by Emily Shore
Yang is beating on my brain. The mere mention of her name in my head is like the whipping of my neurons. The instinct is so strong. I already gave her the exhibit three times today. I want to prove to myself I can do this. Fold myself into the shape of the Sea Star. Yang shouldn’t have sole access for an entire day only for me to get a fraction of time with my children at night before slipping back into her mask for bed with my husband.
So, I try.
Directed to remain in the exhibit, Sky and I receive instructions for the interaction directive through our earpieces. I must prevent my face from sinking, my eyes from falling. The client wants us to act out the scene on the beach, but Sky is the pirate this time.
Donning the role of the pretty Sea Star becomes harder and harder. I’ve already been beached, scooped up, marinated in bleach, framed, and displayed on a wall. Haven’s pretty shell.
Banning those thoughts, remembering my name is Serenity, I scoot myself onto the beach and wait for Sky to arrive. And he does, but he eyes me with intent, with purpose, lips stitched together to not speak a word. First, he kneels, sweeping his hand toward me, knuckles rubbing against the netting on my chest, smoothing down to my scales. He rips at one. I arch my neck back, crying out.
“More,” Haven directs in my ear, and I work harder when Sky rips more. He and Yang have something in common—they are both better at this.
No faux blood this time because the costume isn’t designed for repeats. Instead, with each scale gone, Sky just exposes more and more of my legs, shedding the jewels to the ground until, finally, there are none left. By now, tears have assaulted my cheeks. Not from the act itself but because of the knowledge of what else must come. Sky pauses, and I know he must be receiving his own directives. Does Haven tell him more? Does he need more? Reminders of the twins, reminders of what she will do to me…or has he always had some of the Sea King inside him? Buried under the weight of my parent’s approval and the desire for my protection for years? Sated by what limited time was afforded for our lovemaking after adopting twins not two days into our honeymoon. The Temple itself wasn’t enough to change him. But the Aquarium has drowned us both. He just keeps his head above water more.
Choose to breathe instead, Yang reminds me. Go to your dark bubble. Let me take care of this.
I swallow, shuddering a little, shattering a bit more when Sky’s gaze impales me. Sharp as his trident, rooting me to this place. Then, he takes the netting in his hands and rips. I suck it all in. All the memories from the planetarium return. Yang growls in my head as I relive the trauma. Now, I’m trading one scene for another. Two hands for two others. The wind whips across my naked skin, combined with the cold saltwater dampening my flesh from beneath, I shiver. But when Sky’s hands begin to sail all over my body, giving attention to every detail, I hardly think about how cold I am. My insides feel hollow and rotted. Still, he cups me there, rough fingers digging, unearthing me as if hunting for more treasure.
Closing my eyes is a mistake because I’m not prepared for the stabbing sensation when he plunges inside me. Rawer, more ragged than the previous two interactions. Sky forces my hands behind my back, chest besieging mine. And like a sudden tsunami, he seizes hold of me, damaging me.
And before it’s over, I cave and allow Yang to barrel in through the back door to take the rest of the interaction. I don’t want the aftermath. I want the aftermath of the aftermath. I want the room with Tristan. Not all the moments of Sky coming out, me left alone in the planetarium, forced to reckon with Tristan while piecing myself together.
Yang takes it all instead, leaving me far behind.
* * *
We ready the whip before the interaction. We can already hear his footsteps. Only enough time to throw on the towel left for us to dry off. Tie it tight. If it falls, it falls. Look, but don’t touch, much to Serenity’s chagrin. We feel her protest, her butterflies whining, but we tickle their antennae with lightning to remind her she put us in charge.
Wylder brings the dress allotted for Silver-level meetings. At first, he tries a trade. The towel for the dress. What a fool.
We flaunt the whip. “We aren’t so gullible, Graves. The dress. Now.”
“Haven’s not the only one who watches,” Wylder taunts her. Always her. “I must say your last interaction performance was quite…alluring.”
“Lay the dress at our feet like the whelp you are. Then, get out of our way,” we command. He’s used to following commands. He’s used to the flick of a whip. But only from Haven. Now, he will learn Yang’s.
“You think my sister controls me, little Swan? Think again.” He clambers closer to me, raising a warning finger, eyes pinching, predatory. “Your little act with the whip doesn’t impress me. You do not tell me what to do. I am the one who keeps this place running. Haven merely founded it.”
“She must be so proud of you,” we scoff before twisting the fine piece of electricized leather around his neck. We squeeze the handle. Just one more pressure point will make it will hum to life.
“She is.” Wylder raises his chin, exalting it to a lofty position above ours, but we can read the fear in his eyes, how he shifts his form back, chest creating a more comfortable wedge of space for him. And for her. “Anyone would be.” He grins, still seeking our respect. Still believing he’s worthy of it.
He is unworthy of any respect after what he’s done. His mistake was believing he had the extra hand. One more button of pressure and the whip sizzles against his neck, thrusting him to his knees. Muscles in both his cheeks twinge, pained eyes narrowing, body twitching. Just a slight electrocution. Nothing he can’t handle. Enough for us to curl the whip under his jaw so his chin must creep up to look at us. So he must worship at our feet.
“We are not anyone,” we remind him. For the first time, there is some recognition in his eyes as they widen, as he puffs cloying realization through his nostrils. He knows Yang is in control. “And you will keep your little swordfish where it belongs. If you even think about pointing it in her direction again, we will show you just how much we enjoy sharp objects.” We lean forward, humming, giving Wylder a good stare of our breasts when the shift drops forward. Then, we nip his ear, hard. We love the way he flinches, startled, clutching his wounded ear, smearing the prick of blood. He’s fortunate we didn’t tear out his earring with our teeth. Spiky sea urchins. Digitally enhanced to prick at command. Once cleaned, the earring would have made a lovely accessory. He’s taken a piece of Serenity. No reason we shouldn’t be allowed a piece of him. She won’t let me have the piece we truly desire. No stomach for that yet. And violence such as that is lamentably unnecessary.
We shove Wylder, who topples back on his hands before scrambling to his feet. He raises a finger as if in warning. But any warnings are now idle. Any threats against us are futile. I can read the defeat in his eyes. But he wields some of Haven’s jellyfish sting. Adaptable, he tugs on the sides of his suit, adjusts his collar, righting himself in only the ways he can before directing that finger in a loop, wielding it like an urchin spike, threatening.
“You’ve won this time, Yang. Rest assured, I’ll find another way to punish her.”
We yawn, exaggerating, and flick our bored gaze to the celestial sea bodies around us. “We both know you can’t take her children away from her again. You will save that for a special occasion.”
“We can end this now. All she has to do is come back. Give me what I want.” He plants one foot forward, eyebrows burrowing low in both anger and invitation.
“No, she’s enjoying her holiday. And I’m enjoying this.” We flick a sudden wrist, tearing the fabric of his neck. One inch more and it would have been his jugular. The sight of that lovely blood blotting his lily-white hand. A slit in the belly of a fish. How we envision lacerating more of his scales until he’s one bloody pulp. Nothing left but fish chum.
The best part is watching Wylder run away. No spine. And his tail between his legs.
Sky opted to return to the twins to
allow me to have this meeting with Tristan. Considering I’d spent more time alone with the Temple emissary, it made sense. Sky would just be eye candy for Tristan anyway.
“Business or pleasure first?” Tristan sweeps a hand toward the bubble bar.
I smirk, feeling a little wicked. “Pleasure.”
“Pick your poison, princess.”
“Bliss.”
A little stunned, Tristan raises one brow, borderline suspicious. But I thwart any of his objections. “Tristan, let’s just get this over with. I’m not about to let you get whipped again, so this will be our last official meeting. And I’m sure the Syndicate already has an enforcer on the way.”
“It’s best.” Tristan shrugs while calibrating our orders, which arrive from beneath the bar, levitated in cocktail glasses and steamy with scented fog.
“Not better than Haven.”
“No,” he agrees and hands a glass to me, clinking his against it before sipping. I down half of mine, already sensing the tingling. Already, I can feel Yang fading. A violent echo in the back of my mind. A soft hum instead of a resounding drumbeat.
“How long do you think you can hold out, princess?” Tristan wonders, pacing himself with his drink. For once, he will be the clearheaded one. “How long do you think you can hide and store away all those stocks?”
I don’t have an answer. Living in the Aquarium has proved to me how little control I have here. It’s also given me a taste of what Temple girls, of what District girls, of what nine out of ten girls in the country must live with, some on a daily basis. How I never want that reality for Verity. And I’ll fight to my last breath to prevent it.
And Yang reminds me of how I’ve fought for myself. How she never would have surfaced if I’d taken up Tristan’s offer in the first place. And how every minute in this fishbowl gets me closer to saying yes.
“Do you know which Museum is currently the most popular other than Haven’s sea-scraper?” Tristan leans against the windows of the fish tank just as a miniature whale glides past him.
Shaking my head, I down the last half. Tristan seems like a dark silhouette compared to the oceanic world behind him. Fish become psychedelic, swarms of color and shine swishing all around, reminding me of will-o’-the-wisps.
“It’s called The Factory,” Tristan explains, his voice coming in waves thanks to the Bliss-laced drink, but I still catch every word, surfing on each one’s edge. “Originally was an orphanage. All the unwanted children get cyber enhancements. They pick one for each month like a calendar. Special ones get to be cyborg of the year. Different territories and districts for diversity.”
“And why do I need to know all this?” Sky would be far more interested in the information than me.
Tristan sighs and opens his hands, striding toward me. His outline is impressionistic, and I can’t help but giggle. Assuming my hand helps, grants me more rationality. Even if I do lean against him, relaxed, softened.
“The Temple is releasing a wave of programmable cyborgs, which any client can change during an experience. But in ten years, we will have even more with the new model forms.”
Licking my lips, sampling more traces of bliss, I recognize I should be concerned where the conversation is headed. “What do you mean, new model forms?”
Smirking, Tristan thumbs the rim of his glass before leading me to the love seat. The cushions feel more like warm waves lapping at my back. No, sun-stroked sand shifting below my form.
“Allow me to demonstrate.” Tristan reaches into his breast pocket for a sprite-light device, then project it into the middle of the room. It looks like a cross between an ad and a training program for the purposes of education. The scene begins in the Centre. In one of its many labs where I watch surgical-shield scientists injecting embryos with something. “Remember when IVF rates began to soar a few decades ago?” Tristan asks, gesturing to the scene. When I nod, he lowers himself into the love seat and bids me to do the same, arm collapsing on the back of it to nudge my shoulders. “The Syndicate has taken advantage of all those frozen embryos. Legal barriers were recently dealt with. Those new embryos will be injected with nano-gene tech programmed with the most advanced prototypes akin to BODY and NAILS. But with unlimited options.”
I shift in my seat, watching as the scene blinks to a new ad for The Temple, which is even taller than its predecessor with the ability and various different levels with models doing things that look more like something out of a fantasy film. “The Temple is planning for a new rollout of these embryos within the next fifteen years with this coded technology. No more waste on prosthetics or preparers. Programmable prostitutes with customizable bodies can grow their own mermaid tails and gills or angel or vampire wings for whatever preference a client may have. The possibilities are endless. Your every fantasy in real life.”
“Fifteen years…” I ruminate on the words, calculating the ages. And how the age is below the mandated age. Will the Temple legislate for a lower age? Or will they simply bend the rules as they always have? Just like how they ensure every Temple girl is sterile but couldn’t care less about the clients, especially if they are elite. Just like how they ignore the screams. How they file any complaints from girls—ones brave enough to speak up—in a Temple drive with no memory. And what will be the fate of those girls after the new wave of enhanced models arrive?
“What will happen to the current Temple girls?” I ask.
Tristan eyes me, thumb paused on the sprite-light remote. He blinks once before registering. “Cyborg ones will take part in auctions as they age out of the Temple. The non-cyborg ones will stay on as employees fulfilling other roles. More will go to the Centre’s research and development.” Code for breeding line. And more will take their place. More orphans. More homeless children. More Glass District girls, especially as the Districts become cruder. So many have shut down already as the demand for Museums has increased and they become more affordable to the public.
But a rollout of embryos is completely different. They will act as the perfect specimens. Groomed from infancy, even earlier than Bliss, to fit into these advanced rolls. All for one purpose. The bliss high begins to wear off.
“Can’t the genetic coding be implanted in any of the current girls?” I ask. Why am I even entertaining these thoughts? Why don’t I simply storm out of the room, crackling lightning in my wake? I know why. She leers from somewhere deep within me. Both need and addiction and craving. In one weekend, so much has changed. Lightning won’t be tamed this time. Was this what my mother felt whenever she visited Glass Districts? No, Serafina was the opposite of lightning. Even so, what she had couldn’t be subdued. More than a feeling, it was a bond she shared with those girls. Because of the Unicorn. Thanks to Yang, I share that bond now, too.
“All the research showed the embryos were the best fit. It would be far too overwhelming to a more developed mind. It would also take far more training for a body to accustom to such growth.” Tristan leans back in the love seat, propping his legs up on the table before us where digital fish swim back and forth beneath the glass, fleeing to the motion of his crossing ankles. “Can you imagine growing a pair of swan wings overnight? Not just prosthetics that fly for you, but real blue wings you must learn to control? Or a mermaid tail? Just imagine the chaos. Sure, it’d be beautiful, but chaos all the same.”
My mind registers one part of his sentence. The hook that won’t let go of its fish. “What do you mean “the embryos were the best fit”?”
“Turns out the program was a little farther along than I thought. What do I know about science after all?” Tristan shrugs and turns on the love seat massager, closing his eyes. “I’m just your neighborhood emissary. But the Board oversaw the birth of one thousand healthy baby girls with the coding. More are projected next month.” The massager vibrates his words so they come in tiny ripples. He chortles. Tinier ripples. “Maybe they’ll call them NextGen girls,” he jokes.
I stand, overwhelmed by the information. Never have so m
any been born at one time in the Temple. They must have been planning this for…years. The realization barrels into me, swallowing me into its undertow until I can face it, until I can admit it. This was my father’s plan. Force’s legacy he wanted me to carry. Even from the grave, he never truly let me go. If Tristan is still talking, I can’t hear him. Nothing but my breath quaking, my blood turning icier than an underwater cavern, only to boil with hot magma. Bliss won’t help me now. Yang will, but I don’t need that kind of violence. Not when I’m drowning beneath the weight of Tristan’s words, by the weight of the Temple crashing down on me like Haven’s waterfall. I pick up my cocktail glass. For good measure, I pluck Tristan’s before he can finish it and hurl both toward the wet bar. The sound of the glass shattering, of the breaking of a couple of bottles, causalities of war, against the bubble wall helps me surface again. My fingers tingle with the arousal of my lightning. The first time without Yang since before Wylder.
I turn to Tristan, who lifts a finger, opening his mouth, but then he wipes away whatever protest he was going to make. “Imported crystal,” he mutters, waving a hand. “I’ll pay for it. It’s fine.” He taps his fingers on the armrest as if waiting for me to say something.
I eye the crystal smithereens. Not the bigger chunks of glass. Just the tiny ones, which remind me of fine particles of sand winking in sunlight. He enjoyed breaking things. He enjoyed breaking people more, contorting them into what he desired. My mother became the Unicorn. Bliss became his Yin. I, his Yang. Even Luc became what my father needed for a time. Only Sky was the one who made it out unscathed by Force’s poison. Haven became Sky’s Achilles heel instead. The Aquarium is our net, our underwater shark cage. A cage that can be opened at any time if I just say the word to Tristan.
“What’s circling around that exquisite head of yours, princess? Something dastardly, I hope?” Tristan muses, who doesn’t move from the love seat, allowing my thoughts to roam.
