by Noah Rain
“Wakey, wakey.”
I think that was Darla.
“Turn down the lights, Carmen,” Scarlett said. Carmen grumbled something unintelligible, but got up to comply.
The sting faded from the backs of my eyes, and the pounding in my head receded. I opened them again, bracing for another shock, but I found that I was able to take in my surroundings now.
I was laying on my back, with my head propped up on some pillows, or a bean bag. There was a plush red carpet under me, and three of the most attractive women I had ever seen arrayed on the various cushions and couches around me. Four. Carmen came back and sat down to my left.
The girls were still wearing the same outfits they had been before, so I assumed not much time had passed since my latest departure from consciousness. Darla still had her blue bath robe on. She was sitting on her knees, with her feet splayed out, palms flat on the carpet like she was straddling a horse. Her cleavage was clearly visible, and even in my compromised state, I couldn’t keep my eyes from tracing the rounded contours of her form. She winked at me and giggled as she noticed.
“He seems alright.”
Scarlett frowned. She was still wearing her shorts and night shirt, like she was prepared for a sleepover. She looked a little concerned, which took some of the sting out of the circumstances. Carmen still had her white tank top on that I could see through just as clearly as before, and her tight black leather pants. She smirked at me, and I remembered the knee she had rammed into the side of my head.
“Sorry, Konnor,” she said, not meaning it in the least. “Couldn’t have you roughing up any of my girls.”
I half shrugged and mumbled something.
“How are you feeling?”
Nina appeared to my right. She was on her knees, her tied shirt exposing the sides of her small, perky breasts. Her green eyes sparkled with intensity. She had a thick vial in her hand that looked like it contained swirling red and purple liquid.
“Could be better,” I admitted.
“Could be worse, though, right?”
“Sure?”
I instinctively went to push myself up into a more upright position, but my hands didn’t comply. I looked down and saw that my wrists were tied together with black tactical rope. I sighed.
“Listen, Konnor,” Scarlett said. “We need your help. I know this hasn’t been the greatest set of introductions—”
I barked out a sardonic laugh. “You think? I mean, don’t get me wrong. Being captured by a set of supermodel-super spy hybrids would normally be every guy’s wet dream, but so far, I’ve had better days.”
“You really think we look like models?” Darla asked, leaning forward so that the V of her robe opened just a bit more.
“Unfortunately, you’ve been caught up in a war that’s a lot more intense than the evening news would have you realize,” Scarlett said, ignoring my complaints, though she seemed more sympathetic to them than the other three. Carmen looked bored, while Nina was holding the syringe up in one hand while she typed away at her laptop with the other. “You’ve got something special going on with your nerves, or your brain, or your … I don’t know—”
“Neurolinking,” Nina said absently.
“Right. Well, if we can use you to perfect Nina’s formula, then we can—”
“Rule the world,” I said. “Right. Sascha told me about all that, remember? Before Carmen here knocked me silly? Nice knee, by the way, though I’d love to see you try it if I wasn’t half dead.”
Carmen’s dark eyes flashed and she leaned forward, suddenly interested. She smiled, and then made a biting motion with her gleaming white teeth, and I was left with the impression that I hadn’t so much intimidated her as excited her.
“Anyway,” I said. “You want to perfect a mind control formula to take control of Silk City—and by extension, the system—through the Suits. I got the gist of it?”
Darla, Carmen and Nina nodded hurriedly, as if no concept had ever been simpler. Scarlett only stared at me. It was difficult to tell if she bought into the plan completely, or if she thought it was as laughable as I did.
“I’d call mind control a stretch goal,” Scarlett said, which prompted a frown from Nina. “Even if we can use you to improve the formula, we can protect ourselves that much more.”
“Too much blackmail starting to tip the scales against you girls, eh?”
“We’ve made enemies,” Scarlett said. “But if we hadn’t, there’s a good chance half of the Syndicates in Jaxton would have been locked up or exterminated for good by now.”
“What do I care about the Syndicates in Jaxton?”
“Because they’re the only thing standing between the good people and the Suits and Pearls,” Carmen said. “Sure, some of them are crass and selfish. Most aren’t really fighting the good fight for the right reasons. But if you knew what the Suits had planned for us, you’d join us, and we wouldn’t have to chain you to poles or tie you up at all. Unless you wanted us to, of course.”
“And what,” I said, “do the evil Suits want with the good people of Jaxton?”
“They want to make slaves out of you,” Scarlett said.
I laughed again, and I actually meant it that time.
“They already have,” I said. “What do you think the credit system is all about? Everyone who isn’t a Suit or a Pearl or a Guilder is bound to the system. We’re all debt slaves with no assets to our names.”
“The credit system is just the beginning,” Scarlett said. “A way to get people to buy in to a system they think operates on meritocracy. But you can never get ahead. Not without pledging yourself to the Suits as a Guilder, or an accountant or something else. You work in Jaxton, you’re eventually going to drown in a sea of declining credit. You work in Silk City, and you already are a slave.” She leaned forward, arms crossed. “What do you think happens to the folks whose credit lines hit zero?”
“Let me guess,” I said, knowing mine wasn’t too far from zero as it was. “They join the Syndicates.”
“How many folk do you know who know how to fight?” Scarlett asked. “Really.”
I thought about it. I was a fighter, so I knew more than most would, but she brought up a good point.
“The Syndicates can’t take in everyone,” Scarlett said. “And the folks who zero out and fall through the cracks. Well, let’s just say they’re not getting three meals a day in debtors prison.”
“What, so you’re telling me the Suits are running some kind of slave ring in the bowels of Silk City?”
Scarlett and the girls looked at one another. Even Nina, who pried her eyes away from her computer screen for a brief moment.
“Have you ever actually been to the Wastelands?”
“Why would I? Nothing there.”
The term called up a feeling of bitterness. They’d been called the suburbs not long after I was born. I had lived there, even if I didn’t remember much from that time. And when the Suits in Silk City had taken it upon themselves to step in as the de facto government in the wake of an economic collapse they had engineered, and levied taxes on the working folk in said suburbs. Well. There had been consequences. People will tell you now it was the police force that had cracked down on the protesters. But police didn’t have Kevlar these days, and they certainly didn’t use EMP’s. No. Private security had fought against the suburbs. Private armies.
“That’s what we thought,” Carmen said.
“We were wrong,” Darla put in.
“They’re building out there, Konnor,” Scarlett said. “Expanding. They’re putting up arenas and racetracks, luxury spas. Anything you can think of and anything they can dream up to please themselves. And who do you think is building it all?”
I looked at Scarlett. She parted her lips to speak again, but held her peace and sighed.
“You could have asked me to h
elp.”
“You were trying to join the Guilds,” Scarlett said.
“And besides—”
I interrupted Darla. “Yeah, yeah. You couldn’t have me knowing the way to your secret underground lair if I was just going to join a Guild and tell them what you girls are working on. I mean, I don’t see why it’s a secret. They must know about the pheromones.”
“That’s the beauty of pheromones,” Nina said. “If you absorb them skin-to-skin, you’re none the wiser. Mix a few pretty girls with some chemical aid, not to mention copious amounts of alcohol, X and whatever else is laying around the club, and you’ve got a recipe for a night a Suit should never forget, but almost certainly does. That is, until he gets a nice little video clip in his inbox the next morning, or a link to his new corporate accounts that we’ve installed ghost accounts on top of, or—”
“He gets it, Nina,” Carmen said.
“Do you?” Scarlett asked. She looked earnest.
“I do,” I said. “Really.”
I met each of their eyes in turn. They looked suspicious, at first, but I must have managed a sincere enough expression. Even Carmen’s eyes softened when I met hers.
“What are my options, at this point?” I laughed. “The fighting thing was working out for a little while. Entertaining the Suits and Pearls just to scrape by in their fucked credit system. My foray into crime-fighting didn’t last long, so my chances to join a Silk City Guild have been dashed. Now, I’ve been marked by the Synners in Jaxton, and if my first impressions of Sascha are anything to go on, I’m going to be dead soon after I walk out of here, even if you did let me go.”
The girls exchanged knowing glances, like I was talking about their mother and not some retired soviet commando.
“Wait,” Carmen said. “So, just to be clear, are you saying you’re on our side, now?”
“I mean … yeah?” I shrugged.
“How do we know he’s telling the truth?” Darla asked, looking at Carmen.
“He’d better be,” the Latina replied.
“He is,” Scarlett said.
“I’d really rather him be bound for the injection,” Nina said. “I don’t know how he’s going to react.”
“Isn’t it supposed to relax him?” Scarlett asked.
Nina shrugged. “Supposed to. But science is more about guessing than anything else.”
I wasn’t totally sure that should be the case, but I shimmied up against the beanbag chair, and held my hands out.
“Untie me, and then inject me with that shit. It’s my blood, anyway, isn’t it?”
“Among other things,” Nina said, narrowing her eyes at me. “I made some modifications to my existing formula, mixed your blood and interleukins with it. The stress of the shot should get your adrenaline back up, if Carmen hasn’t knocked it all out of you.”
“How are we going to know if it’s working?” Scarlett asked.
“He won’t be able to lie,” Nina said.
“How will we know if he’s lying?” Darla asked.
“We have to find the right question,” Nina said. She pointed to a black strap on her wrist that I had assumed was a watch. “My name is Nina Gadot,” she said. The screen lit green. “I am eighteen years old.” The screen flashed red.
Older, I hope, I thought.
Nina took the tiny lie detector off and reached over, her stomach brushing against mine as she strapped it around my left arm. She gave my biceps a squeeze on her way back, and brushed against me again, much more obviously this time.
“Darla gets to have all the fun,” she sighed.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked, watching as Nina flicked the syringe.
“One more chemical we need to make the mixture work, remember?” Carmen said.
I looked at Darla, who was tying her damp hair back in a tail, and then Scarlett, who blushed and looked away.
Ah, right. Oxytocin. Well. All things considered, I guess there were worse forms of imprisonment.
“Okay,” I said. “You inject me. You get what you want out of me. Data or whatever.” I nodded at Nina’s computer. “And then you let me go, right?”
“Sure,” Nina said, far from convincing.
“That’s up to Ma,” Darla said.
I looked at Scarlett again. She shrugged, one of her shoulders coming up out of her loose-fitting shirt.
“Ready?” Nina asked.
“Rope,” I said, holding my bound hands up.
Nina scooted toward me, looking way too excited about sticking me with a three-inch needle. Carmen sighed and knelt on the carpet to my left, yanking my arms up toward her. She produced a small, black tactical knife from some pocket and sliced the ropes away from my wrists with expert precision.
I rubbed at my scabbed wrists, and saw Scarlett and Darla wincing at it. At least there were two girls in the room who weren’t closeted masochists.
“Ready?”
Nina could hardly contain her glee, and she didn’t wait for me to respond in the affirmative. Instead, she straddled me, although she seemed more fixated on the needle in her hands than in the bulge of my boxers pressing against her tiny, tight shorts.
She held me under the chin with her left hand and pushed up, pointing my eyes toward the ceiling as she guided the needle in. I didn’t feel the pinch as the needle broke my skin, but I did feel a rush of warmth as the formula flooded into my bloodstream. Nina sighed in time with the concoction, and then pulled the needle out. She released my chin, and I looked down to see a tiny pin prick of blood on the left side of my chest, and an empty syringe in Nina’s hand.
I swallowed, feeling sick at the thought of the entire vial having been emptied into me, and when I looked up, Nina’s green eyes were boring into me. She tossed the needle aside, which prompted Carmen to go hunting for it, muttering curses as she went. Nina wiped my sweaty hair up, where it stayed in place, and leaned even closer, examining my eyes, switching back and forth.
“Well?” Scarlett asked from behind. She sounded nervous.
“Not allergic,” Nina said, gripping my chin and moving my head from side to side.
“What should we be looking for?” Carmen asked as she sat down again.
“He should start drifting.”
“Drifting?” Darla asked.
“His eyes should start wandering,” Nina said with a smile. “The pheromones might not have had much of an effect on him before, but now they’ve been infused with his blood. They should take, at least somewhat.”
“And what’s the advantage of that?” Scarlett asked.
“It will help prime his brain for an oxytocin release.”
I felt myself blushing, and then noticed that my cheeks were much hotter than they should have been. I didn’t so much feel drunk as sort of dreamy, like I was both awake and asleep.
Nina settled back, her full bodyweight pressing down on me. I looked down, and found my eyes roving. My body seemed to be acting of its own accord. I tried to look away, but then I noticed the contours of Nina’s stomach. How her small ribcage expanded and contracted, and how the strings of a white thong rode up on her small, rounded hips. I looked up at her neck, and imagined gripping it as I tore her shirt off, popping the solitary button that held tits in place that I was beginning to think were bigger than I had thought.
“Looks like it’s working,” she said with a giggle.
“How do we be sure?” Scarlett asked.
“Does that mean we don’t need to bring the oxytocin out?” Darla asked, sounding disappointed.
“Last resort,” Nina said. “For now, ask him some questions. And Konnor,” Nina leaned in and kissed me on the lips. “Do try to lie.”
I said yes, or thought I said yes, but I didn’t say anything. I only nodded. Nina leaned back again, and Scarlett and Darla came up on either side of her, bo
th kneeling down while Carmen leaned back against the couch with her arms crossed.
“Konnor Kayde,” Scarlett said. “What is your credit PIN?”
The six-digit code flashed up in my mind’s eye. 06-18-56. The month, day and year of my parents’ death. That put a damper on the whole mood, and I wanted very much to forget it.
“09-17-54.”
Their eyes reflected the red light on the lie detector Nina had attached to my wrist. Nina frowned, taking her elixir’s failure personally. She lifted herself off of me and scooted over to her computer to my right, and I saw Darla’s eyes track down to my boxers while mine swiveled to her chest. My head was bobbing. I felt alert, but my body felt drunk. I felt good, though. Euphoric, even. When I scanned to the right, I saw Scarlett looking at me with a serious expression.
“What was your first girlfriend’s name?” Scarlett asked.
“Sadie Hill. Oops.”
The girls looked at me with surprise, and Nina leaned over me to get a look at the lie detector. It flashed green.
“My bad,” I said, sheepish.
Nina leaned back, tapping the underside of her chin.
“No, no,” she said. “It’s not bad, Konnor. I mean, you were trying to lie, right?”
“Right.” Another green flash.
“Okay, then,” Scarlett said, catching on, “what’s your credit PIN, Konnor? Your real one.”
“07-04-55.”
Red flash.
I frowned, confusing myself, and the girls exchanged looks.
“So …” Carmen started.
“It’s working … somewhat,” Nina said. “I mean. Well, ask him something else. And remember, Konnor, lie.”
“Right,” I said, nodding emphatically.
“What’s the key code to your apartment?” Darla asked.
“57645.”
Green.
“Fuck.”
“It’s okay, Kon,” Scarlett said. Nobody had ever called me that, before. I apparently thought it was hilarious, and started laughing. When I recovered, the girls were looking at me, three of them with bored expressions, and Darla with an almost-hungry smile as she leaned forward. My eyes went down again, and this time, I caught a glimpse of a blush of pink beneath her robes.
