Part 7 (1/2)
Three dissimilar individuals cl.u.s.tered around a juice-steroid bar chatting among themselves. An exotic young woman, who looked like something out of a combination mercenary/p.o.r.n rag, would draw anyone's eyes. Her legs bulged thirty centimeters thick of gem-like green polymer. In place of her arms waved a pair of tentacles of the same material, flexing in multiple directions. Twisted emerald tiles overlapped on her buxom torso, giving her a sensual, reptilian look. Only her head seemed human, sporting short red and orange hair like overlapping waves of fire.
Next to her a dwarf, genetically engineered for subterranean mining operations, squatted on a stool, his copper-colored skin contrasting with the verdant young woman beside him. The bartender, outwardly unmodified, wore an ap.r.o.n stained in purple and crimson. He leaned against the semicircular countertop and absently wiped in an oval pattern.
Tony drifted over to square jaw. ”I'm curious, do you know a Sonya?”
”No hablo ingles. Hablas espanol?”
Tony dug into his high-school Spanish to communicate. ”Conoces a Sonya?”
”No.”
”Gracias.” Having gone well beyond his Spanish language capabilities already, Tony pa.s.sed on further conversation with the large man and moved over to the juice bar.
”Drinks and drugs are listed above,” offered the man behind the bar as Tony sat on the stool. ”We don't have a medical license, so all drugs are oral.”
”Do you know Sonya?”
”Don' know no Sonya,” offered the green woman in a high-pitched voice with a smooth lisp. In spite of its sharpness, her voice caressed a deep spot within his loins. She never looked in Tony's direction, but this didn't stop him from wondering. When he regained a modic.u.m of control, he went on.
”Thank you, miss. Do either of you other two know her?”
”Nope. Don't know any Sonya,” offered the short, leathery-skinned man. ”What about you, Linc?” he directed to the server. Linc just shook his mostly bald head from side to side.
Tony looked up and read the menu. ”I'll have a raspberry and lemongra.s.s smoothie. Might as well have something to tide me over while I wait.”
”Wha' you wai'n for?” yelled the green woman over the sound of the blender. Even at this volume, and despite its desperately high pitch, her voice once again brushed a longing within him. He coughed.
”Someone sent me to see Sonya, here at this gym. I've been given to believe she's a regular. I'll have to hang around until I find her.”
”Good luck, friend,” came the deep voice of the dwarf as he hopped from his stool. ”I'm outta here, Linc.” The green woman stood with him.
”Don't dig up any bones, Carl. Suet, keep those tentacles to yourself,” the bartender said, putting a pink drink down. Tony dropped a bill on the counter. ”No charge for members.”
”Oh, yeah,” Tony mumbled as he picked up the drink. ”That's just a tip.”
”Well, thank you, sir!”
Tony's eyes swayed in time with the hips of the green-skinned woman. Absently, the drink went to his lips. Grimacing, he tore his eyes to look down at the grainy pink drink. ”Blech.”
Over the next six hours Tony sipped as many different drinks between asking his question to everyone who entered. Tony found no success as the night wore on, either in finding the woman Sonya or a palatable liquid. In fact, one concoction of orange, s.h.i.+take and ginkgo with the dubious moniker ”Remember Rise” specifically drew his ire.
Hours dragged by. He entertained himself watching some of the fittest of the female members as they came and went. He even went so far as to try some of the equipment, only to discover how ill-suited he was to the surroundings. Apparently he'd experienced plenty of muscle atrophy since his football days. By four in the morning he finally threw in the towel.
”I guess this was a snipe hunt, then,” Tony muttered to himself.
”A what?” the bartender named Linc asked from across the bar.
”A snipe hunt,” he repeated. ”A snipe was a mythical bird that people in the twentieth century would send others to find.”
”If they were mythical, how did you find them?”
”That's the point of the exercise-to make people look foolish.”
”Well, it worked. You look pretty flarking foolish, all right.”
A tiny suspicion rose in Tony's mind. ”I guess it is time for some sleep.” In the mirror on the opposite side of the room, Tony watched carefully as he turned to walk out the door. The bartender's cosmetically enhanced blue eyes followed his movements, confirming his hunch. This place held his answer. Linc knew Sonya. Tony knew he must return. He needed to think of something to get either Linc's or Sonya's attention.
Tony stepped out of the gym into Portland's perpetual drizzle. He stopped to let his eyes readjust to the night's darkness. A gang of girls, each bearing multiple militant body enhancements of one form or another, sauntered down the middle of the pockmarked street like they owned it. As things stood on street level, they probably did own this patch of ground.
Tony decided he'd come back tomorrow and formally join the gym. If he didn't stir anything up that way, he could always trail that Linc fellow. The decision made, he relaxed-a little too much. The largest mistake anyone could make in any world, especially ground level, involved not paying attention. Usually the payment involved a painful death.
”I hope Cin made it through the day,” he mumbled to himself. ”I didn't mean to be gone so-”
The world suddenly painted itself a parody of even Salvador Dali as a solid wall melted into a twisted pretzel, two of the girls melded into one distorted figure with two heads and six limbs, and the earth beneath him rolled like an ocean wave. Even his body joined the insanity as it wavered and slumped upon the wet pavement like a jellyfish taken from the ocean and dropped upon a rock.
Another shape grew out of the pavement, a giant green octopus with the head of a woman. Sometimes it waved two tentacles and other times eight. Tony couldn't seem to care one way or the other. Drool rolled out of the corner of his mouth. ”P'eas feed m'cat.”
Tony struggled to consciousness to the gritty strains of a cla.s.sic oldie, ”Persian Slide” by the Violent Slugs. A conversation took place just outside his understanding. Tony's scrambled thoughts sorted out three distinct voices but couldn't yet drag coherence of the words, or even a desire to interpret. No part of his body responded to his commands. His arms, legs, and other pieces he hadn't yet identified as his own tingled like a thousand ants gnawing on each exposed surface. By forcing dominion over his rebellious body he managed the Herculean task of opening his eyes.
Even though only a single low wattage bulb brightened the room, the ants stabbed daggers into his eyes. Squinting, Tony found himself stacked behind boxes proclaimed Smirnov Vodka, Seagram's Gin and Jack Daniels, mixed with kegs of miscellaneous beer. One portion of his mind wondered at the immense value if the boxes contained what they advertised. The illegal alcohol in those containers could allow anyone to retire with lifetime full medical in their choice of luxury resorts.
A new sharp pain, announcing itself in his wrists, brought the tenuous thing he called attention back to his predicament. Twisting his head around, he found golden tanglewire wrapped around his arms and legs. A certain trivial part of his brain shouted that amateurs tied his bonds. Everyone knew from solido that you either did two opposite figure eights, or you went around and around with a cinch wire between the limbs.
”Who's he?” said a familiar high, velvety feminine voice.
”Who gives a rat's t.e.s.t.i.c.l.e, Suet? He's a corpie and wants Sonya. Vape him,” offered a male voice.
”Ya hear' him ask abou' his ca'? Maybe he's 'ooking for her 'o fix his purry?”
”Probably a Metro trick. Maybe they figured out that she fixes pets.”
Quietly, Tony commanded his mutinous body to squirm to a point where he could view his captors. The balding juice mixer still wore his stained ap.r.o.n.
”It's 'veterinarian,' Carl,” offered the bartender.
”Veteran or fixer, don't make no difference to me. This feek needs to be buried,” offered the dark-colored dwarf.
”He don't seem like a bad Joe, even if he is a corpie. He don't cause no trouble. He even talk to the Nils.”
”We cou' crash his f'at n'see if he's go' a furry,” said the green woman.
”Not a bad suggestion, Suet. When we're done here, I want you to check it.”
”We ain't gonna let him speak to Sonya?”
”You know how she is,” the green woman identified as Suet said without a single lisp for a change.
”Yeah, you don't screen her and she'll turn you into a lizard instead,” Carl mentioned, pulling a monofilament blade from his proportionally small pocket. ”Linc, I say we screen her and let her give me the order to whack him and shove him into the sewer.”