Chapter 5: Blackest Wish Granted

The door to the brothel would have appeared like any other if John hadn’t known what to look for. The same layers of filth covered both it and the family residences right beside. Underneath it, John found the faded hiragana ‘yu’ character as per the fixer’s instructions. John didn’t speak Japanese, but his Leadership childhood education afforded him some basic language classes.

The shadowy woman had also told him the door would be unlocked. John pressed the open button. On a richer level, caste families might leave their doors unlocked. Not likely, but there were caste families who trusted their neighbors enough, too much in John’s opinion. He couldn’t imagine that happening on a casteless level. The latch disengaged and swung open. Whoever’s place it was, they made it appear like a living space, John assumed to dissuade the confused or curious. At the bottom of the stairs, in front of the shoebox, was a couple pairs of well-worn boots, the kind an acquisition store would dispense to castemen, as if a couple of the residents didn’t bother to put them away. If John had to bet, someone left them behind to make quick getaways.

The stairs led up. A man turned the corner at the top of the stairs. The guy was plenty tall. Might’ve been because John was looking up, but it appeared as if the guy had a few centimeters on him. He looked fit enough to give anybody pause before starting a fight. If he had hair, he must have shaved it down to the scalp. His hands held a clunky terminal, and he was wearing boots, industrial ones with steel toes from the looks of it. No way did the guy live there.

“Name?” He asked, almost yawning. Might have been a slow night. Paul most likey came when business was slow to keep a low profile.

“Tibor Evans.” John’s heart bounced off his ribcage, and blood squeezed through the arteries in his neck. He wasn’t fond of lying. It smacked of his Leadership origins, but he could if needed.

The fixer said this Tibor Evans guy was Artist and looked enough like John. John had to take her at her word. The brothel manager punched the name into his terminal, read the profile on the screen, and turned his attention back to John. “What do you have to trade?”

“I’ve already emailed an encrypted package to your server. The password is ‘crusader.’ In it I think you’ll find evidence that a Mr. Reynold Bauer is having relations outside of his cast marriage.”

John had asked the fixer if the information was true. She said it didn’t matter. Reynold Bauer was Leadership, a preacher for the extermination of the casteless. The fixer knew a lot about this brothel, but John couldn’t help but feel like some cog in a plot to ensure the casteless’s survival. This Tibor was some guy—and framing him sucked—but Reynold Bauer was a monster. A wicked heat rushed through his body when he thought about screwing that scumbag over.

“I think you’ll be able to use our service. Please follow me.”

Someone made the place to appear like someone lived there. The room at the top of the stairs looked like a living room with couches, chairs, and a vid screen. It was off. Might have been for decades. No one else around. John dragged a finger over the top of the closest couch. His fingerprint gathered a thin layer of dust.

The man brought him into a hallway that led from the imitation living room. From the back of his collared shirt, a rectangular hunk of metal sat on the skin from the back of his neck to the middle of his skull. John had seen nothing like it. Was it like jewelry? A casteless thing? It looked more functional than decorative.

The manager turned his head to speak over his shoulder. Whatever that thing was on the back of his neck, it had a flexible hinge. It bent with his head. “Are you looking for some relief?”

“Sorry?”

“From your arm?”

“Yeah.” John curled his injured hand into a fist. “Looking for some of that.”

John didn't know what he needed to find on Paul, nor had he thought the plan through. One thing was for sure: waiting with his thumb up his ass would get him divorced. He would have to roll with the punches. Something inside him guided here, and he would find out why soon enough.

Eight doors lined the hallway, four on each side, across from each other like a hotel in one of those old vids. The fixer’s info said Paul was behind the last door on the right. How she knew that, John didn’t have a clue. She must have had hacking in her repertoire. The manager opened the second door on the left. “This will be your room.”

John stepped through the door, through the looking glass, dingy on one side, lush on the other. Purple velvet cloth hung on the walls. A crystal chandelier dangled overhead, casting glittering illumination over the interior. Red silk sheets covered the bed, two pillows underneath. John doubted anybody got much sleep on it.

The brothel manager motioned for him to sit on the closest edge of the bed. “Which one would you like?”

The terminal showed a series of portraits on the orange monochrome display, the men and women available. None of them smiled. One, a guy not a day older than twenty, had his eyes wide, lips strained. No names. Slaves didn’t need them. What did Paul trade to get into the brothel? Did he come here every Tuesday night? If Paul was abusing the defenceless, John would stop him. John almost mirrored that poor guy’s expression in the portrait until he caught himself. A lightheadedness crept up on him. He hadn’t taken a breath.

John shook the thoughts from his head and picked one woman at random. “Yeah. Her.”

“Excellent.” The manager tucked the terminal underneath his arm. “I’ll have her washed and sent to your room. Feel free to take a shower. It’s right behind that curtain.”

Eager to get him out the door, John thanked him. That metal on the guy’s neck caught his eye again. What was that thing for? He didn’t bother to ask. It would only keep the manager longer. John pulled off a boot, timed so the manager would see him while he closed the door. A customer would make himself at home.

The manager’s footsteps clomped down the hall. Time to move. John’s bare feet touch the ground without a sound. With his boots in his hand—no way would they join the other pairs at the front—he tried the door. Unlocked. Made sense since the workers would have to go in and out. He stepped outside the doorway and snuck past the other doors, silent except for pant legs brushing together.

John stopped in front of the last door on the right. Behind it, Paul. His brow furrowed. If he got caught by the manager, all would be for nothing. He punched the button with a knuckle and cracked the door open.

The same purple velvet hung off the walls. John pushed the door open some more. Two pairs of skinny, hairless—but masculine—legs dangled over the edge. Two slender, boyish men, wearing some wispy, pink lingerie, each balanced themselves on a man’s thick, muscular leg, a dancer’s leg. John had seen the patriarch naked enough times during the family orgies that he knew it was Paul underneath. The two men, florescent wigs on their heads, hovered over Paul’s crotch. He couldn’t see past the unreal hair, nor needed to.

John closed the door and dropped the boots with a thwack. All three bolted straight up. All three wore matching vibrant pink makeup. The lids of Paul’s eyes pulled back to show the stark white.

“You piece of shit.” John’s fingernails dug into his palms. “Your wives aren’t good enough?” The painkillers waned. John used the pain like kindling.

Paul gathered the silk sheet to cover his crotch. “Are you working with that guy out there?”

“What?” John expected him to say a thousand things, but not that. He cocked his head, trying to figure out the mystery.

The two men slid off the bed, ready to bolt. Bruises stained the taut skin of their stomachs, over their visible ribs, around their thin wrists. They didn’t freeze like gamers in the cafe. Violence wasn’t new to them.

John waved them towards the bathroom. “Get in there and don’t come out.”

They disappeared behind the curtain. Something in the situation didn’t fit, kind of like the broken bone in his hand. No time to figure it out. John bounded across the room and landed on the bed. He grabbed a handful of Paul’s grey hair.

Paul brought his hands up to protect his face. It didn’t matter. John brought his fist around the patriarch’s frantic hands and smashed the edge of the cast into the patriarch’s temple. The old man held John’s wrist and pulled and struggled to get out of the iron grip.

John hit him again and again. With each crunch of bone underneath his cast, blood pounded in his ears. With every strike, Paul’s arms slowed. Red poured from the split in the old man’s lip, drained over his teeth, and filled his mouth with blood. John kept smashing the edge of the cast into Paul’s face and head, leaving bruises, scrapes, and gashes. White bits flew off the cast and dug deep into Paul’s scalp. Cracks opened in the cast around the base of his thumb. It should have hurt. It didn’t.

Through the gory mess, Paul’s mouth broke out into a grin. Not a grimace, but a grin.

John stopped. “What?”

A gurgling deep in Paul’s throat escaped. “You could have,” he coughed, “blackmailed me, or brought it to the rest of the family and ruined me. But…”

“But what?” Whatever Paul would say next, John would throw it on the bonfire, more fuel for his rage.

The patriarch swallowed. “But you’re dying to become a killer.” His grin widened. “All you LC are the same.”

John lifted his arm for another strike. The door flew open, bashing against the wall. Before John turned, someone lifted him off the ground by the back of his collar and slammed him into the ground face first. A weight dropped onto his back, pinning him to the ground. John twisted his neck towards the door, trying to get a look at what was on top of him.

The wiring of mechanical servos came from above. A mechanical voice said, “Don’t move. I am permitted to cause you physical harm.”

Boots came tromping through the doorway. They surrounded John’s prone form. The manager’s face lowered into his vision. “You just made the worst mistake of your life.”