Xeno yearns to have access to The Nth Dimension like The White Boys, famed telepaths who suffered brain damage when they made contact with extraterrestrial intelligence. Out of work as a bartender since the Shoki Pao dance club mysteriously burned d...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Holly rolled up the warehouse door and waved Xeno and Trianne inside the barren facility of dreary concrete walls. She led them across the concrete floor, towards the mysterious aircraft in the center of the tarmac, concealed by a dirty tarp beneath the dull glow of high ceiling lamps. Holly snagged the tarp with her fingers and whisked it away, disturbing the settled dust.
The pleasure dome resembled an oblate spheroid, Fabergé egg, the size of a sports utility vehicle with a central hatch and no visible landing gear or exhaust. The tinted windshield wrapped around the upper half of the craft like a chrome wedding band, obscuring the view of the interior cabin. The paint job consisted of a pink and white checkered surface inlaid with gold-plated garlands and acanthus leaves. The rig sat perfectly balanced in stark space, as if it had just been laid and abandoned by a mythical Fabergé bird.
"Where's the engine?" Xeno asked.
"I have no idea." Holly pulled open the front hatch and ushered her guests inside, with a sweep of her hand.
Xeno and Trianne piled into the cabin, and sank into the circular couch of vectored pink leather. Holly entered the dome, sealed the hatch behind her, and plopped down across from Xeno and Trianne. She hovered over the central media table, twirled her index finger over the control panel, and let her finger fall somewhere in the cluster of buttons. Without delay, the pleasure dome levitated off the concrete.
Xeno and Trianne looked out the windshield, watching their ascent, rising through the warehouse facades, then through an open skylight, drifting ever upward into the grainy bronze atmosphere of predawn. Soon, the aerial view of The Whispers merged with a mosaic of industrial rooftops, linked by steaming pipework and ugly mustard street light. As the pleasure dome rose in altitude, the terrain looked more and more like a landscape of soiled computer motherboards.
Holly swiveled to the compact bar and selected a bottle of Jane Doe Merlot from the wine rack.
"How does the pleasure dome fly?" Trianne asked, listening for the sound of an engine.
"Who cares?" Holly yanked out the wine cork with her teeth, spit it over her shoulder, and took a swig.
The trio passed the bottle around, taking gulps of wine, snickering at each other between chemorette puffs, paying no attention to the drops of moisture merging on the windshield surface, flowing like crystal arteries across the glass—drizzle turning to rain. The lull was broken by a flash of lightning erupting in the womb of thunderstorm clouds, coming their way like massive electrified glaciers, followed by the peal of distant thunder.
"Don't worry," Holly said, sensing panic among her passengers. "That storm is a few city blocks away. Besides, the pleasure dome is equipped with parachutes . . . I think."
"You think?" Trianne said. "You—"
Fingers of lightning spiked past the windshield, flashing the cabin with the afterglow of high noon, followed by the amplified crackling of thunder. All hands clung to the circular handrail above the couch. All eyes went to the flickering light panels on the ceiling. There was a sudden loss of moxie in Holly's gaze, as the cabin light scattered away from her cheeks, and the ceiling panels went pitch black, leaving faces carved in the faint radiation of chemorette butts.
