Synthetic Dreams

by Kim Knox

  The captain stood back and saluted. “Understood, sir.”

  Paul nodded and kicked the engine into gear, lifting it over the crowds, over the fire fighters, and turning them north. “That should keep him busy,” he murmured.

  “What are you really after?” Vyn sat forward, the fabric straps of her harness biting into her shoulders. Ahead of them, S-District spread out, a tangled mess of yellow-lit roads and ramshackle buildings. “Why did Goodman specify me?”

  “Your glamour is popular. Popularity gets you noticed.”

  “That doesn’t answer anything.” She gripped the passenger seat, the partition film stinging her knuckles. She winced and flexed her fingers free. “And what do you want from me?”

  He banked to the left, taking them towards the bright lights and luxurious mansions of the elite. Ahead was the hill where the Corporation head office stabbed into the air, a blade of glass, steel and glittering white light.

  Paul dropped lower, skimming the roads that fed into the checkpoints. Only security broke the unofficial curfew of full dark, and only they had the firepower to survive the skank gangs.

  The streets were empty, the tarmac glistening from recent freezing rain. He swept towards the line of booths with their glaring red lights, breaking up the high wire fencings that demarcated the line between the Corporation elite and the skanks.

  He landed and pressed his hand to the curve of the window. His information broke away in quick bursts of pale blue light. A guard pushed open the booth door, lifting his coat collar against the cold. Slow strides brought him to the side of the vehicle.

  “Mr. Cross.” His synthesised voice filled the interior and Vyn winced. Flunky on a power trip.

  “Officer.” Paul relaxed back in his padded seat and eased his hand free from the window. His streams of information faded away. “Corporation business.”

  “Everything is Corporation business.”

  Paul let out a soft huff of air and released his safety belts. The door opened and freezing air swept around the interior of the vehicle. Vyn shivered, watching Paul climb out. He slammed the door shut with a low thunk.

  Vyn wiped her hands over her face and focused on her breathing for a few slow seconds. She strained to hear what they were saying, but there was only the soft hum of machinery as the engine ticked over. She craned her neck to try to see them, to see if their body language gave anything away, or to see the guard’s face. All she could view out of the narrow length of the windows were Paul’s straight back and a slice of the guard’s black armour.

  Paul seemed calm, but he was senior security. He was trained to exude calm, until he killed you. A few seconds later, and he climbed back into the vehicle. The guard strode away, the fierce white beams from the headlights cutting over his long figure. He disappeared into his booth.

  “You’re cleared for entry, Mr. Cross.” The guard’s voice broke the silence and Paul pushed power into the engine. The vehicle surged up and to the left, throwing Vyn back into the padded leather.

  “Did you threaten to kill him?”

  “I never threaten.”

  And there was another non-answer. For someone who claimed honesty, he was very good at not revealing the truth. Vyn’s natural suspicion kicked in. It had only been a matter of seconds in conversation with the guard. What had he said? Had he admitted that she was in the vehicle, disguised, hidden by the film?

  “Your brother was replaced seven years ago. Why now?” Her stomach dropped and she grabbed at the stitched edge of her seat. She stopped herself from commenting on his driving skills. “What do you want from me?”

  “I want you to get him out.”

  She stared at the back of Paul’s head. Out? Out of where? There was a reason the replaced didn’t come back. Liam was a shadow. His bodiless personality caught, free-form in the virtual world. Or he was just dead. “So you’re hiring me as a contractor?”

  He dropped low over a wide tree-lined street that wound around the hill. The sound of the engine softened and the heavy clunk of the landing wheels followed. They slowed and Vyn jerked forward as the wheels touched the wet tarmac.

  “I saved your life and you want to be paid?”

  “I’m assuming you want use of my skills. You pay a professional, don’t you?”

  “Save this discussion for when we arrive.”

  “Where?”

  “As I said. My place.” He drove farther up the street, white lamplight casting a bright shine over the ornate glass-and-brick fronts of large houses. Stone paths curved over manicured lawns. Silhouettes moved in the vast windows, casually and with an ease that suggested they had no fear of attack.

  A wry smile pulled at Vyn’s mouth. Even when she’d lived on such a street, she’d never known that lack of fear. Just something else to mark her as different.

  Paul pulled into the sloping drive of a darkened mansion. The automatic doors opened and the garage swallowed the vehicle. The clunk behind them moved Vyn’s hands. She unclipped the harness and rolled her neck. None of her current situation made sense, and the sour feeling that it couldn’t end well filled her stomach. Whatever Paul Cross wanted from her—and even if it stretched to the bizarre story of wanting to free his brother—he could never let her live.

  He climbed out of the vehicle, easing the seat forward and waiting for her to get out. Light from the ceiling set his perfect features into stark shadow. And there was the twist her simulacrum had brought. She knew what he tasted like, how he kissed, the hard press of his body. She shouldn’t be conflicted over the man who in all likelihood was going to end her life.

  Vyn followed him through a series of doors and softly lit corridors. The fresh scent of grass, of polish and clean carpeting wound around her, though the biting stink of her clothes burned her nostrils. Paul had the same reaction.

  “You bathe first. Then we talk.”

  Bathe. It was a completely decadent word. One she hadn’t used in years. She showered, she scrubbed, on some occasions she decontaminated. She never bathed. “I can do that.”

  He led her up a narrow flight of wooden stairs, which opened out into a workroom. Doors led into a sleek, minimal bedroom and a tiled bathroom. Vyn stopped to kick off her boots and let her bare feet touch the smooth luxury of the wooden floor. She curled her toes, enjoying the warm slide, the grain, the slight curve to each wide board.

  “This way.” Paul’s gaze dropped to her bare feet. He frowned. “Even there.”

  “What?” Vyn looked down. The slime from the skip had seeped into her boots and coated her toes, her ankles. “Muck gets everywhere.”

  “Not that. Your scars.”

  The jagged trace of white lines cut under the sludge. She’d lived with them for as long as she could remember. It was the way her skin had always looked. People’s responses—usually fear and revulsion—caught her off guard now. Living in S-District had blunted her defensive reaction. Skanks didn’t care what she looked like, not if her product worked.

  There was…something in his gaze. She’d never seen anything quite like it. It wasn’t revulsion, and it didn’t have the edge of pity. Still, it formed a tight knot in her gut. Vyn shrugged, denying that she cared about his reaction. He’d enjoyed her simulacrum. He had no interest in her true body. “I’m used to them.”

  She padded onto the deep carpet of the bedroom, the shining tiled bathroom pulling her towards it.

  “Who did it?”

  She waved her hand over a gleaming metal tap that jutted out of the wall. It splashed steaming hot water into the deep bath. A hint of mint and eucalyptus drifted up from the water and she pulled it deep into her lungs. The Corporation’s elite home fixture. For a moment, she had to close her eyes. It was too much, evoking her childhood, her own bathroom, splash-fights with her older brother.

  Vyn pulled in a tight breath. “I thought you knew everything about me.”

  “I have my suspicions.” He stopped in the bathroom doorway, a dark shadow that ran a nervous heat under her s
kin. “But the information is buried under security walls.”

  “Andrew and David March-Goodman.” She pressed her teeth to her lip. Even as she said it, the unreality of it hit her. To put the blame on two such prominent men felt like a lie on her tongue. But it was the truth. “They took me when I was six. Wanted to perform some ceremony, some magical rite. Wealth and influence.” She let out a soft huff of air. “I was meant to be sacrificed.”

  Paul’s silence forced her to look at him. He’d stilled, his expression frozen. It wasn’t horror or disbelief, but something in it chilled her.

  It forced her to look away. “I’d like privacy.”

  “No.”

  Her fingers paused on her jacket tabs, her shoulders tensed to shrug off her backpack. “Is this what you want then? You’re curious about what my skin looks like.”

  “Something like that.”

  Vyn turned to face him, tucking her jacket back to her spine and easing the simulacrum case into a pocket. She let him see her palm one of her hard currency packets and slide that into her jacket. She swung her backpack from her shoulder and quickly secreted her currency.

  She hung the bag from a silver hook to the side of the bath and shrugged off her jacket. It dropped to the floor, followed by her trousers. Paul’s unreadable gaze travelled the length of her bared legs. Treatment had smoothed out the worst of the ridges and tightness of the scar tissue, but it hadn’t taken out the snaking silver pattern or the discolouration of her skin.

  “Good enough?”

  He nodded towards the sink. “There’s a clean toothbrush there.” He paused. “And your bath’s full.”

  Belatedly, Vyn waved her hand over the wide tap and the water slowed to a trickle and stopped. She rinsed her mouth. “As I said, I’d like privacy now.”

  “I need your shirt and your underwear. I’m incinerating everything but your jacket.” He glanced at it, slime oozing in slow strings to the anti-slip floor. “Since you’ve packed it.”

  “You’re making me strip completely?”

  “Yes, I am.”

  Vyn couldn’t read him. There was no hint of a smile, no shift in his body. His eyes held the same disconcerting flatness. He obviously had no prurient interest in seeing her naked. Was it pity? No, she wasn’t thinking that.

  Or was it scientific? Something to do with who had carved up her skin? Had he known about the CEO’s father and uncle?

  She unbuttoned her shirt and dropped it on top of her crumpled trousers. Her thumbs hooked into her bra. How long had it been since she’d stripped in front of a man? Sex had always been a heavily clothed affair conducted in complete darkness with just the essentials uncovered. For more years than she could remember, only she’d seen her skin. Some twisted part of her had wanted others to see her nakedness, to want her, scarred skin and all. She’d never risked it…but now Paul was demanding it. With tension coiling tight in her belly, she let her shorts join the pile.

  “The scars cover every inch of your skin.”

  She swallowed, not wanting to dwell on how his gaze moved over her naked flesh. “Andrew and David were very thorough.”

  “You remember?”

  “No.” She dipped her fingers into the bath, creating eddies as she tested the heat. It felt perfect. She climbed in, almost floating in the deep water. A soft sigh escaped her. Her shower—often cold, always spluttering—couldn’t compare to this bliss.

  She had no memory of the men taking her, drugging her and carving up her skin. Except for the evidence on her body, the whole nightmare could have happened to someone else. Some days even her life, her family, her former friends in N-District seemed like a vivid dream. “My parents had a block fitted. The Corporation paid for it, and my treatments. Such as they were.”

  “Then how do you know it was them?” Paul’s voice was smooth and calm, no hint of his reason for questioning her evident. What did he really want from her?

  She turned in the water to meet his gaze and caught his attention moving over her spine and backside. Her skin ran hot in a quick response. She focused. “I’m assuming you won’t have me arrested for slander.”

  “You can assume that.”

  “Then what’s your interest in my scars?”

  “I suspected your attack was perpetrated by someone in the First Family. Everything about you is hidden, Vyn. I wanted to know what they’d done to you.”

  “Why?”

  Something shifted in his dark gaze. His first reaction.

  And Vyn cursed that she didn’t know what it was. “You seem…honest, Paul. And who am I going to tell?”

  His head tilted and a ghost of a smile touched his mouth. “You’re Fomorian. You haemorrhage information.”

  “Only information that won’t get me killed. I’m not a hacker. I’m curious, but I like breathing.”

  “You hunted out who attacked you? How?”

  Was that what he wanted? He thought she’d broken the security walls around the First Family. He was pushing for a seizure of power. Time to disappoint him. “My brother told me when I was older. When I was twelve. He risked everything in telling me. He thought I had the right to know.”

  It would have been easier at the time for her not to know, to remain ignorant, but Richard knew her. She’d been born curious. And it was safer for her to have the truth than to ask the inevitable questions. Mainly why, with the advances in medical technology, she still had to bear the scars of her attack. Questions that could have her vanished.

  “He saved me.” She twisted onto her back, the hot water sloshing over her body. She closed her eyes, letting her hair float around her. The thought of him looking and desiring filled a few blissful moments. Her body was what it was. Yet…for a man—a man like Paul—to stare at her was pushing fire through her flesh. It was all fantasy. As a Fomorian, a low-level skank, she didn’t fit into the elite’s perfect world, with its decorous women, all shine and no opinion. That reminder broke her illusion and she held back a sigh. “The Corporation only paid for so much. They said my skin didn’t respond well to the treatments. I got the distinct feeling they wanted the evidence to remain on my skin. For Andrew and David to keep their demonic little rite.”

  “So you took to wearing glamour.”

  “It was…expected.” Her mother had insisted. No daughter of hers—one already too small, skinny and dark—would venture out into the Mind so disfigured. “When it didn’t fit right, I tweaked.”

  “More than tweaked, Vyn.”

  “All right, I flooded my college with illegal glamour. My heinous crime.” She let a wry smile lift her mouth and reached for the cedar-and-apple-scented bar of soap on a dish. It eased over her skin. “I had a technical talent. Such a thing is…distasteful in a woman of N-District.”

  Paul’s soft laughter surprised her. “So I’ve seen.”

  Liam had come from an executive family, which meant Paul moved in the upper levels of society. With his looks he no doubt snared the attentions of the plastic women. It was none of her business. He’d seen her naked—she ignored the little frisson that gave her—and shown not the slightest interest. And why would he be interested, when women like her simulacrum were his normal fare?

  Vyn eased the soap over her thigh, her knee, and rubbed lather into her grubby toes. She’d slipped into forgetting again. His smooth, calm persona was a lure. He would most likely kill her when he’d made use of whichever of her skills he wanted. But his questions had dredged up old feelings, old memory and guilt.

  “My family?” Her hand paused over her other knee and she couldn’t look at him. “How…how are they?”

  Paul was silent for a moment. “Your father retired. He and your mother are comfortable.”

  The soap slipped over her thigh. Had they missed her? Wondered about her? Even tried to find her? She’d never been a favoured child, but she was their flesh and blood. Or she had been. “Comfortable?”

  “They spend a lot of their time in the upper tier.”

  His calm v
oice flowed around her, deep and smooth. Goosebumps ran over her skin and she imagined his gaze travelling over the length of her thigh. A sliver of need pushed up from her belly, but she willed herself not to let her fantasy overtake her. She was in the cold-world. Reality was bitter.

  So her parents were still rich and could enjoy the dubious pleasures money bought them. A sour smile tugged at her mouth. They could’ve been the glamour-filled people she’d seen in the club, unknowingly wearing touches of their lost daughter’s product. “And Richard?”

  “Based in Scotland. Has a daughter, Natasha. Six.”

  Her fingers gripped her calf and she ignored the pain. Six. The age they’d taken her.

  Vyn’s heart drummed too loud in her ears and she willed herself to breathe through the sudden surge of panic. She forced out the words. “And she’s safe? The Goodmans haven’t taken her, touched her?”

  “You think it goes by blood?”

  A short laugh escaped her. “Who knows? But maybe with the bastards dead, what they did to me dies with them.” She needed to believe that. The thought that the Goodmans would destroy another child twisted a tight pain in her chest. “The Mind corrupted them. When they created it, the fucking idiots thought they were gods.”

  She dunked her head, soaking her hair, wanting to put the dead men from her mind. As she surged out of the water, Paul was waiting and handed her a small tube of shampoo. The sharp scent of lime cut the warm air. She dunked herself again and found him sitting on a small stool beside the bath.

  “I do want something from you.” He undid the buttons of his jacket. “You’re my way into the Box.”

  Vyn frowned at him and dipped down into the darkened water. “The Box?” He might be unconcerned by her nakedness, but she didn’t want her nipples on show. Not when they were obviously peaked. Her arm snaked across her breasts, further obscuring them, and her other hand slipped over her mons. An ache inched across her shoulder blades as she strained to keep her chin from slipping into the water. For a second, she closed her eyes. “Can we do this when I’m out of the water?”

  There was that hint of a smile again. It ran a shiver under her skin, a strange mixture of fear and arousal. “Yes, we can.” He stood, pulled a large cream towel from an alcove and held it open. “I’m waiting.”