Xanthe eyed the dragons. They climbed the wall, seeming to curve sinuously around invisible poles. Some of the dragons were black and white, some were coloured and gaudy, some shared the long and square snouts seen in the classical Chinese dragons, while others bore the sharpened snout and piercing eyes of the westernised dragons. Xanthe moved her gaze across the wall to the one with all the women on, skipping over the coy smiles set in beautiful faces, the mermaid tails or devils tails, and continued to move her gaze across the wall to the one that held the only picture she cared about, the wall with the eagle’s picture. She felt a small thrill when she looked at it.
The eagle had deep, black eyes, set in a sharp, aquiline face that seemed to stare right at her. Glorious wings rose up either side of a feathered, golden body, with dangerous looking talons, ready to grasp what was in front of it, pointed straight at her. This wasn’t any old picture of an eagle on the wall, it was her eagle, and soon it wouldn’t just be a picture on a wall, but would become part of her forever.
She looked up as Steve, the tattooist came over. He was tall and shiny-bald, his bare arms a gallery of coloured designs and sigils that merged with the thick and black Celtic knot-work wrapped around his neck and licking at his cheeks. He smiled.
“What’d’y think?” he said, taking the drawing off the wall and handing it to her?
Xanthe studied it for a few seconds then looked up.
“It’s beautiful,” she said softly, brushing back the few stray locks of auburn hair that had dared to swing away from the rest. “It’s exactly what I want.”
Steve nodded then walked to the front of the shop and locked the door, swinging the sign on the glass to “Closed – Ink in Progress!” He walked back to where Xanthe sat on the leather couch and pulled across the mobile screen, so that anyone walking past the large plate-class windows and looking in wouldn’t see what was going on.
“Okay, you ready to go on this then?” he asked, sitting on a chair to the side of the couch and looking at her.
Xanthe nodded, no second thoughts needed. At only five foot six in her heels and young enough looking to sometimes get asked her age in a bar, Xanthe was no pushover. She knew what she wanted and this was her treat to herself for her twenty fifth birthday. She had wanted an eagle since she was old enough to understand what a tattoo was, and now she was going to get one. With a single deft movement she pulled the loose top up and over her head; her bra was at home because she knew that when finished she wouldn’t be able to wear one for at least a week. She noticed Steve’s eyes fall to her breasts and felt a blush kiss her cheeks.
“Looking good, Xanthe,” he said and leaned in for a closer look, but his eyes were only professional. With a quick movement he sat back, reached behind him to a small cardboard box and extracted some latex gloves, which he pulled on before leaning forward again to examine the rose he had inked on to the side of her left breast. “I’ll go over that green again while you’re here,” he murmured, his face showing how critical he was of the work he had done. He straightened again. “Right, you sure you want to do this in one go?” he asked, and she could see he was watching her reaction.
Xanthe nodded and, to emphasise her decision, lay face down on the couch, leaving the canvas of her smooth, creamy back exposed.
He laughed. “That answers that, I suppose,” he said. “It’ll take about four hours, though, so if you need a break you just yell, okay?” His voice was caring but authoratative. She liked this, it helped put her at ease.
“I’ll be okay,” she replied. She lay her head in her arms and relaxed.
“Cool,” said Steve. “And, just so you know, I’ve ordered in some special ink for the black work.” He paused for effect. “Just for you!”
“Really?” She raised her head slightly from the couch and looked at him. There was never any harm in playing along.
“Yeah. That’s right.” He seemed pleased with himself, showing her the small container holding an ink so black it seemed to drink in the light. “This eagle is going to cover pretty much your whole back and I want the black to stay solid and focused for a long time. Most blacks fade to a dull grey-green, but this stuff shouldn’t. And I’m using American ink for the colouring,” he nodded to a collection of coloured bottles on the table where the inking needle rested, “because that stays the brightest and just plain looks good.” He finished with a nod, as if it was a done deal.
She felt impressed, letting her head fall back into her crossed arms again. The design of the eagle alone was the result of weeks they had spent together perfecting the image. “Thanks,” was all she could manage, the anticipation almost tangible.
He swabbed her back with ice-cold steriliser before laying the picture on as a guide. “Mind if I put some music on?” he enquired.
“No problem, go ahead.” His choice always seemed to fit whatever she was getting inked. If it wasn’t for the needle she was sure she would fall asleep listening.
Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade swelled to fill her ears and she sighed, knowing this one from before. She felt like a princess when she was here.
Professor Paul Marty chewed on the sandwich without really being aware of what he was eating, his attention focused on the bank of monitors in front of him. He watched, in data-form, the actions of the robotic arm that sat in the three by three meter glass cube in the centre of the laboratory. He saw, reading the numbers only, an arm reach out, grasp a ceramic container, and move it onto a scanning stalk in the centre of the cube. When he was satisfied that all was well he turned to the cube and saw for real the pure glass stalk that rose from a likewise glass floor, the top flattened into a small table on which rested a semi transparent, sealed, ceramic beaker that held a dark, viscous liquid within it’s confines. Satisfied that all was well, he raised a hand and made a circular motion above his head. Seconds later the low basso hum of the ten Cray 9980’s, stationed around the lab like sentries guarding a temple, murmured into life.
“How’re the passives looking, Ann?” he asked the physicist who was assisting with experiment to his side.
“Erm, well,” she paused, tapping at the keyboard in front of her, “I’m getting … nothing,” she said finally.
“Nothing?” the professor leaned over and looked at the screens. “Shit! Really, nothing?” The container should have shown some sort of magnetic signature resulting from the content’s electrical activity. But it was completely inert. “That’s strange. Okay let’s give them a kick. Lower the torus and tap them with, say, half a Tesla?” He looked to Ann for confirmation and she shrugged.
“Might as well,” she agreed. Dr Ann Parks entered the sequence and they watched the torus lower on another arm to surround the beaker. They felt the EMP kick, an almost visceral thump, in their bodies, metal objects in the room twitching in response. The Crays, wrapped in custom designed Faraday cages, recorded in real time everything that happened.
“Bugger,” said Ann when she looked at the screen afterwards. The professor leaned in as well, reading the results.
The afternoon sun leaked in from the parlour’s windows as Steve worked, striping the air and casting bright pools around the place. The whine of the inking needle was still audible over the music that played. Xanthe’s pain threshold was high, but even she was finding it hard going. Maybe one sitting was asking too much of her, but she was determined to get it done in one go.
The needle’s scream stopped and Steve wiped away some excess ink. “That’s all the black work done, now I’m going to colour it in. How you doing?”
“Fine,” she lied, knowing that whatever was happening she’d say nothing less. A few seconds later the needle started and she felt the painful scratching start up again.
The Paul and Ann were in the cube, looking at the beaker.
“So, what is it then?” he asked, leaning forward and peering intently at the wording on the outside of the container.
Dr. Ann Parks, world renowned nano-physicist, and by far the more practical of the two, picked up the beaker examined it properly. “It say’s it’s, well, ink!”
“Ink? What do you mean, ink?” his voice rising. He held his arms out and looked around. “So where the bloody hell are my nanites?” he shouted. He looked through the glass walls at the other technicians in the lab. “Anyone?” But everyone looked just as confused as he was. He turned towards the part of the lab where the stores were kept. “Dr. Drorn, get the order trail up and let’s …” He stopped. “Where’s Drorn?”
One of the other technicians coughed before calling back: “Um, it’s his day off, Professor.”
“Day off?” Professor Paul Marty proved that even an intellectual can swear with the best of them when required.
Steve finished the last bit of colouring in, the needle quiet and discarded now. Using a tissue he wiped away the last bit of excess ink and blood and stood back from his work.
“All done, you can relax for a bit” he said. “If you sit up I’ll do that rose again.” He loaded some bright green into the needle’s small reservoir.
Xanthe sat up as asked and, taking only a few seconds, Steve went over the green in the rose tattoo as he’d promised earlier. Now she was hurting front and back, she thought, but the new green really did work. She could see how it brought the rose out and made it all that more real. “Thanks, it looks good.”
“You wait until you see the eagle,” he said, moving two mirrors around so that she could see her back reflected. “What do you think?”
She held her breath as she looked at the tattoo that covered nearly all of her back, the tips of the wings just touching the tops of her shoulders, the head of the eagle in the centre of her back. “It’s … it’s … beautiful,” she breathed. Xanthe looked to Steve. “Thank you,” she said, smiling.
He smiled back. “No problem, glad you like it. Another tattoo ‘Drawn by Dr. Drorn’,” and he laughed at his own slogan. “Mind if I take a picture for the records?”
“Go ahead, take as many as you want,” she said, here eyes shifting back to the mirror to look at the tattoo. The eyes in the eagle were perfectly lined up, sitting just right so that they seemed to be watching you, the black ink he’d used as intense as midnight.
Dr. Steve Drorn, part time tattooist, part time physicist, held up the camera, lining up the image so that it filled the small screen. Carefully he pressed the button, the camera flashing two or three times in rapid succession before the main burst of light lit her back as the shutter fired. He glanced at the small screen, happy that he’d got the image he wanted.
Xanthe, still looking in the mirror frowned. She was sure, just after the main flash went, that the eagle, bright and glistening wet on her back … had blinked.
Drawn to Freedom
Xanthe eyed the dragons. They climbed the wall, seeming to curve sinuously around invisible poles. Some of the dragons were black and white, some were coloured and gaudy, some shared the long and square snouts seen in the classical Chinese dragons, while others bore the sharpened snout and piercing eyes of the westernised dragons. Xanthe moved her gaze across the wall to the one with all the women on, skipping over the coy smiles set in beautiful faces, the mermaid tails or devils tails, and continued to move her gaze across the wall to the one that held the only picture she cared about, the wall with the eagle’s picture. She felt a small thrill when she looked at it.
The eagle had deep, black eyes, set in a sharp, aquiline face that seemed to stare right at her. Glorious wings rose up either side of a feathered, golden body, with dangerous looking talons, ready to grasp what was in front of it, pointed straight at her. This wasn’t any old picture of an eagle on the wall, it was her eagle, and soon it wouldn’t just be a picture on a wall, but would become part of her forever.
She looked up as Steve, the tattooist came over. He was tall and shiny-bald, his bare arms a gallery of coloured designs and sigils that merged with the thick and black Celtic knot-work wrapped around his neck and licking at his cheeks. He smiled.
“What’d’y think?” he said, taking the drawing off the wall and handing it to her?
Xanthe studied it for a few seconds then looked up.
“It’s beautiful,” she said softly, brushing back the few stray locks of auburn hair that had dared to swing away from the rest. “It’s exactly what I want.”
Steve nodded then walked to the front of the shop and locked the door, swinging the sign on the glass to “Closed – Ink in Progress!” He walked back to where Xanthe sat on the leather couch and pulled across the mobile screen, so that anyone walking past the large plate-class windows and looking in wouldn’t see what was going on.
“Okay, you ready to go on this then?” he asked, sitting on a chair to the side of the couch and looking at her.
Xanthe nodded, no second thoughts needed. At only five foot six in her heels and young enough looking to sometimes get asked her age in a bar, Xanthe was no pushover. She knew what she wanted and this was her treat to herself for her twenty fifth birthday. She had wanted an eagle since she was old enough to understand what a tattoo was, and now she was going to get one. With a single deft movement she pulled the loose top up and over her head; her bra was at home because she knew that when finished she wouldn’t be able to wear one for at least a week. She noticed Steve’s eyes fall to her breasts and felt a blush kiss her cheeks.
“Looking good, Xanthe,” he said and leaned in for a closer look, but his eyes were only professional. With a quick movement he sat back, reached behind him to a small cardboard box and extracted some latex gloves, which he pulled on before leaning forward again to examine the rose he had inked on to the side of her left breast. “I’ll go over that green again while you’re here,” he murmured, his face showing how critical he was of the work he had done. He straightened again. “Right, you sure you want to do this in one go?” he asked, and she could see he was watching her reaction.
Xanthe nodded and, to emphasise her decision, lay face down on the couch, leaving the canvas of her smooth, creamy back exposed.
He laughed. “That answers that, I suppose,” he said. “It’ll take about four hours, though, so if you need a break you just yell, okay?” His voice was caring but authoratative. She liked this, it helped put her at ease.
“I’ll be okay,” she replied. She lay her head in her arms and relaxed.
“Cool,” said Steve. “And, just so you know, I’ve ordered in some special ink for the black work.” He paused for effect. “Just for you!”
“Really?” She raised her head slightly from the couch and looked at him. There was never any harm in playing along.
“Yeah. That’s right.” He seemed pleased with himself, showing her the small container holding an ink so black it seemed to drink in the light. “This eagle is going to cover pretty much your whole back and I want the black to stay solid and focused for a long time. Most blacks fade to a dull grey-green, but this stuff shouldn’t. And I’m using American ink for the colouring,” he nodded to a collection of coloured bottles on the table where the inking needle rested, “because that stays the brightest and just plain looks good.” He finished with a nod, as if it was a done deal.
She felt impressed, letting her head fall back into her crossed arms again. The design of the eagle alone was the result of weeks they had spent together perfecting the image. “Thanks,” was all she could manage, the anticipation almost tangible.
He swabbed her back with ice-cold steriliser before laying the picture on as a guide. “Mind if I put some music on?” he enquired.
“No problem, go ahead.” His choice always seemed to fit whatever she was getting inked. If it wasn’t for the needle she was sure she would fall asleep listening.
Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade swelled to fill her ears and she sighed, knowing this one from before. She felt like a princess when she was here.
--------------------***************----------------
Professor Paul Marty chewed on the sandwich without really being aware of what he was eating, his attention focused on the bank of monitors in front of him. He watched, in data-form, the actions of the robotic arm that sat in the three by three meter glass cube in the centre of the laboratory. He saw, reading the numbers only, an arm reach out, grasp a ceramic container, and move it onto a scanning stalk in the centre of the cube. When he was satisfied that all was well he turned to the cube and saw for real the pure glass stalk that rose from a likewise glass floor, the top flattened into a small table on which rested a semi transparent, sealed, ceramic beaker that held a dark, viscous liquid within it’s confines. Satisfied that all was well, he raised a hand and made a circular motion above his head. Seconds later the low basso hum of the ten Cray 9980’s, stationed around the lab like sentries guarding a temple, murmured into life.
“How’re the passives looking, Ann?” he asked the physicist who was assisting with experiment to his side.
“Erm, well,” she paused, tapping at the keyboard in front of her, “I’m getting … nothing,” she said finally.
“Nothing?” the professor leaned over and looked at the screens. “Shit! Really, nothing?” The container should have shown some sort of magnetic signature resulting from the content’s electrical activity. But it was completely inert. “That’s strange. Okay let’s give them a kick. Lower the torus and tap them with, say, half a Tesla?” He looked to Ann for confirmation and she shrugged.
“Might as well,” she agreed. Dr Ann Parks entered the sequence and they watched the torus lower on another arm to surround the beaker. They felt the EMP kick, an almost visceral thump, in their bodies, metal objects in the room twitching in response. The Crays, wrapped in custom designed Faraday cages, recorded in real time everything that happened.
“Bugger,” said Ann when she looked at the screen afterwards. The professor leaned in as well, reading the results.
“Oh,” was all he could manage.
--------------------***************----------------
The afternoon sun leaked in from the parlour’s windows as Steve worked, striping the air and casting bright pools around the place. The whine of the inking needle was still audible over the music that played. Xanthe’s pain threshold was high, but even she was finding it hard going. Maybe one sitting was asking too much of her, but she was determined to get it done in one go.
The needle’s scream stopped and Steve wiped away some excess ink. “That’s all the black work done, now I’m going to colour it in. How you doing?”
“Fine,” she lied, knowing that whatever was happening she’d say nothing less. A few seconds later the needle started and she felt the painful scratching start up again.
--------------------***************----------------
The Paul and Ann were in the cube, looking at the beaker.
“So, what is it then?” he asked, leaning forward and peering intently at the wording on the outside of the container.
Dr. Ann Parks, world renowned nano-physicist, and by far the more practical of the two, picked up the beaker examined it properly. “It say’s it’s, well, ink!”
“Ink? What do you mean, ink?” his voice rising. He held his arms out and looked around. “So where the bloody hell are my nanites?” he shouted. He looked through the glass walls at the other technicians in the lab. “Anyone?” But everyone looked just as confused as he was. He turned towards the part of the lab where the stores were kept. “Dr. Drorn, get the order trail up and let’s …” He stopped. “Where’s Drorn?”
One of the other technicians coughed before calling back: “Um, it’s his day off, Professor.”
“Day off?” Professor Paul Marty proved that even an intellectual can swear with the best of them when required.
--------------------***************----------------
Steve finished the last bit of colouring in, the needle quiet and discarded now. Using a tissue he wiped away the last bit of excess ink and blood and stood back from his work.
“All done, you can relax for a bit” he said. “If you sit up I’ll do that rose again.” He loaded some bright green into the needle’s small reservoir.
Xanthe sat up as asked and, taking only a few seconds, Steve went over the green in the rose tattoo as he’d promised earlier. Now she was hurting front and back, she thought, but the new green really did work. She could see how it brought the rose out and made it all that more real. “Thanks, it looks good.”
“You wait until you see the eagle,” he said, moving two mirrors around so that she could see her back reflected. “What do you think?”
She held her breath as she looked at the tattoo that covered nearly all of her back, the tips of the wings just touching the tops of her shoulders, the head of the eagle in the centre of her back. “It’s … it’s … beautiful,” she breathed. Xanthe looked to Steve. “Thank you,” she said, smiling.
He smiled back. “No problem, glad you like it. Another tattoo ‘Drawn by Dr. Drorn’,” and he laughed at his own slogan. “Mind if I take a picture for the records?”
“Go ahead, take as many as you want,” she said, here eyes shifting back to the mirror to look at the tattoo. The eyes in the eagle were perfectly lined up, sitting just right so that they seemed to be watching you, the black ink he’d used as intense as midnight.
Dr. Steve Drorn, part time tattooist, part time physicist, held up the camera, lining up the image so that it filled the small screen. Carefully he pressed the button, the camera flashing two or three times in rapid succession before the main burst of light lit her back as the shutter fired. He glanced at the small screen, happy that he’d got the image he wanted.
Xanthe, still looking in the mirror frowned. She was sure, just after the main flash went, that the eagle, bright and glistening wet on her back … had blinked.