Chapter 3, Part 3

hannah
Seconds after Jacobson shook me awake, everything went to hell. I guessed we were wherever the Private Eye said to go, but beyond that I had no idea where we were- and then a black car came out of nowhere and people started shouting and running and I saw Thomas and he looked like he’d [...]

Chapter 3, Part 2

bleakly
Wait.
Okay, that was a lie.
I heard murmurs.
Perhaps I was approaching the situation from the wrong angle.
It was simple, really. Everyone in the room was a lizard-person, after all.
Wait- what?
Yes, they were all lizard-people.  Lizard people have one great weakness:
Their eyes.
The two lizards looking down at me hissed like hot coals the second I opened my [...]

Chapter 3, Part 1

bleakly
I was being carried. Every part of me was tingling and I had trouble putting one thought in front of another. I almost wished I had all my old problems.

My non-acquaintance the monologuer was very busy yelling at someone at about the point I’d recovered enough of myself to hear.“We’ve got no use for him [...]

Chapter 2, Part 8

jacobson
I did my best to calm and comfort her. I made tea, brought a blanket in from my car, and began mentally compiling any scrap of information that could help me figure out exactly what was wrong with Thomas. She finished telling me what she knew over a cup of tea. She told me everything- [...]

Chapter 2, Part 7

bleakly
I didn’t wake up. The reason I didn’t wake up is that I wasn’t dreaming to begin with.
So I’m an idiot. I made it worse. I… I guess hallucinations don’t work like I thought they did?
Because the amount of control I have on reality is… excuse me, I’m trying to talk. It’s very rude of [...]

Chapter 2, Part 6

bleakly
To start with, I decided to build a tolerance to hallucinogens. And not a physical tolerance, either- I was going to build a psychic tolerance. My brain was going to be hallucination-proof. Iron-clad. I was not going to lose hold of reality… at least, not of a reality. I just needed consistency. If I was [...]

Chapter 2, Part 5

bleakly
Forty-eight hours later:
I’m not entirely sure what I was doing beneath a bridge with a car battery in my lap and a jumper cable attached to one ear, but I’m guessing either it was my idea of therapy or else I was trying to burn out the ‘collar, and since just thinking about the latter [...]

Chapter 2, Part 4

bleakly
I was holed up in one of the few places I knew I would be really safe. I was in the dirtiest part of the city’s worst slum, where there are just two types of people who don’t get ripped off and torn apart: the synth-juicers with arms bigger around than my chest… and the [...]

Chapter 2, Part 3

hannah

I stayed up ’till three in the morning, partly because I couldn’t sleep, and partly because I had a premonition that Bleakly might call at such an hour.
At three forty-five my phone rang.

Chapter 2, Part 2

bleakly

“Do you know why they outlawed the ShockCollar, Bleakly?”

At this point, I’m pretty sure my brain was on “Record-only” mode. I didn’t respond. I didn’t want to respond. I was having a pretty bad day, and for me… for me, that’s saying a lot. ‘I was having a bad day,” said the guy for whom [...]

Chapter 2, Part 1

bleakly
I always loved the conveyor sidewalks. I mean, sure, they were outside and you could hardly breathe out there those days, and half the time they were under maintenance- but it really was the only way to see the city. Under the skyscrapers, you looked up at the sky, and on the off chance the [...]

Chapter 1, part 6

hannah
At first I thought he was standing me up. I’d been waiting at Sharkney’s for over an hour and had just decided to leave and call the cops when he strutted in looking more than a little pleased with himself.
“Where the hell have you been- oh my god, what happened?” He had a black eye [...]

Chapter 1, Part 5

bleakly

Walking this city’s littered streets under its brown-gray sky is, like I said, my favorite part of a case. Now, I’m not saying it wasn’t miserable or dangerous. It’s just that this was the part where the bad guys were the thugs holding the guns. The simple part. Everything nice and clear-cut, no moral ambiguity– [...]

Chapter 1, Part 4

hannah

In all honesty I wasn’t sure what to expect when I walked into his office. I’d heard everything about him- that he was insane. That he talked to himself. That he suffered delusions of grandeur and persecution.
That he was the fucking best.
 
 

Chapter 1, Part 3

bleakly
I fumbled around in my desk, working through the clutter to find my pen and well-worn notebook.
“Take it from the top, toots,” I said, riffling past the used pages and readying my pen.