Chapter 4

"Shades," Ransom said as soon as we were inside the condo he shared with his girlfriend.

The ceiling became transparent then, like it was wide open under that bright blue sky and I looked around. It was an average place, I guessed, and typical for a citizen even though I didn't have a lot of experience with those people. Mostly all I knew was what I heard and saw on the H.V. from time to time. There was always a sitcom or a soap opera playing at the missions. People would rather watch holovision than eat, or so it seemed like to me sometimes.

Anyway, Ransom's place looked cool. A big open room, thirty foot ceilings and long silk drapes around the pillars. They puffed and billowed like pastel clouds and made me smile. There were some archways leading out towards the kitchen, a bedroom and a bathroom, maybe some other rooms. He had a balcony, a small one, looking down about a hundred feet to the form concourse, and beyond that it was a mile straight down to the streets below. Everything was glass and stainless steel, plastic done up like marble mostly, all white and breezy and clean.

There was all the stuff you'd look for too. Furniture, not new or old, but there to be used. H.V. and the Etherlink, a whole universe at your fingertips. Music and a lot of books. I picked one up and ran my finger along the spine, checking the contents. It was all new stuff, pop novels with romantic titles. Thirty of them collected in one volume and I watched the cover change as each title flashed up, dramatic alien landscapes and beautiful couples half dressed and kissing passionately. I couldn't tell them apart.

"Vivian reads those," Ransom shrugged.

"Looking for love, huh?" I grinned and tossed the book down.

"I guess," he shrugged. "I'll fix us something to eat. Viv will be home soon."

"You got a shower?" I asked him and he pointed me towards an arch.

"Through the bedroom, can't miss it."

"Cool." I needed to get cleaned up.

"You like Chinese?" Ransom asked me and I giggled. "What?"

"Nothing," I shook my head. "I just been seeing oriental stuff everywhere I look. It's good, yeah."

"Heh ... Okay," he was grinning.

It's always sorta awkward being with someone like that. I mean, I'd gotten picked up before, you know, taken home after a night out and there's always a little time it takes to adjust. Outside is one thing, you can act a little weird there, but inside a home? Fuck. I never had one of my own. I always felt like I was visiting the zoo or something.

The bedroom was big, the whole place was really. Too big for the lack of stuff. But everything was small nowadays, getting smaller all the time too. The walls were wired, you could watch holo anywhere, listen to music in any room, surf the ether or whatever and never get out of bed. All that shit automated and waiting, cutting you down. Technology was bad sometimes. It put people to sleep.

I sat on the bed and emptied my pack first thing. I checked my seventy-seven, replacing the two rounds I'd fired, Leon and the Domme, and making sure the one in the chamber was good to go. I had seventeen shots and another clip and a half for reloads. It didn't have any safety but my finger pulling the trigger or not. Good gun though, for an old projectile weapon. Lots of people liked the new stuff, but old school was a lot cooler.

I set my PDU aside and my crucifix phone with it, my pink meth and the stim I was saving. I had clothes, old and new. I had some panties, a g-string, and another skirt, a lace bra with tiny cups, since I didn't have any tits. A tight little blouse with real buttons and everything. My old red hipsters, t-shirts and socks. Boxers. A sexy little silk camisole and a boy's leather harness with a g-string pouch just big enough for my little cock and balls. Those tourists had gone a little crazy and I shoulda pawned half that crap, but I never had nice clothes before, even if most of it was for a girl.

I stripped down, grabbed my gun and went into the bathroom.

"Lights," I said and the place lit up, all bright and spiffy clean. It had to be the cleanest bathroom I'd ever seen and the shower was a real one too, with real water. That was seriously sweet. Most places used sonic showers, like the missions, and those were okay, but they never really got my ass good and clean. This one was quality and I was gonna give myself an enema because my ass was full of William's old cum and itchy.

The hotel, that Four Seasons one, had bragged about its sonic bidet, piece of shit. It was good for old women who wanted to jill off, but that was about it.

I pulled the tape off my chest slowly, glad it wasn't the sticky kind. It just felt like a bunch of ants as the rubber let go of my skin. I tossed that stuff away. Body tape was the new thing cause it was retro and looked good, but it was all disposable and kind of a waste of credits in my opinion. I hadn't paid for it though, so I didn't care.

The water felt good and hot, steamy hot, and a serious luxury. They didn't get a lot of water downstairs where I lived. Citizens had it good. I played with different attachments and finally washed my ass with a small, curved nozzle shoved up my butt. Ransom's girlfriend had some nice toys and I'd been playing with my hard cocky for about ten minutes when I realized I wasn't alone. I almost reached for my gun, cause it was close and handy, but I killed that reflex fast. I'd just brought it with me so Ransom wouldn't do anything stupid if he saw it, like pick it up or something. People and pistols don't mix.

"Hi," the woman said, and I guessed her to be Viv and she was Japanese as hell. The Shiseido thing hadn't registered with me, but now it did.

"Hey," I nodded through the shower curtain, which was just a thin layer of nothing. It kept exposed moisture on one side or the other, but water wouldn't go though it.

"I'm Viv."

She looked like twenty something, not too short and not too thin, and perfectly proportioned. Viv had an oval face, big green occidental eyes, and a nice smile. She was made up nice too, like a Shiseido cosmetic girl should be, in her trick white miniskirt and taped up breasts. Just a wide strip of white across the nipples and around her back, pulling her ripe tits flat. They all dressed like that. Four inch heels and thigh high white stockings, and her face painted like a porcelain doll. She was perfect.

"I'm Bingo."

"I heard you killed someone." She didn't look happy or sad about it.

"She killed herself," I shrugged.

"Oh."

"I just helped."

"I didn't know it was a she."

"Yeah."

I was clean enough and I killed the water with a word, grabbing my gun and stepping through the curtain, all dry all of a sudden. I felt clean too, that was the best part, except I still had some water in my butt. The curtain didn't look inside a body, just outside. I had to blink a bunch of times cause my eyes were dry.

"How old are you?" Viv stepped back, giving me some room so I could sit on the toilet and lose the water.

"As old as you want me to be." I looked at her. "Tube baby, huh?"

"Yeah." She didn't smile and didn't have to ask, it was obvious she didn't have a belly button.

"That's cool," I nodded and Viv didn't look relieved, but she probably was. People gave clones a hard time, but it wasn't her fault she didn't have no soul.

I'd never seen mine anyway.

"You're a Fucky Fucky Toy, huh?"

"Sometimes, yeah." I lifted my butt and the toilet flushed, real water again, and I got my ass washed and better yet, dried, which was all I really needed right then.

"Do you play the ... What do they call it?"

"Lolita Game?" I was hunched over, looking up as she nodded. "Not really. I'm alone."

"I spend all my time up here," Viv said, meaning on the forms where it was clean and safe. "Well, except when I go to work."

"Sure," I stood up all naked for her. "You like me?"

"I don't know," she shrugged.

"I can be whatever you want," I smiled at her. "I mean, if you want a boy or girl or whatever."

"Ransom said you're beautiful."

"I was," I laughed lightly.

"Be a girl then, let me see."

"Okay."

"I'll do your makeup first," Viv smiled then, the first one she ever gave me, and it was going to be okay.

She was a real citizen, meaning Viv had never been anything else. Not like Ransom who had been from someplace else off-world, and an addict and was now reformed. Vivian had been grown here, replicated by Shiseido from some idealized salesgirl's DNA so that Viv would look and sound and act like a thousand other ones. Someone somewhere had decided that people liked that, customers would spend more if the same person was helping them shop everytime, everywhere.

It made people like Viv seem like ... Furniture.

Viv was still a person though and had her own thoughts and dreams and life to lead. But it was slavery too; they just didn't call it that. Like where else was she gonna work? She only knew what they'd fed her in the tube, how to sell cosmetics or clothes or jewelry. Hatched her when she was maybe twelve or something and put her to work. Clones had a high suicide rate and some of the rest ended up in places like the Gutter, or worse. Not a lot of them, but enough so you knew they were there, like fallen angels clipped off their wings.

"How do I look?" I smiled for Viv and we'd spent almost an hour together, ignoring Ransom who'd eaten without us and complained until he saw what we were doing. Now he sat on the bed smiling.

"You were right," Viv sighed. "She's beautiful."

I wore the other skirt, which was tight and short, hugging my ass and I'd colored it black. The top was that lace bra, and I'd colored it red, like wet blood, all shiny against my pale skin. It looked liquid when I moved and it had cost a William a thousand credits. I wasn't gonna pawn that.

A little black thong split my pink hairless balls so they hung small and tight on either side, and covered my little dick just enough to be interesting. Those two inch heels, colored red like my bra now, and my face was made up by an expert so that I looked like a real mall brat. A citizen girl too, not a fucky fucky girl at all.

No lipstick or eye shadow, just some bubblegum gloss and highlights that gave me real cheekbones, some freckles across my nose and soft auburn hair, wavy now and pulled back with a glittering costume jewelry clip, like black sapphires to match my skirt. She did my fingers and toes, pink like my lips, with one of those nail wands they sell to kids. It was just a toy, but it worked better than the real stuff, even if it only came in kiddie colors.

Viv was an artist with makeup and I looked different, very different. It wasn't genetic reconstruction or anything, just makeup like anyone could buy, but she knew how to use it. Viv infected my eyes, changing them from lavender to green like hers, and it hurt a little, making my eyes water with little tears that she caught in a tissue, but iris painting was very cool.

Expensive too cause it wasn't permanent, but it was real for about three days. Just like my hair and freckles. She'd used viral cosmetics to infect me with green eyes and freckles and auburn hair and it would take my immune system a few days to fight it off.

I could have been their daughter, easily, and nobody on the forms would give me a second glance. Looking like I did, dressed expensive like I was. Except for my attitude, the way I moved and talked. As soon as I opened my mouth the real citizens would know I was from the underworld. I couldn't do anything about that, but probably they'd think I was reformed. Once in awhile someone's kid would run off and get caught if they were lucky, before they greased the machine downstairs. I could be one of them and I almost wished it was true for a second, but wishing never did anybody any good.

I'd found a good disguise anyway and with the game starting in about five hours; this was way more coincidence than I liked. Fate had a way of evening shit out and I'd have to watch my ass close, I figured. Never trust good luck, that's the saying on Broken Window. Bad luck, sure, you could trust that all night long. But good luck? That was bad.

"I want to go out for dinner," Viv decided.

"But I cooked already..." Ransom sat on the bed playing with his cock and we knew what he wanted for dinner. Or desert anyway.

"No, look at her ... him..." she gave me an apologetic smile.

"I'll be your little girl, Mommy," I said, sounding like the daughter she wanted me to be, cause I knew that would trip her trigger.

"Yeah..." Viv stared at me for a second. "See? We're going to go out, someplace nice."

That was her thing, like Ransom's was fucking and taking pictures; Viv's was having a family. That's the other thing about clones. They're all sterile and it wasn't like there was an adoption agency on this planet, even if someone could be convinced to let a fucked up couple like Ransom and Viv buy a kid. So her fantasy was having a daughter, a girl of her own to dress up and love and take to dinner like all the other mommy's living in suburban utopia.