Nano Bytes

Chapter 1

A single snowflake floated past the windowpane, and Thea Jackson knew that it was the end of the world. They’d had warnings for decades, and they knew it was coming. No one had reacted the day the methane clouds had hit the atmosphere. No one questioned the turbulent weather. No one had taken notice of the change in the jet streams, and this was the result.

She stared down through her closed window at the street below. People were running from the apartment complex, some loading up their cars and others flagging down air taxis.

We knew about it, but we didn’t believe it.

When the reports had come in about a glacier here or a drop in temperatures there, none of it had seemed real, not when she was sitting in the centrally heated offices of Devlin Corp, working her way up through the ranks for all the wrong reasons.

She’d been as blind as everyone else had, and her agenda had all been for nothing.

It feels real now. We’re screwed.

She closed her eyes for a moment. Her life was a mess of secrets and lies, but none of it seemed to matter anymore. Why should it on the day the world ended? Nothing mattered anymore.

William…

Her heart ached at the thought of him. Where was he now? Was he running for the borders too? Was he clawing his way through the crowds, trying to escape the inevitable?

She brushed a stray tear away from her cheek. She’d lost him the day she’d been sentenced. Fear had kept her silent. It was fear that had driven him away in the end, the fear that if he knew what she’d done, he’d forget that he ever loved her. She wanted to speak to him now, one last time before it was too late. There were so many things that she hadn’t told him, so many things that he didn’t know.

She shook her head. She couldn’t wallow in regret right now. It was not the right time to lose it.

Watching the crowds below, she realized that there was enough insanity outside without her joining the ranks of crazy people. The concept of human decency seemed to evaporate as she watched a young couple mow down an old woman on their way to their car. They looked like a perfectly respectable couple. They probably thought they were, judging by their designer clothes and perfectly coiffed hair.

Not so respectable now that the world is screwed, are you?

In the wake of the announcement that an environmental disaster was inevitable and heading straight for them, people’s identities were falling away, giving way to their animal instinct to survive instead.

Thea’s pulse raced. She knew that if she didn’t get out of here, she’d die, but it wasn’t as if she had a choice. She couldn’t leave her apartment. She helplessly stared across the vibrant city. The thriving metropolis of Carilona was lit up. In the distance, a vast line of headlights glowed from the many cars trying to leave the city and head south while industrial chimneys pumped smoke into the atmosphere behind them.

That’s why we’re in this mess. The cars, the shuttles, the fossil fuels, we made this happen.

Trying to stop herself from panicking, she clenched her fists.

Why this week? Why did this have to happen now?

She shook her head, her blonde bangs covering her eyes for a moment before she brushed them back. Her life hadn’t been easy so far. This was just another unbelievably crappy event in it.

You should be used to things going wrong by now. Of course, there’s going to be an Ice Age on the week you’re under house arrest.

She glanced down at the implant in her shoulder. The glowing blue dot flashed beneath the skin. When they put it in, she’d been told that if she left her apartment, it would activate. The judge had been particularly harsh when he gave her a heart–stopper. If it became active, her heart would explode in her chest, meaning she was stuck here unless she wanted to redecorate her stylish apartment with blood spatter.

She turned around to face her neat apartment. The cream couch had become her favorite place to spend her sentence. With a freezer full of ice cream and a fur throw, a week in here hadn’t sounded so bad at the time. But now, it sounded like a death sentence.

I need to know how bad this storm is going to be. Is it an actual Ice Age? Aren’t we already in one anyway?

Hurrying over to the couch, she snatched up the remote and flashed the red laser in it over the center of the room. She knew that the media weren’t the most reliable source of information, but it was the only source available since the internet had gone down.

A 3D projection of the national news desk appeared in her living room. She stared at the empty desk in horror. Where had the presenters gone?

She hitched her breath. From what she could see, the studio was deserted. Frowning, she used her remote to turn the studio cameras, thankful that she’d paid extra for the interactive features.

Her heart skipped a beat. She’d expected to see someone still there, but the entire studio was empty. Other than a fern in a pot, which had been tipped over, there was no indication of life at all.

She stared at the streaming text as it scrolled across the bottom of the projection, saying the same thing over and over again:

RED ALERT BROADCAST: TEMPERATURES HAVE REACHED A CRITICAL LOW. RESIDENTS ABOVE THE SOLARIS FAULT LINE MUST HEAD SOUTH IMMEDIATELY. 900,000 REPORTED DEAD IN THE COUNTRY’S CAPITAL. RED ALERT…

She turned off the broadcast and dropped the remote onto the couch.

Nine–hundred thousand dead… That’s the whole city!

The capital city of Torlon was only a day’s drive away.

She clenched her hands into fists.

Oh, screw this. I’m not waiting here to die.

Chapter 2

Thea glared down at the flashing blue dot on her shoulder.

There has to be a way to get this thing out of me.

Experts usually did implant extraction in a clinic. But from what she knew about the tech, they were just sensors that sent out electrical impulses. The impulses frazzled your brain into sending the wrong signals to your organs.

So what happens if I just carve this thing out of me?

She glanced at the window. The snowstorm was a blizzard now. A white blanket of snow had covered everything as snowflakes swirled around in the air, blotting out the city one icy flake at a time.

I’d rather explode than freeze to death.

She jumped up and hurried over to the kitchen to get a knife.

Yanking open the cutlery drawer, she rummaged around inside it, frowning when she couldn’t find anything with a blade on it.

What the hell did the enforcers do with my cutlery?

Underneath some spoons, she just found more spoons. A bubble of panic began to grow in the back of her throat as she pulled out the drawer and tipped it out onto the floor. There weren’t any sharp implements in the pile of items on the floor.

Those fuckers! They took everything I could use to cut with.

After the trial, she’d had to allow the enforcers into her apartment. She’d thought it was to check for illegal items. But apparently, their sweep of her apartment included removing anything she could cut the implant out with.

Her breath came out in short bursts as real panic began to set in. In the back of her mind, the idea of cutting the implant out and escaping had been her backup plan. The fact that she could see her breath in the air as the temperature rapidly dropped didn’t help alleviate her fears. It was already getting colder in here.

Determined not to give up, she hurried into her bedroom. She had hidden weapons that she could use as a surgeon’s scalpel.

Hurrying to her closet, she turned the door handle on it four times, twice left and twice right. The doorknob inverted to reveal a small keypad. With a tight smile, she pressed her thumb onto the small black screen. A green line flowed down the screen as it scanned her thumbprint.

After an audible click, the door swung open to reveal a secret section of the closet, an alcove filled with shelves and boxes. She frowned at the photographs pinned to the back wall—William’s father going into Devlin Corp, William at college, the enforcers attacking street kids.

She sighed at the memories the photographs inspired. Her world had been so complicated for all the right reasons. Her intentions had been to help people for all the good it did anyone in the end.

She’d been a spy, an activist against Devlin Corp. She’d been a criminal before that. Since massive corporations controlled the justice system and the enforcers, there wasn’t any real justice in the world. In the beginning, she’d only been breaking laws for herself. But when the people starving on the streets had become the targets of the enforcers, she had made it her mission to find out why.

She’d infiltrated Devlin Corp with a fake identity to find out why they were making people disappear.

But her life of spying for Revolution, a group of hardcore activists, had turned into a constant, moral dilemma. William had been, and still was, an innocent in it all. She hadn’t meant to fall in love. She hadn’t meant to become so immersed in the world of corporate lies that she’d lose herself. She hadn’t meant to get caught.

She narrowed her eyes as she reached into the dark alcove, pulling open a metal case to get her knife.

Her eyes widened.

No! They can’t have broken in here too.

She pulled out the box and searched through it, her heart racing. Only foam spaces remained where her weapons had once been. They’d taken everything.

She dropped the box and stepped back, her heart sinking.

That was it. That was my only chance.

She sank down onto the bed, blankly staring at the open closet. This implant wasn’t a control device. It was a death sentence.

Her eyes wandered up the wall to the security camera embedded in the ceiling. Were they still watching, or had they headed for warmer climates?

Frowning, she tried to think of another way out. There had to be something she could use.

She flinched at the sound of cries coming from the hallway. Then she sharply inhaled.

I can still open the goddamn door!

Jumping to her feet, she hurried out of the room and rushed to her front door. She peered through the peephole. There were several people rushing down the halls as they left the building.

Stepping back, she flung open the door, careful not to set off the sensors around the doorway and scanning the people as the rushed by. One of them had to have a knife or something sharp enough to break her skin.

«Hey!» She called out to a jovial–looking man as he neared her doorway.

He ignored her as he rushed passed. «Wait!» she cried. «I need a knife.»

She turned to face the family of four who were rushing toward her door. «I need help. Can you help me?» she cried.

The father hugged the child he was carrying and shook his head as he passed her.

A feeling of desperation washed over her. She couldn’t even reach out to people as they hurried by. The second her fingers passed through the doorframe, her implant would activate.

«Please, it won’t take long. Can someone just stop for a minute?»

People looked away as they raced by, all of them with one goal, which did not include helping her. They just wanted to get out of here.

Gritting her teeth, she pulled her car keys out of her pocket. It was her way out of the city, but it would be useless if she didn’t live long enough to drive away.

She waved the keys. «I’ll give you my car if you just stop for a minute.»

No one stopped. Most people didn’t even look at her.

Helplessness overwhelmed her, and her voice became croaky as she lowered her head in defeat. «Please don’t leave me here to die.»

«I wasn’t planning to.»

She jerked her head up, recognizing the voice and finding herself staring into a pair of familiar green eyes. She gasped his name. «William.»

Chapter 3

Thea didn’t know what to think as she stepped back to allow William into her apartment. The last time she’d seen him, he’d told her that he never wanted to see her again. Now, here he was, right when she needed him the most.

«I didn’t know if you’d still be here.» He gripped her hand, pulling her toward the door. «Come on, we need to get out of here now.»

She pulled back, her heart racing as she neared the point of no return.

He turned back to frown at her, confusion crossing over his handsome face. «What’s wrong?»

She backed away from the door, ripping her hand away from his. He looked as sexy as ever, his broad shoulders concealed beneath a white shirt and his long legs encased in dark jeans. The crumped shirt seemed to glow beside his tanned skin. His short blond hair was a mussed mess, as always. In his eyes, there was that pain again. The same one she’d seen in on the day she’d been arrested.

Loathe to remind him of that moment again, she pressed her lips together, determined not to drag him into another one of her nightmares.

He frowned and walked toward her, taking her hands in his and staring into her eyes. «Talk to me, Thea. Please.»

She expelled a slow breath, the coldness of the room causing a momentary fog to appear between them. She only had two choices: Tell him the truth, or tell him to go.

If she told him the truth, he’d hate her forever because she’d drag him into her murky world. If she told him to go, she’d die.

Maybe I deserve to have my heart frozen. Maybe it already is.

He knew she’d been arrested for stealing files from his father’s company, but he didn’t know the full story.

«We need to go. You can’t ignore me again, not now!» He sounded desperate, and he was right. She needed to either face her demons or take them to her grave. She couldn’t run away this time.

«I can’t go anywhere,” she muttered, unsure of how to tell him the truth but determined to at least try. It might be her last chance to talk to him.

«Why not?»

She brushed her fair hair off her shoulder and pointed to the glowing implant beneath her skin.

His eyes widened. «Why do you have that?»

He knew she’d been sentenced, but the punishment had been delivered privately in the correctional facility.

«Manslaughter.» She turned away. It hadn’t been a fair ruling. It hadn’t been a fair trial, but the guilt she felt was real enough.

«Of who?» He gasped out the words.

She spun to face him. Wasn’t it obvious? «Your father.» She winced at the words. But inside, it was a relief. She’d needed to tell him the truth since that day in court. The promise she’d made his mother to keep it a secret and to stay away from him had been killing her. Judging by the pain in his expression, it had been killing him too.

«My father isn’t dead.» He narrowed his eyes.

She widened her eyes. «What?»

«What did you really do to get that?» He folded his arms.

«I told you!» A million questions tumbled through her mind. What did he mean his father wasn’t dead? She’d shot him. Okay, she hadn’t had a choice. He’d caught her helping some street kids escape from his human–testing laboratory, and he’d pulled a gun on her. But she’d wrestled the gun off him, and it had gone off. «I shot him. He couldn’t have survived.» She frowned.

«He’s alive and well. You must have shot one of his clones. Is Is that why you didn’t answer my calls?» he asked.

Of course he has clones! What the hell did I get arrested for then?

«What calls?» Thea snatched her phone off the side table, scanning the call log. There hadn’t been any calls or voice messages in days. Then her eyes fell upon the Devlin Corp logo on the top of the handset.

I’ve been played!

«Do you have a knife?» She ground out.

«What an earth for?»

She pointed to her shoulder. «I have two choices; home surgery, or being frozen to death.»

He swallowed, staring at her shoulder. «It’s a heart–stopper?»

She nodded. «That’s what they told me.»

«It sounds as if they told you a lot of things that aren’t true.»

«I get the feeling they weren’t lying about this.»

He nodded, looking somber as he reached back and pulled a penknife out of his back pocket. «We need to hurry.»

«You shouldn’t stay.» She didn’t want him to die here too. It might already be too late.

His expression darkened. «I’m not going anywhere without you.»

Chapter 4

Thea almost felt hopeful at the passion in his voice, but there were still so many lies between them that it seemed impossible for their relationship to survive.

Let’s sort out us both surviving the end of the world first.

«Okay, give me the knife.» She held out her hand.

«We need to sterilize it first.» He handed her the old–fashioned blade.

She pressed the button on the side and a sharp, three–inch blade shot out of it. «We don’t have time.»

Gritting her teeth, she leveled the knife at her shoulder.

This is going to hurt like a bitch.

Without pause, she sliced through her own skin. A searing pain shot through her shoulder as she slashed a line across the implant. Blood rolled down her arm as she nudged the gash open wider until she could see the blinking blue light embedded into her flesh.

The sensor appeared to be a small silver capsule with thin silver wires coming off it like spider’s legs.

She glanced at William. His face had paled at the sight of her cutting into her own shoulder.

Her breath came out in short sharp gasps, as pain shot down her arm. «I need something to dig it out with.» She forced out the words, trying to ignore the pain.

Galvanized into action by her words, he hurried into her bathroom, coming out a second later holding a clean towel and a pair of tweezers.

She reached out for the tweezers with a shaking hand, but he handed her the towel instead.

«Be ready to put that on the wound and put pressure on it when we’re done,” he said, brushing her blonde hair back, away from her wounded shoulder, and gazing down at the implant.

«It’s connected to your nerves,” he said. «If I pull this out, it’s going to hurt like hell. All the little legs on it are clamped down on your nerves. What do you want me to do?»

She clenched a fist around the towel, preparing herself for more pain. «Pull the fucking thing out!»

He nodded before looking down at the implant with a grimace. «Okay.»

She felt a stinging sensation as he lowered the tweezers into her shoulder, but then the pain increased to become unbearable. The world around her blurred for a moment as white–hot agony overwhelmed her.

She gripped his arm, holding on tightly as he pulled on the device, watching the muscles clench in his jaw as he ripped the implant out of her shoulder in one fast movement.

Her eyes widened at the implant. It was small capsule with one tiny silver thread hanging off it. The thin wire was twitching as if it was dying. The blue light on the silver capsule blinked once before it dimmed to gray.

«Shit, I can get them all,” he gasped, staring at the gash in her shoulder.

She peered down into the open wound, widening her eyes as the remaining silver wires wriggled as they buried into her flesh.

She hitched her breath in pain as her body shuddered with spasms. It felt as if a thousand needles were stabbing into her.

Barely aware that he was holding her steady, the world spun around her as she sank into unconsciousness, unable to handle the high level of agony that the wires were causing.

Thea slowly opened her eyes expecting to feel pain, but surprised when she didn’t feel any at all.

She peered up at William, who was frowning down at her with a look of concern as he held her in his arms while pressing a bloody towel to her shoulder.

«What happened?» she asked.

«Did you black out? You wouldn't stop screaming.» He sounded rattled and his face was ghostly pale.

She tried to clear her mind by shaking her head, remembering that the implant's wires had gone inside her.

The wind howled outside, causing her to jump.

The storm is coming. We can’t stay here!

She abruptly sat up, and the towel fell off her shoulder. She widened her eyes when she stared down at her unmarred skin. Barring a few bloodstains, her shoulder looked unharmed. There were no cuts, no scars, nothing there at all.

She glanced at William as his mouth dropped open in shock.

After a moment, he touched the unblemished area that she had cut open earlier. «It must be the nanotech.»

«Do you think it’s still active?» She studied her skin. There were no blinking blue lights there anymore.

«No, we killed its brain.» He held up the capsule. It was just an unlit silver tablet now with a dead silver wire trailing off it.

«Then what’s controlling the ones still inside me?» A bubble of panic expanded in the back of her throat.

«I think you are.» His frown faded with realization. «That’s why you healed.»

A block of ice bounced off the window so loudly that she was surprised the glass didn’t break. «I guess it’s time we found out. We can’t stay here.»

He nodded, taking her hand and pulling her up until she was standing. «Let’s go.»

This time she let him pull her toward the door. As she neared it, she felt butterflies in her stomach.

What if it didn’t work?

Gritting her teeth, she headed for the door. It had to work. It was her only chance.

She stepped through the doorway, breathing a sigh as she made it into the corridor in one piece.

After glancing back to ensure she was okay, he pulled her down the hall to the stairs.

Both running at full speed, they bounded down the staircase and burst through the front doors of the apartment building, onto the snow–covered street outside.

The area was deserted. Looking across the city, she realized it was also deserted. Judging by the frosty exterior of the skyscrapers in the distance, they didn’t have much time. She stared in awe as the massive chimney from the power plant cracked and fell sideways, the last of its gray fog expelling out of it like a final breath.

«The world we knew is over,” she said as the artificial lights around them flickered before exstinguishing.

His warm hand wrapped around hers in a secure grip. «Maybe the next world will be a better one. It’s a new beginning.»

She turned to smile at him, seeing his dusky profile under the soft glow of the moon. «Then we better survive so we can see it,” she said as she pulled him toward her car, heading for her new beginning, and leaving the past behind her.