Running Deep
by
Foz Meadows

Hunched and hungry, Zadie feels the familiar, shivering itch of need build deep between her ribs, feathering outwards to her elbows, knees, feet, fingers. She begins to twitch, helpless against the tug of some internal staccato, shuddering where she crouches. Beneath her bare soles, the alley is caked with grit, wet leaves and slivers of old plastic. The passing world beats loud against her skin, thumping her eyes with deaf hammers, bright against her tongue, and as she floats through the downspiral of synaesthesia, she churns with the bittersweet tang of awareness. Highs always end this way, a slow drift outwards through disoriented senses as every atom of her living flesh sings back back back, willing a retreat into euphoria.  But for that to happen, Zadie needs Loren; and Loren, in turn, means waiting. 
Fighting the desire to scratch, Zadie draws her knees more tightly under her chin and fixes her gaze on the alley-mouth, blinking in the silvery afternoon light. Time slips over her like the dapples of tree-shade, minutes or hours in which her jitters grow, her stomach cramps and the dew-laden cold of early autumn seeps through her skin like tiny grains of ice. Few people walk down the alley; those who do ignore her ragged clothes, her flickering, vacant eyes. The part of Zadie that notices this does so in an abstract way, distant and somehow alien. Loren has scanned her brain often enough now, extracting thought-data and duplicating emotional memory, that her mind has become a network of empty halls. His wares might grant her new experiences, but though such explorations are vivid, layered with the true emotional subtlety of the human condition, they offer no interaction, no growth, while her addiction leaves room for neither reflection nor personal contrast. No matter how deep the story runs, she doesn’t learn.
By the time Loren comes, the synaesthesia has almost faded. Hunger gnaws at her, deep and omnipresent, but through the painful dislocation of her senses and bodily aches, Zadie still discerns his distinctive, mismatched tread well before laying eyes on the man himself. She looks up just as he enters the alley, smiling in a vague, unfocused way, trying to remember how to fold her lips in order to show gratitude. Loren is a lean man, pale, furtive. His voice, when he speaks, is sharp – harsh, even – but his hands are cool and gentle, deft as they brush the threads of dirty auburn hair from Zadie’s cheek or tilt her chin upwards.
‘More,’ she whispers. ‘More stories.’ Her voice is faint. Loren crouches before her, one hand resting in the pocket of his long, woollen coat. Zadie’s eyes flicker, greedily following the motion of his fingers as they flourish a small roll of nanomachine pills, each one imbued with a different, discreet narrative, every character fleshed out by the amalgamated thoughtscans other souls, both like and unlike Zadie, who trade memories for hits. Deep in thrall to the nanos, she will grieve with widows, love with princes, fight with warriors, shattering and remoulding as each animated ghost wakes, lives and wanders within her. No longer empty, the ragged labyrinth of her mind will house the echoing fears and dreams of fiction made tangible, quivering through her consciousness until the last pill is eaten or her heart gives out. But as Zadie reaches for her prize, her craving, Loren folds his fingers closed, concealing that fistful of magic, and shakes his head.
‘Scan first, Zadie. You know the rules.’
Mute, tense, chastened, she barely nods, leans back against the rough-brick wall and waits. From his other pocket, Loren withdraws the scanner – silver, sleek – and presses it to her temple. Zadie closes her eyes. What does she have left? Childhood, perhaps? – ah! Elated. she recalls her ninth birthday, the toy horse she wanted so badly because it ran all by itself, how it cantered across the lawn like a fairy-steed and nuzzled her small, white hand when she called it back, as though the intelligence chip in a childhood toy were capable of love. She remembers that her step-father smiled, sensing in that moment her fierce, reckless joy in his gift, this thing he gave so easily with so little understanding of what it meant, and afterwards, she dared to hug him freely for the first time. She remembers all this, dwelling for an instant in that past, definitive moment of sweetness, before the hum of the scanner corrupts it: a still reflection washed away by ripples. The tiny hairs on her face stand up. Goosebumps tingle her skull, neck, arms, and then, with a genteel beep!, the memory fades, slipping to the hindmost corner of her subconscious like a half-heard skipping song. 
‘Done,’ says Loren. He hands her the pills and straightens. Trembling with anxiety, Zadie tears the first one free of the silver foil and dry-swallows, feeling relief bloom in the pit of her stomach. She smiles at Loren, almost speaks, but the nanomachines are already at work. Behind her eyes, a vivid autumn landscape rushes up, a forested hill alight with reds and golds, soft grass interspersed with the crackle of dry leaves. Between the trees, a stream appears, the passing chuckle of its motion complemented by the voice of a young girl, as yet unseen, singing to herself. Zadie’s eyes flutter and close. The image is sharper now, and as she swoops closer, she finds the singer sitting near a grove of white flowers, half-naked, her thin clothes drying on a sun-drenched stone. Somewhere nearby, a branch cracks, and as the girl startles up, breaking off her song, Zadie is swamped by fright, suspicion, innocent curiosity, embarrassment. With the ease of long practice, she settles herself behind a stranger’s eyes, and as the girl covers her small breasts with a tentative arm and peeps through the foliage, Zadie rides with her. She no longer sees the alley, feels the prison of her shaking flesh. The sound of Loren’s bitter sigh escapes her, as does the brush of his fingertips across her face, a gesture the autumn-girl might think of as sad – wistful, even – but which Zadie herself would be at a loss to understand. Her ears are closed to the distant rumble of thunder, her bare skin numb to the first, chill drops of rain, and as Loren murmurs a blunt farewell, pocketing his scanner, she sees only the distant silhouette of a strange horse and rider.  Nothing else.