Heavenfall: Genviants Book 1 (11 page)

David grabbed the guy's wrist. "Sorry, dude. I'm just the delivery boy. You wanna touch, you gotta deal with Dex first. She's his property."

Muscle guy's face reddened when David mentioned Dex, but his expression changed to a look of understanding. "Hey, are you two defects?"

"What?" David's grip tightened.

"Did you defect from a gang?"

"It's defector."
Asshole
, David added under his breath. "And no, we didn't defect from a gang."

Muscle guy pulled his hand free, shook it out, and steadied himself back on the stool. "Sheez, don't take it so personal. It's no skin off mine either way. But it don't matter who she belongs to, if you two cause any trouble down there, both of you are out on your asses. Understand?"

David nodded. "Job's waiting, Princess."

Holding her breath, eyes on her destination, she stepped through the arch and kept walking. The guys with the beers must've overheard David's exchange with the guy, because they all scooted their chairs so they faced her as she walked past them. One man used his tongue and his beer bottle to let her know exactly what he wanted her to do. Bile rose in the back of her throat, but she managed to stay in character. She slowed when she reached their table and offered the men a smile and a wink. Couldn't hurt to have them on her side if things went south. They might run some interference for her if she needed to leave quick.

"Keep it moving, Princess."

No alarms, thank God. Relief lightened her step and widened her smile.

The stim bar wasn't anything like she expected. Rows of cubicles spanned the length of the building, had to be at least sixty or seventy stations, and the only light came from the tiny comp screens. People sat tethered to the control panels in various states of consciousness. Their bodies twitched, bounced, fought, or writhed with the artificial emotions being pumped into their brains. Some cried, some sang, and a handful, maybe six or seven, were openly having sex. Only a one or two of the partners were prostitutes. Looked like the rest of them were wives, or husbands. Their touches were slower, more deliberate, more intimate, than the automatic responses from the professionals. And none of the partners acknowledged Mary and David's presence in the room. Probably thought they were there for the same reasons and looking for an empty comp to hook into.

"This place gives me the jitters. Nobody has their eyes open. And why aren't any pictures on the screens? It's like they're all hypnotized or something."

"Seeing ruins the fantasy, princess. The stim programs are designed to tap into the visual cortex. Pumps the images, hell everything, smells, sounds, touches, directly into their brains."

"No wonder they get addicted." A shiver crawled across her skin, even though the lack of good circulation and the press of so many bodies stifled the air and made the space hot. "Let's find a port, get the virus uploaded, and get out."

David glanced over the room. "I don't see any open comps close. The screens are time indicators. A full stimulation session starts with blue, counts down to red. Look for an open comp, or one with an orange or red screen. You take the right, and I'll take the left. Whistle if you find one."

They separated, moved through the rows, and met at the back of the room.

"I got nothing," Mary said.

"Me neither."

"What do we do now? Wait? Break some controller's connection?"

"It would be messy to break a connection. They've got to come down slow, or it messes them up. The program gets caught in the hardware and keeps looping or something. I don't understand it, but I've seen the effects. At first you think it can't be that bad, you know, to have some emotion rattling around in the mind." He wiggled his fingers next to his temple. "I mean, most people do, right? But controllers, their brains don't function like most people's. Brain starts rejecting the emotion, 'cause it's not supposed to be there. All those images and stuff start bleeding out and mixing with what's physically happening around them. Drives them batshit crazy. Can't escape the hallucinations, and then they go comatose. They can't speak, or move, but in their eyes? You can see they're terrified. Hadrian's favorite form of discipline."

"Okay, so we wait. I saw a couple of yellow screens. Maybe they're close to being orange."

"Can't wait too long, though." He leaned against the wall and pulled his lighter out of his pocket. Not a disposable, but an old Zippo he'd inherited from his grandfather. "The guy at the door? I got the feeling he might just come down here with his hope in his hands to watch you work while he jacks his pathetic dick off in a corner." The click of the lighter's top opening and closing accentuated each word.

"But I'm not doing—oh."

"Yeah, and when he sees you not doing anything, I'll have to kick his ass." The loud click of his lighter closing echoed through the room. "On principle for thinking about you that way, then
I’d have to kick it again so he wouldn't run back upstairs and rat us out, and I don't know if my arms can take it. Plus, the longer we have to wait, the better the chances we get caught."

"But if we break a connection, we're no better than Hadrian."

"Never claimed to be, Princess."

CHAPTER
ELEVEN

Jonah kept his head down as he entered the med center and tried not to draw the attention of the people around him. The leather jacket covered his biomechanics, but the dragon skin tat covering the left side of his face drew a few stares. One mother pulled her toddler out of the play area and kept the squirming, crying boy on her lap. Like he'd hurt a kid. If Jonah had time, he'd let the little boy examine the tat, trace it with his sticky fingers. Kids might be a little scared, at first, but their fascination and natural curiosity usually won out over the fear.

And they didn't judge.

He winked at the boy and walked to the reception desk.

The young woman nodded to acknowledge his presence, but didn't look up from her comp screen. "May I help you?" A stack of forms with creases and bent corners sat to her left, and files were scattered over the area. A half empty coffee cup sat next to the keyboard.

"Jonah Sullivan. I have an appointment."

"Oh." She stopped typing, stood, and grabbed her cup. "Follow me, please."

She turned and walked straight to a pair of double doors behind her. "The surgical suite is prepped and ready."

The change of scenery startled him. Behind the doors, the faded colors of the waiting area that attempted to be cheerful, but often failed, changed to stark white, and the temperature dropped by about ten degrees. The receptionist's heels clicked against the tile floor as she hurried down the hallway, and the smell of antiseptic permeated the air. Nurses, interns, and medics hustled, dodging carts, gurneys, and others to get to their destinations. A different kind of life and death deal than those in the fringes, or on the wall, but life and death all the same.

At the first station, the receptionist handed him over to a nurse. "Take real good care of Mr. Sullivan, Trish. He's one of our special patients."

Trish plastered a fake smile on her face and tapped data into her porta-comp. "This way." She nestled the tablet in the crook of arm and stepped from behind the counter. "The surgical team and surgeons are
waiting in sterile containment for the go ahead. They're very excited."

"Excuse me? Surgeons? More than one."

"Of course. The procedures are scheduled for simultaneous execution. Not something we do often around here due to Palisade oversight. We've applied for permission in the past from their Med Board, and they've turned us down almost every time." She turned a corner. "You're a lucky man." She waited a beat. The curiosity, blatant in her eyes, turned to resignation when he stayed silent. "Anyway, the lobectomy and the implantations utilize the latest in laser, optical, and video assisted surgical methods. With the advances made in the past few years, the procedures are practically non-invasive. You shouldn't be 'under the knife' for more than an hour or so, and post-op recovery should last about the same amount of time."

He'd seen a lot of blood and guts injuries over the last couple of years. Always considered himself as someone with a cast iron stomach. But if she mentioned sterile, execution, or knife one more time in her false 'cheerful voice', he was going to lose it.

They entered the pre-op ward, and she led him into room number four.  "Dr. Ernst wants to do a quick brain scan before the surgery. Please remove all articles of clothing and jewelry and lie on the table. Have you made arrangements for someone to drive you home?"

"Yeah, a friend is coming." If David and Mary managed to make it out of
Sensations
okay. Couldn't think about it. Not now. Of course they'd make it out, and David would show up to get his biosynth refill. Not to play chauffeur, but Nurse Happy didn't need to know that.

Jonah made quick work of removing his clothes while Trish used the scanner on her porta-comp to get his vitals. "You're in excellent health, Mr. Sullivan." She raked her gaze over his chest and torso. "Excellent. But your blood pressure is a little high. Understandable under the circumstances." Her gaze went to his crotch. "Is everything functioning properly? Your biomechanics, I mean. Any problems?"

He flexed his arms. "There's a little nerve damage. I don't have the fine motor control I used to have."

"Not unexpected. How much of a loss?"

"Can't play the guitar, at least not anything faster than a ballad. Gotta take it slow when using a comp, texting, that sort of thing."

"Noted. Dr Ernst is working on some experimental regeneration techniques that look promising. Would you like to submit to a trial?"

"Not today. Maybe some other time."

"Perhaps we could meet sometime? Let me show you the advantages of getting that fine motor control back?"

Something about her wasn't right, but now was not the time to figure it out. "We'll see."

The smile faded, and she patted the table. "Okay, up you go."

The padded metal wasn't as cold as he thought it'd be, but the look in Nurse Happy's eyes gave him the chills. Like she wouldn't mind crawling on top of him. And clawing his eyes out while she screwed him.

"Relax, Mr. Sullivan." She smiled and positioned the mobile scanner over his head. "This won't hurt."

No, it tingled, like standing too close to a power line.

He heard the door open, but couldn't see who came in. Not that it mattered. Not much he could do with his head in the scanner.

"Dr. Ernst!" Nurse Trish didn't sound happy to see the doc. "This is unacceptable. You've broken sterilization protocol. I'll have to report this."

"You run along and do that," he answered. "I'll finish the scan and go through sterilization with you and the patient."

Judging by the strangled sound that came from the nurse, Jonah guessed she wasn't too happy. The slamming door confirmed it.

The tingling stopped, and the doc moved the machine away from Jonah's head. "Hello, Jonah. It's been awhile. You look well."

"Oh, hell no." Jonah started to get off the table. He'd never learned the name of the doc who'd ‘rehabilitated’ Dr. Kistner, and now the son-of-a-bitch stood at the side of the table and smiled as if they were old friends. "You are not going to dig around in my brain."

"Certainly not. This operation is a very delicate and complicated procedure. I am not going to dig."

"Damn straight."

Dr. Ernst walked to the door, checked the hallway, and turned the lock. "We don't have much time. I know you don't trust me, but you need to. I'm working with Dex, and so is Dr. Kistner. We're both going to be in the surgical suite."

"Don't try to bullshit me. You castrated Dr. Kistner, remember?"

"No, I didn't. Dex convinced me not to. He can be...very persuasive."

"Why should I believe you?"

"You believed Dex. You came here. Trust me
. We're not going to hurt you."

"Like you said, Dex can be persuasive." He closed his eyes for a moment and took a deep breath. "Okay, let's do this."

"Before we start the surgery, I need to know when you blasted." Doctor Ernst pulled Jonah's chart up on the medi-comp.

"How did you know?"

"Dex told me, and the scan confirmed it. So, how long ago."

How the hell did Dex know
? "About a year."

"What's your ability?"

"My brain turned into a freakin' comp. Stats, equations, if thens, calculations. I see them, like on a screen in my head, worked out with the answers. No matter how complex. And this is going to sound crazy, but sometimes I swear I can communicate with electronics and get them to do what I want."

"Technopathy? Amazing. There's no indication of this development in our report. When did you first notice it?"

"It was after a boost to the web. Not the one two days ago. The one before that. I was using my comp, and it started doing stuff on its own. Freaked me out at first, until I realized it was going to web pages I was thinking about, or opening a program I needed."

Doctor Ernst started to make a note on the chart, but deleted it. "I believe more study in this area is warranted, and it might be better if we kept this development to ourselves for now. It seems to be a natural progression of your ability, commensurate with the power emitted by the web. We've known for quite some time that the change in the light spectrum created by the web is the cause of the brainwave transformation, which precipitates the clots, and the increase of psychic abilities, but we don't know if everyone is experiencing an augmentation of their abilities the way you have, or even if the abilities will remain once the web is no longer active."

A sharp knock rattled the door. "Dr. Ernst!" Nurse Trish called. "Mr. Sullivan needs to be prepped. Now."

Dr. Ernst started to unlock the door, but stopped. "When you closed your eyes a minute ago, you were running the calculations? Determined I'm telling the truth?"

"Yeah, but don't get too cocky, doc. You didn't win out by much."

The doc grinned. "I'll take it. Now, let's get you prepped and in the sterilization room before Nurse Trish breaks the door down."

"Wait. Just promise me one thing, doc."

"Anything."

"Don't let Nurse Trish play with my dick while I'm out."