Free Synthetic Dreams by Kim Knox Page B

with a brisk kiss, something hot and completely unsatisfying. “I promise you.”

    “Why?” The question was out and she cursed it. How to look stupid and insecure. She felt a blush cut across her cheeks. Perhaps she could blame it on the dense heat of the air shrouding them.
    Paul stepped back and took her hand. His gaze bored into her. “Because I want you.”
    Vyn blinked, too surprised by his reply to say anything.
    He didn’t seem to need a response as he stared around the narrow tunnel they’d landed in, one that stretched into the distance on either side. She followed his gaze. Unbroken, smooth metal walls with running lights set a metre, maybe more, above the floor. Technology hummed, and the rub of it was harsh against her exposed skin, tracing out the living lines of her scarring.
    Metal clanked, a series of quick, hard thuds high above them. Corporation agents were only minutes behind.
    Paul shot a frowning glance upwards and broke into a run. Vyn stumbled behind him, her breath short, her heart pounding. The tunnel diverged into a myriad of other passages, each looking the same, each breaking out into another network of tunnels. Yet he didn’t slow, didn’t hesitate over which tunnel to charge down, and she could feel that he was right. Somehow. The rush over her face, the exposed skin of her neck and hands rioted with the now-familiar burn of security technology.
    “What is this place?”
    He stopped and Vyn stumbled, trying to not slam into him. She bent at the waist, her lungs on fire, sweat breaking out. She glanced up at Paul. He was hardly out of breath. She hated him in that minute.
    “This isn’t a place at all.” His fingers slipped under the loose straps of her backpack to rub a comforting hand against her shoulder blade. “It’s a Mind tier.”

Chapter Eight
    Vyn froze. She’d been so wrapped up in her reaction to him, she’d completely missed a pull into a portal. She needed to get a solid fix on her attraction to him. It was dangerous not to. “You can see the differences that marked the proper path.”
    “Yes.”
    She heard the sliver of doubt in his voice and she shared it. Something as secure as the Box, protected by the intricacies of a virtual reality layer, and he could simply play Spot The Difference and it led them straight to the place he needed to go? It was far too convenient.
    Vyn straightened, her instincts screaming. “We’re being played.” She paused. “But…we are heading the right way.” She waved her hand, displaying the intricate curves of her scars over its back. Her skin was almost humming. “It feels right against my skin.”
    “We don’t have a choice.”
    That was true. They’d passed into a tier, which meant someone was storing their physical bodies. Somewhere. Vyn wanted to curse. “Then we should run.”
    Paul laced his strong fingers through hers. He took off again and she ran with him, letting the signs and markers exposed in the tier, her feeling, guide them. And they were being played. Her whole life had simply been one of moving to the commands of others, of the powerful men who ruled this chunk of the planet. Paul seemed to be the only trustworthy, solid person in her life. A man she’d known for a few short hours. It should scare her, but it didn’t.
    “Here.” Paul stopped in the middle of a tunnel, one that offered no visible difference to any of the others that they’d pounded through. His hand lifted to draw a pattern over the empty air in front of him. Pain flickered across his face and he retracted his hand. His fingers curled into a bloodless fist. “It’s here.”
    Vyn felt the pull of another portal, the flickering points of light burning against her eyes and skin. Again, the circular spark of scales drew itself against the air for a brief second. These two portals were unlike any she’d known. Invisible and dizzying or invisible and hot and vicious. Her gut twisted, and fear pulled at her. The tug of the gear was