A Doll's Foot

Chapter 10

"FUCK. HOW MUCH?"

"Three thousand euros. At least it's a worthy cause."

"Bullshit. Probably reducing infant mortality on little black girls who come here and flood the whore market."

"Tax deductible," Rachel offered, which produced a squirm from Rocco.

There was someone pounding at the door. "Don't open it! It's Andre!" But instead it was Nestor. "How did you get in here? No, why would I even ask. Your fucking watch!" He was the last person Beatrice wanted to see at this moment. So why did she run to kiss him, forgetting where her tongue had just been? "You were watching our show?"

"I came over when I saw Andre. Obviously not the real Andre."

"We got hacked. Can you get our tips back?"

"Your tips?"

"They got donated to UNICEF."

"At least it's a worthy cause."

"We've been through that already. Reducing infant mortality. Creating a surplus of little black girls to come here flooding the market."

"Tax deductible? No, never mind."

"You saw what I had to do to earn that money," Rachel griped. "I want it back."

"I'm not going to steal money from UNICEF."

"What about getting us back on the site?"

"You'll have to contact them."

"So who hacked us?" Rocco asked. "Your precious bots?"

"They would certainly have the capability. When you recorded Marissa in the morgue that would have given them enough to create the illusion. But why?"

"Something gone wrong with their programming?"

"It's not as simple as programming. Their algorithms are self modifying."

"Maybe now they have a sense of humor? A little practical joke?"

"Or some other entity with similar capabilities?"

"Anna?" Beatrice asked. "If she had a grudge against us?"

"Why would she?" Marissa said. "We treated her very nicely. Well, most of us did."

"Maybe it's a warning, like the foot.

Dio mio

! It's here! On the coffee table!"

Sure enough, the missing foot had replaced Marissa in the image on the monitor for the living room.

"It's not real," Nestor assured them, "but let me see if I can capture a better image."

He was tapping at his phone when the foot appeared to burst into flame.

"That's real!" Beatrice screamed. "I can smell the smoke!" She rushed out to the kitchen to get a fire extinguisher. They ventured out to the living room to see what was really there - Beatrice trembling, a pile of ashes on the coffee table where Rocco's prized volume of

Nudo e Crudo

once had lain, someone pounding on the door to the apartment. Nestor was the only one not naked. The others retreated to the hall while he opened the door, half expecting to find Andre. But it was the super for the apartment building, armed with a fire extinguisher.

Nestor pointed to the charred book, the man gave a shrug, and went away.

"That could have killed us," Marissa said. "If Bea had not acted so quickly and so bravely.

Mia cara

, you are my hero also. These people, this thing, whatever, can kill us, whenever? On a whim?"

"Most likely," Nestor said. "Here in a city. Plenty of things to hack. Out in the middle of the woods, not so much so. Or the middle of the ocean. Even on a ship, you don't have the kind of internet connection they would need."

"So if your bots wanted to kill someone..."

"They're not supposed to do that. They are intended to stop people, to place them in custody, to bring them into the international justice system."

"Well suppose that person was in a primitive monastery, out in the middle of the jungle... oh, is that why you were in Southeast Asia?"

"Not exactly, although I did wind up out in the countryside."

"And you were able to capture this person, to transport them to stand trial in the Hague, or whatever?"

"No. I didn't get that far in my investigation."

"So they are still out there, doing whatever evil thing?"

"It's more complicated than that. And of course eliminating one person or a few doesn't eliminate the problem. Did you know that the Buddhists in that region believe that actions in one life earn them rebirth in a better status? And that women feel that they are inferior and yearn to be reborn as men? And that pleasing men will gain them virtue?"

"Is this heading where I think it is?" Beatrice asked.

"Young girls are recruited, by the monks, to please men."

"As prostitutes?"

"Exactly. And of course they donate some of their earnings back to the monks who have recruited them. Of course they are willing to be very reckless because if they die young, that only gets them to their reward more quickly. There were anecdotal references to this on the internet and I was sent out to try to confirm them."

"I'm impressed," Rocco said. "So satanic. But maybe these girls are just using it as an excuse? To justify themselves?"

"Mothers give up their daughters because of this."

"Not because they get money? So they can feed their other children? Their sons, perhaps?"

"The monks make it easier for them."

"So you and your precious bots are offended by this?" Beatrice fumed. "You, of all people? How do you justify your own depravity?"

"Justify? To you, of all people?"

"Not to me. To..." Beatrice trailed off. Who had she ever felt the need to justify herself to? Her parents? They were open swingers. It was all she could do to keep herself from getting sucked into their parties. They knew all about her videos, her shows. What constraint had she ever felt? Loyalty to her brother, perhaps, to her

amica

. But that had been cast off very thoroughly last night with Nestor, with their encouragement.

"So you think it's just superstition?" Marissa asked. "That these girls are reborn and gain karma to be reborn as males?"

"Not completely, but it's exploitation. These poor girls are being sucked into losing their childhood."

"Really. I found my childhood very boring. I was very happy to lose my innocence at an early age."

"And you, Signore Birdbrain, I assume you resisted temptation? You did not take advantage of these poor deluded girls?" Beatrice could not resist.

"Well, of course I needed to talk to the girls. There are posts on the internet where some Australian tourists, lady tourists, had conversations with the girls and got this story out of them. But I wanted to get some independent verification. And they aren't going to just have a casual conversation with a male tourist. Know what I mean? Time is money for them."

"And you wanted to get them into that dreamy little state after they've been thoroughly fucked," Beatrice said. "Like you did last night?"

"You? You fell asleep right away. But it's true you want to make them feel relaxed. And these poor girls, they get fucked a lot, but no one is interested in their pleasure."

"Tell me about it," Rachel sighed. "Sometimes I'm so horny by the time I get off work."

"What do you do about it?" Marissa asked.

"I wake up my roommate if she's back before me. Or I hope she's showing up soon. I'll bet those girls have

amantes

."

"And the boys?" Beatrice teased. "The younger versions of poor Kim? Did you need to interview them too? Of course you did. What kind of karma are they attempting to gain?"

"Perhaps to be reborn as a woman," Marissa said. "If they had any common sense. What about you, Birdy? Want to come back as a lady next time?"

That produced more of a pause than she had expected. "And go shopping and wear high heels? I don't think so."

"He was sneaking peeks at the soccer game while we were eating dinner last night," Beatrice said. "Not paying attention to me. And what about all the 'keep the change' bullshit. He's definitely a male."

"You know, I was married for a long time. I have a daughter."

"So?"

"You think I haven't been through this before? My daughter got caught up in some sort of ultra feminist movement in college. Gave up on boys and got a girlfriend. She keeps going on and on about how males are obsolete and maybe we should keep a few around for breeding but that's it. How all the wars are caused by male stupidity."

"So? What do you think, Risa?"

"I like real cock better than a dildo. Except they're not big enough. There's something about someone fucking you for their pleasure, not necessarily yours. I like to suck a real cock. Sucking a dildo does nothing for me. Men have nice hard bodies. Should have."

"Not the ones who come to our restaurant," Rachel sighed. "The ones who need to buy some time with a server. A lot of them use up their five minutes, their fifty euros, just trying to get it up."

"Easy money for you."

"I suppose. How would you have felt last night if Birdy hadn't been able to perform?"

"Humiliated. Inadequate. Not pretty enough. Not sexy enough. Too fat. Too old."

"Exactly."

"You couldn't possibly think those things about yourself. Could you?"

Rocco had been busy with his phone. "Two things. First, we need to explain how we got hacked and how we can prevent it from happening again, before we can do another live show."

"Good luck with that one," Marissa grumbled. "Maybe you can give us some help with that one, Birdy?"

"It depends."

"Depends on what?"

"If I get any assistance from the directorate. So far they haven't been very communicative. They'll do that, sometimes."

"They just throw you into a situation and cut you off?"

"Or give me instructions that seem irrelevant. Like obtaining Bea's services last night. Don't get me wrong, it was very enjoyable, but what does it have to do with locating Anastasia, or maybe it's really Natalia? Even if they do know who or what did the hacking, assuming it wasn't them, they may not be willing to tell me."

"Don't tell me you didn't put in sort of override?" Rocco asked.

"There's no way I could do that."

That set off alarm bells with Beatrice. She had learned long ago how to tell when her brother was lying, which was actually quite a lot. Nestor was a not a good liar, which was probably why he had never attempted to cheat on his wife. He was lying now. Why? Of course, because his bots had to be listening in. But if she could tell he was lying, couldn't they? What if they decided he was a threat to them? And who knew who or what else was listening, if some other intelligence, human or artificial, had been the source of the hack?

"The other thing." Rocco pulled her out of her reverie. "The sheikh messaged us. His yacht has arrived."

"He's here? Already?"

"Just the yacht. He's planning to fly in next in a couple days. He says he wants to have us for dinner."

"Oh, I don't like the sound of that. After the Pizza Hawaii this afternoon. Hopefully he doesn't have a taste for whore's meat."

"There's some evidence that the flesh of sinners is halal," Birdy said. "But that was a long time ago. Then there was a Syrian rebel who was eating the hearts of his enemies."

"I was a little kid," Rocco said, "but I remember that story."

"We need to get that video made," Marissa said, "for the sheikh. A very messy video. Now would be a great time to do it, most likely. Nestor, want to record us? You're aren't squeamish, are you?"

"Do you know what the fucking sheikh wants us to do? Look at the clip he sent us." Beatrice put a video up on the monitor. One that Nestor had watched more times than he was willing to admit. Two girls, clothed in shorts and halter tops, are on the beach and a guy comes out of the water naked carrying a thin spear and wearing a little wreath on his head. Seaweed? It was hard to imagine how it could have stayed in place if he was swimming around under the water hunting fish. He motions to one of the girls and she pulls off her shorts and kneels down so he can fuck her up the ass. Just like that. Well, in truth, it had been about that abrupt when he had run up to the gay beach the day before. This might be the only place in the world where something like that could actually happen. Anyway, it's very, very messy, and the other girl is there drooling at the sight of all that yummy shit. So he gestures her to come over and take a few licks off his cock and right from the source.

"So?" Marissa said. "What's the big deal. You get fucked and I'll do the licking."

"The girls switch places. In the video. The sheikh is going to expect us to switch."

"We'll fake it. I'll stick some peanut butter up my ass. Or fudge. Or maybe a mix of the two. I'll bet that would be really tasty, especially with a little shit mixed in."

"I'll puke."

"The sheikh would really go for that," Rocco said. "I'll come out covered with fudge and deep throat you until you puke."

"Seriously? How much is this sheikh paying?"

"Ten thousand euros."

"I'd be glad to do it," Rachel said.

"It has to be us. He's obsessed with us. He wants to degrade us, more than we already are. Who knows what's next, after this?"

"Maybe you don't want to find out."

"We could use the money," Rocco said.

"Where is this headed for you?" Rachel asked. "Really. In another year I'll have my certificate, I'll be working as a chef, maybe the salad chef, but it's a start. It's a living. And maybe by then I'll have a real boyfriend, and settle down like everyone else."

"You'll probably be fucking the chef or the owner," Beatrice snorted. "Once a whore, always a whore."

That drew a blush from Rachel, replaced by a look of defiance. "You know, I work in the kitchen before the restaurants open, and all day once a week. The culinary institute requires that I do at least that much."

"And you fuck the chef those days?"

"The guys are stuck in the kitchen all the time. They aren't allowed to be wait staff. They're watching us get rented. So the days we're in the kitchen we try to make it up to them. It's only fair."

"Oh, not just the head chef then?"

"Depends how busy we are."

"So how is this boyfriend going to hold your attention for more than a week? You're going to be so fucking bored."

"Maybe we'll be swingers, if that's a problem. But what are you going to do? What you're doing now is getting old, isn't it?"

How did she mean that? That doing the cam shows was getting old? Or that they themselves were getting too old? Either way, it stung.

"That's why we came here," Rocco said. "I'm going to start a job in IT in the fall, and the girls are going to the culinary school."

"Well, make that cut now. Tell the sheikh to fuck off."

"We, uh, don't have quite enough money to do that. Especially if we can't do cam shows. Tell you what, Rachel, stay here, give us an hour, and maybe we can go back live with the cam show again."

"What the fuck am I supposed to do for an hour? Take a nap? Nestor, want to hire me out for an hour?"

"I'm, uh, going to be working the cameras. I thought?"

"I'll go half rate, five euros a minute, if that's a problem."

"Nestor had a busy afternoon," Beatrice said. "Fucking a tranny."

"It wasn't a tranny," her

amica

added. "Worse than that, a

castrato

. No balls, no boobs, just a little stub of a penis. Like a little boy, but very tall. Wouldn't that be a problem? So tall? A very long rectum? Can't get past the end of it where it feels really good?"

"Oh Nestor was complaining about that with me last night."

"We have books," Rocco said. "Musical instruments if you can play them. Movies. Video games."

"Anna had this amazing VR setup for the game she liked. I tried it once but it was too much for me. But you might like it. Here." Beatrice handed Rachel a tiny headset and small silver box with a red button. "That's the panic button. The way out of the game. Don't forget you have it. No, it doesn't go in your ears. On your temples. You press the panic button to start."

Which Beatrice must have done for her, because Rachel was somewhere, somewhen else. It looked like a set from one of the Star Wars movies, maybe it was, but the sun, or whatever star it might be, was bright enough, hot enough, to be annoying. She was wearing the same sort of outfit Princess Leia had on in the Jabba the Hutt scene, except instead of a bikini bottom it was a tiny skirt that didn't cover her butt. But she was carrying some sort of really heavy weapon, it looked like it could take out a tank, let alone poor Jabba. So she'd escaped, and she was on the run? Maybe she didn't want to escape. She'd watched parodies where Jabba got his way, and it looked like a lot of fun.

A little flatbed truck came along, like one she had seen in one of the parodies, with guards that looked like orcs out of Lord of the Rings, but they were covered with tattoos like Andre and they were carrying big guns like the one she had. One of them pointed his gun at her and motioned for her to get on the back of the truck. She had no idea how to use the gun she had, plus what else was she going to do? So she walked over to the truck, put the gun politely on to the back, and started to climb in. But the guard stopped her, bending her over the back of the truck. Oh. Of course. The orcs in the parodies all had enormous erections. As big as Andre or the giant dildo. Rocco that morning was the biggest she had ever tried, and really it had been a pleasure. Men built like that didn't need to rent out table whores, at least not in this town. She wanted to look back to see what this one was like, but a huge hand was holding her down. Something huge and scaly was sliding up her butt. No lubrication of course, except maybe her blood. Or shit. Lovely. She was probably going to see what it looked like when it came back out of her, shoved in her face. At least Risa had the decency to remove the dildo in private.

Wait. Wasn't the game responding somehow to her thoughts somehow? Think something pleasant. But it was too late. The guard was thrusting more rapidly, pushing in so hard she thought she was going to be split in two, then turning her around to clean him up. Too big to get in her mouth, she was reduced to licking off the mixture of blood and shit and rancid green semen. Then she was back on her belly and guard number two was going for sloppy seconds.

The next that she knew, she was somewhere dark and cool, on a nice cushioned surface like a wrestling mat, with a chain around her neck. Still in the same outfit, waiting for Jabba. Someone had taken the trouble to clean her up. And there he was, but where was his prick? Somewhere under all that belly fat? She'd had a couple of customers like that, they really couldn't fuck you because their pricks couldn't get past their gut. So it was going to be a blow job? What a let down.

"Who the fuck are you?" That from Jabba was disconcerting. A girl's voice, not the deep growl she had expected. "Where the fuck is Nestor?"

"My name is Rachel."

"What are you doing in my game?"

"Bea said I could play it."

"Bea? That bitch? Figures. Nestor was the one who was supposed to get into the game."

"Nestor? He's busy. They're doing a video for the sheikh and he's shooting. You're Anna?"

"Of course I'm Anna. Who do I look like?"

"Jabba the Hutt." But as she said that she was standing in a courtyard talking to a tall thin blonde. "Oh. No wonder you didn't have a prick."

"What? Look, I need to talk to Nestor. He's in great danger. The directorate has been corrupted."

"Hacked?"

"It's not that simple. Turned to the dark side."

Really? Was this still part of the game? "Okay, I'll let him know."

"No, you can't do that. If they know that he knows they'll kill him immediately. Right now they think that they can use him to find me."

"And can he?"

"Maybe." There were sirens then, and a huge flash of light just on the horizon, followed by a mushroom cloud. Anna was grabbing her hand, forcing her to hit the panic button.