There is pleasure in sizzling blue fire. It is a pleasure to be caressed, touched, blue-white flames embracing her, softly. There is pleasure in it. And the voice? Tingling pinpricks like the gentle spray from a broken wave across her face, and a soothing melody rising like the pale ghost moons, ever higher and higher, prickling her ears, entering the pores of her skin like a warm wind against her heart.

             A lullaby.

             Ione Duress bolts up in bed, gasping, disoriented in the darkness. Confused, she sits for a few minutes in the dim martian moonlight trying to regain her faculties, mind reeling, sweat pouring down her face and body. She remembers soft words, a touch and a melody....

             “What? What’s that, Kitaro? I.....What?,” she says into the darkness. She wipes the sweat from her brow, eyes loosening floods down her pale cheeks. She feels for the interface. It is still plugged into her temple jacks, but her AI is unusually silent. An empty container of neuro-meds lay open upon her pillow.

             Instinctively, she reaches over to the bedside vid-comm panel and punches in a few numbers. The weary, stubbled face of Das Jurek darkens the screen. He squints into the monitor’s lens and moans.

             “Something important, Ione?” 

             She clenches her teeth, her fists, and rocks herself back and forth. “Uh....” She is finding it hard to speak. Probably some mild neural damage.

             “Is there something I can do for you?” Jurek frowns deeply. Despite the longevity treatments the thin lines on his face, and the deep and full wells of his eyes, briefly betray his true age.

             “You’ve gotta help me.”

             “We’ve been through this, Ione,” he says dryly, rubbing a hand over his shaved head, scratching. “It’s only residuals. No one is after you.”

             “I....But....”

             “You gaijins wander around, wasting your lives away with bad sims and half-assed interfaces, frying your neurals into oblivion.” There is so much wasted flesh walking around the police can barely handle it. “Do you ever take that damned thing off?”

             “Just....Just help me.”

             He buries his head in his hands and mumbles, “Okay, sure, I can help you right now. For the hundredth time, lay off the sauce! You’re suffering from an hallucinatory overlay. Snuff sims are known for that. Even meds can’t protect you from overuse.”

              “But....I was....They were....,” her voice raises to near hysteria. “You’ve gotta help!”

             “Shh. Hey. Shh. Calm down.”

             Yeah, the confusion is beginning to thin a bit. 

             “That’s it,” he says. “That’s right. See? You’re okay.”

             “But....”

             “Shh. See? It takes time, but the shit wears off.”

             “Where....”

             “You’re in prison. You freaked out at a nightclub, started yelling.”

             Her memory is fragmented, but she is getting bits of a picture. Some nightclub called Smoke, one of her usual hang-outs, a back room and two guys, they were all going online, together. Right? Plug in? Interface in the same node? She was going to get paid, so that was cool. But there was something about a little spider monkey with an attitude, shrieking about something, the noise almost making her ears bleed....

             “Just an overload. You’ll be fine after you detox,” says Jurek. “My lieutenant will let you out in the morning. Okay?”

             “Can I....”

             “Stay with me?”

             She looks at him, hard. “Stay here a bit longer.”

             “No. Word gets out I let you stay here more than a night, and we’ll have every gaijin across the Cydonian plains wanting a free-bee.”

             She scoffs a bit. “Yeah. Sure.”

             “I’m sorry,” he continues. “But I can’t offer you protection. I just can’t.”

             She can feel withdrawal settling in, swirling her insides. Her temple jacks twinge.

             “You want to tell me about that man found murdered in his bed? You were the last one seen with him.” 

             She struggles with his words. What? Again?

             “You know his name?”

             She tries to remember, but shakes her head instead.

             “I don’t think it was you. Parasites don’t go around killing their hosts. Besides, I don’t think you have it in you to do something like this. I....know you. But unfortunately my opinion doesn’t erase you from District Authority’s suspect list.”

             “It’s not an overlay,” she says to the pillow.

             “But you have to admit it looks pretty funny when the same MO shows up on a victim at Tharsis, some weeks ago. Lucky for you I had already tracked you. One of our esteemed councilman’s elder sons will verify that your ass was passed out in his bed on that night, so the cases aren’t connected.”

             She is swept with anxiety, like a passing wave cutting through stones.

             “It’s not an overlay.”

             “Interesting fellow, your patron,” he continues. “Had a pretty good position with Shimoju Mining, decades ago. Care to guess how old that black bastard was?”

             “It’s not an overlay!” 

             “Alright! What’s the motive? Do you have a description? Height? Shape? No?” He throws himself back into his chair. “I can’t fight residue floating in your head.” He leans into the screen. “You’re just sick, Ione.” 

             “Augh! Your shit is old, Blues,” she retches. The pain in her being returns, and burns an empty hole into her heart. She feels her cheek muscles twitch. Then a burst of mental sparks hits her, migraine-style. She fights the pulsing behind her eyes. Withdrawal is hitting hard.

             “Where is it you said you came from, again?” he asks. “Theta Section? Is that where you’ve been these past three years? Nice place.”

             “Don’t start,” she warns.

             “Are you sure there’s no one I can call? No family, obviously. A friend, maybe?”

             Both the remark and the question sting. Despite the pain she shakes her head, stormy eyes silently ripping at his flesh.

             “You can’t keep showing up at my place, all hysterical,” he says. “Or getting yourself arrested. I can’t bail you out forever.”

             “What....What are you going to do? T-t-t-turn me over to the Psych-Core?”

             “No,” he replies, firmly. He knows that would lead to nothing. Besides, he’s heard too many stories about what supposedly goes on in those places. “No, I won’t. Now try and sleep it off.”

             The console chimes.

             “What’s that?” she asks.

             “Shit. This channel is being monitored.”

             “This channel is for official police use only. Please clear this frequency.” It is an automated voice.

             “You hear that? Now can I get some sleep?”

             “Yeah. I suppose.”

             “Thanks for your permission. And hey, Ione,” he begins, but she breaks in, “‘Do yourself a favor,’” she says with him in unison, knowing the often repeated words, “‘don’t leave the city.’”

             The screen goes out and the room is dark once more.

             She sits for what seems to be forever, letting the cold starlight fall down from the great black heights above, beyond the domed enclosure. The cool, crisp new air outside moans mildly, and the martian dust patters the plasti-glass like misty rain.

             Pieces begin to fall into place, bigger pieces. She remembers, remembers more, remembers that night at Smoke, hooking up in the same node, the blonde curls of the big hunk with the tattoo on his....she remembers the cops....

             And Das Jurek?

             She remembers he has always been an asshole....

* * * 

             Beginning all those months ago, with her walking the crowded evening streets of Osaka district, looking for a pick-up to replenish her supply of cash and meds, her old patron–a British computer programmer–having moved to Hellas, a sprawling mega-city on the other side of the globe, leaving her once again to the empty warehouses and dark nights of the forgotten realms of the city....

             She could go back to Underside, where the gaijin community live, deep in the tunnels and dwellings made by the first colonist, centuries ago. But she shakes her head at the idea. No, she thinks. I’ll stay above ground. If I’m gonna be abused, I might as well get paid for it.

             She spent the next few weeks monorail hopping, never staying in one place for long. There was an overwhelming urge to keep moving, just keep moving, no one can catch up, hold on to you, if you keep moving.

             With what she had left in her cash-pad, Ione spent some online time at Smoke. She had nothing better to do. The flow of human traffic was slow. Plugged into her temple jacks, as always, Ruby Tuesday, her interface, spoke to her as she replayed a segment called Blooming Ice. Something mild to pass the time.

             Tisk, tisk. You’re gonna burn, girl.

             “I’m at safety level, Ruby.” She was entranced by the writhing of the beach of snow around her, rippling back and forth.

            Barely. You know those meds you buy are trash, right?

             “So?” Snowflakes blossomed into tiny flowers, falling in slow motion around her.
            So, it’s easy for your brain to mistakenly weave segments into you while you are in the node, semi-conscious and lucid. 

             “Yak. Yak.” Green veins of ice shot up from under the snow, probing the surface, the air.

            Whatever. Just would hate to see you go schizo on me. Anyway, I think I have a virus.

             A green clump of veins rose up from the ground, reached out and slapped her.

             See what I mean? Can’t find it, but it’s around here somewhere. I think it came from one of those crappy sims you downloaded into me. 

             There was a sensory shiver, rippling through the program. For a second, the environment felt ominous. Bad meds are dangerous only to her. A virus could be dangerous to both of them.

             “Fine. Purge your system or whatever it is you do. I’ve gotta fly, anyway.”

             Back at Smoke, nothing much seemed to be happening, despite the fact that there were more people roaming around, drinking and socializing. But they were the wrong kind for her, and she realized why. It was only mid-day happy hour, and it would only be the dregs until sundown, after working hours, when the real money walked in.

             She went outside to survey the surroundings. She felt an overwhelming sense of closeness wrapping around her. Where the feeling came from, she did not know. But she didn’t like it. It was almost like feeling trapped. She began walking, briskly.

            You’d better get some protection. 

             She gazed upward as she walked, at the intricate lace work of the high enclosure which still covered most of the older sections of the mega-city, keeping in the scent of human life. 

             I’d better get some protection.

* * *

              Her efforts did not go as smoothly as she would have liked. She had wound up getting cracked over the head and stuffed into a police auto. Remarkably, they had let her keep the interface on.

             The door of her cell hissed open and she was escorted down a long and familiar corridor toward the holding chamber. The officer beside her held her by the chain of the handcuffs, pulling hard and burning her wrists. “Ouch!” she squealed. The man never looked at her and threw her forward against a high desk in the chamber. Her ribs pulsed with pain. “Hey!”

             “Here you are, commander,” said the officer. “She’s all yours.” The other one sitting behind the desk said, “Sign here, please.”

             Jurek signed the screen and the first officer uncuffed her. Then Jurek pushed her from behind, steering her toward the door. She could feel the heat of his anger. Wisely she kept her mouth shut.

             “Commander,” came a voice. 

             Jurek rolled his eyes and turned back. The liaison officer from District Authority stood in the open doorway of his office. The man had been assigned to help in the investigation of a brutal murder, one with an MO they had not seen in decades. Jurek could never remember the guy’s name, so he mentally referred to him as Marshall Asshole, as he was sure being an asshole about offering his services.

             The Marshall regarded Ione with indifferent eyes, which then fell upon Jurek. He smirked a bit. “When you’re done playing dad, would you please have that forensic report forwarded to me? I’ve been waiting far too long.”

             “Sure, Marshall,” he replied. “Even thought it’s my damned day off! Guess that’s not something my lieutenant could do for you.” Without waiting for a reply, he pushed Ione along, headed for the door and out into the street where his auto stood parked on the curb. 

             “Attempt to buy an unregistered weapon from an undercover agent,” Jurek uttered through his teeth. “What the hell were you thinking?” He wasn’t waiting for an answer, as he opened the door of his transport and shoved her inside. He slammed the door and locked it, then got in the other side and drove off.

              Yeah, major screw-up. But how was she suppose to know the dude was a cop? She couldn’t have. But what she did know was she was getting sick, withdrawal symptoms again, and Jurek’s erratic driving wasn’t helping any. She swallowed hard and sucked in some air. She could see him glance at her from the corners of his eyes. 

             “You spew in my auto, I’ll rub your face in it.”

             “Yeah, thanks,” she swallowed bile. 

             “I don’t know what the hell’s wrong with you.”

             “Why do you care?”

             “Maybe I’ve seen shit happen one to many times. Maybe I’ve had a belly full of it.”

             “Maybe you’re a pervert who likes young girls. Wouldn’t be the first, you know.”

             He backhanded her as he took a corner. Okay, after all he had done for her she could see how she might have deserved that. For an old man he hit pretty hard. 

             They sat there in silence. He let her sit and bleed on herself all the way back to his place; a little flat in lower Hiro, near an industrial zone. When they got there, she jumped out the minute he unlocked the doors. Jurek bolted out after her.

             “Hey!” He grabbed her arm and swung her around. “Where do you think you’re going?”

             “You paid the bail on me.” She sniffed blood. “Thanks.”

             “And I suppose you’re going....” he waited for an answer. 

             “Like I said, why do you care? You can’t stop me.”

             Well, he could if he wanted too....No. What would be the use?

             “You need to clean up.”

             Her withdrawal was biting harder. “I’m not your girl, Blues.”

             “The name is Jurek. Think you can say that?”

             The hard silence left them at an impasse. Finally he said, “Hey, just come inside and clean up. Maybe eat something. Then you can go wherever the hell you want. Okay?”

             A part of her reluctantly agreed. 

             A long shower and dinner did her well, and she wandered through the small rooms to perch out on the balcony where Jurek left her to her herself for a long while. His place was high up in a corner of the high rise, with a view out over the silver towers of the nearby energy plant. Not as posh as she would have thought for a section commander, but she could certainly live with it. 

             He came out now to the balcony, a whiskey in hand, and sat opposite her. She did not look at him.

             “You’ve stepped up a bit, I see,” she said.

             “I try,” he replied. “Not as big-time as you’d hoped?”

             She sensed the sarcasm in his throat. “It’ll do. I always wondered,” she said without much trepidation, “what the hell you thought you were doing with me.”

             He placed the glass down gently on the edge. “I tried to take care of you.”

             “You strangled me!” She stopped. Her temple throbbed. “I had to learn to breath again.”

             “Breath what?” He motioned to the sick streets of the city. “That?” He struggled to move away from the tide of memory welling in his gut. “Even when I found you, you where the most difficult kid. What could I do?”

             “What you’re best at doing. Nothing. Oh, wait, sorry, there was one thing you did do–and often. And you p-p-paid me for it.”

             “Lock down that filthy hole of yours!” he belted with bubbling hurt. 

             “What did you want with me, Blues? What did you expect?”

             “More than what I got.”

             “Pathetic,” she said, and her mood changed at the sound of that word for some lost reason, softened. “Well, I always keep finding my way back, don’t I? That can’t be much of a bad deal. I should start charging you again.”

             He fiddled with his hands, touched as he had always been by the vague warmth her voice could suddenly project. “You can always stay....” 

             “I can’t be whatever it is you’re looking for.”

             “....but I guess a dead person is more interesting than a live one, huh? This Kitaro? It’s safe, huh?”

             “Father would have loved this, you know?” she said, changing the subject. “The many rooms, the height, and the v-v-v-view. I mean, that’s why he mo-mo-moved us here, to the mega-city, to the mines. He had a child. He had to be responsible.”

             “Ione....”

             “Can’t give her an empty desert; a hovel full of red dust and dreams. Can’t live on dreams. She needs something better, s-s-something real.” 

             “Ione....”

             “It was all suppose to be a part of the deal,” she said, bitterly.  “But the deal was shit.”

             He just sat there looking at her, deeply, feeling a bit like that old deal. He rubbed his own temples, as if feeling for the memories stored there.

             She glanced over at him and he quickly put his hands down and turned away.

             “I don’t know what else I can say,” he mumbled. He did not know where to look; his eyes roamed the sky, searching. 

             “Say nothing.”

             A wind moaned through the city.

             “Wouldn’t it be great to just go back to the beginning? Make a few changes? Start again? Or is that wishful thinking?” 

             He wasn’t sure what she was referring too. Him? Them? What?

             “Stay,” he said, as he had said a hundred times before. “You can’t be a squatter all your life. And I can’t keep bailing you out of every jail in the city, either.”

             “Never asked you too.” She shook her head. “No,” she replied, reclaiming her stubbornness. “No. It wouldn’t work and we both know it.”

             “Maybe you do. I’m still working on that.” He tried to smile. He was sure the attempt was a dismal failure.

             She got up and retreated into the flat, Jurek fast behind her.

             “Ione, if you’re scared why do you go back out there?”

             She faced him at the door, flush now because she had no answer. If there was one, she was sure she would never find it. She felt her eyes water and she hated him for that.

             “Shit! Here,” he said, fumbling in his pocket and threw her a spare key. “For my flat. Just in case. And here,” he reached in his other pocket and tossed her a device, “take my receiver. It will direct dial me.”

             “If you were a friend there would be some cash, too. But I know how to get that.”

             He frowned. “I bet you do.”

             She hesitated, then swung wide the door. “Thanks, Blues.”

             “For what?” he spat out. “And hey. Ione.”

             “I know,” she said. “Don’t leave the city.”

             “I was gonna say lay off the sauce.”

             For a brief second she smiled, a smile almost as bad as the one he had tried on, then she turned and melted into the corridor’s dark shadows.

* * * 

             It was cold blackness, like sailing on a dark and silent winter sea.  A light beam flashed every so often, like a lighthouse beacon on a nearby shore, and she needed to get to that light;  it needed her to get to it.  There was a static around her, like falling snow from a bad transmission, and echoes, echoes from a voice, calling to her, the voice falling at her through the snow. A shoving like a wave pushed her back again, back again.

             Static.

             Echoes.

             Static....
 

             She awoke in the corner of a room, clutching at dirty drapes. 

             “Shit!” she breathed. 

             Someone rolled over on the bed. “Oh, there you are,” said the man. “What are you doing down there?”

             “Huh? Oh. F-f-f-fell off the bed, I guess,” she lied, trying to remember how the hell she had gotten here, with him. Who was he, anyway? No names. No. Not for one-timers. Yes, he was a one-timer from....from....Diamond Flyboy. Some nightclub. Where? Didn’t matter. He was nobody. And she was anyone he wanted her to be.

            Believe me, girl, you don’t want to know, came Ruby’s voice, right on cue.

             “Uh-huh,” she said, aloud.

             “What?”

             “Oh. Nothing.” She got up and moved to the pile of clothing in the center of the room.

             “Hell,” said the man, stretching lazily. “How could someone so young be so good?”

             Ione shrugged as she stepped into her clothes. 

             “Where are you from, anyway?” he asked. “Haven’t seen you around, have I?”

             “Originally? A desert town in the outback. B-b-b-burroughsville.”

             “Shit. People still live out there? Huh. And recently?”

             He asked too many questions. Why was he asking too many questions? He had been doing that since he picked her up.

             Her heart flushed, draining itself of its life fluid.

            Easy. He’s just a blue-collar. No one important. Play it down. Be cool.... 

             Ruby’s voice sounded strangely off for a second, pitched low and warbled, but Ione was too preoccupied to ask why.

             “Oh, here and there.”

             He made a baby pout and replied, “That’s not fair.”

             “I guess not,” she said, then took the money and left before a wave of nausea splashed her. Her hands wandered up to her temples where she fingered the interface, lightly. She wanted to switch on, again. She needed more meds. Can’t get meds without an insurance card and some identification. No sir. Have to go the alternative route, the only route for non-corporation bodies like her.

            You know where to go, hun. And try and get some decent shit, will ya?

             “Yeah, yeah.”

             There was only one place to go for the good stuff.

             She took a monorail over two sectors and disembarked. She walked for half a kilometer before a familiar sign hanging from a steel buttress let her know where she stood in relation to her destination: a little dive sandwiched between filthy, ancient neon inflamed alleys where neglect had made a home.

             The Osaka slum mumbled with the coming and going of people, mostly worker types, fumbling through the sweaty streets and wondering where the promise of life had gone. Thousands had gone to the mega-cities to find it. She wasn’t quite sure if anyone ever did.

             Her father had been one of them too, when they had moved to the mining camp on the edge of the Red Sails mega-city so many years ago. One day he decided to take his own life. Her mother had withdrawn from her, from the world, and when the bills piled up, the authorities came to clean out their possessions. They had been taken to a government sponsored project. Ione left soon afterward without a word, and had found work as the many martian drifters do here, as sycophants to rich offworld immigrants, martian-born entrepreneurs, just about anyone with the cash.

             She fingered the cash-pad in her pocket as her destination loomed ahead.

             Cutting through the streets of heat and hawkers, Ione made her way to Takahumi’s. Surprisingly, it was pretty empty inside for this time of day. No matter. She took a seat at the far end of the bar, and rapped her knuckles on the imitation wood grain. “Taka-san!” she said.

             A stocky Japanese man, balding rather badly, turned to face her. A look of recognition crossed his face, followed by one of contemptuous sympathy. 

             “Ah,” said Takahumi. “I had a feeling I’d see you today.”

             There was a pulling at the back of her mind. She tried to ignore it.

             “Go away, Ruby!” 

            What? Who? Me? Ione could feel Ruby’s mental shrug. I didn’t say anything....

             “Trouble with your AI? Or just schizophrenic?”

             She said nothing. Her eye twitched.

             “What do you want?”

             “Red Kamikaze.” It was a tough drink. A miner’s favorite.

             He looked her over as if he’d never seen her before. “Kind of young. Identification.”

             Ione’s eyes hardened. “Piss off. You know the Blues don’t give a sh-sh-shit. Pass it up here.” She pulled out her cash-pad. “I got it.”

             “And you better have the last time as well.” The bartender went to make her drink, came back and placed it in front of her. They made the transaction. “Hey!” she said, watching the numbers drop on the screen. “Interest,” he replied. He placed an arm on the counter and leaned toward her. “Anything else?”

             She downed the drink fast, then fiddled with the glass in her hands. “I’m k-k-k-kinda low,” she said in a hushed voice. “You know?”

             “Yeah,” he said, eyeing her, trying to sound concerned. “I’d say you are. But unfortunately I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He turned away.

             Instinctively she grabbed his wrist and pulled him back over the counter. “Listen, Taka-san!”

             He whipped his wrist away from her. “No, you listen!” he hissed. She could see him wince as a few eyes turned in their direction. “I say no deal. The heat has been on. Business has been a bit...painful for me. You find your kicks somewhere else, kid.”

             “Hanashitekure, ass-wipe,” she demanded, sickly. “You want to know what p-p-p-pain is?”

             “Yeah, I know. Need your daily dose of thrill rides and lullabies? Neh? So, does the poor bastard you been riding this time have a name?” He shook his head. “You punks dishonor everything, including the dead.” 

             “Taka-san!”

             His face turned beet red. “I’m not your friend! Understand? I’ve never even seen you before up until a few weeks ago. You come walking in here like you some big shit. Who the hell are you, anyway? What are you looking for? I mean, what are you really looking for? Why don’t you just disappear? And for good this time.”

             A helpless feeling began to settle into her stomach. She wanted to speak, but nothing came out.

             “Get out!” He was about to loose it when the sight of a tall black man stopped him cold.

             “Hanashitekure, citizen,” said the man, menacingly. Take it easy, citizen. His voice was deep and rich, heavily accented in an East African kind of way, and his skin shone deep blue/black. 

             Her eyes locked on him, hard. Kenyan, maybe, she thought. Obviously not born on Mars, with that accent. African migrants were a fairly new trend, and the southern most districts were quickly filling up with them.

             The pain in her body subsided. 

            Yes, most certainly Kenyan....

             “Shhh! Ruby!”

             WHAT? Damn, girl....

             There was a silence between the two men. Takahumi looked unsure about the situation. “Not your business, African.”

             “I’ll be the judge of what is and is not my business,” He turned to Ione and smiled white enamel teeth. “My friends call me Ebony. Good name, hey? Come.” He took her arm, gently. “I think I can be your friend. Hey? You come, yes?”

              For some reason she sat and stared at him. 

            Stay close to him. Stay close....

             “Huh?”

             She felt disjointed, and rubbed her temple jacks. She needed those meds. She then felt an overwhelming urge to bow in Takahumi’s direction–which was now the far end of the bar–before deciding to leave with Ebony for the noise of the streets.

             Ebony let out a small bass-filled chuckle as they walked. “You sure know how to put the scare into a man.”

             “The scare?”

             “You see the look on his face? Haunted. That’s what these people hate the most. To be haunted.”

             Yes, she understood. And gaijin like her must scare them the most, running around with other people’s lives, relatives, friends, fresh in their minds. That island powerhouse on Earth offered many things to wanting Westerners, including life span prolongation. But if there was one thing the island peoples wanted for themselves, it was for the dead to stay that way.

             “And you Africans?”

             “Well, we have the sangoma, the witch doctor, to do a little dance,” he laughed. “And all is okay with the world.” He shook his head and chuckled some more. “Poor Takahumi.”

             “I guess so.”

             “No, really. You’re not the only one whose been coming around here, singing old Japanese songs. Poor bastard is going out of his mind.”

             Ione froze. “How’s that?”

             Ebony stopped and looked down at her. “That is why I hang around here. It is certainly not for the company. It is an opportunity for me. When the latest sim craze hits, neuro-med sales go up.” He smiled. “I told you I was your friend.”

            Craze, huh? 

             She couldn’t keep it in her head any longer. “Ruby!”

             “Excuse me?”

             “Nothing,” she said. “Problems with my AI.”

             He smiled. “Come. I own a little shebeen down on Fujiwara Avenue. It is the outskirts of their community, of course. They wouldn’t have it any other way. What you need is there. But I’m not that cheap. I hope this does not affect our friendship.”

             “Are prices fixed?” she heard herself ask. “Or can they be ad-ad-ad-adjusted?”

             “Yeah,” he replied, looking her up and down slowly. “I’ve been known to offer deals, sometimes.”

             Nausea followed by a sudden feeling of anxiety passed through her as they walked. She felt her mind disassociate itself from her body, as if she were watching herself play along. Maybe it was something one learned to do when one lived like a gaijin. Probably go crazy if one didn’t. 

             She fingered the receiver in her pocket, absently. 

* * *

            It was past midnight and she wandered the empty halls like some dazed simulacrum needing instructions. The past few days had gone by, dream-like, and she had spent most her time either plugged in or watching people move in and out of the shebeen in hushed whispers. Voices, barely audible, slid from under doors, glided through the dark air to disappear into nothing.

             For a place such as this there was an air of stillness that seemed to hang over everything. But there were occasion ripples in the air, as she found out. She had been walking, as she usually did, when a thin, pale man, interface clicked into temples, met her from the opened door of his room. 

             “Hey,” he had said, interface light blinking red. “You’re doing a good job.” His smile seemed far away. “We’ll get there. You. Me. All the way.”

             The echo of a whisper passed through her mind. 

             She walked by him, quickly.

             “Don’t you worry,” he continued, head bobbing up and down. “Yeah.”

             She continued through the long corridors. She caught a glimpse of a worn symbol on a door as she turned a corner. Medical. This place must have been a clinic at some point, back when this sector had meant something.

            Freaky dude, said Ruby. Speaking of freaky, something keeps throwing bits of an algorithm at me.

             “So you haven’t purged your system yet?”

            Haven’t even isolated the cause of the disturbances. Can’t seem to track it to one particular location.

             She felt troubled. “You mean it moves around? Or leaves particles in data caches?”

            Honestly? I can’t tell. 

             Suddenly the stillness was rocked by an explosive sound that went crashing through the halls. Ione’s defenses kicked in and she went into a heightened sense of alertness, legs ready to sprint. 

             Easy now.

             She took a few tentative steps forward and into a four way connection area. The sound came again and she quickly identified it as a voice, and it was straight ahead of her. She moved forward toward a stairwell which went down to a section below ground level. 

             “Damn waste of skin! You–get off me!–I’ll kicked your head in, damn blasted shit. Back off!”

             Like a desert dust storm Ebony came bounding out of a door, past her, and down the stairs. “Damn it, I thought I told you to watch him!” he yelled to someone.

             “I was. He just wigged out all of a sudden,”came the reply.

             “You!” the man shouted. “You–get your hands off me! You still alive? You still alive, huh?”

             Ione perched herself at the top of the stairs and looked down at the struggle taking place. Ebony and another man she identified as the shebeen’s barman were attempting to restrain some scrawny gaijin who’d suddenly seemed to find the strength of five men. 

             “Keep it down, man!” Ebony, as big as he was, wrestled hard with the punk. “Come on!” he said to the barman. “Hold him!”

             “I am!” They went slamming into the stairs.

             The gaijin looked up and locked eyes with her. “He’s still alive! Don’t you see? That black bastard is still alive!” 

             The barman was able to reach out with a leg and kick open a door. The three of them went crashing into a room and disappeared from sight. 

             Easy, girl. His neurals must have finally popped. Shit meds. You see?

             The scuffling continued, and was clearly audible. 

             Suddenly she heard movement behind her. She twirled around. 

             “See?” It was the pale man from back down the hall, smiling funny. “We’ll get there,” he said. “You. Me. All the way.”

             There was a sound like glass shattering. A cry boomed through the hall.

             “He’s still alive!”

             But not for long. A week later, Ione awoke to find Ebony in his bed, neck broken, eyes gorged out. She had wandered into the bathroom and curled up in the tub sometime around midnight. She woke up cold, and went to retrieve a blanket when she noticed his body hanging over the edge of the bed. The chill had gone deep to her core.

             She thought she heard a sound from the other room, but didn’t stick around long enough to find out what it was. Half dressed, she bolted and never looked back.

* * * 

             ....the melody licks at her mind, now. There is something about the song Kitaro had sung that is deeply moving. And she isn’t even sure she understands all the words. Her Japanese is very rusty. Is it a happy song? A sad song? She can’t tell. Maybe it is both.

             Whichever it is, she longs for it now. It can always bring her to a place of peace; it is a respite for her weariness. But that is always after she piggy backs his stored memories, relives his traumatic death at the mine, after which she cries softly for hours in his warm crooning. It is as if she needs to feel his fear and his pain in order to cry, to be free from her own deeply buried hurt. Guess the sims are good for something, after all.

             She is still staring at the screen Jurek had just barely logged off of a few moments ago. The silence of the darkened room begins to get her nerves up.

             Relax, she tells herself. Like the man said, it’s only residuals.

             “Mona,” she calls on the room’s AI. “You there?”

             “Yes, Ione.”

             “Play some music.” She rubs her temples gingerly. Ruby is still unusually quiet. “Something soft.”

             “Of course.”

             A quiet piano concerto from Kimio, a fifty year dead lunar composer, leaks from the room’s speakers and coasts across the dark. Such soothing music should help her back into sleep. But she doesn’t know if she wants to sleep again.

             She lays back down and curls up on the bed, knees drawn up to her breasts and, staring out at the empty black desert, waits for the dawn.

* * * 

            Long silvery chains of running thought amid great gulfs of blackness; movement but no form; sensation but no body. The long and deep darkness being the first to yield to great pulses of blue fire across the shimmering void, spreading out in all directions like a spider’s web.

             And her, tingling pin-pricks and static lightning flashes and winds of blue/white fire with long arms embracing her, tingling every pore in her skin, caressing softly and securely.

             Peace. And then a sound, a rhythm in her blood, her flesh, coordinating and becoming stronger. The beat melting into her, matching the sound of her heart.

             A rhythm.

             Then rumblings.

             Cracks in the sky form, blue/black fragments fall away, shattering like raining glass. The blackness swelling, heaving itself up and down; water thick as tar lapping at her, sucking her down and away. 

             A sense of exigency.

             Slowly, as if under a timeless water, a melody plays....
 

             Screaming.

             They both spill out of the hot tube and roll across the ceramic tiled floor, the older woman winding up on the bottom. Who is it? Well, whoever it is lay face down on the floor of the room. Ione straddles the person’s thin back, both arms wrapped around a neck. Ione isn’t sure if she hears the snap, she is screaming the entire time she is doing it, but the woman’s struggle comes to an abrupt end. 

             After leaving the police holding, Ione had strayed into the Idoru bathhouse in upper Osaka, hoping to boil away the week’s memories. Nothing feels as good as sitting and soaking in steaming waters. An older woman had walked by and spotted her in the tube. Well, Ione had depleted her recent purchase, the bath had cost her the last of her cash....

             When Ione fully realizes what has happened, she retches her guts out, bile burning on her tongue. Shit! Wasn’t she trying to kill me? 

             They did kill you.

             “Wh-wh-what? Ruby?”

            We’ll get there. You and me. All the way....

             The woman’s body, once kept suspended in time with treatments, lays motionless, eyes fixed on the wall. 

             No time to think. Just act!

             Wakatara! Deteittekure! (Get out of here, understand?)

             “Ruby!”

             Wakatara! Deteittekure!

             The first thing she does is fumble into her cloths; the second thing she is to run like hell. Somehow she makes it down the corridor, down a flight of stairs. Voices trail after her, but her body keeps going, going, going.

              Her mind tries to reconstruct what had happened as she takes flight through the dim halls. There were neuro-meds, because that was part of the deal. And the sim she always plays? Why, the “craze,” as Ebony had put it, the one she had downloaded to her interface so many weeks ago. Terminal Experience Number 3370. Kitaro Wada.

             She can use his touch now, his soft words, his melody.... 

             She bursts through the main doorway of the Idoru bathhouse, out into the street, and right into two officers fresh from their patrol auto. The first one cracks her across the cheek with his baton. As she goes down the second one made to grab her, but instinctually a leg goes up and catches him in the groin. He falls back with a yelp. The first one grabs her by the hair.

             “Someone’s trying to kill me!” she screeches. “They’re all trying to kill me!”

             He says something in Japanese through his teeth; it sounds like: “Shut your filthy hole! You’re under arrest!” 

             A crowd is gathering.

             As the officer pulls at her hair, her hands go out and grip him around the waist. She pushes him back over the hood of the vehicle, her right hand finds the weapon at his side. The second office is up and behind her now, grabbing her shirt. As she struggles with the man against the vehicle his leg jerks up and the gun goes off. The bullet grazes her side and strikes the officer behind her. He tumbles back onto the walkway, a gaping hole in his stomach. The crowd screams and takes cover.

             “No!” 

             The remaining officer tries to pry her hand off the weapon. He only succeeds in helping her to unsheathe it. Instinctively, she buries it in his chest and pulls the trigger. He stops moving. She backs away....and screams like an insane woman on a full moon night. No one in the huddled crowd moves toward her. She stands there with the gun in her hand, screaming. Finally she breaks from the scene and runs, runs through filthy alleys, dimly lit and stinking of mold and rotten food. 

            One step ahead. Gotta stay one step ahead, girl.

             She dumps the weapon down a sewer drain as she flies. 

             And she keeps running, running, running, and forever not wanting to stop running....

 

Red Dreams: Part Two: The Red Earth.