Under the Skin (10 page)

"I'll let you have him back, no worries,” Jenner was saying, “I will, don't worry..."

Padraic found that he was holding the loose end of the lead in his free hand. He hadn't let go of it—had, in fact, wound it around his fingers so tightly that it was just beginning to twist free. An image of the jack located directly behind Jenner's ear popped into his mind clear as day.

It was far too much of a risk. He would have to reach behind his own head and shove it into Jenner's jack without looking, and that was assuming that Jenner didn't see it coming and crush his hand again.

"Or, you know, I could just kill you both and scavenge your bodies for whatever I want; there's that, too."

Padraic reached back and neatly plugged the lead into Jenner's jack. He had a split second to appreciate how easy it was and how goddamned lucky he was, and then his brain split into a thousand painful fragments.

Padraic knew he was screaming, and distantly, he could hear Jenner groan. Then they both hit the floor like dead bodies. This time, though, Padraic scrambled to his feet and Jenner stayed down.

Minoru stepped back to allow Padraic through the door, and then he stepped close to Jenner, the small device in his hand sparking an ominous blue.

"No!” Padraic managed to croak out. His voice was as rough as sandpaper.

"Why not?” Minoru asked, never taking his eyes off of the man on the floor. In that instant, Padraic knew that Minoru could kill Jenner and that very little was stopping him.

"Fucking spidering software,” Padraic panted. “He's got plenty of nasty little toys on his system that need software to run. Software's not there anymore."

The pain flared again, briefly and intensely, but then Padraic felt it recede.

He sat down on the bed, and it was only then that he noticed Minoru sitting quietly just outside the bathroom door.

"If I had known that you had matters well in hand, I would have spared myself the ride over."

"I actually didn't have matters well in hand,” Padraic informed him, not altogether steadily. “I was very much afraid he was going to shred my brain like a cheese grater to get the neural net out. How did you find us?"

Minoru smiled briefly.

"Redundant tracer in the car. His preliminary scans probably didn't catch them."

Padraic shook his head and got to his feet. Jenner was still on the floor in the bathroom, and Padraic went over to kneel beside him.

Jenner was down for the count, but he was breathing and his pulse felt steady. Padraic figured that the force of all of his systems failing simultaneously would take him out for a bit, but unlike some information thieves, he hadn't simply replaced every essential system with top-of-the-line tech. That caution had probably saved his life, because whether Padraic was comfortable with the idea or not, Jenner would have been dead if software that regulated his heart or his lungs had been cut.

Shaking his head, Padraic stood up and shut the door behind him.

Jenner was out for at least a little while, but he would probably be up sooner than Padraic would like.

"Let's get out of here and call the police,” Padraic said. The thought of leaving Jenner alone even long enough to summon help made him queasy, but he knew for certain that he didn't want to be in the room in case the man started coming back around.

"No need. He likely has plenty to say that the Inoue Corporation would love to hear, and frankly, given how much trouble he's caused, they're going to make what you and I have gone through look pleasant."

The car that Minoru was driving was enough like the one that Jenner had stolen to make Padraic flinch, but he was honestly too tired to react. Padraic stretched out in the back seat and was almost drowsing off when a series of tremors hit his body.

Suddenly, he saw Minoru's eye getting torn out with ruthless and efficient savagery. He remembered Jenner's completely empty smile. He felt Jenner's hand wrapped around his as his bones ground against each other, threatening to shatter. He thought of Jenner waking up in that hotel room, life spared, but possibly not as grateful for that fact as Padraic hoped he would be. He imagined those flat eyes actually angry.

"Ah, Christ,” he said, shivering like a sick and scared puppy.

"What?” Minoru met his eyes in the rearview mirror and pulled over. Padraic had no idea how far they had gone, and suddenly all he knew that he was very far from home.

Minoru climbed in the back seat with him, and Padraic suddenly noticed that the bandage rucked up Minoru's hair like a surprised bird's feathers. That struck him as absurdly funny, and he simply sat in the seat, laughing until he cried.

The reaction, what he had learned about Minoru, what he had discovered about himself—it was all too much. It was as if everything around him had gone dark and now he was lost. He tried to gain control of himself, but found that abruptly, he couldn't.

It was humiliating, and his breath came even harder.

"Please, please,” he kept trying to say, and he didn't even know what he was asking for or whether anyone could give it to him.

"It's all right,” Minoru said in a voice was stilted and halting. He obviously didn't have much experience with things like this, but the faint tremor in his voice said more than his awkward words ever could.

Carefully, Minoru put his arms around Padraic. Minoru felt as steady as the ground, and Padraic held on to him until the sobbing stopped and the world started to make sense again.

With his faulty language program finally fixed, Padraic was able to communicate with the Inoue executives in a way that was at least marginally meaningful. He answered their questions over and over again until he could recite the story without pause, and he submitted to a number of different and variously painful scans that showed that the information he had inadvertently taken had never been uploaded anywhere else.

Minoru, lost eye replaced with a perfect copy of his old one, was at his side for most of it at first, but as the days dragged by, Padraic saw him less and less.

Halfway through the questioning, Padraic remembered the information that Minoru and Jenner had threatened him with, the stolen information that they had implanted along with Yuuka's spidering software. When he brought it up, he had been met with blank stares and a request for more scans.

Those scans turned up absolutely nothing of the sort, and Padraic found himself laughing at that. If Minoru had been around, he could have cheerfully wrung the man's neck.

Liar
, he thought helplessly.
Liar and worse than that...

After the first flash of rage, though, he found that he simply couldn't keep it up. He could be angry, swear revenge, and spit in the man's face... or he could just let it go.

Letting it go also seemed to mean letting Minoru go, though, and as the days drew on, he became helplessly sure that that was what he would have to do.

One night, gazing out over the Nagoya skyline, he dreamed about Minoru again. This time it was slow and sweet, and in his dream, he turned to Minoru and put his mouth to the other man's ear.

"I know you,” he whispered. “I know you very well."

He woke up in the morning ready to search Minoru out, but there was an Inoue representative at the door with an excellent offer for his tech and a first-class ticket back to Milwaukee.

Getting on the plane gave him a strange feeling of deja vu, and he thought of Jenner again Padraic wondered what the Inoue were planning on doing with the man. He wondered if he was ever going to sleep properly again.

He nodded distractedly at the man who settled into the seat next to him, and then he did a double-take.

Minoru was dressed as conservatively as ever, but for the first time, he had a slightly sheepish expression his face.

"I am currently out of favor with my father,” he said. “I have been sent away to consider my faults and to meditate on how to be a better son and heir."

"And so you're getting sent to meditate in Milwaukee?"

The smile that Minoru flashed him was bright.

"No, I am being sent to Beijing."

"By way of Milwaukee?"

Minoru sighed and looked down.

"My father had a great many things to say to me. Some of what he said... affected me very deeply, and so I like to think that I am fulfilling the greater part of his directive in this fashion."

Padraic was still uncertain about Minoru heading to Milwaukee, but then he realized that the Inoue heir was uncertain as well.

From the way Minoru held himself, the way his hands rested too casually on his lap, Padraic could tell that he was terrified.

"You can crash at my place until you get a place of your own,” Padraic said finally. “A week, two weeks, tops. Then... then we'll figure it out."

Minoru looked blank for a moment and then smiled. He leaned over to kiss Padraic, and it was sweet, lovely, and light.

Padraic smiled. For once, he was the one who was going to make things tangled and complicated, and he didn't mind that at all.

There was going to be a lot to learn for both of them, and finally, Padraic felt completely ready.