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There were more people at The Pools than normal. Bodies crowded right up to the edges of the large dry basins. Bodies draped over heating pipes that snaked up from the floor and pierced the plastered walls. Walls once wrapped in gilded ivy and fluttering cupids, now gray and furred with dust like so much fruit long forgotten. The ever-present glitchers teetered through the masses looking for anything they could swallow, smoke or inject. Anything to silence the whine of the city.
Crabs and glitchers--and anyone else who never fit into a group that never quite fit to begin with-- ended up at The Pools. They scuttled through the dreck, clawed up the twenty-four implied flights of stairs to the roof of this once great tower. Used to be richy-riches could marinade for hours up here, gazing up at the celestial bodies, gazing down at their own celestial bodies. Eat. Drink. F****. Real civilized stuff. That was before the decision was made to build Level 10. Now you have to keep your head bowed like a monk so as not to slam your skull into a vent pipe. Yep. Bye bye view, hello tramps, addicts and pushers. Good times.
Most of the folks were packed around the largest pool. “The Hole,” they called it. Where guys unleashed their ancestral ape in ridiculous--and often impromptu--”sports”. These games usually had even more impromptu rules. The more violent, the better. From the explosive cheers and jeers, I guessed it was Dreck Storm tonight.
Dreck Storm, a local favorite, was the simplest of the games and basically involved one poor sucker standing in the deep end while a significantly more lucky individual in the shallow end whipped pieces of dreck at him. Now pay attention, because this is where it gets complicated. The purpose of the game is to dodge trash. Yep. That’s it. And I’d be lying to you if I told you I’d never enjoyed watching a game or two myself.
Erin and I were keeping to the shadows at the edges, picking our way through the glitchers in their rag doll bliss, when I see my buddies, Skin and Fiddler. I’m about to give then a hearty salutation when they promptly shove Erin and I deeper into the rank-smelling shadows.
“Hands off the lady punks!” I’m puffing up to my full size now which ain’t much but usually does the trick.
“We’ve been looking for you everywhere,” says Fiddler.
“Yeah, yeah,” I reply. “I love you too. We need to find a recharge circuit. Erin’s losing juice and--”
“Find a--” Fiddlers eyes were wide as ration plates. “You glitchin’? Have you seen what’s going on here?”
“He doesn’t know.” Pea was on lookout. Lookout for what? Just then the throng at The Hole roared. Erin was moving slow again, but I could see the worry, the ember of panic in her eyes. She was way off her programming. Something was wrong.
“Gimme your UV goggles.” I said, grabbing them off Fiddler’s jacket and handing them to Erin. “Put these on.”
“A disguise.”
“Yeah. Come on”
Pea and Fiddler made a half-ass attempt to stop me, but it was more for show. I knew they had my back, even if I was acting crazy. Holding Erin’s hand again. Muscling our way through the matts of bodies. Eventually we made it to the edge of The Hole. It was so loud we couldn’t even shout to each other. Smells of sweat and spilled compost wine. Then, from the depths of the basin, a crimson slash across a grease-splattered apron. A glint of light on a stainless steel spatula.
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