Wired (Skinned, Book 3) by Robin Wasserman Read Free Book Online

his collarbone, resting them on his chest, over the spot where his heart would have been. "Please," I said again. "I just want to pretend the last two weeks didn't happen, that I was here. With you. So tell me what we would have been doing, so I can picture it."
    He choked out a bitter laugh. "You wouldn't have wanted to be here, not for that."
    "For what?" I could hear it in his voice: gathering clouds.
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    "I wasn't going to tell you this--" He stopped himself. "I mean, I wasn't going to not tell you. I didn't think it mattered."
    It wasn't like Riley to circle the point like this. He was nervous. That couldn't be good.
    "Sounds like it matters," I pointed out.
    He stood up, crossing his arms over his chest. "I went back to the city."
    "What ?" Now I was on my feet. "Why would you go back to that place?"
    " That place is home."
    "Not anymore."
    "I just wanted to go." He uncrossed his arms and curled one hand into a fist, closing it inside the other. "I knew you wouldn't get it."
    Someone had to stop; someone had to give. I drew close to him, though he kept his eyes fixed on the trees. "Riley." I touched his shoulder, but he didn't turn. "That place isn't safe for you anymore. Things are different now."
    "Yeah." He didn't sound angry anymore, only tired. "And you're just looking out for me, right?"
    "That's my job," I said lightly, as if none of this mattered. I turned him around, forcing him to face me.
    He smiled. "Maybe you should ask for a raise."
    "I'm pretty satisfied with my current compensation level," I said, touching his lips. "Especially the perks." I leaned forward, I closed my arms around him, I kissed him .
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    But he let me. Then we were on the ground again, limbs tangled, bodies sinking into the damp earth, finally in sync. It was how we ended all of our arguments, and so far it was effective. I tried not to think about what we would do when it wasn't.
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    UNFORGIVEN
    Maybe real was a matter of perspective.
    I told Riley the next day, on neutral territory. The park was technically called a "free expression zone," but everyone knew it as Anarchy. The brainstorm of some aging trenders and sellout free spirits who'd outfitted their mansions, garages, and shoe closets and still had credit to spare, Anarchy was designed to be a space where no behavior or appearance, no matter how odd, could be punished. The odder the better, in fact--in Anarchy only banality was forbidden, and the only consequence was invisibility. Little wonder it was always full.
    Unless you were crammed into a corp-town, crowds were mostly the kind of thing you read about in a history book or played at with virtual-reality hordes on the network. Crowds had gone out of fashion right along with pedestrian-packed sidewalks and sardine-can residence buildings and all those empty shells that once warehoused people who wanted to shop, people who wanted to eat,
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    people who wanted to watch. Trap enough people inside a shell like that and the shell becomes a prison; the people become perfect targets. Blow up enough of them and people stop going. For a long time no one wanted to shop, eat, or watch as much as they wanted to stay in one piece. That paranoia had faded with the bad old days of suitcase nukes and bio bombs, but the effects lingered. Why suffer through a crowd when you can have anything you want delivered to your door for free, when you can play with the masses on the network and then, as soon as they get too loud, too sweaty, too smelly, shut them off and be alone again? These days there were clubs and parties, there was high school--there were crowds to be had, real live people clumping together en stinky, sweaty, stuffy masse. But they were always carefully selected, security screened, invitation only. They were always the same. Random swarm of strangers? We left that to the corp-towns, the cities, and the crazies in the Brotherhood. And now, Anarchy.
    It was where you went if you wanted to be seen; it was also the perfect place to