Xenoman

By Adam Martin

Xeno yearns to have access to the Nth Dimension like The White Boys, famed telepaths who suffered brain damage when they made contact with extraterrestrial intelligence. Out of work as a bartender since the Shoki Pao dance club mysteriously burned down, Xeno's lackluster lifestyle is getting harder to maintain. The public pill silos that dispense Sunlite, a one-size-fits-all mood elevating drug, haven't been refilled in months, so the citizens of Metropa turn to designer drugs like Black Magic, an addictive knock-off with terrible side effects.

Having survived an overdose of Black Magic, and successfully revived by Drinama, a brain implant slipped to him as a Mickey at a job fair, Xeno earns an entry level position as an agent for secret service organization Intellegella. Garry, his handler, introduces Xeno to the industrial version of the black box, allowing Xeno's pineal gland access to synthetic sensory perception with the turn of a dial, along with the Noumenol patch, a skin absorbed drug that stabilizes his vital signs so that he doesn't suffer a cardiac arrest.

Xeno's initial mission is to test the black box on the field, under Garry's watchful eye, and to locate Trianne, an ex co-worker, ex model, ex pole dancer for the Shoki Pao, gone missing and showing signs of spontaneous human combustion, an emerging side effect of Black Magic, and a public safety hazard.

All he has to do is bring Trianne back to Intellegella for treatment. It's that simple . . . according to Garry.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Adam Martin
• Release date: Dec 29, 2017
• ISBN: 9781370319176

Adam Martin

Adam Martin is a recovering curmudgeon who has been fructifying his life after years as a world-weary twenty-something. After bouncing from university-to-university and job-to-job, he decided to put all his chips in on his prose writing skills. His writing is inspired by his realization that life is too short and precious to be unhappy for very long.

Book preview

XENOMAN

Adam Martin

Copyright © 2015 Adam Martin

All rights reserved.

ISBN-13: 978-1499164442

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form without written permission from Adam Martin, except by a reviewer for the use of brief quotations in a book or alternative media review.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

Cover Illustration: Adam Martin

DEDICATION

For my immediate family.

My real life inspiration.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Special thanks to my family and friends,

for their creative support.

CONTACT ADAM MARTIN:

[e-mail]

WEBSITE:

adammartin.site

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1 Drinama

2 The Pods

3 Food-4-All

4 Ignition

5 Ultramango

6 Avatar Avenue

7 The Whispers

8 Pleasure Dome

9 Boutique

10 Klownburger

11 Intellegella

12 Monkey Room

13 Our ASS

14 Hollymonde Playset

15 Anti-gravity Victim

16 Premonition

17 Trianne's Suite

18 Nether Warning

19 Keeno's

20 Go-Go Girls

21 Followed

22 Lancet Fluke

23 Darkphalt Briefcase

24 Church of Lew

25 No Babies

26 Theme Park Darkly

27 Sunlite Factory

28 Arcade Mode

29 Prone to Clone

30 Red Curtains

31 White Crowd

32 Synth Rebellion

33 Furnitour

34 Hummer

35 Malcolm Maulchild

36 Datus and Artifacts

37 Reinstein

38 The Vat

39 End Transmission

Glossary

Black Box Tunings

1 DRINAMA

A few moments ago . . .

In a parallel universe . . .

It all started in the men's room . . .

When Xeno regained consciousness, he was standing on a shoreline he didn't recognize. Beyond the tidewater and the static hiss of the sea, the sun was dropping out of sight above the ocean. He looked down to find himself dressed in floral print shirt and cut-off shorts, his pale arms and legs neither burned nor tanned. The cool water from the breakers flooded his toes. He put his hand to his chest, felt his heartbeat, satisfied it wasn't going to stop pumping blood any time soon.

He turned inland and scanned the cascade of low sand dunes unraveling all the way down the desolate shoreline. Yards away, an unfolded beach chair faced the ocean—an artifact abandoned by some phantom vacationer. He crept across the sand to get a closer look. The chair was covered with striped canvas that was once red and white, now worn and browned, the rotted shreds dangling from the wooden frame.

Tab Lloyd's National Trashional lay crumpled in the folds of the seat. He lifted an open bottle of beer from the drink holder in the armrest. He sniffed the spout, still cold, fresh. He sipped, swallowed gently, and paused for the alcohol to warm his stomach lining, trying to splice together a movie trailer of his bad night out—something with decent acting and dialogue. All he could muster was black leader with projector light bleeding through the scratched emulsion. He spun the bottle around to read the label: SHOKI PAO.

He picked up the National Trashional and scanned the rumpled tabloid for anything familiar. The only thing legible was the brick red masthead and the face of the silver-maned gossip king, Tab Lloyd, flashing his dentured grin and trademark black censor bar over his eyes. No one knew what Tab's eyes looked like, except, perhaps, Tab and his publicity machine. The tabloid contents, page to page, were illegible, the headlines and copy printed in gibberish, the celebrities in the photos blurred, too obscured to recognize. A sudden gust of wind swept the tabloid from Xeno's fingertips. The offshore breeze sent his hair hovering, splitting the brittle tabloid apart in midair. He watched the pages gyrate in the chaotic whirlwind above the sand, littering the shoreline for yards, coming to rest in the break water, soaked, taken out to sea with the tide.

He polished off the beer, set the empty bottle back in the holder, and headed over the dunes to see what was on the other side. Over the crests, he saw a hotel in the distance with an A-frame roof, the trim and facades lined with bamboo. The pool area and patios were deserted, no birds in sight, no sounds of wildlife. Beyond the hotel, the mountainside sloped upwards for thousands of feet, like a tidal wave of soil, tiered with lush postcard vegetation, converging at the central peak of the island—the crater of a dormant volcano.

Xeno ran his fingers through his hair, attempting to massage a course of action out of his scalp. He relaxed his hand and noticed black coloring on his fingertips, like cheap stage dye. He sniffed to see if it was motor oil, shoe polish, paint. It was odorless. He couldn't recall starring in a play, going to a salon, dressing up for Hallow—something fluttered in his peripheral view, like a sun outage breaking up Andrea's lips, tiling from the geostationary solar interference of satellite signals, macro-blocking.

He swung towards the sunset. The cloud bottoms broke apart, spilling a swarm of peach-colored building blocks onto the sea. The bit rate errors smeared the shorebreakers and sand, checker-boarding the ground at Xeno's feet with random black squares, exposing a world devoid of light beneath the virtual crust. Then it all snapped back, as if every macro-block had its own sense of gravity and knew where and how to swarm back into seamless repose.

When Xeno regained consciousness, the words forming in lower octaves entered his ears, like a finger pressing on a vinyl record, slowing the RPMs under the needle, his own narrative wailing through the air, he was standing on a shoreline he didn't recognize. Beyond the tidewater and the static hiss of the sea—

Who's there?! Xeno said.

Did you find the rat coffee that gnaws on my spill? The voice was closer now.

The rat coffee? What rat coffee? Xeno spun around, seeing no one.

One moment. One moment. The voice paused—a concert of audio tape squealing, fast forward, pause, reverse, like high frequency rodents scampering over magnetic heads in a bandwidth frenzy. Then it played again at normal pitch. Hello, Xeno. You're looking tan and relaxed. A woman's voice—consoling, like the favorite go to lady in human resources.

I've never had a tan. Who are you?

I'm you, Xeno. Now she was close, as if whispering into his ear at a dinner dance.

Me? With a woman's voice? Why don't you show yourself?

Do you know where you are?

I'm dreaming.

You're unconscious.

How long have I been unconscious?

This island has no time. It's made with dream logic. Always the same beautiful sunset. Always room temperature.

Do you have a name?

Drinama.

What kind of name is Drinama?

The name of your implant.

Implant?

Just beneath your scalp.

I don't recall having any sort of operation.

Let's talk about keeping you alive, Xeno. That's more important.

So, if I die, you die?

No. I'm just dissolved and inserted into another host. I do hope you survive.

Why?

You're lean and your vital organs are well preserved. That will come in handy.

For what? A donor farm?

No, we want your organs to stay were they are, keeping your brain alive.

Where in real life am I unconscious and about to die?

You passed out in the men's room at Food-4-All.

Food-4-All?

"It's a low end market in Metropa. You're auditioning for a position in remote asset protection—a RAP artist.

What's that?

You can sense when customers are going to shoplift. Your mind is the hidden camera.

Why would I waste my psychic ability catching shoplifters? Why not predict the stock market and get rich?

You aren't quite ready to perform at the level of The White Boys.

The White Boys?

You have a drug problem, Xeno. If you keep taking Black Magic, you may die from SHC.

SHC?

Spontaneous human combustion.

That's just tabloid trash that old ladies read about in rest homes.

The next time I may not be able to work my magic. Zoom is watching over you as we speak.

Zoom?

He's slapping your face. Each slap is harder.

What if I don't wake up?

I'm quite capable of some dazzling special effects. Time to wake.

The island faded from Xeno's view. For a moment it was pitch black. Then a cone of white light shone down upon him, accompanied by a surge of sauna steam. Delicate female hands reached out and unbuttoned his flowered shirt, slid it off his shoulders, massaged his torso and arms. The faces were all female, all with the same flowing black bangs of pageboy hair, doe-eyed, broad milky cheekbones, cherry blossom lips.

What memory is this? Xeno asked, perplexed.

It's a composite I threw together. Just something to get your heart beating, your blood moving.

Well, it's moving. What happens n— Xeno opened his eyes, expecting to see Zoom shrugging him by the collar. Instead, there was just a slowly spinning ceiling fan above his head. Hula notes from a distant steel guitar drifted into his ears. He sat up on a freshly made double bed as if dumped there. He was alone in a small room of stucco walls, and a window with drawn Venetian blinds, bleeding light from a nuclear noon. He went to the window, spread the blinds with his fingers, peered outside, and saw the dunes in the distance—the ones he had been standing on, moments ago. He was now inside one of the bungalows, looking out. Not quite the waking experience he had expected.

Did you see the rat coffee that . . . that . . . spills? A female figure in a tan silken robe shot past the blinds, muttering to herself like an actress trying to memorize lines in desperation. No . . . If you keep taking Sunlite . . . no . . . Black Magic . . . Hello, Xeno . . . You're looking . . . You're looking . . . tan and . . . tan and . . . Why can't I get this?!

Xeno recognized the voice as Drinama's and the ramblings as pieces of the conversation they had just had. He darted from the window to the bungalow door, waited a few seconds before turning the knob, then let himself out, attempting to follow Drinama without being spotted. From a safe distance, he followed the tail of her gown past a series of motel bungalows. He caught up to her in a cluster of palm trees and ducked out of sight behind a row of leafy plants.

Her broad shouldered frame was entirely covered by her gown, her hands wrapped in tan leather gloves. There was no sign of skin. Even her hair was concealed by an obsidian helmet that was contoured like the bow of a submarine. With her back to him, Xeno couldn't get a good look at her face. She continued mumbling under her breath, going over the script, running lines, trying to memorize the conversation she was going to have with Xeno—the one they had just had.

What was malfunctioning, he wondered. The implant or him? How did he end up behind the script he was supposed to follow? Where was he in the dream logic? If there was no time, could it be that it only went from left to right, and he woke a little to the left of the script?

Drinama took a deep stage breath, tossed the script aside, and crossed the sand, towards the ocean. She paused at the shore and glanced back, as if she sensed she were the object of someone's gaze. Xeno got a good look at her face—she didn't have one. It was just an opaque oval shell of coppery reflective glass.

Xeno watched from his hiding spot as Drinama hovered off the sand, and floated across the surface of the shimmering sea, her toes barely above the surface of the water. She paused several yards offshore, locked onto a coordinate beneath the clouds, spread her arms like a bird, then shot up into the sky at mach speed.

Once Drinama disappeared into the afternoon clouds, Xeno came out of hiding with the eerie sensation that even his loss of consciousness—his near death experience—was a staged experience, replete with a backstage experience.

He reached down for the script. The cover was blank, the pages just within his reach. Soon, he'd be flipping, and flipping, past the first few pages, get the full scoop, a bird's-eye view of what was really going on and—black again . . .

Xeno! Wake up!

It was like getting slapped in the face . . .

2 THE PODS

The black box on Trianne's chest streamed Andrea's Greatest Hints into her neocortex at full tilt, through a black node—a wireless transmitter linking the consumer's mind to the black box—stuck to the center of her forehead like a black bindi.

The power within, is within your power, Andrea said, soothing and familiar, calmly narrating over a tropical vista, the message appearing in skywriter smoke across the bright aqua sky. The virtual self-help Eden hit a bad sector and began skipping on Trianne's sleep patterns, causing her to convulse. Her abdomen contracted upright as if her back were pierced by an invisible spike. Letters in the skywriter message flickered and dropped out of sight:

T E PO ER W THIN IS ITHIN Y UR OWER

Trianne jackknifed awake, her platinum hair drenched in perspiration. She jammed the palms of her hands into the transparent pod glass, sensing a warm sensation on her upper lip. Drops of blood raced past her chin, splattered onto the bright cotton of her tank top.

Dammit! She yanked the black box from her chest and tossed it aside, then yanked a tissue from a dispenser on the rail molding and shoved it in her nostril, clotting the blood. She gazed up through the pod glass, catching her breath, seeing nothing but concrete ceiling. The silence was broken by the pneumatic echo of a pod claw, rising towards her floor. She pushed open the pod glass, jumped out in her tank top and panties and stepped through the concrete bay, crossing to the circular catwalk with steel frame balcony, overlooking the central shaft of the motel garage.

She leaned over the rail, keeping the tissue to her nose, watching the massive pod claw lurch up through the shadows of the central shaft on a vertical track. Other curious observers leaned over the balcony rail, watching, waiting, dotting the central shaft with the blue glow of chemorettes, turning the gloomy interior to a faint galaxy of stars. The grimy metallic claw paused in front of a distant bay, expanded its mandibles, extracted a seemingly random pod, then swerved it away from the balcony in midair. The pod interior was fogged, obscuring the tenant from view. She could see traces of residual smoke escaping from the pod seals, as it was lowered towards the ground floor.

She got inside her pod and lay back down. The nosebleed had stopped. She trashed the tissue, flicked on her chemorette, inhaled, and let out a wad of smoke, then pressed GROUND FLOOR on the pod control panel. The LED clock read 1:00 a.m. So much for sleeping in on Saturday morning. Within seconds, she heard the whining of the pod claw, working its way back up the central shaft, pausing—a series of verification blips—the claw knocked the bottom of the chassis, shaking her a bit, aligned itself, then clamped down on the fiberglass.

Through the pod glass, she watched the concrete ceiling swerve out of view, as the claw swung her into the central shaft. Now, she could see all the way up through skylight, into the night sky. The navigation strobes of a pleasure dome drifted past the dirty window panes, on its journey to some exclusive event for fabled Metropans.

Upon taking another drag of her chemorette, she noticed something written on the underside of her wrist:

MEM E NO

She licked her finger, tried to rub it off with saliva, until it occurred to her that it was a tattoo.

The claw touched down on the ground floor, set Trianne's pod down on the tarmac, then swooped back up through the central shaft, resuming its mechanical routine. She looked around the desolate tarmac for the smoking pod. Nowhere in sight. She popped open the pod glass, sat up and fastened her black box to her chest, threw on her leather jacket, slipped on her skirt, knee high boots, dumped her personal effects into a tote bag, then hopped out onto the tarmac, catching a whiff of a horrible stench.

She headed towards the main lobby, through dreary concentric corridors, passing the open entry of a loading dock. An elderly valet in rumpled monkey suit and protective gloves stood on the platform, hosing off the surface of the smoking pod. Trianne paused, then veered into the loading dock to see what the matter was.

What happened? Trianne asked, approaching with cautious steps, unable to see through the layer of soot beneath the pod glass.

I don't know the right thing. The valet said with a worried brow and thick accent.

That stench is making me nauseous. You gonna open it?

I don't know the right thing. I don't—

I'll do it. Trianne stretched her jacket collar over her nose and mouth with one hand. With her free hand, she unlatched the pod cover and slowly lifted it up. Plumes of steam from vaporized flesh wandered out like foul spirits into the valet's black box flashlight beam. Inside, lay the smoldering remains of a human so charred that there was no discerning its gender. The victim's jaw was cocked wide open, like a silent scream—residual steam still flowing from the hollowed eye sockets and rib cage. Trianne jerked back and let the pod cover slam shut.

I better call remote police! The valet projected a local directory holopane from his black box, the options appearing onscreen in midair. He ran down the listings with his finger, looking for the right one to press.

Yeah, and I'd better move along. Trianne bailed from the loading dock, and headed back towards the main lobby. She blew through the rusted entrance doors, into the parking lot, drenched in halogen lighting, littered with dormant vehicles, pavement cracks infested with tall weeds, the sputtering neon sign looming high above in the night air:

THE PODS

VACANCY

SINGLES ONLY

1 NUKE - 1 NIGHT

She cut onto the sidewalk of Galaxia Boulevard, drifting beneath dull orange streetlamps, past ghoulish shop light, coming in and out of dark shadows from dormant high-rises. After walking a few blocks, she stopped on a street corner beneath a local eyesore—a neon red sign that gave off hellish light:

KEENO'S

OPEN 24 HRS

Through the storefront window, she could see listless go-go dancers gyrating in glass booths to muffled disco music, the name of one dancer visible in neon light above her booth:

STARLIE

Aside from Trianne, the only other audience member was a cleaning lady inside the store, corralling trash between idle morphing machines with a leaf blower.

She dug out the Andrea's Greatest Hints 5-track from her tote bag and lobbed it into a nearby recycle bin, followed by another lob of her black box into the trash. Free from social media gadgets that caused nosebleeds, she set her sights on the hunched backs of insomniac mallrats, feeding their faces at the open pho noodle bar across the street. Just as her empty stomach squealed, with one foot on the crosswalk, that damn ring tone went off in the recycle bin.

Crap! She caved in and dug her black box out of the trash, still ringing, the caller's name glaring on the display panel:

CALLER ID

XENO

She slung her black box over her chest and activated the holopane, projecting the image of the caller, expecting to see. . .

Hello Trianne. Zoom's anemic face appeared on the holopane display.

Zoom? Her heart sank. What are you doing posing as Xeno?

Well, since you won't add me to your network, I'm speed dialing from Xeno's black box. He passed out in the men's room.

Again? Where are you?

Food-4-All. Like my new dye job?

What color is that? Sex Offender Orange?

Ha, yeah, very funny. Have you got any Sunlite?

I'm not even going to ask. I'll just start walking.

Thanks, Trianne. We'll be waiting!

Trianne hung up on Zoom, cutting through The Galaxia Mall—a byzantine shopping fortress that never closed, with neon bands of light hugging the concrete like electric varicose veins. A barrage of telepanes featured magnified models in heavy make-up, hawking skin products, their spiel mostly drowned out by frenzied techno music, their faces continually obscured by obnoxious typhoons of Helvetica logos and split-screen beauty tip diagrams. During a loop break from the smash-cut video feeds, Andrea's pouty red lips appeared on the telepanes, filling entire screens, smiling down between commercials on Trianne and the sleepless streams of black-boxers, bathed in retail light, roaming the terraced walkways, yacking with people on holopane displays—their total attention span limited to a few inches of screen time. Once in awhile, they actually bought something.

There were those who preferred open air audio conversation with the black box two-way transceiver. Couples in the food court maintained intimate eye contact, speaking out loud to the person on the other line, not to each other. Anyone who went off their meds—having full blown debates with voices in their head—blended right in. The whole social mural of talking and gawking heads looked the same from edge to edge.

Trianne switched off the SOCIAL RAY feature of her black box. If left on, any interests that were similar to hers would activate a pulsating pattern of light on another black box. The app would attempt to match you up with someone in the crowd, while you were sticking a french fry in your mouth, flipping through magazines, tinkling on the toilet, but not tonight. She wasn't in a pulsating mood. She had a stomach ache in the head. The ringer again. Trianne pressed GO on her black box. Zoom appeared on the holopane.

So, Trianne, what brings you to our neck of the woods? Zoom said.

I was sleeping at The Pods. . . sort of.

What happened to your penthouse at Boutique?

Velva kicked me out. She thinks I burned down the Shoki Pao to spite her.

Did you burn down the Shoki Pao?

No, of course not . . . Trianne's ballerina physique got a few whistles from unseen admirers, and her fair share of stare-downs from punk-divas hanging around the potted plants. Others just couldn't wait to shove two mustard-slathered corn dogs in their mouths, or gulp down a refill of Orange Curious, fortified with high-fructose corn syrup, double the caffeine, and triple the B12.

You know where Lew is? Zoom persisted.

No, I haven't seen— Trianne glanced over her shoulder to see some stocky golem-looking guy in baggy trench coat and boxy black sunglasses, following a little too close for comfort. He let his gaze fall to the ground, once Trianne spotted him lusting after her. God, a nosebleed and now this. She swept through a mass of broad shouldered boys, scamming along, flaunting their designer duds, hot rod hairdos, and high-end citrus cologne trails, trying to lose the ugly guy in the crowd.

Xeno's auditioning to be a RAP artist, Zoom said.

What the hell is that?

Remote asset protection. Food-4-All can't afford a decent sur-veillance system, and the graveyard manager is a big believer in The White Boys. He has one camera feeding a single telepane, and the resolution is crappy. The rest of his cameras are just dummies, not wired to anything.

What does Xeno have to do?

If Xeno can detect seven out of ten shoplifters stealing merchandise within thirty minutes, he gets the job. The shoplifters are played by employees stealing specific objects.

Xeno's not psychic. How's he going to pull that off?

With Black Dot Wi-Fi cameras, I've secretly installed in the market. The hidden cameras are linked to my black box, and my black box is linked to Xeno's black box. I surveil the whole store on my holopane, spot the shoplifters stealing on my hidden cameras, then tip off Xeno on his two-way transceiver.

Those cost a pretty penny. Where did you get 'em?

I borrowed them from Lew, without asking.

So, all you're going to do is catch shoplifters the same way the manager does, without him knowing it.

That's right. The manager is none the wiser, and we start collecting checks.

How did Xeno even get the audition? He failed the Zener test at the Intellegella job fair.

I know. So, we showed the manager that video we made at Blouse's place. Remember?

Zoom, that video is a fake.

The manager doesn't know that.

I'm getting close . . . passing Mec Sex. Trianne crossed under the pink arches of the luminous fiberglass M, hurrying around the long panoramic storefront window of popular sex furniture. She caught a glimpse of a couple on the showroom floor, testing out the latest orgy sofa. The salesman tapped the sofa control panel and appendages extended from the plush surface in all shapes and sizes, accompanied by orifices that expanded and contracted.

The woman unbuttoned her blouse while her consort unzipped his pants. Circular blinds enclosed the trio for more privacy, while other shoppers continued feeling out the furniture, testing the poofiness factor, sternly talking over the price tags with the sales team, making rectangle shapes with their fingers as if framing where it would sit in their own living room.

Trianne glanced over her shoulder to see the ugly golem guy veer off course in the crowd, and duck into an Orange Curious malt shop. He inserted himself into a line of young punks waiting for service, not blending in well with his looming height and bald gray head.

Zoom? Trianne ducked out of sight, behind an artificial palm tree.

Yes?

Are you having me followed?

No.

Do you have any friends that look like lecherous frog-eyed instructors?

I don't know anyone that creepy.

Yeah, you do. A series of synthetic tentacles wrapped around Trianne's rib cage, slithering over her breasts. She wiggled free and spun around to see an upright piece of sex furniture that had wandered out of Mec Sex, still trying to grab her. She sucker punched the foamy rectangular offender, knocking it back onto the pavement. Members of the Mec Sex sales team rushed outside and humbly ushered the furniture back into the store.

She pressed on towards the end of the mall, towards the neon yellow Food-4-All sign, hovering high and huge, above the supermarket storefront. She would go inside, take care of all this stuff with these dumb guys, do this, say that, and another day would just go by. For her, the sun just rose and sank in the brown dust from the last war.

3 FOOD-4-ALL

Trianne stopped at a defunct Sunlite pill silo, just outside the entrance of Food-4-All. It was a phone booth-sized cylinder, with a cracked and faded logo above the doorless entry:

S LIT

She peered inside, taking one last drag of her chemorette before flicking it off. Through the electronic wiring dangling from the ceiling, she saw Hollymonde fliers plastered all over the dark interior, her celebrity face obscured by wild streaks of graffiti. In the center of the floor was a rusted metal stump where a luxurious leather chair once rotated, the self help kiosk nothing more than ghostly black slots in polyurethane molding.

Is Xeno ready for his acting pill? Trianne said into her black box transceiver.

Well . . . he's standing, Zoom replied. Now, we just have to get him to walk and talk.

She exhaled her last wad of smoke and blew through the glass doors of Food-4-All, steering clear of the cashier with dark eye circles who always looked like he was plotting to set off a bomb, the cockeyed bagger who leered at her through mangled surfer bangs as he lowered groceries into the cart, the goth stock girl with Sharpie black eyeliner who glared at everyone as if they didn't deserve to have a soul. The shoppers drifting past Trianne looked like flesh-colored trout, navigating carts through the aisles with their mouths hanging open, accompanied by the sound of plastic items, never to be re-shelved, cracking under the raw black wheels. She made her way through the cereal aisle, past the elderly man in bathrobe and corduroy baseball cap, the gaunt woman in curlers and emergency red lipstick, avoiding boxes on the floor with ugly shoe prints, long since punctured, bleeding out corn flakes and multi-colored shapes. Every step making a crunching sound.

It was her . . . Xeno balanced himself with his hands planted on the sink counter. His trench coat hung over his tall frame like a black curtain, his disheveled black bangs glistening with perspiration, falling forward over his face like a tangle of black vines. After a few wobbly moments, he looked up, wincing from the nuclear panel light, looking around for Zoom among the arctic urinals and metallic stalls. She spoke to me!

Xeno, there's no implant in your brain. Zoom caught Xeno in his arms as he stumbled back. It's just the Black Magic. He shoved Xeno back towards the sink, allowing him to catch his balance, then went back to contouring his spiky orange hair in the mirror with moistened fingertips, working around the black node affixed to his forehead.

She seemed so real, Xeno gazed into his delirious reflection alongside Zoom, his black node still affixed to his forehead beneath sweaty bangs, ever since the Zener test at the Intellegella job fair. He centered his black box over his chest, buttoned his coat, trying to conceal the perspiration marks on his dress shirt.

Who made Intellegella the authority on psychic powers? Zoom centered his black box over his frilly poet shirt, adjusted the collar of his leopard fur pimp coat. If the manager thinks you can read minds, that's all that matters. I'll communicate with you through the earphone on a hidden frequency, and in no time we'll be catching shop— Zoom coughed, put his hand to his mouth, catching specks of red discharge, thought nothing of it, then continued cycling through his concealed camera angles of the market floor on his black box holopane.

Is that blood? Xeno asked, alarmed by the sight.

It's nothing—a cold. Zoom cleared his throat, looking away.

Have you been smoking Black Magic? He stuck the wireless earphone in his ear. I thought we agreed we would never smoke—

Anyone home? Trianne interrupted, her head sticking through the men's room door.

Trianne? Xeno said, puzzled. How did you know we were here?

You're partner in crime called for support. She entered the restroom and went to Xeno. You want your acting pill? She held up a bright orange capsule between her thumb and index finger—a familiar brand:

SUNLITE

Where did you get this? Xeno took the bright orange pill from Trianne's fingers and held it up to the light.

I stole it from Velva's stash, before she kicked me out of Boutique, and whatever happened to 'Hi Trianne, how have you been? Long time, no see. Glad you're not dead?' Don't you guys have any manners?

Sorry, Xeno said. We're not in the best shape. We've been getting by on Black Magic for so long.

Don't I get one? Zoom butted in.

Sorry, Zoom, Trianne said. My Sunlite is in short supply. Emergencies only.

Why did Velva kick you out of Boutique? Xeno kept probing.

Xeno, take your acting pill. You need it more than any of us. Trianne went to the restroom door. I guess I'm rooting for you too. She toodle-ooed goodbye with her fingers and walked out.

Seventy percent. Zoom coughed again, cleared his throat. All we need is a C minus! He slapped Xeno on the back and left the men's room, hacking all the way down the corridor.

Xeno put the Sunlite pill in his mouth, and gulped it down with a cupped handful of sink water.

It was quick.

In moments, he could feel the drug breaking down on the surface of his stomach lining, absorbing into his blood stream, becoming chemically clear what Sunlite could provide that the knock off brand, Black Magic, could not. With Black Magic there was the same serene chemical warmth, tempered by a physiological offshore breeze or canyon gust, but the hangover effect always devolved into waking in a sweat, as if sleeping with the heater blowing for hours.

Many such analogies were the subject of pop gossip in the streets of Metropa. Some likened it to the unnatural feeling of being cooled by air-conditioning indoors, versus being cooled by the natural breeze outdoors, the difference between sleeping with friends with benefits, versus sleeping with someone you're really attracted to, regardless of the benefits.

And it just got better.

As he strolled down the corridor towards the manager's office, he felt as if walking through fresh pines at sunrise, with rays of white light sifting through the dense branches, warming his face, his nervous system radiating with confidence and chemical tranquility. He felt like belting out songs in the wilderness and hauling lumber all day. He even felt as if he could access the Nth Dimension . . . like The White Boys.

He entered the manager's office, and gently closed the door behind him. The wall by the entrance was covered with seductive barmaid posters that had hung there for so long, the skin tones and hair coloring had faded to a greenish ochre.

On the surveillance telepane, the manager watched Xeno's audition footage, spooning cereal into his mouth, from a bowl cupped in his hands:

In the footage, Xeno sat at the end of a long dinner table in Blouse Demise's penthouse. In front of him was a deck of Zener cards, turned face down. Zoom's hands entered the frame, shuffled the deck, then drew a hollow five-pointed star, keeping the image towards the lens, so only the audience could see the card face.

Xeno closed his eyes, put his hand to his forehead, as if divining deep within the recesses of his extrasensory perception, inducing a mystical headache, or minor sinus contraction. After many method-acted moments, he spoke. I sense an object with two points . . . No . . . Five! An object with five points! . . . Is it . . . a star?

That's correct! Zoom said off screen, flipping the card towards Xeno, sitting at the other end of the table looking triumphant.

The manager sat there bedazzled, as if his favorite athlete had just autographed his forehead.

I'm ready when you are, sir, Xeno said, getting the manager's attention from the shadows.

That's one of the most authentic Zener readings I've ever seen, the manager said, spinning on his swivel chair towards Xeno. You want some cereal? He was a moose of a man, with a long drape of black hair flipped over his bald spot, a tan dress shirt that used to be white, a hula girl tie loose in the collar. He rolled himself across the floor on his swivel chair to a cluttered desk and handed the box of White Boy's Puffs to Xeno. Fortified with five essential clairvoyant vitamins and minerals!

Does it work? Xeno smirked at the box cover of two bald albino men in jumpsuits, hovering over a bowl of mutant corn puffs.

Not really, the manager said, still spooning cereal into his mouth, sugar-eyed in the track light, but it tastes soooo good! The manager punched a control panel on his desk, switching the telepane visual back to the market. He used a joystick to rotate the camera of the store from one end of the floor to the other.

Just a handful for me, thanks. Xeno reached into the box, tossed some corn puffs in his mouth. He spotted Zoom's overexposed coat on the surveillance telepane grid, groping vegetables as if they were female body parts.

Look at that crap. The manager scoffed at the picture quality of the telepane. I can't afford a good surveillance system, because I keep getting ripped off, and I keep getting ripped off, because I can't afford a good surveillance system. Drives me nuts! I've got Bao on the floor all by himself, he pointed out a puffy Asian man in black hoodie, patrolling the coming and going of customers at the entrance. He's not psychic, but he is loyal. The other guys quit cuz I couldn't pay 'em anything. Now, there's ten employees on the floor posing as shoplifters, stealing specific items. All you have to do is—

Detect seven shoplifters in thirty minutes. Xeno recognized the outline of Trianne's slender frame on the surveillance telepane, browsing in the Family Planning aisle.

Well, the manager glanced at his watch, let's get started.

You won't be disappointed, sir. Xeno gave the manager a salute of confidence and strode out of the office.

A woman in a buttoned up black raincoat entered the Family Planning aisle and stopped