Metrophage | Page 6

The Jordanian
Re-Unification Army, a New Palestine splinter group. They called the
local Net up link. Said Houston's next," he reported. The bartender
shook his head. "Those boys must really hate cows." Random had a
passion for morbid news items and stayed plugged into the Net's data
lines constantly, relaying the most worthy bits to his customers. Jonny
thought it was one of his most charming qualities. He turned back to
Jonny as if anticipating his question. "Easy split. Been gone a couple of
days now. Left quick, too. Didn't touch his holo stuff."
"I don't suppose you have any idea where he went?" asked Jonny.
"I'm afraid he neglected to leave a forwarding address. A shame too, so
close to Thanksgiving and all."
The band's volume jumped abruptly as they broke from the song into a
tense, rhythmic jam. Saint Peter, the guitarist, stood at the edge of the
stage between soaring liquid-cooled stacks of
Krupp-Verwandlungsinhalt speakers. Eyes squeezed shut, shoulders
loose, Saint Peter pumped walls of noise, his myoelectric left-hand
racing like a frantic silver spider up and down the fretboard. As he
played, a pattern of light glinted off the chrome hand, marking its

progress through the air. Then, just as the jam reached its peak, the
song died; the porn faded and the lights dimmed. "Brown-out," said
Random. He casually threw a switch under the bar and the power
returned. "Tell Sumi gracias for the watts, he said.
Jonny nodded. "Did you hear that Easy had another Flare Gun Party?"
he asked.
"No, who got burned?"
"Raquin."
Random raised an eyebrow in sympathy. "Sorry, man," he said.
"Although, I must admit, I'm not entirely surprised to hear he's been up
to something." He took a long hit from a hookah next to the cash
register. "Looking for Easy Money seems to be the hot new game in
town. Last night the crowd was so thick I had 'em line up and take
numbers. Of course, Easy's not the only one who seems to have
captured the public's imagination." Random smiled at Jonny. "You
appear to have developed a bit of celebrity all your own."
"Me?" Jonny asked guardedly. "Who's been asking about me?"
Random shrugged. "No one I knew." The bartender winked
conspiratorially. "Come on, boy-o. Whose ankles have you been
nipping at?"
"I am pathetically clean." Jonny said. "Tell me about them. Anything
you can remember."
Random stuck two nicotine yellow fingers into his shirt pocket and
pulled out a glicene envelope of white powder. "Pure as Mother Mary
and twice as nice," he said, giving the envelope a light kiss. "Interesting
lads. They didn't try to pay off in crude cash." He dropped the envelope
back into his pocket.
"Smugglers?" asked Jonny.
"Could be, only what's a smuggler lord doing shooting for small shit

like Easy Money? Or you for that matter."
"Who knows," Jonny said. He took a long gulp of his drink. "Maybe
he's decided he's in the wrong business."
"Hell," said the bartender, "everybody in Last Ass's in the wrong
business."
Random set down the glass he had been cleaning and said, "Weather."
His eyes shifted. "Junior senator on the Atmospheric Management
Committee announced they can clean-up the mess left by the Weather
Wars. Says they ought to be able to stabilize weather patterns over
most of North America in three to five years."
"Didn't they announce that same program three to five years ago?"
asked Jonny.
"At least." And with that, Random gave Jonny the other half of the
smile and moved on to other customers.
Swirling the dregs of his beer, Jonny turned and studied the noisy
crowd moving through the bar. He searched their heads for a sign of
goat horns grafted above a thin face, inset with darting, suspicious eyes.
Or arms thick with tattooed serpents, like the stigmata of some junky
god. Easy Money always stood out in a crowd which, Jonny supposed,
was the idea. If Easy was around, he should not be hard to spot.
Jonny had met Easy while they were both in the employ of the
smuggler lord Conover. This was just after Easy had made a name for
himself with his first Flare Gun Party.
The party had become something of a legend with the pushers. It went
like this: Easy Money, a human parasite with the unerring ability to
detect the softest, most vulnerable part of his prey, had acquired a
contract to kill the leader of the Los Santos Atomicos gang. Beginning
with a philosophy that later became his trademark (like the hourglass
on the belly of a spider) Easy reasoned that gang retribution being such
a swift and ugly thing, eliminating the entire gang would be less trouble

than the removal of any single member.
It was well known to those