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Interlude
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 he
gig rocked hard. They always did, every single time, because Odep King,
for all his grumbling and backstage preaching, was still young at
heart, still more musician than philosopher.
Tonight it was a
downtown stadium blast out, one of the major events of his WindDown
Tour but it could just as well have been anywhere - the Pilgrim Sphere,
IdoCorp’s famous arena or even one of the ghetto romps he sometimes did
out of pity or nostalgia. The performances were starting to run
together in his memory and it bugged him.
He checked his
gear out with the roadies and dice-tipped the porter as he always did.
He had a novelty firmware system, one of the few tech augmentations he
allowed himself. With it he could mentally roll a die or flip a card
and get a genuine random result. He used it as much for meditation as
he did to toy with the help. He toed open the door and slipped out into
the cooling Prohedroni night, enjoying the air-conditioned thermal
exhaust ejected by the vertical city all around sloughing onto him,
cloying in pockets of chilly and warm scented swirls. He breathed it in
deeply, each breath a unique, aromatic cocktail in patterns as
beautiful to him as snowflakes.
Having grown up inside a
dream - an induced coma with a simulated childhood so dramatically
different from the real world - Odep was treated by those he met with a
kind of passive awe and respect usually reserved for clerics or world
leaders. Other human/deep one crossbreeds weren’t so quick to relate to
him. He had an innate air of thoughtfulness often mistaken for
indifference that set him apart. Sometimes it stung, but more often he
used this perceived mystique to build his career image which was, of
course, how he’d reached the superstar status he enjoyed today.
The
streets weren’t empty. Prohedron never was, it was part of Pasifika
City's nonstop culture. Still, the foot traffic was thin and Odep
shoved his hands deep into his pockets and walked the streets like some
old time beat cop, incognito in his mirrored shades.
Tonight he was sight seeing.
Vacuotubes,
those still functioning relics from some long failed city development
project, were dotted throughout the Prohedron district. They were
mostly ignored, the general populace preferring the abundance of safer,
cleaner modes of city transportation over the claustrophobic rush of
the tubes. Still, they hadn’t been decommissioned or reclaimed and the
homeless used them to get about as did the occasional business person
at street level running late. Odep liked the old things. The absurdness
of displaying these museum pieces in a living city amused him. He
caught one for the sheer fun of it. It spat him out heavily a kilometre
away, on the other side of the road. A young couple passed by
cautiously, taking him for one of the hybrid vagrants who sometimes
came this far up from the lower plates.
If only you knew who you’re sneering at, he thought mirthfully. He picked himself up and wandered on.
Downtown,
close to the vast Prohedroni Central Support Pillar the city was
colourful, bright and busy. As he strolled through it all his mirrored
shades reflected the lights and colours spewing from every direction.
He synced his internal randomiser to his glasses’ virtua overlay and
let it flicker. He watched the psychedelics of the translucent light
show as he walked sedately through his weird medley of the blended
virtual and physical. He saw ads for his own tour on posters printed on
paper and stuck en masse to
the city’s walls. He smiled, appreciating the effort and expense put
into giving such a rustic feel. |
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