Read Online Going Shogun by Ernie Lindsey - Free Book Online Page A

and a whole lot scared.  Before, this was some
childish game of swords we were playing with Fate, except the edges were so
dull they’d have a hard time cutting Wishful Thinking’s Pistachio Fudge
Margarine into those dainty squares.  What it boils down to now is, two guys,
trying to take the easy way up because they were lazy or simply didn’t have
hope of achieving something better through hard work and dedication, are
nostril-deep in a vat of kids-at-the-pool.  That giant-sized possibility of
taking a bobsled ride into Sustained P is now more real than the daydream reality
we’ve created for ourselves. 
    Dream Chasers, the restaurant.  As
if.
    Forklift says, “Gotta Graham-Bell a compadre . 
60 seconds, tops.” 
    “Forklift, damn it!  Come on,” I
say, but he’s already on the move.  “You heard what The Minotaur said about them
tracking those things.”  Even if he’s hacked it, it’s not something I’m willing
to be at ease with.
    He beep-beep doodly-beeps his cell
phone, throws up a wait-a-minute finger, and agitates around the corner of the
building and out of sight.
    Frustrated, I whisper-yell after
him, “Hurry up!  And don’t get dead back there.” 
    One, we don’t want any more
opportunities for the BAs to track us and two, we don’t want to be standing out
in the open on Birdneck for too long.  That’s how you wind up on the 6 o’clock
news with Paul “Pageboy” James. 
    It’s the haircut.  The thing is
mesmerizing.
    I turn to Bingo, who looks numb from
the cold or the craziness of the situation, and she isn’t shaking anymore.  I
feel a heavy burden of regret that she’s involved.  After all, Forklift did say
that this was too Bigfoot for her to skinny dip in it.  But, she’s the one who
wants to invent fire in a cave and step on dinosaur road apples while gnawing
on a seared antelope carcass, so losing more of her R-status shouldn’t be a big
deal. 
    It doesn’t change the fact that I
feel the need to keep her warm.  I step over, wrap myself around her.  She
sinks into me.  Buries her face in the pit of my arm.
    “I always liked the smell of your
deodorant,” she says.  “Reminds me of my dad in the mornings.  You know...before.”
    I don’t even think to ask “ Before
what?” because I meander right into my own memory.
    I smile.  Way back when, she’d told
me something similar after we made out at a party.  Some R11-3 that used to
work at Wishful Thinking was house-sitting for his R10 uncle and invited the
whole crew over for a night of Whiz Sticks and Pop Roxy in the hot tub.  That
was the night Bingo put her hand on my crotch and then threw up on my shoulder. 
In that order.  Nothing can bring you back from that.  Not psychedelics, not a
hot girl with her shirt off, not even the desire to get laid by someone for the
first time in three years.  I don’t know how parents of newborns and the
Surrogate Matrons that take care of the Non-Aborts down at the Second Chance Shelter
do it. 
    I’m about to tell Bingo that I like
the way she smells too when a different scent, something pungent, something
rotten, knocks me out of my daydream.  My instincts go animal and my immediate
response is danger . 
    Bingo picks up on it at the exact
same time and we both turn our heads down the street.  A block away, a pack of
six dirty, disheveled, and diseased highboys are marching toward us. 
    It’s The Outsiders meets The Walking
Dead. 
    As I’m standing there cursing all
the useless classic movie knowledge that’s stuck in my head, wishing it would
actually come in useful one of these days, Bingo takes a step back toward Machine and tries to pull me with her.  I hold ground for a second, wary of sudden
moves, thinking, Don’t show fear .
    My eyes aren’t the best at night,
but when I strain to focus with the help of a single streetlight, I can see
them holding baseball bats and iron bars, another one with what seems to be a
roll of barbed wire.