Vomit rises in my throat. I grab Turpin’s wastebasket and empty my stomach. He watches impassively until I finish heaving. Yet another humiliation after a night full of them.
I wipe my mouth like nothing’s happened. “Are you going to turn me in for the bounty?”
“No.” His voice sounds conflicted, like he’s not sure whether to zap me with the stunner or give me a big hug. “But you can’t stay here. I won’t risk my life, or Jole’s, for a Bolt.”
“So that’s it? You’re turfing me?”
“I don’t want you in my house.” Turpin picks up his data pad, shifting it awkwardly in his hands. He avoids looking at me. “Maren’s people have gotten too close for comfort in the last few months. Then there’s you…who knows if she’s secretly spying on us now.”
Somehow I don’t think that’s true. I feel no connection; shast, I feel nothing but hatred. Still... “I’m a danger to you.”
“Yes.”
The tears are right below the surface again, but this time I don’t cry. “I’ll pack my things and leave within the hour.”
He nods. “Take whatever you need. I owe you that much.”
It sounds like kicking me out pains him on some level—but he’s not going to change his mind. Turpin is pragmatic to the core. Turning me out makes the best sense in a bad situation. Ripping my heart out in the process is just an unfortunate side effect.
I turn away from him, thinking maybe someday I’ll wake up and find out my life is just a bad dream.
* * *
After I change clothes, I cram a few outfits, my data pad, my Exeprin syringes and my spare jumpsuit into a bag. On a whim, I throw my descent vest in too, along with an old cat line. Better to have my gear in case I need it, even if my spare cat line is frayed in a few spots. It’s not like Turpin or Jole will ever use it.
When I open the bottom drawer to pack my toiletries, I find a stack of credit chips.
“Your currency card will be monitored,” Jole says. Per usual he’s appeared in my doorway as if dropped there by magic. “You’ll need the chips.”
Despite everything, I smile. “You didn’t knock.”
Jole doesn’t smile back. “Those should be enough to get you out of town and keep you going for a few months.”
The pile of chips is impressive, but it tells me one important thing—Jole isn’t going with me. “Is this good-bye, then?”
Like Turpin, I see the disgust in Jole’s expression. And guilt. Lots of guilt. “Yes.”
“Does that have anything to do with my new identity?” I clench my fists. How could he forget everything I meant to him, what he meant to me, so fast?
“I thought I knew you,” Jole says, his voice stiff and angry. “But you’re just like him. You’re just a faker who wormed her way into my life.”
“Yeah? Well, I was here first!” Anger boils below the surface, and for once I don’t care that Jole’s broken. I want to hurt him. “You invaded my space, not the other way around. This is my home.”
Jole takes a step closer, looking like he wants to slap me. “Not anymore.”
“I can’t believe you’re acting this way.” My heart feels like it’s trying to break itself in a dozen pieces. “I’m your best friend. Always, remember? None of that changed.”
He shakes his head. “It was all a sham. You were never real. You’re fake, Lexa. You’re a copy, not even human.”
The way he says it, with so much finality and such revulsion, makes me want to hurl the currency chips at him, tell him to take his gift and shove it. I need the money though, and keeping it will be its own kind of punishment—Jole will have aided and abetted a Bolt. “Get out.”
“Gladly.” Then he shuffles away, not looking back.
And I’m alone.
Cursing Jole under my breath, I put the credit chips in my pocket, holding onto only one thought—Maren DeGaul is going down. Hard. And I’ll be the one to do it. She took everything from me. My home, my family, my life. She took Jole’s life too, making him so blind with rage that he’d turn me away even though I’ve done nothing to deserve it. If I have a chance, I’m going to destroy Maren’s life in repayment.
That keeps me going as I finish packing. When it comes time to leave, I take one last look at my room. No, not my room. Turpin’s room. I grab my things and stomp to the stairs. My bag doesn’t feel nearly heavy enough to be carrying my entire life’s worth.
With no idea what to do, I let myself out the back door into the alley. For a moment, I’m frozen with indecision. Where am I going to go? I have no memory of being out on my own. My heart throbs painfully and I feel like sitting on the curb like a lost child, crying for a way back home.
No. No, I will not be helpless. Frak them. Frak them and everyone else. I’m so angry I don’t notice the tears on my cheeks until I start moving again and the breeze cools them on my skin. I take a deep breath. I have to get out of here.
The hover bike is too easy to recognize. Something else I have to leave behind. I could go to the train station, but I’m afraid the transit cops will recognize me. Even with Jole’s pile of chips, I don’t have enough currency to buy new transportation.
On foot it is.
Walking with my head down to hide my face, I make it halfway through the alley before bumping into something tall and solid.
“I’m not that easy to outrun.”
Quinn’s smile is angry, smug and hurt. How I read all those things into a little curve of his lips, I have no clue.
“Where’d you come from?” I ask.
“I followed you,” he says.
“How?”
Quinn crosses his arms. “I ‘borrowed’ someone’s bike and waited at the end of the tunnels to see which way you went.”
“Goody for you,” I say as I shove past him.
“So where are we going?”
That stops me cold. “We aren’t going anywhere. Both of us are being hunted. Pairing up is a bad idea.”
“You need me,” he says, sounding confident I’ll give in.
Skies, how I want to. But the very fact that I feel drawn to him like a piece of iron to a magnet worries the hell out of me. So I start walking.
Quinn chases me until he catches up. His speed matches mine, except he takes three steps for my four, stretching out his long legs. Where does he think he’s going? I turn to face him and poke a finger at his chest. “Quit following me. Now.”
He shakes his head. “Not a chance. I’m not losing you again.”
Warily, I ask, “‘Again,’ as in again tonight?”
“‘Again’ as in seven years ago,” Quinn says. “We were friends once. Good friends. Then you vanished, so forgive me for being persistent.”
That he knows more about my past than I do frustrates me. “Look, I don’t remember you. For all I know, you’re just some random artificial dogging my steps.”
His face falls. Somehow that makes me feel uncomfortable, then angry, then sad. But if I’m not human, what do my feelings matter? It’s all programmed in; I could leave him at any time and the guilt wouldn’t be real, because I’m not real.
I’m just a fake.
Next thing I know, I’m bawling like an idiot and dying to punch someone in the face because of it. Quinn surprises me by pulling me into a hug. His body is warm in the cool night air, which makes me cry harder.
“What happened?” he asks.
I might as well tell him—he already knows the truth. “They found out I’m like you and Turpin kicked me out. No Bolts allowed in the clubhouse.” I sniffle against his shirt. “If I’m not a real girl, how come I’m cold? How come I’m hurting? How come I feel like my heart’s been ripped out because my so-called father banished me from his house like an evil witch in a bad fairy story?”
“Because you were designed to feel both pain and happiness. You’re more human than they believe, but they’re blind to it because you were made, not born.”
His voice is a whisper, soft and gentle and…famili
ar. Against my better judgment, I snuggle tighter against him. “It doesn’t seem right.”
“Except that it is.” Quinn sighs. “I’ve known what I am for years and you just found out you’re not what you thought. It’ll take time to make peace with it.” He pushes me back and stares down at my face. “I’m not trying to make you sad. Or piss you off, either. You need a partner, so let me travel with you. We can call it a business arrangement if that makes you feel better.”
I mull that over. Turpin won’t have me. Jole hates me with all his soul. Maren has Bolts and cops combing the city for me.
Am I ready to go it alone?
No.
“Fine,” I say. “Business.”
He holds out a long-fingered hand. I notice with a shock how ragged his nails are—like he bites them. I swallow hard. We aren’t human, but whoever created us made damn sure they got the details right, down to nervous tics and bad habits. Quinn takes my arm, pretending not to notice the tears still caught on my eyelashes, and leads me away from Turpin’s warehouse. As we near the wharf at the lake, I glance over my shoulder. The last of my old life winks in the distance, until I can’t see it anymore.
Chapter Twelve
On the Move
We walk until the sun comes up. Quinn has led me into a part of the city I don’t know, far from the skyscrapers and brownstone houses, far from the warehouse district and home. Here, wherever we are, is a place where Maren’s touch isn’t felt. The buildings are only a dozen or so stories tall, ugly rectangles of brown, beige or gray concrete. Seedy-looking corner stores line the streets between the taller buildings, and graffiti covers most walls with bright splashes of color. I don’t understand the words being screamed at me by the fluorescent paint.
“Where are we?” I finally ask.
“Sector T. It’s a good place to get lost,” Quinn says.
Everywhere I look, things are falling apart. No hovercraft of any kind to be seen, either. A few old, old electric cars that probably don’t run, some beaten up bicycles, and cheap solar-carts are the only vehicles around. There isn’t even a monorail track twisting its way through the buildings.
“How do these people travel into the city?” I ask, stumbling over a big crack in the sidewalk.
Quinn gives me a bemused smile. “They walk fourteen blocks to the nearest monorail station or, if they’re really lucky, a cab will pick them up at the edge of the sector. But mostly, they don’t go into the city.”
“Why not?” I ask.
“Not welcome,” he says. “The Quad only likes shiny things.”
Skies. I’m too tired to get overly worked up, though, and a yawn threatens to split my head open. “How much farther are we going?”
“Two more blocks.” Quinn rubs his eyes. “I know a place where we can crash. If we pay in chips, no one will ask questions.”
I pat my bag. Jole’s chips weigh heavy in the bottom. “I have plenty.”
“Me, too.”
When I give him a funny look, Quinn says, “I’ve been filching a five here, a ten there, from Maren for as long as I can remember. It stacked up after a while and I exchanged most of them for bigger denominations to make them easier to hide. She never caught on.”
“I can’t believe she was careless enough to leave currency chips lying around. It seems like she’d realize a few of her Bolts would get ideas.”
“The term is engineered-human, or artificial—not Bolt. It’s rude. Anyway, Maren’s so wealthy, losing a fiver from a purse loaded down with fifties was beneath her concern.”
Quinn’s voice holds an edge of bitterness, so I drop it. “What are the K700s? You’re the first I’ve seen.”
He squints in the pale sunlight as we pass between the shadows made by the buildings. “No I’m not. You see one every time you look in a mirror.”
My chest tightens up. I’m not human—I have to remember that. No matter how sick it makes me. “What are we then? I thought Maren was working on the 800 model line.”
“We’re prototypes.” Quinn gives me a fleeting smile. “You and I are the practice round for the 800s.”
“Just the two of us?” I ask. Is there an end to this rabbit hole, or am I going to keep falling and finding stranger things?
“Yes.” Now his grin has a hint of something else, something that makes my breath catch. “Don’t worry, though, you’re not my sister or anything like that.”
I pause in front of a store advertising free coffee with the purchase of two breakfast sandwiches. Based on the greasy windows, I’m betting those sandwiches come with a side of food poisoning. “What do you mean?”
“We don’t share DNA. That’s the thing about us that’s different. Most of the early models have similar synthetic DNA, which is why they all look alike. They’re cousins, basically. With the K600s, Maren’s genetic engineers mapped dozens of new synth-DNA strains. By the time they created us, they were able to design our line to specific specs, making us individuals.”
That makes me shudder. I’m not the product of two parents’ union—I was made in a lab by a bunch of techno-geeks with expensive equipment. That thought puts a halt to my other questions, at least for the moment. There’s no way I can make my brain go there much longer without cracking. “Good to know.”
He shrugs and points at the greasy diner’s front door. “You hungry?”
“Not if that’s my only option.”
“Smart,” Quinn says. “Come on, we’re almost there. Once we get a room, I’ll sneak out for groceries. You cook?”
“Hell, no. You?”
“Not really. I’ll stick to instant meals and protein bars, then.”
We cross over to the next block, ignoring the “don’t walk” sign, and end up in front of a shabby beige building with a revolving door and a huge sign affixed to its corner. The sign reads “Russet Place Hotel and Apartments.”
“What a hole,” I say. “Please tell me this isn’t where we’ll be staying.”
“Fine,” Quinn says, giving me an exasperated look. “I won’t tell you.” He then strolls through the revolving door, leaving me alone on the sidewalk.
To spite him, I stay outside, kicking at some weeds growing through the concrete. He asked to come with me, not the other way around. His taking the lead has been quite annoying. Then again, where would I be now without his help?
Probably hiding in a dumpster.
I push my way through the door. Quinn’s at the front desk, negotiating a month-to-month lease for an apartment. For the clerk, he’s all charm. I guess he can turn that on and off at will.
“All the two-bedrooms are let out,” a chunky lady in a bright green pantsuit says. “A one-bedroom is all we got left. Take it or leave it.”
Quinn’s smile is smooth. He slides two hundred in chips across the counter. “A one bedroom is fine.”
“Hmmm,” the lady says, not making a move to pick up his currency.
Another two hundred in chips crosses the counter. What’s Quinn doing? Four hundred’s enough to get us a suite for two weeks at a four-star hotel downtown. If he’s got that kind of currency, why are we in this fleabag flophouse?
The lady’s hand snakes out and the stack of chips disappears. A card key materializes in its place. “You got one month, and I never saw you.”
“Thank you,” Quinn says. “Now if you’ll excuse us, my fiancée and I are going to retire for the day.”
Fiancée? Who’s he kidding?
All the lady says is, “Uh huh.” She doesn’t look up when we head into the lobby.
“Four hundred must buy a lot of quiet,” I mutter. The lobby is decorated in post-modern garbage—threadbare chairs and a leaning sofa crowd around a scratched table. A gaudy vase full of fake flowers with dust on their petals graces the tabletop. “Because this place isn’t worth fifty a month, let alone four hundred.”
“It’s perfect,” Quinn says cheerfully.
“Are you kidding? It’s a dump. Seriously, you’re one circuit short of a
load.”
That makes him laugh. “Pretty good joke for a newbie Bolt.”
“Engineered human,” I snap, and he laughs harder.
The elevator wheezes to a halt. Quinn waves me in first. Whether he’s being a gentleman or using me to test the lift’s stability is anyone’s guess. The elevator car smells like musty curtains and the floor is covered in this ugly brown carpet that has to be older than me. Holding my breath, I step inside, hoping I’m not about to plunge to the basement. The car sways but doesn’t drop, and I let out a relieved sigh.
“You aren’t scared of elevators, are you?” Quinn says. He follows me inside and punches the button for the fifth floor.
“I shimmy down air ducts and swing from rooftops on a regular basis.” The elevator stops on the fifth floor and we get out. It doesn’t look any better than the lobby. “An elevator doesn’t bother me.”
Quinn gives me a sidelong glance. “Good, because I was worried that maybe last night had taken the fight out of you.”
Anger blooms in my chest. He did not just say that. But the challenge in his eyes confirms it—I heard him right. He thinks I’ve lost my nerve.
Pissed, I drop fast and scissor-kick his legs out from under him. Once he’s down, I pounce, straddling his hips and leaning on his chest with my elbows. It feels good to loose some of my frustration on someone else. With my nose one inch from his, I growl, “Do I look scared to you?”
“Been a long time since you got the drop on me.” A strange smile crosses his face. “Same old, Lex. You can’t blame me for wanting to be sure.”
A flush spreads across my cheeks. Our mouths are way too close together and my heart beats with irregular bursts. What am I doing?
I clamber to my feet and offer him a hand, acting like nothing happened. “How’d you find this place?”
He stands, dragging me forward a step when he pulls himself up. “Maren had reason to send me on a few errands down here.”
Unstrung Page 8
