“Yes!” he glanced nervously at the ball gag. “Tell me more about your skin. I’m familiar with the Humandroid epidermis layer but I’d love to hear your perspective on it, or your take or whatever… you know what I mean.”
“It’s technically call e-skin, and it was invented during America’s fifth crusade in the Middle East.”
“Fifth crusade?”
“Maybe it was the fourth?”
“What?”
“A joke, Mr. Grier.”
He cleared his throat. “I get it. You’re funny!”
“My line of work requires a sense of humor. Humandroid skin started in the 2020s with artificial tissue as a droid’s outer skin. Remember those funny Japanese dolls that were popular?”
“I’ve seen video.”
“Like those. Dr. Hewman took it a step further once Humandroids were developed, and with seed money from Thiel Investments, he gathered a team to create e-skin. E-skin is pseudo-organic in the sense that it is made up of the same stuff your skin is made of, and it’s electronic in the sense that there millions of piezoelectric nanowire circuits stretched across the surface of a Humandroid’s e-skin, which generate electrical micro-charges that recharge my power source if I am touched, or if I touch something.”
“What happens if someone cuts you? Does it hurt? Do you… bleed?”
“No. Our epidermis layer has regenerative capabilities, similar to a gecko’s ability to grow a new tail. If you cut me, my skin simply grows back at a rapid rate. If you cut me severely, say to the point of exposing a good portion of my inner structure, I’ll have to go to one of the mechanics at a Humandroid flat for repair, which is a pain in my ass.”
“And it doesn’t hurt?”
Rinchi reached into her bag and took out a large, hollow-handle tactical knife made from a monolithic billet of SAE 1070 high carbon steel bar stock.
“Would you like to try?”
“No!” he said. “I’m just curious.”
“Curiosity is a trait I also possess.” She set the knife on his desk.
“I see.” More notes appeared on his iDeskpad. Rinchi took off the wolf mask and placed the medieval cage around her head. “It latches here,” she explained.
“Fascinating,” Grier said. “I never understood some sexual perversions.”
“Everyone has them.” Rinchi smiled him from behind the cage mask. “I’m sure you do as well.”
He laughed nervously. “What about you – do you feel any arousal?”
Rinchi used two fingers to show him how genital insertion worked on her cage mask. “Me? No, but as I said, I do get fascinated sometimes with humans and the way they behave. It seems as if they spend their entire lives trying to avoid the fact that they’ve never grown up. Everything they do seems to be a way to cover or manipulate who they truly are. Even heads of state act like children when put in the right situation or given the right substance. I guess this is the flaw I’ve found in humans – they will die, and everything they do is meant to pleasure themselves, prolong their lives, work for some far-fetched goal that is essentially unattainable, distract themselves or cover up the fact that they are continually dying.”
Her words appeared on his iDeskpad. “Mind if I take a picture of you in the… ummmm… cage mask?”
“Please do.” She lowered her dress strap so it barely covered her breasts now. “I don’t want to appear too conservative.”
“Ha!” He thought for a moment. “That’s a good idea, actually. The more vulnerable you appear the better.”
He took a few photos and they materialized on his iDesktop. “And with the wolf mask on?”
“With pleasure.” Rinchi placed the wolf mask over her head and tucked her hair in it again. She bent forward, her arms resting on her knees.
“Great, these will look absolutely stunning. Your droid choker really ties these photos together.”
“That’s good, I just bought it today.”
After he finished taking photos Rinchi asked, “Would you mind coming around here? I want to show you how this suspension set works. It will surprise you.”
“Surprise me?” he stood and walked around his desk, looking down at her curiously. He blinked his eyes a few times and pictures began to appear on his iDeskpad.
“You can touch my e-skin if you want.” He stuck his finger out and grazed it along her arm. She guided his finger up her shoulder and into her open mouth. His vitals blasted through the roof; blood rushed from his heart to his man parts like a sprinter on meth.
“See,” she said with his finger in her mouth, “it feels natural doesn’t it.”
He nodded and Rinchi bit his finger off.
SEVEN∞
On the run from the FCG, ExEx, MercSecure and whoever else may be after me. I recall an epigram I once saw that was scrawled across a bathroom wall. I shat here, it read. Someone followed this up with a quick: I peed your shit stain off the toilet.
If ever there was an eleven word maxim that captured what it is to be human it would be this: I shat here – I peed your shit stain off the toilet. It’s a shame this little ditty was written with words deemed inappropriate for inspirational quotes. No lolcats would go near this little aphorism, no GoogleFace shares for this little nugget of wisdom. Le sigh.
Yes, I should be thinking about what I should do next or how the hell I am going to stop myself from being offed by MercSecure or the FCG, but I find myself repeating this motto over and over again, as if it were a children’s nursery rhyme. A manic mantra tantric tantrum.
Time to focus, Meme, time to focus.
Yeshi hustles me out of the ramen restaurant through the back door. As per her plan, we both download and apply a bodymasking app call BlurYou that distorts video feeds. When viewed from a camera (or someone else’s ocular capture), it makes the user of the BlurYou app appear pixilated. This allows the user to be seen in person, but blurred in any sort of video feed transaction. Incognito is the new black.
The BlurYou app loads in a matter of moments and a small icon shaped like the Predator mask appears on the task bar of my iNet screen (read: on the inside of my eyelids). I’ve seen the icon before, but I’ve never seen the twentieth century classic 2-D movie.
“Yeshi,” I say before we step into the street.
“Yes?”
I pull her in and kiss her. Her lips moisten and she slowly flicks her tongue out. If you haven’t kissed a retired Humandroid escort before, you don’t know what you’re missing. Adrenal glands glitter bomb – the only words I can conjure to describe the feeling.
We kiss again and the question arises deep within me: am I gay? The fact that my girlfriend is technically a ladyboy weighs heavily on this query. A Humandroid vajayjay is made of the same material as a Humandroid bunghole, a moisture secreting e-skin. Still…
What then does this make me in terms of sexual orientation? Sexuality is nullified when one is essentially dating a doll with artificial emotions. I say this with the utmost respect, and truth be told, with my bizarre personality traits, Yeshi may be the only thing walking this planet that will give me a chance.
And what of the fact that I feel most comfortable with something humans created solely to satisfy sexual urges? What of the fact that I’ve found happiness with a being that didn’t exist one hundred years ago? And to those who judge I ask you this: can you not see where this is going? Can you not see where humans are heading? Is it so hard to believe that the humans of the future will create their significant others out of wire and synthetic flesh? We can have custom clothing made, why can’t we craft sigothers?
Good ol’ Socrates famously argued against writing, claiming that writing creates forgetfulness in learner’s souls, diluting their ability to remember. Hundreds of years later, the church (and other organizations including slave drivers) knew the danger of reading and kept the books shut, away from the people who needed them the most. Up until the late nineteenth century, it was considered bad to wash one’s hands before surgery. In fact,
the man that argued for sanitary practices was considered insane. In the 1930s, marijuana was deemed especially vile for society, and now you can buy a joint just about anywhere in the world.
Most things deemed controversial are destined to become commonplace – if there is any trend forecast to be made for the future of humanity it is this.
Another example – not forty years ago, there was a huge backlash against bionic parts. “It’s not human!” some cried. “The cyborgs will kill us all!” others lamented. Yet we still progressed and now, it’s hyper-normal to see someone with a replaced body part or three just for the hell of it. All this to say – our simple-mindedness is mind-numbing. Our inability to grasp change is as perplexing as our ability to readily accept societal norms. Demarcate regulated frolic! Distinguish, delimit, differentiate, devise, deviate, demolish!
Because of all this, because of the inevitable commentary or awkward feelings related to my choice in partners, because of the fact that humans progress and digress at an oddly equal pace, because of the fact that a beautiful manmade being is standing in front of me, her hair thick and healthy, her e-skin fair, her lips moist, her neck long, her wrists thin, her breasts sculpted, her dress whipping in the wind – because of all this, I bring her in for another kiss.
I accept my current relationship as one that is definitely questionable, yet natural nonetheless. As a thought exists between concept and creation, so do I. There will be a day when what I am experiencing is normal.
“What was that for?” Yeshi is breathing heavily now, replicating human arousal. Thank you, machine-learning.
“For luck.” My hand instinctively falls on her bubble butt. “And besides, I don’t kiss you enough.”
She smiles. “Are you ready, Doc?”
Doctor? My medical license has likely been revoked by now, shredded, placed in an incinerator and burnt to a crisp. From there, someone likely cooled the ashes with a fresh stream of piss before starting the process all over again.
“I just need your mask.”
Yeshi takes her unisex Junya Watanabe mask from her bag. She presses a button on the side of the rectangular object and mask unfolds itself. The mask is clear, but it will help disguise my face even more as we navigate the bubbling streets of Shinjuku. With our bodymasking app, my chip-masker activated, and the clear pollute mask, it should be relatively easy to float through the crowd.
We step out of the alley and I keep my head low, avoiding eye contact with the pedestrians ambulating around me. There are no cars in Tokyo, only aeros, which means the streets are eternally empty. This is unlike America where people use both aeros and cars in an effort to maintain their civil liberty. Never tell an American they can’t or shouldn’t do something – getting one’s way is part of the democratic process!
“I’ll get you to the drop point, and then I’ll try to find some Techbacks. There must be some Techbacks living here.”
“There are Techbacks everywhere,” I say. “Although if they’re not in Mexico, I guess they don’t really need to be called Techbacks.”
“I never knew why they were called that in the first place.”
“Techback is a play on the word wetback,” I tell her, “which is a derogatory term for a Mexican because it insinuates they swam across the Rio Grande to get to America. Techbacks have gone the reverse way – they’ve gone to Mexico to practice technology and to avoid restrictions put on them in America. They’ve swum the other way.”
“Humans racialize everything.”
“I was once a black man and now I’m a Mexican – tell me about it.”
“You’re cute.”
I stop and smile. “I’m cute or the body I’m in is currently cute? Because personally, I’m sick of this gut.”
I shake Carloza’s belly at Yeshi. If you couldn’t already figure it out: the body I took in Mexico happened to belong to Nelly’s old pollute dealer cum drug kingpin, Carloza. “I want my next body to be fit, a six pack and whatnot.”
She laughs. “I like your gut; it gives me something to rest my head on.”
“Please … ”
“The place should be down this alley,” she says, tugging on my arm.
We pass a back alley pharmacy covered in bright lights and myriad displays advertising a new device called the Quickee Eye Open, which has become a popular way for Asians to add the double eyelid. The Korean-made device resembles a pair of thick-frame glasses. Once they’re put on a person’s face, small scalpels emerge from the underside of the frame to perform the surgery. Western-looking eyes in three minutes flat – blepharoplasty will solve all your problems!
“And you’re sure this place is safe?” I notice some pollution bars looming in the distance. The urge to partake is strong in me.
“Yes, at least that’s what it says on iNet. They have private rooms that can be rented out at hourly or nightly rates. No questions asked, no cameras. All the rooms have pollute hook-ups, so you can basically chillax while I try to find a switcher.”
“Chillax?”
“You don’t know this word?” she asks.
“I do now.”
I take a deep breath and look up. Aeros move above us with advertisements on their undercarriages. Some of the aeros are timed so that their ads say something in Japanese. Others simply advertise the latest virtual anime or manga. Apparently, paperback manga is still a big thing in this country.
“I want to see the cherry blossoms,” I say after seeing an advertisement for cherry blossom tours.
“It’s November,” Yeshi says. “They won’t bloom until March or April.”
“We may have to come back then.”
My eyes fall upon a statue of a giant nipple-less breast. I’ll never understand why the Japanese go to such lengths to be overtly sexual in their imagery yet cringe at the sight of a nipple or a cock. Where does the censorship stop? All or nothing, Japan!
We stop in front of an alleyway filled with flashing lights sufficient to induce an epileptic seizure. Shady dudes stand outside of pollute bars shouting out specials. Young girls in maid outfits flirt with potential patrons, turning and standing on the balls of their feet to show off their smooth bums. Will there ever be a time in human history when sex doesn’t sell? Make sure I’m dead by then.
Yeshi pushes me behind a vending machine.
“What is it?” I ask.
“Those girls aren’t human,” she says. “They’ll register that you’ve been in this area if they see you. They might even attack us.”
“Getting attacked by a bunch of prepubescent Humandroid maids doesn’t sound so bad ... ”
“Meme.”
“Got it ... danger. How do we disguise me then?”
Yeshi’s cheeks inflate with air as she thinks. “Let’s see what we have here … ”She looks up at the sign above us:ポルトヒーロー BAR.
“Pollute Hero Bar. Let me check the reviews in Japanese.” Her eyes close.
(Humandroids don’t need to close their eyes to use iNet, but many do to blend in. Machine-learning, evolution, adaptation, peer pressure – call it what you will.)
“The reviews aren’t bad,” she says. “It might not be as comfortable as the other place.”
“Are there private rooms?”
“Yes.”
“Are there pollution masks in each room?”
“Of course.”
“How long do you plan to keep me in this place again?”
“Until I can find an adequate match and possibly get some weapons from a Techback.”
“Weapons? If you want weapons you’ll need to find a dealer. I bet there’s one on a blacksite somewhere, you’ll have to do some digging. I don’t understand why we need weapons, though.”
Yeshi squeezes my arm. “You do realize what we’re up against here, don’t you?”
“So my job is to sit in a room, rest and get fucked up while you make preparations to wage a holy war against the FCG, correct?”
She nods. “Pretty much, althoug
h I don’t know how it suddenly has become a holy war.”
“Any war waged against man and someone pretending to be God is a holy war.”
“That reminds me,” Yeshi says, “I have someone you can talk to while you’re waiting.”
“Who?”
“My guru back in LA.”
“Fat chance. I have plenty of people to talk to inside my head.”
“You talk to yourself?” she asks.
“You’ve never noticed?”
EIGHT∞
**The following conversation took place in Spanish the same day that the FCG discovered Meme and Yeshi were in Tokyo. It has been translated by the late José Alberto Del Castillo Cabeza Mercedes Acosta III for our monolingual audience.
“Carloza, what in the fuck are you doing with my baby? And why are you in my body!?”
Nelly-as-Tyro lay on a stainless steel table in someone’s garage. Her head was pounding, but she ignored the blistering sensation. The first thing she had done once she finally came to her senses was call Carloza, who for some reason was in her body.
“¡No de balde! Nelly is that really you? I never pictured you as a man!” Carloza grinned from cheek to cheek. “My God you are alive! What am I saying? I have your baby! Nelly! It’s a girl! What happened? Tell me everything!”
“I am coming to Mexico to kill you.” It was strange seeing someone else in her body with her baby; the urge to murder ballooned inside Nelly.
“Don’t tell me that!” Carloza held the baby up to the camera in his office. “Cute, isn’t she? I love you, little Esperanza.”
“I’m going to kill you.”
“Nelly! Relax.”
She looked down at her blanketed feet. “As soon as I get out of this bed, I’m coming to Mexico and taking my baby and my body back.”
Life is a Beautiful Thing (4-Book Box Set) Page 19