Crashed Read Online Free PDF

the eye of the hurricane, an emptiness that drew its reality from the storm swirling around it.
    There was want. A surge of need, pain and pleasure welded together, craving, and the sweet excruciation of denial, giving way, finally, inevitably, to satisfaction.
    There were no stories and no faces, but then I saw his face, amber eyes flashing, spiraling silver making his flesh shimmer in the light, lips curled, knowing.
    Lips.
    I reached out. I wanted. I needed.
    "Sweet dreams, I take it?" he said, catching my wrist just as my fingers grazed his cheek.
    I was awake.

DAMAGE
    "I have seen the truth."
    I yanked my hand away. "What the hell are you doing?"
    "I should be asking you that," Jude shot back. "I just wanted to see if you were in here--no one asked you to molest me."
    I sat up, trying to shake off the effects of the dreamer. After, everything felt hollow. Shadows flickered in corners, like the dream was lurking out there somewhere, waiting to reclaim me.
    "As you can see, I'm here," I snapped. "Now you can get out."
    Jude smiled and perched on the edge of my bed. I hopped to my feet, keeping the bed between us.
    "If you really hate me as much as you like to pretend, why move in with me?" he asked.
    "You and twenty other mechs," I pointed out. "It's not like we're playing house."
    "We're playing something." He shook his head. "At least you are."
    "That's exactly your problem. You think this is all just a game."
    Something flashed across his face, gone too quickly for me to interpret. "If I thought you were stupid enough to believe that, you wouldn't be here. Or at least, I wouldn't be here with you."
    "So being stupid is the key to getting you out of here? I could give it a try."
    He stood up and headed for the door. "Don't start shaving IQ points on my account. There was just something I thought you'd want to see."
    "I'm sure it can wait."
    "Not quite an it ," Jude said. "More like a he."
    "I've had enough new people today," I said, wondering how much time had passed, if Seth and Quinn were still down at the pool together. Wondering whether the dreamer had somehow known what I was thinking--or was I only thinking it now because of the dreamer?
    "Not quite new either," Jude said. "But if it makes you feel better, I doubt he'd want to see you either."
    "Who?"
    "Auden."
    The vidroom wasn't off-limits to the randoms, not exactly, but it was known who belonged there and who didn't. When Jude and I arrived, Riley was sitting on one of the two red couches, stiffly upright and awkward with the usual black cloud hovering over him. It made a certain perverse sense that he and Jude claimed some kind of no-holds-barred, for-richer, for-poorer, in-sickness-and-in-health, not-even-death-did-part-them friendship: One never bothered to speak for himself, while the other couldn't shut up.
    Quinn and Ani were sprawled on the other couch, Quinn's hand casually resting on Ani's knee as if to say, This is mine .
    When I feel like it, that is .
    I wondered if she'd told Ani about Seth, or invited her to join in. I doubted it.
    If you're planning to live forever, monogamy is an impractical standard, Jude liked to say. How convenient for him.
    "Where is he?" I peered around the room as if he'd be hiding behind the furniture.
    "He who?" Jude asked.
    "You know who."
    He didn't say anything.
    "Auden." I'd barely spoken his name since it happened.
    "Did I say he was here?" Jude gave me the wide-eyed innocent act.
    I wanted to punch him.
    "I'm out of here."
    "Wait." Jude's smile vanished. "You really do need to see this." He nodded at Riley. "Play it back."
    Each wall of the vidroom was covered with a ViM screen, flickering with a constant stream of images that the Virtual Machine interface yanked from the network. Most defaulted to random, but one wall was programmed to pull up any vid that mentioned the words "mech-head," "download," "Fran-kenstein," or "skinner . "
    It seemed important to know who was talking about us.
    Usually it meant a