LA Galactic, for heaven’s sake.
“Can you detect any encrypted local communications?” she asked the SIsubroutine.
“No. The captain has ordered an assessment of the onboard net to see why the boat functions have dropped to emergency default mode. The diagnostic software is interfering with my comparative option routines.”
“I might be able to get a weapon. Incorporate that possibility into your review.”
“What kind of weapon?”
“I don’t know. Nothing very powerful.”
“Complying.”
“And keep watching for encrypted traffic. I want to know where he is.”
The restaurant was crammed with passengers having their meal; long queues snaked back across the floor space from the buffet bars. With all her sensor inserts active, Mellanie couldn’t detect any of the power signatures that would indicate active wetwiring. She took the stairs down to the casino deck. There were only a few devout gamblers here; most of the tables were deserted, which wasn’t what she wanted. Warm air gusted up the stairwell from the third deck. Mellanie hurried down to the club. “Give me a floor plan,” she told the SIsubroutine. “Is there any escape route? Can I get to the lifeboats?”
“Canceling comparative escape option analysis.”
Mellanie clenched her teeth in anger. Then the boat’s schematics flipped up into her virtual vision.
“Lifeboat access is available on all decks,” the SIsubroutine said.
“Can I launch one without the bridge crew knowing?”
“I can block a launch alert.”
“Great.”
“Resuming comparative escape option analysis.”
At the bottom of the stairs a holographic sign flickered like a faulty strobe telling her that the hermaphrodite dance troupe Death by Orgy would be starting their first performance in twenty minutes. This was definitely what she was looking for. Heavy rock music thumped at her as soon as she went through the screened entrance, loud enough to make her bones vibrate. The club was packed solid and absurdly dim. Holosparks flittered through the air like perverted comets, providing the only flashes of illumination as they circled around the denizens writhing on the minute dance floor. She had to switch her retinal inserts to full light amplification mode to see where she was going.
The club sprang into gray-green focus. Fetish gear was in the majority. Semiorganic costumes offered up strangely modified genitalia as she slithered through the menagerie of bizarreos. Additional limbs were popular, several had infant-sized hands grafted on around the crotch area. Specialist cellular reprofiling had produced a lot of animalisms; furry arms groped at lines of teats, pointed ears twitched as they were licked by serpentine tongues, lustful smiles revealed sharp fangs.
In her white girlie clothes Mellanie felt like some virgin sacrifice on her way to the altar. Everyone looked at her as if they were sharing that thought.
Her inserts were picking up a lot of power sources inside the club, most of them too small for her to use, batteries for kinky toys. She needed the real S&M crowd to have any chance of success.
They were up at the bar, a cluster of large bodies clad in black straps, shiny chains, and hoods. Kaspar Murdo was also there, standing at one end, dressed in Spanish Inquisitor robes, with rusted iron chains around his neck, dangling a variety of medieval instruments.
Mellanie detected the largest power source in the club, her virtual vision locking the position in blue brackets, fortunately at the opposite end of the bar from Murdo. It was a cattle prod, one of many items hanging from the thick leather belt of a bizarreo femfeline. Her head had sleek black fur coming down to her eyebrow line, where her modified glistening red-brown nose jutted forward; long whiskers were rooted at the side of the slit nostrils. She wore a tight sleeveless black leather costume that showed off furry arms and legs. A long tail flicked casually from side to side as she talked to two other cat girls with more restrained modifications and a loosely chained boy slave in a toga with a worried expression on his face.
Mellanie shoved herself in front of the femfeline. “I need to borrow your cattle prod,” she shouted against the pounding rock track.
The femfeline yowled at a volume that rose effortlessly above the music. She brought an arm up and extended her paw fingers in front of Mellanie’s face. The polished onyx claws that had replaced her fingertips clicked out, their points a centimeter from Mellanie’s eyes. “Kitty says lick my litter clean, sweetie bitch.”
Her companions mewled their laughter.
Someone with formidable wetwiring, all of it activated, came through the club’s screened entrance.
“No time,” Mellanie said. She froze. Specks of silver appeared on her arms and face, as if she were sweating mercury. The blooms spread rapidly, obscuring her skin. Software flooded out of her, taking control of the organic circuitry that administered the femfeline’s adaptations.
The femfeline gave a start as her own tail snaked up and wrapped itself around her neck. It tightened. Her claws retracted.
“I’m taking the cattle prod,” Mellanie announced, and snatched it from the belt clip.
The femfeline smiled in excitement. “Yes, mistress, I’ll be a good kitty for you.” Her tongue licked out, a long obscenely flexible cord of wet flesh. “Hurry back.”
Mellanie pushed hard through the packed bodies, creating a wave of commotion. Behind her, Dorian caught it and began to thread his way toward her.
“Can you remove the safety controls on the cattle prod?” she asked the SIsubroutine. “There’s a lot of power in it. If I could use it in one burst it should be lethal.”
“Canceling comparative escape option analysis. Reviewing cattle prod systems.”
Mellanie reached the screened doorway at the side of the stage. “Open it,” she ordered.
The door slid aside. The corridor behind it was lined with small private cabins. She could hear moans, some of pleasure, some of pain. A whip made a loud crack. Someone screamed. There was snarling.
“Cattle prod safety systems bypassed. Battery discharge rate set to unlimited.”
She looked around frantically as the door slid shut behind her. Most of the cabins were occupied. There was a single emergency evacuation hatch at the far end. “How can I hit him with it? He’ll never let me get close.”
“Running comparative remote electrical assault option analysis.”
“Oh, hell.” Mellanie dashed for the escape hatch.
Dorian zapped the door’s lock circuitry with a single burst from the maser embedded in his wrist. A small circle of the tough composite smoldered and blistered. He pushed hard, applying the strength of his boosted musculature. There was a creaking sound, lost in the raucous music. The door popped open. He walked through the screening and into the relative quiet of the corridor. His sensor scans were immediately subject to a barrage of interference. Voices yelped and groaned behind the closed doors on either side. At the far end, Mellanie had got the escape hatch open. She jerked around. Half of her skin was silver, inserts and OCtattoos directing the interference directly at him. He scanned what he could of her with interest. She was doing the same to him. More effectively, he knew, but he could see what he needed to.
“No weapons,” he said. “How curious.”
“I’ve got a message for Alessandra.”
He took a step forward. “What?”
Her inserts transmitted an encrypted signal into the corridor’s small array. The sprinkler system went off above him. Water poured down as the fire alarm sounded.
Dorian gave her a pitying look as the deluge soaked his shirt and pants. “Nobody can hear that.” Beyond the shower, Mellanie smiled.
The cattle prod lying on the floor by Dorian’s feet discharged. The water allowed its full current load to slam into him. His body convulsed, steam fizzing out of his clothes and hair. He arched his back, screaming briefly as his eyes bulged and his tongue protruded. The optical fibers woven into his hair melted. Black lines appeared on his skin when organic circuits burned, sending out thin wisps of smoke to mingle with the steam and water. Flesh ruptured volcanically where his weapons’ power cells were implanted. Blood and gore splattered across the walls.
It took five seconds for the cattle prod battery to exhaust itself. When the current failed, Dorian’s juddering corpse crashed to the floor. The SIsubroutine switched off the corridor’s sprinklers.
Mellanie walked over and peered down at the gently steaming body. The legs spasmed a couple of times.
“I’ll tell her myself,” she said.
Kaspar Murdo was enjoying the evening. It was a good crowd in the Cypress Island’s club. He knew a lot of them, and there were several promising newbies. Everyone said Death by Orgy was hot. He was looking forward to seeing them perform.
Then this vision in a fluffy white top and miniskirt sidled up to the bar barely a couple of meters away and asked for a beer. A first-lifer by the looks of her. She appeared slightly shaky, as if she was shocked by what she was seeing and trying not to show it. That meant she was curious, and not instantly repelled. It was a vulnerability he knew exactly how to take advantage of. He’d be able to encourage her at first, drawing her closer, reassuring her until she trusted him. Then with that trust established he could begin her training.
His bulk allowed him to push easily through the eager authoritarian animalists and bizarreos who were gathering like storm clouds around their oblivious prey. He glared any objectors down, snarling back when he was barked at by a canineman. “This one is on me,” he told her as the girl proffered a one-pound note to the barman. “I insist. That means there can be no argument.”
She nodded with nervous gratitude, glancing at the instruments on the end of his chains. “Thank you.”
“Kaspar,” he said.
“Saskia.”
He grinned in a friendly, paternal fashion, and lifted one of his chains to show off the crude iron and leather device on the end. “Crazy, aren’t they?” he asked in a fashion that invited her to share the joke.
She smiled sheepishly. And Kaspar’s evening became the best in a long, long time.
***
