by Matt Doyle
“Cassandra Tam,” I say, drawing up close to her. She nods again but doesn’t return the introduction. I nod out towards the room and ask, “I don’t suppose Lori Redwood is out there somewhere?”
Plain Jane takes the tennis ball from another of the dogs and launches it off towards the back of the room again.
She tuts a few times and turns to me, smiling kindly. “You’re new to this, aren’t you?”
“Pretty much,” I concede.
“We don’t use real names here.”
“Is that a fear of reprisal thing, or a shame thing?”
She sighs and shakes her head. “Neither, usually. The one you’re looking for is Ink.”
“I see. And which one would she be?”
“The one on the stage.” She nods to the chairs at the back wall and adds, “The meeting’ll be over soon. If you want to wait, I’m sure she’ll be happy to speak to you then.”
She may as well have just said, “We’re done talking now, leave.” I show her the same courtesy that she’s shown me and give my thanks in the form of a curt nod, then take myself off to the chairs and drop myself down onto the uncomfortable plastic.
The stage at the back of the room is fairly small compared to most these days, and the spotlights are all off, leaving it shadowed and virtually hidden. I scan from left to right a few times, and finally spot Ink curled up towards the back. Most of the Shifters running around down here have retained the polished silver look of the materials that make their gear, but Lori seems to have opted for something a little different for her alter ego. The shine is still the same, though I wouldn’t have noticed if I hadn’t been looking, but the flexible metal is obsidian black, giving her a degree of camouflage in the shadows. Since she’s not out running with the others, it’s probably a safe bet that she’s left the stage lights off on purpose so she could achieve just that effect. With the stuff she has going on, I guess she doesn’t want to lose contact with people but isn’t in the mood to interact.
A clock hidden away in the corner of the room chimes, and the room comes to a near standstill. One of the dogs, a small Alsatian-looking thing, picks up the tennis ball and trots calmly over to Plain Jane. I can’t tell for sure, but I get the impression from the barely visible human build under the suit that the dog is male. He drops the ball at her feet and sits up, panting through his mask. She drops down, picks the ball up with one hand, pets him with the other, then pulls a leash out of her pocket. She carefully clips the leather strap to the dog’s collar, and holds out one hand, palm up. The Alsatian lifts one paw, drops it into her hand, and waits. She says something to him quietly, and stands up, leading him from the hall.
Most of the Tech Shifters have already left, and the others are filing out quite calmly. From the half-muffled snaps and cracks out in the reception area, the owners of the cars out front are clearly reverting to their normal appearance. There are definitely more animals than cars here, though. I wonder if any of them are carpooling?
A quiet and admittedly natural-sounding mew draws my attention to one of the oversized house cats as it slinks across the room. It sidles over and brushes up against me, purring quietly.
“Er, hi,” I say, my discomfort pouring out of the two words like a geyser and dragging an embarrassed blush with them.
The cat looks up at me with strangely familiar eyes. I can tell from the way that they’re twinkling that the kitty’s inner-human is smiling. Seemingly satisfied, it saunters away, tail flicking proudly as it nudges the door open and disappears into the reception area. I’d complain, but the behaviour is remarkably authentic for pretty much every cat that I’ve ever met. Every single one that I’ve come across has sought ways to wind me up, usually by playing games like “Hunt the grumpy PI’s toes” and “block the path to the beer like a wizard blocks a Balrog.” After a moment, I realise why I recognised the cat’s eyes. Tobias Martin. He was a cheeky sod during the case too.
I push myself up to my feet and look over to the stage. Lori—no, Ink—sits studying me. From the shape of the mask, she’s undoubtedly a panther. Not as bulky as a real one, perhaps, but a panther nonetheless.
Ink steps casually down from the stage and pads past me, walking straight out through the door. I start to follow but stop myself and listen instead. I have no idea what Tech Shifters wear underneath their suits. For all I know, the various drivers could have had backpacks of clothes stuffed behind the reception desk ready for their Shift. Or they might have stored them in the toilets, wherever they are. The last thing I want to do is unexpectedly walk in on my client in the nude.
Instead of the metallic clunk that I was expecting, I get the creak of the doors opening again. Ink sticks her head in and stares at me, waiting. After a moment, I walk towards the door and she backs out, letting them swing shut again. I push through and follow her outside, where we find Plain Jane waiting patiently by the last remaining car. I note that the Alsatian is in the back seat, head resting on the front passenger seat.
Ink sits herself down next to me and stares at Plain Jane for a moment. Jane nods, walks over, and hands me a door key attached to a camera-shaped key chain. “For her place,” she says, nodding down towards Ink. “She’ll show you the way.”
I take the key and run it around in my hands a couple of times. “Thanks,” I say. “And hey, I’m sorry if I offended you earlier. With the shame thing.”
She smiles and shakes her head. “We’re a strange bunch, I’ll give you that. Personally, I find online gaming provides plenty of escapism for me, but my husband gets too frustrated for that.”
“Oh. Is…um…” I say, glancing towards the car.
Plain Jane laughs. “That’s him.” She pulls another set of keys from her pocket and says, “I’ll lock up here. You two can get going if you like.”
Ink pushes up to her feet and trots off towards the traffic circle, while Plain Jane walks silently back to the hall, key spinning merrily around her finger. I guess the group isn’t big on good-byes. I catch up with Ink, and she heads up the path, keeping slightly in front of me to lead the way. She moves naturally, like she was an actual panther and not just Lori Redwood in a suit. Her arms, I notice, are exactly the right length to allow her to walk on all fours without having to hunch or kick her legs out behind her. I’m pretty sure she wasn’t that disproportionate when she came to my office. Nor were her legs shaped like they had haunches. The suits must be built to lean as closely towards realism as possible.
Ink glances back to make sure that I’m still following, catches me watching, and gives me a kitty smile, showing off the razor-sharp teeth hidden in the mask. She bounds ahead a few steps, comes to a stop next to her car, and sits back on her haunches, her tail swishing from side to side. I catch up quickly and roll my eyes.
“I already knew which one was yours. I stopped by before I came and picked you up.” I walk towards the front door and nod subtly in the direction of the still twitching curtain next door. “Your neighbour there pointed me to the hall.”
I give the key a twist and the door clicks open. Before I can push it the whole way, Ink nudges me to the side and trots in, coming to a stop by an open door, halfway up a small hallway. She waits for me to come in and shut the door, then hops her front legs up onto the doorframe, stretching herself like a house cat that’s just come home after a successful hunt. She moves one large paw around the edge of the opening and taps a light switch, instantly flooding the adjoining room in light, then drops down with a soft thud and pads inside. Not sure what else to do, I follow quietly, and make it to the doorway just as she starts to deactivate her Tech Shifter gear.
Ink, still standing on all fours, jolts her shoulders up once, twice, three times, and a loud clunk sounds as both arms slide away from the body. Lori slips her arms out of the metal frames, flexes her fingers, and reaches back to her thighs. She taps several times and another hidden fastening comes noisily undone, causing the back legs to release their hold and allowing her to wriggle forward, le
aving the metallic haunches behind.
Now on her hands and knees, Lori hunkers down and lowers her head. A rapid-fire click-click-click-click-click sounds and the thin strips of metal around Lori’s torso snap out to the side, raising up in the air so that the frame looks like a giant hundred-legged spider pouncing on a small mouse or rat. With a loud thwip, the strips retract in unison, and roll up into a neat tube. The tail drops motionless, and there’s a series of quiet pops, starting at the base of the metal spine and moving quickly up Lori’s back and over the top of her head.
Lori sits up, folding her legs under herself, and reaches up to her mask. She slides the front of Ink’s face open, and gently starts to pull the mask away from her head, unclipping it from the plugs that form her Mohawk. Once her head is free, she gives a well-practised flick of her wrists, and the rest of the spine pulls away from her back plugs, letting her place the thick metallic strip flat on its side at her feet.
She stretches and lets out a content grunt. Under the Tech Shifter gear, she’s been wearing a skintight black Lycra bodysuit with visible padding over various points. The strips of metal that create Ink obviously run close to the skin too, meaning that the padding is purely there to alter the aesthetics of the final form. Even with the modifications, the outfit leaves little to the imagination. I already knew she was shorter than me, but I can now see what was hidden beneath the loose jacket and jeans that she wore the last time that I saw her. She’s not particularly muscular, which is a surprise given how heavy Ink looks to wear, but she doesn’t have the same layer of untoned mass that I have either. Hell, her whole body’s like that. She’s healthy looking, with the tightness of someone who likes to keep in shape but doesn’t feel the need to pile on the muscle mass. The real kick for me is that, with two glaring exceptions, she’s sufficiently smaller than me to remind me that my future is probably to end up looking like a moustache-less miniature Captain Hoover.
I shake my head and start to study the connectors running along the bottom of the spinal strip, searching for something to say. I wouldn’t normally pay this much attention to a client’s body, but the combination of her leaving it on display like that and the memories that being around Charlie dug out of their tidy little grave in the back of my mind have reminded me how long I’ve been hanging out in my apartment with just Bert and my film collection for company.
Finally, I manage, “So the connectors go all the way down?”
Lori looks at me, a playful glint creeping into her eyes. She laughs, and stretches her arms up behind her head, then twists away from me so that I can see from the back of her head, all the way down to the base of her spine. A little more and I’d get to see just below that too, I think, and as if she’s read my mind, Lori gives a smooth extra twist. I could swear she gave her ass a little shake too. Struggling to get my mind out of the gutter and back on to my poorly improvised question, I force my attention to the way that the bodysuit has rubber-flanked holes designed to grip around the outside of her body plugs.
“Yup,” she says, twisting back to face me. “All the way down the back anyway. It’s funny, though, most people start with asking why I do it. We must have really shaken you, huh?”
“Shaken. That’s one way to put it,” I grunt and lean against the doorway. Searching awkwardly for a way to keep the conversation moving, I dig deep and manage, “I was surprised that there weren’t any hybrids at the hall.”
“Nah, it’s more the Furs that go for the hybrids. There are exceptions, I’m sure, but not in our group. That said, we do borrow from them with this stuff. The way they used to build quad-suits formed the basis for the arm extensions on the Tech Shifter gear. If we didn’t do that, we’d still be on our hands and knees and wearing kneepads like some of the traditionalists.”
“Traditionalists, huh? So if you’re not a Fur, then that makes you…?”
“Afraid so,” she replies, dropping into a cross-legged position. “Card-carrying Second F. Can’t say I care for the term, though. ‘Fetishist’ never did feel right. Not for Ink anyway.”
I shrug. “Hey, I’m not judging.”
“It wouldn’t bother me if you were. I do what I do because I want to do it. If it’s within the realms of the law and people still have an issue with it, then that’s their problem more than mine. I don’t like the term because people hear ‘fetish’ and automatically think it’s sexual. Sure, that’s part of it for some, but the majority of Pet-Players don’t do it for that.”
“Pet-Players,” I repeat, tilting my head curiously. “If it’s not sexual, then why do you do it?”
Lori smiles widely. “See? I knew you’d get there eventually. It’s escapism. A way to get away from everything that bogs us down during the week.”
I step into the room and find a two-seater couch pressed tightly against the wall next to the door. I sit down and nod at the spinal connectors. “Seems like a lot of trouble to go to just to unwind.”
“It’s not unwinding, it’s running. At least for me.” Lori shrugs and gets to her feet. “If it works, it works,” she says and walks towards another door at the opposite end of the room. She flicks the light on, steps in, then I hear the sound of running water splashing in the bottom of a kettle. “So, what was that you were saying to Jane? About offence and shame, I mean?”
So her name really is Jane. Go figure. “I was apologising. While the meeting was still going on, she told me that no one uses their real names there, and I asked if it was ’cause of a fear of reprisal or shame about what they’re doing.”
Lori steps back into the room and leans against the door, her arms crossed. She raises an eyebrow at me, and says, “I thought you said you weren’t judging.”
I sigh and shake my head, dropping my gaze to my feet. “I wasn’t trying to. I just made an assumption that was way off the mark.” I look up apologetically, and Lori drops her hands behind her back.
“Don’t worry about it. We’ve all heard worse than that. Still, in a way, you’re lucky that you had a chance to offend anyone. No one would have spoken to you while they’re shifted, and I doubt the drivers would have that soon after a shift either. Jane doesn’t always have the time to come along, and most of the groups are Strays, so you could have just found yourself in there alone with the wildlife. I’m assuming she pointed out which one I was?”
“Yeah. And ‘Strays’?”
“Jane is happy to indulge Murphy, that’s the Alsatian, in his interests. So, in terms of the gathering, they’re Master and Pet. That’s why he gets a collar and the rest of us don’t. We don’t have Masters, so we’re Strays. I mean, most of them have partners outside the meetings, but none of them really like to join in.”
“So most of them have partners. What about you?” I ask, and immediately feel my own jaw drop in shock at the vaguely seductive tone that had crept into my voice.
Lori stares at me for a moment, then laughs and walks back into what I’m assuming is the kitchen without answering the question.
I wait until she’s disappeared behind the door and face-palm myself. “Damn you, Charlie,” I groan.
Lori rematerializes a moment later, and hands me a hot mug. “Coffee,” she says. “Or there’s beer in the fridge if you prefer. I’m guessing that you didn’t come here just to show off your ignorance about Tech Shifting, so I’m going to go and get washed and changed. When I’m back, we can talk.”
I nod, eager to kick this mood and try to get back on course. “Good. So, are you gonna leave, uhm…Ink…on the floor, or did you want me to put it away somewhere for you?”
Lori’s eyes light up and she says, “I normally put her away before I get changed, but I’m loving how flustered she’s making you, so I’m gonna leave her out a little longer. I’ll pack her up before we talk, but for now, she can be your punishment for asking a client inappropriate questions.” And with that, she slides from the room and up to the end of the hall.
Nine
LORI WASHES QUICKLY and returns to the living
room, prolonging the awkwardness that I have around what I’ve come to think of as Ink’s shell long enough to take my mug and refill the kettle. The body-hugging Lycra is gone, and she’s now wearing a pair of loose-fitting tracksuit bottoms and a plain T-shirt that reveals the hint of tattoos on both her upper arms. Apparently satisfied at last that she’s punished me enough, she slings Ink’s spinal piece over her shoulder and hoists the leg sections under her arms, then trots out of the room. She returns empty-handed, and by the time she’s made the next round of drinks, I’m feeling a little more like myself.
“So what brings you this far out?” Lori asks, unable to keep the hopeful tone out of her voice.
I clasp my fingers together and decide to just be honest about what’s been going on. “When I took this case on, I made it clear that I believed the most likely outcome would be that the police were correct and that Eddie simply OD’d on synth stimulants. To that end, I’ve spent most of today talking to the local dealers who have been active over the last month. My thinking was that, given your belief that he didn’t use the stuff, if I could prove that Eddie bought the stimulants, then that should be enough to prove the scenario to you.”
Lori takes a deep breath and holds it, waiting for me to continue. There’s a tension in her eyes now, and she’s biting her bottom lip, the action making her look far less hardened than her normal appearance would have you believe. Never judge a book by its cover? In most cases, I don’t agree with that. In my line of work, if it looks like a thug, it probably is a thug. With Lori, though, the side of her that she’s shown tonight is enough to make a believer out of me, at least in her case.
“The officially released reports confirm that Eddie’s body contained traces of Flash7, an upgraded version of one of the all-time bestselling stimulants on the market. Based on their findings, they figure he’d taken a little over three hundred milligrams of the stuff. Assuming that none of the dealers were lying to me, which in all honesty, I doubt they were, only one person bought that high a quantity of Flash7, and it wasn’t your brother. I initially considered the possibility that if Eddie was keeping his habit a secret then he could have used a proxy, but now that I have a name, I can all but guarantee that wasn’t the case. The man who killed your brother is named Devin Carmichael, of that I’m certain.”