Shattered Minds Read online

‘Roz blocked you,’ Mark says. ‘I found it, when I was trying to see if this plan would work.’

  Memories swirl through her mind. Roz leaning over Carina strapped into a Chair. Just like the teenage girl. Having her look at Rorschach tests; endless hours of questioning and experiments. Pain, so much pain.

  ‘SynMaps didn’t work,’ Carina whispers.

  ‘That’s what she wanted you to think,’ Mark says softly. He comes closer, rests his forehead against hers. She can’t feel it. Pushing away a memory of Mark laughing in the lab, she knows he’s not real and is only a clever program, but it’s comforting just the same as her world falls apart.

  Whatever Roz did to her has suppressed her memory. It’s there, but she never thinks of that time in the lab, of what really happened to her when she was a teen.

  ‘She did this to me.’ It’s hard to say the words aloud.

  ‘She transformed you under phase one of SynMaps, took you under her wing, and kept monitoring you under phase two. I found out after you left.’

  The girl Roz killed knew Mark. ‘Roz had you work on the real reason behind brain recording.’

  ‘God help me, I did. And I know that I regretted it to the end of my days.’

  Carina’s still trying to come to terms with her world tilting on its axis.

  ‘You have to unlock the images, Carina. They’ll come to you, in the right order. You will be guided into remembering them. They . . . are strong memories.’

  Carina should say something, but the words die on her tongue. She can’t stop thinking about Dr Roz Elliot, leaning over her, taking her memories and examining them from every direction. Finding out what made her tick. Moulding her. Until she was someone different. Cold. Unbothered by ethics, if the end result was worth it. Someone more like Roz Elliot.

  Until it fell apart.

  ‘Roz is why I’m like this,’ Carina whispers, gesturing to the walls of Greenview House. ‘Why I’m here.’

  ‘Her programming broke down. Your urge to kill is the side effect.’

  ‘Could you have fixed it?’

  ‘I don’t know. Have you been trying?’

  ‘And failing. I don’t have the equipment.’

  Mark’s ghost’s lips purse. ‘Together, we could have done it, especially if Kim and Aliyah helped. Unfortunately, though, even if you gain access to equipment, I must ask you not to run any additional programming on your brain until all the information I sent has been unlocked.’

  Carina swallows. ‘It’d delete?’

  ‘Almost certainly. Also, it’d fry your brain.’

  ‘What the fuck, Mark.’

  ‘I know. I’m sorry. As soon as it’s all out, though, you’re in the clear.’

  Her hands ball into fists. Even if she walked into a perfect lab tomorrow, she wouldn’t be able to use her code. Never mind that she’s a long way out from solving the problem of her own brain – that vague hope of figuring it out is one of the few things she has left.

  ‘What Roz did to you is unforgiveable,’ Mark says. ‘This is why I’ve had to involve you. I didn’t want to, but you know what they’re capable of. It didn’t stop with you. It didn’t stop with the girl.’ His voice closes. ‘Sudice won’t stop unless we make it. So I ask you again: will you help me?’

  Carina takes in a shaking breath. ‘Yes. Yes, Mark. I’ll help you. I don’t have much choice.’

  Mark leans back and rests a hand on her shoulder that she still can’t feel.

  ‘To release the first image, you must be out of the Zealscape,’ the AI says. ‘Focus on your earliest memory, but doing it here will not work.’

  ‘OK.’ Greenview House looms in her mind, but he’s right. Her first memory does nothing here.

  ‘That will start the process. From there, it’s up to you. At some point, they will probably come after you. You will outsmart them.’

  ‘I doubt that.’ She looks at him. ‘How many of my memories have you seen?’

  ‘Enough.’ A pause. ‘Trauma shows on the brain, and you’ve had more than your share.’ He pauses, and something like pity crosses his features. She’s embarrassed, guilty – it flares into another violent urge. She wants to stab him, kill him herself, even though he’s already dead. Her hands clench.

  ‘Fuck you, Mark.’

  He doesn’t flinch. ‘I’m sorry, Carina. I had no choice.’

  ‘There’s always a choice.’

  Again, that haunted look. ‘That’s true enough.’

  ‘If you found my memories, it’s only a matter of time before Roz brings them up again.’

  ‘I deleted them. And their backups. Your memories are dead and gone from Sudice’s servers. Nothing can bring them back.’

  Carina swallows. ‘She’ll have her own backups, Mark. I hate what you did. I absolutely hate it. But I hate what she did so much more.’

  ‘That is precisely what I was counting on. This is the right thing to do.’

  ‘You know I’ve never cared about doing the right thing.’

  ‘You did, though, Carrie.’ Carina flinches at that old nickname. ‘A harsh sense of justice at times, yes, but that means I know you can do what needs to be done.’

  His outline fades, pixellates. The AI is terminating.

  ‘Mark!’ Carina calls, voice shrill. She’s still angry at him, dead or not, but she doesn’t want him to disappear. That will mean he’s really gone. ‘Mark! Does Sudice know that you sent me this?’

  ‘Not at the time of recording. But who knows what could have happened after? I would count on them coming after you sooner rather than later.’

  He disappears.

  ‘Motherfucker,’ Carina spits. ‘Mark Teague is going to get me killed.’

  The Zealscape begins to shimmer. Either Mark’s ghost has triggered something, or security Wasps have sensed the disturbance of his coding. Wasps are owned and patented by Sudice and licensed out to Pacifica. Mark’s ghost was right; it didn’t take long for them to find her.

  ‘Zeal program! Wake me up.’

  SIX

  CARINA

  Vellocet Lounge, Los Angeles, California, Pacifica

  Carina comes out of the trip, but this time there are no alarms except the local one to say she’s awake too soon.

  The orderly was sloppy – Carina’s restraints are loose enough to slip over her wrists. Unplugging the alarm, she tears the needle out of her skin, though it hurts. She keeps it, just in case. She likes needles. Carina staggers upright, her underused muscles protesting. Wrapping her coat around herself, she shuffles into the hallway.

  Bad luck: a white-clad orderly is in the hallway. ‘Hey,’ he says. ‘700628, you’re not supposed to be up for another six hours.’

  She ignores him and keeps moving.

  ‘Wait!’

  She breaks into a shuffling run, reaching one of the side entrances. The orderly does not follow. She doesn’t have a plan, but she’ll figure something out. If Sudice is actually after her, there’s about five minutes before they swarm the place. If she’s lucky.

  Carina exits the Zeal lounge to the side alley, squinting in the afternoon sunlight. Her lungs burn, but she can’t stop. She darts towards the entrance of the alley, but a man steps forward to block her path.

  He’s wearing all black, which is concerning, but he’s wearing a scrambler mask over his face, which is even more worrying. Every few seconds, his features change – it’s always a generic face, enough that if it’s captured by the camera drones, he can’t be linked to a specific identity. No one good ever wears them.

  Carina doesn’t hesitate, because that’s her only advantage. He’s twice as big as her, and he only has to look at her to know she’s a Zealot. She rushes and ducks under him. He grabs her shoulder, but she manages to twist from his grip, though her muscles scream. Sprinting down the alley, she tries to get to the well-lit West 54th Street, where she has a slim shot of finding someone to help her.

  Footsteps follow. More than one set. She speeds up, though her battered bo
dy protests and her heart hammers.

  She accesses her implants but doesn’t call the police. It’d be useless – Sudice have everyone in their pocket, and they’ve probably already blocked her emergency calls. But she knows a subfrequency.

  Sending out a quick blast of ‘HELP!’ and her location, Carina prays it actually goes through to one of the few people who can find her.

  They hit her from behind with a Stunner.

  Her muscles go limp. She falls, sprawling face down on the pavement. All the wind rushes from her lungs, all thought flees her mind.

  Hands haul her up. She sags. The man clutches her under the arms. He smells of spearmint. She wonders what her bounty is, what his cut will be. What he’ll buy with his blood money.

  Carina tries to lift her head. She’s on one of the upper street levels, quiet and empty. Hovercars stream past on the 110 airway, but even if she waves frantically for help, they’re moving too quickly. The other set of footsteps grows closer. Slow, considered. Carina gasps in a breath of air. Spots dance along her vision.

  The person pauses in front of her. Dr Rosalind Elliot.

  The woman who took her in as a grieving teen, with promises of putting her back together again. Her first employer. A woman she at one point trusted implicitly, almost considered a friend and mentor. Was that real, or was it engineered? Roz experimented on her like all the rest. The same anger Carina felt in the Zealscape blooms within her. She holds it close, like a coal, as she’s limp in the black-clad man’s muscled arms.

  ‘Roz,’ she manages to say.

  ‘Hello, Carina,’ Roz responds, smiling. She looks exactly the same. Her razor-straight dark-blonde hair is a little longer, resting on her shoulders. She’s not wearing the sleek dresses and heels from her lab days, but all-black clothing, like the muscled goon who still pins Carina tight. Roz has added bright red lipstick to look more agent provocateur. It’s like her to show a little flair for the dramatic.

  It’s strange she’s actually here, rather than sending someone instead. But then, Roz never trusted others to do things properly.

  The Stunner has hit Carina off-centre. She can just barely move her right arm and leg. In her right hand, she holds the needle hidden between her fingers. By some miracle, she hasn’t stabbed herself with it. She’ll have one chance. Perhaps she can get some answers, first.

  ‘What are you doing here? What’s going on?’ she asks, voice still slurred from the Stunner. She wriggles her toes, willing more feeling to return.

  ‘You’re cute when you play stupid, Carrie.’ Mark, Aliyah and Kim were the only ones she tolerated to use that nickname. Roz steps closer. ‘You know exactly why we’re here. You’ve always had a way of finding out just a little more than is good for you.’ She tuts. ‘Dr Teague went and did something very naughty, and now you’re implicated in it. Thought you could slip away from me, but I always knew you’d come back.’ Roz rests a gloved hand on Carina’s cheek, almost tender and maternal. Carina wants to turn her head to the side and bite her fingers, draw blood, taste the iron, but then she’d reveal that she’s able to move.

  ‘I have no idea what Mark is up to.’ Carina deliberately uses the present tense.

  ‘Oh, Carrie. Mark is dead. I killed him myself.’

  It gives Carina a jolt to hear Roz say that. It’s a pity brain recording never ended up working (as far as she knew). Carina would have set it up as soon as she saw her, and kept that confession to use as a weapon. A memory no one could refute in court. But the thrill goes deeper than that: she always knew Roz was like her in a way. Capable of killing. The girl. Mark. Who else?

  ‘But then, you know a little bit about death, don’t you, Carina?’ Roz smiles again.

  ‘I know what you did to me,’ Carina says, keeping her voice low. ‘The block is gone. I remember all of it. Every twist of pain. Every scream.

  Roz’s smugness falters, just a little. ‘Little present from Mark, then?’

  ‘Fuck you.’ She packs all her anger into those two words, throwing them like knives.

  Roz recoils. She’s still close, her cold blue eyes unblinking. It’s been a long time since Carina has felt fear in the real world, but there it is, spreading through her, insidious and cold.

  ‘I have nothing to do with whatever Mark was up to.’ Carina ignores the dig about death.

  ‘Of course you do. He sent you a parting gift, after all. It was the last thing he ever did.’ Roz’s gloved hand comes close again, rests on Carina’s left temple.

  She swallows. ‘He hasn’t sent me anything.’

  ‘Liar.’ Roz’s lip curls. ‘I’m tired of this game.’ She looks past Carina, to the man behind her. ‘We’re taking her in.’ Her sharp gaze returns. ‘I have to say, I’m looking forward to slipping back into your mind.’

  Carina’s panic bubbles over. Her chest is tight, her breathing shallow. She can’t face that pain again. She won’t.

  the voice in her implant says on the subfrequency.

  The Stunner’s effects have worn off a little more. She can only hope it’s enough.

  One.

  Two. Carina lets all her muscles relax. Three. She flicks the needle down from between her fingers and jabs it into the man’s thigh. Four. He flinches, releasing her, and she turns and sticks it into his neck. Five. He’s wearing a Kalar vest, but there’s a gap between the collar and the scrambler mask. Six. She strikes out at Roz, the needle slashing her cheek. Seven. Roz doesn’t even have time to cry out before Carina shuffles to the edge of the dark road. Eight. A hovercar stops in front of her, the door opens. Nine. Carina jumps in and turns around in time to see Roz shriek as the door closes. Ten.

  Carina collapses in the hovercar, adrenalin coursing through her bloodstream. Almost as good as Zeal. The unmanned hovercar hurtles away, heading for the densest parts of traffic to lose whoever may pursue.

  ‘Oh, thank Curie, it worked,’ Dr Kim Mata sends Carina through her implants.

  ‘Kim. I didn’t know if you’d get it. Or if you’d want to help me.’ It’s strange to be speaking to Kim again. Just yesterday, she’d debated pinging her, and then had wimped out at the last minute, too ashamed of her own weakness. What if Mark told her about the memories he’d found? What if Kim and the others know what she’s done?

  Kim’s face appears on one of the blank walls of the hovercar. She’s unchanged. And there’s a hint of apprehension in her expression. A hint of fear. ‘What in the world is going on down there?’ she asks.

  ‘Is this hovercar secure? Is the line secure?’

  ‘Yeah, it’s all untraceable.’

  ‘Even from Sudice?’

  ‘Yes, even from . . .’ she trails off. ‘Oh, God. Sudice is after you?’

  ‘Asking you for help was dangerous, and I’m sorry. I’ve turned you on your employer, but I couldn’t think of what else to do. Mark got me into this mess.’

  ‘Slow down. I’m really confused. Mark is involved?’ Kim’s forehead wrinkles. ‘He left the company a month ago. Poor health – has some sort of lung disease they’re trying to blast with gene therapy, but it’s stubborn. He refused mechanical lungs.’

  Roz must have given Mark that disease. ‘Mark is dead.’

  A pause. ‘What?’

  ‘Roz killed him.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘It’s true.’

  The hovercar speeds over LA, bright lights blurring together. Carina looks at Kim’s face. Her features have fallen and tears are rolling freely down her face. Carina still finds it vaguely interesting when people cry. Even when whatever Roz did to her started faltering, Carina never cried.

  ‘What did Mark do?’ Kim asks, wiping her face with the back of her hands.

  ‘Evidently he’s sent a bunch of encrypted information into my head. He told me how to release the first one—’

  Carina stops as her first memory smashes into her. Like when you’re told to think of anything other than
a pink elephant, and a hot pink elephant is the only thing you can imagine.

  Her first memory was of fire.

  Her dad made a giant bonfire in the backyard, burning all the autumn leaves. Her mom stood upwind, smoking a real cigarette, goggles on to protect her eyes from the smoke. Carina took off her own. She was four, bundled up in a small parka, scarved and hatted and mittened. That winter was freezing, by California standards.

  Carina remembered the smell of the smoke, so sharp, and the way her eyes stung, water running down her cheeks. Hidden in the dead leaves was the body of her childhood cat.

  He had died a few days earlier. Her father said he would have a proper Viking send-off. It was only years later that Carina learned that made no sense – Vikings were burned, but poor Amoy was never set off on a floating pyre. They were in the clearing where Carina played by herself most afternoons. Behind them, Greenview House rose in the distance, as if watching over them. It was a grand house, with its white paint and dark green shutters, nestled into the forest. So secluded. So silent.

  Carina turned to her mother and held out her arms. Her mother stubbed out the cigarette – a real, contraband cigarette – and came over, picked her up. They turned and watched the flames, and Carina snuggled closer to her mother. She always smelled of tobacco and peppermint.

  The memory ends, and the first image unlocks.

  The bee rises in her mind’s eye. Large. The small head dominated by the huge, multifaceted, dark liquid eyes, the antennae twitching. The bulbous, fuzzy, segmented body banded yellow and black. The six limbs, curled up in flight. The wings moving so fast as to be almost invisible. The buzzing.

  ‘Carina?’ she hears from far away. She is too far gone to answer.

  It feels almost like brainloading, the process of cramming as much information and data into your brain as you can while you sleep. Images flash in her mind’s eye. Documents full of information settle into her memory, as if she’s speed-reading impossibly fast.

  Carina had brainloaded as much data as she could tolerate as a teenager, blasting through her PhD so she could take the shiny position at Sudice that Roz dangled in front of her. Night after night she’d brainloaded, until her professors warned her that if she didn’t reduce the quantity of information blasting into her brain, she’d have a seizure or an aneurysm.