Whatever I'm drinking, it's fizzy.
And sweet -- I can feel the bubbles popping on my tongue, one by one...
I suspect that maybe my drink was a little spiked, but considering where I am at the moment -- it's just the atmosphere.
This place is just... exhilarating. Flickering neon signs. Towering screens with someone advertising God-knows-what in Japanese.
Although I'm pretty sure this is still America.
Iggy comes spinning out of the crowd, dizzy and possibly drunk (then again, so am I). He's got this crazy, delirious smile on his face, flirty and coy, and his blue eyes are opened up wide, wide -- whoa.
Fang's put an arm around my shoulder. Because I've almost fallen down.
Huh. Guess my drink is spiked. Was spiked. Whatever.
And was I really just checking Iggy out?
This city's like a drug.
Nudge tugs on my sleeve, leans over to whisper directly in my ear.
"Look! It's the hairy one again!" she hisses.
"That's not nice," I say. My voice feels all weird, too slow.
I look ahead through the crowd -- these streets are always crowded. A head of hair I've seen before. I think.
I try hard to remember who it is. Who it could be.
Time keeps tripping over its own feet.
Dyed-blonde hair, too blonde to be real. She turns her head to look at an advertisement. There's a streak of dark raccoon makeup across her eyes, like a superhero mask.
It works. I have no idea who she is.
Except she gives me the willies.
In a primal, shivers-down-my-damn-spine way.
I start moving down an alley that's not really an alley -- it's more of a side street, just as busy as the main road.
Fang's right there next to me. My right-hand man. Walking on my left.
We edge down the alley next to the dirty wall, grungy with decades of smog collection. My hand passes inches from a sparking -- literally sparking -- electric wire, stapled to the wall. (Someone's bootleg phone line, maybe.)
"Fang, what would happen if I touched that?" I say as he passes it.
He smirks, says something I can't hear over the babble of mingled English and a billion languages I don't speak. It all sounds vaguely Japanese to me.
Though maybe that's the advertisement having some lingering effect on my head.
Or that fizzy drink.
"Say again?" I say.
"You, do something dangerous?" he repeats. "Sure. And afterwards, we'll streak through the park."
"No one would be able to see through the smog," Nudge says.
I notice Angel's not here. Gazzy, either.
They're -- back in the room.
Wherever that is.
And strangely I'm not worried. Wherever they are, they're safe. I just know it.
"Fang, I do like to live on the wild side sometimes," I sigh, as we come out onto what looks like the same main road. "Like that cocktail, for instance. The fizzy one."
"Yeah, that looked fun," Nudge says. When did she get tall? She's as tall as I am now. "With all the bubbles. Like Coke."
A man-size lion looms out of the crowd in front of me, and I lean back in preparation to throw the first punch: Eraser!
Then Iggy whips off the mask, laughing.
"Wow, Iggy!" Nudge says. "You're... a beast."
She giggles.
I don't ask where he went or why he ditched us. Maybe it's that stupid drink, but something is fuzzing my head out, making me feel more like part of the city.
Finally taking the Voice's advice to "go with the flow".
Fuck "go with" -- I am the flow.
And the flow asks, "How did you find us?"
"Magic," he says. "I don't really know."
"Come on, let's keep going," I say. We start moving along the sidewalk, past a vendor selling something that smells like the apotheosis of all unhealthy fried food: like this is what McDonald's dreams of being.
"Can I get some?" Nudge says, already darting away with cash in hand.
The dollar bills look unfamiliar to me.
I let her go. She'll be back.
Battered and fried shrimp -- possibly God's true gift to mankind. Or avian-humankind, whichever.
It's delicious. Tempura-crusted, crunchy, fatty, delicious.
I need the calories.
It's classic street food, so we keep moving as we eat. I wipe my hands cleaner on my jeans.
Iggy, now tagging along with us rather than vanished into the crowd, asks Nudge how much it was.
Nudge names an amount in yen.
This should be strange, but isn't.
The yen is so much more stable than the dollar, anyway.
Or at least I think it is. Was. Will be?
Time, it appears, is shockingly clumsy today. It trips. Almost falls.
Catches itself.
Nudge comes back holding a plastic cup. She offers me a sip.
It's that fizzy drink again, but this time the bubbles are popping millions at a time, dying little sweet bubble deaths on my tongue all at once...
Sweet. Sparkly.
Fang takes a sip, names the flavor perfectly:
"Reminds me of rice candy."
He hands the cup back to Nudge, who shares it with Iggy.
I'm beginning to get the feeling that it's late, but I can't see a single clock. I know because I just know -- and because while I feel bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, the perky feeling is an artificial one. The way you can tell the difference between a caffeinated buzz and a natural fear buzz.
But if it's artificial, I'm definitely not on the comedown quite yet. The relay team is in place to run out the signals of exhaustion, but not until I fire off the signal gun.
Wait until I give the signal.
I blink. Maybe this is what real drugs feel like.
In between one period of open eyes and the next, hair-girl appears.
Looking straight at me.
She's actually quite pretty, in a way that makes me think all kinds of unfortunate words:
shattered glass delirium rampage success and then fail fail fail in a dying, spiraling whine.
Then I blink again and she's gone.
But not a hallucination. I can see her moving through the crowd.
I don't want to follow her.
Nudge pops a tempura-battered shrimp into her mouth.
"Got any more of those?"
My voice sounds strange to me, all weird and hoarse and not-my-voice-at-all, but Nudge hands me a shrimp without a question.
Maybe that's because I'm Max, though. Her mother, in a twisted way. I've raised her, really.
Iggy brushes back his hair. The dye is wearing off (when did he dye it again?) and the strawberry-blond roots are showing through the perfect peroxide white.
He has very healthy hair. Almost glowy. Looks natural. Goes very well with his eyes.
Spikes like the heartrate monitor of a hysterical Victorian maiden. Which means he fits in well here in... whatever city this is.
They must use a lot of hair gel here, I think.
I blink, and my flock vanishes.
Hair-girl is there instead.
She has Fang's eyes. Crazy. Dark. Piercing.
Crazy, mostly.
Pris.
Her name is
PrisStratton
She smiles. We're standing still in the middle of the crowd.
I see something that should be significant in her eyes, some kind of self-delaying epiphany. But it's shattered by her madness, shattered by the rice-candy drink, shattered by
you, Max
pleased to meet you
I'm not crazy.
that's all right
i'll be crazy for you, Max
She takes my hand in hers, gripping it strongly. Her fingernails jab into my hand, holding it tight like a
bird in a cage
he doesn't like cages
does he
She grins, crazy Fang eyes peering out of raccoony makeup like a fortune teller.
not at all
does he
She blinks. There's a spot on her right eyelid where her makeup isn't as thick. I can see her veins.
Her skin really is that pale.
this isn't significant, remember that
this is a dream you can forget
Except, Pris, I don't think it's a dream? Is it?
Would anyone be that cruel to me?
make your own conclusions
Her voice feels like forgetting how to tie your shoelaces, when you go to draw the knot tight and it doesn't tighten up at all, just slips right through.
Screw shoelaces.
Her voice feels like
forgetting
I wake up in a crummy hotel room. My mouth tastes like morning, and Nudge is curled up on the bed next to me. Angel's already awake, watching cartoons with the Gasman.
I stare up at the ceiling, enjoying a peaceful morning, and the last, scraping-the-plate fragments of my dream.
I lick my lips.
They taste like rice candy.
The unholy crazy bastard child of MR and Blade Runner.
Written for rootlessdream's contest on Maximum-X. I played a little fast and loose with the rules, but hit every point I was supposed to.
Title and subtitle borrowed from Blade Runner -- the subtitle signifies "the setting sun sinks down", and the title was one They considered for Blade Runner.
I love this movie. I really do.