Shattered Minds Read online

  They find so little that they are certain Sudice, the government, or both must have erased their tracks. The only information they manage to turn up is on old, archived pages that Dax only discovers because of Raf’s past tutelage. Layers and layers of hiding.

  ‘OK,’ Dax says, rubbing his tired eyes. The false windows mirror the early morning light outside. ‘I can’t stare at wallscreens any more but I’m too keyed up to sleep. You haven’t left the compound in almost a week. What do you say to a walk?’

  The thought sends a thrill through Carina. ‘They’ll find us if we go outside, won’t they?’

  ‘You have an entirely new face and a twice-removed VeriChip identity. They’ll flag your DNA if they find it, but wear gloves, glasses, and stay away from thumbprint and retinal scanners and you’ll be fine. I find walking while working through problems helps me think. Let’s go.’

  Carina hesitates, then relents. ‘Sure.’

  As she goes to her room to change out of her cheap replicator pyjamas into the cheap replicator clothing the Trust supplied for her, Carina finds she likes the idea of going outside. It has been longer than a week for her, really. It’s been two-thirds of a year since she last sat outside under the sun and enjoyed it. God. The last time that happened might have been that day on Venice Beach, before she walked into her first Zealot lounge in Los Angeles and let herself go.

  After dressing, she orders some inexpensive gloves and sunglasses from the replicator. While she waits for those to print, she puts on some make-up she ordered earlier, carefully, suppressing the recent memory that unlocked information on Nettie. She’d worn make-up every day of her life since leaving Greenview House, until she was too addicted to Zeal to care. She’s painting a different canvas this time, and it’s strange. She needs a darker palette to match her new hair colour.

  Ting! The replicator finishes. The gloves and glasses won’t be too conspicuous. This is Los Angeles, a stone’s throw from Hollywood, the land of celebrity. Nowhere else in the world does someone’s social ranking matter more. Celebrities no longer have the same vast caches of fortune they did a few decades ago in this (slightly) more egalitarian world since the Great Upheaval, though they never lack for anything. Most live in the Apex, colloquially called the Tinsel, the neighbourhood of mansions that float above Hollywood. Celebrity social ranking allows them unimagined privilege, but not without its own costs.

  The now infamous antics of Adelmar changed everything. The man who stole celebrity DNA to hack into bank accounts and houses, and then later attempted to use the DNA to make strange, twisted clones of celebrities. His idea of artistic masterpieces. Seven years ago, he displayed his awful work right in front of the Chinese Theater in Hollywood, resting them on the handprints and footprints of the celebrities he’d cloned. He hadn’t been able to carry the foetuses to term, and the authorities never found out whether he grew them in artificial wombs or paid transient women to carry them. None of them ever drew breath, though conspiracy theorists still claim the government holds them in secret, and could quicken them if it wanted to.

  The twisted infants neatly labelled with the names of the celebrities they could have grown up to look like were terrifying enough, making headlines throughout the world. Adelmar was caught, his other crimes discovered, and he’s been in stasis ever since.

  Even years later, long gloves are a trend started by celebrities that trickled down to those who don’t truly have to worry about their DNA being stolen, or not as much. Short hair and regular exfoliation baths are also the rage. Celebrities and non-celebrities alike regularly DNA-bomb their houses and workplaces, obliterating every dead skin cell. If someone is at a restaurant and notices a hair of theirs has fallen onto a tablecloth, they’re more likely to pocket it than flick it to the floor. Just in case.

  Carina rolls the gloves up to her elbows and puts on the sunglasses, tying her newly purple hair into a bun at the base of her neck and covering it with a hairnet studded with false jewels. Disguise in place, she leaves the room. Dax is shrugging on a jacket, his long hair also tied back. He looks her up and down.

  ‘The gloves look ridiculous, don’t they?’ Carina asks.

  ‘They’re fine. I’m just admiring my handiwork. You look good. Seems like I’ve still got the touch.’ He holds up his fingers and grins.

  Carina looks down at her healed and healthy hands, covered with satin. Blood rushes to her face. When was the last time she flushed with anything other than that deep desire to kill?

  She has no idea what she’s meant to say. ‘Will the Trust care that we’re going out, just us?’ she asks instead.

  ‘I sent them a message. They might be a bit annoyed, but they know I hate being cooped up down here. They wouldn’t like you going out alone, but you’re with me. We’re good.’

  Out they went, through the hidden, subterranean corridors, up steep stairs, until they emerged half a mile from the Trust headquarters at the Metro station by Angel’s Knoll Park. It had been one of Los Angeles’s early parks. After the Great Quake nearly levelled the city and the rest of Pacifica during the Great Upheaval, they recreated it along with Angel’s Flight, a short railway that brought people up the hill but kept breaking. The orange archway, edged in black with old-fashioned lightbulbs, and the ticket office at the top were purely ornamental in the days of hovercrafts, but Carina is still glad they rebuilt it.

  The light isn’t blinding with her sunglasses, but she still squints. The air is warm even though the sun is just rising, not yet cresting the skyscrapers. San Francisco has a lot of domed parks, but this one doesn’t have simulated sunlight twenty-four hours a day, like Golden Gate Park.

  Angel’s Knoll, nestled in Bunker Hill, overlooks the Grand Central Market and older recreated buildings, their stone sides painted with murals. It’s much larger than the original park. Carina turns away and looks up at the newer skyscrapers. The floating buildings between them cast occasional shadows, their underbellies glimmering with false UV lights, bridges tethering them to the skyscrapers shifting in the breeze.

  Dax chooses a path through the trees and Carina follows. The early morning sun finally rises over the buildings, warming her skin and the crown of her head. She breathes in the smell of fresh-cut grass and new leaves, with just the barest hint of smog and smoke in the background. Her heart beats steadily. Her skin isn’t clammy. Her muscles, though still weaker than they were before Zeal, no longer shake and quiver. It feels so strange to feel healthy and walk in the sun.

  Yet she’s not totally healed. Whenever people pass them – runners zipping through the small park before returning to sidewalks, families, people sitting on the benches drinking coffee and eating their breakfast – she cases them, just as she did over and over in her programmed Zealscapes. Carina imagines the crimes they must have committed that she could avenge. Like that man throwing some breadcrumbs to birds – perhaps he was a kidnapper. If she were alone she could come up behind him, stick him with a needle and drag him into a nearby alleyway between two buildings. Then she could pay the exorbitant fee for a hovercab that wouldn’t ask questions and it’d drop her off . . . somewhere. The fantasy ends. There is no Greenview House simulation here. Outside of Zealscapes, she’s not strong enough to lift a grown man. She has no needle, no scalpel or other tools. There is no way to kill this man and get away with it.

  Thoughts of murder are always a heartbeat away. A desire to maim, to peel back flesh from the bone, to feel the heart stop beating, to watch the eyes go blank. She bites her tongue until it brings tears to her eyes. She really doesn’t want to kill on this plane of reality but it would be so easy to ignore that thread of morality. To snap it.

  She tries to focus instead on the warmth of the sun. The sound of the nearby fountain. The birds. Life, not death.

  As they walk, Dax turns on a White Noise. They’re ubiquitous little devices, kept in a pocket, that people turn on when they’re in public and don’t wish others to overhear their conversation. No implants or other rec
ording devices can penetrate them – all they’d pick up is static. They can still be hacked, but they are sufficient protection against most curious ears.

  They make their way up the stairs next to Angel’s Flight. ‘All these people walking past, they look at me and see this new me,’ Carina says. ‘The reborn me, rather than . . . who I was.’ She doesn’t say her name, of course, in case the security camera drones that circle the park pick it up. It’s hard not to look over her shoulder every two minutes, to see if men in scrambler masks are following her.

  ‘What would have happened to you if Mark hadn’t sent you that information?’ Dax asks.

  ‘The same as I was before. Throwing myself deeper into the Zeal addiction, letting my body burn away.’

  ‘I’m glad that didn’t happen to you,’ Dax says. ‘That you found us. If you hadn’t arrived when you did, the group would have floundered. We were running out of options once Mark went quiet. I’d even tried to convince them that maybe this should be the end.’

  ‘It might still be. What I’ve given you so far is dangerous enough. To use it without getting yourselves killed or captured would be a miracle on its own. And who knows what else is hiding in here?’ She taps her temple.

  ‘It must be unnerving, not knowing what else might unlock, or how, or when.’

  ‘It’s terrifying, but I’m used to being wary of my own mind.’ Carina’s lips thin. Has she said too much?

  Dax keeps his face carefully blank. ‘I’ve been looking at your brain scans,’ he says, almost hesitantly. ‘I compared them to the snapshot they had in your employee file.’

  Carina gives him a sharp look. ‘Why?’

  ‘It was idle curiosity, at first. The differences are . . . stark. But strange. I can’t make sense of exactly what’s changed, or why. Or how.’

  Carina takes a few steps before answering. They’re halfway up the stairs. Time for the truth. ‘Dr Elliot did something to me when I was a teen. An experimental new procedure that she said would help me cope with the loss of my mother. Instead, she changed me. I became smarter, perhaps, more driven. There was a cost. My emotions were gone. My personality shifted. I couldn’t care for anyone. They didn’t seem to exist as real people. Most people still don’t, at least not at first.’

  They keep walking. The stairs are still hard for her recovering body. They reach the top of the stairs and walk through a large plaza with fountains, skyscrapers flanking either side and a floating office building directly above them, shining soft light into the potted flowers and the gentle curves of water from the fountains. Few people are out this early up here, leaving it strangely quiet and echoing.

  They pass the top of Angel’s Flight, with its painted orange walls and closed ticket office. Carina’s been silent for a few minutes.

  ‘The programming must have started breaking down,’ she continues. ‘I started to feel things again. I wasn’t prepared. Ten years of being numb, as if everything was wrapped in wool. Then it unravelled. I found myself laughing genuinely at a joke, amazed at how it felt to let go. I started feeling a little burst of warmth when I saw the other scientists in the labs. Friendship was so alien. It was frightening, and then experiencing fear itself was new and overwhelming. I started dreaming again. But then there were the other emotions.’ Another breath. ‘I started wanting to hurt people I didn’t know. It was weak at first. Then it grew stronger. And stronger still.’

  She doesn’t look at Dax. He doesn’t say anything. She wishes she could peer into his mind, figure out what he’s thinking.

  ‘And that’s why you became addicted to Zeal on purpose?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So that you don’t actually hurt real people?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘OK. Did you try alternate treatments? Like Zeal as therapy, or looking into figuring out what she did to you?’

  ‘It’s only recently that I found out she did do something to me. Before that I tried several traditional approaches. Whatever she did to me, it doesn’t respond to regular treatment.’ Carina reaches into her pocket, takes out the datapod Chopper gave her. She gives it to him. ‘I’ve come up with a draft of new code that might help, but I’m not sure.’ After deciding to tell him the truth, she can’t seem to stop. ‘It’s still rough and needs a lot of work. I didn’t have the equipment, but I could have found a way to try it. I was afraid, too, I suppose. What if I made things worse? What if I went back to how I was before?’ That had been her goal, once. To stop feeling. She’s no longer sure that’s what she wants.

  He nods, a quick incline of his head. ‘I understand. I think using the Zeal, in any capacity, was making things worse, judging by the brain scan when you left Sudice versus the one I took before I operated on you.’

  That takes her aback. ‘I thought it was just deteriorating on its own.’

  ‘Perhaps. But Zeal’s purpose is to heighten emotion, at least within the dream. It could have accelerated the breakdown. It started happening when you were working for Sudice, right?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And you started using Zeal at the same time?’

  ‘Not right away. But yes, I used it there.’ She remembers sneaking off to Zeal lounges. A lunchtime here, a late-night trip there, until it was part of her routine. Had that really made things worse?

  ‘I’d guess living out those fantasies makes it harder to switch off once back in reality,’ he says. ‘Since you’ve stopped using it, I’d say you’ve stabilized. Are these . . . urges to kill still so frequent?’

  ‘Frequent enough.’

  ‘We could give you something, to even you out.’

  ‘It’d either not work or numb me again,’ she says, her voice soft. ‘I’d rather fight the urges than feel nothing at all again.’

  Dax gives her a sideways look, nods. ‘What about this code? Will you use it?’

  A little shrug. ‘Evidently I can’t. Mark’s AI told me if I mess with anything before all the information is unlocked, I could delete what’s still hidden and most likely fry my brain in the process. So I’m stuck.’

  ‘Frustrating.’ He pauses, choosing his words carefully. ‘Are the violent urges under control? Are you a danger to us?’

  She opens her mouth. Closes it again. ‘I can’t promise you I’m not. But none of you are strangers any more. It’s easier to resist if I know people. A little easier. It means I never like to grow close to people beyond a certain point. There’s still this . . . film between me and everyone else that I can’t seem to break through. That I won’t try to cross, because what if I let someone in and hurt them anyway?’ She spirals into silence, embarrassed.

  His face is closed, considered. ‘OK. Promise me, though, if it becomes too difficult, you’ll come to me, take the mood stabilizers. Temporary numbness might be better than suffering. Deal?’

  ‘Deal.’ She’s not sure if she’s lying.

  ‘I’ll take a look at your code, if you want. Maybe Raf could, too. We could still try to finish it. For . . . after.’

  The nebulous future that she can’t begin to fathom. Carina shakes her head. ‘I’d prefer the others not know about this. Not yet.’

  Dax nods. ‘Right. It’s personal.’ A pause. ‘Thank you for telling me.’

  ‘It’s nice for someone to know. The only person who knew was Mark, and I didn’t tell him. He went snooping.’

  Dax gives her a smile. She returns it. It feels genuine.

  ‘Sometimes I wonder if I’ll ever go back to how I used to be,’ she says.

  ‘Probably not. You were a teenager when Dr Elliot did this to you. I suppose it’s finding out who you’d be now. It’s still strange to think that she could have changed you so much.’ Another silence. He rests his hand on one of the painted columns by the long-closed ticket booth of Angel’s Flight. ‘Do you think she was doing the same thing to Nettie?’

  Carina swallows. ‘Yes. I experienced everything Nettie did when she died. I remember that feeling of someone interfering with the very core of
you.’

  ‘For what purpose?’

  ‘I don’t know. Nothing good. Changing her personality like she did with me, in a way that wouldn’t break down.’

  ‘What can we draw from what we have?’

  Grateful to change the subject, Carina summarizes. Nettie’s parents seem to have disappeared in a puff of smoke. Perhaps dead, but there’s no sign of death certificates or obituaries. They may have gone into protective custody, or been dealt with for asking too many questions.

  When Nettie first disappeared there was that call for information, pleas from her friends for information. What a world they live in. Pacifica pretends it’s a haven – no crime, no murders. Peel back a thin layer, and look at what’s exposed.

  A memorial was held and, Carina was sure, an empty coffin buried. Students from Nettie’s high school, who saw her between brainloading sessions, attended. Then, over the past year, any mentions of Nettie Aldrich slowed and finally disappeared entirely.

  Dax had found Nettie’s deleted social media and the short diary entries. A few photos of her laughing with peers, or awkwardly posing with family in front of monuments, and one serious portrait, with her looking right at the camera, the saturation turned up to showcase her mismatched eyes.

  ‘We know she seemed to be a smart girl with a promising future,’ Carina says. ‘Textbook. Nothing out of the ordinary in her home life, unless it was well hidden. If she’s in my head, then there must be a link to Sudice. She’s not listed as a test subject.’ The image of the scars and sutures appear in her mind’s eye again.

  ‘Not a registered one, at least. The trial subjects were not on the official books either.’

  ‘Good point. They never told us the names of our subjects, though we pieced them together during our work, and those experiments were under an NDA.’

  ‘Right. And Nettie wasn’t an employee, either. No official internships, no relatives or acquaintances who work there. She was planning to study neuroscience, though. They might have recruited her on the sly.’