Overclocked by K. S. Augustin Read Free Book Online Page B

open and Tania found her­self star­ing down the large black bar­rel of a weapon.
    “Wha—”
    “Who the—? Tania, is that really you?”
    The bar­rel dropped and her up­per arm was grabbed. She was yanked in­side and the door slammed shut be­hind her with a solid thud.
    Tania saw an in­terior that only su­per­fi­cially re­sembled her apart­ment and a man who only su­per­fi­cially re­sembled Carl be­fore she was slammed against the wall. The gi­ant gun bar­rel ap­peared again, aimed between her eyes. Tania’s at­ten­tion was riv­eted to it.
    “What’s your name?”
    “Tania Flowers,” she said. “Carl, what—”
    “What was the name of our lab?”
    “It didn’t have a name.” She felt her ir­rit­a­tion rise. “We called it Base­ment Five as a nick­name.”
    “Where was the last con­fer­ence we at­ten­ded to­gether?”
    “To­gether?” she frowned. “We
never
at­ten­ded a con­fer­ence to­gether.”
    It fi­nally dawned on her that, rather than be­ing am­ne­siac, Carl was test­ing her. The im­age of the rab­bit sprang to mind. If someone could cre­ate an avatar based on a fic­tional char­ac­ter, she real­ised, it was en­tirely pos­sible that someone else could cre­ate one based on
her
.
    “Carl, it’s me,” she said, think­ing quickly. “Your body is in the in­ner core of Base­ment Five, in one of the in­ser­tion rooms, over­looked by the ob­ser­va­tion sec­tion. There’s an­other, identical room next to it. That’s where my body is.”
    The bar­rel wavered and Tania had time to see the per­son be­hind it. Her eyes widened.
    Carl! But...not Carl.
    “You reach the in­ner core through an­other layer of se­cur­ity,” she con­tin­ued. “The walls are made of brushed metal that al­ways made me think I was in­side a caterer’s re­fri­ger­ator.”
    She had made that same com­ment to him over din­ner one night – their first din­ner to­gether. Would he re­mem­ber? Her state­ment was as much a test for him as it was for her.
    He lowered the weapon and slid it into a hol­ster at his hip.
    “A res­taur­ant re­fri­ger­ator,” he said.
    She let out a long slow breath of re­lief.
    “You sure as hell took your time get­ting here.” His voice was bit­ter. “Why did Base­ment Five shut down its serv­ers for so long? Is that a tether on your belt? Is it work­ing?”
    Tania had been ex­pect­ing sev­eral re­ac­tions but not the hos­til­ity that was beat­ing at her. She blinked in con­fu­sion.
    “I came as fast as I could,” she said. “Yes, that’s a tether. And yes, it’s work­ing. It’s our way home.”
    “Home?” He snorted. “There’s no way I’m go­ing home, darlin’, not while the Thing is out there.”
    This was worse than be­ing in the Blue. What was Carl talk­ing about? What was the “thing” he re­ferred to? Was he de­lu­sional? And why did he look so...old?
    Her eyes nar­rowed, Tania took in Carl’s ap­pear­ance as he paced away from her, mut­ter­ing un­der his breath.
    Yes, this was Carl Orin, but not the man she re­cog­nised from their time to­gether. His hair, once a rich blond, was now much lighter, the pale gold strands over­whelmed with pure sil­ver. The col­our dus­ted the short side­burns next to his ears. There were wrinkles fan­ning out from his corn­flower-blue eyes, etched be­side his firm lips. His cheeks were more sunken than she re­membered, throw­ing his cheekbones into sharper re­lief. Be­neath the one-piece suit that he still wore, his body looked firm but thicker. In short, he looked like he’d aged twenty years.
    “Did Don send you?” he asked, from the other side of the room. Between them was a lab set-up that re­sembled the ob­ser­va­tion room of Base­ment Five’s in­ner core.
    Tania looked at the equip­ment then over to the man who had been her lover.
    “Yes.”
    Hums, from the rows of mon­it­ors run­ning vari­ous