Frags

by Thomas K. Carpenter

  And Gabby still hadn't found Michael. Celia's bug hadn't shown back up, so Gabby couldn't ask her and Delilah didn't know either. She described Michael as 'Ice Blue Eyes' and they shorted his name to IBE for quicker communication.

  When Gabby had first described him, Delilah's return reply was 'Love?' Gabby shook her head, but only after a moment of hesitation. Delilah gave her a knowing grin, but Gabby stared at her plate of mashed something instead. Whenever she thought of Michael, she thought about him running to check on Mouse instead of greeting her with a hug as she'd hoped.

  When Delilah sat down for afternoon meal, the Frags' eighteenth day in the Flock by Gabby's reckoning, her eyes were alight with a secret. Gabby gripped her spoon easily. She shoveled a mouthful and immediately set to tapping.

  'IBE?'

  Delilah nodded in the positive. Gabby had to tamp down her excitement or be noticed. Snowfall. Snowfall. Thinking about the snowball fight didn't help. She had ended up in a pile on that day with Michael, laying on top of him and giggling.

  She thought of General Matron instead. Imagined her torpedo-like boobs contained within a general's uniform. The contradiction was enough to dial down her flushness, even though she knew that finding Michael meant they could escape, once they figured out how to do it.

  'Where?' she asked and waiting for the reply seemed to take forever.

  'Field.'

  Field? There were farmlands all around the town. Delilah might have well been saying Earth. Gabby shook her head and squeezed her fingers together, indicating Delilah needed to narrow it down.

  Delilah stared at the ceiling, clearly trying to find a way to describe the right field. The sound of chairs moving was enough to make Gabby antsy. They would be leaving for their afternoon work session. If Delilah couldn't describe the field quick enough, Gabby would have to wait until the next day. Anything could happen in a day. Delilah might get moved to another table. Or Delilah could get sick or changed to a green dress or disappear one day like the snotty girl who sat next to her. Rumors were she'd been picked to be a charwoman. Other girls disappeared for less obvious reasons.

  'Tree,' tapped Delilah.

  There were trees on about half the fields. Gabby made hurry motions. The signal for the end of the meal was given and everyone stood. Delilah quickly tapped a 'V' before getting up.

  What word was she trying to tap? Did she miss the tap and give her the wrong letter? Gabby couldn't think of a descriptive tree word that started with the letter V. Usually Gabby had context to figure out a misspelled word. With only a letter she was left confused.

  The line marched across the trampled grass to their work building. General Matron smacked her hand almost immediately for not getting to work right away. Gabby was distracted trying to list descriptive V words. She started her sewing machine and then went back to the list.

  Vine. Victory. Venom. Vapor.

  None of them made sense. Vine was the closest, but there were no trees near the fields that had vines on them. Gabby knew she was close. The answer was right on the tip of her brain, gnawing at her consciousness. Distracted, Gabby made an improper chainstitch and the rod hit her hand.

  "Attention, attention, attention! Young lady, you must pay attention!"

  Snowfall.

  Gabby couldn't conjure any new V words and her hand smarted from General Matron's rod, so she focused on her sewing. The letter V kept coming back to her, floating through her head like angel wings. Gabby was busy making another scratchy brown dress when the answer appeared in her head.

  She saw a giant V on the horizon. Delilah hadn't been trying to tap out a word, the letter V was the description. And she knew exactly what tree she was talking about. It'd been hit by lightning some time in the recent past and split in two.

  Gabby made a silent cheer. She knew where Michael was. But then her heart sunk a little. How did Delilah know for sure that it was Michael? Gabby had only described his eyes. She needed to see for herself, but how?

  Gabby recalled the infirmary was near the split tree field. She'd helped carry a girl there that had run her hand into the sewing apparatus. Her finger had been mangled.

  Gabby didn't relish the idea of injuring her fingers. She might need them for later and health care outside the GSA was non-existent. The cramped desk she worked on didn't leave much room for fabric. Gabby knocked the bundle onto the floor and when she leaned over to pick it up, she rammed her elbow into the moving parts.

  Her scream brought the room to a standstill. Wide-eyed girls paused in their work. Gabby held her elbow, while blood ran from between her fingers. It hurt worse than she thought it would.

  "See? Attention, attention! That's what you get for not paying attention. Take that as a lesson, ladies."

  When General Matron was done lecturing her, Gabby was given leave to go to the infirmary, and only to the infirmary, to receive medical aid. Gabby wrapped a section of brown cloth around the gash in her elbow and hurried out of the building before General Matron changed her mind.

  The field lay north of the infirmary. Gabby made it to the edge and then feigned fixing her bandage while she surveyed the field. She saw him immediately.

  Michael trudged through the field with a basket hitched to his shoulders. Other workers threw vegetables plucked from the ground into the basket. He wore only the brown dungarees. His bare chest glistened in the sunlight. Gabby forgot completely about the blood dripping from her elbow or where she was going.

  Up in the mountains, the cold had kept them bundled up and the three boys kept to a different part of the farmhouse, leaving Celia, Mouse and her to the upper floor. Underneath the clothing, Gabby thought Michael might have been like any hacker boy she'd met before.

  Her impressions were wrong. Michael had a swimmer's body. Gabby imagined him diving into a pool, long, lean muscles rippling as he flew through the air. He was thinner now, she could see, emaciated from the long winter months in the farmhouse, but he still left her opened mouthed. Gabby had never been one to be troubled by the other sex, but maybe the weeks trapped in the Flock had left her overly repressed.

  With Michael's sweaty body on display, straining under the basket, Gabby forgot about the Flock and General Matron and that her elbow was bleeding profusely. When she realized the extent of her thoughts, she tried to cover them by thinking Snowfall. But that only reminded her that they'd fallen into a snow pile together, touching hands and giggling with abandon. Memories of their kiss in the Black Gate came back in full and Gabby's face flushed.

  General Matron's voice startled her out of her Michael induced stupor. "Get a move on it, young lady!"

  Gabby shook her head and blew out a cleansing breath before hurrying the rest of the way to the infirmary. The stern woman that let her in looked disapprovingly at the damage to her elbow.

  While the woman treated her arm with antiseptic and a bandage, Gabby thought about what to do now that she'd found Michael. She didn't know why he hadn't been at the mess hall. Was there another group within the Flock she didn't know about? There were brown dresses and green dresses for the ladies. Were there other categories for the men?

  Gabby was dismissed and about to head back to the sewing hut when the door opened. Gabby was struck by the overwhelming color. A woman in a crimson dress stepped into the room. The edges of the dress were stained with faded black. A charwoman.

  The woman had full lips and a sensuous manner about her. She oozed sex. The crimson dress, while functionally the same as brown one she wore, had cuts and slits that exposed flesh briefly as she moved. A tantalizing peep show with each movement.

  Gabby thought the charwoman had come to see the medic. But then she realized the woman was staring at her.

  "Der Angle calls," she said in a husky voice. "Follow me."

  Chapter Nine

  They went a different way around so Gabby didn't get to see Michael again which was fine by her. The appearance of the charwoman and the call to see der Angle had put her whole body on high aler
t.

  The charwoman strutted ahead of Gabby. Though the streets were packed dirt and the buildings made with logs and planks, the charwoman looked like she could be walking across a busy metropolitan street.

  When Gabby had reached an age that she noticed boys, the ubiquitous advertisements began their assault, showing curvaceous women in revealing dresses. Her parents had never discussed sex with her, but the ads gave her enough information she figured out the answers on her own.

  Gabby could easily identify which women in the ads the boys would like. She never copied those styles, but she was aware of them. Those women were a pale shadow to the charwoman before her. Skins could always be used to touch up a look or create new buff style. The Evil Dolls had been experts at it. But their creations were too perfect. The woman in the crimson dress was not as beautiful as them and her dress was handmade, but she inhabited an aura of sex like she was born into it.

  The building they approached was one Gabby hadn't seen before. Built with stone, it had a high arched roof with stained glass windows along the side. The building was older than the wooden structures and probably predated the Flock.

  Before entering she thought about running again. Somehow the presence of the charwoman made her uneasy about meeting der Angle.

  Inside the building were more charwomen. Gabby recognized the snotty girl she'd met her first day in the Flock. She wore the crimson dress, but seemed subdued. When she moved to take a seat along the wall, it appeared she was limping.

  They all paused briefly when she entered, judging her in brief and cutting glances. Some seemed relieved by her presence, like the snotty girl, and others appeared jealous.

  It didn't take long for Gabby to know what the "charwomen" were for. The man (and she assumed it was a man) behind der Angle had only one thing in mind, but if he had Gabby in those thoughts, she was going to majorly debuff him.

  The other girls weren't as beautiful as the one that had led her there. Some were younger than Gabby, most were older. There were almost two dozen milling about the room. More than one glanced expectantly at the red doors on the far side of the room.

  LifeGame had been a different kind of control. The points and levels drove you to stay focused on their games, but it was self driven. It'd also been a load of fun. Since she had left LifeGame she missed the challenges. Not that she wasn't challenged now, but it was hard to know how she was doing without a score. Gabby felt silly for even thinking it.

  There she was waiting for a winged pervert to proposition her and she was missing not being able to keep score. But maybe there was a score in the Flock, just one she couldn't see. Otherwise, why else would Gabby get a brown dress while Mouse got a green one? And why was Michael kept to himself while Milton was placed into Vernon's group? The Flock was no different than high school.

  Gabby didn't get to muse long on her revelation. The sensual charwoman mysteriously appeared by her side. Gabby swore she'd been halfway across the room two seconds before. The light touch on her elbow was almost a caress.

  "It's a great honor becoming a charwoman."

  A hundred witty responses popped into her mind. Gabby squashed them before they picked up her thoughts, hiding it behind Snowfall.

  "I'm sure he's honored you many times," said Gabby, biting her lip for the one that slipped through.

  The woman gave her a vacuous smile and indicated Gabby should enter the other room. Gabby thought about making a run for it. But it would be too easy for them to shut down her vision and paralyze her body with pain. Her only recourse was to keep going forward.

  As Gabby approached the doors, the other charwomen stopped whispering to each other. Their silence followed her through the opening. They all knew what she was going to see and experience beyond the red doors.

  The round room had only one window on the far side and a wide octagonal bed covered in pillows filled the center of the room. Figures.

  These kind of perverts never lasted long in the GSA. Too much information was available for the police to analyze to spy them out. Simple eye-tracking where people tended to look was enough to expose many a pervert. But even knowing that the police would do so didn't stop them. It was instinct to them. Subconscious. There was no one in the Flock to stop such people.

  When the buzzing in her ears started she knew der Angle was on his way. A bright billowing light started flowing from the domed cathedral ceiling. Der Angle floated through the mass of whiteness while the vibrations in her ear became almost unbearable.

  Somehow she found herself on one knee, but pushed back up to stand. Gabby refused to be kneeling when the flying pervert landed.

  "This one sees," said der Angle.

  The face of der Angle roiled Gabby's stomach. Zaela like to play with programs that could modify someone's image. They used to put a copy of Avony in their room and distort her likeness for their amusement. Zaela's best trick was to make Avony into a hideous bat girl, complete with pointed, chewed-on ears.

  Der Angle had that same exaggerated appearance as bat-girl Avony. His eyes were too big, his lips too puffy and his cheek bones too prominent. Add in ragged, pointed ears and she would have thought that Zaela had made his skin.

  Gabby kept her eyes deferential. Der Angle was studying her. She knew when he was going to speak, because the droning buzz increased in volume.

  "This one knows your thoughts. Knows the wicked thoughts that Gabriella has for Michael."

  Gabby failed to hold back her reaction, despite knowing instantly how he knew. When she'd had those erotic thoughts about shirtless Michael, she'd broadcast her emotional state to the Flock. She wanted to punch herself. Those were the points that der Angle monitored. He was looking for the girls with wicked thoughts. She'd made it to the next level in the Flock, even though she hadn't wanted to.

  "Gabby cannot hide from this one. That wickedness must be removed from your soul or it will consume you."

  Her thoughts had been wicked...wickedly good, but she didn't think der Angle would appreciate her slang.

  The crescendoing buzz shook her teeth until her eyes hurt. "The demon inside you causes this wickedness. This one sees you Gabriella, full o' promise."

  Despite the full on migraine that the vibration was causing, Gabby's ears pricked to the words der Angle used. If she had her LifeGame interface, she would have called up a recording to confirm. Instead she had to go on memory, which she knew was fallible. But she thought she recalled that Vernon had said something about Milton being "full o' promise." Even though the voice was hidden behind layers of modification, Gabby realized it had the same pacing as Vernon's.

  Needing to confirm a revelation, Gabby struck a defiant pose. "You want me to become your charwoman?"

  "Yes..." It came out like a hiss.

  "What if I don't want to?" Gabby knew she was treading dangerous ground.

  Der Angle's volume pummeled her ears. "This one decides! You carry a demon, from beyond these lands, only as charwoman can you cleanse!"

  The angel figure stepped forward, eyes bulging out obscenely, pointing at her in awkward, angular movements. When Gabby dimmed her eyes, she could see the stick bug figure beneath the angel skin. If it were Vernon posing as der Angle, what other figures in the Flock did he inhabit? If he was a one man operation, then they had a chance of escaping.

  "Kneel!" der Angle commanded.

  Gabby refused, keeping her gaze level. Der Angle floated to her and pressed his hand on her shoulder. The angle of the touch was different than the visual she was seeing. Gabby stared at the feathered hand suspiciously. Der Angle seemed to sense her mood, but she grabbed his hand before he could move away. Nothing about it felt feathered.

  Pain shot through her legs. Der Angle was hanging above her like a waiting doom. The white light that had surrounded his wings became crimson and blackish.

  "This one must always be obeyed! Always! Never defy this one!"

  Gabby wondered if she'd made a mistake. She barely "defied" him, but he seemed to have
a low threshold. If only he would come closer, she would show him what real defying was.

  Before she could consider her next course of action, the world melted before her eyes. Instead of a stately room filled with an octagonal cushioned bed and a floating perverted angel, a hellish world of fire rose up around her.

  Her first urge was to lurch around away from the fire, but she knew the fire was only illusion, just like the feathers had been. In LifeGame, Coders could program sense-webs to react appropriately to what had been seen. If she'd still been in LifeGame, she wouldn't have felt the hand beneath the illusion. Instead it would have been soft feathers under her fingertips.

  The implications of the Flock's coding skills became clear. They were good at visuals and sound, but hadn't mastered the tactile. Which meant she could use her sense of touch to find her way through their false reality.

  A flicker of movement right in front of her nose almost made her cross-eyed. A tiny winged insect fluttered there, bouncing in a very non-bug-like manner. Celia! Gabby scrunched her nose at the bug.

  Why hadn't she seen the bug before? Then Gabby realized the reason why: The Flock had erased the bugs from her vision. Maybe they had figured out what Celia could do, or had witnessed her exchange in the bunk house. But in the hellish fire world, they'd forgotten to code out Celia's bug.

  Gabby stepped backwards as a hand ripped at her dress. The top buttons had been torn away exposing her neck. She could sense his nearness. Der Angle, or Vernon she guessed, was probably waiting right outside of her reach, ready to lunge in and rip her dress again.

  She wasn't sure why he was being so cautious, but remembered she'd shown him what she could do in a fight until he stepped in and disabled her with some device. The urge to strike out in the general location she thought Vernon might be was almost unbearable.

  The Celia bug hovering at the tip of her nose, flew out away from her a moment before a hand ripped at her dress, popping buttons away and leaving her cleavage exposed. The bug returned to her nose. The scratch on her chest welled up with drops of blood like crimson beads. One more rip and the dress would be in tatters.