Deadly Pretty Strangers: US Edition

by Max Thorn

  I nodded agreement.

  “I’m going to go through this list twice,” he glanced at the tablet screen. “Five red lines; don’t cross them. Number one, DON’T BE RUDE OR UNKIND TO HER. Keep your conversation polite and respectful. She’s used to being treated with courtesy. She knows that she’s the key to our success here.”

  “No problem. I’m always polite.”

  “Good. Number two. She can be volatile and she’s strong. Much stronger than you or any of us. If things get out of hand, DO NOT FIGHT HER,” he said emphatically. “If you fight back, she’ll just use greater force to subdue you. That’ll mean broken bones, skull injuries. Yours not hers. She’s quicker than a cat, and even with these,” he lifted the taser weapon from his side pocket, “we won’t be in time to save you.”

  “Okay. I never fight women. But why do you have those if you can’t save someone?”

  “They’re intended primarily for saving us, not you. Even then we’re only supposed to use them as a last resort.”

  “That’s comforting.”

  “You wanted this meeting. Have you changed your mind?”

  “No.”

  “Moving on then, number three. She’s still fertile. Probably will be for years. YOU MUST NOT IMPREGNATE HER.”

  I grimaced. “She’s sixty-five years old, I’m spoken for and it’s a one-hour conversation. I’m not sure that kind of encounter is even remotely likely.”

  Darren gave me another hard look. “Spoken for or not, you’ve no idea what you’re dealing with here. Please just do as you’re told. She is seductive and craves intimacy. It’s one of the very few things we can’t give her. Friendship, yes. Physical intimacy, no. It’s a constant battle with her, driven partly by the sexual imperative, partly by mischief and partly by habit. She likes to test us.”

  “Okay. I’m sure I can avoid it.”

  Another hard look. “Make sure you do. Number four. DO NOT STRAY FROM THE OBSERVATION AREA.” He waved at the space through the observation window. “That’s this space here that we can see. Her bedroom is at the end of that corridor.” He gestured to a point at the end of the long living room where a corridor began. “It’s her private space. If we have to go in there to get you out, it’s going to cause huge offense. Don’t put us in that position. No matter what she says, don’t go in there. She might say, “Can you help me lift something?” Or, “I want to show you the view from here,” or some other innocuous sounding reason. Be polite but firm. You cannot go in there. You’re not allowed. She will test you.”

  I nodded some more.

  “Five. DO NOT LET HER BITE YOU. Neck and shoulder are the sites that she’s most likely to bite. Don’t give her the impression that you’d be comfortable with that kind of contact. If she’s aroused sexually, she’ll hold you with a bite. It’s a reflex, like animals holding their mate by the neck. Dogs for example. She can maintain a ‘dry bite’ without envenomation, but there’s no guarantee that she will. Apart from anything else, she’s had very little practice.”

  “Envenomation?”

  “You know about her venom, don’t you?” He continued without waiting for a nod from me. “If she feels physically threatened, she has an instinctive urge to bite the victim fatally. That’s what happened fifty years ago. We’ve got an antidote, but the volume of venom she can deliver into your body is very hard to counter. If she bites you and transmits her venom, our chances of saving you are no more than thirty percent.” He looked at me sternly again. “If she bites you, you’ll probably die. Do you understand everything I’ve told you?”

  Now I did understand. The bite mark on Aleksy’s neck and the neuro-toxin delivered subcutaneously. It could be an actual venomous bite. But the picture of the young blonde woman didn’t fit with what little I knew about Ariadne. “Yes, I’ve got it. Be polite, avoid intimacy and try not to get killed.”

  He told me all of it again anyway.

  One of the assistants took a broad watchstrap out of his pocket. Wiping a strand of ginger hair from his eyes, he spoke quickly and without the harsh tone I’d been getting from his manager. “This wristband will be our means of discreetly communicating with you, without intruding on the meeting too obviously. It enables you and Ariadne to have a normal interaction without us hovering over your shoulder.” His head nodded earnestly.

  Darren added, “Except of course, we will be hovering over your shoulder, here behind this one-way glass. She’ll know we’re here, but out of respect, we’ll maintain the illusion of a private conversation. We don’t want to open the door and start shouting and waving. The wristband has colored LEDs. If things look alright to us, the LEDs will stay green.”

  Darren nodded to the third technician who was holding a small control box. He pressed a button. The wristband came on as the ginger-haired technician secured it around the outside of my left sleeve like a watch strap. A thin row of lights lit up green around my sleeved wrist.

  Darren continued, “If we think you might be getting into a vulnerable situation it’ll flash amber.”

  Another nod and the lights turned amber.

  “And if we think you’re in imminent danger the lights will flash red.”

  Red flashing.

  “What do I do then?”

  “Make excuses and leave. Come back to this room. Quickly, but without running. If you start panicking, you’ll embarrass her and she might just knock you out. Stay calm whatever happens.”

  Darren gave me a short disclaimer form to sign, which said that I was taking part in an experiment voluntarily and that I understood that there was a risk to life and that I and my relatives would not hold the company responsible in the event of injury or death.

  “What experiment?”

  “Our get-out-of-jail-free card in case things turn out very badly. Officially, you’re taking part in an experiment with a lethal toxin on another part of the campus.” He sighed, “To be candid with you, I’m doing this as a favor to Christmas and out of respect for Professor Pendle. But my team can only lose here. If you get killed, at the very least we will all lose our jobs as part of Ariadne’s personal monitoring team. We’ll be transferred to the production facility in Grimsby. Away from the action. Production drudgery. For years. Your life, our careers. We’ll probably never get back here. If Ariadne gets pregnant, we go to Grimsby. If we taser Ariadne; Grimsby. I have a one hundred percent record on the review and sampling program. If she becomes uncooperative—”

  “Grimsby?”

  “Maybe not Grimsby, but we’ll lose a completion bonus.” Darren looked around at his assistants who nodded anxiously. “We don’t want to fall out with Ariadne. Our roles as her personal monitors depend as much on her acceptance of us, as our qualifications for the job. It’s taken me a long time to get here. Christmas has really put us in a difficult spot with this meeting.”

  “Don’t worry. I’m just going to have tea with an old lady and then go. There’ll be no argument.”

  Darren didn’t look even slightly reassured. “To be frank, I’m more worried about you making her pregnant than her killing you. Deaths we’ve handled before. Twenty new lives to take care of for seventy years; that’s a much bigger problem. Plus there are physical and psychological risks to her from the pregnancy.”

  “I promise you, it’s never going to happen.”

  “Remember that promise.” He moved to the interior door. With his face scanned by the door-side panel, Darren unlocked the door from the observation area to the living room.

  The technicians moved aside and I stepped into the bright airy elegance of Ariadne’s apartment.

  Strong daylight made me shield my eyes for a moment. The floor to ceiling windows were framed by beige curtains drawn back into four narrow pillars, spaced equally along that side of the room. The floor was a polished white marble with pale-blue veining. Looking back at the observation window, its dull black reflection was almost lost in dark wood paneling covering the entire wall on that side. Wide picture alcoves were set int
o the paneling. Modernist pictures, mostly abstract shapes and strong color, filled each alcove. I could see part of an entrance hall through a wide doorway in the wall, which I guessed led to the front door I’d seen earlier. Pale wood panels clothed the ceiling, reflecting concealed lighting at the borders. A long, ivory-colored sofa faced the windows with a knee-height table in front and a cube-shaped seat matching the sofa at the end of the table. At the far end of the room a large gold-framed mirror hung beside the door leading to Ariadne’s more private rooms. Between the mirror and the windows, a black grand piano reflected the bright daylight from its polished surfaces.

  Behind me a large marble-topped bar separated the living area from the kitchen. Glass-fronted refrigerators stocked with wine and fresh foods lined one wall. Steel ovens, an extractor hood, more marble, concealed lighting and dark wood lined the other.

  Everything was clean. No scuff marks or cracked panels visible anywhere. A faint smell of leather and polish hung faintly under the stronger fragrance from lilies, arranged fountain-like in a tall vase at one end of the bar. I guessed that Ariadne didn’t do her own cleaning or laundry.

  I stood near the observation window, waiting for the monster to emerge from the corridor.

  After a few minutes a woman with glossy black, shoulder-length hair entered the far end of the room from the corridor that was out of bounds. Her confident gaze didn’t wander as she walked directly toward me. She wore a pale-pink jacket over a white open-collared shirt. Her cream-colored pencil-skirt showed a narrow waist, flat stomach and the curve of her thighs, the hem finishing just above her knees. Black, dress shoes brought her almost to my height and made a precise click as the thin heels struck out the slow, steady beat of her steps. She appeared to be a slender and athletic woman in her early forties. In a London street, she’d be taken for a successful business woman or a billionaire’s wife, elegant and restrained.

  As she drew close her pace slowed. Tilting her oval face a little to one side, she narrowed her gray-green eyes slightly as she said in a strong, sure voice, “You must be Xavier.”

  I scanned the room behind her in case she was the greeter for the monster. But we were alone apart from the technicians behind the dark window.

  “Call me Zav, please. I’m looking for Ariadne.”

  “Congratulations. You’ve found her.”

  “Umm…they told me you’re sixty-five. That was a joke, right?”

  She leaned forward and whispered conspiratorially, “They were telling the truth. For once.”

  Her wide mouth smiled mischievously as she swaggered into the kitchen. “So I’m not what you were expecting?” She said over her shoulder.

  “No,” I said slowly, “not at all.”

  “My unusual genetic background. Blessing and curse. Keeps me looking younger. That’s the blessing.” Her long pale fingers scooped ice cubes from the refrigerator ice box, rattling them into long wine glasses. “You’ll have some wine with me, won’t you?”

  “That would be nice.”

  Putting the glasses down, she pulled a bottle of white wine from a chilled cabinet and uncorked it in a moment, put the cork remover away, closed the cabinet door and poured the wine in a graceful series of ambidextrous motions while she talked. “This is a rare pleasure for me. Meeting someone from the outside, right here in my home. I hear that you’ve met Ray Pendle. And suddenly you’re best friends with his daughter.”

  I looked down briefly before meeting her enquiring gaze.

  “Now you want to meet me. I wonder what you’re after.” She carried the drinks back to the table in front of the sofa and sat down, looking out across the green pasture outside. Pushing the table a little to her left, she pulled the low seat in front of her and patted the top. “Come and sit with me.”

  As I approached she leaned forward to adjust the cube perfectly in front. Her shirt opened momentarily, revealing the soft curve of her breast. I was sure she’d seen my glance. I’d tried not to look but it was hard to avoid. She sat on the edge of the sofa, our knees almost touching.

  My wristband was flashing amber.

  “The professor told me a little about your genesis and he said I should meet you to understand what you’ve all achieved here.”

  We drank the sharp, cool wine.

  She looked at me steadily over the rim of her glass. “It’s odd that you say that. I heard he’d bored you to insanity with one of his lectures on enhanced responses for the neuromuscular junction, to the point that you had to run away without your car, drag yourself across the moor and hitch-hike back to London.” She smiled mischievously and licked her lower lip slowly.

  I laughed nervously. “Who were those people shooting at me? Do you know?”

  “I have no idea,” she leaned toward me, “but evidently not everyone likes you as much as I do.” Her head tilted a fraction and the eyes were a little more serious now. Her perfume and the heat from her body surrounded me like a cloak.

  “It’s very hard to think of you as an older lady.”

  “Older by what measure? The passage of time doesn’t affect my body in the same way it affects yours. But you’re curious about my skin, aren’t you? I can see you looking.”

  “You’re not offended I hope?”

  “No. You know about the molting, don’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well it turns out it’s a benefit.”

  I looked at the uncreased corners of her eyes, her full lips and smooth neck. I was thinking that this had to be some elaborate and pointless joke—no one of pensionable age looked like her.

  She took my right hand and pressed it to her collarbone, my palm against her upper breast. Her skin was cool and very smooth. The smoothness made me think a little of the scar tissue on my thigh from a childhood accident. She watched me intently. I wondered if she was looking at the observation window at the very edge of her peripheral vision, sensing the agitation of the technicians. I didn’t need to look at the wristband to know it was flashing red.

  She leaned forward and said in a whisper, “Your heart rate is elevated.”

  “I know,” I whispered back. “But what do you expect? I’m almost holding your breast.”

  She laughed, gently withdrawing my hand and putting it on my lap. “You know, they put everyone here through a three-day course on resisting my advances.”

  “Well I hear that you’re a formidable force and, well…I suppose it’s a bit tactless to say this, but I hear men have died.”

  She threw her head back, “Oh, I was a child. The first one was an accident. Poor Martin. He was my friend. More than my friend.” Rocking forward slowly, she held her head, pushing her hair back from her face and closing her eyes for a moment as though visualizing the dead man. “It was a tragedy and I’ve no right to expect anyone to forget. But you’ve no idea how devastating it was. I lost my best friend, the father of my children, and became a mother and a murderess all at the same time. It was completely unexpected. No one knew I was a danger, not even me. It happened at puberty. The venom, the glands, these,” she put her small fingertip to her clean white canine teeth. “If I’d been male, I wouldn’t have the venom. Or the unwanted attention.”

  “From the second man who died?”

  “He tried to rape me and paid for it with his life. The company described them as laboratory accidents. Compensation—hush money—paid to the families. I could’ve defended myself against both charges half a century ago. But instead I live in this open prison alongside four thousand people who’ve all had it drummed into them that I’m a rapacious, predatory monster. I have salaried friends. No genuine affection. That’s how it’s been for all these years.”

  “That must be hard. I can’t really imagine it.”

  She looked me in the eye as though assessing my sympathy.

  “What happened to the children?”

  “Pendle really didn’t tell you?”

  “We ran out of time.”

  She sighed, “My children are a cons
tant source of anguish. We all lived here on this estate. The company educated them, helped me care for them. Eighteen children; ten girls and eight boys.”

  She answered my surprised look.

  “Fecundity my dear. One of my other great underused gifts. Twenty-two very tiny babies born at nineteen weeks. So premature compared with ordinary births, they thought it was a miracle any survived. I was massive, even at four months. Four didn’t live. But the rest were amazing. So now they had nineteen inmates in the open-prison. The real problem was how to integrate us with the world outside when we had these unusual attributes; molting skins, venomous capabilities in adulthood, great strength and huge multiple births.

  “Ray and the others kept putting it off. They kept us a secret, worried about the reaction from people. But they educated my children about the world outside. You can’t teach people about giraffes, elephants, mountains and oceans and not expect them to want to go and see them.

  “Eventually, my children took matters into their own hands. After their fifteenth birthday they ran away. All of them together. Left me here. I’d been trying to persuade them that it wasn’t safe out there. My worst fears were realized. A year later, Bryony was killed in a road accident. Jack died months later in a street fight in London—stabbed through the heart. I feared I would lose them one by one like that. But the others disappeared completely. I hear rumors that they’re out there somewhere. Sixteen children. The only people I can hold without anyone being afraid. I haven’t seen them for more than three decades. Not a day goes by when I don’t think about them. Sometimes I spend every minute of the day wondering what they look like, what kind of lives they lead. Whether I have grandchildren.”

  “I’m sorry.” I pulled a tissue from my pocket.