Sugar Skulls (27 page)

I refuse to accept it. Trav didn’t say one way or the other. And even if it
was
true . . .
“No version of her has ever loved you, Damon.”

He turns crimson, and I watch the rest of the professional façade collapse in on itself. A thug-gone-Corporate emerges. He punches me right in my broken rib, one shot like broken glass in my side. I cry out as everything goes white with agony.

“Damon.” Trav surprises me by speaking up. “That’s enough. I can’t have you interfering with my research. You should be tending to your pet and keeping Corporate happy. I doubt they’d care to hear about how far you’ve gone to ensure these little victories.”

I can’t tell if that was an act of kindness or Trav calling dibs on dissecting me like a frog in science lab.

My vision clears, and there’s Damon, making sure his suit is just so. But a slight twitch at the corner of his mouth tells a different story, one of rage barely contained.

“Fine. Good luck with your experiments. After the work I put in tracking this shitstain down, they better be profitable. And don’t forget to wipe your toy clean when you’re done with him.” One last time, he closes the gap between us. “Don’t worry, Micah. I’ll take excellent care of Vee. She’s all mine. Spend your last few moments considering that, lab rat.”

Trav applies another paralyzer to my throat before I can reply.

The thought of Vee, vulnerable, confused, and in that bastard’s hands . . .
Please be okay, Vee. Please be okay.

After a beep acknowledging his security tag, the scumbag walks out, crisp and businesslike once more. And now my attention falls to the array of surgical implements and unidentifiable tools awaiting me.

Trav leans over and whispers in my ear, “That guy is a real asshole. He says you were running applejack. But after what we lost, you wouldn’t. You couldn’t possibly. Could you?”

I look at him with my good eye, unable to reply or shake my head, but hoping he’ll see the truth.

His tone is halting, reluctant, as he continues. “I thought you were gone. They told me you wouldn’t recover. But you did, and you’ve been here for months, doing . . . what?”

With the paralyzer on, I can’t tell him about running down the dealer through Ludo, about getting in with Maggie and Rete and trying to trace the sources of applejack, about everything I’ve done for months. For him, for her, for all of us.

Even as I say it in my head, it sounds so small. So pointless.

“How long did it take you to forget us, Micah? How many days of palling around with lowlifes and diddling your popstar girlfriend?”

His words run through me like glacier water. And then, with the simple click of the mic, Trav is the picture of professionalism again.

“As our probes gather useful data in the background, we’ll perform thorough scans and examinations in order to locate any recording devices present, either mechanical or biological.” Trav tapes my eyelids open and draws a long needle, filling it with a nausea-inducing seafoam-colored mixture.

Watching something awful happen and being powerless to do anything about it is becoming a recurring theme in my life.

The needle inches closer and closer, looming over me, big as life, before finally plunging forward.

V

Coming out of Jax’s room for the second time, I run into the same dink from the pre-Dome party. Damon’s right-hand guy is a fucking wall of muscle, and even a well-tailored suit can’t disguise the fact that he’s got no neck.

And aviators? Past midnight? Sure sign of a complete douchebag.

He doesn’t know it yet, but he’s Phase Two.

“Enough running around for the night,” he says with a grunt, nudging me in the direction of the stairs.

“Damon’s orders?” I grin up at him, trying to sound playful. “You realize I’ve only seen you once or twice without these glasses?” Scrunching up my nose at him, I make like I want to push them back.

He reaches for that wrist while my other hand slaps a level-nine sedative patch under his jaw. Down he goes like a sack of rocks, and I smack a second snooze button on his cheek. By the time I reach into his coat pocket and locate Damon’s backup phone, he’s full-out snoring.

“Pleasant dreams, asshole,” I mutter.

Jax bounces into the hall carrying two bags loaded with supplies. “Holy shit, it worked.”

“Told you it would.” I step over Mount Fucknuts and head straight for the studio. Sasha’s already got an impressive bank of equipment up and running. Two glowing pinpoints of light indicate that Little Dead Thing is curled up in the corner, scowling at all of us.

Sasha’s just as focused, her gaze never straying from the glowing blue light of the holographic displays hovering in front of her. “Everything’s ready to roll.” She hands me the vocal modulator from Damon’s bullshit fake-Vee PR stunt.

I fit it into my ear and adjust the mouthpiece. “You wrote an override program for the city vidscreens?”

“Yup. It’ll go live as soon as we’re ready.” Sasha leans back far enough in her chair to flash me a smile. Some of that fire she had in the limo has returned.

Good damn thing, too, because this is going to get very hot very quickly.

Damon’s backup phone is linked to every account he’s got, so it doesn’t take me long to sort through his incoming messages. Pictures of the warren that I’ve seen already. Pictures of Micah that I have not. My stomach clenches at the sight of his face, bloody and swollen, but I thumb through the folder until I find the address.

I was expecting a holding cell in a detention facility, but he’s in the fucking medcenter, and not for 50 cc’s of TLC, is my guess. Callie’s there, too. In case Damon needs more leverage over Sasha.

Trying to keep a lid on the medical horror show running through my head, I hand the phone off to her. “Dial out for me?”

She plugs the phone into her mini-grid, calls up a vocal sample from one of Damon’s outgoing messages, then fires off a finger-pistol at me.

When the person on the other end of the line picks up, I use Damon’s voice to bark out my order: “Bring the car around.” He starts to protest, but I yell over him, “Yes, jackass, I know I’m inside one already. Bring the other goddamn car around.”

Hold on, Micah. I’m coming for you.

M

Trav gives me a series of injections designed to reveal any subdermal biotech or microscopic recording devices. My vision blurs, tinted blue for a few minutes by a chemical eyewash that burns like hot sauce.

With my eyelids taped open, I can’t help but watch Trav throughout the tests. He keeps his expression neutral, hardly looking at me at all. I’m a lab rat pincushion. Subject C-15, nothing more.

But after those whispered questions, I can’t help but see something in his eyes. Resentment at my very existence.

I’m starting to prefer being Subject C-15 to being Micah.

He activates the mic as he reviews the results of his chemical trace tests. “Preliminary examination reveals no sign of biological or artificial technology in the eye, ocular cavity, or in any subdermal tissues so far. Fisher?”

The assistant reappears with datapad in hand and points to several spots on the screen. When he catches me watching them, he frowns slightly, offering a look of pity before turning away.

Trav resumes his analysis. “No sign of biotech or other foreign material in the brain tissue.” He gives the full scientific spiel to the microphone, explaining how the overdose charred my neural pathways.

No wonder Cyrene’s best chemical treats don’t affect me anymore.

His last statement sticks with me: “The thalamus remains virtually untouched, so his ability to feel pain is unimpaired.”

At that moment, I swear the barest hint of a smile crosses Trav’s face. A smile colder than applejack withdrawal.

“As expected, the subject’s responses bear a strong resemblance to my own, recorded nine months ago. Higher-than-average tolerance for pain, heightened ability to regulate the body’s reaction to adrenaline. Changes well complemented by the subject’s naturally impressive coordination, balance, and reflexes. And the abnormally fast metabolism that marginalized the applejack’s effects just enough to stave off death.”

My mind drifts back to better times with Trav.
Training together, running the obstacle course, making the city our playground. Brothers in everything . . .

Until they sent me home in that coma, and kept him.

Did they make him a monster? Did I?

In my reverie, I’ve missed some of the science talk. I focus on Trav’s lips as he speaks. “We will now proceed with a full sweep, reintroducing nanotech and returning the subject to the grid.”

Standing up, he wheels over a horseshoe-shaped device with regularly spaced injectors, which he attaches to the braces holding my head in place. Trav removes the paralytic patch again, leaving my neck raw from the adhesive. “How you holdin’ up?”

Wetting my lips, I slowly reply, almost begging. “Trav, please—”

The device locks in place with a resounding click, and he steps back, expression chillingly blank. “Now, this may sting a bit. Your body’s been without nanotech for a long time, so the reintroduction might be a bit . . . aggressive.”

This time, he doesn’t get the paralyzer on before I start screaming.

V

The costume change is ridiculous but necessary. Shedding my party dress like a snakeskin, I throw on head-to-toe skintight black lace, clip in some fire-engine red extensions, and manage full face paint in less than five. Jax and Sasha are dressed to match in even less time.

To hell with the styling team.

“I locked Little Dead Thing in my bathroom,” Sasha says, hefting the digital broadcasting console. “He’s been through enough for one day.”

Jax snorts so that I don’t have to. Carrying her minipharmacy and the injector that Damon thoughtfully left on my bathroom counter, Jax hands over one of her precious haptic gloves, the neoprene peeled back to expose a serious amount of wiring. “That’s the best I could do in fifteen minutes. The insulation’s compromised now, so be careful.”

“Got it.” I pull on the glove and wrap Micah’s broken chain around my knuckles to maximize surface contact. Holding everything tight, I run a half-second test on my leg with the improvised Brights, which hurts like holy fuck. A few minutes later, I can move enough to consider a jailbreak.

Adjusting the vocal modulator, I wait for Sasha to patch me into the security circuit. When she gives me the go-ahead, I borrow Damon’s voice again. “Everyone to the back alley of the building. There’s been a breach at the loading dock.”

I hear the message relay down the hall out of six different radios. As one, the guards stampede for the service exit at the back of the Loft.

“Let’s go.” I lead the way down the hall, trying to keep my breathing and my heart rate in check. Trying to play out every possible outcome of our mad escape.

No one better get between me and that limo.

We’ve reached a dead run when the front door opens just ahead of us. Damon steps into the foyer, a bottle of over-the-Wall champagne in his hand, a smile playing about his lips.

Then he catches a good look at my face and starts to sputter. “Vee, what the hell—”

Barreling into him at a million miles an hour, I take him down in a tangle of arms and legs. The bottle hits the floor and detonates, spraying the walls with sparkling wine. His head bounces off the marble, but he’s still trying to sit up, to reach for me. Profanities stream out of both of us. I get my hands on his neck this time, not the other way around, shoving my Brights into the soft spot under his chin. They discharge with a series of hisses and pops, and the next thing I smell is barbeque. Damon falls back again, out like a light.

I slide off of him, panting, cradling my burning hand against my chest as I eye the livid stripe of raw flesh under his jaw. “That’s for getting in my way.”

Without comment, Jax tags him with a dose of elephant tranq, courtesy of his own injector. When I’m able to move again, I cram the diamond necklace into the pocket of his coat with my good hand before turning back to the girls.

“Come on.”

Jax steps over him and follows me into the elevator. Sasha hesitates, looking as if she’d like a little payback for everything she’s been through. A better person than I am, she detours around him instead of stomping his face in.

“Going down,” Jax says cheerfully, jamming the lobby button with her thumb.

Next stop, Mercette Park.

M

I break out in a cold sweat as Trav bombards my body with the nanotech. I can feel it pouring into me, millions of atom-sized ants crawling around my brain. My arms and legs twitch as it triggers spasms and synaptic misfires. It bites like freezer burn screaming through my veins.

This might be it. After everything, this might finally break me apart and finish the job.

Shutting my eyes so hard that I pull the surgical tape free, I push back, push back against the nanotech and the memories and Trav’s return and everything malignant in the whirlwind of my mind. I force it all back, until all I hear, all I feel is a single, constant tone, like the flatline of an EKG. But it’s not the end. It’s the beginning.

Vee’s first note, the one that lit the fuse way back at Hellcat Maggie’s. Still resounding inside me. Her voice. Her life.
My life.
I grab it tight and refuse to let go.

On the periphery of my mind, I sense a release of pressure, a weight lifted. I slowly trickle back to full consciousness, opening my eyes in time to see Trav wheeling away the horseshoe apparatus.

My body pulses with pain from a thousand spots.
Aggressive nanotech . . . No shit. Those little bastards tore through me like a herd of cattle.

Fisher joins Trav as he analyzes the readout. From the up-and-down movement of his eyes, I’m guessing it’s a playback of either my heart rate or my brain activity during the attempted nanotech reboot. Pointing to something on the datapad, Fisher can’t get a word out before Trav shuts him down.