Breach Vacation

"I got eyes on her!" A PA called, scooting back so Skylar's assistant could see Cleopatra Sunbathing on the balcony.

The PA took a look at the image and smiled. "Mary!"

The maid looked up from sweeping, her bloomers wet as the morning rose. "Skylar's here?"

PA shook his head. "No, Cleopatra is." He gestured to the screen.

Mary's eyes bulged out of her skull. "That's impossible! The mirror said..."

The PA sighed. "You asked it where to find her, and you found her. I think you better go. Skylar will be here in a minute, and she's not going to like you wasting her time like this.

The maid could hardly believe her eyes. There the queen was, in living color. She thought she had such a strong hand. Now she had nothing... worse than nothing! Skylar was on her way, and she had nothing but threats against her team.

The maid laughed nervously. "Well... can I at least finish cleaning up?"

"Go!" The PA shouted and pointed for the exit.

The maid whined, and slumped away, her tail closed the door behind her.

The entire room relaxed, and one man fainted.

"Is that really Cleopatra?" The PA ran back to the screen.

"Nope." The technician shook her head. "Somehow Eve bought a shape shifing ability. Cleopatra must have bought it for her, for the escape."

"So she's really gone?"

"Worse," another technician spoke up. "Boudica is gone too."

The PA groaned and squeezed his nose. "Half the crew hasn't even shown up for work... Eloise has made her move."

"While Skylar is away too. What do we do?"

The PA closed his eyes for a moment. This was the moment that made hosts. All his time under Skylar all her mentorship and trust all for this moment. "Get Skylar on the line. I don't care if you need to call Trent's cellphone, we need her on now." He turned to another technician. "Call the producer, let him know Eloise is poaching crew members. That'll keep him busy. Post guards at all exits. If it's not Skylar coming through that door we're detaining them. Colorado is on lockdown!"

---

"Wahoooooo weeeee!" Eve collided with the earth creating the third human shaped crater in the base of the tree since this morning. Being a bimbo wasn't making things much more difficult, but being drunk off her ass sure was.

Giggling she stared up at the mountain dwarfing tree. “The real of knowledge wuzn’t even dis big!”

She sighed and stumbled back to her feet. “Okayz dis ones fer da gipper!” She hicupped and started to climb once more. Her house dress was a lovely shade of latex pink she couldn’t get rid of her drunkenness because she couldn’t find her cleopatra clone, but she was thankful her dress was just a dress. She couldn’t imagine climbing this thing while being attacked by her underwear.

She burped a dozen or so feet into the air and her honor as a housewife demanded she cover her mouth. “Excuse me!” She said to no one. With no hands on the tree she immediately tipped backwards and fell back down with a thunk her worse performance yet.

She raised her hand out of the snow and declared. “That one didn’t count!”

---

“Are we giving up?” Marie and Molly had to give the occasional skip to keep up with Cleopatra.

“Not by a long shot.” Cleopatra brushed past tourists and talents on the way to the archive. “This is an especially weak moment for her. The rest of the hosts will smell blood in the water.”

Marie shook her head. “You really are an evil woman, you know that?”

“If you want to feel pity for these things be my guest, but I won’t let it get in my way.”

Stan smiled. “You felt pity for her.” Why else had she left the studio? She herself had finally declared that Skylar wasn't evil. She said she was sick, and what better proof was there than Christmas. She'd utterly lost her mind. Stan suspected that pity alone was not enough to stop Cleopatra from putting something down, but it was certainly making this plot less fun.

“Think what you want, we’re here.”

“The Walk of Fame!” exclaimed on particularly glammed out section of the maze. The ground here was pathed with black granite and gold trim. The walls were decorated with pictures of hosts, and their favorite harems. Eevery twenty or so feet there was a door with a star engraved in it. Each star was the name of a different host.

“This must be the retirement community.” Stan whispered.

Marie snorted and scratched her armpit. “Imagine doing what Skylar does for twenty years and at the end of it all they shove you in some hallway.’

“You just described a nursing home.” Molly gave her hand a wry smile.

“This is why I chose to die young.” Cleopatra lied, and ran her fingers along the framed picture of a harem. It was black and white and featured a man in an old Navy Uniform being fawned over by a half dozen big boobied broads, dressed only in scraps of the American flag.

“Here she is!” Marie waved everyone over to a picture set by a door. There was a picture of a younger Babs than Marie and Molly has seen. She was still recognizable by her ridiculous breasts. The picture read. “The East Manhattan Temperance Club.” It featured about a dozen women decked out in pearls, furs, and stockings all toasting each other with full bottles of champagne.

“They don’t look so bad.” Cleopatra said, surprised by the absence of the **** changes they’d come to expect from Skylar.

“Flappers were the original bimbos.” Molly said. “I’m sure whatever they’d been before would have been horrified to see them like this.”

Stan tilted his head, and he looked at the brownish photograph. “This must be her first harem… do you think they get nostalgic?”

“Who cares?” Cleopatra gripped the doorknob and tested it. Not only did it open, but a blast of warm air helped push the door open. On the other side was sand, water, and an endless blue sky.

“Nevermind.” Marie stuck her head through. “Retirement rocks! I wouldn’t mind spending the rest of my days in there.”

“Finally some sand!” Cleopatra allowed herself a laugh, and stepped through.

The rest followed.

“Welcome to Mistress Bab’s island paradise.” Molly announced once they were through. The ground turned on her only to find a deeply tan girl, with curly brown staring up on them. Her hair was braided with flowers, and she was wearing a blue and white bathing suit with a half skirt dangling off one hip. “I’m afraid our star's not accepting visors at the moment, but I’d be happy to provide you a look at the hotel, and a tour through our History museum of her golden career!”

“Not again.” Stan sighed.

Cleo shook her head. “Why does it keep happening to her?”

“Molly.” Marie shook her friends shoulder. “Snap out of it.”

The tan woman shuddered. “It happened again!”

“Yeah.” Marie held her friend for a moment. “Whenever we go through a door, you keep like… changing to match the room.”

Stan nodded. “It must be because you don’t have a role on a show.”

Molly shook her head. “They’ll just change anything, won’t they?” Now she had this girl invading her mind… not a bad life. Golden beaches, cute girls in bikinis, fruity drinks. The only bad thing was that the mistress was… “I know where she is.” Molly charged forward. “Follow me!”

She took them through the golden beaches, and past the indigo blue lagoons.

“Why couldn’t we get the beach?” Stan grinned at Cleopatra, who winked his way.

“I’d be a unfair advantage for me.”

After a short walk they discovered their target. Babs the faded star of Harem Hotel was sitting on a walker, a tray of Mai Tais sitting on a nearby table. She was a haggard looking woman, the last wenty years were not kind. Her flapper’s bob was now a faded and thin crown of white and silver. Her once mountainous breasts now sat sadly in her lap, the rest of her body sagged as well. Her jowls were pocked with dark patches, her arms and sunk into ill toned bingo wings. The immaculate burlesque clothing was gone, she was now draped in a simple moomoo.

“Marie don’t say anything.” Stan hissed, at the four of them approached.

Marie giggled. “What would I even say? I’m a victim of sloth, I got mad respect for a woman who lets herself go.”

They were well within earshot of Babs by that point, all three groaned miserably.

Babs snarled at the group. “I’m over 100 years old, I guarantee you won’t look as good as me when you’re the same.”

Cleo couldn’t help herself. “I’m 2000 years old.”

Babs grunted and lit up a cigarette. “Your nose is too big.”

Cleopatra gasped. “You insolent hag!” She lunged forward. Marie, Molly, and Stan all had to hold her back.

Babs cackled happily, her voice was like gravel. “What are you guys anyway? Contestants?” Cleo was easy enough to identify, half clothed, shifting tattoos and a body full of throbbing piercings. Marie too, but Stan and Molly looked almost untarnished.

“Give or take a person.” Stan **** a laugh, but it was hard to keep calm with a feral Cleopatra trying to shred the old host to ribbons.

“Yyyyeah, you’re all dripping with Skylar. I see it now.” She puffed on her cigarette. “So what is this, a challenge? First person to earn her my love wins?”

Molly scowled. “I doubt she’s that delusional.” She had a vivid set of memories of the pains this bitch had unleashed on the servants of this place. She knew there was no heart in the woman, so secret reserve of affection she had to call upon.

Babs snorted. “Have you met her?” She took another drag on the cigarette, she sucked on it was a sexual delight. It was a rancid thing to see. “So then why the hell are you here? I’m on vacation!”

“We need your help.” Said Stan.

“Pass.” Babs looked off into the distance, but she must have felt a rumbling of knowledge in the distance. “Skylar didn’t send you here.”

“We escaped.” said Cleopatra.

That brought a wide verdant smile to Bab’s face, revealing her yellowed teeth. She let out a hacking cough, and sucked on her cigarette to cure it. “Isn’t that something? You know I had a girl who said she’d escape. Betty, sweet little blonde. Let me tell you this girl could Lindy Hop like no one else. So I actually set it up from her, I place the door, pretend to chase after her, the whole bit. She gets home back to the real world, back to her children. Only when she gets back who’s waiting for her but two black kids and a black man. The broad forgot that I turned her white for the first transformation! She was begging me to take her back to the show. ‘This isn’t right, this isn’t right, I would never marry a...' Well standards won't let me repeat the phrase she used. But your buddy here knows!" She was guffawing and half bent over her walker in joyus agony.

Her audience was stone faced throughout her little story.

She noticed this and sobbered up some. “Ah well, that killed them in the thirties.” She flicked a cigarette into the ocean. “Lot more racist back then, ya had to be there.” Which was to say nothing of the pickaninny transformations she used to favor.

Cleopatra pushed through. “Come with us to Skylar’s show. Fight her, kill her if you have to. Then crown me queen.”

Babs cackled. “Oh, so you’re all so far gone you don’t even want to escape. You just want to win.”

Molly huffed and crossed her arms. “They’ve all lost their minds.”

The host grumbled from deep in her throat to dislodge something. “You’re right about that.” She spat on the ground. “You’d be better off running.”

“I can see that.” Cleopatra turned her eyes skyward. She was well disgusted with this creature. 2000 years in hell, and she hadn’t rotted as much as this thing had over twenty years of vacation. All the cruelty of these hosts, their beauty and glamour it was all so hollow. There was no greatness in any of them, no life.

“Hey.” Babs warned. “I’m still plenty powerful in my own world, want me to make that nose big enough to fuck, to prove it?”

“Pass.”

Babs smiled. “Yeah, it’s halfway there anyway.” She lit up a new cigarette. “Listen I appreciate the Moxie it took to think of this plan. To find Skylar’s scorned teacher, and use them against each other. But on her home turf Skylar is like a god, only a producer or her agent could take her down. Though I wouldn’t recommend it. If you get a producer involved you’re all going to pay, not just her.”

“You have to know something.” Molly tried, desperation seeping into her voice. This couldn’t all be for nothing. “Is there like a special word or switch we can use to turn you guys off. There must be something that can make her call let us go.”

Babs sat back. “Toy cars don’t have breaks, Hot Wheels ya know? That’s because you can make them stop at anytime as long as you’re holding onto them. Real cars have breaks because no matter how hard you push against them, they’re gonna keep going. You make tools to accomplish work that would normally be impossible for you. The producers don’t have anything to shut the hosts down, because they don’t need it. You might as well be asking me how you kill an angel. Gods don't need tools.”

Stan tilted his head, trying to gain a measure of this thing before him. So she was an angel? So was he... maybe. "Gods don't need tools, but they do need servants. And servants can betray them." He looked to Cleopatra. "Satan caused a third of the stars in the night sky to join his rebellion."

Babs grinned again. “Exactly.”

Cleopatra smiled. “So you’re suggesting we somehow get Skylar away from the Producer’s control. How will that help us? Will she lose her powers?”

“There are two ways the toy car goes down the hill without you. You either let it go, or it slips out of your hand.” Babs sat back in her chair, and baked in the sun for a moment. “I know how to get Skylar greased up.”

All four of them, clenched their hands. Yes, yes yes yes! This was it.

Babs laughed and shook her head. “Helping humans, I really am a spiteful bitch.” She put her cigarette out on the table. “I had Skylar and Karen made. They’re kind of like twins. I wanted two nasty girls as my assistants. They were made to lust after each other, but also to hate one another. I wanted them in competition for my affection, but also I wanted them to challenge each other to use their desperation for my approval to elevate my show with bigger and better ideas.” She waved her hand. “You already know that was a big success their competitiveness drove me right out of business, serves me right I suppose. Karen was my good girl, she came out just as she was supposed to. But Skylar came out wrong.”

Their stomachs clenched. “Wrong how?” Molly asked.

Babs smiled. “That’s the right question. This is what you use to earn your victory this season. When you get back to the show, find her, and just tell her that you know what’s wrong with her.”

Stan furrowed his brow. “And that’ll work?”

Babs nodded. “It’s what she wants more than anything.”

Marie at this point had procured herself a drink, and was sitting on a beach chair. “I find that hard to believe.”

“Imagine if you weren’t able to control your own mind. Thoughts and feelings, and outrages burst out of you beyond your control. What wouldn’t you give to know what was wrong?”

“Nothing.” Cleo said, familiar with the feeling of her mind not being her own.

“Exactly.” Babs now resembled a bloated cat filled up on canaries. “I’ll have to have them plug the TVs back in so I can watch this.”

“But what is wrong with her?” Cleopatra pressed.

“You’ll have to see it for yourself.”

“Another run around.” Stan sighed.

Babs gave him an annoyed look. “You wouldn’t understand if told you. You need to see it.”

“Where?”

Babs extended her hands. “You’re in the right spot. It’s in archives. The warehouse labled Hosts. Find a terminal, seach for ‘Skylar’ It’ll bring you a room, enter the room, and you’ll see.”

“Then we just have to get back…” Stan said.

“Can’t help you there.”

Molly was leery of any good news. “You would really help us out, if it meant hurting… your child?”

Cleopatra rolled her eyes, and put her hand on Molly’s shoulder. “Of course she would. Let’s go.” Time was running out.

“You guys go ahead.” Marie yawned, slipping a pair of shades over her eyes.

“Are you serious?” Molly cried, and ran over to her friend.

“Hell yeah!” Marie giggled. “This place is sweet.”

“Come on.” Molly tugged on the queens wrist. “Erica needs us.”

Marie looked down her shades at her friend. Then she put a firm hold on Marie’s shoulder. “I want you to imagine I’m saying something really inspiring right now. Something that makes you feel like a total bad ass for going on this bug ass journey. I mean you’re not even in the game and you’re sticking your neck out for us, when most of the girls in the game want out. Something that makes you think Erica is lucky for having you as a friend. Shouldn’t be too hard…” Marie shrugged. “I dunno… I’m too lazy.”

Molly laughed, and shook her head. “Okay, I’ll think of something.” She was losing another friend, but some how she couldn't stop smiling. She supposed in her heart she knew the stoner wasn't going to make it to the end of the world. “You sure you’ll be okay stuck in beach purgatory until someone comes and gets you?”

Marie just sighned and leaned back in her chair. The perfect ocean reflected in her glasses. “Yeah, I’ll find a way to get by.”