I said, “I’ve never seen that.”
“A cure on a watch chain?”
“That too,” I said. “It’s not going to your hand, though.”
“Oh that,” said the teller. “I gave it Independence.”
“How?” I said.
“By ‘How?’ ” said the teller, “I suppose what you mean is, ‘How did you, a mild-mannered young bank teller, manage to get hold of the most exciting and buzzed-about line of Graham&Swords PlayChanger PerFormulae for Curios since 2008’s SloMo, or perhaps even 1993’s BullyKing, when said line of PerFormulae won’t be made available to mainstream consumers for another like month?’ Am I right? Is that what you mean?”
“Independence is a formula?”
“Where have you been?” he said. “Yes. It’s a formula. A PerFormula, holmes. No off-brand syrups para mon cure. It’s PlayChanger line. Licensed and patented. Countdown engaged for worldwide launch. T-minus roughly five weeks or whatever. And my answer to the question you should have been asking about how I got ahold of it ahead of the launch is: Well I guess how it happened is I was spotted backstage at a DJ Crystal Worms show a little while back. I think it must have been probably three or four or maybe even five months back because Crys-Dubs wasn’t exactly Crys-Dubs yet. Like his style of new sleazebeat was still, at the time when I was at that show, which wasn’t even sold out, a revolution on the scale of Wang Kar Pourquoi’s first fortes into fuzzdub or, if it’s fair to go outside genre to compare revolutions, even Murderer-ers’ invention of the whole demonkraut sound back in like Murderer-ers’ trademark-infringement days when they were still called Murderers Jr. Anyways, there I was, backstage for Crys-Dubs, just doing my thang. My thang that night was handing out flyers to VIPs to promote this sponsored afterparty at Killer Queen Marmalade’s for…I can’t remember, actually, what the afterparty was for. I mean, I’ve VIP-flyered for so many sponsored afterparties by now, it would really blow your mind. Like I just can’t keep track. I’m pretty sure that the sponsor was Que Padre Mezcal, though. Whatever. It’s not really urbane to what I’m trying to say because point being is that right when I was VIP-flyering Crys-Dubs himself (he said he couldn’t make it, even though he wished he could, and you could tell he really meant it, too, he was really disappointed), I got spotted by a Graham&Swords outreach marketing liaison who was standing right next to him. She admired how I did my thang, she said, and she thought I might—and it’s embarrassing to say, but I’m only quoting here—she thought I might be able to ‘help sexen up the profile of the Graham&Swords PlayChanger brand,’ and she asked me if I’d like to be a beta tester/demonstrator, which is something I obviously said, ‘Oh sure why not,’ to.”
The cure seemed sleepy. Clinging to the teller’s vest by its footclaws, it rubbed its eyes with the heels of its palms, arched its back, and yawned repeatedly. To get a closer look, I’d leaned forward a little, onto the counter, and in so doing must have jarred my CureSleeve, for I felt an insistent, three-part knocking on the meat of my forearm—Blank’s signal that it had woken up. I knocked twice lightly on the top of the sleeve—my signal to Blank that it couldn’t come out.
“And the answer,” said the teller, gaining verbal momentum, “to the follow-up question you’re about to ask is: Nope. I can’t hook you up with the liaison so you can become a beta tester/demonstrator. If I hooked everyone up with the liaison who asked me to hook them up with the liaison then I wouldn’t have time to do anything but hook people up with the liaison, and that’s not my job. That’s not why they hired me. There’s something I can do for you that you might appreciate, though. I’m not like officially allowed to do this, however that’s not to say I’m officially unallowed to do this, but it could be considered a little bit of a risk to my employment situation—not here, the boss is cool here, but with Graham&Swords, I’m saying—and that’s why I’d have to ask you to offer payment for the service—the service and the product—but I do happen to have a couple extra ampules of Independence on me, and although I wouldn’t be willing to let you actually handle one of these extra ampules—they’ve got serial numbers on them that could lead right back to me—I would, for some cashious-type consideration, if you get what I’m saying, be willing to meet you out in the parking lot, and like empty one of these ampules into your CureSleeve’s dropper-bottle. If you’re into it, I mean.”
“Aw, no thanks,” I said.
“Really? That’s—I guess that’s kind of not what…Well how about can you open your sleeve up for me? Because I’d love to get a look at your little robot.”
“I better not,” I said.
“Oh damn, is it a hobunk? I wasn’t even thinking about that. I’ll put this one away, and then—”
“It’s not a hobunk,” I said. “It’s just asleep.”
“It’s what?”
“It’s asleep.”
“Well it doesn’t care!”
“Still, though,” I said.
“Come on,” said the teller. “Wake the punk up.”
“It really needs its sleep,” I said.
“Okay then, I guess, but, well, main reason I asked to see it to begin with, though, is cause I’m wondering: Is it full-grown?”
“Yes,” I said.
“Good. That’s good. That’s all I wanted to know. Because if you’re worried it’ll run away if you dose it with Independence: don’t. I mean, I don’t know what rumors you have or haven’t heard, but I don’t think it’ll happen. I think it’s seriously unlikely. Like Tiddleywinks here is, as you can see, just a couple weeks old, so the effect of the Independence is particularly strong, stronger than it would be on an older cure. I’ve dosed a couple full-growns and they still went to my hand is what I’m saying—they just weren’t all like enthusiastic about it, you know? I had to coax them a little. And they didn’t autodact, or even get grievey when I left them untouched for a couple of days. Anyway, say I’m wrong and yours does run—well, wicked, right? It’ll be the first cure on record to ever run away—not that it would be ‘on record,’ of course, because that would mean you’d told someone I let you have some pre-launch Independence if you wanted to even begin to be believed, and that would get me in trouble, but you’d know, right? that yours was the first, I mean? Not to mention that I can throw in a collar, too. I’ve got extras. They’re thinking every ampule of Independence is gonna come with a leash and some kind of collar—Graham&Swords hasn’t decided what kind of collar yet, which is one of the reasons they haven’t launched Independence yet, or at least that’s the rumor—but the liaison gave me all these different collars to try. I’ve got adjustable one-size-fits-alls, and then I’ve got specifically sized ones, too. I still haven’t given any feedback to the liaison about which I prefer—which, note to self, eh?—but only because I haven’t developed a solid preference yet, and that means you’re in luck because it means I’d hook you up with whichever one of those collars you wanted. I can’t give you a bangin gold watchchain or anything, but you can maybe go up the street to the new toy shop they opened there next to the video store, and buy yourself a yo-yo, use the string as a leash, or even just allow me to present the free gift of a rubberband I’ll get from this very supply cabinet to my left if you’d like. I’ll gladly secure it to the collar for you, free of charge and so on. Enticed, now? All in, I’m talking, what? Two hundred dollars.”