much tech in him, so much sparking her curiosity.

  There was a time, back when they’d first met, when Mari would have been weirded to know this little tidbit about him, this further evidence of his post-human freakishness. Dad had worked in cybernetics, first in AI and then in mech-clones, and Mari had grown up knowing that machines weren’t people, couldn’t be trusted. Sure as shit couldn’t love you back. She’d been careful to keep her distance from anybody who’d let themselves get biohacked. Her targets on the range back in Lampasas had all worn laser eyes and grafted armor.

  But a full year of working side by side with this particular post-human had sure changed her mind. She was long past being anything but thankful for Heron’s built-in nav, however it worked, leading them through the dark.

  “Twenty meters to the cabling vent.”

  “That where we’re jumping?”

  “Yes.”

  To this point, Heron’s stride had been sure, steady, but just then, it stuttered. The hand at her elbow clenched fractionally, but Mari felt it. Her first thought was of his wounds, that he was fixing to pass out on her, and she knew she couldn’t drag him to safety here. He was too big. She reached along his forearm, grasping his hand.

  “Heron?”

  “Drone is thermo sweeping for us.”

  “Shit. What do we do?”

  She heard a click to her right, a lock drawing back, and then Heron was pushing her gently. Her hip bumped a knob as she went through, but the door closed soft as tissue behind her.

  Mari’s world, already dark, now went silent and still as well. Her own breath sounded orchestral, and she became keenly aware of what sensory input remained. Heron had come through the door with her. She still held his hand, but that wasn’t their only point of contact. He hadn’t moved all the way into the entryway, and he was still near enough that Mari was squished between him and the door.

  Close enough that she could feel the heat off his body, roiling in the space between them. His skin smelled like that fancy soap and car leather, and if she moved her head even a bit, her mouth would brush south of his collar.

  Her nipples tightened, but she silently talked herself down. How sick was she to be lusting over her injured partner right in the middle of a getaway? She needed to think of something else. Anything.

  Which made her wonder what he was thinking.

  “You seeing all this somehow?” When she moved her mouth, her chin rubbed his knit shirt. Mari considered moistening her lips, but she couldn’t be responsible for what her tongue did after that.

  “I’m watching them on sixty-four cameras and the sat uplink. We have the advantage. Relax.”

  Not likely, but it was nice of him to try and reassure her like that.

  Past the black outline of Heron’s biceps, Mari could see a sliver of light along the floor. Soft and blue that light, probably a free-fae light box, like those freebies the technoreligious kooks passed out on street corners. She focused on the shape of the light: rectangular and low near the floor. A door, then. She and Heron must have ducked into a multiroom unit, and she was willing to bet that whoever lived here didn’t realize they had company.

  She didn’t want to think what would happen if that person, the one with the light on in the next room over, wandered into the foyer where she and Heron were hiding.

  With her free hand, she slipped the gun into her robe pocket and dangled the duffel from her fingertips, ready to drop it if she needed to move fast to subdue someone. Out of practice didn’t mean she couldn’t do it, and quietly. She doubted the average Pentarc denizen was juiced and wired like those mercenaries she’d just shot.

  Killed.

  Shot and killed.

  And she’d known the whole time they weren’t mech-clones. That they were in fact organic, despite their biohacks. People. Murdered. By her.

  Bile rose in Mari’s throat, and the darkthing roiled, but she forced it back down, along with the keening: Murderer. Monster. Despite all her forays on the dangerous side of life, all her jobs wreaking chaos, she still hated killing whole-organics. Didn’t mean she couldn’t or hadn’t, but she tried to make it rare. Today she’d offed three. Three.

  Couldn’t think about this right now. Had more urgent issues. But still: Murderer. Monster. The blood had clotted, sticky between her bare toes, though she’d walked it off her soles. In her mind’s eye, she replayed the crumple of the body back on the street, the feeling that something wasn’t right.

  And yet, she’d finished out the job, like always. She’d let instinct and training take over and had excused herself afterward, blaming her emotional calluses.

  But here was the kicker: she didn’t regret taking out those two thugs back in Heron’s room. They hadn’t been a job. They hadn’t been clones or mechs or even free-fae projections.

  And she didn’t give even the tiniest fuck about murdering them. Her conscience was easy. Just like the puppeteer had said.

  Shit, am I really such a cold-blooded freak of nature?

  “No guilt, querida,” Heron subvoc’d. “Don’t you dare beat up on the most amazing woman I have ever met.”

  Mari froze. Her breath paused.

  Wait.

  She hadn’t said that out loud. Hadn’t even mouthed it.

  Chapter 4

  “Heron? Can you read my mind?”

  He pressed his lips tight t
ogether but otherwise stayed as still as he could. Which was not easy this close. To her. In the dark. He could feel her breath on his throat, and every part of him ached to close even the slight space between them.

  Yes, technically, he’d been hearing her thoughts ever since he’d logged in to the Pentarc wireless. He hadn’t meant to let on, though. Blood and heat rose in his face, and he was glad of the dark.

  He was somewhat less thrilled that he didn’t immediately compensate, though. What the hell was wrong with his internal systems? He regulated surface temperature and blood flow, but he still felt hot. No, not merely hot. His body was a wildfire, and he wielded an eyedropper trying to put out sparks. Clearly, harnessing all this extra power from the Pentarc was putting pressure on his control systems. He was holding steady, but just.

  Mari waited, still and tense, for his answer. Finally, he huffed a breath against her hair, tasting her shampoo. His shampoo. Her body lathered in his smell.

  He knew he ought to put some more space between them. Ought to step away. But he didn’t. He hardly moved at all, besides breathing. “The processing core of a hyperstructure like Pentarc is big, and I’ve appropriated a good portion of it, as much as I can on wireless. Imagine aiming a gun barrel the size of North America. All that firepower, and it’s all mine. The increased capacity enables me to access your thoughts.”

  As if they behaved independently of his will, his hands sought her waist. The right one slipped beneath the burred terry of her robe, splayed against sweet, hot skin. The sense-tips in his fingers hummed with input, and there was no way he could process it all. Not with a thousand Pentarc cores at his disposal.

  He couldn’t make himself step away. He wanted to hold her closer, closest. Never let go. He wanted to loose his questing thoughts into her brain, make her think whatever he pleased, or simply make her pleased. His body tightened, ached for her. God.

  He was running a full four degrees hotter than normal. Not enough to fry electricals, but definitely in the danger zone. And no matter how much power he sucked from the arcology’s reactor, he couldn’t douse the flames in his body.