Shotgun Summer

Celestial Paradigms. Servonomicon. The Great Freeze. Macrovores and Hermaphronoids. Liquid shirts with upturned collars and drugs that make your slippers taste like pie. The planet roils from the Love Laws and pukes terra-trash onto the districts of the Zone. The new-pubescent youth spit on encapsulated health and board their buggies to the disaffected center of the universe—Dolce’s Café, Earth.

The block is littered with teenage deviants, tattooed rebels from space defending their plot against the forces of Solar-class congeniality. I'd start a war if it weren't so fuckin’ hot in these boots.

But, thank God for sundown.

I’ve been sitting on this sidewalk for three hours, my back against the storefront, sipping lukewarm cola and extolling the virtues of the Arabica bean to my bloodshot companions. My feet drip inside my calf-high motor-boots; my Mohawk hangs low like a paraffin sun dial. Maybe it’s the way the air settles and stagnates between the maze of mega-sprawling shopping-plexes and cloud-piercing monuments to the all-consuming oligarchy, but July always seems hotter downtown.

Dolce’s serves the usual boiling assortment of caffeinated consumables, but it has to be ninety-eight degrees outside and I haven't gotten around to removing my leather jacket. Colony towns are climate controlled—but Earth’s? The cheap bastards. I am absolutely on fire, but I’m not about to lose my cool. I wouldn't consider a wardrobe change until I feel the bitter sting of sweat in my eyes.
 
Baby Bad Babies and the Jehovah’s Vandals hit the free-radio airwaves and kids from across the system flock to the scene like shrapnel to a B-17. Somebody inside is playing Circle Jerks covers on a wooden guitar. Amazing. It’s like a punk rock Renaissance Fair. Rebellion’s in the air and it feels like wet leather.

Tim is a few feet away trying to extort credits off some poor soul who probably wandered too far from his mansion in the outer-sect. He turns and catches my gaze, gritting his teeth with a simulated madness.

“What’re you looking at, freak?” he scowls, followed by a discreet wink and his signature grin that always makes my skin crawl.

“I really need to change my socks,” I tell him, furrowing my brow and trying not to laugh; he’s got this kid’s collar in a grip with one hand and jabbing at his gut with the other, palm up, half expecting doubloons to spill out of him like a Japanese pachinko machine.

Tim is a dick, and my best friend/roommate, but saying that he shares the rent with me would be a very loose assessment. He smells like death and sports a self-inflicted scar that frames his left eye and trails down to his cheek—a question mark with only one right answer. It’s disturbing to look at and probably the only reason I let him hang out with me. The fact that nobody likes Tim only adds to his mystique.

But I wasn’t kidding about my socks. My boots are a jungle and the forecast is moist. So let it be said that no advancements in space-age textile development can supplant the age-old tactile comfort of a minty-fresh pair of common cotton socks.

Alicia is shy, beautiful and ‘Off World’. I’d fallen for her the day she walked into my Exo-Lanquage class, mid-semester, wearing a fashionable overcoat with a matching hue of cherry-red lipstick. She'd moved to my town from Arsia Mons or some such alien land, looking like an electric angel with her off-kilter hair and soap bar skin. And there she stands, ordering her usual large cola with ice, not pretending to not notice me. Ahhhhh, yeah... young love. There’s nothing worse, and it’s the only reason I’d wait here, melting in the summer sun, hoping for the opportunity to embarrass myself with a solid show of desperation. I’ll dazzle her with my charm, launching into a conversation that’s been burning a hole in my nut for the past six months: “Hey there, beautiful, I’m Blik... Oh, you already know my name?.. Cool... Hey, I wanted to ask you if... Yes?.. What?.. Outside your window?.. When?.. Last night?.. No, that wasn’t me.”
She’s currently being propositioned by Akio Oshiro, a self-proclaimed playboy (and utter razzbot) from the outer-sect, but I’m sure her sweet giggles and generous smiles are just some feminine ploy to lead bonks like him to a gruesome end. Psycho-femmes I can handle, but sexual statistics? Well, they carry baggage. 

9PM. Still hot. Still hanging out in front of Dolce's waiting for something hip to go down. Probably too late now to take off my jacket. I’ve already made it this far, it just wouldn’t make any sense. Even among the wayward youth there are expectations. We rebel against our parents. We rebel against our posh towns. We definitely rebel against those tuggin’ prep kids from Ceres Colony IV and we'd be damned if we're gonna let the weather call the shots. The jacket stays on. I give the bird to some Yupper walking by, my lungs struggling to pull in air.

Nestor pretends to trip over my legs and lands harder than he poorly planned. He’s one of those guys that’ll turn his intended folly into a piss-rage just to spare himself a harmless chiding, so I cut him off before he can launch a formal complaint.

“If you wore a shirt every once in a while you wouldn’t scab your nipples so much,” I point out, watching him brush the pebbles off his bare chest.

“Do you even have nipples, Blik? I thought they melted away with your mommy’s sweet kisses.”

He’s never seen me without a shirt on, and I don’t think that’s even possible.

“Jokes are no substitute for a protective layer of synthesized fabric,” I argue, rubbing my chest in a mock sensuality that lasts just long enough to make him feel uncomfortable. I pinch at my jacket to ply the T-shirt from my damp skin, making the sucking sound of cellophane being peeled off a warm Christmas ham. 
He sidles next to me, straddling the smooth composite deck of his MagSlide, bobbing up and down until his weight equilibrates on its magnetically induced cushion of air. I’ve never had the nerve to traverse the Zone on a floating plank of plastic death, but damn if this concrete slab beneath my ass isn’t counseling me to reassess its value.

“We’re all heading up to Devil’s Point tonight to check out the lunar eclipse,” he says, digging about in a sort of refrigerated fanny-pack on his lap. “You should come.”

“Who’s we?” I’d consider pouring sand down my boots if the option would present itself. My butt has gone numb and I’m shifting from cheek to cheek.
Nestor finds his inhaler and takes a hit.

“Azure’ll be there,” he adds.

She’s Nestor’s gal—or sister—or both. They look like twins with their long, tight curls and I’m sure I’ve seen them kiss.

“...and Jackson...”

His name isn’t really ‘Jackson’, it’s Alvin Mellish. The origin of his moniker escapes me, but he’s one of Nestor’s cronies and he shares the same aversion to practical outer-wear.

“You know Snow will definitely be there...”

I’m not going to admit that I have no idea who ‘Snow’ is. It could be some platinum blonde babe from a neighboring sect or it could be an albino with a penchant for mountaineering. You never know from nicknames. But probably this is some sort of illicit drug reference by the way Nestor’s grinning at me.

“...and Super-Frank...”

Frank is the show, I’ll give you that. One man band. In action, he’s a treat to behold.

“...and Bob...”

Which one?

“...and Alicia...”

Bingo. “I’ll be there.” But not before I change my socks. Who knew that feet had so many glands?

“...and her little brother.”

Good Lord, why?

Nestor hops on his board and pushes off, leaving behind a patch of wet on the wall.

“And don’t bring that idiot Tim!” he shouts, flipping innumerable gestures in Tim’s direction.

Tim turns, greeting Nestor with a choice gesture of his own, holding tight to a handful of credits he’s just purloined.

10PM AND I’VE GOT SWAMPFOOT.
My socks are saturated with sweat and they’ve worked their way down, inexorably, to the front of my boots. I feel the uneasy sensation of the ocean between my toes.

Main Street runs a straight shot from the café to my lowly domicile and I’m halfway home. Tim has removed his jacket and slung it over his shoulder, trying to look cool, but I know better - nobody looks cool when they’re perspiring. I’m pretty sure he can hear the moisture in my boots make a squishing sound with every step I take, but looking at him puts me right at ease. He looks ridiculous. I’m a close second, but Tim really looks fuckin’ ridiculous.
And I forgot about the hill. A billion years of geological upheaval stuck a steep grade between me and my pad and I’m about to pass out. I’m seconds from parking my ass on the sidewalk and removing my socks, but I’m already riding that fine line between looking punk rock and looking homeless and nuts. My clothes are dirty, I’m sweating and my hair is pasted to my face. Socks are all I have left of humanity so I tell Tim he looks absurd and push on.

10-SOMETHING PM.
We’re rounding the corner and there’s a police cruiser pulling up to my hovel. Tim wants to dash, but I tug at his leash and tell him to stay. This is probably his doing anyway. There are any number of reasons for metro law to bust down my door, but to simply knock? Well, now that gives one pause.
Tim looks guilty, but he only has two looks to choose from so I don’t even bother to ask. I’m just a hundred feet away from a fresh pair of paw liners, but cops trump comfort and I’m not about to miss my chance at love.

Some goiter in a convertible Falcon Devastator slides his floating alloy beast to a daft halt, cutting us off as we turn to make our retreat. He revs his engine, making the sound of a humming bird at a gunnery range. 
“I’ve been looking for you everywhere,” the driver says. “Get in.” 
The door to the Devastator eases open as if controlled by telekinesis. An array of multi-colored dashboard indicators pop and blink with seizure inducing regularity. His face comes clear from under a white-brimmed pimp cap and I realize I know who this rapscallion is.
“No time to reminisce, Nance.” I tell him. “I’m on a mission of love.”
I throw a few mock punches at the air and a karate kick in his general direction. Moisture sloshes about in my boot and I regret my impromptu display of bravado.

 “Not you, strawberry,” Nance replies. “Tim.”

Nance’s line of sight tells me he’s keen to the cops and in a hurry to scuttle.
Tim bounces into the front seat, grinning back at me like he’s just been crowned the King of All Things Crazy. It’s rare he gets to show me up and I can’t help but feel a sick sense of pride. He’s like a horny, retarded brother with a skill set so limited I loath to wonder what Nance could possibly ever want with him.
“Are you getting in or what?” Nance blasts, looking from me to Tim who is pushing dashboard buttons at random, fascinated by the pretty, pretty lights. “The monkey needs its handler.”

It’s a couple more hours before Earth’s umbra blankets the Moon, aligning the celestial bodies in syzygy, so I jump in the backseat and take a chance. When you hang out with minor criminals adventure is never far off, and I could really use a ride to the nearest retail bargain shack.

It’s no big secret that universities and intelligence communities only recruit those wretched few whose parents didn’t have the means (or the common sense) to fit their newborns with the latest in in-ware augmentation. Reason being, it’s been understood for generations that these devices, implanted directly into the brain, stunt your cognitive abilities by providing you with a feed of instantaneously accessible data, thus minimizing the necessary cerebral exercise required to calculate mathematics, general problem-solve or recall information. Who invented Velcro? Beats me. What is the ratio of septic systems-to-Buddhist temples in Kathmandu? Hell if I know. What’s fifteen times nine? Give me a minute and something to write on and I’ll let you know, but I certainly can’t just spew the answers to these kinds of questions like most people can. Why? Because I haven’t been hardwired to the grid like ninety-nine-point-nine percent of the population. My mother, raised in a commune by paranoid subversives, was unnaturally wary of neural implants and my father (whoever he might be) took a permanent leave of absence before I saw the light of day. I missed out on the crucial first year of infancy when the brain is malleable enough to accept that sort of artificial material without eventually encasing it in a nasty malignant tumor. But given that all my friends are both plugged-in and complete morons, I can confidently consider myself lucky to be living on the outs.

The upshot to being an unplugged pariah is, when the neuro-grid finally goes down—and it certainly will—I’ll be the only guy left who can recall his girlfriend’s address or reheat a frozen slice of pizza without calling in for technical support. So why do the masses buy into the cyclic dependence of virtual intelligence? For the same reason gentiles get circumcised: it’s an easy alternative to washing your penis.
 
In my humble opinion, we are well-into the final downward spiral of mankind, when me and the rest of the meek shall most certainly inherit a giant fuckin’ mess.

Anyways, the landscape is zipping by as we cruise the Devastator down a lonely tract in the mid-belt span and Tim is glaring back at me from the front seat, razzing at the fact that I’ve been talking to myself ever since we skipped the Zone.

“We’re not stopping, Blik, so if you say one more thing about your goddamn socks I’m gonna degauss your ass! Just sit back and enjoy the ride,” Nance yells, eyeballing me hard through the rearview.

“You’d have to stop to kick my ass, and where exactly are you taking us anyways?”

I’m sensing this foray get beleaguered so I’m questioning my decision to get in the car.

Tim turns to chime in with, “Take ‘em off and hang ‘em from the back. They’ll air dry in a few minutes then you can stop whining.”

I’m not whining. My tone is low, slow and calculated. I never whine—ever—but Tim’s suggestion is so elegant in its simplicity I’m almost embarrassed he thought of it first.

“Pure genius,” I shout, giving credit where it’s due and grabbing for my boot buckles.

Nance spins his head around so fast we swerve into oncoming traffic.

“Keep your socks on, strawberry. You’re not mucking up my Devastator with your mangy shrimp-slips,” he barks, turning forward in time to avoid barreling us off the express. “Besides, we’re almost there.”
We steer off the main, cruising up a dilapidated stretch of off-grid road.
“My crew got cold and I need a crazy-looking fool like Tim to back me up,” he explains.

Tim is actually a really nice guy if you don’t have anything worth taking. He doesn’t kill me because I treat him better than his mother, and I let him squat at my flat because my building doesn’t allow for pets. It’s a symbiotic compromise to a meaningful relationship.

Tim pops in his seat, jerking like a sugar-high toddler with a diaper full of sweets.

“Who do I get to hurt?”

“That’s the spirit, Tim!”

Nance throws a fist in the air, grinning, but acutely aware of Tim’s metal studded jacket threatening to scratch against the Devastator’s custom, red leatherette upholstery.

I know Tim well enough to know that he prefers to reserve his violence for special occasions, so I’m hoping that his enthusiasm here is just for show. I’m wondering just how much joy I’m going to get out of this ride and my brain is parsing overtime, constructing a con to get me out of this floating boat and into a dry pair of woven hoses.

“This chump from the Out’s,” Nance starts. “He’s got something to drop, but the bastard’s playing coy. Now listen up ‘cause I’ll only tell you once. This info dies with us. Super hush-hush.”

He dogs us, waiting for a sign of understanding, but settles for a look of impatience.

“His name’s Akio Oshiro,” he continues, “and he tells me... dug up... alien... black cube... fish market... space shield... lunar eclipse... bikini party. Hey asshole, are you listening to me?”

Akio Oshiro. His name falls from my gullet like bitter pharmacon. He’s the razz that’s been playing on Alicia’s sweet, sweet affections thus shanking my amorous devices. This lustful lady-killer must be stopped before civilization or my libido takes a decisive hit.

Nance goes on with, “Tim, I need you to put on your meanest face.”

Tim glares back, locking his jaw and curling up his lips, revealing a medieval mess of yellowish choppers. He growls fiercely, spittle spraying asunder and dripping down his boney chin. It’s disturbing as hell and a look only his handler could love.

“Jesus Christ,” Nance grumbles. “Let’s tone that down a bit.”

“What about me?” I ask as we pull up to a building that looks like an abandoned relic from a time when shit moved on wheels.

“You watch the car,” Nance replies, opening the door and walking away, with Tim following close behind.

I let out something between a sigh and a grunt as they disappear into the shadow of the building.

The moon is still full—its luminous, yellow face not yet contaminated by the impending umbrage of Earth. I’m hoping that means the party on Devil’s Point hasn’t started, because my plan to win the girl rather involves me being present when it happens.

A false star twinkles high above the horizon with the distinctive blue cast of a colony-cluster orbiting the sun somewhere between Mars and Ceres. Or is it Saturn and Uranus? It doesn’t matter. It’s yet another reminder that affluence courts lunacy and lunacy is king. Why anyone would choose to leave behind the wondrous stench of organic firma in exchange for a promise of the sterilized longevity of space is far beyond my understanding. Who wants to live for two hundred years in a pressurized floating fishbowl? Well, apparently the answer is a shit-ton of people do and I say good riddance to them all. That’s more Dim-Sum for me, my friends. Purified air and folic reductive chem-baths can never replace the existential aromas that waft from the kitchens of the neighborhood Cantonese Pick-N-Fry. I spit on manufactured longevity and the boredom it cultivates. Give me fireworks. I want the bang.

Take, for example, Tim and Nance—Two guys who don’t give a clown’s balls about tomorrow, much less a hundred years from now—and the sight of them dragging an unconscious Japanese man toward me now is simply a granular sampling of their collective joie de vivre.
 
“Get off the hood, strawberry, and open the trunk.”

Considering Nance is holding a comatose man in his hands, I sit up, jump down and—
 
“How do you open the trunk?”

“You’re kidding me,” Nance snaps. “It’s a trunk. You just open it.”

“Those are just words. What I need is a lever or button or a spell of some kind.”

“Driver’s side. Button. Pictograph of a trunk on it,” he directs, watching me play dumb, shrugging my shoulders like the act of walking around to the driver’s side and pushing a button is beyond my comprehension.
He cries, “Forget it!” and lets go of Akio’s arm, who slumps over; his other arm held up limply by Tim.

“Never ask the unplugged to do a man’s job!”

Tim lets go and Akio drops like a doll to the dirt.

Nance finger-draws an invisible symbol onto the palm of his left hand until a beep is heard and the trunk pops open, like old magic.

“Gimme your socks,” Nance demands.

“No,” I say, instinctively turning to Tim. “What the hell did you do to him?” shoots out of me with a tone of such concern I feel a little embarrassed. I’ve already decided that this reality isn’t exactly what I bargained for when I imagined taking Akio out of the picture, so playing the upright citizen here may go a long way to keep me from spending the rest of my life behind bars with these two numbskulls. I’m definitely not helping them put an Asian narcoleptic in the trunk, and I’m sure as shit not giving anybody my socks.

“Nothing,” Tim replies, with a look so disappointed I just have to believe him. “I didn’t do anything!” He’s all puppy-eyed and pouty now, like the day he lost his favorite knife. Little brings him down like the missed opportunity to hit somebody.

“We didn’t touch him,” Nance adds, throwing a suspicious-looking satchel into the trunk of the Devastator. He wasn’t carrying this on his way to the building so I can only assume it belongs to Akio. “He just fainted or something when we walked through the door. Now give me your damn socks.”

“No,” I repeat, sneaking a peek at the satchel in the trunk, then back down at Akio who is lying unconscious, nose to the ground, at their feet. “I don’t know what you’re up to, but I’m gonna need these socks for the long walk home.”
“We need to tie him up, strawberry.”

“So find some rope.”

We turn our heads, collectively looking about in the dark void around this empty lot. North of us is downtown Zone, the inner-most section from whence we came. Between here and the inner-sect is about five miles of broken plots of derelict housing projects, one of which I lived in before the enforcement of Consolidation. To the south is pretty much the same deal. But east of downtown is the opulent land of milk and money, commonly known to us urban denizens as the ‘Outer-Sect’. This is where the affluent have manufactured their personal utopia and electronically walled-out the working-class riff-raff. This is where the houses aren’t stacked on top of each other and compressed into barely-habitable cubes with roommates who don’t pay the rent. And this outer section of the Zone is where Akio and his soul-sucking, love-napping ilk dwell.

So summing up the situation, it’s pretty obvious we aren’t going to find any rope.

I would tell Nance to use his own socks but I can see he’s wearing the short ankle-type which are fine for keeping your shrimps warm, but useless for binding limbs.
 
“You can use Tim’s socks,” I suggest, assuming they’re more suitable to the task given the gratuitously high throat of his ass-kicking boots. 
“I’m not wearing any,” he replies.

Nance and I look at him. Sweat has matted his tuft of ginger hair and is dripping off his brow. His shirt, like mine, is pasted to his skin. All the moisture from this putrid, sultry night must be collecting deep inside his multi-buckled, paramilitary, double-tough, bull leather, steel-toed, knee-high, motor-boots.

“Tim,” I start, pausing to restrain my reaction, “that is absolutely disgusting.”

Nance agrees. Akio would agree if he were conscious. Even Tim agrees, but he’s giving me that twentieth-century, impoverished child of despair look, so I re-swallow my lunch and block the thought.

Something beeps from inside the seriously-suspicious-looking satchel in the open trunk, but Nance calls my attention before I can open my mouth.

“Once again, Blik,” he begins, “you’ve been an absolutely useless, pain in the ass.”

I counter with “I aim to please,” and consider the situation while Tim helps Nance throw an unawares Akio Oshiro into the backseat of the Falcon Devastator.

Earth’s shadow is beginning to slowly seep onto the leading edge of the moon. This is the subtle indicator that the lunar eclipse has finally begun, and, as I imagine, when Alicia should be making her way up to Devil’s Point and cracking open a bottle of some devilishly potent intoxicant, unwittingly lubing the stage for the most romantic fuckin’ evening of her life. I can almost hear her calling out my name, Blik, Blik, Bli, Bl, B—echoing throughout the greater valley.
As I stand at the end of the miscellaneous items aisle, peering out through the window of the Puerto Rican liquor store, I can hardly believe how thoroughly unimpressed I am with the onset of this hallowed celestial event. If I didn’t know it was happening, I certainly wouldn’t notice it was happening.
Lunar eclipse? Exciting, it ain’t.

I’m not zapped and tagged by a security drone on the way out so I can only assume that the store’s auto-scan unit detected enough credits in my pathetic account to pay for the fresh pair of tube socks I’ve just made off with. I sit myself down on the warm concrete of the sidewalk and again reach for my boot buckles with that anxious longing that addicts must feel when they prep their needles with whatever it is they cherish most. But in my case it’s just socks. Clean, dry, shrimp-slips crafted by the nimble digits of robots and powered by the energy generated from minerals siphoned from the lands of people who can’t afford shoes. Bless them all, who suffer my needs.

I unbuckle my boots and wonder why it is that a liquor store would carry socks in the first place. Thank God they do—but why? How many requests did they get before they finally placed socks on the shelves? Do they have a suggestion box? Did it require a meeting? Did they have extra space or did something less lucrative than socks get bumped from the menu? What would socks out-sell at a liquor store?

Some hapless kid is staring at me like Oliver Twist at a taco stand and I’m seconds from punching him in the nuts. I wrench off a boot and peel off a sock, closing my eyes with a smile as the evening breeze whistles betwixt my toes. Oh, heavenly respite, collect me!

Off goes the other boot and then the other sock.

What the hell is this kid looking at? He’s really getting on my nerves. I wiggle my toes and try to look tough.

“Children go missing all the time, kid, and nobody notices,” I tell him, wondering if I look threatening enough while I rub my wrinkled feet. By his lack of expression I don’t think I fazed him, or he’s perplexed by my actions, or he’s trying to hypnotize me with his mind. But most likely he’s trying to parse my personal profile from off the grid and is now locked in the general response loop that’s returned to a user’s neural chip when trying to digitally transpond a pony or wombat or some other unplugged denizen like me. Good luck, kid. I’m a ghost. I’ve just walked another five miles in combat boots on a summer night, with wet socks that have been bunched up at my toes for hours. If I wanna massage my feet on the curb, I’m gonna massage my feet on the curb. And if he gets all teary-eyed and asks if I can spare some fresh socks, I’m gonna break his will in three.

“Are you Blik?” he asks, blinking his eyes rapidly to clear the infernal transmission in his neuro-chip.

Shit. He knows my name.

He must be an assassin or an agent of the grid selling subscriptions to the monthly feed. Either way, my best move would be to stab him in the thigh and run.

“How do you know my name?”

“My sister wants to know if you want a ride to Devil’s Point. She’s right over there,” he says, pointing to a beat-up old car hovering next to the curb at the far end of the block.

My heart skips a few beats, realizing this pediatric pauper is mi amore’s little brother.

I can just make out Alicia in the distant car, hunched over, fiddling with the dash, looking aloof as if she didn’t just send her brother over to invite me into her incomplete life. She’s probably digging about searching for just the right tune to play during the moment of our embrace when time slows to a crawl and her brownish-bluish-reddish tinted hair blows gracefully in the cinematic wind.

But what if she asks me why I’m sitting on the sidewalk rubbing my feet? Or does it matter? She stopped the car so she must truly be something special (or weirder) than I imagine. Whatever the case, I’m game if she is and she’s just opened the opportune door for me to walk on through.

I slip on a fresh sock, pulling it up past my calf, and then I get the goose bumps. This is China White wrapped in bacon strips, main-lined through a garden hose. I slip on the next, then on with the boots, hopping up from the curb to meet my destiny, but the police cruiser that’s just pulled next to Alicia’s car alters my plans for the second time tonight so I detour into the nearest alley and keep on walking.
 
First I’m sitting on the curb massaging my wrinkled shrimps, then I’m flaking on Alicia’s invite. I might be losing points, but we won’t be making sweet love if I’m locked-down for being a minor accomplice in a probable abduction, so I’ll have to make it up to her when the heat dies down.

I turn back to see her little brother look over his shoulder, stopping to see that I’ve disappeared. Poor kid. I bet he had one simple task for the night, but now he won’t get his alms.
 
Technically I didn’t abduct Akio, but failing to alert the cops to a crime is a crime in itself, and biting the whistle to keep Akio out of the picture... well, that’s just so petty I’m almost ashamed. But love is a crazy beast, and good decisions make for a boring epitaph.

I sidestep through an unlocked door, making my way down a dimly lit bar past blue-haired old ladies, sipping green-tinted mint juleps. The din of patrons grows louder as I slide by the typical gathering of drunkards and late night lonely hearts, drifting through to the dining area where clicks of rowdy prep kids and unruly malefactors wreak havoc on tomorrow morning’s cleaning crew. I seat myself at a window-side booth where there’s a clear view of Alicia outside trying to sweet-talk her way out of a parking infraction that I am blithely responsible for. The police cruiser is positioned to the rear with its lights flashing that piercing red-n-blue strobe, but nobody in the Zone would give it a thought unless shots ring out or somebody takes off their pants.

I pull a simple black cube from my jacket pocket and place it on the table next to the un-cleared dishes of the diners that came before me. Some gracious bastard left a slice of crispy bacon for me to nibble on and I contemplate the perils of eating found-meat as I wash it down with a sip of somebody else’s leftover cola. The sole waitress is occupied taking the orders from a party of revelers across the room, so now is as good a time as any to assess the device that I lifted from the suspicious-looking satchel in the trunk of Nance’s Devastator. Anything worth kidnapping a man for is probably far too dangerous to leave in the hands of tuggers like Nance and Tim and I wouldn’t want them to hurt themselves trying to parse it out, without the adult supervision of a parent or guardian. If anyone is going to get hurt doing something stupid, it’s me. That’s just the kind of friend I am.

 It makes a faint beep that goes unnoticed as I turn it in my fingers trying to figure out which way is up, its black surface showing no visible seams or glyphs. Each touch generates a colorful glow that illuminates and fades beneath my fingertips. It looks innocuous enough, like a child’s game, but so does a nuclear detonator or a fistful of warm plutonium. It’s not till your kid’s skin starts peeling off that you have second thoughts about rummaging through garbage bins for birthday presents or eating bacon off a stranger’s plate. But maybe this is a toy. It isn’t a stretch to think that Nance would exact a mortal revenge over a heated round of Teapots and Teddy Bears, but something tells me that this puzzle is more sinister... and fun.
 
The waitress approaches and leans in to clear the dishes, glaring at me for seating myself at a table obviously sized for six.

I smile at her and say hello, still toying with the object in my hands, as she slows her task and turns her gaze to the device. I squeeze its sides, yank and pull, then shake it like a maraca until the colored lights intensify and increase in regularity. When I stop, the lights fade and so does my interest. I place it on the table and think about ordering pancakes.

“Try spinning it like a top,” the waitress suggests, putting down the plates and wiping her hands like she’s decided to stay a while. She seats herself across from me, putting her elbows on the table and her chin in her palms, fixating on the object with a curious grin.

I pivot the object on one corner and give it a good twist, sending it flying off, then under, the table.

The waitress gasps and retrieves it quick, looking to me with an anxious smile.
“May I?” she asks.

Before I can answer she snaps the device between her fingers setting it into a perfect rotation. The colors come alive and blur into one, pulling in my full attention. It emits a pleasant tone, hypnotic, almost like it’s humming a tune.
I look to her with congratulations, but she is transfixed; frozen in a stare as the object slows and tumbles to a stop.
 
I’m about to laugh at her childlike fascination, but hold.

This lady isn’t joking. She’s as still as a statue and I realize the only sound I hear is the distant whirr of the kitchen fans. Looking about I see that everyone in this joint is frozen in place like a three-dimensional pictograph laced with the delicious smell of chicken-fried steak. I consider the object and sneak the last piece of leftover bacon, washing it down with what I hope is just a cup of coffee.

Yup, it’s just coffee.

I take another swig to clear the bacon from my gums and turn to look outside.
Alicia is gone, but the cop is still there, standing by his cruiser and rigid as a board. The lights continue to flash. I hear the unmistakable crunch of a vehicle smashing into a wall and immediately know that some dumb hot-rodder like Nance must have disabled his car’s auto-guidance assist thinking that there’s something cool about the mathematical probability of human ineptitude. I bet he doesn’t think he’s so cool now. What a chump.

I take the object and spin it again hoping, halfheartedly to reverse the effects, but it just bounces off the table like before. I pick it up and try again, but bumble it over and over until I decide I lack the necessary motor-skills to get a tuggin’ cube to twirl on end. These people might die because I spent my childhood playing with myself more than playing outside. 
But first things first. If Alicia is still functioning she’s going to need a little reassurance and a nice cuddle.

I dash outside and over to the nearest car, hovering in the street, it’s auto-nav having slowed it to a stop. I pull the driver out and he goes from stiff to limp as I throw his body to the ground. Sorry, mister.

I jump inside and close the door. The dash lights illuminate the cabin in a soft, colorful glow. It’s pretty posh, actually. Nice glossy, faux-wood paneling and leatherette upholstery. The indicator board is plainly visible, not overly-stimulating, and it seems that the designers really took their time placing the navigational and audio accoutrements. I push a button and a cup holder slides out of the door. Nice. The steering column is just the right height and protrudes to an appropriate distance from my shoulders to where my elbows have a comfortable bend while my hands grip the slip-free, finger-grooved steering wheel. All-in-all I think I would enjoy the ride if I knew how to start the engine of one of these floating pieces of crap, but alas, I don’t. Long gone are the days of turning a key or jabbing it in the side with your spurs.

I spot another option and jump back out to the sidewalk, B-lining it for a frozen kid with a backpack in one hand and a MagSlide in the other.

I snake the floating plank of plastic death from his grasp and toss it to the ground, watching as it equilibrates on its magnetically induced cushion of air.
I hop on, push off, and regain consciousness a few minutes later with an even better plan in mind.

The walk up to Devil’s Point was unusually pleasant so I took my sweet time but, noting the current position of the Earth’s umbra, I have a few more minutes before the eclipse is total, and so far I’m utterly unimpressed. Sure, Alicia is probably scared and helpless wondering what’s become of the world, but she’ll be all the more ready to leap into my arms if I can time this thing to my advantage. I’m wearing a fresh pair of socks and everyone I passed is in a horrifying state of suspended animation. The Zone is quiet for the first time ever and I think I saw a raccoon. It’s a dream come true and I’m going to revel in it first and worry about it much, much later.

My best guess is the obvious answer, that this little black device disrupts the neural chip implants welded to the brains of most, used to augment the gathering and processing of information. If this is true, then unplugged saps like me would be impervious to its influence due to the lack of hardware hardwired to the synapses of our noggins. But who knows what this device is truly intended for? You can kill a man with microwaves or just make a bag of popcorn. Not every sword has a double edge and rendering most of humanity in a catatonic state could just be an interesting side effect of a more benevolent intention. Nevertheless, the potential strategic global ramifications are staggering enough to keep me mildly interested for at least the next hour.

I can see the silhouettes of dozens of people sitting at the top of the hill as I come near, the crested moon before them giving the night sky a soft haze above the city lights. But no one moves, trapped like the rest in a queer hibernation.
Nestor and the gang sit in varying states of suspended revelry, staring at a spot where the moon used to be about an hour ago. They look like they were having really a good time without me. Bastards.

Footsteps disturb the grass somewhere in the distance and I turn to see Alicia, radiant in her signature red coat and lipstick, approaching up the hill at a hurried paced with a bottle in her hand. Unplugged, like me. She looks understandably worried by the unusual turn of events, her eyes big and watery. I ready myself for her warm embrace.

“What the hell, asshole?” she calls out, slipping a little and maneuvering for better footing while the bottle she’s holding tips this way and that, splashing liquid onto her sleeve.

“Blik,” I say softly, correcting her with a smile. 

“Asshole!” she repeats, working for breath as she reaches the top. “My little brother was really upset that you just took off like that.”
I look about with feigned concern.

“Where is the little fella?”

She stops within smooching distance and puts her free hand on my shoulder for balance, motioning loosely down the hill with the other.

“In the car, frozen like the rest of them,” she says, righting herself as she meets my eyes with a saucy smile. “It’s just you... and me.”

I’m certain that the right response is out there somewhere, floating about in the ethereal void, but I all can think to say is, “Please tell me you’re not drunk.”

“I’m not drunk,” she replies. “Not yet.”

Alicia holds on tight to my affectionate gaze, staring in my eyes with her exquisite feminine longing, and I can’t help but think that she’s taking this whole situation with remarkable poise when somebody hits me on the ear so hard I can hardly hear Alicia scream.

A mess of expletives coalesce in my head but never manage to clear my throat and I drop to my knees, the infernal ringing of head trauma blaring in my skull.

Someone kicks my shoulder hard, knocking me onto my back. I turn my head to the side opening my eyes and can barely make out the distinctive red-n-blue strobing lights of a hundred police drones flying toward this hill from several miles out, the noise of their sirens barely cutting through my haze.

I can feel a frantic hand patting at my sides and digging into my pockets when the form of Akio Oshiro comes into focus, hunched above me, holding a gun, and looking pretty pissed off.

“I never liked you, Blik,” he reminds me, pulling the little black device from my jacket and standing just long enough to kick me in the ribs.

I’d forgotten how much it hurts to get my ass kicked.

Alicia yells, “Asshole!” (presumably at Akio this time) and I turn my head to see him pull her away by the arm. He has a small, curious, metallic device taped to the back of his neck.

They fumble through the crowd of hypnotized onlookers, knocking them over like pork dominos as they pass.

The low hum of police drones intensifies as they speed closer, silhouetted before the distant glow of the city sky.

The moon is barely visible now, with just a sliver of light cresting its side until that too fades away. And still, I am unimpressed.

Akio is fifty yards away by the time I manage to get to my feet, pulling Alicia across the ridge of the hill. I look about to find something to throw, my legs still wobbling from the blow to the head.
 
I pick up a stone and position it in my hand, trying to keep sight of Akio who is beyond the far side of the frozen revelers and moving quickly with Alicia struggling by his side. I throw it, trying not to lose my tenuous balance, and it goes high into the sky in a hopeless arc, landing far short of the intended target.

Cotton socks aren’t cheap. Compared to a car or an off-world vacation, they’re pretty cheap, but to someone who can’t afford generic shampoo, cotton socks aren’t cheap, and they’re something I would never considering tossing out until my toes are exposed to daylight. So I pull one of my old, damp socks from my back pocket and pick up another stone, placing it at the midpoint and folding the sock over for a makeshift sling. I recall some historical precedence for this sort of maneuver, which gives me some hope as I swing the rock above my head with ever increasing velocity. I consider, however, that David didn’t get bonked on the noggin before killing Goliath, and he certainly didn’t do it with a wet sock.

My form is good and the release is snappy, sending the rock shooting out with impressive speed in completely the wrong direction. The problem with stone-age technology is that it sucks and a lot of dames in distress had to suffer the beast before anybody could sort that out.

But it does land with enough of a thud to draw Akio’s attention, giving Alicia the opportunity to smash her bottle over his head.

Good girl. Goodbye, Akio. We’ll need to find more alcohol.

I hobble toward her, carefully making my way through the crowd of living mannequins, the hilltop lit by the frenetic beams of hovering drones, circling above, examining the scene.

She walks toward me, smiling, fixing tangles and brushing some grass from her hair.
 
She stops close enough for me to feel her breath on my neck and the sensation is nearly euphoric. She takes my hand and places the little black device in my palm.

“Look,” she says, turning her gaze to the sky.

The moon, once darkened by a penumbral shadow, is now a stunning blood-red, blanketed by the soft refracted light passing through the atmosphere of Earth. The lunar eclipse is in full salute and the only word to describe it is captivating.

“Wow,” we say in unison, as I slip my hand over hers.

We turn to each other again as the red-n-blue lights of the closing police drones scatter in all directions. Their spotlights converge and illuminate us in a brilliant white glow while Alicia’s hair blows cinematically in a wind I can’t even feel. She closes her eyes as I lean in to kiss her cherry-red lips.

Here come the fireworks. Here comes the bang.