The Harmony Paradox (Virtual Immortality Book 2) Read online

  The pseudo-child clasped her hands at her chest and seemed to be hyperventilating, showing no reaction at all to Katya walking in, instead staring glassy-eyed into nothingness.

  “Eve?” She knelt nearby and put a hand on the girl’s head. “What’s wrong?”

  Eve twitched, startled, and looked up. Panic weakened with a glimmer of recognition. “It’s almost time.” She grabbed at her throat, wheezing as if she had to fight to breathe. “It’s gonna get me.”

  Katya pulled the shivering body into her lap. “Almost time?”

  Eve exaggerated a slow nod. “The pain…”

  “It’s not going to get you.” Katya wrapped her arms around the girl and held her, scowling at the wall while imagining Joey making fun of her for trying to act like a ‘real person with emotions.’ “The nanobots are gone.”

  Eve shivered. “I know.” She grasped two fistfuls of Katya’s shirt, continuing to tremble. “But I’m still freaking out. Any second now, everything is gonna hurt like I’m burning.”

  Katya rocked her. “It’s not going to happen.”

  “It’s late.” Eve squirmed. “I gotta hide. I can’t let them find me when it happens, when I’m helpless. Gotta hide.”

  “You’re safe,” whispered Katya, struggling to hang on to the squirming girl.

  “Gotta hide.” Eve strained to escape, pushing and wriggling, her whimpers growing to shrieks.

  Katya pinned Eve’s wrists together at her chest and trapped the girl’s legs between hers. Despite her diminutive size, the child had enough strength that Katya had to work to hold her still. She held on, repeatedly whispering, “The nanobots are gone. The pain is gone.”

  Eventually, Eve stopped fighting and went limp.

  “Breathe slow. Hold it for two seconds, let it out,” said Katya.

  Eve gasped, sucked in a few rapid gulps of air, and worked on rhythmic breathing. Five minutes later, she seemed to have regained control, so Katya released her grip.

  The girl reached up and wiped her face with both hands. “Okay, that was embarrassing.”

  “Don’t be ashamed. What those people did to you…”

  Eve sat up with a pensive expression. She squirmed around a little before smiling. “It’s getting better. I didn’t shit myself this time.”

  Katya stifled a laugh. “Progress is good.” She eyed the dress. “Did you not say you disliked that one because it made you look ‘too girly?’”

  “I dunno. Figure it’ll be less suspicious if I act like a little kid in public.” Eve shrugged. “I have to wait until I’m legally eighteen to join the military anyway. Might as well frill it up when I can. They trained us to ‘exploit our cuteness.’”

  Katya blinked. “What? You want to join the military after what they did to you?”

  “No.” Eve shook her head. “The military didn’t do that to us. Starpoint did. The military tried to shut it down once they found out about it.” She stood and held her arms out to the sides. “I’ve got like twelve years of training in special operations tactics, weapons, hand to hand combat techniques―not that this stringbean body is going to do much with it―what else am I going to do when I ‘grow up?’”

  “You are going to school. You’re only in second grade. Study whatever you want when you get older. Don’t do something that will get you shot.” Katya fussed at the girl’s hair. “I didn’t take you out of that facility only to get a notice that you’ve been killed in action.”

  Eve swatted at Katya’s hand, half-grinning. “Overprotective much, Mom?”

  Katya started to laugh, but wound up sighing. “If I had a second chance like you, the last thing I’d ever want to do is what I’ve been trained to do.”

  Eve sat cross-legged. “I doubt your life was as fucked up as mine. What did they do to you?”

  “I only have a few memories of being with a family. We were commoners, and they―”

  “Poor?” asked Eve.

  Katya nodded. “It is a strict system there. ‘Commoner’ is more official than merely being poor. There is the Board of Directors, who live like royalty. Then you have the Executives who want for nothing. To them, the ACC is the perfect life. Freedom, wealth, political influence.” She grumbled. “Citizens come next. They don’t have it too bad either. Commoners are the lowest, above only criminals… though the difference is a small one. They treated us like two-legged rats. A necessary evil.”

  Eve stared down at her hands. For a second, it seemed another panic attack would set in, but she stretched her fingers, smiled, and grasped her knees. “There’s lots of poor people here too.”

  “Yes. I suppose then it is not so different. One day, my parents never came home. I was alone. I never did find out what happened. Perhaps I was six? I lived for a while by myself in our tiny flat until the rent ate up all the credits. I heard the landlord calling the CMO to take me, so I ran.”

  “CMO?” asked Eve.

  “Citizen Management Officers. Like police… Division 1 here, only to them it is like a job. They stop caring when they clock out.”

  Eve nodded.

  “I ran away and lived on the streets for a while. There were communes where the poorest commoners, unable to rent even a flat like my parents had, lived in ruined buildings. No one took me in, but enough felt sorry for me that I didn’t starve. I was about ten when my former ‘employer’ found me. They offered me food and a clean bed, but I had to work for them. At the time, I thought they were asking me. Looking back on it, I didn’t have any choice. I was basically abducted.”

  “They made you work as a little kid?” Eve blinked.

  “No… First they poked me with all sorts of needles and machines, trying to make me psionic. It didn’t work. I remember being sick and weak for a long time. When I turned twelve, they started to train me on how to infiltrate. What they could not do with psionics, they did with cybernetics as I got older. As a teen, they forced me to do training missions. If I failed or got caught, I would be beaten or…”

  Eve tilted her head. “Raped?”

  Katya looked away. “It’s not so easy to think of you as an adult. I should not discuss such things with a child.”

  “Yeah. I know. Sometimes I forget too.” Eve picked at the rug.

  “It was motivation.” Katya grumbled. “They would not shoot to kill. That would waste all the money they spent on me, but it hurt. After my training finished, I became a company asset. A slave. The company owned me. When I fled to come to the UCF, they charged me with stealing company property―myself.”

  Eve gasped. “That’s bullshit.”

  Katya shrugged. “It’s legal to them. I owed them for all the money they spent taking care of me as I grew up, all the money they spent training me, and all the value of my enhancements. I was a spy, an assassin, an escort… whatever they needed.”

  “That’s really screwed up.” Eve stretched her legs out and tapped her big toes together. “I still think I got ya beat.”

  “I think so too.” Katya leaned forward and ruffled the girl’s hair. “I suppose to be fair, up until sixteen, my life was not so bad. Strict, yes. Controlled, yes, but I never wanted for food or a warm bed.”

  “I’m not really a kid mentally, but sometimes it gets the better of me. Like this morning I whacked my foot on the bed and I just couldn’t stop crying.”

  Katya laughed.

  Eve glowered. “It’s not funny. I was sitting there freaking out why I’m crying over jamming my toe like some little kid, while I’m sitting there screaming my head off.”

  “Well, your body is still that of a child’s, even if you have been conscious for twenty years. Some things might be umm…” Katya waved her hand around in a circle while thinking. “Chemical?”

  Eve kept picking at the rug beside her knee. “I’m still surprised I’m not like totally psychotic.”

  “Probably because your mind was older than a child’s when the pain started to get bad.”

  “The training helped too.” Eve stretched
. “So, now what?”

  Katya fiddled with the drawstring on her sweatpants. “Well, my associate altered records so you’re legally eight, and my daughter… How do you want to do this? Am I Mom? Big Sis? Roommate?”

  Eve glanced at the ceiling, pursed her lips, and smiled. “Why don’t you run with all three depending on where my brain goes at any given moment?”

  Katya chuckled.

  “I’ll act like a normal kid in public. At home…” Eve stared at her, slate-blue eyes giving off too much maturity for the face around them. “I never did have parents. That whole clone thing sucked. If you wanna be my mother, I’m okay with that… but if you try to make me to go bed at eight, we’re going to have an issue.”

  “We’ll see about that.” Katya winked.

  Eve laughed. “So what about you? Guess you need, like, a day job or something.”

  Ugh. Katya slouched forward, head down. “Yeah. I do.”

  nxious pacing filled the pristine white hallway with the muted scuff of boots. Kenny Marlon suppressed a cringe every time he glanced up at the gold caduceus on the wall above the Amaranth Medical logo. Eight months his wife Kathy had been in and out of this place―more in than out. He’d never be able to thank Joey enough for finding the files about the shit TMC had gotten her hooked on. The bill had to have gone into the millions of credits by now, but Triton Manufacturing Corporation had agreed to cover it, provided he didn’t sue them or talk to the NewsNet.

  Of course, he insisted on adding an escape clause: Kathy had to survive detox. Maybe it had been foolish, but he didn’t care about punitive money as long as he had her back. He’d leave punitive to the law.

  A pair of passing medtechs gave him a disdainful look. They both probably thought his dark brown duster coat had been made of real leather. Or maybe they didn’t think he looked like the ‘right sort of person’ to be in an Amaranth facility. Nerves made the exchange humorous, and he chuckled, a gesture that seemed to further annoy them. He raised two fingers to the brim of his cowboy hat and saluted them.

  “Well,” he whispered to himself. “Might as well do this.”

  At his move to approach the plain white door, a panel on the wall chirped. A C-shaped area under a fingerprint reader glowed green without him even touching it, and the door split in half and receded into the walls.

  Kathy sat on the room’s only Comforgel pad, the soft glow of the luminous mattress tinted the back of her clingy smock orange. He paused after one step, unable to help but stare at her. Frizzy light brown hair hung wild, down to the middle of her back. She had her head bowed slightly forward, hands together at her chest as though she appraised something small. A pile of folded clothes sat to her right, though she hadn’t made a move to get dressed.

  “Hey,” said Kenny. “You almost ready?”

  Kathy twisted around to look at him. Her expression of utter frustration gave way to relief. “You’re a little early.”

  He sauntered up to the foot end of the bed, hooking his thumbs in his jean pockets. “Heard a rumor some lady was in need of a ride. And she’s in a bit of a hurry.”

  Kathy laughed. The way her eyes sparkled washed away the past year or so of hell. She’d again become the woman he remembered marrying. “Well, you heard right… only I can’t figure out how to get this damn thing off.”

  “Well now. I think I can help you with that.” He rounded the corner of the bed and took her hand. “I’ve got a little experience in that regard.”

  A hint of blush appeared in her cheeks. She looked about to laugh at herself, but let her hands fall in her lap with a morose stare at the floor.

  “What?” His playfulness gave way to concern. “Is it something the doctors said?”

  “No.” She picked at her fingernails. “I can’t figure out how to open this MolWeave. I’ve been fighting with it for almost a half hour. How much damage is there? What else will I forget how to do?”

  He caressed her cheek for a second before sitting on the edge of the bed at her side. “They didn’t detect any memory loss from the time before they got you hooked on that shit.”

  “I know… but I’m worried.” She leaned against him. “I feel like I’ve been in and out of a dream for months. Sometimes I’m not sure if things I remember really happened or if I had nightmares.”

  Kenny pulled her tight with one arm while grasping at the grape-sized black lump at the medical smock’s collar. He gave it a squeeze, but it didn’t do anything. “Ain’t you.”

  “What?” Kathy looked up.

  “The MolWeave’s broken.” He squeezed it again for show. “These things ain’t hard to work. Squeeze it and pull. It ain’t doin’ nothin’.”

  Kathy covered her mouth and laughed. “I didn’t think these things broke.”

  “Probably a dead battery.” He reached for a knife on his belt.

  “Wait.” Kathy leaned over and hit the call button. “They’ll probably charge us ten grand to replace it.”

  He chuckled.

  A moment or so later, a head-sized orb bot glided in. Golden light glowed from its single large lens-eye as well as from seams in its plastisteel shell. “Good afternoon, Kathy Marlon. How may I assist you?”

  She pulled the stretchy material an inch off her collarbone and pointed at the MolWeave fastener. “It’s broken… I can’t get this off.”

  “Oh. Amaranth Medical apologizes for the inconvenience.” The orb glided closer, and projected a small grid of blue laser light over the area. “Indeed. Its micro power cell has run down. I shall replace it for you immediately.”

  A tiny hatch opened in the orb, from which extended a thin metal arm and a gripper claw. It grasped the plastic egg while inserting the thin prod into the fastener, which detached from the garment with a click. The orb rocketed off, carrying the grape-sized MolWeave pod.

  Kathy glanced down at the sheer fabric. “I can’t remember being sewn into my clothing before.”

  He chuckled. “That thing’s so tight it may as well be paint.”

  She blushed. “It’ll be good to go home again.”

  “Your parents aren’t too thrilled with that, I bet.”

  “Oh, not really.” She grumbled. “The way Mom’s reacting to us not getting a divorce, you’d think I’d lost a child… and Dad.” A scowl hardened her features. “He thinks you somehow had something to do with giving me the drugs.”

  Kenny drew in a breath to shout a declaration of innocence, but stalled at her grin.

  “He convinced himself you wanted to get rid of me. Both of them wanted me to wind up an exec somewhere… permanently single, like Mom almost did.”

  “The way those two are always after each other, it’s a miracle you exist at all.” He chuckled.

  “Oh.” Kathy shrugged. “It’s just stuff she blurts when they argue. I don’t really think she regrets her choice, but she wanted me to do what she didn’t. I think having them in a permanent state of being disappointed in me and angry with you keeps them on better terms with each other.”

  Kenny grinned and rendered a half-bow. “I live to please.”

  The orb shot back in, glided up to Kathy, and clipped a MolWeave onto the material at the smock’s neck. As soon as the tiny device snapped shut, it chirped. Two seconds later, it beeped.

  “There,” said the orb. “That one should work. Again, we apologize for the inconvenience. If you would like me to remain for a moment while you verify that you are now able to change clothing, I shall.”

  Kathy squeezed the rubbery egg, and it chirped again. She pulled it down her front, and the formerly-solid cloth opened on either side of a trail of thin plastic as nanobots constructed a ‘zipper’ on the fly. “It’s good. Thank you.”

  The orb glided out as she stood.

  Kenny leaned back to appreciate the view. While in the throes of her addiction, Kathy had threatened Alyssa with a knife on more than one occasion. Despite proof that her former employer had gotten her addicted against her knowledge, and the drug had been r
esponsible for her personality changes, it had taken the courts forever to rescind their order that she not share a dwelling with the girl. After yesterday’s last round of psychological interviews, they finally accepted that she would not try to kill her daughter again.

  Not a second after Kathy stepped out of the garment and stood naked before him, he wrapped his arms around her and held on.

  “Ken…” She giggled. “What are you doing? We’re in the middle of a hospital.”

  “I’ve never been this happy before. Well… okay maybe once.” He gave her a brief kiss and let go so she could dress.

  “Oh?” She pulled panties on before reaching for the shirt. “And when would that be?”

  He waved his hand around, eyes squinting like he had to fight for a memory. “I’m a bit fuzzy on the details. That day I had to wear a suit and say a bunch of stuff in front of a city clerk.”

  She pulled on the shirt, fluffed her hair out of it, and kissed him again. Her smile faded. “I’m so, so sorry.”

  “It’s not your fault. Please believe me when I say I don’t blame you for any of it.” He brushed her hair off her face. “It’s just so damn good to have you back.”

  She slipped into a loose pair of grey pants with thigh pockets and a pseudo-military aesthetic. She didn’t look up while buttoning them. “How’s Alyssa feel about me coming home?”

  “Don’t worry. She can’t wait. She’s not the least bit afraid.”

  Kathy buried her face in her hands and sighed. “I keep seeing that night replay in my dreams. That look she gave me…”

  “Hey.” He pulled her in close again. “Alyssa’s smart like her mother. She understands that wasn’t really you.”

  “I don’t deserve this.” She stepped into her shoes. “I was so… evil to my family.”

  “Not you.” He folded his arms. “Every day I worried that we’d lose you. You know I never wanted to separate. If they didn’t threaten to take Alyssa away, I wouldn’t have made you leave.”