Zippered Flesh 2: More Tales of Body Enhancements Gone Bad (15 page)

Back to the clock. Ten minutes had gone by.

Ten minutes! What the hell is she doing? Should I check on her?

Bowman entered the room.

“I’m sorry about that,” said the doctor, out of breath. “I was conferring with my engineer about your new arm. May I see?” Bowman sat on the sofa and smiled, holding out her hands.

Laura offered her disfigurement and looked away. Bowman’s fingers rubbed and stroked the smooth, pink ball of skin at the end.

“Mmm ... good. Muscle tone largely intact. Yessss ...”

Laura glanced back. Something had crackled in Bowman’s voice, like a short blast of electrical static.

“Should make an upgrade easy ...”

“Doctor?”

Bowman peered up. Her left eye shimmered emerald.

Laura blinked. “Wow.”

The doctor frowned.

“Your eye,” said Laura, and studied the wall. Her cheeks burned. “I guess I didn’t notice earlier.”

Bowman released Laura’s arm.

“I’ll go get your new attachment. Then we can begin.”

The doctor rose in silence and strode out of the room.

Laura grinned.

Attachment? Makes me sound like a vacuum cleaner.

Heat flashed in her face once again. She realized how she’d been transfixed by the doctor’s eye.

Must be human nature to stare. Damn it! I’m a fucking hypocrite!

The hands of the clock crept around.

Laura tapped her foot. A few magazines on a coffee table in the corner seemed the way to go.

She glanced at the clock. The time had reached twenty past.

“A third of my hour gone and nothing. Forget the magazines,” Laura hissed. She stood. “Dr. Bowman?”

Silence and darkness lurked beyond the open door.

“Dr. Bowman?” Laura called.

She crossed the suite.

I shouldn’t be doing this. Might be off limits to patients.

Hell. It’s my time she’s wasting!

Laura reached the door and peered inside. The deep, wide room, lit by hanging bulbs along the far side, lay cluttered with shelves and boxes. Her eyes adjusted to the murk, and a maze of plastic limbs emerged.

“Jesus,” she said, studying the hanging arms. A box of protruding legs looked like crazy modern art.

“Dr. Bowman?”

She ventured further.

From the other side of the room, something clattered on the floor.

Laura stopped behind a rack of synthetic arms fitted with hooks.

“Thank you,” the doctor said. Her voice echoed in the cold room. “Let us begin.”

Laura opened her mouth, ready to call out, but paused. The doctor’s voice had regained the strange static sound. The girl gazed around the rack.

At the far wall, the doctor stood before a sink, staring at her reflection in a grimy mirror. Bowman lifted her hand and examined the contents.

Laura crept forward, keeping close to the rack of arms. She crouched behind a workbench and peered around the side.

Bowman still studied the object she held. It appeared to be a small lightbulb, the size of a large marble. She turned it in her fingers for a second and placed it beside the sink. A leather bag sat beside, and the doctor reached in.

What is she doing?

Bowman removed a scalpel from the bag. The blade glistened between her face and reflection. She stared at the instrument, moving it closer and closer, the point heading for her eye.

Laura opened her mouth, a scream trapped in her throat.

Bowman plunged the scalpel deep into her pupil. It made a sound like squashing a grape.

Hands clamped over her mouth, Laura froze behind the workbench, transfixed by the doctor’s reflection.

Bowman’s eye, now a punched, sagging membrane, slid down her cheek in a slug’s crawl. She sliced the attaching scarlet fibers with a flick of the blade. Her eye plopped on the floor.

Laura’s throat tightened. She held her breath, fighting the gag.

The doctor tucked the flaccid tissue back into her empty socket, ignoring the blood and aqueous humour pouring down her cheek. She picked up the tiny bulb.

Blue worms, needle-thin, emerged from the metal plug and wiggled in the air.

Laura gasped.

Bowman neared the bulb to her empty socket. The tendrils took hold of her eyelids, and the bulb eased itself inside. She blinked once, twice, and opened wide. Her new eye glowed a radiant green.

“I know she’s here,” the doctor buzzed, her lips barely moving. “Leave it to me.”

Laura sprang and burst into a run for the door. A protruding false leg tripped her, and she fell forward, landing hard on her hand and knees. Keeping her momentum, she jumped back up, legs pumping.

Dr. Bowman blocked her escape.

“Leaving so soon? I thought you wanted your new arm?”

Laura backed up, aware Bowman still held the scalpel. The doctor smiled and inched forward.

“You’ve gone quiet. Maybe a new tongue is also in order?”

“Stay away,” said Laura. She swept up a hammer from a nearby shelf. “Don’t come near me!”

“But isn’t that why you’re here? So I can touch you ... rebuild you?”

“You’re ... what you just did ...”

“What I just did was amazing!” said Bowman. “I mean, look at me!” She, too. approached the shelves and selected a dusty saw. She pressed the teeth against her hip. “Think of the endless possibilities ...”

Laura turned and ran, darting between boxes and workbenches into the shadowed depths.

Under a bulb, framed in a stark halo of light, sat a polished, metal chair.

“Stop her!” Bowman screamed.

Laura ducked to the side.

The chair hummed.

Laura dashed past more shelves and cried out as she flew upward, held her up by the waist. She thrashed in the grip and pulled at the squeezing noose around her middle. A glance down revealed a shiny, thick cable. The metallic tentacle eased her backward. She kicked in the air.

“Bind her ...” said Bowman.

Laura crashed into the chair. Intimate snakes of metal laced around her limbs.

“No!” she wailed.

Snap!

Something clamped around her waist and punched the air from her lungs.

Snap snap snap!

Leather straps flew from the chair and bound her tight.

Bowman approached. Blood gushed from her hip from beneath the saw blade.

Laura screeched.

“Quiet down. You should be grateful. Look at you, such a freak. I was a freak once, but I upgraded. Look at me now ...”

“Please. Please just let me go!”

“But you came here for treatment. You want a new arm, don’t you?”

“I just want to go. Please! I won’t tell anyone.”

Bowman held up the bloody saw.

“You’ll tell the world. You would even write a song about this, if you could still play. You didn’t think I knew about that.”

Laura wailed. “Please don’t kill me.”

“We don’t want to kill you.” Bowman walked over. “We only want to help.” She touched Laura’s stump. “How many years? How many stares and comments? You could be more than any of them.”

Laura howled at the tightening straps.

The doctor began to unbuttoned her own trousers.

“No,” screamed Laura. “Please!”

Ignoring her pleas, Bowman slid the garment down her legs.

Laura stared. “You’re ...?”

“Yes,” said Bowman, caressing the joint of her prosthetic leg. “Just like you, but more.” She popped the leg free. Metal winked. Pulling the plastic free, the doctor revealed a second leg hidden beneath. “Incredible, isn’t it?”

She pulled the false leg away, and the new spidery limb slid further from her torso. It glinted with the metal chrome of the chair. The double-jointed leg pounded the floor with a sharp point. Blood tricked from the haggard stump where metal met flesh and bone.

“You can have all this and more. Think of the potential. You can be like me.”

Laura fought the chair. Her own stump pounded the shiny top.

“Think about it,” Bowman said. “The world lies in your palm.”

She walked to one of the workbenches, bent over and slid a door open. An arm flopped out from the dark and hit the floor with a splat. Most of the fingers were missing from the hand.

“And don’t worry. We have lots of spare parts!” The doctor approached the throbbing chair, her new leg clunking on the floor with each step. “Now,” she said, leaning in close. “Shall we begin?”

AFTER DARQUE

BY M.L. ROOS

I’m half the man I used to be. Literally. When I was twenty-eight, I was six foot five and weighed two hundred pounds. Now, six years later, I’ve lost three feet and seventy pounds. Well, two feet ... ok, two legs. And you want to know how. Get yourself a coffee and pull up a seat. It’s going to take some time to go through it. I could give you the condensed version, but that would do the story injustice. You need the nuances, the subtleties, and the intricacies of what was going on in my head at the time. Without it, this becomes a sad story about a meaningless man and his even sadder obsessions.

Six years ago, my life was pretty normal. I had a great job doing what I loved. In Winnipeg, I was one of the youngest investigators in Violent Crimes, and we were working on this major case involving human trafficking. It was a special project that sprang up overnight because of media attention. You know how that goes. The vilest crap can be happening in the world, but unless the media or politicians pick up on it, it won’t see the light of day.

With this piece, a journalist happened to discover a story about a young girl who had been sold as a prostitute several times to different people. She ended up being bought by a minister and his wife, who used her as an indentured servant and sex slave. She was a thirteen-year-old then. Because the minister also happened to be embezzling funds and running a scam in his church, he got caught with his hand in the cookie jar, and “Lucy” became the charity case du jour. Project Eve was created, and I was selected to work on the task force.

I had girlfriends. I dated. That part of my life was fine. I had several great friends both on and off the force. Being single, I had lots of time on my hands to do research into the sex industry and human trafficking. Eventually, this led me to several people including judges, lawyers, politicians, even a few actors. We can write the laws, enforce them—but damn, can we follow them? Select people will always feel entitled, whether it is to church funds or sex with a thirteen-year-old. Don’t matter. Some men are ruled by their genitals and their hands; whatever they can grab with either, it’s theirs.

Another road led through Organized Crime, including a huge syndicate in Toronto and another in Vancouver with connections in Winnipeg. Aboriginal girls were being sold as quickly as they were picked up, and sold across the country. But the most interesting and dangerous connections were the clubs. They were in every city all across Canada, probably all across the world. These were connected to Organized Crime and the porn industry as well, and if I told you who was involved in them, you wouldn’t believe me. Let’s just say there are some doctors in this city I wouldn’t want touching my testicles, knowing where their hands have been.

Anyway, one day in September, I ran across a note in a file about a club called After Darque. I had heard references to this place. You see, I visited these clubs on weekends trying to make connections with people and seeing if I could make some inroads. I needed to find the girls—who they were, where they came from, and where they ended up. To do that, I had to fit in. So, I had to act the part. I dressed the part; I interacted with the clients and, before you ask, I did participate in the events. I had to make them believe I was a part of them. I had to gain their trust and, without engaging in the sex, I would have been suspect. Besides, it was all legal. No drugs were involved and there was nothing to do with children in these clubs. Just sex. Sex like you cannot imagine.

There were groups, bondage, role-playing, S&M, voyeurism, you name it. It was a heady mixture of people, objects. OK, I won’t get into details. Suffice it to say those were the most intense experiences of my life. For a few short months, I can say I was on top of the world. And I lost focus. I became so wrapped up in wanting to be accepted into the scene that I forgot the reason I was there in the first place. If I am really honest with myself—and I can do that after a few bottles of JD—I lost who
I
was. I was no longer a detective in Winnipeg looking for stray girls and saving them from the horror their lives had become. I became a man looking for sex, became nothing better than the creeps that bought and sold these girls like pieces of meat.

But the crash. Man, that was hard. Have you ever known or seen a drug addict who was trying to go cold turkey? While you are chasing the dragon, it is the most exhilarating experience of your life. Colors are brighter; sounds are sharper; your thoughts race, but they are crystalline drops of the most intelligent ideas you have ever had. I mean, you can solve all the world’s problems in a single morning! But it takes more, you know? With drugs and with sex, it always takes more.

Soon, the research became less and less important and the clubs took over my thoughts. I couldn’t concentrate at work anymore. People were starting to comment. Even my boss noticed. I shook it off and fought back. One weekend, I took some files home. I had decided that I would stay focused and work. Do actual work, not go out, not get involved in this dark world. I had full intentions of turning on TSN, cracking a beer, and leafing through the files, maybe make a few notes. Then, I see this scribble in a margin of a file. All it said was
After Darque
. Didn’t know what it meant at the time, but then I realized a couple months back I was at XTC and one of the regulars there mentioned an underground club he had been to, only he referred to it as AD. He said it was by invitation only and you had to know someone to get in. Some real secretive and clandestine place. I thought at the time he was bragging, but what if he was trying to pique my interest? If he went, he could be my invitation, right?