Grip (The Slip Trilogy Book 2) (3 page)

CherryRipe4: Domino…ooh, even his name is sexy. Are there any cyborgs out there that want to get a drink tonight?

F
ifteen percent human.

At first it made Domino Destovan feel sick. At first he thought about how in school they learned how rounding works. Anything fifty percent and higher gets rounded up. Everything else is rounded down. Even as a cyborg, he considered himself human. Because of rounding.

But now rounding would make him a robot. More machine than human. More metal than flesh and blood and organic tissue. When he smashes either of his metal fists into the wall, he doesn’t feel pain. When he walks he can’t feel his own feet on the ground. Because they’re not his feet, are they? They’re spare parts pieced together and wired to his brain.

Ah, his brain! Although apparently they had to reconstruct parts of it using some kind of polymer tubing, it’s still “mostly human.” Those are the doctor’s words, not his. And he can still feel his heart knocking around in his metal chest. That makes him human, right?

At least the parts that
really
make him a man are still intact.

More than anything, he knows he’s part human because of the anger. Like a dragon made of fire it roils inside him, bursting through his veins and scorching his heart and pounding against his temples, which are still skin and bone. It’s the kind of complete anger that only a human could have. With each passing day his wrath seems to build—and he knows why.

(The itch is there.)

(To kill.)

(To destroy.)

Yes, the Destroyer knows he must destroy to satisfy his anger. It’s the only way. Killing is the only thing that’s given him any kind of satisfaction since he came back from the war, broken and helpless. But now he’s stronger. Invincible.

And stifled.

He smashes a hole in the rock wall, sending stones crumbling to the floor. “I’m ready!” he shouts. He’s been shouting a lot lately. After the extensive surgeries that made him more machine than man, he can’t seem to control the volume of his voice.

The doctor and nurse back away until they hit the opposite wall. Corrigan Mars doesn’t even flinch. “I know,” Corr says. Compared to the Destroyer, his boss looks old and weak. But he knows he’s not. After all, he’s the one who took down Michael Kelly. And the command in his voice is enough to freeze even the cyborg’s boiling hot blood.

“Then let me find the punks who did this to me!”

“Patience,” Corr says evenly, as if demonstrating the word with the calmness in his voice.

The Destroyer is tired of being patient. The itch is becoming painful and he has to scratch it, one way or another. Corrigan Mars may want to kill the Slip, but the Destroyer doesn’t think his boss would understand his need to kill
anything
. The doctor or nurse would do just fine. He just needs to feel the power again—that fine line between life and death coursing through his fingertips.

Corr’s holo-screen blares to life with an incoming vid-call and he says, “Yes?”

His boss distracted, the Destroyer inches toward the nurse, who eyes him warily. He can almost smell the fear wafting off of her, as thick and heavy as perfume.

“Mr. Mayor, what a pleasure,” Corr says. “The
Times
article? Yes, I read it. Sounds like you’re in need of someone with real Sliphunting experience.”

The Destroyer’s human lips curl into a smile as he fantasizes about what kind of noise the nurse’s neck would make when snapped in half. When he takes another step forward, she glances at the door.

Corr is still talking to the mayor, but the Destroyer can barely hear him now, his attention fully focused on his prey. “Thank you, Mr. Mayor, I’d be honored to do my duty for the city,” Corr says.

Somewhere in the back of Dom’s mind, he registers the beep when Corr ends the call, but nothing can stop him now. He takes a quick step, then another, stalking her. The nurse’s eyes widen. She starts to run for the door, but he cuts her off with two long strides, grabbing her arm. The cowardly doctor shrinks further into the room, abandoning her nurse. She tries to squirm away but his fingers are like a vise on her skin. She screams.

“Stop,” Corr commands.

Dom’s heart is racing, a thrill rushing through every single one of his remaining human parts, but he stops. He stops, not because he wants to, but because he still feels a certain loyalty toward the man who believed in him from the start.

“We don’t need her anymore,” the Destroyer says, hoping against hope that he’ll be able to finish her. She’s sobbing now, and he realizes he’s grabbed her by the neck and is holding her off the floor, her feet dangling, desperately scrabbling to find purchase.

Corr says, “She helped save
your
life, and now you’re just going to
kill
her?” Twisting his neck to look back, the Destroyer tries to read his boss’s expression. It’s not disgust exactly—more like interest. Morbid curiosity, like a scientist who’s fascinated by a rat that eats its young.

“I have to,” the Destroyer says, trying to explain the need that’s like breathing for him.

“You don’t
have to
do anything,” Corr says. “You are my soldier and you’ll kill who I tell you to kill. Now drop her.”

The rage rushes through him like a flood, tightening his human muscles against his machine parts, and he slings the nurse to the floor, her body thudding viciously on the cement. She cries out, loudly at first, and then whimpering, like a child, clutching an arm that isn’t hanging quite right.

But the Destroyer’s not done. It’s not enough to satiate his need. For the first time in his life, he disobeys a direct order from a superior, leaping on the nurse and raising his fist, ready to smash her pretty little features to insignificant hunks of bloodied meat.

The pain hits him like a shockwave, jolting him from head to toe and throwing him away from the nurse. His entire body goes rigid, bolts of lightning stabbing him in the brain, in the heart, in the eyes…

As the horrendous sensation dies out, his vision dims and he’s vaguely aware of the nurse scrambling to her feet and rushing from the room. Corrigan Mars stands over him. He knows it was Mars that caused the pain. Somehow.

“Listen to me, Domino,” Corr says, his words sheathed with ice. “You’re
my
psychopath and you’ll only kill those that
I
tell you to. And if you don’t, I’ll
destroy
you. Do you understand?”

He tries to say
yes
, but his lips won’t move. Instead, he manages a nod.

“Good. Because I’ve just been appointed the new Head of Population Control. And I want you to be my second-in-command. We’ve got a Slip to kill.”

H
er son is made of stone.

As Janice watches him pull his chin over the bar, again and again and again, she wonders what she was doing when Harrison turned into a statue. Probably shouting at some orderly in the asylum. Or talking to Zoran—the character from Benson’s favorite childhood holo show, who adorns his old watch that Janice now wears.

Her only friend.

Waiting for her son to finish, her attention drifts to the room, which is filled with various equipment: dumbbells and machines and benches and bars. Like the rest of the facility, the walls are silver and thick and metal. She likes them. Compared to the stark white walls of the asylum, the gray is comforting. Consistent and comforting. She likes the way those two words sound in her head—
Conssssissstent, Commmfortinggg
—but she doesn’t dare to speak them aloud for fear they won’t sound nearly as good outside her head.

After what seems like an eternity, Harrison drops from the bar, breathing hard, his bare back sheened with sweat and corded with muscles. He doesn’t turn, doesn’t see her. Doesn’t even take a break. He just drops to the hard floor and starts doing pushups. Janice counts for him in her mind.
One, two, three, four…
After ten he begins adding a clap at the top of each rep.
Eleven, clap, twelve, clap, thirteen, clap…
After fifty she stops counting, bored of this game.

His muscles seem to get bigger before her very eyes. They’re bulging from his skin, like they might burst through, like they might—

“POP!”
Janice screams, unable to hold it in any longer.

Harrison’s at the top of one of his reps and, startled by her scream, when he claps he forgets to put his hands down. He falls, crushing his hands between his chest and the floor, and then rolls over to look at her. “Mom, you scared the crap out of me,” he says. Although his body looks more man than boy, his expression is still so reminiscent of her baby that she can only think of him as the eight-year-old boy she lost when she was committed to the mental hospital.

She doesn’t apologize because she remembers that apologies are meaningless. Apologies are like holey socks, pretending to cover your skin but providing no real warmth. And they can’t change the past. Nope. Not one bit. She should know. Her husband apologized a million times and it never changed anything.

“I found you,” Janice says instead.

“I wasn’t hiding,” Harrison says, pushing to his feet and walking toward her. He grabs a gray t-shirt and pulls it over his head to hide his stone body.

She giggles. She giggles a lot around her son because he says funny things like that. Harrison, not Benson. Benson doesn’t say funny things around her. He almost seems scared of her. That makes her giggle even more. She’s the last person he should be scared of.

“Why were you looking for me?” Harrison says, putting both hands on Janice’s shoulders. When he does that it seems to draw her gaze to his eyes, like a magnet. All the enticing sights around her seem to fade away and she can focus on just him. The others can tell her twins apart because Harrison’s hair is shorter, cut with military precision, whereas Benson’s is long and wild. But even if they had identical hairstyles, she’d be able to tell them apart in a heartbeat, not only because she knows Harrison has a slightly narrower set to his eyes or a teardrop birthmark just under his left ear. Also because of the way they carry themselves. When she looks at Harrison she sees someone who will not be defeated, who will charge into battle without thought for his own life—and he will win. She feels as if she can see into his chest, prying back the skin and bones and muscles, and look into his heart. It turns red with anger, blue with sadness, and green with jealousy. But never purple with fear. Never. Benson, on the other hand, is still a mystery to Janice, just like he was when he was a young boy. She could always see the wheels turning in his head, but not have any idea what he’s thinking. Mystery. Mystical. Mr. Ear E. Us.

She giggles at the name. Instead of Benson she should have named him
that
. It fits her son perfectly.

“Mom?” Harrison says, and she peels away from her thoughts and look back inside her other son’s chest. His heart beats strong. It’s slightly orange and curious. “Why were you looking for me?” he asks again.

Why was she looking for him? Zoran and stone and giggles and mysteries and clapping—none of the thoughts that stream through her mind seem like the right answer, but—

Oh…yes!
She remembers. “Tomorrow,” she says.

Harrison raises an eyebrow. “What’s tomorrow?” her first-born son asks.

“You know,” she says. His eyebrow stays raised, like a rainbow, or a crescent moon, or an umbrella, or a—

“I don’t,” Harrison says, interrupting her rambling thoughts.

She blinks, trying not to look at his raised eyebrow.
Focus, Janice.
Important. This is important. You have to ask him a question.
“Can you come back here tomorrow?” she asks. “At dinnertime. I want to show you something. Bring Benson or it won’t work. Without him it’ll be just like the old days, and I don’t want the old days ever again.”

Harrison stares at her for a moment, the corner of his lips twitching upward. “Neither do I,” he says. “At least we have that in common.”

Janice doesn’t think that’s an answer. “Sooooo…” she says.

“I’ll be here,” he says, giving her his full smile, which makes her want to smile. But she doesn’t, because he’s not done answering her yet.

“Sooooo…” she says.

Harrison laughs and it makes her want to laugh, but she doesn’t. “And I’ll bring Benson,” he says.

Now she smiles and she laughs and she walks away. And Zoran laughs with her.

~~~

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