Chapter Three—The Blue Phoenix Strip Club

John followed Kyle into the Blue Phoenix and down a murky corridor strewn with trash, graffiti and junkies who were more a part of the décor than they were patrons at this point.

Kyle opened another door that lead to the dance floor. The music, an aggressive beat of psychedelic mania that you’d need to be on something to enjoy blared out and assaulted him.

The dancers were packed, flinging their arms and bodies about in a wild rave dance.

I hate clubs, he thought, making no visible sign that he was out of sorts do to this seedy environment. Why Kyle likes these places, he couldn’t say.

John fell back, allowing Kyle to put some distance between them as he walked across the dance floor, dodging party goers. He swore Kyle had slightly more bounce in his step than usual.

Being rather large, John had trouble making his way through the morass of undulating bodies. The stench of booze and sweat filled his nostrils as he moved along the outskirts of the pit where pink and green lasers slashed through the audience.

He glanced toward the raised platform in the center, where the pole dancers twirled summersaults, spread their legs and took cash from patrons in the front row. Then one of the dancers, a hot blond, looked straight at him, blew a kiss and shook her tits him.

The distraction made him bump into someone.

“Hey! Watch it!”

“Oh. Sorry—I’m sorry,” he said, raising a hand as he skirted along. “Skirted” was hardly the word for it when he was a good foot taller than the woman he had just come into contact with.

No distractions!

Where was Kyle?

John looked about, felt a tinge of worry, but then finally caught sight of his friend, known as Max to the world as he met some punked-out club goer. Almost subconsciously, John felt for the weapon under his jacket, just to make sure.

If anything went down, he could be out and shooting in half a heartbeat. If the cops busted through the doors, John would most certainly put some spray down.

He stopped, glanced about for any signs of trouble. After doing this for nearly five minutes, he felt satisfied and made his way to the alcove of leather seats where they were speaking.

“Now listen,” the guy was saying, “you have to input the chip at the front console in the main receptacle as the new vid loop is connected via electrical charge. Got it?”

“Got it,” Kyle said.

“Good. Now where’s my cred?”

This guy was not a real punk. Didn’t have the hair for it. He worked security in the building they were going to hit. What was the name of the place?

Kyle hadn’t even told him yet.

He will on the drive.

Kyle passed a stack of cash across the cushion under the table. His contact took hold of it, flipped through with his thumb and then quickly shoved the wad into his jacket.

“Nice doing business with you. I’m gonna fuck off for the night.”

“Yeah,” Kyle said. “Have fun.”

Their contact got up and quickly and shuffled out of the club, probably on his way to another one. The Blue Phoenix was all black leather and shaved heads.

Why not meet under a bridge or something?

Kyle jerked his head and John followed him back out to the car. As soon as they got in, they clicked their holo masks off. They were high quality, perfect disguises in placed that didn’t have topographical scanners. Those you could trick as well, but you had to put on some topos, or otherwise called topographical misalignments.

All of this tech criminals could and did get past on a regular basis spoke to the truth of it all. None of it was designed to create a better world for the average person.

Just the people above it all.

The overlords.

For line of sight on vid feeds, these holo-masks were great devices for concealing one’s identity, and if for some reason another club goer realized they were wearing them—well it was a seedy club.

It was perfectly understandable.

”Did you get everything we need?” John asked.

“Yeah.”

“So where are we going? What’s the name of the building?”

“What? I thought you knew. It’s Yates we’re talkin’ about here!”

John shrugged. “I don’t know where the guy lives.”

“For the sake of the gods,” Kyle said. “It’s in the ritzy part of town, over in East Lake. The building’s called Green Haven.”

John nodded.

“Can we go?”

“Yeah,” John said. “Settle down.”

“I’m settled.”

“I know. I didn’t say you weren’t.”

“I didn’t say you did.”

John shrugged and glanced out the window. Kyle could be touchy at times.

“Come on,” Kyle said, moving on. “Let’s blow this joint. I promised you some fun didn’t I”

John chuckled. “We had a lot of fun already today.”

“Yeah, I guess I’m turning into a junkie for it,” Kyle laughed, then he started the car and screeched out of the parking lot, nearly ramming a pedestrian vehicle on their way out.

They blared their horns and drove past. “Watch where you’re going, you eyeless scrap heap!”

Kyle ignored the insult completely.