Virtual Light

‘Eggs-ackly, Chevette, honey.’

Was it significant that Skinner shared his dwelling with one who earned her living at the archaic intersection of information and geography?

Separated at Birth was a police program you used in missing persons cases. You scanned a photo of the person you wanted, got back the names of half a dozen celebrities who looked vaguely like the subject, then went around asking people if they’d seen anybody lately who reminded them of A, B, C… The weird thing was, it worked better than just showing them a picture of the subject.

the gaps were stuffed with pieces of rag, throwing shadows on the tattered yellow wall of National Geographics.

past a crew in wide-brim hardhats who were pouring the foundations for a palm tree.

The magazine belonged to Monica, the Chinese girl in the garage; she always got hers printed out so there was never any mention of scandal or disaster, but with a triple helping of celebrity romance, particularly anything to do with the British royal family.

Rydell’s roommate, Kevin Tarkovsky, wore a bone through his nose and worked in a wind-surfing boutique called Just Blow Me.

Skinner says it’s a fractal knife, its actual edge more than twice as long as the blade itself.

Rich people, had to be, and foreign, too. Though maybe rich was foreign enough.

But when the elevator doors opened, this Japanese girl fell out. Or near enough, Chevette grabbing her beneath both arms and propping her against the edge of the door. ‘Where party?’ ‘What folks gonna ask you,’ Chevette said.

And maybe, in that instant of weird clarity, with Gunhead’s crumpled front end still trying to climb the shredded remains of a pair of big leather sofas, and with the memory of Kenneth Turvey’s death finally real before him, Rydell had come to the conclusion that that high crazy thing, that rush of Going For It, was maybe something that wasn’t always quite entirely to be trusted.

There was a fridge-magnet on the thermos that said I’M NOT OKAY, YOU’RE NOT OKAY—BUT, HEY, THAT’S OKAY.

Their uniforms were black and they were wearing the same kind of black high-top SWAT-trainers that Rydell had worn on patrol in Knoxville, the ones with the Kevlar insoles in case somebody snuck up and tried to shoot you in the bottom of the foot.

Then Sgt. Valdez went post-traumatic in stone bugfuck fashion, walking into a downtown tavern and clipping both kneecaps off a known pedophile—this amazingly repulsive character, nickname of Jellybeans, who had absolutely no connection with the Pooky Bear murders.

The cameras under the rear bumper were his favorites; they made parking really easy; you could see exactly where you were backing up.

His gaze strays to NHK Weather. A low-pressure front is crossing Kansas. Next to it, an eerily calm Islamic downlink ceaselessly reiterates the name of God in a fractal-based calligraphy.

a Japanese vodka, Come Back Salmon, its name more irritating than its lingering aftertaste.

But here the mirrored ziggurats down Lázaro Cárdenas flow with the luminous flesh of giants, shunting out the night’s barrage of dreams to the waiting avenidas—business as usual, world without end.

The courier presses his forehead against layers of glass, argon, high-impact plastic.