Part Two

Tasìa strolled the same street route to the fuel station that the plump streetwalker had taken hours earlier. She checked the neoPalm for the time.

It was not even midnight, just yet.

Tasìa smiled. She had time to take in the peaceful scene around her. The brick buildings and cement seemed dappled in the spread of many hues like oil on the surface of water.

It had not rained at all that day, but her vision came through in vibrantly liquid expression.

She smiled even brighter.

This was the way to enjoy LSD. On a quiet walk through a low-key town.

Or, on a patio with friends, watching the Milky Way revolve as she liked to do in bygone years.

It was several more minutes in her hike before Tasìa reached the fuel station. On the outskirts of it, feeder tanks growing dense algae were set together in clusters of three surrounding a processing hub. One group for each corner of the station.

They let out hissing and sizzling noises that seemed at war with one another as the gas was released from the genetically modified algae only to be distilled into a potent brew that rivaled the energy let off of gasoline.

Pipes and energy cables hung overhead, strewn on poles to gas pumps that lined up for vehicular intake at a central carousel.

In her present state, Tasìa considered the structure, and its accompanying sounds and processes, to be breathtakingly beautiful.

A perchance thought fleeted across her mind.

Sobriety causes one to take the most incredible happenings surrounding you for granted.

Something caught her eye, and her lips twisted into an ironic grin.

Never will THAT be taken for granted. At least not by this pair of eyes.

Several yards in front of her an Alfa Romeo HybrClydis series sportscar gleamed in a gunmetal gray exquisitely outlined in vermillion trim. The trim itself was filigreed in exuberant monochromes.

It held onto her fascination and enticed a notion to swell up inside her as her mesmerized gaze focused with a more scrutinous eye.

She then noticed the swirls of thick smoke crowding the car's interior. The driver sucked at the smoke with his mouth gaped open. Noise-ladened pop music thumped from the speakers.

The driver shook his oily hair and giggled to himself while observing his own shaking hands.

Whatever it was he was on, Tasìa decided, it was giving him a serious case of the heebie-jeebies.

Tasìa leaned against a pole as she studied the vehicle. It was worth 115K USD resell, in her estimation. She took out the neoPalm once more and she dialed up an app that she installed after discovering an extensive index of spookware zipped up in the SSD drive.

The embedded light in the neoPalm glowed red. It was merely an LED indicator showing that the scanning laser she had dialed up was readied and primed.

Tasìa flicked the beam on and she scanned the vehicle's registration. Soon the driver's face popped up on her screen.

He was an eighteen-year-old son of a politician who lived in a city twice the size of Villa Morrón, sixty miles to the West.

Tasìa grinned from ear to ear. She was going to steal the sports car.

She estimated the retail sale value against the percentage she could get for the vehicle given with whom she would have to make her deal. Likely, a motorcycle club, like the Almas Viejas.

They were a safe and highly reliable bunch, but the split with them was always fifty-fifty, straight down the line.

No. No. No. What the hell are you thinking, Tasia?

She admonished herself for her short-sightedness.

We are going to moddy that chassis to the point it is entirely unrecognizable. Once we get a set of fake tags and the accompanying paperwork, we are going to drive that bitch all the way to Esconda Vida and make our presence be known.

Tasìa noticed a small, young lady standing at the door of the Quick Mart that sat on the station's northeastern quadra. She stared at the driver while fidgeting with a phone in her hands.

She's about to call the cops, Tasìa realized, but fortunately, the woman was reluctant to do so.

The display above the pump blinked and pleaded for the driver of the sportscar to exit onto the carousel ramp.

Tasìa nodded to herself after a close inspection of the lot. After poking around its many nooks and crannies with the IR scanner, she was certain the three surveillance cameras she spotted were the only ones she needed to be concerned about.

The app reported back that the system controls for the vehicle were now in her possession. She forced the electronic security to disengage and accept manual override for all vehicular compartments.

She did a quick study of the car's schematic that accompanied the override instruction log.

Now prepared, Tasìa walked over to the driver's side of the vehicle and knocked on the window.

The driver gawked back at her. She assessed his tightened pencil neck, his rounded shoulders, and thin, reedy arms. Tasìa decided that if she took an aggressive approach he would prove to be a pushover.

"Roll down your window," Tasìa yelled.

"The fuck you want?"

Tasìa gave the driver a hard, derisive stare.

"Clean out your ears, boy. I just told you what I want."

He blinked before he sputtered out a response.

"Who the fuck are you to talk to me like that?"

Tasìa leaned on the window to conceal what she was doing from the cameras and the woman at the Quick Mart door.

She cut an incision inside the rubber window seal and slid her stiletto through the front door panel where she quickly found the manual release gauge.

After angling the blade in an exacting position to push the lever up, the window slid down.

She was greeted with a strong whiff of urine and marijuana. His lap was drenched in piss.

"Fucking bitch," he said as he spat at her.

The driver reached under the console where he retrieved a 9mm Browning HP.

Before he could readjust his limpid grip and point the gun at her, Tasìa snatched it from his hand. She secured the built-in safety lock pins before sliding the gun under her belt.

"The fuck," he yelled.

"It's mine now, Piss-pants. You don't aim shit at me without paying a price. Now slide over, you are in no condition to drive."

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He looked at her, his expression confused. He could not believe the utter dominance displayed by the tiny woman.

She slapped the stupid off his face. He winced and cowered away from her.

"Don't make me have to knock you the hell out. Slide over."

As he complied, the teenager bunched his shoulders and held his hands up defensively.

He muttered, "Fuck. Okay. Fuck. Okay? I'm doing it. You sound like you know what you are doing. Okay?"

She looked him in the eyes. There was no fight left in him.

"So you say I look like I have my shit together?"

He gripped the leather seat and breathed in a sustained snort.

"Yeah. Yeah. Fuck. Most assuredly."

Putting together a cogent sentence must have been very tasking for him at that moment. Likely, he was riding the lightning in his head, Tasìa concluded before she replied.

"You are damn straight about that, son."

Tasìa eyed the driver console.

Her height was only a small disadvantage given the compartment was set long and low.

She put the car in gear, drove it onto the ramp, then a few hundred feet more before whipping it on line at the far end of the Quick Mart. She had picked a spot away from the slowly blinking carousel lights pitched in stringéd arcs along the lengthy crossbeams and pipes that dominated the space above the lot before she parked it.

Tasìa was delighted to see the backlot camera only pointed towards the pavement traffic along the Quick Mart exterior and not at the parking lot area.

It made sense. A valuable vending operation of several machines in Vegas-style display filled the space between the bathrooms along this side of the Quick Mart wall.

Snacks, slots, poker VR, and instant lottery. One could have a fun night here.

Several patrons caroused under the kiosk-style awnings, but they paid Tasìa little attention once quick glances they made at the sexy car satiated their curiosity.

Clinching his stomach, the teenager groaned between profanity-laced whimpers.

"What's your name," Tasìa demanded.

She already knew his name, but for the sake of her hustle, she asked.

"Sal," he answered. He relaxed his grip on the seat and wiped the sweat away from his brow with his arm.

It was a cold sweat. The kind that broke out when the latest wave of a PCP caused high ebbed in its flow.

Tasìa doubted it would be the last. Sal was still too fucked-up to be in the clear.

"Sal. I'm not going to lie to you. You are in some sad, sad shape, young man. You have pissed yourself, Sal. Whatever you are on, you can't handle that shit. Tell me, what is that shit that is killing your sad ass?"

His eyes lit up at the words in her prognosis. His feet scrunched up in the seat. His body bent up against the door.

His voice grew slow and heavy, but much more clear in articulation.

"I drank some liquor …"

"And?"

Words thudded out of his mouth as if it hurt him to speak.

"Smoked some weed."

Tasìa looked him dead in the eyes.

"Laced with PCP, Sal?"

"Maybe."

"No maybe. It was, and you know it was laced, don't you?"

"Yeah. I wanted the girl to take it. She would not take it, so I did to show her it was cool and shit."

Tasìa gave a long sustained whistle.

What. A. Piece. Of. Shit.

She pulled the keys out of the ignition and put them in her pocket.

"Come on, Sal. We are going for a jog."

"What for?"

Still, he followed suit as she climbed out of the cabin interior.

"To sweat that shit out of you before it kills you. Are you up to it?"

"I ran track in Middle School so I'm game. Hey, do you think that shit could kill me?"

Tasìa tightened her shoe straps. the specialized souls made them not ideal for a jog but they would have to do, she decided. She gazed up at him. She needed to build his trust with a good dose of fear.

"You were teetering on the edge of dying back there, Sal. Did you not know how out of it you were?"

She started at a slow jog. He paced to her side. His hands balled uptight and his elbows flared out as he ran. Of course, with the piss stain, he appeared utterly ridiculous.

"When you came along? No. I was just sitting there fantasizing what I was going to do to get back at that bitch."

There was a weird malevolence set in his eyes.

"What bitch, Sal? The one you tried to get to smoke that shit with you?"

"Yeah, that one. She refused to blow me."

They ran up a street going North under a long copse of trees. Tasìa planned her route along a three-mile stretch of blocks, zigging and zagging between different streets to confuse his route back to the Quick Mart once she ditched him.

"Why did she refuse to blow you, Sal," Tasìa asked to keep the conversation going.

"She said I was acting crazy."

"Do you think she may have had a point?"

"Hey, listen."

Sal stopped. He started speaking with his hands.

"I … I ... gave her a ride … yeah, uh …. in a car way pass anything …. beyond anything … she ever rode in before. She owed me."

Tasìa gave another long whistle.

What. A. Piece. Of. Shit.

Sweat ruptured from his brow. He wiped at it without success. He was about to ride the lightning once more.

"Come on, Sal. We need to run faster before the shitstorm catches up with you."

She quickened the pace along a long residential street. As she ran, her abdomen ached from the excursion.

"Ah, shit … Ah, shit … Ah, shit," Sal repeated as he tried to keep up with her.

She glanced back. He was soaked from head to toe with sweat. A tight, pained grimace bore on his face.

Not her intention, Tasìa thought, but she may have saved his useless life with her intervention.

Somehow, Tasìa did not feel like patting herself on the back for that one.

Finally, after another mile, Sal yelled, "stop, stop, stop. I can't breathe."

Tasìa looked back. Sal grew gravely pale. His eyes were disoriented. He found a tree to lean against.

"My heart. It is racing. Like a thousand miles per hour."

"Stay calm," Tasìa insisted. "It will come at you in waves. Then, eventually, it will pass."

He grabbed at his eyes.

"No. No. No. I can't. Not again. I can't. Can't."

Piss trickled down his leg as tears ran down his pale face. In her estimation, she had never before seen a more pathetic creature.

"Breathe in deep, Sal. Breathe in."

He shook his head, his voice raised in pitch.

"No. No. No. I can't. I can't. Can't," he repeated just before he started gasping in a low chortle. He started singing, "I think I am going to die."

Over and over, he droned. Standing up straight, now. And beaming, as he sang, "I think I am going to die."

His eyes were oblivious. He no longer even saw her standing in front of him.

Tasìa sauntered back several feet away from him. With her neoPalm in hand, she pinged the phone in Sal's pocket.

Soon she had control over it and she relayed a call to EMS. Tasìa asked them to pull a tracer on her current line which was Sal's. She cammed him on video as she described his condition.

"That little fool is not getting back to Earth anytime soon," the woman Tasìa spoke to commented as she watched Sal's performance.

"We'll have a unit out in five to ten minutes. Can you stay on the line?"

"I'm afraid not," Tasìa answered. "I don't know him and I need to get gone. I am not even supposed to be out and about tonight. If he goes off somewhere, you'll have to use the trace I set up for you."

Tasìa cut the conversation short. She began to haul ass back to the Quick Mart.

Running and sweating were causing her problems as well. Tasìa's kidneys worked overtime, and her urethra burned with the intensity of a thousand suns.

Perhaps a slight exaggeration, minus one or two stars.