Deadly in Pink Read online

  DEADLY IN PINK

  A Cyberpunk Novella

  MATTHEW A. GOODWIN

  Independently published via KDP

  Copyright© 2020 Matthew Goodwin

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording without either the prior permission in writing from the publisher as expressly permitted by law or under the terms agreed.

  The author’s moral rights have been asserted.

  ISBN Number 978-1-7340692-1-1

  Editor: Bookhelpline.com

  Original cosplay design and model: Jenifer Ann

  Photographer: David Love

  Cover design: Christian Bentulan

  Contents

  DEADLY IN PINK

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  THE END

  NOTE TO THE READER

  Chapter 1

  Ynna lay on the ground, tasting blood and seeing red. She would die the way she had lived, as garbage on the street. Her palms flat on the cement, she tried to raise her body and pick herself up. She sputtered, crimson exploding from her mouth and nose. Her knee scraped against the ground as she tried to move.

  “You want more?” one of the five thugs asked her and laughed maniacally. “Killian was right about her.”

  She heard a laugh from one of the others. Her suspicions were confirmed. She had assumed he had sent them, but now she knew this wasn’t just some random act. She bent, trying to force her body from the earth. One of her hands was broken, she knew, and pain shot through her as she tried to use it.

  She thought about everything that had brought her to this place. She knew where it had all started, the true root of this beating.

  “One thing before lunch,” Ynna’s mother, Karen, had said, glancing over absently before returning to her palmscreen to check her feed.

  “Ugh, mom, I want the eyeliner and foundation,” Ynna groused. Her friends, such as they were, had spent the previous day mocking her makeup, and she knew she couldn’t return to school without an upgrade. The words had stung, and now she could look great for tomorrow if her mom just let her buy both.

  “Just one!” Karen barked, not even sparing a glance in her daughters’ direction. Even at fifteen, Ynna saw the absurdity of it: they were rich. Her mom had the cart hovering at her side, filled to the brim with things she would use once and never think about again—or never even use once.

  Shopping was one of the few activities Ynna and her mother enjoyed together. Brick and mortar stores had gone extinct for a time, with most retailers switching over exclusively to online ordering and drone delivery. But Friendlander’s Department Store had stemmed the tide, banking on those like Ynna’s mother who wished to make shopping an event rather than a necessity. They offered finger foods and drinks as shoppers moved throughout the floor. Local bands played soft music for ambiance, and workers littered the floor with samples or to answer questions.

  Ynna looked at the two items, trying to choose. She glanced up, seeing the black domes she knew to contain cameras. None were close, and the counter shielded her waist. Though it was the weekend, she was dressed in her school uniform. Her father insisted that she always be adorned in the pleated skirt and white shirt with school crest whenever she left the house.

  When she argued that she didn’t want to wear it outside of school, he always repeated, “You attend a prestigious academy, and you should represent it with pride.”

  She hated it. The school. The uniform. Her friends. All of it.

  His insistence made it feel like she was little more than a trophy—something he could show off and parade around rather than a daughter he valued.

  She smirked, pressing her body against the counter and sliding the eyeliner into her waist.

  Her heart raced as she did it.

  It was exhilarating.

  She pulled the hem of her shirt out slightly so it would cover the small tube entirely. She glanced around. There were no alarms, no guards rushing over, just the normal bustle of the store.

  Ynna sighed, smiled, and turned to her mother. “I’ll take this,” she said, presenting the foundation with pride.

  “Good for you,” her mother said, uninterested, waving a hand to the basket.

  Ynna milled about the store excitedly as she waited for her mother. She watched the holoprojected models stride about the brightly lit shop, looking fabulous and beautiful. The clothes the models wore looked garish and almost absurd to Ynna, but she longed for a style all her own. Her eyes followed as they strutted down the aisles, passing through customers until her mother tapped her on the shoulder.

  “Can we go?” Karen asked impatiently as though it was Ynna who had been holding them up.

  The cart that followed Ynna’s mother was synched to her palmscreen. It charged to her as they placed items in it, eliminating any need to stop at a register. As they moved to exit the store, Ynna heard the sound she had dreaded.

  Her heart pounded, and her hands began to shake as the alarm blared.

  Karen turned a withering glare on her daughter. “Marina, what did you do?”

  Ynna threw her hands up in false innocence, but her mother saw right through it. She always hated it that her mother persisted in calling her by her given name even after Ynna begged her to stop.

  A fat, weary-looking Carcer Corporation security guard hustled over, hands on his belt to keep it from sliding down his body. He huffed as he approached them. It was clear to both women that he did not have to get up from his desk very often.

  He puffed, “What’s going on here?”

  “What’s going on here,” Karen said, reading the badge clipped to his belt, “Gerald, is that your machine appears to be broken.”

  She said it with such self-righteous indignation that Ynna herself nearly believed it.

  “Oh, no, ma’am,” he stuttered. “If you set the alarm off, I need to check your bag.”

  Karen’s eyes narrowed, and her lips curled into little more than an angry line bisecting her face. “You will do no such thing. I pay for the privilege to shop here, and I will not be harassed because your machinery is faulty.”

  She pressed her hand on Ynna’s shoulder to keep her from shifting back through the door and setting off the alarm again.

  “Ma’am,” Gerald forced, stepping toward them. “Please, I just need to check your bag.”

  “Lay a hand on me or my child, and you will be lucky to get a job scrubbing toilets. We are premier, Saffron Tier customers, and I promise you the owners of this establishment value me much more than you,” she threatened. The young guard looked terrified and confused.

  “Ma’am, please. If I don’t do the check, I could lose my job,” he implored her.

  She took a step closer and nearly whispered. “The operative word being “could.” You could lose your job if you let me walk out of here unmolested, but you certainly will lose your job if you detain us any longer.”

  Gerald looked to Ynna pleadingly, but she was not going to help him. With a sigh, he said, “fine,” and turned with his head hung.

  “Holy shit, mom,” Ynna squealed delightedly.

  “And you,” Karen hissed venomously, reaching down and snatching the eyeliner from her daughter’s skirt before jamming it in her purse. “Did you think nothing about getting caught? About what it could do to our reputation? Do you even care about that?

  �
�We have to represent this family with pride, and here you are thieving like some back-alley ruffian. I’ve never been so disappointed in you in all my life.

  “And what’s worse is that now I need to cancel our lunch so we can go home and tell your father what you’ve done!”

  “No, mom,” Ynna pleaded. She hated it when her mother got this way, but she feared her father worse. He was not shy with discipline, and she was terrified at what he would do to her when he heard this.

  “Please, what, Marina?” Karen asked as she dragged her daughter like a child toward the bank of waiting cars.

  “Please don’t tell him,” she begged, feeling her eyes begin to burn.

  Karen thrust Ynna toward a cab and hired it quickly with her palm. The doors to the luxurious black vehicle opened, and Karen pushed her daughter inside. The car door quickly closed and took off to their home.

  Karen produced the eyeliner and threw it at Ynna, “For this?”

  Silence followed, neither speaking a word for the duration of the ride back to their palatial estate. The cab descended right onto the front lawn. Ynna was shocked. Her mother always insisted that they land on the pad at the rear of the house so the thrusters wouldn’t damage the grass. This action, more than the words, made Ynna realize how truly angry her mother was.

  As the door opened, Ynna could smell the torched grass and scorched earth. Karen all but yanked her daughter from the cab and toward the front door surrounded by ornate colonnades. She stomped them into the atrium as they heard sounds coming from the kitchen. Karen stalked through the hallway, designed to look like an art gallery with expensive paintings and statues lining the walls. As they entered the kitchen, Ynna nearly vomited as she saw her father, pants around his ankles, penetrating their robotic maid.

  The day the extravagantly expensive maid had arrived to replace the mechanical looking drudge that had served as their housekeeper, her father had argued that he simply wanted a more human touch around the house. Ynna had shared her mother’s suspicions as to his true motivations, and they were now realized.

  “Melvin!” Karen shrieked and turned to Ynna. “Go to your room!”

  Her father turned wild eyes on them and tapped his palm, freezing the naked maid in time.

  Ynna didn’t have to be asked twice and rushed upstairs, slamming her door. As disgusted as she was, she was also relieved that this new distraction might save her from the punishment she had so feared in the ride over.

  She brought up the security feed on the screen in her room, flopping onto her bed to watch. In order to sneak out of the house to meet her friends, Ynna had hacked the security network—a trick all the girls used to avoid their overbearing parents. The girls in their little clique had sidled up to Rose, an unpopular girl who they knew had the computer chops to help them. They befriended her and, naturally, dropped her like a hot potato once she had given them what they needed.

  She watched as her father buckled his belt and screamed, “What are you doing home?”

  Karen cast an icy glare at him. “It shouldn’t matter when I come home. I shouldn’t find you fucking a robot!”

  “You would rather I do like the other men I work with and take up with my secretary?” he said, throwing his hands up.

  Karen hung her head with disgust. “Perhaps you could just keep it in your pants?” she offered patronizingly.

  Melvin let out a snide laugh, placing his hand on the exposed buttock of the frozen, perfect, human-like robot. “This is a machine, Karen. Having sex with her is no different than masturbating.”

  Now it was Karen’s turn to laugh. “You just called it, ‘her,’ you idiot.”

  “This is your fault anyway.” Melvin hissed the accusation.

  “Oh, of course, it is,” Karen said with affected astonishment.

  “If you could maybe just part your legs now and again, I wouldn’t have to do this,” he shouted by way of explanation.

  “That’s rich,” Karen snarled. “I do everything for you, and you dare to tell me that this,” she pointed a perfectly manicured finger at the robot, “is my fault!”

  He snorted. “You call ordering the food we eat and spending all my money, ‘doing everything?’”

  “You have got some nerve,” Karen said, loathing in every word.

  Ynna watched the situation unfold in horror. She knew her parents were unhappy, knew that whatever love they had shared was long behind them, but she hadn’t realized they hated each other.

  She felt as though it was her fault. She fidgeted with the stolen eyeliner, guilt coursing through her. If she hadn’t taken it, hadn’t felt the need to have one more accessory, they would never have rushed home and caught him.

  She wanted to hurry downstairs and try to take the blame, but when her father spoke next, she knew it was too late.

  “Maybe it’s time you left,” Melvin said, gesturing to the door.

  “Gladly,” Karen agreed. “I’ll send someone for my things.”

  “Your things?” he mocked. “The only thing of yours you will be taking is that financial burden playing video games upstairs.”

  “What?” Ynna heard herself ask aloud. She couldn’t believe how her father thought of her. She had never considered herself close to him, but she never thought he believed her a burden. She felt as though she had been shot in the chest.

  She felt herself stand and watched as though it was someone else jamming clothes and mementos into a backpack. Her feet padded along the lush white carpet as she entered her parents’ room. She pressed the code into the lock on her mother’s closet—a code she was not supposed to know. She threw as much as would fit into her bag, stuffing a jewelry box on top of fine dresses she yanked from the shelves.

  She prayed her father wouldn’t notice as she kicked off her shoes and replaced them with the heels her mother saved for only the finest galas.

  Ynna would never know what possessed her to do this, never quite understand what instinct kicked in at that moment, but she would always look back on it with pride.

  “Marina!” her mother called up from the base of the stairs. She zipped her backpack shut with difficulty, the tines straining against the fullness.

  “Coming, mom,” Ynna called back, sliding the closet door closed behind her. She ran on wobbly legs, shaken both by the moment and her unfamiliarity walking in heels.

  Her parents both looked at her with red faces as she made her way to them. Her mother caught sight of the shoes instantly and had to restrain a smile. Her father took no note.

  “We’re leaving,” Karen announced.

  “Yes, mother,” Ynna said.

  “Do you have anything to say to your father?” Karen offered.

  “Yes,” Ynna said, turning a withering gaze on the man. “Fuck you, asshole.”

  To her surprise, he didn’t seem angry. He simply gave her a wicked smile. “Exactly,” he said, his face contorting with bile. “Get out of my house.”

  Chapter 2

  The cab was still waiting for them on the front lawn.

  Ynna wondered if her mother had known all along how this would play out.

  They stepped in silently, Karen’s eyes vacant and distant. The cab lifted, hovering in place, and Karen let her hand dangle over her palmscreen. It became clear to Ynna in a moment how desperate they had become. Destitute in the space of a moment.

  Her mother input something, and the car began to move. The oppressive quiet hung heavy on them until Ynna could not stand it anymore.

  “I’m so sorry!” she burst out and launched herself into her mother’s arms. Karen seemed shocked at first, but pulled her daughter in and held her tight, stroking her hair.

  “It’s not your fault,” she soothed.

  “It is! It’s all my fault,” Ynna wailed.

  Her mother kissed her head. “No, honey, it isn’t. Your father and I have been careening toward this for a long time. If it hadn’t happened today, it might have tomorrow. Or next week. Or, if I were unlucky, a year later.”r />
  “But mom, what will you do?” Ynna sobbed.

  “We will be fine. I’ve been at the bottom before, and I can scrape my way out again. It’s you I’m worried about,” she whispered.

  “I’ll help! I’ll do whatever I need to make this okay,” Ynna promised.

  “Oh, I know. I know you will try,” Karen said with a little smile and kicked Ynna’s foot. “You’ve already proven to be a smart young woman.”

  Ynna pulled back, the tears streaming down her face. “I did this, too,” she said, pulling the backpack around and unzipping it to reveal the things she had rescued.

  A smile of motherly pride crossed Karen’s lips. “I never gave you credit for how clever you are.”

  Karen’s eyes were wet now, too.

  “So… what are we going to do?” Ynna asked, terrified as to what the answer could be.

  “Start a new life, and with this,” Karen pointed to the jewelry box, “you gave us a lifeline.”

  “I’m happy I did something right,” Ynna said, still blaming herself for all of it.

  “We will be okay,” Karen assured her.

  “So, what now?” Ynna asked.

  “Now I have to find a place for us, and I need to find some work,” Karen explained. Her matter of fact tone surprised Ynna. Her mother seemed so calm while she felt scared and confused. Her whole world had turned upside down in an instant, and she knew it would never be the same.

  “Maybe uncle Stu can help us?” Ynna offered. He had always been kind to them, and he was one of the few family members who Ynna trusted.

  Karen smiled weakly. “No. Your uncle is a sweet man, but he depends on your father for all he has. Stu only works at the firm because of him and will no doubt be helping your father strip us of everything before too long.”

  “Oh,” Ynna said. The wheels of her mind were turning, grasping for any idea she could offer. “What about cousin Liz? She works at some biotech company. Maybe we could work with her?”

  Her mother let out a shrill laugh. “Oh, honey, let me tell you about Elizabeth. She works as some kind of naked courier, working for chauvinists who have enough money to get away with anything. They use the guise of proprietary information to strip young women of their clothes and their dignity and parade around offices nude. It’s a hard world and an especially hard world for women.”