“So you’re just going to leave?” Jon frowned. “Without me and Cass?”
Fighting to think, I stared at the back of the bar.
Finally, realizing he had a point, I exhaled, more in anger than anything.
Then I heard the jarring note of a warm up chord on stage. Knowing it was either Jaden or Drake, I felt my jaw harden.
“I can’t stay here,” I said finally, looking at Jon. “If you and Cass want to come with me, then come. I’ll be outside. By the bouncer. By the door. Calling a robo-taxi with my headset. I’ll wait ten minutes.”
Jon looked at my face. Then he nodded. “All right. We’ll be there.”
I returned his nod.
“Okay,” I said. “I’m going outside. All right?”
He nodded. “All right.”
There was a silence where he just looked at me, as if fighting for words.
He startled me then, leaning over to kiss me on the cheek.
“I love you, Allie,” he said.
He hadn’t said that to me in a long time. Maybe not since dad died.
My heart got stuck briefly in my throat. Nodding at least partly to avoid speaking, I gripped his arm, forcing a smile I doubt was very convincing. Releasing him, I walked away from the bar and his stool, heading for the club’s front door.
I pushed my way through the group of people mashed up against the entrance and finally made it outside, to where I could almost breathe.
For a few seconds, I just stood there, taking in deep breaths, looking around at the different street signs to orient myself, or maybe just to give myself something else to think about. Turning on my headset, which I hadn’t used at all since I’d tried to call Jon earlier, I spoke a command for a robo-taxi.
I asked for pick up in thirteen minutes.
I figured I could give Jon a few extra minutes to round up Cass.
Glancing at the bouncer working the door, I smiled, giving him a small nod and a wave. He folded his thick arms, his expression unchanging as he looked away.
I winced when Jaden’s band started playing, stepping further away from the club’s doors.
Once they recognized the melody, the crowd lingering outside the club burst into cheers along with the crowd inside. It was one of Jaden’s hits, the theme song for the indie movie––a heavy, tribal-type beat with dark, throaty vocals and a sad, haunting melody. They usually started off with one of their bigger songs to warm everyone up.
People outside the club started singing along. I could hear people screaming inside, too, and singing along with the chorus.
Grimacing, I fought back the surge of nausea that rose.
I wasn’t ready to think about me and Jaden in concrete terms.
I wasn’t ready to think about going back to San Francisco without him. I wasn’t ready to think about packing up all my stuff, sleeping on Jon’s couch, apartment-hunting, arguing about who bought what.
I wasn’t ready to think about any of the conversations we would have to have, just to get through all of that.
I wasn’t ready to feel us being over.
I made it all the way to the curb before the crowd thinned enough that I felt like I could breathe again.
The street was still busy. I was on the southern edge of midtown, and outside the crush of bodies, the holographic advertisements were distracting, and not really in a good way. I stared up at a winged dragon, watching it coil around a Chinese-style building in front of me, breathing fire. It reached the top before it coiled back down to the sidewalk.
A group of girls, friends out for the night, shrieked in delight when it breathed holographic fire at them, engulfing them in blue flames.
Chinese writing filled the sky over the building before it melted into English.
Only then did I realize it was a Chinese dinner theater; they likely put on a virtual show a lot more elaborate inside those tall red doors.
The girls stumbled up the steps, already tipsy, wearing high-heeled shoes and VR-paneled dresses flashing with different images.
Another holographic image drew my eyes to the next block.
Seeing a giant cowboy lassoing a horse that was galloping up the side of the building, I watched, mesmerized. On the building down from him, a holographic woman in a bikini was swimming through virtual water down the middle of the street.
Right then, a holographic man walked up to me, wearing a spacesuit.
Scanning my barcode, it grinned at me widely.
“Ever thought about exploring other worlds, Miss Taylor?” it said, winking at me with too-blue eyes. “I could show you the stars, pretty lady, if––”
“Not interested,” I told it. “Terminate program. Waiting for robo-taxi. Non-tourist.”
“Sure thing, Miss Taylor. You have a wonderful night.”
I watched it walk up to the next group of people, scanning barcodes before it transformed into a woman holding a retro-looking space gun and wearing a silver bikini.
The hologram started its pitch all over again, this time asking a tall man with a white and blue mohawk if he wanted to have sex in space.
Someone must have spent a lot of credits on science fiction porn sites.
I watched mohawk guy blanch, then glance at his date.
He shut the hologram down as fast as he could, waving it off as his girlfriend scowled, even as she pretended not to have noticed. I watched the hologram move on to the next group, turning back into a male as it approached three girls waiting in line outside the club. I watched them giggle and joke with the holographic ad, and wondered what it was saying to them.
I was still watching as it turned back into the bikini girl, making the girls laugh again.
That’s probably why I didn’t see the guy come up behind me.
I didn’t notice a damned thing until it was too late.
18
CITY PEOPLE
I FELT HIM right as he reached for me. I started to turn, caught a glimpse of blond hair pulled back from a blocky face, a faint smile on full lips––
Then an arm slid around my throat.
It squeezed hard from behind, completely cutting off my air.
In the same motion, he ripped the headset off my head and ear.
He did both things before I could yell.
The shock of that first, violent yank on my neck nearly blacked me out. It slammed me up against a hard body, forcing my head back and sideways. I jerked an elbow back, slamming it into his chest. I did it again, trying to force him to loosen his hold.
He didn’t flinch.
He was already bringing me towards a car on the curb when I’d recovered enough to fight back for real. By then he’d twisted my body sideways, forcing me into an off-balance angle so I could barely walk in the high heels.
A sharp prick stung my neck. A harder pressure made me gasp as liquid was forced through a needle and into my flesh.
I managed to cry out at that point.
He strangled the cry off, fast, using the pressure of his arm on my windpipe.
It occurred to me they’d done this before.
His hold was too precise, the odd angles he used too calculated.
I looked frantically for other people, anyone who might help me.
I saw the bouncer glance at me only to look away, his expression carefully indifferent.
A crowd of people in clubbing attire stared at me from only a few yards away, but none of them made a move to intervene. A flash from someone’s headset told me someone had taken my photo with an illegal image capture.
I saw a woman in a paint-thin, virtual-paneled dress staring at me, her expression conflicted, like she knew something was off but was trying to convince herself it wasn’t. A group of guys cheered, laughing as they saw me struggle.
Most just looked away.
Even after Ponytail yanked the syringe out of my neck, I struggled as he dragged me towards the curb and the car door.
I barely had time to notice it was being held open.
&nbs
p; I glimpsed the face of the redhead who’d been carrying the cattle prod earlier that day. He wore street clothes now, and he’d lost the leather jacket. A dark green vinyl jacket replaced it. His curly hair hung loose to his shoulders, making his freckled face look even redder.
The two of them worked together to force me through the open car door.
I fought harder, managing to get enough space around my throat to shriek, kicking out my legs, writhing and dropping my weight to try and get free.
I saw a couple of people step back from the car, giving me and the two men a wide berth. Alarm reflected in a few eyes, but no one tried to help me. No one even spoke out against what they saw happening.
I could only hope at least one of them called the cops on their headsets.
I only really got out one or two really good yells before a thick hand clamped over my mouth.
I was having trouble moving now, too.
I managed to plant my high-heeled boots on the door and the side of the car, using my weight as leverage to keep them from forcing me through the opening, but my knees kept buckling as I lost control over my legs.
I fought to bite and scream through Ponytail’s fingers, but it all happened too fast.
Cattle Prod wrenched my ankle to get my foot out of the door’s armrest where I’d be fighting to lodge it. He and Ponytail forced me into the car.
Ponytail got in with me, and the other guy slammed the door behind us.
Turning at once, I felt over the car door frantically, scanning the mechanism with my eyes, looking for the latch, any kind of lock, but it was one of the newer ones with a DNA/headset trigger.
Ponytail still had ahold of me around the throat, but he’d let go of my mouth to grip my wrists. His fingers were covered in rings. As the drug really started to kick in, I could only stare down at them, trying to make meaning out of the symbols etched on the silver.
One had the same spiral pattern as his necklace.
I yelled and yelled, but nothing happened.
It occurred to me a few seconds later I’d stopped yelling.
I realized next that the car was moving.
We’d pulled away from the curb. Looking around at the tinted windows, I realized they were probably soundproof. They wouldn’t have reacted so little, or let go of my mouth, if they weren’t.
That, or they just didn’t care.
The drug made it hard to think.
I fought to speak, to make words come from my lips.
“Serial killer?” I slurred. “…going to die?”
The man’s lips lifted in a faint smile. “Miss Taylor, just relax. We’ll explain everything. The effects of the drug won’t last very long.”
“…under arrest? Am I? SCARB?”
The man’s smile widened. He patted my knee. “Not exactly.”
“SCARB?” I managed to repeat. “…cop?”
“You needn’t worry about the World Court authorities, Miss Taylor. Or any authorities at all. No one knows you are with us. Not even your friend from earlier today.” He patted my leg a second time. “We won’t tell anyone your secret. Word of honor.”
“Secret?” I stared from him to Cattle Prod, who sat in the front seat.
“We know who you are, Miss Taylor. More importantly, we know what you are.”
I forced my arm over, showing him the “H” tattoo above my government barcode. I pointed at it, fighting to stay conscious.
“Human,” I managed. “Human… no what. No what.”
The driver in the other front seat turned his head, grinning at me. It was the guy with the black, braided beard. The one who liked kicking seers.
“Isn’t it cute when they deny what they are?” He grinned wider. “I guess she’s been passing so long, she’s forgotten her roots. It’s good we’re here to remind her.”
I stared at him, fighting to comprehend his words.
He looked exactly the way I remembered him from earlier that day. His bald head shone under the holographic renderings shining through the windshield, tinting his skin pink and red and green. He wore the same T-shirt I remembered, his neck muscles flexing under the dragon tattoo on one side of his neck. He smirked at me, winking one of his blue eyes.
Staring around at all three of them, I felt my disbelief turn rapidly into anger.
An anger I was more than happy to aim at these guys.
If only I could make my tongue work.
I tried to fight my arm away from Ponytail’s fingers, but he just seemed to be waiting for the drug to knock me out.
The idea of being unconscious with these people terrified me.
I tried to look out the window, to pay attention to where we were going, but everything blurred past my eyes. I couldn’t focus on any of the signs or the animated holograms morphing around the buildings or floating over the street, not well enough to track them.
I was pretty sure we were going north. I didn’t know how helpful that was.
A lot was north of here.
Central Park. Harlem. Canada.
My mind wasn’t really working anymore. My fear just looped in sickening spirals, making me breathe too much, making that sick feeling worse. Adrenaline wound into anger and panic, then got warped into powerlessness by the drug.
Ponytail smiled at me, even as his face began to blur.
“Just relax, Miss Taylor,” he said gently, stroking my head. “We will be there before you know it, and then you will understand everything.”
Somehow, my head was in his lap.
I couldn’t turn my head enough to look at him.
I couldn’t see out the windows at all anymore.
I stared at the back of the front seat, fighting to keep my eyes open.
The interior of the car started to undulate in slow-motion, worsening that sickening feeling. Everything but a bright light in the dead center of my vision blurred into bland color.
…and then it really was too late.
19
CLOISTERS
I OPENED MY eyes.
A searing, mind-crushing headache forced them closed again. I had to try three or four times before I managed to squint around the edges well enough to open them for real.
It didn’t really help.
I found myself staring up at a dark sky, broken by darker branches. I couldn’t see many stars––hardly any, really. I couldn’t tell if that was from light pollution or clouds.
Either way, that sky didn’t help me. I had no idea where I was.
A good thirty or forty seconds later, my brain slowly caught up, reminding me of the man with the blond ponytail and the syringe. Even after that, I couldn’t make sense of the dark expanse of nothingness that surrounded me––or how cold I was.
Directly overhead, black, snakelike branches creaked and rubbed under a rippling breeze that chilled my skin. The sky was tinged orange and red on either side of where I lay, brighter in my periphery, presumably from the glow of city lights.
I was definitely outside, not looking at the view through a window, or on a virtual panel.
Well, not unless it was an incredibly realistic one––like, really top-notch.
My back dug into something hard, and my hands were wrenched behind me, tied together in some way that didn’t allow them to touch. It felt like my arms were about to be ripped out of their shoulder sockets.
I was cold. All I wore were those thin, faux-leather pants and the lace-fringed top that really only covered my breasts. About two thirds of my torso was completely bare.
The cropped jacket Cass lent me was gone.
So were my boots––and my socks.
I struggled, trying to see if there was any play in any of my limbs.
As soon as I shifted my legs, I realized my ankles were cuffed together, and also chained to whatever I was lying on. When I struggled harder, my body slipped sideways down the round, hard thing under my back, scraping the bare skin of my back, wrenching my arms and shoulders even more. Whatever they'd bound me to, it was
wide and rough-skinned and rounded, like a thick tree trunk.
When I tried to move again, I slid more, making me gasp.
The pressure on my arms and legs became excruciating.
At the same time, my own weight rendered me pretty much immobile, making it even harder to find leverage.
Looking around, I realized the thing I was chained to was a tree trunk.
Moreover, the log had to be suspended by something.
I was at least a few feet off the ground, and my arms and legs had all been cuffed to the log, otherwise I would have just slid all the way to the ground. I tried using my eyes to see where I was, who else was there, but all I glimpsed was shadowy forms and more trees.
Slowly, my eyes came into better focus.
What looked like a white, stone basin stood to my right.
Around it had been piled a number of objects with square corners and pointed edges. The shapes looked too symmetrical to be natural. Someone was squirting something on the pile while I watched, but I couldn’t see their face.
I fought to speak and coughed, my throat burning in pain.
Clearing my throat, I swallowed a few times and tried again.
“Where am I?” I managed.
It came out too soft. I had to stop again midway, swallowing thickly. My tongue still didn’t want to work, and my throat burned like fire.
“Is someone there?” I swallowed again. “Who’s there? Can you hear me?”
“Relax, Miss Taylor.”
Recognizing the voice, I felt my stomach sink.
Ponytail.
A match was struck not far from where I lay. Whoever held it threw it towards the ground before I could make out their face.
The match didn’t complete its arc.
Instead it bounced halfway, in the shadowy pile heaped around the stone basin.
There was a whup sound, like an old-fashioned gas heater turning on.
Flames shot up from those dark shadows, illuminating a heaped stack of broken packing crates and wooden pallets, wet with starter fuel.
I blinked, wincing away from the sudden, bright light.
When my eyes adjusted, I found myself staring at a bonfire arranged around the white stone basin. The edges of the fire were bounded by large chunks of white granite. Several thick spokes stuck out from the blazing pyre in the center, made of more logs and broken pieces of packing crates.
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