Synthetic Dreams (2 page)

“Be happy with the way they’ve been born?”

He glanced at her. “Yes.”

But then that was probably easy for him to say. He’d been born with good genes. The slick and decadently beautiful couple in the booth could be old, any beauty faded, or the gene pool could’ve been cruel. She had to wonder if he would be talking to her if he could see her true self. The woman who bore no resemblance to the pneumatic blonde simulacrum—the small, skinny woman marred by the fine white network of scars covering her face and body.

“So they have illegal enhancements?”

His fingers traced the air. “Touches.”

“And you have to charge them?”

“Perhaps.”

That didn’t make sense. The Corporation clamped down on every scrap of illegal glamour. Vyn had witnessed grabs on lower, plebeian tiers. A security agent “snagged” them—stunned their brains, locking their thoughts into the gear accessing the virtual layer—and traced the connection back to their physical bodies. The degree of punishment then fell to influence and money.

The itch at the base of her spine had nothing to do with the ill-fitting simulacrum. She’d stumbled into something more and it was time to get out. “I have an appointment to keep. Good luck—” she waved her perfectly manicured hand, “—doing what you do…”

“Paul.”

He’d misinterpreted her trailing away. Still, it was useful information. She didn’t know any Pauls, which made her belief that she recognised him even more strange. “Paul,” she repeated, but he didn’t supply a last name.

Vyn eased down from the stool and rearranged the red silk of her dress. The sensation of it against the bare skin of her legs felt at the same time tantalisingly real—smooth, warm, decadent—and as if her skin pricked with hundreds of tiny pins. The defect definitely needed work.

“Enjoy your appointment.”

There was something in his voice, a hint that he suspected her appointment to be one of a carnal nature. Given her mask, it wasn’t surprising. She had chosen the overblown image deliberately. People would be too busy staring at ample cleavage or endless legs to consider that what they ogled was completely false.

She let her smile offer a hint of salaciousness. “Thank you, we will.”

Paul’s dark eyes narrowed and his body tensed. Vyn stayed calm. She couldn’t reveal her unease. The portal was located under the arch of the doorway to her left, the imprint of it speckling the air. Six quick steps would have her through it and out.

For a long second he looked beyond her to the portal. Her heart clenched. He’d made her. Adrenalin kicked through her body. She had to act, had to distract him for the seconds she needed to escape. There was nothing for it… She yanked on his tie and covered his mouth with her own.

His surprised exclamation was an invitation for her tongue. He tasted real. That was her first surprise. Her second was his sudden and unexpected participation. He pulled her hard against him, his hand on her fake backside. The first stir of an erection against her belly forced her moan.

One thought burned.
All right, not gay, then.
And he could kiss. Kiss
really
well.

In the heat and tangle of their tongues, his taste, layered with the sweet-sourness of whiskey, made her heart drum and for too long a time she forgot what she was meant to be doing. The kiss was a distraction. He was a cog in the Corporation that ruled and owned the whole of the British Isles. But the aching melt of his mouth against hers, the joy of it driving a wild and addictive heat through her blood, pushed back any sense…

No. It had to end. Now.

Vyn jerked back, pressing her lips together, her breathing fast and shallow. All her reactions reflected in her simulacrum, her control gone. That was a sure sign she had to get away from him. She pointed behind her to the portal. “I’m needed elsewhere.”

She backed away, feeling the exit pull of the portal on her synthetic flesh. Another thing to add to her snag list. Paul watched her, his eyes dark, his face flushed and the hunger almost palpable.

Vyn bit back a cry as she bumped into a solid mass, meaty fingers gripping her waist. Her already over-panicked body rioted and the neural connections seared across her brain. Her mask would fail…in front of a security officer she’d just been up close and personal with—

“Excuse me.”

The deep male voice prickled her skin. He’d edged it with glamour, and it wasn’t working. Vyn yanked herself free and stumbled back, the reach of the portal grabbing her, pulling her through. The circular glitter of air, like a sudden flash of scales, caught her breath. What was
that?
But it vanished and Paul and the new arrival filled her final seconds, mouths moving, an association obvious, their voices lost in the white noise of the breaking connection…

…and her body slumped back into her patched couch.

“Ending connection, Bran-seven.”
The synthetic voice of her server buzzed through her head with her Fomorian codename. The name had appeared on her system without warning about three years before. It marked her unexpected initiation into a select group of illegal glamour creators and dealers. A dangerous place to be.

Vyn breathed in the bitter air of her room, the chill biting at her flesh. She stretched aching joints, rolled her neck and let out a few choice curses. Her pride couldn’t get the better of her. Yes, the simulacrum had worked, but she didn’t have enough of a cover to move around the upper level of the Mind without screwing herself up. And that particular blonde would have to be shelved. Maybe someone less…memorable? Definitely someone who fitted her better.

Her fingertips touched her lips, the echo of Paul’s taste and touch still warming her skin. He’d felt real. She closed her eyes and recited a mantra about how suicidally stupid she’d been. Her mask could have failed. Never mind that she’d broken into the upper tier of the Corporation—a crime for which skanks simply vanished—she’d gone in as a simulacrum. Her brain would be in a jar before night hit.

Vyn unpicked the receptors from her skull and carefully detached the net shrouding her body. Her device folded up into a sliver of a box no bigger than her hand, and she worked it back into the shielded black case. The lock clunked shut.

She pressed the heels of her hands into her eye sockets. When had she last left her flat? Three days ago? Four? The rush of solving the simulacrum problem had caught her up and she’d been unwilling, unable to focus on anything else. She’d barely washed—Paul had been lucky to kiss her other self, not the true one—and food had been an afterthought.

Vyn pushed her aching body up from her sagging sofa. She hadn’t fallen into work so intensely for years. Her brain worked in odd ways. Always had. The last grey light of the day cut through the front room’s only window, picking out the swirling motes of dust in the air.

A new habit made her gaze dart to corners and shadows. Something about her flat had her twitchy now, her nerves alive with paranoia. She frowned at the cracked ceiling. Her main suspect for her new trait was white-fyre fumes from the illegal lab in the flat above. She needed to upgrade her filters.

Pulling in air made her very aware of her own stink. Not that washing would exactly
improve
her scent. Toiletries in S-District tended to run to industrial flavours.

Vyn dragged her body to her small shower room, took a hammer to the pipework until a reluctant trickle started to fall from the showerhead, stripped and stepped under the tepid water. With a gobbet of soap stuck to her palm, the stink of carbolic rose through the damp air as she scrubbed the dirt from her skin and hair.

All too soon, with a loud clank and shudder of metal pipes, the trickle of water died. Shivering, Vyn grabbed her thin towels from the rack and wrapped them around her body. She remembered other times. Times long in her past where hot water had been plentiful. And sweet-smelling soap. And a bath…with
bubbles
. Those times had
long
passed.

A quick brush of her teeth followed and Vyn avoided the rust-spotted mirror over the sink. After the stunning beauty of the simulacrum, she didn’t want the reality of her own scarred face staring back at her.

Vyn dragged on clean clothes, her gaze darting over the shadows of her bedroom. Nothing moved. Nothing. But still… “You’re crazy, Vyn,” she muttered. Her stomach growled a belated reminder of how hungry she was and it pulled her thoughts away from her nervous paranoia. She pinched the bridge of her nose. It was time to move. She needed it. The burst of adrenalin, the frankly crazy encounter with Paul, the fear of being caught, her unrelenting paranoia had her body twitchy. More twitchy.

Coffee. A fat cup of it. And a pastry. She squinted into the dying light. Alec would be closing his shop soon. If she ran, she’d get the last of his baked goods and a fresh pot to herself. That was worth the effort of risking the increasing dark and the prowling skanks.

Vyn tucked the simulacrum case into the back band of her trousers, grabbed her jacket, disengaged her security and banged the heavy door shut behind her. Gear hissed as the protecting security ran across her closed door. It was almost lost in the yowls of dogs, shrieking children and the low industrial whine of her building’s network. The stink of too many people crammed into a building hit her again, odours she couldn’t—and didn’t want to—name thickening the air. In her flat, with her filters, she could sometimes forget she lived in S-District. Her fantasy ended when she opened the door.

The battered, filthy walls shimmered, rippling with the energy leaking from the flats surrounding hers. It raised the hair on her neck, but with so much interference, it also made it hard for those hunting her to trace her glamour back to her cramped flat.

She pulled up her hood, deliberately shadowing her scarred face. Her fingers curled back into her jacket pocket and found the grip of her electro-shock. She pressed her thumb to the smooth ceramic case. Her heart thudded. It probably wasn’t her best plan to be heading out into the cold-world so close to dark. Not at all. But she could almost taste the coffee, brewed from beans smuggled in from across the corporate border.

Vyn took to the wide concrete stairs, the damp swell of air bringing with it the sour stink of piss. She scanned her way out of the building, the DNA of one of her neighbours useful in confusing her trail. The icy winds rattled the barricaded lower windows, and cold bit deep into her exposed face.

Shadows moved, avoiding the weak glow of the flickering streetlamps. Vyn’s senses strained, every part of her heightened and aware. Her boots moved sure and quick over the broken pavement, the distant shine of light from the short row of shops a hundred metres ahead. It wasn’t far. She told herself that over and over. But in the growing gloom, with the first of the night-smog wreathing in smooth, pale brown wisps around the streetlamps, it felt
too
far.

Vyn pulled in quickened breaths. She was over halfway. Almost there.

The clatter of metal off to her left made her start and the electro-shock in her hand jerked against the lining of her pocket. The acrid stink of burnt synthetic whipped around her. She’d lived in S-District for seven years but she still managed to burn her way through her jackets.

Calls echoed across the street, gang signs, members watching her, judging her, and in the distance a low factory rumble ran a tremor through the uneven pavement. Vyn hadn’t grown up here. That thought went with her every time she risked leaving her building. She was too aware that she stood out. Not just her scars, but her accent, her education. Her life before S-District had been one of privilege and luxury…until they’d caught her once too often with illegal glamour. S-District was the good choice. Others had not been so lucky.

Metal crashed in the black void of an alley to her left and she increased her pace, her boots thudding hard against the flagstones. A few more minutes to Alec’s coffee shop. She was not thinking at that moment about her trip back.

Hairs pricked on the back of her neck and she cursed the restriction of her hood. Someone was following her. The pattern of their footsteps fell out of time with her own, the beat echoing under her boots. Her fingers flexed around her electro-shock. She willed her muscles loose, ready. She should have stayed in her flat, reheated instant—

“Bran-seven!” A male voice. Too close.

She whipped around, her arm jerking forward, and slammed the electro-shock into the man’s hip. His scream ripped the air, shrouded by the stink of her burnt jacket pocket. He dropped to the pavement. Light cut across his face. “Ossian?”

Chapter Two

Vyn swore and pulled the twitching man to his feet. She threw her arm around him and staggered the remaining metres to Alec’s coffee shop. “What were you thinking?” She scanned the darkness, too aware that his scream would call to the skanks hiding in the shadows. “Don’t creep up on me!”

Ossian’s jaw worked but no sound came out.

“Fight it.” Vyn gritted her teeth, having to drag him along with her. The light from the shop striped the pavement, and its closing metal shutter system groaned.
Damn.
“Alec, be open.”

She slammed her shoulder against the door and it gave way. With Ossian’s gangly weight unsteadying her, she lurched into a table. The distinctive whine of a charging electro-shock rifle snapped her head around. Alec glared at them, his thick fingers far too close to the trigger.

“Bran-seven?” His heavy brows furrowed. “What are you doing out at this time?”

“Coffee?” She let Ossian slump onto a battered couch, pushed back her hood and ran her shaking hand through her hair.

Alec muttered something under his breath. He set the security on the door and deactivated his rifle. “You risk your life for coffee?”

She grinned. “What? So do you.”

His gaze narrowed on her, but a smile touched his lips. “I can brew you a fresh pot and warm you up the last of the chocolate cinnamon bread.” He plodded behind the wide counter. “But that’s all.”

“Thank you. That’s more than enough.”