Day 04

Zoom

And in other news this week, Bray Fairfax, star of such blockbusters as "Hit Parade and "She's Got My Foot has once again been courting a slap from religious purists with her controversial and oft vocalised views on certain anti-aging remedies. During a charity gala for the World Blemish Fund last night, which she was compering, Fairfax remarked in her introductory speech that "God would want us to look good, right? He gave us these bodies to take care of, and I'm gonna take care of mine however the hell I see fit. She went on to quote the famous story "Footprints, in which a man questions the whereabouts of his Lord when the two sets of footprints he has seen behind him become just one. Fairfax cited the work done by 'co-pilots' working for Peaches and Cream treatment providers as being similar to that of the Lord figure, carrying the believer in times of trouble. It is worth noting at this point a red wine stain on the white halter dress sported by Ms F, who was escorted off stage shortly after making the statement.

The Pope's comments this morning on the debacle were succinct: "Bray Fairfax should be aware of her influence as a celebrity when making irresponsible and ill-chosen references to religion. The Church does not endorse in any way the immoral and unnatural practices of umbrella companies. As a man of God, I believe in an organic aging process, not geared towards resisting nature at the cost of another human's youth.

An unnamed member of Fairfax's so-called Braypack supported her, claiming "Bray looks amazing. Even we don't know how old she is, and we wouldn't ask, because it doesn't matter to us. She has a perfect right to go about her business, and she is actually providing employment for those less fortunate in doing so. Besides, it's not like we're sticking knives into ourselves like we used to have to. Technology moves on. Bray's just embracing that and enjoying life.

Bray herself declined to comment, citing her current state as "tired and emotional.

* * *
Andaw

The parcel arrives by black-helmeted courier in the morning. I pour myself a coffee before opening it, savouring the warmth and woody smell briefly, before reaching for the scissors.

Well packed as ever, the masks slip out of their bubble wrap swaddling like giant contact lenses, slippery and flopping. Fish for the face. Each looks identical, and none look like anyone. It's the way the system is designed. So that if the parcel goes astray, and the client in question has chosen to remain anonymous, they cannot be blackmailed by the lucky false recipient. Technically we're not even supposed to know who our patrons are, but you can bet it's not that hard to find out when you're on the inside.

There is also of course the risk of a corrupt mail official passing on the bundle to the hordes of net perverts. Can you imagine the rush? The servers would practically crash with so many rabid forum postings. There must be a million different sites on thousands of webrings specifically targeted at charaders, as they call themselves. Maskwankers, basically. They don't care what they get through ' the surprise is part of the fun. A dead arm, a mole, a dose of thrush, glaucoma. Many have tried to make DIY masks and send various ailments through the system to each other, but the most data transferable without access to professional facilities and materials is about 70 bz. A zit, in other words.

That's what it began as, in the early days. Medical treatments. Pioneering stuff, they developers hoped to be able to send tumours to pigs by 2020, but after a while, they discovered that pigs were slightly too incompatible to receive the gift, and subsequent animals experiments also ended in tears. So human volunteers were recruited and success ensued.

Then suddenly some bright spark twigged that the same process could replace facelifts, tummy tucks, arse implants etc. You could contract out that sagging chest, fax over that flabby wattle, all without risk, scar or anybody realising that it wasn't just genetics and a lightspeed metabolism. It's still in the early stages, so only the crippled-by-wealth can afford it, but then they're the only ones who really need it. So here we are. Think of it like renting a storage space for your junk. You hire a well, a hole to drop your unwanted odds and sods down. And I'm about the most overworked hole you could hope for.

I throw the cup in the sink, where it clangs off a pile of pans, and pick up a mask. Time to go to work. Sitting down in front of the computer, I adjust the seat. My hands are especially achy today, but it has been damp. Nevertheless, I wince as the button sticks for a moment, then hoists me up.

The website is offensively neutral in colour, like a zen boot camp. I log in and pull from behind the computer a crocodile clip attached to a wire, which I clamp onto the chinpiece of the mask before slipping it on. Feels like clingfilm at first, but when it settles onto your skin, chemicals in the makeup of it cause the thing to mould itself to your contours and 'disappear' into your face. If you looked in the mirror at this point, you would see nothing different whatsoever. It feels like dust.

This done, the final stage is to locate the pocket on the site into which Gilligan has already fed her biological information, including the areas she wishes to get rid of, nip in, etc. Hover over the agreement to terms and conditions button. And click.

* * *

Miffy

What the fuck is she looking at? It's five past when the clock struck and I decided to leave Fetz to his languishing. He set me up with an array of pills, potions and papers after a huge great plead. After all this time, the big eyed batbat trick still works on him. It's nice to know some people don't get completely jaded.

In my hand I clutch a fistful of the pink papers Fetz mentioned. I've sifted out the worst, though looking at some of these, I'm not all that sure there's a great deal in it. Ye gods, some people really do cater for niche markets. I don't think I've ever had to do that before, for good reasons. Wait, that one doesn't look too bad. Aww, crap, but I'd be working with him. Damnit. OK, stick a pin in. There. 27 Alark Street. Thursday. 5am. Bring ankle socks and a strong stomach.

* * *

Pila

I saw a woman the other day in the textile shop down Fawkes Lane stroking the end of a roll of satin. I watched her, the back and forth of her sweeps lulling me. Her nails and lips were ripe cherries and her hair so dark and shiny it looked like an oil slick. I leant against a lamp post outside the shop, unable to go in. I needed muslin to snip into headscarves, but I couldn't move. She continued, almost as if she knew I was watching. I know I imagined a smile. My eye wandered up her mocha stockinged leg and my finger grew jealous. I began to imagine her wrapped in satin, then unwrapped from satin. My eye travelled to her hips and up through the in-out-in of her waist and breasts. All satin.

"Fuckin WATCH IT. A wiry man slammed past, all growl and yellow-eyed glare. I realised with horror that my hand had travelled from its agreed position to one cupping the fly of my jeans.

I flap about with a few abusive words in my head, but they never make it over the drawbridge. He has gone and I have dropped my keys.

As I bend to pick them up, something catches the corner of my sightline, and I whiz my head around. I could have sworn that one of the blue-haired street performers across the road on Fitts Square was watching me. But no, they are juggling and juggling, and so I walk briskly away.

Ducking into a paper shop I snag a dog-worried copy of Zoom, praying as I flick the pages across.

* * *

Andaw

For a while, the company had to deal with a rash of facedumping. People would take on highly paid assignments, the most famous being from the wife of a government official, who had bought her husband a month's subscription on the quiet for a birthday present. Someone accepted the money (around £5 million, something vulgar like that), went out with his laptop and immediately slapped the mask onto a tramp he found was willing to do anything for a fiver. If the official in question hadn't wanted to be rid of an area of flab incorporating a particularly distinctive and now stretched birthmark, the fraud would have been hard to detect at all. As it was, the tramp walked in front of the man's limousine the following day with a small black star on his exposed belly, and the chauffeur screeched to a halt. Sad thing is, if he'd let the guy get away with it, the politician would have kept his worries over portliness under wraps and his dignity intact.

Still, that's how it goes. That's why we have more checks than the secret service over our backgrounds, including our sexual preference and history on the internet. They know when I cough unusually loudly. They know when a tooth, swinging on a thread of gum, finally falls out of my head.