Salvi stared at him, then gave him a sultry smile. “Yes, you do. You want to be the one to take me to the edge.” She glanced to the bartender again, then back to him. “You want to pop my neural tech cherry.”
Chaney laughed. “I’m a little classier than that.”
“However you want to word it. That’s the essence of what you want to do. To me.” She finished her drink. “Tell me I’m wrong?”
He stared at her through the dim light. He did not deny it.
“I’ll take your silence as confirmation,” she smiled. “So, where do I sign?” She looked back to the data pane, scrolled down to the signatory section and scrawled a fake signature for one Sarah Parson, then slid the pane back across the table to him.
Chaney took the pane, completed the deal, then pocketed the device. He analyzed her briefly, as though thinking things through one last time.
“Alright,” he said and stood. “Shall we?”
Salvi smiled, then raised her hand. “One moment.” She pulled out her powder compact and opened it. “If this place is exclusive, I want to look my best.” She moved her face around, eyeing herself in the mirror and smacked her lips together, then closed the compact and stood. “I’m ready.”
9: DIABOLIQUE
Salvi followed Chaney past the elevator capsule she’d used to reach the Ceiling, and around the dance floor where the hologrammed and tech-wearing dancers strutted their stuff alongside robo-pole dancers. He led her into the far corner of the room, to a doorway hidden behind a black velvet curtain, beside the wall of screens.
They stepped into a darkened corridor, lit here and there with candles that released a subtle scent of vanilla. She smiled to herself at the irony.
“Is this secret club of yours upstairs?” Salvi asked, hooking her arm through his. “I noticed there was another level to this place.”
Chaney shook his head, “No, that’s just my office.”
“I see,” she said, realizing he wasn’t going to tell her. “Mysterious.”
They walked in silence until they came to another red velvet curtain, which Chaney held aside for her. She smiled and stepped through, trying to keep her heartbeat steady, wondering where he was leading her, wondering if Caine had walked these very steps before her. Wondering if her fate would be the same.
On the other side of the curtain was a small room filled with two security guards, openly carrying tasers and batons. She flinched internally, remembering what a baton had done to her arm on her last case. She’d only just had the cast removed.
“Good evening Mr. Chaney,” one of the guards said, while the other gave a respectful nod.
“Evening gentlemen,” Chaney said. “This is Sarah Parson, my guest for this evening. We hope she will soon be a new member.”
“Ms. Parson,” the lead guard nodded.
“They just need to pat you down, I’m afraid,” Chaney said, turning to her.
“Oh,” Salvi smiled. “The fun starts here.” She stepped her legs apart and held her hands out while they quickly frisked her.
“And check your purse,” Chaney said.
“Go for it,” She slid her slinky bag off her shoulder and handed it to him.
He took it and passed it to the security, all the while not taking his eyes of hers.
“All clear,” the lead guard eventually said. “Have a good evening, and enjoy your member tour, Ms. Parson.”
“Thank you,” she said as Chaney handed back her purse, then ushered her forward into another capsule elevator.
This one was much smaller than the other, and there was barely enough room for two inside, but she figured not as many people would head to where they were going. She looked for the control panel to see how many floors it serviced, but there were no buttons at all. Chaney looked up to a security camera in the roof and nodded. Salvi felt the sudden sensation of a downward movement and thrust one hand out against the wall, while the other grabbed onto Chaney’s upper arm. He smiled and took hold of her arm gently in response. She smiled back, noticing the firmness of his bicep. Lance Chaney worked out.
She released her grip on him as they continued to descend. It seemed ‘the basement’ wasn’t metaphorical at all.
She pictured Caine standing where she was, wondered whether Chaney had been the one to take him down to the basement. Wondered whether Chaney had been the one to order his death. If he’d found out Caine was a cop, surely Chaney wasn’t stupid enough to kill two of them?
He looked at her and smiled.
“You seem nervous.”
She smiled back. “I’d call it nervous excitement… you taking me on this little magical mystery tour.”
“The journey’s not important. The destination is.”
“So if there’s a fire, I’ll be able to find my way out?”
His lips curved with amusement. “I thought you came here for the fire.”
She chuckled.
“It’s not too late to pull out,” he said, eyeing her carefully. “I don’t want you doing anything you’re not ready for.”
“Are you kidding?” she said. “Try and stop me.”
He smiled.
The elevator came to a stop and the doors opened. Two more security guards ushered them out.
“Mr. Chaney, Ms. Parson,” they said.
Salvi looked at the guard surprised, then noticed an earpiece and monitors showing the two security guards topside.
“Good evening,” she said, then looked past them to see some kind of underground cavern, like a disused train tunnel. They stepped around the guards and she saw more candles and red carpet leading the way forward. Chaney looked at her, then held out his bent arm for her to hold. She slid her hand through and they began to follow the red carpet.
Salvi figured they’d walked a good city block or two before they came to their destination: another set of what looked like silver elevator doors, though these looked flat, not curved.
“Welcome to Diabolique,” he waved his arm, ushering her forward, past another two guards who waited out front. They wore the same comms pieces and based on the bulges underneath their jackets, weapons of some kind too, which she hoped were only tasers.
“Mr. Chaney, Ms. Parson,” they greeted them, opening the doors.
A tiny reception room awaited them and a coat check girl, covered in metallic tech, gave her a welcome smile. Salvi wasn’t sure if the tech was ornamental or not, but from where she stood it looked very real, and very attached to her skin. Like, permanently attached. Salvi shrugged off her jacket and handed it to the woman, who passed back a square token made of black glass. Salvi smiled and slipped it into her purse.
Taking Chaney’s arm again, they moved toward another set of doors, controlled by two more security. That made eight so far. The guards, like all the others, greeted them by name, then opened the doors allowing them passage through.
Salvi stepped inside Diabolique. Before her was a lounge even dimmer than the Ceiling, decorated with candles and red velvet and veils of glittery curtains. And tech. Lots of tech. There were screens and data panes and holographic faces and bodies, and even sculptures meshed with tech. She recognized a replica of the Venus de Milo embellished with android arms. She saw the Winged Victory of Samothrace with a holographic head bearing neural devices. She saw other statues of gods, both Greek and Roman, adorned with tech or holographic additions, or covered in strands of glowing light or bathed in digital projections.
She glanced at the patrons in the lounge and saw one man openly snorting a substance off a hand-held mirror, another gray-haired man with a very young woman on his lap, a couple laying back wearing VR headsets and haptic gloves doing god knows what with their hands.
And she understood the meaning of this place, then, of what Diabolique was all about. It was a place harking back to centuries gone by when the rich and powerful lived lives of decadence and revelry, where slaves served their every desire, and that lifestyle was meshed with the modern day; with technology and excess acc
ess. This was the perfect place for a drug-tech experience like Flyte to exist.
She felt Chaney’s hand brush down her bare arm.
“Do you want a drink first, or would you like to start playing with your tech?”
She smiled. “I’d like a drink and a look around first. This place has me intrigued. I’ve never seen anything like it, and I thought I’d seen everything.”
“I know how to host a good party,” he said.
They walked toward the corner of the lounge and to the right she saw the main bar and a dance floor where people of all ages wore their neural tech or VR headsets, dancing together but alone in their own realities, some energetically, some looking like they were very drunk, some staring up at the ceiling like zombies.
To her left she saw a corridor that looked like it was that of a train carriage. All the doorways were closed, the windows opaque, some dimly lit from within, some glaring a stark red or blue or gold, and one, she swore, sparkled with the spinning lights of a mirror ball.
“I’ve got a room booked for you,” Chaney said, motioning down the train carriage corridor. “When you’re ready.”
Salvi nodded, glancing about curiously, trying hard to look like a kid in a candy store.
And not a cop looking for evidence.
“What’s on the other side of the dance floor?” She couldn’t quite see as it curved around behind the corridor of rooms.
“More rooms. Bigger rooms. The kind that hold a lot more people at one time than the carriages.”
“I see…”
“Lance!” a voice called, and they turned to see a frail, skinny old man, dapper in a silver plastic suit of some kind and wearing circular spectacles with a glowing neon rim. Either side of him were holographic ‘pets’. One was a cat, the other was a young teenage boy on all fours like a dog.
“Hillier,” Chaney said. “It’s good to see you.”
“And you. It’s not often I see you taking time off work,” the spectacled man, shorter than Salvi, looked up at her then gave her the once over, “but I can see why you do so tonight!” He looked back to Chaney. “Enjoy. Come on boys,” he said to his two holographic ‘pets’ and continued on down the corridor. As he did, Salvi saw a near-naked woman exit one of the carriages, and she had to pause a moment to decide if it was a woman or a robot. The skin covering her body appeared to have seams and metallic joints, but as she neared, Salvi saw the markings were merely realistic tattoos.
“Come,” Chaney swept her over toward the bar. They ordered their drinks from a list of cocktails that should’ve been illegal from their names alone, as Salvi kept glancing about. She saw another woman with a shaved head walk past wearing only a tiny G-string, and what appeared to be a dense mesh of neural tech attached to her that stretched all the way down from her scalp to her neck to cover her breasts. When the woman turned away, it appeared the tech ran all the way down her spine as well. It was so realistic Salvi couldn’t tell whether it was actually fused into her spine or not.
Next she saw a male in a similar state to the woman, wearing only a G-string and covered head to toe in seams and joints as though he were an android. Salvi had to stop herself from looking twice at half the people who walked past her. Clearly the android fetish was alive and well down here, both people wanting to be them and those who wanted to be with them. An unsettling feeling stirred in her gut as she couldn’t tell if they were real or whether it was all makeup, costumes or tattoos. Some of it looked so very real.
“You look worried,” Chaney whispered in her ear. “Don’t be.”
“I’m not,” she smiled nervously, softening her face, “I’m just fascinated!”
“By what?”
“By what turns people on.”
“And what turns you on?” he asked.
She smiled again. “Well, now, I can’t just tell you. Where’s the fun in that?”
He laughed softly, watching as her gaze was drawn to a robo-whore wheeling past.
“Have you ever had a robo-whore?” he asked.
Salvi shook her head. “No. I feel so deprived.”
Chaney laughed. “Well, here you can change that. Try anything you like.”
A woman moved beside her at the bar and ordered her drink. She looked relatively normal, albeit in a sexy PVC outfit. The woman glanced at her, and Salvi noticed her face was covered in some kind of plastic skin. Realizing she was staring, Salvi gave her a grin. The woman smiled back, but Salvi suddenly saw a man looking back at her. Then it was a monkey... Salvi laughed in shock as the woman – and it was definitely a woman based on the shape of her body – took her drink and walked away.
“I take it you’ve never seen a digital mask before?” Lance said into her ear. Salvi shook her head. “It’s for those who wish to have the ultimate discretion. No one can tell who they are underneath. They can pre-set the face to male, female or animal, or have it alternate between the three for the ultimate confusion.”
“They look amazing.”
“They should do, they’re very expensive, and hard to come by.”
“Interesting,” she said, thinking how dangerous they would be out on the street in the hands of criminals.
Chaney slid his hand into hers and began to lead her toward the corridor of carriages. They walked slowly, listening to the cacophony that increased and faded as they passed each carriage. She heard music and moaning and laughing and crying and slapping and barking and all manner of things that made her want to rip each door open to check the inhabitants were okay. He led her down to the carriage at the very end, larger than all the others. He waved his hand over a scanner, which unlocked the door.
He saw her eyeing the control panel. “This is my personal carriage.”
She nodded, and as she stepped inside she saw an athletic blonde woman standing beside a console. She wore a short black dress with a high collar but zipped down low in front to show off the cleavage of her well-sized breasts. Her hair was pulled back in a tight bun and she offered a smile to them. Salvi smiled back, noticing her makeup appeared to be tattooed on her 30-something face.
The room was otherwise filled with what looked like a very comfortable circular bed, and a leather chaise longue covered in white faux fur blankets. The lighting was dim and red-tinged, and music played softly in the background. Some kind of mesmerizing, hypnotizing, trance beats.
“Relax,” he said, his breath hitting the back of her neck as he wrapped both hands around her upper arms. He squeezed them gently, then ran his hand up and down as though warming her from the cold.
But as her heart continued to beat heavily, cold was the last thing she felt. She was starting to feel claustrophobic, wondering how she was going to get out of this. She turned slowly to face him.
“We’ve got all night,” she said. “Let’s take our time.”
“Anything you want,” he said. “Make yourself comfortable. Erica will assist with anything you need.”
“Wait. You’re leaving?” she asked, surprised.
“For a little while. I’ll be back later. When you want me here…” he said softly, then turned and left the room.
Salvi fought hard not to exhale with relief. She turned to face Erica, who stepped forward.
“Take a seat,” she motioned to both the bed and the chaise. Salvi opted for the chaise. “We’ll start by prepping the neural tech, then we’ll give you the kicker.”
“The kicker?”
“The drugs. You need both to take the full ride,” she grinned.
Salvi looked down at the two neural devices in the woman’s hands. Noble flashed into her mind and she knew she needed to get those things out of here and into his hands so he could work on tracing the tech to the supplier, and maybe even the designer.
“How do we do this?” Salvi asked, pushing the hair back from her face. Erica bent over her and brushed her skin with some kind of alcohol. The neural devices were attached to sticky pads and she watched as Erica peeled the backs off. Salvi couldn’t help
but think of Myki and the patches on her skin. She sat still as Erica pressed the crescent-shaped device against her face, smoothing it back from beside her eye, down and behind her ear.
“May I?” she asked, taking the second one from Erica’s hand to study it. The crescent device was sealed in a hard, clear casing so she could see the components within. There were tiny microchips and wires, and small LED lights that gave it its glowing silver appearance. Erica took the second from her and placed it on the other side of her face.
“So what do these do exactly?” she asked Erica.
“They send small pulses of electricity into your brain to target the areas we want.”
“And those are?”
Erica gave a musical laugh. “Well, honey, they stimulate arousal, pleasure. All the things that make us happy.”
Salvi nodded as Erica smoothed down the second side.
“And the drugs?”
“The drugs take you over the edge. With them flowing through your veins and your brain stimulated to increase your arousal, you won’t ever want to go back to normal sex.”
Salvi gave a smile and nodded again, all the while thinking that if this was what the Flyte was going to do, she could easily understand just what Fyte did to people.
“Don’t be nervous,” Erica said. “Relax.” She turned back to her console. Salvi watched her carefully.
“Do you control the neural devices from there?”
“We record measurements, to keep an eye on things, but those patches are designed for a one-off use. There are different models with different lifespans. The shortest ride is about four hours. The ones I’ve given you will last about eight hours. They will take you up gently, build to a crescendo, then bring you down safely to land.”
“What’s the strongest model you have?”
“Twelve hours for the disposables. If you want something more permanent, you’re looking at neural implants. Then you can turn it off and on as many times as you want.”
Erica turned around again with a needle in her hand, filled with a red fluid.
“That’s the drug?” Salvi asked. “And how long does that last?”
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