Ever So Madly (13 page)

My mouth dropped open, and I gasped.

“What?” Jacob asked.

I showed him then sent back.

J: How?

Another long pause then,

M: It’s not easy to explain but I have a way through a world of our creating. It’s made in the back door of the nets.

I received message after message of explanation. My mind was reeling. I couldn’t believe what he had just told me. This could be my escape from the life I was trapped in.

M: I was told you would receive information from a trusted source as well. Have you not?

“Shit,” Jacob said when I showed him the message. He pulled out a micro disk from his pocket. “I was going to give it to you this morning, but with Phillip showing up I forgot.”

“You trust the person who gave you this?”

“With my life, and I think it’s as he says.” He paused. “Don’t make me give this to you.”

I put my comm down and stared at him.

“How long have you known Madden was okay?” I could barely get the words out.

“I had no clue about him. I can’t believe you’d doubt me. What I know about is that this tech is not only dangerous but completely unknown except to…” he trailed off. “I wasn’t sure why they wanted you to have it. If you take this you owe them.” His words hung between us.

“What the hell is it?”

“It’s a way for you to see him.”

I held out my hand for it. If there was a way to see him nothing would keep up apart.

“Are you sure?” he asked.

“Jacob, what can they do to me?”

“Nothing once you inherit, but think about Madden.”

“When I inherit he’ll be here with me.”

“And Phillip?”

“I’ll figure it out,” I snapped.

He placed the disk in my hand. “You need to be careful.”

I looked at the micro disk and grabbed my tablet.

“Are you fucking daft?” He knocked my hand away and grabbed his bag. “You think you can do an off network program on a network tablet.” He pulled out a piece of transparent strong glass from a case in his bag and set it in my hands.

“What do you want me to do with this?”

He tapped the upper left hand corner, and the screen came to life. “You don’t even know what exists outside this little world you live in.” He took back the micro disk and set it in the other corner. The space under it glowed, and a screen game up that read: Master Builder Program 6.8.

He’d been holding out on me. If I wasn’t so happy to have a way to see Madden I would have been livid.

“Now, tell me how it works.”

He took the disk back out of my hand and set it over the reader on the screen. “You have to build a world. Don’t use one of their prebuilt ones.” He gave me a pointed look.

“Okay, and then what?”

“Then you load it into this.” He took a tiny spider-like device out of his pocket. “You load the world then press the spinal transmitter to the back of your neck. His is A, and yours is B. He has to go in first. This is imperative.”

“What? Why?” I demanded.

Jacob took a deep breath. He never lied to me, but I knew he was about to. “He’s the host. I won’t let you do it, and the way the devices are set up you can’t, so it doesn’t matter.”

I chewed on my lip. I’d get the answers out of Madden. “Fine. Tell me the rest.”

“Then you’ll be together. It will feel as real as I’m sitting here before you.”

I searched his face. “How long will it take to design a world?”

Jacob shrugged a shoulder. “I didn’t take a real good look at it, but you could get a rough one done in a day with my help.”

J: What are you doing tomorrow morning?

A nervous ball of excitement built in my chest. The thought of tasting him, of seeing him, of the warmth of his arms around me soothed all the fear I’d felt in the last two days.

M: I have to work, it’s midday here… Maybe we can see if it will work tomorrow night?

I sensed hesitation.

J: What’s wrong?

M: Nothing. I know you have places to be and I have to get up as I have to report first thing in the morning.

J: Madden.

M: I have to go. I’ll message tomorrow night.

I had a full day and night to wonder what his problem was, and it made me sick to think about.

I pressed my eyes closed and held out my hand to my brother. “Show me how. I want to work on the world building.”

I opened one eye when he didn’t answer.

“Not going to sleep? You know you have a full day with Phillip tomorrow.”

I lifted my lip as I snarled. “I can handle it. It’s not like you ever get much sleep.”

“But it doesn’t wear on me like it does you. You were missing meetings.”

“Only because I wanted to stay with him. I don’t need more than five hours, you know that.”

He took the glass from me and started working.

My mouth fell open. “Who has this?”

He lifted his shoulders. “No idea, but it’s not us, and somehow the fringe groups got a hold of it. Or maybe they invented it. We may never know.”

I stared at him a moment longer. “How did you get it, and how come this is the first I’m hearing about it?”

“I know the right people, and I keep my mouth shut.”

I narrowed my eyes at him. “Jacob, what are you involved in?”

“Nothing. I don’t ignore the rebels as the Baron does, but they don’t know who I really am.”

I took his word and returned my attention to the program as he started to pressing buttons.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Madden

I held the communicator in my hand and cursed myself. I was an idiot for being scared of this. It was only fear. How bad could it really be? But I knew how bad it could be. My mind had haunted me for a long time. If I let it loose, I didn’t know what it would do.

I tried to forget about it as I ducked out the door. I had to meet Colton. He promised me a space on his diving crew. It would be a big change from the control room I was used to, but maybe the dark tunnels and the dangerous work would keep my mind off what I gave up and what I’d lost over the last week.

When I closed the door to my single room, my bike stood outside shining. It hadn’t been there when I’d gotten in, and I’d expected months of dust coating it. Colton must have cleaned her up after I called him and told him I was back. He hadn’t asked, but I knew he would, more so now that I’d asked him for a job. I swung my leg over her and brought her to life. She purred, and I suspected he’d been riding her. The first sun was above the buildings, and its mate would be peeking over the horizon before I reached the mines.

Barely past dawn, I had to squint past the harsh light. Billions of years ago the binary stars had collided, and the planetary system around them had formed in the aftermath. It had crippled the smaller star leaving it a white dwarf, while the other had become a green giant. Because of the pair of them it was light here fifteen to twenty hours of our twenty-six hour days. As most other planetary systems in the known worlds had light twelve or fewer hours a day, it was hard to handle for outsiders. Toward the poles I was told the suns never set, rather dipping lower in the sky before moving up again. The unique circumstances under which the planetary system was created had been the birth of the element Ore and the mines of hell.

Panic ran like blood through my veins as I approached the pits. The weeks away returned to full force, the panic I’d spent most of my life working to dull. The large pits dipped hundreds of miles toward the core of the planet. Only thin roads existed between them creating a special kind of hell between my fear of bridges and heights. All the breath went out of my lungs as my tire passed over the edge. I had ten kilometers to travel weaving through the over road then down into the blackness. I got there before most of the day’s workers having made good time. I left my bike in the dusty lot and took the elevator down. The high speed elevator traveled one hundred kilometers in the span of a few minutes.

I closed my eyes waiting for the drop. It didn’t disappoint. My stomach jumped to my throat, and air rushed passed me though the grates in the floor. This never bothered me. I was surrounded by steel, and I welcomed the dark which hid the view. I stepped into the tunnel, taking in a lungful of the stagnant air. Track lighting lit the path with barely visible colors for navigation, while protecting night vision, which most relied on here. I needed to regain my cave sight and recall the meaning of the colors. They’d lain dormant for so long it took me a few moments to remember blue was toward the office.

Colton waited there, hands clasped around a large mug of what I guessed was spice coffee.

“Got one of those for me?”

Colton gestured to the mug next to him, and I picked it up. Bringing it to my lips I groaned at the pungent aroma. Another part of our world few outsiders understood. But the spice in it would heighten my senses for hours, helping me with the dangerous work ahead. Arguably the more dangerous jobs in the mine would be impossible without the stimulant. I took a sip, and the liquid dried my tongue and tickled my throat on the way down. I held my breath resisting the urge to cough. I was a lightweight.

Colton shot me an amused look and kept chugging his. The more it was used the less it worked, and the more was needed to get the desired effect. My months off would do me good in the long run of addiction to the stuff. I didn’t meet his gaze, finishing my mug before he did. I set it aside and went left of his office to hit up the supply closet. When I returned I wore magnet bands around each of my limbs and a pair of Nightsight goggles resting on my forehead. I skipped the gloves and other protective padding half the men wore. It helped with bruising but fucked the reaction time.

“Look at you not scared of a few jagged shards or unseen outcroppings.” He left his cup next to mine and grabbed his key.

“You mock me for things you refuse to wear?” I followed him out of the low lit room back into the relative darkness. It took my eyes a few moments to adjust to the nearly invisible track lights, but I followed the clumping of Colton’s boots.

“Well for starters I’m not a pussy.” He flashed me a grin, and I rolled my eyes. “I’ve been at this a lot longer, and as captain I’m not expected to do the hard jumps anymore.”

I scoffed. “Bullshit. I bet you do all of them, and if your training is any good I’ll be fine.”

He turned on me with a jackal-like smile I could barely make out with his closeness. “Think I’d still be here if that wasn’t overlooked by my higher ups?”

“Not a chance.” I adjusted the magnet bands on my wrists. “Where are we going to today?”

“I figured I’d scare the shit out of you inspecting a fissure sixteen hundred or so kilometers down on the east side.”

I swallowed. The number corresponded to a drop that would shatter every organ and bone in a human body. I reveled in the safety of the darkness. There wasn’t any drop if I couldn’t see it.

“I saw that.” He turned back, and I had to jog to catch up to him.

“What?”

“You don’t have it under control anymore.” He didn’t stop until we were at the next set of lift banks.

“It will be.”

“This isn’t the control room. You asked for this. Someone could fucking die if you don’t control it.” He studied me as we waited for the next express down. “From the floor we are going to have to go down two hundred meters to find the fissure.”

“Put me on the team.”

He laughed as he stepped into the metal box that would take us down fourteen hundred kilometers in the next twenty minutes. “Your first day you want to watch my back?”

I held my ground staring at him, ignoring the drop. My feet lifted off the ground, and I reached for one of the handles on the ceiling. Colton leaned back against the wall, having hooked his toes in a curve in the floor.

“Let’s do it,” he said but paused and pointed a finger at my chest. “But you get nothing deeper until you’ve gone through all the bullshit safety training.”

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Madden

I was dirty, sore, and covered in bruises when I walked in my door. My small cot had nothing on the bed I’d slept on while on Trenton, but it looked like heaven from where I stood. I’d promised Colton I’d go race, but maybe I’d just go to sleep. I kicked off my boots, not bothering to change out of my clothes before collapsing onto the thin mattress.

My comm beeped, and a smile crossed my lips. God, I hoped she was up, finally. I never thought a pin across thousands of light years, a stupid bit of data that was a random scrabble of letters until it showed up on my screen, would mean so much to me. I had never been so attached to my communicator. I typed in my passcode, bringing up the screen to see it was a message from her.

J: Hey

The simple word made my stomach flip, sending sparks flying through me.

M: I miss you.

I could instantly see she read the message. I sat up, too on edge now to lie down. I watched the dots scroll across the screen, telling me she was typing. I was so wrapped up in watching the screen, picturing her sitting curled up in a chair thinking about me that I didn’t notice Colton standing over me.

“Dude.”

I looked up, shaken.

“Watching porn?” He licked his dry lips. They were tinged blue and cracked from the mines. “Because I can’t think of anything else that would have you that distracted.” He leaned over trying to see the screen.

I clicked the power button at the top feeling it buzz in my hand a moment later. I was anxious to read what she had said. “Something like that.”

“Ready to go the race?”

I noticed for the first time he had his bike helmet tucked under his arm. I gripped my phone tighter, pushing the fingers of my other into my hair.

“Oh, shit. Was that tonight?” I scrunched up my face as I glanced up at him, trying to act like I forgot. “I can’t tonight, man. Got an early shift.” I wanted to stay here with J.

“You can’t use that with me anymore, bro. You’re on my team, and we are off rotation tomorrow.” He licked over his lips again. “You’ve been like this since you got back.”

Fuck. I half shrugged not wanting even my best friend to figure me out. “Getting back into things. I’ve been off. It’s only been a few days. Get off my back.”

He turned but looked back over me. “You can’t keep this up.”

As he walked out I knew he was right, but how could I turn off these feelings? I opened my communicator seeing the message.

J: I miss you. Going to be around tonight?

I typed out a quick reply.

M: I have nothing more important going on than spending the night with you.

J: Good, I need some time to talk and decompress.

Something happen? I replied.

J: It’s too much to type, bad day yesterday.

I wished I could get tone from her messages, but it didn’t translate. I could feel her hurting through the words.

M: I wish I was there to hold you.

J: Me too…

Her short response had my mind whirling. Did I make it worse?

She typed a messaged but didn’t send it. I frowned. There was a way I could hold her. I was holding back. I hadn’t yet told her. I didn’t know if I should. I trusted the contacts I’d made, including Hornsbee, but I knew those groups always had an agenda. Then there was the fear.

Her message sat there for a long time blinking on my screen. There was something she wasn’t saying.

J: You know there is a way. So why not use it?

M: It’s backdoor into a virtual network the Reds use for secret meetings.

J: Why are you so hesitant?

M: Because I’ve been told there are side effects, and it’s not always easy to get in.

I would have given anything to have a real conversation with her at that point. I didn’t know what was right or wrong.

J: Give it to me straight please. You’re not telling me why you’re hesitant. Let’s go live there.

I laughed at her reaction. I loved when she was annoyed with me.

M: Because the host has to fight through our subconscious to get there. I looked and looked, but no one has found a way around that part. Then it’s fickle, you can reject it at any point and because of the setup, your brain rejecting it and bandwidth you can’t go back right away once rejected. It couldn’t be an everyday thing.

J: Okay… That doesn’t sound horrid. Is this why you were so hesitant last night?

M: I don’t know if it’s a good idea to owe these people, J.

J: Are you scared of your mind? I’m not. It would be worth it for you.

M: Most of that will be on me as I’ll be the host and the world will run in my mind. You might get a little residual. It’s different for everyone. They couldn’t really tell me.

J: I get it now.

She could read me so well. I wasn’t surprised. She started typing again so I waited.

J: Jacob gave me the program and helped on my end. I’m not surprised, he loves those hacker types. I figured if you do it on your days off and lock yourself in your room… Or on my days off and your nights.

M: It would be nice to hold you.

J: We are losing precious days. I don’t want to miss time with you.

J: I don’t think you understand how much I need you.

The last thing I wanted was to disappoint her. I was torn between being scared of my mind and wanting to please her. I needed to race to get my head straight. Tasting death might give me enough reprieve to face this.

M: I guess we can try it.

I was like a desperate drug addict without her, but I regretted it as soon as I sent the message. She was right. My head was a mess, and I didn’t want to deal with it.

J: I can tonight. You’ll be off right?

My chest got tight.

M: Maybe we should talk about it more.

J: How many of our limited days do you want to waste?

She was right. I knew she was, but it didn’t help the wrenching in my gut.

J: You know every day you put off things with me is another day we are never going to get back. I know you’re trying to get your head straight, but think of all these days as subtracted from our total. We are here for such a limited time, and you want to keep wasting them because you’re nervous?

I said nothing. I could tell how mad she was. She only ranted when she’d been pushed to her limit.

J: I have to go soon.

J: I’m not trying to be mean, but I’ve realized I already lost you once and I don’t want to waste anymore time.

M: I’m sorry I’m scared.

J: I’m trying to hold on to anything we have left, and you’re pushing me away.

M: I’m not trying to.

J: Don’t tell me you want me. If you want me prove it, if not let me go.

She exited out of the message. I picked up my comm to throw it against the wall, but I paused and reined myself in.

M: Please don’t do this.

She didn’t reply, but I could see she read the message.

M: Jocelynn I’m begging you.

I scrubbed a hand over my face. “Fuck.” I swallowed hard. It was fear that was holding me back from her. She was right about everything. I was wasting what we had. I was an idiot.

M: Let’s do it now.

M: You’re right.

M: I’m sorry.

My hands shook as I sent the three messages in quick succession. I put my comm down when she didn’t reply right away. I felt like I was coming out of my skin. I paced the small room. What if it was too little, too late? She might have gone to her morning classes or meetings, or maybe Jacob dragged her off. He had never wanted us together. I rubbed my hands together then scrubbed them down my face. I looked at the clock. It felt like an hour had passed, but it had only been minutes.

My comm buzzed, and I dove for it, glad to see it was her replying and not Colt. I opened the message to read.

J: I can’t now.

The message hit me like a weight, and I staggered back, falling to a seat. If I waited I wouldn’t do it. I reached into my pocket and pulled out the tiny device that would link me to the nets. Holding it in my palm, I typed out a message to her.

M: Get Jacob to help you with one of the pre-gen worlds. I’ll meet you there first thing in my morning. Load up the program.

Everything had already been linked by the Reds. All we had to do was load up a world and go. The words of the old man lingered in my mind. I would have to face my worst fears to get through this. I didn’t even wait for her reply. I had to do this. Not even racing helped me sleep. As soon as I closed my eyes, sleep evaded me. I tossed and turned all night. I couldn’t sleep. My mind kept coming back to one thing. What were my worst fears?

When dawn awoke me, I’d guessed I’d only gotten an hour or two of sleep, but it was now or never. I pressed the piece to the back of my neck and closed my eyes.