Faust's Bargain Bins

745 sticky, by 100 gecs, continues.

I'm done trying, new plan

The camera takes in Awas’s suburb. Sunlight never reaches Halk’s Periphery, but its people have agreed that this is the middle of the night. Stacks of shipping containers, ringed at every level by spindly walkways, reach so high they almost disappear into the cobwebby shadows of the cave ceiling. Faint greenish light fills the walkways and the open-air staircases between them.

Do what I want, 

One bored-looking kid sits leaning against the wall of their family’s container, watching the laundry drying on the walkway’s railing. Green glow tape bleeds through the fabric. An ibis lands on a maroon BAYACorp t-shirt and stares dead-eyed at the kid, who sighs.

don't hold my hand

A black cat sleeps curled up on the stairs. A man almost steps on it, swears, and runs his hand over his face before he continues upward. Somewhere, a goat bleats.

I can do anything I want, first try

The camera races up the side of a tower. Awas, cleaned up, makeup redone, hair freshly scraped back, sits at the top, looking out over the suburb.

You take like ten tries, hurtin' my eyes

She points at the camera and grins, but not because she doesn’t believe it.

(Oh my god)

Lenna laughs, delighted.

Batshit, got a check and I spent it

Nik, still wearing chinos and a resort shirt, floats in midair at the center of a vast black opal geode. He looks down at a horde of tumbleweeds rolling toward him across the cave floor and grins. 

Money got me feelin' like a dentist

Nik, standing on the floor of the geode, spins one of his bracelets and snaps his fingers. Sights appear on his glasses lenses, and he shoots a finger gun at a tumbleweed. A cube of copper-green fire blinks into existence around it. Its arms reach for the air outside the flames, but the walls expand, always just a few inches from the ends of its nails. One of the tumbleweed’s eyes pops. Nik laughs, shocked but elated.

I can do anything I put my mind to

Nik walks between walls of green fire. He spins a bracelet, snaps, sights, and fires. A tumbleweed explodes. Pink slime explodes through the air, catching fire as it flies, and lands on the tumbleweeds around it. They frantically bat at the flames. Nik watches a droplet of cooked pink slime slide down an invisible wall in front of him, fascinated.

You can't do anything 

Karmena sits behind a temporary desk in a fortified construction trailer. The plans for the town of Black Opal are taped to the wall behind her, surrounded by smaller maps. She inks tiny numbers into a spreadsheet with a fountain pen as green light, sliced into rectangles by the window bars, flashes across her face.

even if you wanted to (Yeah)

She spins around in her chair. A dart appears in her hand. She throws it into the map behind her, where it sticks, quivering, in the center of the spiderweb of planned train lines stretching out from Halk.