Shattered Minds Read online

  Through her bloodthirst, Carina thinks of Kim. She could probably help – she did traditional medical training before focusing on brains, but she’s too far away, and it’d be too dangerous to reach out to her. Her tongue feels as though it’s swollen in her mouth.

  Dax shudders.

  ‘He’s going into shock,’ Raf says. ‘Time to make a decision.’

  ‘They’re still at the silo,’ Kivon says. ‘Only a few, cleaning up, I’m guessing. We could make a quick break, hope they don’t have us surrounded already. How’s your camouflage work in the air, Raf?’

  ‘Not perfect, but visibility is shit tonight anyway.’

  Dax convulses again.

  Charlie nods. ‘Start moving us out, Kivon. Raf, you need to wipe Dax’s VeriChip, block off access to his implants. We’ll dump him at a hospital and hope for the best.’

  ‘We shouldn’t do that,’ Raf says, voice low. ‘They could get to him there.’

  Kivon starts the hovercar, overriding the automatic pilot. ‘This is a bad idea, security-wise, but you won’t hear me complaining.’ He speeds up, eyes peeled behind him. The Sudice hovercar is still parked by the silo. They ease up and out, everyone holding their breath and watching the rear-view mirror. The hovercar stays camouflaged until they reach the main air road. Traffic is bad, but moving, and within a few minutes, they touch down in front of the hospital.

  Through it all, Carina struggles to breathe, to think, to be anything other than a pair of hands longing to curl around a neck or wield a scalpel to cut through flesh. Each heartbeat helps push away a little more of the adrenalin. Not enough.

  The hovercar door opens. Raf finishes the final touches of the VeriChip code. Even if the hospital run his DNA or face recognition software, they won’t find a thing. They can only hope this is enough. They carefully cut the Kalar suit from him – these things are rare, only seen in the police or military, and would raise even more questions.

  Kivon pulls up his own Kalar suit to hide his face, picks up Dax and jumps out. He lays him carefully on the tarmac and climbs back into the hovercar. Carina cranes her neck to peer out the window. Dax looks like he’s dead, and is so exposed in his near-naked state. It’s only after a few moments she sees his chest rise and fall. Attendants run from the emergency door when they spot him. They wave up to the hovercar, but it’s too late. The Trust rise up into the air and into the night, leaving their friend behind.

  Carina’s head swivels from side to side. Charlie comes up to her with a syringe.

  ‘Dax has this in his medic kit, labelled “for Carina, in case of emergency”. Think I should give it to you.’

  ‘What is it?’ Carina asks, muzzily. ‘Haven’t you given me enough?’

  ‘It’s a stronger sedative than the one Kivon gave you.’

  ‘I don’t . . .’ Carina trails off, unable to finish the thought.

  ‘It’ll help you with withdrawal.’

  She exhales in a long, forceful breath. ‘OK.’

  Charlie wipes the inside of Carina’s elbow and slides the needle into her skin. Carina closes her eyes. If only she were going into the Zealscape. As Charlie leans close, Carina opens her eyes. The world is slowly blurring.

  ‘None of you are safe around me,’ Carina whispers before she closes her eyes again and fades away.

  TWENTY EIGHT

  ROZ

  Sudice headquarters, Los Angeles, California, Pacifica

  If Roz had been at that silo, things would have been different. She was sure of it.

  There’d been a shareholders’ meeting and, no matter how she tried, there was no way out of it. So she’d taken a hovercar back up to San Francisco and had an evening of champagne and caviar, dressed to the nines, subtly accessing her implants and trying not to scream in the middle of the room of marble and chandeliers when everything went to shit.

  Mantel and Roz are trying to keep what’s happened with Mark and Carina quiet and contained. Even telling the shareholders would mean the information leaking to the newscasts by morning, and then they’d be screwed. Stocks would fall, the government would come knocking, and all the smooth talking in the world wouldn’t stop an audit and a swift and permanent visit to stasis.

  Roz had thought that eight members of her team, the ones with military training, would be more than enough to contain the Trust, along with the coordinated Wasp attack. She and a few other members of her team had spotted the breach in Miford’s implants, and Roz was impressed despite herself. The plan had been for the Wasps to attack, leave the Trust unconscious. Have her team go in, grab them and leave.

  Instead, by the time Roz left that shareholders’ meeting, only half her team survived, and those that did needed quite the patch-up in hospital. They sent three cars’ worth of backup as soon as the first man fell. Too late.

  The Trust must have had someone guarding them, but Roz hasn’t been able to find out who it was. The Trust have slipped away again. So close within her grasp, and gone because of company politics. Raf, despite his brain being half-fried by the Wasp attacks, managed to orchestrate an escape from right under their very noses. At least it doesn’t seem like the transfer of information worked – one small blessing.

  With all Roz knew, she still underestimated them.

  The past few hours, she’s been recalculating her plans. Perhaps letting them get away now may have other advantages down the line. There has to be another angle she can use to make the most of this. One of the members of her team pings at the door to her office. It’s Niall again. She lets him in and he enters, carefully setting down all of the Trust’s kit they took from the silo. Somewhere in here is a breadcrumb for her to follow. Rafael Hernandez is good, but he’s also cocky.

  She sets to work, multiple screens projected onto the wallscreen, the light of them reflecting off her face. Live feeds of security footage and cameras downtown, where she suspects they’re hiding. Aerial shots of the Port of Long Beach.

  She’ll find the chink and worm her way in. And, unlike the last time, she won’t let Carina Kearney get into her head.

  TWENTY NINE

  ROZ

  EIGHT MONTHS AGO

  Sudice headquarters, San Francisco, California, Pacifica

  Carina calls in sick the following Monday.

  Her biometrics show no illness. Roz could press it, get her in trouble with HR, but she doesn’t. It’s a brief respite, and she ends up dismissing the other scientists with pay for the week while the subjects remain in their prison apartments. Mantel is impatient, but she holds firm. Everyone needs the break, and she needs the extra time.

  Roz makes her preparations while stalking Carina from afar. Carina goes to the Zeal lounge every day that week, for longer and longer periods of time. Roz tries to find a way to access the dream records, but Carina has paid for a top-notch lounge, and Roz can’t crack it.

  By the time they all reconvene, Roz knows what she needs to do.

  The scientists clock in, reacquaint themselves with the subjects and their latest dataset. At lunchtime, Roz brings up the cafeteria cameras on her office wallscreen, ignoring her own replicator-ordered lunch on the desk beside her. Carina’s speaking to Mark, Aliyah and Kim, earnest and forceful. Roz tries to bring up the audio, but there’s too much interference from the buzz of dozens of conversations, and Carina’s not at the right angle for lip-reading software to work. Roz wonders for a second if that’s intentional, but decides she’s being paranoid.

  The rest of the day passes uneventfully. Carina helps the other scientists and assistants with their subjects, analysing the data. Near the end of the day, Roz drifts to her workstation. Subject E’s eyes slide away from hers.

  ‘Carina, stay behind after the others are gone tonight,’ Roz says, keeping her voice light and unconcerned. ‘I’d like to speak to you.’

  ‘What about?’ Carina asks. Brasher than she should be.

  ‘An opportunity,’ Roz says shortly, aware of all the various ears listening in the room, even as they pret
end not to.

  They all work late that day. Roz resists the urge to check the time every few minutes. She’s calm, emotions safely walled away. If she could feel, it would be a growing excitement, burning through her veins like lava.

  Mark leaves first. Then Aliyah. Finally Kim. Carina finishes up with her subject and then sends him away. The lab grows silent and empty.

  ‘Hi Carina,’ Roz says, her face stretching like tight plastic as she smiles.

  Carina seems wary. ‘Am I fired?’

  Roz laughs. ‘On the contrary. I want to offer you a promotion.’

  Carina says nothing, her face blinkered. That’s what it’s meant to look like almost all the time. Smooth as glass.

  ‘Come,’ Roz says, bringing her to her own private lab. It’s the same room where she worked with Carina all those years before. There’s another flicker of a nameless emotion on Carina’s face, but she settles in the spare chair, crossing her legs and setting her hands over her knee, prim and proper as you please.

  ‘I want to focus less on brain recording in the next few months,’ Roz begins. ‘The others will still continue their projects as planned, but as progress is slow, having the full team working on it is not the best use of our resources. Aliyah, Mark and Kim will continue. You and I will do something else.’

  She’s watching Roz, eyes bright and sharp. ‘Doing what?’

  Roz tilts her chin up. ‘Using Verve and brain coding, we’re going to heal Subject E of his criminal tendencies. Make him an upstanding member of society.’

  Carina blinks once. ‘That would require a lot of alteration of his neural pathways and personality.’

  ‘You know as well as I do that it can be done.’ Roz is relishing the careful dance of words. All the things between them left unsaid. ‘This has far greater implications than even brain recording. We could be at the forefront with this!’ Her voice is too loud. She reins it in.

  Carina chews her bottom lip. ‘Are you certain it would work?’

  Roz stands, moves closer. ‘There is of course the chance that what we do may not be permanent. Even a brief respite will help the subjects react better to Zeal therapy, integrate back into society. But yes, there is the chance of regression.’ She’s close enough to touch Carina now. She reaches out, tilts up the girl’s chin with her fingertips. ‘Like what happened to you.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’ Carina asks, flinching back, but Roz holds her tight.

  If Carina does remember the earlier experiments, she’s playing coy. ‘Thing is, I think I know how to fix you. If I can, Mantel says I can forge right ahead with this project.’

  Carina pushes back, but Roz is viper-fast. Her fingers move in the air, fast and smooth. Carina stumbles.

  ‘Your implants are releasing a paralytic and an amnesiac. You’ll be awake but unable to move while I perform the procedure, and afterwards you’ll remember exactly nothing about the previous twenty-four hours.’

  Carina’s legs give out from under her. Roz grabs her under the arms and drags her to the Chair, not bothering to strap her in. She begins to prep the Verve and Zeal cocktail she’ll use on Carina’s brain for her new code.

  ‘I’m not sure why this programming ended up breaking down the first time around. A fault with my code, or a fault with you?’ Roz muses. She brushes the blonde hair back from Carina’s face, almost gently. She runs a fingertip over the area of the skull she’ll enjoy cutting open. She didn’t do that the first time around. Now she’ll peel it all back and see what really makes Carina tick.

  ‘You’re my patient zero, Carina. I’d be nowhere without you.’ She keeps stroking the girl’s hair. ‘Every scientist needs a purpose. A calling. As soon as I first met you, I had this thrill of premonition. I didn’t know how you’d fit in, but I knew you would. Then your father came, hearing of my earlier work, and when he offered you to my fledgling project, I knew it was meant to be.’

  Roz sighs. ‘This is just the beginning.’

  She moves the needle to the crook of Carina’s arm. Carina blinks. Before Roz can register that this shouldn’t be possible, Carina rolls to the side, knocking the needle to the floor. The syringe shatters. Roz loses her balance, her elbow clanging against one of the lab tables, the pain reverberating up to her shoulder. She lunges for Carina, but the other woman is too fast. She dodges out of the way again, though Roz’s nails leave deep gouges in her arm. Carina’s blonde hair tangles over her face and she shakes it out of the way, sweet features crumpled into a grimace. Roz manages to get one punch in – a glorious right hook on the cheekbone. The pain must be exquisite. It doesn’t faze Carina one bit.

  Though she’s smaller than Roz, Carina still pushes her boss to the cold tiles of the laboratory floor. Her hands close around Roz’s neck, pressing, pressing. Rather than flailing and wasting her energy and oxygen, despite her terror, Roz struggles a little and then goes limp. Carina’s hands weaken slightly, and Roz, dizzy and hurting, manages to twist from her grasp.

  Roz has one sweet, deep lungful of air before Carina has her again, pushing her face into the floor. Roz can’t scream. Carina straddles her, her slight body heavy against Roz’s lungs.

  This is it, she thinks muzzily. I’m going to die. Carina’s getting me before I can get her. The failure is a bitter taste in her mouth. ‘How?’ she manages to wheeze.

  ‘You’re not as sly as you think you are. I noticed you locking onto my implants a few days ago, figured out what you were going to do. I did some code rerouting of my own. Let it give me enough of a dose that you thought you would succeed.’

  Roz looks at Carina’s biometric data on her implants. ‘For the paralytic, you did. Not the amnesiac – you won’t remember any of this tomorrow.’

  ‘Doesn’t matter.’ Carina’s grip on Roz is tight and painful.

  ‘What will you do now, then?’ Roz asks, keeping her voice cool and haughty. Show no fear. Feel no fear.

  Carina bends close to her ear. ‘I’m going now. And you will not follow me. You will not send anyone after me. I no longer exist to you. You don’t know what I’ve copied from these servers, hidden away. You don’t know how I could take you down. Leave me alone, and I’m a ghost that won’t haunt you.’

  Roz gives another small sigh. ‘You’ll always haunt me, Carina.’

  Carina’s eyes narrow. ‘Good.’ She leans back, the movement hurting Roz’s hipbone. Roz turns her head, manages to look up into Carina’s face. The edges of her blonde hair are lit by the false sunlight, and Roz can barely make out her features. Carina shifts, and her hair covers her face like a veil.

  ‘I should kill you. You’re just as much of a criminal as the subjects are.’

  Roz’s heartbeat quickens. The threat of death makes her feel strangely alive. Her own long-walled emotions threaten to break through.

  ‘I wouldn’t hesitate to do it if I thought I could get away with it. If we weren’t right here in Sudice, you’d be long gone.’ The tips of Carina’s hair brush against Roz’s ear. ‘And how I’d relish it.’

  Roz manages to swallow.

  ‘So you’re not dying by my hand. Not tonight, at any rate. But if you come after me. If you so much as search for my name . . . then some dark night, in some alleyway, you might meet your end. Is that clear?’

  Roz pauses. She won’t remember. It’s an empty threat. Carina presses Roz’s head harder against the floor. Her cheekbone burns. ‘Is that clear?’ Carina almost growls.

  ‘It’s clear.’

  ‘Good.’ Roz feels the prick of a needle at her elbow.

  ‘What . . . ?’ she begins, before words float away from her.

  ‘Can’t have you calling the cops on me. You’d just love to send me to stasis. Maybe slot me into the pod right next to Subject E.’ Carina grunts as she lifts Roz’s limp body and half-drags her to the Chair.

  Carina is efficient, strapping Roz in tightly, prepping another syringe. She sees the question in Roz’s eyes.

  ‘No, I haven’t changed my mind
about killing you. I’m sending you off to a nice, long Zealscape. Twelve hours. You’ll come out of it right as the other scientists come in for their next working day. And I’ll have a great head start.’

  Another needle slides into Roz’s arms.

  The last thing she sees is Carina’s face, blurred and beautiful.

  ‘Sweet fucking dreams, Dr Roz Elliot.’

  When Roz wakes up from the endless Zealscape, she’s able to access her implants again. Vera, her virtual assistant, borrows a robotic body and releases her. Roz wishes she could be like this assistant. No emotion, no regret, no guilt. Vera follows her processes. Yes or no. One or zero. A binary with no room for grey.

  Brain recording continues, though as ever, progress is slow. Yet Roz is not finished. Not even remotely.

  Especially when Mark brings in young Nettie Aldrich for her work placement. Roz sees the brain map – so similar to Carina’s.

  The cycle begins again. And fails. As Nettie Aldrich’s last heartbeat fades away into silence, as she holds a piece of the young girl’s skull in her hands, Roz knows that she and Carina are far more alike than different.

  THIRTY

  DAX

  San Pedro Hospital, Los Angeles, California, Pacifica

  Dax remembers the sharp pain at his temple from the butt of his attacker’s gun. Then that throb of the gunshot, the piercing impact. Right under his collarbone and the fleshy upper chest, missing his heart. The pain excruciating to the point of exquisiteness, so intense it didn’t seem as though it could be real, but only a twisted Zealscape nightmare.

  He floats in and out. Charlie’s face is above him, panicked, asking him if he can stitch himself up. He manages to tell her he can’t. Her face recedes. He should care. Shock, his doctor’s mind tells him. Exsanguination. Loss of consciousness imminent. Voices swirl around above him, but he doesn’t understand them any more.

  His fading eyes focus on Carina. The feral look in her eyes is something he’ll never forget. Like she could unpeel his skin and look beneath, to the very core of him, and enjoy every moment.