“Alright crew, gather ‘round!”
It sounded less like a business and more like a summer camp the way Doc spoke. Nothing new for the scruffy voiced proprietor, for he had always conducted his inspections like this. He had every regular tenant lounging in the booths, his sharp-eyed grownup son Jericho and wife Belle standing by.
“Just the usual thing,” the old street-racer smiled, fixing his spectacles. “Like the old-time health-n-safety guys with the nice white suit and clipboard. Whole pack’s here too right? Kimberly, Alcott, Peter, aaaaand Sue! There, perfect.”
They first started with Kim, the “last of the good-time gals.” He had seen plenty ladies of the night check in and out over the years. Son Jericho had been on him about “cleaning the joint up,” but much to the boy’s surprise, that seemed to sort itself naturally. Some, like the fair Sabina, found love. Some got bored and found other lines of work.
But not Kimberly.
The slender white wolf stood out like a Vegas showgirl in Death Valley. From her platform sandals to her cropped tops to her faux-feral tail, she dressed the part, kept rent down to the nanocredit, and couldn’t have been pried from the line of work with a boat anchor hooked to a ‘69 Dodge. She was in it for all that the gig entailed.
“All yours, chief,” she winked, and opened the door. There was nothing out of the ordinary at first glance. The desk was where she kept track of everything, the carpet was soft as ever. It was only upon inspecting the bed that they saw a manic mural of posters festooning the bedside corner. If it were just band posters (of which plenty were), it wouldn’t have been anything to write home about, but behind the posters were two massive eyes. Two, massive, photoreal eyes staring out into the room.
“Alrighty,” Doc began, thumbing the bridge of his snout. “So this isn’t a fire hazard, the gloss finish still has its retardant intact, but I gotta know: why the eyes?”
“Lots of peeping toms.” Kimberly said with a smoky chuckle.
“Peepholes?” Jericho asked.
“No, not that.” the call girl replied, clucking her tongue. “Guys who like to BE watched. Been getting a lotta fellas like that.”
Thoroughly bemused glances were exchanged between Doc, his dear wife Belle, and their son. They could only nod, check her off and move on.
Next came Peter and Sue, a couple who had moved into the Central region for work. The short Indian couple were helping build settlements a few miles away, but always struck out when it came to room and board. The speckled husband and wife were mirrors of the old gray goat and his missus, minus a few inches off the top.
Their room seemed perfect at first. Jericho ambled around, eyeing up the desk and the bed, and found nothing astray. “Hey, digging the serape you guys got.” the 30-something grinned. “She antique?”
“Couple hundred years old,” Peter replied. “Found it among some ruins on our travels. We’ve been trying to figure out whether it was a chief’s or not.”
Doc strolled it in, snakeskins clacking along the wooden floor to inspect. “I’d say she’s a replica no doubt, but maybe of a third-phase? All the plus signs point that way. Could also be—”
“Hang it a minute!” Jericho barked, “the hell’s that on the wall?”
A long piece of plastered duct-tape hung on the wall, sagging down its center. Jericho furiously clambered up on the bed, right over the earth-toned blanket, and he peeled it off, revealing one mighty crack. He looked down with scorching eyes at the tenants, the mousy muzzle of Sue wide with shock. “We didn’t even know that was there!”
“Well of all the—”
“SON!” Doc barked. “You seem to be only on Layer Two.”
When the piercing gray snapped his head back up to the crack, he saw the serrated edge of more tape. Upon its peeling back…the wall was perfectly fine.
The angry young hound dropped all ire on a dime. “Well that’s egg on my face, ain’t it?” He apologized and clambered down, swiftly fixing the upset bedding and serape.
“That goes double for whoever pulled the prank,” Doc scowled. “Alright, which one of ya wants to challenge me to a duel for besmirching your honor?”
Peter knew the trick well. “Tell you what, you help me tune the ‘55 up, and we can run laps for the hell of it later. Any excuse’ll do, right?”
“That obvious, huh?” the gray street-racer cackled. Two rooms down, one left.
The black wolf Alcott was about the same height as Peter, but with a few more pounds packed on. His white button-up was stressed along its center by the weight gain, but held together well enough.
“Fair warnin’,” he said in a thick Texan drawl, “It ain’t as bad as it looks.”
Jericho’s eyes went wide, but he didn’t say a thing, not while his mother was there with a hand on his shoulder. “Easy buddy,” Belle soothed. “Give him a chance before you light into ‘em.”
When Alcott opened the door, the room was black. Not black as in without light, but that the walls, floor, and ceiling were a dark abyss, with only the light of a window cutting through and revealing that a floor was there at all.
“You got one way of hiding the damage, Charlie.” Doc sighed through his teeth. “Alright, make ‘er ‘urt.”
In the bespectacled, stout tenant’s hand was a remote, and with a click of a button, the black dissolved into the room as he had rented it. It was completely spotless, without so much as a sliver of hair or a crumb of dust. The only item astray was a black bowl of glass sat in the center on the hardwood floor.
“That’s the naked room itself,” Alcott smiled. “Look ‘er over and then I’ll show you what the little machine can do.”
Jericho did just that, and his roving eyes couldn’t find a thing wrong. “Alright, shoot.” the young wolf nodded.
“No fancy proprietary term for this one, I call her digital paint. Projects all variety of patterns and decorations. You can swap from something a lil’ more rustic, a lil’ more psychedelic, a lil’ more like the bougie shit in Haven. Possibilities are damn near endless.”
He flicked through the various themes he had uploaded to the machine, and the entire family of grays stood completely dumbfounded. “You’ll make a mint, Charlie.” Doc smiled. “How much power it syphon?”
Alcott dove into his desk and pulled out his reports, and his landlord looked them over. “Shucks, she’s a lean little thing too. Got a manufacturer in mind?”
“Notta clue,” the black inventor shrugged. “Got names?”
“Only if you promise me first-run.” Doc beamed. The two shook on it gleefully
Jericho was skeptical. “What does it add though? It’s a neat trick but—”
“SON!” the old gray goat barked again. “A little somethin’ called atmosphere. Remember how you kept your room all Firedaled-up when you was a boy? That’s atmosphere, and these here folks are paying for damn fine rooms, and they oughta be able customize ‘em however they like. And to put your numerical mind at ease…think of all the loose tape and nail holes this could save us from.”
Doc’s denim-clad son nodded. “And that’s why you still own the joint, Dad.”
“You’ll pick it up soon kiddo,” he grinned. “Charlie, you’s clean as a whistle. Let’s get you in my office, and get you some names.”
Whether hooker, day-laborer, or inventor, the rental hall of Doc’s Oasis was never less than a clean set of rooms for whatever a passerby needed, and in many cases, they paid dividends for the owner.
So long as customer service remained amicable.