The Amber Columns (The City of Dark Pleasures Book 2) (3 page)

The terminal on the wall by the door beeps. I turn and look at him.

“You can never be too safe,” he says with a cold smile.

I stand and straighten my camisole. He lifts my jacket from the chair and holds it for me to slip on.

“You’re a good girl, O’Mara,” he repeats, whispering into my neck.

“I know.”

He chuckles as I button myself, stepping away to open the door for me.

“A free man would be lucky to have me in his harem,” I say as I turn.

“You’re right about that. I’m going to put you in the ‘maybe’ pile. I don’t have a ‘yes’ pile yet.” He’s almost apologetic about it. I’m tempted to ask how many women are in the ‘maybe’ pile. And what you have to do to earn a ‘no’. But something tells me this is the end of the interview. His receptionist gives me a dirty look as I bolt out of there.

I don’t look back.

I’m nearly at the street level before I realize where I am. And though it’s near curfew I decide to brave the open streets. Wilton Kay has left a smell on me that’s making me slightly nauseous. I turn off one of the base level walkways and scan my pass over an exit panel.

“Citizen O’Mara Tanner. Please register a journey plan before leaving the controlled area,” the scanner intones mindlessly.

“I just want some air.”

I feel my implanted chip buzzing in the back of my neck, making me want to itch.

“Checking your oxygen levels,” the scanner says. “Stand by.”

My scanner emits a very low electrical pulse throughout my body.

“No, I just—”

“Your scanner has measured mild internal trauma.”

Behind me a group of harem brides, all identically dressed and toting brightly colored shopping bags, snigger as they pass. Everyone knows what “mild internal trauma” means. I close my eyes and let my forehead rest on the scanner terminal.

“I’m fine,” I say. “I just want to go outside, for a walk.”

“You’ve met your recommended activity requirement for today.”

I thought it was a laugh, but it comes out as a sob, which I bite back because crying into a scanner terminal never ends well.

“Never mind. I’ll just go home.” I turn and jump back onto the magway, which whisks me up two levels before the scanner network catches up to me.

“
Citizen O’Mara Tanner. Please approach a terminal
”

People on the magway turn and look at each other. Someone being summoned to a terminal in public is always a bit of a spectacle. I know if I don’t do it after a few seconds my secondary pass will start to whine and that will make even more of a scene. I jump of the magway at the next hub and step over to the nearest terminal.

“Stand by Citizen Tanner,” it says as I wave my wrist over the scanner.

Seconds later a woman appears on the screen. So I get to speak to a human instead of a bot. That’s something.

“Good evening Miss Tanner,” the woman says. “I’m Doctor Jiang. How are you this evening?”

“I’m fine. I’m really fine. It’s nothing.”

She frowns at me. “Your scanner readings suggest you recently had sexual intercourse and that you are highly agitated. Can you tell me why?”

“It’s nothing,” I say, but I’m fighting back tears and not very successfully.

“Was this intercourse consensual, Miss Tanner?”

“Yes,” I say. “I wanted to do it.”

“The penalties for rape are very serious, Miss Tanner. If a man has raped you he will lose his citizen privileges.”

“I know. I wasn’t raped.” Something about her voice suggests to me that if I had been raped, she would think it was my fault. Like the penalties for
me
will be serious too.

“You’re not married Miss Tanner. Who did you have sexual intercourse with?”

“No one.” A dumb answer. I feel like a kid in school again.
Who broke the display screen? No one. Who took the data-pens? No one.

“The Pleasures don’t open for another twenty minutes.” She pauses there for effect. Like I’ll just spill everything to fill up the silence. “If you’re having a sexual relationship with a young man it’s worthwhile registering it. Registration makes it more likely that he’ll choose you when he decides start his harem.”

“He’s already married,” I say.

Doctor Jiang frowns at me. “Married men aren’t permitted sex with anyone but their wives, outside the Pleasures.”

I hang my head. It’s not like I don’t know this rule. Women are never blamed; it will all be on him, but now I feel like somehow I made him do it. I’m pretty sure that’s how Doctor Jiang feels too.

“Please tell me the name of the harem husband in question.”

“Wilton Kay,” I say. “You’ll find a record of the whole thing in his private legal sub folder. We were in his office.” It feels good to turn him over. The fucker deserves it. I’d love to see the look on his face when he gets the citation.

She clicks on a keyboard off screen. “Wilton Kay has been fined before for extramarital sex. Was he interviewing you to join his harem?”

Fuck. I guess that’s not very surprising.

“Yes,” I say. I’m the stupidest woman who has ever lived.

“Well, that’s his MO. Did you not check his file before agreeing to the interview?”

My fault. All my fault. Poor Wilton Kay was only doing what men do. Getting away with anything and everything because he’s one of the lucky ones who survived the Expiation. I wonder how many of his friends he gave up for that survival. I’ve heard that some men sold out their own sons to the cut gangs.

“No. I guess I forgot.”

“Next time you are interviewed take the time to do a little background. It goes a long way.”

“All right. I will.”

Doctor Jiang sighs and gives me an exasperated look. “Do you want to make an appointment with a medic or counsellor?”

“No,” I say.  “I feel a little dirty now, though. Can I go outside?”

She clicks a few things off screen.  “I’ve given you a credit for the Emerald Waters. Body work only, no sex. I suggest you visit them tonight for a massage and a soak. They open in about fifteen minutes.”

“Okay.”

“Be a bit more discerning in the future, O’Mara. You don’t want to get a reputation.”

“No. Of course not.” Because that would fuck up my chances of making a good marriage. To someone who
doesn’t
force his wives into group sex with his friends.

“Is there anything else I can help you with?” Doctor Jiang asks, which is code for ‘this unseemly conversation is over’.

“How much will the fine be? The fine you give Mister Kay?”

She pauses before she answers, as though she doesn’t like the answer she has to give.

“One hundred credits,” she says.

One hundred credits.

About a quarter what it would cost him to fuck a low grade servant girl in the Pleasures.

Chapter Three – Tully

“Tully Portero?”

The two servants sitting across from me snort with laughter. Portero is the surname of The Authority Chairman, Trenoweth Portero, the one everyone is pretty sure was the chief instigator of the Expiation in its early days. He bought and bribed and killed his way to the top of the pile back then and has sat there, collecting wives and influence ever since. Not much lowlifes like me can do about it. So whenever Culls are required to provide a full name, our tradition is to use his name. It’s a giant daily “fuck you” to the one who destroyed our lives.

I stand as the nurse looks up from her clip board. “You can go in, Mister
Portero
.” She smiles at me. The nurses are in on the joke. They are mostly women from the Pleasures who have gotten their status back on probation, working in a respectable job to prove that they can be decent people. Several nurses have been caught with their lips wrapped around some servant’s cock in a treatment room. I guess old habits die hard.

She ushers me into an office, closing the door behind me. Across a cluttered desk, a grey haired doctor looks up from her tablet.

“Tully Port—” She narrows her eyes at me. “Your name is not Portero is it?”

I shrug cheerfully. I’m feeling pretty spectacular because I took some synthetic hormones this morning, along with handful of mystery pills the dealer gave me as a gift-with-purchase. I’ve been giggling and seeing sparkles for hours.

“I’m Doctor Diaz. I don’t suppose you’ll tell me your real name. Have you been using Portero since you came to the Pleasures?”

“Yep.”

“So your file is up to date then?”

I shrug again. Everyone knows everything and nothing here. She knows about every time I’ve been treated for the flu, that I had pneumonia once and nearly died, every reconstructive surgery I qualified for, and the “experimental” ones I turned down. She knows the dose of hormone I’m supposed to take, though my scanner would tell her I can rarely get ahold of that much. The scanner record also tells her I don’t sleep very well but that otherwise, when I can, I keep myself in good health.

If she looked far enough back she would see I wasn’t always so responsible. There were self-destructive behaviors, a suicide attempt. But that was a long time ago.

What she
doesn’t
know about me would fill a mainframe.

“The guards report that they witnessed you being assaulted in the Amber Columns last night.”

Well. That’s ruined my good mood. I lean back in my chair and cross my arms.

“I’m just here because my implant needs an upgrade.”

“I see that. You can head on into the upload terminals when we’re done here.”

I jiggle my knees. Whatever those pills were, they’re taking a long time to wear off.

“This assault last night, was it sexual in nature?”

I don’t want to talk about it. I don’t want to think about it. I don’t even want to be here. This upgrade is costing me seventy-five credits and they’ll charge me for the consult too probably. Because who will stop them?

I guess I let too much time go past because when she speaks again, her tone has changed to exasperated. Even angry.

“Mister….Tully. The behaviors that servants allow to go unfettered here in the Pleasures have an impact in the controlled areas.”

I blink. Did she really just say that? I should probably stop her before she goes on but I can’t. It’s like watching a fight on the Sky Level between two drunk and jealous harem wives. You want to break it up, or even walk on by but you can’t look away.

“When citizens have bad habits reinforced here, they continue those bad habits. And other citizens, typically women citizens, end up being the victims. In fact this is the very kind of behavior that the Expiation aimed to eradicate. So you need to take some responsibility.”

I let a second go past, wondering how last night’s experience was somehow able to travel back in time and be the cause of all my sorrows. If only I’d known.

The doctor looks down at her tablet, clearing her throat. “Do you want to file a report, or not?”

“Not.”

“Would you like me to examine you? A physical exam is more precise than the internal scanner.”

“No, thanks. I’m fine.” The buzz I’ve had since this morning has finally worn off. “I’d just like to get my upgrade and get out of here.”

“I’d like to refer you to a counsellor, Tully. I don’t think you’re coping very well.”

I sigh, looking out her window at the crowds beginning to arrive on the Sky level. I wish I could just go back to my boudoir at the bottom of Obsidian and make women orgasm in their sleep all night. “What makes you think that?”

“You shouldn’t be providing sexual services while your license is suspended.”

“Since when is being assaulted ‘providing a sexual service’?”

“Tully.”

“I have to make money. I have to eat. I have a fine to pay. I need meds. Taking a Cull’s license away is a form of torture. I can’t even sleep in my boudoir because it’s too fucking cold and dark.”

“Those aren’t my decisions. I provide medical care.”

“Right. Keep us healthy so we can keep the citizens happy.”

We have a staring contest. With all the synth-hormones raging through me, now that the lovey-dovey pills have worn off, I really feel like punching something. I press my fists into my knees and count backwards from twenty because assaulting a medic would definitely get me thrown in a cell. And as much as critics complain about criminal servants getting spoiled with comfortable beds and three meals a day, I know from experience that’s not how it is. It’s a windowless and cold underground room and
one
meal a day, when they remember to feed you. And they leave you in there alone for a month before even reviewing your case. There are people I’ve seen hauled away for pickpocketing that I never saw again.

Culls, of course.

“Can I get my upgrade now?” I say. The doctor looks at her watch. I’ve run out her clock, which I file away as a minor triumph.

“I really would like you to get some counselling, Tully. I can see that you’re intoxicated right now. I don’t even need to check your tox scan. You’re engaging in very dangerous behavior in the Columns. Your file shows you to have been very stable in past, for a Cull anyway, but lately that seems to have fallen apart.”

“Because I lost my license! I lost my service! Give that back to me and I’ll be fine.”

“Those aren’t—”

“Your decisions, yes, I know.” I close my eyes, counting. Wow, I took WAY too much testosterone. I feel like I’m devolving. “I’m just here for an upgrade. That’s all I want right now.” I leave my eyes closed. O’Mara swims in my mind—the way her pink lips made a perfect O when she came. My breath catches.

“I know you think no one cares about you, but I do.”

I leave my eyes closed, feeling heat coursing up my chest and neck. A few seconds later, my internal scanner pulses, sending a tingle shooting down from the back of my neck. The doctor has just activated my implant for a reading.

“Try to calm down, Tully,” she says.

“I’m fine. I took too much testosterone.” That’s only part of it.

“Do you want a blocker? Your blood pressure is spiking.”

A blocker. To block the effects of the hormones I paid a fortune for. No fucking way.

“My blood pressure can suck it.” Fuck. So much manly masculine mannishness. Clearly I need to shoot something with an arrow and set it on fire “I’m sorry,” I say, opening my eyes. “That was really obnoxious.”

The doctor just shakes her head. “I’ve seen a Synthrogen overdose before. You’ll have to try harder than that to offend me.” She looks at the handheld scanner she’s holding. “Take a deep breath and hold it.”

I do as she says. The rage bubbling under my skin is just as uncomfortable for me as I’m sure it is for her. But doing it makes me feel like a helpless child. I close my eyes again.

“Hold the breath for the count of six.”

That makes me think of a time as a young child that I held my breath until I fainted. I don’t like thinking of the years before I was cut. It’s like thinking of a different person—someone who I once loved but lost. A twin brother I’ll never see again. I’ll never be able to ask him why he did that anyway. Why did he hold his breath until he fainted? There must have been a reason but I don’t remember.

“Now release the breath slowly, also to the count of six.”

I shake my head slowly as I do it.

“We just want to keep you alive, Tully. The drugs and the risky behavior are not healthy. But I think you know that.”

I finish releasing the breath and open my eyes. “Have you done a count this year?”

The doctor busies herself with clicking off her scanner and setting it aside. “Of the Culls you mean? Yes.”

“And?”

“Six hundred and fifty-five. We think there are quite a few at large in the city though. And there are rumors of a camp in the humming ruins but we haven’t sent anyone out there yet.”

“Six hundred and fifty-five?” I say. “There were nearly twenty thousand of us when the Expiation ended.”

She doesn’t say anything. But that’s not good enough for me in my current frame of mind.

“Well?”

“What do you want me to say? You’re at an extremely high risk for suicide, drug overdose and murder. The infectious diseases we have mostly under control here in the Pleasures at least. I can’t say the same for under the city or the ruins so I hope you’re not thinking about leaving.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it. Six hundred fifty-five of us left? I’m an endangered species.” I can’t help but picture all those dead Culls piled up somewhere in a smoldering heap. And the ones left alive are smoldering too, in my mind. It’s only a matter of time until our influence on this plane of existence is over. I mean, it’s not like we can reproduce. Maybe my machine will be my legacy. If I ever get it back.

“I recommend you skip your evening dose of the Synth. Is it medical grade?”

“No.”

The doctor sighs. She knows the medical grade stuff is four times the price.

“Well, take a half dose in the morning. See if that works better. And don’t waste your money on recreational drugs.”

I nearly say ‘yes, mommy’. But the thought of my mother sometimes sends me careening over the edge. Invoking her name will likely kill me.

The doctor stands, which is my cue to leave. She opens a door that leads into the upload clinic. A tech looks up from her terminal with a nod.

“Do you have the money to pay for the upgrade?” the doctor asks.

“Yes. I paid out front already.”

“And you’ll put the rest towards your fine?”

“I guess.”

“Try to stay out of trouble in the meantime, Tully. We don’t want to lose you.”

How do you even respond to a platitude like that? How would she even know until next year, when they do the count and the number is six hundred and fifty-four?

The doctor closes the door as the technician prepares an upgrade bay. Years ago with the upgrade they would give you a mild sedative but now all you get is a local anesthetic at the site where they slip the new implant into place. The old implant is sent a signal to self-destruct – it releases a substance corrosive to silicon and titanium but not human flesh. The whole thing dissolves within a few days, while the new one builds a thin sheath of protective scar tissue.

“Look how small they are,” the tech says, gleefully. “They finally let us buy them from a mainland supplier. Cutting edge.” She holds a wormlike silver object in a pair of tweezers before inserting it into the syringe feeder in the bay.

“Take a seat,” she says.

As I pass her I see she’s left the packaging of the implant on her messy desk. I can read the large red watermark:

RESTRICTED: PRACTIONER INFORMATION ONLY

While she busies herself with the syringe settings I scoop the wrapper and instruction sheet up, and shove it in my pocket.

Once a hacker, always a hacker. I mean, you never know, right?