Animal Theater

Exchange Rate

"How fast does it work?" Jen asked the woman behind the counter.

"Depends on the dosage, the person's weight, and how it's taken. Couple of drops on food and it could take a day or so. A couple of drops in a drink and you're looking at two hours tops. If someone drank it straight, the whole bottle, they'd be dead within a minute." The woman eyed Jen, thinking. "If the body is autopsied, the poison will show up in toxicology. It's not a good murder weapon if you're going for stealth."

"If I ever have to use it I'll be long gone by the time an autopsy is done." Jen said. "I'll take it."

"You got treason or credits?"

"Either." Jen said.

"It's fifty PAC or a half mil credits. We prefer PAC."

"I guess so, that's a pretty steep exchange." Jen said. She paid the woman in Pacific Alternative Currency bills and took the vial. Her bugout bag was now complete, she could take the identity of Marcia Peterson, born in Canada to Brazilian parents. Jennifer Tracer was trapped like everyone else in the Prison States of America, but Marcia Peterson could cross borders with ease. No one would question why she had four different types of currency, and they certainly wouldn't suspect that the bottle of eye drops in her bag was filled with poison.

She made her way through the Market Street bazaar and down the alley to the new mobile com center. She descended the stairs and put her thumb on the screen lock. When the door unlocked she opened it and found Tad working the security desk. "What are you doing working the desk?" She asked him.

"Carlos didn't show up." Tad said. "Neither did Bobby or Jerry. They're all freaked out because of the election. The policy paper from the new Attorney General has everyone paranoid."

"With good reason."

"I guess so." He said. "There's a Pick-screen in doc 6 that's ready for you."

She thanked him and headed down the hall. She went down two flights of stairs and entered the com center. She could hear Barry Stees doing his comedy show to be posted the next morning, but otherwise the center was quiet. At a time like this no one wanted to be caught doing a political show -even from a secure bunker, hidden behind voice changers and animated avatars.

Doc six had a new curve-screen display and Jen pulled up her notes as her avatar booted up. Her avatar was derived from image data of the old film actor Denzel Washington. The voice was a program from the writer William Burroughs. It was a sophisticated program that not only changed how she sounded, but changed her inflection patterns to avoid even the best voice detection software. The Burroughs program had a strangely soothing nasal twang that somehow went perfectly with her avatar's face. It had taken several combinations of famous faces and voices throughout history until she had stumbled on this combo, which had struck a chord with the public for some reason.

Her show was called 'We are Already Dead' and she did it five days a week, with special episodes now and then, like two days ago, election day, when California had struck down a ballot measure to outlaw the state currency. It was also the day that George O'Donnell had been elected president.

Jen started the broadcast with her opening theme, and waited for her cue to come in. The credit sequence ended with raw footage of a little girl throwing rocks at police in riot gear. The person filming her asks her if she's afraid of the police. "I aint 'fraid a nuthin' cause I'm already dead." She says.

The screen faded to Jen's Denzel avatar. "Today we're starting the show with a question. What kind of exchange rate are you getting out there in the real world? I was at a store today, and maybe I frequent stores with a certain political bent, but I was offered a product for fifty Pacific, or a half-mil credit. Has anyone else had this experience? I want to hear what kind of exchange rate you're getting, and I already have a reply from Bitchface 297 -go."