Synthetic-Blood -e

By J. David Core

Emmanuel Adams has trouble believing he is one of the last six "real" people on earth … then he meets a biker called "Snake" in a bar, his wife tries to kill him, and Manny discovers the world he has always known is only a prop! Set in 1984, this alternative reality novel is the real thing.

ISBN 1-59431-183-8 Horror/Alternative Reality

Cover Art/Maggie Dix

Also available in RTF and HTML formats.



Chapter One

Why Would An Android Laugh?

Emanuel Adams walked out into the cool midnight air on the Saturday in the late summer of 1989, and he hocked up a phlegm ball. He spat it hurling on the sooty pavement where it rolled like a gob of mercury, collecting a shell of the settlement of fly-ash which covered the streets of Weirton Steel Corporation.

Emmanuel, better known as "Hap" or "Manny" to his friends, had known a lot of pollution in his brief thirty-two years. So the chill that settled in the valley that Saturday did little to subdue his wheeze.

He had grown up in this pan-handle town located snugly between Wheeling and Pittsburgh, PA. He had become accustomed to its football mentality and its obscure prejudices. He would have liked to leave, but everybody would have liked to leave. Still in all, it was a good place to raise a family; virtually devoid of any major crime. (Unless you counted government corruption as a major crime). And there were things for the kids to do, and he had his distractions.

In fact, he was on his way to just such a distraction as he located his dirt-crusted Reliant in the company lot.

Manny had been coming to this club every Saturday for months, but still he had his id at the ready. He knew the bouncer wouldn't recognize him, because this bouncer would be new. They were always new. He couldn't remember having ever seen the same bouncer twice. But all of the faces would become familiar once he got past the muscle at the door. That was the pattern.

He would start with a boiler-maker at the Cyclone club, then across the street for a beer at the Mid-town and he would close the triangle with a coke at the new club Alibis. At each club, he'd tip the best dancer, then he'd go home and sleep, while his wife and kids went to church.

He sat quickly at the bar. There was an empty stool, and he hated sitting alone at a table in a strip bar. At the bar you looked like a sociable everyman. Alone at a table you looked like a lonely pervert. Like that new guy at the table by the poker machine; the one in the denim jacket with the Maltese cross pinned to it.

Carley was dancing that night. She was one of Manny's favorite exotics. She'd made a point of learning his name, and she always asked about his family. She even knew that he had three sons. She came down from the stage and strolled up to the bar as the record was changing on the juke-box.

She gave Manny a hug, and her bare breasts pressed against his jacket. Manny had seen them before though, so he looked into her face. He couldn't believe she was thirty-five. She didn't look it.

As they talked, the next record began, and Manny tucked a folded dollar into her G-string. She kissed him lightly on the cheek and danced to the next patron at the next stool with the next dollar. Manny looked at her legs, and he thought of how they resembled the nearly perfect mechanical legs in the video for ZZ Tops Roughboys He would have to request that song in her next set, he decided.

Then his stream of consciousness wandered for a moment. He began to recall an instance with his wife. Corey had danced for him once when ZZ Top was singing Legs on the radio. Maybe he would request Legs instead. It seemed somehow adulterous, and he enjoyed that feeling considering the relative innocence.

Then, as if to appease the conflict between reality and imagination, he brought his fantasy public. He turned to the patron beside him, the one with the wallet newly lightened by the weight of one dollar, and said, "She's got great legs. My wife's got legs like those. I wonder if her tits are real."

The man smiled coyly. "If you mean the dancer's tits, I don't know," he said. "But if you mean your wife's tits. Yeah, I'm pretty sure they were real."

Manny furrowed his brow, then in an instant, he caught on. He smiled broadly and ordered a round for the new friend he'd made. And then he noticed the Maltese cross.

This was the lonely pervert from the table. When had he moved to the bar? Manny was curious about this stranger and about his jewelry. The cross, with its forked appendages, bothered him. It looked like a Masonic symbol. Manny disliked Masons. They were too fraternal, too exclusionist.

Or, he thought, it could be a Nazi cross. Or even a Satanic symbol. Anything, he thought to himself, but a Mason, and he laughed.

At that moment, a commotion erupted at the television end of the bar. It seemed that Hulk Hogan had made a bad judgment call in an attack on André the Giant, and several of Manny's compeers thought the referee should have tendered a resignation.

Manny furrowed his brow again. He shook his head and shrugged. "I don't get it," he said. "It's so obvious that it's a put-on, but still people get mad at the referee. I remember once, there was one of those cage matches on, and I even got caught up in it. This one guy was bleeding, and the other guy kept coming, and I wondered why somebody didn't stop it. I mean, I knew the blood was fake and the fight was fixed, but even in make-believe it should be fair."

The man in the denim jacket turned his stool to face Manny, and for the first time, Manny noticed how small he was, and that he was wearing a tie. He's no Mason, Manny thought. A Mason would never wear a necktie with denim.

"The blood is always make-believe," the little man said. "Even on the news. The blood is make-believe. That's what TV is for. It confuses real and unreal. It dilutes reality with fantasy until emotion is the only reality we have left. But emotions are transient and intangible and completely unreliable. They're too easily manipulated. That's the whole premise behind nationalism. Manipulate emotions to manipulate loyalties.

"That's how they get you, and entertainment primes the pump." Definitely not a Nazi, Manny realized. And too detached to be a Satanist. "Can I ask a question?" Manny asked, and then before he got an answer, "What's that cross supposed to be?"

The cross-bearer creased his face in a smile. "This?" he said pointing. "This was my grandfather's. It's a pin from the VFW I just wear it ornamentally. I've never been in a real war. My name's Jack. Jack DuPomme, but my friends call me Snake."

"Mine call me Hap," Manny said, "but my name is Manny Adams." The two men shook hands; a ritual that Manny relished and which Snake seemed to tolerate. Snake invited Manny to a table, and Manny stood before Snake had even begun. As a table for one was perverse, a table for two was a party. The girls generally loved dancing for a party. It meant more tips.

But tonight was somehow different. As they began to cross the table, Carley registered protest. "Hey, Manny. Where're ya goin'?" she asked. She reached out from the stage and held Manny fast by the arm.

"We're movin' to a table." Manny had to tug his arm away. Carley followed him across the dance floor.