First Breath
Addison Smith
His attention turned to the other side of the sea of glowing dreads, bare skin, and fluid motion. The girl at the bar-side table had been watching him since he’d arrived. Her gaze followed him from the door to the bar, then to his usual seat against the wall. She was familiar, but not by the pink lines that glowed in her hair, or the nearly transparent synthetic that clung to her body.
She wasn’t in his memory, but she had been once.
That kind of familiarity was a thing he had learned to fear. When you’ve spent any time working for Jack, you learn that the people you can trust the least are the ones you’re familiar with.
The hot breath lingering in the room touched at his mind, giving him just a taste of synaptic euphoria. Those synapses sparked, calling him to the dance floor, and his eyes heeded them, taking in the reflective, glowing mass. He drew his attention away, back to the bar-side table.
She was gone.
“You just gonna watch?” The voice came from beside him, smooth and sensual.
He didn’t turn his head. “I thought I might sit this one out.”
Her hands reached over his shoulder, teasing over the thin cloth of his shirt, and he inhaled just a hint of her breath as she whispered into his ear, “That’s not how this place works.”
Synapses fired, and he tilted his head back, letting her fingers graze over the skin of his neck. He laughed, the sensation washing over him more fully than ever before. He’d gotten the breath mod days ago—an open-source derivative of the one that was already sweeping the party capitals. This was different, though. He was a slave to its need. That need made him stare after her as she walked to the floor; it made him stand, and it made him follow.
Bodies undulated against him, but there wasn’t room for them in his mind. He followed the curves of her hips and shoulder blades as she dragged him to the floor by a leash of ecstasy.
When she stopped, he was right behind her, hands on her hips, turning her to face him and give another taste of the breath he already ached for.
She smiled, and they danced. He let his high carry him through the unchoreographed motions and excuses for skin to touch. He was immune to the cloud of breath in the room as others breathed into their lovers, or to strangers, and rode the high together. Only her breath mattered, and the dance became a means to taste it again.
She put one arm around his neck, hanging down to scratch a long nail along his spine, and raised her face to his. He stared into her, and she breathed into him. His mod captured it all, translating her foreign DNA to impulses that made the lights glow like flames. His skin felt every body thrashing against it, and he threw his head back as if gasping for the air that would keep him from drowning.
He lowered his eyes to hers—the eyes of his new, perfect drug.
She was gone again.
The space where she had stood filled with others, and their breath hung around him in a haze, but it meant nothing. He looked around the room, trying to pick out the pink of her hair, but it was lost in the neon glow. He sighed, closing his eyes.
And there she was. A white silhouette on the black of his eyelids, fifteen feet away. The silhouette reached a hand out, and he opened his eyes, fixating on her position. Her hand was on the doorknob, and she glanced back at him. She smiled, then stepped into the night.
When the door closed behind her, he moved to the edge of the pit, away from the dancers. He thought about going back to his table, to ride what was left of her high, but he saw her again when he blinked, and his craving nagged at him.
Taking his coat from his chair, he ignored the fear that tried to rise up his spine. Maybe she worked for Jack. Maybe she didn’t.
Either way, he had to follow.
She’d gotten into his head, but he didn’t know how—she had hardly touched him. A wireless connection? Maybe something in the breath? His desire for that feeling had become an ache in his mind—a need he would have to satisfy. He’d followed her for half an hour through dark streets and darker alleys, and all the while the need grew.
What was worse, he knew where she was going. Every step took him closer to Jack’s place.
Jack had money. Lots of money. The tech he dealt with was expensive, and his clients paid him well. He could afford a place in the city proper, but he set up shop in the slums. Authorities didn’t bother him, and the locals were prime for employment—people who would do anything if you knew the right buttons to push.
People like Hardy.
It was also a good harvesting site for the tests nobody would volunteer for. People went missing, but weren’t missed.
He closed his eyes again to check her silhouette. She was just ahead, fifty feet or so, fumbling with something he couldn’t see. Maybe a doorknob or a lock. She stepped back, and a gunshot shattered the near-silence of the street.
“Dammit!” He ran toward her, darting around the brick corner of a building. He only had a second to take in the scene. The girl running. One of Jack’s thugs pointing a gun at her, finger flexing over the trigger. A bin with a heavy pipe sticking out.
He shouted and the man turned his head, then his gun. Too slow. Hardy had already grabbed the pipe, connected it with the thug’s bald head. His gun fired wide and he fell to his knees. Hardy swung one more time and the man fell to the ground, unmoving.
Hardy looked around the alley, but the girl was gone. A camera stared down at him from the corner.
“Dammit!” He blinked and saw her outline two corners over. She wasn’t Jack’s. If she was, there had been a falling out. A hell of a falling out. Guns weren’t Jack’s style.
He closed the distance between them, still holding the pipe. The ache in his mind was stronger now. He’d have to get another breath—her breath—or he’d be hurting.
She looked up from against the brick wall, black and pink curtaining over one eye. He took a seat next to her on the pavement and leaned his head back. She didn’t say anything, so they sat in silence as his heart beat back to a normal rhythm. He wasn’t used to getting shot at. Even when he worked for Jack, he’d managed to avoid that.
She exhaled, and a hint of it drifted up to him, numbing the pain.
“You got a name?” he asked.
She smiled. “Yeah. You?”
He considered a fake name. The name he went by was fake anyway, taken from an old OS distro, but it was who he was. He decided against it. “Hardy.”
The smile never left her lips. It was an odd look—half joy, half resignation.
“You don’t have to tell me your name. I really don’t care. I just want to know what you did to me. Why are you in my head?”
Her smile faded. She nodded back toward the door. “You want to know why, take a look.”
He turned to look around the corner, but she caught his arm. “Not like that.” She closed her eyes, and he got the picture. He closed his own and looked through the building behind them. There was another white shape, like the one beside him, but smaller, distant. Someone was curled up somewhere deep in Jack’s building, one floor up from ground level.
“What did you do to me?” He stared at her, tasting the faint breath coming from her lips. “Who is that?”
She rose and dusted off her synthetic clothes, then offered her hand. “I tested you. You passed.”
He stood without taking her hand. “I did, huh?”
“Call me Mara.” The name clicked somewhere in Hardy’s mind, but no memories came with it. They were probably locked back in Jack’s place. He’d been right about knowing her.
There was shuffling around the edge of the building, and he turned, fearing an armed man with a headache. It wasn’t the guard. There were three people—two men, and a girl dressed in your basic technotrash attire. The tallest, a man with short blond hair, glared at him.
Mara put her hand on Hardy’s shoulder and nodded at the newcomers. “Meet the Narcs. They want to hire you.” She patted his arm and joined the group. As one, they turned away from the alley and Jack’s.
Hardy watched them leave and thought about going the other way, but still felt the ache in his mind. No breath should be so sweet. She’d done something to him, and he had no choice but to go along with it.
“A test,” he said, tasting the lie as sure as her breath. They’d got his face on Jack’s camera. He could already feel Jack’s eyes crawling over him, trying to determine his part in this. Whether he liked it or not, he was involved now.
He cursed at his feet and followed.
They’d better have a damned good reason.
Mara was different. He felt like he should know her, but he didn’t. She was an odd mix of friend and stranger that made it impossible for him to get close, and he was suffering for it. Moreover, he didn’t trust her.
The Narcs, it seemed, were just some punks who hated Jack and wanted to take him down. He couldn’t argue with that. Jack had a pretty tight hold on the area, and nobody was very comfortable with it. Going by the quality band they had collected, nobody much was very willing to do anything about it either.
“So who’s inside Jack’s?” He could still see the white silhouette from where they were, though it was smaller than before.
Mara stood back as the tall one opened the door. “Lynn,” she said. “My sister.”
“Sorry to hear that.” Jack wasn’t a pleasant man to work for, but it was worse to be one of his guinea pigs.
“She knew what she was getting into. She’s got a lot of information in her head that would help bring that place down. Too much for Jack to let her go.”
Hardy stood back as the others filed in, and Mara smiled at him. She waited for the door to close before she spoke. “Hurts, huh? You know, you could just ask. No need for the tough-guy act.”
Willing as she sounded, there was reluctance in her. She leaned in and exhaled in his face, lips keeping their distance. His brain spiked as the DNA triggered his mod, sending him headfirst into a wall of pleasure. He broke through it, beyond his limits, into a place of sweat, raised flesh, and unbearable tingling. He gritted his teeth against it, refusing to let it be anything but a fix, but his mouth opened in a sigh of pleasure. The pain didn’t just recede, but inverted.
“It’s the mod,” she said, leaning close, the warmth of her breath pooling around him. “The version you have. I made it.”
Hardy tried to fight against the high, but he didn’t want to. He wanted to lay in it and let the dark world around him fade into nothingness.
“It’s superkeyed to my DNA. No one will ever give you a feeling like I can,” she said. “I can dole out your pleasure as I see fit. Or I can fix you, if you like.” She backed away from him, fingers lingering on his chest. “After you help us.”
He succeeded in fighting down the feeling, separating his thoughts from it and letting it flood his mind in the background. She was manipulative. He had a feeling that had nothing to do with the Narcs, or with Jack. It was all her.
“Alright,” he said, his flesh still raised to tips. He gestured to the door. “Show the way.”
The Narcs stood by a table poring over a schematic of some sort. Probably stolen from Jack. When they approached, the plans rolled up—not for him.
Mara pointed each of them out and gave a name. The big guy was Les, the de facto leader of the group. Number two was a kid called Simek. He was obviously there for brawn. Neither of them looked happy to see Hardy.
The technotrash girl just went by Z. Her hair shone purple—fiber optic strings hanging here and there. She was the only one who looked welcoming.
“I suppose you helped with the mod,” Hardy said. Mara seemed smart enough, but not technologically so.
Z saluted in mocking fashion. “Team effort.”
Hardy liked to evaluate the ability of people he was going to work for, but this time was different, he didn’t have any real choice in the matter. He could wait out the addiction, but it wouldn’t be pretty. Uninstalling the mod wouldn’t do much either—just cut him off from the drug, but leave him wanting it.
“Alright,” he said, “what’s the plan?”
“The plan is for you to do as little as possible.” Les still had the glare that Hardy was beginning to think was trademarked. “You’re here because Mara wanted you. I don’t.”
“Hey, you picked me up. I can leave any time.”
Les nodded toward the door, but Mara stared him down. “We need him. He’s been in there before.”
That was what she wanted. His expertise. He had a feeling his membership was about to be revoked. “Listen, I don’t remember anything from in there. Not much, at least. Everything I could tell you is in a bit of brass headwear at Jack’s.”
Mara grinned. “But you recognize me.”
That confirmed it. She had worked for Jack. “That’s it, though. I couldn’t tell you if you were my boss, or if you got Jack his coffee in the mornings.”
Something clicked when he mentioned Jack’s coffee. A cup of coffee, black, but cold. Mara grinned again; she’d seen the recollection. Jack liked his coffee cold. Hardy knew he shouldn’t remember that. He shouldn’t remember a lot of the things he knew about Jack, or the people who worked for him. It should all have been locked away in his crown.
“It’s not your memories he took,” Mara said. “Too messy. He just took the bridges.”
It made sense, he supposed. Take down the connections between thoughts—the ones that linked his conscious mind to the things Jack didn’t want him to remember—and they were as good as forgotten. “What’s it matter how he did it? They’re gone.”
She moved between Les and Simek at the table and rolled out the schematic. Hardy pushed through as well. Jack’s was a big place—took up a whole block—and the schematic showed it. Just beyond the door they had stood in front of earlier was a hallway, anonymous rooms coming off either side. A stairwell at the end, metal stairs, the kind with the grated top to dig into your shoes.
Hardy looked at the map. That detail wasn’t on there. Why would it be? It was just a blocky diagram of stairs… but he could see them in his mind. Black painted steel, grated top.
“It’s all in there,” Mara said. “We can bridge some of those gaps, but not all of them. We have vague ideas of what Jack does in there. Lynn has the specifics. That’s why we need to get her out.”
“And her crown with her,” Les said.
Hardy looked at Les. He found no trust there. “She’s been wiped?”
“We get the girl, we get the crown, we get Jack.”
Hardy didn’t need to look back at the map to see where the crowns were kept. He could remember it now. He could remember the guards there, too. He tasted the memories like forbidden fruit.
“We can’t pay you money,” Les said. “We don’t have any. But we’re getting into that crown room, wherever it is. We can pay you in memories.”
All those things he couldn’t remember. Little bits of life he thought were lost forever. Mara was a fool, messing with his brain to force his hand. All she’d needed to do was offer him his own mind back.
“What do we need?” he said.
Nobody paid any attention as they went in, all lost in the drink, the drugs, or the dance. They went to Hardy’s usual table.
“So who is it?” Mara asked.
Hardy nodded at the other edge of the dance floor. Tony was standing there, perving on the perimeter. He wasn’t the type to get involved. Didn’t have it in him. He was happy to watch, though. There was a visible dent in the line of dancers around him.
“Far edge. The guy not dressed the part.” He was in a heavy leather coat that wouldn’t allow much in the way of dancing. Hardy had never seen him without it. A memory clicked in his mind, the coat bridging the gap. He’d asked him about it once, and had gotten a very honest answer: “It makes me feel cool.”
“And he’s got a key?”
“Yeah, but I don’t know what good it will do you. Jack’s paranoid. The key alone isn’t enough to get us in. It works in conjunction with an implant, and I ripped mine out.” That had been an odd discovery, fresh after his memories were wiped.
“Z’s got it all worked out. Don’t worry about it.”
Tony smiled across the dance floor. His eyes met Hardy’s, and his smile slackened. “He’s gonna run.”
Tony was halfway to the door by the time Hardy stood, and slipped through it right before he got there. Hardy ran after him, down the brick-lined alley. Tony wasn’t that fast, so he caught up quick and grabbed the back of his coat. He hadn’t counted on the momentum, so they both fell to the ground, Hardy on top.
They scuffled, but he managed to get Tony’s arms down. As soon as he was pinned, Tony put on the charm. “Hey, Hardy. Long time. How ya been?”
His last dose was running out, and he saw that Mara had disappeared again. He didn’t feel like being chatty. “I need to get in, Tony. You got a key?”
“Look, I don’t want trouble, Hardy. You know how it is. They find out I gave you the key, what happens to me? You wouldn’t want me hurt.”
“Wouldn’t I?”
Tony laughed, his head still against the pavement. He was always laughing; it was a defense mechanism. “You’re a funny guy, Hardy. I don’t carry it on me. You’re out of luck.” His eyes darted down to his coat pocket. He wouldn’t give it up, but he’d let Hardy take it. Less liability that way. He’d probably punch himself in the face, too, once Hardy was gone—make it look like he’d beaten it out of him.
Hardy reached into the pocket. The key was just a metal card—battery-operated—that gave off half the signal to open the door. “Don’t have it on you, eh?” He played along. Tony was a spineless pervert, but he wasn’t a bad guy. Not as far as Jack’s men went. He grabbed him by the hair and pulled his head close. “What did I tell you about lying to me?”
He stood and let Tony get to his feet. “And you won’t be telling anyone, got it?”
“Got it, Hardy.” Tony looked down at the ground. When he raised his head again, he was smiling. “So,” he said, “you and Mara.”
Hardy took him by the coat all over again. “What do you know about her?”
Tony laughed. “That’s not how it works, Hardy. Those memories were hostages. You don’t get them back.”
What a time to grow a spine. He let Tony down. He’d get the information either way.
“Get out of here.” He walked back toward the club, and Tony skittered down the alley.
He hadn’t needed any more proof she had worked for Jack, but it didn’t matter; so had he. She was only part of the game, anyway. He’d save the girl, but there was something he wanted more.
He wanted those memories back.
“I don’t know what you can do with it,” he said. “It’s a two-part lock.”
“Yeah.” She lost her chipper glow. “I’ve got it covered.”
“I don’t see—”
“Hardy,” Mara said, “leave her be. She’s got work to do.”
When Hardy turned back to Z, she was facing away, back at her worktable. “Right.”
Mara was sitting by the wall, and he joined her. He didn’t trust her in the slightest, but she at least was warm toward him; he’d get nothing from Les or Simek. “You’ve got an odd crew,” he said.
She nodded. “I guess. I haven’t been with them long. They were just drawn together, you know?”
He was only half paying attention. His head ached again, but he ignored it. He’d gotten over his fear of asking, but there was more to it than that. He’d seen what Mara tried to hide the last time. She was afraid of him.
It didn’t make any sense—she had him in a vice. Every decision he had made to help, he realized, had been right after getting a dose of that breath. The guard in front of Jack’s, tracking down Tony for the key. He couldn’t even trust his own mind now, for fear the breath was making him do things he otherwise wouldn’t.
He did hate Jack, though.
Z pulled something from her pocket and gave it a funny look. It was just a disc, the size of a penny, with a couple of wires, but he could tell it weighed heavily on her.
“Drawn together,” he said. “By their hatred of Jack?”
“Sort of. They’ve all lost someone.”
Hardy looked down at his hands, hovering over the gap between his knees. He had wondered. People hated Jack on principle, but to actually try to bring him down was different.
“Les lost his mom,” she said. “Money trouble. She didn’t know what she was getting into. Simek’s brother works there, but he says it’s not him anymore.”
“Z?” he asked.
“See what she’s got there?” Z still held the disc, but he could tell she didn’t want to look at it. “That implant? Got it out of her sister.”
Hardy stared at his fingernails. He had worked for Jack. He couldn’t remember much of that—just the few memories he had managed to reconnect. But he knew the kinds of things he had done, even if they weren’t specific memories.
“Your sister,” he said, “Lynn. You know what they’re doing to her?”
Mara looked away as she spoke, and he tried to imagine what it would be like to have family in there. “Aspect-selective stuff,” she said. “Isolating parts of her personality. Sticking them in new bodies.”
“Clones?” That was a new one.
“Just an aspect.” She shrugged. “Barely even a person.”
Silence fell between them, and he went back to watching Z at her worktable. The lights in her hair were out. Paying respect to her sister, maybe.
“Look,” Mara said, “I’m sorry. About bringing you into this.”
He hadn’t had a breath in a couple of hours. His head hurt, but he felt he could trust his thoughts, untainted by the drug. “It’s all right,” he said. “Maybe I’d have done the same.”
Besides, he wanted Jack gone too.
The camera was tilted just too low to see them, but it made Hardy nervous. Z had done some research, and the two-part key was all it would take. It all felt too easy. Where was that guard? Was the two-part key really enough? Maybe the camera was a third part, scanning for identification.
It wouldn’t find anything, anyway. The implant was hacked somehow. Z had tried explaining it, but it was beyond him. It wasn’t the signal of any one employee, but a blanket signal that covered everyone. It made sense to her; that was all that mattered.
Mara’s silence bothered him. She stood only a few feet away, but the distance was palpable. She was avoiding him, and he couldn’t imagine why. Maybe just worried about her sister, or even about herself, or Les, or Z, or Simek. Probably not about him. He was just a tool the group was using. Who cares if you break a hammer?
“Alright,” Les said. His voice was an odd crack in the silence of the street. No sound came from Jack’s; it was eerie. Maybe nothing was going on. It was after business hours, but when a place held so much, there were always going to be guards.
The word hung in the air for a few moments, waiting to be backed up by someone else. Everyone was quiet. Even Z, the fibers of her hair still off, looked down at her shoes. “Yeah,” Simek said finally. “Let’s go.”
Hardy’s mind ached, and the sweat of withdrawal made a sheen over his skin. He’d asked for a breath—just a little something to get him through their little mission—but Mara kept her eyes on the ground or on the walls. They didn’t meet his a single time. “Let’s just get through this,” she’d said, and walked away.
Something was on her mind, and he was paying for it in pain. On the other hand, he could be sure of his mental clarity. He was doing this because he wanted to, not because he was being tricked and juiced. Not this time, at least.
The five of them made their way across the street, motions casual and relaxed, but they were rabbits ready to bolt. The camera watched them approach. Z raised her keycard and the signal went out from her card and from her implant. With hope, the combination would get them in and not set off any alarms.
Or maybe it wouldn’t work. The door wouldn’t open, and no alarms would go off. They could just walk away and plan things properly. Get more members. Hit Jack hard.
Or guards would spill out and kill them where they stood.
The lock clicked.
The door opened.
They went in fast, down the hall together, but Les and Simek branched off quick, heading for what Hardy had identified as the crown room. It was on the second floor, same as Lynn’s whie silhouette, but closer to another stairwell. He and the girls would go straight. Mara could probably take care of herself, but with only Z along that left them as the only muscle. He didn’t like that idea.
The stairs passed under their feet, black-painted grates digging into their shoes. Despite their speed, they passed quietly over them. They were upstairs, heading for the room four doors down, where Lynn was captive. Getting in had been easy; they hadn’t seen any guards, and it made Hardy nervous. He could feel those nerves beside him, radiating from Mara.
Something was wrong. A click he hadn’t realized he had heard. The distinct lack of a second set of footsteps behind him. He turned, still running. Z was gone.
A door opened behind them. He found the guards. “Dammit! Keep running!” he said to Mara, and turned back toward them.
They didn’t have guns, but the batons at their sides looked like more than enough. And they were running toward him.
“Loop around and get the others out of here!”
Hardy was never a tough for Jack, but a hundred and eighty pounds flying through the air at a person will leave a mark. He collided with the men and started punching.
His fist connected with one and his foot with another, but already the cudgels struck him in the ribs. He kept fighting. One punch landed with a satisfying crack.
He saw the black stick for a fraction of a second before it cracked into his face.
And then he saw nothing.
He could see her, though. Past the silhouette of her sister a few rooms over was another silhouette—a smaller one, maybe outside the building somewhere. Mara had gotten out, and probably the rest as well.
“Good morning, Hardy,” someone said, and he opened his eyes. The voice bridged more gaps in his memory. He hadn’t heard it in over a year now, but the impressions it brought back rankled at him. Jack.
“Glad you’re awake,” Jack said. He stood over Hardy, a thin man in a business suit, hair graying at the edges. “We need to talk.”
Hardy tried to speak, but his head throbbed. He managed, “What do you want?” before his jaw clenched.
“What do I want?” Jack asked. “This isn’t about me. This is all about what you want.”
The pain screamed at Jack to get to the point, and the frustration made it to his lips in a strained grunt.
“No, that’s not true. I do want something. I want you back, Hardy. Your friends got away, but what they were after is still here. You know that, though, don’t you? You can see her lying just on the other side of that wall.” He laughed. “Z did pretty good on you.”
Z. She was another tool of Jack’s. The hacked implant hadn’t sat well with him from the beginning, and now he knew why. It wasn’t hacked at all. It was coded to let her in, just like any employee. He wondered where she was now, but knew it didn’t matter.
The pain struck again in a harsh throb, and Hardy clenched his teeth tighter and pushed against the bonds. They held tight.
“Too good, maybe,” Jack said, frowning. “If you can’t speak, you are useless to me.” He stood over him.
Hardy blinked again, lifting his head. He could still see Mara. She was closer, now. Inside the building?
“You remember me, don’t you?” Jack said. “It’s the flaw in those crowns. They don’t remove memories the way they should. The right stimulus and they come back, one by one. Like Mara.”
Hardy went still, fighting the urge to dig his fingers into the chair.
“You remember her, don’t you? When you met here? The way you hit it off, the brief escapes into closets or empty rooms. Plans whispered in range of cameras you didn’t know were there. We can take him down, she would tell you. Yeah. We’ll take him down. And then we’ll be together.”
Memories crashed back into Hardy. Memories so sweet they ached as much as his need for her breath. Memories of stolen kisses and sly glances. Memories of nights spent together and days spent plotting. Memories of laughter and shared smiles as they planned Jack’s downfall.
He closed his eyes, just to see her again—for the first time—and there she was. Just outside the door. He smiled up at Jack, and the man’s brow furrowed.
The door burst open, and there was chaos. He couldn’t see everything, bound as he was, but he heard a guard fall, and Jack curse. A gun rose above his head, sweeping upward in Jack’s hand, but it never made it level. Something collided with Jack’s head, and he went down, out of view.
And then everything was quiet.
Mara stared down at him, and he remembered her. She was conniving. She was deceptive and manipulative. She had changed—become more so. It didn’t matter. All that mattered were the memories.
The pain was still there, tearing at his mind. It ached for her breath, so close now, but there were other aches as well. More pressing aches. He ached for her touch, her smile. He ached to hear her voice. He ached for the chance to tell her he loved her, and that he was sorry he threw it all away. He was sorry he let her memory be held hostage, and sorry he had walked out, when he knew what he would be losing.
Jack lay on the floor, barely visible through the black that crept from the edges of Hardy’s vision. He closed his eyes and gritted his teeth against the pain. Something touched his lips, and with it came salvation. The drug that could only be Mara’s breath coursed through him, sating his need—his need for it, and his need for her.
With each movement of her lips, memories came back to him. Nights in each other’s arms. Bonding over their hatred of who they worked for. The pain was gone in an instant, but he let the moment last—a druggie drawing every last breath and memory.
The straps fell from his arms. “Hardy,” Mara whispered, “we have to go.” Her voice was fear and goose-down pillows. “We have to get her out.”
He spun on the table and dropped to the floor. His legs tried to give way under him, but he caught himself.
Reality set in. Jack was unconscious, but his guards were still out there. And once they saw Jack, the building would be secured with him inside. And with Mara. He laughed; suddenly there was something to his name that he could lose.
“Yeah,” he said, “let’s go.”
Les was outside the door with two guards at his feet. He twirled one of their batons in his fingers and grinned. Hardy grinned back. He’d won some respect with his stupid stunt.
“Sim’s in the crown room,” he said. “I’ll give him a hand. You two get the girl.”
Hardy blinked. They were on the second floor, so she was nearly at eye level now, suspended in her tank only a few rooms away. They closed the distance between those rooms in seconds and stood outside the door. He wished Les had hung around, but suspected the crown room would be better guarded. Simek would need his help.
He glanced over at Mara. He found himself doing that a lot now. Her face was set in a sad resolve.
“We’ll get her out,” he said.
She smiled and touched a hand to his cheek. “I know.” Then she put her hand over the doorknob and turned it over. “Let’s go.”
The scene flashed before him. Tanks on the right, one guard on the left holding a gun. It arched up, hovering over Hardy’s stomach, chest, then his head.
A cudgel cracked into his arm and the gun fell to the floor. The arm bent at an odd angle and the guard cried out. The cudgel struck his head and the cry ceased.
Mara turned to a tank across the room. Hardy walked over to it and read the name on the sheet taped to the end. Lynn Amaranta Stevens. It was strange seeing a person’s full name in an age of anonymity. It was something you shared with loved ones and family, and that was it. To the rest of the world, she would just be Lynn.
The tank had an open top and was filled three quarters with a bluish liquid. The lights set into the bottom glowed around a woman barely covered by latex clothing, her features lost in the haze of the fluid.
He looked back to Mara, and she nodded, keeping her distance.
He reached into the tank. The lukewarm liquid tingled on his arms, and he wrapped them behind the small of her back, cradling her head with his hand. She was slight, but not young. Maybe Mara’s little sister, but not by much. She emerged from the tank, and Mara wrapped a blanket around her, covering her from head to toe. The girl shivered beneath it.
“We don’t have much time,” Mara said. She was right. Hardy shifted the girl’s weight, and they made for the door.
The hallway was empty. They would meet Les and Simek at the crown room. All they had to do was get out. But then something moved at the end of the hallway, a man entering from the side. His hand raised, a shot echoed. Hardy’s eyes locked with Mara’s as she stared into the distance.
And then she fell.
Then the crack of a shot too close not to flinch, and at the top of his vision Hardy saw the shape of the gunman tumbling away from him, from them, even as his gaze never wavered from Mara’s body.
Les rushed into view, dropping his gun beside her as he knelt, uttering the curses Hardy couldn’t bring to mind. He put his hand to her chest, wet with blood, then to her neck.
Hardy’s eyes had followed hers as she fell. He’d watched them as they lost focus. He stood, the weight in his arms threatening to slip.
“She’s gone, Hardy. We gotta go.”
Memory after memory rushed back. The gaps filled and the monument of her loss settled on him. The girl’s weight was gone from his arms. Les held her now and Simek took his arm, nearly dragging him down the hallway as Mara’s crumpled body grew smaller.
Guards filled the hall from other rooms and shots pinged against the walls. Survival instincts returned. They ran, and as they passed a doorway he glimpsed a room, an overturned chair, no sign of Jack now–that chance for revenge gone. Down the stairs, bullets ricocheting in front of them. The firing ceased when they cleared the second floor, but feet shuffled above them.
They ran through the hallway and the exit before the guards made it down the steps. And they kept running. Through the alley where he had passed his test, when he was still suspicious of Mara’s intentions. When he’d thought she worked for Jack and refused to trust her. Down the streets where he had followed her only a day ago, still riding the newly discovered drug of her breath. Was that what made him follow?
They passed the Narcs’ headquarters, where Z would surely lead Jack’s men. Z. Her sister wasn’t dead. He should have seen it. She was the leverage Jack held.
When they stopped, Hardy didn’t know where they were, but he knew it didn’t matter. Mara was gone. He had lost her once, but had found her again. She had found him.
Les laid the girl on the floor, cracking a glow stick for light while Simek walked toward Hardy, holding something in each hand. Crowns of tarnished copper and wires. They had gotten her out. They had her, and they had the crown.
“Hey,” Simek said, holding out one of the copper domes. “This one’s yours.”
Hardy held the dome in his hands and stared at it, no longer bothered if he never remembered anything.
Les hovered over the rescued girl’s shaking body ten feet away. Simek patted him on the shoulder, trying in a gesture to express understanding of a pain he could never imagine. He went to Les with the crown.
Hardy stood alone in his corner of the room reliving all of the memories he had only just regained. Their pact to bring Jack down. What he felt when she said his name.
The crown clattered to the floor and Les cursed. “Hardy!”
Hardy ran to her as the pieces fit together in his mind. The aspect-selective tests they performed clicked into place and memories of his last days at Jack’s returned. The way she disappeared so suddenly, when everything was going right.
Mara lay shivering on the floor, barely covered by her latex clothes, hair purest black without the now-familiar pink stripes. He held her in his arms as she shivered, rubbed the debris of long containment from her eyes. Her body was thin, bones showing beneath atrophied muscle. Her eyes seemed distant as if her mind was in a fog. He held her face and stared into her, the broken woman he loved. “Mara?” he asked, tears in his own eyes.
Her eyes focused, looked into his. Her body shivered in his arms and when she spoke it was with a sad tremor. “You came back.”
Hardy pulled her close. With the memories returned, he knew what he almost lost, and tears stung on his cheeks. In that moment he knew only two things. He would take care of Mara and never leave her side, stand with her against anything that threatened to hurt her. The other was a primal anger he knew he couldn’t deny.
Jack would pay.
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