Free Dr. Identity by D. Harlan Wilson Page A

and pointed at its crotch. “We’ve got enough space between us in here to carry a small army—literally. The pockets in these pants are de la Footwa’s Black Holes. Didn’t you know? It’s my understanding that Beesuppies are delivered into existence readymade with de la Footwa’s sewn in their dress pants. They’ve got a lot to hide, after all. You might want to check your pockets. On the way over here I found a few questionable objects in mine.”
    De la Footwa’s Black Holes. I’d heard of them. But I’d never really believed in them, if for nothing else than they were far too expensive to afford on a plaquedemic’s salary, no matter how distinguished you were in the Biz. According to their inventor, Jean-Claude Baudelaire Hillary Wapakoneta de la Footwa, they were inspired by an old cartoon show called Henri Hackensack starring a German “curt jester” of the same name who had a bad habit of arbitrarily pulling entire alternate realities out of his navel. The pockets molecularized all material objects you put inside of them, and when you took the objects out, the pockets molarized them back to their original form. Some versions even had room for psychic storage in the event that a wearer experienced an overload of schizophrenic personalities, a common experience in Bliptown. In fact, I discovered a discarded personality when I reached into one of the pockets. I gripped it by the mane and pulled it out. It looked like Benito Mussolini with its big head and commanding overlip, only after the Italian tyrant had been executed: one side of its face was melted off and there were gaping bullet holes in its chest. The personality shouted something in Schizospeak and ran off. Other items I removed from my pockets included a leatherbound steering wheel, a tennis racket, a set of golf clubs, a briefcase (full of Saltines and miniature packages of peanut butter), a file drawer (full of dirty vidzines), and the corpses of two dogs, one a bloodhound, the other a teacup Yorkshire terrier. All of this baggage was filthy, stained in blood and dirt, and slick with ectoplasm. I tossed the items on the floor one by one.
    A trashcan standing at attention on the ledge of a catwalk four stories above us caught sight of the mess. It dove off of its perch, jetted down to Dr. Identity and me, devoured and digested the contents of the Beesuppie’s pockets in one great vaporizing inhale, scolded me for being a litterbug, informed us that it had been watching our movements, warned us that we only had a few minutes left before being found guilty of not buying anything, and finally disappeared into a trap door that suddenly opened beneath it.
    I looked at Dr. Identity.
    “Don’t give me that look. I didn’t do anything to deserve that look.”
    I raised my voice. “You didn’t do anything? Are you kidding me?”
    “Yes. Let’s get to work.” Cool and businesslike, it started taking weapons off the shelves and shoving them into its pockets. Its movements fell somewhere between realtime and fasttime. Whenever a weapon vanished into the obscurity of the android’s pockets, it fizzled out in a puff of holographic sparks. “Not much time to waste,” it added without pausing. “I sense a shitstorm about to break.”
    Traffic in the aisle was nominal. Just a few grandmothers snailing here and there interrupted by the occasional wolfpack of teenagers. Nobody minded anything but themselves and their shopperly duties. But that didn’t matter. The Babettas were what we had to worry about. And the Bug-Eyed Monsters. Despite the speed with which it played thief, Dr. Identity was in all likelihood already being clocked by some extension of Littleoldladyville’s surveillance system. It was only a matter of seconds before the proverbial dogs were set on us.
    I tried to map out how things would go down. I had a little fighting experience and knew how to swing a blade—like most boys, I spent virtually all of my early adolescent spare time