4. Cascadia Omni-Core Kinematics

Zack had insisted on taking Snail. The moment he'd seen her in the driveway, he'd lit up like a little kid, walking around the old car like it was some rare gem, appraising her from all sides. He'd asked a lot of questions about her Todd didn't have the answers to, but when Zack had learned her name, he'd instantly taken to using it. It was cute enough to distract Todd from the clouds, at least for now.

There was something in the way Zack said the word "Snail" that assured Todd that the obviously privileged man wasn't just blowing smoke up his ass about the whole thing. His enthusiasm was authentic. Zack had even opened her door with a gentle care that Todd found almost comical, considering the back half of the interior was still absolutely covered in the excrement of road filth from his earlier encounter with the Mercedes. Nevertheless, there was a genuine enthusiasm in Zack that he didn't feel could be faked. For some bizarre reason, he seemed to think Todd's shitpile car was something special.

That makes precisely two of us; Todd thought with a smile as they set off with a clunk towards Yarmouth. He was thankful to put some distance between himself and the events of the afternoon.

"That's your turn!"Zack yelped, frantically pointing off to the left, his big hand almost smacking Todd in the face. Todd hadn't gotten used to the toll roads or the left-hand exits yet. He dodged Zack's hand inelegantly and tried desperately to get Snail where she needed to be without obliterating all of them in the process.

Snail creaked and rattled violently as she reluctantly performed his maneuver, spitting them out with finality in Yarmouth's little downtown with a defiant set of rattles Todd had never heard her make before. Todd flinched as Zack seized Todd's leg.

"Todd," Zack started, voice low and serious, squeezing Todd's thigh so firmly it almost hurt. "You almost killed Snail." He said, as though a serious crime had been committed.

"Did not." Todd protested, pushing Zack's hand away.

A deep clunk from somewhere in Snail's innards seemed to churn in agreement, though. Zack lit up at the comedic timing. He casually pulled his hand away like the contact hadn't been untoward or particularly special. But it left both a warm impression where it had been on Todd's pant leg and a hollow feeling in Todd's throat where he found himself increasingly conflicted about all of this.

"Two against one. You're a Snail-murderer." Zack replied.

"Hey, it's not my fault your roads make no sense." Todd retorted.

"You'll get used to them." Zack assured.

But Todd didn't know how long he expected to be here or how long it would take him to get used to this.

The town rolled by, and Todd felt uncharacteristically charmed by it all: the white colonial houses, the cobbled streets, the fanciful shapes of coastal trees that looked windswept even on a windless day like today. Even the cemeteries had a certain whimsy—the white-marbled headstones that studded their green lawns shone brilliantly in the sun. A raven. An urn. A unicorn. He realized then that this place wasn't so entirely different from where he'd grown up, This whole day—no, the whole year—had felt like one big left exit. Yet here he was, confronted with an odd sense of familiarity.

Zack had fallen quiet and was absently toying with the ancient, complicated mechanism of Snail's heating vent with a contented smile on his face. He seemed to find its over-engineered complexity fascinating. And Todd very much found that fascinating. From time to time, Todd could still detect faint wafts of chlorine coming from him. And he had the odd notion of wondering then if he'd ever be able to smell a pool again without thinking of Zack's ass—of the way he had looked gliding through that azure water.

He feared it wasn't likely.

His iPhone chirped an alert,ripping Todd back to the present with the A.I. assistant's disaffected voice: "Destination in… four… miles." There was a pause, then, "Cascadia Omni-Core Kinematics."

Zack barked a laugh next to him as the assistant spoke.

"What?" Todd asked. They'd been quiet for some time.

"Nothing." Zack said innocently.

Todd looked at him quizzically but then focused back on the road, not wanting to miss his turn. He looked around, expecting to see more than…trees. But that was it—pine trees—for as far as he could see in every direction. The drive had taken them inland, and it hadn't taken long for the quaint little coastal town to fade to rural suburbs, which in turn had given way to the current seemingly endless pine barren.

"Destination on your left in…one thousand feet," his phone warned, wrongly assuming Todd had any idea what a thousand feet would feel like at fifty-five miles per hour. He didn't. But even as he scanned to the left, he saw, clearly, something that mortified him to the core of his person: a huge stone sign dominated the roadway up ahead. What it said was unmistakable:

C.O.C.K.

Todd blinked. Yep:

C.O.C.K.

Still there.

Zack was dying next to him, doubled over in his seat, giggling like this was the best thing that had ever happened to him.

"Great name." Todd said flatly, embarrassed he hadn't worked out the acronym sooner.

Zack had been riding with his arm casually wrapped around Todd's headrest. He playfully ruffled his hair, tossing the red curls this way and that. More touch. More sparks. Todd's heart thumped. He realized that he'd stomped down briefly on the accelerator the moment Zack's hand made contact. Snail lurched forward, and he worried that Zack could surely hear his pulse pounding.

"Someone's excited," Zack teased playfully as they rounded a final bend in the road.

Ahead, a clearing was dominated by a massive concrete structure that the pines had completely hidden until now. Until it was right in front of them: Cascadia Omni-Core Kinematics.Zack still had his hand on the back of Todd's head and squeezed tightly as he leaned forward, taking in the view. It was as though he'd forgotten that he was cradling the back of his step-brother's head in his huge hand, his fingers laced through Todd's hair. Todd almost imagined he could feel Zack playing with his curls faintly, running them between two of his fingers. But surely he wasn't…

"Weird place," Zack interrupted his thoughts in a low voice.

"Very." Todd agreed.

Extremelythe voice thirded.

The ginger had leaned forward in his own seat now as though to put distance between himself and the voice in his head. Zack's hand fell away for the second time that day. He was disappointed when he eventually leaned back, and it didn't return. The enormous building had a single glass door tucked in one corner.

"So am I coming or what?" Zack asked as Todd turned Snail off.

Todd looked wearily at the odd structure before saying, "Yeah, if you don't mind."

He hoped his imposter syndrome wasn't too obvious. But then he looked down at himself, realizing he was still wearing Zack's borrowed clothes, and couldn't help but laugh at how unkempt he looked.

No wonder you can't get a job. The voice seared.

"Let's trade," Zack offered simply. And before Todd could reply, the other man had unbuckled his seatbelt and whipped off the undersized white T-shirt he had been bulging out of moments before, revealing his muscular torso once more. Todd had difficulty looking away from his body, even as Zack presented the shirt with a boyish grin. ButZack withdrew it abruptly, even as Todd had almost grasped it, looking deadly serious for a moment, like they'd almost made a terrible mistake. Then he took a long, dramatic sniff of the armpit, his eyes teasing but still maintaining his faux-serious face. He sighed with mock relief before finally handing the shirt back to Todd with bolstered assurance.

"It's totally fine." Zack said. "Maybe a little pool-y, though. It's probably a better vibe than the hoody."

Todd hesitated, then clumsily started taking off the sweatshirt he'd borrowed, still dumbly holding on to Zack's shirt. He had been trying so hard not to look at Zack sitting there, shirtless, that he hadn't even unbuckled his own seatbelt first. The sweatshirt got all tangled up and he found himself swimming in it, fumbling around like an idiot trying to find the buckle release while continuing haplessly to free himself from the confines of the hoody's sleeves.

"Allow me." Zack said.

Todd heard a click and then felt a huge hand plant itself on his chest, pushing him backward into his seat while another grasped the back of his shirt, gently tugging it up over his head, markedly careful to pull the hood open so it didn't catch on Todd's ears. Zack even ran a hand up along the back to keep the curls of Todd's hair from snagging. The contrast of the force of the gesture coupled with the tenderness of the execution shocked Todd. Heat rushed to his face—and other places.

"Someone's been hitting the gym!" Zack beamed as Todd emerged from the labyrinth of the hoody. Zack pinched at Todd's exposed nipple playfully, and the sensation sent a painful throb of longing along the length of Todd's cock. Zack gave him an approving pat along the thick of his pectorals as though the handsome jock had just been giving a friend a harmless compliment at the gym.

"That shirt will look good on you, too," Zack assured him with a wink, pulling the black sweatshirt he'd removed from Todd over his own head. It looked good on him.

Everything looks good on him, Todd swooned. I'd look good on him. And there Todd went again: like a moth to flame. Helpless. The sparks were all around him now, roaring and thundering in his ears like so much noise. He felt himself getting swept up—sweptaway. And Todd was increasingly unable to resist the momentum of his feelings. He felt himself growing dizzy from the rhythm. From the motion. The current tossing him around and around. It was like watching Zack back in that pool, andTodd was enraptured once more: captive. Buoyant. A growing tightness in the borrowed shorts caused him hazard enough to redirect his errant thoughts, pulling him back to the job. From one cock to another.

Disgusting to get all boned-up for your step-brother. It's just like you to lose focus like this…the voice chided.

"I'm going to owe you an entire wardrobe after this," Todd teased, ignoring it, trying to match Zack's casual tone.

The T-shirt fit better than the sweatshirt, but Todd still felt self-conscious. The voice had made him clammy with sweat, and he felt underdressed still. The smell of chlorine burned his nose once more, mixed now with what he guessed was Zack's deodorant. Todd inhaled the woodsy scent, which conjured the tall trees that stood sentinel here.

Fine. Ignore me all you want. The voice groaned.

"Let's go." Todd urged, wanting to keep things moving.

"Oh, okay." Zack said. "And we have no idea what we're doing here, right?"

"None at all." Todd replied, setting off towards the doors.

The large building somehow became more inscrutable as the pair approached it. Its exterior was adorned by matte-gray cement walls and little else other than thin, modern LED light posts and a basic sidewalk. Only one other car was parked in the large lot, which seemed rather eerie to Todd, considering the scale of whatever this appeared to be.

Zack had managed to get in front of him, opening a sleek glass door laser-etched with the word "COCK." He bowed theatrically as Todd passed by.

"Welcome to COCK, good sir," Zack said with a flourish of his hand, following Todd inside and allowing the door to swing shut behind them. Automated lights clicked on after a short delay, revealing an old reception desk as the only furniture in the small lobby. Behind it, a massive steel door stood resolutely closed. Above that, a tiny security camera had turned slightly as they entered, centering its little lens on them, a red light blinking to confirm a presence at the other end. Todd elbowed Zack, granting a nod toward the camera.

"Yep. Weird place." Zack whispered.

"Do you think we knock…or?" Todd asked uncertainly.

But then there was a harsh electric bzzz and the wallpanel next to the steel door flicked from red to green. A voice crackled out of a speaker from somewhere nearby.

"Through the door you go. Now. Now. Now." The distorted man's voice urged. Todd couldn't place the thick accent, which smeared his words even further into nonsense.

Todd looked uncertainly to Zack, who just shrugged

"You heard the man." Zack said, reaching for the door and pushing it open.

What they discovered on the other side was some type of inextricable manufacturing facility. The aesthetic was definitely going hard on the future-dystopian-robot-factory thing. The equipment was all glossy white, plastered in huge, futuristic flat-screen panels, and all of it powered down. Sleek metal walkways hung suspended from the ceiling, skirting industrial vats and tanks laced with a series of conveyor belts and tubes that blurred into madness the longer Todd looked at them. There was also an inscrutable smell in the air, like burning plastic. None of it was operational. The huge space was totally silent, not a trace of what was actually produced here anywhere to be seen.

"Quite the place." Zack marveled.

"Do you think we're about to get jumped by robots or something?" Todd wondered nervously.

"Oh, definitely. It's that or zombies." Zack said glibbly.

The voice from before echoed out across the vast space, no longer distorted by the electronics but still…distorted. Todd finally located the speaker: a shortish man with a splotchy face standing outside of the only "office" Todd could make out amongst all the equipment.

The man had emerged from an enormous glass cube in the center of the industrial room. It glowed from within with a harsh, sterile light. Inside, Todd could make out a series of pedestals, alongside a small desk with an ancient, 1990s-style computer. There was little else beyond an old-school office chair and something Todd imagined was a printer or a fax machine haphazardly strewn on the floor, all of it in stark contrast to the futuristic vision of the cube.

"Come, come. I cannot afford to waste much time on you. Come." The odd man gestured aggressively, waving them toward him.

Was that a cape? Todd squinted.

It was.

But even as Todd noticed it, he found himself eyeing those eerie pedestals in the big glass room with renewed curiosity, all the while unwittingly obeying the little man's command and crossing the large factory floor toward him in spite of his better judgments. Todd counted nine plinths in total, and atop eight of them sat a glass case. The cases hid their contents behind opaque black glass that glittered and shimmered in the brilliant lighting. Upon the ninth plinth, there was the marked absence of a case. Instead, long black shards of material lay broken along the floor at the base of the pylon, whatever the mysterious container had previously housed conspicuously missing.

Well, that's likely a start, Todd thought with relief, having been undecided about whether they'd ended up where they'd meant to until now.

Todd guessed the case had been about a foot tall—if not a little more, based on the size of the largest pieces—and about two-thirds as wide. He couldn't determine what was in those other cases, either, and he was curious why someone would store anything impractically.

Did they require being…broken…to get at the contents inside? he puzzled.

"Yes. Yes," the man said, raising a hand once to indicate the glass cube-office-thing. "Here we are, gentlemen. C.O.C.K." He said with a visible surge of pride, rising up onto his tippy-toes as he spoke.

"And here"—he looked at Todd, face dropping visibly as he took in the hiking socks and the sweat shorts—"you are."

He looked to Zack.

"At least this one is tall," he fired off with a dismissive gesture. He hadn't bothered with eye contact or manners.

"Viktor Vulg. Founder." The last word was said like an abracadabra.

"And here is our mystery," he continued. At some point, a black cane had appeared in his hands, likely from behind his floor-length velour cloak. Todd had been too busy staring at the snow leopard–patterned shoes to track its appearance.

"Missing!" Viktor rumbled, as though it weren't obvious. "Stolen!" he continued with a crescendo, waggling the cane with increasing drama, eyes wide as the cape swirled behind him in apparent agreement.

His snow leopard shoes clinked against the glass floor as he click-clacked toward the shattered container. He sashayed wildly from side to side with each rapid step, the little cane dangling furiously in front of him like a pendulum.

"Come," he urged, clacking the cane's tip firmly against the floor. He hadn't slowed down enough for them to catch up to his staccato pace, let alone orient themselves in his apparent insanity.

Viktor didn't stop until he was standing before the ninth pillar, where he spun back around and looked at them with profound grief painted across his face.

"My magnum opus," he wailed, voice quivering, one hand limply gesturing at the ruin.

He wiped an eye that didn't need wiping with a corner of his cape before stepping aside. Zack and Todd—who had reluctantly followed him into the glass-walled room, stared at the ruins. Todd was beginning to understand how Viktor and Francine might be friends.

"So what exactly… was it?" Todd asked quizzically, bending down to look at a shard of the black crystal that stood out against the glowing white floors.

"Why, it was my opus," Viktor retorted with a bit of an angry waggle, taking a step back as if betrayed that someone wouldn't know better than to ask such an offensive question. He looked at Todd skeptically as though seeing him again through new eyes, finding himself even more disappointed than he had been at first pass.

"It was a perfect replica of Harry Adams!" Viktor continued, apparently aghast, as though they were supposed to know who that was.

"The porn star?" Zack offered bluntly.

"Exactly! See! See! The tall one isn't so bad. Like I said. Like I said," Viktor clucked excitedly. "The greatest prototype Cascadia Omni-Core Kinematics has ever produced! A perfect cock! A perfect replica! Molded from the man himself in his prime!"He raised up his arm, looking at it as though it were to scale somehow. "In his prime!" he repeated, still staring at his arm with adoration, rising onto his toes again, voice shrill.

"… and we kept it here, at C.O.C.K.—in secret—for thirty whole years, waiting to unveil this pleasure. This wonder. This miracle…" Viktor babbled on. His eyes glittered fanatically. "Waiting for laaaaaaunch!"He screamed the last word with such a guttural fervor that the cape trembled, and little flecks of spit flew out of his mouth in the direction of the boys. His eyes looked like they might bulge straight out of his head.

Zack sidestepped a bit of spittle, looking at Todd with a single raised eyebrow and clearly stifling laughter. Viktor continued to prattle on about the various innovations in synthetic skin that had been required to simulate Harry's enormous member. Todd looked back to the case and wondered what someone could possibly want with the prototype and why they hadn't just waited for a production model.

"So… any idea who stole it?" he redirected, forcing himself to reengage Viktor, who had briefly stopped his diatribe to catch his breath.

"Boy!" The cane poked and prodded blindly in Todd's direction. "If I knew who took my opus they'd be in one of these vats by now." His voice dripped with contempt. The cane jabbed at a few of the large industrial vats outside the glass cube. "There's no substitute for real skin, oh no," he assured them with a wink. "But we do our best. Oh we do..." He trailed off, as though he'd said too much.

"Right…" Todd tried to think of a better way to frame his question, avoiding the darker implications of what Viktor had just said. "But surely you have an idea of who might have a motive? A rival manufacturer? Any disgruntled employees?" He was reaching deep, trying to think of the possible motives. Todd felt a bit of sweat start to bead along his forehead, his hair feeling like it was pressing down against his face, and the bright lights of the cube felt hot as they bathed him with unwanted intensity and scrutiny.

A gargoyle appeared in the back of his mindblack eyes glittering; mouth twisted into a hungry smile…

Todd shook the dread from his thoughts, forcing his focus to remain in reality.

"No," Viktor snapped as though the very question had insulted him. "For all I know,"he said, "you stole it." He gave Todd a vicious side-eye as though he might actually have begun suspecting him. "This factory is almost one hundred percent fully automated," he continued. "Most days, I am its sole employee. I spent a vast fortune on automation so that I'd be able to fire everyone!" he said with delight. "There are no obvious suspects, or I wouldn't have needed to bother with the likes of… you."His voice contained unabashed contempt now. "Now, find my prototype!" He spat.

"Um," Zack's voice rumbled from somewhere to Todd's left, distracting him from the errant accusation. " Is this anything?"

He was crouched near the pylon, holding a small white foam keychain with "New Maine World Order" written across it in fanciful pink writing. A single pink gem dotted the "i." If a key had been attached to it at some point, it was missing now.

Viktor adjusted his hand-in-face pose slightly to allow a peek at whatever Zack had found amongst the shards of glass. Todd watched the odd man closely, looking for some semblance of recognition at the sight of the keychain, but found none.

"Never seen it," Viktor said raptly, returning to his prior pose but continuing to peek out from behind his fingers to keep track of them, hemming and hawing lest they lose track of his impatience or importance. Todd was already on his phone, though, ignoring Viktor's performance while trying to run a search for the "New Maine World Order," but his phone refused to comply.

No service.

Perfect, Todd thought. Just fucking perfect.

But surely that keychain was something. Todd asked Zack if he could see it and, to his dismay, found there was no additional information on the little foam float. No phone number. No address. Nothing. He could feel the rest of the reward slipping away from him in a whoosh… along with any prospect of impressing Zack with his apparently unimpressive skillset as a detective.

Todd was growing desperate and decided to stall for time with a lie, "Viktor, I think this clue is what we need to recover the prototype!"

Viktor's face reappeared partially once again from behind a pudgy digit, a wide eye peering from between knobby fingers.

"Can we get back to you tomorrow afternoon once we've had a chance to follow up on this?" Todd did his best to engage the founder as if he weren't from another species. He was thankful Zack had managed to keep his laughter up until now, but he didn't want to tempt fate by protracting this encounter any longer than necessary.

"Five p.m.at the latest," Viktor snapped, clearly wanting resolution but unwilling to offer any optimism or gratitude for their efforts. "That prototype was meant to go to production today!We have over five hundred thousand units on pre-order! Look around! Are we making cocks here? Do you see a single cock?! No!" he squealed, punctuating each word with a clack from the cane.

Zack had turned to face the glass wall, clearly losing the battle to contain his laughter. The founder had flounced back to the cube's entrance.

"You, tall one." Jab, jab. "Don't let this ginger out of your sight." His eyes flicked briefly to Todd, contempt collecting on the word "ginger"and then dripping. "I know trouble when I see it."

With that, he departed back into the depths of his factory, leaving Todd to wonder what on earth he had done to earn the strange little man's ire.

Must have been the socks, Todd thought numbly, looking down at the shin-high hiking socks Zack had lent him.

"Five p.m. at the latest," Todd repeated, feeling like no part of that had gone exactly as he'd hoped. He worried that silly little man had seen him for what he was: a phony.

"Five p.m. Short one," Zack replied. "Come on, let's get outta here," he said, twirling slightly in a feigned imitation of Viktor, who had long ago disappeared amongst the vats with an ever-distant click-clack of snow leopard on the factory floor.

All of this would have been better in a cape; Todd thought absently as they returned to Snail. Everything would be better in a cape…

Outside, the sunlight had finally started to dim, and Todd discovered himself dimming along with it as the weight of the day dragged him toward an inevitable destination: exhaustion. He clambered into the old car, fired her up, and headed home.

But then… where was home? Todd hardly felt he knew anymore. With a hint of shame, he realized he'd have to ask Zack for directions yet again.