Shattered Minds Read online

  ‘Yes. I could always trust it, even if I couldn’t trust my body. I feel so exposed.’

  Carina hesitates. She’s not used to comforting people, Dax realizes. She’s never had the cause. Never really let herself grow close enough. The fact she’s trying, even if she’s doing a monumentally bad job at it, is actually comforting.

  ‘What they did to you . . .’ she tries, ‘is inexcusable.’

  ‘It’s not surprising,’ he says. ‘It’s what Sudice do, isn’t it? They think of people as expendable, to use or destroy in pursuit of profit. I was lucky compared to Nettie.’ His throat closes.

  Carina grabs his hand, clutching it hard. ‘We’ll make them pay, Dax. We’ll make them pay for what they did to you. To Nettie. To me. To the others. We won’t let them do it to everyone else.’

  His hand hurts, but he doesn’t pull away. His eyes sting, filling with tears he doesn’t want to let fall. They do, though he doesn’t sob. Carina sees, but she doesn’t look away in embarrassment. Her eyes may be dry, but they blaze. She moves closer to him. She doesn’t kiss him, but she does embrace him.

  It’s an awkward hug. She’s stiff and not sure where to put her hands. He pulls her closer to him, burying his face in her purple hair, his arms around her back. He feels her breath against the collar of his shirt. He slows his own breath, steadies it, breathing in her scent. It helps him come back to himself. She gradually relaxes, too.

  ‘I can’t remember the last time I hugged anyone,’ she murmurs against his neck.

  Dax gives a strangled laugh. It’s tinged with pity. He hugged Tam every day before she was injured, and the rest of the Trust are fairly affectionate, giving hugs or slaps on the back. He can’t imagine living life an arm’s distance away from everyone, never touching.

  ‘I think I do remember,’ she says after some thought. ‘It’s been seven years. The last person to hug me was my mother.’

  Dax sobers. He wants to ask, but senses she might not respond and is too raw himself to have a request rebuffed.

  ‘We will get Roz Elliot and Sudice,’ he says instead. ‘For what they did to me, and for what they did to you.’

  She pulls away a few inches, looks into his eyes. They’re about the same height. ‘What she did to me wasn’t near as bad. She has good reasons to be pissed off at me.’

  ‘What did you do?’ He’s desperate to stop focusing on what Sudice did to him. He wants more fuel for his hatred of the company.

  Carina sighs. ‘The short version is that, when we started SynMaps, brain recording was killing people almost one hundred per cent of the time, usually within a few minutes. I think Roz probably started that when she first experimented on me, and the project stalled for ten years. When she convinced Sudice to start it up again, they sent us criminals who should have been put in stasis as subjects. Sudice bankrolled it all. Two subjects almost died. Under my care.’ She pauses, staring into space.

  ‘You tried to kill them.’

  A slow blink. ‘I did.’

  Dax suppresses a shiver. He is glad he didn’t see the Zealscape recording. ‘How?’

  ‘I induced strokes or heart attacks.’

  He swallows. ‘Like what could have just happened to me.’

  ‘It’s probably where she got the idea, yeah.’ At his wince, she adds, ‘Sorry.’

  ‘Do you regret doing that?’ he asks.

  She considers. ‘I should lie and say yes, but I don’t. The subjects were hardened criminals. A serial rapist and a serial killer. I had to leave before I got caught or my . . . impulses grew worse.’ Her voice is rough.

  ‘You don’t kill innocent people.’

  She opens her mouth. Closes it. She’s acutely aware of his arms looped around her. ‘No. But I want to.’

  He shies away from that topic. ‘Tell me more about Roz.’

  ‘She’s driven. A total perfectionist. Once, I liked and respected that drive. I thought she’d get results. If anyone could get us all to work together and solve brain recording, it’d be her. Then I realized that to do that, she’d stop at absolutely nothing. It scared me back then, and I left. I didn’t put together what Roz did to me until Mark unblocked it from my mind. You didn’t see the Zealscape recording Roz sent?’ she asks.

  ‘No.’ He’d overheard the others talking about it in hushed voices in the kitchen, though. Carina had cut a still-beating heart out of a woman. He’s glad no one had the courage to tell him directly.

  ‘OK.’

  He thinks about his words before speaking. ‘You don’t have to be that person.’

  ‘I am that person.’ She pulls away then, perching on the bed. He sits next to her. Her fingers clench on the bed sheets. ‘You keep thinking of me as someone better than I am. Don’t. It’s dangerous. The others are right about me. I can’t be trusted. I have one last image to unlock. If I can find it hiding in my memories, I’ll give it to you guys, and then I’m out. My skills won’t help break into Sudice’s headquarters. You know that. I know that. Sudice knows that.’

  ‘You didn’t feel for so long that you’re still pretty good at pretending you don’t care. I see through that.’

  ‘You’ve seen how my brain is breaking down.’

  ‘You’re using that as an excuse. There are ways to work around it. I’ve looked at the code you designed. I think once the information is out of your head, it’ll hold.’

  ‘You’re not a neurologist.’

  ‘No. You are. I have faith you’ll find a way to patch up the worst of what Roz did to you and become stable again.’

  ‘I think you’re good at putting too much faith in me. And maybe I’m afraid of changing again. What if I don’t like who I become?’

  ‘You’ve already been self-medicating yourself with Zeal. This is simply a different, steadier approach. You’ll still be you, just hopefully less . . . murderous. Is there a reason you were so reticent to pursue actual treatment and chose Zeal instead?’

  She recoils from him, and he curses himself. He’s struck a nerve. ‘Do you know how easy it would be for me to kill you right now?’ she asks him, all sharp edges.

  He raises his chin, exposing his neck. ‘Anyone can kill. You’re very good at using that as an excuse to keep yourself withdrawn from the world. You literally ran away from the world and nearly killed yourself.’

  She looks like she’s about to fly at him.

  He stands. ‘I’ll go. Maybe I spoke out of turn, but I think you needed to hear it.’

  She says nothing as he leaves. He wanders the hall for a second before a robot comes to lead him to his room. It’s as pale and impersonal as Carina’s.

  He lies down on his bed, and misses Tam with a sudden intensity that takes his breath away. If only she were here. She’d sit at the side of his bed, take one look at him and know everything he was feeling. She would wrap her arms around him, squeezing tight. Dax would cry, as he is crying now. Tam would understand that this was his worst nightmare come true. No words would need to be said. She’d be there for him, as she always was.

  She’s not here now.

  He lets himself feel all the emotions – the rage, the fear, the sadness. When they’ve all run their course, he’s drained himself until there’s nothing left. He drifts off into sleep, mercifully dreaming of nothing at all.

  THIRTY SIX

  ROZ

  Sudice headquarters, Los Angeles, California, Pacifica

  Roz works through most of the night, but it’s no use. Carina has managed to snap the connection in Dax’s brain and hide where she and the rest of the Trust are.

  Roz was so close she could taste it. She switches off the wallscreen, screwing her eyes shut tight. She’s in the main room with her team, deciding that completely cutting herself off wasn’t helping morale. Around her, some of the most promising Sudice employees work, trawling through internet traffic with the Wasps, looking for anything they might have missed. Others search the Trust’s Headquarters. They are throwing so many resources into finding the hack
ers, and yet it’s still as though they’ve disappeared off of the face of the planet.

  At least she’s had a small measure of revenge. Roz only found the memories from the Green Star Lounge a few weeks ago. Some orderly recorded all of Green Star Lounge’s dreams on the side for a bit of extra profit. There’s a small but growing black market of people who want to experience dreams they can’t quite create themselves. It can give them ideas for new depravity when the old stuff grows stale.

  Roz is proud of how she laid the trap, even if it didn’t spring perfectly.

  After the failed mission, she made sure the Wasps were sweeping hospital records for any John or Jane Does checked in. Sure enough, there was a John Doe at the hospital in the Port of Long Beach, and there was Dax. Lying right there in a bed, unconscious, as the doctors stitched him up. A perfect, helpless offering. She thought it would be easy.

  ‘Should we bring him in?’ Niall asked. ‘Get him to tell us what he knows?’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘I have a better idea.’ He could lead them right to the Trust. An inside viewpoint, to know exactly what their plans are.

  She already had a draft of the code for extra brain recording implants, developed from SynMaps. It didn’t take long to brush it up and fit it for her purposes. Roz slipped into the hospital herself to perform the procedure. She didn’t have to cut him open. A simple connection of electrodes, drawing up the code for his implants and twisting it for her purposes. As she took off the electrodes, she pushed Dax’s hair back from his forehead. ‘I’ll find you, Carina Kearney,’ she whispered into his unconscious ear. All the while, Dax’s attending, greedy doctor watched with hungry eyes.

  She killed that doctor the following day, of course. Just to be safe. Poison in his coffee. Simple but effective.

  She’s now seen the world through Dax’s eyes. In some respects, she actually experienced being Dax. She felt his love for the others in the group. Their closeness, their connection. His attraction to Carina. It made her uncomfortable, and still does, to feel those emotions, even second-hand through her own implants. The whole reason she’s shut herself off from any feelings in the first place is that they’re so . . . messy. It makes the world more logical to be without all that angst. So she watched impassively as Charlie cracked a joke with Raf, as Dax went to the kitchen to make drinks. She focused on Carina’s face when she joined him, now changed entirely. Even though Carina’s body has been brought back to health, Roz would still recognize her in a heartbeat.

  And now all that work has been made redundant after only a few hours. Dax went to the kitchen just when the Trust were starting to discuss their plan. She managed to catch a little bit here and there, but Dax clattered the cups so much that he drowned out most of it. Fate’s a fickle bitch.

  Still, though, she has some crumbs. She can use those, and she will.

  Roz needs a break. She leaves her team, eyes glazed as they stare at wallscreens and direct the Wasps. Back in her office, she collapses on the hard sofa. Her whole body is exhausted. She hasn’t slept properly since coming to LA. The odd catnap here and there, but any longer periods of rest have her brainloading information that could prove useful.

  Roz brings up Carina’s Zealscape files. She’s only been able to watch a small percentage of them so far. Every few hours, when she starts swaying from exhaustion, she comes up here and watches a few more. They sustain her. Carina’s violence is almost beautiful in its cruelty. It’s artistry, of the darkest kind. It rejuvenates Roz, and after a few minutes in these fantasies, she can return to work again.

  She brings up another, leaning back her tired body to slip into Carina’s mind. It’s not a brain recording – Roz can’t know exactly what Carina felt or thought during her trips.

  She can imagine, though.

  THIRTY SEVEN

  CARINA

  The Apex, above Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, Pacifica

  Carina feels ill at ease in Clavell’s sprawling mansion.

  Every time she leaves her small room, she becomes lost in the endless corridors. There are areas of the house none of the Trust are meant to enter, and whenever they accidentally wander into them, the blank faces of the droid servants calmly usher them away.

  The Trust are still formulating the attack on Sudice. They’ve all looked back at everything they said in front of Dax, and they don’t believe they said anything too incriminating during his brief period as a sleeper agent. Just in case, though, they’re shifting their plan. Originally, they’d thought to hit the Los Angeles headquarters. They have the blueprints, the air-gapped server layout, a way to get in. Trying to corrupt the air-gapped server remotely would take months, and they don’t have months. They’ve evaded Sudice so far, but it’s only a matter of time before they find them. Deep pockets, and a government in said pockets, will do that.

  It makes sense, though travelling most of the way across the state as fugitives is risky. With luck, they can hit somewhere that won’t be as fortified. Roz Elliot will still be in Los Angeles hunting for them. If Sudice did overhear anything through Dax’s brain recording or implants, then they will probably be protecting the wrong headquarters.

  They make sure Clavell doesn’t know an iota of their plan. They have a room with no cameras, and not even a wallscreen. Raf shows them all the information on a retrofitted older tablet, practically an antique.

  Clavell seems to enjoy the intrigue of it all. He gives the Trust their space, but in the evenings he invites them to elaborate meals in the grand dining room. They eat the best food Carina’s ever eaten off expensive china, served by silent, faceless droids. No one seems particularly comfortable with the sumptuous surroundings except for Charlie. She’s back in her element. Her table manners are impeccable, and Clavell has gifted her with designer clothes from the replicator, which she wears with flawless ease. Sitting next to Clavell, she’ll tilt her head towards him, smiling. Carina is nearly one hundred per cent sure that they were lovers before, and may or may not have fallen back into bed together. Sometimes one of them will rest a hand on the other’s arm, or they’ll make sure their shoulders brush as they walk along a corridor together, despite there being more than enough room. Carina wonders what it’s like to feel comfortable around a person like that, so that a casual touch is as easy as breathing.

  Four days pass. Their knowledge of the San Francisco headquarters is still not as thorough as the Los Angeles one, but they’re hesitant to dig too deeply in case it sets off any sort of alarm.

  ‘What about speaking to someone who still works there?’ Carina asks, after a particularly frustrating afternoon trying to plan their entry point. ‘I might know someone. She could give us the passcodes or her employee badge. By far the simplest solution.’

  ‘That’d be hanging herself out to dry,’ Charlie says. ‘And I’m not sure if her employee badge would get us in so late. Might be a starting point, though. Who is she?’

  ‘Dr Kim Mata. One of the people I worked with on the brain recording project. She helped me escape from Roz before I met you.’ She fills them in on her street encounter and triggering both parts of the Bee. She’s never gone into much detail before about that night she joined them.

  ‘And you trust her?’ Charlie asks.

  ‘I think she’s only one of a few people I do. The last time we spoke, though, she said that it would be hard to contact her directly, and she told me not to unless she could find a way to send me a safe word. I’ve never gotten one, so she must not have found a secure line. I used a subfrequency to contact her that first time, but perhaps she feels it’s been compromised. So she could give us stuff, and I know she would; but meeting her would still be chancy.’

  Charlie wriggles her nose, thinking. ‘I might have an idea. Let me run it by Clavell.’

  ‘You said we weren’t going to tell Clavell anything,’ Kivon says.

  ‘I’m not going to tell him anything about what we’re doing, obviously. I think there’s a way we could get her and a few others he
re, though. A suitable disguise, enough of a cover that they wouldn’t notice her sneaking in here as well.’

  Dax’s eyebrows rise. ‘You’re going to ask him to throw a party, aren’t you? One of his over-the-top lavish ones, with hundreds of the biggest celebrities in Hollywood.’

  Charlie’s face breaks into a wide grin. ‘You betcha.’

  Clavell lives alone in his house, rarely inviting guests. When he has a party, he throws the doors wide open to those exclusive enough to enter the Apex. He doesn’t compromise security – he only invites people he knows. No plus ones allowed. Most of the inside of the mansion stays well locked, and guests know not to go looking for the keys. For them, this type of social event can mean a golden ticket of new film roles, and so his wishes are respected.

  ‘I’m long overdue a soiree,’ Clavell says, flashing white teeth. ‘I’ve had several people pinging me asking when they might expect another. Are you sure you think it’s a good idea?’

  ‘Yes, but how would we sneak in some decidedly non-famous members?’ Charlie asks.

  ‘Might take some finagling – usually everyone at these parties more or less knows each other, but we can reinvent her as a potential new film star. Oh! Or I can make it a masked party, where everyone has to wear false faces. That’ll be fun. I’ll have their VeriChips scan at the door for security, don’t worry. And I do love a good party, don’t you?’ Again, that megawatt smile.

  Carina’s been spending some of her free time researching Clavell. She’s never been one for looking up random titbits of celebrities’ lives. She doesn’t care who dates who, who has what ranking. He’s made about fifteen films in the last two years. That seems to be a lot, but she’s unsure what’s considered normal.

  Isaac Clavell was not born to Hollywood royalty. He grew up in the Great Plains area of the Formerly United States, not too far from Minneapolis. Clavell was scouted on a visit with his family to Los Angeles. He starred in his first film, Actually, Love, where he played a misogynist internet troll who falls in love with a feminist online, and that star continued to rise. He’s managed to stay away from the worst edges of celebrity gossip. No one could ever find proof of him cheating, or drinking to excess. No penchant for drugs, except for the occasional Zeal trip. Doesn’t speak badly of those he works with, though several of his films have been associated with hefty lawsuits and scandals. Somehow, though, he manages to dodge these, no mud landing on his flawless shoes. He gives the right answers, the perfect smile, but underneath it, Carina is certain he’s just playing another role, just like she has most of her life. Only he plays his a hell of a lot better, and gets paid for it.