19TH Hole

Part 1
She was alright, I guess, for a trashy slut. In a sort of sleazy, downtrodden way. A beatup number with a few miles that could still move. But then she ruined it. She opened her mouth. And it was all vile hatred and putrid venom. Directed at me! Yeah, directed at me no less. I’d barely said two words to her, too. She kept fumbling with the FDR key chain in her left hand, pressing it back and forth. Little did I know what it really was. What am I staring at? Nothing, nothing, trust me, nothing. We were tossed into the small, ready-built enclosure with the rest of the suspects, awaiting questioning. I knew I’d walk, I was above all this, my entire demeanor suggested not only nonchalance but, ergo, innocence. But I’m getting ahead of myself. It had all started that morning, back in Manhattan. We’d actually met the previous evening, what seemed like a lifetime ago, and were supposed to meet up on a date. That was before I woke up. Woke up on the wrong side of the bed you might say. Woke up on the wrong side of the Universe is more like it.
My apartment was in midtown, a real swank well to-do set-up for a real swank well off guy. I mean, me, of course. Well, you knew that, though. Right? Of course. Everything was silk and if it wasn’t silk it was satin. Life was silky satin smooth for a real swell guy. I worked downtown. Way downtown. If ya call it working. I had the right connections and the right connections had me. I was the man in the know with the knowledge for sale, the tips to tip-off the men in the know, the real big spender with tips for the tight lipped titty bar cocktail waitresses, exotic dancers, sex club cashiers and assorted assemblage of late night diner overworked underpaid staff. I kept late hours and even earlier dates. I was known as much for not showing up as I was for being the show. I dressed well, and when I wasn’t dressing I was undressing, and if I wasn’t undressing myself, I was being undressed. Occasionally dressing down a flunky fly girl and if I was undressing you from across the room, well chances were I’d be on top of you before the night was through. I smoked Cubans and burned bills. We were the billionaire boys club and we knew it.
I was no wise guy, but I was wise enough to know my way around town. Ya had to be. You could go walking down any dark alley, half-blind drunk after a rolling evening of rolling laughter and have it roiled, royally fucked, rolled, end up waking up in 
Chinatown without your pants. God knows it should have happened. You put your trust in lady luck and the magic of the evening, the starry night, electric light and roll the dice. 
Only way to play it, fast, loose. You go out walking and you come back two days later. Suddenly the sun is shining, and your shades hide your shiners as the door man winks and you walk on by. Right passed those golden brass hinges, all that gleaming glass, giddy with the sudden euphoria brought on by the bounce in your strutting stride, elastic, elongated, you slide, sidestepping, spinning, grabbing a gratis, a free-be, a free paper off a stand. And then let the world fall away, you’re enclosed, it gets sucked back to the sidewalk, and you huff it on up a couple of flights. Talk to your pal, deliver the mail, 
find out the Vegas line on the game for the weekend, give him that hot wall street tip, the one all the series seven boys down at the bar are hawking, so you know it ain’t really fresh, last week’s tuna, but it’ll still do. And then you’re in that high speed flight to the top, the golden box, numbers flying by, your ears pop and you’re home.
Well, that’s where my head was at when I whistled at her. Even after her gruff greeting, all bristles and steel. She eyed me with something lower than contempt, just shook her head slightly back and forth. Was she on drugs I wondered, silently. Well, looking around it wouldn’t be surprising. All these… types. Less than. Unfortunates. Other side of the. Well, they were an interesting bunch. In truth we weren’t a “bunch” though, least not as far as I could tell. What we were even doing here, being questioned, well that was obvious, that in itself would make us a group, of sorts. There were some colorful types, to say the least. She. She had her hair shaved on each side, was wearing some sort of silver space suit overalls, turned down, with a plain white t-shirt. And fumbling that key chain over and over. The make-shift encampment was glowingly, glaringly, intimidatingly white. Blindingly so. I’d completely and totally lost track of time. I assumed it was day, just from a sort of collection of events that was serving as my current short term memory, shot as it was, loosely stitched together in to some sort of logical procession of, jumbled, disconcerting, yet somehow linked occurrences. My head was pounding. My heart had, thankfully, however, for the most part, stopped racing. 
Except when she looked at me. It was jarring. I was fairly certain it was not love. Was it fear? Well, whichever it sent my pulse back into that frenzied beat of African drums beating on Orisha skins, a jacked up jack rabbit race of syncopated chaotic jazz rhythm which half tore out my skull, skullfucked it, then neatly placed it back in its place before hammering it about like a football on the pitch for another few minutes. Only to start all over again. So. So I started to avoid eye contact with her. Which brought about something else? A maternal instinct, caring? A sadistic streak looking to cause pain? Both? Neither? Well, she clearly did not care for my devil may care man about town ways and was all about business herself. Whatever her business was however I did not care to venture a guess. But judging by our surroundings and the company she kept or seemed to keep, it wasn’t good, that’s for sure. Probably some sort of democratic leftleaning protest thing. They all certainly smelled like it.
The evening’s collection of memories, sparse as they were, started clawing at me, first one at a time, then altogether. I tried to shut my eyes tight. But the brightness of the whiteness was enveloping, like being sucked inside some giant balloon, a police state womb, a new age tomb. The cop herding us into the niche wore tight blue shorts, showing the back of her ass. She was attractive in a domineering sort of way, holding literally a cattle prod, silver space age night stick. She had on reflective glasses and the button on her top was three down, and stuck out past her face, which meant if she was close enough to look you in the eye, well, there was no getting around it. A light shock then made you jump back a few feet. She laughed, a real rib-tickling hearty laugh, her slight belly, tucked in, on her 38G-28–34 frame, literally shook as she threw her head back. She had some sort of hiking boots on, an official blue cap, a large gold badge pinned to her humongous left breast, and a gleaming toothy smile which dazzled even inside the makeshift encampment. I shivered, continued backing up into the “room” only to bump into her, the girl in the silver overalls. She was from Long Island. We’d met on the Upper East Side. In a bar. Corner bar. Good Jute Box, long, shiny, wooden bar, big mirror behind it, barman with a white towel draped over one shoulder, plenty of empty glasses, half filled, standing around, staining the wood beneath them like boys waiting to pee, looking awkwardly at each other, brothers of the same fate. Smokey. The bar was filled with smoke. She was smoking, blew the air sort of straight up out of her face while she laughed, downed another drink. Hold that thought. She said that a lot. This wasn’t the kind of bar you danced in. It was the kind you got drunk in. The kind you tried to talk to people in, really rich deep meaningful conversations where no one can hear what the other is saying and say to each other over and over, can you repeat that. It becomes sort of church like ritual. Can you repeat that? All stand. All sit. Rinse. Repeat. It was the kind of bar you picked people up in, the kind you went home and fucked. It wasn’t frilly, didn’t have the latest. She did stand out though. In her own way. Tight purple dress, stretchy one piece, something left over from the 1980’s, big black funky plastic things on her feet, gave her the illusion of height, funky plastic yellow and red and purple bangles on her wrists, like rings around Saturn or some child’s idea of what costume jewelry from the 1960’s ought to look like. 
She had a laugh. But there, in the bar, no one noticed, everyone was doing their own thing, caught up in their private conversations, their little private things going on all over the bar, spilling out onto the sidewalk and into the Manhattan street, filling the air of New York with more of New York, the essence and overflow of a city overflowing with essence, so much so that it spilled into the sewers and gutters, the guttural, incessant, frothy New York night. 
She was from Long Island but moved out years prior, we knew many of the same people but had never run into each other before. She worked. Didn’t go into it. I didn’t ask. She lightly inquired what I did to which I replied as I usually did, a bit of this, a bit of that. 
She was wizened enough to wink and forget about it. I bought her another drink. Fumbled with the keys in my oversized pant pockets looking for my roll, tore off a few bills and tossed them, perhaps a bit derisively at the bartender, who never-the-less swiped them up as he swashed the bar with his dirty white rag, nodding in time with the music and smiling at me, nodding a slight bow before depositing them in an oversized brandy snifter set aside for tips.
As I stood there, looking into her eyes, as my gaze met hers and held firm this time, I fell backwards into memory, lost in deep purple, down through years, my heart rate slowed, it was as if- no she couldn’t do that- she was hypnotizing me. I tried to shake it off, I just felt sleepy, she smirked, and I was gone.
Back in Africa. Hot, hot sun! Glaring overhead, it always seemed to be high noon, straight up. But I was curious, because I wasn’t sweating. I looked around. Lot of desert, a few trees, everything white, blindingly so. My companion wore desert camis, fatigues, latest and greatest. She was cute, more than cute, hot to trot sexy, but I didn’t want her to get a big head so I just thought of her as cute. Not just told her so but actually convinced myself, a kid sister puppy dog type. Well, she had some mind powers of her own, I had to really believe it. Long red-auburn flowing wavy hair, 36–28–38 brick shit house, she was all lips and lip, a wise ass, good with her rifle though. She was trained as an army ranger sniper, but we were all on that black op, joint special operations taskforce tip, working unofficially for the CIA, but really outsourced through a blackwater style operation. I think she was actually recruited out of jail, maybe a halfway house, she didn’t really like to go into it. Apparently a head case or a flunky, failed out of something or booted out of something else. Officially she said she was a dishonorable discharge for hoing her ass to MP’s, she claimed she was set-up and working undercover. But she’d always laugh about working undercover. So it just made you think.
She wasn’t sweating either. I checked our surroundings again, we should both be sweating. I called up the temperature in my viewfinder, you just had to switch from alpha to beta waves a few times, kinda glitchy at first but once you got the hang of it not much different than working a mouse. Just the hassle of going through a lot of help screens with binary questions before your AI compliment got the hang of it. But since much of it worked through a sort of p2p cloud based architecture, it either worked too well, in a mess hall say, with lots of others with the same tech around, or out in the desert like we currently were, not so well. Which meant a lag time. Curious, just a nanosecond or two but it really got on my nerves, upset my whole balance. She looked at me, eyes wide open, waiting, with that look. She paused again, I held up my finger. 
Blinking, nodding my head, there, at last, 70 degrees, no, no much too-
Don’t fucking tell me you’re checking the weather again you schmuck! She thought at me, intruding on my space, like someone walking in on you in the bathroom when you’re 15 and wanking off, which she did all the fucking time, especially out here in the desert. With the AI reality sim, it got kind of confusing at times. Which I guess was part of the turn on, to be honest.
What?!? I said aloud. No. She just hitched a knee up and struck that pose, head tilted. Fine fine I shouted at her. No reason to shout she whispered in my thoughts. 
I ripped off the headset. Shock. Silence. Moonlit, starry, starry, starry fucking night. I breathed in deeply and took a sigh! How does that always fucking get me?!? She looked at me quizzically. Her eyes, even through her thick, obscuring goggles seemed to say to me, you know I can’t hear your thoughts without your headset on stupid. I stared at her for a moment. No red hair. Short dyed blonde crew cut. Great tits though, even better than in her virtual outfit. Big bulky backpack on, just like mine, same “night vision” goggles. Backpack filled with standard issue K rations and a military outfitters thick, folded, hemp (fucking musty smelling) tent, standard issue combat boots, older green camis, not the stylish shorts she had on, either.
Anything about you real? She took out her ear plugs, which in reality weren’t ear plugs, but bluetooth enabled earphone/hearing aids, not really hearing aids but sound filters, you could hear a phone call or talk to a buddy or listen to music, but you could also listen to what was going on around you. The AI filters let you know when something was important. You could also hear a mountain lion lick its balls at 200m which was useful at night. 
Back when Apple got the SIRI project back in the 80’s, from Pepsi’s secret no bid gov’t contracts (which involved Hershey’s, Nestle, Nabisco, and the Nazi CIA project Operation Paperclip) Sergei Brin’s parents were working on a KGB grant for what would later become Google Goggles for DARPA. By the time Sergei was spending most of his time rebuilding airports, DARPA had infiltrated Google. But of course the Nazi’s had infiltrated the KGB as well as the CIA. So who’s to really say. Goggles of course became glass, but unbeknownst to many, DARPA continued a version of Goggles for the Army, the rangers in specific. It merged with googles droid version of Maps, and the goal was to try and project a daylight view in the nightvision instead of that tacky orange green. When you have binoculars, you are seeing what you’re seeing, not a construct, the light has just been refracted and manipulated with lenses, as in glasses or a camera or a telescope. However, with the army buying into early versions of digital viewfinder binoculars, what you were seeing was actually a digital representation. This naturally led to night vision, which was actually showing you the heat, a different wavelength on the electro-magnetic spectrum, and thus not swayed by the vagaries of weather like a fair weather friend, let alone the cover of darkness. But then some them fancy PhD scientists at DARPA started to thunkin’ and asked themselves, well if’n it just a representation, why couldn’t we represent it with something else beside that heat signature. Now at first they said, well, sure we could make an ordinary street scene look like a war zone, like one them pop-up challenges for newbie recruits at our training proving grounds, where in a lil ol’ lady pop-up and ya gotta keep yer trigger finger calm-like, like pettin’ a baby, then your heart skip a beat and a genuine raghead sandnigga terr-or-ist pop-up and ya gotta go rat-a-tat tat bang bang bang till he dead, or at least his cardboard full a holes. 
Hell we could even load some foo’s laced up on LSD, MK mind-control ’em and send ’em out into suburbia. Well sure but what if they. Oh hell just “recruit” “volunteers” from the pen, jailbirds nobody ‘d miss ’em and we have plausible deniability. Hell, we could even place some them recruits that got away with it out in a real war scenario and use these special glasses to make ’em think they’s back in placid suburbia mom npop burger joint friday night. Oh hell, why bother with the glasses we could do that with drugs. Could not. Could to. Could not.
Anyway. The technology eventually did get there. But then they needed some, erm, war scenario scenarios, some theatres of operation. So we started a few wars. By that point all the point and shoot first person shooters were just dyin’ to kill some sandniggers anyway, and they were taking the drugs on their own, even going to jail for it. 
Perfection.
But then along comes google Maps and suddenly in fact they do have the technology to have a soldier be viewing through their goggles a daylight version, sort of all video game and 3D, but SATmap accurate. The GPS signal puts their location inside Google Maps, which then sort of overlays the map over the night time version. Of course it had hiccups and was susceptible to very childish, almost prankish, very lotek AlQaeda hacks, but then nothing was perfect. And there were those gov’t subcontracts, they had to come up with product and they had to have soldiers to wear it, working or not.
I unhitched my rig and took out a K bar, buried deep inside, good ol’ fashion American chocolate good to 150 degrees. Kinda hard in the desert night cool air actually. The moonlight was temporarily suspended due to the shadow cast by vultures flying overhead. Thought they didn’t fly at night? What she said. Her voice was huskier in reality than the sim version played over my plugs. Let alone her sexy vamped up thought mode whisper. She took off her headset. You need to shave, she blurted out. Fuck you, you need to put those shorts from the sim on in reality, bootycutey. Don’t fucking call me that. What? Bootycutey bootycutey bootycutey.
I fucking told you, cute is for puppy dogs! She just shook her head. Waiting.
Fine fine you’re fucking sexy. I only thought it, but like I said it was enough. She sneered having won that round.
What? Where? She asked, aloud. Huh? I was slightly startled. I looked up, the vultures were gone. Vultures, up there, obscured the moonlight for a moment. 
Wow, that’s huge! She looked like a zombified zomby staring up for a moment, even if she didn’t quite buy into the whole notion of the visual construct the way I did, it was still a momentary shock taking off the headset. Thanks, I said, that’s what all the ladies say. Shut up you juvenile imbecile. The moon. I know shithead, I was just teasing. It is beautiful. 
MMmm hmm. And tasty! She was back, smirking looking directly at me, me still ogling
Diana, glowing with echoes like waves lapping her splendor. The shirt can stay though. An improvement I might add. Huh? Oh, ya, just didn’t take the time to put on a bra. Figured you buy into the construct so much. But the hair! My disappointment could not be masked. She fished out a wig after taking over her rig, we dumped them both on the sand. Fit it on, looked at me to see if it was on straight. I fudged, it looks fine, must have grimaced, curling my nose, looking down, no really it’s fine. She stamped her feet. Fine fine! I tilted it one way then the other like a wall painting hung on a thin-carpet tack, the wire just not able to find the correct balance, maybe the room was crooked I said, aloud, slipping.
Huh? Drapes she asked? What, no! I wasn’t even! Yes you were yes you were! Was not was not was not! Fine!
Whatever. We went to our separate corners. Both without looking at the other put the rigs back on, mounted up, put the glasses back on, took our coffee pills, and “sat down” to cups of coffee.
Rev 2 go 1, sim system replay 0031. B or A? Whichever, sync though. I thought, it was kinda hinkey, took a few moments out in the desert. We, of course found two suitable rocks first, about knee height which didn’t look too uncomfortable and were reasonably close together, checked for scorpions first. She sat down opposite going through the same procedure. Even with the construct back up, I was able to see her reaching for her bottle of water at her side, as I did mine. But as the preprogrammed ran, you would only run a preprogram when you were in reasonably safe conditions, it allowed a slightly more relaxed view. The sim took a few moments longer to boot, more ram went to the simulation, ours for instance took on a starbucks cafe, it was of course a look alike, they’d already trademarked theirs, but close enough, and all other sim systems monitored the surroundings, in our case with a particular focus on the night sky for buzzards, but also for fire ants or scorpions or mountain lions, as well as the obligatory sandniggers. She seemed to have suddenly changed into a very moddish 80’s go-go dancer, her punked colored hair was actually closer to what she looked like, a tight black mini-mini and her standard issue 2 liter with cami cover became a large mochachina double frap mocha mochacina or somesuch. I looked fairly similar, too lazy for all those outfits and they took up way too much time, bitcoin, let alone memory or cloud storage and my standard issue cloud footlocker was jammed full of porn, or the virsim version, usually korean hacks of chinese mods which allowed you to strip da bitches of just such accoutrements. But not now, not only wasn’t in the mood but like I said she could read minds, let alone follow my simple pulse in a hack read-out on her viewfinder. Which believe it or not came in rather handy and could be lifesaving under danger attack situations.
We seemed to sip while we slovenly sloshed and gulped. We talked about sports, the weather, whom else in our quasi-platoon we wanted to fuck, who slept with whom, more sports, celebrity gossip, AlQaeda bitcoin head prices, the buzzards, and finally the coffee itself, which we both agreed tasted perfect but could be hotter. 
End vir sim. Restore reality sim. I thought. She did the same. We were still synched but not to any particular construct other than our reality construct. I felt full, a bit drowsy, but also perked up. Aware. I realized my muscles ached. I put on some music. She “changed the station” suggestion something else, synched us both up. We started dancing, she the mashed potato, myself just some typical 80’s boy hip-swivelling. Her red hair was back, took me a moment to notice. My gut suddenly hurt. I was trying to remember something. Hold-up, wait a second. I thought. Turned the music off. Listened. She was annoyed, went to put it back on but then waited. Looked at me. Aha! She heard it too. Did you hear that, I asked her audibly. Shh she thought to me. Huh? Oh right I went into silent thought mode. Hear what she giggled? How she giggled in thought mode I still haven’t figured out.
No, no, guess I thought I- hmm felt something. Just sort of eerie, ya know? Ya know? Nope. Don’t sorry she thought to me. Oh I mean I know that feeling, but I’m not feeling it right now, she added. What’s that in the background, that constant, um, buzzing? She looked at me like a cat with a paw in the fish tank, but hid whatever it was, I couldn’t figure out if I was imagining all this. I was just about to go back into one of my I-onlytrust-boys bros-before-hos commando speeches, when she broke down, guess I whined a lot and she was sensitive on that issue- OK OK OK, I was praying.
Praying?!? This was a- a revelation. She was not the type. Well, if there is a type, just goes to show, prejudices, we all have them. 
MM hmm, yes of course! I do it all the time. You do?!? Yes, now it was her time for shock, or dismay. Go on, my thoughts must have conveyed. I was praying to Osun. Well, hmm, OK, praying… I mean, I pay someone to pray for me, but it goes on automatic in the background, sometimes I’m told it comes in as sort of background noise or fuzz, I barely-
Wait what who Osun, what? So… you weren’t actually- I mean not to- I mean, you know like normal. I could see by her reaction I was digging my own grave deeper and deeper with each thought. 
What because I’m not black I can’t be into voodoo? What voodoo isn’t real religion? 
What were you going to say God? You mean I can’t pray to a Goddess, that’s not the-
No, no it isn’t, I shot back, and furthermore, I mean you can do whatever you want in your own time- first off, I couldn’t help myself I started cracking up laughing, you weren’t even praying you pay someone to do it for you- and b) first off who pays someone to pray for them and… and I mean, aren’t you using up powerful, powerful, important bandwidth, or something??
It was a lot of questions, I quieted down, gave her time to mull it over, feeling a bit superior I guess. What, she exploded right back in my face, nearly on top of me, headset off. Wow, hit a nerve I guess. With the amount of porn, I mean not even porn, chinese fucking korean hack mods you fucktards store in the- oh don’t even get me started. 
Bandwidth, bandwidth! oH!!! She was incensed, perhaps rightfully. I did use up a lot of-
It’s because I’m not black, she cried. No, no, really it isn’t, but I couldn’t help my thoughts leaking out, I mean come on, after all. 
Look, to be- wait, wait I interrupted her. There! There it is again, put your
She just looked at me. There what is. No. She was adamant. Pointing up. Huh? I looked up at the noonday sun. Got that same eerie feeling again. OK, she was on to something. I felt sick in my stomach, heard that low buzzing again. She motioned to me, several times imitating what she wanted me to do, motioning for me to do something, I didn’t get it. Oh fine I’ll do it myself and she took off my headset. Now. Look up. I felt sick again. It was night. Doh! Moonlight. Buzzards! Double doh! I smacked my forehead.
We both put our headsets on. Listen Homer Simpson before you going getting all judgemental on me again just realize that I was praying to Osun of the Buzzards thanking her for her presence. What?!? Osun of the who? For the? For the buzzards I nearly scream thought at her. Yes and I don’t have to defend myself to you or anyone else, least of all you! Footlocker! And…and… well that’s why we stayed-
she was just about to say “safe” when the ground fell out beneath us. It was like a ride at Great Adventure! I awoke hours later to blood and pain. 
I snapped to- staring at the girl with the kaleidoscope eyes in front of me in the makeshift detention center on Long Island, the cops had gone to check some information out, I supposed. I shook my head. The air came rushing back into my lungs. I felt like a stranger in a strange land. Well, it was only New York. I’d been back for quite some time. Africa seemed like ages ago. As did my time as a merc working for the man, mostly smuggling drugs and sex slaves from Afghanistan and Chechnya through Saudi Arabia, into Egypt, where they were traded through Sub-Saharan Africa for diamonds from South Africa or oil from Nigeria. We simply eased the “trade restrictions” while working out of Spanish Algiers and Morocco. I mean ostensibly we were there to kill Al Qaeda, but that was more for bragging rights, and the ops were expensive and had to be paid and it was dirty work which paid well. If you had the right connections, which is essentially what we were, national security trumped so many other plausibly good poker hands, you weren’t really even smuggling in, you were just above, invisible to, or immune from customs. And in reality, with fugazi merch, from wine to handbags, this was the way the world really worked, via tariffs, soft power, and customs warehouses. With copyright infringement merging with statecraft, the very nature of authentic took on a whole new meaning. You could very well have legitimate cargo withheld for the wrong reasons as have illicit narcotic or sex slave traffic go through for the “right” reason where might is right and right means national security. It’s all in the field of relative as opposed to absolute morality. It’s flexible and bendable, can be twisted into lots of different shapes.
That was where the trap got us. I must have said it out loud. The girl, my date, or my supposed date, the reason I was in this jam just eyed me in that peculiar way again, like sure, right, I’m the one with problems. I went to look at my watch. That’s when I realized something peculiar, hadn’t seen a watch in…when did we get here? 
You alright? What, no I was just thinking- What time is it? How long have we been here. I heard that brother came a response from a girl I didn’t think I knew, tossed in with us. Ya it has been a hell of a night my “companion” said. The trap, she asked? 
What? Huh? No, no, nothing I said I was just…how to explain. Just thinking of someone else from a long time ago, must have spaced out for a moment. Oh. Interesting. What was she like? Who? The girl? What girl? That you were just thinking about. Oh, oh, well, she was, you know, I don’t know, typical… or atypical I guess, ya know. Ya, sure, no I totally don’t know, she responded then laughed out loud the most outlandish wonderful laugh. Such a big laugh for such a small girl. Oops, did it again, said out loud what I was thinking. I don’t know whether to be offended-
Be offended, I’m sorry, I said. Anyway, what time is it, really? You got someplace to be? She was so, upfront. Well, no, now that I think about it. I got scared, I couldn’t actually remember if I did have someplace to be. I decided it might be best to just smile and settle in and wait and be polite and not ask any more stupid questions. My body language suggested as much, everyone seemed to just stare off in different directions at the same time. I frumped, grinning on one side of my mouth, exhaling a sigh.
We both woke up in extreme discomfiture that day/night. By the time we awoke it actually was day, sweltering 115 degree heat, our blood was mostly dried, the headsets busted, the buzzards could be seen blotting out the sun circling overhead. It was such a simple trap. Wooden spikes freshly cut from desert pine, dug into a pit, covered with large frond leaves covered lightly with sand. The trick was that the sandniggers, even lotek ones, had a hack and a mod of their own, a very lotek one, which simply inserted more sand in that grid of google Maps which corresponded with our construct. 
Ordinarily there would be a redundancy check which would check irregularities with what the AI visor cams “saw” with what they matched up with the GPS cloud based SAT location with what they projected as the reality construct of the Google map of the area, but running in low power mode, without much p2p force multiplier nearby, a simple mod hack worm could be inserted which essentially told the AI not to double check.
I could imagine what a conversation might sound like between the AlQaeda lotek mod hack worm and the standard issue headset AI, hmm I think I better check on this, grid section 2342–23 doesn’t seem to match up with the data I’m currently streaming from location based visual sensors, no, no whatchyou a wanna do thata for, you a worka too hard a as it is uh already, no, say why not just represent that grid like it a shows in the a googlya mapa, and a hera, heres a speciala a gift for a you, for me, nooo, what did I win, I’ve I’ve yes I’ve never won anything, I think, what is it- it’s a special a surprise, gotta go now- OH I just can’t wait to see what it is- funny, it’s just a plain old sand looking pixelated section of the grid, hmmph, weird…
We obviously didn’t even see what hit us before we stepped right on that section. I know I know what you’re thinking, well, why didn’t you just see it with the headsets off, but that’s the damnedest thing, because it was night! Anyway, go figure…
The place exploded shortly after my “companion” was whisked away by the sexy policewoman. Blood and guts everywhere, sirens, a general madhouse. I found out later she was to blame, that little FDR keychain thing she kept clicking, a bomb, of course, naturally, should have seen that one coming a mile away. I could barely move. 
Chapter 2
So. So I was on my way to the hospital, in and out of consciousness. Flashing back. Well, not so much flashing. More like a bit of hypnogogic dreamstate mixed with some recurrent dream, a bit of paranoid deja vu, all mashed up with all that LSD trapped in my spine, urging outward resplendent. Oh OK just go and call it what you will, a flashback. Of course flashing back to the trip to the hospital, if you’d call it a hospital, in Africa, after the pratfall of the pitfall. 
As for the LSD, most use the standard LSD-25, the typical product of the bicycle trip, the Sandoz product, bit of white powdery stuff, clear in liquid form, or dropped onto paper divided into tabs or “blots” ergo blotter acid, little perforated torn off sheets of paper made by rolling a serrated edge knife over paper, or as done by machine. Lysergic 
Acid Diethylamide, from the German. Why German? Why do you have to know German to get a PhD I ask you that? Why is not German the lingua franca of the academic world no more, eh, riddle me that, wiseguy. 
LSD was “discovered” in the 40’s, used by the KGB and CIA for their “truth-serum” drugs, then it became abused. By the chemical branch of the CIA, which was part of project paperclip, the nazi project to bring the rocket scientists out of Nuremberg that leads to the Saturn rockets and the moon shot and also the cold war, and ICBM or intercontinental ballistic missiles. They also brought the famous Horton brothers flying wing which becomes the Stealth bomber. The V2 which uses the “thinnest” possible fuel, about the same viscosity as kerosine is nearly gaseous at room temperature and therefore highly combustive. So the blitz was intended to be with ICBM (non nuclear in the warhead) from Berlin but Hitler didn’t have time and Vaun Brown couldn’t quite get the mixture right. Next they were going to use suicide bombers, basically put wings and a cockpit on the V2, no dice. 
Along with the rocket scientists came some of the medical doctors, including the infamous Dr. Josef Mengala, of course his identity was always concealed. A private wing was paid for at Georgetown Medical, Fort Meade in Maryland was involved, where they did the BW or biological weapons. CW was handled in Minneapolis by Lockheed Aeronautics Science Division. Dr. Sidney Gottlieb was the liaison between the CIA and LASD, meaning Lockheed. They were also handling prostitution in the safe houses. They took the nazi flying wing to the skunk work, area 51, near Nellis outside Vegas. Eisenhower was starting the E-10 with CBS, for a smooth transition to a martial law state during the height of the red scare.
But LSD itself wasn’t “invented” and it occurs as ergot, or the bit of white powder of a form of fungal growth on top of (not barley) and was probably used by Siberian shamans (lamas) for thousands of years. 
But really, what is reality but a construct? If I’m driving in a van to a hospital, does it matter if it is on Long Island, or in Africa? The bumps in the road jarred me just the same. No no of course you can’t go through life living in a dream, though certain Australian Aboriginal clans and certain branches of zen Buddhism and certain branches of postmodern theory and several branches of post-Einsteinian quantum nth dimension versions of string theory featuring worm holes might…
Well but that’s really neither here nor there. What was important was that at this particular moment in time being jarred by the bump in the road forced me to stop reliving the incident near Morocco and come crashing back into the present. Wondering just how I’d gotten myself into this fix, tied down in six point restraints, lightly bleeding from who knows where, probably concussive shock, partial blindness, temporary deafness, perhaps trauma, staring at a lovely pair of tits all wrapped up in bleached white linen with a large pink cross, blonde curly hair dangling in my face.
I thought of clues. Not really “clues” per se, but odd bits that stuck off the edge, didn’t quite fit into my world order, gave me that unsettled feeling. For instance, scanning over the headlines of the NY Times, no date on the masthead. Could have sworn I saw an article regarding a “general” of the IRS combatting fraud in “the Dakotas” though I figured, well, editorial license or perhaps I misread, I was in a rush. Then too when I looked over at the metal newstand box, the last not only on my block but within the roughly 10 city blocks of midtown, erased after the newspaper wars, it appeared to have a round “slot” instead of a slot. It was a quick glance at a familiar object I see everyday, and after having done enough LSD, I often shake off things which don’t appear correct at first glance, and don’t even bother with a double-take, because when they go back to “right” it still leaves me with the willies.
Where the button is, I figured I must have mistakenly figured its shadow for another slot. But then I thought of the little FDR tubes I’d seen the girls in lock-up holding. No. Couldn’t be, strange coincidence though. My body shivered, involuntarily, the nurse put another rough, scratchy brown woolen fabric, very warm, very thin blanket on me. The shivering subsided as quickly as it started. Now I was itchy as hell, hot, and sweating.
Well, I rode the D on 57th outside Columbus Circle everyday, but today I was taking it to 33rd, transferring, going to Grand Central, and going to take the LIR out to meet the girl from the bar. A whim? Yes. Did I do this often. Yes and no. Not the stalker type, more into taking girls back for one night stands and having to brush them off afterward, I enjoyed a challenge. And I did quite often play hookie from work for any kind of adventure. Well, the local was running late, the express lane was being worked on, a sort of permanent semi-permanent state (see: particle physics, sub-quark) so I stopped into Joe’s, a retro-old timey coffee shop, which had replaced an actual just plain old time coffee shop named Joe’s in the exact same spot, only now it was corporate, and though all the chrome still looked just the same, something about it was different. Was the grime even real grime or was it corporate grime? Measured and placed just so?
But it was one of the few places left you could get an honest to goodness cup of Maxwell House from a Mr. Coffee coffee maker, in a Greek logo blue New York cup, and not a Starbucks frapa-whazzit for $16 bucks and change, from the non-polluting, non-toxic, living wage, green fund, coffee co-op no herbicide program. What they didn’t tell you was that that corporate swill inflated the price of the beans the growers had to pay, that they cornered the market on the beans, and that no herbicide still often meant slash and burn tactics which negated any carbon footprint benefit, and that the CIA was often spraying the very next field, negating the organic nature of the product to boot.
But the outfits were pink, not light green. The waitresses a tad sexier, more busty? Bigger asses? Or just a tad more brash? I was in a rush, figured it just must be some new corporate ownership which passed without notice, perhaps now asian, Japanese or Chinese or Korean? I reached into my pocket, no coins. Tip jar had odd shaped tubular dimes, how peculiar, didn’t even register on a conscious level at the time. Took out my bills. $100’s, $50’s, $10’s flashed their faces at me. Hmm what’s this? Singles out of place, a dime, I mean tenner at the end, no, no no mister, get back in line. Something was strange! Well, no matter, time is money, rush rush rush. Put it back in place, said the usual. She just stared at me across the formica countertop. I returned the look. Taking cash out. She shrugged her shoulders silently and went and got a pitcher and poured me a cup, and I paid while trying to pay attention to the paper, but I was distracted by two rather portly, well one really more so than the other, gentlemen if I may call them that, arguing volubly over the air conditioning a rickety number playing a racket, about what else, the Yankees.
Hmm cash! Wow, you don’t see that very often! Her eyes were as greedy as her hands to accept it though, pulling it together to a snap, rubbing in between her fingers. I lustily imagined those same fingers rubbing a clit, perhaps hers, perhaps a friends. Sluts! 
Money loving sluts, all of ’em, I thought to myself while I tried to get back to the paper. Expecting to be distracted by the- I turned suddenly, to notice all commerce had ceased, all communication non-existent. Silence reigned supreme. Only the air conditioner had the gaul to continue its performance unabated. Was it something I said? No! It was the money! Well, everyone went back to their grumblings, arguments, flirtations, whispers soon enough, but now I had that uncomfortable feeling that I was the sudden new topic of conversation. He carries cash! Did you see how much? Who carries cash anymores? 
Sheesh, well, if he ain’t wit’ da IRS hisself, I bet he sure-
I stared at the gentleman, the less rotund of the two whom had previously been engaged in their probably daily tet-a-tet on the bombers. He stopped mid-sentence, you could see he had not finished the thought and as soon as I turned continued in hushed tones too low to be perceived by any but his boon companion.
Was I really this out of touch? 
I was ready to start flashing plastic, I wanted to scream about my perfect credit score and lack of debt, show them my bonds. I took my coffee and left, ignoring the waitress shouting at me about the change from the door frame. I ran towards the entrance, steam, that particular smell which only the NY city subway has, in summer, something like wet fragrant garbage mixed with a Chinese steam laundromat, like flowers dying, but with none of the fresh grace of oxygen from a greenhouse, and all the muck it can soak up from the city street itself. The off-yellow tiles greeted me as they always do, and I nearly tripped down the stairs, as I always do, whether at full tilt in wall to wall rush hour, or slovenly drunk empty midnight.
I burned myself on the coffee. Some things do not change.
Just before I got on the train, I was stopped by a young man- well, he honestly looked like a Jehovah’s Witness, pale white, very clean but wreaking of baby powder or baby oil or both, long hair neat in a tight ponytail, turned presumably prematurely ashen white. Either he was very young to be going gray, or very old with nary a wrinkle. He handed me a pamphlet. Cash and You it said in a cartoonish font, in white on blue. 
Looked like a Chinese menu. I said oh, thank you! So much and tossed it in the trash, holding it long enough, looking into his eye with near complete sincerity while I said it, and seeing it just long enough to see a cartoon dog counting dollars next to a disapproving scolding boyscout type. I turned back to the tracks, absently looked down the tunnel, waiting for the rumble, slightly shaking my head, looking around for others waiting on the platform to agree with my dismissal. There weren’t many there but many of them seemed to approve of my handling. I heard, damn right. Money money money yo! One gentleman dressed in what I presumed was faux leopard pants with a dashiki shirt, shaking what I presumed was some sort of calabash, next to a three-card monty table replete with bent cards. 
The whine and whistle and rumble on the tracks signaled the end of my torment. But soon enough I was disappointed to find it was the opposite track. I went and sat on a wooden lacquered bench, removing a newspaper. The smell of urine and puke was normal this time of year, but the station was actually quite clean for the hour. The gentleman accosted me again. But this time proffered a badge, albeit quickly. It seemed to be an IRS badge from what little I got to see of it before it was back inside the pocket of his jacket, underneath his overcoat, which I only now just noticed, in the middle of summer, and he not sweating an ounce. Curious indeed. Would you come with me?
No! I laughed. Ha! A young woman on the platform went into hysterics. You tell ’em she shouted at us. What’s this about, let me see that badge again. Apparently he was either a complete lunatic nutjob, a total fraud, or someone had put him up to playing some kind of a joke, a rather intricate one at that. I ignored him. The express barrelled by. Listen! This is serious! For your own good and protection! I’m trying to save you! You need help. I read his lips mostly, as the loudness of the train made his little verbal altercation and incitation pointless. 
Are you done? Let me see your badge again, I offered, when the train had rumbled by. He was fuming, pacing back and forth, apparently rubbing a good luck charm which turned out to be a religious icon. What are you rubbing in your pocket? Uh huh! That’s what I wants to know the same young woman chimed in. Pervert by the looks of him. It’s not he stammered. Didn’t like to be drawn out. He now talked directly to me in lower, hushed tones.
Can I see what’s in your wallet he asked.
No! I laughed directly in his face. He blushed crimson. New York! Only in New York I thought to myself. Well, it takes all types. I shook my head in agreement with the young lady. Money Money Money Money YO! Punctuated the assessment. I stretched out.
I went back to my coffee, now cooling down. I suddenly shivered. Money, as I choose to call him, the young man entertaining with the monty table, had a plastic fishbowl filled with tubular dimes. My eyes shot straight ahead. I got up, now it was my turn to pace. Suddenly my sullen friend cheered. I sat back down. Are you alright he nearly chirped in my ear. Fine, fine, never better. Can’t you see I’m waiting for my fucking train.
You don’t have to be abusive, he recoiled, into his own thoughts, but continued rubbing inside his pocket. I stared at him. I went back to my coffee.
It’s nothing illicit, if that’s what you’re thinking.
Excuse me? What?
Space Jesus.
WHAT?!? I frowned, incredulous. What was going on.
He started to pull something from his pocket. I blanched, waiting, time slowed. Oh. It was merely a plastic religious icon, like those St. Anthony prayer statues you win at a San Genero festival where they grease a pole, sell fried sausage and have beanbag toss throws, with those homemade painted white wooden boards, with day-glo orange spray paint, and white red and green everywhere.
But it was, I don’t know, like Buzz Lightyear meets Brigham Young or something. 
Space Jesus I guess. He put it away.
See, nothing, harmless. I’m really not that different from you, or him for that matter, he said pointing to Money. My train arrived. Sure, sure you’re not buddy, I muttered to myself. Money money money! Money continued his refrain, and the polite young woman with whom I appeared to be in full agreement continued it without missing a beat as the doors slid open, beeping, and we got on for a ride. 
Chapter 3
“Who?”
“Napoleon!” 
“Wasn’t he like, a, a general or something?”
“Yes, yes yes! Holy fucking shit yes!”
“Jesus fucking Christ calm the fuck down man, shit. You know some fucking obscure minutia, man.”
“WHAT?!?” I exploded at her. This was the tail end of a bizarre exchange.
“How the fuck do you not know about King Charles XII of Sweden, or Baron von Goertz , or the UCE, and yet you have this like encyclopedic fucking knowledge of these obscure political figures from like…”
“Wait the what? U. C. E. what’s that? Is that like the ECB?” I interrupted her.
“a Frommer’s guide to historical military- what? The who see bee-whatchamacall-it whadyousay? The ‘yuse’ you know man, the Ukraine Copper Exchange, like the single most NNNGO in the world, the-” “You mean NGO.”
“Did I stutter, that’s what I said-”
“No, yes, you-”
“Well which is it?”
“Wait what?”
“I have not got time for this shit, man-”
“No, wait I’m sorry. I mean ‘no’ that is not what you said, ‘yes’ you did stutter-”
“Fuck you! You know what man, fuck you and your supposed fucking date! For a second, you lying there on your back muttering something about last night, I was starting to feel kind of sorry for you.”
“Fuck me? N.N.N.G.O is what you said, when clearly you mean-”
“Ya fucker, clearly I mean NNNGO- a non-national non-governmental org which is what I said.”
“Ahem, look this is part of my business, clearly you’re out of your element- missy, yes? 
You meant NGO and it is non-government organization, yes, right, good-”
“Fuck you! I meant exactly what I said. Look I don’t know who you are, EC fucking whatever, that you don’t know about the UCE. Most graders know what a-”
“ECB — European Central Bank, it’s the-”
“European? Holy fucking shit what fucking century are you from man??”
“Whahuh? Come again. What century what?” I looked around at my surroundings, lots of pinks and blues, the absolute fucking sexiest teen titter candy-stripers running around in Alice in Wonderland fuzzy pink hats, with chartreuse garter belts waving their tits in my face, drinking lime jello three times a day. I imagined it was drugged with something, but who cares, was it free? I was having a ball, especially after the bomb blast and PTSD episode. But… It still was not normal. I had to admit it. Some kind of screwy nut house but a nut house none the less. Had on gone mad?
“Napoleon, ECB, these are like, high school terms that every-”
“High School??”
“Oh don’t- here we go again, don’t tell me, no-”
“What like the one in Scotland?”
“Well now that’s obscure.”
“A little I guess.” 
“Aha! Aha! There we have it!!” Well, progress, she finally admitted something. Now, if 
I could just gently nudge her back into my corner, easy easy, steady now, don’t want to-
“Fuck you I’m leaving.”
“I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry.” Too much. Too soon.
“I swear, one more fucking time and…” I’ll leave you alone with these perve nurseDoctors and their horny teen daughters, prolly sponge bath ya into a shrivelled up old…she let the thought trail off in her head, but her eyes narrowed as she observed me, shaking her head in ill disguised disgust. “What a sorry wreck you are…” she half let escape her lips, to her own surprise, my chagrin, and her immensely blushing embarrassment, her cheeks nearly blooming to the shade of the young pleasant scantily clad things unmentionables, to which she quickly, deftly recovered with a wry grin and direct look into my eyes. She felt guilty, being as yet somewhat unbeknownst to me, the entire cause of my current predicament, though I suspected at that moment she had been the one to explode the bomb, something in her look confirmed this. But staring back at her now, reflecting, in my half-drugged state, was more like it, a thin, pale unthinking mirror, I had to admit to myself I was a bit of a wreck.
“I’ll play nice. I-”
“Swear it.”
“swear it.” We said at nearly the same time.
“Kizmit!!” She crooned and all was well.
Chapter 4
There was one curio striking him hard.
Every damn time he replayed it in his head, lying in his hospital bed, he came to the same conclusion. Must have imagined it. How else could it be? “PHILIP K. DICK’s ‘Terminators of Mars’” up in bright lights on the marquee. No such movie. No such story. He was a Dick afficianado. Only it read something more like 
“PH LIP . D CK’s Term n tors of M rs”
still there was no mistaking what it meant, typos or burnt-out bulbs. And when he thought about it a little harder, aside from a blinding headache, he was half-sure that theatre, whilst not defunct, was never that posh. Well, to be more clear, it was like the coffee-shop, it was run down, but with that corporate sheen of faux rundown. It just wasn’t quite right.
His wild imagination and strange imaginings. He fell lightly to sleep daydreaming with the thought of what Terminators from Mars would look like. After awakening, with some hypogogic images still floating in his cerebellum, a myst through which he perceived the pinks and blues of the hospital room, he decided it would definitely involve Arnold, and a mash-up of the original Terminator with Terminator IV and Total Recall played before him, interspersed and intersected with frenetic high BMP electronic music, big titter ScoreXL porn and 50’s sci-fi covers like “If” and “Astounding Science” floating up out of the ether and passed his field of view. Then the wicked witch of the West rode by on her bicycle and Mila Kunis laughed from out of nowhere. 
“Can I help you?”
“Ahhhh!” Wha?” He was awakened from his revelry.
“I’ll get you my pretty!” 
“Whaaa!”
“What’s going on inside of that pretty lil head of yours?” The female doctor asked. Not bad to look at but a bit, hmm, boxy? 
“Holy fuck! You’re a robot!” He thought to himself.
She was all silver and boxy and cute, dazzling electronic eyes. Now that he was fully awake he couldn’t even believe he’d been temporarily confused, but there was yet still something faintly human, touchingly frail, almost sexual. She was full of tenderness. But how did she know what he was thinking?
“Excuse me?” She asked.
“Uhhh…” he stuttered.
“You’re a fucking robot!” This time aloud.
“Yes! Yes, I am,” she replied. Full of confident nonchalance. He was pointing out the obvious. “And…how do you feel about that?”
“Uh, about…what?”
“About…about me being a robot?”
“I don’t know, fine. I guess? Peachy?” He honestly wasn’t quite sure.
“So you a)enjoy me being a robot b) don’t know how you feel about me being a robot c) peachy -” she seemed to be filling out a standard form.
“Wait, do you want to-” “Want to?” She asked. “I don’t know, write this down or something?”
“Why the fuck would I do that? I’m a fucking robot,” she shot back at him.
“Oh, ya, ya, right. Sure.”
“Well, good. That’s settled. If that will be all for today. Your alpha waves have snapped back like I postulated yesterday they would, but you’ve still got a bit of a snag in the beta’s, hmm, note to self, check on that. And you’re spending way too much time with these childish sexual fantasies, how many times did you masturbate today, seven? Good lord boy, get a room, wouldn’t you prefer one of our candystriper orgy rooms? We’ve got boys if that’s what you’re interested in… Or perhaps, something a bit more, hmm, freaky?”
“Whaaaa? Look lady-er robot- doctor lady thing, I don’t know what-”
“Oh come come now, Robots on Mars! Vixen that is both shy and- achtung baby! Whoooweee! That was a good one! But really, everyone knows the robot army never got passed the moon, and the outpost colonies died there years ago, these fantasies!”
“Hey, lady, stay outta my fucking head- moon colonies, wha??”
“Fine fine fine. But really, you’re reacting much more quickly today, you should really get up, take part in some group activities, occupational therapies, maybe some water sports or water therapies, at the very least the orgy room, and then maybe-”
“Hey, hey OK OK, I got it, I got it.” And, ‘what is this place?’ he muttered to himself as she rolled out of the room. Why did he lean over to stare at her metal ass. Ohh baby, boxy and all!
She looked back at him, shaking her silver robotic head. 
Part 2
“How do you think-”
“That’s not what I’m saying, dude-”
“Look, flips didn’t just spring up from the ground, that’s for-”
“That’s for sure!”
“So all I’m saying is, Occam’s Razor, right?”
“So what, the f’n Jezzies? I don’t gaeh-”
“Ya dat’s white yew don’t get it- get it? Get it??” 
“Yes, Blinky, yes, I get it-”
“No, no, see you don’t-”
“Yes, and that’s why it’s known as Blinky’s Paradox, a Zen Koan to rival-” “Mehs, whateva’s, dudes, next hole-”
“Hey, lines on you at the 19th if ya-”
“If’fn what’s, I don ace it?”
“Well, say what you want about our puerile friend here, he’s right about one thing-”
“I ams? I ams?”
“And what my dear friend, would that be?”
“Oh the tedium! And they say this game used to be-”
“Well, removes us from the pabulum, at the very least.”
“What’s that?”
“What’s what, Blinky?”
“Pab-whatevas?”
“Pabulum? You are, Blinky, you are.”
“Mehs, OK then, must be pretty goods then, meh?”
“Yes, indeed!”
The three were part of a foursome, out on the links; two doctor-nazis and their overweight, under-educated rather colorful caddy. Blinky, as he was known to everyone but his dog and his mother, was wearing tartan plaid green plus fours, a healthy beer gut extending out like a ledge over what was probably the belt, waist area, the untucked plain white (stained) regulation club button-up barely able to mask the hair-covered obtrusion.
He was not so much a kind, well meaning soul, as a murderous vile thug. But he did have his moments.
Doctor-Nazis emerged after the war. Sort of OK in small doses, but you wouldn’t want to get trapped at a convention. Might not get out alive. 
Michael Stamps was good at what he did. Solid as a rock, as the saying goes. A real hard 40. The top of the charts. But he was also reliable. He wasn’t just another vjock taking in the man on killing sprees, he’d actually have your back if shit got hectic. He was a solid spade partner, supposedly good in the sack, and he paid his pimps proper. Pimps, as in plural. He was running the show. 
He was downtown when he got the tip. Knockin’ back beers at a local hangout. Run down, Detroit style. Jute was busted, lot of flashin’ neon. Some chrome. Stripper pole was rusted. This joint had seen better days. He had on his usual get-up, milspec green khaki cut-offs, Doc Martin’s laced high with bright purple, tagged up with white stamps, and a red leather jacket, pointed at the shoulders. His gear was fresh, hacked NSA unix version of droid on Chinese military goggles, made him look bug-eyed, like Kareem in ’86 or Bono in ’92, all black, with a custom, homemade strap round the back, tricoloured elastic belt. He was muscular, lean, scarred. Both physically, and emotionally.
He was after some gooseflesh, in the worst way. He’d been hot on a trail that went colder than a McD’s burger take-out five minutes out the bag, when she flashed him. 
“What up girl?? How you livin’?”
“Large and in charge daddy, you know this!”
“Shit, damn right I do, daddy know- hold on a second man, gotta take this-”
“Yas mahn, OK’d by me then, goow talkin-”
“Oh right man, flip mo, catchya”
“Peacy outta here man, atcha-”
“Right-O slutface, how’s my baby?”
“Shi- OK, I guess…”
“Just OK? What’s illin’ ya my niggah?”
“Shi daddy you know, jus’ life niggah, jus’ life-”
“Shi, my niggah, what I tell you though, trip for real though, right??”
“Shi- right though, fo’ real!”
“Whatchou got for me- come to poppa!”
“Shugggah…”
“Shit bitch, whatchou got for me!”
“My niggah, typical! Typical…A’ight, bidness then. Got me some gooseflesh ya interest-”
“Shit ya!”
“Well lemmie finish th-”
“Shit ya, I’m interested!”
“OK OK then.”
He was on the next flight out to Costa Rica, from there to Panama, from there back to Costa Rica. That’s where our foursome was golfing.
Back before the war, Blinky was some kindo of big-shot Mafioso type. The term was now antiquated. Like Mols and Tommy-Guns and flapper dresses, Dons, Cosa Nostra, Sicilians, made men, Colombians- people knew what they were, sure, but they were like museum pieces, interesting and of historical significance, but not powerful, totemic, or terrifying in any way. Cartoonish. DVD’s of the Sopranos were actually a hot retro item, ironically traded for cocaine, which had made a come back in its new form, cocainum, a quasi-legal sports drink, amongst a certain fashionable jet set.
Jets made a comeback too, supersonic. That certain fashionable jet set usually got one for Holiday from daddy, or the cyberEquiv. New family structures. Sim-like variants which filled in holes. Better test scores and the like. They couldn’t fly them at sixteen, but by the time they’d graduated Uni at nineteen and were ready to intern, they’d have the required flight-hours, regulation, virtual, or off the books. 
“Vhhhh- Heinrich, vait for me! Vait for me! I’ve got to finish stitching up!”
“No!”
“Vhhh, vait!”
“No! I vill not!”
Aided by the auto-aim, which sprung up into his view in his left eye, his iFrame, gray plastic tubes which looked a little like a stick figure skeleton and wrapped from his back behind his arms, guiding his motion, he hit yet another hole in one, and let out a little yelp.
“Vhat is my final score? Vhat vhat! Didn’t you see that shot? Perfect, every time!”
“I told you Heinrich, I was finishing up my surgery! Now look what you’ve made me do!”
“You killed another one! No? Did you really?!?” “Yes!” Deter frowned.
“No! That is ten this month! Over quota! Over quota! Deter is a silly goose!”
“Take that back this instant! This instant Heinrich!”
“No!”
“Please?!?”
“No! And what is my tally? You missed my shot!”
“Oh OK let me replay it, hold on a second- yesser, I’m sowry that the missus did not come through- oh Heinrich stop that, stop tickling me, you are insufferable you insufferable man!”
“I vwon, I vwon! Tventy-four! No! Check it again!”
“No, I did, I checked it tvice- vhat? No, no sir, I am talking to Heinrich, my partner, we are at the links, yes? No, no, she is gone, yes yes I’m sure you thought- I am very sorry- Heinrich stop that, this instant! No, no I am very sorry for your loss- yes, vell, you know vhat they say, you vin some you lose-”
“Vin some you lose some? No! I vin them all you lose them all is more like-”
“Ugh, enough gloating Heinrich, we all know you are so fantastic- ugh but this insufferable man whining on and on, oh for the love of- yes yes- and don’t you think I feel bad too, four this week alone- ugh you vith your perfect holes in ones vhile I’m trying to finish surgery, if you’d just let me be in peace- now, let me see this shot again. 
Oh yes yes, very nice form.”
“Now it’s your turn silly goose. Deter is a silly goose! Don’t be a silly goose and overzeecompensate for your schwank silly goose! Silly goose! Deter is a -”
“Yes yes, vee all know, I, Deter, am zee silliest silly goose-”
“Hey, you two lederhosen cocksmokers finished up yet or what? I got lines with my name on them waiting at the 19th.”
The foursome were finishing up 18 holes of golf. It took about twenty minutes. Everything went faster. Jets, relationships, golf, cyberSurg, superfast food, well at least if you were in a certain cut to the front of the line demo. Anthills and houses still got built one pebble or brick at a time out there in the burbs. Heinrich and Deter were still arguing over their tallies, still cheating, still using little pencils without erasers on little golf index size score cards. Lime green was in that year, as was bright, caustic yellow, almost neon, the color associated with toxic nuclear waste, in all sorts of striped polo tennis shirts, both cotton, acrylic and body armour spandex.
Blinky was, as usual, bringing up the rear. He had a bag with four clubs, each capable of assuming four different heads and weights with adjustable shafts, carbon fiber, all the rage, not yet approved by the WGA. Sweating profusely, he removed his cap. Dropped the seemingly not overwhelmingly heavy bag down to the ground. It landed with a thud. 
Upsetting Deter’s motion just at the moment of impact.
Mike Stamp took freight down to Panama, clawing at the hemp netting all the way, dropping in as was his custom. He’d targeted the club before landing, gliding into the bush with a map plotted through the jungle, his 1944 Willy’s MLW-2 gassed and ready to roll. A few days later he showed up at the club. He didn’t realize just how far he landed into Panama from the exclusive golf club in Costa Rica, though he was close to the border and passed it with some smuggled Popeye’s Chicken sandwiches, they were crazy for that shit. He considered climbing the fence then repelling it, didn’t wanna give up those honey-glazed chicken fingers, but at the last minute ditched when he was discovered. A few days in lock-up, he got out with his gear but not his ride, minus those delicious tender morsels used as graft to ease the escape. 
They were long gone from the club by the time he finally arrived.
But as luck would have it, they had another foursome that very morning and just finished up.
Blood trickled from Deter’s body as he lay on the floor, twitching. Armed guards with cyborgGerman Shepherds patrolled the perimeter of the club, the pups were easy to disable, local subnet hack combined with tempEMP blast, left them hobbled, disorientated and howling in confusion, dropped one of the guards with a snub nose 38 special with silencer and cut his way through the fence after grounding a section. Shiny silver street special looked like something out of Star Wars with the 8 inch matching silver barrel attached. But its large caliber plugs could still paint a pretty purple bruise underneath a bullet proof vest. 
He was inside the “19th hole” a few minutes later. Confused. Really fucking confused. He had memories growing up driving passed fancy, white-only establishments, oh sure, sure Tiger was king but you still had to have money. He was a ghetto child. He’d never actually been inside a “19th hole” the bars the golfers go to when they’ve finished playing, but he assumed it was something like out of Caddyshack, lots of wood grain panelling, snifters of brandy, maybe some cheeky big titter waitress bending over to show off her nylon legs under her tacky plaid polyester skirt, writing bar orders with one hand and removing an offending hand from her ass with the other. 
Nope. It was a warehouse. With a grimy bathroom. A second floor had a railing, stairs leading up, drab gray, an office enclosed, lots of bails suspended by ropes above, a few of them lying around on the ground, white powder poured out of holes chewed by rats, presumably. Smelled of sweat and puke like a locker room. He was surprised at how comfortable he felt. Lit up a cigar. It was kind of dark, that’s when he saw the guard on the second floor. Hadn’t picked him out yet though. Carefully stepped backward, into shadow, removed his sniper rifle from his pack, sweating, pulled down the side zipper on his signature red leather jacket, fine for an American city in winter, even with the rise in global temperatures, but in the confines of a Costa Rican warehouse, nearly unbearable. Adjusted his sights, plugged him, dropped like a stone, after flipping over backwards over the rail. But his semi-automatic machine gun blasted off a clip as he fell, alerting all.
Deter was first to buy it, barging into the warehouse still crying about his latest kill, an unfortunate woman, Mildred, assigned to him for a check-up, face lift, breast augmentation and heart valve replacement, usually a two day job, mostly out of office, whom he was just stitching up after four grueling hours, during which he also flew to Costa Rica, played 18 holes of golf and made love to Heinrich twice, all whilst operating via virtual reality, when he came upon the still half-surprised, turning Mike Stamp, and was about to question ‘die neger’ when he looked down to see he’d been shot.
“Die neger-murph?!? Vhat is this?”
“Vhat is going on?” Chimed in Heinrich. Only to see his lover cut down, moments before Stamp shot him as well. A few minutes later there was cocainum and blood and guts all over the place, a torrent of bullets cutting down everything in their path, as soon as Stamp got a hold of the fallen guard’s weapon, changed the clip after searching his twisted corpse.
“Baby, guess what?”
“What daddy?”
“Got me some gooseflesh!!” 
Chapter 2
The teams had been divided properly. The cheerSluts had signed their (non)committal committals for the afterV partaking, there wasn’t much left to do. So, we decided to go and sign in, it had been a hella long journey, two weeks, typ tradfort in evy otha spect and fucking qdays since. Since whatevers, laid paid & waylaid. Dealio.
Moe picked up the latest issue of Stamp, slid his hand like a reg Oby, I chuckled. Some boys from the team looked at us queer. Queer. That was the right proper word I imagine, since, recalling, yes, I did. That is just what I remarked to Moe.
“Dem blokes lookin’ hard n’ queer. Don’t look! Fucktard! This direction. Oh go ahead and looksie. Fucktard! I was kiddin’. Ya, that time too.”
He din’ talk too much, not the loquacious nor voluble typO, however, in the fanSection of a rowdy, gooolaur he fucking explodes. Same with the comment section. But he one dem blokes don’t like commentin’ till afters, won’t eva do two things once. Just his way I guess. Me, I’m not much for commentin’ to begin with. Much more interested in the cheerSluts in the AfterV though I don’t do as much partaking as you’d think. 
What’s Stamp about this month I queried him. Shrugged. Looked up then down, back to it. Ya, same shite different month I figured.
So? No responde. I’m going to…
I didn’t finish my thought. He looked up momentarily and shrugged. 
-check with the slinkChink, maybe goose the stablish, pokesee here or there. No use in VDubbin’ this early though. What I really meant and he knew, ifin’ I’d full expressed was that I wanted to wander around lookin’ like I wasn’t lookin’ at nothin’ in particulars, to have an excuse to check out the cheerSluts- any bigHooterMamas or freakGeektweenbracers, maybe a kinkChink, my typOs but really I’m an anyTypO so whatevas. His nonchalance might have suggested try as I might to appear like I’m not tryin’ I would indeed either, never-the-less or perhaps because of, I would indeed appear like I was, at the very least, tryin’ not to appear as if I were tryin’ which in itself appeared to be tryin’ and you know what they say, appearance is reality.
Appearance is reality. A truism if ever there was.
I get quandried up in my own up thinkin’ one too many, all, what if reality is appearance.
Moe would shrug. What if… I guess was what he was thinkin’ but even, who knows.
Ya, what if… so I did the dance. But chinkSlink was all sly, shoulda known, as typico for that sly fumanchu chowYun phatmotherafucka. Though in point of fack this chowYun happened to be of the Korean. Some kinda master boxa or some. Whatevas. If it ain’t miniB, like Moe say, ain’t got the time.
Serious though. What wit hasslin’ bein’ hassled, commentin’ (which I don’t do much of but am respectful of Moe when he workin’ it) afterV’s I mean whatevas who got time? 
Ya we been on da miniB tip for a minute. But really, these days, if you ain’t who is you? You is either a miniB yo own damn self or you’s a cheerSlut if ya’s a bitch, or a ho, or you’s into miniB. Ya, true, chinkSlink himself show no interest, but he old man. And he workin’ for da man. He don’t comment. He don’t partake no never. No. He don’t afterV and he most certain don’t travel. 
That for damn certain. Ha! SlinkyChink travellin’ can you even magine it?
I nodded hello to the playas.
“’ello ‘ello ‘ello GoldenNuts,” is what I would have said if I could have scraped my voice up out of my throat. My mouth went dry as if I’d been suckin’ smoke off of ravers with packs for hours. Thinkin’ on it a moment, laughed my ass off. E’yone stared. Then went back to what they were doin’ already. 
The mall was packed. Checkin’ at BK was steadily proggin’ along with ChinkSlink gabbin’ e’yone up. A wall of typO glass with shineBlue typO metal piping separated the BK from the mall proper, with the miniB courts. Real full-on fance typO, man oh manoschevs. Like, like, like fuckin’ Burgundy yo, the full Burg ya knows? Full-on Burgs to the max and back off the wall, yo! ChinkSlink man, workin’ for da man, never even lookin’ up at the flash, at the courts, at nothin’ man. I just sat eatin’ my 8th miniwhopper, the regular size bun but doubled up, they were a dollar, on sale. I was buyin’ four for me and four for Moe, but Moe was like, I’m gettin’ eight for myself but thanks. I just stared up, fifteen foot vaulted cathedral ceilings, rich Corinthian leather chairs, studded, full on Burgundy stained walls, like something out of I dunno, Sheen’s Wall Street or something. The full on mothafuckin’ full-on Burg, to the motherfucking Max yo! No shit!
The GoldenNuts looked tough, Moe was packin’ n’ stackin’ and puttin’ up. But dat was Moe. No sense, he’d always say. Meaning I guess no sense in half-assin’ it, meaning anything really, though thinkin’ on it now, can’t really recall him ever sayin’ that explicitly, though, well, what else could he mean, really? No sense, that’d be all he’d say. Shit though, now in da comment section he’d usually just do one dem hand waves, all fuckin’ Oby tight. ‘Nuff said I guess. I imagine it was once hooked up to an emoji? Maybe the emoji was representin’ something that meant “No sense” which then implied no sense in half-assin’ it, ya but today who had time for all that. Sides, after a win for sure e’body was just waitin’ in the afterV for the wave. 
It took three weeks in all to get to the Mall, a week queuing for the rights, scamming for the cash, and then two weeks of travel proper. I think I ate last week. Feast or famine. That was our life. At least in season. I checked my wrist for calIntake, rolled it back, ya I had half a protein shake, foundArt, and then there was that water fountain, but I think I picked up a disease there. Checked the date. Ah! That was what I needed. A fullBod. Upstairs. I motioned to Moe, now really engrossed in the latest issue of Stamp, though I suppose also buyin’ into it, maybe layin’ low, strat. Moe was the king of strat though. 
KingStrat fo’ sho. He looked at me quizzical like. FullBod I lipped, raising an eyebrow. 
Ah! Recognition, he nodded, pointed up, I shook yes back.
Nuts. And nuts to you my fine fellow, we parted. TradGreet-en. As in tradGreet-n-Go. A mofo like slink still said a “tradGreet-n-Go” and sounded all aged n’ antiquated, all sounded out like a proper gentleman. What a mofo. But fuck slinkChink, all fuckin’ boxsaa, like what is that even. High-larious. 
Chapter 3
Great structures on the beach are unfinished. Skeletal underpinnings expose the city like an x-ray. The never-ending growth expansion is checked by the rust decay in shades of orange and orange-brown burnt sienna. It is beautiful and ugly at the same time. Like a less romantic Parisian Eifell tower, like a reminder of Bauhaus or Russian industrial design, it somehow references a profound idea: hope. It reminds us, internally, subliminally, of a time when Jules Verne dreamed of the sky. A time when fin di seacle architects imagined great glass houses, gaslight cities filled with yesterday’s tomorrow dreams. But it also points to corruption, the mafia, itself a sort of anachronistic notion which encapsulates our ideas of a notion of the “other” as immigrant/foreign, probably says more about our notions of what “we” are without saying it, really now just stable characters for video games, and thus the ugly seamier side of life.
The rain beat down.
The shore came up almost right to the docks. Mostly a stony, pebble strewn variety of beach, good for fishing, in areas for surfing, not a real beachcomber’s paradise though. Then again the weather beaten docks themselves offered their own charms, seaweed mingling with urban refuse, a unique smell. This wasn’t a salt water taffy kind of dock. It was an on the Waterfront kinda dock. Coulda woulda shoulda. Pretty much described the feel of the downtrodden, deadbeat, lost dreams, urban hell which could loosely be described as a city but was probably more of a collection of towns with a center. Only now it was more like without a center. Or with more than one. Foci, like with an oval. This shape was more organic, growing, swallowing, shrinking. An image from “watership down” might describe it well, maybe an amoeba. The center of town was dead. The town hall, the officious official government sector. As was the commercial/industrial chamber of commerce type of center, which had always been offcenter in the sense that it was parasitical, always open-for-business in relation to the official government sector, graft, greed going hand in hand. Even the dirty-ass red light drug dealing prostitution off-the-books economy was hard hit, areas with lots of halftorn down Kool billboards, empty burnt out shell buildings, some gentrified condos sticking out like unsore thumbs amongst scabby broken fingers.
She left her job early. No business. Decided to hit it instead. Heroin took her away. 
The rain continued to beat down, it was slanted. Down by the docks it mixed with steam, myst, crashing waves with their flotsam or jetsam, whichever, fog, smog and a bit of sunshine poking through the occasional opening in the gray depressing heavens to create an overall cheerless wet day. Back in her room, heroin took her away. Her feet were sore, walking up and down the docks. Business was slow, which meant more walking. 
Her feet hurt. Heroin took her away.
The rust of the burnt sienna was beautiful in its own way, growth on decay on growth on decay, organic on industrial on organic. At a microscopic level this soup of weather was like a primordial nutrient bath, creating explosive exponential growth, which however could really only be observed over days or weeks, as decay. But by then, sunshine days drying everything out would check the growth/decay and start a new cycle. On warmer days the docks had their own sort of charm, like Autumn, prepubescent girls now mostly referred to as tweens, or love lost. Flavor: obvious, bittersweet. 
The day gave way to night. 
The night gave way to all sorts of other things. As the predominant weather of the docks was wet, wet wetness followed by intermittent wet, then later more wetness, rain or shine, the freaks come out at night. Polly Pro was still nodding in her single cold water flat. The TV was on, the baby screaming for a tit. Pol had what was once referred to as a “wet nurse” which in reality was a fourteen year old homeless Mexican girl who grew up on a farm, was now lactating on the pill, and following in Polly’s footsteps. Literally. Down by the docks. Actually sort of competition. So she ran some deliveries for Pol, which she was “outsourcing” to her, picked up the occasional john, mostly just sat around the apartment on rainy days farting. And crying. Homesick, probably.
The city lit up at night though. Was brighter in its neon undergarments than on most sunny days. It wasn’t the major metropolitan city drawing notable characters, high culture. It wasn’t where those who’d retired from actual city living went to live as a sort of stepping stone to the big city. You didn’t write home to tell anyone you’d gone there. It was the sort of place you went to get away, the sort of place with a lot of stones to hide under. In many senses, from graffiti to flashmobs, its urban decay was its high culture and charm. But it once did have at least the facade or appearance of class, a dusty musty trench coat hidden away and taken out on occasion. Once the piece de resistance final touch, a minuet dancing girl high aloft a city chamber frozen in time, the cherry on the cake, now the effort required to have a social directory or high society in a nearly defunct daily said far more. Made it tragic and laughable instead of just pathetic.
He smashed through her wall like the Hulk. In her dazed state for a moment she wasn’t sure if it was live theatre, the TV, a dream, or simply actually happening. The walls were paper thin, she could hear squatters cooking drugs, fucking, being fucked, and the rats “in the walls” all day/night long. An occasional hazard in her line of work was the blurring of day/night due to odd hours. Her hours weren’t just odd, they were downright irregular, without so much as rhyme, nor reason. The rats technically couldn’t have been “in” paper thin walls, she figured maybe they danced between, in some sort of parallel universe, ratworld she called it, in her own head, in her own private language.
He had funky hair, first thing she noticed. Chili came in to see what was going on. Never got her “real” name, just started calling her chili after “Chili Palmer” but also because she was always sitting around “chilling” in the apartment. And she liked chilies, the really hot orange and yellow variety of chili peppers, which she claimed in a mix of Spanish, English, and what Pol guessed might be Italian, that they were native to her hometown in Mexico. But whichever ones Pol came home with, no matter where they were from, Chili would claim they were from her own hometown.
It was still raining out. The night was progressing into morning. Chili noted the strange man with the shiny blue and black coat, boots, shirt and pants, silk, maybe polyester blend, certainly some form of leather or latex, with the odd black cowboy hat, you didn’t see them very much around the city, shrugged and went back into her “room” which was actually a closet. The lights went out. Neon blinking outside, which was an adjustment to get used to when trying to fall asleep, at least at first for Chili, intruded on the scene, on and off, on and off, in a hypnotic repeating pattern which eventually said, in as much, carry on, nothing to see here. Pol with a nervous wary eye on the stranger got up, slowly at first, then went over and whacked the TV a few times, it was an old black and white jobby, then retraced her steps, backwards, into her recliner.
Her recliner was actually a beach chair with some sofa pillows taped on with black electric masking tape. The TV “worked” in the sense that it plugged and turned on and emitted white noise and showed snow, that in itself hypnotic repeating pattern. 
Knocking the TV didn’t seem to have any effect on the substantiality or concreteness of the stranger in the room, still prostrate. He might have in fact been thrown into the room, through the wall. There were no rats. There also did not appear to be a trans-dimensional gateway. However, if ever a traveller from another dimension was going to come through from ratworld, other than a rat, it might indeed be this very stranger, or one perhaps eerily similar.
Pol sat back down, continued watching TV. But a new show was on, very similar to that old Hulk show with Bill Bixbey and Louis Ferigamo. Louis Fera-fera? Pol couldn’t remember his name. She thought for a moment about asking Chili. 
“Chili, come in here for a second?”
“Que?”
“Fuck you! Go back to your fucking room! Puta! Mexican trolling whore!”
Pol, on second thought decided that Chili would probably have very little idea what she was talking about. Chili went back to her room, confused. The stranger was still there, she didn’t think to ask about him, but now she did. Think to ask about him. She didn’t however, venture back out, not without being invited again. She was hungry and wondering what time “work” was going to start today.
The show was good. But it lacked something. A knife! The thought intruded on her thoughts like a rude intruder and just stayed there, refusing to leave. She didn’t know exactly how a knife would improve the show, but then again, she thought to herself, she wasn’t the writer of the show, how should she know. But it became an obsession. She walked into her “kitchen” which was really just a broken fridge, countertop and area where a stove should have been, complete with requisite hanging metal tubes, like worms from ratworld stuck between.
She did have a rather large, sharp, black handled chef’s knife, about 8 inches, in a wooden knife block, on the countertop, which she used for cutting off plastic bottles to make makeshift homemade pipes, and for cutting up Chili’s chilies. She occasionally brought home pizza, which meant going through the dumpster behind Santorelli’s on the corner and finding a white box without mold nor too damp, corrugated recycled cardboard, with some half eaten slices, cheese or crusts. The dumpster was definitely a portal to ratworld. Like a hole in the fucking matrix or something.
Pig.
Pig.
There it was again.
Pol wondered if Chili had changed the fucking channel again. She nearly jumped back into the living room, nostrils flared. No, video was paused, Chili still in her room. Knife in hand she crept back into the kitchen, stalking, thinking. Was she hearing things again? The doctors warned her about it, told her to take her medication twice a day. She tried to hit it regular, but work hours precluded her keeping normal schedules. And the shit she bought was expensive, primo uncut. She cut it herself, mostly with baking powder, occasionally flavoring her mix with melotonin or vitamin mix, just to keep things interesting. Chili sold it along with her chubby little Mexican body to pay her rent. Chili was always fucking late paying the rent. Ugh she was disgusted and almost vomited thinking about Chili’s clientèle and that chubby little Mexican body, the thought repulsed her. Good thing the rent man stopped making her pay, she thought, smiled at the thought, totally changed her outlook. The pillow was still stuffed with cash. But nobody seemed to use it anymore. Credit. Everyone was using credit, plastic. Debt? She thought she heard about that too, which made like less than no sense. And something called bitcoin she read about. Sometimes the pizza boxes contained fish head wrapped in newspapers. She could read, of course. She’d wipe them off, let them dry out in the sun, then absorb, soak in all the news of the world for weeks to come, really reading and over-reading the meager supply, like it were poetry, repeating it over and over to Chili.
Pig.
There it was again. She went over to look at the stranger.
Pig, the word came out of his mouth again. She held the knife up threateningly at him, daring him to use it one more time. But he offered her his hand, a rather odd gesture, she thought to herself, almost quaint, it shot up out of the rubble. She put the knife back, into the block, carefully like Wart into the Stone. With both hands. Then she looked for something to wipe off the snot from her dripping nose with, decided on her stained t, then realized she wasn’t wearing it, only a black lace bra, with a pair of Chili’s white cotton panties with baby blue piping and pink floral pattern. She felt under-dressed and impolite. She went into the living room, turned off the Hulk, waited a moment to see what would happen to the stranger, looked carefully, but didn’t notice anything unusual, though she did have to turn her head for a moment to find the damn knob, then, shrugging her shoulders, letting out a sigh, remembered her manners and found her top next to the recliner. Wiped her face, prettied herself, put the stained white t-shirt back on, pushed her tits up, parted her hair, took a deep breath and went and shook the stranger’s hand.
“Pig, Iron Pig.” It said. She was confused, she looked over at the TV. Still off. Chili poked her head out to see what was going on, wearing a conspiratorial grin she could barely repress.
“Get back in!” She didn’t even have to finish the threat.
Still holding her outstretched hand, he stood up, wiped himself off with his other hand, shaking debris off the latex like crumbs off a table, he emerged unscathed, almost shining. 
“Pig, Iron Pig,” he said one last time. Oh. Oh oh oh! It clicked in Polly Pro’s head, such a dingy lil thing she thought to herself.
“How silly of me! Your name! That’s-”
“Yes, yes, that’s me, that’s my name, yes…” he wasn’t sure where she was going.
“That’s your name! Oh! Hahahaha!” She laughed.
He tried to take his hand back. Finally, after several failed attempts he succeeded. He stepped back, continued wiping off his pants, though he really did not need to, at least 
Pol thought, to her satisfaction, but there was something about him, something, perhaps cultured or refined. He continued finding his baring, stepping off the rubble. He asked to be excused for a moment.
“What, are you asking-” at this Pol looked around, perplexed, “me? For permission- of course, yes of course!”
“Thank you, madam,” he bowed, she blushed.
He stepped back into the other world, through the rat portal, now exposed and bigger than ever, Pol thought to herself, wondering. Gun shots were fired, screams heard. Chili poked her full head out. Pol stood firm, leaning slightly forward, eye ablaze, glaring, furious, arms stiff at her side trembling with anger. Chili looked around the room slowly, smelling, alert like a frightened cat, came to an abrupt halt upon seeing Pol and her stiffened, authoritarian demeanor, like a stop sign, pulled her head back into her room so quickly as to make your own head spin. 
“Don’t you mess this up for me, you stupid Mexican whore!” 
Sighing out and shaking her head, “I finally meet a man of substance, a man who appears to have something going for him, and that two-timing trifling tween Mexican puta doesn’t wait two seconds before-”
“Mejora jeffe, solamente wanted to cogni ‘bout the shots!” She screamed from the other room in some incomprehensible jumble of words.
“What?” Shots? 
“Shots fired!” The Mexican screamed, in her best imitation of a Newspersonality Voice. 
Then she shut up.
“Shots? Fired?” In Panic, Pol looked around. But just another moment and Iron Pig reemerged through the portal, unharmed. Almost… bedazzling, with the full-on hero’s aura glow about him, Pol thought to herself.
She thought about offering him her hand to help him through, but seeing as her footwear was strictly professional, what some called a bidness write-off, which was quite different than bidness right-off, though they sounded the same and sometimes it seemed people either got them confused or tried to confuse her by using them interchangeably, or a bidness expense: she was usually barefoot around the flat (which she made a sincere effort to keep swept, at the very least, if not always clean). One of those costs you incur because in bidness, take mo’ to make mo’, ergo Mo-mo, sometimes simply shortened to momo. Certainly not to be confused with Moo Moo’s, cows or sometimes occasionally lactating girls, though, Pol again thought to herself, she wasn’t quite sure how anyone could confuse the two. She stared into “space” really just the corner of the room, the ceiling. Noticed a spider’s web, tried to remember the last time she dusted. Again felt like a rude host.
“Aha!” she said somewhat out loud, certainly more than she intended, upon remembering she had a broom in the closet. She went to look for the closet, finding it odd at it not being there. Suddenly flashed back to her childhood home, then a recent movie she saw on the Late, Late Movie on the television, which reminded her of her childhood home. There actually was a space between the busted fridge and where the stove should have been that once indeed did house a small kitchen closet, slanted, white shell veneer paint, two layers, with a shining silver metallic crescent shaped handle, lightly splattered with the same white paint, inside which were kept among other items, brooms. Pol stood there a moment. Chili did happen to have a broom, herself though, one of her few, cherished items. She poked her head out, momentarily, Pig looked at her, inquiringly, she stood full out, showing off the wares as it were, he nodded approvingly, lightly impressed. She placed the broom against the wall and ducked back in before Pol returned from the kitchen.
“There it is, knew I put it around here somewheres,” shaking her head at her own forgetfulness, Pol picked it up and proceeded to sweep the debris from the wall back towards ratworld, careful not to herself touch the barrier, it didn’t seem to affect Pig, but he seemed, quite… unusual.
“Yes, yes, unusual, that’s the-” Pol said out loud, not meaning to.
“Excuse me…” Pig let it trail off, his eyes stared off to the side, as if he were listening for something.
“Where my manners? I swear, sometimes I do forget myself-” Pol recovered. “Can I offer you something to…”
Pig listened, waiting. Pol continued sweeping, forgetting what she was talking about.
“Excuse me?” Iron Pig asked, this time tilting his head upward. Pol looked at him and thought he looked like a saint, or an alter boy, or maybe just a dirty little boy peeking at an ol’ timey girlie mag like Playboy or Penthouse and he in return blushed at the sudden attention, a smirk nearly forming at the corner of his mouth. She shook her head and planted a hand on her naked fleshy white hip. She waved her hand in his direction, he already sitting in her recliner, comfortable wedged in, his great latex coat protruding and overflowing over the edge in layers and continued sweeping, though being afraid to go near the portal was mostly just pushing it around. Chili again poked her head out to see if she could be of any use, and then gulped, guiltily, blushing crimson red which came out rose on her coffee complexion and meekly, sniffing turned her gaze downward towards her own feet and pulled herself back in, to her room. A long sigh could be heard emanating. But she was soon farting again.
Pol just shook her head, laughed to herself, rolled her eyes, as if to say, “children” and Pig, now a bit confused himself, seemed to nod in agreement. The dust, debris and bits of the former portal started to accumulate in each of two opposite corners and along the sideboard of the wall, opposite the windows with the glaring, hypnotic neon, which was now less so in the full dawn of morning, pinks and blues mingling with nearly blank white yellow on the horizon of the forming day.
Pig was nodding off to sleep. It was only then Pol snapped out of her heroin infused delusional state: pizza! She forgot they had take-out in the fridge! The baby cried from its “crib” in Chili’s room, and the girl, obligingly, pulled out a swollen bit of brown fatty flesh from inside her too-tight, constricting, torn, stained, smelly white bra, under her pink two-tone velour shirt and stuffed it into the tiny girl’s quivering, hiccuping soft wet pink mouth and she grabbed and gripped at air before attaching.
Pol was slightly more aware of the silence than the screaming, mostly oblivious to both, though she would occasionally silence the fucking noise with her much much larger milk juggs, a relief if she’d been drinking a lot of water, which she downed with almost an alarmingly addictive nature, in refilled opaque plastic gallon milk jugs, almost more so than her habit, which was prodigious. She slipped off her black bra jugg-juggler and let it drop to the floor in anticipation, almost with unconscious ease, before entering the kitchen, pulling the slightly moldy pizza box from the second, grated metal wire shelf of the otherwise empty — accept for the-aforementioned-refilled milk-juggs — fridge, she put it on the countertop and sliced off sections with her knife. Absentmindedly she wandered back into the other room, chewing. Startled by Iron Pig, almost as if she almost had already merely momentarily forgotten about him, the warm cooing, a nearly silent constant drone which she had a sixth sense for, snapped her back to reality and she once again remembered her manners. Replacing the knife, she brought the entire pizza box back, into the living room, a habit she was not fond of encouraging in Chili, let alone herself, but what the hell, special occasion she rationalized to herself, and offered it to Pig. Inadvertently it seemed she was offering herself as well. He accepted both and in a moment she was jiggling and laughing on top of him, stuffing pizza crust into his mouth, he holding her up by her tits, repositioning his legs under his coat around her hips. She in faux modesty protesting, whilst having completely forgotten herself and let the pizza box drop onto the dirty, dirty, now debris strewn wooden slat bare floor.
A few hours later, Chili, still wondering what time worked started, poked her head out, to, coitus interuptus, disturb the couple, fucking doggy style, on the self-same floor, the pizza box and recliner swept away towards the corner of the room facing the street, furthest from the TV, Chili’s own room, as well as the kitchen, the new portal, and the old-fashioned regular door to the apartment. She stared a bit, her thoughts got mixed up and jumbled as her speech, a smile came across her face. The couple stopped. She was completely naked, but he still had on his blue latex knee-high boots, and his cowboy hat, a felt black Stetson with silver and turquoise trimming. That’s from my home town, Chili thought to herself with obvious satisfaction. His rippling muscles seemed to hide a certain otherworldly ugliness, a softness perhaps, some imperfection which Chili couldn’t quite put a finger on. But which in the end she decided she liked, at least because he was still wearing a hat from her own hometown, which perhaps one of her long lost relatives had personally made, maybe special for him and she was again lost in thought, recoiling at last with the realization it was a dreaded “off-day” in which she would not be allowed to see the light of day, other than through the rain, the fog, the clouds, the windows of the flat, dripping into her own small room, which was really just a closet, which she shared with the baby.
“No chilies for you tonight, lil girl,” she admonished the sleeping baby, as if talking to a doll, wagging a finger, really talking about, or to, herself, as if anyone else would care and then laughed at both that thought and the notion of feeding chilies to a baby and herself cried herself back to sleep, snuggling and sniffling into her stained, hot pink extra large beach towel, her most prized possession, found on the beach one day beneath a dead dog. Partially bleached in places from where Pol cleaned it for her.
She often dreamed of the rich heiress who must have owned such a beautiful treasure and the life she led which then morphed into her amazing life with many special friends, dogs which became furniture and stuffed animals which came to life, sometimes as friends, still as animals, and other times merely as pets, though some of which she still favored, almost as if they were friends. And now she drifted off into such a dream as that, only this time with her new friend the SuperHero Iron Pig, who had strange mind powers, could blast through dimensions and make things out of thin air with his hands alone. 
Chapter 4
Angus T. Guiliani was crime boss of New Egypt. Hmm, crime lord. No, no, no. Crime boss of crime bosses? Well, you get the idea. Crime boss both fit the description and fell short, for he was that, yes, but, well, much more. An impresario, yes, yes you could say that. A sort of celebrity, definitely. A mastermind, entrepreneur, evil genius. Yes, yes, yes. He was, however, not a nice man. 
 
But New Egypt was not a very nice place. A shoe, a foot. New Egypt was metal and glass. It was concrete and cement. New Egypt was a melting pot, an incubator of dreams, a prison of souls, a junction at a delta, a port of slaves, a light on a hill, a study in contrasts. It rose with bright shimmering metallic obelisk, and fell with every broken soled broken soul waiting-for-the-other-shoe-to-drop gumshoe dick, fallen on hard times, brother can you spare a dime sob story S.O.B. that fell into its dirty lecherous lap. And they were pouring in. Always. All the time, from every fucking track, every road. A torrent, a stream, every one with a sadder fuckin’ sob story than the next. So New Egypt was not what you’d call a nice place. Not a place for nice guys to do particularly well, not that they finish better than last anywheres else, but it reserved, somewhere in its hungry, consumptive, churning belly, a special kind of morose, tortured wickedness for those poor sorry saps and schmucks who suffered from that particular malady afflicting the weak of heart, those with the soft sentimentality who were termed suckers. Angus T. 
Guiliani was many things, many things. He was many things to many people, but he was neither soft, sentimental, nor a sucker. He was, in short, not a nice man.
And yet he did live by some set of rules, not an honor code. But he, at least himself believed, he lived according to an ethical system, that is, had an ethos, his actions, as violent as some of them were, or the animus of his orders and directions which gave rise to those violent acts, were not entirely random. Though some have noted a distinct connection between hatred, malice, violence and chaos, or lack of order. He was neither dispassionate, nor particularly ill-tempered, at least not in the sense that he didn’t like to party nor to have a good time. Nor was he one of those laughing on the outside but crying on the inside demented souls. Oh he was twisted like a knotty misshapen oak, his black soul was pitch. But he enjoyed blow, the horses, an odd game of billiards or cards and very much liked to fuck bitches, almost as much as he enjoyed killing. But his raw brutality was saved not for murder or torture or rape, but instead for his true lust, power. Which in the end usually just came down to numbers, math. Which he himself was no genius at. His hired thugs, assassins, body guards, the roll of lawyers, judges, politicians was a stuffed rolodex which could barely be flipped, but dwarfed in importance by a couple of numbers scribbled on the back of a torn off cardboard box of cracker jacks, another written on the back of a business card. Rocket scientists. Well, conceivably, they would have probably gone on to become rocket scientists. But for a few flaws in flawless betting schemes, a taste for ecstasy, a penchant for drugging girls with GHB, a couple of corrupt judges. They fell neatly into his path, and those that fell in his path and were not crushed often ended up under a heavy yoke, though it is not entirely clear which fate was the worse of the two.
At this point they could probably be described as mad scientists. MBA Wall Street types on steroids, unlimited wealth and power for the new algo, and Angus T. Guiliani was not a welch, he compensated and compensated and then compensated some more. Money can buy you a lot of things, but Angus did more than supply money. He fulfilled dreams. Fantasies. Sometimes fetishes. Some sick fucking twisted ones, in the case of the second name on that cracker jack box. He was in many respects fastidiously neat, about his appearance, shaved head, manicured nails, plush penthouse apartment, gilded everything. Why had he kept the torn off cracker jack box? A whim? Perhaps. He met them at the races, was in his box with the Mayor, a couple of his dames, when he was introduced. Happened to have it on him, tore it off, put it in his back pocket. Never left it after that. It was really the key to his empire. But these three, they too were replaceable. They sensed their importance, and their worth, but they were constantly reminded of the latter, sometimes in subtle ways, other times not so subtly. They were kept in check. Often working late hours in dank, underground cellars filled with incandescent light, from long tubes, which were erratic at best and frustratingly infuriating at worst. Fueled by coffee and rage, filled with nervous ticks and tells, sweaty armpit button down polyester shirts turned off-white yellow by age, with pocket protectors shoved into the handkerchief pocket. 
The limos, hookers, drugs, parties were always kept just close enough that they couldn’t forget them, but never quite so close that they could ever forget who was boss. Angus T. Guiliani was the crime lord of crime bosses of New Egypt. He was not a nice man. And it was not a nice place to live.
There was graft and corruption, sure. Oh to be sure. But in many cities the graft is like a ponzi scheme which translates power into money, moving from elected office, to appointed, down and out, into the street, where kickbacks from many “soldiers” move up the chain to buy power for their mob bosses through lobbyists. The problem with New Egypt is that more or less was the system, the only system, there really was no real, reliable, honest to goodness government for the graft to “graft” onto, a climber without a trellis. Into this vacuum swirled rampant drug addiction, sex slavery, child prostitution, sweat shops only to be occasionally trampled under and tamped down by the ebb and flow cyclical nature of economics, the turning point usually signaled by the kind of excess one associates with France.
The French! Ah but to be French is to truly feel. 
And Angus T. Guiliani had his Versaille, had his Sun Palace, his ornamented gardens, his banquet halls, the excess paved the way for the translation of the power, into money, into the very shaping of the landscape, the skyline, the very heart of the city to his will. He was not particular whimsical. While he was neither soft, nor temperamental in the sense of one given to moodiness, and while he was also not given to whimsy, per se, he was also not driven, nor authoritarian in the manner of a drill sergeant or field whip, he delegated. Which allowed him the freedom to at least feel superior, admonishing those below him who relied solely on brutality of force as a means to an end, and in this demented state believed himself to be somewhat of a benefactor, nay perhaps they benefactor of his city.
Iron Pig, Polly Pro and Chili were arriving in Grand Central Railway Station just as Mike Stamp, himself, was pulling back into town. Which, as luck would have it, was just where Stacy was headed, now a wanted terrorist fugitive, with a certain man-abouttown gun-for-hire expat merc in tow, whom she just absconded with, busted out of the nut house. 
Chapter 5
The train dumped her on the outskirts of the town. Rolling hills carried her away from the city, away from New Egypt. It was exciting, she thought to herself. She quivered, as much from the chill, slightly saline air, as from her own sense of excitement, exhilaration, a freedom unencumbered by the weight of a man at her side, so much meat. As her heel bent, she sniffed her nose, she’d grown used to the now numb pain ages ago, a certain embarrassment, a certain quiet foible left deep inside her, nothing to lean on. She picked up her bag and walked. It was every other quiet, small, good-for-nothing provincial hell- it was every other ugly sister hiding in the pleasant shade cast. It was perfect! she thought to herself, just perfect. 
She trudged, presently. Because, while the small plaid carry on was light enough, under her arm she awkwardly struggled with an easel, she moved by halts and gaps, resting, pushing on, resting, dragging, taking a moment to wipe the sweat from her brow. But the sun was going down, at least. Her taxi app was not working without a signal, and after dropping her phone twice in the past week, not to mention the battery, draining, draining. She could use a man, now, she thought to herself. 
Across town. It was actually a little hamlet, closer to the bay, where her new studio sat. 
There was nothing new about it, except to her. It had been a pig slaughter warehouse in its own day, and now, while all the young girls had dropped the crocheted frivolous niceties extending their poor hoop skirts, she, sullen, immovable, stoic would not yield to the whims of fashion. All still clad in their baby blues and pastel yellows the French colonials, gothic Dutch split levels mixed in with an assorted mixed-bag of Sears Catalog bricks, shed their Southern Gothic verandas and porches, installed doublegarages and took down white picket fences. Still, her odd, square, stolid shape persisted on the landscape, defining the view. You are what you do. It was no longer the last stop on the porcine express, but never-the-less, it retained a working woman’s sense of independence from everything around her, much like its current occupant. 
And now, six months later, torn down, built up, reshaped, the old girl looked twenty, nay, forty years, well, after all, what’s age. A lit horse-shoe cul de sac driveway now gave her home, along with the manicured lawn, the feel of some corporate bed n’ breakfast, perhaps a European hostel with an avante garde upper crust clientele. She lived and worked on the second floor, which, was lit up this night as most, like a daisy chain crowning a royal head. More windows than Palladio would have suggested perhaps, the solid almost Bauhaus functionality of the establishment might have yet impressed him as elegant, if yet both sparse, gaudy and confused. If Palladio built a rocket ship it would be this domicile. But it probably wouldn’t get very far. 
She was disturbed. Working a canvas. From a distance she would merely have appeared lost in thought. The first floor reminded one of a lobby. It contained a kitchen, many many closets, walk in bath, steam room. Chef, gardener, maids lived in a much more traditional house, down the path. She had an ocean view, if not quite a beach. Which she preferred, and enjoyed the walk, over clover, heather, and grass to almost volcanic outcropping, which surf crashed into with ferocity, creating a myst a Scotsman would be proud aur thag wee moor to call home to, if lowland surf cliffs could suit a Scott.
But during nights as these she just sat nursing her coffee, with two hands, on a round, metal stool, with four legs bending upward, covered by another metal ring, holding up a corkscrew spike upon which sat a pie-tin shaped metal slab, which was quite cold to the touch, and covered in layers of multi-colored, dried, scabbing, peeling paint. She was hunched over, alternately looking at the canvas, her eyes glazed over, pupils dilating as she focused on the sea through the windows to her right. Slightly swivelling, sipping, contemplating dark greens and blues, Turner, and Picasso and De Kooning. Her skin, translucent, otherworldly, her eyes, sparking fireflies hiding nothing but her soul, her face a constant expression of inner torture and turmoil, and beautiful, very beautiful.
And now a frenzied bit of flying hands. And now more rest. And now stalking, alternatively biting her swollen, pulsing, blood red lip, then the wooden lacquered handle of a long, fine tip brush. Some thrash dancing to unheard music. Back, perching on her chair. She lived upstairs, but life went on, happened, down. She woke up at night, but during daylight the denizens, her brood of misfit, outcasts all, went to work. She was queen. She was apart. She hovered over them. She was absent, checked out, and yet like those twenty-two strings on a sitar, out of reach, unplucked, yet always always singing, below the surface, the itch.
And yet, not even Angus T. Guiliani, crime lord of New Egypt could lay his rough, scarred workingman’s hands on her, not anymore. She floated off, in the night, into the ether, disappeared, in plain sight. That was the mistake most made, they tried too hard, to hide, to escape, would run off to South America, or Europe. These were his back pockets. These were where he himself hid the cigars in his inner vestments, these were places his hands found all on their own, in the dark, half asleep. No, the secret was to remain, to always hover just off the ground, just out of reach, absent, but always present.
Well, you can guess at much of the rest. Her old loft downtown for instance. It too, strangely, once housed a slaughterhouse. Or perhaps a leatherworks, maybe both. How did they meet? How did she discover his other interests? How does it always happen? He could remodel himself, but never quite rid himself of his workingman’s past, his hands were really only a visible symbol of an inner reality which bespoke as much of him about his mannerisms and manners or lack there of as the new clothing, company and refined tastes tried to hide. Oh sure, another perk blonde whore filled her shoes a week later. She matched the curtains, or was it the rug. And another replaced her the following week. But Queen Kate was still the unrestricted undeniable, unchallenged undefeated Queen of the Night, the Underworld, Chelsea, Tribeca and SoHo, the Moon, Hathor, fuck Goddess Nefertiti — Queen of New Egypt, even stuck out in the ‘burbs, out passed the malls, all the way to the sea in the Upper Kingdom, barely removed from the psychedelic psycho day-glo surfnazi trash party known everywhere in all dimensions as Jersey Shore, except actually right there where it is simply the shore, split between bennies, townies and crabbers.
If Moe had only known it before getting caught in her web. But meanwhile Stamp met Pig, worlds collided, fell apart. Iron Pig, Polly Pro and Chili formed a sort of new age trinity mother father divinity, but Iron Pig was no pimp, let alone a steady earner. He got mixed up with Polly but just couldn’t extricate himself. And he started bouncing Chili on the side, which was just no good for her. They left the baby. Oh no, no, not like that. Not just alone in the closet. On the front step of a nunnery, wrapped in softest ermine swaddling. It was from Chili’s hometown… well, OK- maybe it wasn’t actually fur. OK OK in truth it was Chili’s pink beach towel with a bit of the faux fur torn off the hood of a classic orange lined blue nautica parka. And they had to tear the “blanket” from Chili’s wrathful gripping hands while she screamed, cried, begged, finally pleaded, then crumpled herself back into a ball. She told the baby goodbye, kissed its fat, well fed cheek, and it smiled up at her beatifically and filled her with the peace she’d need for the long journey to New Egypt. In truth, she herself would now have been prego’s too, if not for the birth control and the estrogen which told her young body she already was, which she dutifully took under the careful watchful tutelage of Pol. It was now as routine as brushing her teeth, spitting out cum, “smiling” for the camera (even when she really didn’t feel like it) and walking the docks with that certain strut perfected by a young lolita Jodi Foster playing in Taxi Driver. Or was it the Robot Wore Tennis Shoes. Whichever, one of them.
Chili slept most of the way. Mike Stamp hadn’t slept in almost a week. He’d been tweaking almost alone on the rush of the gooseflesh, but this nazi hunter was also a bit chemically dependent on the cocainum itself, which was usually stored and sold in dry powdered form, though it ended up on bodega shelves in bottles, in a less condensed form in which it was simply mixed with tap water and carbonation. And Polly Pro was looking mighty fine in the brass twilight of the railway station bar in the cavernous interior of New Egypt’s central transportation hub. When he enquired of her about the nature of a two-for-one mother daughter dealio and she replied she’d have to ask her pimp, he nearly jumped for joy, but cool customer he was, he just sang himself a song and waited, quietly bobbing his head in that unique manner he had. Pol hadn’t actually worked in a few weeks, kind of on that blissful domestic holiday, out to lunch. But she tried to be polite. Chili was sleepy but in just the short month or two that had passed went through a transformation, blossoming as they say, a bit of fat off here, a bit added there, into a well, not a young lady but….
Pol pushed Chili out in front of her, nudged her, go on, go on. Chili finally gave in, upon feeling all the attention, not just from Mike Stamp, towering over her a few feet away, still dressed in his get-up, messed up as ever, but of assorted strangers in the night gathering for a touch of human kindness, respite from the cold night, or a bit of refreshment, or both, she blushed, sudden and hot. But this quite fresh response only added to her appeal.
Oh. Oh! Mike Stamp slammed his hands together, trying to remain calm.
Outside the shop, Stacy, wearing shades and an overcoat, incognito looked from face to face for the presence of the law, or authority, but she knew she was safe, inside New Egypt proper, land of the nefarious, the unkempt, the wicked, out of the grasps of the long arm, away from Long Island. New Egypt consisted of what was Manhattan, the 
Bronx, parts of Yonkers and extended into most of what was New Jersey before the war. The Lower Kingdom was Mall Country and geographically upside down, which was confusing to “freshies” new to the area, and located in the north. It operated in its own time, by its own strange rules. But most of the rest was considered part of New Egypt, in the domain of Angus T. Guiliani. But there were wide open spaces, not to mention the Pine Barrens, and the inhabitants of New Egypt proper rarely like to venture off the rock. Besides the GW bridge was bombed out and you almost never got cell coverage out in the boonies anymore. The war changed a lot of things. So Stacy hustled by — oblivious to Polly, Chili and Mike, let alone to Iron Pig, in his own alternate reality most of the time (off in the bathroom at that very moment) — with a certain escaped fugitive in tow, still dressed in pink pajamas, under a trench matching hers, men’s and women’s show models she was ready to walk with, which he stopped her to pay cash for. But by now, she was breathing easier, becoming more relaxed in her posture, not even bothering to stay out of security cameras’ swaths (sweeping back and forth, back and forth, in the ceiling corners, like slow-motion metronomes on drugs) connected through some ancient serpentine wiring system to some closed-off room with snoozing, beerdrunk men dozing off, dressed in polyester blue, navy pants and baby blue shirts, provided by their employee, which they changed into in even more ancient locker rooms, built when the station was erected, and little changed, or cleaned, since.
She took off the dark sunglasses. Trying to decide their next move. But she was less clear that their present circumstances presented any less danger, so she kept them moving and they boarded a subway uptown, for which they again, went down first, to 33rd and transferred.
Iron Pig was the forgetful sort. After the business with Stamp was sorted out, taking a taxi downtown, he suddenly realized he had a show, that very night. Turns out he was the lead singer and bass player in OMFUG, a then rather trendy hardcore thrash metal punk new age techno jazz band, seven member band, three sets of Chinese identical female sister twins (separated at birth, three separate times), each from different provinces and himself. (The restrictive laws were no more surprising to Westerners than the abundance of Western big pharma fertility drugs on the Chinese black market, but what was surprising to many was the persistence of these particular parents- out of a billion people, six girls was just random coincidence in an extremely large sample size.) They were formerly known as three hearts two minds and had a couple of chart toppers during the sugarpop phase of postwar reconstruction, shortly after the armistice. They did streamPorn for a while before the internet crashed, once, finally and for good, but couldn’t walk away from their first love, music. So after several stalled attempts of pimping, Iron Pig tried managing them as a creative director, even tried getting them signed to a Major Label when all the indie pornStreamers were blowing up. Again, he forgot to mention he’d studied at Julliard, had perfect pitch, studied upright bass with Christian McBride (before he died, of course, true soldier for the revolution, RIP) and so they formed OMFUG (other music from the underground) and toured. He knew something was calling him back to the city. Polly Pro and Chili were as forgotten as yesterday’s news, crumpled under sand and cat shit. The pulse of the city had him, had him like Queen Kate had Moe, entranced, hypnotized, drugged, zombified. The odd thing was, at least Pig knew it. Moe, in the AfterV at the mall after the MiniB in the Lower Kingdom, just out of the reach of both the law and crime lord Angus T. Guiliani, was, as the saying goes, without a clue. 
In the Pig Palace by the sea, in the second floor loft studio, she sat, spinning her web of enchantment.