Xenoman

25 No Babies

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"I think this belongs to you." Xeno handed over the restored Polaroid of Trianne standing in front of Klownburger to Lew. "I found it in Holly's punch bowl."

"Ah, the proverbial image that arrived in the mail box, and doomed it all between Holly and I at the Orange Curious." Lew took the Polaroid in his fingertips.

"Do you know who sent it to Holly?"

"No. I never did find out. Wasn't this Polaroid burned with a chemorette?"

"I had it repaired at a Keeno's."

"The restoration is flawless." Lew slipped the Glock back into his costume pocket, admiring the quality of the Polaroid restoration. He went to a bookcase and yanked out a photo album entitled Shoki Pao, flipping through photo page protectors, filled with Polaroids of Xeno, Lew, Trianne, Holly, Zoom, all looking ignorantly cheerful, on various occasions at the club before it burned down. He turned the pages until he came to the empty pocket where the Polaroid of Trianne had been removed and slipped it back inside the pouch. "Back in her rightful place."

"When was that photo taken?"

"Shortly before I admitted Trianne to treatment, here at the church." He closed the photo album and slid it back on the shelf.

"While you were seeing Holly in Metropa?"

"Yes. I was kind of zipping back and forth between Metropa and Darkphalt. Then Trianne went AWOL from my luxurious retreat, went back to Metropa, started sleeping at The Pods, started hanging out with you and Holly again, attending the concert at The Whispers."

"Yes, there was that, and in the mean time Trianne confronted you about your fling with Holly."

"No, Trianne relapsed from Black Magic and returned to the church."

"I must have just missed your departure from Boutique, when I spoke with Velva."

"Interviewing?"

"No, crash landing. The result of an after party in Holly's pleasure dome that went awry. Holly took Trianne and I for a ride, after we saw her perform at The Whispers. We did a lot of drugs, lost control of the vehicle, and woke up in this sort of, lounge, beauty school, area, where nobody really seemed motivated to do anything, or take orders from Velva."

"She pays fast food wages, she gets fast food loyalty."

"Velva thought I could pick up were you left off. I told her I'm no chemist . . . So, you were sleeping with Holly behind Trianne's back."

"Briefly, until that Polaroid of Trianne arrived in Holly's mail. At first, I thought that's why Trianne left my facility in Darkphalt and returned to Metropa—to catch me red handed—but she never brought it up. She didn't mention anything to you?"

"No, nothing to do with that. So, now you've repaired to Darkphalt to remain monogamous, and forever faithful, to Trianne."

"There was a synthetic go go dancer in between, but that was just sex." He shoved the scrapbook back into the bookshelf and removed the Glock from his costume pocket, and slowly twirled the barrel around his ear. "When I take Black Magic, I have visions. I sit on my favorite rocky mountain plateau, and let my mind blossom like a cosmic flower."

"When was the last time you were watered?"

"Very droll, Xeno. Now that the Intellegella black box has improved your wise-cracking skills, what has this cutting edge technology revealed to you about the nature of reality?"