Chapter 4

CHAPTER 4

After leaving my mother, I head to THEM headquarters, located in Chatsworth. The general public is led to believe this is a porn distribution warehouse. The majority of headquarters is actually underground, as they keep the warehouse above stocked with porn, just in case the L.A.P.D. decides to surprise us with one of their periodic raids to determine whether we’re doing any filming on top of the distributing. Gotta love the San Fernando Valley.

After I enter the building through the front entrance, using my employee I.D. badge to unlock the door, I pass by the rent-a-cop guard on duty at the front desk—ignoring him since he no doubt thinks I’m a porn star as the rent-a-cop’s are kept in the dark about what the building is really used for—and continue into the back warehouse. At the very rear of the warehouse is a shelf filled with DVD’s. I remove one titled The Horny Games—a porn-parody of a popular young adult book and film franchise in which Pussniss Everbone is forced by a futuristic dystopian government to participate in a televised fuck-to-the-death match—which releases a trigger mechanism. The shelf slides aside, revealing a hidden stairwell into the basement, and the real headquarters of THEM.

I make my way through the hospital-clean halls of THEM’s offices to get prepped for my assignment. Getting prepped isn’t what you are probably thinking. It’s not like I go in, get debriefed by Zeke, take copious notes, and then go home and sleep before my flight. It’s a bit more intense.

In order to minimize the risk of being connected to their projects, PSK’s have to go through a complete, extensive makeover prior to each assignment. Basically, a team of experts, who I secretly refer to as F.U.C.K.’s (Fabricating Ugly Cock Kissers), spends about six hours making us completely unrecognizable from ourselves.

I can’t profess to fully understand everything they do. It’s not really plastic surgery, because otherwise we’d all end up with melted faces like Michael Jackson, from all the times we have to go through the process. It’s not really prosthetic make-up, like in spy movies, since it has to last several months and we can’t exactly take it off and put it back on every day. Instead, it’s some weird hybrid of the two, which lasts several months, but can then be easily removed once the assignment is over.

I may not be able to tell you what it is the F.U.C.K.’s do, or how they do it, but I can tell you that it is as miserable as fucking hell to go through. Imagine being strapped, naked, into a dentist’s chair for six hours, with a light shining in your face the entire time, as a team of people wearing those paper doctor masks spend the entire six hours poking you, prodding you, pulling at your face until you feel like they’re going to pull the flesh right off your skull, injecting you with chemicals to make you fatter or thinner as necessary (and yes, they inject those chemicals into your tits, as well), injecting you with mild steroid-alternatives if you need to be more masculine, dying every follicle of hair on your body, changing your skin color if needed, burning away your finger prints, inserting some sort of microchip into your vocal chords that changes the sound of your voice, and coming up with other cruel and unusual torture techniques that would even make Dick Cheney say, “Whoa, now . . . that’s going too far.” The worst by far is when they stick the needle in your eye to dye your eye color. Porcupines, I hate that part. Fortunately, this time around they apparently decide I can keep my natural green eye color.

I’ve heard they can even do gender swaps. Not the full-on replacement surgery, obviously; just enough to pass off as the opposite sex for a few months provided you don’t mind abstinence while on assignment. Fortunately that is on a voluntary-only basis, so I’ve never had to go through that. Yuck.

Just about the only thing the F.U.C.K.’s can’t do is alter your height—although I’m sure they would love to try. It takes a certain kind of masochistic personality to be a F.U.C.K., and I hate the lot of them.

My team today is, unfortunately, all men. That is never a good thing. By the time they’re done with me, my hips are smaller, my boobs are bigger, and my dark brown hair is now a flaming auburn. Put me in a red sequined dress, and I’d look like fucking Jessica Rabbit. That explains why they let me keep my green eyes this time, at least.

Men. And they wonder why I enjoy killing them . . .

Once they’re done, they throw me into an ill-fitting blue t-shirt and take a headshot photograph, which will be sent on to the Documents Forgery Department.

The only good part about the whole process is after the F.U.C.K.’s are done, I get to soak in a hot tub for an hour. Supposedly, this actually has something to do with heat helping the F.U.C.K.’s alterations settle into place so that I don’t end up looking like The Elephant Man after a couple days. All I know is after six hours of being poked and prodded by the F.U.C.K.’s, it feels good to be alone and relax in the hot, bubbling water for a bit. It does wonders to erase most, if not all, of the tension that has built up in my muscles over the last six hours.

Once my soak is done, I climb out of the hot tub, pull on a robe, and head down to the Wardrobe Department to collect the two suitcases of clothes that will be my new look for the next six months. As I walk down the hall, it takes a few minutes for me to regain my balance while I adjust to the new measurements of my waist and chest (cursing the F.U.C.K.’s with every wobbly step). I feel like that ragdoll, Sally, in The Nightmare Before Christmas, as she wobbled down the streets after stitching herself back together.

Along with a completely new set of clothing, the suitcases also contain any and all forged legal documents I may need: Social Security card, passport, birth certificate, etcetera. No driver’s license for me, though, since Zeke refuses to let me drive while on assignment, thanks to my radar intolerance. He begrudgingly admits that he can’t keep me from driving illegally when I’m not working, but he won’t encourage that kinda thing when he has any say in the matter. Still doesn’t stop me from breaking the rules (and the law), but I suppose it’s sweet of him to care.

Inside the changing room, I change into a set of clothes pulled from one of my two suitcases; a pink sweater, and a calf-length flower-print dress. It’s a little too Mary Sue for my usual tastes, but after the make-over the F.U.C.K.’s gave me, I feel like a little bit of wholesomeness would do me good.

Before leaving the changing room, I take a quick look at my new identification documents. According to these various pieces of paper, my new name will be Jennifer Donner, twenty-eight years old. My new birthday is May tenth, and my parents are named Benjamin and Amanda. No siblings, which is standard protocol, as the less fake people THEM has to create, the better—for obvious reasons. The rest of my back story—relationship history, general life story, etcetera—is up to me to create. I’ll come up with most of it tonight, back at home, as I try on my new wardrobe and see what personality my new look and clothes come up with on their own. I find it easiest to let my clothes and appearance determine my character, rather than to force a character into a body and wardrobe that doesn’t fit it.

Based off the outfit I just picked out, I have a feeling my character will be one of those disgustingly sweet and naïve girls, who is completely oblivious to the reason why men are always tripping over each other to help her out. You know, the kind of girl I would want to strangle senselessly if I ever met her in person. Which just makes it all the better for me to pretend to be her, as it makes for the ultimate disguise. No one will ever suspect Sarah Killian, hard-ass bitch, of being the same person as sweet and innocent Jennifer Donner.

My work done here for the night, I tuck my legal documents back into the suitcase they came from, zip it up, grab my second suitcase, and leave the headquarters. I find a taxi waiting for me outside the ‘porn warehouse’—I had ordered it from inside prior to leaving, since it’s easier to take a taxi than to haul two ginormous suitcases on and off of buses all across Los Angeles County—and I can practically hear the cab driver’s thoughts, as he tries to imagine the movie that no doubt was just filmed by this luscious, yet innocent-appearing, redhead who got into his cab.

It’s going to be a long six months.

Porcupines, I hate the F.U.C.K.’s.