“They broke in and tossed the place while she was out?”
“Something like that. Have you seen them?”
“I haven’t. But I might know where they are.”
“Would you tell us?”
“Sure. They might be with his mistress.”
Voddin frowned. “And where might she be?”
“Hell if I know,” I said.
“M. Card—” began Voddin.
“Hold on, hold on,” I said. “I’ll find her for you.”
“Somehow, I think there’s an ‘if’ at the end of that sentence.”
“...If you pay me. Theed was my meal ticket at GJS. Now I’ve got nothing but two murder raps. And those don’t put whiskey in the drawer.”
Voddin frowned deeper, staring at me. He was suspicious.
“Find her. We’ll discuss payment after.”
“Before.”
“Beggars can’t be choosers, M. Jeffries. M. Card, give her my number.”
Card produced a—no pun intended—playing card sized flimsy. A contact number flashed on it, and I took it from him.
“When you have her in hand, give me a call,” said Voddin, heading for the door.
“Theed knew Hary was leaking information to ThorGen,” I said, before they could leave.
“So?”
“So did you kill him?”
“No.”
“Who did?”
Voddin sighed, took off his glasses, rubbed the temple of his nose, and put his glasses back on.
“I couldn’t tell you, M. Jeffries. The COO of GalaxJonesStein might be able to, though. He’s the sort of ambitious man who prefers to permanently silence dissention in the ranks.”
“Why would GJS kill its own people? You’re not making any sense.”
Voddin sniffed.
“Some corporations simply lack a strong culture of ethical behavior, M. Jeffries. I wouldn’t know. I work for Thorsen Genetics.”
He and the goon left me to my thoughts.
I was about halfway down the bottle and an equal distance to losing my mind when the world lit up with a message on my optical.
“420 Ulysses blvd. Apartment 3C. Come alone.”
It’s not the first time a private investigator has been summoned alone to an unfamiliar address, and it probably wouldn’t be the last either. That’s not what threw me. What threw me was the signature on the message.
Theed Montgomery. 10:38PM.
I’d seen them wheel Theed’s corpse, including the eye with his optical implant in it, away in a black plastic baggie. I knew the exact protocol for a homicide body, the chain it would pass through. Either Theed wasn’t dead, or someone who knew something was sending me a message.
Maybe I should have sobered up first, maybe I should have slept on it. But I didn’t. Instead, I signaled my Zond out of the garage and headed for Ulysses Boulevard.
* * *
420 Ulysses Boulevard was a mildly swanky set of bachelor apartments in a part of town that was just on the border of the really wealthy part of town. I watched the windows of 3C for about half an hour. One light on, maybe one person, a woman, inside. Hard to make out except in shadow.
For the most part, it was the comings and goings of an apartment building, late night dates getting in, one or two people standing outside for a private chat with someone else on their optical. A couple of night-owl dog walkers. Nothing that looked like private security. All the same, I moved the car around back and went up through a back stair.
3C didn’t look particularly of note. No door decoration, just plain wood and a peephole. I knocked twice. The peephole flashed.
To my surprise, and maybe a bit of delight, one M. Peppy Beaver opened the door. She was still favoring those 2nd Skin clothes, a crop top with sleeves that covered her chest except for the barest sliver of the bottom of her breasts, and a pair of pants as well, so in my eyes she was nearly naked. That blonde hair I’d been so enraptured with the first time I’d seen her was tied up behind in a bun, a pair of chopsticks crossed through it to hold it together.
“Peppy?” I asked.
“How’d you get up here without pressing the buzzer?” she asked, shocked herself to see me. Not the first question I would’ve asked, but then again, I’d come here because a dead man had messaged me.
“I have my ways,” I said. “What am I doing here?”
Peppy glanced out into the hall, checking it for other people, then grabbed my hand and pulled me into her apartment.
“Not out there,” she said, closing and locking the door behind me.
“I wasn’t followed and you’re not being watched,” I told her.
“That’s a relief,” she sighed. “You never know, working for GJS. Theed used to come over with a detector and wipe the place for bugs.”
“Ever find any?”
“Once or twice. We just put them in a closet and then moved them back when we were done. I took care of them already.”
“Good,” I said. “Mind telling me how you got me here? Making a dead guy’s optical speak, that’s a trick I’d like to learn.”
“Want a drink?” asked Peppy, pushing past me into the living room. I had no choice but to follow.
“Sure,” I said. The reasonable part of my brain was suggesting that the last thing I needed was another drink, but tonight wasn’t the reasonable part of my brain’s night.
Peppy’s apartment looked like it was ready for a showing. Whole place was white from head to toe, in that way I knew would be stained like a glutton’s tie if I tried it. Her bar was a big plastic cube sitting on a side table, and she made me a whiskey neat without even being told.
And here I was, thinking that I’d never love again after Mari.
“Sit down,” she said, fixing herself another. “I’ll explain everything.”
“You’d better,” I said, gratefully finding my seat.
“Theed gave me what he called a ‘dead man’s switch,’ in the event he ever…” she paused, unsure of what to say next, unsure if she could say anything next.
“Needed it,” I finished for her. She nodded, then came down and sat next to me. A little too close, all things considered. She had a perfume on that I found almost as intoxicating as the whiskey.
“Yes. I was to contact you and tell you that Theed was...suspicious about GJS’ leadership. He was a police officer, you know?”
“I know, I served with him.”
“Right, of course. Well, he said he never stopped feeling like a cop, even after he’d been in the private sector for a few years. And something about GJS just doesn’t sit right for him. So he said that if he ever… if he… he…”
She broke apart at that moment, like a teacup shattering on marble. Great big heaving sobs poured out of her.
I didn’t know what to do, except grab her and hold her tight. She cried into my shoulder, clinging to me as tight as she could, my shirt getting a little damp.
“It’s okay,” I murmured into her ear. “It’s okay.”
I’m not sure I believed it, but I’d been on the scene enough times when someone had just died to know what you were supposed to say, to lay the bullshit down and let them piece together their lives. And when Mari had died, some well meaning SPD trooper had done the same for me.
Peppy sniffed and pushed far enough away from me she could look me in the face.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “You must think I’m just a fragile little thing.”
“I don’t. I think you were close to your boss and he just died,” I said. “I was close to your boss and he just died. I get where you’re coming from.”
She looked at me, those huge eyes staring at me. Her eyelashes fluttered, and I think my heart did in the same second.
“You’re stronger than me,” she said and I shrugged.
She leaned forward and kissed me and it caught me so off-guard I just froze, stock still like a statue.
Peppy backed away.
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be,” I said. I reached out and stroked her face.
“You have a lot of his qualities,” said Peppy.
I laughed. “Not as many as I would have liked. Theed had his head screwed on right. I’ve always been tilting at windmills.”
“Well, you have his confidence.” Peppy bit her lip.
“And when you called us in the office that night,” she continued. “We’d been watching the security footage of you and Theed. It was so hot, Sare. You look so good getting fucked.”
“I could say the same about you,” I murmured. Holo isn’t the best way to watch a person, but Peppy and Theed together had been amazing. That man knew his way around a pussy.
Peppy leaned forward and kissed me. Her lips were so soft, her tongue so hungry for me, I was starting to burn up a little. She guided my hand to her tit, covered by the 2nd Skin shirt, except for the bare patch at the bottom. Her own hands were roaming across my body. One was sliding along my thigh, pushing it open so it could explore deeper between my legs, making me moan a little when it rubbed my clit through my underwear. The other hand was inside my blouse and bra, pushing down the front to grip one of my nipples lightly between her pointer and middle finger, pulling up and making me gasp. I was getting hotter and hotter, kissing her a little harder back, cupping her ass with my free hand as I fondled her through her shirt.
Peppy seemed a little caught in the moment herself, because she broke this kiss and pushed me away suddenly, her cheeks flushed and her eyes fastened on the floor demurely. I wanted to rip those chopsticks out of her bun, watch that hair cascade down her body and then make her eat me out for an hour.
Peppy seemed to have other ideas, because she struggled to her feet and began to walk away.
“You stay there,” she said when I tried to follow. “I’m going to get something fun.”
She disappeared back into the apartment.
I hurried out of my clothes, throwing them behind the sofa until I was down to just my pumps. I took a moment to collect my thoughts. Not as many photos in Peppy’s apartment as in the Xu’s house. A lot more nudes, though. That sort of artsy-pseudo pornography, where the pictures are all in black and white and there’s lots of shadows, but it’s still models stroking their cocks or spreading their pussies with a couple fingers. There were five frames, the photos rotating through some gallery.
“A friend of mine does those,” said Peppy. “I’m in one, I think. He’s very good.”
I turned to look at her and my eyes widened a little.
Peppy was still dressed in her 2nd Skin top, but she’d shed her pants and fixed her makeup. A choker had appeared around her neck, a small device about the size of battery hanging of the side, a wire leading to Peppy’s neuro Instead, she was wearing a 2nd Skin pair of panties, but hanging off the front was a very large, floppy, translucent neon purple dildo. A heavy set of artificial balls hung at the base and through the clear material, I could see a couple of small status lights. She was holding a couple of items in her hands, including another collar and some sort of cartridge.
“God damn, you look good, too,” said Peppy, leering at my naked body. “I’m really going to enjoy this, I think.”
“What is that?” I asked.
“R&D likes to call it the ‘ProMan,’ short for “prosthetic manhood,’ but Theed and I always called it our Six Shooter after he requisitioned it for me to use. It’s kind of a few different products at once, to be honest, a real camel of a project. But it’s fucking awesome.”
“Six Shooter?”
Peppy took the cartridge and pushed it up through the base of the Six Shooter’s testicles until there was a click.
“There,” she said, smiling at me. “Good for six shots. I hope you didn’t have any other plans tonight.”
“That thing comes?”
“A lot,” said Peppy. “It goes off when I do.”
“It’s so soft, though.” I’d gotten very close to her on my own accord, fascinated by the Six Shooter. I reached out a hand to touch it.
“Oh,” moaned Peppy, as my hand closed around the purple shaft. Just like a real cock, it began to stiffen under my touch. I began to stroke it a little, watching as Peppy moaned in response.
“You can feel that?” I asked, jerking the Six Shooter harder. It almost as long as both my hands put together and nearly as thick as my fist.
“Yes,” she moaned. “That’s what the transmitter around my neck is for. It reads signals from the Six Shooter and sends them to my brain. Plus, there’s a bit in my pussy, pushed up against me.”
I knelt, lifting the shaft and balls of the Six Shooter away, causing Peppy to gasp a little, then peered at the base. A rather thick section did indeed seem to have been pushed into her pussy, which I noted was bare. I let her balls fall back into position and considered the purple head of the synthetic phallus in front of me.
“So, if I sucked on the Six Shooter, you’d feel it?” I asked.
“Oh, fuck, yes,” said Peppy. “And you will, but first I want to show you one other thing. Put this on.”
She handed me the choker. Like hers, a small metal box, a transmitter, was hanging off the side. I buckled it around my neck, and Peppy adjusted it until it was aligned with the my neuroshunt under my right ear. She fiddled with something on the box, and I strained to see what, but Peppy held my face still.
“When I insert the lead, it’s going to hurt a little, but that’s normal, okay?”
“Oka—OW! Motherfucker!” Never let anyone stick anything in your neuroshunt.
“Sorry.”
“What’s that do? I don’t feel anything.”
“Haven’t turned it on yet. This might be weird at first,” said Peppy. She pressed something on the transmitter and there was a ringing so loud it felt like there was a squadron of ambulances in my brain. I shouted and grabbed at my head, falling forward to the carpet, my vision blurring, sound getting confused, even the taste in my mouth changing. Slowly the ringing resolved into silence.
I’m at a loss how to describe this to someone who has never used a Neuro Caster, but I’ll do my best. Touch your thumb to your forefinger, then rub it around a little bit. Can’t tell if your thumb is feeling your forefinger or if it’s your forefinger feeling your thumb, can you? That’s because you’re processing both signals at once. So, you’re feeling your thumb against your forefinger at the same time you’re feeling your forefinger against your thumb.
So, when I tell you I was seeing what Peppy saw, hearing what Peppy hear, feeling what Peppy felt, and yet I was still Sare Jeffries in my body staring up at Peppy even as I was seeing myself kneeling in front of her, you can get the slightest understanding of what I mean. Except, instead of your forefinger and your thumb, it’s two completely different human beings.
“Oh, shit,” I said.
“Theed used to find some little piece and bring her back to the office, then set himself up with that transmitter while I used mine and the Six Shooter,” said Peppy. “I was hoping we’d use it on you together, but I guess we’ll never get the chance now.”
She was stroking the phallus between her legs and I quivered. Unlike in Hary Xu’s created reality, there was a real-life analogue to transmit signals to and I could feel each individual finger running along the shaft.
“You like that, baby?” asked Peppy. “You’re getting so fucking wet.”
“Holy shit, yes,” I said. She wasn’t wrong. I could feel a dampness between my legs, while at the same time, I could feel Peppy’s own pussy hugging the inserted back end of the Six Shooter.
“Good,” said Peppy. “Then suck my fucking dick.”
I could feel my hair in her hand as she gripped the back of my head, pulling me closer to the outstretched phallus, her hand wrapped around the base, holding it straight so that it pushed against my lips. I opened them, letting Peppy drive it inch by inch into my mouth, feeling the heat envelope each part of it that made it inside and my wet tongue coming up to probe it.
I moaned and Peppy gave me a soft echo. Both her hands wrapped around the back of my head, and I leaned back on my legs, one hand wrapping around her waist to squeeze the firm, bare buttocks the Six Shooter’s 2nd Skin harness had left exposed, while the other gripped at the pair of testicles hanging off the thing. They felt good in my hand and my hand felt good around them.
“Oh, fuck,” murmured Peppy. She was pumping her synth-cock in and out of my mouth, pushing as far down my throat as she could before slowly pulling it back until just the tip hung on my tongue, then shoving it back in. She was staring down at me past her cleavage, her nipples hard under the 2nd skin crop top, watching as the cock disappeared and reappeared from between my lips as she face-fucked me.
“You like that, don’t you, you slut?” she said. I moaned a little. I wasn’t as used to this part, but something about being in Peppy’s head or maybe Peppy being in my head made me feel hot and used when she called me that.
“Theed said you were good. I tried to give him a blowjob after you’d left, I just wanted to taste you, but he said you’d worn him out. He never said no to a nice tight pussy wrapped around his cock, though.” Her pace was quickening and I could feel the cock hardening ever so slightly more, the sensation of pressure building along the shaft.
“Oh, god,” she muttered. My pussy was completely soaked and a warm fire was rushing through my body. The cock in my mouth pulsed, and a gooey substance the consistency of semen but with a very mild, sweet taste poured into my throat as Peppy gripped my head and held my face tight against her crotch. My own orgasm was pouring through me, the shock of it shaking my body, making me wild, my hand falling to my clit to prolong it, which only made Peppy groan more and the cock in my mouth pulse again. No more synth semen came out though, which was good, because it was already dribbling down my chin. I could feel Peppy’s pussy clenching around the Six Shooter’s base as the toy pressed against her g-spot to prolong her orgasm.
“Fuuuuuuck,” I managed, when Peppy finally pulled out of my mouth, the last bit of synth semen trailing from the tip of the Six Shooter to my lips. Her face was flushed and she was smiling and I could see I was basically in the same state. My hair was disheveled from where she’d grabbed me.
The Archaeologist's Mistress Page 9
