Machete Girl Issue 8.4 Cyberpunk Short Stories

020 DATASTREAM
peepshow to leering eyes, pulling people
closer. Women called after us and
anyone they could see. They mimed
sex with their hands, promised they
Up another dark alley, through a slit
were capable of more vulgar things.
between apartment buildings, pale yel-
Away from the flashy showings at the
away from me and was now sitting
low lights on Sukhumvit faded. Dated
head of Nana, was Gothic Raygun. A
at a less populated edge of the stage.
rap music was drowned under broken
simple green sign presented its name
Before him was a single pole flashing
moped exhaust and honking taxis. We
in retro-future lettering with flanges on
gold, supporting a dancer with inflated
followed pulsing purple from the squat
their ends like a spaceman’s zapper.
breasts designed for some perverse
buildings ahead—the night-time sun at
Each rung lit before it fired, only to
cartoon. Her arms shelled in hard white
its peak.
recharge and cycle again.
plastic, smooth and glossed to the eye,
refracting gold onto Jay’s face.
“There’s usually a dozen guys working,”
Jay rapped on the door. A screen on
I took to the red square next to him.
said Jay. “All of them are family with the
the wall blinked into existence, captur-
Though he gave his face to the dancer,
exception of a few Thai that bus tables,
ing his face, calculating its vectors. I
followed her twists and turns around
work the bar. Gothic Raygun is the only
leaned away, tried to melt into shadow.
the pole, smiled when she brought her
Russian bar here. The others are Yaku-
Menus manifested. Jay tapped with
body close, his eyes roamed the room,
za-owned or local. It’s an unbalanced
the knuckle of his forefinger, swiped a
marked the exits, lingered on the Rus-
ecosystem where everyone watches
card through the reader when it was
sians drifting about the place.
the Russians all night long. So they go
time to pay.
in, cause no trouble and the others stay
“This whole club’s about stump wor-
happy. “According to what we gathered,
Three seconds of computing, then the
ship?”
Yusuf’s spent the day being babysat by
doors opened.
the Ivans until his scheduled meeting
“They’re not handicapped,” said Jay. “I’d
with Mischa. And if I’m right, we’re early
Pink mist. It rained on us. The lobby
bet that half of these girls were never
by a few minutes.”
interior colored it, so did its screens of
sick or in an accident. I’d bet money
dancing silhouetted women, making
they weren’t modded before they got to
We crossed a strip of road to Nana
the place feel like a womb. The shadow
the city. Mischa’s got this technophile
Alley, following the flow of people
dancers pointed us downstairs, to
thing turned to eleven. Anything metal
between food carts. Excited chatter,
glass walls.
or shiny excites the guys. He finds
cheers and jeers.
the ones that cause the least amount
Music shook my face. What played
of fuss, leashes them on Special K,
Violet and silver flashed off walls, fun-
powered bodies on stages, in glass
maybe heroin, and it’s all over from
neling down to us in the center of the
cages. I couldn’t look away, not that
there. You get a girl addicted to some-
pit, machine-gunning to the tempo of
there were alternatives, but the particu-
thing, get her to live this kind of life, you
an angry electro beat. It peppered the
lar kink of this place commanded my
can get her to do anything.”
floor with light, flashing onto people’s
attention.
faces. Sticking close to Jay, we waded
With the tip of his nose he pointed to a
into a sea of bodies.
Matte fiber, polished chrome, exposed
woman one stage over. Her skin was
wiring—dancers were in a category
shelled in hard plastic and metal, lined
Bangkok had a general seediness to it,
above machine and below human. I
with running lights, segmenting what
the kind of stink that pulled me back to
understood the importance of pros-
were once major muscle groups. She
MACHETE GIRL ISSUE 8.4
LA. Where we were was some place
more. Nana was its own world, cut off
from the rest of the city, casting the
hyper-sexual displays aside.
Unashamed nakedness. Smartfabric
woven into vinyl jackets windowed
brown breasts and bare laps beneath a
shifting collage of color. Transparency
thesis, but I’d never seen a fetish built
around it. And by looking at the crowd,
their fascination had reached a level
that would humble the religious.
Jay called to me. In my staring I’d lost
track of him, didn’t realize he’d slipped
was a toy gynoid that looked built for
war, but she seemed enraptured, shaking
her ass on a glowing platform.
“Alexandra Fedorchuck,” said Jay.
“Interpol has a fat file on her. I had to
lobby the company to get it for me. Apparently
she was the first of Mischa’s
girls that he pimped out back in Tallinn.
He got her hooked on something the
went from low to high, teasing a
Russians are cooking up and has been