6 Harlots (eBook)

Razor Jane

Jane had torched the superhighway that began at the edge of Neo-Philadelphia and sped into the heart of Atlantic City, the de facto capital of Battle-Zone II. Sinclair Tower, as it had been renamed at the end of the second civil war, was the first building to be restored. It soared high above the rest of the city, acting as a seat for the B-Z II overseer of the Sinclair government.

Jane wiped the film of dust from her goggles as she cruised into her underground parking spot beneath Putin’s Palace. She paid Malectro, the leader of the AC chapter of the Fire Breathers—sworn enemies of the Face Eaters—three hundred harlot tokens (HTs) a month for the space. Malectro had only permitted Jane a spot because he had witnessed her jaw-dropping maneuvering on the superhighway that took out a hunter and captured her target, all with a set of daggers. Had the leader of the biker gang merely watched the spectacle on livestream, he would’ve believed it was staged—Jane was the only harlot with a space in the garage.

The red-and-white lights from the Palace barely broke through the smog. The statue of the late Emperor Vladimir Putin stood stoically at the entrance, shirtless, in his five-horsed chariot pointing back to Moscow, the new Rome. The renaming of the casino had been a gift to the emperor, who had helped deliver America a foothold on the Asian continent. The Great American Union returned the favor concerning Western Europe, bringing the two powers together as the twin pillars of the world.

Inside, Jane walked past yet another statue of the emperor, his own head replacing the tall and regal Caesar Augustus’s, which had greeted guests since the casino’s opening almost a century and a half ago.

The slot machines and the poker, roulette, and craps tables had been torn out to make room for spectators viewing the hunts from the omnipresent screens covering the casino’s interior. Harlots and harlotoids worked the floors to take the viros’ wagers and bring dripping, amphetizone-laced hypo-jabs on request while wearing the iconic Putin’s Palace uniforms: a red lace garter belt and nothing else.

Winning bets could be cashed for Union dollars, or two-for-one Thoughts and Prayers (T&P) tickets, which could then be exchanged for credit at the FREEDOMWORLD over in Shiloh—rarely were the T&Ps put to their original use of supplying compensation to victims of mass shootings.

Jane evaded the late hunt hysteria as an eruption of roars and shouts permeated the lobby while she waited for the elevator. Harloticus must’ve killed his target; they didn’t celebrate like that when she was merely recaptured.

Jane took the elevator to her floor, where the room she had made home overlooked the frigid Atlantic Ocean. When she had first moved into the Palace, she could see beachgoers from her windows enjoy the water and coast as humans had done since the beginning of time. But with each passing summer, fewer weekenders made their way down from Neo-Philadelphia to enjoy the beach; as the sun had receded farther behind the smog, the sand had lost its appeal and the water became too cold to enjoy. When the Palace was completely renovated to tailor to the hunt-gambling crowd, the beach had become nothing but a racing track for sand bikes and an arena for the occasional grogged scuffle that had become too big for the boardwalk, as if the beach had undergone renovations itself.

At the northernmost edge of the city, Jane could watch the revolving advertisements appear and reappear on the gargantuan side of Sinclair Tower—she had calculated that the set that had been on loop for the past seven months took thirteen minutes and forty-two seconds to complete a revolution. On Patriot’s Day evenings, the tower played Rebirth of a Nation until the early morning hours. And when advertisements were not being shown on the side of the building, the few moments when the city was quiet, the entire façade was lit up in the Great American Union flag: red-and-white stripes with the Sinclair government’s iconic replacing the stars.

“America First!”

“America Always!”

“America Forever!”

The motto boomed from the tower in descending thundering punches. Jane could hear the echoed chants pushing themselves up from the floors below.

Like with the garage, Jane was the only harlot with a room to herself in the entire Palace. Malectro had a hand in that as well and had offered to house two Fire Breathers on the floor with her for extra protection, for once in a while a grogged viro would stumble onto her floor, take her for a fujiharlot, and get handsy. But Jane had taken down rabbits that even top hunters couldn’t nab, so she declined the help.

Jane’s mouth began to coat itself in saliva for the impending vomit while she rushed to the bathroom and threw open the toilet lid. Veins bulged out of her neck and forehead as she dry heaved into the bowl. She hadn’t eaten all day and had anticipated indulging in a hypo-jab or two of Papa Poppy’s top stuff after her harvest. The last time she had beaten the hunter to the target, she was able to sustain herself for half a year on the pull.

The prisoner-turned-rabbit, Orphelius Moore, had been one of the fastest gunners in the league for the Putingrad Arctic Foxes but was built wide and thick like a viroshield. He had the beige complexion of someone who had begun the subsidized skin-bleaching transition but had not yet completed the treatment.

Moore had held himself out to the public as a familyviro, living a comfortable life in retirement on the Long Island Putingrad fringes. He had given the 2112 commencement speech at Trump University and even appeared on The Patriotic American with Gunner Scarborough, where he and the firebrand host had engaged in a round at the FREEDOMWORLD. Utilizing two AR-215s where an average-sized viro could hold only one, Moore had set a record for slain Undesirables. The nationally streamed episode had been the most-viewed and highest-rated event of the season.

But the ex-ballplayer developed an opianzoprene addiction that had started toward the end of his injury-ridden career, according to anonymous sources from his playing days. Borrowing against his home, pension, and other lucrative family assets, Moore owed interest-compounding debt to OpianPhet, the largest and most profitable corpo in the GAU, headquarted in Putingrad.

Unwilling to die knowing his harlot would be sent to a milking bar to work off the debt, Orphelius Moore decided it was best if his family went with him. He used the Patriot-900 handgun he had received as a retirement gift to kill his two daughters in their beds. When his harlot rushed into the bedroom, he simply crushed her windpipe while pinning her to the floor and suffocated her with one of the blood-stained pillows.

Moore then made his way to his office. On his hands and knees, he pulled a small chest out from under a bookcase and popped it open, revealing vacuum-sealed bags filled with gooey, opianzoprene AAA, the highest-graded product on either the legitimate or underground domestic markets. He had wanted to sell them to help pay back his creditors, but their value would’ve done little to put a dent in the debt. He filled four hypo-jabs full of the drug and, one by one, released the elixir into his sculpted, pulsating arms.

When the EMTs found him, the needles were still dangling in his muscles and an eddy of drool spilled down his chin and onto his shirt, his eyes lolling about in his head.

The grand vicar heard the case, and although the public outcry for the star’s innocence by reason of temporary-insanity-under-the-influence-of-financial-distress permeated throughout the Union, the viro of the law found Orphelius Moore guilty on all counts.

As per custom since the judicial branch was dissolved and enveloped by the executive during the Great Ouster of 2098, the president himself took appeals on a discretionary basis, typically reserving hearings for only the most high profile of cases. Although it was in his power to give the former star athlete a full pardon, Odin Sinclair instead capitalized on the viro’s fame and background in athletics.

Instead of issuing Moore a pardon, and instead of sending him straight to Geibler—whose performance during halftime of the Union Bowl had received rave reviews and record-setting ratings—the president ruled that the prisoner would instead be hunted by none other than Nefario, a hunter equal in size and speed to Orphelius Moore and just as beloved by the people. Nefario’s vreak, Gramuce, appeared to be cobbled together from petiviro and petiharlot nightmares, which kept eyes on the livestream.

With the entire Union at his disposal, even the annexed provinces of Great American Canada, Great American China, and Great American Japan, the Atlantic City odds had Moore surviving for at least eight months with a push of a year and a half, the entirety of which would be dual livestreamed into the home of every viro in the Union.

But Moore vanished on the second day of the hunt, last spotted in Battle-Zone II on what many believed to be an escape to the Sinaloan State, a sworn enemy of the GAU that took pride in harboring escaped Union prisoners.

With a signal from her beacon, one of Papa Poppy’s more adept soldiers stationed up the superhighway, Jane had launched a tire strip across the road, blowing out all of Moore’s wheels and throwing him into a...