Page 9 of Tapeworld Induction

Usually she felt like the third wheel, so it was nice to have someone’s attention tonight. Might as well enjoy it. She smiled at the invite, grabbing his outstretched hand and bumping into him as she came closer.

Maybe tonight wouldn’t be so bad after all.

4

Blue-Blonde

Isaak

Her smile broke him. Isaak tried to keep it CCC – cool, calm, and collected – even if he felt anything but. The heist with Astrid, shooting that guard in the Tapeworld… It had left him angry, wiped out. Was it a dummy program, an AI? But it had acted like a real person. Could it have been someone else taped in? Astrid wouldn’t tell him.

Stealing data from upstart spots for her had been fine at first, but it was getting old fast.

He tried to shake the negative thoughts from his head and focus on where he was now. The lights of Aftershock’s dance floor hit him. Dylan had that vibe to her. Sure, a lot of women in Shoreditch and East London dressed in a similar way – the can’t-be-bothered look, a hand-picked selection of artisanal clothes, and the dyed hair. But there was something special about her. Her cool, not-really-wanting-to-be-there attitude didn’t feel contrived. She felt genuine. Plus, she looked beautiful in her white minidress.

He was trying hard not to come across as shy, unsure if it was the drink, the fresh trauma in that other place, or Dylan’s disarming charm that kept him on the edge of his seat. It had been years since he’d done this – gone out on his own and struck up a conversation with a beautiful stranger. The last time was before he got famous, before the Lazarus, when hooking up with strangers got too easy and empty, vapid. Fast-forward five years and one rollercoaster career, and he was back to the nothing he’d come from. Maybe reaching out to someone was one way to stop the dark filling up inside him…

He’d noticed the Apocalypse Revolt earring before approaching her. It only made him more determined to say hi to her. He didn’t think of himself as a proper vegan – if meat was still legal, he’d probably still have eaten it. But the earring told him this was someone who believed in something. And yes, it looked cute on her and gave her an edge, like a knife pendant hanging on the neck of a sword and sorcery princess.

Dancing – more like awkwardly moving around his arms and legs – and the occasional brush of body parts with her was having a definite effect on him.

While he mouthed along to the lyrics – he’d always assumed belting them out would make him look silly – she sang them out loud, swinging her arms from side to side, bending and twisting to the flow of the song. He swayed in place, trying to keep up.

What started as a melodious tune became a hardcore techno track. Everybody danced with their game face on, with that unflinching belief they had to move their bodies or they might keel over.

He was starting to regret suggesting they dance, but then Dylan bent down, hands on opposite knees, then climbed up slowly, arms reaching out to him, coming closer to him, the tips of her fingers touching his face.

She laughed and broke the spell that kept him frozen in place. Isaak bought in, then dared to bend his own knees.

Fuck.

Fucking pain. He bit through it, the joint in his right knee screaming at him.

Dylan smiled at him. Cool. She hadn’t noticed anything.

The DJs switched to a softer, pop-EDM track. A chart-topper.

“I love this song!” she shouted, pumping her arms in the air, hopping side to side to the beat. Sweat slicked her skin, lit by the neon lights in the distant wall, the glowing peach fuzz around her arms an atmosphere he longed to breach.

Damn.

Gorgeous.

He smiled.

Confidence flooded his veins like nitrous-oxide juicing up a sports car. He moved closer to her, his moves more self-assured. Then the song demanded more of them, romantic lyrics about quickly made promises, and he dared to loop his arm around her back and pull her closer. Dylan looked up at him, but just as it seemed to be the start of a moment between them, her eyes found her friend in the crowd and went wide, and she sang out loud again.

The moment was lost as the beat signalled a change back into hardcore. Her face twisted in surprise, and he couldn’t tell if she was happy that nothing had happened.

Trying to keep himself going, he tried a bolder dance move, and that’s when the pain in his knee woke up.

“Ah, fuck!”

Her eyes filled with worry. “What’s wrong? You want to stop? Oh, shoot. Your lim—”

Isaak knew the next word out of her mouth was going to be “limp”, despite her stopping herself halfway. They’d been talking mostly with their eyes and expressions up to now, letting the dance speak.

Hand on his knee, he headed towards the corner seat where his jacket and her green snakeskin coat lay bunched to one side, like props out of an action movie from the late nineties.