moved in close, looked down, a full head taller than Wendy. “What was that?”
My nerves, already singing with fire in the fiber, reached critical levels. “C’mon, guys …”
Wendy wasn’t shaken. “Bitch, you’d best back up. Now.”
Mickie didn’t.
“Hey,” I said. “We’re all cool, right? Let’s just get Roxy.”
“Yeah,” Mickie said, “and why don’t you keep your short-ass mouth shut while we do.”
Wendy pulled a gun.
“Whoa,” I said. “No one said anything about guns.” Wasn’t thinking then how I’d almost brought one myself.
“Chill,” Wendy said. “It’s not for you or this giantess right here. It’s just to keep things civil inside.”
“I dunno, Winds,” I said. “Guns punch holes in people. That usually sets fuckers on edge.”
“That’s where we live, baby.”
Mickie pulled a gun.
I threw my hands up.
“All right,” Mickie said. “Let’s go get her. But don’t disrespect me, Wendy. I’ll lay you in the fuckin’ ground.”
“Whatever. Not my fault you can’t handle criticism.” Wendy put her hand on Mickie’s masked face then, drew it down her cheek. “So sensitive.”
Mickie shook the hand away. “Let’s just go.”
“Fine. Let’s get our girl.”
I held my hand level with my eyes. Tremors were increasing. “I’m not holding up so well, y’all.”
Mickie walked over, put her arm around me. “You’re all right. Stay with me.”
It did help some, having her scent all around me like that. “Okay.”
We moved again, closed on the face of the place. The scanners passed right over their masks, and the doors opened. It wasn’t until we were on the other side of encrypted doors, clear of the retinal and body scans, through the detectors, that it clicked in my chemmed out brain that Mickie and Wendy were both wearing masks and I was not. They couldn’t be seen, the masks, by any of the scanners. That was the point. But I could. Naked as the day I was born.
It helped my twinging nerves that we weren’t dealing with the sort of scans that recorded or matched. These were just an all clear sort of scan, like the ones they used to have at spaceports and upper schools, way back in the day. Cameras lined the inside, which was just fucking beautiful.
“Why don’t I get a mask?”
“Shut up, bee,” Wendy said.
Mickie put a long, razored finger to my chin, slid it along my jaw, gently. “I’ll take care of you, danger. Just stay close, okay?”
“Yeah, okay, but the vids …”
She put the finger on my lips. “Shhhh … You’re getting boring. Don’t be boring, okay?”
“Yeah. Okay.”
“Just be awesome. You’re so fuckin’ rad, just be rad, okay?”
I was? “I am?”
“Totally rad,” Wendy said.
“Totally,” Mickie said. “So just be rad and stay close to me. Okay?”
I wasn’t feeling better about the whole mask thing, but I was feeling better about my chances with Mickie. So I said, “Yeah. Okay. Whatever.”
The place was one of those boxes connected to boxes joints. The hospital or prison comparison became more evident. There were windows but no bars. Practically invisible microfilament would slice you up good, but no bars.
I wasn’t sure what to do, so I started ghosting. I couldn’t count on them to keep me off the vids, even if they would keep me safe physically.
Mickie asked, “Where the fuck did you learn that?”
“They’re special,” Wendy said.
“No,” I said. “Not special. Trained. I went to a Ministry school after I dropped out.”
Mickie stood tall in front of me, then went a little slack in one hip. “You went to fucking spy school?”
“Not spies. Secretists.”
“Tomatoes, right, Mickie?” Wendy said.
Mickie turned toward her but didn’t say anything.
“Hello, ladies,” a tech said.
Mickie grabbed him by the collar and pressed her gun to his temple. “Hey baby. Wanna be the guy on the horse?”
The tech looked nervous. Didn’t say anything. He looked familiar, but I couldn’t place him.
Wendy laughed without a mouth cos masked.
The tech eased up his hands, started bouncing his shoulders. Then he bounced his knees. Then his hips. It’s like a little dance.
Mickie swung her arm around his neck and bounced with him.
The tech grinned, like he had a mouthful of shit, and tapped his temples. A mask formed over his face.
I had that shitty feeling of nakedness again, being the only one without a mask.
“God damn it,” I said. “Why don’t I get a fucking mask?”
I started ghosting again, as best I could, covering my face here and there, but with stark awareness that I’d been sitting dead-fucking-center of a pin camera while Mickie spun her glorious bullshit with the tech, the tech who was, you know, now also masked.
Oddly, it’s when he put the mask on that I recognized him. He’s a crazy motherfucker, too, this asshole named Rand. I knew him from a few parties. I’d fucked him a few years back. Nothing serious. We just fucked. He’s one of those guys that knows how to talk to you when you first meet him, but shit just keeps getting weirder and weirder. After a while, I’d just had enough of that. So I was way less than stoked to see him.
“Right this way. I’ll get you checked in. Then we’ll … check out.” He bounced and smiled.
Wendy and Mickie both giggled.
“This is so fucked.” I said it, but no one heard me. Maybe the vids caught it. Who knows.
The day room’s full of slack motherfuckers—poor assholes doped out of the brain with the latest cerebrenhancers and nerve regrowth routines. I knew a little something about both of those, including the downsides. What were the downsides? These sad sacks here, that’s
