“Hey.”
Kei’s eyes narrowed in the blindingly sterile supermarket light. It was only slightly dimmed for the night cycle, but he could still make out the sticky patches on the tiled floor. Above, the painfully inoffensive store music buzzed through crappy mass-produced speakers. Bland, uninspired, a waste of vibrations and energy. It was distant and quiet but not enough to avoid his irritation. He knew that the drone who haphazardly threw the tasteless notes together did not remotely care about the product of its work.
“Heeeeeeeey.”
It had been a few hundred cycles since he had decided to completely ditch his peripherals. Even if they helped to drown out some of the city’s noise, they were still diluted poison to his ears. The only antidote existed between the velvet walls of the Broken Record and in the mouth of the most capricious person he had ever met. Everything else paled in comparison to her voice; all of the lights and sounds assailing his daily life had grown dull. He only felt alive when she took the stage, and the time in between was agonizingly slow.
“Hey hey hey hey.”
His eyes refocused on the tomato in his hands. Bright red, plump, unblemished. Uniform and engineered. Most likely from one of the vertical farms out in Zone 10 or 11. He would bring it back to his tiny apartment and dice it up, maybe throw it into a stew. A little more salt this time would be good, and some garlic if he remembered to pick some up too. Just something to sustain him and pass the hours. He could not be bothered to look at the price on the bin; credits had long since been a pressing issue. As she promised, Collections had been eerily quiet since he started playing for her exclusively. The mundane distractions and responsibilities did not matter. Only the music did.
“Hey! Anything on upstairs?”
Kei shifted his attention to his newest annoyance. An absolute levtram wreckage of a dark den girl was looking up at him with an expectant grin. He was usually lucky enough to avoid these types by shopping in the middle of the night cycle before the dens let out, but it seemed like a straggler had managed to crawl out a little early. Her eyes were wild and wide, she clearly had the energy of a potent stim cocktail but not the usual unfocused haze.
“Not interested,” he said bluntly. They usually wanted a fistful of credits for the levtram home after wasting all of theirs on whatever they did in there. He of course had extra to spare, but not for the likes of freeloaders who wasted their cycles away to vice.
“Not yet, at least.” Her smile widened as she energetically bobbed in place. Kei noticed that there was no one else in the store besides her, only a few security cameras dotting the aisles. The entire point of shopping at this time was to avoid people as much as possible.
“You’ve got a little time to chat, don’t ya?” Of course he did, not that he would ever admit it. He shook his head and looked back at the tomato, hoping that she would get the hint without needing any confrontation. This was the contract: they would ask for something, he would shrug them off, and then they would go bother someone else. That was how society kept turning, but apparently she had been too stimmed out to read the memo properly.
Her hand shot out, snatching the tomato from his hand. Looking straight up at him, unblinking, she squeezed it until its juices dripped down onto her oversized jacket. A pity, that one actually looked perfectly ripe.
Displeased at the lack of reaction, the girl pouted and tossed the tomato aside. It rocketed into the wall and exploded onto the nearby display shelves. “I was hoping Kathy’s little pet would be more interesting,” she whined.
Kei’s shoulders tensed. This was no longer just a stimmer blowing steam. Sensing his discomfort, she pressed into him closely enough that he could feel the dampness of her jacket sleeve. He had just had this shirt cleaned.
“You knoooooow,” she mused, “sultry voice, creepy eyes, painfully condescending? Owns a club full of rich pricks? Or is she still going with that stupid mysterious persona?”
“Leave me alone, I don’t know what you’re on about.” He had never heard anyone use a name for her, let alone from the dregs that oozed out of a dark den. All sorts of officials and kingpins passed through the doors of the Broken Record to speak with her, but those dealings were far beyond Kei’s concern. He played for her and that was it. That was what made him whole.
She closed in, practically hanging off his shoulder. He could feel her uncomfortably warm breath on his neck as she whispered. “Oh you know exactly what I mean, little pet. I’m sure you’re at least smart enough to see that there’s something a little different about your owner and her friends. You know you’re only on the edge of it, but it sure is more exciting than the rest of this dreary city wouldn’t you say?”
Kei’s heart raced, his words lodged firmly in his throat. He wasn’t supposed to have to deal with people, with situations. Her hand drifted down his sleeve until her fingers intertwined with his.
“Every cycle goes by and nothing changes. The rich get richer and the rest of us are herded like cattle. It wasn’t always like this, you know.”
She squeezed his hand, gently at first but with increasing pressure. When it became uncomfortable, he realized he was locked in place by her grip. “And it doesn’t have to be,” she breathed through her teeth. “We could become what we already are. All of the anger, the gore, the sorrow, the thrill. It hasn’t touched your lips even once and you already thirst for it.”
Kei’s fingers twitched as he gasped in pain. Just as he could feel his bones about to break, she let off and traced along his arm up to his chin. “That’s up to you though. You can shut yourself in those comfy padded walls, safe and sound with that conceited bitch as you wait for me. Orrrrr you could come out and play some time. Get a taste of those nasty, forbidden things. I just hope you’re not boring. That really would be a shame.”
She passed behind him, kicking down a display stand as she stormed out the front door. As the rattling of metal echoed through the empty aisles, Kei looked back down at bin of tomatoes. None of them looked as nice as the one that was still dripping down the wall.
“Fuck this,” he muttered as he gently massaged his sore hand. Stew sounded unfulfilling anyway.