VANE
The next morning, the sun didn't rise. It never does in Limania. The sky just turned from charcoal to a dusty, bruised gray.
I woke up on the kitchen floor with the knife still in my hand. My chest was burning. Not the kind of burn you get from a workout or a fever. It was a rhythmic, pulsing heat.
I sat up and pulled back the collar of my shirt.
The mark had changed.
Yesterday, it was just the tangled hands. Now, a thin, golden vine had sprouted from the purple bruise, winding its way down toward my ribs. And at the end of that vine, a new shape was forming. It looked like a tiny, golden key.
"Great," I whispered to the empty room. "I'm turning into a coloring book."
I tried to stand, but a wave of nausea hit me. It wasn't my nausea. It was a cold, greasy feeling in the pit of my stomach.
I shouldn't have eaten that cake. He'll know. He'll see the crumbs.
I froze. The voice in my head was female. It was Mrs. Kent. I wasn't just remembering her words; I was feeling her guilt. Her stomach was my stomach. Her secrets were my skin.
This is the part the Syndicate training manuals never mentioned. They told us that storage was a "data error." They didn't tell us that the data had a soul.
I checked my watch. 7:00 AM.
If I didn't show up at the Syndicate office for my morning "flush," Miller would send a retrieval team. In this city, an employee who doesn't check in is an employee who is hiding something. And the Syndicate doesn't like surprises.
I put on a high-collared sweater. I checked the mirror one last time. I looked normal. A bit pale, maybe, but everyone in Limania looks like they haven't slept since the Great Blackout.
The walk to the headquarters felt like walking through a minefield. Every person I passed made my skin prickle. A woman brushed against my arm on the subway, and for a split second, I felt her grief over a dead cat. An old man coughed near me, and I felt the sharp, bitter sting of his regret over a daughter he hadn't spoken to in twenty years.
I was no longer a pipe. I was a sponge. And the world was full of dirty water.
"Vane! You're late," Miller barked the moment I stepped into the lobby.
He was standing behind his glass desk, tapping a stylus against his palm. The lobby of the Silent Body Syndicate looked like a high-end funeral parlor. White marble, soft blue lights, and the constant, low hum of the neural-scrubbers.
"Sorry, Miller," I said, keeping my head down. "The trains were delayed."
"Go to Cubicle Six. Dr. Aris is waiting for your morning reset."
My heart skipped a beat. A reset. That's where they plug us into the machine to drain the residual sensations from the night before. If I plugged in, the machine would see the storage. It would scream. The alarms would go off.
"Actually," I said, my voice cracking slightly. "I feel... empty. I don't think I need a reset today. I had a very clean session with the Kents."
Miller stopped tapping the stylus. He looked up, his pebble-like eyes narrowing. "Clean? There's no such thing as a clean session, Vane. You know the rules. We don't leave data in the hardware. Go. To. Six."
I walked toward the back. My legs felt like lead. I passed other Proxies—men and women with vacant eyes and perfect skin. They looked like dolls. I used to want to be just like them. Now, looking at them made me want to scream.
I reached Cubicle Six. Dr. Aris was a small woman with thick glasses and fingers that always smelled like latex.
"Shirt off, Vane," she said without looking up from her monitor.
I stood there, paralyzed.
"Vane? I don't have all day. I have three Level-Bs waiting for their calibrations."
I reached for the hem of my sweater. My mind was racing. I could run. I could kill her. No, I can't kill her. I'm a Proxy, not a murderer.
But then, the door to the cubicle opened.
It wasn't a nurse. It was Vora.
She was still wearing that silver trench coat. She looked even more out of place in the sterile white room than I did.
"Step out, Doctor," Vora said. She didn't ask. It was an order.
Dr. Aris blinked. "I'm in the middle of a reset, Officer. This is Syndicate business."
Vora pulled a black card from her pocket. The Morality Police badge. "And this is a city-wide investigation. This Proxy is a witness in a high-profile sensory theft case. I'm taking over his session."
Aris didn't argue. No one argues with the Smellers. She gathered her tablet and scurried out of the room.
I was alone with Vora.
She walked over to the door and locked it. Then she turned to me, her amber eyes glowing in the harsh LED light.
"Take it off," she whispered.
"What are you doing here, Vora?"
"I'm saving your life," she said, though her smile told a different story. "Miller is already suspicious. He saw your heart rate spikes on the Kent report. If you plug into that machine, you'll be brain-dead by noon."
I slowly pulled the sweater over my head.
The mark on my chest was pulsing so hard it was visible through my undershirt. I pulled that off, too.
Vora gasped. She reached out, her fingers trembling. She didn't touch the mark, but she held her hand just an inch above it.
"It's beautiful," she breathed. "It's not just storage. It's a conduit. You're becoming a living memory."
"It hurts," I said. "I can hear them. I can hear their thoughts."
Vora looked me in the eyes. "That's because you're still trying to be a pipe, Vane. You're fighting it. You need to let it fill you."
"Why do you care?" I asked, backing away. "You're a cop. You're supposed to report me."
Vora laughed, a bitter, hollow sound. "A cop? Is that what you think I am? I'm the same as you, Vane. Except I was born empty. I don't feel anything. I've never felt anything. I can watch a man burn alive and feel nothing but boredom. I can taste the finest wine and it tastes like water."
She stepped closer, her face inches from mine.
"I hunt people like you because you are the only things that are real in this fake city," she whispered. "I don't want to arrest you, Vane. I want to feel you."
Suddenly, there was a loud bang on the cubicle door.
"Vane? Officer? Is everything alright in there?" It was Miller's voice. He sounded angry.
Vora didn't panic. She grabbed my arm and pulled me toward the small ventilation window at the back of the room.
"If you stay, you die," she said. "If you come with me, you might live. But it's going to hurt."
The door groaned. Miller was using a master key.
"Where are we going?" I asked.
Vora looked at the golden key tattoo on my ribs. "To the person who gave the Kents that ring. We're going to find out why your body decided to stop being a pipe."
The door burst open. Miller and two security guards rushed in.
But we were already out the window.
As I hit the cold pavement of the alleyway, a new sensation flooded my mind. It wasn't a memory. It was a premonition.
The city is going to burn.
I looked at Vora. She was smiling again. And for the first time, I realized that the woman saving me might be even more dangerous than the people trying to kill me.