Shoplifters Will Be Persecuted
Ch1. The conversion
There were over four hundred Darryl’s Department Stores in the United States—four hundred and fifteen, to be precise, after the most recent opening in Arizona—but the only one to have stories told about it was the original store in Los Angeles. Few of them had to do with the fact that it was a giant glass cube rising seven stories high from the street; those that didn’t think the place was an alien starship crashed to earth were all about the eccentricity of the inside. There were books and movies written about Darryl’s of Los Angeles. The other locations all had their carefully chosen quirks—that was the charm of a Darryl’s, the fact that all the stores were designed to be “authentic”, and that idea had made the company billions.
But none of the other four hundred and fourteen stores could hold a candle to its flagship store, and tourists and locals alike flocked to it even if they lived next door to a location. Every Darryl’s had its lifelike mannequins and its oddly themed displays that seemed to change weekly, but the original Darryl’s took that mindset and turned it up to eleven. Every room of every floor of the display area was a different elaborate setting, themed and cast with mannequins so realistic that shoppers found themselves feeling as if they were watching events unfold among people they would have sworn were real. There were everyday scenes and events, as well as rooms with event displays to sell specialized merchandise. It left the shopper with the sense that these mannequins lived more of a life than the average person, and the subconscious feeling that by buying those clothes, they could get a glimpse of that special life. Of course, that helped with the sales.
“Damn, the rumors were true! I think there are more mannequins in here than people!” Lauren said as she entered the store and was taken aback by its windows and displays of elegantly dressed mannequins lining every inch of space, all dolled up in different styles of basic black. There wasn’t an outfit in the place that wasn’t being modeled by a plastic woman or man, and they were realistic enough that Lauren almost got caught asking one for directions.
“Very funny, Lauren. They aren’t that real looking. Sure, they have plastic hair, but...you know, you might be right. The sparkling eyes are a new thing,” her best friend Cassie said with a smile.
“That’s probably where they hide the security cameras,” Lauren said. She and Cassie might have been a couple of blonde, tight-jeaned college cheerleaders skipping out during a trip from Kentucky, but that didn’t make them completely stupid. “Gotta do something with all this plastic, and they said Hollywood was plastic enough,” she added with a giggle that fit in with the airheads who circulated the aisles.
“I know! They can’t even spell right. Look at this sign. ‘Shoplifters Will Be Persecuted’. Gosh, I hope not—no getting nailed to a cross on vacation,” Cassie said with a wink as they went up the escalator, which was lined top to bottom with mannequins standing side by side in seductive poses. So was the next floor, and the next one.
“Five ninety-eight, five ninety-nine, six hundred...” Lauren counted out jokingly.
“Seven hundred and thirty-six and counting! One hundred on each floor, if you include the escalators, and thirty-six in the front windows. Five-thirteen girls and two-twenty-three boys. You had better believe we take pride in our displays! We set them up ourselves, you know. You girls must be from out of town, so how can I help you today?” asked the sales person. As straight as Cassie and Lauren were sure they were, the hot sparkling purple tank top and black jeans, coupled with the knee high black boots, had both of them staring at the saleswoman.
“Aw, we’re just looking. We’ve heard so much about this place, and it’s all that was advertised,” Lauren said, running away from the saleswoman lest they get sucked into the juniors section and end up out more money than the cost of tuition.
“Man, they even let the staff dress in the finest!” Cassie said. “Nice touch. Wonder if they’re hiring for the summer.” The last was added with her eyes fixed on the black jeans.
“You better be wondering how those would look on you, ‘cause I’m not interested in hearing your epiphanies on this trip. And don’t get all worked up over them either. If you can’t afford five hundred bucks to buy your books, you can’t afford six hundred for a pair of jeans,” Lauren said. “But you can’t resist a pretty piece of clothing no matter how much it is. So you just follow your new friend and I’ll meet you back in the front in an hour.”
Leaving Cassie to be suckered into clothing she couldn’t afford, Lauren went up the escalator to the next floor, trying not to look at the mannequins but being drawn to them anyway. The whole place creeped her out a lot, but that wasn’t a surprise. The fakeness of most Darryl’s stores gave Lauren the creeps, so of course Store Number One was going to be an ultimate turn off with their world-renowned over the top setups. But she couldn’t resist the accessories floor, not with all the bracelets and belts right in reach without any salespeople trying to sell her more. Even the mannequins were more towards the back, though still intrusive and overdone with outstretched arms showing five to ten bracelets at a time. Lauren smirked at the lack of personnel in the area; even the mannequins seemed to be looking more at the ceiling, more interested in flaunting their breasts than anything else.
This place is getting to you! You’re thinking that they’re thinking! she thought, and she almost laughed, but she remembered in time that she wanted to keep her noise to a minimum, just in case it might draw some salesperson looking for a commission. Just because a salesperson reeled in Cassie to actually pay for merchandise didn’t mean Lauren was going to. She expertly palmed a bracelet and belt and slipped them into her purse, then when downstairs without missing a beat. Lauren had shoplifted more than once, and been caught more than once, and she’d learned from her mistakes. She scouted out the nearest fitting room, grabbing a nice denim miniskirt for both cover and haul as she headed inside without anyone suspecting a thing.
She giggled as she looked for the anti theft tags and pulled out the removal device she had bought from someone back in high school. The tags on these were not like the normal ink tags or alarm sensors, being much smaller and hollow, but she figured that the standard sized remover could still get them off, and she got to work on the skirt. It didn’t take long for her to feel a sting that made her grow dizzy and her vision blur. She slid against the wall, her head spinning faster and faster.
“Thought so,” a triumphant voice said. Come on.” It was one of the sales people barging into the dressing room and dragging a dazed Lauren out by the hand. Lauren was unable to do anything but follow along, her brain fading fast and her legs seemingly on autopilot. She didn’t know what she had been drugged with, but whatever it was was making her feel like things were in slow motion. Still, shoplifter or not, she would think that other customers would notice a girl looking drugged out of her mind being led by another woman without sales ID, but no one even blinked at the scene. They were either too busy shopping or distracted by all the mannequins. She even thought she saw Cassie, but she was in no condition to say anything and Cassie was too busy trying on sparkling tops to look her way.
Soon enough, they were in the back rooms, where the saleswoman frisked her for her wallet and ID, then sat her down in the security office. “Long way from your old Kentucky home, aren’t you?” the saleswoman mocked. “I guess souvenirs are more fun when you don’t pay for them.”
Lauren could do nothing but cling to the last shreds of consciousness, fighting off her body’s need to flop over and pass out. “Ahh, yes, no one believes us when we say we’re tough enough on shoplifters that we put dart guns in the anti-theft tags. Time-released sedative. They use it at all the stores in Singapore and Thailand. Best import we ever brought in. Oh, it’s about naptime for you, isn’t it? You’ll be fine in about an hour. It dazes you just enough tot get you back here, then it picks up speed—but you’ve probably figured that out by now. Night, bitch.”
Lauren’s eyes slammed shut and she crumpled to the floor. The sales person just smiled and carried her into the freight elevator that took them both down to the basement. “Fifth one today, but this one’s an out of towner and nineteen years old,” she announced with a grin.
The man in the perfect black suit grinned back at her. “Nice, we could use a blonde. Third one accepted today, by the way.”
“Wonderful!” the saleswoman exclaimed. She clucked her tongue at Lauren’s unconscious body. “Some people just don’t read the signs.”
The man smiled at her and got to the go-ahead to bring them inside to the sterile room.
“What do you have here?” the old man in his lab coat said with a look at Lauren.
“Shoplifter. Skirt, bracelets, and a belt. Oh, and she had a remover. Nothing that could beat our security, though. We found her right away, and then she tried to take the tags off in a fitting room. No creativity these days,” the woman explained. She opened up one of the devices that resembled a tanning bed and leaned Lauren against the wall next to it, then put some gloves on and grabbed some of the clay-like substance inside.
“A bit premature, aren’t we? But yes, she’s hired. You can get her ready,” the man in the lab coat said with a calculated nod.
“Yes, sir!” the saleswoman said, and she began to rub the clay-like substance over Lauren. Lauren’s face tensed as the woman worked the clay-like stuff into her skin and over her lips. Soon Lauren’s head was staring forward like a sculpture despite her eyes being firmly shut. The saleswoman slid off Lauren’s shirt and unhooked her bra and again went back to work, rubbing the clay into Lauren’s arms and back, making them tighten and stiffen. Soon she had perfect posture despite being unconscious and limp.
“Good enough?” the saleswoman asked the man in the lab coat as she showed off Lauren’s bare breasts.
“Natural D? Not bad. Yes, that’s fine,” the man replied with a longing gaze at Lauren’s assets. The saleswoman ran an extra coating under them so they came up as if supported by a bra, then coated all of Lauren’s front with the substance. Lauren’s breathing became deeper as her chest became heavy from the substance coating it. The saleswoman laid Lauren on the floor to make things easier for herself, then lifted Lauren’s limp legs into the air, removed the sneakers and socks, then undid and slid off the jeans and panties. Grabbing more of the clay-like substance, she went to work on Lauren’s legs, turning them until they locked in a perfect standing position, then standing Lauren up utterly naked and at attention. Only her even breathing and the fact that her face was covered revealed that Lauren was still unconscious and only the casing was keeping her upright. One last glob of the clay-like substance went over Lauren’s ass and between her legs, a thick coating that obscured any appearance of privates so that she appeared sexless.
The man in the lab coat gave Lauren a once-over, then lifted Lauren with a grunt of effort and laid her into the case. He pressed her into the clay, brushing her hair out so that it laid flat, then lowered the lid and pressed the button to bring the machine to life.
Inside, Lauren came to, a blinding green light forcing her eyes open. She realized that she was naked and covered head to toe in some sort of goo that made her feel leaden and unable to move or scream. Anything else was still beyond her drugged consciousness. Something sprayed over her, and for a moment she thought it was water, but faintly, through the goo, she realized it was more like wax, but sticky. That was shoved out of the way by the sickening sensation of losing feeling in her arms and legs. She shuddered in terror, trying to wake up, but she couldn’t move, and she could feel herself sinking into the moistened clay as it coated her and the numbness spread through her body. It covered her eyes, rendering her blind again. She wasn’t even sure if she could breathe as she felt herself begin to drown in the muddy glue. Her last thought as she descended into the quicksand was oh my God I’m in a horror movie! Then she felt a sharp jab at the base of her skull, and a powerful shock blacked her out for what she was sure was the last time.
“Mental uploader installed. Subject stable and entering stasis at normal rate. Should come online in five... four... three... two...” the salesperson said, hovering over a screen.
“Subject is in interface,” the neutral voice of the computer announced. The salesperson clicked the screen to see all of Lauren’s information come up, followed by some faint patterns that drew a smile form the man in the lab coat. He moved the salesperson out of the way and hit a button that moved the chamber vertical. As it shifted upward, the excess clay drained out of the bottom, and a haze of steam whooshed out its sides. The computer checked off items as if reciting from a list. “Camera and microphone successfully installed. Mental uplink complete. Bodily stasis achieved. Encasement complete.”
The chamber door opened to reveal a picture-perfect, hard plastic mannequin in Lauren’s place. It had Lauren’s facial features, though the face was expressionless and lacking humanity. The eyes were as blue as Lauren’s, but sparkling with artificial light. Lauren’s long blonde hair was now painted plastic. The salesperson grabbed Lauren and placed her on a pedestal, then picked up a prod and ran it along Lauren’s hard plastic body. As if drawn up by strings, Lauren’s arms moved up until they locked over her head. A designer-branded tank top slid down her arms to fall into place on her buxom body. The man in the lab coat turned her sideways and pulled her into the denim skirt she had tried to steal. Taking her by the ankles, he bent her feet into a sloped shape and perched her on platform sandals. Once back on the pedestal, she locked into place with a pop up rod in her back. The salesperson studied her with a critical eye and added a matching denim jacket before resetting Lauren’s arms to her sides.
“Brain activity is starting to resume. Our newest display piece is waking up. Perfectly done. Nice job,” the man in the lab coat said with a smile.
Lauren’s vision returned, but it was surreal, like she was watching everything on TV. She couldn’t hear her heart beating, or feel herself breathing, or detect any signs of life. She didn’t know what she had done to deserve this—so I shoplifted sometimes, that doesn’t mean I deserve to suffer for eternity! Oh, God, forgive me, please, I’m just a wayward girl who’s bored... who was bored... with her life! As her mind cleared from the immediate terror, though, she recognized that she was still in a back room of the store, and heard something from the man hunched over the computer screen.
“Wakey, wakey, Miss Lauren. You’re not dead, though you’re not the first to think that when you first wake up. Dear, don’t be rude. Show our Lauren how she looks.”
How this man knew her name, Lauren couldn’t comprehend. His speech was muffled, like it was coming in through headphones. Then she felt herself moving on some sort of stand to a giant mirror, where she saw one of those lifelike mannequins with her face, her body, her legs, her blue eyes—even the painted hair was the same shade of blonde as hers. She was in the skirt that she had tried to steal, along with the tank top and jacket that were designed to match. Okay, I get it. I’ve arrived in hell. Given the teeny bopper shit they dressed me in just because I grabbed the skirt, this has to be hell.
“I’m sorry, but I’m not Satan. I know you’re disappointed. My Southerners all say something like that, though. You, young lady, are going to work for us. You’re now one of our mannequins, if you couldn’t tell. You’ve been encased in a mixture of proteins, plastics, and rubber. Your body is in stasis, preserved at nineteen years of age, not aging or rotting a bit, completely and safely stored in your shell. But your brain is alive, as a live as it ever was. Why else would you be able to wonder at your most morbid fantasies. You’re talking to me, in fact. Your thoughts are uploaded into our main interface, and you’ll find that useful. You have vision and hearing, of a sort. A camera in the eyepiece and speakers in your ears are wired into your brain, all run through the computer that keeps your brain alive and well for as long as you’re in this state. Right now, you’re ninety percent thing, nothing more than a lifeless mannequin body and a computerized system allowing for transcription of your thoughts. Cyborg might be the closest word in the dictionary—ah, but there’s that ten percent, which will allow you to be resurrected if and when the time comes. Again, I reassure you that your brain is active and unharmed, except for the wires that deliver the electric pulses needed to keep it alive. As long as that head of yours is alive, so are you. How are you adjusting to your new life so far?” the man asked, staring right at Lauren’s plastic form.
What the fuck? Who the fuck are you? If this is real, and not some kind of drugged nightmare, let me go! Lauren thought.
The man went over to the mainframe and read off the screen. “Such language, Lauren! If you must know, I am Darryl Gimble the fourth. You are, like me, a fourth-generation Darryl’s product, as is everyone else in your line of work. You’ll meet them, make friends, work well, and be a valuable employee. That’s why I set up the mainframe for you. We’ll get you to your new home soon enough. In case you were curious, the third generation involved drugged paralysis, and simply didn’t last long enough. Before that, we really did use the lost wax method. But we are both part of the new future of sales, and my profits have tripled since I made the first batch ten years ago. Improved encasement and the mainframe to keep your brain from atrophying due to disuse means I Haven’t lost one of you in five years. You’re in good hands now, Lauren, and you’ll be released someday, when you’ve learned not to be a thieving little punk.”
No. Way. This is... not even Plan Nine From Outer Space was this hokey! Lauren protested. Her brain was hysterical even if her body couldn’t show a single bit of emotion.
“I know it’s hard to understand, so let me make a simpler demonstration.” Darryl strode over and banged on Lauren’s leg. The echo of the plastic was deafening, but Lauren felt nothing. To hammer the point home, he slid a hand up her skirt and ran his hand along the line of her crotch, with no more reaction than if he had had a hand on her shoulder. “Now, the coating is flexible when heat prodded, so we can change you and have you strike a pose. We’ll have you be a sexy girl and step forward just a bit, show a little of those legs.” He grabbed the prod and nudged her foot forward as if she was strutting forward. For a split second she could feel her knee bending slightly, then going numb again. “As you can tell, your legs are still in there, flesh and bone preserved chemically and dormant, just able to bend so that we don’t have to dismember you to change your shirt. When I said we would take care of you, I certainly didn’t mean it like that.”
Lauren was dumbfounded. The only thoughts in her mind were This can’t be real! and If it’s not real, what the hell else could it be? All the evidence added up. By some miracle of demonic technology, she was transformed into a mannequin because she tried to steal a skirt and some jewelry. Maybe she’d wake up, but for the moment her brain was spinning in overdrive. She had no more fight in her, and instead of yelling mentally at Daryl, she gave a sigh—or at least thought one. Darryl motioned to the saleswoman, and her pedestal moved onto the main floor. She saw the other mannequins—wow, did I just think other mannequins? but couldn’t think of what to say. Were they like her, or just inanimate objects like mannequins were supposed to be? She wallowed in her confusion as she was set up on one of the escalators, between a Latin girl in Colombian jeans and a brunette in a blue bikini top and tight shorts.
“Sit tight until closing, Lauren dear. Monica and Maggie are new here too! So are everyone else on the escalators—it gets you used to people staring. There, you’re all plugged in and ready to go. Now don’t doze off. Be a good girl and shine,” the saleswoman chirped as she screwed Lauren’s pedestal into the appropriate mounting in the wall.