4

The magnetic hovering song of rushing metal over metal woke you. Your eyes stung under the florescent lined wood paneling, ceiling bulbs inserted into the lines between the polished planks. This place had the aesthetic cross between log cabin and meat locker. You were naked on waxed cardboard. It must have been a rough night. Your mind cloudy from the attempted homicide. Your holiest of holies felt fine. Your heart had stopped from the shock and whoever crated you didn’t have a thing for the living dead, lucky you. Dumping you on a shooting star seemed like the best option to get your corpse out of dodge lickity split. You could have been packaged as a high‐end doll for deviants, shipping costs must have been too high. There was no address on the busted pieces of laminated white shell that kept you from the prying eyes of conductors and vagabonds that would have dared to nose their way into your cell. You were on a northbound train. You recognized the interior design of the first class luggage car, no sliding windows on this one to check your progress along the line. Your fellow cargo, seven large trunks that could have held your body, standing, all locked, a small wardrobe, and custom hard cased luggage. With nothing to break into the loaded gear, you waited for the eventual agent to enter and tend to the goods. Ren. You had forgotten about your drugged friend lying in the locker room. You tipped the trunks on their ends, the crashing would stir her if she were alive; at worst bring a bellboy to unlock the compartment. You sat knees tucked against chest and back against wall waiting for a sign of life on either end.

You dozed off for around 15 minutes, the train’s forward motion slowing down; there was a station close. The cargo door opened. An old man and a young man stepped through into your car. The old man was balding he wore a thin halo of ginger hair around his leathered scalp. His jaw falling on the sight of you but he quickly recovered it, adjusting his glasses. Douglas, you read his nametag.

“Ma’am, the luggage car is not a safe place, lots of large things that could hurt you in here.” You stood up; they were both half a head shorter than you. “That’s what you wanted though, am I right?” There was a tick in his voice. He had seen enough movies, he knew what to do in these situations, dicks knocking together like in those gangbang films you caught your brother watching when he was in high school. The younger guy, Ted, on his name tag, was a dumb kid with a lumpy head and soft around the center, he didn’t do his cardio. He lurched forward a bit, you could smell gin on the pair of them, nothing better to do on a long haul.

“What train is this?” You weren’t amused. The room was colder, the tiny hairs on your body on end out of the goose pimples running over you. There was static coming into your vision, visual fuzz, things distorted and you pushed your face close to the screen for a closer look. You rocked your head into the nose bone of Ted the younger shattering it and dropping him in a lumpy mass. “That’s better. Now where are we?” You cracked your heel down on his head for a second measure, making your point clear. There was a little more give this time and a sound that assured you that you wouldn’t be bothered by roaming hands happening to get a grip around you. You caught Douglas fumbling for a suppressing spray to put you in your place. It was too late and he was too slow, your nimble fingers grasped and turned aerosol can back on him.

“AHHHHH!” The spray made it around his glasses and filling his nose with stinging vapors, choking gasps, his head swelled turning crimson.

“TED,” Your volume up over the choking of the rapidly asphyxiating Douglas. You wiggled him back awake with your foot, “TED, What station are we pulling into?” Garbled slush sound, you must have knocked out some teeth with the stomping. You took a seat cross‐ legged between the two fallen. He was all tongues; the concussion damned him to a useless babble. “Doug, get it together, in through your mouth out through your mouth.”

“It’s a Pole bound train. What the f**k are you?” Audible fear in his voice, you filled his nose with another spray, another shriek of agony. You stole the key from his waistline and holstered the pepper spray in your left hand. You’d stopped moving. Out of the luggage car you locked it behind you and were into the opulence of soft carpet and polished oak vertical paneling blocks, same light design ceiling running along the corridor only slightly dimmer light than the eye splitting florescence of where you had come from. You strolled towards a platform door. It was daytime. Snowdrifts blew past. You had a half an hour before pulling out of the station according to the count down clock above the exit. You moved further down the line of cabins, stopping at the closed door to room 339. You placed the magnetic key against the lock. It was a two‐room suite. Very humid, shower steam pouring from the open bathroom fogged the mirrors closest to it. You tore into the wardrobe looking for something to cover your naked a*s. Jeans, true dark denim, not the thin synthetic you were used to, heavy durable material lined in waffle weave cotton for extra warmth. They fit just right, from the smell they belonged to a man, the tinge of sweat stuck to them. Your foot was big for a girl, heavy wool socks and military style boots slid over your feet, a bit large, not flopping in the fit, you added two extra pairs to snug them out. Half dressed, you heard the shower peter down to drips. Black turtle neck with vertical grooves over your shoulders. You waited on the bed. You couldn’t make out an image in the vapor but it was clear that there were three people in that bathroom. Muffled slurping noise and slapping of flesh on flesh came across the cabin, deep gags and a little splash sound of liquid on tile.

“Room service,” chuckling.

“Just put a towel over it, we’ll be out of here in a few hours.”

“Thank God. You should have booked a bigger room.”

“Michael, how was I supposed to know, huh? Do I look like the f*****g, I don’t know what the f**k, but do I look like it? Anyways you’re always looking for something bigger. It’s not like we’re sleeping here, go to the dining car if you want some action”

“Don’t I know it.” Laughter and a hand clap. “I thought you had worked on that little gag problem, Luca.”

“This old girl ain’t what she used to be. I’m a top anyway, I don’t have to involve myself in such things unless I feel like it, consider it a privilege you get to f**k my mouth.”

“Oh darling, you really do know how to treat a girl.” Group laughter and the first party person walked out into the bedroom opposite you, a very smooth young man with what appeared to be two dicks, you couldn’t tell which one was plastic. Gargling inside the bathroom, another man, your size, brown curls towel around waist, walked into your room freezing at the threshold.

“Luca, you didn’t tell me you made a friend. Wait, is that my McGee sweater?” He inspected the lines of the fabric. “It looks good on you,” ignoring the rest of your attire. The third person joined the room.

“Oh is it that little butch thing from the Bar Room?” You watched her tense then ease back out into a calm state. She was more woman than you physically, a full head taller and hips like a corset was bound around her forming an hourglass figure, but with her being nude this was the natural state of things. Her breast sat monumental and slightly shaded behind black with white skunk striped hair. “You should pick your jaw up unless you’re going to eat me,” her blue eyes drilling you. Her lips moving, you heard the words but registering them was slow to come. “You’re too skinny anyway you’d get lost, what are you doing in our room?” The man next to you held your weapon out of your reach, only the key in pants pockets now.

“Honey, what do you think you’re going to do with this?” He pressed something against your neck; “you’re going to be numb soon so I’d talk unless you want to end up in the great white for good.” Not an inch of joke in his brown eyes. Coco skin waxen and smooth, more likely to have been poured over muscle and skeleton than a built in feature. There was a glimmer around him like bottled fire was shining through. He was toned to scientific specifications; you could chart the flow of blood through his body with ease.

“I,” there was a berry taste in your mouth, “I woke up in the luggage car, and--- and I got out. Stole some keys.” Spasms on your eyelids, was this what a stroke was like? “I think I killed a luggage attendant, you can go check.” Your arms didn’t work anymore; your body slumped to one side. It was shaping up to be another s****y day, and you just woke up.

“Joshua,” Your mind still working, you figured Michael was next to you, he called again. “Joshua, I think we found long lost cotton tail.” His sound trailing off, and he ripped the patch from your neck, “We don’t want you dead just yet.” It was hard to get around whatever was now coursing its way through your veins, it wasn’t something you had taken before, that was positive, most anesthetics that worked that fast were gassed in. Out of your sinking eyes you caught the silhouette, no, just a black mass, midnight skin. Latex covering? No shine off if it so it was all natural hue. He was the darkest man you had ever seen. The harness around his waist holding the prosthetic penis at attention didn’t seem out of place on him, his own sticking forward underneath with identical girth and veined slick with fluids. Your tracking turned off, you couldn’t make your eye pass the belly button. It was like looking at a mutant elephant, tuskless and radioactive dark sounding from trunks on end. He bounced over to you, balls swinging in step with wriggling hard on.

“Hey there, chief.” Luca’s swishing hips stepping closer pulling up side by side with the elephant man. She was trim with a landing strip line leading down to arrowhead. She ran through your pockets taking the keys. “Go check the luggage room, bring back case number one. Oh yeah, and dump any trash that’s in there if she’s telling the truth.”

“O Tay, lovie,” He bopped out of the room still nude. “He’s all about his dick.” Luca
“I’m all about his dick.” Michael, “And what are you about?” The talking c**t next to your face. Your body starting to come back around, taste fading from your mouth, you could smell her perfume flooding in your nostrils. She was sweet, melon scented, you could see sap on her inner thigh. You shook the webs from your brain, neurons firing again reconnecting you to yourself slowly.

“Just so you know we’re not all bad.” Michael massaging your head, back, neck. “We reserve the right to f**k you up. Now honey, what’s your name?” You reared back on to the bed and adjusted your spine.

“Barty Ashby.” You were struggling right now, words half garbled, nothing made sense, for the most part the hedonists that happened to hold you hostage seemed to be on a catch and release policy. “What was that?”

“Hypnosis and a heavy neurological activity depressant, tastes good doesn’t it?” Luca taking the seat opposite Michael, crossing her legs and leaning back into the plush cushions.

“Hypnosis?”

“I hate when people do that in movies, repeat the last thing they heard, she didn’t stutter.” Michael

“You just don’t get a lot of hypnotism going on,” you shook your head trying to loosen the remaining cobwebs.

“Simple misdirection, it’s like a magic trick because it is. You look one way and then you’re making chicken noises.” Luca

“Drugs help, like lube, you seemed pretty tight so I had to do a bit of slight of hand,” Michael peeled a circle of yours.

“So you’re performers? That’s cool. Do you have any cigarettes? I’m kind of in a s**t mood. I wake up on this f*****g train naked in a big a*s cardboard box,” Michael lit a cigarette for you,”Thank you. This is after some c***s tried to deep six me in the swimming pool mind you,” you puffed out smoke.

“Performers, I guess I’d thought of it that way but no one ever really says it like that.” Luca. “And naked in a box? At least they didn’t saw you in half, they could have really made you disappear if they did it right.”

“No resolve to see things through till the end. I mean, you throw a radio in the bathtub and you expect the person to stay dead.”

“Well aren’t you the resilient one.” Michael

“I’m pissed off is what I am.” You stubbed out the cigarette in a near by ashtray. “What day is it anyway?”

“Wednesday. Cool down living dead girl, where are you from?” Luca

“Bernal. Wait, it’s Wednesday? Damn I’ve been gone since Monday morning.” If you had been dead, the staff of this train was doing a terrible job, a package your size shouldn’t be bouncing back and forth. Don’t ask don’t tell proved effective this time in keeping you under wraps, but f**k all, paranoia started to slip in your head over the depth of your disappearance.

“I knew I heard about you. You’re that Ashby guy’s daughter. It’s all over the news. Bitter Blood and then the daughter of MAG Zero goes poof a week and a Wednesday.” Joshua cracked open the door. His other dick turned around backwards as tail, dragging the trunk into the room.

“Room service.” Joshua

“Joshua, we’ve got a celebrity in our presence, Ms.Zero.” Luca

“We’ll if I wasn’t into the c**k maybe I’d be interested. You two are such star fuckers.” Joshua

“See, you see what happens? You f**k one pop star and you get labeled a star f****r. Just because I’m up on my current events doesn’t mean you have to come in and shoot all over my s**t.” Michael

“You know that s**t is all propaganda anyway, it’s 100% advertising.” Luca

“Conspiracy, conspiracy, conspiracy, if you weren’t there then you can’t say anything.” Joshua, “I could have had Jamie Leeks licking my brown eye in thirty minutes, fifteen minutes with that you are getting sleepy bullshit you pull.”

“I can’t believe you’re still angry about that, you boys are so catty.” Luca squinching her face at you in amusement.

“I’m not angry I’m just telling him what he was doing, like you drugging DeeMc.” Joshua

“If there weren’t pictures then it never happened.” You chimed in. This back and forth was becoming much.

“You’re good you know that, you want a job?” Joshua, you couldn’t tell if he was serious or not. “You don’t clean up for s**t, but you’ve got showmanship and a presence that goes a long way.” Josh

“Yeah, what’s up with the guards?” Luca

“Well, Ms.Zero shattered, I think his name was Ted, Ted’s skull. Well, he was dead, dying” Josh turned the d***o back forward and took a seat on the end of the trunk, “he didn’t even look like the ID card, and you were naked when they found you? You must work out. The other guy looked like bees attacked his face, he was barely breathing, so I smothered him. The snow was deep enough for them to disappear and we’ve got two new uniforms for the wardrobe.”

“Wow, you’ve got some anger issues. I don’t think I’ve ever reacted that violently while naked,” Michael. “Good thing I drugged you right, right?” He gave you a playful nudge, you couldn’t help but laugh a bit, what kind of clowns did you run into. “So, what do you have to say for your self Ms.Zero? How does it feel to kill a man?”

“Well, I’m just really excited to be here,” you did your best acceptance speech voice over.

“She’s humble too. You’ve got to come with us to the Arctic Sea, you’d be the perfect fourth horse person.” Luca

“What are you doing anyway,” you were full again, residue wrenching out of your system, you yawned. “I mean what the f**k is up with the abracadabra act, take that as you will, but I’ve got a few things I’ve got to get back to in Bernal.”

“Whoa now, keep your teeth in your head.” Joshua stood up, dual dicks swinging, “You just had to ask, if you had on panties I’d say take em out of your a*s.” He popped the trunk.

“We’re terrorist, not the cheap kind you find on the Internet though, you get however many hits and you’re an ideologue all of a sudden.” Luca. Your eyes on the opening case. There was an organizational flare that begged for attention, weapons broken down to their pieces, small caliber, large bore shells, bricks and wires, followed by portfolio folders filed down into a layer cake, the yellow lines between binder rows, tabbed slots booked end to end.

“We’re franchise players, but we reserve the right to do our own recruitment and development of a farm league.” Michael

“And you want ‘Big Time’ Barty Ashby to come play for your squad?”

“What team do you play for, baby?” Luca eased a hand towards your thigh.

“What did I tell you? Star F****r.” Joshua, “I think you’d be a good fit. Someone is trying to kill you in Bernal Flats anyway, may as well make it a little harder for them.”

“Do I seem like a runner?”

“You seem like an athlete.” Michael

“You seem like a safety.” Luca

“You seem like someone who knows what they’re doing. No questions. This is an offer. You want to go back to Bernal, we’ve got you. If you get off here or at the next stop or at the next stop, it doesn’t matter. You’re going to do what you want to after this and you don’t care enough to roll over on us, of course. Click your heels and we’ll take you back to BF.”

“Double tap then.” You were ready to roll on this scene, not too sure about the actual. Stars flooded your brain almost instantly.