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.
For a moment, the three sat around in pop-eyed silence, waiting to be turned to charcoal. Gusts of wind whistled through the hatch seals, creaking the chassis beneath their tailbones. A sudden pocket of turbulence rumbled the cabin, rattling loose effects in the dark, followed by a snap beneath the floorboard, and the discouraging sound of a loose bolt rolling around in the bottom of the airframe.
"God dammit, Holly! How do you steer this thing?!" Xeno demanded.
"Okay! Okay! Bear with me!" Holly dangled the butt of her chemorette over the media table, trying to illuminate the buttons on the media table. "These buttons aren't labeled . . . I think it's . . . this one!" Holly pressed the button of choice, and . . .
"Hey, Xeno!" Zoom's voice filled the cabin, but he was nowhere in sight. "I bumped into two chicks at the mall who want to go for a test drive in Blouse's hot tub. You there?"
Xeno activated the holopane on his black box, projecting an image of Zoom with his arms around two giggly cosplay chicks at the Galaxia Mall. In the upper corner of the holopane, a blinking salutation:
BLACKMAIL INBOX
"Zoom? Are you all right?" Xeno said, relieved to see Zoom alive.
"Bwah, ha, ha, ha, ha!" Zoom burst into laughter, followed by a blinking text message in the center of his holopane:
FOOLED YOU!
"Keep pushing buttons, Holly." Xeno frowned and flicked off his holopane.
"Why didn't you ask Zoom to get us help?" Trianne said.
"Because, it's a practical joke. Zoom sent me that dumb message months ago. It's set off by some stupid software he tricked me into downloading. I don't know how to delete it."
"I think I'm making progress," Holly said, pushing buttons between chugs of wine. After a gloomy silence of watching Holly haphazardly press buttons on the media table, the ride softened and, somehow, the pleasure dome finally drifted away from the electrically charged clouds. The storm dwindled to veils of rain blowing into the windshield, like soft white rice.
"I think Zoom's dead." Xeno said, gazing at the misty expanse of Metropa below, through the windshield.
"Dead?" Holly gaped.
"I think he burned to death. I can't explain it. I was in pretty bad shape, myself."
"You still are, my dear gray-haired boy," Holly taunted, still tapping buttons on the media console. "If I could just . . ." The cabin lights flickered back on. Faces were bright and present again.
"Holly, you'd better take a look at yourself," Trianne said, looking concerned.
"What's that?" Holly took a blasé look at herself in a compact mirror. Her cheeks were turning a dirty purple. "Oh, that . . . I'm allergic to Insto-Plas." She withdrew a compact aerosol can of Boutique's Flesh #7, and sprayed her face, transforming her skin back to its original tone in seconds. "It'll hold for a few days. Well, now that our little storm has settled, I think it's time to partake in what what we're joined here for. Let me show you my new toy." Holly snapped her fingers, dimming the cabin lights, and pushed a button on the media table. A scale model of a Sunlite pill silo rose to the surface.
"We don't merge with Black Magic on my watch." Holly pushed a button on the scale pill silo model and a Sunlite pill rolled out into the dispensing tray. She threw the pill in her mouth and washed it down with a chug of wine. "If there's one thing I can't stand, it's brain bleed from dirty designer drugs."
"How did you get a hold of Sunlite?" Xeno asked, admiring the scale silo model interior, complete with miniature control panels and swivel seat inside the hull. He pushed the release button on the scale model, dispensing a Sunlite pill for himself. He held it up close, looking over the detail of the Sunlite logo on the orange surface.
"Velva has a little stash that everyone steals from." Trianne said, helping herself to a Sunlite pill from the dispenser. She grabbed the bottle of wine from Holly and washed it down, then turned to Xeno and held the bottle to his lips. "Your turn to swallow."
Xeno put the Sunlite pill in his mouth, took the bottle from Trianne and chugged, swallowing the rare med with a curt smile.
"And now for the main event." Holly pushed another button on the media table, retracting the central panel. "The latest and greatest in black arts technology! I think it's version four, or four point two, or two point four, or something like that." The multi-merge black box rose to the surface of the media table. Among the main features: a 5-track neocortex control panel with PLAY, STOP, PAUSE, FORWARD, REWIND, RECORD, a timer, brain region buttons with icons that came with absolutely no instructions, a big ass tuning knob, a ghostly lit frequency spectrum that could only be deciphered by nuclear physicists, and a cool engraving of a pentagram on the front panel, inscribed with Latin text no one bothered to translate. "Our media séance is set on a timer, so everything goes smoothly." Holly stuck a wireless black node to Xeno and Trianne's forehead, then centered one on her own. She then jammed the nicotine nitrous cartridge into an accessory slot, followed by a firm twist. A faint hissing sound could be heard as the cartridge released its contents inside the cavity of the multi-merge black box. She then inserted her Energy Vampire 5-track into the center slot, pressed the PLAY button, then took a calming breath and exhaled. "Now, that we're joined at the nodes, let us join hands, close our eyes, and breathe deeply."
Xeno and Trianne joined hands with Holly around the media table, shut their eyes tight, and took long deep breaths around the mysterious technology.
"What's supposed to happen?" Xeno asked, keeping his eyes closed.
"I'll tell you when we get there. Now, shush!" Holly said. "I feel a merge coming on . . . I love the way my first track starts . . . All of a sudden you find yourself in total darkness and then . . .
Xeno opened his eyes to find himself sitting in a cemetery at night, crowded with Gothic crucifix tombstones, leaning off center from shifting in the earth, drowning in overgrown weeds. Beyond the chapped picket fence, a Victorian mansion loomed in the moonlight, overrun with dark cancerous vines, a drab caramel light in the attic window. A low shore of pink fog flowed beneath the fence posts, into the cemetery, slurring around the tombstones, rolling over his lap.
Nearby, a ghostly shape sat up in the fog, looking balloon-ish, then sharpening in definition, looking more and more human. Xeno watched, until he recognized the blob as Trianne, arriving fully formed in the 5-track. She opened her eyes, alongside Xeno, taking in the scenery and the weird melody of "Energy Vampire" drifting through the gnarled oak trees.
"Are we still floating around in the pleasure dome?" Trianne asked.
"I have no idea." Xeno looked around the tombstones. "Where's Holly?"
"Behind the moon, my pretties!" Holly's voice bellowed through the night air. "Floating through the branches! Hiding behind the tombstones! Ah, ha, ha, ha, ha!"
"So, now that we're merged inside your Energy Vampire 5-track, what are we supposed to do?" Xeno asked.
"I'm your psychic ring mistress," Holly added. "Play my Hollymonde interactive trivia game in the haunted mansion, and unlock natural Sunlite deposits in your own nervous system. Get a free dose for a little puzzle work!"
"What's so funny?" Xeno said, watching Trianne giggle.
"The nicotine nitrous." Trianne wrapped her arms around her abdomen, trying to stifle herself. "I can't stop laughing! Don't you smell it?"
"Yes, I do." Xeno took several whiffs for himself. "But I'm not having the same reaction. Something's gone wrong. Maybe we've crashed into something and this is the last few seconds of our . . .
He went to the window, spread the blinds with his fingers, peered outside, and saw the dunes in the distance. He was back in the bungalow at the Tiki Tocki Motel. Not quite the waking experience he had expected.
"Did you see the rat coffee that . . . that . . . spills?" A female figure in a tan silken robe shot past the blinds, muttering to herself like an actress trying to memorize lines in desperation. "No . . . If you keep taking Sunlite . . . no . . . Black Magic . . . Hello, Xeno . . . You're looking . . . You're looking . . . tan and . . . tan and . . . Why can't I get this?!"
Xeno recognized the ramblings as Drinama's and his position and movement in the bungalow as something that had occurred before, but this time the shower was running in the bathroom with the door closed. He heard the occupant inside shut off the water flow, squelching the pipes, followed by echos of water dripping on the basin. He put his ear to the door and kept quiet.
"When Xeno regained consciousness, he was standing on a shoreline he didn't recognize." The voice was Trianne's. Whoever she was speaking to didn't respond, didn't move. He couldn't be sure there was anyone real in there at all, or why Trianne's voice was linked with that particular line of narration. He slowly backed away from the door, anticipating someone to emerge. He backed into what he thought was the edge of the double bed, but when he turned, he saw the pleasure dome, sitting silent and vacant in the center of the bungalow, below the gently spinning lamp. On the dresser, near the entrance door, was a half-full Bloody Mary in a cocktail glass.
The lock on the bathroom door clicked.
The knob turned and the door creaked open.
Trianne emerged from the bathroom bare-shouldered, with her wet hair and torso wrapped in a white towel. She came towards Xeno with suspicious eyes, as if she weren't sure how he'd react to her appearance.
"Trianne?" Xeno looked her over in the awkward silence. "Is it you?"
"I ditched Holly on a neural pathway, and merged with your implant," Trianne said with a sudden smile. She leaned into Xeno, held him close and kissed him. "Now, we can have a little privacy."
"How did know about my implant?" Xeno pushed her back a step. "I never told you about that."
"We're all alone." Trianne snatched up her Bloody Mary from the dresser, and continued sipping a few inches from his lips. "That's all that matters."
"Who were you talking to in the bathroom, just now?"
"I think Drinama's code has bugs." Trianne whispered in his ear.
"How do you know Drinama?"
"I think she's malfunctioning." Trianne let out a crooked, boozy, giggle.
"How do you know all these things?!" He grabbed her arms and shook her.
"Look, you're spilling my drink."
"I don't care about the goddamn drink! How do you know she's malfunctioning?"
"Read the book, Xeno."
"The book?"
"Yeah . . . The old red schoolbook."
"And where do I find this schoolbook?"
"The book finds you, Xeno. It recites itself . . . senses itself."
"Those words . . . When Xeno regained consciousness, he was standing on a shoreline he didn't recognize . . . What do they mean? Is that in the schoolbook?"
"It's tied to the rat coffee . . ."
"What is this rat coffee routine? How do you know about the rat coffee?!" He shook her again, spilling the drink in her hand.
"I'm just reciting words that come to mind. Stop shaking me!"
"Words that come to mind . . ." He stopped shaking her. "I know what this is. You're not Trianne or Drinama. It's just me talking to myself in some virtual construct. The pleasure dome collided with another aircraft and these are the last moments of recall as we fall . . .
. . . ten thousand feet." Xeno finished the sentence, standing on the shoreline in front of that same sunset where he regained his alleged consciousness. He turned to see Drinama with her back to him, several yards away on the sand, hunched over, struggling with something, obscured by her gown ruffling in the breeze. He crossed the sand, anticipating to see her face of broken glass with the shards all fallen out, hoping to finally get a look at the woman inside.
"Drinama?" Xeno called out, just a few feet away.
She spun around, looking directly at him, the reflective glass of her mask completely in tact, as if never damaged.
"It's me, Xeno." He stopped in the sand with his face inches from hers.
She said nothing, as if she didn't see or hear him, looking down shore as if something else had caught her attention. Xeno gazed at himself in her face of reflective glass. He waved his hand in front of her. No response. He went to grab the mask with his hand and snap it off, but his fingers slipped right through her head, as if she were a ghost, or else he was, the thought of what really happened to him crossing his mind . . .
You fell ten thousand feet, splattered on top of a car, and this is what it's like just before the lights go out . . .
You partied way, way, too hard, buddy . . .
You went too far . . .
You died . . .
That's how it goes . . .
Drinama turned away from Xeno and continued struggling with the object in her hands. He circled around to see what it was she was trying so hard to undo. In her grip was the beach chair with the red and white stripes. After several tries, she finally managed to jerk the rusted frame apart, then unfolded the chair neatly in the sand on the shoreline. She removed a copy of Tab Lloyd's National Trashional from a picnic basket and placed it in the seat, then removed a bottle of Shoki Pao beer, snapped the cap off with an opener, and set it in the drink holder of the armrest . . . just the way Xeno would find it in a recurring later on, a pre-lusion of a delusion, future and past going from left to right and back again like a needle on a speedometer. He felt as if his sense images were being spliced together by some extraterrestrial student filmmaker, fooling around with their species' version of a camera, cutting together the footage in their species' version of an editing bay, which didn't bring the last nanosecond of his life any more closure, if that's what all this was . . .