THE FEELIES Read online

  "Open cell thirteen."

  There was the grinding of metal on metal as the door to cell thirteen was cranked open. Male Prisoner #13 was in trouble. Inga and Greta must have spotted something amiss in his cell, or maybe something had shown up on the overnight videotapes. Male Prisoner #13 was uncommonly unlucky.

  Greta's voice barked again. "You are a filthy, disgusting little worm, Number Thirteen. I don't think I can imagine a filthier, more disgusting little worm than you."

  #13 muttered something that Christopher Elwin III couldn't quite make out. Greta responded with anger and outrage.

  "Did I tell you to speak? Get down on your knees, right now!"

  There were more mutterings, #13's tone abject and pleading.

  Greta was not moved. "Shut your filthy mouth. You're only making it worse for yourself.''

  Christopher Elwin III could all too easily imagine what #13 was going through. He had been through it himself more times than he would ever want to remember. He was all-too familiar with the experience of crouching on the floor of his cell, on eye level with the highly polished boots of the two guards, glancing furtively up at the two statuesque blondes standing over him with their long legs, tight black uniform shirts, starched white shirts, black ties, and triple star Arena Party armbands.

  There was a sharp swish and the slap of leather hitting flesh. #13 whimpered. The majority of the female guards carried canes when they were on the cell block, Greta was something of an individualist within the narrow confines of the regime. She always had a wicked leather strap hanging from her wrist and was always ready to wield it with a strong-armed will if a prisoner displeased her. There was another swish and another slap. #13 whimpered again. The sequence was repeated a good twenty times.

  "On your feet, worm. Stop groveling on the floor. Go and stand facing the corner. That's right, face to the wall. Now you will remain there until otherwise ordered."

  The boots moved out of cell thirteen. The barred door ground closed behind them. They were coming on down the corridor. Female Prisoner #27 closed her eyes.

  "Open cell nineteen."

  The noise of the door sliding back seemed deafening. In moments of tension, sounds always seemed unusually loud. And then the two guards were in the cell looking down at them.

  "This is a cozy little scene, isn't it? We trust you lovebirds both slept well."

  Christopher Elwin III suppressed a shudder as the tip of Inga's cane lightly traced a pattern down his naked back. He dared not turn his head even slightly to look at his tormentors.

  One of the women walked the length of the cell and back again. "This togetherness is all very well, but we can't have you lying around doing nothing all day. You're not here for a holiday."

  Black-gloved hands were unfastening the straps on the prisoners' wrists and ankles; then the belt was taken off. Finally the neck chain was removed, though the leather collars, numbered dogtags hanging from them, remained in place.

  "Okay, up! On your feet, the both of you!"

  Christopher Elwin III winced as he tried to stand straight. He longed to massage his painfully cramped muscles. Circulation came back in an agony of pins and needles. Greta's strap slashed viciously across his thighs.

  "Stand up, you scum! At attention! You want a dose of what Number Thirteen got?''

  She glared into his face. Christopher Elwin III turned his gaze downward to the floor. It wasn't a good idea to look the guards directly in the eye.

  "No, madam."

  "Louder, maggot, I can't hear you!"

  Christopher Elwin III stiffened his shoulders and raised his voice, but he didn't lift his eyes from the floor. "No, madam. I don't want what Number Thirteen got, madam."

  "And what did he get?"

  "Madam, he got a beating, madam."

  "You think he deserved it, maggot?"

  "I know he deserved it, madam. We always deserve our punishments."

  The exchange seemed to satisfy Greta. She and Inga turned their attention to Female Prisoner #27.

  "So how did you enjoy your night next to a man, slut? I'd imagine a promiscuous little whore like you would do anything to get next to a man, even a pathetic specimen like this."

  It was one of those questions that was almost impossible to answer without the risk of an instant beating. #27 did the best she could.

  "Madam, I wasn't ordered to enjoy the experience."

  It was a clever answer, but it bordered on being too clever. Greta took off her mirrored aviator glasses. Her eyes were hard.

  "Think you're pretty smart, don't you, slut?"

  #27 had turned pale. "No, madam, I'm not smart."

  "Outside!"

  #27 didn't move quickly enough. The cane lashed out, leaving a red welt across her buttocks.

  "Move, slut! Make schnell!"

  Then Christopher Elwin III was alone with Inga and Greta.

  "At attention, worm. First inspection!"

  Christopher Elwin III braced himself. Greta's leather-gloved hand reached between his legs.

  By that point, Christopher Elwin III should have been in the throes of guilty delight. The S&M prison fantasy was something that had turned him on for all of his adult life. The idea of powerful Germanic women using him, controlling him, subjecting him to ritualized pain had been his obsession for as long as he could remember, and he had spent hundreds of thousands of dollars over the years having prostitutes stage approximations of it. The problem was that it no longer worked. As far as he could calculate-and the relative passage of time was very hard to estimate-he had only been in the feelie for maybe a month, and he wanted out. He was not being constantly filled with breathless cringing excitement. He was not being maintained in a continually heightened state of claustrophobic sexuality. He was merely cringing and claustrophobic. Even though it was an electronically created illusion, his only reality was life in a very uncomfortable prison with no chance of parole, constantly at the mercy of a set of brutal psychopaths, beauty notwithstanding, who had been created for him out of his own imagination. Worst of all, he had doomed himself to it for the rest of his life.

  The one thing that he had no illusions about was his own value in the real world. He was a loser and that was it, the classic case of ineffectual son of the dynamic father. Christopher Elwin II had built Elwin Systems into the highly profitable component satellite of a number of major corporations. He, Christopher Elwin III-little Chris was what they had always called him-had all but run it into the ground. The family had done little to conceal their relief when he had opted for the big sleep. Now his brother Lance, who seemed to have been the one to inherit their father's smarts, could have a free hand to rebuild the Elwin fortunes.

  There was a lot more to the preparation for an IE life-span contract than merely buying a ticket. In his price bracket, the feelie was custom-made to his exact requirements. There had been long sessions with the very overpriced company shrink. "Go with the fantasy," she had told him. "Push it to the limit. We can only supply you with what you give us. You want it to be perfect, don't you?" He had poured out the whole catalog of his grubby imaginings, every disgusting idea that he had reveled in from the age of eleven onward. It had to be the ultimate irony. Now that he had them made real, he didn't like them. There was a part of his mind that was becoming more and more detached from the fantasy, and the more detached it became, the closer it steered toward a state of blind panic. The difficulty was that, inside a feelie, there was no such thing as a panic button. How could he communicate to the outside world that he wanted out? There had to be some way. There just had to be. If he couldn't get free from his own fantasies, his mind was going to come unhinged. There was a definite limit to how much he could take, and that limit was drawing close.

  Inga's voice dragged him back into the all-too familiar scenario. The tip of her cane was probing the crack in his ass.

  "I hope you're well rested, maggot. The commandant has a party of visitors coming to the facility today, and she wants some p
risoners put through their paces for them. The good news is that you're one of the lucky ones who've been selected for the display team."

  Christopher Elwin III groaned inwardly. That was another problem. In a feelie crafted from his own imaginings, he always knew what was coming. This so-called display would mean a gruelling session of pain and humiliation in front of an amused audience. Suppose he fought the program? Surely there had to be something built into the software that would show that he was not responding according to the expected pattern and trigger some kind of alarm. He toyed with the idea of ripping Inga's cane out of her hand and hurling the woman across the cell. To his disappointment, he found that all he could do was follow the expected responses.

  "Yes, madam. It will be an honor to perform for the commandant."

  The detached part of his mind was dizzy with frustration. There had to be a way out. There just had to be.

  "YEAH, WELL, A LOT OF THEM ARE JUST plain smut."

  "Smut?"

  "Yeah, smut. Sex. Fucking. Men fucking women, women fucking women, men fucking men. Men, women, children, animals, threes, fours, dozens. You name it, they're doing it. Any number, any variation." Ralph swung his arm in a sweeping if unsteady gesture that took in the whole of the vault. "It's just one huge electronic whorehouse."

  Sam blinked twice. "It can't be that bad. Not everybody wants sex all the time."

  Ralph sneered. "You think not? I'm telling you. There ain't many stiffs here plugged into the life of Socrates or St. Francis of Assisi, and that's a fact."

  Sam took a while to digest all that. Then a puzzled expression wrinkled his doughy features. "What have you got against sex?"

  Ralph looked at him impatiently. "Nothing, except I maybe don't get enough."

  Sam's voice became morose. "I don't get any… except…"

  Ralph cut him off. "I don't want to hear what you get up to when you're away from here."

  It was drawing toward the end of the shift. It was that part of the day when Ralph was drunk belligerent and Sam was little short of comatose. Ralph would rant, and Sam would stare dully into space. It was the point when communication was at a minimum.

  In between outbursts, Ralph would sit grim and hunched until he had worked up enough bile for another one. It was during these silences that Sam would throw out the occasional remark.

  "Ralph?"

  "What?"

  "How do you know?"

  "How do I know what?"

  "How do you know that all they want is sex? You've never been in a feelie."

  "I've seen the catalog, haven't I?"

  "What catalog?"

  "The catalog of all the different feelie experiences that they offer."

  "I've never seen that."

  "You know when you first sign on they give you a guided tour of one of the reception centers."

  Sam looked glum. "They never took me on the tour."

  "Why not?"

  "I don't know. They just kind of left me behind."

  "They left you behind?"

  "Yeah."

  Ralph hesitated. He seemed about to make some comment. He changed his mind. "Well, anyway. While they were going on about what a great thing the feelies were for humanity, I managed to get a good look at the catalog. That's when I first decided that it was all bullshit."

  "I don't think it's bullshit."

  Ralph's lip curled. "What do you know about it?"

  "I know I'd like to get in a feelie."

  "I'm telling you, it's all just sex and violence. It's about the lowest you can get."

  Sam inspected his fingers. "Sometimes I think that we're the lowest you can get."

  "What?"

  "Nothing."

  They lapsed into another sullen silence. Sam started playing with the zip on his overall. First he'd pull it down for about six inches, then he would pull it up again. He did it over and over. Ralph watched him. His irritation increased with each run of the zip.

  "What the hell do you think you're doing?"

  "At least they're quiet."

  "Huh?"

  "At least they're quiet."

  "Who are?"

  "The stiffs."

  "What the hell are you going on about now?"

  "The stiffs, at least they're quiet."

  "Of course they're quiet. They're always quiet. They're stiffs. They're quiet by definition."

  "I didn't mean that."

  "You didn't mean that?"

  "No."

  Ralph was visibly controlling himself. "So what the hell did you mean?"

  "I guess I mean… I don't know. I think I've forgotten."

  Sam went back to playing with his zip.

  "Do you have to do that?"

  "It passes the time."

  "Like the stiffs, I suppose."

  "What?"

  "Passing the time."

  "Oh… yeah."

  "You're a great conversationalist."

  "I am?"

  "Jesus Christ!"

  Ralph looked at his watch. There was another hour of the shift still to go. Ralph's bottle was empty, and he wanted another drink. It had to be the worst time of the shift. He got to his feet and paced up and down the row of cabinets. There was a dull ache in the back of his head. After four or five turns along the row, he stopped and stared down at Sam.

  "I'm sick of this fucking job."

  "It's a job."

  "I'd be better off on welfare."

  "You wouldn't like it on welfare."

  "Why not?"

  "I wouldn't like it on welfare. I like to have a job. It gives me some self-respect."

  "Self-respect?"

  "That's right."

  "Listen, what the hell do you know about self-respect? ''

  "I do the job I'm paid for. That's self-respect."

  "You reckon?"

  "Yeah."

  "You sit around all day and gobble down tranquilizers. That's when you're not staring at the girl in the cabinet like some lovesick calf."

  "I don't think that's fair."

  "It's true enough."

  "Maybe that's what I'm paid for."

  "And that's what keeps your precious self-respect together?"

  "I suppose so."

  "You're weird, Sam."

  "No."

  "No, what?"

  "I don't think I'm weird."

  Ralph looked at him in amazement. "You don't?"

  "I think I'm pretty average, really."

  Ralph closed his eyes with an expression of pain. "Anything you say, Sam."

  Ralph went back to pacing. Sam went back to playing with his zip. Ralph looked at his watch again. Fifty-five minutes to go. It had to be the most boring job on God's earth. They could at least give them something to do. If there was some real work to fill the time, he wouldn't have to drink so much, and he wouldn't have to get involved in these pointless conversations with Sam. For the hundredth time, he resolved to throw the whole thing in and take his chances on the street.

  Ralph became aware that Sam had stopped fiddling with his overalls and was watching him intently. Ralph swung around and snapped at him. "What's the matter with you now?"

  "Nothing."

  "You look like you're about to come out with some portentous remark."

  "What does portentous mean?"

  "Forget it."

  "You shouldn't use words like that if you ain't prepared to explain what they mean."

  "I just work with you, right? I ain't no teacher."

  "You don't have to be like that about it."

  "I don't?"

  "We might as well try and get along."

  Ralph sighed. "Yeah, yeah. Okay."

  "I was going to say something."

  "You were?"

  "Yeah."

  Ralph waited, but Sam didn't go on. After about a minute, Ralph couldn't stand it any longer.

  "So?"

  "So what?"

  "So what were you going to say?"

  Sam looked dolefully at Ralph. "I
don't think you'd be interested."

  "You'll probably tell me anyway."

  "I don't think I'll bother."

  "Oh, Jesus. Get it out."

  "I was watching TV last night."

  "You watch TV?"

  "Of course I watch TV. Everyone watches TV."

  "And that's it?"

  "I was watching TV last night. There was this show about telepathy.''

  "You watch the egghead shows?"

  "I watch all kinds of things. I like TV."

  "So what about telepathy?"

  "Well, it seems to me that if we could all read each other's minds we'd get really paranoid."

  "We would?"

  "Yeah. I mean, it's bad enough having to watch what you say. Just imagine if you had to watch everything you thought."

  "I'm imagining."

  "Well?"

  "Well?"

  "It wouldn't be very nice, would it? I think we'd all get very paranoid."

  Ralph was a picture of disbelief. "What in God's name does that have to do with anything?"

  Sam looked mildly surprised. "Nothing."

  "Then why tell me about it?"

  "I thought you might be interested."

  Ralph clenched his fists. It was only their respective size and weight that stopped him from hitting Sam.

  LOMBARDS, JUST ONE BLOCK FROM THE foot of the CM tower, charged top price for its drinks and catered to the executive trade and, as such, was much frequented by the upper ranks of Combined Media employees during the happy hour. It was a place to see and, on occasion, to be seen to see. It was the place where the crucial, postwork, public-display games, both social and corporate political, were played out for an audience who watched for who was with whom under the dim chandeliers and guessed at the rest with varying degrees of accuracy. Department coups had been started in Lombards, and, at the other end of the scale, so had a large number of office romances. The atmosphere of top-shelf booze and cigar smoke was the favorite medium for the sending of signals, the making of overtures, the conclusion of honeymoons, and the termination of alliances and relationships. If one wanted to make career points in CM, it was vital to drop into Lombards at least three or four times a month and show one's face. It was even expected of the militant nondrinkers that they come by for at least a Perrier and twist at regular intervals.

  The power positions in Lombards were along the line of leather upholstered banquettes that ran from just inside the front door clear through to the back wall. Seated in the comfort of one of these, a person could observe the action at the bar and the regular tables without being watched or overheard. Pride of place in the entire prestige row was the banquette just to the left of center, slightly nearer the door than the rear wall. On this particular night, this number one booth was occupied by two men whose status and rights to the booth would never be questioned even by the most inexperienced waiter. Edouard Hayes was the Senior Vice President for Special Projects. The second man, Jack Vallenti, was the number two man in the Software Development Division. The fact that the two of them would place themselves even on discreet display like this indicated to anyone who read between the lines that something radical was brewing. Their respective departments, whose territory tended to overlap in the area of advance planning, had butted heads on a number of occasions, and the seemingly casual meeting for a drink was open to a number of interpretations. The most popular were the two obvious extremes: either a truce or the start of a new round of hostilities.