The Harmony Paradox (Virtual Immortality Book 2)

by Matthew S. Cox

  “What?” Katya’s worry crashed into confusion. “What happened?”

  “I just checked the marks.” She jumped up and down again. “I got a millimeter taller! I’m growing!”

  Katya’s eyes watered up. She stooped and hugged Eve carefully, trying not to get any blood on her. “That’s wonderful! My turn to hit the shower.”

  Eve reached up and swiped a tear from Katya’s cheek, then held her finger up with the droplet. “He’s wrong. You do have emotions.”

  Katya laughed. Though she smiled, her heart grew heavy with worry. Her money wouldn’t last forever―or even all that long. She couldn’t risk doing what she’d been trained to do, and the job listings didn’t look promising.

  She wandered off to the bathroom. Maybe I could go to school again too?

  ain pattered the clear shell of the elevator gliding upward along the outside of Nina’s building. The marching drumbeat of a tiny army built and faded in time with gusts of wind. She peered down at the sunken courtyard nestled in the hollow of her C-shaped building. At its center, the old bronze statue still stood guard over the ring of benches around it, a human figure composed of stretched pyramids, orbs, and boxes welded together. The ersatz man extended one triangle-fingered hand to the heavens, grasping for a prize he could never reach. Streaks of dark green verdigris marred the surface where years of rainwater had flowed.

  The sight of it burdened her phantom heart with memories of Vincent. She pictured the blue and white patrol craft sitting half in the courtyard, scaring off the civilians as he waited for her to scramble outside. He never landed on the roof; he’d liked to be among the people.

  Nina sighed.

  The little boy she’d once spotted sitting on the benches by the statue bouncing a green ball wasn’t there. Only water and corrosion sat upon them now. Her mind ran off with the maudlin thought that he’d grown up and moved away, yet she remained―a creature of high tech polymer composites and plastisteel, never aging, never changing. Of course, Vincent had died in the waning days of spring eighteen months ago. The boy would probably be nine years old now, merely away at school. Her gaze shifted to the right, and the weight in her chest lessened.

  Elizaveta, in a white dress, pink frilled socks, and gloss white shoes, pressed herself against the wall to stare out at the city receding below them. She had insisted on the huge pink bow at the back of her hair and begged Nina to re-tie it four times so it looked ‘just right.’ She stared into the velvety folds of a bow half again the width of the child’s entire head, and smiled. It looked little different than it had the first time she’d tied it. Elizaveta had wanted to spend more time with her.

  The girl grinned at the city and touched her finger to the clear elevator capsule wall, opposite a raindrop on the outside, tracing down it as it fell. Rain had always made Nina gloomy; as a small child, she’d believed that when all the sadness in the world had built up too much, the sky wept. It had been years since she’d abandoned such dark whimsy, but despite her adult mind understanding rain, the sight of it still awakened a pang of sorrow within her. Elizaveta though, seemed happy.

  “The rain makes you smile?” asked Nina, in Russian.

  “Yes. In Cheremushki, we lived under the ground in old tunnels. We had no shower machines and the water they saved for drinking. Everyone smelled. If it was not too cold, we would go outside and clean ourselves in the rain with soap. I liked seeing the sky, even when it was grey.” She looked down at herself for a few seconds. “Did we have to hide because those people were bad? They did not listen to the police and they shot people, but they didn’t hit me or make me do all the cleaning.”

  Nina squeezed the girl’s shoulder, furious at the nameless foster parents who’d been cruel enough to make a six-year-old run away and wind up ‘adopted’ by the Resistance.

  The elevator pinged and opened to a small, enclosure on the roof deck. Glass windows on the far end streaked with rain, aglow with the warped glare from the lights illuminating the parking area. A mental command initiated a connection between her headware and the patrol craft, summoning it to auto drive up to the doors.

  “They disagreed with the people who make the laws over there. I’m sure they did what they felt was right for all those who are suffering.”

  Elizaveta looked up at her as they crossed the small room to the doors. “Piotr said right or wrong is made up by whoever wins.”

  Amid a spray of steam and crackling blue sparks, the jet-black patrol craft glided in to land about ten feet from the entrance.

  Nina chuckled and shrouded Elizaveta under her coat. “That sounds about right.”

  The girl squealed with glee as they dashed through the rain to the car. Nina opened the door for her before she headed around the front end to the driver’s seat. The console emitted a chime along with a recorded voice announcing it detected a child and had adjusted the passive restraint system accordingly.

  After an eleven-minute ride to the school she’d enrolled Elizaveta in―Nina’s mother had insisted on the Amalthea Academy, a private school similar to the one Nina had attended prior to ninth grade―she walked her inside to a classroom of first graders. Elizaveta seemed small and delicate in comparison to the other children, though much to Nina’s pleasant surprise, she zoomed right over to a group of three other girls and they got to chattering intently via NetMini translators.

  Nina had a brief discussion with the instructor, a genial older woman by the name of Mendoza. Aside from the language barrier, Elizaveta had been adjusting well in the few days since she’d started. Rather than have her skip back a year, the school arranged for her to remain two hours after class each day for English tutoring as well as remedial instruction to bring her up to a first-grade level.

  With the child settled in for a school day, Nina headed back out into the rain and sat in her patrol craft, staring at the building, watching the shadows of children moving about the windowshades. A moment later, a PubTran hover came by and dropped off a pair of twin boys who appeared to be about fourth-graders. Nina started to frown at the sort of parents who could just stick their kid on a taxi alone at that age, but sighed instead. Not everyone had the sort of job she did with gelatinous hours and no real need to stay in the office. Of course, those parents probably also got to go home at the same time every night.

  How did I go from party girl to single mother? The patrol craft’s electronic windscreen didn’t bother displaying the rain striking it, though its patter still invaded the cabin despite inch-thick armor plates. She closed her eyes as the boys ran inside, and tried to ‘feel’ her body. Aside from no longer having to deal with cramps, nothing stood out as being inhuman unless she tried to be.

  She lost a few minutes daydreaming about her life before that night. Vincent had been completely in love with her; only worry about how her parents would react to him had kept him from proposing. Of course, he hadn’t been in any great hurry to have kids either. I probably would’ve been happy just with him. She traced her fingers across her stomach. Maybe I would’ve changed my mind eventually but… A long sigh escaped her nose. Crystal clear oceans, jet skis, Caribbean islands, and Vincent danced around in her mind. Nightclubs and concerts followed. Was Dad right? Maybe I shouldn’t have gotten involved with the NPF at all.

  “Come on, Nina. Get a grip. What’s done is done.” She stared at her hands. “Mom thinks I can do more good now than before. She’s just happy I’m still sort of alive in some way.” Nina brought the patrol craft online and lifted off. “From mousy nobody to angel of death in two-point-three stabs of a vibro-blade.”

  She cringed at the thought of what she must’ve looked like, at how badly Bertrand had smashed her body that they had to put her brain and spinal cord into a doll. She toyed with the idea of looking up the records, but shivered. No thanks. I don’t need that image in my head.

  On a whim, she changed course and headed for the mausoleum where Vincent’s ashes sat behind a one-by-one-foot slab of synthetic marble. Do I love Jo
ey or am I clinging to him because he didn’t run away in terror when he found out what I am? When she landed, she still couldn’t come up with an answer to how she’d react if he proposed. He doesn’t seem the marrying type. Course I suppose I can wait a little. Not like I’m getting older.

  Vincent’s gravesite occupied an eye-level space along a sweeping curved hallway, 202 panels from the elevator door. Sixty stories of ash chambers along the outside and inside of the ring stood under a massive windowed dome. The mausoleum building’s donut-like shape surrounded a memorial garden where mourners could sit among live plants and interact with holograms of their loved ones, assuming one had been recorded prior to death.

  She brushed a finger over the name ‘Vincent Montoya’ etched in the false marble. It seemed somewhat inappropriate to come here in her work outfit rather than dressing more formal, but she still needed to show up at the office. Nina doubted Hardin would let her take bereavement leave almost nineteen months after his death.

  “Hey… been awhile,” she whispered. “Hope you’re doing okay if you’re still around in any sort of way. I don’t know what I saw on the deck at that swamp house, but if that really was you…”

  She leaned closer, touching her head to the cold faux marble. With Joey around, she hadn’t spoken much about Vincent. True, close to a year had passed since he’d died before she met Joey, but it still seemed rushed. If the apparition she’d seen in the Badlands was really him, he seemed happy for her.

  “I’m sorry.”

  The expected wave of crushing sorrow forcing tears from her eyes never came; instead, she shouldered the burden of loss with a straight face. Her reckless charge had set in motion his death, but saved the life of a teenage prostitute. Emotion had gotten the better of her in the moment when getting that girl away from an insane aug was all that mattered. Vincent fell into the same trap trying to save her. How different would things have gone if some other cops found Bertrand that night?

  We shouldn’t have been riding together. Command knew we were dating. No one else wanted me.

  Her skin squeaked as she pulled her hand down the tombstone. “Dammit Vincent… you were too good to me.”

  Nina stood in reverent silence for a while. “I bet you don’t believe it, but I’ve got a kid now. A little girl, Elizaveta. She’s six, and went through a scary few years, but I think we’re going to manage. She’s going to be a handful, almost the exact opposite of who I was. Basically fearless, extroverted, and a girly-girl on top of that… Mom adores her. Damn Corporates shipped her over here for medical research.” She looked away from his tombstone at the floor. “Sometimes I ask myself why I took the promotion at all. The things I see with Nine sometimes. At least my current case looks better. No soul-crushing evil here, just the usual political bullshit.” She sighed. “Hope you’re not too bored in there. Anyway, speaking of bullshit, I suppose I should get to the office before Hardin sends a whisper to find me.”

  She pressed her hand to the stone above his name for a moment, let her arm fall to her side, and walked back to the elevator. It seemed surreal to think about Vincent, and the life she had before, almost as if it had been someone else, or her first twenty-five years had been all a dream.

  The elevator ride passed in silence, but chaos flooded in when the doors opened.

  Six fringers in the grungy, mismatched clothing of grey zone punks had arranged themselves around benches to the left of the main entrance. A teal-haired girl in her later teens wearing a baggy black half-jacket and white ‘painted-on’ tights crisscrossed with silver lines scrawled some indecipherable lettering on the windows with a sprayer. The other female, an Asian with maraschino red hair, seemed closer to twenty, and stared into space with an exaggerated smile. Her heavy faux-leather skirt covered most of her legs, save for a split along the left side. Three handguns adorned her belt along with an uncountable number of metal baubles. She had the same half-jacket as Graffiti Girl, though didn’t appear to have anything on under it.

  Four men, ranging in age from late teens to mid-twenties, lounged around laughing and blaring a harsh, scratchy electronica track that got dirty looks from two mausoleum security guards as well as a few mourners scurrying to the elevators as fast as they could without breaking into a full run. Some of the fringers’ clothing bore bloodstains, evidence of past fights or perhaps a remainder of the person who’d it been scavenged from.

  A dark-skinned blonde woman entered, holding hands with a girl around thirteen, probably her daughter, both wearing matching peach-colored dresses and heels. Their red puffy eyes and bowed heads suggested their loss as recent.

  “Niiiiice legs… and that ass,” said one of the fringers. “Come here, baby.” He stuck his tongue out and made ‘lalalalal’ noises.

  The woman spun to glare at him. “You need to get your shiftless selves outta here and go do somethin’ productive.”

  He blew her a kiss. “I wasn’t talkin’ to you.”

  She gasped, horrified.

  “Let’s go, Mama,” said the girl, wide-eyed and shaking. She tugged on her mother’s arm.

  Nina sent a damning glare at the security guards before storming over to the fringers.

  “Oh, hey there.” A white-haired guy with matching goatee hopped off the bench to his feet and leered at Nina. “This one’s smokin’ too. Wanna good time, princess?”

  Random whoops and catcalls emanated from the others. The red-haired Asian girl continued staring into space while the other girl moved on from her graffiti word to start on a large cat face. The mother and daughter hurried off to the elevator.

  “Hey, where you goin?’” yelled the same one who’d stuck out his tongue. He got up to follow them. “I ain’t even licked it yet.”

  The young teen screamed and sprinted for the elevator.

  Nina caught the guy with a palm on the chest and shoved him back with enough force to plant him seated on the bench. “I’m going to hope you’re just being an asshole and weren’t about to assault an underage girl.”

  “Oh, he was serious.” Graffiti Girl whirled to grin at Nina. She could’ve been seventeen or so, with light skin and dense black eyebrows. “Iz loves girls that age. We started dating when I was like twelve.” Her smile widened. “I’ve had three. They got taken away and put with my parents.” She laughed. “Isn’t that awesome?” She held her arms out and inhaled, head back, in a posture befitting a skier gliding down a snowy mountain. “It’s okay if he wants a side girl; I’m getting old.”

  “How old are you?” Nina sent an image cap of the girl’s face into the system. Her file came back in about four seconds: Allison Medina, age seventeen, listed as runaway/endangered. She’d been popped a few times by Division 1 for drug offenses, which typically meant they used it as an excuse to try to bring her home. The cops didn’t usually bother popping anyone for Flowerbasket, Sandman, or Smileys otherwise.

  “Twenty,” said Allison.

  Nina frowned at Iz. He lay where he’d landed, laughing like he’d enjoyed the ride. “Nice try, Allison.”

  A guy with split lavender/green hair dropped his pants and positioned himself to defecate in the flowerpot of a plastic tree. Passersby outside got an unobstructed view of his ass, though no one seemed to notice.

  Still, the security guards seemed afraid to do much.

  Nina stared at him. “You, pull your pants up. Shit in that pot and you’re face is going into it next. You”―she pointed at Allison― “I’m taking you back to your parents. And you”―she pointed at Iz―”on the ground. You’re under arrest for statutory rape, assault, and disorderly conduct.”

  Iz gave her the finger. “You ain’t no cop.”

  She opened her coat, revealing her sidearm, and held up her ID wallet. “Division 9, laughing boy.”

  The fringers’ smiles faded. One by one―except for Allison―they went from looking disoriented to abnormally enraged.

  Oh shit. They’re on Harmony…

  Iz and the red-haired girl pulled handgun
s at the same instant. Her combat tactical processor tagged the girl’s as a Class 1, the other as a Class 4. Neither 4mm nor 10mm pistol rounds could penetrate her ballistic stealth suit, though the bigger gun would trigger a greater sense of simulated pain. Nina blurred forward, grabbing Iz’s weapon arm at the wrist with her left while driving the ridge of her right hand into the side of his head. Her effort to flip him to the ground crushed his wrist as well as broke his arm midway between elbow and shoulder.

  Three bullets collided with her chest, stalling on the glossy black suit. With Iz gliding to the floor amid a slow motion fall, Nina launched herself at the girl, grasping both guns and crushing them. Their barrels bent upward, a rain of plastic bits slipping between her fingers. Before the girl’s facial expression changed, Nina tore the remaining two pistols from her belt and hurled them one after the next at the two other fringers who’d started to pull weapons from their belts.

  Handguns spun end over end, striking each man in the face and knocking them over. Allison backed into the window, grinning like she watched the single coolest moment of her entire life unfolding before her eyes. The girl made no aggressive moves, so Nina disregarded her for the time being.

  Another fringer jumped in with a punch. She leaned away, grabbed his arm, and flipped him face down on the floor before a sharp twist broke his shoulder.

  Iz finally landed on his back.

  Nina’s speedware throttled back since no active weapons remained in play.

  The Asian girl stared at her crushed handguns for a second before shrieking with rage and launching herself at Nina. Alas, anger and enthusiasm in droves did not make up for an utter lack of fighting ability. Nina treated her like a child throwing a tantrum, and shoved her chest-first into the floor only hard enough to knock the wind out of her.

  “You two… you have binders?” yelled Nina.

  The security guards ran over. “We called it in ten minutes ago… where are the cops?”

  “Holy shit. Are you really Nine? You didn’t kill any of them.” He blinked. “You must be having a good day or something.”