Darkside Dreams - The Complete First Series

by A. King Bradley

  As soon as the door opened, as soon as the seal around its edge broke, Oscar heard a quiet electronic sound from deep within the tiny apartment where a thousand men had been pleasured. He took a step in and squished against the wall so that Catalea could shut the door.

  "These rooms aren't empty?" Oscar asked.

  She shook her head.

  "The desk says they're empty, Cat," Oscar added. "You're not doing something that could get you in trouble, are you?"

  "No, not at all. It's fine. It's been... worked out. He promised me he would take care of everything. I'm just waiting for confirmation. But I promise, there's no reason to worry."

  Oscar craned his neck, peering down the hall. Trying to see around corners. He couldn't see the source of the electronic sounds, but he could see a glow that constantly shifted in color and brightness.

  "Some client of yours, down on his luck?" he wondered aloud. "Some guy whose wife got fed up and kicked him out?"

  She shook her head, grabbing his hand and pulling him along. "Come on, Oscar. There's nothing to be afraid of. That cold heart of yours will just melt, I know it."

  "My heart ain't cold anymore," he replied, reaching to grab a handful of her ass, but she quickly pushed his hand away. Another unusual gesture, but he was strangely fine with it. It made this almost feel like a real relationship.

  And maybe it was, if she was now willing to show him some huge secret of hers.

  They passed by the small kitchen and entered the main area where the bed stood, as well as a couple of chairs and a table. In one of these chairs, quite oblivious to his surroundings, sat a child. The boy was seven or eight years of age, staring at the game he was playing with a look of extraordinary and eerie blankness. Even when he finally realized he wasn't alone, and looked up, this mask-like expression did not change.

  "Matthew," Catalea said. "That's enough of your game for now. I've brought one of my friends for you to meet. My dearest friend, in fact..."

  Only then did the child's expression change. He mustered up a small smile that only touched one side of his mouth. Setting his game down, he dutifully scuttled off his chair and ran over to throw his arms around Catalea's legs.

  She bent down, her long hair hanging so that it obscured both their faces. Oscar heard the secretive whispering, the private proclamations. He watched but tried not to listen too hard. It was in his nature to hear and see everything, to know every last thing that happened around him. But in his mind, it was the hallmark of any good man that he could defy his nature whenever it was necessary or noble to do so.

  Whatever the woman said to the child, it didn't matter. But as soon as she stood back up, and the child turned his head to stare blankly at Oscar, the situation changed.

  Oscar’s heartbeat spiked as he grabbed Catalea's arm, gently, and said, "We should talk."

  She nodded, giving the boy a nudge. "You can go back to your game, Matthew."

  And so he went. Within a few seconds, he was once again immersed, staring with the dead eyes of a doll at whatever was happening onscreen.

  Catalea looked at Oscar for a moment, saw that his lips were sealed tight, then rolled her eyes. They went into the kitchen. The first thing Oscar did was open the fridge.

  He fully expected this one to be empty. No one was officially living here, after all. But there was actually most of a six pack of beer sitting on the bottom shelf. On impulse, he reached out and grabbed a frosty neck. He suddenly realized how dry his throat was, how it kept trying to stick together. Then he remembered; he hadn't had a drop of alcohol in months. Seemed silly to end the streak now. So instead he fished a glass out of a cabinet and filled it with plain old water.

  "There's no food in there," he said. "What does the kid eat?"

  Catalea worked up to an answer. It took her just long enough to say something that Oscar was able to confirm his suspicions.

  "He's not organic," he said.

  She shook her head. "Isn't he beautiful, though? A perfect boy... I assume it must be a glitch somewhere in my cyber brain. I'm not supposed to want to be a mother, am I? I'm not supposed to yearn for children of my own. But I do."

  "I know," Oscar remarked. "You've told me. After I told you that my kids hated my guts and avoided my calls. You said despite that being a possibility you still wished you could have kids of your own but—"

  "But synths are made in factories, not in wombs," she said sadly.

  Oscar gestured toward the living room. "Where'd he come from? I thought synth kids were illegal."

  Catalea hopped up on the edge of the counter with a laugh and used her strong legs to hook around his waist and pull him closer. She could shatter his spine with no more than a simple flex of her deceptively powerful thighs if she wanted to. She gave him a slight squeeze to let him feel a taste of the power that was wrapped around his waist. He liked it. She could tell in a number of ways, but she could also tell by the expression on his face that he was fighting hard not to fall for her distractions.

  “You’re trying to distract me,” Oscar said. “It’s not gonna work.”

  “Tell that to little Oscar,” Catalea smirked, as she gave Oscars waist another calculated squeeze.

  “Hey, we’re both big Oscar!” Oscar jokingly protested.

  “Yeah, now he is,” Catalea replied, with a sheepish grin.

  “You know that kid is highly illegal, right?” Oscar said, taking a much more serious tone.

  "Yes, I know," Catalea answered, still grinning from ear to ear. "Just like prostitution is still illegal in some states. If you have enough money though, is anything really against the law?"

  "But you don't have enough money, Catalea. Not enough for this."

  "No, I don't," she said. "But a lot of my clients do. There's… a man... he says his name is Valentine, but I never believed it. Just a nickname for when he's doing things he probably shouldn't be doing, like getting his cock—"

  Oscar clamped a hand over her mouth. "There's a child present. Did you forget?"

  She bit his palm to make him let go. "Sorry, this is still kind of new for me,” she admitted.

  "So, this guy Valentine," said Oscar. "Is he one of your regulars?"

  “No, I’ve seen him around though. He’s got a regular girl here, but he’s come knocking on my door from time to time.”

  “So, I’m guessing he came knocking recently…”

  “Obviously.”

  “So what’s his deal?” Oscar probed. “Why’d he give you the kid?”

  "He told me he and his wife had some regrets," Catalea went on. "He's no spring chicken, as they say. Older than you by a few years. His wife is about the same age. For most of their lives they didn’t want kids but I guess the wife had a change of heart. Trouble was, she’s too old to conceive now."

  "I see where this is going," Oscar said. "Why not just adopt?"

  "Because rich people get exactly what they want. They couldn't have a kid the old-fashioned way, so they did the next best thing. Valentine wouldn't tell me where he went or who he paid, but I’m guessing he was created at the Vancouver birthing plant."

  She was probably right. Matthew was a good-looking boy. And maybe, Oscar decided, his blank persona was a result of trauma. The pain of being abandoned by his creators… or parents… or whatever they were to him now.

  "So, why is he here with you?" Oscar asked. "And not with this Valentine guy?"

  "Buyer’s remorse… I suppose,” Catalea confirmed. “Turns out the idea of having a child was much more exciting than the reality of having one. Especially for a couple their age.”

  “So, you let them dump the kid off on you?” Oscar asked rhetorically.

  “That’s better than them destroying him, Oscar,” Catalea shot back.

  “So, they’re noble then? Is that what you’re trying to say?” Oscar grumbled, fighting desperately to control the anger that was swelling in the pit of his stomach. Oscar stepped back, breaking free from the commanding embrace of Catalea’s flawless
legs.

  "What are you going to do with him?" he asked. "A kid, synth or otherwise, can't just sit in a room playing the same game forever."

  He was almost afraid she would ask him for help. He'd give his help to her in a heartbeat, but he didn't know the first thing about taking care of a kid. He'd screwed it up with his own children so badly that he couldn’t dream of taking another swing at being a father.

  She just shrugged and said, "I don't know. I guess I'll figure it out. For now, he's alive. And he's mine. He’s my son, Oscar."

  There was a lot wrong with this picture, but he decided not to point it all out to her. Didn’t want to rain on her parade any more than he already had. In the end he couldn’t help but feel ashamed at his reaction to the entire ordeal. The selfish thoughts of how he would have reacted if she had out right asked him to help her raise the synthetic child.

  Catalea looked happier than Oscar had ever seen her, and he ultimately decided that he didn’t want to ruin that— even if something in the pit of his stomach was warning him that there was much more to the situation than met the eye.

  They went on another walk after that, and they took Matthew with them. He held their hands but said nothing. He didn't laugh or smile again, not even when they counted down from three and swung him up in the air.

  With the child tucked away in his own room, Oscar and Catalea retired to the other bed. In their soundproofed box, in their private and quiet universe, they made love. At least at first. At some point, a switch flipped and it became a sweaty, almost violent affair. At first she thrashed around on top of him. Then, overwhelmed by the same manly feeling she never failed to instill in her clients, Oscar threw her onto her back and had his way with her. She stared up at him, not with hunger or lust but with love. When he finished, she pulled him to her chest and held him tightly. There was something urgent in the whole thing that Oscar didn't understand. But he wasn't about to complain.

  Catalea asked him to stay with her until morning but he couldn't. He had a job that required him to be at a certain spot on the outskirts of the city around two AM, and it was already close to midnight. He bade Catalea farewell and left, feeling strangely melancholy.

  CHAPTER 4

  ◆◆◆

  The job was a simple thing. A police detective named Brooks had asked Oscar, an old friend, to stakeout a suspect in a recent rape case and try and get a DNA sample. The mark worked night shift as a security guard at an old factory. He didn't smoke, but he sure liked his snacks. At about half past three, as the security guard was doing his rounds, he tossed the plastic stick from a lollipop on the ground. When he was gone, Oscar left his shadowy hiding spot and ran over, shoving the plastic stick into a tube for later. There would be plenty of saliva, more than enough to build a DNA profile.

  Oscar waited a while at an all-night diner, delivered the stick and tube to his friend's desk at seven, then went home and crashed into a deep sleep. When he finally opened his eyes, it was almost three o'clock in the afternoon and he was hungry again.

  Looking through his data slate, he found a weekly schedule that Catalea had sent him. She was free for an hour at three, so he waited until five past and then gave her a call. He was already smiling, already forming the words on his tongue. She never took longer than a second or two to answer. Not when the caller name said OSCAR GRAVES.

  This time, however, the phone just kept ringing. For five seconds, then ten. Eventually, a computerized voice offered him a chance to leave a message. He declined. He'd just head over and see her. Wouldn't take longer than thirty minutes, not at three o'clock on a Thursday.

  The streets were relatively clear. When there was a lot of traffic, he usually took public transportation, but this time he hopped behind the wheel of his faithful beater and allowed the autopilot to grumble the ancient vehicle through the city. He reached the pleasure house not long before three-thirty. The first thing he saw were three cop cars parked out front, lights flashing. Oscar got out, feeling curious, but there was no one around to tell him what was going on.

  He didn't think much of it. At a place like this, the cops are bound to show up now and then. The house management was very serious about the welfare of its working girls. Some guys still used the girls for what their kind had originally been built for, but a broken or damaged synth was a lot less likely to pull in good revenue in the business of sex.

  The usual front desk clerk wasn't in residence. Oscar blew past the desk without bothering to scan his patron card. He could do it later, on the way out.

  He went up in the elevator. As soon as the doors opened on the second floor, a hubbub of noise met his ears. The frantic voice of a woman. Radio chatter. Someone beating on a door. Oscar rushed down the hall, turning the corner to the stretch where Catalea lived.

  There they were, two cops standing outside her door and talking in calm voices to the hysteric woman. Oscar recognized her as another synthetic working girl named Irena, who had her room not far from Catalea's.

  Oscar ran over. Without thinking, he tried to squeeze into the room past the two boys in blue. They strong-armed him back, sending him into the opposite wall. He rebounded, coming back with his Private Investigator ID in his hand. He flashed it to the boys, who gave it disinterested looks.

  "I know the woman who lives here," Oscar told them. "I may have information you need. What's happened? Was it a guy named Valentine? Did he...?"

  He was about to ask if he'd come back for the kid, but then he glanced into the room and saw a seemingly lifeless foot on the floor sticking out of the kitchen. He saw a guy in a coverall and booties standing near the foot, looking around with an expression of confusion.

  Without a word, Oscar tried pushing through the cops again. Again they threw him back.

  "Back off!" one of them shouted. "If you have information, we can interview you at the station house. This is our investigation, and as far as I know we didn't hire any consultants for it..."

  "Hold that thought," a voice boomed from further down the hall.

  A familiar figure came striding into sight, clutching a tiny paper coffee cup and looking about as exhausted as some mummified corpses. It was Detective Sergeant Brooks, in the flesh. Away from his desk at last.

  "I know this man," the stout middle-aged Brooks said, gesturing at the other cops to move aside. "He's a friend of mine. Let him through. He knows not to touch anything."

  The boys in blue obeyed, stepping aside. Oscar moved in, followed by Brooks. The sergeant waved everyone else out too, calling a momentary pause in the investigation.

  Oscar brushed past the man in coveralls. He rounded the corner and saw what he had feared he would see. A resting body dressed in a silken robe, the type of pink, frilly robe all girls at the pleasure house were provided with. She was facedown, her hair a mess. Her hands were out to either side and he could tell from the way they looked, waxy and motionless, that she was dead.

  Slipping his shoes off, he stepped on tiptoes in his socks toward Catalea. He crouched low, resisting the urge to touch her. Surely, she couldn't be dead. She was supposed to outlive him and everyone else. She was supposed to still be kicking a thousand years from now, doing God knew what. Yet there she was, lying completely still, with the glow of life no longer coursing through her bio-mechanical form. Without that glow the cyber body in front of Oscar just seemed like an empty shell. A malfunctioned piece of tech. An obsolete machine whose inevitable expiration date had finally caught up to it.

  Not too far past her, in front of the refrigerator, lay the child. What was left of him, anyway. It almost looked like a bomb had gone off inside his head. His entire face was gone, blasted into smithereens. Not a visible shred of cyber brain left. A bad way to go, even for a synth. Other than the face, the rest of the boy's body seemed untouched. Undamaged. Some cold, distant part of Oscar's brain registered that as being odd, but he couldn't bring himself to care. Catalea was all he could think of.

  "Did you know her?" Brooks asked.

&
nbsp; Oscar nodded.

  "You were... a client of hers?"

  "An acquaintance," said Oscar. If he said any more than that, he knew he'd become a suspect. Maybe he already was.

  "The cause of death is obvious," Brooks said. "If you were to turn the body over, which I don't recommend. The face is gone, as well as most of the brain. There isn't much left of her. Very brutal. The boy, also..."

  Brooks went on talking. He'd bought Oscar's lie about Catalea being just an acquaintance and was going on in all the gory details, holding nothing back. Evidently, he was after a bit of help.

  But Oscar wasn't listening. He was still staring at Catalea’s inanimate body, silently willing her to move. To show some sign that she was still somehow clinging to life. When she failed to do so, he let his eyes drop to her neck. The robe covered up most of the injured area, but the few details he could see were immediately surprising.

  Handprints had been left behind on Catalea's neck. Marks where her once perfect synthetic skin had been damaged. A small patch of palm, and stubby fingers. Tiny hands. The hands of a child.

  "Any witnesses?" Oscar asked Sergeant Brooks, keeping his hands clasped together between his knees as he squatted there.

  "Just one. Another girl reported seeing a woman leaving with a child not long ago. She couldn't be sure, but she thought the woman looked like Catalea. Probably bullshit, but we have to check it out anyway. Other than that, no one was seen entering or leaving the rooms. Other than the usual clients. No one since late last night... We're doing some checking right now. Establishing alibis and such. Cause of death is easy. But time of death… not so much. Not with a synth. We'll have to get a specialist out here, examine what's left of her memory banks, try and take an educated guess..."

  "You work up a list yet?" Oscar inquired.

  "Yes, as a matter of fact," said Brooks, pulling out a data slate with a table of names and other information. "You should know that your name is on here, too.”