The City Outside

Chapter 3

Three

The robotics repair shop was bright, its wall panels shining with interior light. Grace tried to remember the last time she’d been in such a shop. She was certain it had been before Davion and Kaiden had died in the IED explosion. Her son had been the one with a new gadget every week, many of them breaking not long after purchase and requiring this or that update.

Grace, who relied only on her embedded lenscape, rarely had equipment to repair. The exception being her defense stick, when, in a moment of surprise and rage, she’d beat it against the bronze statue of herself.

They’ll tear it down, she thought. Melt it.

She wasn’t a hero anymore.

“Welcome to Robo-Reaven. What can I do for you?”

The girl behind the counter had a thick nest of braids coiled on top of her head. Her green eyeshadow gave Grace the impression of snake scales. And when she blinked, Grace thought she saw golden slits for a moment. Perhaps the snake effect was intended. But if it was, she was using some form of technology outside of the typical filter, which her lenscape would’ve nullified.

Heron leaned across the counter. “We’d like to rent a blackout room, if you please.”

The girl gave Grace a cursory glance, noted the mask and hat. She considered explaining that it was just a precaution—she wasn’t sick with the plague or anything—but refrained. This was an anarchist zone—meaning that the building wasn’t bio-sealed and no metrics of any kind were recorded out of respect for the privacy of its patrons—but it didn’t mean that if Grace spoke now, her voice wouldn’t be picked up by some device.

Voice identification was very effective.

On the street, voices were hard to capture because they were diluted by the road noise and passing foot traffic, mixed with hundreds of other voices on any given city block. But they were inside now. No one would be speaking but her.

“The rooms go by the hour,” the girl said, looking away from Grace back to Heron.

She had a spark of mischief in her eye. Of course, Heron had yet to meet someone he couldn’t charm.

“An hour is fine,” Heron said. “How much?”

“Do you need s*x rigs?”

Grace’s mouth opened to correct the girl’s impression that they were here to conduct some perverse s*x act, but Heron took her hand and squeezed it.

“Don’t be shy, my love,” he said with a wink. “I’m sure she’s seen far worse.”

The girl snorted. “Oh have I. At least you two are waiting to start until you get to the room.”

The heat in Grace’s face doubled.

“It’s an extra two hundred dollars for each s*x rig.”

The girl gave the total for the room and two rigs, and Heron paid it. Then she handed over a keycard to the room and two helmet-like devices.

Grace took hers reluctantly.

“Smart,” the girl whispered, gesturing to the paper mask and hat. “Best way to keep anyone from recognizing you. Divorces are expensive as hell.”

Grace could only nod.

Heron had her by the arm again, pulling her from the shop toward the open door at the end of the hall. “Come on, darling. We don’t want to waste our hour.”

“Last door on the right. It’s the one with a couch,” the girl told them, wagging her brows.

When Grace closed the door to the blackout room behind her, she yanked down her paper mask. “Why did you have to make it into a s*x thing?”

“Better her thinking we are here for a bit of kink than fugitives on the run.” Heron tossed the s*x rig on the adjacent sofa without ceremony. Grace set her helmet beside his.

The sight of the couch and the two s*x rigs made something in her abdomen cramp. She was very aware of how good Heron smelled. Maybe the excitement had caused him to sweat, the sweat causing his cologne to…what…bloom?

Her lenscape pinged. >

“I’m going to hack into your system now. Is that all right?”

He’d earned her trust the moment he’d risked his life and sanity to break her out of CyTown Towers, the virtual reality Khan had tried to imprison her in.

He hadn’t slept for seventeen days as he’d worked endlessly to track her among the millions of pods. He’d risked everything, and he hadn’t given up on her.

“I trust you,” she said.

A tender expression crossed his face. “Sit down then. It’ll be easier on both of us.”

Grace glanced at the sofa. “You want me to sit on the s*x couch? The filthy s*x couch? They can’t possibly wash it.”

Heron’s lips twitched with a smile. “You’re going to wish you were sitting down for this.”

With a deep breath, she eased herself down onto the sofa, resting her weight on the very edge of the cushion, making as little contact as possible.

The fabric was just as scratchy as it looked.

He knelt down in front of her, his face looming dangerously close to hers.

“Comfortable?” he asked, his warm breath on her skin.

She searched those big blue eyes. “Is this going to hurt?”

His smile was wicked. “Only if you want it to. I quite prefer a bit of pain myself.”

She slapped his shoulder lightly. “Be serious. We could be imprisoned today.”

“No,” he said. “It shouldn’t hurt. But it will make you dizzy, which is why I wanted you to sit.”

She closed her eyes and took a breath.

“Ready?” he asked.

His hand wrapped around her arm.

“Ready.”

Light spiked through her mind, giving her the impression she was suddenly being thrown forward at light speed. She reached out instinctively and latched onto the first thing her hands found.

Heron.

“I’ve got you,” he whispered. “Hang in there.”

“It’s worse than that CyTown cache you embedded.”

“I know,” he said. “But with these reconfigurations I can make you invisible.”

The nausea was ruthless. “How is that possible?”

“Do you remember when we went to CyTown and the AI recognized me as Adams?”

Grace tried not to think much about CyTown after she’d been imprisoned against her will. But she did recall the first day they showed up in the Towers to interview Tristan Range. The AI receptionist had greeted Grace properly, but when it had turned to Heron—

“Vaguely,” she said.

“I’m using the same program. I had a feeling we might have to run someday.”

Run.

Grace’s hands tightened on his arms. She didn’t want to run. She’d lived in Zone 2 all her life. She’d had Kaiden here, met and married Davion here. They were both buried here in the Soul Grove. Her mother still lived here. Was she really going to have to lose the last thing she had? The last person she cared about? Her home. Her mom.

“Are you okay?” Heron asked. “We’re almost done.”

“Just—” Tears pricked her eyes. “Just walk me through what you’re doing.”

“Okay,” he said, his breath soft on her cheeks. “Right now I’m masking all of your bio-signatures and replacing them with the profile I made for you.”

“Like Mr. Blue?”

“Yes, like my alias Mr. Blue. It’s a completely separate profile and history data. You’ll be able to access her entire life history from your lenscape.”

Her.

“So who am I now?” she asked.

“Asturina Blue.”

“Any relation to Mr. Blue?”

“Maybe,” he said with a devilish smile. “Perhaps they eloped after a particularly exciting holiday in EU Zone 3.”

“Asturina sounds more adventurous than I am.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t say that. You’re pretty adventurous.”

“Running for our lives is not an adventure.”

He ignored this, his fingers finding new pressure points under her chin. “The only thing I can’t change internally is your voice. So there’s this.”

He leaned back and pulled a chain from his pocket. He slid it around her neck, his fingers brushing her skin.

“It lays here,” he said, touching the base of her throat gently. “It will lower the octave of your voice, giving it a different signature.”

She heard the clasp click into place.

“Say something.”

“I didn’t realize you could change someone’s voice,” she said.

The voice she heard in her ears wasn’t her own. It was deeper, but not in an unnatural way, as she’d expected.

She arched her brows. “Impressive.”

“I only need to do one more thing,” he said. He rolled his eyes up to meet hers. Her stomach tightened again, the muscles in her core warming. She could just lean in and—

He licked his lips, moistening them. “I want to access your arousal core.”

She pulled back. “Excuse me?”

“Your arousal core.”

“I’m not sure that’s—”

“It’s true that it dictates s****l arousal, but more importantly, it mitigates fear and anger. I just need to alter the bio-signature so that they don’t trigger it in case we are stopped for questioning. I want you to be able to pass a truth detection if we need to. Asturina shouldn’t register high levels of fear for questions about Grace, do you understand?”

She did. “What will you see if you access my arousal core?”

She did her best to hold his gaze without flinching.

He tilted his head. “We’ve already admitted that we’re very attracted to each other. Is there anything else for me to see?”

She said nothing.

He leaned in. “If you’re asking me whether or not I’ll be able to detect your arousal level toward me, at this very moment the answer is no. There should be no distinction that my programming can detect. The arousal core simply shows any spike in emotions. When we are sexually aroused, yes, but more often when we are nervous, afraid, when we lie. That’s what I want to mask.”

“Fine,” she said. “Just do it.”

Heat washed over Grace’s body. She closed her eyes. As he leaned forward and she felt the warmth of him along her neck, muscles low in her groin tightened reflexively.

She really hoped that was just a natural side effect of having one’s arousal core activated.

As he hovered there, his fingers pressing into the base of her skull, she grew more and more aware of his heat. His heady scent. The sight of his pulse jumping in his throat.

“That should do it,” he choked out, and pulled back from her. She noted the red color spreading across his cheeks. “Lie to me.”

“Davion was never my husband.”

Heron waited, reading some invisible data she couldn’t see. “Good. A very tiny blip, but that could register as curiosity or anything mundane.”

“What about my face?”

“Ah yes, for that, I have these.”

He unbuttoned the pocket on his navy suit and produced two small devices, each the size of a grain of rice. He placed one behind each of her earlobes, pressing for a short minute.

Then he pulled back, searching her face. He nodded once. “That’ll do. Very little. Nothing of the charming commander I know and love.”

Love.

“Is it a filter?” she asked. “Most police-issued programs can nullify filters.”

“Yes, when they’re lenscape projections. However, this is a shield. It’s not part of the lenscape. It’s a literal holographic projection over your face. Like a second skin. And a damn good one, if I say so myself. Should be, for what I paid for it.”

Grace activated her lenscape in its reversed view, but she saw only her own face. “I can’t—”

“Here, this is what I see.”

Heron offered his view of the lenscape, and Grace gasped.

He was absolutely right. Nothing of her at all. These eyes were bigger. The short, upturned nose and full, pouty lips far more feminine than her own. And there was a mole beside her mouth.

“Did you pick out this face?” she asked.

“From about ten options. I thought her bone structure most closely mimicked yours and that it would add to the realism.”

She could see it for herself, the similarities. They could be cousins, or maybe even sisters, Grace and this woman.

That surreal, lost feeling washed over her again, her stomach sinking.

“I can’t even be me.” I really am going to lose it all.

Heron squeezed her hand. “We will get through this, Grace. I promise. I’m going to pull out now.”

“Heron.”

“I just mean I’m going to terminate the share. I think I’ve done all I can for the rewrite. It’s a good disguise. I’m confident it will help us get across the city undetected.”

There was a small tug and then the image of her borrowed face evaporated, leaving her again in this small dark room, sitting on its abused sofa.

Heron’s lenscape lit blue. “It’s Khan. He wants us to come to his place.”

“You must mean Orrin.” Orrin Khan was an ally, unlike his wretched brother.

Though he was the CEO and founder of Trinity Trust, he blamed himself for her family’s death because he failed to stop his brother, Alabaster. She supposed he was trying to make up for that.

And at a time like this, Grace could hardly afford to slap away an offered hand. “Can we trust him?”

Heron pulled her to standing. “I don’t think we have a choice.”