Skinned (20 page)

“It’s not about what he said. It’s what I know. This wouldn’t work. And if it didn’t…” Now I did touch him—I took his hand. He pulled away. “I don’t want to mess this up, what we have. I can’t risk that.”

“Why not?” He was edging toward a whine. “If you really want something, sometimes it’s worth taking a chance.”

But what if you really
didn’t
want something?

“It’s not going to work, Auden.”

“Because you don’t
want
it to work,” he snapped.

“Because it won’t!” Why couldn’t he just let it go? “Stop pushing it!”

“I know you’re scared,” he said. “I’m scared too. But we can try this together. We
can
.”

I needed to make him stop. And I was pretty sure I knew how to do it.

“Why do you really want this so bad?” I asked in a low voice. “Is it me, or is it this stupid body?”

His eyes widened. “What?”

“Admit it, you’re obsessed with what I am, with what it’s like being a mech, with everything about it—”

“Because I’m your friend,” he protested. “Because I care!”

“But that came later. You were obsessed before—before you even knew me. You couldn’t stay away.”

“So I was curious! So what? And you know I was just trying to help.”

“Maybe—or maybe you’ve got some weird mech fetish. And you can’t stop until you know how
everything
works, right?”

He drew himself up very straight and very still. “I can’t believe you would say that.”

I couldn’t believe it either. And I couldn’t keep going, even if it was the one thing guaranteed to drive him away. Because I didn’t want him to go away. I just wanted him to shut up and leave it alone.

“I didn’t mean it,” I admitted.

“I would never…” I could barely hear him. “That’s not who I am.”

“I know.”

Then neither of us said anything. We just sat with our backs to the wall and our shoulders almost, but not quite, touching.

“I shouldn’t have pushed,” he said, finally cutting through the dead air.

“I shouldn’t have said that to you. That was cruel.”

Another long pause.

“We would never have been friends, would we, if it weren’t for your accident,” he said, asking a question that wasn’t a question. “We probably would have graduated without ever having a single conversation.”

I kept staring straight ahead. “Probably.”

“And even if we had talked…”

“You would have hated me,” I said. “Shallow, superficial bitch, remember?”

“You wouldn’t have bothered to hate me. It wouldn’t have been worth it to you.”

I didn’t deny it.

“But I’m different now,” I said. “Everything’s different.”

“I know. But would you keep it that way?”

“What do you mean?”

“If you had a choice, if you could go backward. Would you want to be the old Lia Kahn again, with your old life and your old friends—or stay like this, who you are now?”
Stay with me,
he didn’t say, but it was all over his face.

“Auden—”

“Don’t lie,” he said. “Please.”

I didn’t even have to think about it. “I’d go back. Of course I’d go back.”

“Even if it meant losing—”

“No matter what it meant,” I said firmly. “If I could have my body back, my
life
back, don’t you think I’d want it? No matter what?”

“No matter what.” He stood up. “Good to know.”

“Auden, that’s not fair. You can’t expect me to—”

“I don’t expect anything.”

“Don’t go,” I said. “Not like this.”

“I can’t stay,” he said. “Not like this.”

He left. I stayed.
Maybe I should have tried,
I thought.
Maybe it wasn’t him. Maybe it was me.

Before, rejecting guys had been easy—and I’d had a lot of practice. Before, I knew what it felt like when it felt right. I knew what I wanted. And I knew there would always be someone new who would want me.

Before.

He’s just not my type
, I thought.
Too scrawny. Too intense. Too weird.

But I couldn’t be sure. Walker was my type—and I didn’t want him, either. Not really. Not anymore.

Maybe I wasn’t programmed to want. Maybe that was just something else lost, like running, like music. Something else that had slipped through the cracks of their scanning and modeling. Maybe it was one of those intangibles—like a soul, like free will—that didn’t exist, not physically, and so wasn’t supposed to exist at all.

T
he waterfall wasn’t loud enough to drown out my thoughts. But it was a start. I found myself a wide, flat rock near the bank, a few feet from where the water plunged over the edge. The place looked different in the light. For one thing, you could see the bottom clearly. Which made it look even farther away. Beyond the rumbling white water, the river ribboned out flat and calm again, but not for long. There was another precipice, another plunge, another fall. From where I sat, I couldn’t see whether it was as long or as deep; the river just dropped away. I took a pic—not of the second waterfall, but of the empty space beyond the river, the air where there should have been land. It was crap—a little crooked, like I’d tried an artistic shot and failed miserably when, in fact, I just hadn’t cared enough to steady the lens. I posted it to my new zone anyway. Anything to fill up the empty space.

A mist rose from the gushing water. I was tempted to stand by the edge, wave my hand through the dewy cloud, but that seemed too close. I might have fallen in; I might have jumped. I stayed where I was, watching the water, trying not to think about Auden and Walker, and especially not about Zo.

But I couldn’t help hoping that one of them might voice me to apologize, to tell me I’d misunderstood and the whole thing was a hideous mistake. One hour passed, then two. No one did.

“You probably shouldn’t jump in the daylight. Too easy to get caught.” Like the waterfall, Jude looked different during the day. Every silver streak, every black line etched into his skin, stood out in sharp relief. And seeing him against the pastoral backdrop made him look all the more machinelike.

“What are you doing here?” I asked, jumping up as he sat down.

“I should ask you that,” he said. “Last I checked, this was my place.”

“Oh, so now you own the river?”

“Sarcasm doesn’t scare me. Fire away. I’m staying.”

“Enjoy,” I said. “I’m going.”

“After I came all this way? I would have thought a girl like you would come equipped with better manners.”

“So you’re stalking me now? How’d you know I was here?”

“I know all.” He smirked.

“I’m leaving.”

“Okay, wait!” He spread his arms wide in truce. “Your zone, okay? You posted the pic. I recognized the view.”

“You’ve been lurking on my zone?”

“What can I say? I have a lot of time on my hands,” Jude said.

“Use it for something else,” I snapped. “Stay out of my life.”

“Maybe I don’t want to. Maybe I think you’re worth a little extra effort.”

I couldn’t believe it. Not another one. Not today. At least this time around I wouldn’t have to worry about letting him down easy. “Look, I’m flattered—Well, I’m not, actually, but let’s say I am. I’m not interested, okay? So—”

“You think
I’m
interested?” He burst into laughter. “You really are an egomaniac, aren’t you? I mean, I knew you were spoiled and self-absorbed, that’s par for the course. But this? Please. Trust me, I’m not into the chase. When I want something, it chases
me
.”

And
I
was the egomaniac?

Still, I sat down again. He had some kind of agenda, that was obvious. And if it wasn’t the expected one, that was interesting. Or at least interesting enough to distract me from the things that actually mattered.

“So why are you here?” I asked.

“Brought you something.”

“What?” Like I cared.

“Just something to help you let go.”

“What makes you think I have any interest in doing that?”

He smiled. “Because letting go, that’s the key. If you’re too scared to let go, you’ll never be in control. Not really.”

“Is that supposed to make sense?” I asked. “Let go so I can get control? Do you even listen to yourself talk, or do you just spit out this crap at random?”

“It’s all connected,” he said, so disgustingly pleased with himself. So sure. “People only fear letting go because they fear they won’t be able to get the control back. That they’ll keep going until their urges and instincts destroy them.”

“But
you
know better?”

“I know you’re afraid of what you’ve turned into, but only because you don’t know what it is, not yet. And because you don’t understand it, you think you can’t control it.”

“You’re wrong.”

“You’re a
machine
,” he said. “And that means absolute control—or, if you so choose, absolute release. You have the power to decide if you let yourself.” He pulled something out of his pocket, small enough to fit snugly in the palm of his hand. “You wanted to know why I came looking for you? To give you this.”

He tossed the object at me, and I caught it without thinking. It was a small, black cube with a tiny switch on one side and a slim, round aperture on the other. Harmless.

“It’s a program,” he said.

“For what?”

“For you. Or for your brain, at least. You can upload it wirelessly through your ocular nerve.”

“That’s not possible.” No one at BioMax had said anything about additional programming; no one had hinted that I might be able to…reprogram myself.

You have a computer inside your head,
the Faith leader had said.
Programmed by man.

Normal people—
human
people—didn’t adjust their programming. They didn’t rewire themselves with chips and wireless projections. They just changed. Or they didn’t.

“Anything’s possible if you know the right people,” Jude said smugly, like he said everything.

“What’s it do?”

“Let’s call it a vivid illustration of my point.”

I faked a laugh. “You want me to stick something in my brain based on
your
predictably vague recommendation?”

“I don’t care what you do,” Jude said, and the way he said it, I almost believed him. Not that it mattered. “Think of it as a dream.”

“We don’t dream.”

He gave me a knowing smile. “Yes. That’s what they told you.”

“You’re lying.”

“Maybe,” he said. “Only one way to find out. You say you’re not afraid, right? Prove it.”

I tossed his little black box back to him. “Just how stupid do you think I am?”

He smirked. “You really want an answer to that?”

“Excuse me for not just buying all your crap without question, like one of your brainwashed groupies.”

“I don’t have to brainwash them,” Jude said. “They know the truth when they hear it.”

“Unlike me?”

“Apparently.”

“So that’s what this is?” I asked. “You’ve made it your own personal mission to convert me?”

He laughed. It made him look like a different person. No, that’s not quite right. It made him look like a
person
. “See what I mean?” he said. “Total egomaniac. You should really get that checked out.”

“You’re here, aren’t you?” I pointed out. “Following me?”

“Maybe I was just in the mood to talk.”

“To me?”

He looked around at the wilderness. “Seems like my only viable option.”

I shrugged. “So talk.”

“Let’s start with: What’s wrong?” he asked.

He almost sounded like he really wanted to know. Not that it mattered. “No. I’m not talking about me.”

“Because?”

“Recovering egomaniac,” I reminded him.

He grinned. “The first step is admitting you have a problem.”

“And the second step is acknowledging that other people do too. So let’s start with you. Why are you following me?
Really.
”

He shook his head. “No cheating. That’s still about you.”

“Fine. How about: Where do you live? What do you do all day when you’re not stalking me? How did you end up a mech—”

“I told you before,” he said, the joking tone gone from his voice. “The past doesn’t matter. All that matters is what I am now, and that’s everything I want to be.”

“Come on, how can you say that?”

“Easy. It’s true.” His eyes flashed.

Everything I wanted to be had died in that car crash.

“You really don’t miss it?” I asked. “Not at all?”

He smiled wryly. “There’s not much to miss. We weren’t all like you.”

“What’s ‘like me’?”

“Rich,” he said, ticking it off on his fingers. “Treasured. Sheltered. Deluded.”

“Is this fun for you? Insulting me every time you open your mouth?”

“A little.”

I started to get up again, but he grabbed my arm. “Okay, I’m sorry,” he said. “Don’t go. Please.” I glared, and after a moment he let go. But I sat down again.

“You think this is some kind of punishment,” he said. And again it almost sounded like he cared. Or at least that he understood.

“I don’t—”

“You
do
,” he said. “Because you don’t let yourself see the possibilities. All you can see is what you’ve lost.”

Everything.

“Some of us didn’t have that much to lose,” he continued with less intensity than usual.

“You do realize you’re being ridiculously vague, right?”

“You want something concrete?” he asked. “How about the way it feels to walk for the first time?”

There was something new in his voice, something ragged and unrehearsed, like he’d gone off his script and wasn’t sure how to find his way back. He sounded like I felt: lost.

“Or to know that nothing can ever hurt you again, not for real?” he continued. “How about never having to be afraid?”

I was afraid all the time.

If he knew how that felt, if he could understand that and had found a way to fight back, maybe I’d been wrong about him. About it all.

“That’s why, isn’t it?” I said softly. “Why you don’t talk about before.”

He looked away. “I told you. The past is irrelevant for us.”

“I’m not talking about
us
. I’m talking about
you.
” Without knowing why, I wanted to touch him, to rest my hand on his hand, his knee, his shoulder. I wanted contact. “I’m talking about whatever happened to you. Want to talk, Jude?” I said. It wasn’t a question, it was a challenge. “Talk about that. Talk about how you ended up here. How you’re just like the rest of us.” I paused, not sure I should keep going. And when I did, it was in a whisper. “Broken.”

He raised his eyes off the ground and looked at me. “I’m
not
broken. And I don’t need your pity.”

Pity hadn’t even occurred to me. Why would it when we were the same? “I’m not—”

“Save it for yourself,” he said, his eyes flashing again, a yellow-orange that looked like flame. “Drown in it, for all I care.
I
don’t need it. I know what I am. I’m
proud
of what I am.”

“So that’s why you did
this
to yourself?” I asked. “Turned yourself into some kind of…”

“Freak?”

“I wasn’t going to say that.”

“Because you’re a coward,” he said.

“Shut up.”

“Afraid to say what you think. Afraid to do…
anything
. Afraid to accept the truth.”

“Shut up.”

“You can’t face facts about what you’ve become, and so you’re missing it.”

I had never met anyone so disgustingly smug. “You don’t know anything about me.”

“I know enough,” he said. “I know all you care about is what people think, and whether you look
cool.
Guess what? You don’t. Not to
them
.”

“Why are you so obsessed with all this us-and-them crap? There is no
them
. There is definitely no
us.
”

“Why are you so determined to lie to yourself?” he retorted. “
They
know you’re not one of them. When are you going to wake up?”

“What the hell do you want from me?” I shouted. It was too much. It was too much for one day, too much on top of everything. I couldn’t deal. I shouldn’t have to. “You want me to walk away from everything, to pretend the past never happened and that I’m not the person I know I am?”

“That would be a start!”

“I’m not going to destroy myself.” I tried to make my voice as cool and cutting as his. “Not for you. Not for anyone.”

“That job’s done. You don’t have to do anything. Just acknowledge the wreckage and walk away.”

I stood up—and this time, although he grabbed my arm again, I didn’t hesitate. His fingers wrapped tight around my wrist. He was the only mech I’d ever touched. “Don’t come looking for me again,” I said.
“Ever
.”

“Trust me,” he said coldly. “I won’t have to.”

“I’m going now.” I didn’t move.

“I’m waiting.” He was still holding my wrist.

“Screw you.” And then, somehow, my hand was on his chest. His fingers tightened on my wrist. He yanked me toward him. Or I lunged. He grabbed my waist. Or I dug my hips into him. Whatever he did. Whatever I did. Our faces collided.

Our lips collided.

I clawed at his shirt, digging into the fabric, struggling for the fake, silvery skin that lay below. His lips were rough; his kiss was rough. Hard and angry, or maybe that was me, hating him,
wanting
him, wanting his hands on my body—anyone’s hands on my body—even if it didn’t feel the same, it felt right, it
felt
, for the first time since the accident and the fire and the darkness, I
felt
, and I sucked at his lips, and he bit down, a sweet, sharp pain, and I imagined I could taste the iron-tanged blood on my tongue.

But there would be no blood.

I shoved him away.

For the second time that day I wished I could throw up.

He came toward me; I jerked away.

“
Don’t
touch me.”

I couldn’t believe I had done it.

I wanted to do it again.

I had to get away.

“Don’t do this,” he said, an edge in his voice. “Don’t question it, not now, not when you’re so close.”