Cracked Open Read online

  He’s in reader mode. I’m deluged with the information overload that only comes from a reader’s mind. Even deep inside a jacker’s head, hiding is reflexive, if they have any control. But a reader is splayed open to the world.

  Except this mindreader has a secret.

  I poke around, absorbing everything, just because my curiosity is getting the best of me. Renell Walker is the only son of a wealthy Chicago New Metro family, one that goes back generations. They’re some of the first readers to rise to power after the Change, the shift a hundred years ago when the world went demens with the first people changing into readers. Some were faster to adapt than others, and the Walkers made it big fast, investing in the technology that was a precursor to the MINDWARE Corporation. They diversified, buying property in the suburbs that would soon be in high demand as people fled the city for more space between them and their mindreading neighbors. Renell controls a substantial fraction of the family’s empire, and he’s poised to inherit all of it eventually. There’s just one problem… a problem that Wright somehow got her hooks into.

  My probing is showing up on Renell’s face as a flash of green in his eyes and a small surge of resistance in his mind. I hadn’t intended to push him into making the flip this way—by dredging up things he wanted to keep buried—but that’s exactly what’s happening. He’s not fighting me… he’s fighting the urge to shove me out of his head.

  I probe harder, pushing at the secret he doesn’t want shared.

  Renell grits his teeth, but his eyes settle into amber again, and I easily push into the core memory he’s protected with his secret inner jacker. He’s out with a girl—an undeniably hot girl—and he’s making out with her in a dark alley somewhere in the seedy downtown part of Chicago. There’s something illicit about them meeting up, but before I can probe further into that, the girl shoves him away and attacks him. Fingernails, fists, teeth—everything is flying fast and furious. He stumbles back, more stunned than alarmed, but then laughter echoes down the alley. A trio in hoodies slinks out of the shadows. Jackers. I can feel the revulsion and shock right along with Renell. They’re jacking the girl. He flips into his jacker mode and lashes out at them, but it’s three against one. Renell’s special ability is masquerading as a reader—par excellence because he becomes a reader in every sense—but in jacker mode, he’s nothing special. They take him down, rifle through his mind, find out who he is and… I don’t need to see the rest. I’ve been around enough jacker thugs to guess. But the ugliness spools out in front of me. The girl is assaulted and killed while he watches, horrified and helpless. They thoroughly probe his mind for things like passcodes for houses or his family’s fleet of antique hydrocars. It’s a mental mugging, and the only good part is that they wipe his memory before they leave him bloodied, but alive, next to the girl’s body.

  That’s when I realize the whole thing is a reconstruction, a sim in his mind built by someone else… by one of Wright’s jackers. Apparently, she found him and the girl after the whole thing was caught on security tape. They made a deal—Wright and Renell—to delete him from the scene if he came to work for DARPA. Renell’s whole life—a life of privilege and promise—awaits him. But not if he’s a jacker. Not if he’s caught with the wrong girl in the wrong alley in downtown Chicago. That was a year ago, and he’s been on call with Wright ever since.

  The jackers were never caught.

  I pull out of Renell’s mind. He’s stopped struggling mentally against my intrusion, and his eyes are a steady amber color, staring at me.

  “I can still hear Mr. Walker’s thoughts,” Wright says tersely, chastising me for not flipping Renell into his jacker mode fast enough. Or maybe she’s sensed the unease between us. I’m not sure what to make of him.

  “Just do what you’re going to do,” he says to me, a glimmer of green flicking in one eye. He’s heard about me. He knows about the screams. Yet, it’s almost like he’s inviting me to jack-abuse him. Almost like… penance.

  The guy has issues.

  I wince. Nothing about this feels right. “If he can already flip between reader and jacker…” And I can hardly believe I’m saying this, but I saw it happen in his memory-sim, and if nothing else, Renell believes it’s true. “…then why do you need me to force it? Just ask him to change.”

  “Don’t play stupid,” Major John Scott pipes up, warning in his voice. While Renell and I were having our silent mental battle, Scott rose up to stand behind Wright. “You know what the director wants, Zeph. Just give it to her.”

  I sigh and reach out to Renell’s mind again. I already have his mindmap memorized, so I don’t give him any warning—there’s literally no use to that. I spin his mindfield, and the clenched fists do him absolutely no good. He falls down to his knees, screaming, like all the others. I don’t look at Wright because if I have to see the smug triumph written on her face, I might really do something I’ll regret. Instead, I shut my eyes, closing off the sight of pain on Renell’s face, shutting out the screams as best I can, and going completely by mental feel. Normally, I can sense the “locked” and “unlocked” configurations of any given mindfield. Almost like they flip between modes or states, now that I think about it. It would be easy enough to let Renell’s mindmap fall back into one of those states… if I could detect them. My heart rate picks up a little as I realize he doesn’t have either one. I try to reassure myself that I could go back to his original state if I had to, but that won’t get me anywhere with Wright.

  His original state was reader—except for the buried memory sim. But his mindfield configuration was different than other readers, or jackers for that matter. Fuzzy at the edges. I don’t have a better word for it, but as Renell continues to scream in pain, I really don’t have time to second-guess this. I’m thinking his reader and jacker configurations can’t be that far different from “locked” (jacker) and “unlocked” (reader). And if he can flip between those two modes himself, that means he must have some connection between the two. Some way to control his own mindfield. But his memory of the alley didn’t include him dropping to the ground in pain when he flipped modes, so… they can’t be that far apart. Big shifts equal lots of pain, which means lots of the screaming that haunts me at night. But if Renell can flip easily, then… I focus on his original mindfield configuration, the one with the blurry edges. I let his mindfield stop spinning, and it falls naturally back into that shape.

  Renell stops screaming, but stays down, gasping for air, hands and knees on the floor as he recovers.

  Then I give his mindfield a little nudge. I’m pushing it right through that fuzzy state. It resists at first—and Renell flinches—but before he can take another breath, his mindfield flips into a new state all on its own. Like it just needed a push to get it to snap through the fuzz. And when I brush his mindfield again, the barrier is tough, just like a jacker.

  I let out an audible breath. Renell peers up at me from the floor, amazed. Wright’s got an evil grin on her face that makes my stomach lurch, but Scott’s approval comes in the form of a small nod behind Wright’s back.

  I extend a hand to Renell and help him up. “Sorry, man. I didn’t know…” I don’t want to give away too much of what happened to Wright. “I’m just sorry.” I leave it at that.

  His palm is cold and clammy, and he’s shaken, but he should be way more pissed than he seems. “I’ll live,” he says, but it’s heavy with meaning. I’m not sure I understand.

  I turn to Wright. “Your turn. Where are my parents?”

  She ignores me. “Can you flip back?” she demands of Renell with an excited fervor. Then her face lights up with the kind of animated silent conversation readers have with one another. Renell’s face is responding in kind. I guess he really can switch back and forth with ease.

  Scott’s rubbing the back of his neck. He and I are both aced out of their conversation. I feel the heat rising to my face. If Wright doesn’t knock off the mindreading and answer my question soon—

  She
turns to me and says aloud, “You’ve made substantial progress, Mr. MacCay. Come back tomorrow, and you’ll have your visit with your mother.”

  I’m so stunned, I take a moment to respond, “Good.” And with that, I can’t get out of Wright’s torment cell fast enough. I clear my throat. “I’ll be back tomorrow. I’ve got somewhere I need to be now as well.” I nod to Renell. Having just trolled through his mind, I know he’s got some kind of society function where his family expects him to give a speech.

  I, on the other hand, have a funeral to attend.

  I gesture to the door behind Renell, and Wright doesn’t make me wait too long before she opens it. I stride out of the DARPA facility, hail an autocab, and set the destination for Jackertown.

  I don’t want to be late for the wake of a man I’m responsible for getting killed.

  I’m still buzzing from the fact that I changed a reader into a jacker. Granted, Renell already had that ability programmed into his brain. But how is that even possible? And how did my simple nudge trigger it? More importantly, I get to see my mom tomorrow, assuming Wright follows through on her promise. But right now, I'm late for a funeral—and for picking up a reader girl I'm supposed to be bodyguarding.

  My autolimo pulls up to the North Shore Country Day School. Most students have already slipped into their rides—identical autolimos, only a few with bodyguards like me. I’m a terrible bodyguard, obviously, since Juliette Tiller is standing outside the wrought-iron gates alone, anxiously scanning the pickup line for me. As soon as my autolimo pulls into the queue, a hundred feet down from her, I jump out and wave. She doesn’t see me, so I take off in a jog, finally catching her eye as the only guy running down the sidewalk.

  Her shoulders drop in relief. Then she hikes up her sparkly pink backpack, swiping her long blonde hair out of the way, and strides to meet me.

  “Hey, sorry I’m late,” I say, relieving her of the backpack when I get to her. She insists on going to Julian’s wake in Jackertown.

  Her pale skin is a little flushed, but her blue eyes are wide with concern, not anger. “Is everything okay?” she asks in whispered voice, like she thinks another assassination, or bombing, or other disaster are the only things that could have detained me.

  “Everything’s fine,” I rush out with a sideways glance at the attention we’re gathering, speaking out loud. Juliette refuses to put on the anti-jacker helmet that most kids wear outside the school, and I forgot to put mine on—by all rights, we should be mindtalking. I link some random thoughts into the heads of the unhelmeted people nearby but link something entirely different in Juliette’s mind. I was hauled in again today, that’s all. Took longer than I thought. She knows I’m working for the government in some capacity, but I try to keep her knowledge vague, so she doesn’t accidentally reveal anything to her father, Jeffrey Tiller. He’s my employer and CEO of MINDWARE Corp, Tru-Tech, and probably a lot of other dark companies I don’t know about. He’s a billionaire, he’s super-smart, and he’s a bigot against jackers. He’s also clueless that his daughter is secretly dating one. Not me—a super hot girl named Sammi Gray. Or at least, I think they’re still together. I’ve had my hands full watching over my sister and haven’t had time to arrange any dates.

  We talk no more—mentally or verbally—until we’re in the autolimo, pulling away from the school.

  “You sure you want to do this?” I ask once we’re safely outside the reading range of her classmates.

  “Well, I can’t go to the funeral, so the wake seems like the next best thing.” Julian Navarro was finally buried this afternoon—a week after his assassination and after the official autopsy declared death-by-bullet. The wake is happening right now at the Mediation Center, which served as the Jackertown version of a court system before Julian was elected senator and the Jacker Freedom Alliance was officially disbanded.

  The whole thing makes me twitchy—going to the wake of a man I helped get killed; taking a reader like Juliette into the heart of Jackertown; and that they’re holding the ceremony in a place that symbolized Wild West justice for jackers before Julian brought them into the political realm and negotiated jurisdiction for the Chicago Jack Police in Jackertown. Not that the jack police seem to catch the worst offenders even still. Clan leaders like Rutkowski—my most recent employer before being pulled into DARPA and working for Tiller—proved that brutal Clans still operate with impunity.

  “I could just send your condolences, you know,” I try, hoping Juliette will change her mind.

  She shakes her head, frowning. “Besides, Sammi will be there.”

  “Sorry, I’ve been off my game with setting you two up, but I’m very capable of arranging a date somewhere else.” If that’s all it is for her, I’ll work a lot harder to talk her out of it. I tell myself I’m just looking out for her, even though it’s a lot more complicated.

  She drops her gaze to her hands, one picking at a rough nail corner of the other. Juliette’s insanely pretty—wide blue eyes, killer cheekbones—and her girlfriend is even hotter. It’s a level of beauty that messes with my head, so I have to work hard to ignore it. But when she’s all twisted up like this, tears glimmering at the corners of her eyes, my need to fix what’s wrong zooms up to nearly incapacitating.

  “What is it?” I ask.

  “She’s not texting me. Again.”

  “What do you mean, again?” I am so not an expert in relationships, and Sammi and Juliette have it rougher than most. What with all the secrecy and “my dad loathes your kind” complications. Then there’s Sammi’s secret—her mom works for Juliette’s dad—that I’ve pledged to keep, even from Juliette. All around, it’s a sketchy situation.

  Juliette looks up, tears making her lashes wet. “I mean, she texted after the assassination to tell me she was okay, but it’s been radio silence since then.”

  I frown. “Then how do you know she’ll be at the wake?” She gives me a look like I’m an idiot. “Oh. Right. Everyone’s going to be there.” Yet another reason why going isn’t such a great idea for me. But Juliette going on her own is out of the question. Tiller is still ostensibly paying me to keep his daughter safe, plus I count her among the few friends I have. And I’m hoping Tiller will come through with some intel on where Wright’s holding my parents. The two are working together at some level, but at the moment, Tiller likes me a lot more than Wright does.

  The autolimo pulls up to Aaliyah’s Home for the Temporarily Dizzy. It’s also my temporary home, and my sister’s, but Juliette and I are just here to swap the autolimo for an autocab, so Tiller doesn’t track us to Jackertown. Wright still has a tracker inside me, but she doesn’t care where I go, as long as Major John Scott can pick me up whenever she wants.

  The secrecy gets a little insane.

  Juliette throws pinched looks down the ramshackle street while we wait for the autocab I hailed with my phone. The early-summer sun is bright, and the haze off the lake gives everything a surreal cast. Neither of us is dressed for a wake—I’m in my typical jeans and layered t-shirt, blending in with the rich kids, while Juliette is effortlessly one, her custom jeans probably costing more than Tiller’s paid me so far… which barely is enough to cover what I owe Aaliyah for room and board. Especially now that my sister’s here, too.

  The autocab rolls up silently, and we climb in. I jack into the mindware interface and set a path for the Mediation Center. The run-down streets surrounding Aaliyah’s Home roll by with their broken window fronts and boarded-up businesses.

  About halfway there, Juliette breaks the silence. “I’m not just worried about Sammi,” she says quietly, still staring out the window at the passing dead city. “I’m worried about my dad.”

  I frown. I don’t think she knows all the things Tiller’s involved in—the jacker shock treatments at the Detention Center, for starters, and probably some illicit involvement with DARPA, given they use his special prototype anti-jacker helmets—but it’s not like I’ve told her any of that. Or that DARPA is tied som
ehow to the assassination itself, and therefore, her dad could be involved. I don’t know. Pulling at those threads to unravel the mystery has taken second seat to getting my parents out of Wright’s clutches.

  “Your dad will be fine,” I say, pretty sure this is true. Rich, well-connected guys like him come out on top. It’s people like my family and me that get chewed up in the gears of their machinations.

  She turns sharply. “I don’t mean that. I mean…” She frowns and drifts back to looking out the window, tracing a smudge left there by the autowash. “I love my dad. I don’t want anything bad to happen to him. But…” She turns back to me. “I know he’s on the wrong side. Of a lot of things.”

  I just nod. She has to know the man, even if she doesn’t know the details. “Hey, at least he still thinks you’re dating me, right? You’ve got that going for you.” I give her a smile.

  She snorts and shakes her head. “Yeah. He thinks it’s terrible that your sister turned out to be a jacker, but he thinks you’re a total hero. I think he loves you more than me.”

  That kills my smile. I have no idea what to say. And it scares up a fear I’ve been repressing since Wright said I could see my mom—that when I finally see her, I’ll find out things I don’t want to know. Like maybe she’s been working with Wright all along, just like Olivia.

  “Hey,” I say, trying to choke down that surge of emotion. “No matter what your dad’s involved in, I’m sure he loves you. He just, you know, super sucks at being the good guy.”

  She snort-laughs again then gets serious. And quiet. “He’s working on something new, Zeph. I think it’s anti-jacker tech.”

  My eyebrows lift. “Isn’t that like most of what he’s working on?” I’m wondering if she knows about the shock treatments in the prison after all.