Lusso sat on the end of a long subway seat. His duffel bag was stowed under his seat, kept from sliding out by his feet. He didn’t have another suit at home, so he wore a pair of jeans and a maroon shirt a little too big for him on the way to work. It was 5:00 A.M. now, the earliest the subway opened. Lusso scanned the car he was in. Not a soul in sight. Lusso usually came later, a speck in the large crowd of commuters trying to get deep into the city. That’s where all the money was.

The subway train alternated between surface and underground, dipping in and out of the cityscape. It was all black, like some hand in the sky had taken a large paintbrush, dipped it in black paint, and smothered everything with it. Lusso’s phone rang. It was Yena.

“Yeah?”

“Weren’t you on tour with Ria?”

“Was.”

“What happened?”

“No idea.”

“You’re fine?”

“Fine. All good.”

Yena paused.

“Why’re you awake right now?”

“Had some last minute homework. Checking the news before I slept. Figured you’d be awake.”

“You should sleep.”

“You’d think they’d give you time off after something like that.”

“No reason. I wasn’t really involved in anything. I barely saw her.”

“You don’t want to talk about it?”

“There’s nothing to talk about. It’s fine. See ya. Good night.”

Yena clucked her tongue, and said, “Bye.”

Lusso checked his news alerts. Headlines were plastered with Ria’s face, rumors about her sudden death, JGE ruling her out as dead. The official statement JGE released was that Ria had died of heart failure just before the concert. The cause was genetic, and they had a virtual funeral held yesterday, two days after the concert, on Sunday. Headlines read that millions of fans gathered around the globe virtually, paid their respects, bought memoirs, and donated to genetic research for preventing heart failure. No mention of Ulrich or David. Numbers swam in Lusso’s head. He saw dizzying streams of digits coming from all corners of the planet, some from other planets, all concentrating in JGE’s bottomless pockets. He assumed that within a week or two, a new idol would fill the void Ria had left, a new face shuffled into place. Maybe it had already happened.

“Was this your plan in the end? Did you really kill them?”

Lusso realized his last question was meaningless. Whether Ria and Maru were dead or not didn’t matter. They were as good as dead, since he’d never see them again. Lusso stood up at his stop, took up his duffel, walked through streets and alleys for the fastest way to JGE HQ. Lusso walked without seeing, his legs taking him where he needed to go. He saw numbers, empty gray rooms, heard intermittent screams echoing dimly in his head.

When he came to, someone tapped him on the shoulder while he was changing out of his clothes into his janitorial jumpsuit. Ding’s lips trembled.

“W-w-will y-you forgive me? I’m s-s-sorry.”

Lusso saw through him, like he wasn’t there. Lusso tousled his hair, and patted his head.

“Yeah, it’s okay.”

“Thanks. Thank you.”

Lusso turned back to his locker, closed it, and sat down on a bench. Lusso woke from his daze when got a message from Micky.

“Not coming today. Bad cold. Already told Kookli.”

Lusso typed back, “Ok.”

Lusso scoffed. Micky would never catch a cold. Ding tugged at Lusso’s arm, showing him the time. 5:57 A.M. It was time for work again. Lusso got up, stretched, and walked out of the lockers, duffel bag and Ding in tow.

“Let’s get to work.”