Crash Deluxe

by Marianne de Pierres

  Monk stared back at me, his shaped eyebrows drawn into a frown. ‘And why, Jales Belliere, do you strike me as not the person you say you are? Could it be that unfortunate mess you’ve made of yourself brawling?’

  My hand moved automatically to partially cover my face. ‘Wouldn’t do for everyone to know the real me,’ I drawled softly. And waited.

  Intuition told me that even though I’d piqued his curiosity I stood on the edge of an abyss. If his interest turned to annoyance - or, worse, suspicion - I’d be in a quod somewhere quicker than Raul Minoj could close a weapons deal.

  Monk knitted his fingers together, the gesture of an older person.

  ‘Aside from your injuries, you look like an Amorato. And a review of your earlier communication with my factotum suggests that you have the talents of one. But you are rough and your language is rented. Amoratos also don’t usually come complete with battle scars.’

  Rough? Rented? I paid a fortune for that infusion.

  For half a cred I’d snot him. How did the world get to be filled with so many conceited, arrogant people? It felt like I was sizing up against a Loyl-me-Daac with money.

  But I gave a little subservient bow instead - the hardest thing I’d ever done in my life.

  ‘I’m from the Interior, sir. My manners may be coarse, but my talents are considerable. May I ask . . . why did you choose me if you thought as you seem to about me?’

  I kept my head bent as Monk circled me, prodding and squeezing me like I was a side of meat on a butcher’s hook.

  ‘Let’s us just say . . . a good friend recommended you.’ He touched the skin of my neck. Then he lifted my coat to look at my figure.

  ‘And what’s this?’ He touched Glorious’s ring.

  I kept my head down, hoping that he wouldn’t spot how rigid my jaw had become.

  ‘An Amorato is never without some tools in’ - I drew on my infusion for a word - ‘company.’

  He prised the ring off my finger, then walked to a small diagnostic module in an alcove. When he’d finished examining it he brought it back to me, satisfied that it was harmless.

  ‘I’ve scheduled you for an exhibition this evening. Tomorrow I am having guests and I am short on entertainers. If you impress me tonight you can work tomorrow and I shall be happy to recommend your services.’ Monk’s voice dropped lower. ‘I hope you’re as good as you imply you are, Jales Belliere. I risked a considerable amount bringing you here - a favour to a friend. In fact, let’s make the situation quite clear. Perform well, or I shall consider the investment a bad debt.’ His face lit up with a brilliant, handsome smile and he made an expansive gesture. ‘In the meantime - get your face fixed.’

  Interview over.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  I told myself that I was letting the medic attend me because the painkillers weren’t working, not because Monk had told me to. I had no desire to make myself attractive for my evening exhibition but the fact was that I had to get to Monk’s party.

  ‘This mess needs proper reconstruction,’ the skinny medic grumbled through her body film. She was taking no risks with my body fluids on principle. ‘I really can’t spare the nanomeds for employees. Do you know how many people are staying here? The skin peels alone are stretching my limits.’

  ‘Just give me something strong and straighten it.’

  Her eyes brightened. ‘You mean . . . the old-fashioned way?’

  I pulled a face.

  Like a kid given a gun to play with, the medic dermed me up and stuck a thin straightening probe up each nostril.

  My eyes watered as the cartilage crunched like gravel trodden underfoot.

  She was whistling by the time she glued the skin flap flat and heal-creamed the splits there - those and on my forehead - and gave me something for the bruising.

  I stood up groggily.

  She tossed me another derm. ‘Take this for later. You look like you know what to do with it.’

  I prepared for my evening appointment as if I was going to war - dread and determination mingling to keep me in an unsteady state.

  Could I keep this together?

  I’d thought I’d made some hard choices recently. But now I realised I hadn’t. All those decisions had been made under threat, under the pressure to survive.

  Simple stuff. I hadn’t really had to think about them.

  But this I could run away from.

  No one but me was looking over my shoulder telling me that I had to go through with it. It all came down to how much I truly cared about what was happening to The Tert now that I was no longer mired in the stench of it all.

  I stared morosely up the mountain at Monk’s prized Orchid Cage and then at the darkening sky. Although the air was clear of pollution, I still couldn’t see the stars for cloud.

  My resolve was slipping. All of a sudden I wanted to talk to Teece and eat shawarmas at Lu Chow’s. I wanted Larry to pour me a beer and tell me that Riko was planning to ambush me at the next full moon.

  I could handle those things. I knew what to do about them.

  But this was a foreign place. Wealth so unmerited. So wrong. Yet, from inside, so . . . seductive. So liberating.

  Losing myself would be too easy.

  Yes . . . yes . . . lose yourself . . .

  The Eskaalim urged me towards surrender of a different kind. A new trick: Parrish without anger was Parrish without purpose.

  I pushed away the languor by recalling images of Roo as he drowned in the poison canal - victim of Ike’s post-human lunacy, funded by Sera Bau.

  When the memory was fresh enough in my mind to bleed, I ordered some innocuous provisions from housekeeping and inquired after Mal.

  ‘You companion will be released when the medical staff deem her free of symptoms,’ the housekeeper boomed.

  ‘How long will that be?’

  The housekeeper consulted her data-stream. ‘On current available prognosis . . . tomorrow afternoon. In the meantime you may visit her at the Terrace 72 infirmary.’

  Satisfied, I switched the screen to music-feed and dressed for battle.

  First came the heels. So high that the air got thin. I practised on them a bit as I ate some more squirming things delivered to the cabin by a white-suited Intimate.

  Next I chose a sheer top with a high neckline, taking care to wipe the food crumbs off my fingers and onto the sheets of my bed before I buttoned the skimpy item.

  The House Rules waw-wawed at me until I thumped the speaker. What the freak was wrong with wiping your fingers on a sheet?

  I chose another skirt. Black and short.

  Restless then, I asked the housekeeper to read me its boss’s public biography. Monk’s image sprang to life on every wall as the housekeeper drawled through the details of his education and media ownership.

  I half-listened to most of it until it moved on to Monk’s ancestry. Like all natives, I was fascinated by my country’s royalty.

  James Monk is a descendant of an original Australian media dynasty from whom he inherited his entrepreneurial skills. Such pure lineage is almost impossible to trace in the Southern Hem today. James is an icon. One of a kind . . .

  I grinned to myself. Loyl might have some argument with that.

  . . . Among his many hobbies and philanthropic pastimes, James Monk is renowned for owning the most extensive and valuable collection of orchids in the world. Once a year botanists are invited in to view his advances in species hybridisation . . .

  ‘Enough,’ I told the housekeeper.

  The bio shut down and I practised reruns of my plan until an Intimate came for me.

  Outside, shouts punctuated the air.

  ‘Mr Monk prefers his guests to sleep during the day and revel at night-time,’ the Intimate observed as we climbed into the cable car.

  Revel? I stared out at the glowing lines, invisible during the day, which snaked all over the mountain. Intermingled with the fairy lights, they gave the impression that every level had a party going on.
<
br />   ‘What are those lines?’

  It paused for a few seconds as though it was checking its protocol for the correct answer. ‘Mr Monk has a separate mode of transport around the estate.’

  On cue a sleek, bullet-shaped luge shot ahead down the line from the top of the mountain, running parallel with the cable car for an instant.

  Don’t tell me my date is late!

  When the cable car stopped it wasn’t at the palm-surrounded pagoda but at another functionally shaped building. The Intimate ushered me to the front door and told me in clear terms that I should wait.

  But waiting got on my nerves. And I had plenty of those. I flung the doors open and wobbled right on in.

  High heels suck.

  The first room was empty apart from a collection of beds and cushioned benches set at various heights. The wall space overflowed with close-up, weirdly erotic multi-D representations of orchids, each one exuding a faint scent.

  A door at the other end led through to a bathroom of sorts with a rough-tiled floor and a hundred and one different spouts, nozzles and other ways of getting wet. In one corner, a narrow two-directional elevator slipped noiselessly into the floor.

  I rode it down in the absence of any other ideas what to do.

  The low light at the bottom sent me flashing back to memories of the Pain Parlour with Big Hands and Stellar. Down here was a place of torture. Some instruments were crude and unimaginative, others exquisite and subtle.

  Some I had no clue about.

  I shot back up the elevator before Monk found me there and got the idea that I might like to use some of the apparatus.

  I wandered among the water fountains of the tiled wet-room and wondered what the hell they were for.

  ‘Water can be very erotic. And I like my guests to be clean.’ Monk stepped from the room of beds and ran a gauge over me. ‘You had high skin toxicity when you arrived. The purifiers in your bathing water have sufficiently decontaminated you. You’ve been exposed to heavy metals. Can you explain that?’

  A shiver of fear trickled through me. How should I answer him?

  I settled for vague indifference. ‘I never said my origins were quality. Just my talents.’

  He laughed outright. ‘Your sense of humour is keeping you alive, Jales Belliere. Let’s hope you can find something . . . less tenuous.’

  Monk held out his hand to usher me forward.

  I felt another tremor of fear. Who the freak was I about to play marbles with? My stupid disguise had trapped me in this insane game.

  We walked from the wet-room back to where the orchid images hung.

  Someone was waiting there, dressed in a loose robe and anointed with heavily scented oil.

  Someone I knew all too well.

  ‘Jales, meet Loyl. He will be your partner in this audition. He too has been recommended to me. Let’s hope that you are both worth what you cost me.’

  I choked so completely that the world darkened - and I welcomed it.

  But my new partner wasn’t letting me off so easily. He squeezed my arm until my eyes popped open again with the pain.

  ‘Hello, Jales.’ He spoke the words grudgingly, as if he’d rather have ground them into a paste.

  I nodded, still unable to speak.

  Monk sat down in an armchair and waved us towards the only large bed. ‘Commence.’

  I circled Daac like a wary animal rather than a professional lovemaker. My heart thumped painfully. How the freak did I get myself into this?

  With him.

  Daac’s expression didn’t mirror my panic. I saw only fury and a cold satisfaction in his eyes. I’d lied to him and run away. I was going to pay. Right here. In front of one of the world’s richest men.

  He stretched his flesh hand out and stroked my neck with fake tenderness, trailing his fingers down to the front of my sheer top. His prosthetic hand rested on my waist, clenching as he dragged me close.

  ‘Ruin this audition and I WILL kill you,’ he whispered in my ear.

  My heart stopped thumping.

  In fact it just stopped.

  Daac put his lips to my throat, trailing his tongue along the skin. Before I could force a breath he’d torn the top away from its high collar, leaving me with a silk choker and naked breasts.

  ‘Then kill me,’ I whispered back.

  He caught me, using his weight to force me down on to the bed.

  I raked my fingernails down his oiled side and rolled out from under him as he flinched.

  ‘Afterwards,’ he replied. ‘Gladly.’

  He grabbed for me and we fell to the marble floor. The cold bit my flesh. My head banged down hard as we wrestled in earnest.

  With an exclamation Monk reached for his comm. One word spoken into it and Daac and I would be locked away somewhere that no one even knew existed.

  I had the longest moment of my life . . .

  But I couldn’t give in to Loyl. I couldn’t go to those places with him. Or with anyone. The parasite was too strong in me now. If I succumbed, I would never rein it back.

  I clenched my fists for a knockout punch.

  Daac spotted my movement and then the ring on my finger.

  His eyes told me that he knew what it was. He grabbed my hand and forced my finger into my mouth.

  I fought him but his prosthetic hand was an invincible clamp and in a few seconds my saliva turned my resistance into passion.

  And the Eskaalim got free.

  Daac kissed me, his tongue exploring every part of my mouth as it sought the chemicals.

  I felt him shudder as Glorious’s dizzies went to work in his system.

  This time I rolled away from him to strip my skirt off. The cruel satisfaction in his smile should have made me feel murderous but I was in the grips of something stronger. Darker.

  ‘Lie on your back,’ I ordered.

  Surprisingly, he complied.

  To one side of us Monk settled back and stroked his crotch, his gaze flitting back and forth to the walls.

  I moved to straddle Daac but without warning he rolled me and trapped my arms. He entered me slowly - and an explosion of sensations stole my mind.

  This was not like Glorious. Never with her had I felt the same fierce burst of happiness. I couldn’t keep it from my face and the look Daac gave back to me stopped my breath.

  Before he had been full of a desire for revenge. Now there was something else - a craving. He wanted me - no, he wanted my approval.

  I swore.

  Glorious’s cocktail wasn’t merely an aphrodisiac. It was a truth drug, ripping us back to the bare bones of honesty. ‘I never changed. Why did you lie to me?’ I was compelled to ask.

  ‘How else could I keep you near me?’

  The happiness grew. ‘By asking.’

  He gave me a rueful grin and drove hard into me. ‘I tried that.’

  The beginnings of an orgasm trembled through me.

  He sensed it as well, his own face contorting with passion as he quickened the pace of his thrusts. ‘Parrish, you idiot, can’t you see how much—’

  A spray of antidote drenched us, the moment denied and lost.

  My fingernails hooked deep into the flesh of Daac’s shoulders.

  To one side of us Monk put the spray back in his pocket, wiped away himself down with a towel and threw it on the floor. Then he closed his pants.

  ‘Enough. I’m not employing either of you to enjoy yourself with the other staff. You’re both hired,’ he said, and left.

  Loyl lay still, bewildered by the sudden sensory deprivation.

  I would have laughed if I’d had any control over my feelings. But I didn’t.

  The antidote hadn’t worked on me.

  And this time there was no going back.

  Sera Bau will be here soon. I almost had sex with Loyl Daac.

  The two thoughts ran laps in my mind well into the night.

  I gave up pretending that I was normal, and that I might sleep, around two a.m. I got up and dressed in
track-pants and a T-shirt.

  I collected the things I’d ordered from housekeeping at separate times and assembled them in the moonlight.

  When I was finished, I stepped outside and thought it was hard to believe that a place like The Tert existed. Out here the night was warm and clear, the only noise drifting laughter and the muted grumble of the cable car. Out here I could pretend I was still Parrish Plessis in a way that I couldn’t when I was lying down alone with my thoughts.

  The cable lines lit the night, dividing the mountain in half.

  I followed them upward, clinging to the shadows, climbing my way to the helipad.

  Though the pad lights were on, nothing was happening. I crept past a line of four ’copters and into the fuel shed. I found the hydraulic fluid in stacked containers behind an in-flight refuelling snake.

  I siphoned off enough to fill the resealable gel pack that had contained my complimentary bubble bath.

  Slipping it inside my T-shirt I began the trek downwards.

  The night lighting showed only one guard at the entrance of the Orchid Cage. I waited until he stood, stretched and took a bored lap of the building. Then I slipped inside.

  The cage was climate-controlled and humidity-sweat ran off me like dirty water. I wandered around the rows of plants, using my language infusion’s auditory supplement to help me pronounce the names on the labels.

  Bulbophylum, Vanda, Dendrobium, Cymbidium, Thelymitra, Calochilus - thousands of orchids exuding exotic scents, some of them beautiful, some ugly. Unlike most plants their roots climbed free from their pots like antennae seeking radio waves.

  A couple of basic robot units worked methodically between rows, fertilising and checking moisture content in the bark chips. I crouched, ready to disable them, but they took no notice of me, so I stepped through a vine-twisted arch and into a side cage.

  According to the signage these orchids were Monk’s exotica, each with its individual climate requirement. An electrified barrier separated off each delicate native hybrid.

  With steady fingers I mixed the hydraulic fluid in the gel pack with the chemicals I’d obtained from housekeeping. Then I buried it, together with a complimentary p-diary, deep into a pile of something labelled sphagnum moss.