Read Online Dead Souls by J. Lincoln Fenn - Free Book Online

lying in the bathroom, I could splash some hallucinatory water on it and wake up. But that would likely blow the focus group—if the pencil incident was any indication, a door to the fishbowl opening all by itself would incite panic. Scratch the surface and everyone reverts to the superstitions of their birth religion.
    Only this isn’t real .
    I wish something else trippy would happen, like a giant cat peering in through the window, the chairs melting into the floor. Just one more thing to confirm where I’m standing in the overall spectrum of reality.
    Then I catch something out of the corner of my eye—Sam pretends to pick up another Istanbul but actually slides the waist belt that Liza had been holding off the table onto his lap, as dexterous as a street hustler swapping peas in a shell game. Bastard! He quickly crumples it and stuffs it in his back pocket, poker-faced. No one notices.
    Some kind of corporate espionage, or is this how Sam contributes to the relationship: the poor bad boy in need of saving by the good rich girl? Even though this entire experience might be the result of something Scratch slipped in my drink, I hope the imaginary Tracy got the imaginary focus group to sign our very real nondisclosure agreement. I’d hate to see the waist belt show up on eBay, and then the North Face gets it into production before we do.
    Tracy turns back to Liza, who she’s obviously most comfortable with, her age equal. “So would you consider wearing a waist belt?”
    A good question, but shit, she should hello, look and see where it went .
    â€œI use one now, but it’s too small to hold anything but money and one credit card,” says Liza.
    â€œWhat if it was bigger?”
    â€œWell,” says Liza, “then it’d be like a fanny pack, right?”
    Fanny pack. Good God, Tracy, jump on that. If people start referring to the waist belt as a fanny pack, we’re already dead in the water.
    Meanwhile, Raven inspects the shoulder straps of another pack. Alex and Melissa lean over to see what interests her, all of which is lost on Tracy, who is too busy bonding with Liza.
    â€œDoesn’t seem very comfortable,” says Raven quietly.
    â€œNo compression straps either,” adds Alex. “Hey, wasn’t there a piece about you recently in the New York Times ?”
    Raven nods, looking like she couldn’t care less when I can see that she does, very much. “Mm-hmm.” No, no, no , they’re getting completely off track, we didn’t spend all this time and money, to give them the opportunity to professionally network.
    But Tracy is still absorbed with Liza. “Do you remember how much your waist belt cost?”
    The impulse to take over is strong, but given no one can see me, not exactly possible. I’ve always known I was fiercely competitive but never realized how entrenched it was—even in a hallucination, it clings to me like a second skin. If I were leading the group, I’d be touching base with each of them, digging deeper but also heading off the formation of mini-groups, off-topic conversations.
    Although.
    Although .
    There is something enjoyable about being the proverbial fly on the wall—I can see all the twitches and behaviors people usually mask when they think you’re looking, let alone Sam’s sticky fingers. Meanwhile, he’s now completely checked out of the conversation and is busy tapping his thighs with two pencils, drumming, bored. Melissa pulls her chair a little closer to Alex and plays with the top button of her V-neck shirt, subconsciously unbuttoning it. She doesn’t know that Alex is at the forefront of an asexual movement, having been famously burned after a well-known affair with a married celebrity. Alex quietly leans back, vacating the personal space Melissa has invaded, and pulls out his cell phone to check something, the international call sign for not interested .
    Maybe,