Chapter 6 - Downbeat

In an alley humming with the muted beats of nightclubs and lit by the backwash of streetlight, two figures stood in the shadows. One was a mugger, poised to kill, his blaster’s trigger already half-pressed. The other was a young man, unusually at ease for the situation, his hair waving even though there was no breeze.

“Alright,” said Paul, trying to go for pleasant and disarming but actually sounding slightly unhinged, “I’ll give you something.”

What’s that sound? asked his hair, undulating to the deep bass emanating from the clubs, It makes me want to move.

The mugger had done his share of hold-ups and alley thefts. He was no stranger to odd situations and unexpected behavior. And he knew that no matter how many weirdos he shot more would always turn up, like ants from the floorboards. But, for some reason, he was suddenly feeling very disconcerted.

“Hey!” he warned, leveling his blaster between Paul’s eyes, “Why’s your hair moving like that?”

I’ve never felt this before. It’s like a heartbeat, but everywhere.

Paul winked and clicked his tongue, “Don’t worry, I think it’s dancing,” he said, untying the shag cape from around his neck, “And, it’s eaten already, so it’s not paying attention. And me, I’m feeling in a good mood right now, so I’ll let you have this,” Paul proffered the grimy, fuzzy purple blanket to the mugger, “It’s like a gift exchange. As long as you take this blanket quietly and go away, I’ll avoid having to watch you die. You get something, I get something. Whaddya say?”

The mugger could tell he was losing control of the situation. None of his usual tricks were turning up to help him out.

“Shut up!” screeched the mugger, shocking himself. He wasn’t the one who usually screeched, that was the victim’s job. “I said give me everything you’ve got!”

This person is disrupting the pleasant sounds. We will eat them.

“No!” protested Paul.

“Have it your way!” said the mugger, and pulled the trigger.

An orange beam yawped out of the blaster’s barrel and set a heap of garbage on fire. The beam had passed narrowly over Paul, for he was now bent forward at the waist, his head plastered to the mugger’s chest. Black tendrils webbed out from Paul’s scalp and burrowed into the mugger like roots into soil.

The mugger squealed only once, and very briefly. His eyes rolled back. His skin paled and caved into the hollows between his bones. A sound like air being pushed through dry plumbing pipes rose from his mouth and faded away. Then, all at once, he crumpled to the floor like shed snake skin.

That was good, hummed Paul’s hair, once again moving to the nightclub’s beat.

Paul distantly felt a large bullet pop out from his arm, slide down his sleeve, drop out of his cuff and plink onto the ground. Another bullet emerged from his flank and slid down his pantleg, then got caught against his ankle.

He wasn’t even sure when he’d gotten shot. Had it been from the patrol car, or the enforcers? It didn’t really matter. The mugger was dead, and Paul felt terrible about it. The fact that this criminal was now little more than a dried banana was Paul’s fault. Paul wanted to cry.

No tears. We keep everything inside.

“Fuck you,” sobbed Paul, “I can fucking cry if I want to, alright?” He squeezed his eyes shut and blinked, trying to get tears to fall out, but there were none.

You’re upset. Is it because we ate that man?

Paul stood up ready for a fight, but deflated when he remembered he couldn’t square off with his own hair, “Of course it’s because we ate that man! What do you think? I can’t take this, alright! Everyone I’ve met in the past day has died, how am I ever going to make friends again?” Paul finished lamely, aware he wasn’t making much sense.

Would you have rathered we get shot?

“Yeah!” retorted Paul, “I’d rather he’d shoot you off my head! I’d rather he’d still be there, waiting behind a garbage bin, his little blaster hiding in his cute little trench coat. Now look at him! Look at his shriveled up face, staring at me like I sucked the life from his little angel chapped lips!”

We are too tired. We need to rest. Your emotions are unstable.

Paul fell back onto some folded cardboard boxes, flailing his heels and fists into the garbage around him, wailing and swearing. “Piss Nuts Garbage Ass Why The Hell Am I Like This What The Hell’s Going On!”

A group of partygoers passed by the mouth of the alley, laughing and stumbling into each other. They slowed for a moment at the sound of Paul’s crisis, giggling at how ridiculous he sounded. A woman called into the darkness, “Hey, shut up over there! You’re ruining the part-ey! Let’s go!”

“Woooo!” called another, and they continued on their way.

Paul fell silent, lying on his back. He remembered being a toddler, maybe in another life. He’d been having a tantrum on the floor of the grocery for who knows what reason, and his mother couldn’t deal with it. She was reading the ingredients on a box of cereal. It’d been some random woman passing by that’d finally silenced him with a short, judgemental chastising. It had etched itself onto the wall of his mind’s primitive cavern: Shut up you brat, you’re bothering everyone.

Paul looked up the wall of the alley, up to the unending skypiercers looming above, “I don’t know what’s happening to me. I have no control over my emotions. I’m like a kid,” Paul mumbled, dejectedly.

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

I have said it before. We are too tired. We need to rest. We have no control over our state of being. Get Up.

Paul got up. He had no empathy for the mugger, not really. He didn’t even know why he felt bad. But still, he lay the shag blanket over him ceremoniously, as though he were burying a bird that had died by flying into a window. Paul gently laid the blaster over the blanket, then took a deep breath and bowed his head.

“I didn’t know him for very long, but he was a good mugger. This alley just won’t be the same without him.”

What are you doing? asked his hair, uncertainly.

“You wouldn’t understand,” intoned Paul, “you’re just hair,” then he ambled away morosely,

Twenty five minutes later, the door of The Dank Drip dinged open. Paul’s feet had carried him through underpasses and over footbridges, following in the wake of the sleepless crowds across intersections and crosswalks. But once he’d laid his hand on the handle of The Drip, his remaining lucidity was called to attention.

“Alright, here it is,” he whispered, “this place has the best drinks, the best food, the best beds, it’s got it all.” He felt confident here, but still, something was nagging at the back of his mind.

Find a place to rest.

“Yeah, yeah. Ok. we just gotta pop by the bar, and then to a room we go,” yawned Paul.

The Dank Drip was a place Paul had always gone when he’d been in trouble. He didn’t like heading back to his own place after a heist, so instead he’d slide into The Drip for some anonymity.

From the outside, drip-shaped markers glowed on the ground, leading from a dozen different directions to guide people to the entrance in a subterranean footpath tunnel. The front door was entirely round and fitted into a glowing circular alcove.

The inside was built like a bowl ringed with eight concentric levels that guests could navigate by a weave of stairs and automated lifts. On each level were lounge spaces, group booths, and private cubicles. Clients could spend any amount of time they wanted in these, in exchange for a continuous and steadily increasing withdrawal from their bank account. The more time you spent, the more it cost per minute.

On the lowest level, at the bottom of the bowl, was the bar and service counter. This was also where the main entrance led, and where Paul now was.

There are too many people here, said his hair, fraught with uncertainty, We will find no place to rest.

“Don’t worry, I’ve got this.”

Everywhere Paul turned were people, laughing and talking, dancing and shouting, popping things into their mouths and hitting back drinks. More than half of them were less than half-dressed, and some that looked dressed were only wearing body paint.

Paul’s eardrums droned with the trance-like beat of the music, and he felt his hair shudder.

That sound, it’s even better than before. What is this?

“Music man. It’s music. You’ve never heard any before?” answered Paul, squeezing past a group that cheered and lifted their glasses before draining them all at once.

It is like being in a body, feeling the rhythms of life, but everywhere.

“Yeah, I guess it is like that. You like it?”

It is good. So good, hummed his hair.

Blue and green lights streamed over every surface, passing seamlessly from dancing bodies to the structure of the space as though The Drip and its clients were one and the same.

A few steps away from the counter, Paul felt a hand on his shoulder that pulled him gently around. A girl looked up at him, fluorescent freckles rimming pitch-black eyes.

“Hey babe,” she breathed, then slid her hand up Paul’s neck and caressed his hair, “your hair is wild, where’d you get it?”

Paul went stiff. Any moment now, screams would fill The Drip as his hair drained these people. He was about to bat her hand away when his hair’s voice trickled into his mind.

Who is this person? Why is she touching us? it said, even more enthralled than it had been with the music.

“I don’t know who she is,” answered Paul, “but please don’t eat her.”

“Hihi,” giggled the girl, covering her mouth, “You’re funny! I like you. Hey girls, come check out this guy’s hair, it’s crazy! Feel it, it’s like snakes, and it moves. Oh, it tickles!”

A dozen pairs of eyes turned to see him, each with different lenses and ocular augments.

Both Paul and his hair stiffened.

Too many people. We need to rest. We need to move.

“Yeah, fuck you’re right. Let’s go.”

“Hey wait, where you going? Come back, we want to touch your hair!” complained the girl, before Paul ducked under another group and disappeared.

Paul beelined for the counter and wove around the circumference until he was on the opposite side.

“Can’t you do something to be less noticeable?” he said to his hair, reproachfully.

I can try. But you - Everyone here has things added to their body, except for you. Why?

Paul leaned on the bar top and drummed his fingers nervously. He really was tired, his hair was right. His thoughts weren’t clear, foggy and stupid. But still, that something was coming back again to nag him at the back of his mind. He had to hurry.

“Most people have something. Some augment, or a mod, or something to make them different in some way. But in the end it makes them all the same. A big part of what I do, or did, I guess,” said Paul, then hesitated, “is… was to go unnoticed. All those things make you turn up more quickly in scans and searches. They’re made to be seen, for people to notice you. Nobody notices someone in a birthsuit.”

A waiter shot by, letting Paul know he’d seen him with a nod.

“But, I guess that now, things are different,” continued Paul, “with you on my head, I guess I’m like everyone else.”

We are not like these people, corrected his hair, of that we are certain.

“Yeah, I get it, I’m not their kind anymore, right?”

Yes, we are not like them.

“When you keep saying that, what do you mean, exactly?” yawned Paul, his eyes drooping as he tried to connect with the bartender again, “Can we like, not die or something?”

We-

Paul felt a hand drop onto his shoulder again. He swivelled around on his stool, ready to chase away the group of girls, “Fuck o-” he began, but stopped when his eyes rose to a ragged, ugly face that was all too familiar, “-oh fuck,” he finished, lamely, just as a little black box was jammed into his neck. It hissed as it injected an unforgiving dose of something that put him instantly to sleep.

Paul’s head met the bartop with a crunch, but he didn’t even feel it.

-End of chapter 6-