Nonlocality
You could tell by the boots Sydney was in deep trouble.
She sat with them tucked underneath her chair, corner table, eyes forward. They were chunks of unaesthetic steel, more like armor than footwear, like they’d been sculpted out of a glacier of metal over a decade. Anyone who knew the unsavory half of the street-bazaars or saw the news-behind-the-News could tell what they meant at a glance, and walk away.
Sydney had borrowed from one of the Kingpins. It doesn’t matter which, they’d all started lending at one time or another. She’d chosen the ankles down, which was better than some. Some people chose a hand, or an arm, or half their body. They could get their body parts back anytime if they paid up with interest, simple as. Problem being Sydney had just gone all-or-nothing.
Everything under the ankles was kept somewhere secret, safe. The boots were a gate, a portal of sorts, with enough built around it that she could walk. Her feet were collateral. Gamble, win, get them back. Sydney never lost a gamble, not in the long-run, but she’d needed some more resources and she didn’t want to try her hand at the bordello just yet.
Dice were her favorite, her all-or-nothing. She’d set down her investment, all of it, and let the other guy roll first. He did, 5-1-2-4-2. She’d taken the dice and started the sleight-of-hand, replacing a couple with cooked dice, once that always rolled 5s and 6s. She was a gambler, but she wasn’t an idiot.
Until she felt the cloth. It was warm, wet, if she hadn’t known better she’d have called it sticky. Washcloth, soaked in warm water, maybe some cheap soap, rubbing rough against her right instep. Whoever took care of these things was washing her.
She jumped, started giggling, then full-blown laughter as it moved between her toes, and she stood up. It didn’t get her away from it, but it shook out her dice onto the table. She tried to lean over them, cover them up, but too little too late. By then she was rolling on the floor, the balls of her feet were the worst, and she was carried out with all her money confiscated.
Now, she was waiting for her repayment. She could feel her feet being moved, and she didn’t want to know what would happen to them. It wasn’t that big of an investment for a Kingpin, she thought, maybe the organization would just swat her on the hand and stop people loaning money to her.
Her contact came, they sat wordlessly, money and product changed hands, and she prepared herself.
The escort came nine minutes later, a slender woman who looked like a PR head, and gave Sydney something to drink. It was the gentler side of being knocked out, and it lasted no time at all before she was awake again, with things were about to start. Punishment was swift.
“We’re driven by a code of honor, believe it or not. We’re in it for the money, too, but money’s nothing without a little self-worth, ah?” Loudspeaker, woman’s voice, gravelly. “So if you behave, we can’t do that much to you. But you’ve still gotta repay us, of course. It’ll only take a few weeks.”
The chamber was cramped, with a door that had no handle. She was still wearing the boots, strapped into a chair that locked down her shoulders and knees, and wrapped metal bands around her upper body. There wasn’t room for much more than the chair, the door, and the glass window right in front of her. Beyond that were her feet, soles up, facing a camera and a kudzu-tangle of dangling technologies.
She tried moving them, and found she could wiggle her toes. Then one of the vines darted and something thick, syrupy, and orange covered them. She tried shaking it off, and then suddenly her feet stopped. She could feel the air on them, the unpleasant wetness of warm jelly on skin, but none of her muscles worked.
Paralyzed.
Then, another vine, something like a feather duster, softly but quickly painting her left from top to bottom. Up, down, up down, a handful of strokes every two seconds, and she suddenly realized how long she would be here. And she laughed, only to immediately increase in volume as a small metal hand coated in rubber started squeezing at her right, on the soft spot where her pinky-toe met her sole. More joined, teasing her heels and poking at her arches and pulling at her toes, until she was trying to kick off the boots, as if it would help.
She couldn’t take this. She’d wanted to try, didn’t want to be risky, but she couldn’t spend weeks like this. She had to hope that she wasn’t as screwed as she seemed. If they’d searched her, it didn’t matter how much she couldn’t stand it. If they hadn’t, there was hope.
All of these thoughts came as a wave of animal desperation, a get away from me that spread through her whole body and made her arms shake and her calves tighten. There were rolling painting prickling poking squeezing buzzing tickles all over both her feet now, and her view was being obscured by the sheer number of implements each taking their turn with her. It was like eating a handful of jelly-beans - the flavors mixed until they became irrelevant, until there was only the unbearable sweetness consuming her.
It was through this feeling she tried to snake her hand to her right pocket. Her upper arms had been locked, and so had her elbows, but she had some freedom of movement left. She could bend it in the right direction, stare at it and try to ignore the endless torment on her bare helpless feet, and then blink through the tears when she failed. She pushed her pelvis up, half-standing, trying to work with the position she’d been tied it, until her fingers grazed the pocket-lining. She pinched, shimmied her fingertips in, and let the discomfort block out some of the tickling.
It felt like using a claw-machine at an arcade, but she pushed down into it. When she felt the laser-carver, she was so overjoyed that she almost lost track of it. Grabbing it and fishing it out took a few decisive, frustrated yanks, and when she got it out she held onto it like she’d die if she dropped it. Which was close to the truth.
While she tried to orient it, she felt that all-over unstoppable tickle tickle tickle. Suckling electrifying trailing scratching tickle tickle tickle tickles. Ones that got under her skin, and turned her skin into a mass of tingling madness that couldn’t move a millimeter away.
She pushed the button, jammed it with her thumb, it warmed up and got ready to spit a burst of fire at the window. When that happened, she’d use it to fend off the tickle tickle tickle tickling and then break herself out of the chair, and then she’d cut open her boots and find a way to reattach it to the portal around her ankles. Then she’d escape, fight off whoever was outside, get going. She had to take that risk.
It shuddered in her palm, and then it shot. For a moment, her heart soared.
Then the door swung open, and she was hit by a tranquilizer. This all happened in the course of a few seconds, because it was prepared, and then she saw the image of her feet crack and shatter and it was a screen not a window.
Then there was darkness.
When she woke up, she was in a box.
“We told you not to cross us.”
Or, at least, her head was.
“We told you about how we valued honor. Now you’ve given up the right to fair treatment.”
There were openings, and she could see a layout of screens, screens on screens, each with a little label underneath.
“You’re not getting out this lifetime, hon.”
- Right foot - Wyoming, auctioned.
- Left foot - Still auctioning.
- Right leg - Still auctioning.
- Left leg - Unsold, maintained for entertainment of members.
- Thighs and sex - Italy, millionaire eccentric.
- Midriff - Kyoto, leased out as repayment for services rendered.
- Breasts - France, public display.
- Left arm - Maryland, property of mayor.
- Right arm - Maryland, see above.
- Neck and head - kept in storage for health + viewing purposes.
She felt herself stretched across the world.
“You’re all ours.”
Tickle tickle tickle tickle.
Tickle tickle tickle tickle.
