Mindwalker by Kate Dylan

Author:Kate Dylan [Dylan, Kate]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781529392685
Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton
Published: 2022-09-01T05:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 18

This is the stupidest thing I’ve ever done. By quite some margin. The Director is already accusing me of espionage; I can only imagine what he’d call this. Letting Ryder play with the computer in my head … he’d have to invent some new, more pointed word. Something with teeth.

Christ-that-was. My hands fist at my sides. The hell was I thinking, agreeing to this madness? Miles would quite literally yell at me for a straight week. I should have said no and walked away, left Ryder behind once and for good. Yet here I am, following him through the streets like a lost puppy. Because he didn’t just hit a nerve, he strung it up and beat it to a pulp. I need to make certain he’s wrong; that Syntex isn’t risking everything I’ve worked for by circumventing consent laws.

We’ve long since left the Pleasure District behind, cutting through back alleys and quiet lanes towards what used to be the Meatpacking District. The roads are wider here, the buildings larger and more derelict, echoes of the Annihilation visible despite years of regeneration. This part of the sector used to house the food deliveries that graced Manhattan Island every day. Now, only a fraction of the warehouses remain functional. We don’t ship food in anymore, we synthesize it. There’s nowhere left to ship it in from.

“So how far along are you?” Ryder asks as we weave between the steel goliaths.

“Excuse me?”

“Into your twilight phase. You’re past the threshold, right?”

I lurch to a stop. “How the—”

“I have a brain, Sil Sarrah,” he says. “And you have a supercomputer grafted to yours. Your math hasn’t been off in ten years. You got stuck in that storm because you’re glitching.”

He’s not wrong, even if he is being an ass about it.

“How bad have they gotten?”

The question brings my fear rushing to the surface, a giant 52% bad flashing through my mind. I’m three days, a hack butcher, two electric shocks, and a boatload of radioactivity into my exile, with no access to a proper diagnostic or a CIP repair. Nothing is working quite as well as I’d like it to.

“Not so bad I’ll burn out while we do this, if that’s what you’re asking,” I snap. I don’t talk about this stuff with my closest friends; why would I do it with him?

“It wasn’t,” Ryder says. Then when I shrug and push past him, he reaches for my arm, his fingers gently circling my wrist. “Sil—it wasn’t.”

This time, I believe him, if only because he’s finally used my name in a way that feels sincere, as though I’m a person instead of a curiosity. Funny, most Reggies turn cold when they realize what I am, whereas the brown in Ryder’s eyes has grown warmer.

“Tell me your theory.” I change the subject, reminding myself that he doesn’t care about me; he only cares about what I can do for him.

“My theory?”

“For how Syntex forced Meld structures on the general population. I assume you have one that’s not too stupid to say out loud?”

“Tough call given my present company.

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