SF in The City Anthology (31 page)

             
“A coffee,” the young man replied. “Make it double-double.”

             
Clearing his throat, Mael leaned closer to the new arrival. For some reason he found this individual more trustworthy than the many other people he had met during his travels. Maybe his young age had something to do with it. “Excuse me,” he spoke up, “do you happen to know of a good motorbike taxi service in the area?”

             
“Afraid not,” the stranger give a pleased nod to the waitress when she had brought him his beverage. “I haven’t been in this prefecture for long. My…partner and I decided to move around while we’re young.”

             
“Oh, I’m kinda in the same boat,” Mael felt more relaxed, so much so that he wanted to confess his troubles to his mysterious companion. “I’ve been dealing with…an addiction, and I’m trying to work it off by traveling.”

             
“Oh really,” the stranger took a sip of coffee. “This addiction wouldn’t happen to put you at odds with Central Authority, would it?”

             
“Well,” Mael knew that he had put his foot in his mouth. “I guess they wouldn’t approve of it.”

             
“You know,” the youth finished off his coffee with a big gulp, “I’ve heard that Prefecture 72 is a good location to hide out from the law.”

             
“Really?” Mael mulled over the idea as his brief acquaintance slid an ECU card through a payment slot and got up to leave. “I didn’t get your name stranger.”

             
“And you don’t need it,” the young man exited the café and vanished just as quickly as he had arrived.

             
Mael had already decided that he wouldn’t become a slave to his desire for Mixx. There was no reason to escape a prison just to place himself in one of his own making. Of course, to recover from his new found lust, he needed to lie low in a place far away from the drug. From what he had gathered, Mixx only existed in Prefecture 28, so the greater the distance he could put between himself and that part of The City, the better he would have to feel. Prefecture 72 sounded like a very good place to visit.

             
It was at that moment that he noticed for the first time the news broadcast on the establishment’s old fashioned TV monitor. The announcers had a picture of a green haired youth, who they said was on the loose with a girl named Elegance Pang. Apparently they had murdered some CA goons. Mael thought the boy had a familiar air about him, but he put the matter out of his mind. After all, he had his own problems to worry about.

Bonus Episode 2: “The Dusketeer”

              You never let the world cow you, no matter how frustrated your family and teachers became with your behavior. After all, The City Psychology Board deemed that you “suffered” with ODD (Oppositional Defiant Disorder) from a young age. Everyone knew that the so called “disorder” was a euphemism for nonconformity. You refused to play by their rules, and that’s what got you here in the first place.

             
Born in a tube, the son of parents who abandoned you within a year of your birth, the name Iker Stone was given you upon conception. It’s a good name, a strong title for a strong youth. Growing up with your maternal grandparents provided few opportunities to demonstrate your fearlessness to an audience, but you learned that making friends came with that benefit.

             
It’s now the beginning of your junior year in high school. There is sweltering weather outside and you are reclining against the headboard of your bed, throwing a tennis ball restlessly against the only spot on your bedroom wall that doesn’t have a poster for a 20th century band or for an adventure anime hanging on it. While you should probably work on your homework, you’ve learned over the years how much relaxation you can and cannot afford on a weekend. A mental message from your girlfriend interrupts you musings, but you don’t mind taking her call.

“
How’s it going Daiyu?” you ask her nonchalantly.

             
“It’s 8:00 PM on a Saturday night,” she replies a bit peevishly. “You’re at home aren’t you? Or are you in a prefecture with a different time zone?”

             
“Well of course I’m at my house,” you answer with a bit of unhidden confusion. Then it hits you. “Oh…we’re, uh, supposed to be on a date right now, aren’t we?”

             
“I can’t believe you forgot again!”

             
“Look I’m sorry,” you protest even though you know you’ll lose this argument just like every other one. “Ever since my grandpa died, I’ve been feeling really down. Nothing takes my mind off of it. Not even dusketeering.”

             
Daiyu sighs, “Maybe it’s a sign that your duals aren’t fulfilling – a sign that you should stop already and pay more attention to the people in your life!”

             
“I know you don’t approve of my hobby,” you try to hide how hurt you feel. “Could you please be at least a little more supportive than my parents are?”

             
“Do you know why I started dating you Iker? It’s because you’re different from everybody else. Your
hobby
excites me in a way, but it also frightens me. Do you know what I mean?”

             
“Sure,” you agree for the sake of peace. In reality you worry that she’s about to launch into a lengthy digression on the nature of emotion. Unlike other boys your age, you can admit that you have sensitivities, but it doesn’t make a discussion about them any less awkward for you.

             
Fortunately she reminds you that the two of you will be eating at Mince and Quince, the new restaurant on Bawbee Street. Grabbing your two seater bicycle, or sociable as your father called it, you drag it down a few flights of stairs and then take off down Frondeur Avenue like a bat out of hell.

             
Prefecture 83 had often been referred to as The City’s glow stick, given the area’s almost omnipresent neon lighting. As you ride the awkwardly balanced vehicle throughout traffic as best you can, the habile, brightly lit signs and advertisements that surrounded you only obscure the impressive stars above your head with their light pollution. You personally would prefer looking at the heavens rather than having nacarat colored promotions for the Blind Pig Moonshine House and nagware downloads and the Natation Station shoved into your unwilling eyes.

             
After nearly being hit by a large sweaty man on a motorcycle the design of which had to have been inspired by Odilon Redon’s famous arachnid, you finally turn into the tangled housing edition known as the Fankle where your girlfriend had the misfortune of being raised. She’s waiting for you beside a plastic statue of Venus, the yellow light bathing her impressive features catches your eye, while the graffiti laden goddess shrinks into the background, a pale visage of the truly angelic figure before you.

             
“What took you so long thicko?” she gives you an evil eye as she sits down in the sociable’s second seat. You look at her protocell high heels rather than making contact with her disappointed gaze.

             
“I got you a gift,” you awkwardly hand her a small box.

             
“Ah, Code Vermilion,” she sighs.

             
“It’s the best privacy system since the Clepsydra Data Filter hit the market. I thought you would like it, since you’ve been paranoid about brain hacking as of late.”

             
“Oh yes, I love it,” she tells you with a sad look in her eyes. “I was just musing how sad it is that in our society today, privacy is the nicest gift a boyfriend can give his girlfriend.”

             
“So…I didn’t screw up getting you that?” you ask cautiously.

             
“Of course not pochemuchka
[47]
,” she laughs.

***

              Mince and Quince is even more of a chicster joint than you expected, complete with reproductions of van Eyck and van der Weyden’s works resting on the walls lining the booths and an arcade style remix of the farandole’s music from Suite No. 2 of Bizet’s incidental music to
L'Arlésienne
playing over the restaurants speakers. The booth you share with Daiyu has a copy of Israhel van Meckenem’s
Battle for the Pants
engraving as its primary source of decoration.
What a poor ornament for a date
, you think to yourself.

             
Your waitress has just as eccentric an air about her as the establishment, her head completely bald except for a large protuberance of hair, shaped in the likeness of a large goblet and dyed a sky blue color, in the center of her scalp. Here hairstyle draws your gaze first, but her crimson irises take a close second as an attention getter.

             
You and Daiyu order the massive burritos advertised in the establishment’s digital menu, with an order of a Jianlibao
[48]
drink for her and water for you. The waitress, whose nametag says “Misty” in a bold holographic font, can hardly compute that someone would order just water without artificial flavors added to it, but she agrees to bring you a glass of it.

             
“Since you bought me Code Vermilion, what will I buy you in turn?” Daiyu asks you as she reclines her tilted head on one of her hands.

             
“Nothing,” you eye the table in front of you, which has an aesthetic inspired by the Neo-Plasticism of Piet Mondrian, “It’s my place to buy gifts for you, not the other way around.”

             
“That seems sexist,” she rolls her eyes at you. “You’re the one who tells me that men and women are different but equal, yet you never let me pay for anything.”

             
“I’m sorry,” you genuinely apologize. “It’s just…the world has gotten so blurred that it’s nice to remind myself that I’m masculine every once in a while. I’m not saying that I always do it in the right ways, but it’s so difficult to have a gender identity in this world.”

             
“I forgot that your mother went full cyborg,” Daiyu eyes you ambivalently. “It must be even more confusing for you sometimes, having a mother who could switch into a male body if she wanted.”

             
“Yes, and it’s just like I told you about my part time job at Suriv Nanotechnology Inc. last summer, there’s something weird happening to our bodies in this day and age.”

             
“Of course, you don’t have any
proof
for this, right?” 

             
You try to suppress the frustrated look appearing on your face. “I know what I saw. My job was to make sure that the nanomachines being injected into young people for boosted resilience against Influenza D wouldn’t affect their bodies in any negative way. The data confirms that our DIFR bots affected both testosterone levels in men and estrogen production in women, with chemicals emitted by their smart skin. I brought this up with the heads at Suriv, but they told me my data had to be faulty, and they fired me shortly thereafter.”

             
“So you believe there is some conspiracy at one of The City’s most respectable nanomachines manufacturers to feminize men and masculinize women?” Daiyu rolls her eyes.

“I’m not saying they’re doing it deliberately,” you protest, “just that
it is happening
, and they are too worried about their profits to admit their faults.”

             
Your waitress returns with your order, and you try to hide your disappointment when you see a lemon slice on your glass. You hate lemons, but confrontations on trivial matters bother you even more, so you keep your mouth shut.

             
“Do you somehow believe that the fights you and the testosterone junkies have in back alleys will make you more of a man?” Daiyu takes a sip of her Jianlibao.

             
“Well at least it makes me
feel
more masculine,” you assert. “If I had been born with less testosterone, it wouldn’t bother me as much, but I know that I’m being changed from the inside. I had a DIFR shot myself you know. Ever since, I feel weak and tired and passive. I don’t want to live like that, Daiyu.”

             
“So you wouldn’t mind if I go to your dual tonight,” she looks up at you from her burrito with a challenging expression on her face.

             
“Are you sure about that,” you sputter as you try to drink water and talk at the same time.

             
“You haven’t missed a single one of my soccer games or plays, so I should return the favor” she says.

             
“I do have to admit, ‘Our Town’ was hard to sit through,” you concede and pretend that you don’t see Daiyu’s shocked response to your honesty about her favorite production.