by Tania Hutley
But the doctor’s distracted, watching the others. She’s got a mind-pad in her hand, and numbers are flashing across its screen.
Cale pads over, his ears cocked forward. He murmurs, “Come on, Rayne. I’ll take a break with you.”
“Why?”
“We should talk.”
He refuses to say anything more until after he’s transferred back into his human body and we’re in the rec room, helping ourselves to the food that’s been left for us. Sandwiches, and they smell delicious. The aroma of fresh bread is like heaven.
“What do you need to talk to me about that’s worth giving up training time?” I ask when we sit at the table with full plates.
“About winning the contest. It’s not just going to take speed or strength. We’ll have to out-think the others. We need to talk strategy.”
It’s like he’s read my mind. “You’re serious about helping me?” I ask, taking a mouthful of sandwich.
“If we work together, I know you can do it.”
“You’d really give up your Skin?”
“Actually, I’ve been thinking about that. If I help you win, will you buy a Skin for me?”
“What if the director won’t sell it?”
“She’s opening a store, remember? I know I won’t be able to buy my Tiger Skin. The ones she’s going to sell commercially won’t be as good. But whatever I can get will be better than nothing.”
“How do you know they won’t be as good?”
He lets out a short laugh. “Can you imagine giant leopards and tigers bounding around New Triton? The president would never let her sell Skins like ours.”
“I hadn’t thought about it,” I admit, taking another bite of my sandwich. “What do you think they’ll be like?” I ask around the mouthful I’m chewing. “Normal sized? No claws? Will they still be animals, or look like people?”
“She can’t make ones that look human. Didn’t you see all the news coverage when she was arguing with President Trask about how much human DNA she’d be allowed to include? He set it at twenty five percent, maximum.”
“Why didn’t the president want her to make human-looking Skins?”
“Same reason he banned humanoid robots. They were used for creepy, violent sex, and all kinds of freaky stuff. The police kept getting callouts. People thinking their neighbors were doing nasty things to a real person.” He wrinkles his nose, putting his half-eaten sandwich down.
“I’ve never seen a domestic robot, except on the holo. They’re expensive, aren’t they? Do many people have them up here?” The only robots in Old Triton are metallic arms on the factory lines.
He shrugs. “They’re expensive. But yeah. Most people would rather buy a robot to do their housework than employ someone…” He trails off.
“Employ someone from Old Triton,” I finish for him. “Don’t worry, I know what your kind thinks of us. We’re all thieves, right?”
He winces at the words ‘your kind’, and I immediately feel bad. That wasn’t fair.
“What if I don’t win the contest?” I ask to change the subject. “You won’t get a Skin.”
“With my help, you can’t lose.”
I take a big bite of my sandwich. Chewing gives me a chance to think. If I win, giving up some of the prize money won’t matter. It’ll be worth it to improve my chances. And if Cale hopes to get a Skin out of the deal, well, that’s easier to believe than trusting him to help me because of some weird moral code he has.
I swallow and ask, “How much do you think a Skin’s going to cost?”
“Probably a lot. A few hundred thousand credits, I guess. But you’d have lots of prize money left.”
“And you’d trust me to buy it for you?”
“I trust you.” His brown eyes lighten when he smiles. “But you can put it in writing if you want to. Write up an agreement on your band and transfer it to me.”
I stuff the last of my sandwich in my mouth so I don’t have to meet his eyes. He says he trusts me, but what if he finds out I’m not Rayne?
“You ready to talk strategy?” he says when I’ve swallowed. He brings up his band’s holo display, and selects an option that replaces the display with a mist of blue light. Inside the mist he uses one finger to draw a circle, then makes a tower in the middle of it with his thumb and forefinger, pulling a solid shape out of nothing. “This is the arena.” He puts in five dots, evenly spaced inside the circle. “That’s us. We’ll be starting at the edge, and we could be on opposite sides. If so, we should work our way toward the middle of the tower to find each other.”
He moves two of the dots into the tower. With a flick of one hand, he makes it transparent, so I can see the two dots in the middle.
I frown. “That’ll waste time.”
“Being together should give us enough of an advantage to make up for it.”
I nod slowly. Eight sets of claws instead of four. Someone to watch my back. It could give me the edge I need to win.
“Besides,” he says. “First up the tower gets to deal with the Kraken.”
“Tell me about the Kraken. What is it?”
“You still haven’t made it as far as—?”
Even with one eye bandaged, I can still give him a glare that cuts him off. “Just tell me.”
“A Kraken is a giant sea monster with tentacles.”
“You’re kidding?”
He touches his band and says, “Kraken, image.” The tower disappears and a picture’s projected, a creature like an octopus. “The one in the game is metal. It’s part of the tower, so it’s hard to see until it starts attacking you.”
“And it’s big?”
“You could say that.”
“How are we going to beat it?”
“We could fight it with teeth and claws. But I think we should wait until it’s attacking someone else, then slip past.”
“Aza’ll get there first,” I say. “She’s got the fastest Skin.”
“She might hold back.”
I snort. “Can you imagine Aza the center of attention in a race with millions of people watching? She’s got an amazing, super-fast Skin that can speed off and make the rest of us look like slow-pokes... and instead she decides to hold back?”
He grins. “So, that’s the plan. We let Aza fight it for us.”
He sounds way too confident for my liking.
“You don’t think her Skin’s fast enough to get by it? What if it’s not quick enough to catch her?”
His mouth twists. “You haven’t seen the Kraken.”
“And the others? What’ll they be doing?”
“Brugan might go after you. This may come as a shock, but I get the feeling you’re not his favorite person.”
“No kidding.”
“Together we can overpower him.”
“And Sentin?”
Cale shakes his head, leaning back in his chair. His mostly uneaten sandwich is still pushed to one side, and even though mine was big enough to fill me up, I can’t help glancing at it. I’m not used to seeing food ignored.
“I don’t know what Sentin will do,” he says. “He’s hard to predict. But the good thing is, you’re even harder to predict.”
“What do you mean?”
“You keep surprising me. Like the first time we had dinner and you stole a knife. Nobody but you would do something like that.”
“You saw me?”
He laughs at my shock. “Don’t worry, I’m the only one who did. And that’s why you’re going to win. Not even Sentin would steal a knife and keep it in his sock.”
I shift uncomfortably, my face warm. I don’t know why I’m so embarrassed he caught me, but I want to turn the conversation back to Sentin.
“I still can’t believe he’s Deiterran,” I say.
“Me too.” Cale shakes his head. “I think I would have been less surprised if he’d wandered out of the dead zone.”
“Especially because there’s all this talk of war.”
“I keep asking
him about Deiterra, but he won’t say a word. Not really surprising, the way Brugan treats him.”
“Brugan’s been picking on him?”
“Making fun of him for being Deiterran. You haven’t noticed? Sentin shrugs it off like he’s used to it.”
“He probably is.”
Cale nods. “And those glasses of his aren’t supposed to exist.”
“What do you mean?”
“Gamers are always the first to hear about any new tech in the pipeline, and there was some underground buzz about them. Mostly speculation about how they might be used in secret, you know, to win gambling tournaments.” He gives me a sideways look from under his dark lashes. “But the glasses were squashed. President Trask wouldn’t approve them, so they were never made.”
“How’d Sentin get a pair?”
“Good question.”
“You think he could be in the Deiterran army? A spy? Doctor Gregory said he studied military tactics.”
Cale snorts. “I studied business for a year and it didn’t make me a desk monkey.” I must look surprised because he rolls his eyes. “My parents insisted. For some reason they don’t think playing Hell Spawn III is a ‘real job’.” He uses his fingers to make air quotes.
I can’t help but smile. Then I glance at his sandwich again. The fact it’s still sitting there is bugging me. “Aren’t you going to eat that?”
He pushes the plate in front of me, motioning at me to help myself. Well, why not? Eating when I’m full is better than seeing perfectly good food go to waste.
“What else do you know about Sentin?” I ask around a mouthful of his sandwich.
“From what I can gather, he’s lived in Triton most of his life. But you know how he hardly talks? I was listening to him with Doctor Gregory the other day, and he was asking her a lot of suspicious questions.”
“Like what?”
“How long she’s been working here, what exactly she does, how many others work on the Skins. Lots of things he doesn’t need to know.”
“With his glasses on, he could tell if she lied about anything.”
“Perhaps he doesn’t like the Morelle Corporation any more than I do. I wonder if...?” He trails off.
“What?” I put what’s left of the sandwich back down and lean forward, not wanting to miss a word.
“It’s probably nothing. But the Fist members I met said they were getting better organized now.”
I nod. The Fist is a protest group that has a broadcast channel on Sub Zero, the indie web. They’ve been trying to get factories upgraded and shelters made safer, and they show footage of stompers beating up sinkers. Occasionally they vandalize a building, or disrupt a public event. Pretty much everyone in Old Triton knows someone who belongs to the Fist, and Tori used to go to meetings.
“They’re stockpiling weapons,” he adds.
“What kind of weapons?”
He shrugs. “Probably explosives. Unless they manage to print their own guns.”
I raise my eyebrows. Only stompers are allowed guns. The penalty for anyone else is death.
“You think they’re going to target the President?” I ask. Between the rumblings of war with Deiterra, and the Fist getting more militant, it feels like real trouble’s brewing.
“Wish I knew. Anyway, the other thing I heard was that they were trying to get their hands on a secret new technology.”
“What technology?”
“The guys I know could only repeat the rumors. But it made me think of Sentin’s glasses. Not that I think Sentin’s the type to join the Fist. He’s Deiterran, so why would he? And he doesn’t strike me as much of a joiner.” He gives me another sideways look. “Maybe you should ask him. I think he might have a soft spot for you.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’ve caught him staring at you a couple of times. When you weren’t looking.”
Shit. If Sentin’s been staring at me, it’s because he’s making plans to drag me into whatever crazy scheme he’s hatched up.
“You okay, Rayne?”
Time for a change of subject. I motion to Cale’s band. “Back to the plan?”
He fiddles with it, then shakes his head. “The holo app on this thing sucks. Let’s go to my room. I’ve got a mind-pad.”
Cale’s scent hits me as soon as I walk in, that fresh, clean smell that’s uniquely his. And is there a hint of feline too? It’s musky and so heady I want to open my lungs to it and drag it in. But no, the tiger scent can’t be in Cale’s room. I must be imagining it.
Funny how I’ve been noticing smells and sounds more lately. Maybe my brain’s getting used to having sharp leopard senses, so it’s more tuned into everything.
Stepping over a pile of Cale’s clothes, I need to search for enough clear space to put my feet. How can one person have so many things? If I put everything I’ve ever owned on the floor of my room, it would barely fill one corner.
His bed isn’t made, but he pulls the cover over the messy bedclothes, making a lumpy surface. “Here, sit.”
As I do, I’m very conscious of being shut in his room, and of the way he moves, so confident in his own body. He’s taller than me, and strong, with wide shoulders and muscled arms, and he seems to take up far more space in here than he should. Running damp palms down the front of my trousers, I tell myself not to worry. This is Cale. The one man I can trust.
When he shoots me a smile, my muscles relax a little. The way his lips quirk, that cute indent in his cheek—his strong, honest character shows in every angle of his face. And maybe it’s all artificial, but every time I look at him, I’m struck again by how good-looking he is. Instead of getting used to his handsome face, it only seems to get more perfect.
“Hey, have you noticed any difference with your sight or smell?” I ask him. “Like they’re getting better?”
He considers it, tilting his head and looking around the room like he’s testing himself. “Don’t think so. Why, have you?”
“Probably imagining things. Forget it.”
I perch on the end of his bed while he pulls his mind-pad out from under a pile of clothes, then sits next to me. Too close. I shift so there’s no chance our knees will touch. As the leopard, I love spending my nights alone with him, but in my human body his closeness makes me jittery.
“How does that thing work?” I ask to cover my nerves.
“I have a chip implanted that transmits my thoughts.”
“Like the one for your Skin?”
“Sort of. Okay, here’s the tower.” It shoots out of the mind-pad fully formed, and so realistic I swallow a gasp. It’s a perfect miniature, exactly as I remember from the vReal game.
“How’d you do that?”
“This? Not hard. The tower’s in my memory and the mind-pad accessed it.”
“You remember all this?” I point to the tiny, intricate detail of the beams.
“Yeah well, it’s obviously stored in my brain. The level of detail always surprises me too.”
Tentacles extend from the middle of the tower, waving around. A metal monster, far bigger than I could have imagined.
“That’s the Kraken. And here’s Aza.” A tiny version of her Wasp Skin appears in the tower near the Kraken’s outstretched tentacles. “We’ll look for the farthest point from its head to climb past.” He puts our two feline Skins in, both poised in the act of leaping from the same beam. “Hopefully its tentacles won’t reach that far.”
I stare at the tiny version of my leopard. It’s just as breathtaking in miniature. “What if they can reach that far?” I ask.
“We can fight it if we work together. It’s not impossible to defeat.”
“How many times have you—?”
“I almost did once.”
“Oh.”
Our two Skins look tiny and fragile next to the tentacled monster spilling out of the tower. It looks like it could wipe us both out with one swipe.
“It’s vulnerable,” he says in a determined tone. “Directo
r Morelle wants this to be a spectacle. She won’t want us all to be beaten by the Kraken.”
“Okay. So, say we get by it. What then?”
He shrugs. “More creatures, I guess. Harder ones. Basically a race to survive and get to the top.”
“A race... or a battle?”
“Both.”
“And when we get to the top?”
“You know how I said the tower’s intelligent? Its job is to slow down whoever gets there first. They’ll have to fight metal monsters until whoever’s left catches up. Then there’ll be a Skin-on-Skin battle to the death, at the top of a narrow tower that’s one hundred and sixty stories high. The kind of finale that sells vReal games and new technology, don’t you think?”
“So it doesn’t matter who’s fastest? Only who’s strongest?”
He shakes his head. “There’s a lot to make it through before that final battle. If you’re fast, you’ll have a better chance of getting to the top without being injured on the way. And it’s the first two to reach the top who’ll get to fight.”
“How exactly do you win?”
“You don’t know?” He shakes his head, teasing. “This is my chance to teach you a special dance you need to do. Or, no wait. It’s opera. Yeah, when you get to the top, you’ll need to sing at least three verses of... OW!” It was the lightest punch — I barely touched him — but he flops onto his back and makes a big deal of grimacing and rubbing his arm.
“Shut up!” I can’t help but laugh.
When Cale sits up, grinning, he’s too close. I shift away, trying to make it seem casual. Dammit, why is my stomach clenching? I’m fine, it’s only Cale. Nothing bad will happen.
He can tell I’m uncomfortable. His grin drops away and he makes a fuss of fiddling with the mind-pad. “Um. At the top of the tower, a light will shine upward.” He looks back at me and swallows. I can tell he wants to ask me something personal, but I don’t give him the chance.
I get to my feet and lean against the wall. That’s better. The distance between us is calming my jitters. But his expression gets me in the chest. He’s only wearing a slight frown, but I know him well enough now to be able to tell what’s going on underneath.
