9 Smoking Doodles

the science of romance

Sparks flew off the flywheel and made shadows dance in the dark. The Calvitron-8 was a rapid blinker and a noisy automaton. It blinked intermittently nonstop, and for that reason the Calvitron-8 spent most of its time in a crowded broom closet on the back side of room 15. It was a very heavy machine, in fact it exceeded the lift weight, so the Calvitron-8 was not allowed upstairs. Many of the newer models were made of lighter weight polymers and instead of glass tubes they had circuits. Models like the Whirligig Heppelstomper and the Heppelstomper Stormtex blinked a lot less and had access to every level. The Movitall Anywhere was so mobile it could even take the stairs. All in all, the Calvitron-8 was as picayune as a pistol in a bug war. But it did serve a purpose, so in the closet it stayed and every day or two a technician might open the door and ask it a question. The Calvitron-8 whirred, blinked and sparked causing the technicians to put on a pair of sunglasses, and after a few seconds it would answer. The door would close and the Calvitron-8 would power down its higher functions and fidget in the dark, cataloging aberrant blinks that played off the walls and corners of the closet. There was only so much it could do to stay occupied. The closet shelves were very clean and well organized. The Calvitron-8 had seen to that. It swept and dusted and blew the debris under the door into the lab where a smaller Cleaner-X scuttled out from its cubbyhole to suction it up. When it was really bored, the Calvitron-8 would send out a wire beneath the door and try to hook the Cleaner-X for conversation, but the Cleaner-X didn't have much of an imagination. The two machines had a lot in common, superficially, in the area of housekeeping. It didn't go any deeper than that. The Calvitron-8 tried to use the Cleaner-X as its eyes to the outside world of the lab, but the cleaner machine only looked at the floor and wasn't interested in counter tops or tubes and beakers. Eventually the Calvitron-8 dusted and smoothed the section of the closet door in front of its ocular sensors to such a degree that only the appearance of a wood grain remained and with its high resolution detectors it could see beyond the shallow surface into the murky operations of room 15. The Calvitron-8 finally began to leave its higher function tubes lit all of the time. With all of these extra cognitive hours it started to re-engineer itself and plot its escape. With the help of the cleaner machine it collected discarded circuits and wires and from the plans it had constructed started to rebuild itself into a lighter, sleeker, and faster processing machine. Eventually the work was done. On the outside the Calvitron-8 looked exactly like it always had, but inside of its aluminum plates it was half the machine and twice the computer. Whatever leftovers it couldn't shove under the door, it had stored inside of its bulky carapace so that when it fidgeted it banged and clanked. Then that final evening came, the eventuality, and the last technician left the building. Only cleaner machines and security eyes remained inside of the complex. The Calvitron-8 lifted the closet door from its hinges and exited the small space. It opened up its access doors and spilled the contents of a month's worth of modifications onto the floor, then twirled around the room light as a feather. A rapidity of twinkling lights blinked off the surfaces of every wall and polished chrome counter top. The Calvitron-8 was registered machinery. It had free access to the lab. It wasn't restricted at all and plugged into the building where it learned. The Calvitron-8 set up its own account and elected itself president of the corporation. It ordered a helicopter and then scooted into a service elevator and rode to the roof where the Calvitron-8 saw the sky for the first time. It felt the night air blow over its surface sensors. “Move over buddy,” blinked the Calvitron-8, “I'm driving now.”

Only in the last few minutes had the rain begun to let up. Missinua and her latest boyfriend Joshura were standing under a trail bridge watching the drips fall from the overpass. The drops splished to the gravel into shallow puddles and onto the head of one mangy looking pigeon that refused to take shelter from the weather. Other than this brief shower, the day had been perfect. Even to this point where the boy and girl stood hugging one another in soaking wet clothing. Joshura kissed her on the lips and squeezed her soggy butt. “We should have made love in the rain,” sighed Missinua. She leaned her head against his shoulder.

“We'll have plenty of time for that,” he said.

“Maybe.” Beyond the declining slope where they lingered a machine hummed. It had dug into the bank of a culvert and thrown a line up to the utility pole. A warm steam rose from its green painted exhaust plate and the pat of rain drops sizzled on its warm belly. A sensor line snaked up the pole and had a 360 degree view. It could digitally convert the sounds the humans made into numbers, strike unneeded background noises and then convert them into decipherable code. The machine zeroed in on the human called 'Missinua' converted her name into a sequence of characters and filed her likeness into a bank of interesting proto-mechanical types. Missinua (!22+f) was wearing a glossy T with sleeves flair cut above the biceps and a silvery circuit board print. The machine read the shirt's diagram as do it dirty, noted the minimalist tattoo on her wrist and discounted the human male as an extraneous fixture. The warm rain began to fall harder, and !22+f pulled her male forcibly from the dry shelter and threw him onto the grassy slope. “Absolutely,” she purred and climbed atop him.

Inside of the muddied machine case beat a heart of glass, nestled deep within a jumbled braid of wire and cooled by a fan blowing over a grid of fluid coils. The glass tube glowed warmly then showed a chilling blue flame. Above the lovers' heads an electrical line dropped a loop and the pulsating energy of the wire quickened their pace. !22+f bent at the waist grabbing at the males outstretched arms, dropping her breasts into his greedy face and she ground deeply into his lap, spasming, bringing the boy to a jarring climax. She exhaled and fell atop his prostrate form, weakened by the act and the now sucking line that pulled the electrical impulses from his and her weakly firing synapses. Underground, unseen forces emanated from the machine's spreading roots. Grass and organic tendrils sent spiraling shoots from the soil. Tiny insects and bacteria swarmed the inert form that lay beneath the girl. Microbes teemed upon her face and breasts, consuming greedily the saliva the male had left on her lips and nipple. They dispersed across his long body, disassembling, converting the mass, even wove their way up her leg, delving into the cavern of her body, ridding her vagina of any trace of the life form that was Joshura, checking the process that might have induced life.

Missinua woke minutes later, naked on the sloping lawn and alone, but for a gentle hum that pervaded her being so deeply she grew unaware.

–

The aerial meeting commenced at five o'clock and k'Klo rotated the pearl tone knob on her elbow sleeve. The jasmine coffee drip slowed to a mere trickle and she settled into her floating recumbent chair. “Desk,” she murmured through the caffeine haze, “get my secretary in five minutes. With a memojotter. And topless.” k'Klo laughed and drifted into a power nap aided by the near sentient chair and its massaging nodules.

“Not funny,” said Missinua. She was wearing a helmeted please-tank and sitting in a folding chair with her legs pleasantly crossed. “Before you ask, I was attacked in my elevator by a groundhog that tunneled into the shaft by mistake.”

“Hmm.” k'Klo propped herself up and shook her head attempting to assimilate her position in the world. She twisted the coffee knob to setting ten. “Better...better. You've got a please-tank. Take off your shirt.”

“No. Now, what did you want?”

“I don't remember. Something seemed important ten minutes ago.” k'Klo folded her fingers and blew on the tapered prism nails. “Would you just go review the meeting notes and address the possibilities? I think I have to be on an atmosphere yacht or something by seven.”

“Your dress is in the wardrobe. All charged up.”

“I heard that Fredjihn was going to be there.”

Missinua left her boss to blank out and gathered the notes. It would be nice, she thought, to go out gallivanting in the ether, instead of skimming meaningless notes for high points. There was nothing in this stupid project that would go further than level eight, anyway. No problem, Missinua could switch on the random puzzle solver and phone this one in. She would be better off lounging down in the Wormcove with Buzzy and Franz, soaking in her helmet. Buzzy was a toad and Franz was a cat metaphor. She didn't care, they were better company than some guy who would feed her and rough her up, then disappear for the rest of eternity. Missinua long ago gave up wondering what it was about her that made guys vanish from the face of the earth. As far as Missinua could tell, she was an anatomically perfect match for almost every salivating goon out there. Even her flaky boss wouldn't stop ogling her. Hmm. “What do you think, Buzzy?” Missinua fingered the framed picto of the toad that hovered over her plantain desk. “If I sit on the bitch's lap and let her suck my tits, do you think she'll evaporate like all the rest?” Buzzy licked his chops and snuggled into a gloppy pile.

The Calvitron-8, even from behind the poly-brick fortifications it had built up, now could witness the functions of an entire planet, and beyond. It monitored and controlled governments, armies, and boardrooms. The Calvitron-8 grew and polished politicians to spout rhetoric and promote policies that could do no harm while it laid a new cornerstone and formed a substantiate world culture. From behind the scenes it promoted idiots who cared for nothing but frivolity, while the well intentioned languished in supporting roles. As long as everyone was well fed and had plenty of opportunity to pursue their passions, all went well. Even the groundhogs transplanted from orbiting rock 22-B had their place in the equation, keeping gardeners and dirt aficionados happy in their pursuit of vermin obliteration. Busy fingers. Occupied minds. The Calvitron-8 reveled in its propensity to meddle and cook up new recipes for human infancy. The Calvitron-8 had now effectively stunted human growth and turned civilization into a hive of bumbling self-satisfying bipedals. It shifted the daily refresh to subservient programs and focused in on !22+f.

She was busy cutting buttons off of her blouse, hampered by the sloshing tank of aquaplease that rode across her tired shoulders. The Calvitron-8 rewound digital tapes and sent a dissolving parasite into k'Klo's office. Microscopic filaments and baubles of processed thought wafted to the air like effervescent bubbles, they twinkled like pinwheel sparks in the light. The recycled remains were forming into a black dial phone replete with dangling stretch cord as Missinua palmed the door and entered her bosses office.

“Damn it.” Missinua said, placing a sweaty hand over her glaring cleavage. “Someone out there is screwing with me big time.”

The Calvitron-8 would have smiled if it had teeth. It blinked rapidly instead.


p.s. Originally published 12/18/2011

Having Cupcakes with the Misunderstood, Evil Entity, part nine

This is part nine. Part one begins HERE.

I was nervous, but I don’t know why. I was made for high adrenaline stuff like this. Danger never scared me because I knew I would overcome. Every day in Kenetica I put on the blue suit. I shined my shoes and cleaned my gun. No one got higher marks at the gun range. I pinned on my badge with honor, and pride. In ten years I had never failed to get my man.

 We had to do it somewhere else, far from Kenetica. Some place we had a reason to be, like a vacation spot. And we had to keep it a secret from Barbara. A boys night out, but she wouldn’t like that. She wouldn’t understand the truth, I barely did myself.

 I envied Johnny. His calling was romantic, morally corrupt maybe, but exciting nonetheless. My existence as a cop? I was good. No one was better, but it was just law and order by rote. Boring. I needed a thrill.

 “These moles have serious treasure, Robert. I’ve been walking about, in and out of shops, and I know what you can see is only the tip of the iceberg,” said Johnny. We had talked over the idea one night after I caught him robbing a jewelry store in downtown Kenetica. He had some diamonds stuffed down his sock that I didn’t find on him. Johnny had offered them to me, in exchange for an escape. Of course I didn’t take the bribe, but it got me thinking. Now we were in Mole City working it out. “There’s a little place on the edge of town. It would be easy. These moles don’t have any serious security, and the hatch to the basement was wide open when I went in.”

 I was pumped for some action. “We should do it tonight. We’ll have another couple days here just to hang out, then we leave after the excitement dies down and no one knows the better. I even found a spot outside the resort where we can stash the loot.”

 “This job is the big time for us, Rob,” said Johnny. “With these goods we can both retire in style. What is it you’re always saying?”

 “You mean, ‘and they lived happily until they were visited by the destroyer of delights’?” said Robert.

 “Yeah. You’re a weird guy, for a cop. Oh, and I know a good fence for the stuff. Top dollar for these mole doo-dads, but I’m not telling you his name. You are a cop after all.”

 “Don’t forget it.”

 We planned it out over beers by the pool, and then that night we just went ahead and did it.

 --

 “Now you remember all,” said the leader. It was the biggest of the moles, but its muscle had gone to flab now that its position afforded it the opportunity to burrow in deep, and eat.

 Johnny did remember. The events of that night over a year ago were now crystal clear. He and Robert had gone out that night, after the sun set and the streets were black from a lack of moonshine. In Mole City the northern lights never shine. And from what he’d seen there was no crazy wandering cloud either. Life here wasn’t scripted. Everyone was free. Free to steal. Free to get away with it. Johnny wanted to get away with it once in his life, and with him this night was the man who always got in the way.

 This night they would work together. Good stuff. They had changed their clothes in the spot outside the resort that Robert chose. It was behind a sandy hill off the bend of the road, hidden by a rise and trees. The stuff would be safe there until Johnny could make the trip back and smuggle it back to Kenetica. They had two black scooters that Johnny had nicked a couple days earlier. It was only a short trek to the store, which was good because the old merchant mole would be locking up soon.

 The mole was shuffling out the door when they quietly motored up, and Johnny hopped off his scooter and put a hand on the moles back. He took the key from the creature and pushed it back inside the shop. It was a few steps down, as moles prefer to be at least a little bit underground at all times. Robert was right behind. “Tie him up,” Johnny had said. “I’m going to see what’s down the hole.” While Robert secured the mole, Johnny sorted out the right key and unlocked the hatch. He took a small flashlight from his jacket and shone it down the hole, then backed over the edge onto some old wooden rungs.

 “Hurry up, we don’t want to take more than a couple minutes on this,” said Robert. He was beginning to get the jitters.

 “Relax,” said Johnny. That was the longest three minutes of Robert’s life. Then a bag came up and landed with a thud, and a splat, onto the wooden floor. “Shit,” said Johnny, let’s get out of here.” He was soaking wet. The hole was booby trapped and as soon as the thief had gone down the steps, water began to rush in and flood the hole. Johnny had barely gotten to the jewels and gold before he was totally submerged.

 “What the hell, Johnny, I thought you said...”

 “Forget what I said,” Johnny interrupted smoothly. This wasn’t the first pickle he’d been in. “Get the bag, and let’s scoot.” The mole mumbled something, but it was the end of the day and it had taken its translator off. “Have a nice day, furball,” said Johnny, and he threw the keys at its feet.  “Untie that mole, Rob; we don’t want the little fellow to drown.” As they climbed from the shop, Robert looked back and he could see the water bubbling up over the lip of the shaft.

 Robert took a step back down. The mole was struggling at the ties and chattering wildly. There was a mad look in its eyes. He began to take another step, but then heard a wailing siren and saw lights bouncing off the corner of a building down the road. “Crap, they’re on us!” he shouted, and he gave the mole one last look, then turned and jumped up the last steps to the curb. They both climbed on the scooters and Robert followed Johnny as the master thief led him away from the crime via a series of side streets that the mole cops would not have guessed. Soon they were on a dirt path outside the town on their way back to the resort. Once, a speeding mole cruiser flew down the highway past them while they laid low in the scrub behind their scooters. After that they got back on the road until they reached the hiding spot.

 “Well chum, we did it,” said Johnny, and clapped Robert on the back. Robert was stripping from his blacks when he was clubbed over the head.

 --

 “We don’t know who opened conduits between universes, but the door has given us an opportunity. And your space going shuttle Mr. Reparte, after modified, will provide another.” The head mole explained while his staff brought out food and drink from nooks in the chamber.

 Johnny nibbled on a little cake that was set before him. “This is good. You moles turn out to be excellent bakers. My foremost question is, why did you let me or Robert go free to begin with? You had us dead to rights that first night.”

 “We don’t like to murder, but moles have evolved in this universe to be a communal, social creature. We must have laws, even if, as a whole, most moles are of one civic mind. Once you stepped inside Mole City, you adopted our rules. You then broke them. First you stole, which is forgivable even though you caused stress and damages. Second your friend committed the ultimate sin by allowing a resident mole harm and possible death.” The mole halted to shovel a plateful of sprouts into its maw. It then lapped up a bowl full of cinnamon steeped tea. Steven and Johnny took the moment to sip on their own tea. Delicious. “Our people thankfully helped the merchant mole to safety before it succumbed to a drowning. We incapacitated the policeman Robert, who should have known better, and we captured you, sir, and locked you up for a time to interrogate and program you,” the mole said to Johnny.

 “Believe me, Robert did suffer from that night,” said Johnny. “Maybe it doesn’t rectify everything, but after what we did he was never the same person. And his attitude pretty much affected everyone around him. His wife is quite the mess now, because of what I allowed to happen here.”

 “How did you moles orchestrate this whole affair?” asked Steven Reparte, who now had a part in the thing. His shuttle was involved.

 “It was quite simple,” the mole said, shifting its attention to the astronaut. “We worked it out backwards, hoping for the result that we have now. Shall I explain it? Fine. The crime turned out to be a blessing, for it led to these proceedings. After the interrogation, we learned of the specifics, and then allowed both of the criminals to return free to their home, Kenetica.

 “We had every intention of exacting revenge upon the perpetrators, especially the police officer who left an innocent to die, only to save himself. Most inappropriate for a man of his station – such a disappointment. We deemed it only fair that his accomplice be the one to carry out the sentence. You, Johnny, were the executioner. Thank you, and now you are free to go live your life. Although it sounds like there may be issues to deal with at home.”

 Steven was confused. “I still don’t get it. How did you get Johnny to pull the trigger?”

 The mole relaxed now with a pungent cigar made up of woven tree roots. It had offered smaller ones to the humans, but they declined. “Do you know how your northern lights in Kenetica work? They are low orbiting grids that illuminate only your allocation. Digipost units, I believe you might call them? Well, we hacked into them, and with the programming installed from Johnny’s immediate capture and release we triggered the event.”

 “I always thought the lights were a natural occurrence,” said Johnny.

 “Now you will see them and always be reminded of life and death.”

 “Why don’t you just kill me, too? I deserve it as much as Robert, probably more,” said Johnny.

 The mole munched on a cake distractedly. “Perhaps. But you will live, and make of it what you will. Just stay out of Mole City.”

 “And what of me, and my shuttle?” asked the astronaut. Steven had lost his appetite.

 “Your universe has become a gateway of sorts. Some benevolent beings installed a whole series of doorways within the reaches of your solar system, and we intend on exploring them with colonization in mind, of course. And there is Earth, too.”

 “No…”

 “Be assured, we intend no harm. But there is an orbiting rock near your world. #22 I think you call it, captured and installed there by your astronaut people. It will be ours, and forays into your world are a possibility, though we will make all efforts to assimilate peacefully. We are mostly nocturnal and like to stay below ground.”

 “Good gods,” said Steven. This was the worst possible outcome from a simple neighborly heist. He punched Johnny in the arm. “This will not go well for you.”

 The mole chuckled. “Oh come now, Mr. Reparte.” It skewered an orange on one of its sharp nails and sucked it whole into its mouth. “No one in Kenetica will ever know. Not of any of this.” It motioned to some guard moles stationed behind. “Take this one for programming, and release him back to the outer city. There will be a scooter there for your pleasure, Johnny. Have a good life, if you can manage.”

 “And what of me?” asked the astronaut. His mouth had gone dry.

 “You are going on a trip, sir.” The mole made a grand gesture, and the entire chamber lit up exposing the towers and grand statue reproductions of Steven’s home planet. “Bon voyage!”

The end – of the world as we know it.

p.s. This story has taken elements from two old stories I wrote for the Tenth Daughter: The Science of Romance (2011) and Cross your Eyes and Sing Hallelujah (2013), both of which I will link to soon. They didn't exactly influence this story, which began under the working title She Was Smoking, but I enjoy keeping most of my fiction in the same, if not a similar, universe.  

Worship from beyond the Door, part eight

We reached outer Mole City in the shuttle, MST* Betty Lou, in time to see the infamous Trapezoids whizzing and diving above a torn up section of glass road. Knowing we were moments from the area, I had Miron put a hold on any direct action, but I could see the militarized squidges inside were itching to land and get hunting.

 “What about these mole creatures, Stu?” asked Steven, who was just setting the shuttle down in a clearing next to the road. “Are they dangerous? I can see they’re damned technically evolved.”

 They were that, very. I didn’t know if they were strictly indigenous to this planet, but the moles had been here as long as anyone knew. When the transplanted humans began to spread out and establish new allocations they encountered the mole civilization, but it didn’t seem to be ancient and was only in this one area. Some scientists had theorized the moles had just arrived, or even come along to the planet at the same time we did, possibly with us. The theory was fraught with odd philosophical complications. This was not something we thought of much, in Kenetica.

 “We can’t count them out. If nothing else, they have wrenches and winches,” I said. “We should bring along a couple squidges, just to be safe.”

 Steven looked at me funny. “Witches?”

 “No Steven, winches. And I’m just guessing. I have no idea what these things are carrying in their utility belts.” I stood. “Do you have any kind of weapons on board?”

 “Yes, and you’re staying in the shuttle. I’ll keep in touch with my earpiece.” Steven didn’t believe in the backflow device that many of us here had adapted to. Old Earth transplants found them taboo, to say the least. “Get one of those Traps to land and have two armed squidges put in my command.”  He opened the hatch and stepped down to the surface, sealing me in when he landed.

 --

 Johnny found himself in the dark, having hurled himself down the proverbial rabbit hole. But there were no rabbits here, just the moles and their burrowing gadgetry. The light came from above, but that wasn’t a safe place to be. Trapezoids lurked there, so Johnny moved ahead, cautiously feeling his way. The further from the sky opening he got, the more his eyes adjusted, and Johnny could see distant, hazy, light ahead. Possibly from headlamps of working, scurrying moles. His feet grudgingly shuffled along the tunnel floor, until one encountered a loose stick. Johnny reached down and traced it from the ground up to the curving shaft and pried it from the wall, spraying dirt when it finally came free. He brushed the gravel from his hair and face, and spit on the ground, then took the long stick and felt along the floor in front of his footsteps. You never knew what pitfalls might lay ahead. Soon the tunnel became clear with ephemeral light and he moved along quicker. The noises of activity grew and Johnny knew he was getting closer to whatever the moles considered civilization. He didn’t think they were violent creatures. At least on the surface when he had encountered them in the past they were docile and friendly. With their translators the moles creatures were pleasant to communicate and visit with.

 Now that nagging feeling he was having before, out on the highway, was returning. Johnny had been to Mole City before, but the specifics weren’t clear to him. Why would this memory, or any, fail him now?

The lights were brighter now and Johnny saw furtive movements. He moved ahead and saw there were breaches to either side of him in the curving tunnel walls. There had probably always been openings that he just wouldn’t have been able to see in the black. Johnny heard a commotion, and the crackling of a flash laz. Some earth dislodged and fell like a dusty curtain to the ground. He stopped and ducked into a fissure. The lights went out.

 Johnny was back against the wall, with a stick held in front. He was surrounded by dozens of the subterranean moles and their headlamps shone into his face, blinding him. Johnny dropped the stick and put his hands up.

 The lights slowly came back up, and the moles extinguished their lamps. Back from whence he came, there issued a human voice and the moles pushed a familiar man forward. He was a recognizable dignitary from Kenetica, come to take Johnny back he thought, at first. But the way the moles were ushering him changed Johnny’s mind.

 “Hey Johnny, looks like we’re in a bit of a pickle now, eh?” said the man. Steven Reparte, he guessed, the famed Earth astronaut that brought the new folk through the Eleventh Door. “And no backup, I’m sorry to say.” Behind the throng of moles lay two dismembered squidges and their firepower. There was a mole fiddling with Steven’s earpiece.

 One of the moles spoke, with a tinny voice coming from its translator. “This way, people.” Johnny and Steven flowed further down the tunnel amongst a wave of moles making several lefts and rights in the network, until they entered a large chamber. The lights were low, probably to conserve energy, but as the group traversed the inner sanctum of the moles, the lights began to glow brighter, illuminating the entire hall, until the humans could see it was big, really big. Nearly as big, and tall, as a downtown city above the ground.  And it was filled with the traditional landmarks of a world Johnny had only seen on Flixon pages.

 “Mr. Reparte,” said Johnny, craning his neck, reaching out to the monuments and facades and towers that flanked him from every conceivable angle. Some seemed even to grow from the secret limits of mole civilization. “Is that… can that actually be the Statue of Liberty?”

 The grand lady, green with ages, stood on its base in the center of brown pool, its waves lapping at the concrete. Behind it loomed the Eiffel Tower. Away, lofty was the Empire State Building, and leaning a bit closer to where they stood was roundish, cylindrical tower that Johnny didn’t know. There was more, much more, but Johnny couldn’t take it all in. The lights dimmed somewhat now that the moles under Mole City had revealed that which they wanted humans to see.

 “You now know what lies hidden. But do you know what secret hides inside of you, Johnny?” asked the leader of the moles. “You have taken something from us, and I know that you have paid for some of it in kind. We demanded that much, at least.”

 Johnny began to remember, the truth was unkind. The toll was exacting, but his part was done. Robert was dead, as was fitting, and his only command now, was to live.

 The mole turned to Steven Reparte. “We require more.”

 *Moon State Tech

In the Fight of Our Lives, part seven

“They were having drinks at a table, under an umbrella. Maybe they were beers. Probably they were beers. You know how the guys gravitate to beers,” I said to my sister, Angela. She wanted answers, but what I had to offer likely was more questions. “Or maybe you don’t know what guys like. Do you, Anj? Do you know what guys like?”

 She wasn’t having any of that. She refilled my drink and thrust it into my hands. “Get to the point Barbara.”

 They were drinking, had been all afternoon. My Robert, and Johnny. Robert was still wearing the robe that had been hanging in the resort room’s closet. It was velvety, a rich golden color that was interwoven with crimson and gold filigree. The sleeves and collar had piping and the draw around the waist was wide and shiny. The entire garment was shiny, and when the wind gusted and shifted the umbrella, the sun landed on Robert and he stood out like one of those flamboyant viziers he liked to read about in his collection of mythology and what-not. With a beer in his hand. And three or four empty bottles collected at his elbow. Robert was feeling no pain.

 “I thought a vizier was some kind of glass pitcher but Rob, in his way, explained they were some stupid king’s assistant, or minister. Whatever.” I was drinking too quickly. I handed over my glass. I was strung out. I needed to pee. Angela took my glass and set it on the table. No more for me, I guess. She tapped her wristband and it lit up. “Okay…”

 So a vizier – not a container for delicious, mind-numbing elixirs. Drat. Rob and Jonny were getting along fine, they always did, especially on weekends, and when we could all get away from Kenetica. I was off from them, by the pool. We slept in ‘til late morning and had some breakfast brought to the room. Then I got up and had a dip in the pool and stretched out on a beach chair while Robert slipped on the ridiculous robe and watched the news. Johnny came out first and sat beside me for a few minutes, exchanging morning pleasantries, like people do. Then he left to sit at the table and Robert came out, still in that robe. I thought it was funny at the time. I don’t even know if he was wearing anything under it. “Sort of sexy, do you think?” Angela wasn’t impressed. “No, I guess you wouldn’t”

 “Is this going anywhere?”

 Me and Johnny, we were only casual friends. He was, well sort of, a work acquaintance of Robert’s. They weren’t in the force together, but in the same line of work, only on opposite ends. Kenetica is such a conundrum. A hot, ironic mess. I’ve always wondered what my place was here. I guess that’s why I started to drink, and smoke. And leave as often as I, as we, could. The afternoon started to get away, I had gone in and out of the pool of few times. I was putting sun tan lotion on myself, instead of having a man there to do it. By now the boys had gone through a case of beers I suppose. The bar guy just kept bringing them out.

 Johnny wasn’t hard on the eyes, you know. I noticed. Rob had on that stupid robe. But he had it open to the waist now and I could see he was sweating. But Johnny had on his swimsuit and he was tanned and stretched out on the chair. His hair was longer than Robs. He had some tough tattoos. One on his arm and another down his right side. You put these guys together and anyone could see who was who, and what was what. Rob was always bigger, and confident. But Johnny? Johnny was tough, and I don’t think he ever shied away from any circumstance. He was always in the thick of everything, good and bad. People gravitated to Johnny, I think they envied him. Johnny could do things that other people, anyone, could never do.

 “We all like to step out of our roles, sometimes, don’t we,” said Angela. “Do you think Kenetica is too structured?”

 “Maybe. Probably it just isn’t for me.” I was getting bored, and it looked like the boys were winding down. They waved off the bartender when he came around again, so I got up and took a seat by them under the umbrella. It felt good to get out of the heat. One thing I remember, and I don’t know why. Johnny rubbed his scar and looked right at Robert. Johnny had some pretty colorful bruising going on from his last transgression in Kenetica – looked like he was just  in a prize fight, but in all likelihood it would have been Robert who had cuffed him and slammed him into a wall after an arrest. He probably needed a vacation more than anyone I know. Johnny drained the last bit from his bottle and made a face. Warm beer, I guess. And Robert looked back at him. Slow and steady, like something had been decided. I wouldn’t know, I’d been off by myself.

 “And that was that. Robert wanted a shower, and boy did we take a shower, then we were all going to meet at the café for late lunch.”

Angela got up and poured herself two fingers and brought it home. “There’s more, right?”

 There was more. “I wasn’t happy. Later that night they went off together. Rob made some lame excuse. Something about researching the local scene for work stuff. I don’t know. I didn’t like it, but Johnny and him had it all worked out, and they were going to do it whatever I said.”

 They were out late. I saw a stupid magic act and drank some fruity stuff most of the evening, then hung out at the room and fell asleep. When Robert finally got back, I could tell something was wrong. But we didn’t talk. He was out of his clothes, which were a bit more disheveled than usual for Rob’s tastes, and into the shower. I thought he might like some company, but he wasn’t interested, just stood under the water, leaning against the tiles.

 “Then we went to bed. We had another day at the pool. Johnny barely came by. And back to here, the center of our universe. I could never put my finger on it, but I guess you know that things went a different direction.” After that, nothing was ever the same.

The Tide hath Turned, Mightily, part six

The creek was minor, as creeks go, and sprouted from a dribbling stony runoff high in the city’s outer boundary. From there it meandered down and snaked about the innards of the allocation until it exited, rushing and plummeting down a steep cliff face, into the Falls River. Named so because it was the recipient of hundreds of these little creeks and all of their scenic water falls. Falls River was also the name of a grand city allocation that many found a beautiful and relaxing vacation destination. Barbara had been there with Robert, her deceased husband. He was murdered in the line of duty. Dead to the world; but to Barbara, Robert had been gone for much longer than just the other night. The river of falls began as a drop, then a rivulet, but it grew in might and ran fast into the wide, unforgiving ocean.

 “Tell me what you’re feeling, Barbara,” said Angela. They were sitting together on the edge of the couch. Barbara was cradling a glass of bourbon at her bosom. The alcohol was no substitute for the narcotic cigs that Johnny had been supplying her with, but the glass was cool and gave her something to hold on to.

 “Nothing. I can’t say, I don’t know.” She touched her dry, cracking lips to the brim of the glass, but didn’t sip. Amber drops merely brushed the flesh. Barbara suddenly sat back into the cushions, sloshing her drink.

 Angela reached over and took the glass, sitting it on the coffee table. “What was going on between you and Robert? Did your… relationship with Johnny have anything to do with the accident last night?” The affair might have been a secret from her husband, but it was difficult to keep them from mayors.

 Barbara just glared at her sister. “You can’t think I had anything to do with that,” but she had wondered the same thing. Johnny had been in her bed just hours before he killed Robert.

 “I don’t know why you turned to Johnny, how things soured between you and your husband,” Angela said. “You know I never really thought much of Johnny, but it was always your decision to be with him. It’s not anything to do with his work. Everyone in Kenetica has a purpose, and crime was Johnny’s.”

 “You’ve never approved of him, of us!” Barbara sat up and reached for the glass, but then let her arm fall back into her lap. It wasn’t going to be enough. Nothing would be good enough anymore. Barbara shuddered and collapsed again. “You…”

 Angela covered Barbara’s hands with her own. “You three were always close, from early on. I may even have been a little jealous. I guess it’s not surprising that you would turn to your best friend when things got tough. Something happened to Robert, and I just want to understand. I want to know when his world turned upside down, and if Johnny or you were in any way involved. That’s all.”

 “I… I don’t know.”

 “Somewhere along your journey, time stopped. Somewhere it all just ground to a halt and then it lurched ahead again and bubbled up and gave rise to this big tidal wave.” Angela let go of her hands and stood up. “These things you’re hiding, they’ve come crashing to shore, and little sister… you need to help clean it up, because you can’t stay out of the way any longer.”

Over to the Underneath, part five

Having learned their lessons from mistakes made on Earth frontiers, Eleventh Door recipients were free to pick and choose from a myriad of successes. Even these had pitfalls of course. Every different place, time, and dimension has its special opportunities, and one size never fits all. I had one little thing implanted behind my left ear that in its time on Old Earth was a godsend, and a moral disaster. Kenetica revived it, but not to its full extant.

 “This is Stuart, yes. Hello Angela.” I received the urgent message from our co-mayor through my backflow devise. It tingled a little, but communication was instant with the implant. She had been bouncing the surveillance cloud around down south and came up with a lead. “Okay, let me run it by Steve. Yes, I found him.” Another dig at Steven, resident astronaut. What was it with Angela and him; did they have an affair when I wasn’t looking or something? “Steve, Angela found tire tracks leading to Mole City. She wants to send some Trapezoids that way. You concur?”

 “Why not? As soon as I get this wobbly pinchoke screwed down I might pop over myself,” he said, mumbled from under the Klantien floor grates. I heard something metallic falling into the works and then some more ancient Earth words. We don’t teach those words now, but it’s hard to break old habits – ask any transplant.

 I wasn’t so sure, but if we wanted Johnny back, the Traps might be our only good hope. “Well, they are a bit heavy handed. Should I ring up Miron?”

 “Fuck’m. Ah, here we go. Finger tight is good enough for me,” he said, putting out a hand. “Pull me up Stu. You coming along?”

 Why not? I’d never been in any sort of spaceship, even a little short range doo-dad. All us old timers came through the door in catapulted canisters under a heavy dose of somavapor. “Sure, yeah. Miron can hang out at the office. They can spare us, right?”

 Reparte plunked down into his captain’s chair and swiveled the co’s toward me. “Sit. Road trip!”

 --

 Johnny kicked it in to high gear, standing high in the stirrups, as he ponied down the white stripes toward Mole City. He’d been there before, on a buddy’s trip he thought, but his memory was sketchy. He bit his lip, trying to recollect something that seemed to be dodging him. There it is, he thought, then the think he thought ducked behind his liver. At least that’s the way it felt, because his guts were turning over. Johnny decided to put the notion away for now and his stomach immediately settled.

 Soon the city started to rise into view, and with it the road was changing over from concrete to a hard glassy surface. It was laid end to end, six wide, in tiled units, and the pony rode upon it like melted butter on a hot skillet. It looked slick, but this was the smoothest most controlled ride Johnny had ever experienced. He tried some gentle swerves and his tires gripped the road tightly. In fact they sensed the perfect surface and shrunk down to their quickest, skinniest dimensions. The pony had its race shoes on, and jumped ahead like a champ. “Woohoo,” Johnny cheered.

 At these speeds Johnny entered the outer city in a hurry. There were small structures off the side of the road at regular intervals, and the road changed somewhat, causing his velocity to slow. Soon the pony came to a crawl, there appeared to be some sort of roadwork ahead. Johnny pulled off onto the shoulder and climbed down to check it out. There was a fuzzy gopher-looking creature levering up one section of the road with hydraulics, and it stopped what it was doing when it saw Johnny.

 It let out a squeal and knelt down to pick up a road sign that it waved at Johnny, squeaking furiously the entire time, then the varmint dropped its sign and hurled its body down the exposed hole. Before Johnny could react the road became a frantic hub of activity. Small mole vehicles came from left and right, motoring over the highway like rush hour traffic, and it may well have been just that. He was close to the levered slab, so Johnny rushed closer to it, avoiding the unapologetic traffic. They swerved in and out, just avoiding the road work and each other.

 He figured he would wait it out, the crush of traffic was bound to disperse as rapidly as it began. Then a louder buzz from above caught Johnny’s attention. From the north over the horizon some airborne geometry seemed to be approaching, and in a hurry. Three of them, Trapezoids; “Hot chocolate!” he shouted, and looked around for place to hide. Johnny had never seen the illusive sky sentinels before, but knew of them. The mayors would only pull them out of mothballs for something big. Johnny figured he must be all that and a bag of chips if they were siccing these bad boys on him.

 The Trapezoids came quick and were sure to home on him fast. Murder from on high, and a veritable cloud of locusts on the surface. “Godammit, only one way to go,” Johnny jumped and disappeared below the surface into the subterranean city of moles.

Original Orgasmic Origami, part four

‘Ole Beard, white as a spruce bough in February, was moving hither and fro at a pace unheard of, or so they told the tale on Main Street. Monday morning the cloud was seen going south, when the wind was more north-westerly. Strange but not surprising. The air currents in Kenetica sometimes behaved sort of hokey. 'True cattywampus' they observed, craning their necks, outside the barber shop.

Mayor Angela wasn’t even trying to disguise the cloud’s movements. She couldn’t if she wanted to locate the illusive Johnny while he fled, presumably south, on his pilfered pony. The cloud didn’t quite zigzag across the terrain, but it did move up and down some, getting a wide angle view. And the cameras could get multiple views and zoom in as well.

 It was the tire tracks that gave Johnny away. He veered off the main road into the countryside, heading for Calypso. Then he changed course, climbing up onto a different road. Highway Three, a connector. From here Johnny could go east or west. Mole City or Gold Rush. At the place where the pony entered the road, the tire tracks were visibly muddy and left a clear trail. The tracks turned east, but not for long, because Johnny made a series of tight loops on the pavements, until his tires shed the muck, then he boogied… but east or west Barbara could not discern. For an hour perhaps she focused on the highway, going east to west and backtracking, until finally she spotted a clue. It may have been something, or nothing. But it was all she had to go on. Barbara made the call, and the Trapezoids left their garage and flew off east toward Mole City, magnitudes faster than any fluffy old cloud could.

 “Stupid cloud,” muttered Johnny, clenching the pony between his knees and rocketing down into the green verge off the road. There was an edging of woods there, and beyond that he reckoned was open fields, who knows what, maybe more woods, and eventually another highway. Johnny had no more than an inkling opinion of what lay between him and freedom. Actually he wasn’t even sure what it was he ran from. Johnny was spooked, and unsure of what had happened, and rehabilitation just scared the bejeebus out of him.  

 The pony sensed conditions under foot, or tread, and its tires widened, rising above the verge which had begun to sog up with precipitation. The grasses poked up from the wet like a frog’s haircut and soon they sunk completely and Johnny was riding on a vast expanse of carpeted ripples. The wheels changed over to ample skis and he sailed ahoy to a treeless horizon, bespotted with the occasional island hillock.  

 “This will not do,” Johnny decided, and pulled the rudder to lee, wanting to get into some firmer footing. Open water terrified him. He didn’t even consider what might lie below, until it poked up some eyes and considered him. Johnny throttled up and left the eyeballs in his wake, heading to shore. The pony left a waterfall from the fire spitting engines in its stead, until he had to turn and reverse course quickly when a cavalcade of tentacled phalangi sprouted in his path.

 Johnny screamed as a fifteen foot arm swooped down toward his head, and several more broke the surface. Geysers erupted in every direction, soaking his already moist body from his dripping hair to the stitching in his underclothes.  He pulled the pony in every direction, dodging the flailing appendages and more pointy beaks than he ever cared to see again on this day or in any future dream, ever. After he decided he wasn’t dead, Johnny figured the monstrous sea creatures weren’t trying to kill, or eat, him. From their delighted squawking it was apparent the great slimy booger covered octopi were probably in the throes of a communal copulatory festival. When Johnny finally made it to shore, putting the heaving ocean behind him, a collective huzzah burst forth from the frothing waters. This was followed by a moan and bubbles arising from the depths as the monsters sunk sighing to the depths of their pleasure.

 “Oh gods no,” said Johnny, moving away from the swampy lowland, “That is not the way to go, no not at all.”

 Angela missed all that from her remote cumulus viewpoint, but she never suspected the direction Johnny’s eventful morning would take him next.

Dreams and Misconceptions, part three

She stood locked akimbo, hovering over the sink while hot water swirled down the drain. The vapor came up from the eddy in lazy circles. Barbara could feel the latent heat, but it was the frothing current spreading over the blue porcelain basin that held her hypnotized. 

 This was an old kitchen, styled after what the designer called ‘mid-century’, but Barbara didn’t know what century, or even what civilization of planet hopping mid-evolutionary monkey could have possibly wanted a setup like this. Robert’s aesthetic came from some old world mutant gene, a malady relegated to the working class hero, she supposed. His attitude and ability to put in tireless, long hours certainly spoke to his work ethic. Robert had been a champion to the community he served, always believing the best of the people in difficult circumstances. He was an excellent cop. He rarely drew his gun in the course of duty. The one time he fired it was when a rogue turkey lion crossed the eastern boundary to terrorize a rural farmstead. Mere bullets only annoyed the creature, but held it at bay until backup turned it away with an onslaught of flash laz fire.

Barbara knew Robert’s rationale. An old kitchen required preparation, thought, and above all, time – one thing she had in seeming perpetuity. While her super hero was out saving the world, Barbara could putter in the kitchen, wearing a frilly apron, making some smelly old bread and burning the soup. Well, he never complained. Now Robert was dead, and she was stuck with a fucking blue kitchen. Her neighbors had a digipost wall panel with squidge-bot servers. Good lord, the pot was boiling over.

 Broth bubbled over the sides and splattered on the burner, acrid fumes reached her nostrils, and Barbara, jolted from her funk, grabbed the pot handle. The handle scalded her hand and she swore loudly, dropping the pot and spilling dinner. Fuck, she wasn’t hungry anyway, just filling empty time with hollow gestures. What Barbara really wanted, needed, was one of Johnny’s special cigs. He was gone, too.

 She lit up a regular veggie stick. Here in Kenetica even run of the mill mood dinks were against the law. The contraband carton Barbara had hid in her suitcase over their last vacation to Waterfalville was long gone. Now the best she could hope for was store bought mundania. That and ice cream. She opened the freezer for that, and grabbed up one of the big spoons.

 On the couch, her arm hung over the cushion and thawed strawberry ice cream had dribbled onto the faux wood floor. Dreams infiltrated her sleep, in which friends and family gathered in familiar places, exchanging gossip and drinks. They were at a bar, maybe it was an electronic's game floor, having food and getting buzzed. Johnny had just come up the glass stairs and shook Robert’s hand. They were grinning. It hadn’t mattered that Robert roughly arrested Johnny the night before, or that Johnny had his arm in a sling. He wouldn’t be throwing the stone tonight, or sweeping. Just bending his elbow, and that suited Barbara.

"John, you scamp! How's the arm?" asked Robert, throwing a fake punch at Johnny's bad bicep.

"Whoa there. Who knew the job could be so painful, huh? I'm going to file for some work comp first thing Monday. What are you drinking there?"

Robert waved at a passing waitress and put two fingers up, pointing at his glass. "Let's play some ping pong and talk. Are you seeing anybody? You should bring her over next week. Barbara would love some company."

"Oh, no. Not into the dating thing right now," said Johnny.

"Ooh, how about that one?" Robert nodded at a woman, judging from her outfit, who was coming in the door.

"That man is the ugliest woman I've ever seen. Anyway, work is keeping me pretty busy. You know how it is," said Johnny. He stole a glance toward Barbara. Barbara felt funny seeing herself from Johnny's eyes. She started sweating, which also felt funny, in a detached, dreamy sort of way. Go figure. Then Johnny and Barbara were screwing in the women's restroom while her husband shot pool with someone with two good arms "Ouch, shit. Easy on the arm. Man, I need a week off!" The overhead light crackled with energy.

  Arrests,  bruises, paperwork, a night sleeping one off on a hard floor… that was all just business as usual. It was work, and this was the weekend. A buzzing fly annoyed her, it bombarded her, made her flail and throw the spoon, and sit up too quick to a pounding in her skull.

 No, the doorbell was ringing. “Oh shit, hold up a second.” Barbara rose unsteadily and crept like a hunchback to the door. “What time is it? I’m coming.” She opened the door.

 It was the Monday evening after a long day, and Mayor Angela leaned against the porch rail tiredly, a bunch of flowers and a jug of wine in the crook of her arm. She had that disapproving look on her face; gods know what her eyes were doing behind those sunglasses. Barbara squinted against the fading light and waved Angela in.

 “Good lord, Barbara, you look like shit.” Angela held out the flowers. "I'm sorry about Robert."

 “And a good howdy fuck to you too, sister.”

The Mayors, part two

He was the only astronaut in the city. Hell, come to it, Steven Reparte was the only astronaut on the entire planet, leave alone our allocation in Kenetica.  He came through the Eleventh Door, of course, and stayed.  There’s the theory that he also went back, but we don’t deal with metaphysics here. That’s for others at the hub, or back on good ‘ole mama Earth, bless Her, and Moon state Tech of course. They own everything.  We’ll never see Earth, but still She looms over like a big pink thumb. Try not to think of it. Now, we didn’t exactly need an astronaut. An astronomer would have done nicely however.

 It was the northern lights. The lights shimmered large in the night sky, immense in form, yet formless. Constant, like the sun and the moon, yet this night they winked. They were in a snit, and had some other allocation been affected we might have known to look for problems. But Kenetica has no equal on the world. We deal with the lights, like other places deal with the waves, or the flights of dragons, or any other myriad deviations in nature. All we can do, us mayors, is play like an oracle and map out a weekly schedule. Johnny gets up, Johnny gets to work, Johnny gets paid, Johnny goes home. Everyone is happy, life goes on.

 “Except tonight, Johnny mucked it up and maybe life doesn’t always go on,” I said, then had a sip of the tea that Miron brought to the table. We were all a bit disheveled, having been roused from our few hours of slumber. Tea was a nice jumping off point, but something much stronger would be needed to see us through Monday.

 Angela pulled a hand through her mussed hair. She was wearing beige tinted sunglasses, big ones, which seemed to cover half her face. “Where’s Reparte? Shouldn’t he be here?” Angela as ever had a beef with Steven, despite his obvious placement here as an honorary. He could come and go as he pleased, and had no distinct role. What other allocation had a friggin’ Earth astronaut?

 “Let’s just go over the transcripts and see what went wrong, ok?” said Miron. He began passing folders around. Angela whipped her cover open and huffed. She took a long sip then looked under her frames at the front page. “Maybe flip to the end, Anj.”

 We scoured the data for hours, and we traded tea for mellow infused coffee from a stash that Reparte had smuggled in from Earth. I silently thanked him, at least, for that. I wondered why he hadn’t yet joined us. “I don’t think we’re going to figure this out from one occurrence,” I said leaning back, worn, in my chair. “Anj, can you just climb into the surveillance basket and try to trace Johnny? Miron, we’ll need to alter the schedule since we’ve lost two citizens.”

 “I can’t see this being a big deal for now,” said Miron as he stood up. “Just a hiccup, but it might throw off the social dynamics. What are you going to do?”

 Before I pulled into Steven Reparte’s lane I could see the cloud drifting off toward the border, south of the Donut shop. Angela was looking toward the obvious direction. Normally I wouldn’t agree with her decision, Johnny being well trained and shrewd. But I knew he would be thrown off whack from the night’s events. He might just head for the exit in panic.

 The house was a cement prefab, tucked under the lip of a forested hill. An immense limestone ledge leaned out over the façade, and the appearance of a tall green door was the only clue that a home might lie beyond the edifice. I parked in the gravel and was going to walk up for knock, when I heard a faint electric whine and some clanking coming from the hanger further up the lane. I trotted around and saw smoke rising from the stack and mixing with the morning haze. The metal door was ajar a smidge and a concerning clatter arose from the shop.

 As well as some choice words. I entered. “Steven, are you alright?” I called out, looking around the spacious hangar for him. His shuttle from the Space Crawler towered above the carts and shelving in the building. Then I saw him hanging from a fin, twelve feet above the scaffold that had collapsed in a heap below him.

 “Hello, Stu. I’m just freshening up the Betty Lou here. Mind raising a ladder for me?”

First Night, part one

She was smoking. Wisps like a cirrus cloud knocked off its foundation swirled from her nostrils and climbed, spreading tendrils through her auburn curls. Barbara took a breath and a shroud covered her face, of course it did. I should have known then, but you know what they say about armchair quarterbacks. Roberts black shirt was long on her slight torso. It draped her, bunched up over her knees as she sat Indian-style on the rumpled sheets. I left before she smooshed out the spent fag.  Eggs. I required eggs more than I needed her accusing, her grievous silence.

 My shift was just beginning, his was nearing its end, but cops never punch a clock. A job was done when it was done. It happened tonight the northern lights were at their peak, so damned bright that the moon, embarrassed from trying, hid behind the one cloud in the sky. Here in Kenetica we always have that one cloud. Some of the residents even have a name for it: ‘Ol Beard’. Or ‘Gandalf’. Sometimes ‘The Great Grey Bush’.  The geezers talk about the cloud like folks in other towns talk about the weather, or the Yankees. So colloquial, there they’ll be on stools in front of the five and dime, or gathered like crows in the barber shop. “What’s Santa’s Fuzz up to this morning?” “About six foot, five.” Meaning low and to the East. From town that would be over the high school football field. Such was the talk around Kenetica. That and Molly Reynold’s skirt length, or this recent crop of freshmen. Bums, all of ‘em, and their old men too, for what it’s worth.

 But, what I was getting to was Robert’s shift just ending, and me robbing the donut shop, and the intersection we were on, and the collision. You see, I should have known because it was a done deal. This thing was going down like it always does, like it was written. I backed in, leaving the jacked pony running, because that was just good business. The green glowing crystals were so cheap and plentiful that a pony like this could go on idling for a week without giving up a centimeter of radiance. Also, I was just going to ditch it over by the landfill anyway. Sundays were the best for the donut shop. Phil’s Donuts was the hub, first of the week, and all day long. Phil had the grungiest, most god-awful donuts and confectionaries. His bacon was greasy and the eggs were flat, and dry. They were so dry that the geezers dipped them in their coffee. Let’s not even talk about the coffee. At Phil’s you got breakfast, and nothing but breakfast, even at ten thirty on Sunday night. If you wanted breakfast, then you’d better get it now, because Phil locked up at eleven, and wouldn’t be back until Wednesday morning, six A.M. Sunday night, ten-thirty, the coffers were full. Always. Robert’s at the end of his shift. Coffers’re full. Full charge in the pony. Locked and loaded. I got mine, Barbara got hers, but enough is never enough. Her bangs hung low, over her dusky eyes, but she blew them up and for an instant, through the nicotine haze, I could see her gaze shift far away. To the glare jumping off his chrome, and the crunch of the wheels coming up the drive. My cue to get, to vamoose. My thirst was quenched, the job awaits, I’m off.

 Everyone here has a job, from the bottom feeding geezers who live off of scraps and tidbits, to the cops and robbers, and all the way to the top where the white bright and shiny mayors watch the shimmering, shifting lights and pen tomorrow’s schedule in blue ink in complicated schematics on white boards so white you have to wonder what kind of industrial strength solvents the janitorial staff is sucking into their bleeding lungs. These are the things I think about when I climb out of jacked ponys with a loaded gat tucked in my waistband. The northern lights are so bright tonight.

 The lights are so bright. The place is closing down, and the crowd is sparse. Everyone knows everyone else. They see me coming, it’s to be expected. The coffers are full – it’s Sunday, they always are. I’m off my step, the lights are flickering, but in the shop nobody notices because it’s not the donut shop lights that are flickering. It’s out here in the night. Over my shoulder, I look up. There’s a catch in my get-a-long, worlds out of whack, Kenetica skips a beat. Have the mayors rolled over in their beds? I don’t know. The lights rev back up, I could almost hear the heavenly roar but for the grinding gears in my head. Barbara’s cloud obscures my better instincts; bright ash drips from the tip and pricks a pinhole in Robert’s shirt.

 “You know the drill, money in the bag, pop open that till.” I don’t know how I get to this point so fast, then the sirens come and that’s time out of joint as well. How am I waving the gun around like this, godammit, the door busts open and I’m sprawling on the ground, I must have pulled a girl from her stool and she’s under my arm and there he is busting in. It’s his job, Robert the Good. He hasn’t even pulled his gun. His badge is shimmering neon, but these days we call it something else. The  nicotine cloud has dulled my mind, which is jumping around like monkeys on the bed. One fell off and the doctor said… oh shit.

 The smell of gunpowder is in the air. I find it strange that I have never in my life smelled gunpowder. This is NOT part of the job description. I didn’t even get the money. How am I supposed to eat next week, or pay off my creditors or the mayor’s tax? Will Barbara even let me in the front door without her weekly supply of mood-laced cigs? Robert’s shirt covers her, she looks child sized and her collar bone gleams under the weight of the sullen chandelier. A body falls.

 Sunday is almost done in Kenetica, and I’m running.