Synthetic Dreams (12 page)

“Bran-seven!”

Ossian’s voice cut into her, harsh and quick. Her old friendship with him kicked in and her panic eased, the first gulp of air finding its way into her lungs. She crushed her eyes shut, her fist pushed against her breastbone, and took a slow,
slow
breath. Tears streaked her skin. “What was that about, Ossian—Hugo—whoever the fuck you are now.”

“What did you do, Vyn?”

A hard smile tugged at her mouth and she didn’t answer. He could wait. She turned and the fear hit her again. Paul hadn’t moved. Had she ghosted him, made him little more than a shadow? Worse, sent him to the same fate that had taken Dia Mylonas? Her fingers hovered over his cheek, terrified to touch him, to discover the reality of whether he was alive or dead.

“Vyn…” Ossian’s use of her name grated through her.

“Don’t use that,” she muttered. “You Goodmans are freaks.”

She swallowed, her throat tight and still raw. Her touch moved closer to Paul’s temple. She wanted to believe that she could see the quick throb of a vein under his skin, but the lighting was low and heavy with shadow.

Pulling in her courage, Vyn laid a light fingertip against his skin. Her heart laboured and endless seconds dragged by. He had to be alive. The same thought rolled over and over, burned into her skull, stabbing deeper than her scars. “Paul, come on. You have a debt to pay.”

There
. And again.

Her heart turned over, the sudden fierce pain in her chest breaking a gasp from her. She let her forehead sink, fall against his cheek and find his scent, familiar, mixed with sweat and metal. “You do this to me again and I’m killing you myself.”

His strained chuckle brought a smile to her mouth. “Deal.”

She pulled away and another hit of panic smacked into her. She’d just pulled down the upper tier of the Mind. Broken the virtual world of the First Family and the executive band, shattered their commerce and depraved fun. What remained of the board would be forced into action. Everywhere would be locked down. They had to get out.

Around her the low groans of metal filled the small room. With the system in chaos, Ossian wouldn’t be able to control the minds of the security personnel still littering the floor. “We have to go.”

Ossian glared at her and lifted the touch pad, the red glow burning under Liam’s jaw. “What did you do?”

She yanked the wires from her skull, unwrapped the net and flung the simulacrum at him. He wanted her gear. He could have it. “I took out the upper tier. Broke out the vanished. Pulled apart the Halls.”

Her former friend blinked and then a wry and disbelieving smile touched his mouth. He bent to pick up the tangle of wires and connectors that had dropped at his feet, his thumb stroking over their circuitry. “I didn’t think that was possible. Even for you.”

Vyn frowned. “What?”

He tossed her the touchpad and she caught it in clumsy fingers, her heart in her throat. Quick presses deactivated it and the glow around Liam died away. She let out a hot breath, willing her heart to slow. She shoved the device into her pocket. Beside her Paul rose to his feet. He held her arm as a dull vibration rippled across the floor.

“You should go.” Ossian stood away from the vent. “Before they lock down the borders.”

Her attention darted to Paul as he squatted beside his brother and gently turned his jaw. The gaunt man’s eyes flickered open and a smile tugged at Paul’s mouth. “Enjoy your sabbatical?”

“Yeah.” Liam swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing. He tried to lift his hand, but the effort was too much. It flopped back to his thigh. “Travelled. Got drunk. Was wildly…inappropriate five times.”

Laughter broke from Paul, and he pulled him into a hug, his face buried in his hair. He fisted Liam’s jacket, his brother’s body lax in his arms. Paul’s shoulders shook and he murmured something, Vyn too aware of the break in his voice. A fist gripped her heart and tears burned. She had to turn away from their private moment.

She looked back at Ossian. His eyes were shining. “I don’t understand any of this.” He’d just forced Paul to kill, forced her to wipe out his cousin, and yet he was
pleased
she’d released the vanished? “Don’t understand
you
at all.”

“I want the company. Always have.” He gave her a familiar smile and it felt…strange. Was any part of the man she’d known real? “I’m a Goodman. Corporate backstabbing is in my blood. But I wanted it my way.” He stared around the small metal room. “Not with this…obscenity.”

“You’ve destroyed your company.” Liam had lost consciousness again and Paul gripped his unconscious brother’s wasted body, lifted him and settled him securely over his shoulders. His eyes narrowed. “I
should
kill you.”

“But you won’t. I gave you her.”

Vyn blinked, staring between the two men. “What?”

Ossian’s mouth cut into a sharp smile. He waggled his slim fingers. “I worked a little deft magic and put him in the position of guarding you, gave him the opportunity to find out about you, about your connection to his brother. When the Tydeus threat hit, when what you were kicked in and forced you to build the simulacrum, it was time for me to move.

“I let him believe you were in the next sweep of Fomorians to be brought to this place. Paul took more of an interest in you than I planned. A useful advantage. And you were very
thorough
in watching over her, weren’t you, Paul?”

“Fuck you.” His words were a growl. “Vyn. Move.”

Before she could formulate a reply, the door she’d opened, the one that had burned with the patterns on her skin, grated and parted. The slow push of a husk rasped through the darkness into the dim light.

Ossian snapped his fingers to get her attention. “Go. Your scars are broken. You no longer have any hold here.”

Paul touched the small of her back and she jerked forward. Her mind was still caught in the insanity of the night. She knew she had to run, had to get as far away from the Corporation as she could, but still she had to ask. “Why, Ossian? Organic gear is almost…magical.”

For a moment, a heaviness weighed on, reflected in the darkness of his eyes. “And at what cost? Hundreds of Fomorians and dissenters. Liam, you—” he pushed back the cuff of his long sleeve and the light caught thin slivers of scarring, like hers, “—me.”

Vyn’s stomach turned over. His father and uncle had experimented on their own flesh and blood first, hunting for their perfect skin. “I’m sorry.”

He didn’t care. His hacker gleam was back. “Now I have the company, I have simulacrum without binding organics, I
will
have a vast store of new gear-heads grateful to me for releasing them—”

“Ossian, you should get help.”

He shrugged. “I’m crazy. It’s in the blood.”

“Vyn…”

Paul’s quiet voice cut into her frustration, her regret that all of this disaster could’ve been avoided some other way. So many dead and shadowed… She found the supports in the wall that lifted her to reach the ladder. She hauled herself up. “Enjoy whatever’s left of your empire…Hugo.”

“I intend to. The company will be different.
I
will be different.”

She’d always known her former friend was odd, twisted. They lived in S-District. Everyone was strange there. And how stupid was she not to have known it was him playing her? “You do what you have to.”

She scrambled up the ladder, Paul in her wake, his breathing laboured as he carried the unconscious weight of his brother.

Her fingers dug into the metal lid of the entrance. She shoved and momentum slid it back into the wall of the vent with a dull clang. Vyn hauled herself out onto the wet grass, and the cold air, moistened with recent rain, was bliss to her aching lungs. But she couldn’t relax. It still wasn’t over.

She steadied Paul as he emerged with the uneven weight of his brother. “Keep moving, Vyn. I’m good.”

She did as she was told, winding her way through the small copse and out into the low-lying bushes. The ache in her chest from a breath she didn’t know she was holding eased. There was no ripple of air. The security around the tower was down, compromised. Good for them getting to the vehicle, maybe not so good for getting across the border as every security officer scrambled to protect the Corporation.

“Right,” Paul said, and she beat a new path through the bushes.

Overhead, the piercing whine of vehicles ripped the darkness, the bright points of their guiding lights everywhere. She rubbed her hand over her mouth, finding it wet from the bushes, the leafy scent left by her fingers sliding into her lungs. Her fingers shook. She ploughed on.

Waving her hand before her, she found that the protecting energy fence was down. Her boots hit the crunching gravel of the garden next to Paul’s house. “You own this too?”

“I did.” She heard the touch of humour in his voice, though the heavy shadow made it impossible to make out his face. “I got rid of it.”

She shouldn’t be surprised at the speed with which he’d disposed of everything he had invested in the Corporation. Before his life and the company went sideways, his property had been almost priceless.

The back door opened at her touch and Paul moved ahead of her, confident in the darkness. With her fingers trailing the wall, she realised the layout was a mirror of his own house. He flicked on a light switch and a soft glow rolled over the garage. A vehicle squatted on the concrete flooring, bigger than the one in which he had brought her to N-District.

Doors opened and Paul eased his brother into the back, fixing his harness to secure him to the leather seat. He pointed to her. “In.”

He was being a dictator, but she didn’t argue. Time was against them. She scrambled over Liam’s unconscious body and strapped herself in. Paul had already powered up the engine, the doors sinking into place and the craft rising from the floor.

“Ready? Time to go.”

The metal doors peeled back and the vehicle shot forward. Vyn gripped her seat and fought to breathe. What had he strapped to the thing? Whatever it was had to be experimental and butting up to illegal. He turned, heading west. “Where are we going?”

“West.”

Streaks of light and the fading scream of other vehicles caught in their wake shot past her narrow window. The land beneath was a blur of light, the shadow of towers and the glint of the wide River Thames. “Yes, I realised that.”

A smile cracked across his grim mouth. “I planned on somewhere warm, sunny, minimal rainfall. How does that sound?”

His question twisted her insides. The night had been fuelled by fear and confusion, and her body, her mind were hardly her own. “What is this, Paul?”

His hands regripped the wheel, the lights from the dashboard cutting across his frowning face. She’d known him a few hours. He’d known her for a month, watching her, guarding her…wanting her. Had the latter been said in the heat of chaos?

“What are we supposed to be?”

“Vyn.” He bit out her name and swung the vehicle sharply left and up. “Really. Later.”

The force threw her back into the heavy padding of her seat, her bones aching from the pressure. “Saying I don’t want to talk would be easier.”

“Unidentified vehicle, you are violating March-Goodman Corporation airspace. Land. Now. You have ten seconds to comply.”

Paul whipped through and around tower blocks and Vyn crushed her eyes shut, the dizzying rush smacking into her stomach. She focused inwards, trusting him, trusting that he knew how to fly the insanely fast craft.

“Unidentified vehicle, this is your final warning. Respond or we will be forced to open fire.”
The male voice was clipped and edged with a hint of anticipation. A downed vehicle would be an instant scapegoat for the destroying of the upper tier.

Sharp bleeping filled the interior, and panic hit her. Paul frowned. “They have missiles locked on.”

“We did the job, we took out the villain—probably put another villain in his place, but still—we get away at this point. It’s the rule.”

“Vyn. You’re babbling.”

She pulled in a long breath. It didn’t help. “I know.”

“I can outmanoeuvre them.” Paul’s mouth twisted into a sharp smile that she didn’t like. “Try not to throw up.” He slammed the vehicle sideways and her stomach flipped over.

“Bastard.”

“Yes, I am.”

Red-faced and sweating, Vyn lost the next few minutes in a gut-churning series of rolls and drops. A missile impacted a thin communications rod, cracking its metal spine. The long screech of the lurching tower ran hot over her skin. Energy sparked the air. She gripped the edge of the seat, digging her nails into the leather, wanting the pain, proving she was alive and not dying in a twisted wreck of fire and metal.

“Hang on.”

The vehicle surged upwards, the acceleration screaming in her muscles. Her vision blurred. She would not pass out. “Are…we going into…orbit?”

“Wouldn’t that be fun.” He veered off and Vyn slammed into her harness, wincing against the fresh burst of pain cutting into her shoulders and chest. But the bleeps were dying away. “Climbing speed and angle. They confused us with a low orbiter shuttle.”

“Good.” Vyn sank back into her seat and stared down at the wide expanse of water far below her. They were over the Irish Sea and beyond the British borders of the Corporation. The chase was over. Somehow they were…free?

She pressed her hand to her mouth, the sudden turmoil of her stomach catching her by surprise. “So.” She swallowed and forced herself to ignore the nasty taste at the back of her throat. “The Caribbean?”

“Yes.”

Vyn closed her eyes. She still had to have the conversation. The excuse of imminent death was gone. “Paul…”

He dug fingers into the back of his neck, rubbing hard. “Not now.” And his tone brooked no argument.

The deepening sourness in her mouth had nothing to do with being churned over in a tin can too many times to count. What was she doing with him? She sank back into the padded leather, damp with her own terrified sweat. Her gaze flicked to Liam, unconscious and leaning. She eased him upright, her hand delaying on his bony fingers. They twitched under her touch. Paul had his brother back. That had always been his priority.