“I don’t care where,” she told the guy looking out at her from inside the car. “Just the nearest city.” She considered asking what that was, but decided it might sound weird.
He eyed her nervously, looking past her like he expected a pack of marauding ogres to flood out of the forest and up the embankment any moment. He hadn’t even wound his window down. She turned, checking the forest she’d emerged from, just in case a band of hunters did charge out after her, now she’d finally gotten someone to stop.
He licked his lips, his eyes running over her. But not in an admiring way, more in a looking-for-concealed-weapons kind of way. “Turn around, slowly.”
Sighing, she booped noses with her cat then did as he asked. She even added a bum wiggle and jiggled the short shorts, dangling them over one shoulder from a fingertip before turning back around.
“You’re not a serial killer, are you?” he asked at last, his voice muffled by the sealed window.
It took a moment to engage her smile, for reasons that fled even as she registered he was just joking. “If I am, I’m the cutest in the county!”
He eyed her bare midriff, what he could see of her chest in its white halter top past the cat she cradled, and the brief ivory panties she wore. She couldn’t be hiding much. She wasn’t even wearing a Link. Pretty strange. “The cat won’t bite?”
“Nope. She’s a sweetie.” The cat was female, she realized, but couldn’t have said where that certainty came from.
“Okay. Get in.”
When he popped the lock on the passenger side door, she scooted inside before he could change his mind. She heard him whisper, “Please don’t let this be another horrible mistake,” then add “Okay car, record audio.”
That was a worry. But again, she couldn’t say why. I’m not going to kill him, am I? Testing the thought, she found no hint of any such plan as she wriggled into her shorts.
“Nice pussy,” he said, with almost a leer.
“Thanks. She’s smart, too. If a bit preachy.”
He blinked at her. “I’m, uh, John. What’s your name?”
She stared at him in turn. Maybe I should have thought up one earlier. “Uh, ah….” Good planning, you stupid girl. An image of a fashionably-dressed older woman staring down her nose at her distracted her for a moment, vanishing in a stab of pain before she could try to pin it down. And now she’d been silent so long he was getting nervous again.
Oh! She smiled and bit her lip. “Guess. What do I look like to you, John?”
“Noomi,” he answered, immediately.
“Noomy?” He hadn’t even hesitated. Did he recognize me? Am I famous? The name sounded unfamiliar though, even made up. “Why Noomy?”
“Okay, car, continue,” he said, and it pulled smoothly forward, accelerating strongly until it reached the posted speed limit. The whole time he’d been stopped, no other vehicle had passed by. “Uh, you just reminded me of this old film, a girl with a kind of scatty haircut, a bit like-” He stopped, glancing at her hair before his eyes darted aside in embarrassment.
Frowning, her hand went to her hair, feeling the ends brushing her ears and the back of her neck. She pulled down the passenger-side sun visor and studied herself in its mirror.
It did look pretty rough. She grimaced, then stared into the eyes of a stranger. Nice eyes though, she decided.
“I, I didn’t mean, that is, it looks kind of tough, you know? Like the g- like the woman in that old classic. The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. You know it?”
“No, but it sounds sleek. Was there a dragon in it?”
“Nah….” They chatted, but the whole talk felt pointless. Eventually, she cut him off.
“Look, I’m actually in kind of trouble.”
She saw him close his eyes, mouthing a word that started with ‘F’.
“What kind?” he asked, opening them.
“I think I was drugged last night. Kidnapped. I got away, but I can’t remember anything.”
“Fuck. Are you serious? What’d they do? Can you remember their faces?”
“I don’t know exactly what they did. I woke up next to this stranger.”
“You want me to call someone? Have them pick you up?”
She shook her head. “You don’t get it: I mean I can’t remember anything. Not who I am, not what day or month it is, not where I am. I think the drugs messed up my thinking. I need to get to a doctor.”
He stared at her. “Ohhh. I get it. Cute. So you’ll need money.” He laughed. “Okay, I’m into roleplay. This could be fun.”
“Huh?”
“Good, that’s good. Sorry, I’ll stay in character. Uh, so, how much do you need?”
She looked at her cat, whose expression clearly said ‘Don’t ask me, this is human stuff.’
“I don’t know. How much does a doctor cost?”
“Hmm, I guess that depends on how much he does for you, how extensive the treatment, yeah?”
There was a strange tone in his voice. “I can’t remember anything,” she clarified. “Not where I grew up, not my own name, a friend, nothing.”
He looked sad and concerned. “That sounds pretty extensive. Which means expensive. Like maybe you’d even need to go to a hospital or a clinic.”
“Is there one near here?”
“I don’t know.”
She frowned. “Well can you please ask the car then? And also, stop recording this? It feels wrong. Like I’m not supposed to be recorded.”
“Wow, you’re really getting into this, aren’t you?”
He sure is behaving oddly, she thought.
“Sorry, sorry.” He pursed his lips. “Like, you feel maybe you’re on the run, maybe being hunted?”
“Exactly!”
He took a deep breath. “Heh. Gotcha. Okay, car, stop recording, and also, find the nearest shady clinic to us.”
“Do you mean shaded clinic, or unregulated clinic?” the car politely enquired.
“Unregulated. Also, specializing in drugs and, ah, amnesia. Memory problems.”
The girl nodded approvingly.
“Searching… Tazman-Dungog Rehabilitation Hospice.”
“That sounds friendly!”
He gave her a look like she’d said something strange. “Okay, car, more details.”
“A full check up, including thorough brain scans, blood counts, and psychological evaluation would cost approximately five hundred credits.”
“Five-!” He snorted, then saw the girl’s look of entreaty.
“I can give you sex?” she offered.
A smile slowly split his face. “There, that’s what I’m- uh, I mean….” His expression grew serious. “I guess you might be able to earn that amount.”
“Awaiting input,” the car prodded. “Plan route to Tazman-Dungog Rehabilitation Hospice, Carmichael?”
He raised an eyebrow, and ‘Noomi’ placed one hand between his thighs, her fingers searching and finding what he’d fantasized she might when he’d first seen the bare, toned legs up ahead on the highway.
“Yeah, sure, go ahead,” he said, to both car and girl.
They’d both clambered from the front to the roomier back seat, leaving the car to drive. Her head was now bobbing up and down in his lap as he groaned. With her hand on his member, she suddenly paused, sliding her head up and free.
“I don’t mind,” she said.
“What? Don’t stop! I didn’t say anything. Keep going!”
She moaned, shuddering as if his order thrilled her. Her hand tightened around him, gripping harder. She was looking at the cat though, whose head poked between the two front seats, watching them.
“I quite like it, and he’ll give us money for medical tests.”
His eyes went from the girl with her head and both hands in his lap, to the cat, who she thought she was having a conversation with. She is a lunatic. He wilted. She’s gonna kill me. Torture me ’til I transfer all my creds to a cashstick….
“Hey, what’s the matter! You’re not getting out of this that easily!” She swallowed him again and he jolted, staring from her to the cat, observing, looking somehow amused.
Despite himself, he started stiffening again, groaning at what her tongue and fingers were doing, flushing under the cat’s gaze.
Maybe worth it, though?
Even before he thought to black the windows for privacy, as the car left the West Side Freeway and entered Sacramento, luck moved in her favor. With her head buried in his lap, she avoided being recognized by the twenty-seven traffic cameras along the route, observing every car.
John Smith left her at the rear of the clinic, not wanting his car to be recorded dropping her off. It took him minutes to recover enough to order the car onward.
-
Two hours later, at Omega Memory Systems, Arvid Henstridge opened his eyes and sat up. “Just had a query originating in Carmichael: some blood tests at a shady little clinic, the Tazman-Dungog Rehabilitation Hospice,” he told his employer, with a shark’s grin.
Dr Yamamoto’s answering smile was worse.