Chapter Four
“I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence or insanity to anyone, but they’ve always worked for me.”
—Hunter S. Thompson
Back in my LiveGood, the past two days ran on repeat through my head. A thought struggled to coalesce. Something about the rogue bioroid felt wrong. I sat quietly, trying to lure the thought from hiding. I almost had it when words popped into view:
connect request incoming
I was distracted and accepted without thinking.
acknowledged
reversing charges
standby
Crystal.
She sat at our hardwood kitchen table. Real wood. We had saved for years for that. One of Reggie’s juice cups sat beside her. Condensation dripped down the side of “Cowpert the Milk Loving Alien.”
When her face appeared, I started to smile. Emotional reflex? Memories of past happiness? Within the same second I remembered what she’d done and the good feeling vanished, leaving only pain in my chest and her face glaring from my wall. I turned my head to clear my eyes. I didn’t want her to see me cry again.
“I’m over here, Derek.” A lag plagued our connect. She became a newscaster on location, reporting disaster from a foreign land. “We have details to work out.”
“This is a bad time, Crystal.”
More lag. I rifled my skins library for something to make Crystal’s outside match her inside. Zoo animals? Lizards? No. I liked lizards. Maybe zombies? I TAPped for a zombie skin by .c0arsair.subDUPEs. I liked their work.
“Exactly. It’s never going to be a good time, Derek!”
I sighed. That was true. “I’m meeting someone from work, Crystal. What do you want that can’t wait?” I wanted off this phone. Seeing her was a flashback to every night I spent in the shower because she’d rejected me. Trying to control my emotions. Hurting so badly that I didn’t want to understand or forgive her, and torn by guilt after the bad feelings passed. I wouldn’t leave the bathroom until I believed her. She hadn’t rejected me. It was just life, anxiety, exhaustion … I only came back to bed when I didn’t blame her anymore. Sometimes that took hours.
“Did you hire a lawyer yet?”
“No, not yet.”
“Derek!”
Her exasperation stung like a flick to the ear. I felt guilty. It’s ridiculous how we still care after someone hurts us. But we do.
“I was at work, Crystal. I didn’t have time. You remember work? It’s that thing I do to pay our bills. From the other side of the solar system, thanks to you.”
I rummaged around for the bottle of scotch. Found it. Not much left, but it was a start.
Why hadn’t I hired an attorney? After the rogue bioroid there was time to reach out for a lawyer, but I didn’t. I spent the day and the night drinking. Forgivable, Crystal’s betrayal was fresh. Today I could have connected. I didn’t. I threw myself into work instead.
Perhaps the abandoned seek oblivion in activity. To be a cog among cogs. We cease to touch or talk. We work. Whirr whirr, forget don’t think.
We lean on coworkers only to reify the paramount fiction: work is important. Important enough that we cannot afford any time after work. When we return home, we’re depleted. Too tired to function. We must rest for tomorrow’s important work, or it won’t get done.
Weekends? I am sorry honey, but I must work. Work forced me to bring it home. In the wake of tragedies, life passes in an unreflected blur that blots our view of onrushing death. Then you’re gone, so what do you care?
Life’s wounds never strike us and leave. They linger. We could accept disappointments, losses, even deaths if they ended. If they left us like extinguishing a fire or turning off a switch. We could move on from a puncturing anguish if only it healed.
It doesn’t.
Life is like a broken ankle that never works quite as well again. It leaves us lessened and full of aches. We are diminished, one fragment at a time, whittled down by time and sorrow to human nubs.
Life is like lying pinned under a wooden board, while some capering jester with a kitchen knife slams the blade into your side at random, then places a stone on the board for good measure. We survive that knife. The sharp wound heals, but the accompanying rocks? That’s what kills us. We don’t die of old age so much as smother beneath the ever-mounting pain and exhaustion of living.
And the jester’s infernal dance rolls on.
I belted back the bottle.
“Derek?”
So you tell me. How is anyone supposed to find love when the slightest twitch reminds that damned prancing dwarf you’re still there, alive beneath the board, begging for another carving knife in your side? How do you truly live, smothered beneath the unending, low-grade residue left by life’s every injury, all piling one atop another atop another?
Another tug on the scotch.
“Derek, stop ignoring me!”
How did that poem go? “It is better to have loved and lost …” Sure. Right. Unless the weight of loss pushes us past the threshold. What if a single stone more will end us? We know it’s close from the rattling burn in our chests, the desperate heaving for air, and at the pained and ragged edge survival compels us to reject new love out of hand. From simple fear of extinction.
Wow. This was dark even for me. I popped the cork back in the glass neck. I should save some for Rike.
“Answer me, Derek James. It will never be a good time to discuss this. Start soon, done soon. These calls are expensive.”
I snorted. That’s right Crystal, this is somehow a time management problem. Thank you so much for letting me know that to finish we need to start. I never would have figured that out alone.
“That’s right. They are expensive and that’s because, I don’t know,” I jabbed a thumb into my chest, “I’m on another planet?”
“Interstellar rates are too expensive to waste on sarcasm, Derek.”
“How could you do this to me?”
“Derek …” she sighed. “… I never cheated on you, but I met someone who is everything I ever wanted and missing you was not enough to change that. That’s how I finally knew. I didn’t know if I would miss you when you left. I didn’t. Tell me you understand.”
I understood. Now I did. Packing me off to Mars was an experiment to see if you still loved me. Wow. Twist that knife. This was all about her. She wanted another man, she wanted the kids, and she wanted me gone without a fight.
I uncorked the bottle. Had to hand it to her. She’d pulled it off. Hot golden liquor hosed the bile back down my throat.
I tried again. “Let’s talk this over. Bring the kids, and we can work through it together. If not, I’ll earn enough to send you back, but at least try! Crystal, you can’t leave me out here. There’s no air here!” I tried not to ask the next question, the one ringing my heart like an alarm bell because it felt like whining, but I couldn’t block the words. The dam of my lips simply failed. “Don’t you love me anymore?”
“It’s not about loving you. If I knew what I know now about feeling love, I never would have said yes to you. I’m sorry, but that’s the truth. How could I tell you what I didn’t know myself?”
That was one hell of a rationalization for waiting until I broke orbit over Mars. Insight like an unexpected crack in a dinner plate: that was Crystal. Had always been Crystal. I was just too blind to see it. There was no repairing this marriage.
THUDTHUMP
My LiveGood shook to the unrelenting beat of orbital mining. I gulped for something to say, and my hands shook. Desperate to do something—anything—I grabbed the code from .c0arsair and skinned Crystal.
It was apropos. I shouldn’t be the only one to see the real her. That wasn’t right. A dismembered, floating head appeared. The dead-alive eyes, the trail of blood splishing to the floor—impressive.
.c0arsair.subDUPEs delivered real artistry.
“Derek?”
I didn’t know what to say. I never wanted to talk to her again.
“Derek!”
The strategic part of my mind knew I needed to talk. The situation demanded a measured response, carefully chosen phrases to convince her we should end our marriage mutually and gently, concerned for each other’s wellbeing. We owed our years together that respect. We owed our children, and we must protect them from the fallout.
A blood pressure light flickered into the upper right corner of my vision. My MedReg warned me to calm down. Blink blink blink. Crystal kept mouthing words. She sounded like a child suffocating under a pillow. I struggled to focus.
“You lied and sent me to Mars.”
“I knew you’d go there, Derek …”
Go where? Mars? Of course I went to Mars, that’s what I just—
“I didn’t lie.”
Of course she lied. She was lying right now about not lying.
“After you left—and only after you left—I realized how happy I was with you gone.” She frowned. “Why are you making me repeat this?”
Blood pounded in my ears like some vast tide sloshing. THRUMP THRUMTHUM. Red darkened everything. My MedReg’s warning pulsed faster.
“But the kids … I took a three year contract … we decided—”
“You have to understand—”
“Understand? I have to understand? I understand you shipwrecked me. You lying … You … Connect the children. NOW!”
“Not when you’re like this—”
I hissed at her. “You sent me to Mars!”
“It’s not like that—”
“Not like what precisely? What’s it like then? Is it like you’re coming to Mars or is it like a DAMN KIDNAPPING—” I bellowed at her, swept away on a nuclear incandescence.
She yelled back. “I hoped, Derek, we could agree we BOTH neglected our marriage and sort out the details like civil adults!”
The indignation in her voice convinced me she’d lost her mind. She was outraged at my anger? As abruptly as it arrived, the tsunami of rage withdrew. Woosh, it drained away. One minute I wanted to strangle her, the next … gone. Only numbness and exhaustion remained. I felt … nothing.
That couldn’t be healthy.
You jab some people, they collapse and bleed. Hit others with great big rocks, and they get up again. What makes the difference between who stands and who stays down to die?
“Derek?”
Is it mere chance that shapes one person to surrender and perish, while another finds what it takes to endure life’s pains, grows scars, and moves on?
“Answer me!”
What an awful world if nothing greater than accidents make the difference in who we so fundamentally are. Are we simply wrestlers at odds with the random static of existence, the white noise of events?
I’d prefer to believe in a god like Osiris, parting one from the other. A deity who commands “Life, I order you to give this man love,” and “Life, from that one take it all away.” That would be saner. And what had Osiris decreed for me? Would I stand again or die?
Oh look, there’s Crystal on my wall still wielding her mouth like a carving knife. She’s right. We shouldn’t pay interstellar rates for her to feed me hunks of my own broken heart.
“Derek James, are you listening to me?”
I wasn’t, so I disconnected.
THRUMP THUM the Chute vibrated through my floor.
DING DING the entry chime to my LiveGood rang.
I TAPped a view from the front door camera. Rike stood outside with a bag under one arm. He rocked on his heels and whistled. Fighting with Crystal, I had completely forgotten the time.
I raced to the door and TAPped it open. Rike’s face lit with welcome, but his hand froze midway to mine. He stared over my shoulder.
“Uh, Derek buddy? There’s a bloody head floating behind you. So you know.”
I looked over my shoulder. Sure enough, Crystal's head jigged and bobbed over my shoulder like an angry balloon.
Frozen mid-sentence at the moment I disconnected, her neck still dripped onto the floor, splish splish splish.
connect request incoming
I denied the request and killed the mirage. Her head winked out, but blood dripped to the floor a few moments more. Sheer artistry.
Rike stepped inside. “You greet all your guests this way, Supervisor Tobbit?” His smile took the sting out.
“Sorry, sorry.” I took his coat. “Arguing with my wife … ex-wife soon, I guess.”
“No worries, Derek. No worries.” Rike strode into my living room like he owned the place. “Sorry I’m late. Didn’t know you lived down in Bubbletown.”
“Bubbletown?”
“That’s what they call this plateau. I figured you’d be by the park.”
“I’m required to earn out my trip from Earth across the contract. It was this or take a longer contract.” I held up the empty bottle. “I’d offer you some, but I drank it all. Sorry. First round’s on me when we’re out.”
Rike slipped past and onto my couch and crossed his legs all in one smooth motion. Like he practiced it.
The cut of his clothes impressed me. They were as expensive as mine—maybe more if he bought that suit on Mars—and certainly better than either of us wore to work.
“Not to worry, my man!” Rike pulled a thin bottle of clear liquid out of the brown bag. Gold Chinese characters practically hummed off the liquor’s red label, twinkling above a clock dial I assumed was their logo.
He held up the bottle. “MaMa HoochHooch! The best drunk Golden Promise sells. Nanites negotiate with your MedReg for exactly the right buzz. Turn the knob on that label and choose your party.”
Rike touched a finger to the clock dial, which flared silver, and spun the glowing time to 11 pm. “We’ll peak at almost midnight! Bust out the cups my new friend, and let’s start the evening. You need it!”
He was right.
I snatched two breakfast glasses off a cabinet shelf and handed them over. Rike poured and raised his glass.
“Salut!”
The THRUM THRUMPTHUM of the Chute drowned our clinks. I downed my first shot of MaMa HoochHooch—and coughed up a lung. It felt like swallowing molten glass wrapped in burning rug. My eyes watered as I stretched out my cup. “Holy crap that’s awful. Another, please.”
Rike proved a superb conversationalist. Witty. Fast. Always with a joke. We laughed every other sentence, on topics ranging from illegal hyper object uploads to Jessica’s tragic dating life. Rike confirmed her unrequited crush on Greg. His impressions amazed me. When he imitated Greg, it seemed as if our coworker possessed him. Really dead on.
We killed two-thirds of the MaMa HoochHooch and half our brains before Rike mentioned Club Anyone.
“So, Derek,” he swirled his drink, “You were right. I do know this watering hole. We could blow off steam below the radar.”
That grabbed my drunken attention.
“It’s called Club Anyone, and it’s pretty, hm, original. You down for an adventure in the tunnels?”
“You mean another adventure.” I wasn’t used to drinking like this. I waved my cup in circles. “Had my first tunnel adventure this morning, trying to work. To get to work. I should tell you.” I wagged my finger under his nose. “Nope. Don’t ask anymore.”
I splashed the last of the MaMa HoochHooch into my mouth then thunked the cup down beside the empty bottle. “You bet I’m ready.”
“Good, my man. First things first, you got the latest privacy mod for your TAP?”
I nodded. “Yep, of course.” You always had to protect your TAP from hackers. And the government. And your corp.
“Good. Kick it on, and I’ll tell you about the Club on the way.” Rike stood and extended his hand. “This will blow your mind, my friend! Blow your mind!”
Rike TAPped for a Red Planet car, but instead the same Golden Promise from the morning showed. We bent to enter, but a decrepit panhandler popped from a nearby alley. He speed shuffled our way. Burn scars pockmarked his blackened face, and his outstretched fingers hooked like dirty raptor claws. His pinkies were missing, and he wore the tattered remains of a NOM refinery jacket.
I TAPped a few credits at him but nothing happened. Was he off the network? TAP malfunction? He stepped closer and his stench, rank like fermenting meat, gnawed the edge off my buzz. I rooted in my pocket. There must be something I could give him.
Rike stepped in front of me. “Don’t.”
Was that a warning to the beggar or an order to me? Rike hustled me inside the magcab, and we left the man on the street. As the door closed I watched his smudged face roll from hope through fear, anger, and finally resignation. All in a blink, before we pulled from the walkway.
I watched him through the rear window. He shrank as we sped off, pulled into the street in our wake. He kept his eyes fixed on us, the whole time, as if we might change our minds. We were something good that almost happened, and he held onto hope longer than I expected. Until the dark of distance obscured us both.
Inside our magcab, digital blues and reds prismed through the AlluClear divider—a rectangle of perfectly transparent aluminum, three times the strength of steel—that separated us from the front console.
We curved away from Bubbletown, my neighborhood, toward one of the farther tunnels. The shadows of abandoned industry drifted across our faces, and the cityscape beyond the window slowly deflated. Buildings grew squatter. They shrank from the multistory tenements near me to a wasteland of single-story warehouses, then vanished when we entered a tunnel, shifted to magnetics, and angled down.
Occasionally, we found the next tunnel down inside another dome. Bubble actually. They called them bubbles when they were small. Each was less inhabited than the last. Closer to the Chute, Mars’s transport tubes penetrated poverty and abandoned infrastructure like spider veins through aging flesh.
Rike directed us through another of the tunnel system’s many hermetically sealed gates, but this time we spilled into a natural cave bustling with single story nightlife.
Shaftown.
I had read about it in my Planet Guide to Mars. Red Planet engineers built Shaftown in a cave near the floor of the Melas Chasma, behind half a dome. The choice to seal the mouth of the cave but forego a full dome cut costs. It kept a buffer of rock between Shaftown and the Chute, but carbon dioxide collected at the bottom of the canyon like silt in a pond.
Everywhere you looked, fiber optic tubing, shot through with blue and violet lasers, climbed buildings and alleys and street lamps like mad, neon kudzu. The tubing sucked in gray fogs of carbon dioxide; the lasers blasted it into oxygen and carbon ash that swirled away like flakes in a snow globe. The ever-shifting lights burned through Shaftown in actinic excitement.
With no full dome to capture the oxygen, our ability to breathe depended on the rate of conversion. Crews in gray jumpsuits, paid by the Shaftown Business Association, walked the streets unclogging and repairing the tubes wherever they needed it. It felt like camping at high altitude, a clogged feeling in the chest, an almost suffocating.
“There’s plenty of air? Right.”
“Yeah man. We’re good.” Rike tapped the side of his head with one finger. “Your MedReg will handle it.” He lowered the window and pointed out and up. “C’mon take a look.”
We were riding through the front of the cavern, the part of Shaftown that extruded from its cave and was covered by a bulge of clear dome. I stared across the bottom of the widest, deepest canyon on Mars. Stars twinkled above.
As the magcab slowly circled, I felt like a fetus gazing from a womb at a shine of life I could only imagine.
Rike and I held our silence until we completed the outer circuit and reentered the Shaftown cave.
Rike spoke first. “That’s where I want to go.”
“The canyon?”
Rike stared at me then shook his head. “No man. The stars.”
To unload passengers, vehicles left the outer road and entered a loading zone. The zone was another concentric circle, one more ring inward toward the center of Shaftown Cavern. Shaftown proper clustered in the final, most inward circle, like a huddle of candles at the center of a cake.
To reach that center, partiers traversed a maze of neon-lit alleys that cut in from the loading zone like the spokes of a wheel. Some of the alleys dead-ended, some spilled into other passages, and some ran straight through Shaftown center and out the other side.
Pedestrians only. And every alley burst with the jumping, selling, floating, eating human circus that burned through Shaftown and its hyper reality every night. Day-glo sushi hover carts; giant gesturing sake bottles; translucent belly dancers; sales of every sort to consumers of every stripe and description. There was no way to filter the mirages of Shaftown, even if I wanted.
Whether from the booze, the human energy, or my nascent sense of adventure stirring in its bed, by the time we slowed into the loading zone, my mouth ran ahead of my brain. I shared with Rike my fear and anger at being on Mars, described my marriage, bemoaned my non-existent sex life.
“Nothing for almost a year Rike. Nothing.”
“Whoa, my man. Not once?”
“Nope. We were in overdrive, working night and day to make the move to Mars. So there were late nights at work, for both of us. Kids. Not much room left after that.”
“Come on. Really? What about bad sex? At least you tried and had bad sex, right?”
“At first. After a while, no, nothing. She said it was stress, anxiety. Anything but us. I believed her, because she’d never lied to me before.”
Rike arched an eyebrow. The same eyebrow he’d been arching on and off, on and off, all night. Are we born with eyebrow-ness like we are left and right handed? His singular eyebrow danced a caterpillar tango.
I had to know. “Why do you do that?”
“Do what?” He did it again.
“Right there. With your left eyebrow?”
Rike touched his forehead. “You crack me up, Derek!” He slapped my shoulder. He did that a lot too. “Seriously my man, your ex dead-stopped the sex on you? No explanation?”
Back on this? “Nope, no explanation. Well, she had a gyno issue. A cyst she said.” Why wouldn’t he let it go? I shook my head, trying to push back the memories. So many painful nights spent begging to be desired.
“I don’t get it, Derek. We all have needs. I mean—oh, right. She cheated on you. D’uh. Sorry, man.”
Cheated? “No. Not that. I don’t think so, Rike. It’s complicated. She told me today she wanted to but just couldn’t. Like I said, there was a medical issue too …”
“What about the tickets for Mars? For her and the kids?”
“What about them?”
“What happened to the money?”
“Oh. I guess she kept it.”
He touched my shoulder and stared into my eyes. “She cheated on you, my man. And she lied about the medical issue. Trust me.”
It was a hard pill to swallow. Harder than B and more embarrassing. She cheated on me. And lied. Kick-to-the-head obvious now that someone pointed it out.
“But … why?”
He shrugged. “Hard to say. Did she want to come to Mars, or did you have to convince her?”
“I convinced her. I insisted, in fact. One of the few times in our marriage I put my foot down about anything. She came around though, she saw how it was right for our family. We planned the move together.”
“Could be. Could be she didn’t come around at all.”
“No way. We always talked. There was no reason for her to—” Our magcab found a gap in the crowd of vehicles and switched lanes. It felt like our amusement park ride banged a rail. Sudden nausea dropped my head between my knees.
“Whoa, Derek! You ok?”
Vomit haunted my mouth, but I swallowed and waved without looking up. “Yeah, yeah. I’m fine. MedReg couldn’t keep up I guess.” I sat up and wiped my lips on the back of a sleeve. I wouldn’t let myself get sick. This was going to be a good night, dammit.
The magcab jerked to a stop, and again I almost lost my dinner. We idled outside an alley mouth indistinguishable from all the other neon shafts. Arrival saved me from further embarrassing confessions or sharing bodily fluids more … broadly.
Rike’s arm dangled out the window. He slapped on the car door twice. “Shaftown! Love it. Don’t worry, I got this.” He TAPped payment to the magcab.
The sealed door slid open and popped our ears. The scent of sizzling food and the babble of the crowd rushed in. The steady THUMTHRUMPTHUM of the Chute backgrounded everything.
Shaftown sat closer to the Chute’s impact zone than my LiveGood and the repeated dump of interstellar waste hummed in my bones. We shouted to be heard, as if we’d already entered a club.
Hyper reality shat bats. Every inch of nearby space—walls, vending carts, the pavement beneath our feet—exploded with advertisements. A local ordinance overrode my restrictions. I couldn’t filter any legitimate ads, so, among other amazements, I watched a fifty-foot half-naked woman swirl immense sparklers round and round her giant nipples. To this day, I don’t know what she was selling.
After our magcab drove off, a mirage of impossibly seductive “aliens” sauntered up and begged us to visit this very casino. Behind them translucent green dice, big as cars, rolled up the street, swallowed the aliens and disappeared inside the building.
Rike headed for a darker alley to our left. It loomed like an esophageal gateway to a belly of vice. At the far end a wide yellow structure squatted, it’s decorative facade modeled on a temple’s. Swooping red beams crossed above a porch that stretched from the left wall of the alley to the right.
This was a facade. The bulk of the building vanished inside the ceramcrete wall that ended the alley. Altogether the entrance resembled a blocky banana wearing a red hat, stuffed sideways into an open lunch box.
We headed down the alley toward banana hat temple. A woman’s translucent face, larger than our taxi, appeared below the peak of the sloping red roof. Blonde and blue-eyed, her sultry lips pouted like a bumper. Her head rotated slowly, transforming as she did from a blonde into a redhead with tilted, almond eyes. Another slow spin, this time into an olive-skinned brunette man. His big browns smoldered at me. Next, a black-skinned androgynous beauty with green eyes and platinum hair. Back to the blonde. Purple glowing words lit the massive yellow doors beneath “Club Anyone.”
I lagged behind, ogling, while Rike sauntered down the alley. Abruptly he stopped and stared at a shadowy section of wall.
I caught up. “Hey—”
Rike sliced his hand through the air for silence. Far behind us, the Shaftown crowd bustled past our alley mouth.
“What, why—”
“Shh. There. See him? Behind that bin, on the left.” Rike pointed to a dim section of alley, where a swathe of the CO2-processing vines hung dark on the walls. Something moved in the shadows.
“What’s that?”
Rike shrugged. “Reaper probably. We need to wait.”
“Reaper?”
Rike glanced my way, shook his head, and returned to scanning the alley. Over his shoulder he said, “Yeah, Derek. A reaper. None of those on Earth?”
When I didn’t answer, he sighed and spoke slowly, like I was a child. “They yank the TAP from your head, especially if you got a fancy MedReg or other coprocessor.” He poked my forehead once for emphasis. “They leave you with a note that says, thanks for the tech man. Get to a hospital before you die.”
“Oh. You mean a chrome reaper.”
Rike rolled his eyes. “Reaper, chrome reaper. Same diff. Now pay attention.”
I peered ahead but couldn’t pick out details. Above the entrance to Club Anyone, the glare of the giant transforming redhead impaired my vision. Rike shifted from foot to foot, but didn’t comment further. Nothing happened.
I broke the silence. “What are we waiting for?”
“Not sure if he’s hunting or taking a leak. Don’t really want a fight getting to the club, but if that’s—”
A shadow peeled itself from the darkened wall and walked our way. Rike relaxed. “I know this guy.”
“You’re friends with a—”
“No, not friends,” Rike waved his hand in a small noncommittal circle. “I know him from around.”
The reaper proved a nondescript man wearing brown and gray work clothes, and a long leather coat. His boots startled me. They’d begun life as standard issue work wear—calf high, dark and bulbous—but he had chopped off the ends and exposed his toes. The digits wiggled while he walked, like a family of snails sharing the same shell.
Distracted by the oddness, I didn’t realize how close the reaper walked until I felt his warm breath on my cheek. He smelled of beef noodles and soy sauce. Anemic blue eyes met mine, and a chill tightened my spine. His glance was empty, cold in a way color alone could not encompass.
I shrunk from touching him. I couldn’t help it. It felt like a cockroach had walked across my birthday cake. The reaper smirked. Then he nodded to Rike and shouldered past. Rike turned in place while the man sauntered away, and I copied the motion, never letting the reaper out of sight until the crowd beyond our alley absorbed him.
Rike swatted me on the back. “Well, that was fun. Gotta love Toeless Tim!”
I wish he’d stop hitting me. “Toeless? I saw his toes. I didn’t count them, but—”
“It’s a nickname, Derek.”
“But why call him—”
“Derek! Don’t sweat it. Tim’s crazy. Gotta be crazy if you make your living cutting open people’s heads, right? C’mon let’s rocket!”
I jogged awkwardly after Rike. The closer we drew to the whole garish false facade—giant neon letters on the door, massive sensual faces floating above—the more uneasy I grew. My encounter with Toeless left me cold, the booze was wearing thin, and a nice cozy sleep—snug in my LiveGood—sounded pretty good to me.
“Hey, Rike?”
“Yeah?” He climbed the porch but stopped, one hand on the door handle.
“I was expecting a little more … I don’t know, not so …” I pointed up. Words failed me. What did I call a buffalo-sized head puckering neon sex faces in a dark alley. “I mean purple and yellow? This place is as subtle as mass extinction.”
Rike threw back his head and howled. “Ha! Mass extinction. That’s hi-larious. Don’t you worry, Derek. I’ve got this. We’re good.”
And without waiting for a reply, Rike pushed open the banana yellow doors. The dull thump of music swelled onto the street.
“Wait. How do we buy anything? Won’t the corp see it on the transact record?”
Rike paused, half inside. “Derek my man, stop worrying. They TAP you for drinks and food. Don’t eat them, they’re awful. Only thing shows is Big Man Eats. For real business, we barter.”
When I didn’t move, Rike barked a laugh, sharp and short. “Man, you crack me up. That look on your face! C’mon you’ll see.” Then he passed through the doors into darkness.
Left alone on the street, I panicked and followed.
And that was the exact moment my life took its second ten-gee Immelmann into what-the-fucksville. Who knew?