off, sputtering laughter. They both laughed.
The homeless person looked down at the morsel on the ground. He then looked up again, and moved closer to the boys imploringly. So confused. So hungry. He continued to hold out the empty hand in which the croissant had rested.
'Get back, wanker,' the lighter-faced youth snapped, lunging and shoving at his shoulders. 'Go beg someplace else.'
But the homeless person was heavy, despite his hollow hunger, and barely moved when pushed. He did not drop his extended arm.
The dark-faced boy tore something out from under his jacket. Was he taking pity? Knowing that he had not been able to find a way to get the croissant inside, did the boy have something more suitable to offer him? But the hard black object he gripped in his fist did not look like food, and it did not look like he was willing to hand it over, either. The gun made a little electronic blip to announce that its safety feature had been thumbed off.
The homeless person reached out his arm a little further. He tried to touch the lighter-skinned boy on the arm.
'Get off me!' he cried, stumbling back against the alley wall.
'Blasting freak,' the black boy snarled, lowering his gun and putting one shot into the homeless person's distended belly.
This stolen gun did not fire solid projectiles, but a short beam of light of an intense purple color. Like an arrow, it pierced his belly, its entire length disappearing inside him. The arrow of light left a black, puckered hole. A little dribble of clear fluid, as thick as syrup, wept out of the puncture beneath his poncho.
Had the boy meant to feed him, by injecting some sort of nourishment directly into that hungry place? He didn't think so. It only made him feel more hollowed out in there. And besides, it hurt. It hurt badly.
The homeless person didn't like to hurt. He didn't like these would-be friends.
He swept his other arm, and it struck the black boy on the wrist. There was a snap of bones and the hand flipped over at an extreme angle. The gun he'd been holding went sailing down the alley, skittered across its floor. He began to scream, but the homeless person's other hand clamped across his face, and squeezed, and lifted. Between thick digits, the boy's eyes darted madly. The hand squeezed tighter, causing one of the maddened eyes to be ejected from its socket, bulging out between two of the fingers. When the homeless person slammed the boy's limp, dangling body against the wall again and again, the other eye stopped moving, too.
'Dung, dung, dung!' the lighter-skinned boy cried, bolting out of the alley. He even tried racing through a gap in the street's traffic, but he misjudged his trajectory and the speed of the vehicles he plunged between. A silver hovercar tapped him enough to spin him around, but a red hovercar struck him hard enough to sweep him right out of the homeless person's range of sight.
He released the black boy, watched him flop to the alley floor at his feet. The smell of the red fluid leaking from the splits in the youth's skull made his innards gurgle all the more insistently, but he didn't know how to get that stuff inside him, either.
Tensing up his body against the molten pain inside him, he turned and sought out the dropped morsel of croissant. He went to it and stooped to retrieve it. This action made the pain stab him more deeply, but he dealt with it. Straightening, he studied the morsel again. Then, he lifted the edge of his makeshift cloak, and crammed the food into the little black hole the boy had burned through the blue plastic, burned through his flesh.
Using his finger, he pushed the crushed pastry inside as far as he could. But it did not even begin to alleviate his hunger.
Later in the day, as he resumed his wandering through the labyrinth of alleys, his body finally pushed that crumpled piece of croissant out of him again. There was one good thing, however. The black hole closed, sealed up, and was gone as if it had never existed. And shortly after that, the hot pain inside him subsided as well.
But the hunger remained.
CHAPTER SEVEN
the doppler effect
As he followed John Fukuda to their table, Stake took in the people who had already sat down to their lunch. Most of them were men in expensive five-piece suits, some of whom had left overcoats and bowler hats-the current fashion for the stylish businessman-with a robot attendant which would not misplace a single item. But one article of clothing that many of the men continued to flaunt proudly caused Stake to give a derisive smirk. Tucked into a pocket of their jackets like a handkerchief, these men wore a soiled pair of teenage girls' panties. Preferably white, though sometimes with a soft flowery pattern or even cute-kawaii-designs such as the adorable jellyfish that proliferated on clothing lately. Other men, though, wore their panties tucked into the collar of their shirts, hanging down their fronts like a tie. One gentleman who was just being seated actually wore his pair across his lower face like a mask to filter his breathing. Presumably he would remove it in order to eat. The two sharply dressed adult women being seated with him appeared utterly indifferent to this accoutrement, apparently not insulted by the fact that their own larger personal garments would not be coveted in this way.
Stake touched Fukuda's elbow, causing him to pause and face him. 'What do you think of this fad with the panties, Mr. Fukuda, having a teenage daughter of your own? I've heard girls even younger than Yuki sell their underwear to panty brokers, who put them in those vending machines you see around.'
Fukuda's hands were tucked into his jacket pockets. He withdrew his right hand just far enough to reveal a shimmering membrane of white silk that he rubbed between his fingers. 'Cotton is most popular, but I find the touch of silk more calming.' His eyes twinkled, testing Stake's reaction.
Stake couldn't stop himself from stammering, 'Those aren't… Yuki's?'
Fukuda lost his twinkle immediately, exchanging it for a look of dismay. 'What? Of course not!' It seemed to take him a moment to compose himself, after the rattling suggestion that he might fetishize an article of his own child's clothing. 'Mr. Stake, in the community of Luzon, here in town, a man might savor the taste of dog. But he will not eat his own. And he will protect his dog from ending up on someone else's plate, too. Do you catch my meaning?'
Stake caught it only too well, but he wanted to pursue the matter and ask how his client would feel if he learned that one of these businessmen were right now wearing his daughter's used dainties, sold by Yuki to one of those entrepreneurs who in turn dispensed them through vending machines in subway stations, malls, and even in the washrooms of upscale nightclubs, but he decided not to poke the man about his hypocrisy. It was no different from a man having no qualms about a woman selling her body-so long as he had not sired that body. Anyway, they were now holding up traffic behind them, and needed to seat themselves at their own table instead of standing in the midst of these others.
The executive cafeteria of Fukuda Bioforms was smaller, more intimate than the one in which Stake had lunched with Yuki Fukuda. It was more of a restaurant, really, and once they were settled a wait staff served them their drinks and salads. Though Stake was sure the general cafeteria for the hordes of office drones and lab techs was considerably less swanky.
Hemmed in by tropical potted plants and subdued lighting, Fukuda and his guest hovered over their blood orange martinis until their steaks arrived. Fukuda had insisted on ordering for Stake, after first determining that he was not a vegetarian. He watched avidly as the private investigator cut off a tender chunk of filet mignon, popped it into his mouth and chewed.
'Mm.' He nodded. 'Mmm. Don't tell me- from your deadstock, right?'
'Oh, Mr. Stake, you ruined my surprise. Yes, it is. Wonderful, eh?'
'It really is. Very delicious. Thank you.'
'Janice Poole phoned me to say that you had talked with her about the daughter of Adrian Tableau. And talk of that butcher Tableau put me in mind to treat you to something of a far better quality than the blobs he churns out at Tableau Meats.'
'The consumer gets what he pays for, I guess.' Mention of Janice Poole made Stake want to casually establish how well acquainted with her Fukuda truly was, but he knew it wasn't relevant to the matter at hand, and he couldn't say he was jealous enough, yet, to obsess over it. So instead, he focused on Fukuda's relationship with
