Plasticity Page 15

  Thom took his time gathering his things. Images of uncanny valley body parts, in various states of flesh, kept flashing in his mind. Even more disturbing was the fact that, after so long, he couldn't be sure which memories were from the farm, and which were from The Junkyard. Icing on the cake was finding out that Hayley, good, sweet, innocent Hayley, frequented The Junkyard. Thom wanted to pretend that he was sure that Hayley only went there for research into prosthetics, but he was having a hard time convincing himself.

  “I'll drive.” Portland asserted, needlessly. Of course she would drive. It was part of her control obsession. She hated being a passenger, and would avoid it whenever possible.

  This late in October, the sun was already setting when they left the house, though actual evening, as far as a clock was concerned, would not arrive for a couple of hours. From Thom's neighborhood, they headed west, deeper into the city, toward downtown. The afternoon gloaming was rapidly becoming proper night as they crossed the invisible threshold separating the downtown area from the industrial district. Short brick and tall steel gave way to smokestack and railroad line, which gave way to plazas of warehouses, just before crossing beneath the interstate and emerging into the old town. What once were grocers and homes were now tattoo parlors and niche businesses. Winding up a street leading behind a row of once-red, now lavender, brick buildings dead-ended at a small, rustic-looking chalet. The windows were dark with heavy curtains, with soft red illumination coming from hidden lights, making the purpose of the building more obvious. In addition, whatever door had once adorned this building had, at some point, been replaced with a steel door, further lending an illicit appearance to the facility. There were only a few cars in the parking lot. That was sure to change as the night wore on.

  Thom followed behind Portland, as if on a leash, which he was, in all but physical reality. He tried to steel himself for the unimaginable horrors that lay beyond the door, as Portland marched straight through into the club. They presented their ID's to the doorman, an unpleasant-looking, half office chair, half R2 unit with a human head, standing at a podium in front of a second, full-glass door. After handing them back, his eyes hovered on Portland's face for a couple of seconds, before turning to Thom and requesting an entry fee. Portland, it would seem, would be allowed to enter gratis. Thom wasn't sure if it was because she was an attractive female, or because she was full-prosth, and he didn't care to ask. He pressed his phone against a pad on the podium, and a couple of swipes, beeps, and clicks later, they had been allowed admittance to, as far as Thom was concerned, one of the circles of hell. One of the deeper ones, to be sure.

  Half inside the door, Portland stopped and leaned toward the doorman with her phone pointed at him. “You see this girl around here?”

  “I don't see anyone around anywhere. Even for money. But, Terry, the bartender, he got good eyes, and kids to feed.”

  Portland winked at the doorman, and flowed through the door, with little regard for Thom's ability to catch up. Across the room, beyond the four stages set up in a diamond pattern, sat the bar. To Thom's relief, only one stage was currently occupied. He did his best to avoid looking at the young girl in her red bikini, but caught a glimpse of something shifting in the bikini bottom, and, as a reflex, turned to verify his observation. She was pretty, which triggered Thom's potential for relationship instinct, and she still had clothes on, which meant she hadn't, yet, reached the part that made Thom ill. He looked away, in order to preserve his fantasy, but then began to wonder which part she was going to remove, first, and his fantasy was dashed with that mental image.

  At the bar, Portland leaned in toward the bartender, who was busy pretending to be busy. “Make you a deal.”

  He turned to face her, looking her up and down, perhaps figuring his odds. “An offer I can't refuse?” He cocked an eyebrow up and rested his elbows on the bar top. “It's already a two-drink minimum.” He glanced, briefly, at Thom. “Each.”

  “Four bottles of beer,” She slid a twenty across the bar. “And, this girl.” She pointed her phone at the bartender's face, sliding a fifty across the bar, to join the twenty.

  “Oh, you're one of those 'make it worth my while' types, huh? Look, if you want me to sell out a customer, it's gonna cost more than a few gallons of gas.”

  Portland slid her fifty back toward herself, resting her hand on it while she stared down the bartender. Thom, somehow, had forgotten where he was, and had turned to watch the girl gyrating on stage. She had lost her top, and gained Thom's attention. When Portland slid her hand back across the bar, the fifty had become four, nearly identical bills. Terry hadn't seen her switch it out, but there wasn't a fifty in the group, anymore.

  “That's a little better. Sure, she comes in from time to time. Never got her name, but I see her with that dude almost every time.” Terry pointed, with his face, not his finger, across the room to a table near an empty stage.

  A scrawny, dark-haired boy sat drumming his fingers on the table top. He wasn't watching the lone dancer. Instead, he was intently focused on his phone, with occasional glances toward the door. He looked nervous, which made him look suspicious. He had two glass mugs of beer, apparently untouched, with one set out like it was meant for someone who had not, yet, arrived. Two drink minimum or actual accomplice, it was hard to tell.

  Portland led Thom to the table next to the stranger's, which was the table right at the foot of the stage where the girl was dancing. “For now, we'll observe. Don't do anything unless I say to. He might be waiting for someone else, and we don't want to scare them off.” Portland sat with her back to the stranger, leaving Thom with the choice to face Portland, and the stranger behind her, or the stage, with Portland and the stranger in his periphery. The dancer had lost her bottom, and Thom made his choice.

  Thom watched the dancer intently, scrutinizing her flesh. It was a good skin job. She had flaws, specks here and there like freckles or small moles, a couple of small darker brown patches, and pubic hair. A very advanced skin job, for someone to use in such a disrespected profession. Although Thom could rationalize it a hundred ways, it still struck him as bizarre that anyone would opt for a trans body. Society was a little better about it, these days, but not by much. Not better enough that you weren't stacking the cards against yourself. Then, to use your obviously expensive body to strip and perform sex acts on stage... Thom just couldn't really understand it. That made it all-the-more fascinating, though.

  He was so engaged in his cataloging that he had failed to notice that there were no tools on the stage. Once he saw that, he realized that she would not be removing anything more than she already had. This was no small relief for Thom. He had no stomach for that sort of thing, and it was the prime reason he wanted to avoid this place at all costs. The last time, which was his first time that he was here, he watched with interest as a girl stripped full nude, then, with a razor blade, patience and a complete lack of passion, removed the skin from her right hand. This was enough to make him queasy, the very-real-looking flesh peeled away and dropped, bloodless, to the stage. Then she took her obscenity to staggering heights by using her skeletal right hand, and various tools that had been arranged in front of her, to remove her left arm. Her entire left arm, from ball-socket to nail. She, then, began to perform an act so disgusting that Thom had to race outside, and forcibly expel everything that had ever resided in his stomach, then pass out in the gravel. He awoke, weak and wet-cheeked, in the passenger seat of Portland's car, which was racing them out to the farm house where new horrors awaited him.

  So, this was a welcome departure from the show he was worried he might see. This was almost family-friendly in comparison. Thom watched as the girl whirled, dropped, and sprung up again. She danced around the pole, using it to expertly hide and reveal herself. Without a hint of holding back, she was a consummate professional, despite the lack of attendees.

  Thom rarely visited places like this, but felt there was probably some kind of rule of the culture that required
him to donate money. He was, after all, watching the show. It had to be rude to watch and not pay his fair share. He checked his wallet, and found that, while he did have cash, he had nothing under a twenty. He had five twenty-dollar-bills left, folded in half and jammed into his wallet, only because Portland made sure he carried cash with him at all times. Something about untraceable grease, or something. Thom never was too sure what she had been talking about, but he complied, none-the-less.

  After some consideration, he decided it would be better to spend the cash he had, than to use the ATM and let the location show up on his banking statement. Why he didn't just get change from the bar, he couldn't say. Maybe he just didn't think of it, at the time. He reached out and set a twenty on the stage. This did not go unnoticed. The girl gyrated closer to him, keeping eye contact and smiling. She dropped to her knees and undulated her torso, all the while keeping eye contact. She rose again and twirled toward the pole in the center of the stage. The twenty had disappeared, but Thom could not even begin to imagine where it had gone.

  The girl started her solo exhibition, then. She was touching herself in between twirls and spins, in time with the music. Cupping and releasing, a slide here and there, then another twirl. Thom's blushing face burned, and he considered looking away, but his arousal kept him invested in the show, while he shifted uncomfortably in his seat. He pulled out another twenty and set it on the stage, prompting the girl to spin to the edge of the stage, crash to her knees, and arch her back until her hair scraped the stage, spotlighting her high-quality, high-functioning prosthetics.

  Thom wanted so badly to reach out and touch her, though he knew it was zehr verboten, but he took a chance to at least get close. He reached out another twenty, while she was at the edge of the stage, aiming at her thigh. She smiled at him, and set her free hand on his, to stop him from moving away or dropping the bill. She pressed his hand to her thigh, just above the knee and slid his hand up and inside, stopping just short of her pubic hair. Thom felt a slight tug at his hand, then she slid it back down toward her knee and let go. She sprung back up and returned to the pole. Thom looked in his hand to find she had switched out the twenty with a card. The card had the name 'Electra' printed on it in large font, with a web address beneath it in much smaller print. That was the closest he had gotten to getting a girl's number in a long time. She appeared to be nearing the end of her act, when Portland smacked him, gently, on the back of his head.

  “Time to go.” She indicated the door, through which, the dark-haired stranger was disappearing.

  “Shit.” Thom jumped up, forgetting to hide his embarrassment.

  “Thomas Aquinas Wensley! Language!” Portland took great joy in chiding him, as he often remarked on her foul language.

  “That's not my name.” Thom slouched as they followed the stranger out of the club. Checking his phone, Thom saw that they had spent a surprisingly short eight minutes in the club, before the stranger's departure had forced them to leave. He was disappointed, which was increasingly less rare these days, but at least he had the card with the web address. If she was a cam girl, if Electra was a cam girl, he could see her in a much less uncomfortable setting. And he could actually communicate with her on whatever channel she was on, and maybe even find out what kind of person she was. The possibilities were making his heart race, and mind whirl. His excitement paved over all the negativity and fears from earlier. He was, now, having a great night, and it would take quite a bit to ruin it for him. As long as they found Hayley intact, he would consider this a win for everyone. Well, everyone except whoever had Hayley. Portland was probably going to make that person's life much less pleasant, but you can't say they didn't deserve it.

  “Excuse me, Sir?” Portland stopped the stranger from getting into his car. He looked over his shoulder, and narrowed his eyes, as she approached him. “They say you might be able to help me find my friend.” She flashed her phone at him and watched his eyes. He gave nothing away. He simply shook his head silently, got in his car and drove away.

  Thom ran to Portland's side. “Are we just going to let him go? We know he knows her, he might know who took her, or, at least, why they took her.”

  Portland set her hand on Thom's head, condescendingly. “Relax, Sport. He's not going anywhere without us.” She opened an app and turned her phone to face Thom, showing him the map with the marker in motion. “I put the tracker from my car on his car. We can follow him anywhere he goes. Now, this should be obvious, but in case you weren't sure, I only had the one. That means my car doesn't have its tracker anymore, so don't steal my car tonight, please.”

  “I shall do my best, but I hate to make promises I can't keep.” Thom got in the passenger side and latched his seat belt.

  Portland docked her phone in the dash and set out following the path of the marker in the tracking app. Winding through neighborhood streets, Thom winced every time they scraped on a speed bump, and, at one point, to Thom's bewilderment, a tarred-over crack in the road. They made their way through the downtown area, and just outside of downtown, the marker stopped. Portland approached slowly to reveal that the guy was at a gasoline kiosk. He was vigilantly monitoring his surroundings, head pointing left and right, as he pumped gas into the car. Portland held back, and it didn't look like he saw her.

  “Wow. And I thought Hayley's car was old.” Thom had never used a gasoline kiosk, but he had a friend, once, who rode a motorcycle, and they always had to go to them. It struck him as strange, but he stopped questioning it, after the first time, when the response to his question was full of technobabble and apologetics, which had left him with the impression that the actual answer was just that the motorcycle was old.

  The guy got back in the car, then sat there without leaving. Thom pulled his phone out and started typing the web address from Electra's business card into his browser, but was interrupted when Portland lurched forward. Thom considered sighing and putting his phone away, but decided against the sigh. The guy had started to pull away from the pump, and Portland crept forward, until the guy had made a proper pace away from the gasoline kiosk and she could speed up to a regular rate.

  They were headed, despite a turn here and a turn there, predominantly east. Back through town, until they reached a larger street and the guy turned to head north. They made their way up through a small semi-industrial area, and then east again, into a tight-knit neighborhood. It was an okay neighborhood, made up of older houses and converted fourplexes. Thom was getting sick of riding in Portland's super-stiff-suspensioned car, and the back-and-forth weaving through this area wasn't making it any more bearable. Finally, they came to rest across the street from a fourplex that looked like it had once been a dual-level convenience store, or something. Like a miniature version of some kind of roadside motel you might find in the middle of nowhere.

  From their position across the street, in front of a house with a mangled chain-link fence that gave way to a similarly mangled lawn, they watched and waited. Thom thought he may have found a chance to undo some of the damage from this most recent car ride, but Portland stopped him from getting out of the car with a simple placing of her hand on his arm and shaking of her head. He slumped back into his seat, and pulled his phone back out.

  The guy went upstairs and disappeared into one of the units. He was gone for only a few minutes, and when he reemerged, he went to the unit directly beneath him. Portland did not get a good look at the person who opened the door for him, but for a second it looked like it could have been Boudica, and, had she not died over two thousand years ago, Portland may have been convinced it was her.

  They sat in silence for quite a while, Thom messing around with his phone, and just generally being of very little help, while Portland watched the building without blinking. Thom grew bored, and put his phone away. Obviously, Electra would not be online, as he had just seen her at The Junkyard, but he did see some clips from previous shows, which inspired him to make an account. A reasonable bargain at fourteen-ninety-five
a month. He began to fidget, and he went to touch the shift knob, without really knowing why. Portland slapped his hand, like a child, “No touching.”

  Thom grumbled something unintelligible, and looked out at the building across the street. “What're they doing in there, anyway? Do you think they have Hayley in there?” He didn't really expect much of an answer, but was surprised to get a fairly detailed description of what they were doing.

  “Five of them. A big one, flesh, and a little one, plastic, on the couch. Another little one, flesh, talking to a tall one, plastic. A very little one, flesh, sits on the floor, and based on her arm movements, and the uneven temperatures in her extremities, she's drinking. Rather heavily.” Portland did not look away from the building when she explained this to Thom, so she did not see his expression, but she was pretty good at appearing psychic, when she could easily imagine what most people did in most situations. It could be mistaken for witchcraft by people who believed in that sort of thing. “Close your mouth, and stop forgetting I have advanced tech in my body, including my eyes.”

  Thom pouted. It was unnerving, sure, but it was unnecessarily condescending as well. He almost considered saying something about it, but he didn't, as usual. He was not given much longer to be upset, though, before Portland quietly exhaled and powered-on the car. “Movement.”

  They watched as a tall red haired woman stepped out of the apartment, shoulders hiked up, like she was trying to look bigger. She looked out across the parking lot, up the stairs, even up to the sky. She was being thorough. Portland was certain this was a security detail. She had seen this before, only a couple times in real life, but more often in video games. Online first-person shooters required this kind of acuity, or you didn't last long in any arena, regardless of how many of your opponents were IRL twelve-year-olds. “It is Boudica.” Portland whispered, reverently.

  “You know her?” Thom leaned over, trying to get a better look.