Serves him right if that’s the best he can project. Someone should tell him he could look any way he wants.
My brazen etiquette violation earned some raised eyebrows, and the party was feeling way too crowded, so I decided on further anti-social behavior and I flipped my pssi off at everyone. The lush environment of the metaworld projection immediately disappeared as I slipped into identity mode and the featureless confines of the small, rectangular room we were actually in appeared around me.
That feels better. I took another gulp of my drink, feeling refreshed as my own senses connected me to the world, everything taking on a colorful sheen. On the other hand, that could be the ecstasy kicking in. The few people who remained in the small room were mostly in a corner near Nicky, still chatting with Cindy Strong, who was now cradling empty space in her arms.
Nicky looked over, her eyes flashing at me.
I imagined knives shooting forth from her, pinning me helplessly and gorily to the wall before a crushing shockwave of disappointment finished me off in a splatter of social distortion. The ferocity of the image compelled me to click my pssi back on, and the hubbub of party re-saturated my senses. Luckily, what I’d felt before was the MDMA, so I felt much happier about everything, on the whole.
By that point, Nicky was completely pissed. She grabbed me by the arm, pulling me around the corner and into the hallway where we could be alone. Sort of alone—my dimstim stats instantly shot up as the social cloud sensed my mood and the coming fight.
“I thought you said you wanted to come here! You’re embarrassing me. Can I ask you a question? Are you stoned again? Can you shut off your fucking dimstim for a minute, please?”
“That’s two questions.” I shrugged. “And no to both of them. Sweetie, my dimstim is my work, my bread and butter, and good or bad, I can’t just shut it off.” I tried to smile winningly at her.
She stared at me in silence.
“Okay, yes, I am a little stoned,” I admitted.
She rolled her eyes. “How can you call that stupid dimstim work? And this thing with your brother.… ”
With a hidden phantom, I dialed up a Dragon skin when she wasn’t looking. “My dimstim’s how we met. Don’t knock it, and don’t bring my brother into this!” Narrowing my eyes, I added, “And at least I work.”
She’d annoyed me now, so I was purposely pushing Nicky’s biggest button. This was going to be good. She didn’t like being reminded she was daddy’s little girl.
“Bob, all you do is sit around all day playing games, or simulating vacation time for a bunch of meta-perves,” she snarled as her voice gathered momentum.
The Dragon skin began to take hold. Her eyes flashed at me while her face and upper body began to morph into a cartoonish and slightly frightening form in my display space.
“At least I make my own money,” I pointed out.
At that moment, I couldn’t help letting out an enormous yawn right in her face, which really set her off. What else had I taken? It couldn’t have been the ecstasy—that didn’t usually make me yawn. Or wait, had I taken some mushrooms before as well? That must be it. Or was it acid? Was I candy-flipping or hippy-flipping? I frowned, trying to remember.
“Let me FINISH!” she barked, barely containing herself.
The Dragon skin was working itself up nicely now. Her eyes bulged out as her neck elongated and sprouted a row of ridges. Her skin took on a distinctly scaly texture.
“The only reason your stupid dimstim makes any money is because I let you have sex with me on it. I swear to God I have no idea what I was thinking.… ”
I began to shrink a little from the Dragon, but couldn’t help goading her.
“Oh yeah, all my success is only due to the fabulous Nicky.”
Holy smokes. The Dragon skin was amazingly scary when you were stoned. I shook my head and started laughing.
“STOP cutting me off!” she screamed.
She always had quite the temper. Her eyes had now bulged outward into huge melon-sized orbs with slatted cat pupils, and her head was bobbing side to side on a long neck that grew outward from her blouse, while a great, gray-pimpled snout sprouted from where her nose had been.
Fangs menaced.
Smoke began to curl from nostrils.
Fireballs spewed from her mouth.
And I cowered, giggling.
“Do you have that goddamn Dragon skin on? Jesus, Bob!”
With that she turned tail, literally, and angrily stomped past me to storm out of the party. She left little burning patches behind her in the carpet.
“Nice.”
It was Sid. He’d been ghosting the dimstim version of events and now stood leaning on the wall of the hallway. I guess he’d already been killed in the battle I was watching. He laughed and shook his head.
“I’m not sure that’s the way to hold down a relationship.”
“Ah, she wasn’t the one, and anyway, she’s the one that chased me down.”
“Women—they always think they can change you, huh?”
“I guess.”
A pause while we looked at each other.
“Ready for some skin shopping?” I asked. I needed to get out of there.
“We’re going skin shopping?”
“Yes, my friend, I have decided my skin closet needs refreshing.”
As great as it was, the Dragon was getting old, plus it would be sad to use the Dragon on any girl after Nicky. I needed a new mythical creature with which to annoy the next woman in my life—I had a feeling Nicky wasn’t coming back anytime soon.
Sid shrugged. “Sure. Why not?”
I sent a quick apology note about my little spat to Rick and Cindy, and as we flitted out, I heard Sid asking, “What skins did you have in mind?”
We appeared in what, for all intents and purposes, looked like a shoe store in 1920’s London, somewhere off Saville Row. Little boxes, whose covers danced with images and logos, lined the walls and aisles, and a smarmy synthetic salesman glided up to us.
“What can I do for you boys?” he asked, smiling.
“I don’t know, not sure.” My head wobbled on my neck. “What have you got that’s new?”
He looked us up and down. “You looking to skin up, or to skin out?”
“Either way, or both, just show us anything new,” replied Sid. Seeing my eyes swimming, he added, “And hurry up, please.”
“Hmmm,” noted the salesthing as he put one hand to his chin. With the other he began swiping the wall, and the little boxes swept left and right and up and down at a blurring pace.
“We’ve got some new designer skins that do a great job of making everyone look good naked,” he began.
Both Sid and I rolled our eyes.
“You’re right, boring. How about this—more subtle—we’ve got some nice intelligence skins that make you look and act smarter.”
“Thanks, buddy.” I frowned. “What are you getting at?”
“Nothing at all. How about this then?” He pointed to some animals charging across a grassy plain. “We have a great new Skins of Asia line. The Snow Leopard is all the rage.… ”
“Nah, no animal stuff.”
“How about something more clever, then? We have some that read your cognitive profile and make subtle changes to your wife or girlfriend to make them—”
Sid cut him off. “No wife or girlfriend stuff, please.”
Smarmy the Salesman tapped his finger to his mouth as he simulated thinking. “Okay, boys, I have something really special—it’s our new top seller.”
My interest piqued. “Go on, my smarmy friend.”