“Sorry, no. Making note of waitress’ costume.”
“Why?” Laney asked.
“Sorry,” said Yamazaki, saving what he’d written and turning off the notebook. He tucked the pen carefully into a recess on the side. “I am a student of such things. It is my habit to record ephemera of popular culture. Her costume raises the question: does it merely reflect the theme of this club, or does it represent some deeper response to trauma of earthquake and subsequent reconstruction?”
2. Lo Rez Skyline
They met in a jungle clearing.
Kelsey had done the vegetation: big bright Rousseau leaves, cartoon orchids flecked with her idea of tropical colors (which reminded Chia of that mall chain that sold “organic” cosmetic products in shades utterly unknown to nature). Zona, the only one telepresent who’d ever seen anything like a real jungle, had done the audio, providing birdcalls, invisible but realistically dopplering bugs, and the odd vegetational rustle artfully suggesting not snakes but some shy furry thing, soft-pawed and curious.
The light, such as there was, filtered down through high, green canopies, entirely too Disneyesque for Chia—though there was no real need for “light” in a place that consisted of nothing else.
Zona, her blue Aztec death’s-head burning bodiless, ghosts of her blue hands flickering like strobe-lit doves: “Clearly, this dickless whore, the disembodied, has contrived to ensnare his soul.” Stylized lightning zig-zags rose around the crown of the neon skull in deliberate emphasis.
Chia wondered what she’d really said. Was “dickless whore” an artifact of instantaneous on-line translation, or was that really something you could or would say in Mexican?
“Waiting hard confirm from Tokyo chapter,” Kelsey reminded them.