Upgunned by David J. Schow

of Nietzsche. It put me beyond the clock of regular citizens and out of reach of their law enforcement. Planning stages were so comprehensive that police interference was always accounted for and factored in, so officers of the normal-world law represented mild deterrent potential at best. Hell, half the time I worked for some shadow-ops government agency that guaranteed my immunity as a deal point—I could always escape custody with a single phone call. A fifty-two card deck of alternate identities didn’t hurt, either. Nor did secure drops, safe houses or the finest modern weaponry military and black market subcontractors could provide. Tax free.
    I had just pulled off the subterranean equivalent of winning the lottery. A sealed and delivered deal had taken the worst turn imaginable, and instead of folding, my team and I rebounded with solid improvisation. Money was always more fun when you feel you have actually earned it. For “money,” substitute “all the things you desire” if you’re not a complete capitalist.
    About ten o’clock that evening I got a secure cell message that three tailored suits were ready for my pick up. Bad timing; I did not know whether Cognac would elect to stay past midnight.
    When I arrived at Mal Boyd’s aerie, I found him ashen. Not eating.
    â€œWe’re severely compromised, dear boy,” he said. “Your face and crimes are all over the Internet.”

 
    PART THREE
    ELIAS
    Char left me without even a contact number. If I had been paying closer attention, I would have seen she had been moving her stuff out for weeks, piecemeal, in increments too small to be remarked.
    Yes, you could say I had been distracted.
    Gun Guy had labeled me a pornographer. That was conditionally true. Most of my catch for the past year had come from shooting fashion spreads instead of nurturing my own tentative idea of art. There’s a reason they’re called “spreads” and they’re generally more obscene than anything featuring split beaver or pink-think or the anal avenging found in the newsstand sections you always pretend to avoid.
    We’ve all become street whores for the fashion industry. It barks trends and we lie back and spread our billfolds, queuing up in a desperate grab for this season’s insane idea of faux class. Wander over into that other section of the magazine racks, you know the one I mean. Where the bedsheet-sized glossies beckon with empty promises of style and cool. Where they’ll teasingly tell you about this season’s ten essential must-have accessories, or how howlingly ridiculous parkas are the in thing, why all the hoi polloi are wearing them this week.
    It makes celebrities of people who have never accomplished anything apart from being celebrities, and offers them to you for worship. You already know the brand names and labels and their snakepit pecking order, because you still believe you can buy pedigree for the cost of a stupid magazine.
    It’s not your fault you’re such a sucker for this garbage; hell, we’ve all been conditioned … or I never would have let Nasja delve my crotch after that last shoot. There are some kinds of candy that don’t permit the word no.
    Insiders would attempt to dazzle you with a fireworks display of dropped names, feeding your mad lust for dirt, the real scoop, the hot gossip. Or they’d blind you with the glare of trivia; the chewy argot and insider jargon of the mavens of high style.
    Your lust object has butt implants, a face full of botulism, a vaginal tuck, a penile implant, fake pecs, surgically mutilated eyes, a decalcifying skeleton, two or three serious drug monkeys, a coyote’s sense of entitlement, a head full of bees, and is so utterly devoid of human emotion he or she might as well be from another galaxy.
    But now, used, scared, and abandoned, having filled my pants like a toddler and quaked like a sissy, minus a picture on my