Riding Free at the Bear Lite Bulb

by David

The Zombie Kittenz were playing and Shawana was dying to go. But it was at the BLB, an under-21 show. She couldn’t pass any more, not since working as a bud mother. That left two choices, but the one she could afford was hitching a ride in her kid sister’s cerebellum.

The worst part was the teen angst. It had been forever since she felt this way. Actually, she had never felt this way. Noemi was a spoiled brat. But the Kittenz were the smog. She had to be there.

At the door they were doing brain scans. Shawana had to mantra. Lucky they didn’t notice her; she’d have been evicted on the spot. Inside, Noemi and her age mates formed a teenoma right in front of the stage. Shawana had not expected to be so close. The Kittenz were known for putting on a pretty wild show, but there was nothing she could do about it.

The front band played a lot of AI-synthocrap on flamboyant instruments that were nothing more than glorified MP6 players. Finally, the lights went low. Foreboding music throbbed in her borrowed bowels. The sound quickly rose to a shriek as the Kittenz leapt onto the stage. Their performance went far beyond audiovisual. They were using gravity waves. They were beaming coded sequences directly into the audience. Tygger stopped right in front of Noemi and her friends and leaned so close it was clear her costume was painted on. “No free rides,” she snarled. She pointed a REM gun directly at Noemi/Shawana and fired. Everything disappeared.

Don’t panic, Shawana thought, and tried to remember the drill. She repeated her emergency mantra, and wondered when Noemi would notice she was gone. She tried to scream, but nothing happened. She desperately sought something, anything she could latch on to. There it was! Somehow, she had found Noemi again. Or, maybe her own body. It didn’t matter. She dove for it, slamming into the cerebrum like a ball into a glove. It was such a relief to be corporeal again. She opened her eyes.

She stood, nude, in a transparent fluid-filled cylinder. She’d heard about this room, but never seen it before. She was in a clone body, and at least 20 other body tubes were occupied. Damn! She hoped the show would end soon. And that she could talk her way out of the fine. She slammed her fist against the wall of the tube.

The end