Hi everyone! It's been a while, and I wanted to try writing in a different style this time. I hope it's one that everyone enjoys!
From the Case-files of Kate Python:
The Devil's Proposition
Part 1
It was raining in the city of New Angeles. A hard, pouring rain that washed the dirt out from the dark corners of the city and swept it out into the streets for everyone to see. The drug runners and street hackers were out in full force tonight, running like cockroaches for shelter into every ramshackle building they could find. With vermin like that overrunning the city, it was getting harder for a decent girl to earn an honest living around here. Not like any of that applies to me, though. The name’s Kate Python. I’m a private eye.
But clients were in short supply these days, so instead of looking for work tonight, I was over at Nina’s Club looking for a stiff drink. I figured that was something I could actually find, and I needed it just as much. But no matter where I go, there’s one thing I can always find without looking for it: trouble.
She was at least a head taller than me, and even though I work out regular I had nothing on muscles like hers. I’m a girl who likes to take care of herself, and I can hold my own in a fight, but there were a good deal of club patrons by now looking at us from their tables and wondering if I was stupid or crazy to pick a fight like this.
She brought her hand down hard on my table, and if I hadn’t been holding my drink it would have been knocked over. “When I said you were sitting at my table, that was an invitation to leave before you are hurt, girl.” She spoke slowly, with an Eastern European accent I couldn’t place, but we’ve been seeing a lot of new girls moving into this part of town lately. She wore the standard outfit of one of the small gangs in the neighborhood: leather pants adorned with a few cosmetic knife slashes, metal-studded combat boots, and a black bustier that left a good view of her bodybuilder physique. Not to mention some other impressive assets that were still bouncing from the force of her blow. Her hair was cut short and spiky, dyed bright purple, and when she talked I could see she’d had some dental work done too: like about half the girls in this joint she’d had her canines sharpened and extended. There’s no accounting for taste.
“I guess we all make bad decisions, then,” I said. “For one, if I had a pair like yours, I wouldn’t be going out without a bra on.” That one evoked a look of surprise quickly followed by a grim snarl. A few of the girls at surrounding tables grinned ferally; they could guess what was coming. By this time a small crowd had gathered: people are always interested in seeing a good fight. It also began to occur to me that if I’d been wrong in my initial assumption, the next few minutes were likely to be extremely painful.
But then, I’m rarely wrong. She spring at me as clumsy as a rookie beat cop, and I was able to dodge without any trouble. I darted around her and grabbed her arm from behind, bringing her down on the ground before she even knew what hit her. She could’ve escaped if she’d known how, but she wasted her time trying to force me off with brute strength. In the meantime, I figured it was time I taught this new girl the ropes. Specifically, I had a coil of it in my pocket that I save for occasions like this. In a second it was around her wrists and ankles, and I had her tied up on the ground like a roped animal.
I plucked off her shoes with one motion and knew immediately that I’d sized her up right: the contrast to the rest of her body was obvious. The silky soft expanses of her soles, lush with baby fat, looked as pampered as though she had daily pedicures. The surfaces had that flushed pink hue and deep musk that I knew so well by now. Unless this bad girl lived at the spa, I was looking at the feet of a booster.
“I was even going to go easy on you,” she growled, her glare hitting me like a stiletto in the forehead. “But now…” But I just smiled, and pressed my forefinger into the center of her right arch.
As my fingertip sunk gently into her pliant flesh, I could see that bad girl façade melt away in an instant. Her eyes flew open like shutters and panic washed over her face. “EEEEEEEK!! T-TICKLISH!!” she squealed. I’ve seen girls in a turf war shootout look less scared than she did right then. I love being able to see them find out the truth for the first time.
“I know you are, love,” I said, baring all of my fingernails half a centimeter from her soles and relishing the cold sweat trickling down her body. “Anyone seeing you pick fights around here could tell that. All those muscles, strong enough to lift a table with one hand, and you start breathing heavy pushing around girls half your size? That tells me one thing, toots: you don’t work out, you’re a booster. And boosting has some…unfortunate side effects.” And with that, I decided to let my well-trained fingers illustrate my point.
“AAAAHAHAHAHAHA!!! NOOOHOHOHOHOHO!!!” she bellowed, the force of her laughter reverberating off the club walls and drowning out the music as I ran my fingernails over those enormous, helpless feet. Say what you will for boosters, but until they got big around this neighborhood I’d never had the pleasure of touching such impossibly soft soles. And now, just about every two-zed would-be tough girl has them.
“Whoever sold you those things didn’t mention that they increase your sensitivity, did they?” I coaxed. “Girls who use them end up with very ticklish feet. And I’ll bet yours weren’t ticklish at all before you started boosting, were they? I figure otherwise you’d be putting up some resistance.” Although it was damned lucky for me she wasn’t, is what I neglected to say out loud. “You know, a friend of mine works as a club bouncer, she says the market for her job has been flooded with girls like you. Now part of the interview process is a tickle-test. I got to see five girls take the test once. The toughest of them held in there for four minutes before she withdrew her application.”
But she couldn’t hear a word I said: her mind was flooded with the sensory overload being inflicted on those big, tender tootsies. Her rippling muscles strained and glistened with sweat, but it was no help: there was no endurance behind them. Her lungs emptied of air, she shook on the floor with silent laughter. Her massive chest quaked, and her face was almost as purple as her hair, covered with streaks of black eye shadow smeared by her copious tears. Another problem with that bustier of hers was that it couldn’t hide two huge, erect nipples underneath.
“I see you’re enjoying this too,” I said, looking at the evidence with a smile. “Let’s get a memento of our time together.” I took a recorder out of my pocket, and placing it on the ground with a full view of my new friend, I turned it on. “Smile for the camera, baby.”
I let the camera roll as I slid my fingernails over the tender virgin recesses of her ticklish feet. Some girls in my business keep their nails cut short, but I’d never trade away the ability to utterly demolish these arrogant gang bitches with a simple touch. I noticed she had some resistance on the tops of her feet: when she was about to pass out, I would tickle her there until she had enough air to laugh again, and then force it all out again with well-placed manipulation of her soles’ most tender spots.
But I can be a forgiving girl; I decided to be merciful. I drew my fingernails away from her soles, and untied her with a quick pull on the rope. Judging from her expression, I doubt she had ever felt such unmitigated relief in her life. I let her enjoy it for a second before I gave her a new surprise to cope with.
“And another piece of advice for you,” I said helpfully as I held her leather pants in front of her, draping them over the back of the adjoining chair, “For next time, you’ll want to wear panties under that outfit, love.” Personally I was glad she didn’t: you could see that boosting doesn’t overlook the gluteus region when toning the muscles. She slowly got to her feet, those huge tree-trunk legs quivering under her own weight. It was quite a view, and as she turned I took the liberty of giving her a smack on that firm ass. That shook her out of it: she hissed with a sharp intake of breath and clenched her fists, but just as quickly she realized she was the one standing there almost naked. After a moment of silence, common sense won out. Those bare feet of hers carried her across the dance floor without a word, and I watched that firm, exposed posterior slink out the front door onto the street. I was almost sad to see it go.
“Not bad at all,” said a calm voice next to me.
“Certainly easy on the eyes,” I answered wistfully, still watching the door.
“I meant you. That was some nice work.” I turned around to see my admirer for the first time, and she was quite a piece of work herself. She was dressed in a low-cut black club dress with black sleek open-toed pumps showing off her long, slender toes. Her hair and eyes were of the same jet hue: the only color to be seen on her was on her fingernails and toenails, both painted bright cherry red. She made a show of crossing her toned, slender legs as she sat down next to me. I watched her fingers as they fondled the stem of her champagne flute: dexterous as they looked, there was something forced and mechanical about their movement: almost certainly a prosthetic hand.
“Tickling a booster isn’t hard,” I said truthfully as I took a drink. “Those soles were a huge minefield of ticklish nerve endings waiting to be exploited.”
“She might come back looking for revenge,” said the admirer, smiling like the devil’s advocate. “With friends, next time.”
I patted my recorder. “She isn’t likely to have many followers after this. A have a friend who makes the Gang Street Laughter videos, and she’ll definitely be interested in this. Soon our little encounter will be on vidscreens across the city.” I took another drink. “I almost feel bad for her. The last girl this happened to had a sequel video made by her own gang members. One of the most intense in the series, I hear.”
“Wouldn’t you be interested in some more…lucrative business?” she asked with a smile that said trouble.
“What’d you have in mind, doll?” I asked, throwing back another drink.
“I know you’re a detective,” she said enigmatically.
“And I know you’re corporate,” I answered back. “Which begs the question what you’re doing in a run-down gin-joint like this on the wrong side of the tracks.”
“What makes you think I’m with a corporation?” she smiled, not denying it.
“For one thing, that fancy piece of machinery you’ve got,” I said, pointing to her prosthetic hand. “You don’t find tech like that from street suppliers, and it’s too well-equipped for a cosmetic. So I’d say your job involves some strong-arming.”
“Very good,” she purred.
“And then there’s that energy discharger you’re hiding in the heels of those pumps,” I continued, pointing down.
“Right again,” she said, smiling.
“And finally, you’re ordering top-shelf champagne in a place where everyone else is drinking cheap spirits.”
“It’s a weakness I permit myself,” she said, still smiling. “My, you’re as good as I’ve heard. I knew I didn’t make a mistake in coming to you.”
“I haven’t said yes yet,” I pointed out. “Don’t get ahead of yourself.”
“Well,” she said with a flirtatious bat of her eyes, “I’m still a potential customer, so that plus a fifty thousand zed offering fee must buy me a minute of your time.”
Well, something in me should have said no right there. No one offers that much money up front unless they’ve got something to hide. But I won’t lie: I needed the money. Drinks weren’t free, and a few upstanding community businessmen had become increasingly upset with my failure to pay back money I owed them. I figured that much green could at least stop them from playing a drum solo on my kneecaps. Besides, I’m a sucker for a dame with a pretty face.
“Tell me about this job,” I said.
“I represent a party which has had something valuable stolen from them. The culprit is a new underworld figure code-named ‘Lolita’. We want Lolita’s whereabouts tracked, and we want her brought to justice and our property retrieved. Once we verify that the item is intact, I’ll be happy to pay you the entire sum.”
“And what is this valuable property?” I asked.
The woman wagged her finger. “You don’t need to know that,” she said. “It will be on Lolita when you find her. Bring her to the alley behind this club at midnight in exactly seven days’ time. I’ll be waiting with your reward.”
As I watched her walk away, I began to think about what I’d gotten myself into. The dame was clearly not telling me the whole truth, which probably meant I’d find out the real name of the game the hard way. I was tired, sober, dead broke, and I was about to go off on a fool’s errand tracking down a wanted criminal that would likely get me killed in the process. Just another day on the job.
*****
I finally left Nina’s with about an hour or two left until dawn, and I was glad for the darkness. Like the rest of New Angeles, it looked a lot better in the dark. With daylight coming people were clearing off the streets, like bleary patrons in a dark bar staggering out before last call so they wouldn’t have to look around at the place once the lights came on. The garish, fading neon lights of the streets flickered through clouds of steam coming up from the grates. Towering above it all, the handful of megacorp buildings spread out over the city: huge technological anachronisms that looked like the wrong pieces jammed into a jigsaw puzzle. They didn’t belong in a city this dirty and run-down, but then not much did except for crime.
The rain was stopping by now, but a cold wind swept through the city, howling like the ghost of a thousand forgotten dreams laid to rest on these dark and crime-ridden streets. As I tightened my trench coat around me, I knew I needed a clue, but I’d settle for a cigarette. I stopped beneath an awning and lit up a coffin nail, blowing a cloud of smoke into the wind and watching it dissipate. And then, instead of smoke I was watching the steam from a ship as it came slowly through the bay towards the docks. The docks would be mostly deserted this time of night, but there was someone I knew there who could get me on the right track. It was time to visit Yuriko.
*****
Yuriko ran an import/export business down by the docks, the kind of place you only knew about if you were supposed to. She dealt in a little of everything: weapons, meds, cyberware, and if she didn’t have it then she knew who to lean on to get it. So when I got the chance a few years back to do a case for her tracking down a courier that stole her merchandise, I knew it would be the start of a fruitful relationship. Every now and then I help her thin out the competition and make sure business runs smoothly, and in return I know I can always get the word on any illicit deals going down on the streets.
But today I could tell that she didn’t need any protection. As I walked into the warehouse where Yuriko was set up, the first thing I heard was hooting laughter coming from the back. I knew I had walked in when she had company, but then, that was the best time to come. I walked to the back, past all the security systems I knew were watching me, and slipped into the door I heard the sounds coming from.
Sure enough, there was Yuriko in one of her concealed rooms she uses for some of the more sensitive merchandise she traffics. And there was certainly some sensitive merchandise in there now: sitting on a wooden bondage array with her feet in a pair of stocks was a huge girl that screamed “hired muscle”. With her hands tied above her head, she was stripped from the waist up and her bare feet protruded from the stocks in front of her. I stepped over a discarded leather jacket and a black reinforced bra left on the ground just inside the doorway, and there was Yuriko: a good two feet shorter than her guest, standing in front of the woman’s bare feet teaching her a lesson she wouldn’t soon forget.
Yuriko was a master of calligraphy, and she had her own trademark method for dealing with her enemies. Armed with a calligraphy brush and an inkwell, she stood in front of those enormous bare feet painting the soles like two huge, ticklish canvasses. She held her brush with the skill of a professional, painting the complete Japanese characters for the name of her business across the feet of another woman stupid enough to cross her. I couldn’t read Japanese myself, but I had seen the finished characters and they had hundreds of strokes in them. This woman was in for a long night.
“When will you ticklish bitches learn not to mess with my business?” Yuriko asked, as she finished a particularly impressive stroke across the arches.
“PLEEHEHEHEHEEASE!!! I GIVE UP!!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!” she huge woman howled. Her enormous bare breasts bobbed up and down as she writhed and struggled for freedom, but her ticklish feet remained firmly in place, not budging an inch.
“Not good policy to keep your back to the door,” I interjected after taking in the scene a bit.
“You don’t think I didn’t detect you coming from a block away?” asked Yuriko, still turned and focused on giving those feet the artistic treatment of a lifetime.
I didn’t doubt it, so I shrugged. “Catch you at a bad time?”
“Not at all,” said Yuriko, still managing to talk over the furious laughter from her guest. “Just another two-zed group of punks trying to muscle in on my business. After I get through with her, this one won’t come within ten miles of here again. You know, I really worry about the criminal element in this city sometimes. You’d think they’d learn that sending a ticklish hit-lady is a bad idea.”
“They probably will, once half the city’s hit-ladies have your brand on their soles,” I remarked. “At this rate it’ll be more common than any gang sign out there.”
“That’s the idea,” Yuriko smiled. I waited as she concentrated on the finishing touches to the character she was working on, which unfortunately for her “canvas” apparently crossed an especially tender part of the instep. I shivered a bit as I watched those soft bristles caressing what had to be inhumanly ticklish soles. As the brush continued its long, deliberate journey she laughed so wildly that I doubted she even knew what was going on around her.
“You know, I hear a couple of girls I painted a few weeks ago tried to remove the mark,” remarked Yuriko. “They were too ticklish to touch their own feet, so they had to do it to each other. Locked themselves in stocks facing each other, took brushes and soapy water, and tried to scrub the characters right off the soles. Silly girls, really. The ink doesn’t come off. All they succeeded in doing was tickling each other until they passed out, and they didn’t even remove a bit of it.”
“Sounds like you could make some enemies that way,” I observed with a smile.
“Ticklish enemies,” Yuriko corrected. She began work on the next character with a sadistic smile.
“EEEEAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!! MERCEEHEEHEEHEEHEEHEE!!!” howled the woman desperately as the brush began on virgin territory.
“Oh hush,” said Yuriko in reprimand to the woman. “You’re staying conscious for every last brushstroke.” She turned back to me, dipping her brush calmly in the inkwell beside her. “So, detective, is there anything I can do for you this evening, or was this only a social call?”
“As it happens, I need some information,” I admitted. “What do you know about a woman named Lolita?”
“There’s been a lot of talk about a new crime boss named Lolita on the streets,” said Yuriko. “An Asian girl: fairly young, talented, and involved in the drug trade, especially boosters. From what I hear she works mainly behind the scenes, but that’s changing.”
“Any idea where I might find her?” I asked.
“Not sure,” said Yuriko. “She keeps a low profile. I’ve never seen her myself, only heard of her. But, I do know someone who would know.”
“Who?” I asked.
“Her name’s Carrie Byron, and she’s a booster distributor. Word is she gets her supplies straight from Lolita herself. She has a penthouse over on Twelfth and Main, if you want to check in on her.”
“Thanks, doll,” I said. “I knew you wouldn’t let me down. Anything I can do for you in return?”
“I’ll think of something,” she said with a wicked smile. “In the meantime, I must ask you to leave. This next part is delicate, and an artist needs absolute concentration.”
I smiled, walking out to the sounds of hysterical laughter behind me. The hit-woman was past begging now, only babbling incomprehensibly as Yuriko’s careful painting tickled her to insanity. I’d have loved to stay and watch, but it was a business-before-pleasure kind of night. All I knew is that come morning, there would be another barefoot hit-woman on the streets, staggering home barely conscious with the mark of defeat on her ticklish soles.
From the Case-files of Kate Python:
The Devil's Proposition
Part 1
It was raining in the city of New Angeles. A hard, pouring rain that washed the dirt out from the dark corners of the city and swept it out into the streets for everyone to see. The drug runners and street hackers were out in full force tonight, running like cockroaches for shelter into every ramshackle building they could find. With vermin like that overrunning the city, it was getting harder for a decent girl to earn an honest living around here. Not like any of that applies to me, though. The name’s Kate Python. I’m a private eye.
But clients were in short supply these days, so instead of looking for work tonight, I was over at Nina’s Club looking for a stiff drink. I figured that was something I could actually find, and I needed it just as much. But no matter where I go, there’s one thing I can always find without looking for it: trouble.
She was at least a head taller than me, and even though I work out regular I had nothing on muscles like hers. I’m a girl who likes to take care of herself, and I can hold my own in a fight, but there were a good deal of club patrons by now looking at us from their tables and wondering if I was stupid or crazy to pick a fight like this.
She brought her hand down hard on my table, and if I hadn’t been holding my drink it would have been knocked over. “When I said you were sitting at my table, that was an invitation to leave before you are hurt, girl.” She spoke slowly, with an Eastern European accent I couldn’t place, but we’ve been seeing a lot of new girls moving into this part of town lately. She wore the standard outfit of one of the small gangs in the neighborhood: leather pants adorned with a few cosmetic knife slashes, metal-studded combat boots, and a black bustier that left a good view of her bodybuilder physique. Not to mention some other impressive assets that were still bouncing from the force of her blow. Her hair was cut short and spiky, dyed bright purple, and when she talked I could see she’d had some dental work done too: like about half the girls in this joint she’d had her canines sharpened and extended. There’s no accounting for taste.
“I guess we all make bad decisions, then,” I said. “For one, if I had a pair like yours, I wouldn’t be going out without a bra on.” That one evoked a look of surprise quickly followed by a grim snarl. A few of the girls at surrounding tables grinned ferally; they could guess what was coming. By this time a small crowd had gathered: people are always interested in seeing a good fight. It also began to occur to me that if I’d been wrong in my initial assumption, the next few minutes were likely to be extremely painful.
But then, I’m rarely wrong. She spring at me as clumsy as a rookie beat cop, and I was able to dodge without any trouble. I darted around her and grabbed her arm from behind, bringing her down on the ground before she even knew what hit her. She could’ve escaped if she’d known how, but she wasted her time trying to force me off with brute strength. In the meantime, I figured it was time I taught this new girl the ropes. Specifically, I had a coil of it in my pocket that I save for occasions like this. In a second it was around her wrists and ankles, and I had her tied up on the ground like a roped animal.
I plucked off her shoes with one motion and knew immediately that I’d sized her up right: the contrast to the rest of her body was obvious. The silky soft expanses of her soles, lush with baby fat, looked as pampered as though she had daily pedicures. The surfaces had that flushed pink hue and deep musk that I knew so well by now. Unless this bad girl lived at the spa, I was looking at the feet of a booster.
“I was even going to go easy on you,” she growled, her glare hitting me like a stiletto in the forehead. “But now…” But I just smiled, and pressed my forefinger into the center of her right arch.
As my fingertip sunk gently into her pliant flesh, I could see that bad girl façade melt away in an instant. Her eyes flew open like shutters and panic washed over her face. “EEEEEEEK!! T-TICKLISH!!” she squealed. I’ve seen girls in a turf war shootout look less scared than she did right then. I love being able to see them find out the truth for the first time.
“I know you are, love,” I said, baring all of my fingernails half a centimeter from her soles and relishing the cold sweat trickling down her body. “Anyone seeing you pick fights around here could tell that. All those muscles, strong enough to lift a table with one hand, and you start breathing heavy pushing around girls half your size? That tells me one thing, toots: you don’t work out, you’re a booster. And boosting has some…unfortunate side effects.” And with that, I decided to let my well-trained fingers illustrate my point.
“AAAAHAHAHAHAHA!!! NOOOHOHOHOHOHO!!!” she bellowed, the force of her laughter reverberating off the club walls and drowning out the music as I ran my fingernails over those enormous, helpless feet. Say what you will for boosters, but until they got big around this neighborhood I’d never had the pleasure of touching such impossibly soft soles. And now, just about every two-zed would-be tough girl has them.
“Whoever sold you those things didn’t mention that they increase your sensitivity, did they?” I coaxed. “Girls who use them end up with very ticklish feet. And I’ll bet yours weren’t ticklish at all before you started boosting, were they? I figure otherwise you’d be putting up some resistance.” Although it was damned lucky for me she wasn’t, is what I neglected to say out loud. “You know, a friend of mine works as a club bouncer, she says the market for her job has been flooded with girls like you. Now part of the interview process is a tickle-test. I got to see five girls take the test once. The toughest of them held in there for four minutes before she withdrew her application.”
But she couldn’t hear a word I said: her mind was flooded with the sensory overload being inflicted on those big, tender tootsies. Her rippling muscles strained and glistened with sweat, but it was no help: there was no endurance behind them. Her lungs emptied of air, she shook on the floor with silent laughter. Her massive chest quaked, and her face was almost as purple as her hair, covered with streaks of black eye shadow smeared by her copious tears. Another problem with that bustier of hers was that it couldn’t hide two huge, erect nipples underneath.
“I see you’re enjoying this too,” I said, looking at the evidence with a smile. “Let’s get a memento of our time together.” I took a recorder out of my pocket, and placing it on the ground with a full view of my new friend, I turned it on. “Smile for the camera, baby.”
I let the camera roll as I slid my fingernails over the tender virgin recesses of her ticklish feet. Some girls in my business keep their nails cut short, but I’d never trade away the ability to utterly demolish these arrogant gang bitches with a simple touch. I noticed she had some resistance on the tops of her feet: when she was about to pass out, I would tickle her there until she had enough air to laugh again, and then force it all out again with well-placed manipulation of her soles’ most tender spots.
But I can be a forgiving girl; I decided to be merciful. I drew my fingernails away from her soles, and untied her with a quick pull on the rope. Judging from her expression, I doubt she had ever felt such unmitigated relief in her life. I let her enjoy it for a second before I gave her a new surprise to cope with.
“And another piece of advice for you,” I said helpfully as I held her leather pants in front of her, draping them over the back of the adjoining chair, “For next time, you’ll want to wear panties under that outfit, love.” Personally I was glad she didn’t: you could see that boosting doesn’t overlook the gluteus region when toning the muscles. She slowly got to her feet, those huge tree-trunk legs quivering under her own weight. It was quite a view, and as she turned I took the liberty of giving her a smack on that firm ass. That shook her out of it: she hissed with a sharp intake of breath and clenched her fists, but just as quickly she realized she was the one standing there almost naked. After a moment of silence, common sense won out. Those bare feet of hers carried her across the dance floor without a word, and I watched that firm, exposed posterior slink out the front door onto the street. I was almost sad to see it go.
“Not bad at all,” said a calm voice next to me.
“Certainly easy on the eyes,” I answered wistfully, still watching the door.
“I meant you. That was some nice work.” I turned around to see my admirer for the first time, and she was quite a piece of work herself. She was dressed in a low-cut black club dress with black sleek open-toed pumps showing off her long, slender toes. Her hair and eyes were of the same jet hue: the only color to be seen on her was on her fingernails and toenails, both painted bright cherry red. She made a show of crossing her toned, slender legs as she sat down next to me. I watched her fingers as they fondled the stem of her champagne flute: dexterous as they looked, there was something forced and mechanical about their movement: almost certainly a prosthetic hand.
“Tickling a booster isn’t hard,” I said truthfully as I took a drink. “Those soles were a huge minefield of ticklish nerve endings waiting to be exploited.”
“She might come back looking for revenge,” said the admirer, smiling like the devil’s advocate. “With friends, next time.”
I patted my recorder. “She isn’t likely to have many followers after this. A have a friend who makes the Gang Street Laughter videos, and she’ll definitely be interested in this. Soon our little encounter will be on vidscreens across the city.” I took another drink. “I almost feel bad for her. The last girl this happened to had a sequel video made by her own gang members. One of the most intense in the series, I hear.”
“Wouldn’t you be interested in some more…lucrative business?” she asked with a smile that said trouble.
“What’d you have in mind, doll?” I asked, throwing back another drink.
“I know you’re a detective,” she said enigmatically.
“And I know you’re corporate,” I answered back. “Which begs the question what you’re doing in a run-down gin-joint like this on the wrong side of the tracks.”
“What makes you think I’m with a corporation?” she smiled, not denying it.
“For one thing, that fancy piece of machinery you’ve got,” I said, pointing to her prosthetic hand. “You don’t find tech like that from street suppliers, and it’s too well-equipped for a cosmetic. So I’d say your job involves some strong-arming.”
“Very good,” she purred.
“And then there’s that energy discharger you’re hiding in the heels of those pumps,” I continued, pointing down.
“Right again,” she said, smiling.
“And finally, you’re ordering top-shelf champagne in a place where everyone else is drinking cheap spirits.”
“It’s a weakness I permit myself,” she said, still smiling. “My, you’re as good as I’ve heard. I knew I didn’t make a mistake in coming to you.”
“I haven’t said yes yet,” I pointed out. “Don’t get ahead of yourself.”
“Well,” she said with a flirtatious bat of her eyes, “I’m still a potential customer, so that plus a fifty thousand zed offering fee must buy me a minute of your time.”
Well, something in me should have said no right there. No one offers that much money up front unless they’ve got something to hide. But I won’t lie: I needed the money. Drinks weren’t free, and a few upstanding community businessmen had become increasingly upset with my failure to pay back money I owed them. I figured that much green could at least stop them from playing a drum solo on my kneecaps. Besides, I’m a sucker for a dame with a pretty face.
“Tell me about this job,” I said.
“I represent a party which has had something valuable stolen from them. The culprit is a new underworld figure code-named ‘Lolita’. We want Lolita’s whereabouts tracked, and we want her brought to justice and our property retrieved. Once we verify that the item is intact, I’ll be happy to pay you the entire sum.”
“And what is this valuable property?” I asked.
The woman wagged her finger. “You don’t need to know that,” she said. “It will be on Lolita when you find her. Bring her to the alley behind this club at midnight in exactly seven days’ time. I’ll be waiting with your reward.”
As I watched her walk away, I began to think about what I’d gotten myself into. The dame was clearly not telling me the whole truth, which probably meant I’d find out the real name of the game the hard way. I was tired, sober, dead broke, and I was about to go off on a fool’s errand tracking down a wanted criminal that would likely get me killed in the process. Just another day on the job.
*****
I finally left Nina’s with about an hour or two left until dawn, and I was glad for the darkness. Like the rest of New Angeles, it looked a lot better in the dark. With daylight coming people were clearing off the streets, like bleary patrons in a dark bar staggering out before last call so they wouldn’t have to look around at the place once the lights came on. The garish, fading neon lights of the streets flickered through clouds of steam coming up from the grates. Towering above it all, the handful of megacorp buildings spread out over the city: huge technological anachronisms that looked like the wrong pieces jammed into a jigsaw puzzle. They didn’t belong in a city this dirty and run-down, but then not much did except for crime.
The rain was stopping by now, but a cold wind swept through the city, howling like the ghost of a thousand forgotten dreams laid to rest on these dark and crime-ridden streets. As I tightened my trench coat around me, I knew I needed a clue, but I’d settle for a cigarette. I stopped beneath an awning and lit up a coffin nail, blowing a cloud of smoke into the wind and watching it dissipate. And then, instead of smoke I was watching the steam from a ship as it came slowly through the bay towards the docks. The docks would be mostly deserted this time of night, but there was someone I knew there who could get me on the right track. It was time to visit Yuriko.
*****
Yuriko ran an import/export business down by the docks, the kind of place you only knew about if you were supposed to. She dealt in a little of everything: weapons, meds, cyberware, and if she didn’t have it then she knew who to lean on to get it. So when I got the chance a few years back to do a case for her tracking down a courier that stole her merchandise, I knew it would be the start of a fruitful relationship. Every now and then I help her thin out the competition and make sure business runs smoothly, and in return I know I can always get the word on any illicit deals going down on the streets.
But today I could tell that she didn’t need any protection. As I walked into the warehouse where Yuriko was set up, the first thing I heard was hooting laughter coming from the back. I knew I had walked in when she had company, but then, that was the best time to come. I walked to the back, past all the security systems I knew were watching me, and slipped into the door I heard the sounds coming from.
Sure enough, there was Yuriko in one of her concealed rooms she uses for some of the more sensitive merchandise she traffics. And there was certainly some sensitive merchandise in there now: sitting on a wooden bondage array with her feet in a pair of stocks was a huge girl that screamed “hired muscle”. With her hands tied above her head, she was stripped from the waist up and her bare feet protruded from the stocks in front of her. I stepped over a discarded leather jacket and a black reinforced bra left on the ground just inside the doorway, and there was Yuriko: a good two feet shorter than her guest, standing in front of the woman’s bare feet teaching her a lesson she wouldn’t soon forget.
Yuriko was a master of calligraphy, and she had her own trademark method for dealing with her enemies. Armed with a calligraphy brush and an inkwell, she stood in front of those enormous bare feet painting the soles like two huge, ticklish canvasses. She held her brush with the skill of a professional, painting the complete Japanese characters for the name of her business across the feet of another woman stupid enough to cross her. I couldn’t read Japanese myself, but I had seen the finished characters and they had hundreds of strokes in them. This woman was in for a long night.
“When will you ticklish bitches learn not to mess with my business?” Yuriko asked, as she finished a particularly impressive stroke across the arches.
“PLEEHEHEHEHEEASE!!! I GIVE UP!!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!” she huge woman howled. Her enormous bare breasts bobbed up and down as she writhed and struggled for freedom, but her ticklish feet remained firmly in place, not budging an inch.
“Not good policy to keep your back to the door,” I interjected after taking in the scene a bit.
“You don’t think I didn’t detect you coming from a block away?” asked Yuriko, still turned and focused on giving those feet the artistic treatment of a lifetime.
I didn’t doubt it, so I shrugged. “Catch you at a bad time?”
“Not at all,” said Yuriko, still managing to talk over the furious laughter from her guest. “Just another two-zed group of punks trying to muscle in on my business. After I get through with her, this one won’t come within ten miles of here again. You know, I really worry about the criminal element in this city sometimes. You’d think they’d learn that sending a ticklish hit-lady is a bad idea.”
“They probably will, once half the city’s hit-ladies have your brand on their soles,” I remarked. “At this rate it’ll be more common than any gang sign out there.”
“That’s the idea,” Yuriko smiled. I waited as she concentrated on the finishing touches to the character she was working on, which unfortunately for her “canvas” apparently crossed an especially tender part of the instep. I shivered a bit as I watched those soft bristles caressing what had to be inhumanly ticklish soles. As the brush continued its long, deliberate journey she laughed so wildly that I doubted she even knew what was going on around her.
“You know, I hear a couple of girls I painted a few weeks ago tried to remove the mark,” remarked Yuriko. “They were too ticklish to touch their own feet, so they had to do it to each other. Locked themselves in stocks facing each other, took brushes and soapy water, and tried to scrub the characters right off the soles. Silly girls, really. The ink doesn’t come off. All they succeeded in doing was tickling each other until they passed out, and they didn’t even remove a bit of it.”
“Sounds like you could make some enemies that way,” I observed with a smile.
“Ticklish enemies,” Yuriko corrected. She began work on the next character with a sadistic smile.
“EEEEAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!! MERCEEHEEHEEHEEHEEHEE!!!” howled the woman desperately as the brush began on virgin territory.
“Oh hush,” said Yuriko in reprimand to the woman. “You’re staying conscious for every last brushstroke.” She turned back to me, dipping her brush calmly in the inkwell beside her. “So, detective, is there anything I can do for you this evening, or was this only a social call?”
“As it happens, I need some information,” I admitted. “What do you know about a woman named Lolita?”
“There’s been a lot of talk about a new crime boss named Lolita on the streets,” said Yuriko. “An Asian girl: fairly young, talented, and involved in the drug trade, especially boosters. From what I hear she works mainly behind the scenes, but that’s changing.”
“Any idea where I might find her?” I asked.
“Not sure,” said Yuriko. “She keeps a low profile. I’ve never seen her myself, only heard of her. But, I do know someone who would know.”
“Who?” I asked.
“Her name’s Carrie Byron, and she’s a booster distributor. Word is she gets her supplies straight from Lolita herself. She has a penthouse over on Twelfth and Main, if you want to check in on her.”
“Thanks, doll,” I said. “I knew you wouldn’t let me down. Anything I can do for you in return?”
“I’ll think of something,” she said with a wicked smile. “In the meantime, I must ask you to leave. This next part is delicate, and an artist needs absolute concentration.”
I smiled, walking out to the sounds of hysterical laughter behind me. The hit-woman was past begging now, only babbling incomprehensibly as Yuriko’s careful painting tickled her to insanity. I’d have loved to stay and watch, but it was a business-before-pleasure kind of night. All I knew is that come morning, there would be another barefoot hit-woman on the streets, staggering home barely conscious with the mark of defeat on her ticklish soles.
