“You’re right, that’s crazy,” I said, straight-faced. “You probably just want to chat.”
“You think we’re all animals, don’t you?” Mika poked me in the shoulder. Hard. “Don’t you?”
I shrugged.
“Penned up like dogs. Fighting each other for scraps.” He shook his head. “Who are you calling an animal? I’d rather be a dog than an it.”
“Not a dog,” I muttered. “Dogs are housebroken.”
“What’s that?”
I just smiled at him. He slapped me, snapping my head back so hard it slammed on the back of the chair. The jolt of pain was like a mouthful of milk chocolate—sweet in the moment, but not rich enough to make much of an impression.
“Why aren’t you scared?” he asked.
“Of you?” I sneered. “Maybe because you’re too stupid to notice that I’m a mech. You can’t kill me. And I don’t care if you hurt me.”
“I could make you care,” he said. “You don’t want me to do that.”
“Doesn’t seem to matter what I want.”
He circled the chair a couple times, then stopped in front of me, his legs straddling mine. He slapped his hands down on the chair back, long, hairy arms locking me in, then sat down, his ass heavy on my knees. He lowered his face to mine, and I wondered what his breath smelled like. Sour, I imagined, concentrating on his chipped front teeth. Or maybe sickly sweet like rotting fruit.
It’s just a body, I thought, watching his hands creep along my bare arms. It’s not me. It’s got nothing to do with me. Tiny, curly black hairs dusted his knuckles. His ragged nails were dark with grime. Long fingers, a strong, tight grip. It’s just wires and microreceptors and synflesh. Not me.
He pushed himself back to his feet. “I’m not an animal,” he snarled, backing away. “Whatever you think.”
I didn’t want to feel relief, because that would be an admission I’d felt fear. I was supposed to be beyond fear. Secure in mind, fearless of body, that was the idea. “Fine,” I said, steady. “So now what?”
“Now we wait.”
We waited for more than an hour. Me in my chair, Mika’s eyes darting from me to the door and back to me again. When it swung open, and Sari sauntered in, I allowed myself one moment of willful ignorance before accepting the obvious. This wasn’t a rescue.
I glared at her. “Where’s Riley?”
She raised her eyebrows. “Worried? There’s nothing I can do to him anymore, right?” Sari whispered something to Mika, who nodded. “Besides, how do you know Riley’s not the reason you’re here?”
I just stared at her.
She laughed bitterly. “Oh, that’s right, you know him so well.”
“Like you used to?” I reminded myself that she was no different from any other stuck-up bitch who thought she was in charge. And that was something I could use.
“No one knows Riley,” Sari said. “You’ll figure that one out yourself.”
“Seems like a pretty pathetic attempt to get him back.”
She snorted. “Why would I want him back?”
“Right, you’ve got Gray now.”
Sari rolled her eyes. “Gray was convenient. Now he’s not. A girl like you probably understands exactly how that goes.”
“Don’t pretend you know anything about me.” There had been guys who were toys, guys who were power plays, guys who were placeholders or just something to play with before I got bored, but that was over now. Mechs played by different rules. And I didn’t play at all.
“I know freaks like you and Riley belong together,” she said. “I’ve moved on.”
“To what?” I glanced pointedly at Mika. “Him?”
Sari burst into surprised laughter, then cut herself off as Mika’s face flushed red.
“What’s it feel like?” she asked abruptly.
I struggled against the rope binding me to the chair. “A little tight, actually. Feel free to untie—”
“Not that. You know. Sitting around, knowing you’re not going to die. Never get ugly. Sick.”
None of the orgs in my world—my former world—got ugly when they got old. It’s like the pop-ups said: a nanojection a day kept the wrinkles away. And there was always a lift-tuck every few months when things started to sag.
“At least you’re starting out ugly,” I said. “So you’ve got nothing to lose.”
Sari bared her teeth, but before she could do anything, the door eased open. A thin, vertical strip of face appeared through the crack. An inch of pale lip, split by a deep red scar, a sharp nose, hooded brown eyes. “Let’s go!” the mouth commanded. “Things to do.”
Mika scrambled, tipping me off. This was the final puzzle piece, the alpha to their pathetic betas. Riley’s replacement. Sari glanced at the door, eyes shining. She smirked at me. “This is all Riley’s fault, you know.”
“I doubt that.”
She jerked her head toward the shadow behind the door. “You piss off Wynn, you pay. Riley knew that then, and he knows it now. Ask him. If you ever see him again.”
She left me alone.
“Riley?” I VM’d. But again there was no answer. Possibly he was out of range. Gone to get help. Or just gone.
Mechs feel fear, just like orgs. Sharp, imminent fear, a red, flashing danger sign, like when you’re hurtling toward the earth at a hundred miles per hour. And when the fear’s sharp enough, it overpowers that annoying voice, the one wanting to know If I’m afraid, why aren’t my hands shaking? Why aren’t my teeth chattering? If I feel fear, why don’t I feel fear? You don’t think about it, because when the danger sign’s flashing brightly enough, you don’t think at all.
Fear I felt. But not the thing that comes after the fear, the thing that shows up when the door closes and the noise stops and you’re just waiting—and waiting—for something to happen. The tight-chest, stiff-neck, rigid-muscle, can’t-breathe thing that serves as a constant reminder that Something Bad is on its way.
I never noticed it when I was an org—that’s part of being an org, having the luxury not to notice anything—but some emotions are more inside your head than others. Happy, that’s a brain feeling. But sad? That’s in the body. In the gut and the throat and the jaw. Anxious too. Worried. Nervous. All the feelings your brain would escape from if it could. So your body grabs hold and doesn’t let go. Org minds can go to as many happy places as they want, but their bodies always drag them back down to sweaty palm–ville.
Org bodies. Not mine.
So when I forced my mind to something else—clothes, in this case, and the new morphdress I was considering, almost solely for the pleasure of watching Jude’s face fall as its skirt transformed from mini to maxi before his eyes—it went.
I can’t escape, the train of thought went. And they can’t kill me. They can’t hurt me in any way that counts.
So why think about what was going to happen next?
Why not just stop being afraid?
And then the lights went out.
I’m not afraid of the dark, I told myself, then repeated the words out loud. My voice sounded strange, floating through the black. Disembodied.
It was just curfew, I thought. Nothing more mysterious or dire than that.