Archon's Queen (6 page)

She danced wearing only a dark metal choker connected to a thin band encircling her chest an inch below her breasts. Made to resemble leafy vines, the harness held a device the size of an egg tight against her back from which long filament wings sprouted five feet to either side. Her alabaster skin glowed blue from the holographic appendages that fluttered, waved, or extended in concert with every motion or change in posture. A headband of false flowers projected shimmering antennae of light up from her hair, a dangling pair of orbs at their tips.

Anna clasped the bars above her head, fingers circling about the gentle curve of the metal where it came together. She swung herself about in time with the music pounding into her head; so loud, she imagined her brain compressing with each beat. Her feet landed with the precision of practice. It took more concentration than usual today; anxious sweat came from knowing one misstep would result in a painful fall. The lack of chems in her system made everything tedious, every motion slower, each piece of her act necessitated deliberate thought about what she did. To the room around her, she flashed a smile as insubstantial as her wings.

She could not remember the last time she danced while sober enough to realize she was naked in a room full of strangers. Aside from suppressing her out of control brain, the chems mitigated her embarrassment. At least six men had commented on how red her face was. Concentration spread between containing the
thing
and not breaking her ankle. Whenever a slip happened, she chose not to fall and
it
got loose. Few noticed the random spark overhead or a NetMini here and there blowing out. Anna forced herself to move with the beat the way she had always done. Each time her bare skin brushed metal, the nightmare of being hunted down and killed seemed less unwelcome―at least she’d be dressed for that.

Under the haze of zoom, the pixie persona often became real. Sometimes the room full of perverts would melt away to a sylvan forest. Instead of being a whore in a cage, she became a real fey flying through the trees. She could forget who and where she was. Today, she had no such shield. Leering eyes and wild howls hit her without the armor of drugs. The way these men looked at her made her glad for once Blake locked the cages.

He had ignored her plea for a half hour delay. A guy she could score from lived only a few blocks away from the club; she could have been there and back in less than fifteen minutes. He gave her a hard time about being late already and seemed in no mood to suffer a request for even more time. He’d all but dragged her into the changing room and ripped her clothes off.

Working for Blake was one small step above being a slave, not that the police cared one whit about what people did to Cov girls. If she had the gall to go to complain to them, Blake would say she had only made the lot of it up to cover her stealing from him, and they would put
her
in jail.

At least she made a little cred working here; what need did a Cov have of dignity?

The music shifted: lighter, faster, with a thrumming beat. She altered her routine, moving her body in waves against the cold enclosure as the virtual pixie wings buzzed. Reacting to the pace of the music, the somber blue holograms burst into a frenetic lime green before it cycled through pinks and reds. She stared at them, wishing them real, wishing she could fly out of this cage and disappear into the place she so often dreamed about.

A hand stuffed an orange plastic ticket in a box hanging below her enclosure; a tip, physical tokens exchanged for credits at a booth near the door. On autopilot, she squatted low near the man who dropped the trinket, giving him a closer look. His gaze locked upon her flesh and he touched her breasts where they protruded through the bars. She acted as though she enjoyed the attention, smiling on the outside while she wanted to run off to a dark place and hide. A loud bang erupted somewhere overhead; an electronic element paid the price for her spike of shame. Anna bit her lip as his hand yanked away. One of the enormous bouncers hauled him around by the collar, holding him on his tiptoes.

“No touchin.’ You wanna take her in back for half an hour, it’ll be six hundred. In advance. Backdoor’s another hundred. Kink another two.”

As people who exploited Covs went, Blake was on the more generous side. At least forty credits of that, she’d get to keep.

Anna stared at the latch. Hearing this man sell her body regardless of her say in the matter filled her with shame, though far more than a simple locked door trapped her here. She fantasized, imagining him paying for her. She pictured the door unlocked, opening, the bouncer reaching for her. A knee to the groin would catch him off guard. Anna would let her panic out, let the
thing
go crazy. The chaos would give her the chance. In her mind, she sprinted through a shower of falling sparks and confused perverts. She would run. As soon as the door was open, she would get out of there. It no longer mattered how little she wore. The cage had become intolerable. She had to escape. Anna gripped the bars of the door with both hands, flashing an eager smile the prospective John would misinterpret.

The customer pulled at his collar, staring at her sideways. “W… What’d I get for that?”

“Whatever ya fancy, ‘cept don’t cause permanent damage. You do anything to ‘er a stimpak won’t fix, I’ll tear your boys off and feed ‘em to ya.”

She stood on tiptoe, licking the bars and winking. The man peeled his gaze from her to babble at the bouncer. In the end, fear won him over and he scurried away. Anna wanted to turn her back to the room to hide the sudden tears that rolled free, but anywhere she faced was more depravity. Half the multicolored, strobing lights, as well as her holo-rig, sputtered and went dark. She swallowed her shame; emotion let the thing out of its cage.

Calm down, Anna. Calm down.

The lights and electronics came back, and within a moment, the confused quiet gave way to the usual din.

Her body did not want to continue. She held on to the bars, swaying barely enough to convey an attempt at continuing to dance. The flashing lights and overbearing music swirled together in her head, creating nausea as though she had suffered a punch to the gut. She swallowed a hint of her breakfast again, gasping for air as she broke out in a cold sweat. The flavor reminded her of Penny. She wanted Penny to save her from the cage like she had saved her from the street. Anna shook the cage, desperate to escape, wanting to go home. Greedy faces blurred at her feet, spinning and whirling into a sickening spiral of degradation. In a moment of panic, she strained at the door, trying to open it. The crowd cheered and clapped at her yearning look at the club’s exit, assuming her effort to escape was part of her act.

Stop looking at me.

She sank to the bottom of the cage and clutched one leg to her chest. The other dangled through the bars below. The initial shock of cold metal upon her skin melted to comfort a few seconds later. Sitting felt wonderful. Her limbs shook, no matter how much she tried to will herself to stop. She leaned her forehead into a space between two bars, too narrow for her skull to fit through. The chill offered momentary relief from the nauseous headache jackhammered into her brain by the sound system.

The holographic wings curled forward. Blue again, they draped around her like a pixie asleep on a branch. She shivered, having gone from overheated to freezing. Beads of sweat raced each other down her extended leg like errant spiders. The trembling intensified. She let go of her breasts and rubbed both arms trying to warm up. Staring eyes bathed her in a chill as though she sprawled out in the snow with nothing on.

Anna wanted a warm blanket, a bed, something softer than the rigid cage in which she cuddled. A convulsion brought a trace of vomit to the back of her mouth; a gossamer thread of bile extended through the bars to the floor. Time lost meaning as she flitted in and out of consciousness, the numbing cold the only constant. A man’s voice wobbled through her clouded mind, asking if she was okay. Bottled water came through the bars and she hugged it like a doll, sipping at it, still floating outside of time. Rejecting the offering, her stomach wound into a knot and sent the liquid back up through her nose in a sputtering cough.

A loud crack of metal on metal jarred her out of her fog. Her head snapped up; the floor around her had cleared of men, except for one. Blake hovered outside, his cheeks red, his eyes glaring. Sprawled at the bottom of the cage, she looked down at him. He roared; his teeth and tongue sprayed her with tiny fragments of discontent. Blake smashed the bars with his truncheon again and again, whatever words he bellowed failed to pierce the haze in her mind.

She reached up to grip the cage and pulled herself standing. Being eye-level with her shins seemed to enrage him even more. Inch-thick plastisteel bars made for uncomfortable footing. The cage wobbled, chains clattering, with her uneasy balance. Anna tugged at the door, locked as always. Blake said it was for their protection.

Bullshit, he loves hearing me beg to be let out.

The incoherent fog between her ears parted as real-time sound came rushing in; the music seemed much weaker than his voice.

“Oi, stupid doser bitch. This ain’t naptime! Get your ass moving. You forget you’re for sale? None of these gits wants to dip their wick in a zombie.”

Anna grasped the bars, rattling the hatch. “Please Blake, I need to use the loo. I feel like shit. Lemme outta here?”

“You’ve only been at it for two hours, your break’s not for another three. Get to it, or you can spend all night in there.”

“Come on, Blake. I’m serious. I feel lousy…”

Anger faded to laughter. “Oh, is that so? How many sick days do you have left?” His joviality ended in an instant, voice dropping to a threatening growl. “I own you, girl. Never forget that.”

“It doesn’t matter how much of a shit you are to me.” Anna clutched at the cage to stay upright, casting a hateful stare. “Answer’s still no. You ain’t gettin’ in my knickers by being a bigger twat.”

“You don’t wear knickers,
whore.
” He bashed the enclosure an inch above her fingers.

She jumped back; her foot slipped through the bars and she landed on her ass. She grabbed her pinched thigh and screamed. Pain rode up her spine and detonated a budding migraine into a cascade of vomit that splattered onto the floor. Letting gravity take her, she curled into a heap on her side, staring at the wavering blue antenna bobbing in front of her eyes. Everything hurt. The music thrummed into her brain, sending wave after wave of bile through clenched teeth. Flashes of hot and cold ran through her limbs. Her
bones
ached. When his last word reached her brain―
whore
―the sound system burned out with a deafening concussive
boom
that sent all but two of the patrons diving to the floor.

She shivered, glaring at Blake as he turned to deal with pissed off customers. Blue sparks danced over her arms, lapping at the cage. Anna held up a hand, mesmerized by the electricity crackling through her fingers. All she had to do was want Blake dead. Her arm slipped through the bars, straightening, pointing at him.

The door was still locked. She’d kill him and get caught. Her lip curled into a sneer.
Fuck it.

Power built up around her as she gathered current from her surroundings. She concentrated on Blake’s head, wanting the current to be drawn there. A feeble thread of lightning snapped between her fingertip and his skull. He swatted the spot as if bitten by a mosquito. Anna let her arm fall limp as a head-sized droid floated up outside of the cage, flashing a holographic advert for antacid.

After a mild convulsion, she vomited again.

Her left eye felt as though a knife had pierced it; the migraine worsened. A few men wandered over to see what Blake would do, but he shooed them towards other dancers less visibly sick. The sales bot lost interest and glided away and her body succumbed to involuntary shudders punctuated by searing threads of pain that flickered through every nerve.