Where The Pretty Things Roam - 1. Chapter 1

Auggie in the City at night, adrift on frothing humanity, laughter, sirens, smells; caught up in eddies of intoxicated strangers who pretend not to notice him. Above the restless tide of flesh, gleaming corporate temples flex lurid postures against canopy of misty floating giants, shifting sleepily in the dark.

Voltage of festivities rages in Auggies ears; cacophony of catcalls and banter, accusations and lascivious digital sighs; clinking of transacted coin, prostibot barkers, music and mania. The noisy commerce of Rouge engulfs him, and he forgets himself.

He can dream here, that he is not lonely; that he has no sallow, acne-scarred face, like the one he sees grimacing in the mirror every morning; the one he’d see reflected in shop windows should he glance in passing. In this dream he owns no frayed clothing like the tired denim coat that hangs on his thin shoulders or the street weary runners that grip tenuously to his feet.

‘I am not that,’ he would believe. Anonymity grants his wish.

He is among the pretty people now, invisible in their midst. They congregate in tighly-guarded cliques. They have names for the looks they use to get their way. Among them, he feels as them. Their indifferent glances never linger long enough to shatter this fantasy.

Auggie wakes from somnambulant trance beneath a winking banner. ‘Cory’s - Cory’s - Cory’s….’ The words flash in and out of existence above gyrating holograph of blue-jeaned boy, winking over shoulder, all smiles and tightly-clad buttocks.

The doorbot is vacuous blonde. Adonis Mechanique. Shirtless. Tan. “Evening, sir,” it says with programmed cheer.

Auggie mutters something like a greeting, places his hand on the slate. Adonis pauses. Accesses data. Smiles. “Welcome back, Mr. August! One drink minimum is already credited to your account. Gratuities optional tonight. You’re just in time for Garrett. He’ll be going on in just twenty-”

Auggie does not hear the rest. His mind is elsewhere. He approaches the entrance. Stops. Breathes. Prepares. Steps quickly across the threshold.

There are no alarms; no clarion cry from unseen security-bots. And he relaxes.

The device in his pocket seems to grow heavier.

Auggie had been too young to accept The Martyr, and the weight of his father’s guilt. But it was Mother’s world. Everyone else was just along for the ride.

And everyone he’d been allowed to know wondered why they never saw him in church anymore.

Auggie makes his way into the mechanical warmth of the club. Subsonic sighs tease below the level of his awareness. Chemical pheromones tickle his senses, flood cerebral pleasure centers with a primal longing. Low-grade protibots linger in the hall. The Lost Toys. Antiquated models one step away from salvage, bought up by grey-market franchises and scattered in streets and alleys until they’re fucked to ruin.

One of them remembers him, a generic, androgynous beach-boy twinker. “Hey, popi, how far you goin’?” it says, flexing bared, fake-tanned thigh in Auggie’s direction; then reaches out to stroke him when he ignores the come on.

Auggie pulls away. It shouldn’t be doing that inside. Vendors playing illegal games with agro-filters again. He could report the thing but he does not want trouble, cannot afford the attention. He has other plans tonight. He moves on into the hall of rituals.

Orga faces gleam against the dark, cloaked in stoic preoccupation, illuminated by pulsating hues of red and blue, green and gold. Din of Techno-Fuk jams fills the air, sub-woofing beats hump against Auggie’s libido like an abandoned lover. ‘Where the hell you been?’ it wants to know.

On the stage, Tom of Finland cloned man-toy in Marlboro Man drag, struts back-forth, back-forth, pronouncing each swath by discarding a glove… the other glove… vest… shirt… leather chaps fall away, revealing sequin studded loin-piece. Impossibly huge man-tool budging beneath the sheer, sparkling cloth. The silent watchers break into cheers. Newbucks flutter from the dark like confetti. Man-toy flexes rippling abs, massive, marbled lats; struts again, and loin piece is tossed into the crowd, leaving only boots and hat, which he never discards, being so critical to the fantasy. The Mechanique stretches into inhumanly lewd positions and the real show begins.

“Mr. August?”

Breath against Auggie’s ear pronounces this an Orga intrusion. He clenches. Looks up suspiciously. The man is plain; striped shirt, chubby jowls, impatient sneer beneath opaque sunglasses. Not a worker. Not a customer. Not friendly.

“Uh, yeah,” Auggie says. Jowls beckons and walks away. Doesn’t wait for acknowledgement. Auggie follows… down a hall … up some steps… past a frowning security-bot…. through a door that opens on a cool, blue room. The door closes and silence ensues.

Jowls faces him, leans against a darkened control panel, crosses arms. States his name. But Auggie doesn’t hear him, heartbeat pulsing is in his ears. He looks everywhere but at the man’s eyes.

In the dim blue coolness beyond his inquisitor, a man and woman – mecha, orga… who knows? - are joking about something on a bank of monitors, where the club is displayed in infrared clarity.

Did they see anything?

“I do something?” Auggie asks.

“Not yet,” Jowls says. “But I can see it coming.”

Auggie lifts an eyebrow. Feigns innocence.

Jowls sucks his teeth, tilts his head; says “You’ve been a loyal member, Mr. August. Always appreciate when a customer, spends his hard earned bucks here. However….”, he points a ringed finger towards the room that lies beyond the door. “The floor models are for play. The show models are for show. Capeesh? I mean, that’s not a difficult distinction, is it?”

Auggie sighs. Relaxes. They don’t know about the device he carries. He glances around. Pretends to notice something on the floor. His eyes stay there until he can’t hide anymore. “Not sure what you mean,” he responds at last.

Jowls shakes his heads, takes a fatherly pose, hand drawing lazy circles in the air. “You… you know the difference between real and make believe, right? You aren’t confusing our performers for… for something they are not? Right?”

Auggie shrugs. His eyes stray to the monitors. He realizes they are roaming feeds. The service bots are cameras! A smile blooms at this realization. Jowls misunderstands the sudden change of mood.

“You ok, August?” he says. “I mean… you ain’t got any official deficits we should know about? Therapy? Medication?”

The question stings Auggie. He looks the man in the eye; sees impatience there, suspicion…. hint of disgust.

“Uh, I got groped by one of the lurkers in your foyer,” Auggie says, his voice full of recrimination. He points at the monitors. “You got roaming scanners all over this place. You should’a seen that. I was… offended by it! ” He puts potent emphasizes on the word, to let the man know he means it in the legal sense.

Jowls shakes head, incredulous. “What? Offended? It’s a yanker club, for fuck-sakes. It’s not like you’re in the pavilion.”

Auggie shrugs. Attacks. “I just came to watch Garrett. I didn’t expect some little whore-bot to get away with putting its rusty little hands on me… especially when you got all this security running around harassing customers just because they try to talk to a performer … once in a while.”

Jowls is beyond responding; jaw dropping to speak. Then closing. Then opening. The console staff is quiet too, their expressions indiscernible in the dim light. But Auggie knows they are grinning, waiting for Jowls to pounce. The man disappoints them, waves the confrontation off.

“Ok. Ok.” Jowls says through a knowing smirk. “I know what you’re doing and, believe me, I don’t give a fuck. No judge is gonna put his stamp an Offense Claim by some jerk who got groped up in a hot room. So I ain’t gonna sweat all that.

“You came to see Garrett? Fine. You’re a paying customer. We’re cool. He’s up in five minutes. Go on and get your ya-yas. Stay all night if ya want. But keep away from the performers. They’re expensive and I don’t want your spooge all over ‘em. There’s duplicates in the play rooms. That’s all I had to tell you. Capeesh?”

Auggie tries not to look triumphant. He clears his throat, shuffles on his feet, acknowledges that he ‘capeehsed’, and heads for the door.

“Oh, and August…”

Auggie turns to see Jowls shaking a scolding finger, no-nonsense in his eyes.

“I’m letting you have this one. But next time you front me with some bullshit litigation, I will have you 86’d and program one of those rusty little whores to kick your skinny ass all over the pavilion. Now fuck off.”

It was summer when he first saw Garrett. Humid days, rain drenched nights. Rouge was new to Auggie then; he, 19 now, fresh out of school and drunk on the illusion of freedom, roamed aimless, enraptured, under glimmering spires, floating adverts, dancing marquees; loitered in shadows at the splayed entrances of carnal palaces.

“Oh - my - God,” is how Auggie had said hello. But only in a whisper… a whimper, really. Voice snuffed out by the back-up band; unceasing din of rutting drums, grinding guitar of the elfin, prancing Bolan-bot on the stage, which, seeming to sense his catharsis; sang:

It wasn’t love that Auggie felt that night. Nothing so gossamer could have moved him to reach out and touch the flawless thigh. The response is ever recorded in his psyche: Garret notices him, winks, flexes,’ falls wanking to the floor’, rises taut and erect; purses painted lips and juts weeping eye of Mechanique manhood boldly in Auggies direction.

His lonely heart mourned a lifetime void of regrets.

The Cowboy finally reaches its manifest destiny. Rivulets of fake love funk spray in streams too thick for credulity. Drenches the front row. No one cares. Applause rises. New round of Newbucks hits the stage.

“Let’s hear it for Maverick!” disembodied voice says. Applause. Cat calls. Aged, harried fans rise and move to the playrooms where a fleet of Maverick twins are waiting to please or be pleasured.

Disembodied voice returns. “Ok, gentlemen. You’ve had a moment to compose yourselves. It’s time to get ready for everybody’s favorite twinker! Let’s hear it for the world famous Garrett!”

Lights fall away. Sirens erupt. Searchlights flare into existence against the sudden dark, and spread in disarray around the room. Cheers. Screams. The spots hit the stage, music explodes, chain link fences grow from nowhere; post-modern facade of prison walls appear.

Garret mounts the stage in striped black and white. Cuffed. Shackled. Newly shaven head. Black ink teardrops descend on the smooth curvature of a cheek, marking hearts fallen in his wake.

“I belong here.” He winks at his adoring fans. “You belong here with me.”

Uniform uniformed performers rush from the wings and pounce. Garret is taken to the floor, disrobed, humiliated, splayed, mounted again and again. The trance inducing score drives the frenzy, pounds the crowd like a mad, rutting beast:

Auggie braces against his tears.

He has been waiting for this night.

The disrupter in his pocket is warm against his palm.

A long, hot summer ago Auggie had spent half his check on a new jacket, a vial of the pheromone gloss the trendies liked to splash on their faces; polished his runners until they reflected the light, and dashed into the night before the landlord arrived to pound on his door. He’d practiced his lines on the tram all the way over the Delaware, smoothed his composure repeatedly, and felt his heart began to race as the gaping portals of Rouge City came into view.

And so had began that relationship. Another in a series of obstacles that had plagued his short life. But he’d tried again. And again. And the man’s explanations had grown more impatient, courser each time he’d had to intervene. Auggie had retreated every time, faded into the throng shuffling towards the playrooms to sate their gnawing desires. But he could not follow, only wait in the shadows, lips curled, brow furrowed; dark plan forming in the recesses of his tortured mind, and rising to the foreground on the crest of a desperate emotion.

Garrett pulls free from his abuser, rolls over; bends knees, flexing perfect thighs, and kicks. Play rapist is thrown back and Garrett jumps up, lashes out at his attackers and flees the stage.

Lights dim.

Music fades.

Applause rises.

It’s time.

As the crowd starts for the playrooms, Auggie stands. Puts on light diffracting glasses. Sticks sonic dampers in his ears. Breathes. Places the disruptor on the table. Triggers the timer…

10 - 9 - 8

…approaches the stage.

6 - 5 - 4

Guard sees him. Shakes his head. “Godammit! That’s it,” he says. “You’re 86’d, kid. Hit the…”

The disruptor goes off. Flashes erupt on screeching waves of sound. Violent white beams pierce the dark like invisible army of paparazzi assassins, blinding the room. Everyone hits the floor. Orga Guard screams under piercing din, closes eyes, covers ears. Security bots convulse, under sudden assault by airborne viruses. Auggie is already on the stage, and running.

Black shirted man rushes from behind the curtain, screaming “What the fuck?! What the-” his words are broken by the hard thrust of a thin shoulder against his chest. Breath woofs out of him. He hits the ground. Auggie has already passed.

Backstage is smaller than he’d thought. Unadorned. Props are scattered in naked disarray. He searches quickly and finds the performers, notices them noticing him.

“Garrett!” he screams.

None answer. The panic of the club has not reached here. It’s an Orga problem. They only await stage call. He scans the blank faces quickly. No Garrett.

Reason alights suddenly on his shoulder, whispers in his ear. Run, you fool! But he has come too far.

Auggie races past the performers who watch in mechanical indifference, kicks open door of small room filled with hanging limbs, arms, faces, torsos. Rack of unattached penises engorging and deflating in diagnostic routine, catches his attention. It’s absurd. Horrific. He doesn’t want to see it but cannot look away.

Something moves nearby. He turns. The face he sees reminds him of why he came to this place; to this life.

“Garrett.”

The word falls from his lips like a prayer.

The toyboy-bot tilts head curiously, doesn’t respond. Auggie pretends it is not an automatic reaction, sees what he wants to; the welcoming smile that is supposed to be there.

“I’ve come to save you,” he says, grabs Garrett’s hand as the noise of the disruptor dies outside the room. They’ll be coming. He rushes for the door to the loading dock which he knows leads to pavilion elevator, which will take them to the lower parking level, which will give them access to the sub-surface maintenance elevator, which will take them to the abandoned underground tunnels that were used by trams long before Auggie was born.

He has been planning this night.

Garrett follows obediently. It has no choice; it’s life was not granted by any deity which might implant that option. Auggies knows this. But in his dream Garrett has been desperately awaiting the arrival of a savior to rescue him from evil, cruel captors.

This he would rather believe.

So he does.