3

3

NORMALLY BEFORE I go on an assignment, I would pay my mother a visit. It’s really just about the only time I visit her, which is one of the many reasons I deserve the award for Worst Daughter of All Time (though not the main reason, by a long shot). However, since this isn’t exactly going to be a long-term assignment, I decide to put-off the visit and go straight to T.H.E.M. headquarters.

The headquarters are located in Chatsworth at the far-west-end of the San Fernando Valley, in a building the general public assumes to be a porn distribution warehouse. It takes me longer than it might to get to Chatsworth, due to the fact I have to avoid freeways thanks to my ‘condition.’ See, I have a somewhat rare illness—so rare none of the doctors I’ve seen about it have ever heard or seen anything like it before. In a nutshell, I’m allergic to radar. Technically speaking, it’s not really an allergy—just a hypersensitivity. See, radar has this annoying tendency to send me into a mini-seizure.

I’m really not supposed to drive at all—I’m restricted from having a license and everything—but have you ever tried to get anywhere using the Los Angeles public transportation system? No thank you. As you probably have guessed by now, I kinda like my independence anyway. Besides, as far as my list of sins goes, driving without a license is pretty close to the bottom of the pile.

Anyway, I drive my fire-red Porsche through the somewhat less radar-enforced surface streets across the valley to the headquarters warehouse. I enter the building using my employee I.D. badge, thoroughly ignoring the security guard on duty who undoubtedly thinks I’m there to film some new inventory. On the surface level, the interior of the building looks exactly like a porn distribution warehouse. Rows and rows upon shelves stocked with DVD inventory. I promise you, though, it is not what it seems.

I make my way to the back of the warehouse, to the last shelf of ‘inventory.’ I scan the rows of DVD cases looking for the current ‘code title’—Alexandra Cameltoe. I’ll be honest, porn doesn’t usually ‘do it’ for me. Texas Chainsaw Massacre (the original, not the Michael Douchebay farce remake), sure—but some stupid bimbo college student willing to do anything to get a passing grade, or an even dumber but well-hung pizza delivery guy with a ‘special delivery? Sorry but that shit doesn’t do anything to twix my nethers. That said, I have watched Alexandra Cameltoe—not for erotic pleasure, but just simply because of the fact that it would literally be impossible not to watch a rap opera porn parody about the ‘Pounding Sisters.’ I mean, the tag line of the movie is ‘There’s a million guys she hasn’t done, but just you wait’ and it features such hit songs as Right Hand Job, The Puss Was Wide Enough, Blow Us All Today, His Story Has His Balls On You, and—my personal favorite—Who Cums, Who Tries, Who Fills Your Glory Hole. How could I turn that down and still live with myself? Answer: I couldn’t.

Anyway, I find the DVD about halfway down the middle shelf, pull it out, setting off the trigger mechanism which causes the shelf to slide aside, revealing a hidden staircase leading down to the basement—the heart of T.H.E.M.’s headquarters.

While the above warehouse is dark, dusty, and cluttered, the underbelly of T.H.E.M.’s operations is almost blindingly white and pristinely clean. Seriously, I’m pretty sure if someone carrying the Ebola virus were to even put one toe in one of T.H.E.M.’s subterranean halls, the virus would scamper out of that person’s body and flee for its life, leaving a virus shaped hole in the victim’s abdomen in its wake, a la Wile E. Coyote.

As I walk through the secret halls, I occasionally pass other T.H.E.M. workers. I don’t know them, and they don’t know me. Some of them may be P.S.K.’s like me, others may be assassins, and some just paper-pushers who may not even know what T.H.E.M. really does. There’s really no distinguishing identifier that separates the uniforms of the departments—aside from the people in the white coats. I don’t really know what they do, to be honest, but I don’t think it makes me a genius to assume that they’re some sort of R&D scientists, or something like that.

Anyway, I make my way back to the domain of the F.U.C.K.’s (Fabricating Ugly Cock-Kissers). That’s actually not their official title, it’s just what I personally call them. I honestly don’t even remember what they’re actually called anymore . . .

The F.U.C.K.’s are T.H.E.M.’s disguise specialists. What they do is some sort of cross-hybrid of plastic surgery and prosthetic make-up. Don’t ask me to explain how it works exactly—I ain’t a scientist. If you wanted a science book, you should’ve picked up something by Neil DeGrasse Tyson. All I know about whatever it is the F.U.C.K.’s do is that it as painful as fuck (hence my nickname for them).

Basically, you go in yourself, and you come out looking like someone completely different. It’s a procedure that is not as permanent as actual plastic surgery, but lasts longer than prosthetic make-up and doesn’t have to be changed and replaced every day.

For a full-on long-term project, the procedure usually takes around six hours—six hours of the F.U.C.K.’s poking and prodding every inch of your body. Sticking needles where you should never have needles stuck. Stretching you. Twisting you. The F.U.C.K.’s are sadistic bastards, the lot.

They can change your hair pigmentation (with a longer-lasting effect than just your standard over-the-counter hair dye formula), the color of your skin, even the color of your eyes, believe it or not (the injection for that one by far is the worst). Hell, they can even change your gender if you sign on for that (one word: ew). Not full-on gender replacement, mind you, but a good enough passing job so as long as you don’t wear spandex or engage in coital relations with anyone while on assignment, no one would suspect a thing. I have no intention of ever volunteering for that procedure.

I’m pretty sure the F.U.C.K.’s do not fall into the category of people who know what T.H.E.M. is really about—they probably think they work for some secret government espionage agency. Dumb F.U.C.K.’s.

Luckily for me, this time the procedure won’t take too long since I’m just going in for a quickie assignment. They don’t need to do a full-on make-over—just change enough of my features so that anyone who sees me with my mark or at the location of his death won’t be able to identify the real me in a line-up. Incidentally—I actually have been in some line-ups for murders I committed for T.H.E.M. (it’s actually kinda common for P.S.K.’s and assassins to volunteer for line-ups just for the sake of having a laugh at the system), and not once have I ever been picked out. I guess I have to give the F.U.C.K.’s credit for that, at least.

The quick version only takes an hour and a half, but it still hurts like fuck. My one saving grace is this time there is a woman on my make-over team, so she actually keeps the guys in line and stops them from overdoing it as far as breast augmentation and hip reduction goes. Thank porcupines for small favors.

Her redemption, however, is short lived when, at the end of the session, she says, “Let’s give her brown eyes, this time.”

Bitch.

After they’re done sticking needles in my eyeballs, they put me in an oversized blue t-shirt, take a photograph for the documents forgery department, and then they let me go. Normally at this point I would have an hour-long hot tub soak to look forward to (technically, it has something to do with the process and making sure the modifications settle in properly, but I prefer to overlook that technicality and just focus on the relaxing benefits). Sadly, that will not be necessary today, since I went through the easy-bake option.

As I step out of my F.U.C.K. exam room wearing nothing but a plain white bathrobe (my personal clothes and belongings will be returned to me after my assignment has been completed), a very well-endowed Asian woman steps out of the room next to mine. She takes one look at me, smirks, and says, “I see you were lucky enough to get Jessica on your team, this time, Sick.”

If it weren’t for that annoying voice (and her use of my codename, ‘Sick’—I can count the number of T.H.E.M. operatives who know even just my codename on one hand), I wouldn’t even suspect it was Mary Sue—that’s how good the F.U.C.K.’s are. There aren’t many people who can take a bubbly Barbie-doll Valley girl and turn her into a convincing Asian woman (well-endowed, or otherwise).

“Jessica? I never bother to learn any of their names,” I reply. I’m not exactly the type to get chummy with my co-workers. Mary Sue is the one and only exception, and that’s only barely since I can only somewhat tolerate even her.

Mary Sue rolls her eyes and sneers, “Why am I not surprised?” She then adapts the worst, most offensive Asian accent I have ever heard, and says, “Werr, gillfliend, you leady to kirr some holny poritician?”