He was a dumb kid. That's what everyone said. Rocks for brains. And they were probably right. He'd given up on school by the time he was ten years old when his  report card started coming home with Ds and Cs rather than just Cs.

Not all of them, but several...

He had good grades in college. Wasn't just one of those  book smart kids, but actually had a decent head. Decent, but not great. He knew he wasn't the type to be able to start his own business and get rich. So he graduated and got a job.

At his job...

There was a ruckus on the internet . In the year 2020 .

Everybody was getting rich. All they had to do was pour money into stocks and  crypto . They even had apps for it to make it easier.

Than it finally happened. People weren't getting rich anymore. The plan to...

Andrew Cook never wanted to save himself for  marriage . He wasn't that idealistic. Plus, most  educated people these days didn't get married until their late twenties or even early thirties. He couldn't wait that long. But he did like the idea of saving himself. For something. He didn't know...

"Another Wild Turkey."

"Another  Wild Turkey then."

A double shot arrived. He had actually been planning on order a single this time. But what could he do. Order a double your first time around and your  bartender was bound to assume that double was your standard. Plus, he didn't mind drinking extra...

Sandy Bridgers picked at the white glob on the verneer tabletop. She shivered slightly, then took out an Italian flannel shirt. Sandy aimed to keep a long sleeve shirt in one of the bags bags she carried, no matter the temperature. American buildings blasted the AC unlike any other country....

"Are we going to knock on all these doors?"

"Yes."

"Why? There must be a better system?"

"There isn't. It's not like the old days when everybody watched the same few channels."

"What about  Twitter ?"

"Twitter? What about it?"

"Can't we tweet it there and get it trending?"

"Just how many followers do you think our...

As soon as I got home I tried doing laundry . But my mom, that overbearing wench came in just as I was trying to, asking 'why was I washing clothes?'.

Why was I washing... because I fucking want to, is what I wanted to tell her. But I had never...

"What else do you get?"

The thick wrist placed the  beer back on the coffee table and then the wideset torso that it was attached to leaned back. On top of was a big blockhead with that bright white smile. Usually such white smiles were exclusive to straight  teeth , belonging...

Four miles west of where Andrew Cook received his 2nd coffee, James Sallis climbed the set of stairs that must've cost at least 2.5 million dollars to design and construct. He thought of the principle of spending that much on just a stairwell. Of course this was no ordinary  stairwell...