Synthetic Dreams

by Kim Knox

  Not a hallucination. Panic rioted through her body. What had Ossian just said about Fomorians vanishing, taken by the Corporation? And a security officer, a very real security officer was now sitting on her couch. Slow and easy, she slipped her hands back into her jacket pockets. “You have the wrong flat. No Bran-seven here.”

  Paul stood. He wore the same smooth and immaculate black suit, white shirt and slim tie as he had in the club, seemed impossibly handsome and unreal in her dingy, grubby flat. He ran his hand over his tie, straightening it unnecessarily, and fastened the buttons of his jacket. “Do we have to do this, Bran-seven? You deny you are who you are. I pile on the proof that you do manufacture glamour under that name, that you are a top-level Fomorian. We go around and around, until I get bored and electro-shock you.”

  “Fomorian?” She shook her head. “My name is Lotte Cenon, I work—”

  “In the chemical factory a mile from here.” A dark smile touched his mouth and Vyn’s skin tingled. She’d kissed him. It was like a half dream. “False. Now…” He stopped and turned his head. “Are you expecting anyone?”

  Vyn blinked. “Including you? No.”

  His jaw tightened. “We have to get out now.”

  “Who are you?”

  “Someone who’s about to save your life.”

  Vyn stared at him. “What?”

  He strode towards her and she jerked the electro-shock at him. He caught her wrist through her jacket and squeezed. Her fingers numbed and she could no longer hold the device. He pulled it free of her pocket and dropped it into his own. “Don’t even think about it. I’m senior security. You know what that means.”

  He was a trained killer. Which made his appearance in the club strange. Had he been there to trace her through her glamour?

  She gave a slow nod and he let her wrist go.

  “Now, do as I say and I’ll get you out of here alive.”

  “I’m much safer—”

  A low rumble shook the walls, and screams and barked orders reverberated through the ceiling. Vyn stared up. Misdirection she’d planted pointed authorities to the floor above. The white-fyre lab. The less of their kind the better.

  “That’s where they think you are. And you know it.” He grabbed her arm and hauled her into her bedroom. With little effort he kicked aside her bed to expose the dusty wooden floor. “Open it.”

  “Open what?”

  Shots rang out, there was another rumble and dust fell from the ceiling. “You can deny this all you want. But if they break in here, you’re the person they’re going to shoot. Not me.”

  Vyn knelt and ran her hands around the edges of a large square, hidden by optical sensors. A flat metal trapdoor appeared and she pressed her hand to its centre. Air hissed, there was a dull clunk and it released. She eased her fingers under the curved edges and heaved. Beside her, Paul straightened her bed, leaving the trapdoor still exposed.

  “Down,” he said, pointing into the darkness.

  “It’s not big enough for two.”

  “I’m lean, you’re skinny. We’ll fit.”

  Vyn turned and climbed down the ladder. Paul caught the lid and followed her down. She stepped off the ladder and pressed herself to the metal-lined wall. She’d cut a hole through to the dead space at the back of the small, rarely used storeroom directly below. Thick boarding and more optical sensors had kept it hidden. This was her bolthole. Not even Ossian knew about it, and yet this security officer had led her straight to it. “How did you know this was here?”

  Paul dropped down next to her, the final touches of light edging his sharp profile as the trapdoor shut. In the cramped and silent darkness, there was only their breathing and Vyn’s wildly beating heart.

  His scent wrapped around her, unchanged from the club. A trained killer shouldn’t smell this good. She closed her eyes, the press of her simulacrum case against her spine a constant reminder of her distorted life. Nothing like the life she was supposed to be living. “I said—”

  “Shh.” He drew a weapon from inside his jacket—she heard the snick of a safety release—his elbow and arm brushing against her breast, and stood ready to fire.

  Air seeped in from channels cut to the outside and brought with it freezing spikes of ice. Vyn’s legs started to ache, cold and tiredness biting into her flesh. She flexed her toes in her boots. Her bolthole was an absolute last resort. There was a reason for that.

  She strained to listen over the thud of her heart, but the darkness was only filled with Paul, his breathing, his scent, the heat from his body. She offered up silent curses. She needed more of a life than the one she had.

  The metal wall shuddered around them, and Vyn clamped her hand to her mouth to stop the escaping cry. They were blitzing her room, taking out the inorganic and leaving only the organic. Nothing could hide from a blitz.

  She bit at the inside of her cheek, the pain diverting some of her need to cry. Her money and gear were stowed in other drop boxes around her flat. The surface stuff, whilst sentimental, didn’t have any true value. She had to remember that, and really she didn’t have the luxury of being maudlin. She was still alive and she had the simulacrum. It was her licence to stamp money.

  Boots thudded overhead and Vyn held her breath. Paul shifted his stance.

  The optical sensors were supposed to be blitz-proof. Now they’d put them to the test.

  “She’s not here.”

  The male voice carried, dull and low, through the wood and metal. More clanking above them and a new voice joined them.

  “Fomorians live like pigs.” There was a deep thud and Vyn suspected he’d stamped on what remained of her bed. “Intelligence fucked up. So we stake out this dump. Rumours are thick already.” He cursed. “This operation is a mess. One swoop and we take the lot. Not piecemeal. Never piecemeal.”

  A long pause followed and Vyn risked taking a breath. He hadn’t gone, she knew that, and her heart drummed.

  In front of her, Paul tensed. “Covert surveillance. It’s full dark. Either she’s run, is coming back, or the gangs got her. We need to know.”

  Boots thumped and Vyn started to count the seconds. The quieter they became, the more her wild pulse eased. “They’re gone?” Her question was little more than a whisper.

  “Yes.” His reply was equally low. “I get you out of here. Then you tell me everything you know about Liam Cross.”

  “Liam?” Slots fell into place in her mind. That was who Paul reminded her of. Older, sharper, more mean, but the similarity in looks was there. Liam had said he had an older brother. Paul would qualify.

  “You remember him.”

  “I remember a lot of people.”

  Vyn let out an undignified squeal as Paul pushed her hard up against the metal wall. His breath brushed her temple, his fingers pinned her arms, and she willed herself to stay calm. “I told you, I know who you are, Bran-seven. Exactly who you are.”

  She closed her eyes, the fear and a fast rush of arousal firing through her flesh. “You don’t know me.”

  “You’re Vynessa Somerton, disgraced daughter of Peter and Marie Somerton. They bought you this life. The other option was replacement.”

  Vyn couldn’t help her indrawn breath. Her history had been scraped from all records, a condition of her continued existence. He was security, but even that privilege had its limits.

  His breath burned against her skin. “Liam was replaced. Seven years ago.”

  “And you’re here now?”

  His hands flexed around her arms, his body tense. “Don’t taunt the man who’s keeping you alive.” He drew in a deep breath and stilled. “What the hell do you wash in?”

  Vyn was glad of the heavy darkness because it hid her reddening face, with its mix of embarrassment and anger. So he didn’t like S-District soap? Tough. “It’s clear. Time to go our separate ways.”

  “I’m not letting you go.”

  Vyn had to remind herself that only she knew about their kiss, about the hunger, the desire h
e’d shown for her. She closed her eyes. Not her. Some male-fantasy construct, all tits and ass. “Inconvenient.”

  Paul stepped back and chilled air forced her to shiver. “I’ll go first.” He climbed the ladder and lifted the trapdoor. A grey light cut across the metal, dull, but after complete blackness her eyes stung. He glanced back at her. “Clear.”

  Vyn followed him out into the grey shadow of her room. Nothing remained. Only the dark stains against the cracked walls marked her bed frame, a chair, her lamp. Grit and dust thickened the bedroom’s single window. Her heart squeezed, but she fought the sudden push of emotion. It was just a room.

  Her brain kicked into gear. Half-hunched against the chance of being seen through the window, she scuttled across the room to the far dark corner. A smaller, shallower drop box opened in the floor and a revealed a small backpack with her premium gear. She shrugged it on and crawled into the front room. Another corner and another drop box. Her hard currency. She tucked the packets into the inner pockets of her trousers.

  “How did you know about my main drop box?”

  Paul moved away from the front room’s single window. “I said. I know you.” He took her arm again and strode towards what remained of the door. He paused at the shattered frame. The flickering light from the corridor caught on his sharp profile. His lips thinned before he spoke. “If we get separated, you head for the first floor escape ladder. Understood?”

  “If we get separated?”

  “I should say when.” His mouth twitched into a dark smile. “I may have to play with some of these people.”

  Vyn ignored the twist in her gut. He was very likely senior security because he loved the wet work. “That drops into one of the rubbish skips.”

  Paul glanced at her and his sharp expression gave her his low opinion of her smell.

  She had the sudden urge to kick him in the shin. She stopped herself. He would take out the security keeping a watch for her. “I want my electro-shock back.”

  Paul handed it to her, no objection, no warning. “Be careful.”

  “You trust me not to shock you?”

  “Do you see anyone else getting you out of here?” He drew two small handhelds from inside his jacket and released the safeties. His fingers flexed. And he stepped out into the corridor.

  Chapter Four

  The sudden explosion of noise and stark white light erupted into the dead silence of her front room. A peppering of projectiles, screams and dull thumps cut the air.

  She almost yelped when a hand grabbed her arm, but she recognised Paul’s hard touch. “This will bring more of them.”

  “That can’t be helped.”

  He tugged her out into the corridor and towards the back stairwell. Black-armoured bodies littered the floor, the ripples of energy in the walls raining sparks. It would interfere with their surveillance gear—still, that glitch would bring others. Then they would find their dead.

  The window at the end of the corridor exploded inwards, streaming tiny shards of glass through the air. Before she could react or cry out, a canister hit the floor.

  Vyn acted on instinct. Eyes shut. Ears blocked. Mouth open. Light seared her eyelids, the sharp detonation of the thunder-flash sending a dulled roar through her skull. She staggered, the acrid burn of smoke hot in her lungs.

  A firm hand grabbed her elbow and propelled her forward. Her boots slipped on the narrow concrete steps and she fought to find her balance.

  “You’ve had a thunder-flash thrown at you before.”

  It wasn’t really a question. Or so she thought. His voice was dulled, nuance almost lost. If he knew her, then he’d know how influential her family was. She’d had hostage training at a young age. The important stuff had stuck.

  She stretched her jaw, her boots still pounding down the steps, the swirls of yellow gas tracing the air around them. Some of the building’s air filters kicked in, identifying a toxin and clearing the corridors and stairwells.

  No window on the next floor—it had been barricaded with bars and sheet metal years before—but the floor was thick with security. Paul’s handhelds blazed, slicing away limbs, puncturing armour and ripping the energy from the walls. Sparks caught, and fire chased along the ceiling. Blistering alarms ripped through the air.

  She took to the next set of stairs, and a sudden surge of tenants wrapped around her. She lost Paul in the melee. Panic burned at the edge of her thoughts, but she fought it. Even Corporation thugs were less likely to open up on people escaping a fire.

  Two more flights and she broke away, turning left into the dark, narrow passage that led to the escape ladder. She shocked the lock and kicked at the door. It swung open, groaning on rusted hinges. A gantry ran for a short length against the exterior brick of the building.

  “Move.” A man shoved past her, clambering onto the thin metal gantry and planting a boot against the mechanism. The ladder dropped with a sharp clang. Shadows moved, drawn by the smoke, the sirens, the prospect of so many people thrown out into full dark.

  Vyn let others surge past her before she risked the unsteady gantry and climbed down the ladder. She had to trust that Paul would get out and find her. He was her best plan in the riot of disaster that was now her life.

  She dropped halfway, hitting the rancid remains of what she didn’t want to dwell on. It was soft and cushioned her fall. That was all she needed to know. The chilled air kept the stink to a minimum, but still, as she pushed her way to the corner of the skip, her trousers became wet and slimed.

  She huddled down, listening to the alarms wail and watching the brown smoke curl into the night, mixing with the ever-present smog. Her hand snaked under her jacket and she blew out a hot breath. The simulacrum case still clung to her spine.

  More people dropped to the darkness of the alley, security—from their barked orders—swarming through the masses, hunting for her. Ossian would be convinced she’d been vanished but she couldn’t risk contacting him, assuring him that she was safe.

  The distant wail of sirens cut under the building’s alarms. Fire crews from the chemical factory had scrambled to deal with the blaze. Yet more gear to confuse the security watching and waiting for her. Good. Now, she just needed Paul to show up.

  “Out.” The quick tap against the skip resonated. “Vyn.”

  Her ears were still dulled, but it sounded like Paul. “That you, Meat?”

  He was silent, which gave her confidence that it was him outside the skip. She hauled herself up, swinging a leg over, finding her balance with her backpack and assortment of packets. She dropped to the alley floor.

  “You stink.”

  “Something died in there.”

  Paul gripped her arm and tugged her out into the darkness, guiding her through the dazed people, the thickening smoke obscuring them. He moved at the same confused speed, milling onto the main road and into the void of another alley. Within a few metres, he pushed open a narrow door and shoved her inside.

  Lights flickered on and she squinted against the quick glare. The garage was narrow and long, and a low vehicle squatted in the sharp light. Its black paintwork glistened. Not a Corporation transport—or not one she’d seen before. Liam’s family had been almost as wealthy as her own. It could be his off-duty vehicle.

  Paul flipped open a door. He paused and looked her up and down. “Get in the back.”

  Vyn eased past him, clambered over the driver’s seat and flopped onto the smooth, clean leather of the wide backseat. It smelled fresh, clean—for a few seconds, then her stench filled it. She pressed her hands to her face and let her brain try to catch up. They were out of her building in one piece, though her flat—and the building that housed it—were practically destroyed.

  “Where now?”

  Paul slammed the door and warm air circulated, filters battling to expel her stink from the interior. “My place.”

  “But you have to live…”

  “In N-District, yes.”

  Vyn stared at the back of his hea
d. “Even senior security can’t smuggle a Fomorian across the checkpoints.”

  She heard the sharp smile in his voice. “You’d be surprised.”

  He turned over the engine, its soft hum vibrating through the vehicle’s frame. A film partitioned them, shimmering in the soft lights embedded into the curved roof.

  Vyn frowned. He was creating a mirage of his backseat, probably one empty of a stinking Fomorian. “Isn’t light-bending illegal?”

  “Strap in, I drive fast.”

  A low rumble was followed by the groan of a door lifting and sliding over the roof of the garage. The landing wheel mechanism gave a long whine and a clunk as it hit the underside of the chassis. Paul’s fingers flexed around the wheel, and he reversed into another alley.

  They glided out, sharp beams of the vehicle cutting over the milling people, the heavy smoke and flames erupting from her building. Vyn’s hands gripped the warmed leather of the seat as a security captain waved his baton, ordering them to stop. Paul obeyed. The curved window flashed his credentials and his clearance.

  Vyn blinked. Paul Cross was very senior indeed. What was he up to? Her suspicious nature kicked in. He’d waited seven years to retrieve his brother? Seven. That seemed unlikely. Her mouth thinned. A CEO was often betrayed by those closest to him. Was she suddenly involved in a hatchet man’s bid for power?

  The security captain bent to peer through the window into the dimly lit interior. “You’re a long way from home, sir.”

  Through the processor built into the frame of the vehicle, Vyn recognised his voice. He’d stood in her blitzed flat and declared all Fomorians pigs.

  “Overseeing your work here.” Paul stared ahead to the blazing building, the fire engines screaming up—all noise and lights—to tackle the fire. “Did you get the Fomorian?”

  “No sir, we believe she had a tip-off. You know their network.”

  Paul’s knuckles whitened around the steering wheel. “Find her. Our CEO was very specific in who he wanted this time.”