by Goss, S. E.
Copyright © 2014 by, S.E. Goss
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the author. Reviewers may quote brief passages in reviews. This is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or business establishments, events or locals is coincidental.
By S.E. Goss
Other Stories by S.E. Goss:
Capital City Chronicles:
The Island
I was washing Pandora’s feet, when the phone rang.
She sat in her winged, high backed chair with her feet propped up on the ottoman. On the rug I had folded a towel, and set a bowl of warm water, a bar of designer soap, and an array of clippers, picks and emeries, flowery scented lotions and sugary exfoliants. This had become our ritual once a week when she stayed over, for nearly a year now. At first, I had been apprehensive, and on a few occasions almost afraid of Pan’s tastes for sexual domination and control. However, after only a few months of seeing her, I began to crave the mysterious, intoxicated feeling that her little bedroom games caused me. Before long, I found myself day dreaming about collars, riding crops and rope throughout the day.
Her feet were yet another part of the world of experience she took me to, that I never would have guessed would have such an effect. I had never before even considered feet as something erogenous. Soon the association was made in my subconscious, and I became obsessed. I loved them. The high curves of her arches, the soft pads and long, boney toes. My head would begin to swim when I felt that initial weight of her heel on my palm as I lifted her foot my lips.
The only part of Pandora I loved more, was her bobbed, wavy blonde hair. Unlike her feet and her dominance, her hair I had noticed before anything else. Even before she turned toward me and I saw that she was the famous Pandora Demour.
Playing that image over in my mind for the millionth time, I looked up at her, seated upon her chair like a strict, loving queen. To the rest of the world her eyes would have appeared cold and distant, but I had learned to see the lust behind them; a subtle, shadowy darkness that lurked just under the surface. She seemed to love to watch me work on her feet, and she didn’t look away as she passed her long black cigarette holder to her other hand. The cigarette itself had burned almost down to the end, but she didn’t seem to notice. With two long, slender fingers she plucked the ivory handled receiver from its cradle. The rest of her fingers wrapped the length of it as she put it to her ear.
“Yes?” the ghost of a smile fluttered across her lips.
It was my phone, my apartment, but we both knew the call was for her. I never received calls. Any communication to me would be to my PDA, or to my computer. Pan was the opposite, hated computers, and only kept a PDA out of necessity. I only kept the phone for her.
“Carter Cole?” the foot I wasn’t holding dropped off the ottoman to the floor and she leaned forward.
I knew the name. No one in our lines of work didn’t. The disgraced police officer turned freelance detective had enlisted work from me on several occasions, but Pandora Demour he gave a very wide berth. Now she was discussing him directly, and I couldn’t imagine any reason other than one that his name would come up. I had felt for him in the past, the man had been through hell, and I felt for him now.
“Well,” she leaned back again, but her foot remained on the floor. She had that familiar look of mixed contempt and amusement.
“Of course. The other three will be quick and easy, but Cole is a hardcase,” she paused. I could just hear a tinny voice in the receiver, unable to make out the words. She tilted the phone away from her mouth, and sighed in a way that only my own mouth, and talk of large amounts of money were able to coax from her. Her voice, however, was ice when she spoke again.
“That will do. Send the information on all four, in one package, to my PDA. As usual I’ll send confirmation, and expect payment not more than ten minutes after.” She reached over and dropped the receiver back onto its cradle. Pulling her foot away from me, she dropped it to the floor and again leaned forward. She motioned for me to come.
“Come here my Brown Eyed Girl,” she purred.
I shuffled on both knees, around the ottoman, and ran my hands up the outsides of her thighs. She put a finger under my chin and tilted my face up towards hers. Her small, plump lips pressed against mine. They were soft, but when she opened my mouth with hers, I could feel the strength underneath. Her warm tongue touched mine, then curled up against the roof of my mouth, sending shivers across my chest. She tasted like brandy and cigarette smoke. The blonde waves of her hair poured against my face as she tucked her fingers under the leather collar I wore for her. I felt a light, yet firm pressure against the back of my neck as she pulled me closer, sucking my bottom lip between her teeth. The lack of sight from her hair covering my face, and the exotic herbal aroma of her shampoo carried me away once again to the strange, abstract place where all I desired was to pamper and serve. I felt the familiar dizziness, the cool, prickly feeling of gooseflesh spread across my breasts, hardening my nipples, and the simultaneous damp warmth beneath my belly. I knew that I would only be frustrated, as she was going to leave, and the knowledge itself intensified the sensation. Finally I felt her begin to move away, and I desperately breathed in another lung full of her scent. She broke away, trailing a hair thin line of saliva between our lips. Her index finger scooped it from her lip and into my mouth, her middle finger catching the rest that dropped onto my chin, pushing it up to my bottom lip. I kissed it from her knuckle.
“I have work,” she whispered, “and I suspect you do as well.”
I nodded and stood, unhooking the collar and dropping it onto the ottoman. Our little game was over for now, our roles back to even ground, but the warm, almost throbbing feeling remained. Pan would be dressed and out the door in less than ten minutes, and at any moment, my PDA would chime, alerting me to a new job.
I followed behind her to the bedroom, watching with disappointment the reflection of lamplight bouncing back and forth across the shiny black leather that hugged her body. We broke off, her heading to the bathroom, and me flopping down onto the bed and reaching for the nightstand. My PDA was plugged in under the lamp, but the screen was empty of messages. I rolled over onto my back, and layed my forearm across my eyes, listening.
Pan was stripping out of her playtime dominatrix clothes and into her weekend drive/coldblooded murder attire. I listened to the snapping sounds of garters being released, the soft popping of the corset’s ties loosening, the quiet creaking protests of stiff leather being bent and folded as it slipped off her body. I heard the minuscule ring of her hairbrush knocking against the sink as she picked it up. And finally the soft swishing rhythm of Pandora standing naked in front of the mirror and brushing her hair.
Soon I heard nothing but the traffic of the city beyond the window. I uncovered my eyes and blinked away the red afterglow from the pressure of my forearm. She stood above me, already in her white blouse and khaki pants. I propped myself up onto my elbows.
“I’ll see you soon, Sophia,” she said, running a slender hand across my cropped hair. I grabbed her hand, suddenly desperate to keep her near me, and kissed it. She smiled that tiny Mona Lisa of hers and turned away. I watched her leave, the rocking of her hips, the polished redwood handle of the pistol hooked over her belt, the brown leather driving gloves she pulled on as she stood at the front door. Once more she turned toward me, blew me one last kiss, snatched her bomber jacket off the coat rack and was gone. Several minutes later I heard the roaring growl of her little bugeyed sportster as it shot out into traffic, eight floors below, and rocketed into the city. I could only imagine the chaos Pandor
a Demour and her entourage of bullets and blood and exhaust would be wreaking across Capital City tonight.
A familiar urge pulled me from the bed, toward the bathroom. My PDA would be chiming
soon, and I needed my time at the window. On the edge of the sink, where Pan always left it, was her hairbrush. Picking it up, I held the flat, cool Bakelite back against my lips. My eyes slipped closed as I ran my thumb through the corn colored bristles and inhaled the aroma of her hair once more. I bit my bottom lip and walked toward the bedroom window, brush still pressed against my lips.
It was the same every time she left. The brush against my face, standing next to the floor to ceiling window, wondering and imagining where she was, what she was doing, who she was killing. I never imagined the actual act, though. I couldn’t seem to bring myself to picture it, as if doing so would somehow violate some sacred separation between who she was, and who I conceived her to be. I knew, had always known, that she was as cold a killer as any in Capital City, perhaps even the world. But I knew her now as only my lover, the kinky, soft spoken blonde paradox who loved a quality evening dress as much as she loved engine grease beneath her nails. So, when I pictured her out to work, I only saw the glamour and romance of the famous Pandora Demour speeding through the city in her tiny green sportster, her perfect hair and long tan scarf waving out behind her.
Tonight, however, something felt different about the whole thing. I had a name, and a face I knew.
Carter Cole.
A “hardcase,” was what Pan had called him. Cole had plenty of blood on his own hands, the only real difference being that, as far as I was aware, he never expressly intended to kill. It was simply a part of his territory. Cole was a killer, not a murderer. Some called it a small, still voice that warned you of a moral dilemma. Mine was not small, nor was it still. I heard the voice of my mother, loud and brassy, the southern twang as clear as the day I left for Capital City. It wasn’t as easy to ignore inside my head as it had been when I was a teenager. I ran away from her judgement, only to find it take root in my brain. It was never a scenario specific tirade, as it had been in person. She only repeated the last thing I had ever heard from her:
“If you want to be a criminal, go to Capital City.”
And I had. And I was.
Now, I pushed the voice of my mother away, and saw a vivid image of Carter Cole, lying in the street, rain beating down on him and washing a crimson river from under his overcoat into the gutter.
Pushing back the curtain, however, I saw that the sky above the constant layer of smog was clear, and the chance of rain tonight would be slim. Still, the vision was stubborn, invasive even, and I knew that the poor bastard didn’t stand a chance.
Pandora Demour wasn’t famous for nothing.
Just as my flashbulb thoughts of glamour and fame were replacing the single shot gore of Carter Cole’s body, a bright green light burst into the sky above the city, followed by blue, then red, then white, all refracting through the Cloud to create a strange, purplish glow that spread and dissipated just above my building. Each explosion fanned out in brilliant flowering displays of smaller explosions, raining down behind the skyscrapers. Only then did I notice how alive Capital City was tonight. It seemed every block, every rooftop and balcony had double, triple and sometimes dozens of skyward spotlights, all spinning and rocking multicolored logos across the Cloud. The traffic below my apartment was always heavy, but tonight the street was filled, bumper to bumper, cars and taxis and panel trucks blurring past at speeds that made me dizzy to watch. Motorcycles, the sleek, two wheeled little rockets, buzzed between lanes and weaved in and out of lines of traffic. Even the rickshaws were sprinting along in all directions on the sidewalks, the runners given extra slack on their collar chains to lean forward as pedestrians sidestepped and dove out of their way, and their fat, adorned Masters screamed and laughed and whipped at their backs.
Inside the sanctuary of my apartment, locked away from the world, playing our game, I had managed to forget what was happening tonight. Tomorrow morning, President Kingston would be arriving in Capital City. He visited often, but this would be his first official appearance since before he survived the mysterious GCI SpaceLab disaster, and the entire world would be hanging on every word. Reports had been hazy, shrouded in typical GCI propaganda, but a few things were certain; the President had been badly injured, and Leonard Glass, the CEO of GlobeCorps International, was dead. The resulting power vacuum had provided both Pan and I with endless work over the past year. Now, Kingston was fully recovered, and chose Capital City to announce some new, supposedly brilliant policy to finally usher in peace, prosperity, security and all the rest he had promised a decade earlier.
Tonight was a city wide celebration, though of what, I was uncertain. Kingston’s policies stood in stark contrast to everything this city was known for. To throw a massive, hedonistic party to celebrate the figurehead of a far reaching government whose purpose was to oppose any form of debauchery and decadence, was typical of Capital City. The third largest metropolis on the planet, and home to the economic foundation of an empire whose very existence depended upon the rectitude of the masses, Capital City was a paradoxical island of debauchery.
I could have avoided the outside, as I often did. Could have ignored the subtle ding of my PDA, but I found myself drawn to the chaos. The only real way I could ever enjoy the energy and madness of the city was as a background to a night of work. I could never bring myself to go out among the populace unless I had a goal. I could feed off the energy in that way, but without something to focus on, I was drained. So, I walked into the living room and answered the page.
I now held Pan’s hairbrush at my chest as I bent to pick up the PDA next to the ottoman. Plopping down into her chair, I tapped the small, spinning envelope in the corner of the screen, and leaned back to read the job.
My official GlobeCorps International title was Inter-Departmental Liaison. What I really did was closer to departmental espionage. Decades before I was born, GCI had managed to privatize and monopolize almost every industry and public entity imaginable. As a result, many of these entities, now departments of a single company, were in competition, and often all out war with each other.
That was where people like Pan and I came in. Whenever a particular department needed information, or, more often, information disposed of, the little envelope on my PDA screen began to spin. Whenever a person needed to be disposed of, Pan received a call. Naturally our jobs often complimented each other. Where there was evidence, there was usually a witness to go with it. So far, though, we had never worked together, and as far I could tell, we both prefered it that way.
Tonight’s gig was coming from a department I’d never worked with, and would have never expected to:
The Department of ParaMilitary Intelligence.
A shrouded, secretive department that most, probably including those within the DPMI itself, had only a vague idea of its purpose and function. I leaned forward as I read, my thumb rubbing up the side of the hairbrush. But for the source, it seemed a rather straight forward job.
And then there was the money.
The compensation was in the “final retirement score” range.
As usual, it involved infiltrating another department, one I had many, many times.
The Bureau of Internal Investigation was charged with investigating allegations and evidence of police corruption inside the Capital City Police Department. I was to break into the BII evidence storage garage in NerveTown, steal a small flash drive, and turn it into the DPMI. They gave no drop location, no time. Only instructions to send proof of completion in the form of a password, located in a text file on the flash drive, to an unregistered inbox. The location of the flash drive was in a file in one of the many hundreds of cabinets:
DRAWER BII-330124 - 341624 Sec. W
I knew the garage as well as my own living room, and knew exactly where the cabinet would be by the number. It was an ideal area, two thirds of t
he building away from where the nightwatchman sat, and tucked into a dark corner. There was even a computer nearby, but I didn’t anticipate needing it, nor would I dare send the password from it. But it was reassuring to know it was there.
The name of the file itself caught my attention:
FILE # BII-331524_Whitten_J.
It was a common enough name, but the likelyhood of it not being James Whitten was slim. With Carter Cole somehow involved, and the BII and the DPMI, it had to be him. James Whitten, a former Capital City Police Officer, was GCI’s latest and greatest Senatorial golden boy. When he began to pursue politics, he had risen at once on a platform of piety, traditional “family values,” and hardnosed imperialism. Naturally, he was as corrupt as they come. It made even more sense that one of Pan’s contracts, probably her main contract, was the incorruptible Carter Cole. Cole and Whitten had both been cops at around the same time, but Whitten had outlasted him by ten years. Cole, along with at least three others, must have known or seen something, and it must have been documented in some way. And now, as much as 15 years later, GCI had an investment to protect.
It was an unequal combination of the outrageous amount of money, and sheer curiosity that moved my finger to the ACCEPT CONTRACT icon. If all went well, I would be back in my living room within three hours.
I was never as fast as Pan to get ready, but it didn’t take long. In the bedroom closet I kept my usual gear:
One pair of black non-slip boots, a fitted black jumpsuit with a zippered pocket just under the neck, that held a StretchMesh face mask, and a small backpack filled with lightweight tools, lights and an array of computer components that varied widely in legality. I carried no weapons.
After I had changed, I went to the bathroom and filled the sink. Leaning on the edge with my forearms, my hands hanging into the water, I put my head down. I scooped water onto my head, scrubbing into my hair with my palms to remove the hairspray. Once the sculpted curls that had framed my face melted into a wet, shaggy mess, I slicked it back. This always worked better than a thorough washing, as the residual hairspray was just enough to keep it in place. With the washcloth that hung on the large brass ring next to the mirror, I wiped away my makeup. Behind the mirror I kept a stick of black eyeshadow. I used this to trace thick black lines, and colored my lids. My purpose for this was two-fold. One, it cut glare in low light, and two, it broke up the contrasting white of the skin around my eyes when the mask was up. I shaped it into a winged, trashy look that would get by in public.