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Jack woke up to an uncomfortably warm sunset when Maria got up to go to work. She always got out of bed extremely suddenly, as if she'd just had a nightmare or heard a gunshot. Every morning/night it seemed to be a speed drill for her to see how quickly she could get out of bed and dressed. She never showered, just sprayed herself before she got dressed with something that came from a Gillette aerosol can that was like the kind you'd find in business hotels, except bigger. She was about to buckle her Texan tanker boots when she stopped. The little LED on the brainjack behind her ear blinked rapidly. “Get yourself dressed up, Sev's got a le...

Smoke Rising I don’t understand why it bothers them. It’s only a plant. Plants come from the Earth, just like a lot of things we use. My underwear’s made of plants. Why should my cigarettes be a sin?“Mom, do you want to hurt us?”The voice belonged to my daughter. She was up to her old routine. In her magenta sweats and oversized tee-shirt with printed images of kittens she looked rather sweet and innocent, but I knew her real ways. I wouldn’t have called her “sweet”. And innocent was an adjective that had left her soon after fifth grade. No girl could think as much as she did and still be “innocent”.“Mom, you know they’re bad for you. You ...

Viper Starkweather stubbed his cigarette out in his forearm, adding to his already impressive collection of charred pockmarks. He had gotten over the wincing in the summer of 1987, after the Lost Boys had come out and there had been a resurgence of interest in his wretched kind. That had been a challenging summer, he recalled; there is a certain reputation you have to uphold running with the moon, and the carefree, airborne anarchist squatters the film portrayed had done very little good for his personal image. It had been the reason he had changed his name to Viper Starkweather. He needed to stay trendy and chic. The 1800's were over, and...