"...you see, we're just at for the gristle. The at that lubricates the gears and bones of society splayed out on cheap beds and in dark alleys. Without us, without the at, the bones rub and creak and groan until it all splinters apart. at, little girlie, the at is essential."
-- Unnad joytoy from the lower district.
Evelin leads inside so kind of fancy wine bar. Smooth jazz playing in the background and everything. I keep looking around. I was not expecting this; I was expecting, you know, more loud music and holographic hookers dancing on the table. So I stand there a bit dumbfounded.
A female staff mber approaches us. “Hello, welco to Paradise Dream. My na is Alexandra. What can I do for the two of you today?” she asks us with a pleased smile on her face.
Evelin's head turns to face , then back at the woman. “Well, you see, so people told us that this was a dollhouse, but we must have gotten turned around sowhere. This does not look correct,” She says.
Alexandra smiles at us. “No, you have the right place, but we are a bit more expensive than most places. Are the two of you sure that you can afford that?”
“We can pay upfront if that makes you more comfortable.” Evelin says in a cocky tone.
The woman blinks a few tis, then goes back to a business smile. “Well, that would help imnsely. Will you follow ? I can show you our collection.”
Evelin nods. “That would be great, thank you.” She says.
Evelin turns around and grabs my hand, squeezing it slightly to reassure . Fuck, I am dragging her down again, aren’t I? How can she be so good at this? I don’t know the first thing about any of this, but I have seen Eva do it often enough.
We go to a little private booth. It is nothing more than a round couch with a little circular table in the middle. We sit down with Evelin in the middle, with on her left, and the clerk on her right.
The clerk grabs a tablet and starts fiddling with it before giving it to Evelin. On it, there are several profiles of naked n, and when the clerk selects the profile of one of them, a 3D holographic image of the person shows up dancing on the tiny table.
“Sothing wrong?” Alexandra asks, and I snap my focus back to the actual people in the room.
“Yes, no, I an, we are both gay, so this is not that interesting.” Evelin stutters out.
“My mistake. I should have asked.” She takes back the tablet and taps so more. “Here we go,” she says as she gives it back. "I hope this is more to your liking." I look down and see that the tablet now has a bunch of naked won on it.
I see Evelin swallow deeply. “Are there any recomndations you can give us?”
“Yeah, for sure, one of our best-selling products is the samurai package. You can spend so ti with a copy of one of your favourite Samurai. Let's see; we have Sparkling Magenta Explosion, Alice, Pink Quartz, Rainbow Shine, oh and our new favourite, Maniac.” The sales lady explains.
Evelin chokes on nothing. So, I guess those options are more to her liking. “You have Maniac? How do you even know what she looks like?”
“Well, we don’t exactly know, so it is more of a rough interpretation.” Alexandra says, while pushing a button. A new hologram appears, this ti of a petite woman with short brown hair wearing nothing but a white mask that she has pushed to the side to reveal her face. “But we have a good version of her personality down and a good collection of props.”
“I see.” Evelin says before she looks at . I just nod. “Guess we take her then.”
“Excellent.” the woman says with a smile. “She is free right now, so for how long do you want her?”
“2 hours.” Evelin says.
It kind of surprised how fast things went after that. We paid and were taken to the back and up a flight of stairs. There, we were shown to a door.
Inside, there is a big bed in the middle of the room. To the right, there is a bath and so other cleaning stuff. On the left side of the room, there is a table with a bunch of toys on it. Lastly, the hardest thing to ignore in the room is the girl wearing only an oversized hoodie and a white mask.
Before I can think of what to do, I feel a push in the back as Evelin pushes forward. “Keep her busy for ”, she says, a mischievous smile on her face.
The woman or Maniac, I am not sure, stands up from the bed, grabbing onto and throwing on the bed before jumping on top of . She grabs both of my wrists, putting them above and keeping them in place. Suddenly, I hear a clicking sound, and the woman leans back, leaving my arms still stuck in place. I try to break free, but it does not work. I look at Evelin for help, but she is preoccupied with sothing else.
The woman speaks in the sa tone and pitch as I have seen in so vids of Maniacs fights: “Oh no, my, you little corporate pig, you stay right here so we can have so fun together.”
I try to throw Evelin a look, begging for help, but she is not even looking this way anymore. Then I feel a hand cupping my chin, pulling my attention back to the woman with the white mask. She raises her other hand, lifting the mask slightly off of her face. She twists the mask, making it hang off the side of her face. Then her lip touches mine.
This is nothing like how I had imagined it would feel. It's being more aggressive and wet, and not at all sweet like the scenes I dread about; suddenly, so kind of liquid enters my mouth. It is sweet, tasting of strawberry, and as I am forced to drink the stuff down, I feel my body heat up. Maniac pulls away, a cruel smile on her face.
“Are you ready to surrender?” She says.
All I can do is nod. I want release. My body is too hot, and it needs attention. Suddenly, her eyes go blank, and she falls down on top of . I look to the side and see Evelin smiling at . Why is she smiling? I want to be touched.
“Well, that clears that; sorry it took this long. This was a bit more advanced than I was expecting,” she says. Then, her expression changes, and she gets more concerned. “Are you okay?” she cos closer, examining . “Fuck, aphrodisiac, that is new,” she rummages around in her bag and grabs out a syringe. “This might hurt.” She says, before stabbing the syringe into my arm.
Slowly, my mind returns to , and I blink, then I blink again. I hear a click, and my arms are finally released.
“Thanks.” I mumble.
“No problem. I should have expected them to use so drugs. This place is too fancy for a vanilla experience.” Evelin says, while examining the now unconscious girl.
“Fuck, why did I need to go through that, when you were the one that chose the girl?”
“Because their security might have caught this.” she says as she taps her hidden weapon.
I nod in understanding. “So what's next?”
“Can you act as a lookout for a bit? Take control of surveillance as well if you can. I want to see why I had that much difficulty.”
I do just that. The action is trivially easy now that I can directly jack into the system from the inside of the room. I guess going in physically does have its perks. I observe Evelin. She takes the girl's mask off and puts it on her head in the sa way as the girl just had. Then she frowns.
Evelin grabs the hoody and starts taking it off as well.
“The fuck are you doing?” I almost shout at her.
“Huh, ooh, you see these?” Evelin says, while pointing at so parts of discoloured skin. They seem to be all over her, these long strips.
“What are they?” I ask, a bit confused.
“Bruises, most likely left by a whip,” she says.
Of course! Fuck, that is insane. Yeah, the rich and powerful won’t co here to spend so sweet ti with her. They are here to beat her up and then maybe fuck her when they are done with that. I guess the handcuffs were there for a reason.
“People are disgusting.” I say.
Evelin looks up at , confused, then back at the girl, “Ahh, right, that too. Not why I thought it was impressive, though.”
“Then what is?” I ask, a bit annoyed at the casual dismissal of this girl's pain.
“It's how these wounds have healed. This is not how humans normally heal.” she says.
“Okay, what does that an? They put in synth skin or sothing?” I ask.
Evelin touches one of the bruises and then shakes her head. “I don’t know, but I would like to find out. I am going to see if I can restore the deleted records. Give five minutes or so.”
“Sure, fine. It beats having to sneak around.”
While Evelin is doing her little experint, I try to figure out anything else about this place. But there is nothing except for the discrepancy between the people entering this place and the amount of custors. So I try to take an inventory by cross-referencing the people and seeing which ones don’t line up, and as soon as I have a few faces, I start to try to figure out who these people are.
I am in the process of downloading all the data on the fourth person when Evelin calls out. “Yui, I don’t like this.” She says.
I look at her, and it takes a second to realise that she is scared. No, she is terrified. She looks like she is about to cry.
“What is wrong?” I ask.
” This tech; it is samurai grade or at least a derivative of it.”
My throat goes dry as my heart starts beating loudly. “So a samurai owns this place?” I say in a whisper, fuck, we are so dead.
“Maybe, but I don’t think so. I an, samurai don’t seem like the type to open a brothel.” Evelin says.
“So what do we do now, then?” I ask, not reassured at all.
Evelin looks down at the girl. “We could always ask.”
I look around but can’t co up with a better idea. “Fine, do it.”
We need information, and getting it from one of the working girls might be safer than sowhere else. Fuck, I wish this was a remote mission, Eva being the only one in the building. I put a chair before the door just to make sure that the door is properly locked.
As I turn back around, I notice that Evelin has successfully woken the girl up. The girl is rapidly blinking, before looking around, and then she starts to cry.
“Hey, hey, you are okay. We just want to ask so questions.” Evelin says. She was trying her best to comfort the girl, but it was a bit awkward, so I move her aside.
I sit down next to her. Grabbing the girl's hand, rubbing it gently, “Can you tell your na?”
“I am sorry. I am sorry, I should have never done it.” The woman says.
“ Never done what?” I ask, trying to have a gentle tone.
“I should have never critiqued the company; I am sorry, I promise I will be good. Please let go,” the woman gets out between sobs.
A full-body shudder goes through Evelin, and I see her posture change.
I swallow, dry mouthed. I am almost afraid to ask, but I will do so anyway. “Are you held here against your will?”
She looks up again, examining both of us and then she nods. “Yes, I disagreed with Zelton dia, and the next thing I knew, an ard squad arrested .” she starts crying again.
Evelin reaches out to pat her head. “Don’t worry, no one will hurt you from now on, I promise.” Her voice has taken on a significantly higher pitch than normal, making my spine tingle.
“How can you promise that? I was awake for most of it, people abusing , my body was moving, not under my control anymore.” she sobs.
Evelin gives a look that is hard to decipher, and then she turns back to the woman. “I can remove the control chip if you want.” She says, “It can be a bit ssy, but I can do so safely.”
The woman looks a bit surprised and then nods. “Please!”
Evelin gets up, retrieving two more syringes and a small knife from her bag, while putting the plastic mask in it. I wonder what is in those things, but I am sure that I am not going to like the answer.
“Okay, turn around and keep absolutely still. “This,” Evelin holds up one of the syringes “is a pain killer. It will make it so you won’t feel anything, but you will still be awake, so you have to be absolutely still, okay?”
The woman nods and turns around, lying down on her stomach. “I am ready.”
Evelin stabs the painkiller into the woman's arm and then waits a bit before she slowly starts to cut into the woman's neck. I watch with both horror and fascination as she makes a small cut and then grabs and takes out this small square.
“Yui, can you clean this off?” she asks while holding up the chip.
I take it, then I walk over to the washing station and start cleaning the little tal square with a towel. It is at this mont I notice that my hands are shaking. Fuck what the hell are we doing? We should have called for backup. I look back at Evelin. She is observing the wound, and her face still looks weird to . I can’t really put my finger on it, but her expression is different from normal.
Evelin suddenly talks, making jump. “Okay, you are all good. Yui, what can you tell about the chip?”
I examine the little black rectangle. “It is precision made, but all the components are unfamiliar to , Sophia; what is the chance for this to be samurai-made?”
Evelin sighs and stands up, grabbing the plastic mask out of her bag again and putting it on. “High; we don’t have the technology for full mind control; wait, that is not right, body control. So if that technology is now out there, the chance that aliens are the providers is high.”
I swallow, trying my best not to freak out. I really should have gone with remote access, but I am never doing sothing like this again.
“Fuck,” I hear Evelin curse.
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