MINDLYFT (COMPLETE)

CHAPTER 9

Sopping wet, smelling of piss, puddles of mud and some yellow-greenish refuse too sticky to contemplate, Barrow Street was the toilets' toilet. There was a snuggle of creeps creaming their skin into a moldy mesh along the sidewalks so I walked down the middle of the road. Not really a road, a rubble torn, mix of potholes, it made the Moon look like an iceskating rink. I wore a HoloPlex field to keep the rain from hitting me, or worse, sticking to me, with lord only knows what rad-level and other industrial chemicals sucked up from the soil and then reconstituted as a cooling agent to keep the ground from melting.

Rushes of clanging and swooshes of wizzing air taxis and roving wheelers buzzed from side-alleys and skyways all around me. Only the people, gaunt and directionless, moved without noise. I hopped around puddles and legs and torsos too doped up on Tripomyme to know who or where they were, and made my way forward, through the buzzsaw of trickling light and seesawing neon beams advertising the latest in pharma, newtech, or life-enhancing modus that few in this part of town would ever have the motivation to purchase.

I stopped at the SwampShop for a brew. It was semi-cold and better tasting than the water. I needed to rehydrate with something other than dirty mist. Steam was rising from the molting asphalt. If I didn't swallow something cold soon I'd pass out.

A crumpled face looked back at me through the vent. Mostly eyes, bloodshot and swollen around the edges, the nose and cheeks looked mutated and broken. It handed me a bottle and I tweezed a bit-pulse to his necklace receptor. I took the bottle and pulled the cap. It fizzed, colder than I thought'd it would be, to my surprise. I stood beneath the aluminum awning and poured the contents into my mouth, swallowed, and then poured the rest down in a chugging waterfall until it was empty. The buzz came on quickly as my surroundings tripped, waved and skipped, like a low-bandwidth double D-Flick. I threw the bottle into one of the recycle bins and continued down the walkway.

I was given a blue-ink bar code. Translucent beneath the skin under my right forearm. My reward for being ejected from the Cyberocracy. Basic-income, indigent housing, and a rehabilitation program for retraining to more "compatible" work. I could walk to the Bitbank once a week to refill my pulse. Enough to eat and some other hygiene basics. It would also open the bunkhouse, an old shipping container rehabbed with beds, bathrooms, and kitchens, interconnected by tunnels, crawlspaces and lifts. Like rat-houses with everybody living on top of one another. It was either that or sleep out in the street and be melted away, quick or slow. Quick by the unbearable melting heat. Or slow by the contaminated drizzle. The crates had air-conditioning and filters. Even sleep meds and vibrations to screen out the noise and get you a solid eight hours of rest.

I was lucky to be here. The lawyer helped me orchestrate a global protest with my ten million SphereFriends. Nothing violent or even mass-media worthy, but millions of viral message blurbs and a boycott got the attention of the MeglaCorp called MoveYou. The one that owned the train platform where I was arrested. A FreeJennaBerryJune_KnowLoad of me and my Genies filled the Sphere for a whole hour and then I had MeglaCorp lawyers helping me. Real lawyers with influence. They got the charges reduced to illegal clone growing. Exploitation charges were dropped since I hadn't made any real money yet, and since they never did find Dimples, I was only charged with two clones instead of three. My sentence was rehabilitation in GutterVille. All expenses paid. If I cooperated I could be released in a few years. Lucky me.

And what was expected of me for all this luxury and freebie welfare? Well, for starters, I was restricted to the Gutter. A quadrant of the city reserved for trash, sewage and contamination factories. Along with other outcasts like me. Including addicts of a variety of drugs and cerebral euphorias, petty criminals, derelicts and non-mentally ill mentally-ill people. It was still Los Angeles but close to the Vegas suburb where walking outside any time of year was life threatening. In the summer certain to be deadly.