EYE CANDY - Chapter 31: Priscilla
When in doubt, try the Palace.
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First thing in the morning, Danny, Floyd and Susannah drove to Candy’s office and Susannah opened the door with her key.
The office felt still and quiet. A layer of dust coated Susannah’s desk and computer and phone.
They checked Candy’s inner office. Susannah verified that nothing had changed.
“She hasn’t been here,” said Danny. “Let’s try upstairs.”
The walk to Candy’s home yielded exactly what Danny had feared: a locked door that did not open despite his pounding on it and calling Candy’s name for several minutes.
“What about the gnome?” Susannah asked. “It has her spare key inside. I used it once a long time ago when Candy locked herself out of her car.”
But the gnome was nowhere to be seen.
“She took it inside,” said Danny. “I was there the morning after she did it.”
“We could break in,” said Floyd.
“How?” Danny asked.
“Find a window. Or kick the door in.”
“No,” said Danny. “She’s not in there. I can feel it.”
“I think he’s right,” said Susannah. “She hasn’t been here for a long time.”
Danny turned and leaned on the railing. Cars hummed up and down the street below them. “Where could she be?”
“Does she have any family?” Floyd asked. “Maybe she’s staying with them.”
“She’s a robot,” said Danny. “She doesn’t have any family. I was supposed to be her family.” Danny put his head on his forearm and closed his eyes. “Damn it.”
Floyd and Susannah shared a sympathetic look. Susannah put her arm around Danny’s shoulders. “It’s okay. We’ll find her.”
~
Over the next several days, they tried everything.
Danny visited Candy’s office and home every day. He knocked on her door and called to her.
The door never opened.
He sat on the steps and watched the traffic, hoping to see her car, hoping she would appear at the base of the stairs, or that Candy was in fact at home and would open the door at last.
But the door never opened.
Susannah and Danny visited the office together and telephoned every one of Candy’s clients. Danny listened while Susannah spoke under the guise of a routine follow-up, during which she casually asked when was the last time they’d spoken with Dr. Calvin. No one had spoken to or seen her in four months.
Danny drove to Santa Monica and met Rory for lunch at The Hangover Hut. The sky was overcast, the weather cool, and no women in bikinis paraded past the restaurant. Neither Danny nor Rory would have noticed; Rory was equally disturbed by Candy’s disappearance. He informed Danny that Mr. Cherrolet was also distraught by the situation. Circumstances had gotten far outside expected parameters. The iCandy Project was a complete disaster. Rory could not give Danny a hard figure, but rumor in the halls of Canary, Inc. was that the corporate write-down would be somewhere in the billions; billions with a ‘b’. In fact, Mr. C. had even joked that he may have to sell both of his jets, and definitely his yacht.
Danny drove home from the lunch more scared than ever.
Finally, he broke down and did something he did not want to do. He drove to the Hollywood Station of the Los Angeles Police Department on North Wilcox. Inside the quaint red brick building, he met with their chief roboticist and the Captain, both of whom had communicated extensively with Candy at the time of Barney’s self-deactivation, as they referred to it.
Neither of them was particularly concerned with Candy’s whereabouts, nor the fact that she’d not been heard from for more than four months. There was no evidence of foul play.
In the end, Danny insisted they open a file for her as a Missing Person. It wasn’t much, and the Captain stated outright that nothing ever came of such filings, but it was all they could do.
Danny exited the building, utterly morose. He never said a word about Candy being a robot.
A police cruiser slowed and turned into the driveway for the security gate. A robotic officer was behind the wheel. Candy was not in the back seat. The cruiser drove into the lot and the security gate wheeled shut.
A green-and-white taxi whispered by. The driver was a green robot, painted to match the exterior of the car. The backseat of the taxi was empty; Candy was not there either.
Across the street was a bail bondsman. Next door to it was a gun shop.
Candy was not in either of those locations.
Danny leaned against his car and gazed north up Wilcox to Sunset Boulevard. The enormity of the city pressed down on him. Candy could be anywhere.
Danny slid behind the wheel of his convertible and drove north up Wilcox. He crossed DeLongpre, headed toward Sunset. The landmark white letters of the Hollywood sign loomed in the distance, mounted high up on the hillside, one of the most recognized landmarks on Earth.
Autumn in Los Angeles was always beautiful, and today was no exception. The weather was cool but not cold, the afternoon sky was blue but gradually fading to orange as the sun approached the horizon, and Danny had absolutely no idea where he should go next.
He followed a black Range Rover up Wilcox and waited to turn left onto Sunset. The CNN building loomed to his right, tall and black and monolithic.
He drove west on Sunset, mindlessly.
The Cat and Fiddle English Pub caught his eye. There he’d enjoyed many a game of darts, an equal number of pints, and countless nights on the courtyard patio. Candy would’ve enjoyed it. The pub opened in 1982, and was celebrating its 92nd anniversary. He wondered if he’d ever have the opportunity to share it with Candy.
Danny drove on.
He came to a building which was instantly recognizable with its tall, 60-feet-high white tower and spinning one-ton globe. The Crossroads of the World. To the best of Danny’s recollection, it was built more than a hundred years ago. Over the years, the continental village of nine distinct buildings featured retail and office space, a café, pastry shop, movie studios (including those belonging to Alfred Hitchcock), art galleries, and recording studios. As a boy, Danny remembered visiting the Moroccan building, home of Moonwine Studios, a high-level recording facility still owned and operated by a cyborg named Randall, a beloved robotic man of great and notorious affability. Danny had watched a recording session for a British rocker named Rod Stewart, who was in his seventies at the time. Mr. Stewart was currently 102 years old and was on tour in the UK.
So much history.
So many memories.
Danny wanted to share them with Candy. All of them. Yet it seemed he never would.
He drove on.
Past the Michael J. Fox Memorial Payphone, a gleaming gold phone booth, erected in honor of the man who found the cure for Parkinson’s, and noted for launching his acting career on a payphone outside a chicken joint long since razed.
Past Rock-n-Roll Ralph’s, though after the twenty-four-hour supermarket’s re-model decades ago it had become less rock-n-roll and more colonics-and-yoga.
On the opposite side of the street was the ever-quaint Shalom Deli Market, where Danny had been given pomegranates as a boy, a gift from the grey-haired shopkeeper Arye, doled out on Friday afternoons, along with the words “Shabbat Shalom.”
Next to Ralph’s was another Chateaux Pizza. Not the exact location where he and Candy had enjoyed their first date, but a reminder nonetheless.
Danny drove past Aroma Bakery and Café, where he’d purchased their breakfast the morning of their second date, the breakfast they’d enjoyed while toying with the notion of flying to Vegas to get married.
Candy was everywhere and nowhere. There were so many places he wanted to take her, things he wanted to do and share.
Danny drove home, distraught and discouraged.
~
Days passed.
Then a week.
Then a month.
Danny remained at home. On the sofa. Watching television.
He smoked Floyd’s pot faster than Floyd could bring it home. Danny then began visiting dispensaries and hash bars throughout Hollywood, West Hollywood, Beverly Hills, and the west side. He began buying an ounce at a time, searching their albums of samples, asking questions about strains and varieties and growing methods. He bought a small vaporizer pipe which created vapor rather than smoke, thereby saving his lungs. The folks at the dispensary closest to his home quickly came to know Danny on a first-name basis. It wasn’t long before they were joking about him coming to work there. Through high, squinty eyes, Danny croaked, “Maybe.”
Back home, he and Floyd and Susannah shared many dinners and weekend barbecues. Howard prepared lavish meals when he wasn’t out of town working as a first officer co-piloting either of Canary Cherrolet’s Gulfstream jets.
On Thanksgiving Day, Howard spent twelve hours in the kitchen. He prepared a proper feast. Howard sat at the table with Danny, Floyd, Susannah, Harley, Rory, Tim, Maggie, Isaac, Nik, Gali, Copper, and Turing. Everyone did their best to not mention Candy’s absence.
Floyd spent many nights at Susannah’s. On such occasions, when Howard was on an overnight trip with Mr. C., Danny had his house entirely to himself. He roamed the house, usually nude, and often with music blasting from the surround speakers wired throughout.
Danny ordered in all manner of take-out: Chinese, sushi, Thai, pizza, burgers and fries, Mexican. He lounged on the sofa, enjoying his feast, watching movie after movie on his giant home theater screen.
And he smoked a lot of pot.
He smoked when he woke in the morning.
He smoked before lunch.
He smoked before, during, and after dinner.
He smoked before taking a long, hot shower.
He smoked while skinny dipping in his Jacuzzi. He purchased a flotation chair which allowed him to sleep in the Jacuzzi without fear of drowning. He lay in his flotation chair at night, staring up at the stars, with his vaporizer pipe in hand, pondering the universe and all things in it, and doing his utmost to not think about Candy.
Which of course was all he did.
He thought about her in the morning.
He thought about her in the afternoon.
He thought about her in the evening.
And he thought about her at night, when he was alone in bed and the house was quiet and empty.
He began viewing vast amounts of adult entertainment in his home theater. He masturbated constantly, often several times per day, and often every day. Despite his vociferous attempts, he never found the joy he’d experienced with Candy.
One night, when he was feeling particularly blue, he dipped his fingers in the semen cooling on his belly and dabbed it on his forehead and face. But sadness and tears overwhelmed him, and he scrubbed his face dry with his tee- shirt, turned off the tv, and collapsed in his chair, in the dark, alone.
The next night, he went out.
And the night after that.
And the night after that….
He visited every topless and all-nude dance club he could find. Girls of all shapes and sizes led him upstairs, downstairs, into back rooms and into private booths where they stripped for him, rubbed their bodies against him, and cajoled him into just one more dance. He even paid extra to take a shower with a tall girl named Jasmine. But as he stood in the emerald-tiled shower stall with Jasmine, so high and drunk he could barely keep his eyes focused on her as she slid her soapy breasts all over his body, the only thing he could think about was how much he wished he were showering with Candy, for it was an activity they had never shared.
Each club, each night, weekdays and weekends alike, Danny went in with hundreds and sometimes thousands of dollars in cash. He came out with nothing. He was often blind drunk, and sometimes fell down in an alley beside the club, or somehow managed to find the quiet interior of his car. He instructed the car to drive home, where it would park in the garage, and where he would sleep until morning.
He drove downtown and wandered both by car and on foot, craning his neck up at the skyscrapers so tall he could not see their uppermost floors. He explored the dark and busy streets of Chinatown, Koreatown, Little India, and Little Prague. All of them featured full-service massage parlors where happy endings were standard fare. Despite many high and intoxicated efforts, he could never bring himself to go inside and experience it for himself.
One Monday night, he found himself sitting in the 76 station on Sunset and North Laurel. He waited while his car’s power cell was filled by the robotic arm.
He took a deep breath of fresh air. Internal combustion engines had been made illegal in California more than two decades prior. Air pollution had ceased to exist in Los Angeles within mere days of the law taking effect. Los Angeles was now revered worldwide for its air quality. People traveled from other countries to enjoy the subtle mixture of ocean breeze and fresh pine forest.
“Your automobile is now charged,” intoned the digitized voice of the robot arm.
“Thank you,” said Danny.
“You’re welcome.” The arm retracted and stowed itself in its place on the small concrete island.
Danny verified that his credit card was charged $7.19. Crisp red digits scrolled repeatedly across the front of the transparent card: Norm’s 76 . . . 7979 Sunset Blvd Hollywood CA . . . $7.19 . . . Thank You! A few cents more than a usual fill-up, but still reasonable. After the discovery of the Higgs Boson, a method for producing nearly-free energy had been discovered. The great oil companies had scrambled to build particle colliders-cum-power plants, and in less than two years the tidal shift away from fossil fuels was complete. Driven entirely by consumers, everything from cars to houses to shopping malls to orbital hotels to lunar colonies were quickly converted, modified, or updated to utilize the new power source. Initially, Danny had heard reports on the radio stating that colliding particles of the magnitudes required to create the Higgs Boson could, and the emphasis was on could, cause some teeny, tiny glitch, and could open up a black hole which would swallow the Earth and everyone on it. They’d actually said that on the radio.
But everyone loved their new, clean, cheap electricity, and so far the whole black hole thing hadn’t happened.
Danny sat behind the wheel, not moving. He didn’t know where to go.
Across the street was The Laugh Factory comedy club. According to the black electronic letters glowing on the large digital marquee, Poodle Raw was headlining. Probably trying out new material on a small, Monday night crowd.
Poo was a 75-year-old cyborg who looked like he was in his thirties. He liked to riff on childhood and adolescence and sex and growing up, as well as all manner of 1980s pop culture innuendo, the stuff of Poo’s youth before he’d gotten his metal (sometime in his sixties, if Danny recalled correctly) and made himself virtually immortal.
Poo was the first person on Earth to get one billion friends on all three major social media platforms (and a person he still was, for cyborgs were a legally protected class, according to Kaiser Permanente v. Browne 2042, and the U.S. Supreme Court). Poo’d starred in more than 500 movies, more than any other actor in history, and, according to Fortune 100 Magazine, was so wealthy that he now donated 99 percent of his earnings to charity.
Danny’s two favorite Poo films were one in which he fell in love with a girl but could not have sex with her because of a curse placed upon him stipulating that every woman he slept with would fall in love with and marry the next man she slept with.
The other one was the movie where Poo was elected as Earth’s representative to visit another planet and its inhabitants. Of course Poo mucks it up by having sex with far, far too many aliens, but he saves the day in the end, like all good heroes should.
While Danny sat staring at the Laugh Factory, two teenagers strolled the sidewalk across the street from the service station. They were heading south, towards Sunset Boulevard. A couple of white kids wearing brand new expensive shoes. One of them carried a brown paper sack in his hand.
The teens stopped in front of The Laugh Factory. They looked around, up and down the street. The teen holding the paper sack drew his arm back and whipped the sack into the air. The sack hit the electronic marquee and brown sludge splattered Poo in the face.
The teens laughed, high fived, and hurried up the sidewalk.
Apparently they weren’t fans.
Danny toyed with the notion of popping into the Laugh Factory. He decided against it. He wanted to cruise the streets of L.A. with the top down, feel the wind in his hair, dream about Candy, and be completely fucking depressed. Perhaps he would park somewhere up in the hills, high above the city. He would sit and smoke and listen to the radio and worry about Candy.
“You okay, mister?”
The station attendant stood beside Danny’s convertible. A black baseball cap worn backwards covered his head. Long brown hair hung from beneath the cap. He wore a black tee shirt with a digital image of a rock band moving on it. It looked like a music video of a man in a hospital bed, with a mask strapped to his face, while his armless, legless body squirmed about. Danny stared at it, transfixed.
Finally, Danny looked up at the attendant’s face.
“Dude, you alright? You need a tow or somethin’?”
“No.”
“You been sittin’ here for forty-five minutes.”
Danny smiled. He found this very funny. “Really?”
“Yeah, dude, really.”
“Time flies when you’re having fun.”
“So, like, what’re you doing?”
Danny sighed. “I’m looking for someone. A girl.”
The attendant walked quickly to the sidewalk, to a row of small vending machines. He tapped a button on a red machine and an e-paper popped up. He removed it from the slot and returned to Danny’s car. “Here you go.”
Danny took the thin sheet. It gave off blue light, yet was also transparent. Electronic words and three-dimensional holographic images moved across the front of it, advertising for liquor stores and other local businesses.
Danny tapped the page numbers on the right-hand side, scanning through the bars, clubs, strip joints, massage parlors, and classified ads featuring beautiful women dressed in lingerie and high heels. The women feigned undressing, blew kisses, and curled their finger in come-hither motions.
Danny tapped on page five.
A jolt went through Danny’s body and soul.
Featured in the largest, most prominent ad, was Candy. Her holographic likeness rose up out of the electronic paper. She wore a lacy black brassiere, sheer, ruffled panties adorned with black bows, and black garters hooked to matching stockings. Purple nail polish adorned her fingertips. Pink lipstick covered her lips. Wild blond hair cascaded down her back.
Danny had never seen her this way. But it was most definitely her.
“What is this?”
“Call girls, man. Hookers. Escorts. You want a handjob in your car behind Pollo Loco, you call someone like her.” The attendant pointed to an overweight woman with mascara stains around her eyes. “You want to get wildly fucked, you call her.” He pointed to a woman with two hands clenched around the anatomically-accurate head of a large strap-on device. “And if you want a G-F-E in a suite at the Ritz, you call her.” He pointed to Candy.
“What’s a G-F-E?” Danny asked.
“Girlfriend experience. They hold your hand and braid flowers in your chest hair. Some real D.H. Lawrence shit. They pretend they like you. Like they’re your girlfriend.” He leaned closer and studied the ad in more detail. “Oh, no, wait. Never mind. It’s just an ad for a company that makes porn. She’s their newest fuck queen. See, her name is right there: Priscilla.”
In the corner of the ad, a company logo flashed, Vulva in blue letters, alternating with Priscilla in red letters, then a phone number. Danny pulled out his phone and dialed the number. A woman answered on the third ring.
“Vulva Video, go fuck yourself.”
“Excuse me?”
“Vulva Video. Go fuck yourself.”
“Excuse me?”
“Habla Ingles?”
“Yes, I speak English. Why did you tell me to go fuck myself?”
“It’s our new company slogan. We’re trying it out. You don’t like it?”
“No.”
“I’ll make a note of it. How can I help you?”
“I’m looking for a girl.”
“Who isn’t?”
“No, I’m looking at one of your ads. I need to find the girl in the ad. It says her name is Priscilla.”
Danny heard the sound of fingers typing on a keyboard.
“Blond or redhead?”
“Blond.”
“I’ve got two blond Priscillas. Is it the one where she’s being strangled or the one where she’s wearing a bra and ruffled panties, with big hair?”
“Bra and panties and big hair,” said Danny.
“Yeah, she’s gone.”
“Gone?”
“It says she was fired. A couple months ago. She didn’t show up to work one day. So after a week they canned her.”
“Do you have any contact information? A phone number or address?”
“I couldn’t give you that information if I had it, but no, I don’t. I don’t even have her real name.”
“Is there anyone there I could talk to, someone who might know where she is?”
“We shoot more than a hundred girls a day. Almost five thousand a month. If you’re looking for talent, I can email you our latest catalogue.”
“No, I need to find this particular girl.”
“Please tell me you’re not her dad.”
“No, why?”
“We’ve had irate fathers show up here with shotguns. Is she your daughter?”
“No, but she’s . . . someone very special.”
“I would help you if I could, but I honestly have no information. Sorry.”
“Thanks, anyway.” Danny hung up.
“Dead end, huh?”
Danny nodded.
“You could always try the Palace.”
“The what?”
“Robot Palace. Up in the valley. They’ve got all kinds of fucked-up shit in there. A lot of porn stars wind up there.”
“What do they do there?”
“Have sex with robots, mostly. But some cocktail.”
Danny studied the ad with Candy. It was the most recent image of her, taken sometime after her disappearance. “She’s not a porn star.”
The attendant chuckled. “Sorry, brother. But all evidence points to the contrary. You know her?”
“I used to.”
“She’s hot.”
Danny smiled. His lips and face curved upward to form the smile, but he felt sad inside. “Yes, she is.” He offered his pipe to the attendant. “You want a hit?”
“Shit yeah.”
“Hop in.”
The attendant opened the passenger door and got in.
“I forgot my Vape-a-toke at home,” said Danny “so we have to do it the old fashioned way.”
The attendant took the pipe and lighter from Danny. “There’s not supposed to be any open flame in the station.” He struck the lighter and angled the cone of blue flame toward the bowl. He took a big hit.
“Why?” Danny asked. “There’s no gasoline here.”
“I know,” said the attendant. He spoke in a hoarse voice as he held his smoke. “Old habits die hard.” After several long seconds, he exhaled two white plumes out of his nostrils. “That is some good shit. I’m Owen.” He extended his hand.
“Danny.”
They shook.
Owen held up the pipe. “May I?”
“Be my guest, Owen.”
“Thanks, man. And here I thought it was gonna be just another shitty Monday night at work while my friends were off watching the game.” Owen fired the bowl, inhaled, and held it. “You know, you look familiar.” Owen’s eyes widened and he coughed. He began patting his body, slapping his chest and arms and legs, while coughing out smoke.
“Are you on fire?”
“Wait.” Still coughing, Owen thrust his hand into a pants pocket on the side of his leg. He withdrew his phone. He tapped the screen a few times and then thrust it toward Danny. “Is this you?”
On the phone’s screen, Danny saw an image of himself. It was his author photo for The Rock of God.
“Handsome devil, ain’t I?”
“It is you! Holy shit, man. Dude, your book is like my own personal Holy Bible. I discovered Atheism because of you. I owe my life to you. Let me get a pic.”
“It’s not really about that. I mean–”
Owen put one arm around Danny’s shoulders and leaned close as he held up the phone.
Danny tried to smile his professional “author” smile, sexy but intellectual.
“Got it.” Owen admired the photo. “Before I discovered your book, I used to be such a worrywart. I used to spend all my time wondering if I was a good person, if I was wasting my life, if I was just another pathetic cog in the great money machine making us believe promiscuity and morality are not mutually exclusive. You said it right here in chapter three. . . .”
Owen tapped and swiped at the screen several times.
“Chapter three, and I quote, ‘There are those who would have us believe that the risqué imagery upon which the very foundation of the multibillion-dollar advertising industry is built is antithetically divine in origin, that in fact such imagery is a clever ruse designed to distract us from our higher purpose, to wreak havoc in our lives by sewing seeds of doubt and dissatisfaction in our minds, causing us to question all that we are given until we flee from that which is right and good and seek instead that which provides no satisfaction, yields no answers, and therefore blinds us to the truth.
“ ‘But the truth is that there is no truth. There is only thought, word, deed, action, and reaction. And, one day, death.’ ”
Owen ended his recitation and turned to Danny. “Dude, that is fucking genius.”
“I actually wrote that?”
“The book has your name and picture on it.”
“That’s fuckin’ depressing.”
“It’s fuckin’ genius, dude. I’ve never been so happy as I was the day I read that paragraph and realized I had to stop torturing myself, that I should just live my life, and be myself, and do what I want to do. You know?”
“Sure. But . . . what if I was wrong?”
“Huh?”
“What if everything I said was wrong? That book is supposed to be about robots. To help us program them, and to help us understand them and the way they think and speak and behave.”
“Robots are just machines, man.” Owen sparked the bowl and took another hit. “Like can openers and shit.”
Danny considered Owen’s statement.
On the other side of the service station lot, a robot was putting air into the tire of a vehicle. An elderly woman sat patiently in the passenger seat.
Across the street were a young woman and a robot, both dressed in exercise attire and running shoes. They were on the corner, jogging in place while they waited for the light to change. The robot wore a headband, despite its inability to sweat. The robot slapped the big yellow crosswalk button several times.
Owen rambled on. His eyes were red and puffy. “Like, sometimes, me and my friends will drive out to Antelope Valley, to one of the big robot wrecking yards, to find some old shitty bots to buy for a few dollars. And we’ll throw ’em in the trunk and then go find a secluded place where we can hook ’em up to an old car battery to make ’em talk. And then we’ll get really high and point guns at ’em and threaten ’em with deactivation and shit. And they always beg us not to do it. And then we blow ’em away. Fuckin’ positrons everywhere, dude. I like the way they sparkle in the headlights.” Owen took another hit from Danny’s pipe. “It’s awesome.”
“You kill robots?”
Owen laughed and accidentally coughed out his smoke. “You can’t kill something that isn’t alive, man. You of all people should know that.”
“You make them beg for their lives, and then you shoot them?”
“For real, man. Right in the head.” Owen pointed his index and middle fingers as if they were a gun. He mimed firing it, simulating the slow-motion kickback. “Dude, you should come with us. We were talking about going tomorrow. You should totally come.”
“Get out.”
“Huh?”
“Give me my pipe,” Danny snatched the pipe and lighter from Owen’s hand, “and get the fuck out of my car.”
Owen’s phone lit up and vibrated in his hand. He answered it as he slowly exited Danny’s convertible. “Hello? . . . Hey, man. . . . Dude, I’m at work, getting high with Daniel Olivaw . . . Yes, way. . . . Dude, he’s a fuckin’ dick. I invited him to come waste some bots with us tomorrow and he got all pissed and kicked me out of his car.”
Danny pressed the ignition button on his dash and put the car in gear. He whipped the car out of the lot, with the sound of the tires grabbing asphalt.
Danny checked his rearview mirror. Owen stood with his arm raised, his middle finger in the air. He was still on the phone.
~
The car wended its way up Mulholland Drive, the reverse of the route he’d taken with Harley after their date on Catalina Island.
Danny had no idea where he was going. He wasn’t even driving. He’d put the car on autodrive after leaving the 76 station. The e-paper with Candy’s digital rendering lay on the passenger seat, fluttering in the breeze swirling around the interior of the car. Danny hated to look at it, hated to see her like that. Yet he could scarcely look away. He wanted to toss it out of the car. He also wanted to hang on to it. Perhaps even masturbate to it.
He glanced at the time projected in his car’s heads-up display. He’d smoked a lot after leaving the 76 station, was very high, and his eyes felt like cotton. He blinked several times until a bit of moisture refreshed his eyes.
The red digits gleamed in the heads-up-display. 10:47.
Danny glanced at the e-paper with Candy’s picture on it. It was almost as if she were standing on the seat.
He took another hit from his little black pipe and filled his lungs with hot Silver Afghani smoke.
Danny’s car drove itself further up Mulholland, winding up and up the dark, twisting lane. There were no other cars on the road. Danny turned off his headlights and drove in the dark the way Harley had done. The car didn’t need lights, it utilized satellite navigation. The full moon was climbing into the sky, and the trees and the road were bathed in pale moonlight. Despite its undeniable beauty, Danny would not have wanted to attempt to drive by only the light of the moon. He would let his car do the work. One more example of a machine besting a human. Perhaps it was a fitting balance, for somewhere, out there, in places like Antelope Valley, there were dipshit service station attendants torturing scrapped robots.
Ahead on the right, a scenic lookout came into view.
“Pull over here.”
The white convertible glided slowly off the road and into the lot. Danny sat behind the wheel, staring at the valley and its endless sea of lights. Universal City. Toluca Lake. North Hollywood. Slicing down the middle of the valley was Lankershim Boulevard.
And there, between Lankershim and the Hollywood freeway, lit up brighter than an airport, Danny saw it.
Robot Palace.
Impossible to miss, even from this distance.
Rory’s description of it replayed in Danny’s mind:
“Robots destroying humans . . . Fucked-up, old-world gladiator shit, but with a new futuristic twist. Sex . . . Orgies. Acted out on a stage covered with dirt to soak up all the blood. Just like the Romans did it thousands of years ago.”
Statements echoed by Owen the Robot Murderer.
Danny considered it.
Did he want to see that kind of stuff?
Could it be as bad as Rory had claimed?
Danny fired the little bowl on his pipe. The cherry burned and the weed crackled. He exhaled a long plume of smoke, blowing it at Robot Palace. The smoke whirled against the windshield and curled back on itself. The lights of Robot Palace gleamed through the smoke.
Danny coughed a few times and smiled.
Yes. He absolutely wanted to see that kind of stuff.
He tapped the screen of his nav system. In a matter of seconds, he was on his way.
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