Split Infinity Read Free

wrist throbs from pressing so hard with the heel of my hand, but that’s nothing compared to the way it pools blood when I remove the pressure. Each thought is a drifting balloon, and I concentrate on holding tight. Can’t let myself pass out. I need to stop the flow, but that’s easier said than done. I’m wet, sticky red all over. Blood splattered so far while I ran that it looks like I’m bleeding from every part of my body. A wide smudge on my stomach has dried to a cracked dark red.
    Nice. If anyone sees me they’re going to run the other way and call the police. Though perhaps not in that order.
    I’ll be able to clean up using the underground spring in the cave, but to get there I have to cross Ballarat Road.
    It would be easy if I still had the chip in my wrist. Or access to a compad. But without either of those I need to blend in enough to follow someone across the road. Not easy when I’m bloody and naked.
    Okay.
    It’s still morning, maybe eight. Voices trickle down from some of the flats but not many people are in the street. I stay low and keep to the back lanes in case the Feds are waiting around. It doesn’t take long to make it to the end of the street, and Kessa’s house.
    Or where she used to live. She might have moved long ago, but I know the layout well from all the hours I spent watching her family on the grid, daydreaming about how it might feel to be a citizen with two parents, a sister. And a chip. Someone with a normal life. The person I always dreamed of being.
    The communal kitchen is at the front of the house, I’m pretty sure, and Kessa used to share a tiny bedroom at the back with her twin, Malena.
    I take a couple of seconds to check for sounds from inside the house, then make my way up to the back door: the sooner I get in, the sooner I’ll be out.
    First up, I disable the speaker on the entrypad so it doesn’t beep and attract attention. Then I start a manual override. Simple.
    At least, it should be. But as soon as I punch the keys, the pad goes into alert mode: lights flashing and the words ‘access denied’. I end up ramming the cancel request fifty billion times, heart thudding in my throat, before it stops going crazy. Thank cripes the sound’s disabled.
    Holding my breath, I strain to hear in case it triggered a partner alarm inside the house.
    I’m met with only silence.
    It’s a newer system than I’m used to. No surprise. Maybe there are more illegals these days looking to break in, or perhaps more crims. Same thing, I guess. But the coding on the pad is not exactly brain surgery either, and they’d still need a manual override option in case of a blackout. They’d have to.
    That gives me an idea.
    I could pull out wires to fake a blackout, but that might trigger another alarm. Instead I try a digital block of the electricity; trick the system into behaving as if there’s a real blackout.
    It’s not easy standing out here, naked and blood-spattered with a throbbing wrist. I force myself to focus. When I trigger the bot, the whole system freezes and goes blank. I let out a groan.
    Then again, it’s worth a try. Again, I punch in a manual override and the door disengages with a pfft . It worked enough for me to slide the door open further and shuffle through the gap. I’m in.
    I can hear voices at the front of the house, but back here it’s quiet.
    There’s just a swipepad to get into the rear bedroom, no lock, so the manual override works first try. It opens with another pfft and I cringe at the sound, stepping out of sight with my back flat against the wall in case anyone is inside.
    I wait, listening, but nothing reaches me, not even the rustle of bedclothes.
    Okay. Let’s get this done.
    There’s barely space in here for the two beds. One doona is neatly pulled up and the other is half on the floor. Both empty.
    Already I’m at the drawers set into the wall, grabbing a pair of tights from the top one and wrapping it tightly around my wrist, tucking in