The Horton Dilemma [ONC 2022]

THE DEATH OF THE EGO

I finally learn my green-eyed dance partner's name: Lenny. I tell Nakomi I'm ditching her to go with him, and she, still clinging to silver-man Zeus, barely even protests—just, "Are you sure you want to go?"

"Yes, I'm sure." My voice exudes adamance.

She looks him up and down. "Well, I'm pleased you're taking my advice. But are you sure he's not dangerous? I mean, going to his place, and without backup? Is that a good idea?"

"He's not dangerous," I insist, slightly embarrassed that she would insinuate this when he's standing only a couple of feet away, pretending not to listen to us (but he's listening).

"Why don't you bring him back to my apartment?"

My eyes narrow at her. "We're going to his apartment."

A sigh is loosed from her pretty mouth, and she smiles at me, ever so subtly, to let me know I've won. Then her gaze flits back to Lenny. "Lenny?" she calls to him sweetly, and he approaches. "Let me get a picture of your ID, Lenny, so that I can show the police if my best friend goes missing."

He obliges. Now more embarrassed, I decide to ask the same of her date, because I figure the only reason Nakomi isn't protesting my abandonment is because she was already intending to take an exit with her dance partner.

"Ohmygosh," Nakomi says. "Simon works at the cafe by my house, we figured out."

Simon. He should have stuck with Zeus. "Doesn't mean he's not a murderer," I say tartly, and he laughs, holding up a picture of his ID and letting me capture its image on my pocket computer. I notice his ID picture looks much different than the three-eyed man I see now—much more plain, I mean.

"Well, now that we've got that sorted out, can we go, Lenny?" I ask.

He looks relieved. "Sure thing."

I feel glad Lenny hasn't let the true nature of our decision to leave slip, as I don't need Nakomi lecturing me about my choice to do Vivecta™ again. Taking his hand, I hurriedly lead him out of the building, away from the rose-scented, hard-alcohol-infused body odor.

After taking a Voom! self-driving car back to his place, we head up one of the elevators to his apartment, a nice, small albeit clean place in one of the modern stackable apartment buildings. Once inside, he gets to work fetching his illegal stash of Vivectica™, seemingly more anxious to leave this world than I am. I wait at his coffee table, my bottom having found its place on the gray shag carpet decorating his living room, where I take in the rest of his home. His apartment houses a blue sectional velvet couch. Metal art on the wall. Succulent plants on the window sill. A stainless steel refrigerator. A blue coffee pot, still half full with old coffee. The kitchen and the living room aren't separated in any meaningful way with the exception of the floor, which turns to tile a few feet from the single kitchen counter.

Lenny sets a baggie of some substance on the table, and I quit taking stock of his material possessions and apartment layout so I can instead examine the baggie's contents, which look crystalline. "This is Vivectica™?" I ask.

He sits across from me, on the other side of the coffee table, a box in his hand. "It is."

"It doesn't look like what they used at the clinic."

"At the clinics, they dissolve it into liquid so they can inject it. We won't do that. We won't do such a low dose, either."

"Oh, I don't think my dose was very low."

"Trust me, it was. And if you just did it the other day, you'll want a higher dose. You'd be amazed at how quickly your body can form a tolerance."

Hiding my reluctance, I nod. After all of my worry about going crazy, it seems absurd that I'm doing this again, and I wonder, for a moment, how much those two galactic cocktails have impaired my judgment.