Writers of the Future, Volume 29 Read Online Free Page A

station, I had landed in my stolen shuttle and enjoyed my first victory meal of Pad Thai noodles in the mall rotunda while my guards kept cheering crowds at bay.
    Traci wipes her eyes with a harsh, angry motion.
    â€œWe hacked you straight into the Regen list, making the system believe you were an approved regeneration in Peznowski’s circle. You’ve probably noticed by now that you are in a different body. Even the doctors at the clinic won’t know who you really are.”
    Peznowski? My fists clench at the name.
    â€œHe’s alive,” Traci says onscreen. “And he’s on the governing board of New Haven. Calls himself Deputy Mayor Matthew Bayne. Has a whole new body, new voice, but our AI pat-match scoured his speeches and gave a ninety-one percent match with Peznowski’s cadence, word choice, and style. Peznowski is back from the dead and practically in charge of the town you’re in.”
    I stand up, naked and dripping synth-placental slime. The message scrollbar shows me there’s just seconds left to the content.
    â€œWe need you to kill Peznowski again.”
    As if I’d needed her to say the words. I nod wearily, feeling as if my stomach has a bloated worm crawling inside it.
    â€œHarris, we included a subfile with your download. It has blueprints of New Haven, an injectable dom patch—”
    My jaw drops like a collapsed drawbridge. Why in the hell would I need a dom patch? Who should I inject?
    â€œâ€”and a total workup of the body you’re occupying. We chose you because you’re a quick study. Memorize the info ASAP.”
    â€œWhy?” I ask the monitor.
    Traci sighs deeply, her body shrinking. It’s as if she can hear me across time and geography.
    â€œThe body that you’re in,” she says, “is Peznowski’s son.”
    T he message ends. I delete it instantly, the blood pounding in my head. Then I slide open the pod hatch and walk naked to the shower stall, passing a row of pods and a nurse station. A gray-haired doctor intercepts me. His name registers to my nanonics eye-lens: DR. HORACE WELLINGTON.
    Wellington is an alarmingly hairy fellow, what a Neanderthal would look like if snatched from the Paleolithic and forcibly dressed into a starchy white lab coat. His eyes simmer beneath impossibly bushy eyebrows.
    â€œWhy didn’t you ring for assistance?” he demands. “If you fell while relearning coordination, your father…”
    Would cut out your eyes? I think. I saw him do it once to a prisoner whose transgression was a “disrespectful” glance in Peznowski’s direction as he and I were walking past the line of cells. The man’s name was Clint Frederick Jamison, a captured journalist who had written an anonymous editorial against the Partisans. But nothing is anonymous anymore with patmatchers and sniffer programs combing the web like merciless spiders, feeling for treacherous vibrations. I remember Jamison’s name, because Peznowski had tortured his wife to death repeatedly over the course of forty days. Every time they brought her back, she woke up screaming. She died the same way.
    It was understandable, then, that Jamison might be apt to shoot Peznowski a glare. And for it, Peznowski had the man restrained, and personally plucked his eyes out with a staple-remover. I stood by, forced to watch, while Jamison screeched and howled in pitiable agony, and I promised myself I would delete the memory that night. But I never did. I kept it, out of respect for Jamison. Maybe, too, to add more fuel to my desire to kill the corporal with my own hands.
    Or with my teeth.
    Like my teeth in the throat of that dog.
    I realize suddenly I haven’t answered Wellington. He’s peering at me suspiciously from beneath his caterpillar-like eyebrows.
    â€œI’m fine,” I say, and freeze at the sound of my new voice. It’s like having a stranger speak beneath my chin.
    The doctor