“Look!”

exclaims Secretary Fumeo,

pointing out the window,

“Ghoul smoke!”

Everyone turns.

Far into the distance,

hanging over a cluster of buildings

like decrepit fingers,

are oozing clouds

of ghoul smoke.

Even its color

is nauseating.

Thick, intangible bubbles

of the rancid energy

swell and pop

in swirls and heaps of

toxic miasma,

inside of which —

all the passengers of the car know —

lurk phantasmic monsters

people are calling “Ghouls.”

“Far out...” says Chys,

who has only seen ghoul smoke

on-screen.

“It’s all hype,” says Fumeo,

“The media is making people

hysterical.”

She-What says nothing,

but she can feel Fumeo

watching her,

trying to read her.

Her reports of the

ghoul smoke phenomenon

are a bit more troubling

than Fumeo is pretending.

“I hear

the demonic monsters in there

especially like

the flesh of fat men,”

Chys says to Fumeo.

The Secretary laughs nervously.

“Everyone knows

there is no such thing as demons.”

The car speeds through the city,

guided by algorithms and protocols

honed by decades

of bloody, crushing

trial and error.

They pass beneath

a heavy cargo freighter,

and its blinking green lights

pour into the car’s windows

for a disorienting moment,

and then fade into memory.

She-What stares out the windows

at the megacity, a place

both woeful

and frantic

at once.

She knows something is wrong.

Tyrannical democracy

destroyed the world.

Thunder Corporation saved it.

But she knows —

she knows —

something is wrong.

Thunder Tower

reaches higher into the dead sky

than any other building

in the Free City,

and is the the resolute symbol

and center

of Thunder Corporation’s power.

The car passes through the

repulsor shields

and lifts higher

to land at the Supreme Executive’s

private dock

at the penthouse office.

Security drones circle the area,

zipping through the air in squads

of computer-controlled vigilance.

The car lands softly

upon the dock’s platform,

and the doors slide open.

The Supreme Executive

has light dampeners here —

the Free City vanishes —

and there is only Thunder Tower.

Rock music

popular forty years ago

plays softly.

A pyramid-shaped, vacuum-sealed

terrarium

stands in front of the doors inside,

containing some plant species

that exist nowhere else

in the Black Hemisphere —

a treat for disinguished visitors

that the common man

could never understand.

The four of them

pass through the glass

blast doors,

and into the Supreme Executive’s

private lobby,

filled with couches

and tanks of glowing fish.

The receptionist,

KV-29,

a female-gendered

embodied intelligence

(which is different from a robot)

sits at a gleaming desk of real wood.

Companies of Thunder Corporation’s

stature

usually fill this position

with a human female

(never an android),

but embodied intelligences

are politically fashionable,

and KV-29 is a multitasker —

along with

her extraordinary people skills,

she possesses

a rapid-fire laser-missile launcher

in her chest cavity.

“Good morning, everyone,”

KV-29 says, as she flashes a wide smile,

“So glad you could come in today.”

“How are you, Kayvee?” says She-What.

“Good morning, Kayvee,” says Fumeo.

Chys waves silently as she smiles.

Sato the Malfunctioned,

who has yet to speak a word,

does nothing.

“Well,” says KV-29,

“I’m doing just dandy, Princess Adena,

thank you for asking.

The Supreme Executive is expecting you,

and you know where he is,

so just go on ahead.

Is anyone thirsty?

Is there anything I can bring you?”

“No, thank you, Kayvee,” says She-What.

“Ah, just a bottle of Diet Excelsior Soda,

please, Kayvee,”

says Secretary Fumeo.

“Coming right up,” says KV-29.

Standing in front of

the Supreme Executive’s office doors

is a golden statue of a bull,

bigger than a bus,

with its neck bent low

to attack with its horns,

its left hoof

lifted from the floor

in anticipation.

The heavy electronic door

scans the four of them,

its locks whisper open,

and it swings inwards.

This is it,

She-What says to herself,

I haven’t seen him

since the party.

How do I explain my fears

to him?

How do I tell him

I know something

is dreadfully wrong?

The door wheels on its hinges,

and She-What can see

the shadow

of the Supreme Executive

behind his desk.

No!

She scolds herself.

It cannot be now!