Sugar Skulls Read online

  The assistant reappears with datapad in hand and points to several spots on the screen. When he catches me watching them, he frowns slightly, offering a look of pity before turning away.

  Trav resumes his analysis. “No sign of biotech or other foreign material in the brain tissue.” He gives the full scientific spiel to the microphone, explaining how the overdose charred my neural pathways.

  No wonder Cyrene’s best chemical treats don’t affect me anymore.

  His last statement sticks with me: “The thalamus remains virtually untouched, so his ability to feel pain is unimpaired.”

  At that moment, I swear the barest hint of a smile crosses Trav’s face. A smile colder than applejack withdrawal.

  “As expected, the subject’s responses bear a strong resemblance to my own, recorded nine months ago. Higher-than-average tolerance for pain, heightened ability to regulate the body’s reaction to adrenaline. Changes well complemented by the subject’s naturally impressive coordination, balance, and reflexes. And the abnormally fast metabolism that marginalized the applejack’s effects just enough to stave off death.”

  My mind drifts back to better times with Trav. Training together, running the obstacle course, making the city our playground. Brothers in everything …

  Until they sent me home in that coma, and kept him.

  Did they make him a monster? Did I?

  In my reverie, I’ve missed some of the science talk. I focus on Trav’s lips as he speaks. “We will now proceed with a full sweep, reintroducing nanotech and returning the subject to the grid.”

  Standing up, he wheels over a horseshoe-shaped device with regularly spaced injectors, which he attaches to the braces holding my head in place. Trav removes the paralytic patch again, leaving my neck raw from the adhesive. “How you holdin’ up?”

  Wetting my lips, I slowly reply, almost begging. “Trav, please—”

  The device locks in place with a resounding click, and he steps back, expression chillingly blank. “Now, this may sting a bit. Your body’s been without nanotech for a long time, so the reintroduction might be a bit … aggressive.”

  This time, he doesn’t get the paralyzer on before I start screaming.

  V

  The costume change is ridiculous but necessary. Shedding my party dress like a snakeskin, I throw on head-to-toe skintight black lace, clip in some fire-engine red extensions, and manage full face paint in less than five. Jax and Sasha are dressed to match in even less time.

  To hell with the styling team.

  “I locked Little Dead Thing in my bathroom,” Sasha says, hefting the digital broadcasting console. “He’s been through enough for one day.”

  Jax snorts so that I don’t have to. Carrying her minipharmacy and the injector that Damon thoughtfully left on my bathroom counter, Jax hands over one of her precious haptic gloves, the neoprene peeled back to expose a serious amount of wiring. “That’s the best I could do in fifteen minutes. The insulation’s compromised now, so be careful.”

  “Got it.” I pull on the glove and wrap Micah’s broken chain around my knuckles to maximize surface contact. Holding everything tight, I run a half-second test on my leg with the improvised Brights, which hurts like holy fuck. A few minutes later, I can move enough to consider a jailbreak.

  Adjusting the vocal modulator, I wait for Sasha to patch me into the security circuit. When she gives me the go-ahead, I borrow Damon’s voice again. “Everyone to the back alley of the building. There’s been a breach at the loading dock.”

  I hear the message relay down the hall out of six different radios. As one, the guards stampede for the service exit at the back of the Loft.

  “Let’s go.” I lead the way down the hall, trying to keep my breathing and my heart rate in check. Trying to play out every possible outcome of our mad escape.

  No one better get between me and that limo.

  We’ve reached a dead run when the front door opens just ahead of us. Damon steps into the foyer, a bottle of over-the-Wall champagne in his hand, a smile playing about his lips.

  Then he catches a good look at my face and starts to sputter. “Vee, what the hell—”

  Barreling into him at a million miles an hour, I take him down in a tangle of arms and legs. The bottle hits the floor and detonates, spraying the walls with sparkling wine. His head bounces off the marble, but he’s still trying to sit up, to reach for me. Profanities stream out of both of us. I get my hands on his neck this time, not the other way around, shoving my Brights into the soft spot under his chin. They discharge with a series of hisses and pops, and the next thing I smell is barbeque. Damon falls back again, out like a light.

  I slide off of him, panting, cradling my burning hand against my chest as I eye the livid stripe of raw flesh under his jaw. “That’s for getting in my way.”

  Without comment, Jax tags him with a dose of elephant tranq, courtesy of his own injector. When I’m able to move again, I cram the diamond necklace into the pocket of his coat with my good hand before turning back to the girls.

  “Come on.”

  Jax steps over him and follows me into the elevator. Sasha hesitates, looking as if she’d like a little payback for everything she’s been through. A better person than I am, she detours around him instead of stomping his face in.

  “Going down,” Jax says cheerfully, jamming the lobby button with her thumb.

  Next stop, Mercette Park.

  M

  I break out in a cold sweat as Trav bombards my body with the nanotech. I can feel it pouring into me, millions of atom-sized ants crawling around my brain. My arms and legs twitch as it triggers spasms and synaptic misfires. It bites like freezer burn screaming through my veins.

  This might be it. After everything, this might finally break me apart and finish the job.

  Shutting my eyes so hard that I pull the surgical tape free, I push back, push back against the nanotech and the memories and Trav’s return and everything malignant in the whirlwind of my mind. I force it all back, until all I hear, all I feel is a single, constant tone, like the flatline of an EKG. But it’s not the end. It’s the beginning.

  Vee’s first note, the one that lit the fuse way back at Hellcat Maggie’s. Still resounding inside me. Her voice. Her life. My life. I grab it tight and refuse to let go.

  On the periphery of my mind, I sense a release of pressure, a weight lifted. I slowly trickle back to full consciousness, opening my eyes in time to see Trav wheeling away the horseshoe apparatus.

  My body pulses with pain from a thousand spots. Aggressive nanotech … No shit. Those little bastards tore through me like a herd of cattle.

  Fisher joins Trav as he analyzes the readout. From the up-and-down movement of his eyes, I’m guessing it’s a playback of either my heart rate or my brain activity during the attempted nanotech reboot. Pointing to something on the datapad, Fisher can’t get a word out before Trav shuts him down.

  “Take five minutes. I need to figure out where we proceed from here.”

  His assistant nods and heads through the double doors.

  “I’m so close, Micah. So fucking close, and you will not stand in my way.” Trav stares me down for a moment, daring me to oppose him.

  But I wouldn’t know how. I’m not even sure why he wants me back on the grid in the first place …

  He stares at the datapad, his eyes ricocheting from point to point, mumbling to himself. I hear phrases like nucleus accumbens and neuronal variance, but none of it means anything to me. Then his eyes light up. And for the briefest moment, he’s the old Trav again, exhilarated by solving a problem, conquering an obstacle, getting a look of approval from Bryn.

  Part of me, some small part that remembers and loves the Trav I knew, wants to encourage him, to see him succeed. Trav peers close, meeting my gaze. And I search his face for any sign of my old friend.

  When Fisher returns, Trav has him call for more equipment while doing some quick calculations on the datapad. “We’ll need a second
ary conduit for increased output. I’m talking about a constant flow. No more measured doses of nanotech. We’ll plug him straight into the wall like a fork in the socket.”

  As Fisher makes the necessary preparations, I can feel the electrodes and probes sliding from my skull. Trav steps away, cradling a modified aerosolizer in his hands. It looks like an ink-black pyramid, with output jets on four sides and a small reservoir in the center. There’s the tiniest puff of air from one of the jets as he puts it back down on the counter.

  And as worn out, as burned out, as confused as I am, I finally know something for sure. Trav’s not on my side. No matter how much I wanted to believe it, he’s not. He can’t be.

  Because I can smell it. I can smell the rotten cider stink from here.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  V

  By the time we hit Hawthorne Street, every vidscreen in town is flashing the announcement:

  “NIGHT OF THE DEAD” PARK CRAWL

  FREE CONCERT BY THE SUGAR SKULLS!

  PAINT YOUR FACE AND JOIN THE FAMILY!

  We put the tinted window up between us and the driver so he doesn’t realize his orders didn’t actually come from Damon. Sasha’s keystroking as fast as she can, hacking into the citywide speakers using his phone as the intermediary between her laptop and Cyrene’s broadcasting system.

  “Almost there,” she mutters, fingers flying.

  “Keep at it,” I tell her. “None of this is going to mean dick if we can’t go live—”

  “Shut up, then, and let me concentrate,” she snaps back, her thumb brushing over Callie’s silver ring before she resumes typing.

  Jax tries to get a better look at my injured hand. “Shit, Vee, you burned yourself a good one there.”

  Sparing a glance for my blistered knuckles, I surprise myself by grinning at her. “It was worth it.”

  “Yeah, you dropped him like a pro, Princess,” Jax says. “Remind me not to piss off this new Vee, all right?” With a glance at Sasha, she adds, “You, either.”

  Sasha laughs but doesn’t look up from the blue glow of her digital displays. “Just don’t get between me and Callie, and you’ll be fine.”

  I know exactly how she feels. Rewrapping Micah’s silver necklace around my hand, I count off the links, every one a promise to him. If they’ve hurt you, I’ll pay it back a thousand times over, love.

  “Got it!” Sasha crows seconds before every speaker across the city crackles to life. Given that one in the morning is when a lot of the die-hard shenanigans commence across Cyrene, kids are pouring into the streets in droves. All of them wearing leather and lace and tatters. All of them ready to raise a little hell.

  Time for Phase Three. Slipping on my wireless earpiece and adjusting the mic, I nod to Jax. “Open it up.”

  With a sinfully satisfied smile, she opens up the sunroof and I boost myself into the moonlight. Almost immediately, screaming fans surround the limo, each of them wearing a different version of my face.

  “It’s the middle of the night, you kinky little motherfuckers. Why aren’t you in bed?” They all laugh as the car loops slowly around the park, gathering everyone converging on the green square. “How are all my pretty little dead things?”

  They roar their answer. I have to give them credit. For all their blistering enthusiasm, they’re keeping enough distance to allow the limo to pass through the streets, falling in behind it, my own personal undead army.

  Somewhere below me, Jax knows it’s time to give them what they want. Using her mini-ironing board mixer from the mall concert, she shoots a spiral of notes from here to eternity. After the second pass around Mercette, I jump into the song and the car rolls toward Richter Park, gathering strength like a storm.

  M

  The first try nearly tore me apart; this one shatters me instantly, roaring like a hurricane and battering me from all sides. Every inch of me is on fire as a flood of nanotech pours in. It’s a jailbreak, throwing open cell doors and unleashing everything the applejack overdose stole from me. Dead neurons flare back to life, and I feel it. The pain in my ribs explodes, and tears stream down my face.

  Nine months of emotion crash into me like a wrecking ball. Memories well up, fresh and revitalized, magnified a thousand times, begging for a chance to be felt for real.

  Vee and I kiss, and my heart swells three sizes like the Grinch’s.

  Venomous spikes of despair and joy and fear run me through as Bryn’s death and Trav’s reappearance wrestle for my attention.

  Old scars and new feelings, agony and delight … I drown in it, the ultimate sensory clip show.

  When I can bear to open my eyes, there’s no sign of Fisher. Instead, I see Trav slipping on a full rebreather, holding the aerosolizer, and watching the datapad intently for updates on my condition. He’s almost giddy.

  And I realize he’s counting down. Waiting to test his new and improved applejack on me.

  “Think of it, Micah. No more deadly tabs and inconsistent doses! No more burnouts! No more deaths! Just white-hot highs and a massive boost in thrum!”

  The full weight of his betrayal cuts me to the quick, like a drill bit to the heart.

  That’s why he needs me on the grid. I’m his guinea pig. His test will either kill me or make him a millionaire.

  Either way, Trav wins.

  V

  The music rolls ahead of us, thumping bass barreling down the street. It sweeps up everyone in its path like flotsam; by the time we hit Raskin Park—our final stop—the crowd has tripled in size. If I had to take a guess, at least half of Cyrene’s under-21 population has us surrounded, and they’re messaging the other half to come join us.

  They’re not the only ones burning up the Cyrano network. An incoming call almost knocks us off the broadcast system, but Sasha manages to reroute it through her laptop.

  “That was unexpected, Vee.” Damon’s voice, softer than expected. Damage control mode.

  Jax loops in the chorus of “Little Dead Thing” so I can cover the mic and purr, “I guess your security team found you taking a nap on the marble? How’s your neck feeling?”

  “Vee, we can fix this. If you pull the plug and get your ass back here, I can explain—”

  “I’m sorry, this is a terrible connection. Apparently there’s some huge park crawl concert going on right now—”

  “You kept going back to that house, Vee. Hoping your family would be there, waiting for you.”

  Goose bumps ripple down my arms. I thought my past was my card-up-the-sleeve, but it turns out that it was his, too. “So fucking what?”

  “So, I know where they are, Vee. I can take you to them—”

  I signal to Sasha to end the call, and the line goes dead. Both the girls stare at me, but I don’t want to explain, can’t explain that a few simple words were somehow the cruelest thing he’s inflicted on me yet. So I shake the curls out of my face and jab a finger at the equipment.

  “Don’t stop, damn it. Stick with the plan!”

  Sasha immediately starts broadcasting a live feed of our impromptu performance to every screen in the city. Jax gets in my face with a palm-sized vidcam, which she then pans over the crowd. Every time they see themselves, their energy levels spike higher. Instead of forcing the car to a crawl, the crowd pushes us along with screams and snippets of songs.

  It’s building, this lovely apocalyptic juggernaut, and now that we’ve turned down Dover, I’m aiming it straight at the medcenter.

  “You asked for plenty of advance notice the next time around. Are you ready to riot?” I ask under my breath.

  Jax swings the camera back to me with another huge grin. “Five minutes more, and I could have managed grenades.”

  I don’t need grenades. It’s time to set off some dynamite.

  Out of old material, Jax uses her unmolested glove to cue up a new heartbeat, the hand holding the camera never wavering from my face as I light the match.

  Red hot wires jack up my soul,

  They want t
o think they have control,

  Inferno starts with a single candle,

  Power’s too much for them to handle.

  Fuck the thrum, screw the grid.

  Lick the sparks, eat the dark.

  All the pretty undead things

  Wear silver necklaces and rings.

  We’re coming for you, one by one,

  Your perfect satin knot’s undone.

  Fuck the thrum, screw the grid.

  Lick the sparks, eat the dark.

  By the time I hit the second chorus, the crowd is singing along. This isn’t like the Dome. No mayhem. No wanton destruction. The boys and girls out to play don’t splinter off down the side streets; they’re with me, heart, body, and soul, waving their middle fingers at Damon, at Corporate, at Cyrene. Banshees, every last one of us, and we’re going to make them hear us.

  Even if we have to take down the city to do it.

  The first of them runs up against the metal gate blocking the entrance to the medcenter. Hands grasp chain-link, rattling it like a necklace of chicken bones.

  Fuck the thrum, screw the grid.

  Lick the sparks, eat the dark.

  More hands, more weight, more undead howls from all the face-painted sugar skulls, but they need something more.

  They need me.

  Boosting myself out the top of the limo, I slide down the windshield and take three running steps down the hood. Launching myself into the crowd, I trust them to catch me, just like they did at the mall. Riding the energy currents, I end up at the fence. Two of the tallest guys offer up their shoulders, and after that it’s a quick scrape over paltry razor wire. I cut up the hand not wearing the glove, but fuck it.

  What’s a little blood now?

  I land on the other side of the fence in time to tag a security guard headed for me. The Brights shock the shit out of me again, but it’s nothing compared to the adrenaline pouring through me, and everyone roars when he hits the concrete. I was almost expecting to run up against an army’s worth of Facilitators, but Damon hasn’t had time to scramble his backup.

  Better make my move.

  Jax loops the new song around to play again, ghost-voicing me and adding some nice reverb on the back end; normally Sasha would do this, but she’s busy organizing the tech side of our little revolutionary diversion. The music makes for the perfect soundtrack as I run to the empty security booth, punch every button, set off sirens and rotating red lights. Finally the front gate swings open. The crowd pours in, chanting, “Screw the grid!” They head straight for the front doors, battering against the glass like zombies in search of brains.