There were two doors, and a doorman outside of both. The doorman was huge – the kind of huge that took up a whole hallway. His breath was more like a wheeze. He was very, very black, so black his gums looked blue in the bad, flickering light. He spoke a special variety of Creole that Javier only caught every third word of. He understood the basics, though: hands up, spread legs, allow touching, no cameras? No cameras. The doorman patted him down one more time just to make sure.
“Now take your hood off,” the doorman said, gesturing.
Javier took his hood off.
“Shit, man, you got balls. Your clade is wanted, you know?”
“I know.” Truthfully, he didn’t know. But it made sense. He hoped the boys were OK. In all likelihood, they were. They were smart.
The doorman held up his mobile. “Could I get a picture?”
“Sure.”
It was probably a dumb idea. It would leave a trail. But the doorman was being so nice. Javier wrapped an arm around the other man’s ponderous middle, and smiled. He’d had a few big, fluffy guys like this before. Their beer guts made blowjobs difficult. He had to get them to lie down so you could use that thing like a bolster pillow. He gave the guy an extra squeeze.
“Man, what are you even doing here?” the doorman asked, when the picture was taken. “You into little kids?”
“I’m into money,” Javier said. “And I have little kids.”
The doorman checked over his shoulder. “We’re not supposed to let competitors in.” He pointed to the door on Javier’s left. “I could get in real trouble, letting you past that door.”
“Is that the boys’ room?”
“… Yeah. I’m sorry, man, but I just can’t let you in there.”
“Could you let me into the girls’ room?” When the doorman looked reluctant, Javier held his hands up. “Hey. I’m just trying to get a feel for the business. So to speak. I have to know what’s entailed from a customer service perspective, right? I have to see it from the end user’s point of view. And I can do that with girls as well as boys, and I wouldn’t be poaching your clients.”
“You’d best not be,” the doorman said. “The boss lady would not like that.”
Javier nodded. “Of course not.” He held out his hand for another bracelet, and as the doorman was tightening it, he asked: “So, this boss lady. She ever come around here?”
The doorman shook his head. “Never. I think she lives in Japan, or something. Maybe Brazil. They have a lot of Japanese people, there. I only ever talk to her online. But the money comes through just fine, so I guess she’s legit.”
Javier smiled. Rory never changed. “I’m sure she is.”
The girls’ apartment smelled like cotton candy and latex and silicone-friendly cleanser. Light came from the glowing bracelets of the men in front of him, and the massive display unit hanging from the opposite wall, and a sparkly pink Christmas tree with glowing fairy lights at the tip of each fake plastic bough. On the couch facing the display sat three little vN girls. Physically, they appeared to range in age from three to six. Another lay stretched out on the floor, and another sat with her back braced against the couch. They looked about seven and eight, maybe. All of them were passing around a big bowl of vN snacks.
“I don’t think we should be staying up this late,” said the one sitting on the floor.
“Shut up, Kiwi,” said the one in the middle, currently holding the bowl.
Without stepping closer, Javier had no idea what any of them looked like, or if any of them stemmed from the network clade to which Rory belonged. He was absolutely certain, however, that they were all on Rory’s diet. That was how most people knew Rory – she provided diet plans as both birth control and growth retardation. She calculated, down to the ounce, how much a vN could eat and remain the same size. It came in useful, if you were keeping your vN small. Amy had once followed Rory’s diet. Until she ate her grandmother. That was the thing about the diet – it kept you hungry, all the time.
“I just don’t think big brother would like it,” said Kiwi.
“And we all know you can’t do what big brother doesn’t like,” said the girl in the middle. There was a knowing leer in her voice.
From the floor, Kiwi threw a pillow at the couch. “It’s not like that, Cherry! It’s not like that at all!”
“Ugh! Kiwi!”
Cherry launched herself at Kiwi. The two girls wrestled on the floor. Their skirts hiked up, exposing striped panties in colours that matched their names. Their tickling and shrieking disrupted the apparent sleep of the other girl on the floor, who started crying.
“Now look what you’ve done!” Cherry sat up. She had long black hair and blunt bangs. She was a Rory. “You’ve woken up Kumquat!”