Hard-Boiled Victories
A science fantasy about body snatching and magic in space.
Writing Skins is a reader supported author newsletter that shares excerpts from an award nominated speculative fiction writer’s craft journals. It offers a vulnerable, funny, and interesting look at the writing life, craft, and storytelling.
This is the fiction side of the newsletter where I share unpublished or reprinted literary speculative fiction short stories, novelettes, and potentially even a novella or two.
“Touch me.” Rik ran her hands along her body. Then slower, begging while her eyes fluttered closed, “Please.”
Darren tripped over his pants as he charged the bed. He took her in sweaty throws that blurred together. Each part of him needed her, needed to be inside her and couldn’t, not even for a second, let up.
At some point, Darren fell asleep in Rik’s arms while she panted before the open window of the apartment. Cold air blanketed their bodies and put water on the fires burning through them. A smile graced Rik’s mouth as she held him, letting his head rest on her heart. Maybe he heard the frantic organ dancing within her ribcage. How he slept while on the D was beyond Rik. But dealers in her experience always had the tolerance of tanks.
Sleep for Rik is something that won’t come for another couple of days. It’d be a hard and rough ride until then, but the sleep would be transcending. Plus, she was celebrating. It’s not every day you get chosen out of your rank to be sent off to the stars to battle the threat in the shadows.
Her muscles twitched as she thought about the carnage that she would bring to any enemy—human or otherwise— who crossed her path. But first, she had to make it to the stars, to the wars being fought in absolute black, to the team she would lead into the future. And to do that, she would need to board a rocket, strap in, and push off into the air.
The thought gave her chills.
Readjusting Darren in her arms, Rik reached for the dropper of D and put one drop each in both her eyes. Whoever’s apartment they had broken into, had obviously already pushed off. Most of the things were packed up, but there were still memories hung on the walls, tech sitting forgotten to collect dust in luxury among marble and couches still remaining in the 87th floor horizon apartment. It looked over the small stretch of city before the fields of plantations and factories blotted out the sky for everyone below sea level.
Rik, like so many others, was going to leave this bloated planted behind.
Dopes like Darren tried to scratch out an existence on a planet that no longer supported life. The only thing the planet knew how to do was lay down for those in power and let them take what they wanted. Rik’s mind raced. D coursed through her. She didn’t know it, but her teeth chattered and grinded like she was sleeping in a freezer box. Which wasn’t far off from her upbringing before the Occult Army of America—OCA for short—found her. On one of the chairs in the bedroom, Rik’s sergeant jacket lay draped over the back. Writ in red on the round rune symbol, ‘Occult Army’, shined in the lights from the billboards outside.
They were the power beneath the power. The pulse beneath the breath. They were everything no one could see. When threats of a war or outbreak cropped up, they were the people to thank when it didn’t claim every soul. They were the fist and specter in the night. The ones you prayed to when God abandoned you. Their power wasn’t invested in something so…so…
Rik’s thoughts drifted searching for a word. The further she drifted in her mind the better she felt in her body so, she let it all go. Sent her mind and soul away to dream among the mountains of subconsciousness outside her reach.
That’s how Darren found her when he woke up, sticky with sweat and semen. In his experience, that’s what addicts do. They get high, drift off, and conk out. Her eyes were still open, roving around in their sockets. He left her there to piss. When they broke in, they had smashed out every window in a fit of excited ecstasy that made everything feel like the best idea.
Darren loved all of it. Liked that she came up to him. Read him for what he was while he was having a bowl of noodles, minding his business beneath the smog and lights of the city. Normally, he would have waved a customer off while he was taking a break, but he saw the jacket, peeped the twinkle of magic in her eyes, and was sold on her. Last night was the best night he had ever had. No joke. Everything for him had been in the shits ever since he was born. But last night felt like a new page in his book.
Smiling, he left the bathroom and crept back into the bedroom to rejoin Rik. He climbed on top of her, straddling her wide hips. “Hey, dope-fuck,” he said, caressing her forehead softly.
The black hair fell against the thick silk sheets. She didn’t stir, though her eyes darted rapidly back in forth.
This time he bit her neck in that spot that he had learned made her toes curl and back arch. Again, she was unresponsive except for the eyes. They were alive and wild, but behind them, Darren wondered if she was still there.
“Hey!” he shouted in her face, taking her by the shoulders and shaking her. First softly, like a dancer, but then Darren shook Rik hard. Hard enough that he and her both fell off the bed to the ground.
Rik didn’t moan or curse or say anything. She just lay on top of Darren motionless, save her eyes. Scared, Darren pushed Rik off of him, letting her body slide under the bed where all he could see was one of her eyes. It moved back and forth, chasing a dream Darren couldn’t see.
“Oh, fuck,” Darren said, sprinting toward his clothes.
He pulled them on quick, ready to run out of the room and apartment, leaving Rik where she lay trapped in a D dream. Before leaving the room, he went back to her and pulled her out from under the bed. She deserved that much. On the back streets, there’s a rumor about the occultists that they are all connected by an unseen string of magic locked from the unfortunate like Darren. They’d find her, but he couldn’t be there when they came.
Her jacket hung across the chair close by. Darren pulled it off and dragged it over to where he knelt beside her unconscious naked body. Some of the sheets had come off with them when they fell. They strapped her body to the bed and hid the scar on her thigh that Darren was too occupied to ask about. Clutching the OCA jacket in his hands, Darren kissed Rik’s forehead and went to lay the coat across her bare chest.
A piece of paper fell out. Darren read it. Knowledge, after all, was power.
“Son of a—”
She was leaving. One of the lucky bastards that got to hop aboard a ship with a ticket and bank account to new life in the stars. Darren had always been quick on his feet, he liked that about himself. Standing up, he pulled the OCA jacket on and left his over Rik’s body before leaving the apartment in search of a sorcerer that could change his face and cloak him well enough to steal a seat to a better life.
Around them people, dirty and sweaty, ebbed in and out. Screaming, cheering them on, they threw alcohol into the ring. Not that heavy stuff from earth, but the strong-smelling swill that the workers cooked up in their containers on the other side of the ship. Rik took a fake-out swing at Henry, tucking his body in and rolling under Henry’s block so that he could pop-up behind him. His first blow to Henry’s ribs only got a small reaction, but the second one brought him to his knees.
Rik’s body had become Darren’s body in the years since he stole her identity and hitched a ride to the stars. In that time, he’d buffed her into a well-oiled machine of pain and pleasure. One jump, and he was on Henry’s shoulders, squeezing his head and neck. He used his spinning weight to take Henry down to the mat. Stunned, his eyes swam in his head.
“Finish him!” a voice cried from the crowd that was now a blur of surging bodies, moving to the rhythm of a pounding heart inside of a body that wasn’t Darren’s.
“Finish him! Finish him! Finish him!”
It became a chant. A wave that crashed over Rik and washed away the memories of the last time he had saw Rik, the real Rik. The reflection he saw in the mirror every morning isn’t her. He didn’t know if that was the spell or Darren’s brainwork, but he only saw himself in the reflection, never her.
“Finish him…” the voices died down as Rik watched Henry’s eyes focus in on me.
“Come on, do it,” he whispered. “Finish me.”
He did what they wanted, what Henry wanted. Struck down hard, breaking his nose. But he didn’t stop there. His elbow followed his fist, shoving Henry’s face into the hard mat of the gym.
Later, Henry was the one to pin him down. The two were alone, wrestling naked, grinding their bodies together. Darren felt Henry’s hardness against Rik’s backside, reminded him of his own lost member.
Rik’s body wasn’t all too bad. She had a responsive pussy that came like a bullet train, hard and fast. Darren let Henry beat him in the bedroom in ways Henry would never be able to on the mat. He even let Henry slip away in the morning with some of the winning credits.
No matter. The Occult Army of America kept Rik’s account pretty full to make sure he never complained about the shit they had him do. That shit Darren spent all his days trying to forget. If he knew—If for even a moment, he had an idea of what Rik’s actual job was in the OCA, he wouldn’t have done what he did. He wouldn’t have risked it all just to go up here. Sure, the views while fighting between ships in the vacsuits were beautiful, but at what costs?
Each morning was a nightmare. So, he had to make each night a blasted dream.
Now that the dream was over. He had to return to my routine.
“Morn, sir,” a young recruit whose name Darren never cared to remember said as he entered the main offices on the ship. “Is there anything I can get for you before you begin?”
Behind his red afro, a rectangular window looked out over the long bottom half of the ship that spun away below, generating energy for the crops and air for the people. On each side of the window was a door. Entrance and exit.
“No, thanks,” Rik’s voice said, as Darren pushed his way past him into the office.
It was business as usual except for the intake desks in the middle of the large dome room. Henry and the other custodians were cleaning a black ooze off of the terminals. He locked eyes with Darren, but quickly looked away as Darren’s partner saddled up beside him.
“Someone tried to exorcise a virus out of their system.” Jyl had dyed her hair again. This time it was purple with white streaks. For their job, she had to keep it tied in a bun on top her head. “Ended up spreading the damn thing to our whole system.”
“Rik, Jyl, there’s something that needs your attention. Move along,” Sarge said, skirting past them.
Once Sarge was out of ear shot, Jyl pulled Darren away. “She had to clear the whole system herself before it infected the ship.”
“Where did it come from?” Darren asked as they made their way to the holding cells.
“Why do you think she’s on our case about talking to this new prisoner? Everyone thinks he’s working something against us,” Jyl said.
The cells were rank. Similar to those on earth. Foul rotten sweat boxes containing human bodies packed too close together. The man was in the room at the end of the hall. The ruins that kept any powers that he had at bay were glowing green along the entrance.
“Well,” Darren said, “let’s get to it and see what’s what.”
After you rip through someone’s psyche, your brain sort of became a puddle of mush itself. Jyl usually had one of the lower level sorcerers take her back to her room. Darren was too tough for that. He didn’t want to be around anyone after seeing the deepest darkest secrets of someone. When he saw that shit, that brick that they’ve even hidden from themselves, all he wanted to do was beat someone to a pulp.
So, he was with Henry beneath him again, and he was wailing on him something fierce. People were screaming around him. They surged in, but didn’t surge back. No, someone grabbed him. Tried to pull him off of Henry.
“No,” Rik’s voice seemed to scream. “I have to finish him.”
Finish him. Finish him. Finish him. Darren heard a voice echoing in his head. Each blow, Henry took without fighting back. His hands held Rik’s hips as Darren straddled him.
“Rik!” Jyl wrapped her body around him, binding his strength and sending him to the floor, powerless and dazed. “Give us some room!” Darren heard her yell to a crowd outside his perception.
Jyl held him even though he couldn’t move or speak. Henry inched toward Darren, his face bloody, busted.
“Rik,” he said weakly, taking Darren’s hand. Darren couldn’t really feel it, but it helped ground him in the moment.
They weren’t on the mats or in Rik’s bedroom. He was still in the office surrounded by Jyl, Henry, and the others. Sarge had her sleeves rolled up, revealing the skin carvings that gave her so much power. If Jyl hadn’t wrestled Darren down, she would have had to act. Do something that would have obliterated Darren for sure. Eventually, Jyl let him go. Henry, despite his injuries, took Darren home and challenged anyone who tried to stop him—a custodian, carrying an OCA officer in such a state, imagine that.
When they got back to Rik’s, Henry laid Darren down softly in bed, letting him drift off into a dreamless black sleep. Darren wondered what Rik saw when she closed her eyes every night. Did she dream of the black or did she dream of revenge?
“Alright, alright,” said the masked bodyguard beneath the halo of light. “What’ll it be tonight?” She waved her hand above the table of masks before her and eyed Rik.
Her eyes danced across the masks and landed on one buried under the rest. “That one.” She kept her hands inside her coat, gripping the illegal wand she bought just for this moment.
The woman at the door, nodded. “The Lamb,” she said in a low, husky voice. “Aren’t we all just lambs on our way to the slaughter?”
Her words were muffled by the filter she wore that purified the air she breathed. But she wasn’t wrong. Rik knew all about the slow death of those left behind to rot away on the planet while everyone else worth something got to ship off to far away destination. Most never returned. There was no reason. Earth was dying, if not already dead like a giant blue star twinkling for anyone who wanted to watch. Though there were some who came back. The ones that came back either did so for love or honor.
Except the one that Rik was closing in on. He had neither heart or honor to speak of. His reason for returning to earth were absolutely lost on Rik, but that didn’t change what she had to do. She had to make him pay for everything he did.
Inside the club, everyone was wearing a mask that hid their face. A lot of them were traditional masks made out of recycled plastic and cardboard, painted gold or red to make them look fancier than they were. However, there were a few people grinding along to the bump of the speakers who wore holographic masks that morphed their face into whatever they wanted. There was a mask switching back and forth between a serene whale and a chirping bird.
Moving with the sound, Rik worked her way through the crowd toward the second floor, where she could look down on all the poor souls wasting away to the latest popular song. It played on, drowning out the screams and voices of everyone, including the woman making an ass out of herself on the bar. Rik could tell she was yelling by the way her arms cut through the air and her head fell back in raucous laughter.
The music dyed for a second as the automated DJ switched the song. In the silence between songs, Rik heard her name yelled by one of the men surrounding the other woman. He grabbed her by the hips, hoisting her up and cheering her. Rik pushed herself off of the banister and went down to stand in the shadows by the woman and crowd around her. This was the first time Rik had seen the imposter that stole her future wearing her skin. It made the blood in her veins run dry. Malice like salt built up inside her and egged her on.
She remained in the shadows as the masquerade raged on through the night, keeping her eyes locked on the doppelganger. The other Rik moved from bar to dancefloor to back alley and back again without once losing her loyal crowd of admirers. There was always someone there to buy her a drink or light her cigarette, so she didn’t have to lift a finger except to point to where she wanted to go next. A waste of a body, thought Rik, watching her dance off all of her clothes except for her underwear and the holographic mask she wore. It was programmed to display the face of a wolf.
A fool in wolves clothing. Rik chuckled to herself.
The other her didn’t seem like she was gearing up to stop her party any time soon even though the sun was soon to crawl across the sky. Rik would have to do something drastic if she was going to make the doppelganger pay before the OCA shipped off again for another decade. Stowing the wand in a compartment inside her coat, Rik ordered a shot and made her way toward the small crowd surrounding the person who looked just like her.
Both of them wore masks that hid their identity, but they moved in mesmerizing ways that made the rest of the dancers give them space on the floor together. At first, they battled with their dances. Moving in opposite responses to each other. People around them cheered and clapped over the music to watch the two Riks perform. Slowly, the other approached Rik and began to wrap her hands around Rik’s body.
The touch was something that Rik did not expect. It wasn’t like touching herself. The other’s touch was more electric, wild, wanting, than what Rik had originally thought it would be like. Since that night she spent with Darren and he stole her body, Rik had dreamed of this moment. The moment when she would close in on Darren in her skin and strike him down for everything he took. In all of that time, Rik thought his touch would feel like acid coming through her body, but no.
Rik didn’t want her doppelganger to stop. She let the other form of her run her hands along the back of her jacket and over her waist. Through the clothing, the touch was still overwhelming to Rik. For a moment, she let her eyes shut and gave herself to the other woman and the music that came crashing in around them. At some point, the two had begun kissing each other’s necks though their masks. Had stumbled away from the crowd surrounding them and found themselves pushed up against a wall, grinding against each other.
It took everything inside of Rik not to tear her clothes of there and take the other version of herself. But she remembered what she held hidden in her jacket and the real purpose of this encounter. It wasn’t to fuck, but to get un-fucked and back on track.
“Come with me,” Rik whispered in the other’s ear and pulled her toward the single stall bathroom.
When Rik kicked it in, there was already a couple inside half-naked and startled, but the other her threw them out and shut the door on the two of them. With a wave of her hand, the other Rik removed the image of a wolf from over her face. Again, Rik was taken back by what she saw. Instead of seeing a mirror reflection of herself, the other Rik’s face was a mess of scar tissue and wrinkles.
“Not what you expected, huh, Rik?” the other woman asked, sitting down on the toilet.
“I—” Rik only stammered for a second before regaining her composure and pulling the wand out from her jacket. She aimed it at the woman on the toilet who looked nothing like her except for the way she smiled in that sad way that was wholly Rik and no one else.
“Go on,” the other her said. “Do it. I deserve that and so much more for what I’ve done.” Getting to her knees, she offered herself up to Rik.
And Rik found that she couldn’t move. Couldn’t bring herself to end this sad, old creature. Like toxic rain on the sunbaked asphalt, Rik’s anger disappeared into the invisible spaces around them.