Repo: The Genetic Opera!
content warnings: all of the usual Repo! stuff (violence, murder, necrophilia, capitalism), plus some consensual but fucked up sibling incest
Small Hours
It might have been a bad batch of Z, or maybe someone had slipped her something else, or hell, maybe she'd just had some cheap sushi downtown. Luigi didn't know, and there was no point in asking – Amber probably didn't know either, and she was far too busy throwing up to worry about it.
Listening to her, he thought of her as a small child again, coughing and throwing up because she refused to put her gas mask on before going outside even on the really bad days. He wasn't really sure why he ended up in the doorway of her bathroom, still in his pajamas.
"Fuck, Am, could you keep it down? You woke me up."
"If I could keep it down I wouldn't be-" she broke off as she bent over the toilet bowl again. Her wig slipped forward as she did, and Luigi leaned in and plucked it off her head before she made a mess of it. He dropped it on one of the two-dozen or so bare plastic heads that dotted the wall of her dressing room and then returned to her.
Amber was sitting on the floor, shaking, her arms folded tightly. He crouched down beside her, trying to decide if she'd be okay alone or if he should send a GENtern in, when suddenly she grabbed the lapels of his pajamas. Her short, dark hair and thin, tear-wet face was buried against the silk before he could push her away, and to be honest, he wasn't sure he wanted to. He just held her while she cried, and shook, and figured bitching her out for it could wait until she was well enough to appreciate it.
Haiku
Luigi didn't hear a damn thing until Amber was almost on top of him, pulling the clear polynote pad out from under his pen. "She walks in fucking starlight... Does Daddy know this is what you do in your fancy office?"
"Pop doesn't give a shit whether I'm counting organs or syllables and you fucking know it." He was going to have to do something about the fucking plush carpet, people were always fucking sneaking up on him.
Luigi tried to grab it out of her hands, but she danced away from him, too fast. She glanced at it again, mouthing the words.
red becomes black sky
she walks in fucking starlight,
in the zydrate glow
"Is this about me?"
"Fuck you."
"It figures," Amber said, throwing the pad back on the desk. "I finally find a man who writes me poetry and it's my brother." She was gone before Luigi could draw his knife, and he satisfied himself by driving the blade through the pad instead, into the desk, and left it there.
The Feeling's Mutual
"You know, that's not a bad look on you."
"Fuck you, Luigi," Amber said, not looking up from her mirror and her raw reflection.
"Is this really the time? Pop's trying to give GeneCo to Marni's brat."
"What do I care which of you gets it? I'm just a disgusting whore, right? It doesn't matter."
"Hell, no, you're still hot," he draped himself over the chair and put his face next to hers. His reflection joined hers in the mirror and he didn't look away, even as his hand slid down the top of her dress and his fingers twisted her nipple.
"Dammit, Luigi, this isn't the time," she muttered, but she didn't sound like she believed it. When wasn't the time? His other hand was up under her ridiculous skirt before she made up her mind.
"You think I wouldn't fuck you like this? I fuck Pavi, don't I?" Luigi asked her. He wrapped his free arm around her and picked her up a few inches, giving him a better angle to get his fingers in her cunt.
She moaned in answer and reached for his fly, answering him. Both of them were well-practiced; two of his fingers, then three slid into her cunt as his thumb rubbed her clit. He couldn't tell if she was moaning or crying. Maybe it was both; he couldn't say he really gave a fuck. She shuddered and he dropped her against the chair.
"That cleared my head, brother. Thanks," Amber said, her delicate hands wrapped around his cock as she finished jerking him off. "Daddy's not the only one who can put on a show, though. Wipe yourself off and hand me my face. This is how we're going to fix this..."
Breaking the Habit
Zydrate, as it turned out, was the easier addiction to kick. The muscle spasms, hallucinations, and nausea were a cakewalk.
Compared to looking in the mirror, anyway.
The face she got to replace the fallen one was a necessity, and she made sure the surGENs took their time and got it on there good and tight. To keep it there, she had to leave it as it was. No poking, no cutting, no tweaking. She went off the zydrate, vowing to get clean without anyone knowing she'd even been dirty. Not for sure, anyway.
It hadn't taken long for Amber to realize that if she was going to be the face of GeneCo, she needed to have, well, a face. She didn't have time for surgery, even as fast as the zydrate fixed her up, and she wasn't supposed to be taking that anyway.
The mirrors mocked her, though. Every morning she dressed and faced her imperfections. Pavi's hand mirrors seemed to get left everywhere. The labs and clean rooms were full of reflective surfaces.
Every time she looked in a mirror there was something else she wanted to change. She was horrifying, she knew. The face she'd chosen was all wrong. Everything about her was wrong. And she couldn't let herself do anything about it.
When it started to get too much, she thought about sneaking out to see a back alley surgeon. All the good ones were under strict orders not to touch her.
It was Luigi that turned up in the stairwell, just watching as she went for the loading dock.
"It's just a little thing," she told him without waiting for him to ask. "Just a few details. The shape of my eyes is all wrong. My nose is too fine. It'll be quick."
He just stared at her.
"God, I know, okay? I know I shouldn't. But I can't stand looking at- at this-" she ran her fingers over the edges of her face, as if she was considering tearing it off "- for a minute longer. It's wrong."
Luigi walked toward her. "You can do whatever the fuck you want. I don't give a fuck. But if you end up looking like Pavi, I'll have to run the fucking company."
"Whatever. I'm sure you'd love that," she said, crossing her arms.
Putting himself between her and the exit, Luigi crossed his arms to match. "You tell me you really fucking think it's worth that, and I'll get out of your fucking way."
Amber glared at him for a long minute, then huffed and turned back the way she'd come. She complained loudly as she stormed back up the stairs, but when she got to the top, she was smiling.
Overtime
Amber leaned back in her chair and groaned when she saw the clock. It was past two in the morning. Her assistant had reminded her as he left that she had to be getting on her plane just after dawn, but that was hours ago and she had lost track of time. She stood, stretched, and walked out the door.
The new CEO of GeneCo sighed as she walked down the hallway from her office. She'd taken the room next door to her father's office, as she hadn't been able to bring herself to move in there yet and she didn't think her brothers would take it any better. The walk to the elevator still seemed too long, though, and she was contemplating moving it again when she noticed the light coming from underneath one of the doors she passed. She recognized it as the old CFO's office; Luigi had commandeered it weeks ago, almost as soon as she took over.
"I thought I was the only one stupid enough to work this late." She knocked. He didn't answer; she didn't really expect him to. She went in anyway, half-expecting to find him asleep at the desk or looking at porn.
Instead, he was literally up to his shoulders in paperwork - stacks of paper reports from branch offices and flammable acetate files for particularly sensitive information. Even more numbers were displayed on his screens. He was glaring at the numbers intently, as if deciding whether stabbing the monitor would be as cathartic as stabbing his last assistant had been, and every few moments she could see his throat move as he gave new subvocal commands to the computer.
"Who do you think you're trying to impress, Luigi?"
He jumped as if he hadn't even heard her come in. "I'm not-"
She didn't even have to listen to the sentence to know he was lying. "Nothing you do is going to fix what happened with Dad."
"Fuck off," he snapped, staring down at the desk now.
"You don't have to review everything right now."
He picked up a sheaf of acetate and waved it at her. "Have you seen some of the things that Dad was sinking money into? And he was fucking worried what Pavi and I would do! Fucking christ, Am, this is a snake pit."
Amber walked over to him, laying a hand on his shoulder. "The snake pit will be there on Monday, Mr. Largo. Nobody's going to be around for you to fire until then anyway. Don't you have something you could be doing for the weekend?"
Luigi tensed under her hand. "No."
"You're lying to me again."
"I'm not."
"Go call one of your friends, Steve or somebody. Go see Nathan in the hospital. But you have to do something."
"I don't want to."
"You sound like a five year old." She kissed him on the forehead. "That's an order, Luigi. Leave your office or I'll fire you."
"You can't order me to get over what he said." He was leaning against her now, though, and she knew she was winning.
"No, I can't. And I'm not going to try." She traced heart shapes on the back of his neck. "I am, however, going to do what's best to keep this company and our family going. That means having you here on Monday morning, rested and less homicidal than usual, so you can give me the financial report."
"Yes, ma'am," Luigi answered. He was now very definitely leaning into her cleavage and she let him linger there a minute before she started to turn away.
He frowned like a child. "Where are you going? How about you make sure I go to bed?"
"Not tonight, Luigi," she said it so that it was a promise, and would placate him. It worked. "I've got to go out."
"Again? Aren't you tired of that shit?"
"Exhausted," she confessed. "But no one will believe I'm in an office all day long, so I have to put in the face time to remind the public I'm in charge. Eric Garcia invited me to the debut of his company's fall line, so I have to be in Rio De Janeiro."
"Watch out for the photo ops. There've been rumors for days that his company's trying to make a play for market share now that Pop's out of the picture."
Amber laughed. "Eric's never designed an original organ in his life. If I didn't know better, I'd say he was born with cloned parts."
"He doesn't have to succeed. Just make sure you don't get to close to him. I'm sure he's trying to wring every drop of investment he can get out of the rumor."
"Of course," Amber smiled, "but I think I have a better idea."
"Oh?"
"What would finance say about us acquiring his company in, say, six months, when he's ridden that rumor out and mismanaged the new investment funds the way he always has?"
Luigi thought this over for a minute. "Finance thinks that's pretty hot."
Amber laughed. "Finance better not say that at the board meeting when we discuss the purchase."
"Aww, come on, babe. Who's left to care?"
"Public face wasn't just for Dad, Lu. It's for the public."
He sighed. "... That's not fair."
"The world just isn't ready for us." Amber bent over and kissed him again, this time on the lips. "I suppose that will always be true. We're just too fabulous."
"Their loss," Luigi grumbled.
"Now I am going to bed, because I have to fly to Rio in the morning. And you are going out, because you need a life outside this office as badly as I do. Now shoo." She crossed her arms and waited as he stood up and grabbed his netpad. He copped a feel as he passed her, and they walked to the end of the hall together, her heels clicking smartly along the tile.
They waited a moment for the elevator to arrive, and Amber flinched away from the reflective metal doors.
"You look great, by the way," he said as the elevator doors opened with a ping. She realized he must have noticed.
"I haven't had anything done in weeks." There was still a whine in her voice that she didn't like, but the itch was almost gone.
"I know." And then they closed.
(I Don't Own Emotion) I Rent
It was late into Friday night -- so late it might as well have looped around into Saturday morning -- and the photographer was dozing in his car as it idled outside the GeneCo building. Since she'd announced she was taking over the company, most of the media had seen neither hide nor hair of Amber Sweet outside of official functions. She never went to her favorite clubs, she never passed out in her favorite alleys, and the paparazzi were beside themselves. What kind of trouble was Amber Sweet getting into now that the last person in the world who could control her was gone? And why didn't anyone have pictures?
Dawn was just poking her disheveled head out from under the covers of the Pacific ocean when Amber's private car pulled up to the great glass doors of the GeneCo building. He readied his camera, hoping for a good shot of her stumbling drunkenly out of the car or even, if he was lucky, being carried. Instead, when the driver stepped around and opened the car door, someone exited the building itself. It took him a minute to be sure under her new wig and large, dark sunglasses, but he was sure it was Amber when the guards stepped out behind her; she was still wearing the same face, and what other woman would merit such treatment from GeneCo? He snapped a few photos out of habit, though these weren't likely to be worth much.
He knew she was supposed to be flying to Brazil today, but it seemed early for her to be heading to the airport. As the car pulled away, he let his own vehicle shift into drive and he followed. The car should have headed straight for the bridge to the mainland if she was going to the airport. It didn't, however, turning down a smaller side-street and detouring through one of the small residential neighborhoods and past a graveyard. The car parked at the end of an alley at the beginning of the warehouse district.
"Jackpot," he murmured. A few more shots of Amber getting out of the car, then he switched to the telephoto setting as she walked down the alley. Someone stepped out of the shadows. A dealer, he guessed. He couldn't get a clear shot, not even with the best telephoto setting, but he took a few more anyway. Shadowy figures were always good. He waited to get the money shot - Amber handing over some cash, maybe. Though he wondered why the head of GeneCo would bother buying street Zydrate, he didn't stop following the action through his viewfinder.
They were arguing now, that was obvious. She left without giving or taking anything, a disappointment, but the pictures of her in the alley would net him something, at least. Sure, she hadn't done anything, but the tabloids would write their own headlines no matter what was in his pictures.
As she returned to her car, the photographer lowered his camera and flipped the switch so he could review the shots he'd gotten.
Something banged against his window. He looked up, surprised, to find one of Amber's guards standing next to the glass, the butt of her rifle about to rap against the window again. He tried to reach for the starter, but the gun was then pointed at his head almost before he saw the woman move. Hell, was that how GeneCo was keeping the tabloids quiet? Murder?
The other guard opened the passenger side door and leaned in.
"Christ! You can't just come in my car! This is freedom of the press!" he snapped, but the other woman still had her rifle cocked outside his window and he didn't trust the glass to be quite that bulletproof. Without a word, the second guard slid back out of his car.
"What the fuck..." he grumbled, reaching for the door handle, but a hand held it open.
Amber Sweet slid into his passenger seat.
"Is it just the money? Or is it personal?"
He stared at her.
"It's got to be one or the other, for you to be out this early. If it's money, tell me what you want for those pictures."
"Why? All I got was you arguing with some guy in an alley. You can't even see him, and you didn't do anything."
"I don't want- it's complicated." Amber sighed. "Part of our... relationship working is that I only see him on my terms. If he's in the tabloids, and I have to see him everywhere, that doesn't work."
"Relationship?"
Amber shook her head. "Uh-uh. I'm trying to be nice. But if you think my girls out there haven't already run your plates and pulled up a rundown of everyone you know and how much their bodies are in hock to GeneCo, you're dreaming. I've worked my ass off to run this company since my father's little swansong, and I still get nothing but shit from the media. I am not going to sit here and smile while you ruin the second-best thing in my life."
He almost asked about 'second-best' but thought better of it.
"So do you want a check? Or is this going to be a game of me ruining your life before you ruin mine?"
"Ch-check-" he stuttered.
She pulled the electronic form up so that it hovered over her phone and swiped her fingerprints across it, then punched in a number and quite a few zeroes. "That good enough?"
He nodded, and she signed off on the transaction. A moment later, his watch chimed a notification. He didn't have to look at it to know.
"Must be nice to be able to buy peace of mind," he said as she got out of the car. He didn't look at her, just at his own bank's notification of the deposit.
"Buying? Ha. Another one of you will be after me tomorrow. At best, I think I'm renting." She winked at him as one of the guards opened the door, apparently without even a signal. "Use some of that to pay off your kid's kidneys, okay?" Amber walked away without looking back, but he felt the eyes of both of her bodyguards until the car had pulled away.