F Paul Wilson - Sims 02 (8 page)

 
          
MANHATTAN

 
          
OCTOBER 29

 
          
“There it is,” Romy said, pointing.

 
          
Patrick squinted down the
garbage-strewn alley to where a naked bulb glowed dimly above a dented metal
door. Back in the Roaring Twenties, a speakeasy might have hid behind a door
like that. Here in the twenty-first century he knew nothing so innocuous
awaited him.

 
          
“I don’t like this.”

 
          
A week had passed since Romy Cadman
had barreled into his life. She’d called him this afternoon, suggesting they
meet in the city for a late dinner, and then she wanted to show him a few
sights.

 
          
They had an excellent meal in the
Flatiron district, with perhaps a little too much wine, and Patrick found
himself feeling more than a little amorous. But amour did not appear to be on
the menu.

 
          
A real shame, because Romy Cadman was
without a doubt the most exciting, most fascinating woman he had ever met.
Being in her company reduced all the other women he’d known in his life to
wraiths. But he couldn’t get past the firewall she’d set up along her
perimeter.

 
          
He came close, though. At one point
during dinner the conversation had strayed from sims and legal matters to the
theater; somehow the subject of ballet came up, and Patrick had seen a change
in Romy as she enthused over an upcoming production of
Swan
Lake
.
She smiled and her eyes sparkled as she went on about her
favorite dancers and performances. Patrick wished he’d known more about the
subject, but ballet had always left him cold. He did a good job of looking
interested, though. Hell, he’d try toe dancing himself if it would keep this
woman’s guard down.

 
          
But too soon the subject ran out of
steam and her defenses were back in place. She wasn’t playing hard to get, she was
hard to get.
At least where he was concerned.

 
          
After dessert, as he’d helped her
into her long black leather coat, he said, “I’m surprised you’d wear something
like this.”

 
          
“Cleathre?”

 
          
“This is cleathre?”
Cloned leather.
He’d heard of it but had never actually seen
it. He fingered the smooth, supple surface. “Feels like the real thing.”

 
          
“It is the real thing. It’s just that
no animals had to die to make it.”

 
          
Cleathre and furc, cloned from skin
cells of cows, minks, sables, even pandas,
were
the
hottest new thing in the fashion industry.
Ethically pure,
esthetically perfect, and not cheap.

 
          
From the restaurant she’d cabbed him
down to this crummy ill-lit neighborhood in the West Teens, so far west he
could smell the river.

 
          
He felt like a fish out of water:
overdressed and under-leathered. Romy’s coat matched the dominant color of the
passing locals, but Patrick’s white shirt, paisley tie, and herringbone
overcoat made him stand out like a Klansman at an NAACP meeting.

 
          
“Nothing to worry about,” she said.

 
          
“Easy for you to
say.
You’re staying out here.”

 
          
He glanced around uneasily. He was no
country boy, knew
Manhattan
pretty
well, in fact; but this was a part of the city he tended to avoid. Clubs down
here were in the news too often, usually connected to stories about shootings
and drug overdoses.

 
          
Romy’s smile had a bitter twist. “I’d
go in with you, but it’s not exactly my kind of place.”

 
          
“You keep saying that, but it doesn’t
help me. Before I walk in there I’d much rather know whose kind of place it is
than whose kind it isn’t.”

 
          
“You need to find out for yourself.”

 
          
“Okay then, why don’t I find out in
the daytime?”

 
          
“Because the action
at a place like this doesn’t get rolling until about now.”

 
          
“This is all because I said I thought
sims
had a pretty cushy existence, right?”

 
          
“Stop stalling,” she said, giving him
a gentle punch on the shoulder. “Are you going to knock on that door or not?”

 
          
Patrick tried a grin. “I’d love to,
except that it means leaving you out here alone on these mean streets.”

 
          
“Oh, I can take care of myself,” she
said, and this time her smile had a touch of warmth in it. She pulled a
finger-length vial from her pocket. “One spray of this will stop a horse.”

 
          
Was this a rite of passage, a trial
by fire? Was this what he had to do to win her? Or at the very least, earn the
right to try? He glanced at her intent dark eyes under those perfect brows.
If so…

 
          
“Okay,” he said. “Here I go.”

 
          
He walked the dozen or so paces to
the door, took a deep breath of urine-tinged air, and rapped on its battered,
flaking surface.

 
          
A narrow window slid open and two
dark eyes peered out at him.

 
          
“Yeah?” said a harsh voice.

 
          
Feeling as if he’d stepped into a
particularly corny episode of the old
Untouchables ,
he said, “I’d, um, like to come in.”

 
          
“Ever been here before?”

 
          
“No, um, a bartender at the Tunnel
sent me.”

 
          
“What’s his name?”

 
          
“Tim. He told me to tell you that Tim
sent me.”

 
          
Actually, Patrick had never met Tim,
but Romy had told him to say that.

 
          
The door opened. Fighting the urge to
turn and trot back down the alley, he stepped inside. The door slammed shut
behind him and Patrick found himself sharing a long narrow hallway with a
two-legged slab of beef
who
probably held graduate
degrees in bar bouncing: shaved head, earrings, crooked nose, and a steroidal
body stuffed into a sleeveless black T-shirt emblazoned with MOTHER ’S. An old
Guns n’ Roses tune vibrated from the end of the hall.

 
          
The slab held out his hand.
“Twenty-five bucks.”

 
          
“What for?”

 
          
“Door charge.”

 
          
“Twenty-five bucks
just to walk in?”

 
          
“You see busloads of gooks marchin
through here? This ain’t
no
sightseein stop. Pay up or
walk.”

 
          
Patrick reached into his pocket. “Tim
didn’t say anything about a door charge.”

 
          
“He’s not supposed to.” The bouncer
grinned and stuck out his tongue—long and forked—and waggled it in Patrick’s
face.

 
          
A splicer, Patrick thought, trying to
hide his revulsion. What the hell has Romy got me into?

 
          
Patrick handed him the money.

 
          
“Welcome to the Jungle.” The bouncer
pointed toward the end of the hall. “Mona will take care of you,” he said, then
cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted, “Incoming!
Newbie!”

 
          
Patrick hurried down the hallway,
brushing the sides in his haste. The faster he went, the sooner this would be
over. He hoped.

 
          
Mona—at least he assumed the obese
woman in the tight red dress exposing acres of cleavage was Mona—met him at the
end of the hall. Another splicer: oversized lizard scales ran up the sides of
her face and across her throat and who knew where else. She and the bouncer
must be a couple—both into reptiles.

 
          
Tattoos and piercings had once been
considered avant garde, but eventually were mainstreamed. Then tailored genes
and nonhuman splices hit the black market and the bod-mod crowd jumped on them
like cats on a nipcoated mouse.

 
          
“Hi, honey,” she said, showing
pointed teeth in a big welcoming grin. “First time, huh?”

 
          
“Uh, yeah.”

 
          
First time
forwhat
?

 
          
“Everybody’s a little nervous the
first time.” She took his arm and led him around a corner. “Let me introduce
you to the girls first,
then
you take your time and
pick the one you want. The base charge is two-fifty and that allows you half an
hour. We charge extra if you go over, and of course there’s surcharges for any
specialties you want…”

 
          
Patrick stopped cold when he saw
them.

 
          
“Kinda gets you, don’t it,” Mona
said. “Nobody ever imagines they could look this good.”

 
          
The “girls” were female
sims
, but nothing like Patrick had ever seen or imagined.
Someone had caked them with makeup, either styled and dyed their hair or fitted
them with wigs, then dressed them in vinyl or studded leather or lingerie—satin
teddies, frilly see-through nighties, the whole
Frederick
’s
of
Hollywood
catalog. And their
legs—most of them had shaved legs. Sims as a rule
were
only slightly hairier than humans, and the hair was coarser, but they didn’t
shave their legs or underarms. Patrick had never seen a shaved female sim, or
ones with such breasts—they must have had implants.

 
          
“Good Christ!” he blurted. “What have
you done to them?”

 
          
He did his best to hide his revulsion
as Mona gave him a sharp look, but God it wasn’t easy. Sim whores…

 
          
She grinned again and gave him a
knowing wink. “You don’t like them all
dolled
up?
That’s all right. I think I know your type.”

 
          
“You do?” That possibility was almost
as unsettling as the sight of these sim sex slaves.

 
          
She pointed to two unshaven,
unenhanced females lounging nude on a couch.

 
          
“We’ve got Teen and Mone over there.
They work in our special jungle room for clients who like their
sims
just the way you’d encounter them in the wild.”

 
          
“In the wild?
They don’t occur in the wild! They’re…manufactured!”

 
          
“Hey,” Mona
said,
her smile fading. “Are you here to have fun or
nitpick
my ass?”

 
          
Patrick stared, he gawked,
he
gaped in shock at their surreal sicko getups. His
stupefaction that anyone could find these pathetic creatures even remotely
erotic quickly faded, replaced by a deeper revulsion as he noticed the bruises
on their shaved limbs, their dead dull eyes. They looked like desiccated shells
as they sat and smoked and stared at him.

 
          
Smoked…he’d never known a sim to
smoke.

 
          
He had to get out of here.
Now.

 
          
“I…I think I’ve changed my mind.”

 
          
“What’s the matter?” She looked
genuinely offended. “We got the best in town.”

 
          
Patrick started backing toward the
hallway. “I’m sure you do, it’s just that I…nothing personal, but I don’t think
I’m ready yet.”

 
          
Glaring now, Mona said, “Then why’d
you come?”

 
          
“A friend told me to.” God, he wanted
to kill Romy.
“Said I’d find it enlightening.
But I
don’t.”