Cold Hard Truths 1: Vices (4 page)

When he left me that first night, he did so without having whispered a single word to me. His fingers on my skin were gentle and his moans had been genuine, but he never spoke. I thought the next day that perhaps things between us would change. Perhaps he’d see me like I was a person, or maybe even smile at me in passing, but I quickly learned how wrong and naive I’d been. He was just as cold toward me after that night and all the nights with him that followed. His mind, his body, and his heart were three completely separate entities, all of which were covered in ice. My heart never stood a chance.

Years ago, after he’d left my room that last night, I’d barely seen him around headquarters at all. At first I thought perhaps we’d been caught, and they’d come for me next to reprimand me, but as time passed, I suddenly got the chilling feeling that he was purposefully avoiding me. Being so young and feeling like my heart was broken, I’d looked for love in all the wrong places after that, and in all the wrong ways. We’d been tossed out soon after, and that was when I’d first developed my drug addiction, hunting for something to soothe the aching that Carver left in my chest. Nothing ever did, but some things had made it easier.

And then he was standing in front of me, a taunting reminder of the brief time of my life when I believed in something that couldn’t have been real. I’d dreamed about him countless times over the years, sometimes shamelessly and sometimes waking up in the morning with a sick feeling in my stomach. I’d been with too many men to count, none of them coming close to him in comparison. So I’d shut my eyes when they touched me, and imagine a beautiful, deadly man who probably didn’t even remember my name.

He was beautiful. Different, but beautiful. He was shorter than me by about five inches, and I still had at least forty pounds of muscle on him, but he carried around a sense of being that was so much bigger than me. His once white-blond hair was now a very pale blue, an aesthetic alteration and not a cheap one. Probably selected to match his equally light blue eyes. He had dark eyebrows to match his thick, black eyelashes that framed his cold stare. And the newest addition had to be the dark scar that ran from the corner of his right eye to down under his chin. I remembered the mark, but I didn’t think it would scar so noticeably.

“Jones,” someone snapped my name. That got my attention immediately. “Hope we didn’t interrupt your little daydream, but some of us have a briefing to begin.” That was Corp. He was standing next to Carver, facing the group of us.

“Some of you know each other, some of you don’t, and quite frankly, I don’t give a shit if you do or not. This isn’t about friendships, and each one of you knows that. This is a new team. Six of you in total, not including your division team leader. Carver here will be your team leader. Respect him as you would me. Follow protocol, be obedient, and if you’re lucky we won’t have to throw you into isolation. I know it’s been a while since you’ve been here, but that doesn’t mean you have any leeway to be sloppy or inefficient. So take a good, long look around you, because these people standing next to you are going to be the only family you’ll ever know. Read up on one another; learn each other’s strengths and weaknesses. After all, you’ll be trusting these people with your life. Now take a seat.”

There were a few seats attached to the walls. Each one had a screen in front of it and an electronic dashboard. I took a seat behind Bruno and tried to focus on the screen.

Corp stepped into the middle of the room between the two rows of desks. The flat-panel screen behind him turned on with a picture of that handsome politician I’d seen many times before.

“That’s Roscora Deleviv, for those of you who don’t know.” Corp began speaking to us. “A politician, very diplomatic in the ways he’s demanding action from the people of this city. He’s very left wing, and our current government, the one you work for, doesn’t like that. We believe he’s a threat. We believe he’s behind the SERP group’s protests and riots, and our government sees this so-called
harmless movement
turning into a state of political, civil warfare with anarchy on our streets. We don’t want these rebel groups, Deleviv’s followers, gaining any sort of political ground or say in the way our government is run, especially not through acts of blatant terrorism. That’s where we come in.”

I stared at the picture of Deleviv on the monitor in front of me. He was a handsome man, dark hair slightly graying at the edges above his ears, kind eyes. He was wearing a pressed suit that was dark gray in color and probably some high-end make that I’d never heard of. I could see the few external chips implanted in him on his neck and hands. Most people who had chips exposed that visibly were poor, so I assumed he came from the working class, which probably helped in his candidacy. I’d have never assumed on my own he was behind the riot that let loose an electromagnetic bomb in the new software district, but as I’d learned before, looks could be deceiving, especially for beautiful men like him.

“Dismissed. You’ll meet with Carver in the training room tomorrow,” Corp said to us before he and Carver walked out of the room.

The entire situation felt surreal to me. The man I’d been lusting over for the last seven years had been in the same room as me. I wondered if things would be different this time, but deep down I knew they wouldn’t. If anything, time had made Carver colder and even harder.

“Hey,” Bruno said, gently punching my shoulder. “Want to go grab some lunch?”

“Yeah. Yeah, sure.” My head was still in the clouds.

After leaving the room, we went down another level to the cafeteria. It was small and windowless, but it was cleaned obsessively. It was easy to tell because of the crisp white walls and floor tiles. There were ten benches in total, and usually each one was assigned to a specific unit. The entire floor plan was almost like one of those vintage high school movies I’d seen. Everyone was segregated and everyone had their places.

We each had special dietary regimen designed specifically for us. Mine consisted mostly of protein and vegetables with a tiny portion of carbs. After meals we’d usually go to a lab and have one of the workers there inject us with vitamins. It was like this every day.

The table we ended up sitting at housed the other four of our team members. Sitting at the head of the table, there was Ko. The most noticeable thing about Ko was his bright yellow hair. It was so bright it was almost neon, which was surprising and alluring at the same time. He was average height, almost short, and slender, with small, toned arms and a quirky smirk that said he liked to get into trouble. A tattoo of something intricate stretched out around his neck and down past the collar of his shirt. If it had been any other day, any other time, any other situation, I would’ve already been imagining myself sinking into him from behind.

Vcue was sitting next to Ko and another girl named Tanis. Where Vcue was tall, curvy, and buxom, Tanis was small, almost mousy, and wore thick-framed glasses. Glasses were antiques. No one had the use for glasses anymore. Most people had laser eye surgery at birth whether or not they needed it. Vcue had long, dark hair that changed from dark blue to dark red—another expensive trick probably courtesy of ENAD. But Tanis’s hair appeared to be natural—a light red color without the same shine as the woman’s next to her. There weren’t many other distinguishing features about Tanis, which reminded me of ZeZe in a way. I knew Vcue was exactly Bruno’s type, and I bet myself at that moment he was already imagining her permanently-stained-red lips all over his skin. I couldn’t blame him. If I preferred women, I’m sure she’d have been my type. Hell, if I was desperate enough for some affection, I’m sure I’d have considered her more than good enough for the night. She was a naturally gorgeous woman, and it was difficult to ignore her presence.

Seated at the other end of the table was Seno. He was huge and threatening. Bruno was a big man, but he was even bigger, and I’d bet money that he enjoyed throwing his weight around. He had two different-colored eyes, one light and one dark, which seemed to match his shark’s grin perfectly. His skin was pale, almost white, and his veins were easily visible through his light skin. His face was strong and might have been considered traditionally handsome, with his long nose and high brow, but I wasn’t sure if anyone could get past that leer of his. One of his arms was robotic, attaching at his shoulder joint. The arm was polished metal with thin, barely visible wires just under the surface panels. The circuits where the arm attached into his skin were thick, blunt staples with wide, circular bolts embedding them into flesh. I doubted a man like him, with his training, had received an injury that required that extensive a mod. He probably did it for vanity reasons. He sat far back in his chair with his arms crossed, eyeing us like we were food, and to him, maybe we were.

“Any of you met Carver before?” Vcue asked us while picking at her salad. I wondered if Bruno was paying any attention to the words that she was saying or just the motions her lips were making.

“We have,” Bruno piped up. “We were in training with him. Wonder how he got promoted.”

“Probably fucked his way to the top.” Seno at the end of the table seemed to want to give his two cents. I shot him a look.

“It does happen,” Vcue said. “I’ve known people personally would’ve done it, and why the hell not? It’s not like we have anything else to barter with.”

“I could see Carver doing it,” Bruno said. “The guy is psychotic. Completely ruthless. In training he was always so quiet, too quiet. Never really interacted with anyone. Said it was because we had such a high mortality rate that it wasn’t worth him getting to know anyone. I guess it’s true, but what kind of sixteen-year-old kid thinks like that? And that’s not even the half of it. I’ve seen the guy shoot out a man’s knees before. Stood there and watched him screaming. Not even a flicker of reaction from Carver. It’s like the guy isn’t human.”

I’d also been there when Carver shot the man’s knees out. It was horrific and amazing.

It was our first real mission, and we were a small unit of five sent to take out a few drug dealers peddling Corx and other high-end drugs. The state put ENAD up to the task of dealing with the high rollers. We walked into the building we’d been directed to, and it smelled like piss and sex and grime. A bullet easily went through the first dealer’s stomach, kind of sloppy to look like it wasn’t a professional hit. The second put up a bit more fight, taking a swing at Bruno but missing, only to fall victim to a shot in the chest from Carver’s gun.

It was then we heard sounds coming from down the hall. We’d finished our mission; we should’ve gone, but I was young and curious. I had no idea what propelled me down that hallway, but something did. I came to the door at the end of the hall and quietly swung it open. Inside were two young boys, couldn’t have been older than fourteen. One was lying on the floor, bleeding from everywhere—and I mean everywhere—crying and sobbing into the carpet. The other boy was naked, pinned on his stomach under a large man in his midforties. The older man was sweating and bare, covered in track marks, blood, and layers of hair. The man was obviously strung out on more drugs than most would think a human body could handle.

At some point, as I stood in the doorway in shock, Carver had slipped in past me. He held the gun to the man’s head, making a few motions with it for the man to get off the bed and onto the ground. The man easily complied, offering us drugs, money, boys, girls to let him live. Carver’s face never changed when he fired his gun at the first kneecap; he didn’t even say anything. The second knee made a loud popping noise, followed by impossibly louder screams. In that neighborhood, no one would come rushing through the door at the sound of screaming. Carver watched the man slowly bleed out, screaming and writhing on the floor. The rest of our unit stood there in transfixed horror as the one boy on the bed started wailing and ran to the other boy covered in blood.

Carver was sixteen at the time, and I was twenty. It wasn’t until two and a half years later that we first slept together, but I remember that being the exact moment I knew how badly I wanted him. Some people think Carver is fucked up because he can shoot a man in the knees without blinking an eye, but what would they say about the man who fell for him because of it?

“I’m heading to the workout room. Would you like to join me?” Bruno asked, leaning over the table toward Vcue and raising his eyebrows. Vcue stood up from her chair and followed him out of the room, along with Ko and Seno, who were passing glances between each other.

I sighed and scrubbed my hands over my eyes, willing myself not to relive old memories.

“Long night?” a tiny voice asked me. It was Tanis. She hadn’t gone with the others and was finishing up some pasta covered in a green sauce.

“I guess,” I replied, thinking back to the long, cold nights I’d spent in the isolation room, trying to come down from the drugs that were in my system.

She pushed the glasses up on the bridge of her nose and smiled at me, almost like a mother would smile at a child.

“Why do you wear glasses?” I asked.

“Because they make me ridiculously beautiful.”

I had no idea how to reply to that. She laughed.

“I’m able to use them to control switchboards, even distant ones. I like to have this technology on me at all times, and this seems the most practical way. They can even pick up infrared lighting and body temperature.”

I laughed then. She had the loose sense of humor I liked most in people. I could imagine us becoming friends.

“And they’re also incredibly stylish,” I added.

Her expression became suddenly serious, and her gaze met mine straight on. “Hey, be careful around Seno, okay? I trained with him. He’s a bad enemy.”

“If he was a complete psycho, they wouldn’t let him on the team, right?” I asked her, only half joking. I knew that Seno gave off a certain kind of threat, but I still wasn’t sure exactly which kind. I hadn’t planned on making any enemies, especially within the unit, but it did happen, especially since I enjoyed showing off.