"What's that?"
"I'm monitoring your stem. I've got a readout here of your EKG. Endocrine levels. If there's any change in your neuro-chemistry, it'll beep here. Then I just push this..." She pointed at a plus button next to a minus one at the base of the remote.
"And what's that?" Steve smiled.
"The Happy Button," Jude smiled back. "It bumps up your stem's production of seratonin. Perfectly natural, safe... it just takes the edge off, lets you see the world in a new light."
"You can control my moods? With that?" Steve asked, concerned.
"Not control. Influence." Jude snuffed her cigarette out in the ashtray. "But I don't think we'll be needing it." She stepped in close to Steve and put the remote down on his folded, clean set of clothes.
"No?" Steve asked as Jude leaned in dangerously close, her full, red lips tinged with the sweet scent of her cigarette.
Jude ran her finger around the outline of his implant. "No," she said, watching her fingers move across his chest. "There are so many more fun ways to increase seratonin levels, you know?"
#
Nathan Pope would be the last Puke forcibly converted.
At least that's what the voice had said on the phone as Jude had driven to the hospital. He would be the last Puke forcibly converted, that is, outside the walls of a military installation. A decision had been made. It was still hush-hush, not ready for prime time, but when the penny did drop, there would be no more Nathan Popes. People who knew people would be coming to call, the voice had told Jude. People-people, it said. And all of it had just landed in Jude's lap as the on-call midwife.
Jude hung up and kept driving, the news swirling around in her head. The last Puke to be converted to a Stem? She forced herself not to jump to conclusions. Jumping to conclusions was a dangerous habit. But even without conjecture, the sort of people-people Nathan Pope would soon be attracting was obvious. Party people. Media people. If decisions had been made, whatever they might be, they'd need to be sold to the public. The last converted Puke would be just the sort of thing to trot out and show off to a curious nation – with a sufficiently harrowing and contrite tale of rehabilitation prepared for him, of course.
And it had just landed in Jude's lap.
She scrambled to get her thoughts in order as she pulled into the hospital's underground parking lot. She parked and killed the engine, lighting a cigarette and slowly smoking it down to the filter, sitting there behind the wheel of her car. She didn't want to step out until she had a plan of attack. If she could play the situation just right, it could be big – really big. The last Puke could be... well, the autobiography alone could be a multi-million dollar seller. Jude even knew a novelist down in San Diego with a half-finished manuscript right along those lines. Only the names would have to be changed, the geography moved around a bit.
Yes, a whole new million dollar media empire. The Last Puke. Not just a story, but a brand... it could be big. If handled right. And Jude could handle it.
She opened her car door and stomped out her cigarette on the concrete. She grabbed her purse and crossed the parking lot towards the elevators. She had it all straight in her head now, not five minutes after her cell phone had rung. She pushed the up arrow and waited, digging in her purse for another cigarette. She knew exactly how to handle Nathan Pope:
She'd fuck him the first chance she could get.
#
Steve pulled himself up off the edge of the hospital bed and let his gown fall to the ground around his feet. Jude was watching him, no more than a few feet away, apparently unconcerned by his obvious erection. He took the folded jeans off the bed and shook them out, stepping into them. Once he'd secured his erection away in the fabric, he zipped up the jeans, pulling the white shirt on over his shoulders.
As he was buttoning the shirt, he noticed for the first time his reflection in the mirror. The sight came as a shock. There he stood, half-dressed in the mirror, the round, plastic power socket just below his sternum. But it was not Steve staring back at him from the mirror. No, it was High School Nathan standing there with the new surgical implant in his chest.
Someone had shaved his face and trimmed his hair while he'd been unconscious. A brace of long-neglected teeth still filled his mouth, but the sight of his own clean-shaven face was something he'd almost forgotten. But it was more than just grooming, Steve realized, as he looked at himself in the mirror. The posture, the shape of his shoulders, the sight of himself standing at his full six-foot height. It was the old Nathan, not Steve. The Nathan who'd played J.V. Football and eaten three meals a day, and worried about things like homework and girl's phone numbers. It was the Nathan before he'd become Steve. The Steve that survived off scrounged food, that lived off the refuse of a society that had long given up on eating.
It was Nathan in the mirror, not Steve, he realized as he buttoned up the shirt over his stem.
"There are some people we need to meet," Jude spoke, interrupting Steve's mediation.
"People?"
"If you're feeling up to it, of course." Jude slipped in beside Steve, putting an arm around his middle. She admired the reflection of the two of them together.
"Up for it? Sure, of course." Steve smiled at the mirror. "What people?"
"People," Jude replied, laying her head on Steve's shoulder. "People-people. You'll like them."
"People?" Steve hedged, feeling some almost forgotten tingle of bigotry. "Stem people?"
"Sweetie," Jude stepped away, picking up her purse. "There aren't any other kind of people."
Steve stood motionless, watching High School Nathan stare back at him from the mirror.
"You coming, Nathan?" Jude said from the hospital room door.
"Yeah, yeah sure," Nathan replied.
Chapter 5
The old tattoo parlor was just across the freeway on 45th. Elder Tull slipped down the east side of the building, where it didn't quite touch up against the next structure, and came out into the alleyway behind the parlor. There, a small set of stairs climbed up to the rear entrance. Elder was just starting up when the rear door opened suddenly. A handsome, well-dressed Stem emerged from the darkness within. Elder backed up and let the man exit, keeping his distance as the Stem skipped down the stairs. The man looked around nervously, adjusted his suit, and locked his focus on Elder.
"Fucking Pukes," he cursed at Elder and started off up the alley. Elder watched him exit the alley, the Stem's gaze dodging quickly here and there. Even the back of the Stem's head was handsome, Elder realized, as the perfectly styled haircut vanished around the corner.
"Fucking Stems," Elder cursed after the man when he was sure the Stem was completely out of earshot. Elder turned back to the stairs and climbed them into the old tattoo parlor.
Inside, the only light burning was the red bulb in the large picture window.
Sweet Beat was sitting on her stool in the window, lazily wrapped in nothing but a white sheet. She was smoking a cigarette, the kind the Stems smoked, a toxic mix of thick tobacco and high-powered pot. Sweet turned to look at Elder as he entered with the glassy eyes of someone who lacked the peptide inhibitors needed to handle the high-test weed. The Stems were almost immune to the stuff, many smoking two or three packs a day, but for Pukes, the cigarettes were caustic.
"Sweet, how you doing?" Elder asked as he entered. Sweet Beat said nothing, taking another drag on her cigarette and turning back to look out the window. A thin stream of pedestrians passed by, each trying hard not to notice Beat's mostly naked shape bathed in the red light. "Did you hear about Steve? Cops got him. Eydie's back at the flat. She's in a bad way."
Sweet Beat said nothing. Elder coughed. Her silence was uncharacteristic. 'Sweet' Beat's name was something of a joke, like 'Little' John. Beatrice was anything but sweet. She must have been high, out of her mind wasted, not to say something. Steve. Cops. Stemmed. Elder coughed again.
"You okay, Sweet?"
Was she high enough that Elder could just take some food?
Would she even notice? It didn't pay to make that call wrong though, not with Sweet Beat, as the USMC and Semper Fi tattoos on her naked shoulders attested.
"I..." Elder started and stopped, trying another tactic. "I talked to Kevin. He said that maybe... for Eydie... you see, she'll be hungry... soon..."
Beat had finished her cigarette. She dropped it on the wood floor and stomped it out with the heel of her black pump. She stood up, unceremoniously letting the sheet fall to the floor. She walked buck naked across the room and to a small purple refrigerator tucked away in the kitchen. She opened the refrigerator door and leaned forward, reaching in.
Something inside Elder leapt.
Elder was encouraged. The sight of Beat, naked, stirred him. He could feel her lean, half-Filipino frame light an old fire in his filthy jeans. He almost screamed with surprise and delight. Perhaps such things were not completely lost to him. He touched his crotch, hoping to help the feeling along, but pulled his hand away as Sweet came up out of the refrigerator with two foil bags in her hands.
Best not to push your luck, Elder thought, enjoying the sight of Sweet Beat's front as much as he'd enjoyed the rear. Sweet closed the fridge and returned to the main room, handing the foil bags to Elder. She snapped up a dressing gown off the bed and pulled it over her shoulders, not bothering to tie it closed. She returned to her post on her stool by the window without a word.
Elder licked his lips, the sight of smoldering sex quickly trumped by the promise of a solid meal.
The bags were ButtyNut, a mix of peanut butter, wheat and various nutritious spray vitamins the Government produced out of the goodness of its heart. One bag was supposed to be all the nutrition a Puke needed for a single day.
It actually tasted pretty good. At least that's what Elder remembered from the few times he'd tried it. The Government supposedly made enough to feed the whole of the country's Puke population three times over, but distribution was so corrupt that very little of it ever made it into the hands of hungry Pukes. Most of it was snatched up by disreputable Stems, like the one Elder had encountered in the alley out back. Stems who used the food packets as currency – along with pot cigarettes – to pay for the sexual services of desperate Pukes.
It was a fetish with some Stems. Something kinky. They reveled in the literal filth of violating an anus that still served a function. If Elder understood it correctly, ass-fucking was the most common form of sex amongst Stems, the orifice long ceasing to serve any other purpose. But to pump on an asshole that still had some utility...
Well, it was how Sweet Beat made her living.
Elder Tull was in no position to judge. Two whole servings of ButtyNut was quite the score. He thought about thanking Sweet, but guessed she wouldn't even hear him.
It was taking all of Elder's willpower to fight back the urge to crack open the foil and start chowing down. But this score he'd get back to the flat and share with Eydie, he promised himself.
After all, if there was still some life down there... if Elder was still some sort of man after all these years... perhaps Eydie might spend a little time showing Elder how grateful she was for the meal....
"You hear about the Potluck?" Beat said as Elder was turning to leave. The sound of her voice made Elder jump.
"Yeah, Kevin said," Elder replied.
"You coming?" Beat asked, looking back over her shoulder, glassy-eyed.
"Fuck yeah! Try and stop me!"
"Bring Eydie, huh?" Beat was reaching for a pack of cigarettes beside her stool, groggily leaning, unbalanced on her seat.
"Well, of course."
"You hear Prime was in Bannock?" Sweet Beat had her smokes and pulled a cigarette out of the pack.
"What?" Elder asked in shock. Sweet might as well have said that the Prime Administrator had been to the North Pole to meet Santa Claus. "What did you just say?" Elder pressed.
But Beat had her new cigarette lit and had returned her attention to the picture window. Stems were moving by as Beat sat in the red light, her dressing gown open, hanging away from her breasts. Elder let himself out, chalking her talk up to the chronic.
Bannock, indeed. Why not say he'd been to the moon? Elder could almost taste the blue cheese...
Chapter 6
The tires of Jude's small go-kart of a sports car caught air as she crested the hill, hurtling towards the downtown core. Nathan screamed and grabbed frantically at the dash before him. The road twisted away before him down the hill, lit up with a chain of red brake lights. Jude wasn't slowing, shifting up into fourth as the watermelon-sized engine behind them whirred. She was laughing. At least, her face seemed to be making the expression of laughter. Nathan could hear nothing over the sound of his own shrieks. Jude made a hard right, and suddenly they were threading their way down a freeway on ramp that moments before had been completely invisible.
They picked up more speed as Jude merged the low car into traffic. She changed lanes frantically, rapidly shifting, her beautiful blond hair snapping out and above the car's open top. The light fabric of her short skirt was riding high in the breeze, revealing more than a little extra thigh.
They were heading north, over the canal bridge, back into the University District. Nathan was heading home. No, Steve was heading home... Nathan was living in the moment, watching the muscles of Jude's legs flex as she worked the car's clutch.
It was almost too easy, Jude thought, as she turned her head to change lanes and caught a glimpse of where Nathan was staring. Though it wasn't exactly fair. With the remote control Jude had surreptitiously slipped into her purse, she could have dialed in any emotion for Nathan that she chose. Lust was easy, just a small hit of dopamine every time he glanced in Jude's direction. Two or three iterations and Nathan's brain would take over and supply the dopamine naturally on cue. Disgust would have been just as easy. Hate, horror, all were within her power. But only lust was any help to Jude right then. She needed Nathan controllable – controllable by her. And the anticipation of copulation would keep him well and truly focused until Jude decided to release the tension...
Once the whole deal was in the bag, once all the angles had played themselves out, once she knew exactly where she stood. And not until then...
But she knew she could never pull the deal off all on her own.
While she'd waited at Nathan's bedside, while the nurses had shaved him, she'd fired off a dozen quick texts. It would be difficult to get a media war room setup at ten on a Friday night, but not impossible. She knew plenty of the right kind of people who'd get out of bed or excuse themselves from a night club, upon receiving a tersely-worded text. Wheels were in motion. While Jude had been handling a hysterical Nathan, things were being arranged. A single word on her phone had told her where the first meeting of the evening would be: "Dremel's" it had read.
"So, who are these People-people?" Nathan asked as they pulled off the freeway, falling into the queue of traffic waiting on the light at 45th. Nathan was so taken with the view of Jude's creamy white thighs that he completely missed the sight of his friend Kevin standing at the exit, displaying his obtuse 'Food' sign.
"Friends of mine," Jude lied. "Peters, he's with the Big U. And Waverly, he works for the paper."
"Why do I want to meet them?" Nathan asked. The light changed, and the traffic shunted out onto 45th, but they had hardly moved a block before the traffic knitted up again, brake lights shining up the street towards the Ave.
Jude flipped her transmission into neutral and leaned back in her chair with a soft sigh. "Oh, they want meet you, dear," Jude purred.
"The U?" Nathan asked with suspicion, turning his attention to the traffic in front of them. "The Party? I don't know..."
Jude laughed. "Nathan, you're still thinking like a Puke."
"Well, I am," Nathan replied without thinking.
Jude didn't answer. The traffic eased forward and Jude put her car into gear. They rolled on in silence until they came within sight of the corner of Brooklyn and
45th. There, a stage and the fluttering banners of a Brothers of Bannock Revival were erected. But the normal crowd of hungry Pukes gathered for the free handout was conspicuously absent. The instruments on the stage were quiet, and the pulpit empty of the expected fire and brimstone preacher. Instead, a few police officers in full SWAT gear were milling around the empty city lot, the flashing lights of their patrol cars casting shadows off the surrounding buildings.
One officer was directing traffic around a large mobile command center, which blocked the oncoming lane. He waved Jude's car by and she revved the engine, taking the first right onto the Ave.
"You know, I live around here," Nathan said, craning his neck around to look up the Ave, towards the flat he shared with Eydie and Elder Tull.
Eydie.
It suddenly hit Nathan. What had happened to Eydie? He remembered her clearing the fence, back at the Pizzeria, before the cops had tackled him, but had she made it home safe? Had she been stemmed, too? Nathan hadn't given her a second thought since waking up in the hospital. How could he do that? And here he was in a strange car with a strange woman. Eydie... a pang of guilt hit Nathan – Steve! Damn it, his name was Steve! How could he forget that? Steve and Eydie, it had always been Steve and Eydie. Always would be. What was he doing in this car with this woman? He looked at Jude, attempting not to let his face betray his emotions.
"Used to live here, sweetie," Jude replied. "This is the shithole part of town..."
#
The Puff Club was called Dremel's. It sat at the corner of 40th and the Ave. It was exactly the kind of place that Steve had always hated: a Stem bar. But here he was. Jude pulled her car to a halt in front of the valet and kicked open her door. Steve opened his more warily as the valet moved around the hood. The valet caught the bundle of keys Jude pitched into the air. Steve pulled himself out of the car and stepped up onto the curb.
"What's wrong, Nathan?" Jude asked, noticing Steve's furtive glances up the street. She opened her purse and began to dig through it, seemingly looking for her cigarettes, but furtively looking at the readouts on the remote control. Nathan's alpha waves were spiking and his heart rate was elevated.