drivethrufiction

It was 4:12. He found himself unable to stop looking at a woman sat in the corner wrapped in fur, despite the excessive heat of the club. A spotlight shined down on her head, a coiled turban over crow black hair. In her hands was a taxidermied rabbit with buttons for eyes. She looked out across the floor of tits and latex with no expression on her face. Perhaps she’d had too much botox, and her face was frozen forever. For someone so harsh in appearance, she courted constant attention - the rotating waiter staff taking blue bottles to her table until it was full to bursting as she sipped from tiny dollhouse glasses. And teenagers in particular rolled up to her table, sliding into the booth seats to talk eagerly to her. He saw this woman speak a few words, glancing sideways, sometimes not even looking at them, and they’d bounce gleefully away.

Text message from Orville: “If you’re feeling better, please consider coming into work. Level 3 reminds you that you agreed to testing.”

He looked at it for a while, the blind woman’s hands feeling out the buzz of an undercut on his skull. He’d felt her pause at the scar hidden under his hair and touch it with a forefinger, and then carry on.

He left the room clutching his new passkey and it’s shiny new manual, the fresh lanyard clean and crisp against his wrist. He paused outside in the hallway, and sucked in a large breath of air. The warren of enclosed rooms around him felt claustraphobic, but empty and quiet, enough to lull you into a sense of peace. The slow flash of a security camera, and the underlying stench of bleach made it feel like trickery, and he was startled by the sound of footsteps, that betrayed the floor as being somewhat precarious in density.

The woman appeared from around a corner, her height almost equal to his own. Her nose curved as elegantly as an archer’s bow, and Sam couldn’t stop looking at it. He smiled awkwardly and shuffled off towards the elevator.

“Maybe a bit early for this,” Sam said.
“Maybe so,” and Ret passed him a shot of vodka. “Time is manufactured by man.”
“Yeah, and so is vodka.” He lifted the alcohol against the light and studied it for a second, before throwing it to the back of his mouth.
“So how are you today my friend? Have the bastards ground you down yet?”
“Not yet. Not yet.”
“And that chip in your brain, it hasn’t told you to take over the world?”
“Not yet, not yet.”
“Then all is well.”
“I suppose so. Pass me a laptop?”
“Sure thing.”

Ret kept laptops stored behind the bar, a hidden internet cafe dodging the license fees, something he only ever told you if you were a regular and knew how to work a linux install. Dodging permits was one thing, but the software companies did the real police work these days, and he wasn’t about to go down for copyright infringement. Sam slid to the end of the bar, nestling in the corner next to the wall with the machine, and pulled it out of the clear plastic baggie it was kept in. Slid off a panel on the wall and plugged it in, as Ret put a glass of water and another vodka shot next to him.

He closed his eyes, and listened to the tick and roll of the carriage: this mechanical insect, carrying hundreds of people at once, all with identical stories. They all worked for companies that you could predict by the station at which they departed. The Bartleby stockbroker gaggle for instance: arrogant loud-speaking men punctuated by the docile receptionists they loved to employ kept to the third carriage, carrying Italian monogrammed bags, wearing pressed Italian suits with expensive linings that flashed their previous year’s bonus in large silver letters.

Sam was part of the Administration square: between 18 and 35, his gender neutralised by niche clothes of muted, dark colours; almost, almost racially ambiguous; loaded with corporate encouraged tech which enabled him to reserve himself to interior monologue.

More likely to IM you than say hello on a crowded street.

New follower people, please add my main tumblr to your list. This one is in a coma, and the site doesn’t allow me to switch the predominance of them. Which sucks. I keep meaning to come back to this one at some point, but… yeh. Procrastination. Something should happen soon.

The boys ride around the green clean suburbs in a ruby red car, hanging out of the windows until their asses lie on the window frames, hollering at pretty girls and getting a deep bronze tan. They stash hand guns under their belts and white rum in their pockets. Play pool in beat up halls, stand tight jawed against club walls smoking imported Cuban cigars, get tattoos with black ballpoint ink and sharp violin strings stolen from their fathers. They have girlfriends that chew gum and wear tiny denim skirts that show no tan line ass when they bend over.

17/03/05

Red ones, white ones, pink ones, yellow. Blue, orange, purple and a grainy herbal green. The dealer digs them out from an inside pocket, clear baggies slipping between his fingers. The customers giggle, look around for a hidden unseen threat and then pass over the cash, which is mostly a roll of fives with last nights coke crushed into the foil. No worries. The streetlight shines down, a fat fly yellow, but the pills look good in all lights. The club pounds on down the road, and they pop them in their little mouths and run off to find heaven.

10/03/05

Each move is planned three steps ahead of each turn, and then executed with the precision of a nuclear bomb, the tiny 2D world falling to my domination in two hands. I’ve put 43 hours and 1 minute into this game. I’m rotating abilities and skills to advance the overall level of my clan so that I can move on to the next set of key missions. My #1 clan member is at level 21, hits an average 120 destroying all who cross his path. I’m going to beat this game and complete every single mission. I’m going to succeed.

5/3/05

He flicked the cigarette end into a bowl, coating a bitten down browning apple core with grey ash. Breathed out, swirling the last remains of whisky in the glass as he stood up to move to the sink. He threw it down his throat, squinting against broken sunlight cracking through the kitchen window. The koi ponds bubbled in the yard, slashes of silver and gold in a cool paradise. Moving into his office, he slumped in an armchair, swinging from left to right absent-mindedly. Ran his fingers through the soft hair, feeling it grow back from a shaved exile.

16/3/05