Miss Brandymoon's Device: a novel of sex, nanotech, and a sentient lava lamp (Divided Man Book 1) Read online

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Free Offer

  Dedication

  Chapter One - Talisman

  Chapter Two - Party

  Chapter Three - Surveillance

  Chapter Four - Date

  Chapter Five - Diner

  Chapter Six - Cinemopolis

  Chapter Seven - Hospital

  Chapter Eight - Ambush

  Chapter Nine - Sandcastle

  Chapter Ten - Lava

  Chapter Eleven - Factory

  Chapter Twelve - Sanctuary

  Chapter Thirteen - Towers

  Chapter Fourteen - Underground

  Chapter Fifteen - Vagabond

  Chapter Sixteen - Wedding

  Chapter Seventeen - Limousine

  Chapter Eighteen - Bones

  Chapter Nineteen - Asteroid

  Chapter Twenty - Honeymoon

  Chapter Twenty-One - Penthouse

  Chapter Twenty-Two - Van

  Chapter Twenty-Three - Ziggurat

  Chapter Twenty-Four - Tunguska

  Chapter Twenty-Five - Cathedral

  Offer

  MISS BRANDYMOON'S DEVICE

  a novel of sex, nanotech, and a sentient lava lamp

  Rune Skelley

  Copyright © 2016 Rune Skelley

  All rights reserved.

  Cover design and artwork by Rune Skelley, photo licensed from Shutterstock.

  ISBN: 0-9982502-0-1

  ISBN-13: 978-0-9982502-0-5

  To the two best kids. Thank you for not eating the Declaration of Independence.

  Chapter One

  TALISMAN

  Re: Reverse-Engineering the Device

  Now that we've seen its innards, it's clear we will not be able to copy it. So, we need to procure more. The nanotech is incredible. The thing looks like ordinary body-piercing jewelry, yet there's so much crammed into it.

  We managed to figure out a few things. The device doesn't need a battery because it's powered by the wearer's bioelectrical field. The wearer's body also acts as an antenna, which is how such a small device can send and receive over such great distances.

  Side note of interest: PierceX, the company covertly distributing the jewelry, is a front for Shaw Ministries, and is willfully ignoring the concept of informed consent in regards to both the piercers and the end-user.

  internal TEF e-mail, 08-02-2000

  FRIDAY, SEPT 22, 2000

  Fin Tanner searched the dank alley for the tattoo parlor Booth mentioned yesterday. Specifically, his friend said, “Go to Talisman,” and, “The piercer there is a hot babe.”

  Of course Fin didn’t have an umbrella and the rain had started again, dampening both his soviet surplus trench coat and his mood, and lending a soggy ripeness to the stench seeping out of the dumpster cave. The trucks making afternoon beer deliveries to the service entrances of the bars and night clubs splashed through oily puddles, turning the narrow sidewalk into a test of skill his sleep-deprived body had trouble passing.

  A rank splatter of puke confronted Fin and he cursed the amateur revelers who overran Webster. It was a college town, not a real city, and as such had an anemic bar scene. Not that the bars weren’t plentiful, they were just garishly lit, mock-edgy and pathetic. Buckminster students hit their 21st birthdays and flocked to these pretentious kiddie-rides, quickly achieving alcohol poisoning. On any given morning, a few of them turned up scattered around town on lawns or even rooftops, sometimes not in their own clothes. Referring to a night of excessive partying as ‘getting abducted by aliens’ was the new hip jargon, especially when you couldn’t even remember you’d been drinking.

  The fall semester had just begun, filling Webster once again with a fresh crop of students desperate to prove how grown up they were by behaving like spoiled children. The only good thing about the situation was that when Fin’s band Nicotine played a gig, they got a cut of the cover charge. But, even splitting the rent six ways, he had to moonlight in order to maintain the poverty-line lifestyle to which he’d become accustomed.

  “Already late for work,” Fin mumbled. He was about to admit defeat and grab a cup of coffee at Magic Beans. He would sorely need it if he expected to make the layout for The 100th Anniversary of Homecoming “fresh and snazzy.” Sycamore’s dutiful alumni readership wouldn’t fork over hefty contributions for anything less.

  A Molson truck came barreling toward him. Fin dodged behind one of the massive utility poles prevalent in the alley and almost fell down the flight of stairs hiding behind it.

  “Shit!” He checked his black cargo pants for splashes and found none. When he looked up, a slow smile crossed his face. Booth neglected to mention the place was subterranean, and the neon sign was on the fritz. Instead of TALISMAN TATTOO! it read IS TOO!

  Fin ground his cigarette out under his boot and started down the steep, concrete steps. The scarred wooden door at the bottom was propped open to emit the smell of coffee, and some extra-crunchy noise rock.

  My kind of place, Fin thought, trying to smooth his unruly hair with both hands as he slipped through the opening into the dim interior. The only light came from a work lamp on the counter to Fin’s right as he entered. To his left the cramped room was filled with a huge green velour sofa and a battered coffee table spilling over with photo albums and copies of Tattoo Biker. The cement floor was partially covered with a blood red carpet. A wall-mounted TV played The Road Warrior with the sound off.

  Fin looked back to the counter. He recognized the big, well-muscled guy sketching shirtless there, but didn’t know his name. The sheer abundance of aboriginal and Native American tattoos was hard to forget, as was the tribal look of his piercings which included his ears, septum, the bridge of his nose and, as Fin now noticed, his nipples.

  This better not be Booth’s idea of a hot babe, Fin thought blackly.

  The artist looked up and brushed a long strand of black hair out of his dark eyes. “With you in a minute,” he said, and added a few more strokes to the tattoo he was designing.

  Fin amused himself by making up dialog in his head for The Road Warrior until the music got quieter and the overhead lights came on. Both men blinked for a few seconds.

  “I’m Marcus Savage. What can I do for you?” He gestured toward the design samples covering the walls.

  “Hi. Fin Tanner,” said Fin as he failed to spot the babe body piercer. “I’m not looking for a tattoo today. I wanna get my eyebrow pierced I think.”

  “Not my department,” Marcus said, then bellowed, “Rook!”

  Fin looked around, startled and confused.

  “ROOK!” Louder and impatient.

  Movement in the shadowy depths of the sofa became a girl sitting up. “What?” she complained.

  “Customer,” Marcus said serenely, and went back to work at the counter.

  Rook, apparently, yawned and stood up. After pulling her houndstooth miniskirt down to cover the tops of her bare thighs, she stretched and ruffled her hair.

  Catching a glimpse of her black panties did wonders for Fin’s mood and he felt a smile threatening. Her shaggy, shoulder length hair was mostly blue-black, except for her chin-length, cherry red bangs. He couldn’t hold the smile back when she finally got all that damn hair out of the way and he could see her face. Light freckles dusted her nose, but otherwise her skin shone flawlessly pale, accentuating full lips tinted a red so deep it was almost black. Cinnamon colored brows drew together in puzzlement above
the most striking eyes Fin had seen since the last time he fell in love with a stranger, a luminous snow-shadow blue. Fin realized with a start they were burrowing right into his brain. He dropped his gaze to her chest and admired how the clingy gray henley showed off her proportions. Impressive, but not so large as to be off-putting. Not that that was really possible. He knew he was grinning like an idiot and thinking nonsense. I really need that coffee.

  “Hi. Should I come back when you’re done napping?” He tried for sarcastic nonchalance.

  Sliding her feet into a pair of goofy Cookie Monster slippers, she said, “You’d be waiting a while.” Her voice was slightly husky, like dark beer. Fin shivered.

  This is ridiculous, he thought. I gotta get some coffee.

  Rook brushed past Fin and walked to the counter, hopped up, scooted across it on her bottom, and dropped down on the other side. Fin took the opportunity to check out her ass. After glancing at Marcus’s drawing, she reached under the counter and pulled out a coffee pot. She filled a mug, crossed back over the counter and sat down on the sofa, cradling the mug in both hands.

  “Well?” She patted the spot beside her. Around her right ankle a flock of tattooed black birds soared above the blue muppet pelt of her slipper.

  Fin shrugged off his coat and sat down, a little closer to her than would generally be considered polite. He was as drawn to the heavenly fumes rising from the mug as he was to Rook herself, hoping that being so close to the coffee he would get some second-hand caffeine and straighten out his head.

  The coffee smelled great but, instead of helping, it made his need more palpable. Rook took a sip and sighed happily. Fin was about to do something rash when she placed a green vinyl photo album in his lap.

  Relieved to finally know what to do, Fin opened the album. The first page held an elaborate certificate from The Society of Professional Piercers, dated nearly two years ago and made out in the unlikely name Rook Brandymoon.

  Rook ran a finger under a black silk cord encircling her neck and pulled a pendant from her cleavage where it had been hiding. Fin swallowed a mouthful of lust.

  “Rook Brandymoon?”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s familiar for some reason.” Fin was still trying to get his brain in gear.

  She twirled the pendant, a glossy, dark green castle tower, between her slender fingers, disturbing the steam from her coffee and mesmerizing Fin. “I write for Conspiracy Theory Press. As Brandy Moon.”

  “That’s it,” Fin agreed. “Rook. Brandymoon. Is it your real name?”

  “Yes.”

  Emboldened, Fin reached out his left hand and held the pendant steady to get a better look at it. It radiated her warmth. “Are you named after the bird or the chess piece?” He indicated the rook he still held.

  “Are you named after Huckleberry or a fish’s ass?”

  “Touché.” Fin dropped the rook and turned to the next page in the album and saw a female nipple with a barbell through it. “Hey, how’d you know my name?”

  “You sound paranoid.” Rook sipped her coffee and let him wonder for a moment. “I’ve seen Nicotine play a couple times.”

  “You like our music much?”

  She considered while savoring another swallow of coffee. “You should knock off the whole Nine Inch Nails homage and play more originals.”

  “You think?” Fin let the criticism slide because he was compelled to stare into her uncanny eyes, and was both unnerved and aroused when he found her staring back.

  “Yeah. But I’m not a music critic anymore. I gave it up for the lucrative and exciting life of a Professional Body Piercer. Nothing can compare to the thrill of sticking needles into the genitals of complete strangers and having them pay you for the privilege,” she said. “So are you gonna look at the pictures and make a decision, or do you want me to pick a spot at random and go for it?”

  Fin could tell she was fully awake now. The caffeine was doing its job and he wished he had some so they would be on equal mental footing. He forced himself to look down at the photo album.

  The next five or six pages showed various ear ornamentations including cartilage piercings of all sorts. After these were several pages of nose and septum piercings.

  Between sips of coffee, Rook offered helpful comments. “When you get your nose pierced you need to be careful about what color stone you choose. Red and onyx look like zits. Green and yellow look like snot. So do opals.” Fin noticed hers was a small sapphire that matched her eyes. It didn’t look like any sort of unfortunate body product.

  Next were eyebrows, anti-eyebrows, cheeks, lips and tongues.

  “Did you do Marcus?” Fin asked.

  “Yes. And my own nose, nipple and navel.” She finished the coffee and set the mug down on the floor when she couldn’t find room on the table.

  “Your own? Ow.”

  “Well, duh.”

  Fin flipped past the vulvas, penises, clitorises and labia. He lingered for a moment over more nipples and finally got to the last page.

  “Decided?” she asked.

  “Yes. I want a hoop in my right eyebrow. A black hoop."

  “Step into my office.” She indicated a door opposite the sofa. Trailing behind her, Fin entered the piercing room.

  His eyes watered as he looked at the hallucination-inducing pattern painted in black and white on the concrete floor.

  “Sit on the bed-thing,” Rook said, motioning toward a lozenge-shaped table cushioned in forest green leather, with several foot pedals underneath. “Is this your first piercing?”

  “Except for my ear.”

  Fin sat on the edge and found to his chagrin that his feet dangled an inch or so off the floor. He caught himself swinging them while watching Rook open an accordion door in the back corner and disappear.

  She came back carrying a small white box with PierceX emblazoned on the top in gold lettering. She slit the shrink-wrapping with her thumbnail and pulled out a plastic insert cradling a dozen black metal hoops.

  “You’re the first with a black one,” she said. “They’re new. You like?”

  Fin dragged his eyes away from her smile long enough to confirm what she held was, indeed, the piece of metal he would like embedded in his face.

  At the counter along the wall she pushed up her sleeves, washed her hands and put on rubber gloves. Fin glimpsed bold black tattoos on her inner wrists, but couldn’t make out what they depicted. She opened a fresh needle and gathered the rest of her supplies on a small cart that reminded Fin he hadn’t been to the dentist in quite a while. Rook sat on a stool in front of him and reached for her tool tray, giving Fin a partial view of more black ink on her collarbone, then used the foot pedals to adjust the height of the table. Fin gazed up into her auroral eyes, his caffeine-starved brain struggling to come up with an excuse for kissing her, when she suddenly poked his eyebrow with a marker and handed him a mirror.

  “I think I know when someone pierces my eyebrow,” said Fin. “Don’t tell me. You’ve always wanted to be a lumberjack.”

  Rook laughed. It was a deep, musical thing. Like raw honey.

  “Just check and see if that’s where you want it, jerk,” she said.

  When Fin concluded it was a good spot, Rook swabbed him with an alcohol prep and placed a clamp on his eyebrow. She moved in close, and Fin could smell her, and she smelled wonderful, like cloves and something darker, and she brushed against his arm and her nipples were standing up, and he could tell it was her left one she had pierced and...

  “Fuck! That hurts!” Then he smiled.

  “I love my job.” She unclamped his brow.

  To tune out the needle still impaling him, glinting, right there in front of his fucking eye, Fin kept his gaze on Rook’s face. He felt a tug as she threaded the hoop through, evicting the needle. She lingered over popping the captive bead in place, then smiled. “It looks good.”

  Inspiration struck. Fin placed a hand on the back of her head and kissed her. She nipped him, but relax
ed and kissed back, her tongue sliding over his. She tasted like Kahlua, and she made a throaty little sound. After a few fleeting seconds of this heaven, she pulled away and looked at him like he was crazy, but in a good way.

  “I wanted to see if your tongue was pierced too,” Fin said with an impish grin.

  “You could have just asked.” She sounded like she felt she ought to be mad but wasn’t.

  “Where’s the fun in that?”

  Rook rolled her eyes and started swabbing his eyebrow with iodine.

  “Shit that hurts!”

  “So sorry darling. Just want to be sure you don’t get an infection.” She finished up and slapped on a bandage. “Should I kiss it and make it better?”

  Fin was in love. “Yes.”

  She kissed it lightly.

  “Maybe I should get my nipple pierced too.”

  “Don’t push your luck.”

  Rook opened the door and they walked out to the counter while she explained the daily cleaning regimen. After hopping over the counter again she punched a few buttons on the cash register.

  “That comes to 55 dollars.”

  Fin took out his wallet. “If you’re not working too late, maybe we could get together. Get a drink? Play some chess? Read some Twain?”

  Marcus looked up from his sketch predatorily. Fin suddenly didn’t feel good about this at all, especially after he noticed the shotgun under the counter near Marcus’s knees. He and Marcus both looked at Rook.

  “Marcus and I have plans tonight,” she said, putting an arm around Marcus’s bare shoulder. “Maybe you could bring a chess board here sometime. He won’t play with me.”

  Fin felt trampled. He was about to leave when Rook handed him his change along with a business card.

  “The cleaning instructions are on there. Be sure to read them carefully when you get home.” She smoothed Marcus’s hair and started braiding it.

  Fin pulled on his trench coat and left the shop with Marcus eyeing him darkly. On the steps he could hear sharp words, but couldn’t follow what was said. The rain had picked up again and another truck rumbled past. Now he was really late for work and someone important might notice.