Synthetic Dreams (8 page)

“You’re done?” Paul handed her a black fleece jacket. He stared down at the twitching corpse, Liam’s face jerking into the carpet. A thin smile touched his mouth. “Let’s go.”

“Where?”

“The Box.”

“It’s cold-world?”

“In a way.”

“Nothing but honest.” Vyn bit out the words and his eyes narrowed on her. “So…” She waved her hand at the narrow staircase leading down to the garage. “After you.”

Chapter Seven

The cold, damp air chilled the sweat against her forehead and she drew it into her lungs, the fresh wetness of the surrounding greenery a pleasure. Nothing seemed to grow in S-District, where everything was grime and waste and decay.

“This way.” Paul pulled the back door shut and took her arm. He led the way down the woodchip path, the lights from the surrounding houses casting a weak shine over the wild thicket of plants, bushes and trees.

The distant hum of vehicles and the underlying itch of the Mind pushed against her skin. She’d forgotten how close and thick every breath felt here, especially as the hill loomed over them, the Corporation tower a stretch of light into the darkness.

She stared up and willed her vision not to spin. Her thoughts still whirled. How could they get into the tower? Its security was reputed to be incredible, every hack impossible. Rumours swept through the Fomorians, of course. Everything from armies of synthetic robots to secret alien technology. The men who had butchered her skin had designed it. Maybe it really
was
guarded by a power from the bottomless pit. She could break into the upper tier of the Mind—the virtual space—but she had no hope in hell of getting past the tower’s impenetrable physical walls. Her gut twisted. “It’s in there?”

“Not exactly.”

Vyn blinked. “It’s not?”

“We have an in.” Paul flexed his grip around her arm and increased his speed, his boots silent on the uneven ground.

“You’re certain?”

“I’m certain.”

She stared at him, a sliver of light etching his profile. Was that a flicker of…something? He was obviously only completely honest with pneumatic blondes.

“I need to know what I’m doing, Paul.” She glanced back to the darkness of his house. Her voice dropped and the rush of nervous heat through her flesh made her chest tight. “I’m complicit in the
murder
of a senior Corporation employee. I’m trusting you to get me out of here in one piece, but to do that I have to have a clue about
something.
”

A brief smile pulled at his mouth. “There’s a perimeter fence beyond this stretch of land. We get through that and there’s an access through the hill. The whole thing is a warren.”

“We simply ‘get through’?”

Paul pulled her through the thick line of a box hedge. The sharp prick of thin branches and the brush of small glossy leaves itched her skin. Its acrid stink sharpened—it stank like piss. The proximity of the fence warmed the cold night air, and the hum of security walls throbbed against her eardrums.

A shimmer of air just beyond the hedge was another sign of the encircling walls. One touch and they were fried. A split second of agonised pain and she’d be a brief human cinder. She’d seen it more than once. Vyn pulled in a nervous breath. This wasn’t her area of expertise. Ossian was the one with the talent for physical structures. He’d got both of them in and out of more places than she wanted to remember.

“You have the key?” She stared up at Paul as he ran his gaze over the seemingly endless and lethal wall.

“Yes.” His fingers loosened their grip, but he didn’t let her go. They slid down over her elbow, along her forearm to her wrist. A hard thumb jerked up the heel of her palm and he yanked her forward. “It’s you.”

“Fuck—no!”

Her palm hit the invisible wall, the sudden force of the impact shocking her skin…but not frying her. It flared hot against her hand, the quick stab of blunt pins forcing out a sharp breath. But she wasn’t dead.

“What the fuck is this?” She grated out the words, staring at her hand, her stiffened fingers, as flares of light darted around her skin. Beads of energy teased over the scars drawn on the back of her hand to edge their way under the cuff of her jacket.

Vyn stopped breathing. It was as if the energy sought her out, as if it drew her into itself. Knowing her. Accepting her. Slots dropped into place in her mind, and anger twisted hard in her stomach. “Those bastards made me into a key. More than that. Destroyed my life so I’d be a part of their
security system?
”

“Open a doorway.”

Vyn thinned her mouth and focused. She felt her gaze narrow, the hard pinch of a line forming between and around her eyes. She imagined a hole, making it high and wide enough to fit them both through. For a long second, the quick flare of silver scales caught in a circle burned against her retinas. She blinked. It vanished and the air cleared, a cold ripple of simple night air sweeping over her hot skin.

She took a step forward. Paul did the same and they passed under to the other side of the fence. The ripple of security dropped down behind them again.

Vyn pushed out a hard breath and yanked her hand free from his. “You could have told me.”

He grabbed her arm again and pulled her through the breaks in the low bushes. “It’s instinctive. I tell you
how
you’re the key? You block it.”

Vyn struggled in his grip but couldn’t break free. “Not necessarily.”

Paul shrugged. “Believe that.”

They tramped over the undulating ground, the hum of security wrapping around her. She wanted to argue, to say that he was an idiot, but she was too aware of how the mind worked. She played with perception every day. And she hated to admit it, but he could know more about her skin being an organic circuit than she did. For now.

She pressed her lips together. “How far?”

“Just beyond that copse.”

Vyn winced and glanced back to the security wall.
Copse
was too close to
corpse.
The lights of Paul’s house flickered beyond the sheen of air and she had to wonder if the other Liam’s body was still trying to mash his face into the carpet, or if the signal had failed.

Running in the cold-world had its limitations. She hated it. She wanted the link to the tiers, to the open and immediate knowledge of other minds. Her whole body itched for it. Was that also a part of what she was?

Paul moved into the shadow of the trees and she followed, her boots squelching into sodden leaf litter. Rainwater dripped from bare branches and found the back of her neck. Through the silence, the sudden low whine of an engine surged up the hill. She jerked her head at the sound. More than one engine. Liam had stopped signalling.

Paul increased his pace, the raised tension in his hand sudden and hard. “We have ten minutes.” He stopped. “And it’s here.”

“How do you know…?” Her words trailed away. There. The same pull on her flesh as the fence, awakening something in her, crawling over the scars on her skin. It was becoming easier, more malleable. She swept her hand through the air and metal groaned, too loud, far too loud in the quiet of the night.

The ground shifted and a hole opened up in the earth. Warm, metal-tasting air gushed up in a cloud of grey vapour. A rim of light edged the circular hole, gleaming against the rung of a narrow ladder disappearing down. She leaned forward and the tunnel dropped away about fifteen metres.

Paul let go of her arm, glanced around and swung his body onto the ladder. “You need to follow me right now.”

Vyn stared behind her. The bushes down the curve of the hill, the ones beyond the rippling wall in his garden, shifted, moved against the light winds. Her heart twisted, the quick burst of fear rushing heat through her flesh. Agents had found Liam and were tracking them. She doubted the security wall would hold the agents much longer than it had—unexpectedly—held them.

“Now, Vyn.”

Paul’s voice echoed and she jerked her attention back to the deep hole in the ground. She clambered in after him, her boots clumping against the metal rungs.

A heavy plate clanged above her head and Vyn crushed her eyes against the sudden rush of panic that swept through her. She willed her fingers to unlock from the rungs and continued her quick scramble down the ladder.

“How far now?” Her voice echoed in the metal-lined tunnel and the over-warm air tasted sickly in her mouth.

“My times aren’t accurate.”

That was helpful.

Paul hit the floor with a dull thump. He straightened and pinched the bridge of his nose. She glanced down and winced at the two-metre drop. It would hurt. And somehow it was making her mind spin, flashing a quick pain over her skin. If the Goodman brothers hadn’t been dead three years, she’d happily kill them herself. She closed her eyes for a moment, letting the darkness take her.

“I’ve got you.” He stretched up his arms, hands spread to catch her. His gaze sparked and there was that look again, the dark hunger that dried her mouth and made her think about anything
other
than technology. “Trust me?”

Vyn drew in a steadying breath. She didn’t reply, closing her eyes as Paul’s fingers wrapped around her ankles and began a quick, hot slide over her calves, her thighs. They were on the run, most likely dead very soon, and her stupid body only thought about him, his touch and mostly definitely Paul Cross naked.

His fingers dug into her hips and he supported her against his body, his face pressed to her thigh. Heat bloomed low in her belly. Really, it wasn’t the time. “Let go, Vyn.”

And that didn’t help either as her thoughts went to a warm, dark place with the promise of
all
of his bare skin against hers, his mouth, his breath, the slick heat of his muscles…

Abruptly, she dropped away from the ladder and, though Paul caught her, it didn’t allow for the slow, agonising press of her body against his. He held her ribs, his thumbs a delicious tease to the underside of her breasts. “Paul…”

His hand slipped down her ribs to play across her backside. He squeezed and she yelped, pushing against him. She couldn’t deny the hard press of his erection into her belly.

“Later,” he murmured, and his mouth brushed hers with a brisk kiss, something hot and
completely
unsatisfying. “I promise you.”

“Why?” The question was out and she cursed it.
How to look stupid and insecure.
She felt a blush cut across her cheeks. Perhaps she could blame it on the dense heat of the air shrouding them.

Paul stepped back and took her hand. His gaze bored into her. “Because I want you.”

Vyn blinked, too surprised by his reply to say anything.

He didn’t seem to need a response as he stared around the narrow tunnel they’d landed in, one that stretched into the distance on either side. She followed his gaze. Unbroken, smooth metal walls with running lights set a metre, maybe more, above the floor. Technology hummed, and the rub of it was harsh against her exposed skin, tracing out the living lines of her scarring.

Metal clanked, a series of quick, hard thuds high above them. Corporation agents were only minutes behind.

Paul shot a frowning glance upwards and broke into a run. Vyn stumbled behind him, her breath short, her heart pounding. The tunnel diverged into a myriad of other passages, each looking the same, each breaking out into another network of tunnels. Yet he didn’t slow, didn’t hesitate over which tunnel to charge down, and she could feel that he was right. Somehow. The rush over her face, the exposed skin of her neck and hands rioted with the now-familiar burn of security technology.

“What is this place?”

He stopped and Vyn stumbled, trying to not slam into him. She bent at the waist, her lungs on fire, sweat breaking out. She glanced up at Paul. He was hardly out of breath. She hated him in that minute.

“This isn’t a place at all.” His fingers slipped under the loose straps of her backpack to rub a comforting hand against her shoulder blade. “It’s a Mind tier.”

Chapter Eight

Vyn froze. She’d been so wrapped up in her reaction to him, she’d completely missed a pull into a
portal.
She needed to get a solid fix on her attraction to him. It was dangerous not to. “You can see the differences that marked the proper path.”

“Yes.”

She heard the sliver of doubt in his voice and she shared it. Something as secure as the Box, protected by the intricacies of a virtual reality layer, and he could simply play Spot The Difference and it led them straight to the place he needed to go? It was far too convenient.

Vyn straightened, her instincts screaming. “We’re being played.” She paused. “But…we are heading the right way.” She waved her hand, displaying the intricate curves of her scars over its back. Her skin was almost humming. “It
feels
right against my skin.”

“We don’t have a choice.”

That was true. They’d passed into a tier, which meant someone was storing their physical bodies. Somewhere. Vyn wanted to curse. “Then we should run.”

Paul laced his strong fingers through hers. He took off again and she ran with him, letting the signs and markers exposed in the tier, her feeling, guide them. And they were being played. Her whole life had simply been one of moving to the commands of others, of the powerful men who ruled this chunk of the planet. Paul seemed to be the only trustworthy, solid person in her life. A man she’d known for a few short hours. It should scare her, but it didn’t.

“Here.” Paul stopped in the middle of a tunnel, one that offered no visible difference to any of the others that they’d pounded through. His hand lifted to draw a pattern over the empty air in front of him. Pain flickered across his face and he retracted his hand. His fingers curled into a bloodless fist. “It’s here.”

Vyn felt the pull of another portal, the flickering points of light burning against her eyes and skin. Again, the circular spark of scales drew itself against the air for a brief second. These two portals were unlike any she’d known. Invisible and dizzying or invisible and hot and vicious. Her gut twisted, and fear pulled at her. The tug of the gear was strong, dragging at her, wanting her. What had the Goodmans carved into her skin?