Shot pt is king

  His reception after the job, initially, was less than gratutory.

  “Where the fuck are you?” Car-Crash said on the line as Luke floated down toward the Allworld Superhighway, like a great band around the equator where massive rolling crafts meshed and broke apart in impromptu parties, tours, and ies.

  “Above the big highway. Why’d yall cut me lose?” He noticed that this was the only time he had dropped out of a job into anywhere else but the office.

  “No o you lose. The screamers lost track of you. Looks like you skipped the box, somehow.”

  “I what?”

  “Hold up. I see you.”

  On the car ride over, Car-Crash took the sic route, expining to Luke that he had, somehow, probably by holding so tightly to his previous Hardworld mem before stepping into the box, partially primed a Self, and after expining to Luke what that meant, expined why it roblem.

  “The box drops you into a premade Self that the Spiritualists prepare for you and the Speakers have a line on. When you fuck with the Self by makis the way you did, sometimes they lose track of it. Which is embarrassing for them. They aily the Sect.”

  Car-Crash’s voice had a smile in it by the end, and it was at that point that Luke realized that Car-Crash hadn’t found out how the job had ended yet, probably because the scribes were still irying to firm one of the bodies being carted off that highway ramp was the target. He relished dropping the bomb.

  “Wait till they find out who killed the target.”

  Car-Crash wheeled on him, and for an instant two human eyes broke the surface of the murky blood-gss mask and stared at Luke with ecstatic surprise.

  “You are full of fug shit!”

  But soon Luke was in front e again, this time with Car-crash standing by, having pushed him to the front of the line, and his Hardworlding star began its meteoric rise, though down there Luke didn’t know it.

  Drudge handed Luke a card, an Ace of spades of course, with the spade in the ter made of half a timeter thick dull metal.

  “Take this down the hall to Bleedsire.”

  Car-Crash cackled and the uys in the line whistled and cpped and offered gratutions as Luke walked out of the office.

  “Hasn’t been a kill card handed out in that offi years,” Car-Crash said. “Do you mind?” He reached out a gloved hand, the leather sliced and bleeding and glittering with tempered gss, and Luke handed him the card.

  Car-Crash pressed his thumb to the spade, which fluoresced like molten lead caught in sunlight, or motor oil in a puddle, and a few seds ter he ha back to Luke.

  “Jesus. With a pistol. Ray too. It’s a good omen, you know. Especially for your first kill.”

  Car-Crash leaned in when he said it and put a hand on his back, as if reminding him of a religious mystery they had both been initiated into. It was Luke’s first brush with the uedly superstitious mythology of Hardworlders. Once again, he sensed something massive underh it all, and the fear mixed with awe and surprise left him silent.

  Luke hahe Card to Bleedsire, who barely brushed his finger over the ace, then nodded and touched it to the desktop, on which a light blinked from red to green.

  “You may keep that.” He handed Luke back the card and waved his hand over his desk. A rge book, like the kind used to sign into a hotel in an old noir movie or keep track of decades worth of horse bets appeared, open, on the desktop.

  “Are you ready to choose a name?”

  Luke was stunned. Why hadn’t he thought of this?

  “Uh,”

  Bleedsire waved again and the book vanished.

  “No rush. e see me when you’ve made up your mind. Keep in mind the boards don’t allow duplicates unless a name has beeired. Nowadays it's on to use a number, or biwo—”

  “Wait.” Luke held his hand in the air, still high off the rush of victory. Drudge had grumbled and pined about Luke’s “running off” before the mem could be scraped, and the already deteriorated quality of the mem, but for Luke, the mem of that job was fresher than any he had stored in his realm, whiow seemed like cobbled together story-in-pictures slideshows pared to the vivid living dream of the kill.

  He felt he could do anything, and if the job had proved ohing to him, it was that sometimes it’s better to just go for something than walking around it trying to pn it out.

  He started speaking before he had the name in mind, but he k would e to him.

  “Mr.,”

  A pause. Car-Crash snorted. Bleedsire stared like Luke was some vagrant he aid too little to deal with. Then it hit him.

  “.”

  Car-Crash stopped chug. Another pause, and then he jerked his head towards Bleedsire and put both hands on the desk.

  “No way that’s not fug taken.”

  Bleedsire had already brought back the book and fanned his hand over the pages, which shifted in the light without the pages turning.

  “No. It’s not.”

  Car-Crash cackled. “Anood Omen! First fug try. You got no idea how lucky you are. Took me ages to get Car-Crash, and I only got it cause the st guy got retired by for the big one.”

  The extractor went back over it, repg the h five different alterhehe mem roll.

  Car-Crash had taken Luke out for a celebratory drink, and it was the first time Luke had seen him without his mask. The face was so ill-suited to the personality he had suspected it was another mask itself. The bar was all marble and mother of pearl and shaped like a big Oyster mushroom jutting off the side of a water and coral tower fag the perma suo the west. Every bit of dishware and e-rimmed decoration reflected the e, and Luke felt like he was in some ies perfume ad that had gone heavy on the d avant-garde-ness.

  It was about the st pce he expected Car-Crash to take him, but the drinks and food were beyond reproach. Luke had never experiehis kind of subtle hunger before. Not the pseudo stomach rumbling brought on by the floating clouds of burger smoke that wafted off Rays or something, but like a flower that opened up just for a moment, just long enough for each bite and sip tister with something physical, then closed again, allowing him to savor the su on a spiritual level.

  Somewhere, beyond the sun, hidden uhe cocktail gsses, humming under Car-Crash’s words and ringing in Luke’s ears wheried to follow the versation, was Bliss. This is my world, it told him, all of these things you see are crafted from my essence, like wooden houses and paper doors and crisp checks all spawn from the pure seed. Arent you tired of refles? Don’t you want to touething pure?

  But there was a greater mag now, a stronger pull, another way to wake up. He had no desire to wake into the “real him”, whatever that was, some predestined version of himself, sliding into it like a marble into a groove, he wao fly, he wao drop into the Hardworlds in a Luke with no past and no future, and the possibilities drug his mind down into distracted fantasy.

  In short, he was beginning tet about bliss, which would have been astonishing to Otherworld Luke, if he had ever taken any time to really think about it.

  Car-Crash pulled him aside as they left, waving him into his craft, which this time was a matte e craft like a stretched-out Rolls Royce Phantom, as opposed to the crumpled colge of wrecked cars he flew around in while in his Hardworlder mask.

  “I see you’re distracted, but let me give you the run down before you fuck off back to that light,” he said, sadly.

  The run down was that Luke was now a fully vested employee of Ace Tactical, and as sue policy ges were in order. From now on, he would have to wear a mask when going to and from the HQ. He would o buy or make his own craft and fly into work himself, and as of the job, he would be pced in charge of his own street er squad, attached to another bled Operator who would act as his driver and tact. In short, he would be the Backdraft/Viper of his own team.

  “And here. Got you a gift.”

  It was a CD, marked in bck marker “Mr. MOA’s first kill”.

  “That’s the ued full mem, not the sparkled up highlight they give in those cards.”

  “Thanks. Guess I owe you some overtime.”

  “You don’t owe me shit. I’m the auxiliary Supervisor. Means I hahe new hires and the floaters. Your new supervisor is probably gonher Tenpound or Diesel Drip. Which reminds me. Just so you know, you’re not supposed to prime a Self without the O.K. from your Sup, and they usually don’t like letting the peons fuck with the meics like that, but try and press them to let you do it. Just don’t go overboard with it, a me know so I put in a good word.”

  “I holy have no idea how I did it. I was just thinking about the other jobs when I got in the box, and—”

  “That’s the gist of it yeah. You remember things about your Self and the Hardworlds make the memories real. The real trick is picturing things that never happeo any of your Selfs aing the Hardworlds to turn those memories into reality.”

  Luke stared at the side of Car-Crashes head while his mi wild. Create a e. Like making a new character in an RPG. Is that how the pros did it?

  “But anyway, if they say no, I say fuck them and do it anyway. Just use the box and be subtle about it, and make sure you drop out into the office when you’re done so they don’t catight want to practice using the Dreamworlds to e back, instead of dropping out with a bullet every time.”

  “The what?”

  Car-Crash chuckled.

  “There’s a lot Ace Tactical won't tell you till you’ve kissed enough ass to rise in the ranks. Dreamworlds are like the Realm of the Self. Any state of unsciousness, the Spirit defaults to like a Lucid dream. Like a slice of the Other in the Hardworlds. You use it to train, run through sarios, and most importantly, leave the Hardworlds. Just make sure you prime your Self as an experienced Lucid dreamer. You drop out in the dreamworlds if you’re not careful.”

  Luke became immediately obsessed. A new facet of the Hardworld/Otherworld dynamic he had thought he had a handle on. It itched in his mind, deeply.

  “So, it’s just like dreaming? How do I use a dream to get back?”

  “You go in by waking up right? Just leave by going out. You walk through the dreamworlds till you fet all about your Self, then just walk out into the Other.”

  “That works?”

  “Yeah, it’s how most real operators do it. But don’t imagi’s as easy to do as it is to describe. But practiough, and you’ll get it. The real trick is walking into the Hardworlds the other way.”

  “What?”

  “Ohing at a time. Just look into it.”

  They had reached the edge of the bck without Luke notig.

  “Where—”

  “Yoing into your fug Realm immediately. Got it?”

  Luke nodded. A warm sensation y over his chest, while a cold one fluttered under his brain. On the one hand, Car-Crash cared enough to try and help him, but oher, he was terrified he wasn’t worth the trouble.

  “Thanks. I’ll,”

  He got quiet. Words dissolved in his head before they had a ce to form sentences. He felt the two sensations merge and bubble like rolling warm water behind his throat, and just below his tear ducts.

  “Don’t mention it. I’ve seen too many good Hardworlders get fucked by the Other. If you ever think about running at that Bliss light again, give me a ring.”

  Luke nodded, and tried to work up the ce to face Car-Crash, who saved him the hassle by doing the sed hing anyone had ever done for him.

  “All right, fuck off.”

  He kicked Luke in the bad sent him flying into the void. In a few heartbeats, Luke felt alone again.

  A breath ter, he was ba his Realm, his new CD clutched like the keys to the kingdom.

  What would your name be? Noun and a number might be on for venience, but doesn't really have the same soul as Hardworlder names of ages gone by. up, Luke explores the power of dreams, and their dangers as well. episode, Dreamfable.