by Goss, S. E.
Again I saw the girl. I saw Whitten’s hand on her collar, yanking. Her swollen, red face. And this time, instead of fear and sickness and doom, I felt something entirely different. A comforting, warm combination of rage and validation. I also felt something I had thought I had been familiar with until now:
Hate.
I hated this man, this thing. The hatred was not at all unpleasant, not the destructive, stomach turning poison I assumed it would be. It was a smooth sensation, evening out all of the noise and chaos in my mind. I felt relieved. I imagined myself as that thralldoll, that disposable thing, that undesirable. I felt him pounding away inside of me, his hot, whisky stinking breath on my neck, and his smooth manicured fingers wrapping themselves around the steel collar…
And with Pandora’s bloodbath at my back, and Whitten somewhere in front of me…
I smiled.
* * *
Pandora’s apartment was on the river edge of downtown, in Memorial Tower. The second largest building in Capital City, it stood guarding the decadent, towering cluster of lights and noise that was downtown. Having never driven a speedboat, and tonight being what it was, I had trouble parking along the line of private sailboats and yachts that lined the waterfront. After several frustrated passes I gave up and edged alongside a small sailboat. Grabbing the railing that ran along the side, I pulled myself up and into the other boat. A fat, balding man stood staring at me, his mouth gaped in outraged shock, an oversized sangria in one hand, the leash of a Doll in the other. She seemed equally shocked, but in a grinning, eye rolling way that only a lifetime denizen of Capital City could be. I nodded at them both and climbed up onto the dock.
Inside Memorial Tower an eardrum bursting, pumping dance party raged. Sweaty, gyrating bodies shoved and tossed me across the lobby as I made my way to the elevator. Hands grabbed at me, each an invitation to dance and grind and disappear into the crowd. I had been to plenty of these dance parties in my time in Capital City, but always had avoided the dance floor, electing instead to sit along side and watch. Trying to navigate my way through the tumultuous mass only reinforced how unappealing it really was.
At last I reached the elevator, breathing heavy and thankful for a break from the overwhelming noise. I pressed the button for Memorial Parkway. Through the glass doors, the lobby dropped away, the crowd becoming a single entity that roiled like an unstable liquid across the marble floor. Above them was a gigantic diamond chandelier that reflected the multicolored party lights into a spinning galaxy of flashing pinpoints.
Then a short burst of darkness before endless rows of limousines and luxury sedans all being scooped up and shuffled into parking places by the revolving, elevating floors of the garage.
Another second of black and I was outside, watching the skyscrapers stretch upward into the Cloud and become hazy silhouettes beyond. Each were peppered with spiralling spotlights, flashing neon signs and scrolling marquees. Screens, some the size of city blocks, hung from the buildings, tilted to bombard the streets with advertising for every product and service imaginable.
High end slave boutiques,
High end vehicles,
High end financial services,
Live the life,
Smell good,
Look great.
The Cloud inched closer above me. Finally, when I was so high that the lights of the street traffic were the only details I could make out, a grey fog glided down over the elevator. The city disappeared, the only light now from the tubes in the ceiling above my head. An apparition appeared in the glass of the elevator. I leaned forward to study my own dark reflection against the light grey background. I looked half mad, like a junky three days sober. My hair was a frayed, shaggy mess, eyeshadow smeared across my cheekbones and forehead. Everything looked both sunken and puffy and starved. Despite my frightening appearance, I felt more awake, more alive than I had when I left my apartment a thousand years ago.
Just as sudden as it had enveloped me, the Cloud dropped away.
Above it the same skyscrapers were unrecognizable. Even the architecture was different; glass, steel and neon gave way to brick arches and giant statuary. The buildings were wrapped in balconies large enough to support their own transit systems, stylized little steam trains that puffed their way along the edges. SkyStreets connected buildings in a web, each with its own rows of quaint cottages and vendors. Around and above me, Memorial Tower’s own SkyStreets, like spokes of a giant wheel, hundreds of them, stretched outward to join the City Above The City.
After dozens had passed, the elevator slowed, drifting up under Memorial Parkway. As I ascended into the two sidelong canopies of vines and flowers that hung hundreds of feet from the edges of the massive street, my heart began to race again. The point of no return was now just above.
Memorial Parkway was hollow, the inside a closed shopping center, rows of hip stores and cafes. Come daylight, teenagers and families would fill the place, flittering about like feeding birds, laughing, eating and collecting stuffed shopping bags of nonsense. I imagined them all, living their aimless little lives, most of them having never been below the Cloud. They were blissful. I both despised and pitied them for everything they thought important in their lives. For some unknown reason, I thought again of the slave woman on the train.
Eat your Masters, I thought.
I reached to pull the card from my pocket, to study it again, but I was interrupted by the sudden darkness of the outside. The elevator slowed to a stop, and a pleasant chime announced my arrival. No one noticed me as I stepped out onto the soft grass. After seeing my reflection, I was worried I would stand out, a sweaty, filthy intruder among the aristocracy. Everyone near me, however, was focused on the teenaged starlet who sauntered nearby, laughing and waving at the paparazzi that clambered and flashed around her. I recognized her, not from the films, but from meeting her at least a half dozen times with Pan. She had been friendly and charming and seemed to have genuinely liked me. As she and her entourage of slaves, assistants and admirers passed me, she looked at me. Like noticed dust on the bar of a fine restaurant, she gave me a worried little sneer, but never broke stride as she passed. I didn’t feel slighted in the least; I couldn’t remember her name or a single film of hers. By the time she reached twenty years, the rest of the world would have probably forgotten her as well.
Before I entered Memorial Tower, I took a moment to take in the beauty of the park. Memorial Parkway was lined with perfectly trimmed trees and ornate benches. It sloped gently downward into a park, the edges a garden of rare flowers, shrubs and fountains. In the center, at the lowest point, was a pristine lake filled with half naked swimmers and lovers in rowboats. Every few seconds a fireworks display filled the surface with colors.
I turned away from the utopian village and looked up at one of the balconies directly above. Pandora’s apartment overlooked the park, and I imagined her standing there, sipping her morning tea and ruminating on whatever it was that occupied her thoughts. Would she stand there and think of me when this was all over?
I tried to push the thought from my mind as I entered under the large archway. Soft jazz welcomed me to the Parkway Lobby. Demure slave girls in gowns served drinks to handsome, happy aristocrats under a cloud of expensive cigar smoke. They spoke quietly of financial options and departmental shifts of power. I hurried past them.
Pandora’s door was now in sight as I entered a luxurious hallway. My heart picked up speed as I approached. The point of no return was here.
Pandora’s door.
She was a killer, a murderer, but she was the woman I had loved for almost two years. I was about to break into her home. I was about to steal from her. My face flushed as I held the blank keycard over her lock. I felt humiliated somehow, knowing that while Pan may be capable of killing me, she would never do to me what I was about to do to her.
I looked along the deserted hallway for the hundredth time, and like ripping away a bandage, slid the keycard through the lock.
&
nbsp; The lock made a soft zipping noise, and I eased the door open.
I walked through the softly lit, darkwood foyer to the open floor living room. I took in the room, wishing I was here under different circumstances. Wishing I could lay across the black leather couch and watch her at the massive piano that stood next to the glass doors to her private balcony. I looked up toward her loft, the curving, minimalist staircase leading up to the overhanging bedchamber that held what I had come here for.
I was halfway up those stairs when I noticed I was clutching my pack in front of my chest, my knuckles white. Drawing a slow breath, I loosened my grip, forcing myself to calm down. She was gone, I wouldn’t be caught, but the irrational, unconscious part of my brain screamed to run. Leave and never come back.
I forced myself the rest of the way up the stairs.
Pandora Demour kept a simple, almost sterile room. It was obsessively ordered, everything in the same place and position as when I last saw it, almost two years ago. The City above the Cloud and the constant fireworks displays spilled through the arched windows that covered one side of the loft and silhouetted each item of furniture in strange shifting colors. Still staring wide eyed around the room I reached back for the thin chain I knew hung next to the staircase. I felt it hit my hand, and tugged. A soft, ambient light filled the room. Across from the windows was Pan’s massive bed, round and set low to the floor. I had spent one night in that bed, when we’d first met, and now felt an overwhelming urge to lay down on it again. I knew, however, that if I did, I would sleep until she found me. She would go back to my apartment after killing Cole, assume I either was still working or had gotten myself caught, and come back here to find me snoring in her bed.
And how bad would that be?
What would be so wrong about her finding me here, sleeping in her bed and when she woke me and I wrapped my arms around her waist and cried that I needed her so badly that I couldn’t wait long enough for her to come back? Perhaps she would pet my hair and tell me I shouldn’t have come here, but it was okay and she would lay with me. Would I then tell her what I’d found? Ask her what should be done?
She would tell me to finish the job and forget about it.
I turned away from the bed, my flight of fantasy forgotten almost as soon as it had begun.
Adjacent to the bed was an antique wood vanity. Under the mirror were small sprayers of custom designed perfume, an oak box that unfolded into little shelves of meticulously organized makeup. One additional item since the last time I’d been here hung from the mirror. A curled, black and white photo. I didn’t remember the photo being taken, yet there I was, laughing and just starting to turn away as I waved off the photographer. My hair was much longer, hanging in curls over my shoulders. I sat in a round booth, probably in some nightclub somewhere. I recognized the slender fingers of Pan’s hand wrapped around my upper arm. It could’ve been taken on any night in the first year we were together, thousands of these moments in my mind were blurred together into a single idea of what and who we were. Yet here was a single one, burned onto paper and I was at a loss to recall it.
I reached forward and peeled the aged tape from the mirror, leaving a small rectangle of long dried glue. On the back, in Pan’s exquisite, almost caligraphic cursive was written:
An island of beauty
I tried to interpret what that may mean. It was rare to have any insight, any glimpse of the inner workings of her mind, but somehow I knew that that one line held the summation of how she felt about me. In a life full of combat and death, was I the one thing she had to serve as a link to a normal life? Was I her vacation?
She would know I had been here, probably long before she returned, so I placed the photo face down on the vanity. I didn’t know why, but I wanted her to know I had seen what she had written. I turned then to the wardrobe next to the windows.
The wardrobe was maybe the largest I had ever seen. A custom made, four door closet that opened into three sections. The wood was polished and buffed so deep that it produced its own soft, orange glow. The two center doors opened to a meticulous line of clothing, hung and ordered by style. Shifting through the hanging dresses and gowns, I pulled the first one that stood out to me. It was a long, black evening gown that shimmered softly against the light. Up one side was a slit that would bare my leg almost all the way to my hip. It was perfect. Hanging from the same hanger was a small clutch that had clearly been made for the dress. It hadn’t occurred to me until then that I would need it. My backpack full of tools would be even more noticeable than my boots.
Along the side walls of the wardrobe were lined dozens of shoes. We were close enough to the same size for the dress to work, but the shoes would be a problem. Pan was at least a size above me, and as little as I knew about high fashion, I knew combat boots and an evening dress wouldn’t pass. I picked out the most basic black heels I could find, and tossed them onto the bed. If they were too much of a problem, I could simply stuff them with tissue.
On the floor of the wardrobe was a black foot locker. Inside, folded along the bottom were several shiny leather outfits, on top of which lay riding crops, paddles and hundreds of feet of rope curled into neat, tight little bundles. Along the inside of the lid hung collars, cuffs, gags and clamps. I bit my lip as each item conjured specific and vivid memories. In the row of collars were several mock slave collars, one in particular had led me to come up with the insane plot that I was now in the first stages of.
It was a simple steel ring, just like the one on the girl in the video. Except this one, of course, was removable. On the front, where the smaller circle hung between the collar bones, and where it would have been welded, this one had instead a tiny, hidden latch. When the collar was pressed together in the right spots along the sides, the latch released. A hairline spinning hinge on the opposite side opened the two halves, turning the collar into a crooked ‘S’ shape. The few times we used it, I had to stretch my neck, and lean my head far to the side to slip it on or off. I remembered remarking on being lucky it fit at all. Pan had said, matter of factly, that she had used my measurements, it would fit no one else, and to be quiet now, I belonged to her and no more questions.
That had driven me wild then, but now as I stood looking down at the thing, all I could think about was the steel slamming against a girl’s throat. I tossed it onto the bed, not wanting to ever wear it again.
The next, and most important item I needed was in one of the side doors. I grabbed the small brass handle and had just begun to swing it open, when a thought occurred to me. Opening it about a quarter inch, I peeked inside. Just at eye level, invisible to anyone not looking for it, was a hair thin metal wire. Had I not hesitated, and thought back to the one time I saw her open this door, it would have been all over. Pandora would have come home to quite the mess.
The wire cutters from my bag were just wide enough to not fit. The wire still had a bit of slack, so I pressed my knee against the door to keep it from opening farther than I wanted, and pushed in with the cutters.
The wire straightened as the door inched open.
Still not enough.
Breathing deep, I latched onto my wrist with my other hand, and pushed further.
The wire tightened, and the small metal ring of the hidden device rose into view.
Another millimeter to go. Pushing further, the ring jerked forward.
I froze.
Nothing happened. Leaning forward, I stood on my toes to try to see how close I was. I couldn’t tell. If I was close enough, it would just be the very tip of the cutters. Either way, I couldn’t go any further. I squeezed the handles.
The ring swung back behind the door, and the wire disappeared. Only then did I notice I had been holding my breath. I exhaled slowly, and opened the door. The device was simple, a flechette grenade strapped to the inside of the door. The ring I saw was the pin, now pulled almost all the way out. The fuse was no doubt about a second or two long, so that anyone opening the door would have just enough ti
me to feel foolish before their head was shredded into ribbons. The other end of the wire was looped around a small hook, drilled into the wood. All I would’ve had to do was run a pencil underneath the wire, and lift it off the hook. I didn’t need the grenade to explode to feel foolish. I raised a shaking hand and pushed the ringed pin further back into the grenade.
Stepping back, I surveyed the closet. It was lined with an arsenal of assault rifles, combat shotguns, machine pistols and handguns, each weapon accompanied by at least two fully loaded magazines. Several spots were empty, the missing weapons having provided the blood bath at the docks, and Cole’s demise sometime in the near future. On the floor were stacks of ammo boxes, a few duffle bags, more rope, detonators, laptop computers and even a few vacuum sealed bars of plastic explosives. Holding the clutch out in front of the pistols, I looked for one small enough to fit. I found only one, but I would have to remove the silencer. It was a compact 9mm, the silencer longer than the gun itself. I took it off its pegs and began unscrewing the tube. A row of magazines hung under the pistol’s spot, and I took one. Tipping the magazine to the side, I looked at the top, half covered bullet. The tip was hollow, with a tiny silver spike in the center. I had heard Pandora mention before her distaste for the relative weakness of a 9mm, so it made sense that she would compensate with the most vicious ammo she could find. What these bullets would do to the soft flesh of the human body, however, I could only imagine. I had seen plenty of gunshot victims in my life, and the variety of damage seemed as wide as the variety of weapons. The only real combat knowledge I had was gleaned from what I’d heard from Pan. Never before had I any desire to find out first hand. Until tonight.
I slammed the magazine up into the pistol grip. Turning the pistol sideways, I pulled on the slide, imitating what I had seen Pan do every time she left my apartment. It was much harder than she made it look, and I had to try four times before yanking it back. Finally, I shoved the now loaded weapon into the clutch. The silencer fit along the top of the pistol with no problem and I closed the latch.