by T. J. Land
“Dead shark eyes.”
“Those too.”
“Bah. Fine, whatever. Buy the armour if you’re that worried about my safety. Wouldn’t want you fretting.”
A humanoid drone waiter cleared away their plates and presented them with a slice of cake each before turning and marching away without a word. Watching it leave, Osiris suppressed a shudder. “What’s that doing here? I thought Marge didn’t like having those things around.”
“Not very politically correct of you.”
“Don’t give a shit. Don’t like ‘em.”
“You’ve never minded the mutts,” said Bobby, reaching out to pet one of the dog-shaped drones.
“That’s different.”
“Because the mutts don’t look like people?”
“I guess, yeah. It’s the uncanny valley thing.”
“A lot of them can pass for humans these days. You’d look at them and you’d never know.”
“I’d know. You can always tell.”
“I can’t. Not always.”
“That’s probably because you’ve got the all intuition of a spoon.”
“Just for that, I’m eating your cake.”
As it happened, the hotel they checked into had a humanoid drone at reception. He was far more convincing than Marge’s waiter had been – he had hair and a full range of facial movements – but he was obviously a drone. His stance was too stiff. His speech was a little too stilted.
“I liked it when the only bipedal drones were big lumbering monsters with glowing eyes,” Osiris muttered as they went up to their room.
Bobby shrugged. “They were only ever good for lifting heavy things. These days the newer models can do basically anything. Surgery. Dancing. Journalism. You heard about that movement on Calypso to award all post-3124 drones legal personhood? Human rights and everything.”
“It’ll never happen,” said Osiris, pulling his shirt off. God, he was looking forward to a shower.
“Maybe. Hey, you mind if I watch a porno while you’re in there?”
“If you must. Degenerate.”
Bobby blew him a kiss. “Love you too.”
Osiris stood under the water for what felt like an hour, relishing the sensation. The Goose’s plumbing was old and the pressure was lousy. What was more, the Goose didn’t boast so many bottles of fancy lotion and scented shampoo. Bobby would give him shit for coming out smelling like a flower but fuck him. Osiris liked what he liked.
When he finally emerged, Bobby was already asleep on the couch, snoring loudly.
Osiris shook his head before snatching up a blanket from the bed and draping it over his prone partner. Bobby was an absolute bitch when he woke up cold.
0
You might also like The Prisoner:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07GQWPV9D
Extract below:
“Enough!”
Dust and various small skittering creatures dropped from the prison walls as George’s body was flung against it. He groaned and slid to the floor, muttering curses.
Ignatius strode across the room and picked him up again – though they were roughly equal in size, George had been imprisoned for longer and his muscles had had more time to wither – and shook him like a dirty rag.
“I won’t tolerate your odious chatter a moment longer,” Ignatius said through clenched teeth. “You’ve assaulted my ears and my presence since the moment I entered this benighted place. Another insult, another word out of you and I shall wring your neck.”
George sneered at him, revealing an incisor that had been chipped during last month’s riot.
Having been born a nobleman, Ignatius himself boasted perfect teeth. Even in these ghastly circumstances he strove to maintain basic hygiene as best he could. He bribed the guards to supply him with slivers of soap and even a tiny blade with which to keep his beard and moustache neat and tidy. Indeed, its neatness might have made the rougher of His Majesty’s prisoners inclined to suspect that Lord Ignatius was a mere perfumed dandy with nothing to occupy his days other than gambling, wine and women.
Not so. Ignatius’s meticulous hygiene regimen was the result of having served in His Majesty’s army from the age of seventeen to thirty-four. While common soldiers were obliged to shave their faces bare, officers were permitted to grow a beard on the strict proviso that it was identical to the style preferred by His Majesty. Ignatius prided himself on never letting a stray inch of stubble adorn his jaw.
There were other clues indicating his prestigious background. His speech was eloquent and imbued with the unmistakable accent of aristocracy. He had a brisk manner when he addressed the guards, who were, after all, simply another variety of servant, and they instinctively bobbed their heads in his direction and addressed him as ‘sir’.
But most of all, what distinguished Ignatius was his fighting prowess. Most men in here could fight. They’d learned in taverns and brothels how to punch, how to bite, how to target their opponent’s soft bits. That said, they were, at the end of the day, thugs. On the rare occasion one of them tried to rough him up, they quickly learned that their paltry skills were no match for a man who’d been trained in swordsmanship and hand-to-hand combat by the finest masters in the land since he could walk.
Then, of course, there was George.
“Piss on you, Iggy.”
George had never tried to rough him up. George was an altogether different type of thug. A thief. A conman. A coward. Always preferring to attack with words first.
“Think you’re such a bloody bigshot,” he went on, wiping blood from his jaw. “Think you’re better than the rest of us wretched sods, with you’re airs and fuckin’ graces. Think you’re still a high and mighty war hero. Hah! Not down here, me ol’ mucker. Down here, doesn’t matter a toss that you pranced about on a pony cutting off foreigners’ heads and knockin’ up their daughters.”
Nothing roused Ignatius’s ire faster than hearing his military recorded denigrated. He struck George across the face.
“Oh God, not again,” he heard a guard sigh.
The point was valid. Ignatius and George had been at one another’s throats since the day Ignatius had taken up residence in the prison, sentenced to six months as a penalty for certain…indiscretions involving a handsome friend.
“Evenin’, Sam!” George called to the guard. “Listen, I caught this slimy arsehole wankin’ over a picture of Her Majesty. I thought it was my civic duty to…”
Ignatius kicked him in the shin, and said to the guard, “Apologies, Samuel. This man insulted my military career. Honour was at stake.”
“Oh gawd, don’t let him start on about his bloody honour again,” George moaned. “Sam! Look at my nose. It’s bleeding, right? That’s brutality, that is. This man attacked me, Sam, an unprovoked attack, what’re you gonna do about that?”
Thankfully, Ignatius knew that he could rely on old Sam. He was a man of integrity; rare enough in a place like this.
“Shut it, George,” said Sam. “No supper for you tonight. Ignatius – you’ll get half portions only. We need to maintain order around here, after all. And any more fighting and you’ll both go hungry tomorrow as well.”
Ignatius nodded. “Understand.”
“Gonna get you for this, you poncy bastard,” George muttered sulkily as Sam departed.
“You whine constantly about the poor quality of the food they give us,” said Ignatius, returning to the half of their shared cell he’d claimed as his own and the book he’d been reading when George had started picking a fight. “I should think you’d be glad for the chance to forgo it.”
“Piss off.”
0
The prisoners all ate together in the courtyard – a dingy place surrounded by high walls, but at least Ignatius could see the sky. This evening, the clouds were pink against a pale blue backdrop.
As he tucked into his half-portion, he became aware that someone had sat down next to him. Peculiar. After his first night here, when a larger man had
tried to rob him of his meal and had suffered a broken wrist as punishment, the other prisoners tended to leave him alone.
He looked up.
“Evenin’,” said George.
“No,” said Ignatius.
“No? No to what?”
“No to whatever it is you want. Go away.”
Huffing, George folded his arms. “See, that’s what I hate about you, Lord Stick-Up-His-Arse. You’re so cynical. Always so quick to suspect a bloke of having the worst possible intentions. Maybe I’m just here to say sorry for earlier.”
“You’re not.”
“I’m not,” George allowed, “but I could be.”
“What do you want?” Ignatius sighed. Their long months together had taught him that George was stubborn as a mule. He would have no peace until the other man had said what he wanted to say.
Of course, now that Ignatius had made the damn fool error of actually asking what George wanted…
“Nothing,” George grunted, standing up.
“Sit.”
George sat.
“One more time; what do you want?”
George scratched the stubble on his chin. “Been talking to the boys.”
‘The boys’ referred to the gang of reprobates George had cobbled together out of the men whose cells were in the same building as theirs. Ignatius tended to mentally refer to them as ‘the vermin’.
George went on, “You know how it’s always been a big mystery why a fancy upper class bloke like you was tossed in amongst us common folk? What with you bein’ a big war hero and one of the king’s favourites? Well, there’s a rumour going round now. Rumour says that you created a bit of a scandal. That you were caught with your cock out in the arms of one of you’re fellow soldiers and –…”
Ignatius threw the bowl at his face and lunged for his throat.
Neither of them were allowed supper after that. Or breakfast.
0
“Right, so ‘pon reflection, I think we might have had a miscommunication,” said George a day later.
Having resolved to ignore him from now on, Ignatius focused resolutely on his book. There were, alas, no other distractions. They were alone in their cell and the guards wouldn’t be by to check on them for another hour.
“See, Iggy, I wasn’t actually tryin’ to take the piss out of you. What I was doing was putting forward a proposal.”
Ignatius studied the page, wishing he had something to stuff in his ears.
When George spoke again, his voice was lower. As though he were afraid of eavesdroppers. “This place is shit, yeah? The food’s shit, the people are shit, the rats are shit. There’s nothing to do. That’s the worst of it, for me. Hate being bored. Drives me mad. So…so here’s a thought: What if we did something to keep ourselves busy? A little game, just to pass the time?”
Without looking George’s way, Ignatius said, “When you say ‘we’, can I assume you are referring to me and yourself?”
“That’s right, me ol’ mucker, that’s exactly right. The two of us, yeah?”
How terrible, Ignatius reflected, that an educated man might still allow his curiosity to overwhelm his common sense. “And what sort of ‘game’ are you imagining ‘the two of us’ might both enjoy? My preferred games include bridge, polo, and fencing. I imagine yours involve scrawling rude words on the walls and torturing small animals.”
George heaved a melodramatic sigh. “God, you’re thick. This is what I get for trying to be subtle. Alright, let me spell it out for you. You like fucking blokes. I like fucking blokes. We’re both blokes who like fucking blokes and we’re stuck in the same cell for at least another four months. Do I need to draw you a bleedin’ diagram?”
