Neon pink and green bled through The Patch's cracks like tracer fire.
Sixth Street hadn't aged gracefully. Half the clubs were gone, replaced by dive joints like this one with paper-thin doors and chairs bolted to the floor to stop theft. Ceiling fans spun with a grind, blades yellowed from years of smoke.
At the back, above a row of cheap liquor bottles and warm beer, a flatscreen bolted crooked to the wall ran the New Life Technologies keynote. Elias at center stage, flanked by rows of synths. Captions scrolled: THE FUTURE IS CONSISTENCY.
Melissa sat with a sweating short glass of rail whiskey, condensation dripping onto the scarred table. "Consistency," she muttered, half to herself. "That's one word for mass-produced Stepford mannequins."
Slug leaned back, boots hooked around the rungs of his chair. He had a beer that looked untouched, fingers tapping the glass neck. His eyes stayed on the wall screen, keeping his voice low. "Forty-seven degree angle, optimized engagement. I almost admire it. They actually ran focus groups to figure out the most photogenic way to gaslight people."
Melissa snorted, lifting her glass. "Focus groups used to be about toothpaste. This is like a fucking boyband bred in a lab. Bet they even piss in unison."
Onscreen, Elias raised his hand. The synths mirrored him instantly, palms open, crowd roaring on cue. Footage rolled of streets full of fists raised in protest, spliced and reframed as celebration. Protest signs flashed across the footage: LIVE and FOREVER.
Slug barked out a laugh that earned a side-eye from the bartender. "There. Last week's riot, rebranded as a block party. Somebody in PR deserves a raise. Give them another week and they'll edit the tear gas into party fog."
"They'll get what's coming." Melissa said flatly. She took another drink, eyes never leaving the screen.
The feed cut to black, watermark burning in: NEW LIFE IS FOREVER. The whole bar applauded without looking away, drones buzzing overhead to capture their loyalty for posterity.
Finally, Slug said, "Two days without a peep from our side. Then this pageant. That's not coincidence."
Melissa set her glass down too hard. It clinked against the wood, a hollow sound in the noise of forced celebration. "He's really leaning into the cult messiah cosplay now."
Slug finally looked at her, expression unreadable in the half-light. "Messiahs don't wear turtlenecks."
Melissa laughed, but it stuck in her throat. Easy joke, but the truth was worse. A man like Elias didn't need a robe or crown. He already had worshippers.
She didn't notice him until the pint glass slammed down, its ring of condensation bleeding into Melissa's like a toxic halo. He'd oozed over from the billiards table with the gravitational pull of a collapsing star. His tie strangling a sweat-darkened collar, shirt clinging to the topographic map of his ribs.
His drone listed drunkenly behind him, one rotor sputtering. Its lens focused and unfocused with a wet click-click, capturing everything through a smear of fingerprint grease and what might've been old vomit.
"D'see… many like you in here," he slurred, vowels dragging, consonants nearly abandoned. He bent too close, breath sour and wet. Behind him his drone wobbled to match his sway, lens bobbing like it might puke too. "Preddy… g'rl like you… oughta be somewher' bett'r."
Melissa didn't blink. "And yet here I am. Keep leaning closer and I'll donate your spine to science. They'll call it 'The Last Vertebra of Personal Space.'"
He chuckled, wheezy, then kept on leaning. "C'mon now… don't waste… tha' mouth on… sarcas'm…" His hand hovered just above the table, fingers twitching like he couldn't quite remember what they were for.
Slug's chair scraped back, slow. He rose halfway, boots solid on the boards below. His voice was low enough the drunk had to squint at him to process. "She's not interested."
The man blinked, licked his lips like maybe the words would reappear there. "Heyyy, jus' talkin'. Nothin'… nothin' wrong with talkin'." He stayed planted, drunk grin plastered on, the persistence of a gnat that didn't know it was already dead.
Melissa finally pushed her glass aside and looked at Slug. "Think he's planning to evolve into furniture."
He brushed her hand first, then settled into it like he'd once done a thousand times before. "Let's go."
Melissa shoved through the bar's door, Sixth Street's neon washing over her like toxic coolant. "If we survive this," she muttered, "I want a shirt that says 'I survived the corporate rapture and all I got was this existential dread.'"
Slug caught the door, his knuckles brushing fresh graffiti: NOT A BUG, A FEATURE sprayed over NLT's logo. He snorted. "Save the polyester. They'll laser-etch it right into our brainstems."