Shackled, p.9
Shackled, page 9
Instead, there was a rustle of her lab coat as she regained her feet, followed by a surprised gasp.
He glanced up, and then saw what had shocked her. Pale green ichor was dripping from his , and the wound pulsed and twisted as new muscle churned into existence. Within seconds, fresh skin bubbled into place and the injury was gone.
He took a deep breath as he straightened and fought past the hunger to speak to the alchemist.
“What is your name?”
“My lord, I am known as Estreya,” she said, her cheeks still flushed from the ordeal.
“Estreya,” he said, “I am truly sorry for my poor treatment of you, and I thank you for the assistance you have given me this day. I shall bear word of your deeds to the Empress herself.” He turned and left, and this time, the door opened for him easily. He had remembered to push.
Estreya just stared after him, her fingers resting on her shoulder where his hand had touched her.
The tall ruler of the Elves awaited him as promised, a faint smile tugging at her mouth.
“That seems to have been… productive,” she said.
“Indeed, my Empress.” Every word was agony as he fought against the blazing hunger in his chest.
“I have readied a steed for you. Ride with haste back to the human city. Once you arrive, consider your next steps carefully.”
He could only nod. Vishendell, the stable boy who had been the first to see Korrash after his transformation into the Elven Paragon, entered the courtyard leading the most beautiful animal Korrash had ever seen.
The Shadowfare Courser boasted a coat of cobalt blue. Its mane, tail, and hooves were shining ivory, and it held its head high as it pranced forward. It stopped before the empress, lifted a foreleg, and bowed. Amnach gave a regal nod, and the horse drew itself up, turning in a circle and waiting for its rider.
“When you reach your destination, simply tell Pasha that her task is finished, and she shall make her way back to us,” Vishendell said with a smile.
Korrash thanked the young elf and leaped onto the horse’s back. He squeezed his knees together, and the horse was off, galloping far faster than a mortal horse ever could.
In less than a minute, they were passing the last building in the city. Korrash suddenly cried out and jumped from the furiously galloping horse. He landed hard but tucked his shoulder into a roll (Athletics 7 success). Pasha dug her hooves into the ground, throwing a cloud of dust into the air as she came to a stop ten meters from where her rider now crawled on the ground.
The horse rushed back, eager to save her charge from whatever peril had befallen him.
Korrash leaped to his feet and pumped his fist upward in victory. A copper coin glinted in the sunlight.
“Got it!” he shouted.
Pasha rolled her eyes. It was going to be a long trip.
Chapter Twenty
Downtown
The autumn wind blew a fast food wrapper down the street, tugging at Joan’s upturned collar as it went. She spared an angry glance toward the monolithic building next to her, the massive, neon letters advertising “Oneirosoft” glowing far above like the Eye of Sauron.
Dark, tinted sunglasses and a knit hat partially obscured her features, but she wore no gloves, despite the cold. Hiding in plain sight.
She stared longingly at the metal pole of the street lamp in front of the corporate office. All around it, just at head height, splotches of white discolored the gray, signs of a dozen previous days just like this. Did she dare try again?
Cautiously, she glanced at the entryway. The mirrored glass did not betray the secrets of the lobby. Did they know? Were they watching?
Frowning, she thought of the email, three weeks old now, that sat intentionally unopened in her inbox. The title had been enough: “Cease and Desist Order #113447-B: Joan Mallory.” Feeling her anger build, she pushed away the thoughts of what those white-collar bastards were doing in there. She wasn’t here to make a scene. This time, anyway.
She’d planned a little differently, this time. Maybe it would make a difference. She glanced at the doors once more, just to determine if it was safe. The sight of a figure moving behind the glass startled her, and she flailed her arms in surprise. Thankfully, she managed to hold onto the bundle in her right hand.
The woman was young, dressed in a long coat even heavier than her own as she ambled toward the lamp where Joan was standing. Her gait was odd, and as she neared, the sound gave it away. Joan couldn’t stop herself.
Poor girl, she thought. Dealing with problems like that at such a young age.
“Sorry,” the girl said with a smile. “I didn’t mean to frighten you.”
“It’s just fine, dear,” Joan said as she took the young woman’s measure. “I was just… thinking.”
An Oneirosoft badge was clipped to that thick coat—last name, first initial. The girl’s face was young, appearing to be around her son’s age, though her eyes had a haunted look that spoke of a hard life. Perhaps she wasn’t a threat, after all. She might even be a source of inside information, a way to learn what the bigshots refused to share with an outsider.
“Have you worked here very long?” Joan smiled, and it was genuine. Her motherly instincts, perhaps.
“Just a few months,” said Carpenter, R, shoving her hands deeper into her pockets. She glanced around with surprising leisure, rather than looking for an opportunity to escape a conversation with a stranger, like many would. Curious.
“You like it? They treat you okay?” Joan winced internally. She’d pushed harder than she’d meant to.
“Yeah, it’s fun, even if they don’t let me out much.” The girl laughed at her own joke and didn’t seem to notice Joan flinch.
They were about the same age, after all, and the timeline matched as well, the older woman reasoned. Might they know each other? Did she dare risk ending up on the wrong side of that Cease and Desist in order to find out?
Joan frowned as she looked into the young woman’s eyes, as if weighing her soul, but no divine insight emerged. Her heart was thudding in her chest. She wasn’t built for taking risks.
Screw it, she decided as the silence grew uncomfortable. This might be my only chance.
“Listen. I want you to have this. I’m… just trying to get the word out. About my son, I mean. I’m not implying that it’s…” She shot a meaningful glance up to the glowing letters as she reached into her coat pocket. “Their fault or anything. I just want to know that he’s all right.”
She pulled out a square of paper, neatly folded during the trip into town as she’d attempted to quell her anxiety. There were several identical squares still tucked inside her pocket.
The girl took it with a puzzled look, then turned to see what the older woman had been looking at.
Joan quickly walked away while the girl’s back was turned, the light pole abandoned, then immediately felt bad about it. Miss Carpenter didn’t deserve to be treated poorly just because of her employer.
“Nice to meet you,” she called over her shoulder. “Stay safe out here.”
“You, too,” the girl shouted back as the distance grew between them.
Joan rounded the corner and came face-to-face with another metal pole. She reached into her other pocket and pulled out a tube of Ultra-glu. With a practiced motion, she smeared an “X” on the cold metal and slapped one of the papers into place, smoothing it down carefully.
She eyed it, annoyed that it was a few millimeters from center. Oh, well. No fixing it now. She moved on down the street, looking for the next likely spot.
They couldn’t take all of them down, right?
Chapter Twenty-One
Oneirosoft Headquarters, Lobby
She waved to Lou at the front desk as she passed, the smell of city air still lingering in her nostrils. It was nice to get out of the building now and again, though she’d probably get chewed out by Doctor Ben later. She wasn’t supposed to take breaks; they said it wasn’t good to interrupt the treatment.
She only hesitated a moment as she regarded the smooth metal doors of the elevator before turning to take the stairs.
“The easy path leads downhill,” as her sensei used to say. The servos in her leg braces whirred as she took the first step, and pain lanced through her limbs as she put her full weight on the foot. Without the devices, she wouldn’t be able to walk at all, and the way the pins in her bones were arranged, they actually didn’t hurt her too badly unless she overworked the joints. That meant no stairs, no daily exercise, nothing other than the slowly rolling controlled fall that got her from one part of a flat surface to another.
It was maddening.
The pain took her mind off her injuries, paradoxically. She refused to say that she had a disability, even if that was technically what had gotten her this “testing” job a few weeks before the release of Worlds Unbound.
The doctors had come in, talking about nerve pathways and glial scar mitigation via targeted neurochemistry. She’d shown no patience for their medical mumbo jumbo, even if, trapped as she was in that hospital bed, she’d had nothing but time.
“So are you saying I’ll be able to compete again?” She was shooting for the moon and she knew it, since her discussion with her care liaison the day before hadn’t even established that she’d even walk again.
“We can’t make any promises, of course,” said the middle-aged doctor who insisted on being called by his first name. “We only have a few significant tests, but we think it’s likely that you could walk again within a year.”
“Not good enough,” she’d snapped back, filled with a nihilistic sort of pride. “Find someone else to be your damn test case.”
The vulturish man in the Armani had stepped forward then, heaving a sigh that seemed to come from the depths of his soul. His cufflinks glittered as he placed a bony hand on the doctor’s shoulder.
“We are prepared to fight you on this, Miss Carpenter. I have been authorized to provide you full medical coverage as a benefit to your employment, complete with personalized assistive exoskeletal attachments, provided as needed throughout your employ.” She could see the price tags adding up in his head while he spoke, and his shoulders seemed to droop a little more with every word.
She’d found herself a little taken aback. The insurmountable expense of those devices was precisely what had been keeping her trapped in this bed. Well, that, and the stubborn pride that told her that accepting a wheelchair would be giving up. The idea of true virtual reality hadn’t hurt either, even if it did sound too far-fetched to be true.
“Let’s go over that contract,” she’d heard herself say. The vulture smiled.
The shock of her foot hitting the landing on the third floor knocked her out of her fugue. A quick look at her wearable told her that, despite being lost in thought, she’d still beaten her best time. She ignored the sheen of sweat coating her skin as she made her way down the hall. The corporate housing was on-site, which was nice, though being forced to walk past the conference rooms to get back to her quarters was annoying. She tried to sneak past the open doors, but she had too many circumstantial penalties.
Bert was in his weekly dev meeting. They seemed rather excited today, and instead of sitting there listening to him complain, they were clustered around him, clapping him on the back. She gave him a half-hearted wave that he returned with gusto.
She poured on the speed as best she could, aware that it likely wouldn’t be enough. She heard Doctor Ben excuse himself and rush out of the room. He caught up with her just as she reached her door.
“Rachel,” he called out as he neared her, and she wished she could pretend not to hear. But she was lame, not deaf.
“Hey, Doctor Ben,” she said. She tried to smile as she said it. She tried to sound happier than she was. Most days, it worked.
“What brings you out and about?” He checked his watch. “Your check-in this morning was great; we decided the best way to keep that momentum going was full immersion until bedtime, right?”
He was so pleasant. Great bedside manner. She hated it. He was a damned jailer, that’s what he was.
She sighed at him, and decided to channel Hannah’s old “too cute to be in trouble” attitude.
“Yeah,” she heaved. “I just wasn’t ready to go back in yet. Wanted to stretch my legs.”
“That’s exactly what you should not be doing if you want a chance for the treatment to work,” he said as he waggled a finger at her. “Those nerves aren’t going to regrow themselves, you know. At least you’re not stuck in some hospital bed.”
“Sorry, Doctor Ben,” she whined. “I’m getting ready to jump back in now.”
He nodded and patted her head like she was a child. Hannah’s tricks seemed to be working. She opened the door, saying her goodbyes as she slipped inside and left the genial doctor alone in the hall.
She took a single step into her room before she fell forward, catching herself on the curved part of the braces that kept anything from hitting the screws sticking out of her knees.
What had she done?! Why did she think those horrible things?! Tears started to fall as sobs silently racked her frame.
Anger stirred inside her, and she embraced it. Anger was just about the only thing that could chase away the despair and help her keep living, even if she didn’t deserve to be alive. She screamed at herself in her head. If she let it out, they’d hear her, and that was something she could never allow.
“CHANNEL HANNAH?! Is that how you think of it?! Like she’s a ghost?!” She clenched her hands into fists and let herself topple sideways. Her legs curled up to her chest despite the pain, or perhaps because of it. Regardless, it couldn’t mask the hurt in her chest.
A small part of her mind, the part that wasn’t crippled by grief, whispered to her.
“Not a ghost,” it said in a calm voice, full of authority. Peaceful. “A memory. She’s gone, Rachel. Hannah’s gone. He took her from us.”
“NO!” She was shouting at herself now, her hurt too large to keep inside. “Shut up! Leave me alone!” The tears streamed down her face as she wept for the loss of so much. The doctors said it should help, but it never changed the hurt inside her chest.
The voice, her voice, listened for once. It left her, and she was as alone in her head as she was everywhere else.
She cried until her eyelids drooped. As she drifted off to sleep on the floor, a stray thought struck her.
Almost everywhere else.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Oneirosoft Headquarters, Secure Conference Room
Dave nudged Diggy out of the way with his shoe. The automated janitorial robot wasn’t supposed to be in the secure room while a meeting was happening, but the little guy just wouldn’t comply. Dave had had a chat with the folks down in Hardware Security months ago, when the first reports of the device acting strangely had come in. They’d checked the robot over and tried to flash the onboard firmware, only to find that it was stuck on read-only. By the time the replacement data card had come in from the manufacturer, the robot’s antics had grown on the office staff. He’d become an unofficial mascot.
Doc entered the room like a hurricane, stirring the still air with her passing as she took her usual seat at the head of the table. Diggy had found his way into a corner, and where most auto-vacs would have easily found a way out, he had gotten stuck. Again. The green operating light slowly faded as the interim CEO spoke up.
“What’s this breaking news, then, Koenig?” Doc wore executive power well, though she’d done that long before the board had made it official.
“Casual surveillance of Twelve, ” Dave said. “Limited recordings, of course, but her watcher said she was screaming at no one. Said for them to ‘leave her alone.’”
Doc never looked happier than when one of her outliers was giving them data. “Finally moving past denial?”
“That’s what psych is postulating. She hasn’t logged back in yet, but if she follows the projections, we should see an uptick of at least three percent.”
“Five would be better. What about the other thing? I noticed she was downstairs earlier; have the microdoses had any effect?”
“No data on that yet,” Dave said. “Genetics still has yet to come back with anything definitive, but I doubt they will anyway. That girl is just –“
“Careful, Koenig. You know how I feel about value judgments. Clear mind…”
“Clear data, I know. I was just going to say that you don’t just not notice nicotine withdrawal. Even if brain chemistry explains why the normal subliminal reinforcement isn’t working, it shouldn’t translate to chemical immunity.”
“You’re saying she’s either a genetic unicorn, or there’s some other factor.” Doc looked like she’d smelled something fecal.
“Some might call it willpower,” he said. “If she is a unicorn, think of what we could do with that.”
Doctor Quartermaine sat up straight, her lips a straight, angry line.
“The world, my world, can’t abide that kind of unicorn. Call the lab and light a fire under their asses. Get us those results. If it turns out she doesn’t have genetic superpowers, give her another week on nic’ and then change her scripts over to ‘M.’”
That got Dave’s attention. “We’ll have to manufacture that. I don’t need to tell you the regulatory implications.”
“And I don’t need to tell you how much I hate repeating myself,” she snapped. “If you can’t do this job…”
“I’m perfectly capable of doing this job, Doc,” he said. “Just reflexively covering my ass.”
“Fine. What about Fifty? Give me good news.”
“Great news. He’s reported seeing colors, now that we’ve triggered the PvP event.”
“Fascinating,” she said, eyebrows raised. “Is it consistent?”
“Not yet. The event generation went in an unexpected direction, given the small number of participants; the interrogative readout said they allow for players to use NPC troops.”
