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  He went back to the den and opened the earthenware jar atop of the desk. It contained perhaps 80 capsules, roughly divided between Febrifuge Blue 800, 900 and about ten stray 700s he guessed must be over a year old. He poured the contents onto the desk, picked out the 700s, and tossed them into the wastebasket then swept most of the remaining capsules back into the jar, leaving four each of 800s and 900s. While some people enjoyed the effect of blending, he always felt a bit queasy after combining different series.

  He pushed the four 800s aside and loaded one of the remaining capsules into the Brad. Closing the cover, he held the injector to the underside of his left wrist. Perhaps, he mused, maybe two would be better. Reopening the unit, he popped an additional 900 in and squeezed the cover closed again. Repositioning the device, he took a deep breath and pressed the injection button.

  A bright crackle sounded from the unit and he felt the familiar slight pinch on his wrist. In a few seconds he smelled the exhaust, which until now he’d never been able to categorize. Febrifuge Blue 900 was manufactured with an additive to mask the antiseptic, sour medicine odor of all the earlier compounds. Curry, he thought. It smells like burnt curry.

  He closed his eyes for a moment to savor the cool wave that washed through his body and felt a light pressure on his scalp as if someone was gently pushing down on the top of his head. The wave receded almost as quickly as it had rushed across him, replaced by a sensation he always associated with lying in the sun on a brisk, breezy day. The room seemed to darken a bit as if the sky had suddenly clouded over, but soon regained its normal appearance. He chuckled and lifted up the blind on the window beside the desk. Tricked again. Not a cloud to be seen.

  Another wave washed through his body, colder than the first. The shiver, however, lasted only a few seconds. He again felt the relaxed, dreamlike sensation he loved and closed his eyes. Sometime, somewhere in his past, he believed he’d felt this way all the time. Exactly where and when he couldn’t recall. It was so peaceful.

  Not that he cared much about the technicalities. He felt it now, and feeling it now was what mattered. Artificial peace beat organic anxiety any day of the week. He didn’t need an excuse to use Febrifuge Blue 900 because the drug was an excuse in itself.

  When he finally opened his eyes, nothing was different. Except the minute hand on his watch, which had moved from the one to the four. Tricked again. It seemed like no more than a few seconds. And there was that sublime sense of…something he could never quite put his finger on. It wasn’t actually a heightened awareness, or some temporary elevation of his intelligence. It was…it was a subtle increase in the clarity of his thoughts and senses, as if a strip of gauze had been lifted.

  Although he’d never given it a try, it was said sex between Sixers after righteous doses was as good as it could get.

  Leaning back in his chair, he slowly opened the unit’s cover and emptied the residue into an ashtray. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes again, picturing the Southern Cross in his mind’s-eye and naming the quartet of stars Tyler, Trisha, Kravatz and Hendricks. He gazed at them a moment, exploring the different combinations and considering the important question of how long it would to take him to visit all four.

  CHAPTER 2

  What was planned to have been a 20-minute nap turned into almost an hour of light sleep filled with lucid dreams. Popping back into instant consciousness, he felt a brief echo of the chill, reminding him he’d now coast for a few more hours, not desiring another dose but instead simply enjoying the ride.

  Just after 2:00, he dressed in a pair of black jeans, a blue button-down dress shirt, a blue blazer and his favorite tie. Satisfied with his appearance, he made his way down to the street and hailed a passing limcab for the brief ride down to the Plaza, just west of the Wrightsville neighborhood bordering the rejuvenated Center City.

  While he could have walked to get in a few miles of exercise, or taken a bus, he’d have been crazy to do either. Private transportation for anybody who could afford it was not only fashionable but also the safest mode of local transportation available. The urban limcab business was booming in city environments throughout the country. The suicide bombings on buses had become so common that news reports rarely devoted any coverage aside from the location, fatalities and injuries. Muggings of pedestrians, from simple robberies to murders, received even less.

  Licensed limcabs—unlicensed ones were subject to serious fines and jail time for their drivers—provided at least reasonable safety and reliability. Resembling classic London taxis, they included armed chauffeurs in sharp uniforms, bulletproof glass, emergency beacons and secure, micro Wi-Fi transphone routers. Fares were about triple those of ordinary taxis, twice those of ordinary limos.

  The 15-minute ride through the midday traffic and construction allowed him to read through NewsGlance on Pinkiefinger.com, his favorite, transfriendly source of information and opinion. Its succinct, bite-size features and columns had become the go-to daily news source for tens of millions of readers.

  International led with a report from the Vatican stating the massive wave of conversions to Catholicism over the past three years, especially in the Mid and Far Easts, along with South America and Africa, had established it once again as the foremost religion in the world. Pope Marcellus III, on the first pilgrimage of his reign to his home country of Zimbabwe, was said to be so overcome with this revelation that he’d broken down in tears when sharing the news during a sermon at an outdoor mass attended by over a million of his countrymen.

  The French government reported that contributions for rebuilding the recently destroyed Eiffel Tower, the target of a terrorist piloting an explosive-filled private jet, were so generous during the first week of fundraising that no additional donations would be necessary.

  Walbee, the immensely popular, self-styled Marketing Wizard turned Social Provocateur turned Philanthropic Radical’s scheme to remove pennies, nickels and dimes from everyday financial transactions by having them sent to his charitable foundation had already apparently removed (out of a typically 25 billion) more than 20% of the coins from circulation, not to mention an even larger amount contributed from mason jars and car seats. And now that Pinkiefinger’s PinkieWallet payment service and UPS had joined forces with him, the troubling situation could only escalate. Adding fuel to the inferno was Walbee’s recent promise to award ten $5,000,000 prizes and a single $25,000,000 one based on a drawing to be held from the names of all of the individuals who had sent in at least $10 of their pocket change. Though the date for the lottery had not been set, it was thought it would occur in late December as part of the World Standoff! Tournament festivities.

  A recently completed survey of over ten thousand civilians and scores of scientists, psychologists and sociologists found that more than 80% of Americans now believed that The Acceleration Mirage—the sense that time was passing faster than it had in the past—was not an imagined, subjective phenomenon but rather a genuine physical force which would someday in the near future be objectively proven to exist. These findings were thought to be related to another survey in which close to 70% of respondents agreed very strongly with the statement Science cannot be trusted while 63% agreed with the proposition, Most people cannot be trusted.

  In a related story, the CDC reported that alcohol and nicotine use had reached historic heights. Almost two in three respondents between the ages of 18 and 54 reported drinking one or more alcoholic beverages a day at least five times each week, and 52% admitted to smoking at least one cigarette or cigar a day at least four times a week. In response to questions as to why they’d increased their use of the two products, the overwhelming majority answered either Anxiety about the future or Time is running out.

  City trumpeted the mayor’s charge that the council’s majority bloc with conflict of interest in their refusal to fund the city’s second Body Retrieval Squad. The first team, he claimed, was overworked and underequipped. An explosion on a bus two nights before had claimed its twel
fth victim. Members of the PTA were picketing City Hall to protest the refusal of the Board of Education to fund any further lunch program milk purchases, and the Streets and Parks Department expected to hire up to a thousand part-time workers for the summer.

  In Money, the lead story concerned yet another investigation of the insider/short-selling practices that may have contributed to the devastation of the fast food industry. In a related story, McDonald’s announced that all its remaining outlets would close within two weeks in anticipation of the complete restructuring of its product line and marketing.

  The Continental Commodities Exchange said it would consider the recommendation that there was a sophisticated enough structure in place to allow a trial program for 1980s Artifact Futures, and the second most profitable niche investment vehicles in the first quarter were Hawaiian and Australian real estate and real estate trusts.

  A humorous essay written by Jip Spotswood, Stonetree’s oldest and easily best friend, examined the first most profitable, the Combat Art craze and the spectacular profits some investors were earning in the trading of items from the estate of artist James Lisle Davidson (a.k.a. J. Lionne-Demillunes). Invoking the madness accompanying the Dutch tulip mania of 1634-1636, when many amateur speculators invested their entire life savings on just the possibility of purchasing a single bulb, the writer focused on a recent flash auction series occurring in Pinkiefinger’s popular lineup of diversions. The item offered by the estate was a single, paint stained three-inch stencil of the letter K that according to the COA perhaps had been used in the execution of seven listed paintings. The opening bid was $100.

  Over the following six, one hour segments, the item changed hands a half-dozen times, the estate reclaiming it twice for the standard 10% seller’s buyback premium, then relisting it at the most recent winning price. At the close of the auction, the K was finally sold to one of the three remaining bidders for $4,950.

  I don’t know about you, Jip concluded, but if I’m going to spend five grand on a small piece of used cardboard, I’d at least require it be delivered by a gorgeous woman to my high roller suite at Caesar’s Palace along with a two bottles of Dom Perignon.

  Sports led with a story on Stephanie Van Register’s win at the Australian World Invitational Tennis Tournament in Sydney. The record 17 million dollar first prize, Van Register announced, would be donated to CYD victim housing subsidies. In a related story, it was revealed that her rival Jenny Winters had committed suicide two days before the tournament began.

  PGA officials were in a quandary based on a pair of recent top ten finishes by Ricky San Simeon who, having reached a green, would lay down on the grass and make extraordinary shots using the tip of his putter like a pool cue. The USC Board of Regents announced a phase-out of most sports programs at the university, and Major League Baseball Commissioner Will Bainisi announced all bat and ball boys and girls could not reach or exceed their 13th birthday while employed.

  Crime’s lead was an article stating Wexford, his manager Doug Smite, and two associates had been cleared by a grand jury investigating the bombing of a police station in suburban Pittsburgh the previous September. The night before the incident, the pop star, being backed by special guests The Alliance (led by his mentor, Andy Polanski) at a CYD charity concert, had been the target of the fourth assassination attempt in less than a year. This time a delirious teenager approached the stage and threw two hand grenades, both of which fell short of their marks, landing in the crowd killing seven fans and injuring another 20.

  The youth was taken into custody, charged with murder and held pending his arraignment the next day. At 7:00 the following morning, the holding cells were literally leveled by a blast thought to have emanated from a briefcase filled with high-octane explosives.

  Following the previous assassination attempt, Smite had warned that the next person who threatened Wexford’s life would be dealt with “the way butchers handle pigs” and offered $500,000 to anyone who brought “the next crackpot to justice.”

  He skipped Living, skipped Fashion then finished with his favorite, Arts & Entertainment.

  The summer movie season was expected to be a blockbuster, with Hollywood offering new installments of James Bond and Chin-Chin Davis, along with the long-awaited final episode in the Empire of Ice trilogy of films based on author DJ Wingrove’s classic multi-volume sci-fi epic. Also in the pipeline were nine remakes of 1980s movies including Out Of Africa, Moonstruck, Back To The Future and Desperately Seeking Susan. Entertainment stocks were hot, and a story on them would appear in Money the following Monday.

  The estate of James Lisle Davidson failed in its lawsuit to reclaim a pair of examples of his Combat Art that were allegedly misappropriated by an employee of an art gallery. The two sketches of popular board games of the future, signed and stamped with the identification logo, both eight by ten inches in size, were currently on option to an unnamed third party from the employee for $200,000 each. A work of the same size and subject had recently sold at auction for $375,000.

  According to the employee, Patrick Waxler, he’d traded Sex for a drawing, twice, a point not disputed by the gallery owner Curtis Branch. The New Mexico jury determined that Branch had apparent ownership of the two sketches as to Waxler though not actual ownership as to the estate due to a poorly drafted contract prepared by and offered to Branch by the artist, who was adjudged legally incompetent. Contacted by the press following the announcement of its ruling, the respondent stated: “I think the jurors did great jobs. Curt was happy with the ones I gave him, too. And I mean, now I’m like going to (deleted) Disneyland.”

  Time Magazine’s next cover story was reportedly going to be titled No, It’s The Decade Of Obsessions, going upstream against the accepted proposition that America was in the midst of The Decade of CYD. Wexford, Standoff!, the 1980s fascination, the Combat Art madness, the fracturing social media, Selfscan/LEP, Trust and the new racial divides would all be examined.

  Penetration of the popular music charts by the Pacific Wave groups continued, with five of the top 20 going to Australian or Japanese natives. However, American singers and bands held a lock on the Top Ten. Wexford’s first single release from his album Under The Covers, Stash That Blade, was parked at #1 for the third straight week, and the second release, a rework of Don Henley’s Sunset Grill, had jumped three slots up to #14. Linda Bowen’s scorching revisiting of Quarterflash’s 1981 Find Another Fool again had to settle in at #2 for the third week while her Please Dazzle Me dropped to #18. Peggy Quinlan (Bowen’s rival, according to the tabloids) saw her Ninth Avenue stay frozen at #3 while Christie Cramer, Billy Blair & The Alliance’s Witchcraft debuted at #4. Angelique Caulfield continued her smooth transition from Christian pop to the mainstream with Moving From Heaven To Earth, rising seven spots to #5.

  But the biggest news was that Pandora’s Obsession’s current release, the third revisiting of their first chart-topping hit I’m Your Girl (Not Your Friend), coupled with a cover of Rick Springfield’s 1981 Jessie’s Girl, had popped in at #6, making it the first composition to have ever made the Top Ten an incredible four times, not to mention the astonishing facts that since their introduction five years earlier, the group was closing in on Billboard trophies for most Top Ten songs by a group and most Top Forty songs by a group, along with continuing their already mind-boggling achievement of 266 straight weeks with at least one song in the Hot 100.

  Rounding out the Top Ten were Carrie Underwood, Taylor Swift, Kelly Clarkson, Stefani Germanotta and Katy Perry.

  Reflecting their spots on the singles’ chart was a harmonic convergence of bewildering proportions on the Billboard Album Chart. In early March, by agreement among the artists and their record companies, all five of them had released their latest compilations—Underwood’s Greatest Hits Volume Three, Clarkson’s Greatest Hits Chapter Three, Swift’s Greatest Hits III, Germanotta’s Best of Stef 3 and Perry’s The Best of Katy Perry v.3—on the same day. Two weeks later they were holding all
five of the top spots and continued to do so, jockeying up and down in the standings like the thoroughbreds they were.

  Waiting in the wings was one of the most anticipated recordings in memory, a rumored duet between PO’s leader Laura Loveland and CCBBA’s Billy Blair covering The Bangles 1985 If She Knew What She Wants.

  In a related story, NewsGlance provided a reprint from PO’s bassist Pamela Watts’ PinkiePage concerning the search for her beloved leather and brass-tacked backed guitar Fendiebaby that had disappeared in Chicago years before.

  When he stepped out of the lim, Stonetree glanced up to the Citicorp clock. It was 2:38 and he’d told Lane he’d be at her office by 3:00. As he walked toward the Plaza, he played with figures in his mind. At the very most, Hendricks could ask $200,000 for the car, which was extremely generous. Now what exactly was $200,000? It was about two-thirds of his annual salary, which was an awful lot to spend on a toy. It was about 45% of the remaining balance of the mortgage on his condo and twice what the typical family of four was supposed to survive on each year, while probably a small fraction of what SUE’s CEO Pierre Picard made each morning simply by waking up.

  Instead of the Mustang, Stonetree could visit Dr. Kravatz for 800 sessions. He could buy a small Lionne-Demilune’s sketch. He could take Sharon out to 400 nice restaurants. He could buy her an elegant engagement ring or a spectacular memorial service.

  But the more vexing question was why in hell he was so obsessed about purchasing a 1967 Ford Mustang. He’d never driven one, didn’t know anybody who owned one and for that matter, while he did have a driver’s license, the only cars he’d ever driven belonged to friends or rental companies. Sure, he’d leased a few Grand Cherokees—one for an entire year, two for a couple of summers and a number for week-long periods—yet it simply didn’t make any sense. He’d tried to solve the mystery at Kravatz’s shop three different times, approaching the puzzle from various angles, but had never even come close to a resolution.