I grabbed the camera, my primary objective, but couldn’t resist a little more payback. A quick sweep of their common room delivered the obligatory gay porn mag, always useful for infantile japery, which I opened on his chest. Then I tightened his tie and placed the tensioning end in his free hand. The dawn lent enough light for several pictures without the flash.
But it still wasn’t enough. He’d gone after Blythe.
Inspiration struck, and I used Novak’s phone to send a quick message.
The Bat’s preferred Fulgencio-filler was eager to make a house call and supply me with the powdered methamphetamine that I slipped into the giant Gatorade bottle next to Novak’s bed. Not so much that he’d go to the infirmary, but enough that he’d have an invigorating morning. And difficulty passing a drug test. And a sharp end to his hockey season. And a big problem with his scholarship.
At midnight the next evening Blythe knocked on my door. She looked the opposite of how she did the last time I’d seen her, crisp jeans and an immaculate white blouse covering her pearls. Heavier makeup than she usually wore.
Rooted in place on my doormat, she started a stilted speech. “James, I thought I should stop by to express to you my deepest gratitude . . .”
This was not at all what I wanted. She obviously loathed that I’d seen her in such a state.
I interrupted. “Hey, come on in. I have something for you.”
She hesitated but stepped inside. As I closed the door behind her, I handed over Novak’s camera, cued to my early-morning photo shoot.
She flipped back to the pictures of her and asked the question with her eyes.
“I checked the log. He hadn’t downloaded them yet. I think everything will turn out fine. But you should be more careful.”
Her silence stretched on, so I asked, “Are you going to be okay?”
She stared at me for another moment, visibly reassessing. Finally she said, “Yeah . . . I’ll just need . . .” She glanced around abstractly, as though searching some alternate dimension for what could possibly redeem that awful experience. But then her gaze settled on my mantelpiece bar prominently stocked with exotic bottlings of her favorite alcoholic balm.
I guess its presence served as a celestial confirmation of my virtue, because her voice relaxed when she said, “I’ll just need a drink.”
She then drifted to my window and stared into the night. I couldn’t believe she’d turn her back to me as I poured.
Blythe arrives down at the club bar minutes later and inhales deeply from the lowball I ordered for her.
I raise my drink and say, “To victory.”
We tap glasses. “Kind of you. But one can’t really declare victory in a training exercise.”
“You can if you learn something. And you learned that you need a better class of opponent.”
“I think my opponents are talented enough these days. If I—” She stops herself and takes a sip of her drink.
I wait for her to resume, but when she doesn’t, I ask, “To what do I owe the honor?”
“Business, sadly. Though I hope that soon we can drink for pleasure.”
Lightning surges down my spine. But it dissipates as I realize she probably means that I need to move my ass on locating Billy. She’s also not necessarily implying that we’ll be drinking together at the end of it.
She continues. “How are you finding the new you?”
“Liberating. I’m thinking of installing some new holes in myself. Turns out your brother isn’t the only GAMEr with a soft spot for retro prep.”
I show her the croc pendant I got at the party. Blythe stares at it. “I won’t ask how you came by this.”
I laugh. “Nothing like that. He mailed them out to some of his colleagues. An advertisement for this place he’s set up in NOD.”
She says, “So another game . . . Just a little harmless fun?”
“Well, I wouldn’t—”
“Pardon my sarcasm. I know he’s always taken them quite seriously.” She thinks for a moment. Then changes the subject. “James, I also need to clarify a few things from our last meeting.”
“Okay.”
“Because of our past, ah, relationship, Blake thought it would be best if you worked mostly with him on this to prevent any . . . awkwardness.”
“I see.”
“I told him that was ludicrous, but he’s obsessively protective of me, and once he gets an idea in his head—”
“I understand.”
“But I just wanted to make sure you don’t have any difficulty—”
“Blythe, I’m here to help you. Not create new problems.”
She smiles. “Ah, good. The one we have is bad enough.”
“I get the impression this isn’t just an everyday sibling rivalry.”
“It’s beginning to display the hallmarks of a war of succession.”
I nod as she takes a long sip.
“My father badly wanted the enterprise he built to last for generations. He set up the estate so we’d retain voting shares and, therefore, control of the company. Dad was acutely aware that family disputes can lead to dreadful headlines, lawsuits, and sometimes fire sales.”
“And you see yourselves heading in that direction?”
“We’d have been there long ago, but my father took steps to prevent that. In his will, he divided financial ownership of IMP equally among the three of us, but not the supervotes. Coherence of control came before equal treatment.”
Though it’s forbidden throughout the club, she lights a cigarette. “So Dad gave each of us enough voting shares to guarantee a seat, but the full board decides which child will be placed in charge. A sort of meritocratic primogeniture. There wasn’t a set deadline, but Ger Loring has started flouncing around in Hawaiian shirts, so everyone thinks the decision will be made soon.”
“Sounds like a recipe for a strong company, but a broken family.”
A sad smile emerges from the lip of her glass. “Of course Blake and I have stayed quite close. We are twins after all.”
She tells me how they carved out separate spheres of influence in the company. Blake on the business development side, and Blythe in cable ops.
She continues. “Billy, on the other hand—”
“Is he even interested in IMP? I thought he dreamed of being a sort of Caravaggio two-point-oh.”
“Maybe so. But he never got to make a choice. Blake was so enraged at the publicity from Billy’s early legal troubles that he seized on a minor provision in the trust that allowed the board to delay giving Billy his seat when he turned twenty-one. He got the money from his regular equity but no real voice in the company.”
“Your father gave the board the power to disenfranchise one of his children?”
“My father trusted Ger more than us, I suppose. He was sensitive to the fact that later generations often take an axe to the family tree. So he put in this ‘against the interests’ clause. I’m sure it was aimed at situations where the black sheep turns pinko, but Blake deployed it against Billy’s freedom of expression. My family has an unfortunate belief that scorched earth is good ground for negotiation.”
“I don’t suppose he took it well.”
“No. We had dinner to try to reach an understanding. To keep our dissension out of the press and maybe make peace.” She closes her eyes. “Billy accused Blake of hypocrisy, idiocy, philistinism. Blake . . . There was an altercation. Quite undignified.”
She sighs. “Blake thought he was doing it for the good of IMP, but sometimes I think the imp to which my brother seems most attuned is Poe’s, not our father’s.”
She’s referring to Edgar Allan Poe’s short story in which he lays out a theory about the irresistible allure of self-destructive actions. The Imp of the Perverse, a creature with whom I’m all too familiar.
“Blake thinks I’m too soft on Billy. And maybe he’s right. I won’t pretend we ever had a warm relationship. But my father loved him, and I try to honor that. I constantly come back to this
image I have of him when we picked him up at the airport after his mother died. The way he stood there with his little backpack and seemed so grief-stricken. So vulnerable. Even Blake felt sorry for him. And the look on my father’s face was almost worse. I had this idea then that I could try to help them both with that pain . . . As it turned out, there wasn’t much I could do. But now, I—I just know my father would want me to help Billy if I can. Blake too. Try to end all this senseless conflict.”
“And your concern is—”
“I’m concerned that my two brothers are intent on harming each other. And that they’re getting to the point where they don’t care about the consequences. That’s the message I see in Billy’s video. So . . . though you’ll be working mostly with Blake, please keep me informed. There may come a point where I’ll have to ask you to help protect my brothers from themselves.”
Saying this seems to cost Blythe something. She turns away from me. I lift my hand behind her, thinking to comfort her with a gentle pat. But it just hangs there, and I can’t bring myself to touch her. I withdraw it and clear my throat.
“Don’t worry. Everything will turn out fine.”
Her eyes search for something in mine. “I’m sure we both remember what happened the last time you said that to me.”
Then, with a subtle arch of her eyebrow, she knocks back her drink.
19
That arched eyebrow ignited a mental wildfire that consumed any thought I might’ve had beyond ransacking cyberspace for traces of her brother.
At midnight, several hours into my minute forensic probe of Billy’s Château de Silling build, I receive the kind of jackpot break you forbid yourself from hoping for. A ProSoap alert from the elevator camera at GAME with recognition results on Olya, Xan, and Garriott.
After rewinding the stream to ten seconds ago, I see the trio troop into the frame, Olya and Garriott dragging large aluminum cases behind them.
I run the eleven blocks over to GAME, sure that seeing the contents of those cases will tell me what their techno-coven is all about. Since coming down the main elevator would probably alert them, I sneak around back to the metal cellar doors that lead to the basement. The doors are secured with a key card system, which only makes a slight click when the lock disengages. I haul one open as quietly as I can.
I tiptoe back to my office and see that the door to their workroom across the hall is closed tight with only a thin ribbon of light running underneath. Olya’s sharp tones ring out behind it.
“No. We said we run trial tonight, so we must do this. We don’t just slip and slip and slip every time.”
“It’s supposed to slip.” This is Garriott’s voice. “If it doesn’t, it’s going to break, and then where will we be? If we just take—”
“If it breaks, it breaks. Then maybe we build it better. They cannot be so fragile.”
“But—”
“And we need to know how it breaks, yes?”
“Olya, we’re not even done with all the component tests. Xan just got her last one fixed today.”
Olya’s heels click briskly as she walks across the room. She adopts a sugary, mollifying tone. “Little one. Don’t you want to know how it feels? Not just the surface, but the connection?”
Andrew sighs. “I just—”
There’s a smacking sound. “For luck. Now, let’s go. You know it must be tonight.”
A moment of silence. Then Olya again: “What is wrong? We work on this all these months, don’t tell me now you are timid?”
“Olya, I just don’t—”
“I won’t laugh, I promise.”
Xan intervenes. “Olya, take it easy.”
“Andrew! It must be you. Why must I explain this?”
Garriott takes a deep breath and says, “Olya, I don’t know what’s gotten into you tonight, but I’m going to get some coffee, and we can discuss it after.”
Their door cracks open a few inches.
Olya yells, “Get back here, you little—”
I figure this will be my best shot, so I push the door open hard and barge into the room with my BlackBerry in front of me like I’m finishing a text. I say, “Hey, Garriott, I had a new idea on that network problem we were working on that I want to run by—”
I stop about eight feet into the now completely silent room. I look up as though just realizing where I am.
“Oh . . . shit. Sorry, guys. I didn’t mean to interrupt.”
Eyes closed, Garriott massages his temples like he’s trying to keep his skull from fragmenting. Olya has gone apoplectic and alternately stares at him and me as if trying to decide on whom to release the brewing tempest of her rage.
I take the opportunity to glance at the middle of the room, where I am finally confronted by IT.
Or make that THEM, since the top-secret project is composed of a pair of robots linked through a tangle of cables to matched high-end PCs. They resemble oversized swans in form, albeit with ungracefully large heads. Each has a rounded bulk of motors, electronics, and a small air compressor mounted on a wide stationary platform. From there a thinner neck of four motorized segments rises about three feet to culminate in an oblong cylindrical head of maybe nine inches in length and four in diameter. Two arms rise from points corresponding to where the wings would attach. They end in round pads supported by an array of small pistons set up so that the surfaces can quickly change shape. A vasculature of narrow tubes snakes up the neck into the head. At the head’s other end, a circular opening is padded with bright red silicone rubber. The heads point downward, as if the machines are bowing in prayer, so I can’t tell what’s inside the holes. But having seen the rest of the devices, I can guess.
“So this is IT,” I say.
My words snap Olya out of her shock. She walks toward me, her arm extended to the exit. “Out, goddamn you!”
She reaches as though intending to bodily throw me through the steel door. But I pivot around her and put up my hands soothingly. “Come on. I’ve already seen them. At least show me what they do. I’ll be your lab rat, and you can kill me afterward if you have to.”
Olya looks around for a weapon. “I think we kill you now.”
Garriott lifts his head and says with resignation, or maybe relief, “Just let him do it, Olya. We’re going to have to test it on other people soon anyway.”
Xan is staring at me with a blank expression. Not hostile, more like evaluating. She doesn’t speak for a second but then whispers something into Olya’s ear.
Olya gives me a gimlet-eyed once-over. Her eyes flick disdainfully at Garriott, and then she says softly, “Well, Mr. Pryce, you want to be the first victim? Come and try our little project.”
She edges past me to sit on one of the configurable chairs, where she reaches down and hikes up her skirt. She then leans back and whips off her panties with a lissome flourish of her legs.
This prods everyone into motion. Xan starts plugging more cables from the robots into the workstations, while Garriott tosses a motion-capture rig to Olya.
Olya places her hands on the nearest robot, and I hear a series of mechanical clicks and whirrs and what might be the sound of a fan coming up to speed.
Garriott then steps over to me and points at my belt buckle. A smile forms as he sees me hesitate. The implications of what is required here hit me suddenly, and I feel my whole body start to blush. I have disrobed in the presence of relative strangers before, but this situation represents a new level of weird. But if my duty to Blythe demands that I sacrifice my sense of propriety, so be it.
Besides, how bad can it be?
I drop my pants.
“So put these on. But first, I’m going to need the boxers as well, mate.”
I expected this but am paralyzed by the sight of Olya shrugging out of her shirt, revealing a lace-encased bosom that could make Shakespeare’s desiccated skeleton compose a 155th sonnet. She quickly pulls over her mocap rig. But for a net nerd like myself, that only makes my erection totally unavoidable.
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Andrew glances down and smirks. “I see stage fright won’t be a problem.”
I snatch the mocap tights he’s proffering and wriggle into them as quickly as I can. Naturally, I find they’re crotchless and only serve to emphasize my rapid swelling. Along with the standard IR patches at the joints, there are reflective bits lining the seams along the tights’ inner thighs, like rhinestones for a glammy fetish act. Xan tugs my shirt over my head and then drapes me with the mocap tunic as though I’m a futuristic knight about to sally forth. She does not resist lightly goosing me for good measure, which marks the end of my battle with modesty. I’m forced to brazen it out with my engorged tool waving in the chilly air.
The next article is my head-mounted display, so at least I don’t have to look anyone in the eye. Garriott takes my hand, and with Xan guiding my hips, they recline me on the other chair and position one of the robots between my legs with its head in very intimate proximity.
As I settle in, I ask, “What do I do now?”
Xan, her lips alluringly close to my ear, says, “Now we let nature take its course.”
The screens in my visor fade into a 3D rendering of a dungeon scene. I swivel my head and decide that it must be Hell due to the river of molten lava at my left. I’m sitting on a pagan altar in the center of a rock outcropping. A cavern opens to my right, out of which smoke billows lazily.
From the haze emerges a raven-haired succubus character, naked but for some beguiling cuneiform tattoos. Her barbed tail sways seductively as she walks toward me. She grins, and I hear a deepened version of Olya’s voice intone, “So, Zhimbo, are you ready to play with me?”
“Mmm-hmm,” is all I can manage.
“Well, I am yours to command. What do you want to do?” She’s slowly moving closer.
“Uh . . . What can we do?”
“Why don’t I show you?” she says as she’s almost within range of an embrace. But instead she drops to her knees and motions with her hands for me to spread my knees apart. She moves in between, teasingly making sure not to touch me yet. Though I know this gorgeous demon is only a binary figment, my cock jumps at the proximity of her crimson lips. SuccubOlya’s right hand darts out and she catches it with two fingers right at the base. The miraculous thing is that I actually feel this. I know it’s just the robot. Just a lifeless mechanism. But it doesn’t hurt to have Olya’s sultry whisper in my ear, and the visuals are marvelous. Indeed, my game-cock, with its full Brazilian wax, lack of unsightly veins, and extra virtual inch or so, looks much better than in real life. But I’m not allowed much time to admire it.
Strange Flesh Page 12
