Most immortals didn’t believe memories could kill. Thibault Allard knew different.
Memories etched wounds worse than any acid, scarring the mind with the residues of reality. Like medicating with methadone, memories paled in comparison to the real thing, every recollection a potential of further corruption.
Thibault ran a chrome thumb over his hard plastic headgear. The nanofilm on the digit signalled the ridges of the stowed electrodes, each one a promise of another place. In his other hand, he thumbed a chit, a small disc reminiscent of an old poker chip.
Ors wheeled over in his office chair, rollers clacking on the crumbling linoleum. Neon-blue lights cast soft shadows over his ancient burns and melted flesh, the crevices crafting a dark cobalt lattice on his skin.
“What’s it going to be?” Ors’ ragged vocal cords fought the background hum of fans and computers crowding his place.
Thibault hesitated, squeezing the mesh. His hand trembled. He met Ors’ lidless gaze, trying to ignore the pus weeping down the man’s cheek, staining the collar of a once-white business shirt. “I don’t understand. Why couldn’t you track the sender?”
“I figure they exited after they pinged me.” Ors sounded irritated. “Either that, or they have skills I’ve never seen before.”
“Not likely.”
The scarred vire shrugged. “The night you think you know it all . . .”
The mysterious message glowed in backlit characters on one of the many screens—a paltry few words given the significance they imparted.
[I have information about Marina Allard. Tell the hunter to meet me in Aurora.]
Thibault stared at the glimmering text. Who knew that he was searching for his wife, apart from Ors? Before seeing this message, Thibault would have said no one. How many more knew his secret?
The chit in his hand weighed heavier than a black hole. “What do you think?”
Ors gave him a strange look, bulging eyeballs swivelling in their sockets. “Someone offers you a thread of hope when you’d all but given up? You can’t be thinking to ignore it.”
Thibault said nothing for a moment, clutching the chit hard, feeling it bite into his palm. “It’s my last one.”
“Ah.”
One last chit. With it, he could ease back into the stiff foam of the pod, settle the mesh onto his scalp, let the electrodes plumb his brain matter, and see Marina again. Enter the neural echo coded by Ors from Thibault’s recollections, so he might live a digital lie with her, for as long as his chits lasted.
But every time he meshed, those memories decayed a little more, became a little more fragmented. Too large for Ors to fit in external storage, forcing them to be streamed on each visitation. So each time, the echo morphed again, Thibault’s mind striving to fill in the gaps until he couldn’t recall the truth anymore.
Ors had warned him. Thibault hadn’t listened.
One last venture into the slip, into his memories, and then . . . what? Would the great vire hunter Thibault Allard once again chase bounties for the Trinity, stalk the lost and the damned, no matter the tar it stuck to his soul? He’d started to believe he could be better than that, though perhaps that was simply another lie.
Ors interrupted his thoughts. “It’s not the chit holding you back.”
“What do you mean?”
“You’re afraid.”
“Afraid?” Thibault ground out the word.
Ors nodded at the screen. “Afraid to hope. To hope it might be true.”
Thibault swallowed, his throat suddenly dry. Ors wasn’t wrong. Dangerous, resurrecting a dead hope. Hope could scorch you to dust faster than the sun’s vees. But what did the hopeless have to lose?
Thibault opened his hand and stared at the chit. Scratches marred the surface, so numerous that no part of it appeared untouched. For something so worthless to mean so much . . . he could almost see Fate’s middle finger inscribed in the plastic.
Thibault had never asked Ors for a free ride, and he wasn’t about to start. Ors used his funds to bribe Trinity enforcers to look the other way, and with three Families in play, it amounted to a hefty fee.
Ors cut in again. “That echo will drive you mad, Tibs. I’ve seen it before. The past should stay in the past. Look to the future instead.” He paused. “So what’ll it be? Marina, or Aurora?”
Thibault clenched his hands, metal fingers digging into metal palms. It was no choice, not really. A chance to see Marina again? No choice at all.
“Aurora.”
Memories flooded in at the word. Old memories of blood and sweat and need. Even the mention of the dawnclub had his Thirst restless in its slumber.
Ors studied him. “Can you handle it?”
“I can handle it, kin.” Thibault’s voice inflected at the end, betraying his uncertainty. He settled the plastic mesh onto his head, the magnets on the band bonding with the plugs dotting his skull. His crown quivered with trace vibrations, embedded ports sliding open, exposing the brain tissue within.
Marina’s face flashed by, longing and lonely. How could he be sure that face was even hers anymore?
Ors swivelled to the backlit panel by Thibault’s pod and tapped the screen with printless fingers. “I’ll drop you out front.”
Thibault felt his heartbeat quicken, anticipating the moment reality bled from view. Sometimes, he thought he craved the mesh more than the Thirst itself. Sometimes.
“But—” Ors coughed, spittle slapping the interface. “Be careful up there. Tracers have been restless the last few nights, like they’re waiting for something.”
“Waiting for what?”
“Don’t know. Whatever it is, you don’t want to get between them and it. My mesh doesn’t make you invisible.”
Didn’t he know it. The last time Thibault had encountered a tracer, he’d barely exited the slip alive. It had taken a long dive to an unpleasant stop to smash through their exit barriers, and it wasn’t an experience he cared to relive, virtual or otherwise. The Trinity’s security programs were dogged bastards.
“Careful. I might start to think you care.”
Ors croaked out a dry chuckle. “Can’t have the tracers deleting my best customer.” His bulbous eyes locked on to Thibault’s face. “You sure about this?”
Thibault reached over and slapped the panel before he could change his mind. The screen lit up with scrolling text.
“I’m sure,” he lied.
The mesh hissed, electrodes extending. Thibault caught a hint of ozone and inhaled, savouring the sweet smell. He heard the faint squelch from hundreds of metal probes penetrating his grey matter, each aimed for a precise point. His own breathing filled his ears, and he felt his heartbeat drumming in his chest.
The mesh fought his mind to assume control, his body spasming like a discordant note at a thousand decibels. One by one, each muscle released and relaxed, synchronised signals overwhelming his subconscious.
He let go, plunging through unreality.