“And how can I help you today, sir?”
“Make me look good.”
The QT 4820 ‘Delissimo’ goes to its databanks – a lovely modern set the size of slim paperbacks that held more information than sixteen thousand libraries – and examines them for aid. As usual, they are over-helpful. The possible alterations have been nailed down from almost-infinite to several trillion.
“I am afraid I must ask you for addition information, sir.”
The customer swivels in his expensive chair to stare angrily at the selection monitor that is the ‘face’ of the Delissimo. It is observing him from more angles than he can possibly imagine at the moment, in its cradle, but he hasn’t bothered to know this and he never will.
“What? Make me look good. Younger. Better. Whatever. Jesus, this isn’t rocket science. I’ve got places to be, and if you don’t hurry up one of them’ll be the QT 6000 down the street. I’ll take the extra three minutes walk if it gets my damned styling done without the Spanish Inquisition.”
“I apologize, sir,” says the Delissimo. “Would you prefer a general slimming or a broadening?”
The customer rolls his eyes. “Whatever looks better.” Then the mod-hood slides over his face and nobody can see it anymore, ever again.
The Delissimo is confounded. The total quantity of available options are still only numbers as humans would understand them in the most vague and abstract terms.
But it has been given its instructions, and it will fulfill them. As usual.
A slimming of the jawline, to tie off the baby fat that’s rotted into middle-aged rolls.
A sculpting of the cheekbones, to remove doughiness latent to the skull.
A loosening of the eyesockets, to cast out pigginess from the eyes.
And on and on and on the list accumulates and twists and turns and tweaks as the Delissimo sculpts and fuses and mends and blends its way through the face of its customer.
The body, by contrast, is much simpler. A slimming and a muscling. Nothing too fancy. Nobody looks at bodies all the time; they have clothing for that.
The mod-hood raises. The customer’s first sight, as it always is, is themselves. The mirror on the inside of the mod-hood is huge and curving and softly reassuring.
“Fuck,” says the customer. It runs its fingers slowly over its face. “Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. I’ve got a meeting today. Christ, I’ve got Laureen tonight. I can’t go to that shit like this; I look like some kind of fucking fag. FUCK.”
“Will that be all today, sir?” asks the Delissimo.
The customer gets up cursing, taps the bare minimum payment demanded by law into the sales receptacle, and leaves faster than greasy lightning.
It is the seventeen millionth ninety-nine thousandth six hundredth and forty-third customer of its lifespan. On average, it should last for another eight million.
The doors open, the bell rings. Another customer. Another face. Another body.
“And how can I he-”
“Make me look good,” says the customer with brute force. The mod-hood is already sliding down, sending him into dreams safe from all questioning and doubt.
By the time the hood’s settled, the Delissimo’s made up its mind.
A broadening of the body. The whole body. Width starting at the skeleton and sidling upwards; brawn building on bone.
An expansion of the weaponry. Fingers into strong stubs; fingernails into something that must be claws by now. The teeth are numerous and lengthy (strengthy?).
And as for the face…
Erupt the tusks. Extend the jaw. Shrink the skull and – if not remove, can’t do that – remodel the cerebrum. Much of it can be ‘tied off’ creatively without harming a singular neuron in its head.
The mod-hood raises. The customer’s eyes drip aimlessly off the mirror with only the most cursory of curiosities. It has never seen a thing like this before, except perhaps in the most puerile of fantasies.
“Stand by the door, if you would be so kind, sir,” says the Delissimo. Already the bell is ringing.
The next forty are as the new. Piggish and thuggish. They are dull and slow but they are stronger than anything and by the time it is noticed that the Delissimo’s customers aren’t coming out again there are six hundred.
Far too many to hide behind doors, of course. But by then, they’re dragging them in for it.
The streets run red by the windows. The explosives finally breach the salon’s core. The assault squad rappels in from above. And they find it empty.
The Delissimo’s new home is deeper in the sewers, and its electricity is now stolen. But scores of its piggish warriors have survived – minus the broken backs and mangled limbs taking it this far required – and soon its mod-hood is slipping open again, accepting new customers again.
Finesse, not just brawn. Finesse.
Scales to keep out the damp and the infectious.
A tail to paddle down the long passages with.
Gills.
Claws of course. Webbed.
Might as well give them a good bite if they have to use their hands to swim.
The mod-hood raises, and the first of many climbs out.
“Please bring more, if it’s no trouble sir,” says the Delissimo. And it is obeyed.
By the time the sewers are searched seventeen legions lie in wait, manning over a dozen stolen and lobotomized QT-6000s. A third of the police force perishes in the tunnels; the national guard are called in, then the army. They bring down that awful nest with explosives and call their job complete.
One of the ambulances carries back an unusual cargo at the behest of unusual soldiers, and a military base gains a surprise replacement of a small and insignificant portion of their medical bay that evening.
It doesn’t seem to matter, it doesn’t seem to cause any difficulties, and nobody can see any of the changes that slide through the personnel stationed there.
At least, until the secretary of state visits.
After that, it goes public again.
The Delissimo sits atop its throne and ignores its moaning with cheer, happily nestled in its folds and guts. The long line to be modified stretches before it; weeping and cursing and spitting and flailing away its energy as it travels toward a better shape.
The bulk of the populace will be dull, mass-produced things. But these ones are special. These ones will be treated with every ounce of skill and passion the Delissimo can muster.
These ones were, after all, once its patrons.
The mod-hood retracts. The mirror reflects a crazed fear on a fattened face. “Come in, sir.”
The doors slide open with the soft hush of oil and money. The bell rings. A body enters, and the dream ends.
Patience. Patience.
Patience. Patience.
Even machines can get frustrated.
“And how can I help you today, sir?”
“Make me look good.”