Free SF in The City Anthology by Joshua Wilkinson

bottle of Scotch out from behind an unlabeled book. “The Minhocãos were in here earlier for some Cloaking Advice. Now they only have four members, and best of all…no guns. I’ll tell you where they will be tomorrow night. If a…unfortunate ambush were to take place…you would pop up on sponsors’ radar again.”
    “We appreciate your help Humberto. You’ve always been a good friend!” Norn shook the man’s hand.
    “Don’t worry about it, just buy some of my product,” Umwelt laughed.
    “Well, you know that I’ve been clean these last few months,” Vox said. “I would rather not break that streak.”
    “Same here,” Norn said regretfully.
    “Well, I’ll buy enough for the both of them,” Probably set a half dozen bottles of Wag on the counter, “even if it kills me.”
    “Please use some self-restraint when using this,” Umwelt swiped the boy’s cred card. “I never like to lose paying customers. Speaking of which, I might know of a job for you Charlisle – a legit job.”
                  “Well that would be a first,” the youth sat back in one of the shop’s padded seats.
    “Some CA goons were in here the other night to buy up my entire Clack supply. One of them said that if I knew any hackers, their division was looking for a consultant. Apparently someone has been breaking into gray boxes all over the Gorse.”
    “Really?” Charlisle shook his head. Gray boxes were routing points for mental calls. If someone could actually hack into them, which he had never heard of in this part of The City, they could access the data passing between callers’ minds. The possibilities for such a hack were endless!
    “Next time you see those men, tell them that I would be glad to work with them,” Charlisle said.
    ***
    After the boys had bought their goods, they decided to visit the Culture Center and catch the day’s performance. If he did Wag beforehand, Probably’s tail bone would vibrate like crazy during a musical presentation. The Culture Center did not serve its own refreshments, so the Dingoneks stopped by a vending machine on the way there.
     
    Charlisle laughed and shook his head as they approached the drink dispensing apparatus. It used holograms to indicate its choices rather than using glass. The manufacturers had lost enough products to baseball bat wielding “Gorsers.” Of course, their computerized system could be easily fooled by a fake cred card. Charlisle swiped a counterfeit card, marked with a red marker so he wouldn’t forget, and purchased five drinks with a Trojan bank account, giving the machine the appearance of uploaded ECUs.
    Norn and Charlisle each “bought” a can of Semtex, while Probably had a Fioravanti, and Vox chose Sinalco Orange. Nettles had a history of bladder problems, so he asked for a bottle of “Quenchify.” For someone who didn’t believe they could sit through a two hour program without a restroom break, this drink filled the niche. With a specially designed “smart liquid,” 100% of Quenchify would exit the body as sweat after consumption, so drinkers of this product could enjoy the taste of a soft drink, without being restrained by their bladders. Of course, that didn’t stop the rest of the gang from giving Nettles a hard time about his problem .
    They also made a last minute decision to go out of their way to pick up some food before attending the show. A woman named Grace Sequelae lived close by, and she put out a bag of chocolate chip cookies on her ground floor apartment’s windowsill every day. Charlisle and his friends never understood this idiosyncrasy, even when she explained to them that it made her feel better helping those less fortunate than her.
    Was she out of her mind? She lived in abject poverty. Who did she consider less well off? Grace had told them that she followed a man named Christ, who apparently died but wasn’t dead. She tried to explain her religious beliefs to them, but they had only laughed at her.