Kittens was the name of the toy shop. They had taken a robotaxi to Logan Square and were charged a ‘sin fee’ for going to the brothel, but Chatter pulled out his funds and was happy to pay. “Haven’t seen one of these since Denver. Good times, good times,” he said. The building was nothing fancy on the outside, just pink neon lettering and images of half naked people on the black windows. Drunks and junkies and surfers lingered outside the door. The bouncer was a large man of muscle and chrome. The lower half of his arms robotic, while the top half bulged from his biceps and triceps. He made sure the nonpaying customers stayed out.

  “I give a great time,” a pretty man said to Oto as they walked over a sleeping, or dead, body, he couldn’t tell. “Cheaper than the toys inside too.”

  “No thanks,” Oto said. He was on a mission to get out of this city as quick as possible. No distractions.

  “Fee.” The bouncer said, his dreadlocks swinging with his head. A W was branded on his neck. Oto figured they were in the right place. “For two of you it will be a hundred.” Chatter transferred the funds and the door slid open to reveal purple and pink lights. “Have fun and stay out of trouble.”

  Inside some techno-punk music was blasting. The whole room shaking. The front part was a normal strip club. Dancers, both real and holographic, teased and flirted with the customers. High paying ones were taken through a beaded doorway into the back. “That’s where the brothel is,” Oto said.

  “Let’s have some fun first,” Chatter said as he gawked at a half naked man and a woman with her breasts out. “Heaven on earth in here.” He found a waiter, wearing only a codpiece, and ordered a drink. “Best thing in Chicago I would say. Beats that prick’s penthouse any day.”

  “You have fun,” Oto said as he dodged a naked woman with a metal stomach, “I’m trying to get into the Loop and on our way.”

  Chatter shrugged and went to the stage. As the strippers danced and revealed more skin he shouted and transferred funds to their accounts.

  Oto sat at the bar and ordered a water. He needed his senses if they were going to deal with a gang. He didn’t know anything about the Westside Chefs, but if they were anything like the gangs in Denver then they had illegal mods and top of the line guns from the black market. He looked around the club. Purples dancing across faces and bodies. A Chinese pop song started to play. Oto hummed the tune. Large men and women full of muscles and chrome all had some kind of tattoo on their neck. He couldn’t make them all out, but a few matched the bouncer outside. Chatter and him couldn’t do anything foolish or they’d have a fight on their hands. And even Oto’s modded gun wouldn’t be able to assist with all of them.

  Then he saw Skye.

  She was laying on her belly, feet in the air, and her hands were rubbing a man’s thigh. He wore a striped suit and gold chains and rings. Oto took another swig of water and couldn’t believe his luck. He crossed the club and pulled Chatter away from a robotic toy made to look like a real woman. “Friend,” he said over the Chinese music.

  Chatter followed his gaze with rolled eyes. “Of course this is her joint. Lucky for you we can’t shake these people.”

  Oto shook his head and went to the couch, a red velvet. The rich man glared at them, but Skye wasn’t taking her eyes off him. “Get lost,” he said. The man had golden teeth, tattoos over his face, perfect hair.

  “Pay attention to me,” Skye said, “not them,” and turned. Her face dropped when she saw Oto and Chatter standing over her. “Fuck me,” she smiled at the man and stood, pulling the two away from the couch. “Fucking following me? I can get the bouncer over here real quick.”

  “Just a happy coincidence,” Chatter said. “Oto here wants to talk. Me? Well I think it’s best we part ways.”

  “Go talk to some toy,” Oto said and shoved Chatter aside. “The dealer gave us this lead. We need to talk to the Westside Chefs.”

  Skye tensed and shushed him. “You wanna mess with the Chefs? Real fucking funny, guy,” she gave a nervous giggle. “Couldn’t get the ming from your rich prick so you decided to come here?”

  A tall, slender man, with an elongated head appeared behind Skye. He wore a velvet cape over a black suit, his skin was flawless, and his forehead stretched so high it had to have been cosmetic. Some fashion style in the seventies or something. “Who are our guests?” He said in a sly voice. It dripped off his tongue like honey. “Are they paying? Because you have a nice gentleman over here,” he motioned with a gloved hand to the rich man, “waiting for your services.” The elongated man leaned into Skye, and Oto’s zoom could see his hands pinching her stomach. “We don’t want to lose his business now do we?”

  “We’re paying,” Oto said and Chatter shook his head as he took a sip of his drink. “We just wanted to know if this toy was fine with two.”

  “Skye here is renowned throughout the Free City for being with fifty men at once. Quite an achievement,” the man smiled but his fingers were still pinching. “Two is nothing. Just be sure you have enough coin to spend the time with her.”

  “We have that and more,” Oto smirked.

  “Well then why are you still talking?” The elongated man finally let go of Skye and clapped his hands. “My dear, show them to your room.”

  Skye pursed her lips but took both a hand of Oto and Chatter, the rich man cursed under his breath, the elongated man smiled with devious lips. “Right this way,” she said.

  As they passed under the beads, the smell of sex filled the room. Air purifiers were running nonstop, causing the backroom to shake. Frosted glass windows were on either side of them. Moans escaped, and the sound of a whip at one point. “Don’t short, okay?” Skye said as one of the rooms was opened. Some guy was doing anal with a woman, he must’ve got off knowing anyone could walk by and see. The toy he was fucking was crying, her mascara leaking down her cheeks, in the corner the amount he owed ticked up with every minute.

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  “My room,” she ushered them into a room farther down the hall, clicked a button, and the frosted glass slid from the ceiling for privacy. “Now tell me what the fuck you two want.”

  “That girl next door okay?” Oto asked.

  Skye looked around the room before saying, “Yes? She has some special bodmods that allow her to take a pounding. Some illegal tech from Gabon,” she swatted. “What do you want?”

  “Woah,” Chatter said as he picked up a headset, “the newest model. Can’t believe you can afford it. Mind if I try it?” He didn’t wait for Skye before slipping the clear visor over his eyes, magnifying them, and plugging in. The glass eyes clouded over and he was somewhere getting off virtually.

  “Look,” Oto sighed, “we don’t actually want zhiming. We’re carrying cargo and looking for someone to help us through the city. Our contact is supposedly in the Loop. Problem is we’ve no way to get in, so we’re looking to the Westside Chefs to help us. Apparently they smuggle through the wall all the time. Just so happens you’re here.”

  Skye sighed and her upper body seemed to go limp. “What did Vanessa get us into?” She scratched at her hair. Moans escaping from the room nearby. Hard slaps. Cursing. “You want to get shot getting into the Loop? Be my guest. But I don’t know anyone who can get you through.”

  “Can you ask around? Get back to us?”

  Skye blew hair out of her eyes. “I mean I can, but I don’t want you two snooping around. I can get in enough trouble as it is.”

  As if she knew the glass defrosted and rose. The elongated men was standing between two roided goons. “Well, Skye, our W.A.T.C.H.E.R.,” he nodded to a small camera in the corner of the ceiling, “noticed you weren’t giving our guests the satisfaction they wished for. I’m here to find out why.”

  “It’s nothing, Darian,” Skye said. Any confidence she had when talking to Oto melted away.

  “Where’d you go?” Chatter asked his visor before taking it off and noticing what was happening. “I was having a good time, why’d you have to unplug me?”

  Darian shifted and said, “You can buy that machine and have fun at home. Kittens here, and especially Skye, offer a unique type of pleasure. You pay to be inside her, not jack off beside her. See that counter,” he pointed to screen with yellow numbers, it said $3, “talking doesn’t pay the bills. It’s only 50 cents a minute to talk, but once you enter our toy then it jumps to five dollars a minute. See the issue?”

  “Issue being you’re still making money?” Oto crossed his arms. “Seems an invasion of privacy.”

  The men laughed, his thin lips curling. “I’m not sure if you know this but privacy vanished about a hundred years ago. Sure you can use bodmods or try to hack the system, but the next day your privacy vanishes again. You walk into my club. I scan you at the door. I know everything about you, Oto.”

  “Sure you do,” Oto said, a bead of sweat trickling down his brow. “Then you know we don’t want any trouble. Just wanna talk. Is that too much to ask?”

  “Is that what you said to the girls in Cheyenne too? Police report from the USA says you and some friends were there when an explosion happened. Thirty dead. Somehow you survived.”

  “Well you know the States like to make up bullshit,” Chatter said from behind. “And it’s not like the Free City sees their authority anyway, so I think Oto is clear.”

  “While the Free City is of course a separate legal entity, the governor still does wish to harbor terrorists. Usually we cast them out into the lake. Shall I take you to her?”

  “They want to talk to Ballou,” Skye said, her voice was low and feeble and she shifted her feet, but Darian still listened to her.

  “What about?”

  “Ballou hired them to move some toys across the border, I was their contact. That’s why they were speaking with me.”

  Darian pursed his lips and cocked a hip but started typing on nothing but air. He had an eyemod that showed him whatever keys he was pressing. “Let’s call Ballou and see what he was to say.” The goons swayed and cracked their knuckles as Darian waited for whoever Ballou was to answer. One of the roided men had bronze where his knuckles should’ve been. Oto didn’t want to feel that to the face. “Bonjuor, Monsieur Ballou. Yes. Yes.” Darian began to sound like Skye with how quickly his confidence faded. Oto turned to the prostitute and she bit her lip.

  If only he knew what she was thinking. Trying to trap them? Help them? Hand them over to this Monsieur Ballou? He didn’t need any of that. His goal was merely to get through the Free City. “I see,” Darian continued. “Well I have two men here who whore number 5246 says is helping you with some shipments. Yes.” His beady eyes stared into Oto’s soul. “Yes. I will let them know. Bonne journée.”

  Chatter sighed and shook his head. “Whelp.”

  All three of them tensed for the beating. Oto was hopeful his chrome implants would absorb most of the shock, it had only been a few weeks since they were implanted and still needed some adjusting, but anything was better than the feel of bronze fists.

  But no beatings came.

  “Ballou is going to send a car over,” Darian picked at a hangnail. “Seems you were telling the truth after all, and here I was not believing my favorite toy.” He opened his arms and Skye, after a goon cleared his throat, went to hug him. Darian pet her hair as he said, “now, my girl, don’t be long. Many and more are waiting for your services.” He pushed her away and started down the corridor, stopping to inspect the girl with mascara down her face. “Use the back exit,” he called out.

  “What the fuck?” Chatter whispered and Skye held up a hand to keep him quiet. They followed Skye down the hall, not much left to it, to a small door that rusted but opened nonetheless. The afternoon sun blinded Oto as they stepped into the concrete ally. Other than rats, stray cats, and trash the ally was deserted.

  “Are you going to tell us what just happened?” Oto asked as the door slid shut.

  “I know Ballou is all,” Skye said as her eyes scanned the area, “and I know he likes to smuggle things, and he loves nothing more than new recruits who don’t need paid.”

  “And he got that all from a call you weren’t on?” Chatter poked her shoulder in annoyance.

  Skye chuckled, “Ballou isn’t dumb. You’ll see.”

  “That Darian fella was weird,” Oto said. “Your boss?”

  “What else would he be?” Skye flipper her hair. “What’s so weird about him? Best boss I’ve ever had. The others would rape me and stuff. Darian just pinches a little.”

  Oto crossed his arms and leaned a foot on the building. “I see now why Vanessa wants you to leave.” Oto said as he looked at the scar on her face again. She had some makeup on to hide it, but the outline was just barely visible. “So if not Darian, who beats you?”

  Skye let out a deep sigh. “If you must know, sometimes the clients are a little rough. Need someone to vent to, let some frustration out. For some of them sex isn’t enough,” she shrugged. “I don’t give a flying fuck though. Beat me, rape me. Pay me. That’s all I want. And that rich fuck you took me from could’ve paid me enough to last a week without going back,” she chewed a nail, all of them much too short. “I have to figure something else out, so thanks for that.”

  “You coulda told Darian who we were.” Oto said. “The Pink Chef and everything.”

  Skye waved a hand as a three-legged cat limped by. “It is what it is.”

  “She likes us,” Chatter said in a low voice that still carried. If Oto hadn’t known better he would’ve thought he saw a smirk on Skye’s face. But before he could be sure an all black Rolls-Royce hovercraft the size of a sedan came strolling down the ally, no tires, only magnetic field. “Top of the line,” Chatter whistled. “This Ballou knows his stuff.”

  The suicide doors opened and a robotic voice in a French accent said, “Thank you.” As Oto and Chatter and Skye filled the crisp leather seats that were facing one another, the car said. “Monsieur Ballou wishes you a pleasant experience. The trip won’t be long, but please enjoy some complimentary refreshments.” The doors closed and a table rose from the floor. Sparkling wine, bourbon, tequila, and a cheese tray were staring back at them.

  “Maybe I do like the rich,” Chatter laughed as he poured a glass of wine and ate white and yellow cheeses.