Young Writers Society

MORAL ZERO

PART TWO

By Set Sytes

BAR

Six hours of sleep and three hours of eating and nothing and talking about nothing and getting ready for the night and then they were back at the bar, back at their reason, the only reason to be found. A haunt for blistered souls, a world to bury oneself in mirth and sadness, in sickness and the warm monstrosity of the unguided self.

I like the old gods better. They weren’t so fuckin perfect. Red had his boots up and crossed on their table and was sipping at a dark green drink and smoking. His eyes roved the crowd, surveying each patron, eyeing up their figures, their clothes, the impurity of their existence. Lingering on the women, the girls. Staring at cleavage, at fronts and behinds. At faces with smacking lips, pursed lips, lips open in laughter. Sipping drinks. Sucking straws.

There’s somethin kinda monstrous about a perfect bein, ain’t there? he continued. It feels so damn cold. His indolent eyes occasionally turned back to Mr White, as if a duty he jerked himself into remembering before his gaze inevitably strayed back to the crowd and twinkled wild and merry. His eyes flicked and roamed and within them something soft and eager danced to music nobody could hear.

Besides, people want somethin to identify with, don’t they? I know I’d wanna worship a god who kept fuckin up cause of a love of tits.

He swallowed a mouthful of liquor, twitched and smirked. I don’t want some sky father watchin and judgin my every move without a stain to his name. I wanna worship some huge tittied huge cocked goddess who is a devil to her lust and corrupt as Hell, but good in her corruption, good where it matters, y’know? If you ain’t got no flaws then I don’t wanna know you, don’t wanna be near you, don’t want you even lookin at me. You gotta be some kinda plant, some machine. Scariest kinds. No feelin, cause feelin ain’t never been perfect. Nah man, somethin is right fuckin wrong there.

He puffed on his cigarette. Besides, he added, Perfect don’t exist. You want people to believe in you? Fuckin grow a pair. And this idea you can’t make no mistakes. Look at the world! Fuckin no mistakes? Have the good god grace to own up! Say I did wrong, or say I’m just a cunt that’s all, and then we can move on.

I guess.

You guess right. I’d be ten times more comfortable puttin myself in the hands of some half-potent fuck-up with a wantin for all kinda misdemeanours, bad behaviour and devilry than cold fuckin perfection. Urgh, makes me fuckin shiver just to think of it. What’s to like? What’s to trust? They can’t handle fuck-ups if they ain’t never fucked up themselves. How can you punish someone if you don’t know what you’re punishin? Some sanctimonious prick who don’t have a clue, not one goddamn clue about what so-called bad behaviour is. Know thy enemy, man. You can’t be perfect if you gotta hint of any bad in you, and if you ain’t got that hint you don’t know bad, and if you don’t know bad you can’t be tellin what you don’t know off. It’s like, like antibiotics. You need that virus in you in order to get over it.

Red smoked again, and blew a deep cloud up into the air. He twirled the cigarette in his hands. I’d rather follow an imperfect leader than a perfect leader, y’know? Perfect leader is just as likely to send you all to your deaths for some cause just cause he don’t understand what bad is, and it’s all reason and sense. Imperfect leader gonna fetch you back at his own risk, gonna dig his guys outta the mud and blood to live. Take you to a tavern for drink and whores. It’s inhuman otherwise. You know who make the best good guys? Bad guys. They know.

I guess they do, said Mr White.

One hour later and Mr White stood awkwardly by as Red argued with a blonde haired girl in a red dress. He had bought her a drink and then tried his luck and she was not having any of it. This had prompted the ever-eager Red to only try harder, to attempt seduction by conveying the various manners in which he could please her, in which he could please any girl. Some of his previous exploits. Various testaments to his prowess. The excitement of degradation that the girl interpreted as a destruction of integrity. Taking advantage. Cruelty.

The conversation between them had quickly progressed to an attack on Red’s character.

I don’t know what it is with folks like you. Red threw his hands up in the air as if calling to the Heavens. You got it all mixed up inside. You think, what, that guys like me abuse girls? You’re out to insult if it’s the first fuckin thing you wanna do.

You sodomise innocent girls, said the girl in front of him, her lip curling with distaste. Admit it, you have no real interest in their pleasure. It’s all for you. Your wish to dominate, humiliate and degrade them is your desire. You see women as subjects to be put into their place.

Well now, said Red, there’s a whole bunch of words there that you’re givin a bad impression of. He grinned cheekily. The girl scowled.

Look miss, he continued. There ain’t no such thing as an innocent girl. If there is then they’re sure too young. Now I get how you see guys like me, cause I get how you see sex, how you see women. You think I’m out to put these women down? I give em what they want. God help you woman, you can’t see for others for yourself. Anal ain’t a man’s world.

I don’t think you know what you’re talking about.

Yeah, actually, I do. I may not be a woman but you ain’t all women. You know what? Every single of the most degradin, dirty, obscene, dark fuckin thoughts I ever did hear first came from the mouths of women. If I heard them from a guy first, they heard it from a gal. How’d you think I got into all that I did? Girls got this sickness, this filth inside em. Darkness and filth. They’re sexual demons. They are the . . . Red searched for the word . . . Originators of all sexual sickness.

The girl flushed and her face tightened. She was getting angry, Red saw, and it made his eyes twinkle.

The way you speak about women is despicable, she said fiercely. You should be ashamed of yourself.

No, said Red flatly. The way you think about women is what’s fuckin despicable. It’s you who should be ashamed of yourself. Who the fuck you think you are? You’re one woman. One woman! And you think you got some God-given grace to speak on behalf of your whole species? Listen doll –

Don’t you dare patronise me.

Listen doll, Red said again, louder. You are patronisin yourself. You are patronisin your whole fuckin species. You think girls are some sweet little virgins, some fairy-tale princesses? Little delicate flowers? Oh my gawwd, Red held up his hands effeminately and affected a high-pitched deep south drawl. You just cain’t take my virginity mista, I’m not that kinda girl! Whatever will my dear papa think? Why you’ll spoil my liddle white dress!

Red lowered his hands and a wide smile spread over his face as the girl in front of him looked like murder. Look doll, there ain’t one single fucktoy or playthin I made that ain’t been my conqueror.

You’re disgusting, she said venomously. You’re a sexist pig.

I know for sure I’m a pig, he grinned, and maybe I’m sexist too. But I’m still a damn sight better feminist than you.

Her mouth gaped open in disbelief. You what?!

Mr White’s eyes shot back from one to the other. Keeping quiet.

You heard me. Red’s smile dropped and he frowned at her. I ain’t got time for those thinking less of their own compadres. Little misses who want girls to be all shrinkin violets and all modest and demure, just nuns right through and through. You get all hot under the collar cause you can’t accept that girls are just as fucked up as men, and I reckon a damn sight worse. Yeah, I know your type. First to call out a girl sleepin about for bein a whore. First to say a guy like me is abusin, cause sure, a gal ain’t got any freedom of her own does she, she gotta be some damsel in silent distress with a pig like me. Anythin dirty she gets up to gotta be the foul work of men. Maybe those screams and moans I hear are actually cries for help. Goddamn woman, you may be in denial or colder than a fuckin snowstorm but those around you beat hearts like damn succubi.

You’re so certain that you’re right, she said icily, and yet all you profess is a male fantasy. You’re living in a world of delusion.

A better fantasy than yours, Red shot back, narrowing his eyes. Your fantasy of who you want women to be gotta be the dullest most depressin thing I ever heard. And while you’re stuck up in your room gettin all angry at guys like me I reckon I got a lot more worldly experience than you. You think I’m makin this shit up? I could introduce you to all kinda girls. But of course you’ll make excuses for them, won’t you? You’ll tell me that behind every one is the fault of a male. Why must the sexual appetites of a chick always have a fuckin male behind em? Why do you never see it said that a fucked up guy had a girl responsible? I’ve seen girls leave men on their fuckin knees, just stinkin puddles of jelly. You just can’t accept that a girl can come to me who ain’t some kinda emotionally damaged nutcase in need of your motherin.

Red wiped his brow theatrically. Yeah, now fuck off.

The girl gave him a look of pure contempt, and she walked off, finally recognising an impossible convert and realising she had better things to do with her life than argue with a chauvinist pervert.

Red looked after her, with a half-annoyed half-amused expression on his face. Do you think I could ever win over a girl like her?

Mr White shook his head. I don’t think so.

Maybe, maybe. Red seemed to ponder something for a moment, then wrinkled his nose. Prob’ly not worth the effort. I could put ten to one though on her rubbin herself silly tonight.

Mr White mumbled in neither assent nor dissent, following Red as he wound his way through the crowd, then stopping when he realised Red was heading to the toilet.

Ain’t no such thing as an innocent girl, Red murmured to himself, as he got to the stall and unzipped.

Mr White sat at the table and watched Red as he found his way back, noticeably more intoxicated than he’d left. He watched as Red paused by the girl he’d argued with before, and whispered in her ear. She turned to him askance, and Red said something else. She slapped him. Red sauntered back to the table, grinning with a bright red mark on his cheek.

What did you say?

I told her I was much worse than she thought I was.

Then what? Why did she slap you?

I told her what I’d want to do to her. Red stroked his still stinging cheek, looking pleased with himself.

What was that?

Red chuckled. It’s me. Use your imagination.

Two hours later, and they were still at the same bar. Red was immovable. It wasn’t particularly late but Mr White was tired and bored. When you only had one companion, and that companion was a drunk, there often wasn’t much left to do yourself but support them and listen to their semi-coherent ramblings. And make repeat trips to the bathroom.

Mr White was in for a long night. Patrons of the bar came and went, and each female was subject to Red’s lopsided leers, his objectifying half-closed eyes running them down head to toe. Shadows tumbled on his face, and his countenance shifted back and forth from angel to demon, monk to drunk.

They’re sexual demons, see . . . Red was leaning in close to Mr White and slurring, slouched on a threadbare sofa. He was stuck on repeat, punctuated by couplings of hiccups and burps. He had been for the last hour.

Demons . . . good and bad. If you went right to the source, the source of all sexuality . . . and so of all sexual sickness . . . you’d find the mother of all women. That’s where it started. Fuck, and I love them for it. He took an unsteady sip of his drink and smiled to himself. I love em, he said again.

Time to sober up, said Mr White.

Ha.

HOTEL

In the morning a girl tottered her way out of Red’s room. Her hair all over the place, ragged and streaming like fire away from her as though she some cavewoman coming out into the light. Her thick makeup smeared and her clothes dishevelled. She stumbled in high heels, attempting to walk.

Mr White gave it a couple more hours of masturbating and staring sickly at the ceiling before he knocked on Red’s door and, after no answer, pushed it open. Red was naked and sprawled face down, a bundle of bedsheets completely covering his head and nothing else. A stained dildo was standing stiff to attention on the windowsill, proudly warming itself to the morning.

Red.

Silence.

Red. Mr White gave him a tentative poke. Red.

The bundle turned and affixed him like a faceless head of sheets only could.

Are you okay?

Red raised his hands up and tussled with the sheets. Mr White waited patiently until Red finally managed to pull them off his head, his blonde hair sticking in all directions like a wild man. A face looked at him bleary and confused.

Are you okay?

Red’s red eyes looked above Mr White and to the sides of Mr White and at his feet, and then, as if the brain suddenly jerked into action, did a roll off the bed away from him, taking the sheets with him.

There was a rustle for a few seconds and Red stood up with the sheets tied around his midriff. He looked down at the bed and behind him at the dildo and then back at Mr White.

Ahoy.

Good morning. How are you?

Fuckin . . . great. He looked about the room as if seeing it for the first time. This is where I live?

This is where we’re staying right now. Are you sure you’re fine?

Yes, yes. Just wakin up. How are you? Never mind, he interrupted, before Mr White could answer. Come back in . . . His eyes rolled about and he closed his eyes tight for several seconds and swayed a little. In an hour. I need to drown myself. I smell like ass.

I thought you liked the smell.

It has its time and place.

I’ll come back in an hour then.

You do that.

The bathroom is over there.

I got it.

‘Member that girl last night? Red grunted as he shoved his feet unceremoniously into his cowboy boots. He was clean now and fed and his eyes were brighter. He was looking about less like he’d only just been born into the world.

Do you?

I weren’t that drunk man. Well, not at that point. Goddamn, she were a one though weren’t she. What a mouth on her.

I think you did most of the talking.

Oh, talkin, yeah. Red winked, but this was lost on Mr White.

You must agree you do kind of objectify women, though, Mr White said, after a hesitation.

Red snorted. Of course I do! No shit.

Um. Mr White was a bit taken aback.

Red looked at him. Objectifuckinfication is lust’s own road amigo. That’s the way it’s gotta be done. You see, he added, standing to buckle his hanging belt, When it really gets down to it, that’s just what sex is. When I’m fuckin a girl, I don’t give two fucks about her degree in fucking socio-economics or whatever the fuck. I’m not fuckin interested in her pets, her politics, her favourite music, what makes her laugh, what makes her sad. All that stuff is thrown out the window when you’re behind her, on toppa her. Under her.

But still –

Still nothin. People are objectified all the time, just in different senses. Like, write a test or somethin for somebody and you’re an academic object, y’know? Asked for money by some shit and you’re a . . . a fuckin financial object. Come to me, you’re a goddamn sex object. I’m not sayin that’s all you are, but you see, that’s all you are at that particular fuckin moment. Cause that’s what’s practical. You can’t have all that other stuff buzzin about, it just ain’t relevant and it fuckin convolutes. You can’t manage all that shit at once. It’s as natural as it comes to objectify a human body, it’s just people get all hot up thinkin it’s some bad thing. It ain’t. It’s just a way of goin. You look up at some beast heavin on toppa you, your face all disgusted – that’s negative fuckin objectification. Positive objectification – now that’s the goddamn road to lust, no two ways about it. You can’t help but hold certain opinions on the other body huffin and puffin about you. What, you’re thinkin of buying her flowers so you can see that pretty little smile and warm her little heart? You’re having some bad sex right there man.

What about making love? Mr White realised Red seemed to gain a whole new level of philosophical thought and vocabulary when it came to his favourite subject.

Red shrugged, looking at the ground. Different side to the same coin I reckon. I ain’t got much knowhow in that area, it ain’t the way I roll. It ain’t the way I see it done nor wanna see it done. Hell even if I loved some broad I would wanna keep the sex disgraceful. My cock, is that feelin love? Is my rock hard fuckin cock pumpin in and out till it comes feelin all lovely dovey? Love don’t give you an erection.

Mr White smiled at the statement, his cheeks reddening a little. So, it’s not really about people then? It’s all physical?

Kinda, kinda, Red nodded. Well, no. It’s more than half psychological – that’s how you get the best orgasms. But it’s very narrow, like fantasy thoughts, based on just like cutouts of the person in front of you, I guess. Like they’re some character in your head, some cartoon of depravity. I dunno, I guess it changes. But there’s certainly a lot of shit you leave outta the equation. A girl’s IQ never did turn me on. But then again, I ain’t attracted to “people”, as such. Red used air quotes around the word, raising his eyes as if it was a make-believe concept. Well, attracted yeah, but not sexually. I’m attracted to body parts, not people. Not real people. I dunno. People in my head. People in their head. Pretend people with real bodies. It’s all a, all a –

Are you including male body parts?

Red shifted on his feet, and moved to the mirror to sort his hair, his back to Mr White. Well, no. Girls got much more interestin body parts than guys. Guys only got one, girls got . . . He counted off on his fingers, mouthing the numbers. Seven? I dunno. A girl could have the personality all-over of a guy and it wouldn’t phase me. Could I even fuckin tell the difference? It’s all about the body when it’s where it matters.

Including guys now girls?

Course. It’s done pretty good these days.

What if that one good guy part remained?

Red shrugged. Sure. Plenty of places to stick it. For me to stick it. In him. Her. Fuck’s sake, he laughed. And I know what you’d say – ditch the rest, is that one guy part enough? It ain’t pretty the rest of it, so that one part really gotta live up. Gotta be some real distance between the impressiveness of that part and the girl-ness of the rest. Prob’ly. I guess I ain’t thought it through too much, Red lied. But hell, I’m sober right now! Who knows what rum will bring me one day.

Red finished rustling his hair into a carefully messy position suitable to his tastes and looked at himself in the mirror, admiring his reflection. Damn, he said. Right, to the bar?

Again?

Red smiled.

STREET

In the end Red went to the bar on his own. Mr White had declared that he felt too ill and tired, just not up for it at all, and after a bout of persuasion to go anyway, involving such convincing lines as “but you’ll miss out on all the tits man”, Red had finally given up and gone by himself. Mr White had apologised numerous times but Red had rolled his eyes and swatted them away and told him that it was cool, no worries. He might be back tonight, he might not.

Mr White would find that sitting in a scummy hotel room by himself without anything to do might be in fact worse than a repeat visit to the bar and another adventure in feeling sick. But he was full of exhaustion and his stomach gurgled unhappily and so he stopped himself going out after Red and sat on the bed thinking and ordering room service. After that all that remained to do was while away the hours through endless masturbation.

Night fell on the world and Red was outside to bathe in the blackness. He had been kicked out of the bar for falling over and accidentally knocking and smashing other patrons’ drinks, and for hassling women, including reaching over the bar to squeeze the chest of the bartender, declaring his tip was for her to take her top off. These slights might have been forgivable if he been able to operate his wallet, or if its contents had advertised themselves promisingly. Without money, nothing was allowed. The world and its inhabitants were only freely used and abused to the rich.

I like ruinin their sanctity, Red said, slurring slightly. He was just outside the bar, next to a homeless drunk wrapped up in coats and cardboard. The man had remained confused and mute to Red’s ramblings, not that it had stopped him from continuing, expostulating on his sexual proclivities to the man-shaped sounding board. Listening and not understanding.

I like rippin them off that fuckin pedestal, said Red. With all their thoughts and intelligence and – and pride and confusion and principles and shit, and reducin them to this gibberin mess, y’know, this stupid mewlin, thrashin animal.

Red coughed and waved his hands as if weaving patterns in the air. Stupid and senseless. Covered in shit and cum and piss and cryin for more. You know man, if you make someone horny enough, if you take them right to the fuckin edge and over it, you can make them do anythin. Fuckin anythin.

The drunk stared at him. He stared down at his own sick on his ragged shirt and then with unfocused eyes he looked back at Red.

I’ve made girls eat their own shit, Red continued. He staggered a little and then righted himself. Like, respectable girls. Give me long enough alone with em and I could make most do it, I can make em do things that’d make em puke if they thought of it sober. That’s sober from sexual delirium, see. They don’t need to be drunk . . . though that can sure speed things along a bit.

The homeless man shivered and shook his head, shook his head to the world.

Red finished his cigarette and stubbed it out on the wall. I’m gonna go man, gonna find another bar, another home, y’know?

The man watched him leave through blurry eyes, and pulled the pieces of cardboard closer around him.

Red found another bar and made acquaintances with it. He ordered more drinks and the bartenders served him placebos, non-alcoholic drinks disguised as alcohol, but he was in too much of a carefree state to realise. He left his drinks after only a few mouthfuls and forgot to go back to them for the rest of the night, engaged as he was in smutty conversation with a giggling gaggle of teenage girls, dressed as near to his satisfaction as he could reasonably ask for. They found him entertaining in his casual crudeness and clustered around him, prompting him for a good hour for more obscene answers to sexual questions, which he was more than happy to provide. Whether they thought him a mere clown or not did not much enter his appreciation of the scenario, delighted as he was with their exposed cleavages jiggling as they laughed, and watching their pert and fleshy young rears protruding from their tiny skirts and skin-tight pants as they left the throng to go to the bathroom.

Eventually, though, most of them got bored with his words and antics and wandered off to entertain themselves elsewhere. Most, not all.

A shadow appeared on his right, and Red sensed some presence of something not quite human, or at least nothing like him. He turned his head drunkenly, his cock still lodged in the girl’s asshole. Standing softly lit by an overhead lamp was a cop.

It was wearing the unique badge and insignia of the district, nothing interesting, no artist’s design. Black on black and numbered, robotic. Its uniform gleamed, polished, emotionless. Faceless. Genderless. Red assumed there was some expression behind the faceplate, but it was a difficult idea to keep a firm grasp of. The form before him betrayed nothing. It did not shift on its feet or tap its fingers or fold its arms. It did not seem capable of sympathy, did not seem like it could be reasoned or bargained with. It would be like pleading to a machine. Such was the intended effect.

How old is this female? The question was barked and the voice artificially distorted and processed, as though talking through a computer.

The girl span her head, shocked out of her own pleasure. Her form twitched and it made Red’s cock jump inside her. She quickly drew breath in a manner not completely dissimilar to being anally penetrated but she said nothing and they stayed locked together. It was too late to pretend otherwise. Red thought, perhaps, objectionable goods were best hidden.

Seventeen, he lied calmly.

The age of consent here is twenty-five.

That’s what I said, twenny-five.

The cop raised its stick and put its black gloved hand down to its gunbelt as if anticipating trouble. I’m taking you under arrest.

I’m on board with you there, officer. Red spun his cat grin and his head lolled back.

The cop approached, hands moving to its belt to withdraw handcuffs. Red pulled out of the girl, relishing as always in the sigh as she was evacuated, and moved his hand to the end of his cock as it came out into the shadows and he curled his fingers and threw something at the cop which hit the faceplate and stuck. The black gloved hands went up and Red was off, dodging gunshots, his jeans held up with one hand and his half-erect cock still out, pointing and swinging like a broken signpost into the darkness.

Corners after corners turned, backstreets run down, hiding in the gaps in old buildings and inside porn shops and moving again, furtive and paranoid, and hiding in a dumpster and then out, walking until he felt safe, safe enough, and here he was, tired and drunk and denied his sexual release. The adrenaline was wearing off and he felt a little sick.

He lay in a gutter, on his back looking up at the stars. The points of light beckoned to him, flirted with him, looked sadly down at him and he looked dumbly back at them. A light breeze whispered over his face, his eyes watered a little. A couple, hand in hand, stepped over him, temporarily blocking out his view. A few women walked towards his splayed out form and then walked past. His eyes flicked onto their faces but they were conservatively dressed and unattractive and he turned his eyes back to the stars before he could meet their glances of disdain. His hand moved to his groin but it was too much effort and he let his hand flop back to the ground. He tried once more, and flopped once more, theatrical in his drunkenness.

He tried to recall what things used to be like, so many years ago, but it was like thinking of someone else, some young boy who was not him and who was only a fiction. He knew vaguely that this wasn’t always the way, that there were things before, things to grab onto and not let go. As they were stolen from him, as his childhood was taken by the world, he had had to find something new. The fancies of a kid were no longer appropriate in an adult world. There had to be something an adult could cling onto, could desire and nurture and fantasise about – and there was, and he had found it, and it had erased almost everything else in him.

Nothing else could arouse in him such interest, such excitement, such love for the real world. He was the hedonist among hedonists. The pervert god.

The dreams of old, the dreams of the young had become off-limits, barred by squirming pink tentacles, puckering and oozing and wet with juices. His dreams, his desires and ambitions were now all lurid, obscene, full of heat and weeping fury. Passion so intense it could break you down, make you cry, rip yourself apart, rip another apart. Passion to kill. An intimacy so depraved, so sickly, so sick, that it rushed through your body like magma, taking control of everything, making you sweat lust, unfocusing your vision, turning you inside out, turned you vacant, pig meat to rut, to feel a crazed obsession, pounding, pounding his heart faster and faster until it hummed, until it burst, until it bled all over his insides and the blood melded with the rest of the magma and steamed and hissed and the steam blurred out his eyes.

There was nothing like it. He became an animal, a higher being, a holy spirit – a devil guiding the flesh. Writhing and thrusting, commanding and obeying, feeling, connecting, joining, creating and destroying, he touched at the coattails of raw power. To be godlike in his godlessness.

It was all there was, for there was nothing else left to him. He was just thankful that all there was was just enough.

Two hours later and a slightly sobered up Red had met up with Mr White back at the hotel and convinced him to leave. Red had assured him of the fun to be had in District Ten, despite acknowledging that there was only a single, prime illegal, that being (here he muttered under his breath) a ban on all anal activity. Not that conducting themselves in this otherwise tolerant district could possibly be relaxing what with Red being such a connoisseur of the excretory side of life. But Mr White was happy to follow him wherever he led them, and he did so. Red was insistent not to dally around, not even stop for a bite to eat, and Mr White found himself having to walk faster than his usual in order to keep up to his pace, which eventually slowed the further they got from the area, though he continued to look about him like a twitching animal.

The streets slid on all sides as if they were on rails. Theatre backdrops turned on some hidden winch, a scenery on repeat, re-using buildings, trash, people.

They passed little cracked bulbs nestled in grating coming out brick walls with the bricks crumbling and broken. Some buildings looked as if they had suffered some air raid or street bombing and if anything they passed looked repaired it was work without effort or hope, as if the builders could not summon any care for anything in these streets. Everything was covered in graffiti. Most of it was people just making their mark, leaving a name and a guess at a date for who knew what day was what in Rule. Much of the graffiti was obscene and sordid and some of it was anti-authority and some of it was dark and cruel.

They passed steel bins left empty while rubbish and refuse of every kind was scattered everywhere, as if the bins themselves signalled some command to order that the people shunned. They passed the homeless or what seemed to be the homeless, though in this city they could be anybody. They sat or lay forlorn in clothes or bundled rags or naked and grimy. Some shivered and some sweated and many writhed on drugs or swayed on drink as if conducting some voodoo incantation to rid the street of its evils. Some of those sat were junkies and one or two were well-clothed and clean-shaven and this did not seem to matter. Some begged and were ignored, some didn’t beg and were ignored. By all except pushers and pimps, thieves and worse. Mr White saw them sidle up and sit down as if friends, to young women and men, to kids, to those well-dressed and those naked, to any and all, for even the ugly and old could be exploited, and perhaps in their desperation they were perfect for it. Mr White awkwardly gave a man with his hands out a few coins, and received a strange look from Red. The man looked at the coins in his hand as if they were foreign to him. He bit into one with what was left of his teeth and a tooth broke and his mouth bled over the coins. Another man came out of the shadows and they saw the glint of a blade and they left quickly while he kneeled down and close to the broke-tooth man.

Mr White followed Red close as he half-strut his stride and both their faces glowed in the light of the neon signs that hung crackling from anywhere they could be seen. Their faces were ultramarine in the hazy light of a peepshow theatre, and scarlet and bloody in the outside embrace of a porn shop. Their features flicked green with envy and yellow with sickness and every colour of the rainbow in a dozen different tints and bleeds. They passed drug dens and brothels and gun-shops and run-down emporiums selling things behind fortified counters to any customer with the money and neither would ask questions nor demand answers. They passed a bright pink lit window and above it was a pink sign of a pizza with red neon meatballs. They entered and bought pizza for that was all the food there was and it came cold and crusty and the meat on it was nothing they could recognise. Red bought them both some kind of liqueur which he glugged and Mr White sipped slowly. Red told Mr White not to make any eye contact with any of the other patrons of the takeaway, to not even look at them, and Mr White replied that he would not even consider it.

They left and continued on to the border between District Seven and Ten. Only once did they pass a cop and it did not harass them nor harass anybody else. They could not see its face hidden as it was behind its helmet but its manner of walking and how it stayed in the light and how its head moved from side to side but too quick to examine anything gave the impression of nervousness, as if it knew its continued solitary existence in these streets had even more tentative a future than those prostitutes and homeless addicts. They did see a number of drones, and heard even more, to the point that the buzzing cat-purrs that crept up on them and then past or were hidden behind walls or flying above them along rooftops or down in the sewers beneath their feet became no more an event than their own breathing.

Nearly there hombre, said Red, as they passed though the darkness under a small dilapidated bridge that leaked some dark fluid from its bones. Mr White thought a few drops hit his shoes but he did not stop to check. The lights were less now and as he flicked his eyes quickly at the people in the street they seemed full of cruelty. He did not dare look at their faces and this gave them an absence of humanity, if there was even any there. He saw Red look at some of the bodies of the girls but he was looking less and less and whether this was due to a dropping quality or apprehension or weariness on Red’s part was unknown. Mr White saw a woman in leather straps and netting and something that looked like barbed wire around her crotch lean out of a doorway at their approach. She had a huge exposed cleavage and her lips were bulbous and sticky red, pumped so fat that they seemed to command her whole face. He looked at Red and Red must have seen her first because without turning his head he shook his head emphatically and they walked on.

Mr White shivered and he finished the last of his liqueur which tasted of rotten fruit but all synthetic and shook full of sugar. He wondered aloud where the next bin was for he had not seen one in some time. Red told him to drop it on the street and after a hesitation Mr White placed it down as near the side of the street as he dared go and then hurried back. They passed a middle-aged woman in furs being sick onto the side of a grey-brick building without windows or doors. Her face was pale and blue and Mr White looked for the light but it was not blue but white.

Should we help her? Mr White whispered as they drew level.

I think you know the answer to that one man, said Red, and Mr White already did.

On both sides of his vision were alleyways and small side streets shrouded in the thickest blackness, both full and empty, like beckoning voids, each one seeming a shortcut to oblivion. As though if he ventured down any he would never be seen again. He heard a gunshot from one and then silence and from another a scream and then silence. Both seemed to come from some other world hidden from his eyes, as though the blackness did not contain such dangers but was merely the gateway, and once you passed through you ceased to be part of this world and would be forever lost. His mind seemed to draw him closer to these shadows, shifting his perspective from side to side, but his body stayed on track out of fear and automation and so it seemed like his mind was struggling to escape its bonds while the body stayed firm and the mind lurched out on its own like some drunken phantasm of the night. It splayed out left and right and tried to fly to the voids and the tether caught and it was pulled back, secretly glad, springing back to safety and full of the rush of terror avoided.

We’re here, announced Red abruptly.

Mr White looked ahead and saw a bright white light next to a long gate drawn across the road barring passage. As they walked closer they saw the cold light came from a checkpoint guarded over by six cops and two armoured drones and an automated machine gun that revolved on an axis to point to them as their motion was sensed. As at the Five-Seven checkpoint there was a matching outfit on the other side of the gate.

You know the drill, said Red. Answer their questions, don’t be a cunt, do the same on the other side, boom we’re through. The cop that caught me before didn’t get an ID.

A cop caught you? Mr White’s mouth dropped open.

Just for a second. It’s cool man, don’t worry about it.

Mr White did worry, and as they stepped up to the checkpoint all the shining black helmets of the cops were turned to them as were the drones and the machine gun span its barrel slowly as if held just at the point of firing.

Mr White took a deep breath and held it.

Are you holding your breath? The black helmet was turned to him and he saw his own reflection shine back at him.

No, said Mr White stiffly.

Red looked at him. He really ain’t.

The cop looked from one to the other. Names?

Jonathan White, said Red promptly.

Um, said Mr White.

Um? said the cop, pausing typing, its hands hovering over the keys.

Johnny Um, Mr White said, and swallowed. His face was growing hot.

The cop’s expression was invisible through the helmet. There was a long pause and then the cop tapped the keys and gave them their papers back.

You can breathe now, came the same flat electronic tones. Johnny Um.

Mr White tried to breathe out slowly through his nose but it all came rushing out at once and he gulped in air. The black helmet seemed to bore into him but all he could see was his own stupid face.

Move on, buzzed the cop, hands hovering once more on the keys, the rest of the body motionless. They moved on. Through a white door and into the checkpoint on the other side of the gate where they faced the same pointless process, and then they were out.