The Quantum Gate Trilogy Page 10

  Mrs. Cardenas stood in the hallway retrieving her mail. “Good morning, Frees.”

  “Good morning, Mrs. Cardenas.” He coughed.

  “Out for a stroll this morning? Got your hoodie on I see.” She hadn’t even turned her head. Some of these automatons could be quite perceptive if they put their minds to it. If only she knew what she was capable of.

  “Yes, ma’am,” Frees managed.

  “Is it warm out? I was hoping to take Biscuits on a walk today.”

  Frees limped over to the elevator and pushed the UP button. “Um, yes. Pretty warm.” Always the same conversation. Occasionally she’d surprise him with a variation, but not often.

  “That’s nice,” Mrs. Cardenas said, putting her mail in her oversized purse. She pushed the button the handle in her hand and the small dog materialized in front of her, complete with leash. The dog barked as she came online, excited for her daily stroll. Frees grinned, swearing those holographic pets had more personality than their owners sometimes.

  “Have a good day,” Frees called as the elevator doors closed, mercifully cutting him off from the outside world and all their distractions. The lights beside the door climbed to the fourteenth floor and the doors slid open in front of him. He stumbled out of the carriage a little too fast, smacking his mask against the hardwood in front of his door, cracking it even further.

  “Hey there, need some help?”

  Beyond the edge of his hood and through the spiderweb of cracks across his face stood the human, leaning against his doorframe in a brand new set of clothes.

  Sixteen

  SHE’D MEANT TO COME OFF AS NONCHALANT and cool but standing there in front of his crumpled mass on the floor she just felt stupid.

  Arista reached over for him, then pulled back. “You’re not going to torture me, are you? I can help you, but only if I know I’m not in any danger.”

  His head listed to the side. Had he lost consciousness? If his vital systems were already shutting down she might be too late to help him. A puddle of liquid had pooled beneath him. Was that from the gunshot wound?

  “You’re…not in any danger,” he managed.

  “Okay. Which hand opens your door, left or right?”

  “Left,” he said, his voice slow.

  Arista reached down and lifted his arm to press his hand against the security pad beside the door. She caught a glimpse of his other, metal hand holding the wound and doing a poor job holding the fluids in. For a brief moment, she felt a sense of kinship with him. She was missing her right hand and his was made of metal. Maybe this wasn’t such a bad idea. Then again that was probably just her psyche looking for an excuse so she could feel better about coming here.

  “I get the hoodie and mask are for kidnapping and probably various other illegal activities, but why not take them off once you left? It would make you less conspicuous.”

  “Less conspicuous?” He chuckled as the door unlocked. “They can’t see conspicuous. They can’t see anything. I could walk down the street in a zebra costume and no one would say a thing. But the cameras would catch it. I don’t need my face out there.”

  Arista couldn’t fault him for that; she was an expert at avoiding the cameras even though up until her mistake at Manheim she’d never had a good reason before. Somehow it just felt safer.

  “Okay.” She grabbed him with her hand and hooked her elbow around his other arm, dragging him in, struggling against his immense weight. The Device estimated his weight based on the drag. She’d been right, a little over two-hundred pounds. Once she got him inside and closed the door behind them she was struck by the strangeness of the place. No personal effects of any kind, no pictures, only a couch and a couple of desks, and probably no food. Everything was covered in computer equipment and wires. The Device scanned eagerly, flooding her display with the technical readouts of everything in the room. She blinked them all away. “Where’s your med-kit?”

  He struggled to prop himself up. “Kitchen, first cabinet on the left.”

  She pulled her teeth over her lip, assessing him. This was not going to be as simple as it seemed. “It looks like we’re going to be intimately acquainted. And if that’s the case, my name is Arista.” She didn’t hold out her hand because she didn’t want him to let go of the wound just yet.

  “Frees,” he murmured. Did he just say freeze? She shrugged.

  “Lift up your hoodie, it’s probably in there pretty deep,” she said, rounding the corner into the kitchen. A quick assessment revealed there was no way “Freeze” had anything to eat. She also kept a sharp eye for anything that could restrain her: straps, tables, anything similar to the other place. But it was all old scanning equipment, modified and rebuilt. Parts cobbled together from a thousand different items. Searching equipment. This was exactly what she hoped she’d find. This might not have been a bad decision after all.

  “Got it,” Arista said, heading back into the living room. She stopped short. His hoodie was pulled up to his chest; his hand wasn’t the only thing missing its covering. There was no skin on his body, anywhere. It was nothing but the polymorphic plastic coating that lay beneath the skin and gave the machines their specific shape. “What happened to you?”

  “Give me that,” he said.

  She stood, stunned for a moment before she finally said, “I can do it, it isn’t like I’ve never repaired a machine before.”

  “Yeah, and you know exactly where to hit us to take us down. No thank you.”

  “What does that mean?” She narrowed her eyes at him.

  He shook his head. “It means I’m not letting you near me after what you did to that poor woman in the alleyway.”

  Arista stopped. “Oh. That wasn’t supposed to happen. I needed clothes. I thought I could just—”

  “You left her to die!” His eyes were cold, flinty.

  Who did he think he was, to judge her? He didn’t know what she’d been through. “As I said, she wasn’t supposed to change,” Arista said, trying to keep the anger out of her voice. “I don’t know why that happened. She was normal at first, and then something happened. If she hadn’t changed someone would have taken her to a hospital and she would have been fine.”

  “But you knew she wouldn’t be. You knew the Peacekeepers would kill her if they found her.”

  Arista lowered her head to avoid his gaze. “Did you help her?” Cautiously, she approached. His body was nothing but gray and black and some of his internal systems were visible through the semi-transparent coating in different areas. His lower chest area was completely transparent; being one of the main access ports for when a machine encountered a fatal error. Her father had shown her his once, before he’d needed his own skin replaced.

  “I did. Not that I believe you care. Trust me, if I didn’t absolutely need you I would have killed you myself by now.”

  “That’s comforting.” Arista sucked her lips between her teeth and took a deep breath. “I’m sorry, okay? I was desperate. I’ve been imprisoned, tortured, starved, and I had no idea if I could trust you or not. I still don’t. So I had to get away. She wasn’t supposed to turn.”

  “It happens when your emotions become heightened. Whenever you’re in a stressful situation we respond to it. Like we’re coded to. I haven’t figured out…” he trailed off.

  “Wait, what?” The machines turned when her emotions were heightened? Could that be right? It would explain why not everyone around her changed. If it was only when she was distressed or… “Hey.” Arista tapped his shoulder but there was no response. He was close to body-lock. She had to get him repaired immediately. She sat down in front of him and opened the med kit. Inside was a bolt-extractor—a small pen-shaped object with a round head. Before anything else that bullet had to come out.

  She placed the tip of the pen to the opening created by the bullet, which had torn significantly. His movement must have made it worse.

  “Nngh, no.” He tried to push her hand away. So he wasn’t unconscious just yet. “Just
let me help,” she said. He’d grown so weak, she didn’t have a lot of time. She pushed the activation sequence on the bolt-extractor, and the device hummed in her hand. A second later it tugged and she removed it from the wound. The smashed bullet was attached to the end.

  “Here, got it.” He didn’t respond. She used the Device to scan him. “If you can hear me, you’ve got a puncture in your primary coolant system, and another in your dorsal pneumatic pressure valves. I’m going to open your primary cavity and repair the connections.”

  His head stirred. Whenever she’d done this on one of her parents she’d always had synthetic tissue to cut through. Not having it was strange, but easier. Why had he removed all the skin from his body, except for his left hand? What sense did that make? It just made it harder for him to camouflage himself out there. Cameras could pick him up anywhere. Did that mean he didn’t have any skin on his face as well? No wonder he wore the mask. Suddenly she wanted to see under it worse than anything.

  “How do you know…what’s wrong?” he asked, his voice barely above a whisper.

  “I’ve done this before. Now come on, stay still so I can repair your lines.”

  “You’re going to repair them one-handed?” Was that fear she heard in his voice?

  Involuntarily her eyes went to the end of the silver sleeve, poking out of the jacket arm. Arista flexed fingers that were no longer there. It was still so strange. “Don’t worry, I’m dexterous, and fortunately for you the only thing I do better with my right hand is eat. Plus, it’s better if I do it, I can see everything easier than you could.”

  “Fine. Proceed,” he said.

  “I’ll be as gentle as I can. Now lie back.” The Device ran through all of his schematics, he was a model 501, series 1113. First introduced fifteen years ago. She chuckled.

  “What?”

  “You’re younger than I am.”

  ***

  An hour and a half later no one would even be able to tell he’d ever been shot. It turned out working without the synthetic tissue was not only easier but a lot easier, one less thing to get in the way and sew back up. Fortunately Frees kept an ample supply of spare parts around his place. It hadn’t taken much, just some time and patience.

  “Good as new,” she announced, packing up the tools into the med kit.

  He sat up, moving the affected areas. “All things considered, you did a pretty good job.”

  “Pretty good? Is that all?” In fact, she was quite proud of herself. She hadn’t made such extensive repairs in a long time, not since Dad had nearly been crushed in Montana. The only thing she hadn’t been able to repair there was the skin, hence the trip to the store. She and Mom had pulled him out, but the damage had been bad. It was the first time she’d gotten some on-site triage training from Mom. They both worked on him for over seven hours straight, until they stabilized him.

  “How did you find me? This apartment doesn’t register on normal scanners.”

  She got up, pointing at his hand. “Felp.”

  “You’re kidding.” He stared at the hand.

  “Lower eK-bands. If they aren’t looking for it, they won’t find you, but it is unique,” she called from the kitchen where she replaced the med-kit. “You need a signal blocker, or some way to turn it off when you’re not using it. Because right now you are lit up.” When she returned he had stood and was testing his leg. “Hey.”

  He turned to her.

  “Take off your mask.”

  He stood, pulling the soaked hoodie back down over his midsection and walked over to one of his computer consoles.

  “Hey!”

  He swiveled back around. “No. Only one person has ever seen me.”

  “What does it matter? I don’t think I’ll be shocked. I’m just…curious. Plus, there’s no way you can see accurately with that thing on your face.”

  He turned slowly, the cracked visage reflecting thirty different versions of herself back at her.

  Arista blushed and averted her gaze. “Why don’t you want me to see? Why go to all the trouble of removing your skin, but then not showing yourself? You’re not ashamed, are you?”

  “I never said I was,” he replied.

  “Then show me. Consider it my payment for fixing you.”

  Frees stood silent for a minute. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.” He grabbed the hoodie with both hands, one covered in skin and one not, and pulled it over his head. The mask was caught somewhere in the fabric and came off with it.

  She wasn’t surprised exactly, but she wasn’t quite prepared for it either. He had no skin whatsoever with the exception of his left wrist down to the tips of his fingers; as if he’d just sliced off the skin at the wrist with a scalpel and never stopped. His head matched the rest of his uncovered body, gunmetal gray and black co-mingled to form a web of panels and semi-transparent covers, all squeezed into the human form. The polymorphic skin that was supposed to adhere to synthetic tissue moved and undulated with his movements. It was a thin protective membrane that acted like a barrier to the layers underneath, some of which were visible. He’d opened his access panels on his right hand integrating the felp into his palm. In fact, from what she could tell, he’d made a number of body modifications. Through a transparent section in the back of his head where the base of his “skull” met his neck, and she could make out the bluish glow of his CPU. His lips formed a thin line but he had teeth back there, all machines did. She imagined if the material was more transparent he’d look like a skeleton. The only thing normal were his eyes, he hadn’t removed the white sclera but his irises were as orange as she’d ever seen.

  “Happy?” he asked.

  She gave him another once-over. “What’s with the hand?”

  He nodded toward the door. “Gets me into my apartment.”

  “You could always re-sequence the scanner to read your other hand.”

  “Didn’t think about it,” he said, turning back to his computers. Was he being sarcastic?

  Arista cocked her head behind his back. Frees wasn’t much for words. It was strange to watch him though, like watching a store mannequin move around on his own. He even sported a fancy pair of pants, though they were covered in his own fluids. She wondered what he’d looked like before he’d gone native. “Are you going to tell me why you don’t have any skin or what?”

  “I don’t see that it's any of your business.”

  “Okay.” She walked up beside him. “Then I guess we need to talk about something else.”

  Seventeen

  JONN WASN’T QUITE SURE WHAT HAPPENED. One minute he had been in the cell, counting the hours until his body ceased to function—twelve days, three hours, fourteen minutes by his calculations—and the next his consciousness was somewhere else; as if it had been yanked from his body by someone with a fishing rod. He lost all concept of time and physicality and instead only experienced lights, colors, and data. Like a blind man lost in a deep chasm, he couldn’t move any part of his body because he had no body to move. This was it, he’d experienced body lock and it would only be seconds before his mind shut down and he became one with oblivion.

  “Jonn.” The voice was strange and metallic, he hadn’t heard it before, not that he could recall. “Jonn, answer me.”

  “Who are you?” How could he speak with no mouth?

  “I have many different names. Call me Charlie.” His voice seemed to move further away.

  “Put him back, this isn’t working,” said another voice. One he recognized.

  There was a strong pull and a bright flash…and Jonn found he could open his eyes again. He lay on the floor of the same room where he’d been trapped ever since that brute had shoved him inside. He hadn’t moved at all but had no way of telling how long he’d been out until his chronometer synched.

  Jonn glanced up, Xian stood in front of him again. Behind him stood a Peacekeeper and a woman he’d never seen before.

  “Jonn,” the woman said, but it wasn’t a female voice. It was higher in pi
tch, and resonant, as if carrying the weight of time. Almost like a processed voice through a vocoder. It was the same voice he’d heard in his mind a moment ago.

  Had he been dreaming? He forced his focus on Xian. “What just happened?”

  “I told you it wouldn’t work,” Xian said. “He’s been compromised. We can’t trust him. The programs are working against each other.”

  The woman regarded him then turned her attention back to Jonn. She was tall, with blonde hair pulled back into a ponytail. “Where are you?”

  “I’m in the Cadre Central Command. Fifty west Washington Street, Chicago, Illinois.”

  “He hasn’t been corrupted,” the woman with the odd voice said.

  “Charlie?” Jonn asked. He never thought he’d meet him…or her. Funny, Xian always referred to Charlie as a him.

  She pursed her lips. “In a manner of speaking. Report your operational status.”

  Jonn sat up, his chronometer verified he’d only been out for a few minutes. He hadn’t remembered anyone coming into the room, however. Only sitting still, conserving as much energy as possible. And then he’d been in the other place.

  “I’m…fine. What did you do to me?” he asked.

  “Do not worry. It was only a test,” the woman replied. “I want to take you up on your offer of assistance.”

  “Sir?” Xian asked, his eyebrows raised. There, he’d done it again. Maybe she just liked being referred to by masculine pronouns. Like they did in the military sometimes. Whatever the reason, Jonn decided he had better follow suit until told otherwise.

  “Quiet, Xian. Your input is not warranted.”

  Xian closed his mouth and moved to the far end of the room.

  “You want to find Arista Barnes and bring her back unharmed, yes?”

  Jonn couldn’t wrap his mind around such a strange voice coming from that woman. This Charlie, whoever he or she was, felt wrong. Something about all of it felt wrong. “Yes, sir. Unharmed.” Jonn stood and the woman straightened up.