Variant Exchange

by Fox J Wilde

  She walked past doorways and drunken patrons, then parked cars and drunker patrons. This was followed by smoking hotel staff and the sound of rock music. Then, she passed a few crummy dumpsters with a few grubby men chucking garbage into them. After that, her destination was in sight and her pace slowed to a near crawl.

  She found herself in a darkened alleyway, lit dimly by a far-off set of industrial lights, and a filthy bulb that blinked on and off while being bopped into by flittering moths. Despite the chill, the alleyway was warm with the steam of nearby industrial equipment that worked the innards of the Metropol’s many kitchens. A sticky yuk clung to the much-less elegant walls in a moldy spattering that Lena didn’t dare touch or brush against, lest Vivika’s borrowed finery be irreparably mussed.

  The underbelly of alleyways was old hat to her very nature. Yet tonight, it felt strangely unfamiliar as it intermingled with her newfound sense of purpose and the mission at hand. Her senses heightened as the fog of night folded around her. She was almost to the meeting place, and she had to remain unseen.

  “...there, boy!” an older man’s barely-audible voice echoed from several meters away.

  “...won’t apologize for how I feel!” a younger man’s retort echoed as well.

  “...filthy little…aren’t you? ...would just love that, wouldn’t you?”

  As Lena tiptoed closer, down an alleyway that was sticky with steam from the nearby heating units and exhaust from the kitchens, more of the conversation came into focus.

  “I’ve already been fired!” the voice of Patrick wailed in a boyish tone, “What more can I do? You wish to humiliate me?”

  “Humiliation won’t cut it!” the voice of Lord Piggy shouted back, “No, that won’t nearly cut it. What in the world possessed you, child?! Thinking to embarrass me like that? What in the world were you thinking?!”

  “I’ve already told you how I feel, haven’t I?!” Patrick cried incredulously, through perfectly-formed tears.

  “You’re a cheeky little abomination, aren’t you?!”

  As Lena moved closer, the scene came fully into view despite the steam-filled air. Patrick was backed against a wall, cowering low, as the idiot domineered over him. Occasionally, he would push Patrick, or smack him on the face. Patrick would recoil with every blow, crying harder and harder. She knew him to be tougher than the swats of this filthy slug; yet she hated the scene all the same. He might have been ‘at work’, but he didn’t deserve such treatment, or such insults.

  “Yes. Yes!” Patrick shouted covering his face, “Whatever you say! Please stop hitting me!”

  “Why should I?! You’re nothing to me! Nothing! You hear me?!”

  “Yes, Sir. If that’s what you want me to be! I’m nothing!”

  “I’m a powerful man! You’re a disgrace…a worthless abomination. I should beat you to a pulp right here!”

  As the beating continued, Lena became wholly enraged, “Who the hell does this asshole think he is?!” Whether or not Patrick was playing a part was irrelevant—no one deserved to be treated like that. Not anyone. Especially for having feelings, whether they were put on or not. Hell, half of her band had the same urges, and no one had a thing to say about it in the scene. In contrast to the rest of the world, punks almost seemed to relish alternative sexuality, if for no other reason than how much it pissed off the Politburo.

  She marveled to herself how the varied miscreants in her scene could be so violent and drawn towards filth—yet they were so accepting of, well, people. Regardless of how you were on the outside, all Lena’s people cared about were how well you moshed, and how many Sex Pistols’ lyrics you knew. Yet this pompous bastard at the upper-echelons of society was not only the picture of intolerance, he was so…so…“ugh!” she thought to herself.

  As Patrick apologized more, and cried harder, and the sack of lard laughed louder and louder, Lena resolved to accomplish her next step as perfectly as she could. This would be her revenge against the walking blubber-pile. As she pulled out her pen, and twisted off the top of it to expose the sensitive lens underneath, she prayed that she would get the most damning shots possible, “I’ll teach this sack of shit a lesson!” she vowed.

  As the seconds ticked on, however, and the scene went from violent to wrong, and then wrong to…something that couldn’t be described easily with words…she realized the horrid direction that this was headed. It was urgent now: a terrible sin near committing, and a vile, unearthly act that earned its committer to the darkest, hottest cells that Hell could possibly manifest. As realization dawned, her anger changed then…no, it couldn’t be anger. It was sheer rage—unbridled, hateful, rage.

  She watched every horrible second with utter disgust, but was determined to capture the very worst of it with her camera. She wanted to see the look in the bastard’s eyes—to watch him crumble when he was finally exposed. And she wanted him to know it was her that did it. As the abuse became more and more pronounced, Lena fantasized about the pictures she was taking, and how they would be received. Her adrenaline screamed through her veins so fast, she heard her own heartbeat in her ears. The urgency of her rage filled her so completely, then. She would watch. She would see every second. And she vowed revenge as Patrick’s pants came off.

  “Click, click, click, click, click...” The sound of the tiny camera was impossible for the two in front of it to hear.

  “Is this how your kind likes it?!” Lord Piggy bellowed. Patrick had nothing to say in response.

  “Click, click, click, click...” A few more minutes passed by as the tears streamed down her cheeks. Her sight blurred as her eyes filled with water, and her hands shook. She bit her lower lip so hard, she tasted blood. And her heart beat so fast and violently, she was afraid she would lose all control and kill the filthy prick herself. Patrick was screaming now.

  “That’ll do, young one.” a voice whispered behind Lena, startling her.

  “Who…!!!” she turned to defend herself, only to come face-to-face with Wart-face.

  “There’s a few things your young eyes shouldn’t see this early in life.” he whispered to her, as he grabbed her arms and squeezed them hard, “You’ve done your job well. Let me take it from here.”

  “But…but they’re...” Lena sobbed at him, as Patrick’s screams filled the alleyway.

  “I know, young one. I know.” Wart-face whispered gently, “But it’s a game he agreed to play. Now, get back to the room. You’ve got more work to do.”

  As Lena half-ran, half-crept out of the alleyway, her path blinded by the tears streaming out of her eyes, she vowed to get revenge. She didn’t know how, or when. She just knew she would. It wasn’t a hope...it was a promise.

  Katharsis

  As Lena’s walk turned into an awkward run, then back into a breathless walk, she realized she was still stress-clicking away picture after picture; probably of her shoes, or the alleyway, or the dumpsters. She quickly put the pen back into her purse with a shudder, feeling filthy for even having the thing. Replacing the pen with her pack of cigarettes and pulling one out, she lit it. She then continued stumbling on wobbly legs. Soon enough, it became apparent that her legs were simply too rubbery to get her anywhere in an expedient fashion. Thus, she ducked behind a dumpster where she could fill her head with the noxious, calming plume.

  Her hands were shaking with adrenaline and revulsion, her face was streaked with tears and mascara, and she realized she was almost out of her precious life-giving smokes, but she didn’t care. She would walk as slow as it took for her to compose herself. And if that meant she had to smoke every single cigarette she had, she would. She meant her vow of revenge—what she had witnessed and the pictures she had taken could never be denied—yet Lena hoped she wouldn’t have to see the contents herself tonight. She knew Makeup-lady, and prayed that she wasn’t that cruel.

  With her smoke complete and her hands finally somewhat s
teadied, she made the attempt to clean up her mascara as best she could before finishing the journey back to the front entrance.

  As she re-entered the Embassy-like hotel, she saw it in a completely new light. She looked at the golden trusses, the ivy-clad pillars, the fine mahogany, and the beautiful people—she hated all of it. To her, it meant nothing more than corruption, barely-obscured hedonism and filth. As she looked at the drunken patrons and their companions still engaged in a dance of endless power struggles and deception, she marveled at how unchanged they remained. The man she had first observed was still talking about his stupid boat, and the woman opposite him was still leaning in seductively, pretending to care. As Lena remembered Grandfather, and how he had extolled the virtues of courtship and ‘good social values’, she couldn’t help but feel a sort of irony. If he only realized that his precious GDR was using these tactics to preserve it all…

  “Bullshit. All of it.” she thought, and she didn’t care who knew.

  Winding up a staircase, down another, through a hallway, and taking as complicated a route as she could be bothered to (not anything like the first time), she arrived outside room five. As she pulled out her key and shakily set to placing it in the doorknob, she noticed a leg hanging out of the broom closet just a few feet away, punctuated by sounds of snoring and the smell of throw-up. She hated him. She hated the women who had been in there with him. She hated everything.

  As she walked into the room, she was surprised to see six occupants now, all feverishly working. In the corner on the bulky pink computers, one of the disheveled trashy women sat next to a tired man in an unbuttoned polo. Both wore headsets, and both were typing away furiously. Standing by a desk next to the computers, the other trashy woman had changed into much more conservative fare, and was now assisting Makeup-lady under a large, pitch-black hood. Lena smelled strange fumes coming from under it. “A portable black room...” she realized.

  Red-hat stood drinking coffee, and laughing loudly at something that a fancy-dressed man standing opposite him had apparently said just moments before Lena had entered.

  “No loyalty, these days!” Red-hat said, “We offered her a cigarette and she confessed everything…everything! She even offered to work for us! Have you ever known anyone to crack that quickly?!”

  “If the Brit’s would stop picking from the pretty ones,” Fancy man replied, “they might not have problems like this.”

  “Well, just wait until we really put the screws to her. I’m sure we’ll find out even more.”

  Lena worked hard to stifle the glare she desperately wanted to give them. After a few moments of idle chatter, Red-hat finally acknowledged her and walked over. He offered her the coffee he had been drinking, which she refused as politely as the bile welling up inside her would allow. She had to be cordial, but she refused to be any more than that. She hated these people. The second she could be rid of them, the better.

  “Well, let’s see what you have.” Red-hat said.

  Lena pulled out the pen and handed it over, glad to be rid of it. Red-hat studied it for a second, and walked over to the big black hood that Trashy-lady and Makeup-lady were working under. She was muttering to herself underneath, and seemed unable to be bothered with anything else. Finally, after Red-hat cleared his throat a few times, she half-acknowledged him by flailing an arm behind her, motioning for Red-hat to put the camera-pen in her hand. It quickly disappeared under the hood with her as Red-hat stood drinking his coffee.

  After several minutes of keyboards being clicked, coffee being sipped, and comments being muttered under the hood, Makeup-lady leaned her head out. With an annoyed tone, she growled, “Sure. That’ll work.” She then handed the camera-pen back to Red-hat and got back to whatever it was that she was doing.

  Lena stood there for quite some time. After what seemed like ten entire minutes, she began feeling like a particularly unimpressive bit of carpet. The room varied oddly between the very busy and not so busy at all. Red-hat and the Fancy-man seemed completely unaffected by the rest of the room which was working at a feverish pitch. Indeed, they seemed perfectly content to stand around making horrible observations about the British asset’s ‘numerous features’, with Red-hat laughing loudly.

  Finally, Makeup-lady pulled herself out from under the hood and stood, holding a piece of paper in her hands.

  “Success!” she cheered.

  “Let me see it,” the fancily-dressed man standing with Red-hat said.

  Makeup-lady handed it over, obviously pleased with herself, and watched with glee as he pored over it. After a few moments of nodding, he signified his agreement with a gruff, “That’ll work.” before handing it to Red-hat. After he nodded agreement as well, he leaned over and handed it to Lena. She gasped.

  What she now held in her hands was the front cover of a French tabloid, dated precisely a week from today. On it, held on by white masking tape, was a picture of the Honorable Louis Pelletier—Lord Piggy—engaged in the most despicable act with Patrick. Oddly enough, the pictures were from a high angle—an angle that Lena couldn’t possibly have taken her pictures from. She felt the urge to vomit welling in her stomach.

  “It’s marvelous, isn’t it?” Makeup-lady cheered.

  “It shows his face. That’s the important part.” Fancy-man said.

  “I think it’s fabulous. Looks like Patrick’s enjoying it too.” Red-hat quipped.

  “That’s enough, Lieutenant.” Fancy-man admonished Red-hat, “That’s one of our agents, remember.”

  “Not much of one, really.” Red-hat replied, but he shut up after Fancy-man glared at him.

  “We were supposed to send the girl.” Makeup-lady said, motioning at Lena as she glared at Fancy-man, “But someone got his sexual preference wrong and we had to improvise.”

  Lightning crashed in Lena’s mind as realization dawned. “What?!?” she screamed inwardly. Obviously, she had made some particularly concerning noises because Makeup-lady turned towards her, contempt written all over her face.

  “You really think we would have chosen to put an actual agent up to this, over someone like you?” she sneered. “A proven field agent with years of experience, over a common criminal slut with no experience whatsoever? Don’t confuse your place in all of this, dear girl. You are a tool to be used. We’ll use and abuse you how we please.”

  She hated Makeup-lady right then. With every ounce of her body, and every inch of her soul, she hated her. Sure, she hated this hotel, and she hated these people; she hated the man in the broom closet, and she almost hated Lord Piggy most of all. But that lofty place of intense loathing was reserved for Makeup-lady alone. She focused all the bile the world had to offer on hoping that she would recognize it. Lena didn’t care if there were consequences. Merely knowing that Makeup-lady knew was enough to make up for whatever punishment would be levied her way in response.

  “That was supposed to be me?” Lena didn’t know which could possibly be worse—the fact that it was supposed to be her, or that it ended up being Patrick. She pondered this for a few minutes as the group talked in front of her. Soon enough, though, her rage subsided just enough to let the fear in. If they had intended for it to be her, well…what did that say about her current predicament? What surprises awaited her now?! Was she in a terrible danger that she hadn’t previously understood? How in the world would that have worked out if they were supposed to coach her into willingly doing…that…?

  “It could be worse, girl.” Makeup-lady fired in her direction, seemingly sensing her newfound confusion. “We could have actually gone through with it.”

  “I suppose it’s well enough,” Red-hat said, “her Case Officer probably wouldn’t have liked that too much.”

  “You mean her grandfather, don’t you?” Makeup-lady taunted.

  “Heh, I suppose.” Red-hat jested along with her. “Whatever gets her off.”

  “Alright, eno
ugh.” Fancy-man said with annoyance, “We still have work to do before the night is over. He should be arriving any second now, and we should be prepared to receive him.”

  Just then, Lena heard a quiet knocking at the door, and the room went silent. It was slow and uneven, and it was a sound that Lena knew she would remember for the rest of her life. She knew what lay on the other side of that door, and while she wanted to see him, well…she was afraid to. Really, she was. She felt awful about that, but could you really blame her?

  “Well,” Fancy-man spoke with authority, “get to it!”

  Makeup-lady walked over to a corner of the room and grabbed a box with a big red plus-sign on it. Red-hat moved a chair over and grabbed a blanket. The two trashy women just sat in the corner looking like they wanted the night to be over, and Tired-man just kept typing and typing. Fancy-man himself walked over to the door and opened it. Everyone but Makeup-lady gasped as Patrick stumbled into the room. The man before them was not the same Patrick she previously knew. The Patrick she knew was exuberant, cocky, brotherly and a bit annoying. The man she saw now looked like he had been awake for a thousand years—a battered shell. Bruises and cuts covered his beautiful face, and his lips were split open. His shirt was torn on one shoulder, and covered in dirt. Most of him was covered in dirt and grime, actually, and he had an awful limp as he slowly walked into the room.

  The worst part was his eyes, as they didn’t look like eyes at all. Sure, they had pupils, irises, and all the other ‘eyeball’ words that go along with a description of them. But normal eyes focus—they looked at things, and concentrated on specific points; they told stories, and communicated thoughts. But these…his eyes just looked vacant, expressionless and unfocused, as if the entire world was revolving without him.

  Oh, it was just awful. Motherly, sisterly, and otherly instincts welled up inside of her. She wanted to run to him and comfort him in any way she knew how, but knew she couldn’t. So, the rage that had taken up residence inside of her at the sight of him was became all-consuming. She wanted to find Lord Piggy and destroy him. She wanted to make him pay in any way humanly possible. She wanted to destroy everyone standing in this room; Red-hat, Fancy-man, Makeup-lady—especially Makeup-lady—they needed to suffer.