Lights glare off of the rain-soaked asphalt so that I am almost blinded if I look downward. The children of the night are undeterred by the recent downpour. They ducked under awnings or into shops, playing around on their IC’s while they waited it out. Now they are out on the walkways again.

A biomechanical woman struts along, getting as many looks of horror as of lust. A group of young men in green and black lad shirts are being followed by a police drone. An anthropomorphic dog jokingly barks at a cat girl Kawaiichen with a set of cute little ears on top of her head. She hisses back at him playfully, the exchange causes a few pedestrians to cheer, laugh, and mockingly call for a fight.

I need a safe, private place to conduct a detailed search of the data. There is a Charles Fauré owned motel that isn’t too far away. It is a cheap little place for wayward lovers and degenerates. It isn’t that far away, but the walk is still long and lonely. I love her, but I don’t want to. It is a horrifying realization.

I pay the Water Certificates, which completely drains that account. The big fat zero is a reminder of why I’m doing this.

The place is cheap, but it doesn’t look it. Fauré has truly mastered the art of making the lowbrow seem luxurious. The first thing that I notice is that the doors are the old kind, the ones that move on hinges. It is a place for illicit meetings, both criminal and sexual. In the halls shady characters and covert lovers walk silently, eyes glued to the floor. I do the same, I am just another freak that is up to no good, same as you, nothing to see here.

I reach the room, it is small and lightly decorated, it is what it needs to be and nothing more. I inspect the bed with learned caution before sitting down on it. I scan the drive with every virus detector I have at my disposal, better safe than sorry. As the programs do their job, I stare at the drive unsurely. Do I really want to do this? Do I want to see inside the mind of someone like Mason?

The answer is yes. But the question isn’t even an accurate one, because his IC isn’t his mind. I will be looking at his personal assistant, his internet searches, his notes.

The programs are done, the drive is safe. The drive is safe, but I just sit there looking at it apprehensively. I get an idea, a way of finding out more about Goëtia.

I go online, my IC sending my awareness racing across cyberspace, exposing my soul to its wonders and horrors. I go to the places that focus on body modifications. He is a Burabō man, so I assume that he got his body from them. Their version of the internet is a bit too polished for my taste, but at least it isn’t the Alpha Prime net.

I fire up my bots, sending them to forums and comment sections and testimonials. While I wait, I try to get a handle on the Burabō body mod scene in general. Alpha doesn’t do body mods, docks your Social Credit heavily for having them. Echo only lets you get the ones that they want you to get. Charles Fauré lets you go wild. Charles Fauré doesn’t care if you show up one day as a member of the opposite gender. Charles Fauré doesn’t care if the guy watching the janitorial robots has the body of a fantasy creature or if the woman that monitors the guard drones is a metallic gynoid. The only thing that concerns them is that you used one of their clinics to get your work done. Délta and Burabō tend to do milder stuff, with Délta focusing on practical modifications; but both companies will go into heavier territory if you have the tokens or dollars.

The searches for claws bring back a disturbing number of results, the ones for white fur and scales make me worry just as much. If the things that I have seen in the real world are what people spend time and money becoming, what do they get up to in the zero-consequence world of VR?

The search is a journey into madness and the darkest depths of human depravity. I am loving every second of it. I don’t care what the Pee Bees say, let people get the bodies that they want, for good or ill. I want to see how far people are capable of going. I want to see the insanity that we are able to achieve.

Then I find a post made on a forum where surgeons go to shoot the shit about their trade. The thread was titled, “What is the strangest body that you’ve helped build,” I bookmark it for future entertainment.

The relevant post was made by someone going by the moniker AssGoblin420, “A guy came into my clinic. He was shifty, squirrely. He knew exactly what he wanted, down to the tiniest little detail. Wouldn’t accept any suggestions for alternatives or substitutions,” then he went on to describe the thing I saw.

Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

“What did he originally look like?” a user named Shitbird asked.

“That’s just it. He was a little bit ugly, but not hideous. We could have fixed him up, no problem, but he wanted to go way the hell out into left field with this weird ass body.

“The brain and life support systems were placed inside of an armored casing, located in the body, three feet from the head,” useful information, “I’m not sure what his job was, but he could afford the extra protection. He paid for everything up front.

“I have saved the most fucked up part for last. He has a furry…lump or bulge where the crotch would be. It is a very uncomfortable thing to look at, but it gets worse. You see, his bulge is the housing for what I can only describe as an array of penises. I won’t describe them, I will let your imagination do the work. But I will say this, he is equipped for pretty much any occasion.”

I think that I have spent enough time stalling. I give the drive a quick once over, getting a handle on what I have to work with. The first thing that I notice is a massive VR world, he must have been playing around in the thing for years, maybe even decades. The second thing I notice is that he has no banking records whatsoever, no receipts, no social credit score. The poor bastard had been born an Untouchable, more than likely because of something that his parents had done.

The old internet, from back when there was only one, is actually still intact. The Untouchables and other unsavory persons use it, them, and the historians that are known as digital archeologists. You can find great things on there, like pictures and videos of real women, as it was the days before body parts could be designed and grown. It is a dead lead, Mason has it set up so that his IC doesn’t make a log of his searches.

I check his personal assistant, scrolling past endless reminders to pick up this item from that person and to drop off this thing at that place. None of it has any meaning to me, he only used first names and simple designations for places. Another dead end.

He does have a file that is marked finances, but it is so heavily encrypted that it would take a good computer several years to crack. The same is true for his videos and photos. His GPS unit runs off of government satellites, because these are the only ones that an Untouchable can use. But it is a moot point, as he doesn’t let it keep a log. I would have to get it from the government. More dead ends.

I am out of ideas. The only thing left is to view his VR world.

There is a knock on the door, my heart skips a beat. There is a second knock, I get up and start toward the door, telling myself that it is only room service or maybe a mistake, some drunken idiot has gone to the wrong room. I put the drive into a hidden pocket, put a hand near my sidearm, and open the door.

I immediately recognize her, the vampire woman from the fantasy room. And how could I not recognize her? She is slender, has completely white skin, a long red dress that hugs her exaggerated curves, and eyes that could kill. She opens her mouth to speak and I see that she does indeed have a set of fangs, “John Scott?” she asks, her voice is perfectly sultry.

The company must be looking for me. They must have my name flagged in the system, when I paid for the room they knew right where to find me. They knew that I had visited that club the other night, saw on the cameras that I was eying her, had her on standby. The only question is why.

Her fangs are sharp, and I am just as scared as I am aroused, “My name is Myra. I saw you at the club and knew that I needed to be with you.”

I don’t have time for games, “I somehow doubt that. Why are you really here?”

“It is true,” she says, and I am tempted to believe her, “I used the corporate system to find you.”

The best kind of lie, the one where you tell the truth, only changing the important parts.

She enters the room, moving with a carefully practiced sensuality. I instinctively move backward. Life has made me paranoid, and her malevolent appearance isn’t helping. She closes the door, even this simple act strikes me as being sexual. She had somehow managed to do it in a naughty way. Now I am trapped, Myra has cornered her prey.

“I need you,” she purrs, every word a hypnotic attack. My hand is resting on my gun, I can draw it in an instant. So why am I so scared?

The artificial ghoul slips the dress off, revealing her nude body. Her skin is so pale, even her nipples are pallid. Her eyes seem to pin me into place, there is an irresistible hunger in them. She steps closer, I am all the way against the bed. She strolls up to me, grabs my hands, starts guiding them around her body.

I shouldn’t be doing this, shouldn’t be letting her get close. What I should be doing is heading out the door. But she wants me. The best kind of fantasy, the one where you tell yourself the truth, only changing the important parts.

She presses in close; I feel pain as the fangs sink into my neck. “They are more than just cosmetic,” she says in a low voice, “They can inject someone with something, it helps to enhance the experience.”

“Can inject a victim,” I stammer, already feeling the effects of her venom.

“Or a lover,” she says, implying that she can administer any number of drugs, things to get you high or things to get you ready for action. This isn’t one of those situations. I push her away, try to pull my gun, but everything goes black.