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Damara Megido was all made up in jailhouse cosmetics but she had nowhere to go. She had been waiting in the prison lobby for nearly an hour, from 9 am to 10 am, waiting for her aunt to pick her up. Her aunt and uncle had signed off on her coming back home but apparently those bastards turned their back on their jailbird niece. She had brought shame on the family. Well, Damara spat on her family. Except maybe Aradia Megido.
Damara had not been looking forward to seeing her aunt and uncle, but she had been looking forward to revisiting Rufioh Nitram. Not because she still had any love for him, mind you. She had elaborate fantasies of seducing him under an alter ego only to reveal her true identity and leave him with blue balls like he left her for a blueblood snob. Yet in this quiet hour, she realized he might have moved far away from Midland, possibly even out of the country. She did not have any money except the paltry sum the justice system gave her and whatever she could convince her aunt and uncle to give her. Which would probably be a big fat zero.
Damara wondered what the prison would do if nobody picked her up. Would she be sent back to her cell for another twelve months? The prison guard assigned to her, the metal detector operator, and the receptionist all seemed a little tense but not as tense as Damara. She couldn’t bring herself to ask what her fate was.
Then, she saw a white man in a white suit in the foyer by the entrance doors. He looked to be just five foot nine inches. The metal detector operator snapped into attention.
“Welcome to Lomat Women’s Detention Center, please empty your pockets of all items and be aware you may be...searched...at any time…”
But as the operator went through his spiel, the white man walked through the detector without bothering to empty his pockets or take off anything. Still, the detector did not go off. The operator went for his wand but the white man breezed him off and went straight to the glass window of the receptionist’s office.
“I am here to obtain Damara Megido,” he said to the receptionist.
He then turned to Damara and winked at her. She held back a shudder. She had never met this man before but the wink seemed disgustingly familiar. Maybe she had seen that wink before on a tourist in her homeland.
“Do you have the authorization to take Damara Megido into your custody?” the receptionist asked, though with a tone that suggested she already knew the answer.
“I do not need authorization. I will take her anyway and she will come with me.”
“Sir, she is to stay here until she is picked up by…”
Yet the white man had already turned his attention away from the receptionist and on to Damara Megido.
“Do you want to come with me, young lady?” he asked.
The only other choice was to wait there in the lobby all day for family that would never come. This stranger was a creep but going with him was better than spending a second more in this prison. Besides, if he tried anything she had an inch on him and could beat him up.
“Yes,” she answered.
She got up off the sticky chair, determined to leave. The receptionist still had her possessions in captivity but there was nothing there that she wanted to keep. Damara had already changed out of her prison uniform. She was wearing a gray knee-length skirt, a blue-and-silver University of Nevada, Reno sweatshirt, white socks, and red tennis shoes. It was not a sexy outfit to match her sexy makeup but she did not have anything better. Maybe this white man would buy her something better. His suit looked sharp, though the neon green shirt and tie underneath was rather eccentric.
Her prison escort said, “Please, Ms. Megido, don’t make this difficult for me by leaving with a stranger.”
Damara said to her, “I do not care about you.”
The white man held out his elbow and Damara obliged him by taking it. They strolled out of the lobby. The metal detector operator changed from holding a detector wand to holding a gun and he moved it up towards them.
“Stop right-”
And then the door guard froze. Along with Damara’s prison escort and the receptionist, who were both objecting at the time. Now Damara was worried, but the white man pulled her through the metal detector and into freedom. She looked up into the sky and saw the birds were frozen in the air. She could have screamed but her scream was frozen too. The white man pulled her through the parking lot while she tried to stare at the sky. He pushed her into the shotgun seat of a white hearse. Then, they were on the highway and time worked normally again. She did not remember going through the prison gate.
“Who are you?” Damara asked when she finally had the wits about her to speak.
The white man said, “You may call me D. O. C. Scratch.”
“Yes. Scratch. Who are you?”
“I am your friendly uncle.”
“I am Chinese, white man.”
“Think of me as your friendly uncle anyway. Your flesh-and-blood uncle could not do it, so I will provide for you.”
“You killed him.”
“I did not murder him, my young lady. He is still alive and well.”
“Shame.” She sighed. “So what you want with me?”
“I want you to be my personal secretary.”
“I have no experience. Temp agency would be easier.”
“You have certain qualities.”
“You mean blow job skills?”
“Ha. Ha. Ha. I do not need any sex.”
“I was not offering.”
“You see, you have a destiny. You were someone important to me in your last life.”
She rolled her eyes. “You crazy.”
“Your people believe in reincarnation.”
“My family is Methodist.”
“Your guardians are Methodist. Your natural parents were members of a newer religion. Perhaps they would have ended up better if they were Methodist. They would still be hated but the government would not have killed them.”
She held back her tears. Even after all those years, it hurt. Though how did he even know her family’s history? She did not want to push it further, lest her heart break.
“You want me to be your secretary because we past-life lovers?”
“Ha. Ha. Ha. Again, I do not need sex. We were never ‘lovers’. I was a paternal figure to you but not your “daddy”, as one might say. I raised you up from a grub to be my assistant.”
“Grub?”
“That is the best translation of an alien term.”
“I was alien in past life?”
“If someone can be a dog or a cat in a past life, why not an alien?”
“I do not believe in reincarnation in first place. So, you say you alien in past life?”
“What past life? I have had only one very long life.”
“How long?”
“Does it matter? It is difficult to put into human terms how many years it has been.”
“Are you human?”
“I will be honest with you, young lady: I am not human.”
She groaned. Now she knew he was crazy. And yet…what had happened back there? Did he have special powers? She could handle a schizophrenic. There had been a couple in prison, just poor souls wandering Detroit in confusion, and Damara had got along with them. They were not dangerous. A man who could stop time itself was dangerous.
“So you take me to other planet?” she asked.
“No, we are needed on this planet, for the time being. I am taking you to a hotel.”
“But not for sex.”
“Yes, not for sex. You do have sex on the mind, but I suppose that is normal for humans.”
“Then for what?”
“For rest and recuperation.”
“Where is the hotel?”
“The hotel is in Detroit.”
She huffed. “That is across the state. Hours away!”
“Then we will enjoy a little road trip.”
She looked out the window of the hearse. The highway was not in the most picturesque part of Michigan. Yet it was a sight she had missed in her nearly two years of incarceration, first at a juvenile facility then a stint with the big girls. For so long, she had only seen a small yard of the outside. Now she could enjoy the great wilds. Perhaps this road trip would not be so bad. She counted the telephone poles.
Then they were in the city. Did she fall asleep? It seemed to be Detroit. She had not been to that city in years. This portion seemed too hip by far. The cute little boutique hotel they were driving up towards seemed too good to be true.
“I have decided we will stay a few years into Detroit’s gentrification. I do not want to go too far into your future, just enough you do not have to deal with the fallout of the 2008 Housing Market Crash.”
“The crash? Gentrification? What the hell you talk about?”
“There are newspapers in prison so you have no excuse not to know.”
“Wait, you say we in future?”
He sighed. “For a Witch of Time you really do not pick up on time-travel fast.”
“I am not a witch.”
“Someday you will be.”
Scratch parked the hearse easily, considering it was a hearse and hence rather large. They both got out. She looked up at the awning. This place was too cute by far. They entered the boutique hotel. Scratch did not stop at the front desk.
The TV in the lobby was on the news and she wanted to watch to see if Scratch was bullshitting her about the time travel. Unfortunately, he took her arm and dragged her up the stairs. She just caught something about Donald Trump. She thought she heard that name before but she could not remember where.
Apparently, he already had a room. She wondered why he did not get a hotel closer. She guessed he wanted to impress her. She still was not convinced he did not want to have sex with her.
“Remember,” he said as they walked up the stairs, “You cannot come here on April 13, 2015. It would cause a paradox.”
“Mmmhmm,” she responded.
They went up four sets of stairs. It was a hike but Scratch did not seem tired despite his tiny legs. They went down the hallway until they got to the room. Scratch used his key card to open the room. It turned out to be a suite. There was a living room leading to a bedroom. The penthouse was decorated in peaches and cream with elegant curly silver features. It looked too expensive to look at.
“It is much better than the prison you lived in, isn’t it?” Scratch asked.
Damara instantly went to the queen-sized bed and felt the sheets and comforter. These were real soft sheets, not the thin institutional ones that felt like paper. The bed was full enough to roll over in. The bed was in a room with a door that shut and locked from the inside and nobody could look in. Off to the side was her own private bathroom. Even if this had been a cheap motel, the simple luxury of privacy was making her melt. Yet this was not a cheap motel, nor her aunt and uncle’s shitty house, but a high-end hotel. Though it was still light out, she want to crawl inside and sleep now. How long had it been since she got a decent night’s sleep?
“Come to the parlor, young lady. I have a lot to go over with you.”
She reluctantly went to the living room of the suite. Scratch was sitting and he gestured for her to sit. She bristled against being told what to do in any way now that she had her freedom, but she also felt grateful to this stranger enough to obey. She sat across from him.
He began, “As I told you earlier, you will be working in my employ from now on.”
“Doing what?” she asked.
“You will be my personal assistant.”
“Yes, but what that mean? What tasks?”
“Well, it is complicated. I do not have physical needs or a social life, so you do not have to worry about that. My memory is perfect so I do not need you to keep records. However, I do run a very large organization that operates under the highest level of secrecy.”
“The Mafia?!”
“No, it is not organized crime. This is a religious organization.”
“Church of Latter-Day Saints?”
“Close, but no cigar. I am the shadow leader of the Church of the Mirthful Messiahs.”
“Never heard of them.”
“That is because I have done my job.”
“So what do you believe?”
“My subjugglators, as they are called, believe in the Twin Gods of Time and Space.”
“What name of Gods?”
“Mmmm, usually an initiate has to go through many trials to find out but I will just tell you now that the Lord of Time is Caliborn and the Muse of Space is Calliope and they are siblings.”
“What the surname?”
“Ha. Ha. Ha. Funny quip. In additional, my human subjuggulators are all reincarnated aliens from a planet called Alternia.”
“Alien reincarnation? You not first to come up with that.”
“I did not steal it from L. Ron Hubbard.”
“Who L. Ron Hubbard?”
“Exactly.”
“Weirdo.”
“Anyway, my organization has filled many corners and will continue to do so rapidly over these next few crucial years.”
“Yeah, yeah. How much you pay?”
“I will take care of every expense you have plus give you a ten thousand a month allowance.”
“Sounds good. Too good.”
“You might be correct. In return, I ask your complete submission to me.”
“BDSM?”
“Again, I have no need for sex. Yet I do have a need to kill certain people. If asked, you must kill anyone I ask, no matter what your personal feelings.”
“This is crazy.”
“I know. There is no one you would object to killing.”
“What if I refuse the job?”
“Is there another job offer you are considering?”
“Do not mock me.”
“I think whatever job you can get with no high school degree and a criminal record is nothing compared to what I am offering. You will have money, power, and a chance at revenge.”
She lifted her eyebrow. “Revenge?”
“Revenge against the young man who landed you in your predicament.”
“Rufioh Nitram?”
“Yes, your former sweetheart happens to also be an enemy of my Church.”
“Rufioh? Fighting a secret organization?”
“Well, not in this life. On Alternia, he defied the Church. For this sin, he must be punished, as does everyone who committed such sins in their past life.”
It still sounded like bullshit, but it was bullshit that Damara liked.
“I kill him. Now.”
“You will have to wait a little bit. There is so much other work to be done. After all, there is a new President of the United States. Such a hopeful young man.”
“I cannot vote.”
“I could if I really wanted to, but why should I? Anyway, you will need to do a little catching up on my previous assistant’s tasks.”
“What happened to previous assistant?”
“She ran out of air.”
“Someone choke her?”
“No, she did that on her own. Tragic.”
His previous assistant hanged herself? This was not sounding good. Damara looked away and at the floor.
“Another point,” Scratch added, “I am sorry to say I am not offering a retirement package at this time.”
“Can I say no?”
“Certainly, you have that ability. You will have to pay me back for the room but you do have the ability to voice the word ‘no’ and all will be as it was. So, what do you say?”
She could say no. She could voice that sound in multiple languages. However, that was not what she did.
“Yes.”
Scratch nodded his head. “Good girl.”
She could have shuddered when he said that. However, it seemed clear at this point he was not interested in sex.
“Do I sign contract?”
“I have no need for that. We will just shake on it.”
“You not afraid I go back on my word?”
“I am never afraid.”
He stood up, all five foot nine inches, and walked over to her. She stood up in turn. He held out his right hand. It was sheathed in old-fashioned white gloves. He probably had manicured nails under that, she thought. She mirrored his movement and touched the soft kid leather with her bare hand and…
The room turned to black with multicolored stars as if they were now in a planetarium. This stranger’s head was now a giant white smooth ball, like a cue ball. Her hand drew back and she saw it was grey with sharp yellow nails. Her head felt heavier so she grabbed it and felt two rough curling horns where nothing was before. She fell to her knees in that inkiness and screamed. Though she might have yelled “what the hell is going on?”, she knew what had happened. She made a deal with the devil and now he was showing her the truth of existence.
Then, the room was normal. Scratch was normal. She was normal. She was still on the floor, though.
“Yes, I know that was quite intense, but it was for your own good. I do not plan on doling out information slowly to you. That is for the regular recruits, not for my precious Handmaid.”
“Do not do that again,” she mumbled.
“I cannot promise you that. You are free to order anything you want from room service, if that makes you feel better.”
“It not.”
He went for the door. “Too bad, then. I will come back at nine A.M. tomorrow morning and we will start from there.”
“What if I leave hotel?”
“Oh? And how do you plan on spending the three years and three months before the end of the world as we know it? Wandering Detroit homeless and broke? Would you not rather live a life of luxury for nine so years, give or take some time travel?”
“I confused.”
“Come, then it is time for you to go to bed.”
He picked her up off the floor, which was impressive considering she was taller than him. He carried her bridal-style to the bed. She was just completely done at this point. As he unlaced her ugly sneakers, she wondered if he had a foot fetish, but he did nothing but take the shoes off. He leaned over her, but only to kiss her on the forehead. She still felt disgusted.
“Rest, little girl. We have much work to do.”
He then left. She did not even know if he used the door to leave. He just simply was not there anymore.
She was doomed. Her planet was doomed. Everyone was doomed and she just agreed to bring that doom. She had seen things she should not see.
All she wanted was a cigarette. She wasn’t an addict (not yet) but she had enjoyed the times when she got smuggled cigarettes. She also liked earning them. Right now she had none and even if she did, she knew this hotel was most likely non-smoking.
So she rolled over and took the room service menu off the night stand. She was going to order the hell out of this menu. Looking at it, she saw something called “avocado toast”. She had never heard of that dish but she decided to try it, along with a glass of orange juice. (Was it still morning? She did not know.) She picked up the phone and called the number. It took some tries to explain what she wanted since that racist operator couldn’t understand her accent but she got the order in.
Then she laid back and looked at the ceiling. Such a pretty ceiling to go with such a pretty room. She had spent so long looking at institutional ceilings and wondering when she would ever get out.
She thought back to that teenage otaku who befriended a painfully shy and traumatized Chinese refugee. He did not know what he was doing. At times she felt almost sorry for him. Yet he was the one who unleashed her rage and for that he would die. He had created her and she would end him.
Eventually, there was a knock on the door. She almost didn’t want to get out of bed but she was hungry. She left the bedroom for the foyer of the luxurious suite. She opened the door where a bellhop had a tray.
“Order for Room 34, miss?” he asked.
“Yes.”
She took the tray from him.
“I hope you enjoy it. Very popular, these days. Everyone is taking pictures of it to post on Instagram. You’ll get tons of Likes eating it in this room!”
“I have no cash.”
His face fell. “Oh. Bye.”
He left and she could hear him muttering racist things under his breath. Well, she’d be angry too if she had to carry a tray up this high without any tip. Still, fuck that bigot.
She put the tray on the end table and closed the door. She took the lid off the tray to see this avocado toast. What she found was two slices of mold. She covered her mouth to keep from vomiting as she ran out of the room. She caught up with bellhop.
“I know you hate me,” she said, “But give me rotten food? Bad!”
“What are you talking about, miss?” he asked.
She took his arm and dragged him to her suite. Then she pointed at the tray.
“See?! Mold!” she yelled.
“Umm, I don’t see anything wrong.”
She looked at the tray. There were two slices of bread topped mashed green avocados, a reddish-pink slice of lox, a wedge of tomato, with a drizzle of mayo and a sprinkling of sesame seeds. Everything was correct, down to the orange juice.
“But if there’s anything wrong,” he added, “we can have it remade!”
“No. It good.”
He sighed and left, now muttering things about her sanity. She was worried too. She felt like asking the lobby if they ever even saw that white man in a white suit with a green tie. Maybe she was still in prison.
She took the tray over to her bed for the luxurious breakfast-in-bed. Instead, she just ended up staring at it. She could not eat it, and not because it was too pretty to eat. It did look worthy of Instagram, whatever the hell that was. Yet she could not stop thinking about how it looked a few moments ago.
Finally, she picked up a slice and bit into it. It tasted so good, so creamy and salty, but she kept thinking about all that mold. She swallowed and bite and swallowed until it was all gone. Tears were coming down, letting her prison mascara ran down her face. When she had choked down one slice, she looked at her glass of orange juice and there were specks of blue-gren swimming in it. She looked back at the other piece of toast and it was again rotten.
She ran to the bathroom. When she was done, she threw away the other piece of toast. Then, she got under the covers and cried herself to sleep.
Scratch came to pick her up the next day. Actually, it was more like he just appeared in her suite. She saw him in the doorway to her bedroom, dressed in that same stupid get-up.
“How are you doing this morning, young lady?” he asked.
“Fuck you.”
“Of course, I already knew how you are doing. Come here, I have your uniform.”
She crawled out of bed with the comforter wrapped protectively around her. He showed her what was behind his back: a hanger with a long slim green dress on it.
“A cheongsam ? You fucking with me? Racist white man.”
“You know I have no human race.”
“Still white, still racist.”
“But isn’t it a lovely dress? It’s made of real silk with hand-sewn embroidery.”
“Just show you all-in for weird Oriental fetish. Count me out.”
“This is not about your appeal to another Asiaphile love interest. This is your uniform for the job you agreed to do.”
“Nobody make secretary wear uniform anymore.”
“You are not simply a ‘secretary’. You are my Handmaid. You will wear this dress.”
“No. Fuck you.”
“I can teleport you into 1930s Manchuria and leave you there.”
“I can survive war zone.”
“Then outer space.”
She sighed. “Fine. I put on stupid dress.”
She shuffled over and grabbed the hanger.
He held up a bag. “I also have hosiery, undergarments, and high-heels.”
“Arrrggh.”
She took his bag and stomped into the bathroom, slamming the door behind her. She stripped off her ugly clothes and put on what she had to admit was a very lovely dress. Still, it was awfully tight and she did not like the high slit. She was not used to wearing heels so she stumbled a bit while leaving the bathroom.
“Ah, yes, you do look like such a lovely young lady.”
“I look like hostess in Hong Kong bar.”
“That too.”
She groaned.
He then answered a question she could not even begin to formulate to ask.
“The rotten avocado toast was a side-effect of working for someone with my powers. You will sometimes see things as they will age. You will get used to it. You certainly will not die from malnutrition.”
“How will I die?”
“You cannot know everything, my dear.”
“When will I know everything?”
“Never.” He held out his elbow. “Come with me.”
She turned to look at her clothes piled up in the bathroom. “But-”
“Do you really care that much about your University of Nevada sweatshirt?”
She shrugged and took his elbow. It was a little shameful being on his arm like this but she needed the balance. He took her out of the room, down the four sets of stairs, and into the lobby. They did not stop at the desk. Either he had checked out or more likely, he never needed to check out. The second they had reached the sidewalk, the building behind them turned into a ruin.
“You take me to future?!” she cried.
“No, I took you to 2009. That’s just the magic of gentrification.”
The white hearse was parked on the street. She did not know if it was there before. They got into the hearse. Scratch soon started driving through a Detroit that looked worse than the one they drove into.
“Can I get breast implants?” Damara asked.
“You can with your allowance.”
She crossed her arms over her small chest. “I get breast implants.”
“If you think that will spite your young man, I will not stop you.”
She finally asked, “You know what happen to my aunt and uncle?”
“They are at Midland General Hospital.”
“They both get sick?”
“No, Aradia Megido fell into a coma on April 13, 2009.”
Damara was struck silent as Doc Scratch took her to her destiny.