Rakkel wandered the tubes at random for an hour. Xir irritation quickly ran out: It was impossible to maintain it in the face of all the fascinating stuff that was everywhere. And along with the stuff, another thought: Rakkel needed money. Without money, xe couldn't buy any of the fascinating things. But the merchants were making money.

Xe'd never been a merchant before xirself. But, Rakkel figured, sometimes the best way to learn things is to do them, thereby getting the opportunity to experience firsthand all the exciting ways there are to screw up so that one can avoid them in the future. Following this principle, xe found an empty spot on the ground (after a good hour of searching,) pulled a picnic blanket from xir messenger bag, laid it out on the ground, and thereby set up a makeshift "stall." Xe didn't have a lot of things in xir messenger bag that xe was willing to part with. Xe didn't have a lot of things in xir messenger bag full stop. But xe'd come somewhat prepared with a collection of polished metal rings xe'd made, sized to fit average-sized fingers and inlaid with laquer and plastic in designs that Rakkel, at least, felt were quite fetching. Xe laid them out on the blanket.

It took no time at all for xir to become completely impatient. Where, xe wondered, were all these people going in such a hurry that they couldn't even stop and look at a humble lemur's wares? Especially since they kept turning their heads to stare at xir anyway.

Xe'd found a spot in a corner of a tube where a series of skylights let in some extra light. Aside from just being a more pleasant area than some of the sections xe'd passed through, xe hoped the light would help show off the rings. Xe'd tried to arrange them so that they sparkled and gleamed in it. Xe'd also tried to arrange them so that they didn't blend into the blanket's checkered pattern, but xe wasn't so sure xe'd succeeded at that. Xe kept looking down at them and miscounting, thinking one had gone missing, and then hunting furiously for it for a few seconds before realizing it was right where it was supposed to be.

Xe turned to the merchant next to xir, who seemed to be selling plastic toy mice on a wooden rack.

"Hi," xe said.

The merchant ignored xir. She sat on a stool with her limbs all bunched up around her, scowling and fussing with the brim of the hat she wore. Random strands of dirty blue-dyed hair poked out from under it on all sides, indiscriminately.

"Nice day we're having, isn't it?" said Rakkel.

Still nothing.

"So, how long have you been selling things here?"

The merchant didn't even turn and look at xir.

"They look like, um, mice," said Rakkel. "Except they're flat. Um. They seem very well made, though."

At last, the merchant turned her head slowly to face Rakkel.

"Are you talking to me?" she asked.

"Yeah. Uh, hi." Rakkel gave xir best friendly smile.

"Oh."

The merchant turned her head away again. That seemed to be the end of that.

On the other side of Rakkel, a couple of long, thin, dark-skinned people were selling something in a cloth booth, but it wasn't clear what. They didn't have anything on display on the table in front of them. Also, they were both fast asleep, leaning together pressed tightly back-to-back like a couple of bookends in the library of an illiterate person.

Rakkel sighed and sat back against the tube wall. Nobody had told xir that being a merchant would be so boring.

"Hey," xe said to the plastic mouse seller, "can you watch my stuff? I want to get up and take a look around."

No response.

Rakkel, who'd been sitting there for all of fifteen minutes, decided that would have to be good enough, because xe's long, furry legs were starting to twitch of their own accord. Xe stood up, stretched, stepped over the picnic blanket, and had made it a good meter and a half away down the tube before a potential customer walked up and peered curiously down at the rings.

Xe sprinted back and leapt over the blanket to take up a proprietorial position behind it. "Hey!" xe said, "would you like to buy one of them?"

"No," said the potential customer, who seemed taken aback by Rakkel's sudden arrival, "I'm just looking." They immediately moved on.

"They're handmade!" Rakkel shouted after. "Unique, artistic designs! Perfect for your... um... fingers!" Xir shouts were lost in the general hubbub.

Xe sighed and sat down again.

"You!" cried Welton, spilt buns rolling across the floor around his cloven hooves.

"You!" cried the figure standing across from him.

"Eh," said Doople, "I take it you two have met?"

"You might say that," said Welton, his fists clenching.

Doople's visitor slouched against the wall. His pink snout quivered. His pointy ears flopped. The collar of his leather jacket nestled up under a chin which showed all of the pudge that Welton's didn't, and - Welton knew without looking - his curly pink tail stuck impetuously out over the waistband of a pair of loose sweatpants that could easily have accomodated it. For some reason, this detail alone made Welton furious.

Doople looked from one of them to the other in confusion. "I'da thought you'd be happy, Welton," he said. "Another weirdo like you."

"Havid," said Welton, summoning all the melodramatic energy he could muster, "is nothing like me."

"Huh," said apparently-Havid. "I should think not."

"But he's even the same kind as you, Welton," said Doople. "Another pig."

"Humph," grunted Welton. "This is the last thing I need today. What's he doing here, and what will it take to get rid of him?"

"Delivering a load of bun dough," said Havid. "And vat-mixers. I have a truck around back. Mr. Doople here is part of my regular route. As for what it will take to get rid of me, I'm sure I'll be out of your perfectly-creamy fur as soon as Mr. Doople signs for delivery. At least until next week. But what, I wonder, would it take to get rid of you?"

"I'm not getting rid of Welton," said Doople. "He's my cousin and my houseguest. What's yer deal, anyway? I thought you two'd be pleased to meet."

"Havid and I met at the bio-mod facility," said Welton. "We went in on a two-for-one special. Because we both wanted to be pigs. Or so I thought."

"Just because I won't adhere to your high-and-mighty ideals," said Havid, "you think I don't qualify for my own species?"

"You don't want to be a pig," said Welton, "you want to be a caricature of a pig. A stereotype. You want to take every last dirty preconception about our kind and- and pile them up and wallow in them! You give us a bad name!"

"How many of us do you even think there are, Welton?" He grinned sarcastically. "It's hardly a popular morph. So the way I see it, those few of us there are can define what it means to be a pig however we want. In my case, I want to show the world I'm the sort of fellow who likes to indulge himself. I want to be fat and dirty, in a body that's meant to be fat and dirty. That so wrong?"

"Yes! Because that's not what a pig is! That's what humans think a pig is!" Welton, underneath his pale fur, was turning beet red. "And you're just making it worse! And you're dragging me down with you!"

"Woah now! Woah now!" said Doople. "Welton, you need to calm down. Thought you'd want to meet this fella, and apparently not, but I have business with him regardless. So whyn't you go take a hike while me and him finish up. Cool yer head a bit."

"Cool my head!? I-" Welton took a deep breath, and another. "Yes," he said. "You're right, actually. I do need to cool my head." He turned abruptly and stomped out.

Rakkel was beginning to think that this whole "merchant" thing wasn't all it was cracked up to be.

Xe'd attracted exactly two customers, including the one who'd been "just looking." Xe hadn't dared to get up since then. For all the good it'd done xir. The second customer hadn't bought anything either, though she'd spent an uncomfortable amount of time pawing over the goods, holding each up to the skylights to examine it more clearly. Rakkel had kept xir muscles coiled the whole time, ready to spring forward and tackle her if she tried to run away with any of them, but she hadn't been a thief, only a nuisance.

To make matters worse, the day was approaching its midpoint, and Rakkel's belly was growing impatient to be filled. Xe'd casually assumed by now that xe'd have made enough money to get a snack from one of the many, many food and drink vendors around the marketplace. Earlier, before xir fight with Welton, xe'd even thought there was a chance xe might end up back at Doople's shop after all, perhaps for a late lunch. But now xe faced the prospect of going through rubbish bins or going hungry.

To say nothing of the AR device. Xe didn't really want to go back to get it from Salmidon the Creep. But the alternative was to, well, not go back and get it. And therefore not have it. And it was a gift from xir parents, even if it hadn't been working even when they gave it to xir.

Truth be told, xe'd been looking forward to trying to repair it xirself. That had been part of the gift.

And now xe wasn't even sure how xe'd pay for it. Xe didn't think xe'd like whatever Salmidon decided "menial labor" would turn out to mean, but at this rate, xe wouldn't have any other options.

A shadow fell over the blanket.

Rakkel looked up. A tall, slender woman stood over xir. She had on a sleek black dress and a pair of thick-soled boots, beady black eyes, a fang-filled mouth and a gray fin sticking out of her back below her angular, hairless head.

"Hi," said Rakkel. Xe went for xir trademark charming grin, but couldn't in the face of the shark woman's own jagged smile.

"Hello," said the shark woman in a voice both sweet and gutteral. The gills on the sides of her neck vibrated slightly as she spoke. "I'm interested to know more about what you have to offer." She wasn't looking at the rings. She was staring right at Rakkel.

"Er," said Rakkel. Xe gestured hopefully at the rings without shifting the shark woman's gaze. "They're handmade," xe said, "with one-of-a-kind patterns designed by yours truly. You know, they'd look quite fetching as fin-piercings, if that's something you've ever considered." Silently, xe congratulated xirself for keeping xir composure and even improvising a sales pitch adapted to the unusual circumstances. Xe'd never even met anything as exotic as a fish morph before, but remembered on the spot that shark fins were cartilaginous, just like ear lobes. At least, xe was pretty sure that was true.

"I have considered that, actually," said the woman, still staring at Rakkel. "But it's hard to find jewelry that would look good on my dorsal fin. Most earrings are too small, or else would dangle inappropriately. But surely these are finger rings?"

The woman's fingers, Rakkel saw, were webbed. She couldn't wear finger rings on them.

"Some of them have clasps," said Rakkel, which was true. "They might be difficult to use as earrings, but you could wear them on a pierced fin without any problems, I should think."

"Excellent. I'll buy the lot," said the woman.

"The lot?"

"All of them. The whole lot. Even the ones without clasps. I'm sure I'll find a use for those, also."

"Oh. Okay," said Rakkel. "Sure."

There was a pause.

"I can pay you for them," said the shark woman, "if you tell me how much they actually cost."

It was at this point that Rakkel realized xe hadn't ever found out what the local currency was called, much less how much of it would be a reasonable trade for xir goods.

"The usual amount will be fine," xe bluffed.

"The usual amount? You'll forgive me, but I don't usually buy rings," said the woman. "You'll have to tell me what that actually is.

Rakkel wasn't sure, but thought there was the faintest hint of laughter in the woman's voice.

Regardless, xe needed a number and fast. Xe tried to remember the prices of the goods xe'd looked at throughout the day. Xe hadn't been paying any attention to that, though. It all meant nothing to xir, as long as xe didn't have any money in the first place. Or so xe'd thought.

Xe kicked xirself for what, in hindsight, was an obvious lapse in planning.

"Two hundred apiece," xe said, picking a nice, round number out of thin air and hoping it wasn't totally insane.

"Done," said the shark woman. "Package them up for me and I'll put it on your credit account."

"I don't have a credit account," said Rakkel.

"Ah, I see. I did wonder if you were from out of town." Again, her voice had a faint edge to it that made Rakkel think xe was being laughed at. "Come with me, then, and I'll pay you with hard currency."

The shark woman began to walk away. Rakkel, not having anything to package the rings in - xe'd thrown the rest of the empty food wrappers away at Doople's place - folded them up into the picnic blanket and ran after her.

Welton agreed that he should cool his head. That didn't mean that he actually wanted to cool his head.

He left the apartment and walked down the alley and around the corner to the street where, as he'd hoped, he found Havid's delivery truck. It was a narrow, low vehicle with three wheels, two to support the delivery bed in the back, and a painfully bright paint job in cherry red and tangerine orange. Isolated. Vulnerable.

Next to the truck stood a round-bodied, dark-skinned man whose white hair fell down from under a cap across his back and shoulders.

Welton goggled at him over the tops of his AR glasses. It was inarguably and without question the exact same man from that morning, who'd jumped into the river when he saw Welton. He hadn't noticed Welton yet here and now, or so it seemed.

Welton, thoughts of petty revenge forgotten for the moment, crept up to the man using the truck as cover. He wasn't sure what to do. Should he greet the man? Would the man just scream and run away again?

"I can see you there, you know," said the man without turning around.

"Can you?"

"No demon can hide from me," he said, calmly.

"It's just a bio mod," said Welton. "Like my friend's. Only I'm a pig instead of a lemur."

"I know what a bio mod is," said the man. "Have one myself, in fact. Doesn't change the fact that you're a demon."

"What's that supposed to mean, then? What makes me a demon?"

The man finally turned to face him. "Only the fact that you are one," he said. "It's as simple as that and as complex as that."

"I don't understand," said Welton.

"I don't expect you to understand."

"You jumped in the river before," he said. "When you saw me."

"I was surprised. And it hardly matters, seeing as how I can float. I've lived on that river all my life. I'd rather trust myself to it than to a demon."

"I'm not a demon, though," said Welton. He wasn't sure why it mattered what this man thought of him. Clearly, the man wasn't entirely sane.

"Is it possible that a demon could not know their own demonhood? I suppose it must be."

"Look..." oh well, he thought, trailing off. What was the point in arguing? What was he even arguing about?

"If a demon does not know its own demonhood, perhaps there is hope for it yet... Here, demon. Take this." The man pulled something out of his tweed coat and handed it to Welton.

It was a banana peel.

"Is this some kind of pigs-eat-slop joke?" he asked, warily.

The man had turned away again.

Welton threw the banana peel into the gutter, knowing that the city's bio reclamation systems would reclaim it.

"We won't see each other again, I think," said the man. He started walking away.

"Wait," said Welton.

The man didn't stop. "Your demonhood is in your hands," he said. "Like everything. Everything is in your hands."

Welton waited until the man had walked out of sight, down the street and around the corner of a building.

Then, remembering his original reason for coming out here, he used the hooflike nails at the ends of his fingers to utterly ruin the paint job on Havid's truck. That'd teach him.