Phoenix (dystopian romance) (Theta Waves: Episode 1) by Thea Atkinson Page A
Authors: Thea Atkinson
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cardboard box in the middle of summer, plying her trade from a card table with a bowed in middle and joints rusted nearly clean through.
She turned her tricks from it with the same sense of resolve as the prostitutes. It was a fair enough description, an easy enough way to describe what she did, except maybe that analogy of prostitution wasn't even right. Maybe she was more like the fortunetellers of old Earth: like Nostradamus or those famed kids from Fatima. Or like a ghost whisperer in some archaic, entertainment-based television series. Except, all those descriptions failed to nail it down just right because they were gone, and no one in his right mind in this new world would admit to believing anything remotely divine was left behind.
"Take it all away, Theda," her mom was fond of saying, back before the god had come and left the globe in devastated ruin. "Take it all away and all folks have left to hold onto is faith."
Well faith had come and gone and left nothing in its wake but a wasteland that needed to shake its way back to equilibrium. So much for faith; so much for the prophetess's wisdom. Nothing left hereabouts after the great holocaust but an eastern half of a super city in near ruin and a western end robust and teeming with plenty. Oh, and crime, of course. And hedonism. And hopelessness. Those things they had aplenty.
The holocaust, the apocalypse, the rapture as the chosen might have called it, left Theda peering at the bustling afternoon street from a derelict card table day upon day, calling to people as they passed by, in order to earn a living: "Hey," she'd coax. "Want a magic beyond any? I can do it for you. Give you some escape."
Magic. A foolish thing to ply when men wanted sex and debauchery, and she figured that out quickly enough, had to change her come-on, but that was fine; Theda was smart gal.
"I can give you a ride you'll never forget," she'd say, and that one would get them. A chance for some filthy old fart to roll over on a girl in her twenties. Old fools. She learned early to target the old men; the younger ones weren't so inclined to pay for sex, not when they could take it for free. There were a few, yes, but most of them didn't bother with hookers unless they had some left over sense of morals. And those became less frequent than in the early days of the holocaust. A girl didn't find fresh-faced young men like her first trick any more; they'd all become too jaded.
She'd offered to do that first trick for half a ten so long as he had the right paperwork. She knew he imagined an experience entirely different than what he got, but she didn't let it bother her. She merely took his hand as though she planned to lead him off somewhere--an unnecessarily modest notion in the ruins of the super city where hedonism reigned as equally as theft and assault.
It made her aware how foolish it would be to tell her mark what he was truly in store for; he might certainly change his mind and solicit another one of the girls that hung around the corner for what he really wanted. She couldn't have that. She needed the cash.
So she gripped his hand tightly as she'd drawn out her pin and stuck him deftly in the thumb like her mom had taught her. A bubble of blood rose on the pad of his skin and she fought the urge to smear it between her thumb and forefinger as she slipped his greasy digit into her mouth. She concentrated very hard, as hard as she'd ever done when she and her mother worked together in the last days, before they knew it was the last days, when Theda had begun her training. She drew hard on the flesh, pulling in even more of his fluid as she focused.
She got shifts of colours for a few seconds, then the unnerving sound of gunfire, the acrid stink of gas and mouldy earth. She presumed he felt the burning that came with the stink she caught. Mustard gas something whispered to her psyche. So: the poor young fellow--a different young fellow at the time of the vision--had been in the First
She turned her tricks from it with the same sense of resolve as the prostitutes. It was a fair enough description, an easy enough way to describe what she did, except maybe that analogy of prostitution wasn't even right. Maybe she was more like the fortunetellers of old Earth: like Nostradamus or those famed kids from Fatima. Or like a ghost whisperer in some archaic, entertainment-based television series. Except, all those descriptions failed to nail it down just right because they were gone, and no one in his right mind in this new world would admit to believing anything remotely divine was left behind.
"Take it all away, Theda," her mom was fond of saying, back before the god had come and left the globe in devastated ruin. "Take it all away and all folks have left to hold onto is faith."
Well faith had come and gone and left nothing in its wake but a wasteland that needed to shake its way back to equilibrium. So much for faith; so much for the prophetess's wisdom. Nothing left hereabouts after the great holocaust but an eastern half of a super city in near ruin and a western end robust and teeming with plenty. Oh, and crime, of course. And hedonism. And hopelessness. Those things they had aplenty.
The holocaust, the apocalypse, the rapture as the chosen might have called it, left Theda peering at the bustling afternoon street from a derelict card table day upon day, calling to people as they passed by, in order to earn a living: "Hey," she'd coax. "Want a magic beyond any? I can do it for you. Give you some escape."
Magic. A foolish thing to ply when men wanted sex and debauchery, and she figured that out quickly enough, had to change her come-on, but that was fine; Theda was smart gal.
"I can give you a ride you'll never forget," she'd say, and that one would get them. A chance for some filthy old fart to roll over on a girl in her twenties. Old fools. She learned early to target the old men; the younger ones weren't so inclined to pay for sex, not when they could take it for free. There were a few, yes, but most of them didn't bother with hookers unless they had some left over sense of morals. And those became less frequent than in the early days of the holocaust. A girl didn't find fresh-faced young men like her first trick any more; they'd all become too jaded.
She'd offered to do that first trick for half a ten so long as he had the right paperwork. She knew he imagined an experience entirely different than what he got, but she didn't let it bother her. She merely took his hand as though she planned to lead him off somewhere--an unnecessarily modest notion in the ruins of the super city where hedonism reigned as equally as theft and assault.
It made her aware how foolish it would be to tell her mark what he was truly in store for; he might certainly change his mind and solicit another one of the girls that hung around the corner for what he really wanted. She couldn't have that. She needed the cash.
So she gripped his hand tightly as she'd drawn out her pin and stuck him deftly in the thumb like her mom had taught her. A bubble of blood rose on the pad of his skin and she fought the urge to smear it between her thumb and forefinger as she slipped his greasy digit into her mouth. She concentrated very hard, as hard as she'd ever done when she and her mother worked together in the last days, before they knew it was the last days, when Theda had begun her training. She drew hard on the flesh, pulling in even more of his fluid as she focused.
She got shifts of colours for a few seconds, then the unnerving sound of gunfire, the acrid stink of gas and mouldy earth. She presumed he felt the burning that came with the stink she caught. Mustard gas something whispered to her psyche. So: the poor young fellow--a different young fellow at the time of the vision--had been in the First
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