Corroded Cells Page 3

  His face was sheet white. Moss realized they must have made him watch it, also. He swallowed and spoke, the words weak, “You might not think you know that woman, but you do. Moss, you do. That’s your grandmother. Carcer has her and has agreed to let her go if you just come in for a chat. Please,” he was genuine now, begging sincerely for his own life as much as for Sandra’s.

  “Please come back,” the feed cut out. Moss didn’t know what to do. He wanted to scream. He looked around the horrible digital room and wanted to wake up.

  He slapped his face.

  He pressed his eyes closed and then opened them, hoping to be back in his real body.

  “I want to get out of here!” he yelled, though it sounded like a plea.

  After a moment, the serpentine woman returned, stepping into the room in a sultry stride.

  “I want to wake up,” Moss insisted.

  “That is not the way of things,” the woman said, shaking her head, her hair flowing about her. “This is my world, but you can go to one of your own—your personal playground.”

  He knew how VR worked, but he had always had the option to log out at his whim.

  “So, I’m trapped here?” he asked.

  “Trapped is such a negative view,” she said, cocking her head.

  “So, yes?” he pressed.

  “It can be your world. You may sleep if you wish.”

  “Thank you,” he said and pressed closed his eyes, willing the program to change his location.

  He opened them and was in his Hex—he could sleep here and wake up back in the real world. For a moment, he thought he saw the flash of a man’s form in the room like a digital ghost. He blinked but whatever it was, was gone.

  “Is this what you want?” he heard Issy—the woman he had been in love with for his whole life—ask. He turned to see her standing in his room in a sheer nightgown, her form clear as day through the slight fabric. He felt manipulated by his own mind. She walked toward him, moving as the scaled woman.

  “Not like this,” Moss protested.

  “Why not?” she asked, playing hurt and putting a hand gently on his chest.

  “This isn’t real,” he said, knowing he could simply will her away, but not yet able to part with her.

  “I know you had me as a relief aide, what’s different?” she asked, his deep fear made real.

  “You know that?” he questioned, hearing the shame in his voice.

  “I do,” she told him with a smile her real-life counterpart would never give.

  She opened her robe, letting it flutter to the floor and puddle at her feet. Every centimeter of her naked body was on display to him, and she twirled, her physical form the perfection of his imagination.

  He wanted to grab her, pick her up and throw her on a bed.

  He wanted to allow himself this false dream.

  He shook his head.

  “No,” he forced.

  “Why?” she pouted, stomping one foot. His unconscious was working hard.

  She bit her lip, and he nearly gave in.

  “You aren’t real,” and he did will her away.

  He couldn’t take this now. Carcer Corp has his grandmother, and he could work to make amends with Issy in real life. Sleeping with her in a dream was pointless, and he needed to return to the world.

  His bed slid from the wall, and he lay down.

  Chapter 3

  Moss awoke, back in the small room in Reyes. His mouth was dry and tasted of medicine. He sucked down the remaining water and stood uneasily, his robotic legs making up for a weakened body. He knocked on the door, and he heard the key.

  Gibbs swung it open, saying, “I’m your huckleberry.”

  “What?” Moss snarled, not in the mood for Gibbs’ game. “They have my grandma!”

  “Who? Carcer?” Gibbs snapped back to reality, his eyes frantic.

  Moss leaned up in the bed, his body stiff. “Yes.”

  “Where?” Gibbs asked, walking into the room and helping Moss to his feet.

  “Can’t be sure, but I think it’s Carcer City,” Moss said, rubbing his neck.

  Gibbs looked confused. “Where?”

  “Ynna told me about it. It’s a city-sized prison where people on the outside pay to keep their friends or family alive,” Moss explained.

  “Oh,” Gibbs said, disgust written on his face. “So, it’s like—”

  Moss cut him off, “We have to get back and tell the others.”

  “You want to break her out?” Gibbs asked, knowing the answer.

  Moss looked at his friend with grim determination. “Yes,” he said flatly. “She’s the only family member I have left.”

  “So you think,” Gibbs pointed out. “Your memories of your parents were wiped. For all you know, they could still be alive somewhere.”

  “If they had my parents, they would have used them,” Moss said coldly as they entered the small room with the window.

  “Bye, Bernard,” Gibbs smiled to the man laid out on the mattress.

  As they climbed out of the window, Moss said, “So, you did make a friend.”

  “Naturally,” Gibbs said, and once they were out of earshot, “tell me more.”

  “They made Mr. Greene read the message. He was terrified. I don’t want to think what they’ve done to him since,” Moss said, blinking to adjust his eyes in the light of day. He gauged the sun and realized it was close to setting. He had been laying in that room for the better part of a day.

  “He was always a good man,” Gibbs observed, sadness coating his words.

  “Is, he is a good man,” Moss corrected, more for himself.

  “Right,” Gibbs said as they walked back to the rail station. “Is there anything we can do for him?”

  “No,” Moss said, and though it saddened him, he knew there wasn’t.

  When they reached the station, Moss used his implant to pay.

  “Invalid payment,” the turnstile shouted from a small speaker.

  “Shit, Seti is changing our accounts again,” Moss groused. Their eye in the sky would often move their money around when it looked as if someone was closing in on their trail. Moss hopped the turnstile, and Gibbs followed clumsily. He was getting into better shape than he had been in the Burb, but it was taking time, and the baby fat persisted despite Stan’s efforts. Stan, the former athlete, was working on getting the two bubs into shape, but he was also teaching them about good food and Gibbs was taking a shine to one more than the other.

  “So, where is this city?” Gibbs whispered loudly on the rail train. Moss glanced around, but no one was looking.

  “No idea,” he answered truthfully. Though he was determined to help his grandmother, no matter the difficulty, the idea of breaking into and out of a prison was not an appealing prospect. Things had been good recently. They had been running low-grade jobs and collecting intel for future use. A job like this was liable to complicate things.

  “And how do you suppose we get there?” Gibbs asked.

  “I have no fucking clue,” Moss hissed. He had been worrying over that problem as well. “Sorry.”

  “It’s fine,” Gibbs said, obviously wounded that Moss had snapped.

  Moss’s voice became quiet and soft, “It’s just a lot.”

  “I know,” Gibbs said, putting a hand on his friend’s shoulder. “We’ll help her.”

  “If not for me, then for Burn,” Moss said. Their former mentor had a relationship with Moss’s grandmother, the exact nature of which had never been made clear, though he had his suspicions.

  Gibbs looked at his friend with a reassuring smile. “For both of you.”

  Moss knew Burn would be the selling point to the crew. They might not be inclined to break into the most heavily guarded place on earth just for him, but they would for Burn. Plus, he knew Sandra had brought some of them to the group, and they might be willing to help if they knew she was still alive. It was going to be quite a reveal when they got back.

  “Think Patch will be ma
d?” Gibbs asked.

  “About us stealing the motherboard we just got him and trading it?” Moss said. “Yeah, maybe. But hopefully, the intel will be worth it. I know his mom and Burn were close, so maybe he’ll be happy to know we can do something in his honor.”

  “I hope so,” Gibbs said, shifting nervously.

  “He won’t be mad at you. I was the one who did it,” Moss said.

  “I woke you and made this whole thing happen,” Gibbs reminded him.

  “He doesn’t need to know that, and I’m pretty sure if Judy even remembers, they’re only waking up now to rat us out,” Moss said.

  “Judy doesn’t seem like the rat-out type,” Gibbs said.

  “Truer words,” Moss noted.

  It was sunset by the time they exited the station, the remaining sun coating the clouds crimson. Gibbs said, “You think we should pick something up? Giorgio’s by way of apology?”

  “Yeah, that’s a good idea,” Moss agreed as they turned to head toward the pizza shop.

  Something wasn’t right. They could both feel it. The street seemed too quiet, and something was off. Moss gripped the handle of his pistol, and they turned back toward the apartment. A Carcer drone buzzed by overhead. Moss pulled up the collars of his trench coat and Gibbs the hood of his sweatshirt. They moved into the alleyway quickly, heads low. They all knew this was the spot, the vantage point to check out the building if something seemed amiss. They skulked forward, and Moss peaked around the corner to see the building. His heart was pounding, his eyes wide with terror as he surveyed the scene. Red lights flashing, streetcars and flighted cars surround the building. What looked to be nearly one hundred officers stood in the area, weapons trained at the building. Drones circled and buzzed like a swarm of locusts. Gibbs looked briefly from over Moss’s shoulder.

  “No,” he cried, and Moss shoved him back, hissing a shush. “What are we going to do?” Gibbs whimpered.

  “For now, see what we see. Later, we help them,” Moss said, more pragmatic than he would have expected of himself in such a moment. They peered around again, as little happened. The quiet was unnerving. Moss expected gunfire and explosions, but none came.

  Seti, Moss tried communicating through his implant. No response. He knew she would have warned him if she could, would have reached out. The reality that they may have gotten to her too was terrifying. There were other crews, but Moss had no way of reaching out to them and going around asking would get him killed.

  Then, from the roof of the building, he heard a scream, a gut-wrenching sound of terror as a body flew off the top. Chicken Thumbs hollered in fear as he flailed toward the ground before erupting in blood on the pavement below. Gibbs stifled a scream. Officers rushed to the body, peeling it from the street. It took all of Moss’s resolve not to rush out, to pull his weapon and try to kill as many as he could before they got him. But he didn’t, knowing he had to wait if he was to be any help to his friends. Then he saw him. Warden Ninety-Nine stepped out on the lip of the roof, loudspeaker in his robotic hand.

  “Clean that up,” he announced to the officers below, who were already at work. “Get the wagon ready. We have them.” Moss could not see his face clearly from this distance, but the arrogance and pride were clear in his voice. The front door to the building opened, and large Carcer drudges emerged. Stan, Patchwork, Judy, and Grimy were slung, limp over the shoulders of the machines. Moss heard Gibbs shift, and he had his Kingfisher out and pointed in a flash.

  He turned to see Ynna, hair wet, wearing a dirty and ripped bathrobe, holding a hand over Gibbs’s mouth. She looked to Moss, a finger over her lips. She wore an expression Moss had never seen from her before—fear. Even when they thought they were going to die in the basement of ThutoCo, she had been stoic and ready, but now, she looked sad and scared.

  “Fan out, we are still missing some,” Warden Ninety-Nine announced from the roof. Ynna cocked her head, and the three ran as the officers began to assemble. They had all had the escape routes drilled into them, and Moss knew which way Ynna was leading them. They rushed to the carpet shop which had an escape van parked at its rear. A bell rang as they pushed through the door, and the shopkeeper nodded, understanding the context and opened the door to the back quickly.

  “Good luck,” he told them, handing Ynna keys as they passed into the alley beyond. They hopped into the van and Ynna started it up, the ancient engine choking to life.

  “It happened so fast,” Ynna said pitifully, letting her head drop.

  As they pulled onto the road, Moss asked, “You were in the shower?”

  “Yes,” she said, her eyes darting back and forth, looking for pursuers.

  “Lucky,” Gibbs observed.

  “Escapees through the vents?” Moss asked.

  “Yes, just like in a movie,” Ynna said as she drove them quickly away from the neighborhood.

  “Seriously,” Gibbs began.

  “Lucky, I know,” she snapped, driving slowly and obeying traffic laws, trying not to make it obvious that a human driver was operating the vehicle. A non-computer driver would be a dead giveaway. “We’re fucked,” she said.

  “No,” Gibbs tried.

  “No, we’re fucked,” Ynna repeated. “I tried Seti, but they either shut down comms, or they got her, too.”

  “Also froze our accounts,” Moss added, remembering the turnstile.

  “Shit!” Ynna screamed, pounding the steering wheel. “Get anything from that message?” Ynna asked, knowing why the two had been absent.

  “Nothing helpful now, they have my grandmother, too,” Moss told her. Ynna blinked with confusion.

  Ynna looked surprised. “Sandra’s alive?”

  “Yes,” Moss said.

  “Carcer City?” she asked, turning right, away from the now compromised safe house.

  Trying to shake the images from his mind, Moss said, “It certainly looked that way.”

  “You guys,” Gibbs interrupted as though he couldn’t hold his tongue any longer.

  “What?” Ynna asked.

  “Chicken Thumbs just died,” he stated in a quiet, heartbroken voice.

  “We fucking know it,” Ynna said, sadness manifesting as rage. “He was a good person, but he was never meant for this. Burn had a soft spot for him, but there was nothing we could do.”

  “I know, it just,” Gibbs trailed off.

  Moss knew why it upset Gibbs so much. “You’re not like him.”

  “No, I mean—” Gibbs protested hollowly. “Thank you.”

  “Should serve as a reminder to all of us to keep our heads screwed on straight. I’m sure he tried to run for it and felt the wrath of that prick who shot me,” Ynna said, her blood up, eyes red. She never took her eyes from the road. She didn’t look at them. Moss wondered if she resented that they were the two she had ended up with at a time like this.

  “So, what now?” Moss asked.

  “Get some clothes, some gear and find an ally,” she stated.

  “We’re fucked for money,” Moss reminded her.

  “Shit, right,” she said, looking at the tattered bathrobe.

  “Not entirely,” Gibbs said with a hint of pride.

  “What?” Moss and Ynna asked in unison.

  “Figured this could happen one day, so I put some money on a card just in case,” he explained, a slight smile crossed Ynna’s mouth.

  “I’ve never liked you more than I do right now,” she said.

  “Must not have liked me all that much then,” he said, shooting a look at Moss.

  “Really want to pull that thread?” Ynna asked as they descended a hill, the walls of the city coming into view far in the distance. The city faced the ocean to the west and extended for hundreds of kilometers to the north and south but did not reach that far to the east. There were only a few districts before the wall. A massive concrete structure stood with guard posts and fields of misters on the other side, spraying a liquid to keep the bacteria at bay. There was a massive tunneled train system whi
ch ferried people to and from the other cities and quarantine customs checkpoints for the new arrivals.

  The van pulled through a tunnel onto a large suspension bridge which used to cross a body of water which had been covered over a generation earlier and served as a massive open-air market where people lived in rooms behind their storefronts. Moss looked beyond the market to all the ThutoCo Burbs, towering like white beehives in the distance. They had been his whole world for so long, and now they seemed like a distant memory.

  “We could save ourselves a lot of trouble and go back,” Gibbs said, catching Moss’s glance.

  “That would be a short, one-way trip,” Moss said, not inclined to joke.

  “Yes, it would,” Ynna agreed. “Gibbs, how much money you got?”

  “Not much, a couple million,” Gibbs said.

  “It’ll do,” Ynna said. “We’ll stop in Old Oak and then head to the Wall Burg.”

  “Are we—” Moss began to ask.

  She cut him off. “No, we are going to see Jo.” He had thought perhaps they were going to find Issy and her dad, and while he wanted to see her, he did not want to put her in peril.

  “She’s gonna be pissed,” Gibbs said. “Patch calls her every day. They are really close.”

  “No one on earth is going to be more inclined to help us than a mother whose son is in peril,” Ynna noted, a twinge of cold jealousy in her voice. Keeping up with the computerized traffic was difficult for a person and Ynna seemed relieved as they pulled off the freeway. After a few minutes, they were parking at Jo’s bar.

  As they stepped through the door, Jo looked up at them, appraised Ynna quickly and yelled, “No!” She slapped the bar with rage and sadness. “I told Burn to keep him safe, he promised. I should never have let him stay!” Her eyes welled.

  “Jo,” Ynna began.

  “No, I don’t want to hear it!” she screamed, all eyes in the bar on her, save a few too transfixed by their lenscreens.