by Simon Archer
“They don’t really tell you much of anything, do they?” I asked, a bit more respectful tone in my voice.
“No, and they won’t.” She grabbed a pen and ripped off some receipt paper from the register. “Here’s my number. It might do you some good to give me a ring after about six tomorrow night. Now move along. There’s a line behind you.”
I looked behind me to see six other customers waiting behind us, so I hurriedly asked, “One more thing… Where is the best place to get a decent meal around here?” I figured if Sally knew so much about something that was generally kept a secret around here, she should be able to point me in the right direction for good food.
“The Sagebrush Grill. Left on the main road, go three miles and take a right. Can’t miss it,” she directed without looking up from her work.
“Thanks.” I paid for the supplies, then Kennedi and I headed to get dinner.
The Sagebrush Grill turned out to be a live-entertainment bar with a spattering of tables. The dance floor was sectioned off by a wooden railing, and there was a DJ’s booth tucked away to the left of the small stage. We got there at four-thirty, and there wasn’t a band playing when we walked in, but the posters at the door advertised a group called The Walkers would be playing at seven. Kennedi and I located a table as far away from the stage as possible and sat down. The place was empty except for a bartender and a few cocktail waitresses who were filling salt and pepper shakers at various tables.
“Food has to be ordered from the bar,” a nearby waitress called over to us.
“Stay here,” I instructed Kennedi. She sat down and was carefully looking the room over while I walked to the bar to get a couple of menus.
A short, petite bartender with spiky white hair and bright red lipstick was on the phone but waved when I walked up. I pointed toward the stack of menus on the shelf just behind the bar, and she gestured for me to help myself.
Back at the table, Kennedi and I looked over the menus, and she reminded me of her lack of need for food.
“I don’t think it is a good use of finances to pay for food I don’t need,” she explained herself.
“No arguing with that logic,” I replied.
The extent of the food offered on the menu was surprising. They served everything from cheeseburgers to chicken cordon bleu. I settled on a steak and cod plate with steamed broccoli and returned to the bar to give my order to the bartender who had finished with her phone call.
“Do I need to call my order in?” I asked jokingly as I set my menu down on the bar.
The bartender looked over and chuckled. “No, but let me tell you something… Don’t ever give an ex-boyfriend your work number!” She rolled her eyes and smiled. “What can I get you?”
“I’ll take the cod and steak, medium, and your best microbrew,” I told her, unable to hide the amusement on my face. I’d been in the psycho-ex situation before.
“Anything for your, er, lady friend?” she asked, obviously not used to the idea of someone dining with a cat girl instead of just being served by one.
“No, just the cod and steak.” I slid the menu across the bar to her. She reached down and slid open a metal-topped cooler and pulled out a bottle of beer, popped the cap and handed it to me. The label said Window Sill Brewing. I’d never heard of it before, so I asked, “Is this a local brewery?”
“I have no idea.” She shrugged her shoulders. She immediately grabbed a rag and started wiping down the bar. Then she paused, laughed, and said, “You could ask my ex, though. He knows the ins and outs of anything that’ll get you hammered.”
“I’ll pass this time, but if it’s good, maybe I’ll take you up on your suggestion next time,” I said, laughing with her. I raised my bottle and nodded to thank her. She nodded back, and I headed back to the table.
As I was sitting back down, I saw Kennedi’s gaze riveted across the room.
“What are you looking at?” I asked.
“One of the Omnicorp executives is here. Henry Blackwell. He’s talking to that guy over there, and neither looks happy.”
I followed her gaze and saw a tall, wiry man with unkempt brown hair and a hooked nose leaning against the wall. Opposite him was who I assumed was Henry. He was wearing an expertly tailored tan suit and alligator boots. His hair was black and created a striking contrast to his extremely white skin. The man looked like he hadn’t seen the sun a day in his life. He had obviously seen a gym, however. If I had to guess I’d say a man his size could probably bench two hundred pounds easily.
“This town is just crawling with Omnicorp suits,” I noted aloud. I saw Kennedi shift in her seat, looking nervous. “Is there a problem?”
“I should’ve mentioned it earlier, but company executives don’t approve of CGs with defects being in public. Bad marketing and all,” she said, lowering her voice to a near whisper.
“How would they even know you had a defect?” I asked.
“The mark on my wrist.” She turned her right hand over and laid it on the table, showing the underneath of her wrist. There was a small orange mark that I’d never noticed that resembled a tattoo. The mark was a straight line from side-to-side was made to look like a coil was around the line. It reminded me of the bottom part of a medical symbol where the snake wraps around the staff.
“There is no way they’d ever see that,” I told her.
“It is on my right wrist for a reason. Whenever an executive is introduced to a new CG, they always shake her hand for the sole purpose of checking for the mark.” Her voice was low and defensive, but the defensiveness was not directed at me.
“Look,” I told her, “there is nothing they can do to you even with the defect. I have a bill of sale for you, and there is no mandate that I cannot have a CG with a defect.” It felt wrong to talk about her in such a transactional manner.
Kennedi looked across the table at me, her expression unchanged. “You’d be surprised what those men can make happen.”
Just then, a cocktail waitress arrived with my food and a microbrew that I didn’t order. I looked over to the bar and our spiky-haired bartender who was on the phone again. I held my beer up and mouthed, “Thank you.”
She pointed to the phone, rolled her eyes and shrugged. I was amused by the fact that she apparently hadn’t realized that she could just hang up on the ex she didn’t want to talk to.
The plate looked like it had just exited the kitchen on that Top Chef show. The cod was steaming and had a cream-colored sauce drizzled on one half. The sirloin was an inch and a half thick and had a spice crust of garlic, pepper, and paprika. Both were accented by the most brightly colored steamed broccoli I’d ever seen that had a sprinkling of pink Himalayan rock salt over the top. My mouth was watering before I even picked up my fork.
Thirty minutes later, I placed my napkin on my empty plate and took the last drink of my beer. It had been a light-flavored brew with a blood orange undertone. It reminded me of one I’d had at a local pub in Ireland several years back when Brew Fest had passed through the small village I was working near. It most certainly didn’t have as high of alcohol content, however. I had walked out of that bar and straight into a porch rail and laughed all the way back to my cabin. It wasn’t until the next day I noticed the splinters that had gone through my pants into my leg. The memory made me grin, and Kennedi noticed.
“I believe the correct question for me to ask is ‘Where did you just go?’” she asked curiously.
I told her, and she initially looked concerned but soon started to giggle. “I wish I’d been around to lick you.” Somehow that statement made me imagine her licking something other than my leg, and suddenly, I wanted to be back at the loft.
7
After leaving the Sagebrush, we arrived back at Theo’s ranch to see him and Bev sitting side-by-side on the porch swing. Each had a glass of tea, and Bev had a mint green blanket over her shoulders.
“Did you two eat yet?” Bev asked. “There’s a bit of soup left over if you’re hungry.�
��
“We ate. Thank you,” I told her and then looked at Theo. “I have a proposal for both of you.”
Theo stood up and leaned against the swing rail, arms crossed. “Let’s hear it.”
“I take it from the condition of the loft that the two of you don’t have many people stay there. We appreciate you letting us bunk up last night. I’d like to pay you to let us stay a little while longer. I’ll pitch in additional for food and gas for hot water, of course. Are you open to that?”
Kennedi stepped forward and added, “I’ll toss potatoes for you and help with anything you need.”
Bev smiled and stood up next to Theo. “We’ve already discussed it,” she said, looking over at her husband. “You can stay until you are done with the Platform, whenever that may be.”
I got the feeling she was unsure of how long that would turn out to be. I also felt the same as the previous night: Relieved.
“You’ll need to move some of the firewood out behind the barn,” Theo said.
Kennedi immediately started walking toward the barn.
“No, Kennedi. Clark will have to do it. And he’ll have to use his whip to get it done. I assume you got one at the Army Surplus?” Theo confirmed, looking over to me.
“How did you know I’d pick one up?” I arched an eyebrow.
“Sally knows a thing or two about the Platform. She called here just an hour ago. She’s coming by in about twenty minutes so you’d better get ready.”
Kennedi looked puzzled. “How did she know that you knew who we were?”
Bev started walking into the house. “Because Theo is the only other local in town that knows where it is,” she said flatly and disappeared through the door. Theo followed her, leaving Kennedi and me to wait for Sally.
By the time Sally arrived, I’d unwrapped the new whip and was working it straight. I’d asked Kennedi to set up logs of firewood in a row, standing upright. I was going to have to get really accurate, really fast. After a few minutes in the house talking to Theo and Bev, Sally came stomping over to me.
“Ever use one of these?” she asked flatly.
“Not since the toy whip when I used to pretend I was Indiana Jones.”
Kennedi’s ears turned forward. “How do you pretend?” she asked. “I’m not programmed to pretend, but it looks like fun!” She suddenly looked like she was handed candy.
“Now isn’t the…” I was cut off by Sally.
“Now is the perfect time, actually,” Sally said, a light sparking in her eyes. “Kennedi, what sort of pain tolerance do you CGs have?”
“We can feel pain, but it isn’t unpleasant unless inflicted by anger. We are programmed to assign feelings appropriate to a situation,” Kennedi answered.
“Good. And you’re strong, too, yes?”
“Yes. I am designed using the same principals studied in ants. Due to my size, though, instead of five-thousand times my body weight, I can only lift one hundred times my body weight.”
“That’ll do. You’ll get to pretend that this whip tickles,” Sally said.
“Why do you want to know how strong and resistant to pain she is?” I wasn’t feeling good about the direction the conversation took.
Sally looked me in the eyes. “You aren’t going to be moving logs on the Platform. Your target will be moving and trying to rid you of your whip at any given chance. You are going to practice on Kennedi.”
“Like hell, I will!” I was instantly pissed off. “All I need to do is perfect my aim and get some tips on technique. I’ll take my chances with that. I’m not going to whip her!”
“Calm the fuck down already!” Sally raised her voice to match mine. I finally knew why the phrase ‘calm down’ never worked based on how much I wished Sally was a man so I could throat punch her. Her voice lowered a bit. “You aren’t ‘whipping’ her in the sense that it is some sort of punishment for fuck’s sake. She can catch the whip and pull it like your opponent would. You don’t know the first thing about CGs, do you?”
“Sally. Clark. There’s no need to yell at each other.” Kennedi looked at me. “I want to help. It doesn’t hurt me, and I know it will help you NOT get hurt. Just try it once and see. If you don’t want to after that, you can use the logs,” she said in a low tone. Then her voice perked up and her tail wrapped around her own body. “It will give me a chance to learn how to pretend.”
I looked at Kennedi and then over at Sally, who was tapping her foot like she had somewhere better to be. Pushing my irritation down into the pit of my stomach, I nodded and motioned for us to begin. Kennedi’s tail unwrapped from her body quickly enough to be a whip itself, and she squealed happily.
Nothing about this evening was going to be normal.
A little instruction later, I held tight to the handle of my whip with my right hand and made the small rotation motions Sally had shown me. When Kennedi started to advance at me, I swung my arm behind me, over my head, and forward with as much force as I had. The long tail followed. I waited until the end was half-way to Kennedi and then pulled my arm straight up again. By the time the end reached Kennedi, it looked as though it would go straight over her head, but at the last second, the end snapped down towards her shoulder hard. I almost cringed at the sight and was certain I would damage her shoulder. That is not what happened, though.
Just as the whip came down, Kennedi put her arm straight up and spun herself completely around with a quickness. Before I could register what she was doing, she had the end of the whip wrapped around her arm, her hand gripping the whip. She yanked backward as she crouched down, and the whip handle flew out of my hand. If I had doubts about her ability to help me train, they disappeared.
Sally started laughing. “Again,” she said through her laughter.
It took four more attempts, with the same end result each time, before Sally piped up. “Now that we know that doesn’t work, let me show you what does.”
She took the whip from me and demonstrated a different motion, bringing the whip forward, to the side and across, instead of down. She handed it back to me and stepped away.
I squared up to Kennedi and swung my arm back, overhead and forward as before. This time, however, instead of jerking my arm straight up to create a straight whipping motion, I made a clockwise circle with my arm and flicked my wrist sideways across my body. At first, I thought the same thing was going to happen because the end of the whip was directly above Kennedi’s shoulder again. She reached up as she had before, but at the last second, it jerked low and to her side and wrapped around her body. It sounded like lightning cracking and was so loud I saw Sally jump a little.
“Yes! That’s what you need to do!” Sally exclaimed, striding over to me. I ignored her and went to Kennedi.
“Are you alright?” I asked her, looking for the end of the whip to detangle her.
The silicone tip had sliced into her stomach and was wedged there. “Holy fuck!”
I didn’t have any other words. I frantically tried to unwrap the rest of the whip and pull the end out of her skin gently so as not to make the pain she surely must’ve been in any worse. Before I could get it out, she put her hand under my chin and tipped my head up to look at her. She was smiling.
“It doesn’t hurt,” she told me. “The skin will close before tomorrow.”
“How are you smiling? I can’t do this to you again.” I said, feeling the guilt of hurting her wash through me.
“You most certainly can. It tickles.” She was still smiling.
I stopped and stood up straight in front of her. “What do you mean, ‘it tickles’?” I asked, thoroughly confused.
She reached down and pulled the tip of the whip out of her stomach like it was nothing and said, “I told you this would give me the opportunity to learn how to pretend. It’s much easier than I thought it was going to be!”
Once the whip was untangled, and I was sure Kennedi wasn’t damaged, I found a log and sat down. There was that want for her to be happy again. I really need
ed to figure out why it kept happening. I wasn’t sitting for more than ten seconds before Sally walked over.
“Now, do you think that doing that might get you a leg up on the Platform?” she asked, not really looking for an answer. “It’s getting dark, and I have to get back and close up the store. When is your first competition?”
“Tomorrow afternoon.” I was starting to realize that Sally deserved a bit more respect than I had given her.
“Good. Give that move a few more shots tomorrow. Not too many though, you don’t want to be sore before you start.” She looked me over and nodded her head. “Theo was right. You are built for it.”
Kennedi had joined us by the log. “I’m going to go lick this. Meet you in the loft?” she asked me.
“I’ll be right there.” I stood up to walk Sally back to her car, which was parked in front of the house. “One more question, if you don’t mind?”
“Shoot.”
“Any last tips?”
“Yeah, when you hear a loud noise behind you, duck,” was all she said as she climbed in her beat-up, beige Toyota Corolla, slammed the door, and drove away.
I had the slightest bit of nervousness pass through me as I watched her car go down the drive. Too late to get nervous now, I thought as I headed to the loft. If I was going to win that fucking thing, I needed to get a decent amount of sleep.
8
The curtains in the loft hadn’t been closed all the way again, and I woke to a sliver of sunshine across my eyes. I sat up and blinked to focus in the otherwise still-dark room. I looked over to the other side of the bed, but Kennedi wasn’t there. Just then, I heard the ladder to the loft creaking. Soon Kennedi was standing before me with a tray in her hands.
“I’m glad I don’t have to wake you,” she said as she set the tray down.
“Why would you have to wake me?” I replied groggily.
