Modified Box Set
Page 1
Table of Contents
Title Page
Volume 1 Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Volume 2 Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Volume 3 Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Volume 4 Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Volume 5 Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Modified
Volumes 1-5
Box Set
by
Kat Stiles
katstiles.com
Wellington, Texas
But born and raised in Iselin, NJ
Modified Copyright © 2018 by Kat Stiles
Cover illustration by Jasper Yu © 2018
For information on the cover art, please contact Jasper Yu, www.jasperyuart.com.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages for review purposes. If you are reading this book and did not buy it or win it in a contest by the author or authorized distributor, you are reading an illegal copy. This hurts the author and publisher. Please delete and purchase a legal copy from Kat Stiles.
This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to any person, living or dead, any place, events or occurrences, is purely coincidental. The characters and story lines are created from the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Dedication
For all my fellow Jerseyans,
who know what pizza should taste like and expect 1,000 different menu items at a diner
who understand why it totally makes sense to go right when you want to make a left
who let you know exactly where you stand
who get the sheer joy of profanity
this series is dedicated to you.
stay Jersey, it’s beautiful
Modified Volume 1
Chapter 1
It’s a little known fact that when the human brain is under a tremendous amount of pressure, it lets out an audible “poof” sound, right as it gives out. A literal brain fart.
How do I know that? Well, I’ve killed people like this. Many times. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not evil. No, I’m not the villain—I’m absolutely sure of that. It just took me a while to control my modification.
I guess it’s better to start at the beginning. Then you can decide for yourself.
It started on a dark, rainy, and oh yeah, can’t forget stormy, night. I promised myself if I ever chronicled all this shit that I’d use as many adjectives as possible. And lots of vulgarity, for fuck’s sake. It’s not a masterpiece. But it is my story.
So on this totally shitty night, I was in my car, driving home from a job I had in the city, working as a DBA for a tech company: USAcom. The wages sucked, and the people sucked, but it was a job. My commute was only twenty minutes, but I stopped on the way. Fucking cigarettes. Ten dollars a pack and I still smoked. What was it, like 2020 when they put the additive in? Supposed to make them healthier for you, as if inhaling smoke into your lungs could ever be healthy. The additive just made them more addictive. It had been a full day since I had a cig, so I was pretty rabid and irritable.
Worn out from databasing all day, it was with great effort that I swung open the door to the rundown convenience store.
The dude from behind the counter looked up from his titty magazine. “Heyyyy…”
Startled by the flirtatious overtone, I gave him the once over. Classic male pattern baldness in its infancy with facial hair unshaven but not yet grown out to a beard, and the cherry on top—a cracked tooth in a smile that would have made even the most ambitious dentist cringe.
I say all this, but there I was, in a wrinkled oversized business suit, Buddy Holly glasses, frayed remnants of a bun atop my head, and dark circles under my eyes. Not exactly the picture of a woman looking to get laid. That’s when I noticed the top two buttons of my blouse were open, with my tits practically hanging out.
For a second, I thought about bolting. Then the nic fit kicked in full force. I hastily buttoned my shirt. Keeping my head down, I approached the counter.
“Can I get a packet of Scorpion Bliss?”
The lack of action on his part forced me to look back up. His goofy grin didn’t fade in the slightest, and up-close I was privy to not only that dazzling smile, but also the pungent odor of morning coffee gestating in the cesspool that was his mouth. I tried to hide my disgust with a fake smile. That was enough to spur him on to get the packet.
After I paid, he slid it over but kept his hand on it. I tried to take it, but he pulled back.
“Too slow!” The bizarre giggle he let out made me wonder if he was mentally challenged. It was the only thing that stopped me from reaching over the counter and punching him in the face.
“Look, it’s been a long day,” I said. “Please don’t fuck with me.”
His eyes lit up, and that’s when I realized it was a poor choice of words. Not that it would’ve mattered, I could’ve been talking about my grandmother dying and he still would’ve found a way to turn it into something sexual.
“Now you’re talking, sweet thing. I get off in an hour.” He released his hold of the cigarettes.
“Unlikely,” I muttered, as I grabbed the packet.
In my excitement, I nearly tripped out the door, catching my discount heels on the broken metal plate in the floor. His laugh followed me out the door, but I didn’t care. I ripped open the packet as soon as I stepped outside, and that delicious aroma of nicotine tickled my nose. Out of all the advances in the last few decades, sealing cigarettes in air-tight packets was probably my favorite. Until that wonderful day, I had no idea how good a cigarette could smell when it wasn’t stale.
My hands shook as I shoved a cigarette in my mouth, and I fumbled through my purse for my lighter, which seemed to be exactly nowhere. When I finally found it, the fucker wouldn’t even light. I shook it, hoping to coax the last bit of lighter fluid out of it, but it continued to laugh at me.
I sighed, dreading having to go back inside with Jethro the charming. I could only imagine what he would want in return for matches. I shuddered and looked to the ground instead, hoping someone had dropped a matchbook or something.
“Need a light?”
I practically jumped at the sound of the voice, which I guessed belonged to a Brit or Aussie. And when I turned to look, I dropped my purse and my jaw.
The man that stood before me was the anti-Jethro: dressed well, his face framed with neatly-styled long blond hair, stunning eyes the color of the Caribbean, and an alluring scent that I was sure was some kind of pheromone. I immediately regretted my decision to button my blouse back up.
“Y-yeah,” I stammered.
“It’s over here, in my car,” he responded.
Okay, I know what you’re thinking. Who (besides a prostitute) follows a total stranger to his car at night? But two things were working against me: nicotine and lack of sex. How could a man this pretty be a raving lunatic serial killer? Besides, I reasoned, I won’t actually get in the car.
As it turned out, my plan backfired, and it was the next morn
ing before I came to. I found myself in my car, sitting in the driver’s seat. It was six o’clock, the normal time I woke for work. The last thing I remembered was the gorgeous blond dude touching my face.
I rubbed my eyes, trying to focus on the details around me. My purse sat neatly placed on the passenger seat. I rummaged through it and found nothing missing. But more importantly, my cigarettes were there, along with a fancy lighter I didn’t recognize. Two snakes intertwined in an ornate pattern, a silver emblem against a black, mirror-like surface. The urge to smoke overtook my fascination with the object, which felt unusually cold in my hands.
I lit up and breathed in the cancerous ecstasy, taking a few extra puffs to completely fill my lungs.
After a satisfied exhale, I wiped my eyes again and began to fully wake up. What the fuck happened last night? I ran my hands up and down my body, confirming all my organs were still there. I didn’t feel any acute pain, just a general soreness, like I had sustained a mild ass kicking.
I needed a mirror to fully check myself, so I drove home at warp speed, avoiding the speed sensors. As much as getting pulled over by a cop used to piss me off, it was even worse getting a surprise notification in the mail and the $1200 fee automatically deducted. No way to flash the cleavage or talk your way out of that.
From within my apartment I could hear the cat meowing incessantly, and when I opened the door he waged a full-frontal assault on my legs—first nipping my ankles, and when I didn’t move fast enough, biting my calves. Pickles wasn’t used to missing a meal.
I slopped down a full can of wet food into his bowl before sliding out of my clothes en route to the bathroom.
My body looked the same as it always had: aging somewhat gracefully for a thirty something. I could stand to lose ten or twenty pounds, but I was still blessed with a proportional distribution of body weight, which made me look more like a pinup girl from a century ago, a time when sexy didn’t equal anorexic. I couldn’t feel any bruises or pain anywhere, even after checking head to toe.
At least I’m okay, I thought, and started up the shower to give it the full five minutes it needed for the hot water to show up. I fished three pins out of my hair and ran my fingers through the wavy brown mess. I encountered a slight bump on the back of my head, but it wasn’t tender; it felt more like a blemish than anything else. I should’ve paid more attention. But I was late for work, and my boss was always worse when he felt like I owed him something.
In the shower, I surmised that I didn’t in fact get laid by the gorgeous dude. That slightly sore but wonderful post-coitus sensation was absent, filled instead by an ever-present ache, a feeling that my body knew it was missing out on something amazing and vital to its well-being. With the water beating down on my back in the shower, I decided then and there that if I ever ran into him again, I would demand sex. It was the least he could do after last night.
I made it to work with two minutes to spare. Boss man was already there, grinning in his chair. Smug. Superior. Always fucking right, had to be, no matter how many people contradicted him. His real name was Chad, but that’s not what I knew him by. My preferred name for him was Dickpiggly Douchenozzle. What can I say? Being single meant I had the time to come up with stupid nicknames.
That day he was particularly smug because he’d rebuilt the master database on one of the staging instances. A fucking staging instance, like anyone cared. I imagined his face as a slimy, disease-ridden pustule, oozing slowly and pulsating.
He had no clue what I really thought of him. I’d only been there a few months, but I’d learned to mask my general discomfort when he was near. And I became a master of the fake smile. Hell, I even laughed at some his sexist jokes. I figured it was easier than telling him off, I mean, I had to work with the guy every day. He’d never made an actual pass at me—just hinted in that nauseating, unctuous fashion of his that he’d fuck me if I were interested. Granted, I wasn’t the hottest girl on the planet, but he was downright gross. Obese was an understatement, but my revulsion stemmed from more than that. Just the way he carried himself, strutting around with an unfounded confidence, and sucking the very life out of every room he entered. I was horny, but not that horny. Never that horny.
“We should celebrate after work, today, Kate.” He positioned himself behind me at my desk, and started rubbing my shoulders.
The fake smile surfaced, right on cue. “Yeah, maybe. Gotta finish this stored procedure though.”
“Yes, of course,” he said. His hands rather abruptly left my shoulders. Without looking, I knew the director had entered our shared cubicle space.
Mr. Douchenozzle gave me a fake smile. “Keep up the good work!” he said, trying to sound like a manager.
“How’s everything going?” the director asked. An older man, his manner was unobtrusive, and I found his visits rather pleasant. But I guess that had more to do with the fact that I knew I wouldn’t be touched when he was around, more than any genuine care for the man.
“It’s all under control,” Dickpiggly responded. I seriously wondered if he weren’t a car salesman in another life. I turned to my screen and lost myself in the procedure.
Being a DBA was actually one of the most enjoyable aspects of my life. I loved to code – it was so simple and pure. Write the line (in the correct syntax of course), and a set of events occurs. No uncertainty, just input and output. And this particular job offered a world of possibilities for me, with all their fucked up code. I could script for years and still not fix everything. It was wonderful.
Hours had passed before I was yanked from my coding haven back to reality by the touch of a bloated hand on my knee.
“Come on. It’s lunchtime.”
I shuddered, an involuntary response I had difficulty controlling.
“Cold again?”
The perfect excuse. “Yeah, must’ve turned up the air again.” Living in New Jersey, the humid summer weather only colluded with my deception. Buildings cranked their A/Cs high to combat the inferno outside.
Without even realizing what I was doing, I scratched the bump I’d found on my head earlier. “I think I’ll just stay here.”
“Kate, you know you want to go to lunch with us.” Same old game. Act like it’s a group going. Then, right before we leave, everyone mysteriously bails.
Not gonna happen, Dickpiggly.
“I’m feeling a little crampy,” I said, holding my lower abdomen. The only ace up my sleeve: talk about my period.
“Oh, no. Well, uh,” he said, tripping over his words. “Some other time, then.”
After he left, it was as if the air had cleared, and I could breathe again. I kicked off my heels and lay back in my chair. It felt so good, to be left alone to code. To not feel dirty, like I was constantly being eye fucked. Hunger eventually won out, and since the cafeteria had halfway decent sandwiches, I headed over there.
On my way, I did a double-take as I approached the strangest looking girl I’d ever seen. She was like something out of an anime flick, every geeky boy’s wet dream. Strawberry blond hair streaked with purple and blue, drawn up in two long ponytails at the top of her head, accompanied by perfectly trimmed bangs that framed her face. She wore a pink baby doll shirt with a short, pleated pink and purple skirt and long stockings with little red hearts on them. I thought for a second she had to be a teenager. As I passed though, I saw a less pronounced version of the same small lines I had at the corners of her eyes, and I guessed she was in her late twenties. She smiled at me. I blinked twice, thinking I had fallen asleep and experienced the weirdest dream sequence ever.
“You’ve got flies in your eyes,” she said.
I stopped and turned toward her. No this was definitely real, I thought. She tilted her head at me curiously.
“Excuse me?”
“Flies in your eyes,” she sang.
I looked around, wondering if I were the subject of some kind of practical joke. But even the Java developers weren’t this twisted.
“Wh
at does that even mean?” I asked.
She shrugged. “Read it somewhere. That’s what I call it.”
“Call what?”
She didn’t answer, but just giggled and walked away.
Chapter 2
“Kate, wait up!” I heard from behind me.
The voice belonged to Jason Amachi, one of the .NET programmers. Jay was as geeky as I was, but even more introverted. We met one day at a group luncheon that turned out to be a sales presentation, and since we were the only two technical people there, we became friends. He was a brilliant coder, and I often bounced ideas and problem scripts off him.
“Did you see the anime girl?” I asked him, once he caught up with me.
“What?” Jay adjusted his tinted glasses, which he had only recently started wearing. What began as a hipster trend in the twenties fizzled out fast—except for a few brave souls who were either into the retro scene or didn’t care about fashion trends. Jay was in the latter group, and I was certain they were prescription glasses. Bad vision and IT just go together.
I glanced around. She was gone. “Never mind.”
He noticed the sandwich I carried. “You’re not eating at your desk again, are you?”
I smiled. “You know how it is with Chad.” It was in fact, a topic I had mentioned on several occasions. He tried to commiserate, but his boss was a sixty-year-old COBOL programmer who only showed his face once a quarter. Totally could not relate, but he suffered through my rants anyway.
“All the more reason not to eat there.” He avoided my eyes, but instead ran his fingers through his hair, one of his nervous tics.
Mr. Douchenozzle was due back any minute from his two-hour lunch, and I had made it a habit to be at my desk when he returned. But the more I thought about it, the less sense it made. Why shouldn’t I maximize my Chad-free time?
“You have a point. Cafeteria?” I asked.
He shook his head. “My desk. I have something to show you,” he said, in his giddy I-just-finished-a-cool-project voice.