Free Ultrahuman 01 - Ugly by Niall Teasdale

July.
    Red’s black car glided smoothly through the streets of Churchton, the most northerly district of New Millennium. Most of the times Penny had been in it she had sat in the back so that June could sit beside Red, but tonight she was up front looking out through windows that obscured the occupants but gave a clear view of the outside.
    It was Independence Day, there were fireworks lighting up the sky, but Red had decided that this was a good night to show Penny the other side of the city she felt she had to protect. Penny was not particularly enjoying the experience. Right now they were driving down a street which featured a lot of girls in outfits clearly designed to advertise their profession.
    ‘A lot of them look like kids,’ June commented morosely as they cruised down the street.
    ‘Runaways, mostly,’ Red said. Her voice was calm, matter-of-fact, but there was a slightly hard edge to it. ‘Some are kicked out to work by their parents or boyfriends.’
    ‘Doesn’t anyone do anything about it?’
    ‘The police sweep these areas every so often, but arresting this lot isn’t going to help them any. There are a few people who try to help them, but you’d be amazed at how few of them trust any sort of authority figure.’
    ‘I guess they wouldn’t,’ Penny said. ‘If someone’s going to run away from home, they probably have a reason.’
    ‘Not always a good one, but that doesn’t stop them feeling they have a reason to think social workers are trouble. In some cases they may be right.’
    June had the advantage tonight. Her eyes were working as well as any human eyes could in the dim light from sparsely operational street lights. Her view of the women on the street was filtered through neon and shadow. Penny could see everything, even if the colours were muted. She wondered if they were out on the streets dressed in such skimpy outfits in the middle of winter. She saw bikini tops, hot pants, mesh shirts, tiny skirts, most of them looking the worse for long hours of use.
    ‘There,’ June leaned forward to point at the road a few tens of yards ahead of them on the other side. ‘What’s he up to?’
    A large, expensive town car was pulling to a stop at the side of the road. Penny could see the driver, even in the shadow of his cab. He was dressed in a sharp suit, his blonde hair cut by someone who charged too much for the service, and he was good-looking in a heavy-set, slightly thuggish way. The idea that he needed to pick up street women seemed wrong, but that was what he was doing.
    ‘I’d have thought that was obvious,’ Red replied as three girls detached themselves from the shadows around a shop front and made their way to the car window.
    Two of them looked just like all the others, but one caught Penny’s attention. She was better looking than the others for one thing, but there was an exaggerated quality to her, as though her body had gone all-out on the whole ‘secondary sexual characteristics’ thing. Her legs were long and slim, her hips wide, her waist narrow, and her breasts were enormous but still managed to be very shapely. Her face was young, very young, though it was a little hard to tell since there was a mass of pale blonde hair obscuring her eyes with a ragged fringe. Her outfit was just as suggestive as the other girls’, black hot pants and a cropped T-shirt with mesh for a top half, but it looked newer.
    The light from Red’s car headlights caught a side view of the man’s face as they drove up and past. Red gave a grunt. ‘Tony Briscetto. He’s Mob. He was working his way up to Enforcer when I was active. I’d imagine he’s made it by now. He has a thing for younger women. Much younger.’
    Penny glanced in the wing mirror. The blonde nymphet was climbing into Briscetto’s car while the other two went back to their wall. Did the girl know what she was doing? ‘Is he violent?’ she asked.
    ‘Very, but not usually to the girls he picks up. He does get sloppy at