Your Money's Worth

“YOUR MONEY'S WORTH”

Roberta Rogow

“Hey, Batty, ya comin' with us?”

Roy Batty turned to face the owner of the voice, the jovial youngster with red hair and freckles, who called himself Parkins. Parky, as the rest of the squad named him, had stood beside Batty in their fight with the Miners, holding two of the enemy away until Batty could scramble clear of the falling buildings around them. He had taken the tall blond man under his wing, appointing himself Batty's champion for no reason that the other could understand. Now he was apparently under the delusion that Batty needed recreation.

“Aw, let'im alone, Parky!” Another voice, low and rasping, rang out. “He's not going. All he wants to do is run laps!” There was a general snigger at this longstanding joke in the Squad.

“Where are you going?” Batty asked.

Parkins grinned hugely. “Where've you been? They've just opened a Club for us grunts. Girls... games... you know?”

“I bet he don't,” Gianni, the big brawler, roared out. “I bet he's a gawdam virgin!” There was another roar of laughter at that.

“All right, men, that's enough.” The voice of the Commander, DeSalle. “Batty's new to things, but he'll learn fast enough. Won't you, Batty?” The Commander stared hard at the soldier.

“Yes, sir.” Deep in his brain was the knowledge that he MUST obey Commander DeSalle.

“Then come along, and see life!” Parky did an anticipatory jig.

“If you are all going, then I should go too.”

“'I should go too.'“ Gianni imitated his stilted speech. “Jeez, you'd think the guy was a skin job, the way he talks.”

“Don't say things like that,” Parkins said, his smile fading. “Roy's no skin job, are you, Roy?”

DeSalle stepped into the breach. “Of course not. Batty's just young. Roy, I think you should get out of these barracks, too. You've got pay Coming to you, after all... go ahead. Have a good time.” DeSalle nodded sharply to the rest of the squad. “Just remember, men, we're still on Military Time. Lights-out at 2300, local.” There was a chorus of groans and a few muttered curses.

Batty obediently changed his rough twill fatigues for the silky “dress-grays” that he had never worn before. The material felt oddly sensual, clinging to his body. Not at all like the overalls that had been designed to withstand the flora and fauna of a dozen wild environments on a dozen wild worlds.

“Don't mind Gianni,” Parkins told Roy, as they joined the rest of the squad and marched out of the barracks and into the street. “He's got skin jobs on the brain. Thinks they're after his job! Hell, who'd waste their time making a machine that's going to get itself blown up or cut down in some fight or other?”

Batty considered this. He wasn't too sure what he did or didn't remember. He thought he remembered Earth: a hot, noisy place, with something that hummed and chattered at him all the time. The Squad now proceeded through the streets of a dusty outpost on a small mining colony, endlessly circling a yellow star not unlike Earth's sun.

He looked around the street and saw that the entire force was headed for the same place.

“Where are we going?” he asked Parkins.

“Haven't you seen the flyers?” Parkins took a fac'sheet out of his belt-box. “Beverages, music, friendly hostesses...” he quoted. “That means girls. Not these mining dogs, but real female women!”

Batty thought: Real female women as opposed to what?

Batty had not seen many women since he had joined the Squad. He remembered (or thought he did) several females, on Earth, but since leaving his training area, he had been with the Squad exclusively. They had been sent to protect the Company against the Miners, who had risen in protest against what they claimed were unfair labor practices. It had been a Miner who had set off the explosion that had rocked the building in which Batty and Parkins had been trapped. Batty had killed one Miner with a blow to the head, and another with his knife, while Parkins set the charges to level the entire area. Parkins insisted that Batty had saved his life.

Commander DeSalle had been pleased with Batty. Commander DeSalle had told him to go with Parkins, to see these real, female women. Therefore, Roy Batty followed the rest of the men to a large clapboard pre-fab at the end of the street, with a glowing red lantern over the door. It was at least twice as tall as any of the other Company buildings, and from its open door came the sound of loud music and the smell of alcohol and sweating bodies.

Batty stood for a moment in the door, his eyes trying to take it all in at once. There was a small anteroom, where a short fat woman in a black jumpsuit checked his credit tab. Then Parkins nudged him into the main hall, which seemed to fill the entire ground floor of the place.

The walls were painted a violent pink, while the ceiling beams were left in their raw wooden state. On one side of the room was a raised platform, where musicians kept a steady blare of drums, horns and stringed instruments going.

On the other was a staircase leading to regions above the hot, noisy room, which was filled with men in uniforms and women wearing everything or nothing at all.

Batty began to sort out the ritual. A man would speak to a woman, they would smile or talk or dance, then they would go upstairs. Soon after, the woman would come down alone, then the man would come down and speak to the tall blonde woman who sat at the end of the musicians’ platform, surrounded by men even taller than Batty.

Batty tried to understand what was happening. Parkins had been taken by the hand, by a brunette in a gown that was mostly glittering fringe. The girl and Parkins laughed loudly as they gyrated to the music. Batty stepped back, out of the path of the dancers.

“Hello.” A soft voice spoke at his elbow. He turned to see a slender young woman with a halo of fair hair next to him. She had outlined her eyes in black, so that their blueness was exaggerated. Her dress was short, exposing long, long legs.

“Hello.” Batty didn't know what to say next.

“I am Pris.” The girl smiled at him.

“I am Roy. Roy Batty.” There didn't seem to be more to add to it. They stood and listened to the music together. Parkins and his girl had taken over the dance-floor. A circle had formed around them, urging them to greater feats of athletic abandon.

Batty turned to his companion. “Do you like to listen to the music?” he asked politely.

Pris smiled, nodding to the beat. “Oh, yes. I like to dance. I like it much better than the other things.”

“What... other things?” Batty asked.

Pris looked at him. “Don't you know?”

Batty shook his head.

“Then why did you come here?”

“I came because the others did.”

Pris smiled. She looked around and the smile faded. “The Madam is looking our way. We must go upstairs now. She will be angry if we don't.”

It was Batty's turn to frown. “Why? I thought you were supposed to be a... a friendly hostess.” He repeated the words from the flyer.

Pris sighed. “She says she has not gotten her money's worth out of me. Come upstairs. We can talk there... or whatever you like.” She led the way through the crowd of grey-clad men and semi-naked women to the staircase at the other side of the room. Roy was aware of the grins on Parkins' and Gianni's faces as he passed them in the crowd.

Pris led him up the narrow staircase to a small room at the end of a passageway. It contained a bed, a chair, a small sink and a stack of towels, and nothing else.

The walls were that same acid pink as the downstairs. There was a tiny lamp set into the wall above the bed, giving a tepid glow that provided barely any light.

He looked about the place curiously. It looked like a cage... where had he seen a cage? He didn't quite remember.

“Is this where you live?” he asked.

“No. It is where I work.” She nodded towards the bed. “I must lie down now.” She sat on the bed.

“Why?”

“It is what I do. Then you must lie down, too, and do it to me.”

“It?” Roy was getting more and more confused.

“It is a game, if you like. You may take my clothes off, but you must not tear them. They cost extra if you do. But doing It is what you pay the money for.”

“But you said you do not like to do it. Not as much as dancing.”

Pris sighed. “It is what the Madam paid for, to get her money's worth of me. That is what they told me I had to do when I came here. I don't think it matters if I like it or not. The other girls say they don't, but they do It anyway.”

Roy frowned. There was something wrong here. Pris should not have to do things that she did not like to do. He wasn't sure why he felt this way. He only knew that it would be good to make her smile again.

He sat down next to her. “I do not want to do anything to you that you do not want done,” he said at last. “If you like, we can go downstairs and dance. And I will pay the Madam what she says. I would like to come again. and talk.”

Pris smiled at him. “Oh, I like you. You are... different.”

Batty said quickly. “You mustn't say that. I must not be different.”

“But you are different. I can tell...” Pris leaned forward suddenly and kissed him on the lips.

Batty jerked back. He had not expected that. He ran his tongue over his lips experimentally, to see if she had bitten him.

“Is that what they do?” he asked breathlessly.

“To begin with. Sometimes.” She shook her head. “The Madam is angry with me, because the men don't take me upstairs. They don't like me. They say I am not warm like the others.” Pris peered at Batty. “Do you like me? Do you think I am warm?”

Batty leaned forward and kissed her. It was an odd sensation, lips against lips. Not quite like tasting, and not quite like biting... He broke away from her to look into her eyes again. Pris was smiling now... He touched her bright hair, and the strands of it seemed to cause electric shocks down his arm. He smiled at her. Then somehow they were laughing together and kissing and laughing some more, all at once.

“Time!” someone outside the door yelled.

Batty leaned forward. Pris stopped laughing.

“You are to have only fifteen minutes,” she said sadly. “If you take more than twenty, you must pay again.”

“Then I will pay, and pay, and pay again and again!” Batty kissed Pris one more time. “And I will come back, I promise you, and get you away from here.”

Pris left him alone in the room, while he caught his breath. He went down the stairs to the tall blonde woman. The Madam. She was wearing silver-gray robes that reminded him of the Squad's dress-grays somehow.

“Ya get yer money's worth, soldier?” the Madam rasped out, as he held his credit-tab out.

“Oh, yes,” Batty said. He looked over to where Pris stood, back at her post, a lonely figure with long, long legs and a halo of fair hair. For a moment she looked at him across the crowded room, and the rest of the soldiers, the gaudy women, the huge guards, all seemed to vanish. There was only Roy and Pris, and they were going to be together, if it took everything that they had. He didn't know how he would do it, but he was going to get Pris for .....

“Hey, Roy, I told you you'd like this place!” Parkins had apparently had his time with the brunette, and was ready for another round.

“Yes. But we must get back to the barracks,” Roy reminded him. “The Commander told us to be back at 2300.”

Parkins sighed. “Yeah. They're locking us up, same as usual. You'd think the Company's scared of us! Hell, they hired us, didn't they?”

Roy marched with the others as they made their way back to the barracks, where Commander DeSalle stood waiting for them.

“Have a good time, Roy?” he asked, as Batty passed.

Batty looked at DeSalle. There was something about the way he'd said that...

“Yes, sir.”

“Good.” DeSalle turned away, and Roy went to his bunk and lay down. He had much to think about.

“I like you, you are different,” Pris had said. And his reply: “I must not be different.”

Today he had discovered that he had feelings, emotions that he wasn't sure had been programmed. He liked Pris. He did not like the way she was being treated. He did not want to ever find that she liked someone else better, someone else who had gone upstairs with her.

He had made a promise to her.

Parkins leaned over from his bunk and leered at Batty. "I guess you finally lost it, fella. You get your money's worth?”

Batty nodded. “Yes. I think I did.”

This Blade Runner fanfiction was first published in the CITYSPEAK: Special Edition fanzine in 1988.