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This time, it wouldn’t hurt.

⚔ ⚛ ⚔

“I don’t get it,” said the fat man.

“You don’t have to get it,” said Julian.
 
“It’s a simple proposal, Eckers.
 
You sell it, you keep a percentage.”

“No,” said Eckers.
 
“Why you coming to me?
 
You Reed assholes have all kinds of channels for this.
 
You already distribute stuff at a scale I can’t touch.”

“Sure,” said Julian.
 
“We distribute a lot of medicants that have been proven to be profitable.
 
That have a history of clinical trials.”

Eckers moved behind the bar, favoring a leg.
 
“Trials.”
 
He held up a tumbler, and Julian nodded.
 
Eckers splashed amber liquid into the glass and pushed it over.
 
“Last time you were here, you broke my shotgun and blew a hole in my roof.”
 
He tipped his head up towards the roof, the ragged edge letting light and rain in.
 
Both fell in roughly equal measure against the old concrete floor.
 
It cast the inside of
The Hole
into a relief that wanted to stay covered in quiet gloom.

“No,” said Julian.
 
“Those Apsel motherfuckers blew a hole in your roof.”

“Whatever,” said Eckers.
 
“You’re all company to me.”

“The difference,” said Julian, “is twofold.
 
First, we’re coming to you with a profitable endeavor.
 
You make money, we make money.”

“Fine,” said the other man, pouring himself a glass of the amber liquid.
   
“What’s the other thing?”

“We’re going to fix your roof, Mr. Eckers,” said Julian.
 
“In fact, we want to invest in your business.
 
We want you to be one of our… strategic partners.”

Eckers spat the liquid out on the bar, coughing loud.
 
“The fuck did you say?”

“Bernie — do you mind if I call you Bernie?”

“Yes.
 
No.
 
I mean, sure.
 
Call me what you like.”
 
Eckers swallowed, wiping his chin.

Julian reached over the bar, taking the bottle from Eckers.
 
He tipped it into a clean glass, the liquid lapping and sloshing.
 
He held it out to the other man, and Eckers took it.
 
“Bernie, we want to enter into a business contract with you.”

The shorter man looked at Julian, eyes squinting.
 
“What’s the catch?”

“There will be paperwork, of course.”

“No, the real catch.”

“Ah,” said Julian.
 
“Well, first of all, this medicant won’t be Reed branded.
 
There is some… commercial sensitivity at this early stage.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s new, Bernie.”
 
Julian pulled at his shirt —
too tight, I haven’t walked around outside in a while
— then put the bottle down.
 
“There is some risk.”

“It could blow up in my face,” said Eckers.

“It could,” said Julian.
 
“Without risk, there is little chance of reward.”

“Right,” said Eckers.
 
“What’s your risk?”

“Can I be honest, Bernie?”

“You can be whatever the hell you like,” said the man.
 
Julian could see him sweating through the arm pits of his shirt.

“The risk for us is that you’re unreliable scum,” said Julian.
 
“You will probably try and sell us out.
 
You may steal our product.”

Eckers swallowed, but stayed silent.

“You see, Bernie,” said Julian, “we could lose a whole line of product over this.
 
It’s a risk we’re willing to take, to … expedite the product to market.”

“It is?”

“Yes,” said Julian, “because if that happens we will fucking execute you.”

Eckers started to laugh, then stopped when Julian didn’t join in.
 
“You always negotiate like this?”

“This isn’t much of a negotiation,” said Julian.
 
“I’ve made you an offer.
 
It’s a generous offer.
 
A partnership from a major syndicate in your shitty, gasping, desperate business.
 
All in exchange for marketing a new medicant, a product people will line up down the block to buy.
 
If you don’t want the deal, we’ll take it somewhere else.”

“No,” said Eckers.
 
“No, I want the deal.”

Julian smiled.
 
Of course you do
.

⚔ ⚛ ⚔

Julian drew on the cigarette, blowing the smoke out in a stream.
 
He was standing outside
The Hole
, a name more apt than Eckers knew.

Or maybe he did.
 
“Your real problem,” said Julian to the empty sidewalk, “is that you let your greed get in the way of your good sense.”

He wasn’t sure if he was talking to Eckers’ memory, not anymore.
 
Julian pushed himself away from the wall, walking back to his car.
 
He managed to stifle the trembling in his leg by clamping a hand down on his thigh, driving fingers into the weak flesh of it.

The light hit the bottle, making the inside look like bottled fire.
 
Mason pushed one of the glasses towards Laia.
 
“Sip.
 
Don’t gulp.”

She looked at the glass, eyes wide, then nodded.
 
She picked up the glass, slow and uncertain.
 
“We…
 
What is this material?
 
It is clear, but remembers the sea.”

“Remembers the…”
 
Mason frowned.
 
“It’s glass.
 
It’s made from sand.”

“Glass?
 
The glass we make is not so clear.
 
Your artisans must be very skilled.”

“I don’t know how they do it.”
 
Mason shrugged, tossing back his whisky in one throw.
 
He made a face, then put the tumbler back down on the table, old and tired like everything else.
 
The top of it was faded, marked by time, but he was sure that it used to be a children’s table.
 
Smiling cartoon characters drawn into the surface with old style ink tried to stare up at him through the distance of time.
 
He didn’t know their names, which syndicate had owned the IP of making forgotten children happy.
 
Doesn’t matter
.
 
“It doesn’t remember anything.”

“You can’t hear it?”
 
Laia looked at his glass, then tipped the entire thing back.
 
Her face screwed up, and she coughed.
 
“It burns.
 
How can you drink it?”

“I said sip, don’t gulp.”

“You didn’t sip.”
 
She frowned at him.
 
“You…
 
You just drank it.”

“Practice,” said Mason, pouring more of the whisky out.
 
The liquid burbled and laughed as it stepped from the bottle.
 
“I practice a lot.”

Laia took the glass again, staring into it.
 
Her voice was quiet.
 
“I felt it die.
 
I pushed against it, and it…
 
It just stopped.
 
It was afraid, and it didn’t want to die.”

“That’s why I practice,” said Mason.
 
“They never want to die.”

Laia took a sip, cautious, tentative like a mouse.
 
Her face didn’t screw up so much.
 
“It smells very good.
 
Like the earth on the moors.”

“Peat,” said Mason.
 
“And smoke.
 
I like the smell more than the taste.”

“You drink this to…
 
Make the memories go away?”

“No,” said Mason, tossing the whisky back again.
 
She’s just a kid.
 
You put a kid in that position.
 
“I drink to make myself go away.”
 
He watched as the girl chewed that one over, pouring himself more whisky.

“Why…
 
Why do you…”

“Why do I do it?”
 
Mason pushed his tumbler around in front of him.
 
“It pays well.
 
I’m good at it.
 
It needs doing.
 
It’s all win-win.”

Laia frowned at him, sipping at her whisky.
 
“Heaven is very strange.
 
Not at all what I expected it to be.”

“Sales and marketing,” said Mason.
 
“You always end up buying shit you don’t need with money you don’t have.”

“Why would I buy shit?”

“Now that’s a good question,” he said, topping up her glass.
 
“I don’t think anyone really knows.”
 
Mason leaned back, the chair he was in creaking, dust falling as the joins flexed.
 
“I don’t have the answers.”

“Who does?”
 
Laia took a swallow of her whisky.
 
“I came here…
 
I stepped through the gate to find you.
 
If you don’t know, then who?”

Mason picked up the bottle, shaking it between them.
 
“The whisky has a few of the answers.”

“You drink this for enlightenment?”

“In a manner of speaking.”
 
Mason put the bottle down.
 
“You sure are a weird kid.”

“I…”
 
Laia looked down, then back up at him.
 
“I’m sorry.”

“No need to be sorry,” said Mason.
 
“It’s refreshing.
 
I spend my life around a bunch of suits, stuffed shirts with bad haircuts.”

“Stuffed…
 
How do you stuff a shirt?”
 
Laia’s frown deepened.
 
“You say very strange things.”

“Right back at you, kid,” said Mason, holding up his glass.
 
She looked at him, her face blank.
 
Mason sighed.
 
“You clink glasses.
 
Here.”
 
He stood up, the chair complaining again, and moved around to her side of the table.
 
Mason lifted her hand with the glass, touching the edge of the tumbler against his own.
 
The sound was a muted promise.

“Why?” said Laia, her eyes wide.
 
Her cheeks were starting to flush with the whisky.
 
“The sand doesn’t need to touch other sand.
 
It doesn’t remember all of what it was.”

“It’s not for the sand.”
 
Mason stood, stretching, then sat back in his chair.
 
“I don’t know.
 
A challenge.
 
A salute.
 
Agreement, maybe.”

“All with a cup?”

“All with a glass,” he said, nodding.
 
“We call them ‘glasses.’
 
Because they’re made of glass.”

“You said they were made of sand.”

“Yes,” said Mason.
 
He finished off his whisky, pouring another.
 
He held the bottle up to her, and she held her tumbler out.

“You say very strange things,” said Laia again.
 
“I don’t understand you at all.
 
You’re not at all what I thought an angel would be like.”

“I’m not an angel,” said Mason.
 
He thought for a moment, then said, “Where you from?”

She blinked at him.
 
“I…
 
I don’t understand.”

“Tell me,” said Mason.
 
He looked at the bottle between them.
 
“It helps, sometimes.”

“What do you want to know?”

“Anything,” said Mason, turning his tumbler around in his hands.
 
He could feel the edges of his words being softened by the drink.
 
“It’s not for me.”

“I…”
 
Laia took another swallow.

“Tell me about your brother.”

“About Zacharies?”

“Sure,” said Mason.

“He’s…
 
He is very strong,” said Laia.
 
“He’s stronger than me.
 
He’s always watched out for me, as much as he could.
 
Even when the masters…”
 
She swallowed, then took another sip of her whisky.
 
Her eyes looked into the distance.
 
“He’s always stood by me.”

Mason didn’t say anything.
 
He sat still, silent, not touching his drink.

Laia laughed, a small sound, nervous.
 
“I remember once he…”
 
She stopped.
 
“I miss him.”

Mason filled her glass again.
 
She didn’t seem to notice, the words falling from her.
 
“He gave me my first birthday present, a piece of cake he’d stolen from one of the masters.
 
It tasted like bottled honey.
 
Zacharies wanted to give me a taste of the sun, he said, the real sun.
 
He said he could still remember where we were born, and told me stories of a place we’d lived by the sea.
 
I don’t remember the sea, I don’t know how so much water could be in one place.
 
I thought it was a silly story, until he gave me a shell.
 
It was only small, but I could hear the memory of where it came from when I held it, a vast ocean of blue and green.
 
It had been lost, but he found it and gave it to me.”
 
Her eyes looked up into his face.
 
“I lost the shell.
 
I lost the shell he gave to me.
 
I don’t know where I put it.”