The Human Forged Read online

  “My friend, what are you doing?” Rocco tugged on Nick’s sleeve. “Let’s live!”

  Rocco spread his arms out, flapping them like wings as he ran toward the dancers. Twirling around in a circle, Rocco swung his head and beamed. Nick smiled, glad that he had not accepted the X. Without chemicals influencing him, he found it hard to engage in the same frenetic physical movements that constituted dancing to the Costa Rican man. Instead, Nick bobbed his head up and down and shuffled his feet with the music, painfully aware of his inadequate moves.

  Around the dance floor, the foundations of individual prison cells could be seen near the far edges of the room, and the protruding remains of structural beams stuck out from the side of the wall where the entire floor above them had been destroyed.

  “My friend, you must dance to live.” Rocco wheeled around and snagged the arm of a young woman next to him clad in fluorescent pink fur boots and a bikini top. The woman smiled, her hand clasping Rocco’s as they jumped in unison.

  “I think I need a drink.”

  Rocco tilted his head to the side, so Nick mimed a drinking motion. Rocco nodded and pointed toward the other side of the makeshift dance floor. Nick dodged between rocking bodies until he reached the edges of the crowd. People milled about a long wooden bar decked out with rows of fluorescent glass bottles on shelves. Their clothes and the paint on their skin glowing purple under the black lights, a few bartenders poured drinks for patrons waiting at the incongruous bar. When the bartenders served a drink, they scanned the patron’s Chip using a small wand. One leaned across the bar.

  “Whiskey coke.”

  The bartender furrowed her brow, her bright pink ponytail whipping as she cocked her head.

  He spoke louder. “Whiskey coke.”

  She nodded and whipped up a drink consisting of a liquid that shone green and another that appeared colorless even in the flashing strobes. She held up four fingers. He nodded and held out his forearm so she could make the charge on his Chip. Once done, she pushed the drink across the bar and moved on to the next patron.

  He sipped the colorful beverage. It tasted sweet, almost pungently so. Not at all like a whiskey coke. Still, he could taste the unmistakable bite of strong alcohol. That was exactly what he needed.

  Moving back to the edge of the dance floor, he scanned the crowd for Rocco. As he closed in on the spot where he had left Rocco, Nick’s pulse raced. He couldn’t find him anywhere. Nick wondered how he’d get back to his hotel, how he’d get the hell out of here at the end of the night. He tried to quench those fears with another sip from his drink and plunged his hand into his pocket to make sure he still carried his receiver. He pinched the small plastic device until his heart settled. Rocco would find him. If he didn’t, Nick would make it back. He’d be fine.

  A hand grasped at his biceps. Beside him stood a woman with a mischievous smirk. Her long blond hair hung over her shoulders. On the front of her tight gray shirt, a white skull glowed purple in the black lights. She said something in what he thought might be Russian.

  He leaned toward her. “I’m sorry. I just speak English.”

  The woman blushed and grabbed the arm of her friend dancing next to her. They exchanged a few incomprehensible words and both smiled. Her hair dark with striking blond highlights, the friend nodded and scurried back into the throbbing crowd of dancers. The woman in the skull shirt grinned again and pointed at her ring finger. “You are married?”

  He shook his head. “No, I’m not.” His thoughts turned to Kelsey back in Washington, DC. Engaged, but not married yet. He should have said he was married, stopped the conversation before it started. Guilt wrapped around his stomach, making him feel slightly sick.

  “Very good.” She smiled and batted her dark eyes. “I am called Jana.”

  “Nick.” He sipped from his drink.

  Jana wrapped her hands around the plastic cup. He frowned but let her. She put it up to her curling lips. “You are English?”

  He downed the rest of the fluorescent concoction. It tasted different than his first couple of sips. “No, American.” Maybe she posed no threat. An innocuous conversation would not tarnish his fidelity.

  She giggled. “Can you dance?”

  His cheeks felt warm. He shrugged. “Maybe.” Glancing around, he couldn’t see Rocco anywhere. Nick’s head felt light and he blinked to clear the haze falling over him. He had never been a heavy drinker, but he didn’t expect to feel the effects of the alcohol so soon.

  Jana laughed. “Maybe you show me.” She draped her arms around his neck and swayed her hips with the music. As she lowered herself, her eyes remained locked on his.

  He gulped and tried to step back but she followed. His vision swam as he twisted his neck back and forth. Lights blurred. That “whiskey coke” had felt stronger and stranger than what he was used to. He tried to move his own hips like she had done. She laughed and her grin spread wider. One dance wouldn’t hurt. He had planned no bachelor party, so this would be it.

  As the melody and beat assaulting his ears merged into the next song, something tugged at his mind. Wasn’t he supposed to be looking for someone? He had certainly come into this place with another person, but could no longer recall who that was. A fog had settled over his thoughts.

  The flashing lights, the glowing colors, her face in front of him seemed to meld together in a kaleidoscopic blur as they danced. Each song blended into the next. Her hands stroked his back, gripping his shoulder blades and traveling down with her fingers lower and lower. He placed a hand on her lower back as she slid down the front of his body again, her eyes never leaving his, an intensity flowing from those dark irises that could never be augmented with any AR lens. When she snaked up, she pressed herself against him and a shudder went down his spine. Her hands flowed back down over his back, his ass, his legs. Piercing through the haze in his mind, a surge of excitement rushed through him.

  She reached out and pulled his head down to hers. Her lips tickled his ears as she spoke. “We should find better place.”

  He tilted his head, the movement blurring his vision. “What do you mean?” His own words sounded distant and muddled.

  Jana grinned and shook her head. She grabbed him by the wrist and guided him through the twisting and pumping crowd. The strobe lights illuminated her eyes, the grin still plastered across her face. Those eyes shone through the cloudiness that had settled over him. His mind wandered back toward that drink. What the hell was it?

  When she planted a kiss on his cheek, those thoughts dissipated.

  “Where are we going?” He tried to yell out over the music.

  She glanced back as they erupted out of the crowd. “You trust me?”

  He nodded. Something else tugged at his mind—a face, another woman. He tried to grasp at the thought, the memory, whatever pestered him. He couldn’t place it.

  Jana cracked open a door and dragged him into another hallway. It seemed familiar, similar to the hall he had passed through earlier that night, but darker, stranger. His sense of balance wavered and he felt dizzy, throwing out a hand to catch himself on the wall. A stinging pain jolted through his palm and he squeezed his eyelids shut. He held his right hand in front of his face. A piece of broken rock protruded out. Blood trickled out from where the gray stone had pierced his skin.

  “Come on, silly boy.”

  He pulled the small stone from his palm, flung it away, and wiped his hand across his jeans. He felt a bump in his pocket. His receiver. It was still there. Should he plug it in? He was out of that room, that crazy place. He had already forgotten why he had been there.

  Jana urged him on and pointed down the dark hallway. He nodded, the motion seeming foreign, his head heavy on his neck. Too much alcohol in one drink. He’d never felt this drunk from a single glass. He wouldn’t drink from a prison rave bar again, not as long as he lived.

  A cry startled him and his gaze shot toward one of the empty cells in the hallway. He could see shapes moving in the shadow
s, becoming clearer to him as he squinted. Two people. He squinted, blinking, until their entangled forms became recognizable. The two people moved and writhed, naked except for the shadows cloaking them. He thought he might feel more embarrassed by his voyeurism if he wasn’t so drunk. But they didn’t notice him.

  Jana pulled him forward. He focused on her legs, the toned calves pressing against the tight acid-washed denim. He smiled, following her onward.

  “How far are we...?” He couldn’t complete the sentence, his words fading before they left his lips. His tongue felt thick and dry. He tried to move it but his tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth. The giddiness, the adventure of it all, faded as the halls grew darker and Jana dragged him into the darkness. He stopped following her and stood, his arms folded, his eyes wide and his heart racing. He blinked in a failed attempt to clear his vision.

  Jana tugged on his arm. “Come on, my American. We have much fun awaiting us.”

  He shook his head and wrapped his hands around his throat, miming his predicament.

  “It’s in your head.”

  He furrowed his brow.

  Jana leaned in closer. She placed a hand on one cheek and kissed the other. Her lips lingered against his skin. “You are fine. You Americans cannot handle our drinks.”

  “That’s not it at all. My mouth went dry. I feel so strange.” He tried to remain straight and upright. “Who are you?”

  She laughed. “It’s all in your head,” she repeated. “Let me help you get it out.” She pressed both palms against the sides of his face and pressed her lips against his. With her tongue, she goaded his. She pressed herself against his body.

  A warmth spread through him as he reciprocated with his own uninhibited kissing. His hands moved up and down her back and he breathed in her scent. He could no longer remember why he had felt so scared or hesitant. All that mattered was her. As they paused and her eyes opened to catch his, her lips parted to reveal her glowing white teeth. A distant emotion nagged at him—worry, shame, guilt? He could not place it and could hardly recall anything outside the present.

  He pointed to the empty cell nearest them with its door ajar. “Isn’t there good enough?”

  “No, I know of a place much better, my American friend.”

  Something in the phrase sparked a memory, distant and vague. It was like a match lit miles down a gravel road. He knew something was there but could not tell what his mind tried to conjure. My American friend. My friend.

  Again, she led him down a stairwell and through another hall with empty cells. These cells reached far into the darkness beyond their doorways. Rows of rusting bunk beds lined the rooms. A few bunks stood at astute attention. The rest had fallen.

  He stumbled behind, his hand in hers. “Plenty of room there.”

  “No, we must go somewhere special.”

  He couldn’t imagine a special place in here. In this place. What was this place called? He tried to remember how he had gotten here, how far it was from his home, his bed. Where was his home?

  “We are almost there, American boy.” She squeezed him and a dull sense of pleasure pierced through the blackness pervading his mind. Her footsteps echoed in a rhythmic patter against the stone walls. He closed his eyes, stumbling behind her, trusting her footfalls even as he tripped over loose stones and discarded trash. He pinched his eyes closed tighter and listened to the unpredictable bumbling of his own steps.

  “We are here.” She let go of him and he opened his eyes. He struggled to stand upright on his own. Bright lights filled the room. A rustle sounded from behind. Something struck him. A sharp pain erupted from the back of his head, and then darkness.

  Three

  Before he opened his eyes, an intense headache welcomed Nick to consciousness. The pressure and pain pushed at the back of his eyes and a fire danced across his brain. His muscles cramped and tightened, threatening to tear from his bones, and he shuddered in agony. When the clink of metal against metal sounded nearby, he cringed and groaned. He opened his eyelids enough to let in a sliver of light. Blinding, painfully bright light. He clenched his eyelids closed again.

  More shuffling. The rustle of moving cloth, footsteps on the hard stone floor. He wanted to fade back into unconsciousness to withdraw from the pain.

  A deep, low voice sounded next to his head, followed by a feminine voice. They spoke a language he couldn’t place. He opened his eyes, forcing himself to acclimate to the LED bulbs strung overhead. An intense lamp shined above him. It reminded him of the lights in an operating room. His eyes watered and his mouth went dry as he swallowed. He racked his brain as he attempted to make sense of where he was and how he had gotten here.

  He tried to wipe his eyes, but something restrained his wrists. He leaned forward. Something scratchy and stiff pressed against his forehead and restricted his range of motion. He could move his head just enough to see the leather straps around his arms. When he tried to move his feet, he found them bound as well. He balled up his fingers and his palms grew clammy. He told himself to breathe normally as his body threatened to induce hyperventilation.

  Every inch of his brain burned as he tried to remember what he had done, how he’d ended up here. A woman, a face. Something struck out at him from behind the fog in his mind and he grappled for it with all the will he could muster. The memory faded, sucked back into the abyss of his broken mind.

  A woman entered his peripheral vision and brought with her another man. The man’s eyes drooped and his shoulders hunched forward, his mouth hanging agape. A man with blue surgical gloves on his hands hit the hunched man with the back of a Glock 54. Blue Gloves caught the unconscious man as his body slumped and folded. With the woman’s help, he maneuvered the new victim onto a flat table and strapped him down. She said something indistinguishable. Blue Gloves grunted and waved a small device over her forearm, where a tiny bump indicated her implanted Chip.

  After his device beeped, she nodded. She caught Nick’s eyes. Something in her eyes jostled his memory. He recognized her. They had met under strobe lights, black lights, between dancing bodies.

  She had led him here.

  As she turned to leave, her dark hair flowed over her shoulders. Blond highlights streaked the brunette, like lightning in the night sky. No, this wasn’t the one who had guided him. This woman’s shirt was white.

  A white skull against gray. She had been the one he’d met. This lightning-haired woman was white skull’s friend. He’d seen her briefly, just before Jana—that was her name—stole his cup. Jana was the one who had sipped from his fluorescent concoction, after which his memories swirled and blurred.

  She hadn’t just taken a drink from his cup; she’d put something in it. She had drugged him.

  The pain in his head swelled and the throbbing of his pulse in his ears accentuated the agony. As he groaned, the lightning-haired woman left. Another man with a Mohawk and thick muscles pinched the arms of the unconscious captive. He muttered a few words and pointed at Nick. Blue Gloves nodded and sauntered over.

  Nick frowned. “What the hell is going on?”

  His captor ignored him, dabbing Nick’s arm with a cotton ball wet with a cold liquid that tingled his skin.

  “I don’t have any money.”

  Neither man acknowledged Nick.

  “I’ll call the police.”

  He opened his mouth, ready to command his receiver to place a call before remembering it resided in his pocket. He couldn’t move his wrist enough to retrieve it, much less insert it into his ear. Kelsey might have been watching him. She would have seen the GPS signal from his Chip reporting from somewhere strange, his receiver disconnected. She’d be worried. She’d call the authorities.

  God, Kelsey. He vaguely remembered kissing the skull-shirted woman, how the woman’s body had rubbed against his, how she’d made him squirm. So stupid.

  Blue Gloves came back to his side with a small plastic card. He pressed his thumb to the coin-sized touchscreen of the card and a series of thi
n green lights played across Nick’s skin. They traced his face, scanning across his body until they reached his feet, and then disappeared.

  “What the hell are you doing to me? If you don’t let me go, the police will be here soon.” His voice came out shaky and weak.

  Blue Gloves jabbed a needle into Nick’s forearm and a sharp pain tore through him. Attached to the needle, a clear tube turned red as blood pumped through it and into a device in the man’s other hand. After a short while, he removed the needle. A stream of blood trickled from the puncture site.

  “What’s going on?”

  Blue Gloves placed the small blood-collecting device onto a black plastic tray. The tray beeped and a holoprojection lit up as words flew through the air above the tray. Green, blue, and red characters displaying images of cells followed by chemical structures and DNA shone as a progress bar slowly filled at the bottom of the projection.

  “Do you guys want my organs or something? Jesus Christ. Who the fuck steals organs? You can just grow one, you fucks!”

  Blue Gloves sneered.

  “Answer me!”

  The man walked away, prepping another needle and blood-collecting device. He joined his comrade with the Mohawk at the bedside of the unconscious man and performed the same scan. Mohawk shook his head as the green lights turned red. Blue Gloves grunted and they conversed in tense words. His cheeks red and eyes narrowed, he stabbed the needle into the unconscious man’s arm. After Blue Gloves drew the blood, he plugged the device into another plastic tray.

  Instead of the holoprojection lighting up in bright greens, blues, and reds like before, it flashed a yellow exclamation mark. Mohawk held out a hand, mumbled something, and Blue Gloves rolled his eyes. Without another word passing between the two, Mohawk pulled out a device from his own pocket that glinted in the brilliant LED lights. He pressed the device against the unconscious man’s head. A moment later, a muffled pop emitted from it and a squirt of blood and brain matter burst from the other side of the captive’s head.