Halfskin by Tony Bertauski

Author:Tony Bertauski [Bertauski, Tony]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: DeadPixel Publications
Published: 2013-12-28T05:00:00+00:00

31

Oxygen came in short supply.

Cali took little gulps, twisting her fingers like origami. Staring. Staring at a dead boy.

Her eyes couldn’t get any wider. The shock rode her pulse like waves, scratching the walls of her circulatory system as her blood carried toxic emotions to her numb and wooden body. Bones turned to steel.

Skin, sun-dried paper, singed at the edges.

She looked around the room, looked for ghost killers. Looked for their executioner. Felt the ceiling fall, the floor cave. The walls collapse.

Her world blacken.

Dry and desolate.

And dead.

And dead, dead, dead, DEAD, DEAD, DEADDEADDEADDEAD—

[Stop.]

The tiny blip of light that was Cali—rational Cali, intelligent Cali—was going under, tossed beneath waves of thoughts and panic and rage…

That little bit called a halt to the madness.

And the new breeds released a tsunami of endorphins to deaden pain, to release the tension. To stop the thoughts.

Cali’s eyelids dropped like shutters. Her breath leaked from her nostrils. She pulled a draught of fresh oxygen, long and deep, and exhaled once again. When she opened her eyes, she saw her brother. He was alive.

And she could save him.

Okay.

All right.

Deep breath.

Cali slowly let her thoughts engage her awareness. She needed to piece together what happened, what needed to change. She had expected to lose the leverage of the security video. It got her into the room. She knew they’d make their own but they moved faster than she expected, but it was not a surprise. She began reaching for her phone to search the newsfeed, to see what the government was saying, when something twanged at the back of her neck.

Something felt familiar, easy.

She was using the new breeds to communicate with her computer, to think directly into the Internet… she didn’t need her phone. She thought-commanded a search into cyberspace, looking for the last news on Nixon Richards. The results were recent and plentiful.

Biomite-Crazed Teenager Attacks Detention Guard.

She activated the video link and streamed it directly to her retinas. Her eyes glazed over as the video formed, surreally, over Nix’s head. It started with him standing in his room, the footage grainy. The door opened and George stepped in with a tray of food. He smiled at Nix, appeared to say something that made them both laugh. The fat, jolly guard placed the tray on the desk and went to the door and, just before opening it, Nix pounced, driving the man’s head into the wall.

Her brother slammed the door.

He climbed on top of the obese, hairy man—eyes wide with adrenaline, teeth bared to the glistening gums—and began to wail.

There was no sound.

But there was blood.

Lots of it.

And the shear gore of the video would carry it around the world in seconds.

Cali didn’t bother reading the interviews. The press was sure to find someone that claimed Nix’s sister was crazy, that she was losing it, that she’d lost it after the accident. Her co-workers might slip that she was on a medical leave of absence, that she’d seen a psychologist. The public would label her crazy, case closed.

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