Perion Synthetics (18 page)

Cyn feinted a jab, feinted a hook with the
same hand, and then delivered a strike with a rear cross. When Cam fired back,
Cyn covered with her rear hand and dipped to deliver a shovel hook. It connected,
leaving her too close and vulnerable. She timed her escape with a quick
uppercut that landed more in Cam’s throat than his chin. It had the desired
effect; he crumbled in place and fell onto his back.

Her body moved without thinking, rushing
forward with a foot raised in the air, her knee making a circular motion to put
as much force as possible into a good old fashioned Umbra curb stomp, which by
her estimation, would be powerful enough to crush Cam’s skull.

Cyn saw all of this from her original position,
as if her body had left without her. And though she desired his death, she knew
it came without control, without being the one in charge. It was the voice in
the back of her head, the smooth talker whose words of pure bass tickled the
back of her neck. She wanted nothing more than to give into it completely, to
sink into its powerful and tender embrace.

“Cynthia!” The voice screamed from all
corners of the world. “Stop! You’re killing him!”

Cyn froze in place, her leg hanging in the
air above Cam’s bloodied face.

“Lincoln?” she asked. “Is that you?”

They used to have a cat, a yellow and white furball who
roamed the house like she owned it. Her name was Zao, after the tabby who had
appeared in the animated film
All My Lives
the year they got her. Zao’s
favorite resting spot was in Cyn’s room, in the line of sunlight cast by the
tall, skinny windows on either side of the twin bed. She would start out on the
floor in the morning, then move to the foot of the bed as the golden band
shortened. Cyn would find her there in the afternoon, asleep or simply pensive,
content in the safety of her kingdom. After a hard day of school, Cyn found no
greater pleasure than burying her face in the tabby’s soft fur, listening for
that deep vibrato purr that always followed.

Years later, after the cat had died or run
away, Cyn would experience the same rattling hum, but instead of a purr of
pleasure, it would be from the spiking processor in her Ayudante chip.

Guardian Angels had no such problem. They
stayed well within their rated frequencies, limits set by the manufacturer and
government agencies. The MX had no such stipulations or federal oversight. If
you could overclock the one advantage you had on the battlefield, then there
was really no choice. Push your chip to the limit, the saying went. It wasn’t
as if you were going to live very long anyhow.

Cyn had learned to recognize when her chip
was overworked, first by the humming and then by the heat it gave off, the dull
ache it produced at the base of her skull. It wasn’t a feeling that would put
her down, but it wasn’t exactly pleasant. And as she stood over the fallen Cam,
listening to Tate’s screams rattle around in her head, she felt the vibrations
ripple through her body, as if the Ayudante were giving off its war cry,
asserting itself after having been ignored for so long. The various aches and
pains she felt in her body fell away, replaced by a sense of invincibility. The
room around her shifted, became less of a generic background and more a three-dimensional
puzzle full of escape routes and foot holds.

Cam was still rolling on the ground, hands
holding the underside of his jaw as blood pooled on his light mustache.

Shaking off the disorientation, Cyn stepped
forward and put out a helping hand.

Cam considered the offer for a moment before
reaching into his pocket for his cell phone. He snapped a picture of Cyn and
then dropped his head back to the carpet.

“Asshole,” said Cyn.

With a groan, Cam rolled onto his stomach
and then pushed himself to his knees. “My god,” he said, struggling to find
balance. “They build them tough in Umbra, don’t they?”

“Just you, baby,” said Tate. The whisperer
crackled.

Cyn examined her wrist and read the black on
silver text.

Connection Restored.

Rotating her arm, Cyn rubbed the remaining
concealer away until the black, bony line took shape. The tiniest scar ran down
the center of it.

“Augments,” she explained. “They come in
handy whenever a rival house wants to start some shit.”

“Hey, I was just trying to…” Cam cut his
sentence short when he saw the smile on her face. “Well, I don’t know about
your hardware, but your Kung Fu is definitely stronger than mine.”

Cyn crossed her arms over her breasts. “What
do you call that fighting style you were trying to do?”

Cam coughed, grimaced. The small stream of
blood from his nose began to trickle down over his lips. “A little of
everything, I guess. I’ve been training in VNet for the last year. Never really
had an opportunity to use it in real life.”

“Well, thanks for bringing me back.”

“Sure. I owed Tate for some hospitality he
showed me last time I was in Umbra.”

Cyn touched the back of her neck where the
tremors from the Ayudante tingled her fingers. “Damn this thing is working
overtime.”

Across the room, the elevator dinged. There
was no time to run; Cyn fell into a defensive stance. Cam didn’t even register
the sound until he saw Cyn staring.

The doors parted, and out stepped a familiar
suit.

“Chief of Police,” whispered Cyn.

“I know,” whispered Cam in reply.

Gantz took a few steps forward and crossed
his arms. “Two aggregators from two of the biggest media houses in a city of
hundreds of thousands, and you end up beating the shit out of each other in the
most secure building in the city.” He laughed to himself. “You can’t make this
shit up.”

His tone made Cyn relax; beside her, Cam
seemed positively nonchalant.

“What do you say, Gantz?” asked Cam. “Should
we get the hell out of here? I think I’ve gotten all the material I need for my
story.”

Gantz removed his jacket and held it out to
Cyn. “I’m not here, understand? I don’t care what you feed, but you leave my
name out of it.
They
are watching the feeds very carefully, and if you
so much as hint about my involvement, all the augments in Umbra won’t be enough
to stop me from putting you in the ground.”

Cyn reached for the jacket and pulled it on.
It was much too big.

“Where’s Roberta?” asked Gantz.

“She went on ahead,” said Cam. “With the…”
He pointed vaguely to Cyn’s empty arms.

For a moment, she felt as if the Ayudante
might buzz itself right out of her neck. The directive was still very much
alive, though the Ayudante was doing its best to fight it. But how did the
directive get there in the first place?

“Who…” She choked on the question, her brain
refusing to admit the possibility. “Whose baby was that? I mean, I really felt
like she was mine.” A cold shudder went through her body. “I still do.”

“She’s not real,” said Cam. “She’s a
synthetic like Roberta. Like I said, probably part of some scheme to cash in on
the global population problem. My guess is Joe Perion wants to corner the
market with synthetic babies that behave just like real ones. You pay your
hundred dollar course fee, train on a robo-baby for a while, and go take your
test.”

Gantz scoffed. “I wouldn’t feed that
bullshit if I were you, Gray. And attaching Joe’s name to it would only
demonstrate how little you know of him.”

“If not him, then who?” asked Cam.

Gantz ignored the question and gestured to a
nearby door. “Come on, we don’t have time to stand around in our underwear.”

Cam held his tongue until they had walked
down three flights of stairs and passed through half a dozen security
checkpoints.

When they stopped in front of a large
exterior door, he asked, “Your company owes her an explanation, Chief.”

Gantz examined the vidscreen next to the
door, his fingers flying over the display, bringing up an inventory screen
containing a gallery of cars. “The lab coats call them forced betas. Every so
often, we get people walking out of the desert. Sometimes they’re lost.
Sometimes they’re just curious.”

“Sometimes they’re looking for a scoop?”
asked Cam.

“Not as often as you’d think,” he replied.
“We used to turn them away or have them arrested, but some people just didn’t
get the message. They wanted in, so we let them in.”

A number flashed on the vidscreen and Gantz
moved to a lock box on the adjoining wall. He fished out a black key fob.
“Found our ride.”

Cyn followed the chief and the shaky Cam out
into the garage. Sunlight poured in from the open bay doors, bathing the
evercrete cavern in an oppressive lens flare that made Cyn shield her eyes.
Only by the sound of boots clapping on the ground in front of her was she able
to keep up.

The key fob was for a black Nissan, similar to
the Perion company cars she had seen during live events where James Perion
arrived in a convoy of identical vehicles to keep any potential assassins
guessing. But where those had been longer sedans with bulging hoods over
massive engines, the car Gantz had chosen was smaller, more nimble. An unbroken
streak of black glass dominated the driver’s side. A hidden third door on the
passenger side allowed Cam to slip into the afterthought of a back seat. Cyn
sank into the conforming leather in front and reflected on how out of place she
looked with her bare legs poking out from under Gantz’ suit jacket.

“Where are my clothes?”

Gantz chuckled; Cyn watched his eyes seek
out Cam in the rearview mirror. “Not the first time I’ve been asked
that
question.”

In the back seat, Cam tapped a rim shot out
on his knees.

“Hey, Chief Gantz of the Perion City Police
Department, the guy who is currently helping me escape my unlawful detainment,
where the
fuck
are my clothes?”

“Destroyed,” he replied. “I know, it’s a
shame. That dive suit must have set you back five large at least.”

“Nine,” grumbled Tate, as if anyone but Cyn
could hear him.

“We couldn’t take any chances though,”
continued Gantz. “That thing was more tech than cloth, so we dropped it into
the incinerator like a defunct synny. All of your equipment too. The only thing
that didn’t go down the chute was your needler, but Sava Kessler took that for
herself. She says it’s a one of a kind Newmark out of South Africa. How did you
come by such a weapon?”

“My mother gave it to me,” replied Cyn. She
crossed her arms and looked out the window as the car exited the garage.

“How does a PR flack even know how to place
a gun like that?” asked Cam. “And you just let her take it?”

Gantz shrugged. “You pick your battles with
Sava Kessler. Write that down.”

The windows dimmed in response to the
increased sunlight. None of the guards lining the posts along the driveway
would be able to see in. Gantz had his window open only a crack, just enough
space to show his badge. After a few tense minutes, the Spire shifted to the
side view mirror and began to recede. Cyn relaxed for the first time in hours.

Then she realized her relief came not from
the escape, but from the prospect of seeing Candice again.

“Why do I feel a bond with a synthetic
baby?” she asked. “How is that even possible?”

“I don’t know the why,” replied the chief. “As
to the how, it’s like I said, forced beta. Lot of these drifters coming out of
the desert fail one important immigration rule.”

“Guardian Angel chips,” said Cam. He cocked
his head to the right, as if someone were screaming in his ear.

“Yeah, Vinestead tech. It’s also the weakest
and most exploitable mass-market tech out there. It’s not just a monitoring
system; it can control you. Someone could walk in, say your average lab coat,
and work fine and get along for years. Then one day, the code in their chip
fires, activates some subroutine in their brain, and boom, they go all Kaili
Zabora over some billion dollar prototype. That’s a time and money setback the
big man would never allow.”

“But you let them in anyway?” asked Cyn.

“Not without wiping them clean, eyebrows to
assholes and everything in between. It’s not exactly an on-the-books procedure,
but the GA chip makes it easy to reprogram someone. It’s kind of like the
ReTread procedure they use on inmates. Dump the original personality and make
the scum of society into a useful contributor. We haven’t had a forced beta
tester go rogue in a long while.”

Cyn let out a deep breath.

The buildings outside towered over the car,
but began to shrink the further away they got from the Spire. Soon they were
passing residential areas, neighborhoods of boring beige houses that twisted
away from the road.

“Well, if you’re not gonna ask,” said Cam.
Then to Gantz, “She has an Ayudante chip. I didn’t think anyone had broken MoA
encryption yet.”

“Not broken, but subdued. Interfered with.”
Gantz waved an uncertain hand over the steering wheel. “Deborah tried to
explain it to me… All I know is that the girl with the skeleton tattoo isn’t a
Vinestead virgin. Scanners picked up some lingering VTech the moment we popped
them on. It may not have been enough to ReTread her completely, but I guess
they didn’t need to.”

Cyn felt herself being pulled through time
to that back alley in Umbra, a nearly empty bottle of Stolichnaya in one hand
and an anesthetic tab in the other. The hacker had said he’d get every trace of
the diseased Vinestead tech out of her, but then he’d also promised his
instruments were sterile.

The resulting infection had put her in the
hospital for two weeks, but it had been worth it to be free of the Big V.

“Fucking Vinestead,” she muttered. The
Ayudante opened the feedback loop just wide enough to let her know she was
grinding her teeth.

“Don’t spit in here,” said Gantz. “This is
Corinthian leather.”