Willing as she sounded, there was reluctance in her. She leaned in and exhaled in his face, lips keeping their distance. His brain spiked as the DNA triggered his mod, sending him headfirst into a wall of pleasure. He broke through it, beyond his limits, into a place of sweat, raised flesh, and unbearable tingling. He gritted his teeth against it, refusing to let it be anything but a fix, but his mouth opened in a sigh of pleasure. The pain didn’t just recede, but inverted.
“It’s the mod,” she said, leaning close, the warmth of her breath pooling around him. “The version you have. I made it.”
Hardy tried to fight against the high, but he didn’t want to. He wanted to lay in it and let the dark world around him fade into nothingness.
“It’s superkeyed to my DNA. No one will ever give you a feeling like I can,” she said. “I can dole out your pleasure as I see fit. Or I can fix you, if you like.” She backed away from him, fingers lingering on his chest. “After you help us.”
He succeeded in fighting down the feeling, separating his thoughts from it and letting it flood his mind in the background. She was manipulative. He had a feeling that had nothing to do with the Narcs, or with Jack. It was all her.
“Alright,” he said, his flesh still raised to tips. He gestured to the door. “Show the way.”
4
THE PLACE LOOKED LIKE it had been decorated by the technotrash girl. It was more workshop than anything. Cables hung in spools on nails in the wooden wall—newer cables, mostly, but there were some coaxials and Cat 5s as well. Dismantled electronics were everywhere, from children’s toys to high-tech headgear. The room was lit by strings of LEDs, but light of every color shone from fiber optics in bunches.
The Narcs stood by a table poring over a schematic of some sort. Probably stolen from Jack. When they approached, the plans rolled up—not for him.
Mara pointed each of them out and gave a name. The big guy was Les, the de facto leader of the group. Number two was a kid called Simek. He was obviously there for brawn. Neither of them looked happy to see Hardy.
The technotrash girl just went by Z. Her hair shone purple—fiber optic strings hanging here and there. She was the only one who looked welcoming.
“I suppose you helped with the mod,” Hardy said. Mara seemed smart enough, but not technologically so.
Z saluted in mocking fashion. “Team effort.”
Hardy liked to evaluate the ability of people he was going to work for, but this time was different, he didn’t have any real choice in the matter. He could wait out the addiction, but it wouldn’t be pretty. Uninstalling the mod wouldn’t do much either—just cut him off from the drug, but leave him wanting it.
“Alright,” he said, “what’s the plan?”
“The plan is for you to do as little as possible.” Les still had the glare that Hardy was beginning to think was trademarked. “You’re here because Mara wanted you. I don’t.”
“Hey, you picked me up. I can leave any time.”
Les nodded toward the door, but Mara stared him down. “We need him. He’s been in there before.”
That was what she wanted. His expertise. He had a feeling his membership was about to be revoked. “Listen, I don’t remember anything from in there. Not much, at least. Everything I could tell you is in a bit of brass headwear at Jack’s.”
Mara grinned. “But you recognize me.”
That confirmed it. She had worked for Jack. “That’s it, though. I couldn’t tell you if you were my boss, or if you got Jack his coffee in the mornings.”
Something clicked when he mentioned Jack’s coffee. A cup of coffee, black, but cold. Mara grinned again; she’d seen the recollection. Jack liked his coffee cold. Hardy knew he shouldn’t remember that. He shouldn’t remember a lot of the things he knew about Jack, or the people who worked for him. It should all have been locked away in his crown.
“It’s not your memories he took,” Mara said. “Too messy. He just took the bridges.”
It made sense, he supposed. Take down the connections between thoughts—the ones that linked his conscious mind to the things Jack didn’t want him to remember—and they were as good as forgotten. “What’s it matter how he did it? They’re gone.”
She moved between Les and Simek at the table and rolled out the schematic. Hardy pushed through as well. Jack’s was a big place—took up a whole block—and the schematic showed it. Just beyond the door they had stood in front of earlier was a hallway, anonymous rooms coming off either side. A stairwell at the end, metal stairs, the kind with the grated top to dig into your shoes.
Hardy looked at the map. That detail wasn’t on there. Why would it be? It was just a blocky diagram of stairs... but he could see them in his mind. Black painted steel, grated top.
“It’s all in there,” Mara said. “We can bridge some of those gaps, but not all of them. We have vague ideas of what Jack does in there. Lynn has the specifics. That’s why we need to get her out.”
“And her crown with her,” Les said.
Hardy looked at Les. He found no trust there. “She’s been wiped?”
“We get the girl, we get the crown, we get Jack.”
Hardy didn’t need to look back at the map to see where the crowns were kept. He could remember it now. He could remember the guards there, too. He tasted the memories like forbidden fruit.
“We can’t pay you money,” Les said. “We don’t have any. But we’re getting into that crown room, wherever it is. We can pay you in memories.”
All those things he couldn’t remember. Little bits of life he thought were lost forever. Mara was a fool, messing with his brain to
