away. I used a pair of ancient dice that brought them to a horrible end and fed their soul to an evil spirit. I'd been shot at, had water speared through me, fire thrown at me. I'd been gut-punched by a twelve-foot ogre.
Her statement scared me more than any of that.
"What?" I repeated.
Prithi stared down at her feet. She was dressed now, in a pair of dark jeans and a t-shirt. Her long, black hair was pulled back in a ponytail, and she'd put makeup around her eyes that gave her an exotic nerd look.
"I told her that we were in love."
Bad to worse.
"You did not."
"I'm sorry, Conor. You don't know my mom. She wouldn't have believed that I came down here in my underwear just to say hi, and if I told her we were just having fun she would have kicked you out already."
"Why not just tell her you like girls and get on with your life?"
"That's easy for you to say. If I tell her that she'll kick us both out." She came over to where I was standing, placing herself in front of me and giving me sad kitten eyes. "This works out for both of us, you know. My mom's not a total conservative. She's okay with us not getting married or anything like that, as long as you don't get me pregnant."
I laughed when she said it. How could I not? "P-"
"It means I can come down here whenever I want." She motioned her head towards the back corner of the room, where I'd put up a partition to keep nosy parents from getting too nosy.
The guns and meds took a good portion of the money I'd earned. The rig for the Machine had stolen the rest. It was my payment to Prithi, my bribe to get her to go back into the Machine as Azeban and find me more of the illegal pellets that kept me alive. It was her weakness, her addiction, one that she hadn't been able to fill since she lost her job as a developer on the alternate reality. It had been easy to tempt her with.
"That's good for you. How does it help me?"
"You need more money. Machine plus work equals money."
"So your mom's not pissed?"
"Don't be stupid, of course she's pissed. I spent two hours arguing with her about how much I love you and how if she messes it up I'll never get married. Seeing as how you're the first guy she's ever seen me with, she doesn't want to take that chance. Anyway, dinner tonight. Seven o'clock."
"I'm looking forward to it."
"Me, too." She rolled her eyes and put her hand on my shoulder. "Don't forget you're meeting Dr. Strange at nine."
Thanks to Jin, I had my own injector. The good Doctor would provide the meds.
"Right. I should go soon. I need to stop by the storage unit and get ready. I'm not exactly excited about heading into a vortex."
She leaned up and kissed me on the cheek. "Thanks for being a sport. It will all work out."
I smiled weakly. "Keep telling yourself that."
She disappeared behind the partition, plugging into the Machine. I grabbed my coat and headed out the door.
Dinner at seven. It was going to be great.
THREE
$19.95 a month
I was renting a storage unit on the other side of town. It was a high-end model, with its own punch-code security system and an adjustable thermostat that came complete with a separate electric bill.
Mine was probably the highest in the whole complex.
I made my way through the tall security gate that was guarded by a twenty-something in navy blues and carrying a heavy shock wand on his waist. I nodded and smiled at him on the way by and he surprised me by maintaining eye contact. I didn't get too many people who wanted to look at my face or my hollow eyes. Then again, you had to be pretty ballsy to work security with nothing more than a shock wand. I wouldn't want a vampire, werewolf, or other nasty within twenty yards.
I wandered through the alleys between the storage units, head down, coat pulled tight against me in the crisp autumn air. I traced the route from three feet out, watching the cracks in the cement go by and hoping to avoid any other would-be hoarders who were checking in on their collections. I could imagine some of the junk they had preserved: magazines, photo albums, Aunt Gertrude's collection of porcelain dolls.
I could guess