7

I couldn’t sleep on the cruddy prison mattress. My android cellmate sat up, his eyes glowing a faint orange in the subdued lighting. I rubbed my flesh eye with my flesh hand. A sheet would have been nice.

I ignored the stupid white sneakers. My bionic feet didn’t care if the floor was hard or cold. I ran the backs of my alloy fingers gently against the bars. I didn’t want to wake anyone else, but I needed sound. My cellmate certainly never made any.

“Just walk out,” the dwarf across the hall suggested, running thick, pale fingers through his impressive blond beard.

“Huh?”

“You heard me, boy.” He brushed at the sleeve of his shirt, too long for him and all he seemed to be wearing. If his leg hair were any thicker he could braid it. “You know this isn’t real. Walk out.”

The bars felt pretty real to me. Cool to my flesh hand and hard to both. I pulled, hard. Nothing happened. As expected.

“Not like that, boy,” the dwarf grumbled. “Turn around. Shut your eyes. And just step backwards.”

Stupid and pointless as it sounded, there didn’t seem to be any harm in it.

So I did.

And backed into a huge biker.

“Oh, sorry.” I meant it.

“Meh, don’ worry about it, mon,” he said in a Jamaican accent that matched with exactly nothing else about him.

I looked around the bar. I was supposed to meet someone, right? I was pretty sure I was, but I couldn’t remember who. Hopefully I’d know when I saw them, or they’d recognize me. Smoke hid most of the ceiling and wafted around the lights, casting a yellowish hue over everything. Sultry music guided a cat woman dancing on a small stage.

“Your shot,” the man in camouflage overalls and the mother of all black cowboy hats said as he handed me the cue stick. The guy was such a showoff, and he was probably sharking me.

I lined up the only shot available to me, the solid-green six. Any other shot would hit one of the rolled up hedgehogs. The shot itself was pretty clear, so maybe I had a chance afterall.

I felt the cue as it slid over my knuckles. It tickled. I hit the ball perfectly, just above center and not too hard. It collapsed as powdery white dust.

“Ooh, that’s gonna cost you,” a cigar-smoking elf leaning against a tree pointed out.

“Okay, now you have to take your shirt off,” gloated a woman in tight jeans and a blue lace bra the same color as her hair. She laughed, a musical laugh that pulled her head back, lengthening her neck.

What else could I do? I took off the khaki shirt, adding it to a waist-high pile of discards. Was I always this muscled?

She took me by the hand and led me to the door. A sweet, honey scent followed her.

We stepped out onto a tropical beach, where green water lapped against white sands and toucans wheeled in the air. The breeze was warm and salty and mixed well with the warmth of the suns on my skin. I breathed in the clean air, welcoming its freshness after the dank bar.

“Gretzl,” a burly android said by way of welcome. Two of his hands held a large tray of drinks. I could tell it was; text floated above it labeling it, “A tray of drinks.” At least it wasn’t “The tray of drinks.” That would have been creepy. One of his other arms pointed out a sign.

“NO FENURIANS”

“Huh?” I asked

“It's the fur,” she said, still holding my hand in hers. “It clogs up the plumbing.”

Ah, Fenurians were the feline race. Right. Obviously.

We walked through the sand, my metallic toes sinking into the super-fine sand deeper than her stiletto heels. The sand we kicked up drifted in the breeze like ash.

She led me to the edge of the water. It lapped over our feet, but I couldn’t feel it. She laughed as her jeans got wet. A taller wave splashed over, getting both of us nearly the waist. Her jeans clung even tighter, which I wouldn’t have thought possible. Maybe it was because the fabric was so thin.

With a laugh she stepped in front of me and turned around. Her lips were also the same blue as her hair and her nails, vibrant and rich, police officer blue.

She kissed me. It was a slow, long kiss that grew and grew in intensity. I stood speechless when she let me go.

“Stay right there,” she purred. “Whatever happens, don’t move.”

I turned to watch as she strutted up the sand, finally kicking off her blue stilettos.

And she danced, slow and lithe, with her hands up over her head. Her body was all curves and sinuous movement. A crowd gathered behind her to watch.

With just her thumbs she slipped her jeans down, teasing. One hip exposed and then covered for the other to be revealed. She turned in slow circles, edging the jeans a little lower with each seductive turn.

Faces in the crowd changed. Concerned frowning replaced lustful leering. Then widened eyes changed the frowns into quivering, slack-jawed terror.

“What, is this not allowed here?” I asked. We probably should have been in a room somewhere.

Her response was either a shrug incorporated into her dance or part of a shoulder roll that led her whole body in a slithery spiral. She looked right at me and smiled. And laughed.

People ran away, heading further up the beach, away from us. Panicked screams drowned out tropical songbirds and a cooing dragon nuzzling the sand.

I turned to the side to look out to sea, expecting a monstrous head or invading armada. At first all I could see was ocean. Until perspective helped, and I realized the ocean was not a field of rippling waves, but one colossal wave easily a hundred feet tall. And charging fast.

“We have to run!” I’m good at pointing out the obvious. How could she possibly have not noticed that?

She turned, but instead of running wriggled her butt, lowering her pants down below full, round cheeks. She left them there just long enough for me to notice a lack of underwear.

“Whyever would we do that?” she asked, now with a texas accent.

I couldn’t move. My feet were stuck. The ground was not sand, it was cement. Dry cement encased my feet fully; I was stuck facing sideways. I could look at the coming wave, or I could look at her. She unhooked the front of her bra and teased with it, never actually uncovering too much but each time suggesting she was about to

Roaring warned of the coming wave is coming, now faster and bigger. An aircraft carrier halfway up tipped over, spilling airplanes into the sea.

“You know it’s not real, right?” the pale, Nordic dwarf said. He drew a flaming sword and struck a heroic pose in his glistening chain mail.

“Is she real?” he asked, looking more serious. “Are you? I think the only thing real here is me.”