Peter Liu - Bald New World

“Who would you call?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

He held out his hand and in it was his phone.

“What’s that?” I asked.

“Make your calls.”

“What’s the catch?”

“There is no catch.”

“Are you setting me up?”

“For what?”

“I don’t know,” I replied, confused by his generosity.

“Make your calls.”

I took the phone, stared at him, then at Beauvoir. Tolstoy was tending to his crickets again while Beauvoir watched me with concerned eyes.

I tried to access my account’s phone list on a centralized computer, but the authentication wouldn’t go through. I didn’t remember my passwords because everything was hooked into my own phone which was long gone. I tried typing in numbers I’d memorized, called an old friend, Stan, who had often called me when he was having financial woes. “Stan, I’m in a lot of trouble.”

“Nick, I’d love to talk right now, but I’m in trouble with my girlfriend.”

“I thought you were married.”

“Exactly. Can we talk later?” Before I could reply, he hung up. I tried calling back but his phone was set to off.

I called four other friends and all of them were too busy for me with my friend Dominique being the biggest disappointment as he’d told me so many times, “You can always call me for anything.”

“You having trouble there?” Tolstoy asked.

Who else could I call? No other numbers came to mind. Except one.

Rebecca Lian with her 7s and 2s.

“Nick!” she exclaimed on the phone screen once the call patched through. “You finally got my messages.”

“What messages?”

“I tried calling after I saw the explosion on the news, but your phone kept on going to voicemail.”

The worry on her face surprised me. “I–I need help,” I said, desperate.

“Of course. What do you need?”

It took me a second to register her affirmative response. “I–I don’t have anything. I’m stuck in this place called Gamble Town.”

“I have you on the GPS. Just stay put.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m in Shanghai so I should be able to get there in an hour or two. Can I call you at this number?” I looked up at Tolstoy to confirm and he gave me the number of the hotel instead. She told me she’d be here soon.

I gave Tolstoy his phone back.

“Thank you,” I told him, sincerely meaning it.

He put his hands through his hair and the way it flowed off his fingers, I could have sworn it was real. “I know what it’s like to be enslaved. We’re all slaves in one way or another.”

There was a loud banging on the door. “Open the door!” I heard Dan shout. “Open the door right now! I want to see my investment!”

The guards answered and when the three of us went to meet him, Dan seemed surprised.

“What’s going on, man?” he demanded of me.

“I’m leaving,” I told him.

“What about our agreement?”

“The agreement is off.”

“You cheating sonuvabitch! What about the money I wasted on you? I’ll take this to the board! I’ll have you arrested and sent to debtors prison!”

Tolstoy was about to say something to the guards, but I put my hand on his forearm.

“We fight for it,” I said. “Your cricket against mine. If I lose, I’ll come back. But if I win, you go away. Tolstoy, could I borrow one of your crickets?”

He seemed amused. “Of course.”

Dan looked irritated as he fiddled with his fingers. His eyes kept on darting back and forth between the guards and me. He finally blew up. “We had an agreement! You can’t take that back!”

“He just challenged you,” Tolstoy said. “Either accept or get out of here before I have you thrown out.”

Dan’s eyes constricted. He was calculating in his head if he could do it.

“You’re going to regret this.” He sat down, taking out one of his crickets.

Tolstoy gave me one of his better fighters after jacking me into the interlink. The cricket was easy to control, being in top shape and brimming with hormones. He was ready to take on any combatant and attracted female crickets everywhere he went. I could smell the lust and envied him for being everything I was not. I shook my head, telling myself, I can’t afford to get distracted by jealousy for a cricket . I had to block out all thoughts — fear, longing, the desire for the things I didn’t have. Blank it out. There is no future or past. Only death for the weak .

Filters were essential for mental survival, swaths and gauges that acted as memory swipes for distractions and irrelevancies. Everything became irrelevant in death. Beauvoir put her hand on my shoulder, easing my shaking. My mind was getting dizzy and I knew this would be a fight of endurance. I reminded myself that Dan didn’t have the stomach to handle this too long. If I could just outlast him, even in my condition, I knew it would screw up his brain enough for him to have to surrender. Talent could sway things, but Dan was no pilot. I’d lived through too much to surrender here. When he plugged in, I saw his cricket and realized it was the one I’d used earlier. He was no match for Tolstoy’s cricket. My own was ready to attack, annoyed by the presence of this outsider who’d encroached upon his harem. Still, even with the physical advantage, my mental links felt shredded. The leaps and attacks were making my head feel scrambled. I was nauseous and my intestines were unraveling so they could crawl their way up my esophagus. Who is this stranger? How dare he try to take part of what I’ve fought so hard to earn? I leapt out but something held me back, an electric current making my membrane twitch. Something was commanding me to refrain. Six legs to march, hind legs to thrust. Everything smelled, especially this cricket that was trying to ram me. I knew he was hungry and didn’t have the will to fight. But Dan was driving him. I finally felt the grip on my muscles loosen as the sync went into place and charged the other, kicking him with a thrust to his torso. That knocked him back and I bit into his antennae to try to rip it off. He smelled of fear and death. I reveled in the miasma of violence that we both were waddling in. I tore the antennae off and bit into his face, ripping off the mask. He made a sharp shriek, tried to withdraw. I lunged onto his back and attacked his shell. Right when I was about to split his back apart, water doused my head. I blinked and was human again, only everything seemed globular and nebulous. Next to me was Beauvoir. I could smell every part of her and it aroused me. I grabbed her and bit into her neck, wanted to rip her clothes off and take her. My hands searched her body in maddening lust and I tore off the top of her dress. Her breasts felt like plums for me to squeeze and I bit into her chest, wanting to merge myself into her. “Don’t hurt him! He’s still synced!” someone sang. Was it her? Did she sing? But her voice was shrill. I could wing her a song, reverberate along my wings.

I couldn’t control my breathing, I wanted to ravish and consume her. She did not flinch, but clutched me tight, arms around me. There was a sharp pinch on my neck. The dizziness became circular before dancing away. I saw that blood looked a hundred times more crimson against her white skin. The intense smells dampened.

“Are you back with us? Nick. Are you back with us?”

I stared up at Beauvoir who was half-naked and looked more beautiful than any woman I’d ever seen. “I–I think so.”

I remembered the fight, remembered the crickets. Tolstoy was holding a syringe. They must have given me some kind of stimulant to break the sync. I looked over at Dan. Dan was on the ground in a seizure, his pupils where his lids were. Vomit and spittle were ramming their way out of the corner of his mouth. He was shaking in uneven tremors, his body a discombobulated mess.