The Convention
The Parking Lot
A bright orange stretch limo pulls into the convention center garage, where a blank-faced woman in a blue fire suit walks up to meet them. A few other attendants, identically clad, mill about, getting into or out of cars.
The driver’s side window rolls down. “Don’t worry, love, we’ll park it ourselves,” the elegant woman says, and the doors of the limo open to reveal a baker’s dozen of beautiful women dressed in various shades and styles of orange- the Tangerine Twelve, corporate raiders of the mind controlling world. Their elegant leader, Sarah Lancaster, adjusts her wide-brimmed hat and gestures for her group to follow her. Ten of them do, but two stay behind, a cocoa-skinned beauty in a short-sleeved polo and miniskirt, and a strawberry blonde in large sunglasses, a sparkling top, and tight black pants. Both of them have an eye on the black-and-orange Hummer three spots over and the design on its hood, of a sexily dangerous black tiger lady with a magnificent ass only covered by tiger-striped panties, prowling topless on all fours. “Tasha” is written on the side of the car in flowing script.
“I think I’m in love,” the brown beauty says.
“Stealing cars is a little petty, Tamara,” the strawberry blonde replies, but there’s a note in her voice that suggests that Tamara could talk her into it pretty easily.
“Not with Luis Rodriguez’s cars, Nance,” Tamara says. “Or their beautiful drivers, who pretty much are the cars. She must be helping park cars. That’ll give us some time.” Nancy raises an eyebrow, barely visible over her sunglasses, but waits with Tamara in silence for the two minutes it takes for Tasha to return. As soon as Tasha appears, the two women make their moves. Tamara shoves Tasha into the side of the car and holds her still. Nancy lowers her glasses to reveal ice blue eyes, a natural tool to bore into minds like a diamond-tipped drill.
“Is this your car, Tasha? Yes? Now let us in. Just relax. We won’t hurt you,” Nancy says. Tasha doesn’t have the will to resist; giving in to the intrusion, she pops open all four doors of the car.
“Somehow, their bodily reactions are hooked into the car, but that’s all I know. Keep your eyes on her while I break in and deal with title and license,” Tamara says. She rummages through her bag and pulls out the appropriate tools to break into the welded-shut glove compartment. Tasha clutches her stomach in agony, but Nancy’s steady gaze is the perfect anesthesia, and soon Tasha’s beyond pain, sleeping with her eyes open. “Got it!” Tamara announces triumphantly as the glove compartment opens to reveal Tasha’s driver’s license, bound by wires to the title and registration for the Hummer, both wrapped in the tiger-striped panties from the hood. Folded next to this is the matching bra, a black and orange basketball jersey, and a pair of Daisy Dukes. Tamara recognizes this as a symbolic setup, designed to constantly reinforce the connection between Tasha and her car, and Luis’s ownership of both. She untangles the mess and puts the clothes on the seat, tracing the wires to a black vibrator that has yet another wire leading through a clear door to the engine compartment. She peers into the back compartment and sees a large flash generator and an LED board strapped to the hood as well.
“That’s how the afterimage ends up on the hood. Everything’s tied together. This is some nifty stuff- if I liked the boys, I might ask this guy out, but I’m not sure what he’d mean by taking me for a ride,” Tamara says with a grin as she removes the wires from the black vibrator and crosses them onto an orange one that she takes out of her bag; the clear plastic reveals more than just batteries and the whirling piston. “Okay, Nancy, here we go. Let her come up and get her normal reinforcement.”
Nancy puts her sunglasses back on, and Tasha falls back into her normal routine. She unzips her fire suit, gets into the passenger seat, reclines it all the way back, inserts the vibrator and starts the engine. It revs to life with a purr that isn’t quite normal, a subliminal hum under the usual noise that buzzes in their brains. Nancy shakes it off and takes a few steps back, but Tamara, stuck in the driver’s seat, has a little more trouble. Her jaw drops, her eyes slide shut, and her hands drift up her skirt. “Be careful!” Nancy whispers hoarsely. “There’ll be hell to pay if this turns into a twin-cam!”
But she’s having a little trouble making herself heard over the sound of the engine, and over Tasha’s gasps and moans. Tasha sounds confused, but that passes quickly, right around the same time that the first flash goes off. It’s followed by another, and the hood goes blank. There’s a third flash, and the hood has a new design; the tiger lady has been tamed into a purring pussycat in orange high heels and a Syracuse t-shirt, a change of clothes Nancy recognizes from Tamara’s capacious bag. Tamara shakes herself, then taps an address into the GPS and whispers something in Tasha’s ear before climbing out of the car.
“That was close,” she says, still a little short of breath. “Wasn’t expecting the engine to knock me out. But Tasha’s a good girl.” She smiles and fixes her hair as Tasha pulls out and heads out on the long road to Syracuse. As Nancy and Tamara go inside, they catch a glimpse of a red and blue bus, and a pack of reporters around it.