“Aww yeah, honey, this is some good fucking shit,” old Linda drawled in her gravely squawking baritone. A thick cloud of sweet pink smoke escaped through her cracked, grey-stained lips—a telltale sign of a habitual Hibiscus user. In her gnarled, age-pocked fingers, the off-brand Hello-Kitty-head-shaped atomizer pod looked somehow both out of place and right at home. “I’m sorry to make you come all the way out here, sugar. I usually go straight to Mr. Zen’s, but my hip’s been a bitch all week and old Jean says the closest escalator is gonna be out until at least Tuesday. You have to try this, honey, I’m serious, take a hit of this, it will rearrange your… uh, your… brain hallways."
“Not a problem, Mrs. Benzate,” Katt replied, raising a hand to politely decline an offered hit. “And, uh, no thanks, I have a long ride back, but—it’s seriously not an inconvenience at all. Zen said he owes you one, and I’m getting paid overtime. I’m just glad you’re pleased.”
“Pleased!? Honey, this is some reaaaal good shit. haven’t hit something this pure in ten years, not since... not since I first aged out of the system and had to wean off Percocets, I suppose. Back then it wasn’t called Hibiscus, it was… um… I think it was called… we called it… it was the name of an old breakfast cereal, I believe. Still, I’m a long way from the Mall,” Linda said between hacking coughs, “and you’re a sweetheart for agreeing to do it at all, and—and—and he’s a sweetheart for sending you.”
“Aww, don’t mention it—"
“Make sure—make sure you tell him I said that, now. That I called him a sweetheart. You tell him that, you make sure to now, you make sure to tell him that I said that, okay? I told him way back when, way, way back… when… uh…” The old woman’s eyes were starting to glaze over—it was really setting in, now. “When… shit… fuck… uh… way back when poor Natty died, that was… uh… um… fuck now, I… oh, shitting cunt, when was that now? Um…”
“--uh, yeah, I’ll make sure to tell him,” smiling and nodding politely. “Alright now, you have a great night Mrs.—"
“Five? Ten? Twenty or so whole years ago I guess, fuck, I told him, I told Mr. Zen, I told him that someday he’d be my—that he would be my husband, you see, and—and I haven’t given up on him yet—”
“I’m sure you haven’t, Mrs.—”
“Even if that tight little ass of his hangs a little lower than it used to! He has the nicest ass, doesn’t he, dear?” Linda sank deeper into the stained and tattered couch. Her head slumped to one side. “It’s okay, you can tell me, I—I won’t tell him. He never talks to me, so I can’t. Haven’t talked to that man since… uh, fuck… when was it… oh, bloody horsecocks, it couldn’t have been New Year’s…”
Kat sighed. It was tough talking with people on Hibiscus without being on it one’s self. She knew damn well nobody had ever seen Zen’s body and lived, but there was no point arguing with one in such a state. “I’m very sorry to be brief, Mrs. Benzate, but I actually—"
“Oh shit, it must be nightfall!” Linda suddenly exclaimed, leaping from the couch to her feet and catching herself on the refrigerator with her right (and only) arm as she instantly began to topple. “You need to get going, sugar, these streets aren’t safe at night—"
“How can you even tell it’s night from this deep down?” Kat asked, taking this excuse to step outside the old woman’s shoebox-sized abode. She knew there were at least 25 levels of makeshift housing and trailer homes above this ground-level alleyway, but from here, only about five levels up were visible. Level 6 and above there were no regulations about keeping the walls clear for triad Zenforcer’s Spyyders, so the view quickly shifted to too many wires and balconies to make anything else out, even the moon at night. It made for a nice reprieve from the deadly sun during the day, at least.
“I’ll teach you how we can tell,” exhaling another magenta-tinted cloud. “Smell that?”
“The Hibiscus?”
“No, just—just give that smell a second to, ah, to, uh, to clear.” Linda paused as a thick, molten tickle in her throat forced a sickly, hacking cough. “When it hits, you won’t have to fucking ask.” Sure enough, when the sweet scent of the synthetic drug faded, the air grew heavy with the all-permeating scent of burning, rotting human flesh.
“Jesus,” Kat nearly gagged, holding her breath. She pulled her black turtleneck’s collar up over her nose and mouth, but that did nothing to help her stinging eyes.
“Hah! There it is. This far in the outskirts, we can smell the burn pits when night sets in. It’s so sad, uh, such a sad smell, when you know about it. My uh, my left arm went to one, you know—no point losing both to frostbite on the way to a better life, was my, uh, was my thought process, at the time, way back when, you know. I was lucky, back then, you know—” another hacking fit, “oh bloody titfuck, these old lungs can’t take this dank shit like they used to, sugar—are you sure you don’t, uh, want a hit, hon? It’ll make for a much sweeter journey home.”
“It’s all I can do to keep control of a Spyyder when I’m sober, and I’ve got a hell of a drive back to the Mall, so I think I’d better pass... but I seriously appreciate the offer. You enjoy now, Mrs. Benzate.”
“I will, dear, I will. Be careful out there, with the, uh, with the—uh, with the drug running, now. It’s a big, uh, a big city, and there’s, you know, there’s big people out there, sugar, bad, big, uh, people—”
“I’ll be fine,” turning to show off the huge red “Z” embroidered on the back of her black leather jacket. “It may be a big city, but this letter is a big deal. Nobody fucks with Zen—well, except maybe you, if he ever lets you catch him.”
Linda laughed so hard at this she got stuck in another coughing bout but waved “goodbye” as Katt instinctively patted her torso to double check her Immolator was still in her chest pocket, strapped her helmet back on, and stepped into the bitter, hazy night. “Alright Tetsuo,” she mumbled into her helmet, summoning her Spyyder’s customized AI assistant, “navigate me back to the Mall.”
“Got it—displaying directions now,” a pleasant, perfectly-human-sounding British female voice crooned in response. An overhead view of the Malled City appeared overlaid in the glass of her helmet, turning it into one massive HUD. A 3D representation of her upcoming turns appeared next to it, as well. She was... 10 miles away!? That was, she reasoned, about as far as one could possibly be from the Mall and still be in the Malled City. No wonder the burn pits were so... aromatic out here.
Katt leapt into the air, straddled the full-body saddle of her shiny red Spyyder, spat on its biometric activation panel, and braced her boots against the footrests in one swift, expert motion. Its seamlessly modded-in headlights, stolen from the corpse of an ancient 1992 MX-5 Miata, flipped into action. In their slightly flickering beams, the smog formed tangible, arcane creatures, solid tendrils of convulsing darkness. Katt tried not to think about how much of it was really smoke from the burn pits. Maybe some of it was Hibiscus? She took a quick whiff without thinking and promptly threw up in her mouth. Nope.
Katt slipped her arms into the control chambers, tightly gripping the rubber-coated handles inside. It felt like slipping an aluminum sweater on, but it was crucial for staying on a Spyyder at speed—and therefore, crucial for staying alive.
Katt pressed the button on the end of the left handle with her left thumb and held it in, counting to five and then releasing it. The wide triangular craft slowly lifted from the ground with a pulsating thruMmMmMmMm. She pressed the buttons on both handles in and twisted the left handle away from her and the right handle towards her, causing the Spyyder to rotate clockwise in place mid-air. Once its wide, flat base was parallel to the side wall of Linda’s trailer, Katt released both buttons to establish a grav-lock. The Spyyder shuddered, but held its position, clinging to the wall like an insect. Katt tapped the left handle’s button cautiously as the crimson Spyyder rose higher along the wall, passing Level 2... Level 3...
She braced herself against the saddle and twisted both handles away from her. “Alright Tetsuo, play SSD.”
“You’ve got it! Playing Cyanide and Kisses (Dirty Bass Mantra Mix) by SSD.” Her helmet overflowed like honey with the operatic, sensual croons of SSD’s lead singer: the superstar starlet of the macabre, known to her rabid cult only as “Rose.”
“I’m a grimoire sealed with fear inside your sexy Saturn dreams
The taste of my dark power lingers in orgasmic steam
Ride me into Hell, I’ll give your demon what it misses
I’ll cross you into my abyss with cyanide and kisses!”
Katt timed her main burst of acceleration for the bass drop. As the band broke into the most fantastic thelemacore breakdown solo Katt felt had ever been written, she raced away along the walls of Level 4.
The first turn came up fast—a 90 degree left—but Katt always flat out refused to do the “correct” thing: slowing down to 10MPH or less to allow the Spyyder’s auto-cornering system to gingerly transition the grav-lock from one side to the next. She instead took the left going nearly full speed, following her own patented technique (be wary, readers: this only works on the left wall for a left turn, or the right wall for a right turn!):
1. Manually release the grav-lock by turning both handles away from the driver and tapping both buttons juuust before hitting the 90-degree drop off. This allows the Spyyder to travel past the 90 degree angle on the approaching wall without defaulting to built-in cornering functionality (which would simply crash the vehicle at this speed).
2. The instant the front of the craft clears the edge, flick both handles away from the driver and tap both buttons to re-establish grav-lock. The grav lock will violently pull the base of the Spyyder onto the wall on the other side of the sharp turn, prioritizing the “new” wall and angle (the sensors are built into the nose).
3. Don’t fall off—the vehicle isn’t designed for such a violent and sudden maneuver, and the rider will separate from the Spyyder from inertia and go launching to a blunt force trauma death against the outer walls of the stacked makeshift buildings.
At the speed she was going, this maneuver had a timing window of less than a tenth of a second. It whipped the Spyyder around with enough force it should buck the rider off or even break the rider’s neck... but Katt had worked her way up to it, and learned to stay pressed so low and close to the machine that she barely felt it. She executed her technique effortlessly, feeling the machine as an extension of her own body and awareness.
Once she’d cleared the turn she glanced to the stats in her helmet’s HUD—45MPH at a 90-degree angle. A new record, by 3 MPH—nice. But Katt sighed. It had felt more like 55. She knew she could do better!! “Alright Tetsuo, add as many tight corners as possible to my trip.”
“M-Master Katt, that will add seventeen minutes to your trip—”
“Not if I clear them above 60 it won’t,” Katt replied, a grin in her voice. “The next turn is a right, yeah?” To prepare, and to avoid slamming into the wall for the sharp right up ahead, she quickly disabled grav-lock, flipped 180 degrees in midair, and grav-locked to the right wall.
“I will oblige if you insist, Master Katt, but I would be remiss to not inform you that on average the chances of surviving a series of turns like that, at such a ludicrous proposed speed, are less than 10%.”
“On average? Fuck that, tell me the odds of survival with me driving.”
The AI audibly sighed. “Ninety-seven-point-two percent, Master Katt. Nevertheless, as a thinking, complex being that exists only within the circuitry of this Spyyder, I must protest--”
“Alright Tetsuo, mute assistant,” Katt boomed, cackling maniacally and accelerating into the right turn ahead. 59 MPH—much better!
Mr. Zen’s office was nestled deep in the heart of the Central Mall, which was itself the heart of the (accordingly-named) Malled City. The storefront was a Chinese massage parlor before the mall was abandoned, and Mr. Zen had opted to keep it visually intact. The pink neon sign outside read “ZEN MASSAGE” now instead of whatever it had before, but the fake ferns, bamboo, paper lanterns, and animated lucky cat were original to the pre-“Fall” Mall. To the uninitiated, it was still just a Chinese massage parlor in the Mall, operated by a charming young Chinese girl named Emmy, who would inform everyone without a “Z” on their back that they unfortunately were booked for the day… all day… every day.
This was all curious enough on its own, but to make things more suspicious, Mr. Zen also had a bad (fake?) New York accent, randomly dropped Italian words in casual conversation, insisted he was Chinese, and never let anyone see even the slightest glimpse of him physically. Katt suspected all these anomalies were intentional, to hide... something?... but she had no idea what. She’d learned to take it at face value.
“Are you here to see Mr. Zen?” Emmy asked, barely glancing up from the CRT computer monitor at the reception desk. Her fingers were a perpetual dancing blur hovering above the raggedy old mechanical keyboard like a cloaked UFO. She was perfectly polite, but never sociable, which absolutely murdered Katt. She felt like they’d really get along, but this was based on absolutely nothing but a hazy fantasy about Emmy secretly being the world’s greatest hacker and them becoming cyberpunk criminal besties.
“Lucky guess,” Katt quipped, stealing a glance at Emmy’s glasses. In their reflection, Katt could always make out a sea of lime green text on a black background. What was she typing so furiously away at, all day, every day!? Katt’s curiosity grew every day and had become positively suffocating, but she didn’t dare ask. Emmy’s role looked unimportant on paper, but Katt had developed the impression that there was nobody closer to Mr. Zen in the entire Malled City. “Secret daughter” was the phrase that came to mind, but like everything else surrounding Mr. Zen, it was nothing but guesswork.
“He’s in the back,” Emmy replied, tilting her head towards the door without looking up from the monitor. “Feel free to go through any time. He also ordered a pizza a couple hours ago, there’s still a couple slices on the counter here if you’re hungry. Help yourself.” She paused her frantic typing to shove the pizza box across the counter towards Katt. Impressively, it stopped right at the edge.
“Hell yeah, thanks Emmy!” Katt lilted, grabbing a slice and taking a bite. Cold, but delicious. She hoisted herself over the counter, stepped around Emmy, tripped over the TV cord, fell on her face, got pissed when Emmy laughed at her, and finally stumbled back into the main “massage room” where Mr. Zen resided.
The room was divided with a massive one-way mirror wall with just a single (also one-way-mirrored) door parting the sea of reflection: there was a meeting room on this side, and whatever the fuck Mr. Zen had in his secret room he never left on the other side. As usual, the pleasant and musty smell of fine, fresh cigar smoke permeated the chambers.
“Kattherine, bella, my beautiful daughta’ from anudda’ mudda’!” Mr. Zen boomed in his kind, obviously fake, baritone New York (or New Jersey!?) drawl. “Youse really is the pepperoni on my pizza pie, takin’ that Hibiscus all the way out in the outskirts to my old signora.”
“The, uh, the pleasure is all mine, your Zennyness,” Katt replied. Mr. Zen laughed and clapped. “She was... delightful. Seemed really into the Hibiscus, told me to tell you that it was top-shelf shit and also, uh, that you have a great ass and she still wants to marry you.”
“Beautyful, beautyful,” he crooned. “Maybe someday she’ll win ‘dis old heart over yet. Speakin’ of, how’s that hard-working little fidanzato of yours doing?”
“My, uh, what?”
“Fidanzato, you know, youse boyfriend, youse amore—that Rico kid. He’s treatin’ you like a princess, si? If he lays a finger on youse, say the word to Uncle Zenny, I’ll--”
“No, no, he’s great,” Katt chuckled, her tone relaxing, “I really couldn’t be happier with him. It’s actually his birthd—“
“’Dis weekend, I know.” Katt was shocked Mr. Zen remembered, and even more shocked he ever knew in the first place. “What? Don’t look so astounded, toots, I run a tight ship here. Every need and desire of every citizen in this city is my responsibility—and youse is one of the best I’ve got. Of course I’m not gonna’ let something ‘dat important slip by me. In fact, I gots somethin’ right here—ah, cazzo, it’s—one second—” A letter-sized envelope slid under the mirrored door and propped itself against Katt’s left boot. She opened it, and her heart stopped—
“No fucking way!!” she screamed, “SSD tickets!? How did you even know we were into--”
“Everybody is into SSD, toots,” he laughed. “And again, it is my job, my duty even, to know dese tings. I may be a rat bastard, but I take pride in my ability to make people happy, si?”
“You’re a real one, Mr. Z,” Katt sniffled, doing a very poor job of hiding happy tears. “I’m thrilled, Rico will be just as thrilled, I don’t know what to say—“
“You don’t gotta say a thing. Consider it a small thanks for running my little overtime long distance errand, yeah? Dis ain’t a charity, youse earned it.”
“Sir yes sir!” Katt replied, playfully saluting the mirror. “Any time you need such a thing taken care of, I’m your gal. I’m the fastest Spyyder driver in the City, and I’d go up against anybody to prove it—even you, Mr. Z.” He guffawed.
“I’m sure youse would, I’ve got no doubt, bella. Youse got it, any outskirts jobs are yours. Expect a huge raise startin’ that next check, accordingly. Don’t know what I’d do without youse, toots.”
“Likewise—take it easy, Z.” Katt stole another glance at the tickets to make sure they were real and she wasn’t dreaming, then danced back into the reception area.
“Somebody’s glowing,” Emmy teased.
“Oh, y-yeah,” Katt replied, shocked Emmy had even looked up from her keyboard. “Mr. Zen just gave me—“
“SSD tickets, I know. The whole mall knows. You’ve got impressive lung power, girl, ever think of singing for them instead?”
“Sorry,” Katt replied, blushing slightly. “Are you a fan?”
“Of SSD?”
“Yeah.”
For the first time Katt had ever seen, Emmy stopped typing. Even more earth-shattering, she looked up from the monitor. Apocalyptically, she made eye contact. Katt’s blood froze. She had lovely, deep brown eyes—but right now they were piercing daggers buried within their mystique.
“No.”
“You’re kidding!” Katt blurted, incredulous. “Rose is a literal goddess, how can you not—“
“Look her up online sometime. She’s got credible ties to SoST, or The Society of Scientific Truth. It’s like they always say: ‘don’t meet your heroes.’”
“The Society of Science what now? Is that a white supremacist thing?”
“Nah, it’s one of those bullshit secretive billionaire alien cults that brainwash people and probably try to kill you if you leave. Or if you question them publicly. Or even just parody them, sometimes. They’re trouble.”
“And Rose from SSD is a member?” Katt asked, unwilling to reconsider her opinion on Rose but pumped to finally make small talk with her future super-hacker crime partner.
“No, but she was seen last week hanging out with Dom Maverick after doing the opening song for the new Aero Fighters sequel—and he carries the Society’s water like it was that Oscar he’s never won. So...”
“So... you’re boycotting a band because the lead singer partied with the lead actor of the biggest movie of the season, which they both played a major role in?”
“You live by your principles, I’ll live by mine,” Emmy replied, sighing. Crushingly, her eyes returned to the monitor and the typing resumed. Katt felt positively chided. Her heart sank until Emmy added, “I’m not judging you for it. I’m just telling you to watch your back—and turn down any weird recruiters in spacesuits.”
“Will do, thanks,” Katt replied, unsure of how to feel about the exchange. But she didn’t let this get to her—how could it? She had tickets to SSD!
Katt was one of the lucky less than one percent of a percent of Malled City residents able to score an apartment in the actual Malled City—earning the admiration of the City’s kingpin had its perks. Apparently, it used to be a store called “FYE”. Now, it was a luxurious, literally one-room apartment—makeshift kitchenette in one quadrant, bathroom in the next (with privacy curtain of course), futon in the third, and TV/sofa in the last. Katt lowered the steel cage at the entrance, locked it in place, closed the room-darkening blinds behind it, and finally plopped down on the dilapidated velvet sofa next to Rico, who had dozed off.
“Welcome back, babe,” he yawned, the motion rousing him from slumber. He wore only boxers and a well-loved swiss-cheesed SSD shirt, from their first ever tour. Katt loved when he wore it—it was a clingy texture and full of holes, so it rippled and teased over his muscular upper body when he’d move. He also had bed-hair, bad, which was insanely cute. “Holy shit, what time is it?”
“Hi babe it’s 3 AM,” Katt replied, so excited she was slurring her words together, “but you’re not gonna believe this, I had to do a run on the Outskirts to this one-armed old lady, and on the way back I broke my previous cornering record by a ton, and—wait, sorry, I’m getting ahead of myself. Or maybe behind myself? Anyway, remember how I told you chaos magick was like totally real and I’d prove it?”
“You mean,” he replied, pulling her close to him and playfully putting a finger on her nose, “do I remember when you told me you were going to try a ritual you remembered from a horror-comedy edutainment-parody late night TV show that never existed? Because... yeah. That’s been my life since you found that post.”
“Okay,” she sighed, shifting to snuggle into a more comfortable position with her head on his chest, “I know you’re being playful, but if you’re so determined to let this escalate into a play fight and then a make-up fuck: first of all, ‘Magick with Magden’ was TOTALLY a real show, and tons of people online agree with me, so ha. Second--”
“Tons?”
“...okay, like... a dozen, but the post got traction,” she playfully huffed. And they all remember it the same way—it came on after Nordstrilia, at like, 2 AM, on [tripOut].”
“And yet, there’s no record of it being mentioned, anywhere, ever, before the post you found last week. Nowhere on the internet. Nowhere on their website. Nowhere on any archives. Not even on any anonymous message boards. And nobody recorded it, downloaded it, anything. There’s not even a single screenshot about it, anywhere. Even though it ran for three years. And—here’s the kicker—” he pulled her in for a kiss, “—sorry, that was a kiss. The kicker is, it’s because—“
“Everybody’s memories got erased, along with all the evidence!” they said in unison. She threw her head back in defeat. “I’ve... really been a broken record this week, huh?”
“After the first seventy-five thousand times,” he said, ruffling her already-messy black shoulder-length bob cut, “it became easier to predict.”
“Okay, smartass,” she retorted, “so what’s your explanation for why at least a dozen of us remember specific episodes, the format, the name, even how Magden looked on camera?”
“In one experiment decades ago, researchers asked subjects who had been to Disneyland as children if they remembered getting their photo taken with Bugs Bunny. An entire third of them said they clearly remembered it, even though it was absolutely impossible!”
“That’s the power of suggestion.”
“And remembering a made-up TV show after reading a detailed anonymous post about it online isn’t?”
“Babe,” she replied, leaning close to whisper in his ear. “You fell right into my trap, you fool! I was the one who made the post. I’ve remembered it for years—I just didn’t realize it had vanished from existence until I went searching for it again.”
She felt his body tense underneath her. “But you said—”
“I lied, because I knew you wouldn’t take me seriously otherwise,” she replied, pausing to nibble at his earlobe.
“Which I—”
“Which you clearly didn’t. Right. In fact, I doubt you took me seriously enough to even pay attention to what I said after I told you about the post. I’ve waited all this time to come clean, just for the satisfaction of this moment.”
“You told me you were going to try a ritual from the show and use it to get free SSD tickets. I may not always believe, but I always listen.”
She pulled the envelope from her pants pocket with a self-satisfied, sardonic grin and lightly smacked him across the face with it.
“You’ve heard of Magick with Magden. Now it’s time for Magick with Kattherine. Happy Birthday, bitch.”
“No fucking way,” he stammered, his hands shaking as he gingerly extracted the sacred parchments. His vision blurred with tears in spite of himself. “Babe, these must cost as much as a Spyyder...”
“They were literally handed to me, by the boss-man himself.”
“So they’re from Mr. Zen!? You got SSD tickets from the kingpin of the City!?”
“I’m his favorite,” Katt beamed, playfully stroking Rico’s hair. “Well, next to Emmy, but she’s his daughter or something.”
“You’re definitely my favorite,” Rico growled, grabbing her hair and pulling her in to a violent, sloppy kiss.
Her heart raced as their tongues danced.
When their lips parted, she was gasping for air. “I’ll get the Hibiscus,” she finally replied, biting her lip. She vanished behind the couch for a moment, then emerged entirely naked, neon pink smoke billowing from her lips. “Your turn,” she lilted in a saucy whisper, tossing him a plastic off-brand Hello Kitty head with a nozzle where the bow should be.
Rico drew in as much delicious cloud as his lungs could hold. The effects kicked in as soon as he started to exhale. All the tension in his body melted away, and as he sank into the couch, his body felt like it was melting away as well. As Katt fell into his arms, the reflection of the TV in her intoxicating onyx eyes was the moon over an endless, roaring sea. The ocean was warm, and as she ran a finger down his chin its heat spread through every incorporeal unit of his consciousness.
“You’re such a lightweight,” she giggled, grabbing the Hibiscus pod from the end-table and taking another massive draw. “I’m jealous.” She leaned in to his strong, soft face, stroked his stubble with the thumb from each hand, and filled his handsome face with sweet, bubblegum-scented mist. This hit packed the punch for her the first hadn’t quite reached—she seemed to melt into his tight, muscular body.
Their fingers explored each other as if they’d never discovered each exciting detail a thousand times before. She kissed her way up his t-shirt, stopping at his neck. The fading scent of his cologne and the taste of his sweet sweat on her tongue sent an electric tingle through her trembling body. She loved him. She loved the taste and feel of his skin. She sank her teeth into him, just enough to draw a little blood. He whimpered. She held the bite as she felt his boxers rise to twitch against her leg. She loved feeling his strong, powerful body succumb to her so easily. The rush it gave her—the power, the desire, the thrill!
She lapped up the trickles of blood running down his neck, the taste like electric candy on her hypersensitive tongue. Her dripping excitement met his boxer-clad tip, itself dewing up with anticipation. She grabbed the boxers’ opening and ripped them in half, tossing them behind the couch. The erotic pressure building through her core had grown too desperate.
“Who’s the best girlfriend in the world?” she teased, grinding her slippery entrance against his throbbing tip. It took all she could muster to form a coherent sentence through the Hibiscus-escalated pleasure.
“Y-you are,” he replied, bucking against her.
“Who owns you?”
“Y-you do,” he replied, gasping with ecstasy as she engulfed him.
“Good boy,” she barely managed to utter. In this state, she had no idea what motions she was making while riding him, but they were overwhelming her as she rode him. His rigid head rubbing against her weak spot inside felt like an earthquake with every bounce. On Hibiscus, orgasm came suddenly and violently and was in no hurry to leave. She dug her nails into his back through a massive hole in the SSD shirt while grinding insatiably against him, every pounding heartbeat an explosion through her barely-corporeal form. Feeling her tightening and convulsing around him quickly dragged Rico under as well. Her climax peaked when his began, his throbbing and thrashing against her g-spot, his warm and precious surrender erupting through her and filling her fully and completely.
She collapsed on his chest, her very sense of gravity and consciousness altered, and leaned in for a kiss—but he’d finished so intensely he’d actually passed out. An overwhelming sense of pride, affection, and power filled her. He was so tough, so large compared to her, so powerful—but beneath her, he was reduced to a trembling, desperate mess. Her touch could literally knock him out! She felt invincible.
When he woke up, she was laying dreamily against his shoulder watching TV. The psychedelic Hibiscus high had faded for both of them into a pleasant, comfortable buzz, like the fuzziest, softest, warmest blanket.
“SSD: Live in Old Tokyo,” he mumbled, yawning.
“Well, look who’s up,” she teased, kissing the bloody toothmarks on his neck. “Yeah, they just finished Cyanide and Kisses.”
“So did we,” he growled lovingly, slumping into her lap.
On the TV, Rose lay naked in the middle of the stage, belting into a bloodstained microphone. The bass dropped—unnatural pink fire began erupting from the stage to the beat. It formed a pentagram shape around Rose’s voluptuous, writhing form—the only light at all in the otherwise pitch-black stadium. The flames’ reflections danced across her sweat-slick body, her pale skin appearing to glow crimson from the inside-out to the pounding rhythm of the techno kick. The smoke mixed with the endless pink Hibiscus clouds rising from the audience to form an otherworldly neon fog that moodily lit the rest of the packed arena.
The bass pounded so loud the cameras recording the show trembled with each hit, shaking the picture on screen accordingly. The whole thing seemed positively dreamy on VHS (the only way SSD would release or allow releases of their live performances—VCRs made a small comeback from SSD fans alone). Watching it and realizing they would be there in only two days made Katt tingle all over. The Hibiscus didn’t hurt, either. Rose threw her head back, flipping her long black bangs to one side—giving a rare glimpse at her glowing red right reptilian eye (well, contact lens) as she crooned:
“red eyed men from heaven’s hills
awaken what the gods have sealed
help me
help me
help me become what i must be
help me
help me
become the SSD”
The drummer, Lilith Z, did a crazy solo for the ending and the crowd went wild.
“Thank you, Old Tokyo!” Rose continued in her sultry, husky, British lilt. She bit her black-painted lip and rose to a standing position as the pentagram flames calmed to a steady low pyre-hedge around her. Lit dimly in the flames, standing above the world unclothed and uninhibited, eye shining piercing red in the darkness, she looked like an invincible demon goddess. She was the universal global avatar of total, overwhelming power. Katt felt butterflies in her tummy as she remembered the rest of this scene on the tape in the context of going to see them herself.
“Honestly,” Rose continued, “and I do say this genuinely, I prefer you motherfuckers to Neo Tokyo. And I’m not just saying that, Either. I’m fucking serious! Who the hell then decided to name that fucking shit, right? What, did you watch bloody Akira fucking once?” The crowd erupted. “I’m serious, you’re—you’re the real Tokyo forever, to me. In my heart.” The crowd exploded with approval, so uproarious Rose had to wait nearly a full minute to be able to speak again. “Thank you, thank you so much. And somebody—or maybe two somebodies out there—are about to have a lot more to be arigato-ful for.” The crowd guffawed.
“Anyone who’s ever been lucky enough to come to one of these demonic rituals live—or to nab a limited edition VHS on our bandcamp, available now—knows what this next part is about. I bet your little hearts are just pounding out of their chests, aren’t they?” She sliced her left hand with one of her sharp, claw-like black nails from her right, and when the blood hit the ground, the pentagram-shaped wall of flames rose nearly to the ceiling of the venue, completely obscuring Rose from view.
The fire vanished just as quickly, revealing Rose in the center holding an iron rose in her left hand, the mic still in her right. The rose glistened in the low-burning flames, her fresh blood flowing and dripping from its sharp thorns like hot, sweet, thick chocolate. “Whoever catches this rose is entered into the blood-pact with me, and will join myself and the rest of the band backstage. And if you came with a friend or a lover, they’re welcome to join too, of course. Or even just to watch, if that’s what gets their rocks off.”
Rose licked the rose, then tossed it into the crowd. The audience went ballistic.
“Babe,” Katt slurred, absent-mindedly slapping Rico’s cheek, “what would you want to do if we caught the rose?”
The crowd roaring on the TV drowned out the silence.
“Uh... is this one of those trick questions?”
“No, not at all,” Katt replied, stroking his face. “I think Rose is sexy. You think Rose is sexy. If we had the chance, what’s wrong with it? That’d be a hell of a birthday, right?” She savored the warm blush spreading through his cheek as it radiated shyly across her palm.
“I mean... if you were there, and you were into it too, and r-really weren’t mad about it—”
“Into it!? Do you know how many randos I’d kill to get to fuck Rose with you?! That’ll make us power couple of the year, every year, from now until the end of time.”
“And that’s not just the Hibiscus talking?” he asked.
“Is this just the Hibiscus talking?” she asked, tapping the top of his rising bulge.
“I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t thought about it before... a lot... but It’s not going to happen anyway,” he mumbled, burying his face in her hand to hide the blush.
“If I can chaos tickets, who says I can’t chaos this?” she grinned, tracing her index fingernail along the midline of his shaft.
“I don’t think it works that way,” Rico replied, stifling a moan. “And wouldn’t that be cheating, in a random-contest context—”
“Do you really think if we told Rose we got to fuck her because I hacked reality with magick, she would react negatively?”
“Well, when you put it that way—”
“Trust me. Worst case it doesn’t happen. Best case—you have the best birthday ever.” She felt like her heart would explode it was beating so fast imagining it. The amount of times she’d fantasized about that moment—god!
“Alright, you’ve sold me,” he grinned, entranced by her face in the warm Hibiscus-fueled afterglow. “How hard is it to do that ritual?”
“Oh, I’ve already done it,” she whispered in a sultry growl directly into his ear. “You’re not mad, are you?”
“Fuck me again,” he responded, yanking her hear and pulling her into another kiss.
“I will if you promise me two things,” she replied, delicately placing a finger on his lips.
“One, you’re on top this time, cause I’m doing more Hibiscus and gravity isn’t a thing right now. Second, if it the ritual works—I get to say ‘I told you so,’ sooooo hard. And you have to say, ‘you were right.’”
“Babe, I’ve known you were right since you got the ti—”
“Shhhhh.” She silenced him with a kiss. “You’ve looked at me like I was crazy when I’d talk about magick for how many days now? Let me have this—if you want to .”
“Alright,” he moaned, “You win.”
“I always do,” she whispered, licking the wound on his neck. It had stopped bleeding, but it was going to leave a nasty mark—the brand of her ownership. Her mind started to wander—what if Rose wanted to mark her like that? What if every time she looked in the mirror, for days after, she saw a visceral reminder of her deepest, darkest fantasy?
What if Rose really liked her, and it wasn’t a one time thing?
Katt exhaled another pink cloud of paradise. Rico hadn’t even started and she was already almost at her limit from her mind alone.
God, she hoped the ritual worked.
Rose had hoped, as anyone in her situation would, that her band doing the main song for Aero Fighters 2 could lead to her somehow crossing paths with Dom Maverick. What she hadn’t expected was for him to seek her out at the boring cocktail afterparty of the film’s premiere and invite her to ride with him in his platinum transfer-limo to his Sky Yacht above the Threshold of Immortals. And yet, here she was, nestled into the spacious, luxurious snakeskin-leather sectional serving as a back seat. And just two cushions over, there he was—the biggest movie star of all time, the most powerful actor in the world, Northus™ Corpmunity Magazine man of the year every year—for ten years!
Frustratingly, from the moment he opened the door for her to enter up until the moment the chauffer began to pull away from the expo center’s spotless parking lot, Dom hadn’t said a word. Rose’s insides churned and twisted, but she did her damnedest to put on a relaxed and confident front, leaning back into the corner seat of the sectional like she owned the place. She glanced over at him, deadly bedroom eyes locked and loaded. She was ready to drown him in their irresistible emerald seas.
…or, she WOULD BE, if he would BLOODY FUCKING LOOK OVER HERE!!! Rose fumed internally. Dom continued staring straight ahead, his poker face further obscured behind his dark-tinted aviator shades. His bright red authentic CINdy™ suit demanded attention, but he was clearly in no hurry to offer any in return. He stared blankly at the blacked-out window between them and the chauffer, mesmerized by absolutely nothing. Rose’s teeth clenched. How am I less interesting than literally, absolutely nothing!?
The limo reached peak land speed and started to take off into the sky. The turbulence pressed them against the back of the sectional. The limo evened its angle out when it reached peak altitude, feeling like a normal land-couch again. And yet, still: unbearable silence. It built up in Rose until she couldn’t stand to exist in it any longer. “It’s, uh, it’s an honor, Mr. Maverick,” she finally muttered. “I’ve been a big fan since I first saw the original Aero Fighters as a little girl—”
“Cut the bullshit,” Dom interrupted with a smile in his voice. He knew he’d won the game of chicken. She knew he’d won the game of chicken. But she knew he would never acknowledge it had been a game to begin with. His lips curled into a pleasant grin. “Haven’t you seen the headlines? ‘The Queen of the Charts Croons Behind The King of the Big Screen.’ We’re on equal footing here. Call me Dom. You’ve got no need to impress me. Your discography has done that already.”
He spoke so down to Earth, so gently, so softly—and yet, she couldn’t help but feel intimidated. She was perfectly aware of the mind games he was playing—they were insultingly blatant—and yet, when he spoke, it was nearly impossible to resist him. He seemed just as genuine now as he had seemed pretentious and smug moments prior. It infuriated Rose—he was the first person to ever beat her at her own game. And yet, she couldn’t hate him. His multi-million-dollar perfect blonde bangs were even softer and more radiant in person, his face even more square and chiseled than it looked on the big screen… maybe there’s no harm in playing along?
“S-sorry,” she chuckled nervously. “You’re just—you know... w-well... so… much. In a good way, just—being in your presence is… overwhelming.”
“Yup. Not the first time I’ve heard that one after an awkward silence. I’m flattered, but frankly, disappointed. It’s so goddamned difficult to make a real connection when everybody puts you on a pedestal, you know,” he sighed. “I thought you of all people would understand that and be able to see past my filmography.”
Rose chuckled internally. This she could work with. “You’re flying me to your fucking Sky Yacht, ‘Dom,’” she softly replied, placing her palm softly on his chin and then forcefully guiding his line of sight to her own. “You’ve put yourself on a literal pedestal that you’re now having me flown to in a transport limo. That suit costs more than the budget for my last album. Forgive me for treating you accordingly. If you want to be treated like a normal person, maybe don’t--”
“That’s more like it!” he interrupted, thrilled. He took her hand in his own and gingerly lowered it from his face. “The truth is, Rose, I’m actually a big fan of you. I have been since your third EP, Rituals and Sacrifices--”
“That was our fifth EP,” Rose sighed, “And you could’ve fooled me. Most of my fans bother to look at me when they talk to me.” She smirked. It felt good to be back in the seat of power.
“The Rose that got into the car and was too mousy and intimidated to talk to me for five minutes wasn’t the Rose I was a fan of. The Rose that wrenched my head around to force me to look into her beautiful green eyes—that’s the Rose I wanted to meet. Forgive me, I had to bait her out somehow.” His smile was irresistible, hypnotic--unfair! Rose blushed in spite of herself. Never mind. He was definitely in control here, and the nervous panic was back. She glanced out the window to reset her mind, but his reflection shone brighter than the dark clouds whizzing by as they continued to ascend.
“Still,” Dom continued, handing her a tall, twisted glass vial of red wine from the cup holder in the door, “I apologize for starting out on an awkward foot. I promise I won’t just fanboy over you the whole way, either. But before we move on to idle chit-chat as peers, you’ll just have to answer...” he leaned back into his own seat, mimicking her pose, “...ooooone teensy little question, for a curious fan.”
“I won’t rig the Iron Rose toss for you, if that’s what you’re after,” she breathily replied, sipping the wine and crossing her thighs in that well-practiced way that highlights all the right curves in her slinky black dress and fishnet tights, “but if the glass between us and the driver is noiseproof, then perhaps—”
“Do you believe in the devil?”
Rose choked on her wine. “Excuse me!?” she blurted between coughing fits. All her predictions and pretense were out the window—she officially no longer had any idea what was going on. “I’m sorry, but where the bloody fuck did that come from!?”
“You inject a copious amount of occultism in your lyrics and your aesthetic,” Dom continued, grabbing a glass for himself. “The Cyberoccultists are lovingly calling your music ‘Thelemacore.’ Songs about blood sacrifices, summonings, demons... it’s to the point some parent groups are boycotting my movie because they’re convinced that you’re an actual devil worshipper.”
Rose’s blood went cold. Did Dom have it out for her over this!? Was that what this whole thing was about!?
“Don’t worry,” he chuckled, as if reading her mind. “I’m not upset about it. We wouldn’t have broken all the records we did without SSD, either. It more than balances out. I’m still a very big fan of you, Rose. Darkness and all.”
Rose was as intrigued as she was unsettled. “I’ve always had an interest in the supernatural,” she replied, “and the history of magick and such, from an anthropological standpoint, b-but I’m not… you know… crazy or anything, Dom, I grew up loving horror movies and our band has a demonic aesthetic because it looks cool, fits the music, a-and it’s symbolic of the state of this sorry world around us, this... well… metaphorical hell on Earth. Don’t read into it too much—”
“That’s great and all, but you still haven’t answered my question,” Dom replied coolly, his gaze returning to directly in front of him. “Do you... oh mighty Rose of the self-proclaimed ‘Most Evil Band Alive’... believe in the devil?”
Rose’s pulse raced. “What the fuck kind of question is that? You have a beautiful woman in a slinky black dress next to you and you get her a glass of wine so you can talk about Satan!? Are you about to start menacingly reciting bloody Bible verses at me!?”
“I don’t mean the Christian Satan, necessarily,” he continued with a laugh, “but, anthropologically speaking... nearly every culture and every religion have some sort of a devil figure, or at the very least, multiple demons playing the role. Even at that—the universal concept of a demon! That there even such a thing. Demon, evil spirit, devil, djinn, isn’t that interesting how… far-reaching the idea of them is?”
“Is it a cultural meme that somehow spread beyond known trade and emigration routes of early man,” Dom continued, “or, perhaps, could that archetype be based on actual, generalized trauma and memories from the collective human unconscious... indicating a very ‘real’ being or group of beings!? There’s no equivalent in nature, no ‘real’ source for the myths and the legends, and yet... that idea of evil, intangible, tempting, corrupting, demonic gods just seem to permeate the human experience from the onset of its recorded history. Satan! Ruha! Erlik! Ahriman! Lucifer! Iblis! The Demiurge!”
Rose simply stared, bewildered. The man was clearly out of his mind!! And yet… she saw in his eyes, in his smile, and in the grandiloquent, sweeping gestures whilst he spoke… whatever insanity he was spouting, he believed it as sincerely and as firmly as she believed that her name was Rose.
His passion drew her in like a forbidden fruit. He had a look on his face she hadn’t seen on any of her peers since… ever. He looked alive inside. Truly, actually alive. Not strung out on Rapture or Domo or Hibiscus, not putting on a persona or a front, not numbly riding the dopamine hits from the endless opportunities for pleasure and excess and worship. Actually, truly, genuinely—alive.
“The Ancient Egyptians were a bit more nuanced,” he continued. “They didn’t have a particular devil figure, and they saw that the line between demons and gods was a fuzzy one. Some would argue there is no difference at all—that any being with awesome enough supernatural power to be viewed as a god is also, by means of their place over humanity and their power over you, a demon… and that any such otherworldly being fearsome and terrifying enough to be considered a demon should also, by all suitable metrics, be considered a god.”
“So where do you draw that line?” Rose asked. She wanted it for herself—whatever had brought this flame to him. Without realizing it, she dropped her own guard and façade and found herself hanging off his every word, consuming them madly like dewdrops in a desert.
“There is a threshold of fear and respect--that is the only barrier between demon and god. A troublesome demon that can be put in its place easily enough is a pest, an evil spirit, an incorporeal cockroach to be exterminated. It is a mere ‘enemy.’ But at some point, a demon becomes dangerous enough that the people around it realize they will never be able to defeat it—that their fates are sealed if they oppose it—that their only hope for survival is to come to coexist with it. What do you think happens then?”
“Tell me,” Rose replied. She leaned further forward, enraptured.
“Why, that is the birth of a very god, of course!” Dom boomed, emphatically raising his arms with hands gnarled like upturned claws. Rose thought he looked as if he were summoning an eldritch god from the sepulchers of infinity. “The heart of a mortal is the first to realize that it has been defeated… then cools the fury in the blood, doused by self-preservation and grim acceptance. When the final component of a mortal, the spirit, finally surrenders, the mortal is truly and ultimately owned and reformed in the entity’s image. To exist under its power, it must learn to adapt. To worship. To cope with being so utterly defeated, the mortal slowly comes to tolerate and admire the god. And in the end, the spirit, nay, the entire mortal comes to love the entity more than the mortal loves even itself.”
“Marvelous,” Rose mouthed, breathlessly. “But” she blurted after a thoughtful pause, “but–well, all entities passing a certain threshold become a demon, right? And then, when passing the next threshold, they become a god… yes? Okay, so, what is the difference, then between a ‘god’ and what you call ‘the devil?’”
“Simple,” Dom replied. “A devil is not bound by any moral code or rules, by any limitations, by any desire to seem just or loving or any fear of being seen as evil. A devil transcends good and evil—a devil is the freest god alive. A devil takes what it wants. Gives what it wants. Destroys what it wants. Why? Because it can. To quote a favorite song of mine off your second EP, ‘do what thou wilt is the only law, bitch.’”
“That’s off our third EP,” Rose replied, “But screw that—I want you to tell me why the bloody hell you speak like a man who has hands on experience with the devil,” Rose replied, intrigued.
“Do I?” Dom shrugged. “Maybe I do, maybe I don’t. Do you, Rose?”
Rose shook her head. “Not unless you count my producer,” she laughed.
“Then I have one more question for you...” Dom chugged the rest of his wine before haphazardly tossing the glass to the shag carpeted floor. A thick burgundy trickle escaped from the corner of his mouth, creeping enticingly down his jawline. Rose immediately realized it had never been wine in Dom’s glass, but blood. Somehow, this only deepened her mad curiosity, her lust to dive deeper.
“Go on,” Rose replied, her head ringing with her pulse’s rhythmic, frantic explosions. She subconsciously bit her lip.
Dom removed his aviators and leaned in towards her. He wasn’t a tall or wide man, but there was an immutable gravity to his presence. Rose swallowed hard, leaning towards him by an instinct she didn’t fully understand. They locked eyes, and the beautiful ochre in his faded to dark, swirling, luminescent clouds of crimson, growing brighter and lighter by the moment. When his eyes settled into solid seas of molten scarlet, his voice had also transformed. The words came out echoed and sounded somehow wrong, as if they were each being spoken backwards and upside down and sideways, but there was a primal, sensual intrigue to the low distorted growl:
“...would you like to meet Him?”
In the hellish, intoxicating crimson glow, Rose felt her worldview, ego, and sanity crumble like dust around her. Life, death, religion, reality—nothing felt certain anymore, and yet... anything and everything felt possible. She now truly believed every word he’d said. The thing speaking to her wasn’t human—no, it was something greater. Something beyond. A devil?
A god!?
Rose paused. A gnawing hunger spiraled outwards from the pit of her stomach. Her thoughts raced. Her thighs quivered. Her breaths grew heavy. It wasn’t about Dom anymore... it was about whatever this exciting new... thing in front of her was. This powerful, beautiful, radiant, not-quite-human, demonic, godly, beautiful thing. She had only just discovered it existed, and yet, its power enticed her beyond what she could bear.
She had to experience it. To surpass it. To possess it.
To become it.
“Yes,” Rose eventually whispered.
She’d never wanted anything more in her life.