Trianne followed the familiar neon letters, suspended in the night haze. Just a few city blocks away, the Lady of Metropa rose in the form of an angelic concrete woman, several stories high, holding the neon slogan ALL CLEAR, high above her head with her concrete fingers.

Getting closer along the sidewalk, she ignored the animated telepanes on each side of the boulevard, focusing dead ahead on the Saturday night foot traffic, roaming in and out of the alcoves at the base of the monument, woolen figures converging in shadow and street steam, blurred faces that might be Xeno.

It was comforting to be told that everything was all clear, that everything was going to be okay, until it occurred to her why ALL CLEAR was all so clear in her field of vision. ALL CLEAR always faced Avatar Avenue around 11:30 p.m., after the upper torso of the Lady had rotated full circle in a twenty four hour period, so that the neon sign faced the entire circumference of the city at some point during the day. What faced her now, was the memory of getting blitzed on booze and designer drugs, and ending up with an avatar in a club below the telepanes. For her, that's all it was. A one-nighter, goodbye, no replay, game over. For him, however, each level saved to memory was an obsession written in code.

She picked up the pace, wincing through the past, hurrying down the boulevard, passing through the valley of telepane action sequences with space marines blasting apart bio-mech aliens in deep space. Another block gone by, in the home stretch, ALL CLEAR getting closer, she just had to get through the street fighter stuff, the same repetitive punch and kick thing over and over.

It was hard for him to catch a break in Kick City on Saturday night. All the outdoor gamers kept selecting code-cloned variations of his avatar for the next street fighting tournament, when their former avatar didn't mimic their moves the way they commanded. No one knew the name of his human programmer, or cared—a footnote in a code farm moratorium. If their hero were flesh and blood, they would have pulled him apart like a rotisserie chicken, and sucked the soft flesh from his bones. She thought she might get lucky, but the booming voice in broken English caught her in the back of the neck, like a spinning loaf of bread.

“Trianne! Oh, my darling!” Fayke Tan, Kick City's premiere full tilt street fighting avatar, splashed back into Trianne's salmon-struggle existence with all the HiDef resolution he could divert from the servers. His tactile electrons had sensed her from the coded side of the telepane, and massed towards her presence. Each magnified Asian eye followed Trianne down the sidewalk, hopping from telepane to telepane, throbbing with phosphorescent desire.

Trianne mashed her hand into her cheek, hiding her face in shame under her bangs. She searched between her fingers for a crowd to get lost in, a taxi to dive into, but it was all open space for yards on the sidewalk, mobless just when she needed it the least. If she ducked into the bars below, he would download himself on the indoor telepanes, including the ones in the ladies room. All she could do was keep walking, hoping he would go away, but he didn't. . .

“Trianne, My heart is moist with passion!” Fayke blew kisses from the telepanes above, now behind the wheel of a fancy sports car with the top down, speeding along a vast coastline with a raspberry sunset, decked out in his multi-colored jump suit, his jet black bangs flapping over longing dachshund eyes. “Let me kiss you on the lips, and we can make smoochy smoochy into the wee hours of dawn!”

Trianne put her fingers to her nasal bone, trying to pinch back the torment building up in her sinuses.

“Trianne, don't ignore me. You break heart.” Fayke pulled over, along the video coastline. He cupped his face in his hands and wept, looking out from between his fingers, to see if Trianne was falling for it.

“Oh my gawwwwd.” Trianne stopped walking, galled by Fayke's infantile charade. “You've got to be kidding!” She watched him emote for a few moments in disbelief. “Fayke, the poorly acted crying scene isn't working.”

“It not?” Fayke looked up, sniffling. “Darn! It work like charm on other girl.”

“We had a fun night together, but I told you it wasn't going to go anywhere. You're too . . . old for me.”

“Old? I never grow old. You make excuse. I thought I turn you on.”

“The physical part was . . . different. It lasted longer than I expected, but . . . I don't know, you had blue hair back then.”

“Then I make it blue, now. Look.” Fayke blinked his eyes, transforming his head of unruly black anime hair to neon blue in an instant. “Blue hair!”

“I'm not into blue hair, anymore.”

“Trianne, you play hard to get, but I chop you down with affection! Come away with me. I make you immortal avatar in Kick City street fight tournament.”

“But the fighting isn't mine. It's all done at the hands of those kids over there, with black dots on their foreheads. I just stand around looking hot in a neoprene cat suit for all eternity. It all just seems so . . . pointless.”

“Ah, but wait! There more! You live in my chateau behind scenes. Look! We can fly there together.” Fayke ejected from the sports car, soared over the video game ocean at rocket speed, to a sun-drenched valley vista, with bountiful forest canopies, crystalline melt-water falls, and glassy blue lakes. He flew into a massive canopy of sparkling clouds, everything going snowy for a moment, until he came upon his hidden citrus-toned popsicle-esque chateau, nestled on a cluster of floating pyrite-shaped cliffs. He swooped over a balcony rail, through an open French window, and touched down in a lying position on the bed of his fan-vaulted master bedroom. After settling into the bedspread, he noticed Trianne wasn't smiling.

“It's beautiful, Fayke, but I'm really not ready to be digitized.”

“You can always turn back. The sex will be hot. I guarantee it.”

“That's not what I've heard.”

“The sex will be cold?”

“No. I'm talking about turning back. I've known girls who digitized themselves to be with avatars, and when it didn't work out, they were . . . reported missing.”

“I never report you missing, Trianne. You know that. Besides, what future do you have in Metropa? Hollymonde take your place as big star. If you digitize now, you never have worry again. We can do it right now, at this telepane.”

“No. I can't.” Trianne continued walking down the street, towards ALL CLEAR.

“What holding you back?” Fayke followed Trianne down the sidewalk, his face hopping from telepane to telepane.

“Well . . . the truth is . . . I want to get in a band.”

“A band? A band?!” Fayke fumed. “What you play?!”

“Uh . . . bass. I haven't played in years, but I'm thinking of starting up again.”

“What up with that, you crazy girl? Spend rest of life in Kick City and I give you all the band you want, and you get hit record. Then we drink beer, and make out in hot tub.”

“Fayke, I know all about your harem.”

“Harem? How you know?”

“Every girl in Metropa knows about your harem.”

“Harem schmarem. I fire them. Then we're alone forever.”

“And then when you get tired of me? What happens to Trianne? Do I get fired? Do I go missing?”

“Trianne, for last time, when you walk down Avatar Avenue, I watch you. I—” Fayke ran out of telepanes and bonked his head on the last edge of the building at the crosswalk.

“You have customers waiting.” Trianne pointed to the mob of kids on the street corner, waiting for outdoor game play. She stepped onto the crosswalk and got lost in the camouflage of the roving crowd.

“When explosions go off, I only think of you!” Fayke wept from the street corner telepane with a glistening video tear running down his cheek.

Down below on the sidewalk, disgruntled gamers smacked the START button on the Kick City outdoor gaming stations, often confused with ATM machines. Fayke winced in video pain, forced to materialize in tableaux in front of the gamers on the Kick City START menu, alongside a cadre of other famous avatars with souped up costumes, clenched fists, and battle sneers. For one brief moment, Fayke was able to override the game code, roll his eyes towards the crosswalk, hoping to get one last glimpse of Trianne, his forlorn gaze cut short by the pulsating splash screen:

FIGHT!

In the next instant the avatars appeared on the outdoor telepanes in a video battle royale, mimicking the death blows of the gamers on the sidewalk below, the instructions from gamer to avatar transmitted via wireless black nodes affixed to the gamers' foreheads.

“Tonight on The National Trashional Live,” Tab Lloyd announced from the alcove telepane, “Klownsy and Burgelina's marriage rocked when Klownsy discovers Fizzard is the father of their love child! When we come back, learn the dark truth behind the deep fried scandal!” Tab flashed a bleach white dentured grin, his eyes concealed behind the ever-present black censor band, followed by a montage of the Klownburger characters bickering in a cartoonish courtroom.

Xeno caught the tail end of the segment, standing on the sidewalk at the base of the Lady of Metropa, anticipating the tabloid farce to be followed by a commercial. Instead, Andrea's lips appeared—pouting right back at him. He took a step back for fear she was going to make a scene in public, somehow, some way. He hurried around the national monument, past a series of open air alcoves, filled with citizens having their temples shock-massaged in reclining chairs by delicate metal arms extending from the headrests. The visible static discharge around the temples was rumored to relieve Black Magic withdrawal, briefly, which made the cure as expensive as the addiction to the designer drug.

And there she was again—the red lips right smack in front of him, on the next telepane. He looked from side to side to make sure the coast was clear, about to speak, then pretended to cough when a couple crossed behind his shoulders.

“Andrea, I'm willing to let things go on as they have inside Blouse's penthouse, but outdoors? Following me through the city? Seriously?” He paused for her response, expecting some antagonistic comment regarding his 'young boy's face' with the 'ghost hair.'

Her lips drew a breath on the telepane . . . and she continued snoring, still asleep, as if gravitating to him through the city in a dream state. In the next breath, a montage of go go dancers appeared in a Keeno's commercial, gyrating in glass booths to disco music, behind the title of this week's ad:

KEENO'S FULL COLOR MORPHS

.99 NUKES!

AFTER 2 AM!

“Boo,” said the voice over his shoulder.

Xeno swung around, to see Trianne standing behind him on the sidewalk.

“Did I ruin your fantasy?” Trianne snickered.

“Yes. Thanks for doing so. C'mon, we'll follow Holly's face to The Whispers.”

The two stepped onto the crosswalk and continued their stroll down Top 10 Avenue, adorned with telepanes dedicated to the music scene. Screen estate was allotted by rank. The big acts got their own telepanes towards the top floors, to do whatever they wanted. Lesser music acts had to share space on telepanes in between, dissected into graphs, performing in small cubic spaces. No talent bands appeared in stamp-sized spaces on telepane strips, mounted towards the bottom floors, requiring handheld viewfinders to identify them. Holly, on the other hand, had no regard for the rules, hopping at random onto other telepanes, landing on top of other bands, bombarding street urchins like Xeno and Trianne with multiple choruses of sinking and swelling pitches and personal headlines:

HOLLYMONDE

NOW PLAYING

AT

THE WHISPERS

SPECIAL GUEST

RAMEN

SPONSORED BY BOUTIQUE

“So, what happened to your penthouse at Boutique?” Xeno asked.

“It's a long story, so I'll shorten it for you. I refuse to model for Boutique, because I refuse to put Insto-Plas on my skin. I've seen too many girls try to change their looks, only to end up disfigured in the morning.”

“I thought they took Insto-Plas off the market.”

“Velva will just change the wrapper, and use the same chemical compound. She went ballistic and accused me of burning down the Shoki Pao, in order to sabotage her Black Magic supply, now that she's running out of Sunlite. That was the final blowout.”

“Did you burn down the Shoki Pao?”

“No. Did you?”

“Hell no. That was the best gig, ever.”

“You had it easy. You didn't have to pretend you were humping a pole every night.”

“You haven't heard from Lew?”

“Not a word.”

“It must be rough having Velva for a mother.”

“She's not my real mother. She's not really a mother to anyone. She's more like a neurotic synth.”

“What about your father?”

“He's not even in the picture.”

“What happened to him?”

“Velva said he was abducted by aliens.”

“Was she serious?”

“I can't tell. She just sits there, and rubs all that crap on her face, in front of the mirror.”

“When my folks come to visit, why don't you join us for dinner?”

“Dinner. I'd forgotten that word. I've been grazing and smoking to keep the weight off for so long.”

“Is it me, or is Holly looking kind of chunky?” Xeno pointed to a telepane with Holly gyrating in a tight fitting priestess dress that didn't battle the bulge as well as the costumer had hoped. “I wonder why they didn't fix that with all that digital magic.”

“If you don't do Velva's bidding, she can make you look fat . . . with all that digital magic.”

Blouse Demise appeared before Xeno and Trianne on a street level telepane, weaving in front of the camera, puffy-eyed and wonky, her cleavage almost falling out of her gown, swigging from a bottle of vodka on the set of a production studio. In the background, several volunteers sat at foldout tables fielding black box calls for her bare bones Info-thon.

“Hello, I'm Blouse Demise. If you've been the victim of Insto-Plas, go to your black box and download my free 5-track onto a blank cartridge. Experience what it's like to win a beauty pageant with all five senses, in the privacy of your own home!” She held up her 5-track sample for the audience to see:

BLOUSE DEMISE

PRESENTS

MY INNER BEAUTY PAGEANT

FIRST PLACE!

“Fix your face without money! Fix your face without surgery! Fix your face without Boutique and all those ghastly chemicals! Most of all, fix your self esteem!” Blouse stumbled out of view, knocking over a row of chairs in the wings, followed by her vodka bottle rolling into frame on the studio floor, then SMPTE color bars. Holly's music video resumed on the telepane.

“That's an old rerun,” Xeno said, puzzled.

“From her variety show?”

“No, her variety show was yanked. That was from her public access show, which was also yanked, months ago. Then she got mixed up with this Red Curtain Media retreat and asked me to house sit. By that time, she had Black Magic and alcohol in her bloodstream all day.”

“If she was yanked from public access, why did they play the rerun?”

“Maybe someone at public access played it for laughs.”

“Or, the servers are having cat dreams again. . .”