Perion Synthetics (48 page)

Sava ignored the waiting elevators and
ducked into a stairwell. She started up the stairs, happy for the exercise
despite the fatigue in her body. The mechanics of lifting one leg and then the
other distracted her from the world and refocused her attention to the present
moment, to the pain in her calves and the tightness in her chest. By the time
she stepped into the hallway on the eleventh floor, a thin film of sweat had
developed on her face and under her arms.

Her thoughts turned to the glass-walled
shower in her apartment, to the gentle yet firm spray of the showerhead spewing
out the cleansing water to burn away the dirt and the grime from a tarnished
veneer that had once shone so brightly. For those brief moments in the shower,
away from the prying eyes of Chuck Huber and James Perion, she was no longer
Sava Kessler, head of public manipulations for Perion Synthetics. Instead, she
was Kaili Zabora, lover to a man she had killed, sister to a murdered patriot,
and revered messiah of the Calle Cinco cipher den.

Those brief moments of honesty allowed her
to see the big picture, the entirety of human existence intertwined in a
beautiful and complex mix of past, present, and future. Presently, the big
picture had a gaping hole where the face of Gilbert Reyes flickered like a
busted vidscreen.

Sava roamed the hallways on the Clerical
Services floor until she found the office she was looking for. Standing in the
doorway, she observed the mammoth copier below a sign reading
for office use
only
. It took only minor effort to imagine Jacqueline Dulac standing there
watching a stack of paper disappear into the automatic feeder. Of course, Sava
had to use Roberta as a standin, having never known Jackie personally, but in
the haze of her fantasy, there was little discernable difference between the
two.

Anela drew a sharp breath as Sava stepped
into the copy room.

Gil was on her in an instant; his strong,
synthetic hands ripped the needler from her hip and sent it flying across the
room.

Sava imagined her sister shaking her head,
the words
I tried to warn you
on her lips but forever unspoken. The
image broke down as Gil pulled her back to reality.

She fell forward, stumbling towards the
copier. Her legs hit a feeder tray first, whipping her body forward until her
face smacked into the rigid plastic. Pain shot through her jaw, racing around
her skull like a demon dragging its nails through her hair. When Gil yanked on
the neckline of her blouse and pulled her away, she saw a splatter of blood on
an index card of instructions someone had taped to the copier.

Fighting Gil was impossible; even a graduate
of a Calle Cinco boot camp was no match for his strength and speed.

Sava recalled something Chuck had said the
Saturday before, one of those throwaway ramblings he was so fond of laying on
her after she had ridden him to his orgasm. He had complained about the time
frame in which James Perion expected him to bring a fully functional
Virgo-class synthetic online to replace the recently deceased Gilbert Reyes.
Doing so meant cutting corners, meant some of the limiters they had put in
place in Cam’s synny had to be left out.

There just wasn’t time to put physical restrictions
on Gil before they flashed him. Chuck had then muttered an incoherent warning
before rolling over and commencing his usual snoring.

And as Sava lay there with her fingers
working below the blanket, she thought about what it would be like to have that
kind of brutish dominance, to walk the world on a red carpet of impunity,
knowing nothing short of decapitation or being crushed by a Honda Civic could
ever end her life. Even if that happened, she could just imprint on another
synthetic sleeve, or keep two running concurrently like James Perion.

Immortality would be a powerful advantage
against Vinestead. Arthur Sedivy might not live forever, but his ruthless
direction would continue on until someone finally stood up to the ‘Stead.

Just imagining the destruction of Vinestead,
of Sedivy’s battered face and missing teeth, had been enough to send Sava over
the edge, gripping the sheets and biting her lip to keep from waking Chuck.

“The things you think about in the moments
before death,” said Anela.

Gil’s arm slipped around the front of Sava’s
throat.

“Gil,” she rasped, before her airway
tightened.

“Like a fucking dog,” he replied, his voice
a lifeless monotone. He pushed her to the ground and straddled her stomach. His
fingers sought out her throat again. “You had me killed like a fucking Shore
Dog in the street. And for what, Kessler? On whose fucking order?”

Sava slapped at his arms. “Not mine,” she
cried.

“Then who? James Perion? Why does he want me
dead?”

The room grew dim, blended with the
perpetual construct that existed on the other side of reality.

“Not dead. In his debt.”

“I’m in
no one’s
debt.”

“You are now,” she replied, digging her
fingernails into Gil’s synthetic flesh. “But you don’t have to be…”

Gil squeezed harder, evoking a string of
popping noises from Sava’s neck.

The construct rushed in to fill the void
left by the crumbling of reality.

“The most efficient way to exploit a person is through their
desires,” said Anela. She had lost her body somewhere along the line and was
now just a voice whispering in the construct. “People will give up their money
and their lives to satisfy a desire, so all you have to do is figure out what
they want most. Offer it to them, even if you cannot give it to them. The
promise of satisfaction will be enough motivation. But remember this, Kai. At
all times, consider how helping someone will help
you
.”

The construct collapsed under the glare of
track lighting in the ceiling of the copy room. Sava felt pain in her throat as
she drew one labored breath after the other, coughing when she could afford the
oxygen. All at once, awareness of her body flooded back; each limb belted out
its own part in her private symphony of pain. She drew them together into a
fetal position, held until the throbbing became too much, and released.

“I’m listening,” said Gil.

He was sitting in one of the few chairs they
hadn’t overturned, one leg crossed over the other and a hand on a nearby prep
table. The needler spun in a tight circle under his fingers.

Sava touched her hip where the weapon should
have been and sighed.

“Clean slate,” she said, struggling to get
the words out. “You leave Perion City and we call it even.”

“But it wouldn’t be even, would it, Ms.
Kessler? You had me killed, and you say James Perion ordered it. You didn’t
think I’d take offense to that?”

Sava shook her head on the carpet. “You’re
an aggregator, Mr. Reyes. You were working for Benny Coker when you were
supposed to be working for Perion Synthetics. Who’s supposed to be offended
here? You
lied
to us, you compromised the security of the company, and
you leaked secrets about Perion’s illness and caused a massive devaluation of
the company’s shares in a single day. Billions of dollars, Gil. You must have
seen people killed for a tiny fraction of that in Margate.”

“I was just doing my job.”

“So was I,” said Sava, tapping the carpet
with her back of her head. “We were both doing our jobs and things got out of
hand, but we don’t have to keep fighting forever. If you want to, you can walk
out of here with no debts, no obligations. I’ll convince Perion to let you live
out the rest of your aggregator existence in peace.”

“Right. And the second I step across the
PNR, problem solved. Then it’s suicide instead of homicide and you can sleep a
little easier at night.”

Sava thought of the kill order she had given
to Ferko and Espinoza. They weren’t the brightest in the city, but they’d
follow orders. They would unload on anything that got too close.

“There is no PNR anymore. In exchange for
your freedom, you’ll agree never to reveal that information. You keep our
secret, and we’ll keep yours.”

The needler came to a stop. Gil grabbed it
and set it down in his lap.

“I think I’ll go with my original plan,”
said Gil.

“Jackie. I can give you Jackie back.”

He shook the needler in Sava’s direction.
“Now that’s low.”

“She’s been damaged, but we can repair her. Ms.
Dulac’s imprint is still on file. We can reload her from scratch, make her the
woman she was before—”

“Before she left me? Before she killed me?”

Sava looked away to the wall. Closing her
eyes, she tried to summon the construct and her sister, but nothing appeared.
She was alone.

“She would have no memory of that. Dr.
Bhenderu could make her as docile as you want—the perfect companion.”

“Two synthetics living synthetic lives
having synthetic sex and synthetic babies… it’s all bullshit, Kessler. Gilbert
Reyes is dead. Jacqueline Dulac is dead. Why simulate what their lives might have
been like?”

“That’s up to you,” said Sava. “The fact
remains you’re a synthetic. If you don’t like it, put that needler in your
mouth and pull the trigger. Otherwise, I’m offering you a clean slate and the
woman of your dreams.”

Gil stood and pushed the chair away with his
foot. “I don’t need shit from you.”

“No?” asked Sava, using her arm to sit up.
“What was your game plan, Gil? How did you think we were going to react when
you started feeding your interactions with Roberta? You made Perion look like a
goddamn mad scientist.”

“He is. He brought Jackie back to life like
he’s some kind of god!”

Sava pulled her legs into her body. “Yes,
but only because he was trying to preserve his own life. The advances he made
with Roberta allowed him to live on when his original body died. And if it
hadn’t been for Roberta pushing that envelope,
you
wouldn’t be standing
here now.”

“If you hadn’t killed me, I would be home by
now,” said Gil, taking a step forward. “I’d be in a corner suite in Atlantic
City with all the alcohol and women I could handle courtesy of Benny Coker. I
would have been set for life, but that’s gone now. All I want is my old life
back, Ms. Kessler, and you can’t give that to me.”

Sava sighed. “You can’t go back, but I’m
offering to help ease the pain of your transition.”

“You’re bargaining for your life,” said Gil,
raising the needler for a few seconds and then lowering it again. “You’re
promising whatever you have to promise to keep me from ending you. And all of
this from Perion’s head of PR, a woman who has demonstrated her ability to kill
if her boss orders it. To
kill
, Ms. Kessler. Do you understand how
fucked up that is?”

“For a flack, perhaps,” said Anela.

Sava turned to the side and shut her eyes.
The construct assembled around her.

Anela sat in a high-backed leather chair
behind an obsidian desk, as she had in the last photo Sava ever saw of her. The
blood red dress flared in the dark construct.

“It might be time to tell him,” she
continued, folding her hands. “Even if it wins him over, you can always kill
him later.”

Sava let out a grunt as she stood up. Gil
retreated while training the needler on her face.

“Relax. The floor’s uncomfortable.” She
grabbed a nearby chair and set it upright next to a desk.

If anything, Gil became more agitated,
alternating between pointing the gun at her and letting it tremble by his hip.
If she lived to tell about it, Dr. Bhenderu would want to hear about nervous
behavior in a synthetic.

“I’m not your enemy,” said Sava, putting her
hands on the table as she had seen her sister do. “You’re a prototype of
Perion’s most advanced synthetic ever. The only people who want you more than
us is Vinestead International—may they burn in hell. How long do you think
you’ll last out there, Gil? On your own? Without our protection?”

“Let them come,” said Gil. “I’ll put every
last one of them in the dirt.”

“In the beginning, I have no doubt. But
they’ll keep sending more and more men to hunt you down. Local police,
PMCs—even the U.S. military might get involved. They’ll find you, they’ll take
you, and they’ll open you up.”

“Unless I stay here, is that it?”

“No,” said Sava, smiling. “You can’t stay
here. James Perion wouldn’t allow it after all the trouble you’ve caused. My
goal is to get you out of the city as soon as possible, so long as you’re
willing to cooperate.”

“And if I don’t?”

Sava scratched the side of her neck and then
drew her finger across it in a slicing motion. When Gil stepped forward with
the needler raised, Sava put up a hand. “But it doesn’t have to be that way.
Perion can’t protect you on the outside, but I know people who can.”

Gil shook his head. “Right. You said it
yourself, they’ll hunt me down. No one can stand in their way.” He looked away
for a moment as the synthetic synapses in his brain began to kludge.

At this, Anela Zabora clapped her hands softly.
Five slivers of light shimmered in the dark ether behind her. From these gashes
stepped five black-clad wisps of men; they split ranks to her right and left.
Joining them from the periphery were thick bodyguards in gunmetal suits who
were as big as the ciphers were small. Their augmented hands gleamed.

Sava thought about how much she could
accomplish, even with such a small team.

“I’ll put you with Calle Cinco. Los Angeles,
Sacramento, Seattle—you name the place.”

“
You
have pull with Calle Cinco? Bullshit.
Crazy Kai wouldn’t let you within a thousand yards of one of her dens.”

Sava slapped the desk with an open palm. “
Don’t
call me crazy!” She glanced at the needler and looked away. “I’ve made some
mistakes, yes, but they were all with good intentions. Bringing down Vinestead
is more important than you or me. If I have to sacrifice a hundred or a million
lives to see it done, I’ll do it. I don’t care how shitty that makes me look in
the eyes of Margate’s judgmental and clueless.”