LITMIR.BIZ

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rolled her eyes and walked up to the sliding door of The Zebra, breathing in the familiar scent combination of air freshener, weed, and good old unsettling patchouli.

      “Coming aboard?”

      “I was thinking we could sit in the garden.” Stevia didn’t feel like permeating her hair with the scent of The Zebra. She had a session the next day with Dan Blacker, the handsome producer who paid her well.

      “Good idea. Almost done with this cleanup. Meet me back there. Front door’s open, grab anything you like from the fridge.”

      Stevia made her way up the chipped steps into the house, which had been on the Venice Canals for so long it had become part plant itself. Vines wrapped around windows to the point where they couldn’t close anymore. Cracks in the kitchen wall emitted sprouts of ivy that snaked along the indents between tiles. Everything was a faded kind of colorful, which appealed to Stevia for short amounts in a nostalgic sort of way. She would never live there herself. Too many critters, too many signs of decay. And don’t even get her started on the bathroom. Unbeknownst to Auggie, sometimes if Stevia had to go, she would sneak into the construction site across the alley just to pull a crouching tiger.

      She helped herself to some water after re-washing a glass from the cabinet. Auggie’s old, blind dog Rusty ambled into the room, tail wagging, and she let him smell her hand.

      “Hi, sweetie,” she murmured. She always pitied the copper-coated animal, but Rusty never actually seemed sad about his condition. She thought his blindness was perhaps a blessing that kept him from being aware of the squalor he lived in.

      Once outside, Stevia brushed off a cushioned chair, double-checking with her phone flashlight to make sure there were no spiders. Auggie’s side yard was more like a tropical forest between houses. Auggie had haphazardly strung some solar lights around a few of the plants which lit the foliage with a dim, pleasant glow. Stevia loved it out there, even though it was as unkempt as the rest of the place.

      “Goddamn, you look good out there,” Auggie said from the doorway, startling her. He was barefoot and wearing a Hawaiian shirt with tan cargo shorts.

      “I feel good in this jungle.”

      “Shit, babe. You’re always welcome.” He popped a can of beer and sat in his chair, a dilapidated hammock-stool that creaked annoyingly every time he shifted like it was going to cave under the weight of his stocky frame. “Did you hear about the upcoming visit from President TBD 3000? ‘The Interviews Tour of 2029?’ What a load of crap. That POS model is already gearing up for a re-election.”

      “You think everything’s a load of crap.”

      “It usually is.”

      “Well, I think it seems at least like a more humane model of President than we’ve had for the last twelve years.”

      “Tell me, how is there such a thing as a ‘humane robot?’ They’ll never have anything alive about them. How the hell did we end up letting robots make our decisions for us? How humane – or inhumane – is that? Our futures determined by algorithms and programmers… How did they trick us into this fuckery?”

      “Please, Grandpa,” she said, dutifully playing the part of Cooler Younger Woman when she was probably nearly 20 years his senior and couldn’t have agreed with him more. “Machines have been the future for decades, now. Get over it. It’s just the way it is.”

      “You know I think you’re gorgeous and super smart and charming as hell, but your passivity is a drag.”

      “Then quit trying to argue with me about politics.”

      “No. I’m not giving up on you. Just like I’m not giving up on the future of this country. Since robots have taken command, some things have improved. I’ll give ‘em that. But considering we were at rock bottom at the end of the reign of Fuckwad, broke and angry and on the verge of nuclear war, there wasn’t much elsewhere to go! And this whole ‘bringing back the American Dream’ tour mission statement has got to be a massive disguise for something else, something sinister and dark and ugly. They’re secretly tracking something through these interviews. Just the fact that it’s illegal for anyone to disclose anything about the experience tells you everything you need to know right there.”

      “Pssht. Even stupid reality shows make the cast and crew sign non-disclosure agreements,” Stevia said flippantly. “There are plenty of non-conspiracy situations that call for secrecy. They probably just don’t want people going in with any expectations.”

      “They’re definitely digging,” Auggie said. “And I want to know what for.”

      “They want the country to get better,” Stevia says. “No one wants it to be this fragmented. Not even robots. It seems like they’re just collecting data just like the Census, seeing where the public opinion and general status quo is at.”

      “Don’t even get me started on the goddamn Census.”

      “You’re impossible,” Stevia said with a sigh.

      “No, I’m skeptical. Which is healthy, I might add.”

      “It’s exhausting. And boring.”

      “Would it help if we started in the bedroom before having these discussions?” Auggie grinned at her, selected one of her feet, removed her boot, and began to massage her foot with a touch that Stevia was annoyed to find she crumbled to.

      She closed her eyes.

      “It would probably take the edge off, yes.”

      “Well then, by all means, let me have a re-do,” he said, and kissed her toes. He stood abruptly and swooped her into his arms. Stevia shrieked in a pleased sort of way. Auggie did make her feel petite and young in ways she hadn’t in a long time. She rested her head on his shoulder as he carried her into his bedroom.

      Auggie barely let her do anything in the bedroom but be a receptor and she gladly submitted to that. He may not have been the best looking or smelling guy she’d been with, but he made up for that and then some in generosity. She would lie there and let herself become an instrument of pleasure, occasionally even humming melodies along to her orgasms, which he seemed to love and caused him to further extend his giving nature.

      Afterwards, they lay like broken toys on the bedspread, panting and tangled in each other.

      “So, you’re saying you wouldn’t participate in the interviews if you happened to be selected?” She was sort of curious now. He was right. Sex first did take the edge off his extremism.

      “Haha, I knew it! Why didn’t I think of this sex-first thing before? Hell no, I wouldn’t do an interview. I’d never do anything to unknowingly become entangled in the giant overt conspiracy to turn us all into obedient cyborg slaves to the robots. I bet they’ve got some way to stick a microchip in you or something once you’re there.”

      “I think ‘overt conspiracy’ is an oxymoron. And you think everything is a conspiracy.”

      “You’re goddamn right about that. Everything is a conspiracy.”

      “What about me?” she asked playfully.

      “You?”

      “Yeah, am I a conspiracy?”

      “Of course you are.”

      She laughed uneasily. “What?!?”

      “You’re a beautiful woman. Everyone knows that beautiful women are a conspiracy. They’re practically the biggest conspiracy of all. ”

      He is smart, Stevia thought.

      Out loud she said, “That’s so dumb.”

      Auggie Breakmirrors::

      The rooster alarm went off each morning at 8AM. Auggie had a very specific routine, even though the slapdash environment he awoke in would not suggest that he was a routine kind

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