The Midnight City Social Hour

--VR pt2

The thing was that Tommy always thought of the answer to the question, without ever wondering if it was the right answer.

"He's not paying us in the way you're thinking Tommy." Cat Girl took a sip of her smoothie. She fidgeted with her phone. "Mini isn't sleeping with him. Not yet. He's paying us in another way. One of our programmers and graphic designers has been working on this project. It's basically built, but still in its infancy."

Although this was the correct answer, this was Tommy's gang. Their answers were not the right answer. Because they were not good people. So although this answer answered the question, it was not good.

Or right.

"How is he paying us?"

Cat Girl didn't answer. Her eyes were over the railing and across the room, at the boy finishing his Chinese food and dumping it into the trash. When she stood up, she asked Tommy if he had anything on him. From the baby aspirin bottle, he dumped out a few white pills with X's for eyes.

They both ate the pills and followed the recruit.

"This the end of their day." Cat Girl said.

They were outside, underneath tall trees with hanging limbs, a brisk chill to the air.

Tommy checked his Roger W. Smith watch: "It's only 4pm."

"They usually nap after class. They wake up around 7-8pm. The rest of their day is spent burning marijuana and phasing out. Watching TV. They hardly have the drive to do homework. No friends."

That was the right answer. "This is the end of their day then." Tommy maintained pace with Cat Girl. She knew how to keep distance. How to be invisible.

The sun was still in the sky. A falling orange color, blended with yellow and pink, a few passing clouds, stung at Tommy's eyes. The recruit walked until a street corner; there were other students walking by. He crossed when the street light told him to. Into a parking garage with four levels. He didn't notice Tommy and Cat Girl leaning against the side of the garage, a cigarette in their lips.

Smoke fell into their eyes. Tommy was a fan of eye drops—they didn't turn red. For Cat Girl, she was used to his cigarettes being laced with marijuana, although her eyes had no chance.

"Do you want any eye drops?" Tommy asked. She did not: they were bloody. "Are you going to tell me how the recruit has been paying us?"

"I can show you Tommy. It's only," Cat Girl said, "that we should not be here. Do you have a car?"

"My car is parked on the other side of campus."

That was where Cat Girl's stalking started, where Tommy began to follow her. When they got to Tommy's car, as he drove them to her apartment, a few miles east and north within a gate holding a gargoyle, Cat Girl pulled up a laptop, a muted black cover and a webcam that had been covered with black paint, and showed Tommy a dating website.