by Eric Fomley
Nightfox was trending up.
My apartment door chimed and Nightfox was in the station corridor, her social drone buzzed around her, she rocked the most hit worthy mutates I’d seen all week. Her head was her signature fox with black fur and sapphire stars but her body was bird with bat wings. Killer combo.
“Ew Gekko, you look so skin. You can’t go to top level looking like that.”
My throat dropped into my gut. I’d worked on my mutates all day yesterday, trying for retro human with fish scales, but clearly I’d clipped the vibe.
“Sorry Fox, I don’t wanna kill your campaign, I can just wait it out here.” It was hard getting that outta my mouth, Nightfox had just earned enough social trend in the last couple weeks to be invited to top level parties, and I’d never been. It was a surefire way to rocket to the social top. I knew I’d never have a chance like this if Fox wasn’t my literal best friend since childbirth.
“Don’t sweat it Gek,” and she took a step into my apartment, leaving her social drone in the hall and motioned for me to do the same. I sent mine out with hers and the door slid closed. Fox had been to my apartment hundreds of times over the years we’d lived on Station 33 but this time I was vaguely aware of how spare it was, just a bed, vidwall and storage chest. I knew with how much she was trending she’d made some serious upgrades to hers, though she’d been too busy on top level to have me over. But I felt pretty embarrassed to be so drab.
She leaned close to me and whispered, “I got your mutates covered, just take one of these.” She reached into the breast pocket of her jacket and pulled out a mutate vial, it was smaller than any I’d ever seen and the liquid was almost fluorescent purple.
“But won’t we be hella late to the party?” It usually took about twelve hours for the mutates to complete.
She winked at me and gave me her foxy grin. “Not with this, but don’t tell anyone, pay for the sample by keeping it a secret.”
I nodded and grabbed the vial, spinning off the top with a gentle hiss, and drained it.
It was like drinking lava. My veins burned and I gritted my teeth as bones and organs shifted and rearranged. It wasn’t gradual at all like any of the other potions I’d taken and it rocked me all at once. I closed my eyes and held my breath and suddenly it was all over. A few seconds of pain and that was it.
“Woah.”
“Now that’s trendular.”
I turned my wall vid into a mirror and saw my orange bumpy flesh and big black eyes. I didn’t have a nose and my hands were webbed and I looked just plain fucking terrestrial. It was a badass gig and I knew I’d slide the trend scale.
“Thanks cous!”
“Anytime. Now, ready to party?” That foxy grin I loved so much was back.
“Hella yeah.”
We stepped into the corridor and Fox got her drone to snap a social. Ready to Party! She posted with balloon animations and tagged me. As all her followers hit and impression my bank account ticked up. In thirty seconds, I made more than I had the last three months.
It was gonna be a good night.
* * *
The lift to top level was guarded by two half-vampire bat, half-gorilla monstrosities.
Fox rolled up to them with the sort of air of belonging the giant creatures could never make me feel.
“Jackal’s party.”
They nodded and stepped aside, leaving the lift entrance open enough for us to squeeze past. I looked up at one of them, the beady bat eyes glaring at me like the thug wanted to tear me apart right there. It hissed and I hurried inside.
“Nice people.”
“They just want to make sure dregs aren’t trend crashing.”
Fox waved in front of the lift control and the lift synced and verified her profile. Then sent her a query on a private channel.
“Gekko is a friend, I’m bringing him along,” she said out loud. She grinned at me and leaned in close, whispering, “It thinks you’re too lame.”
I laughed and the lift door slid shut, humming as it ascended.
The lift doors slid open to a huge dance floor full of mutates. Club music heavy on bass slammed through the room with ethereal chorus layered over the top. Everyone danced and crowded in, throwing back shot glasses and touching each other’s mutates, looking for new sweet experiences.
In the center of the floor was a platform and on it was the Jackal and his crew, everyone who trended the highest on social. He wore an exotic pattern that stretched the rainbow, velociraptor mutates and glowing red eyes. He dipped and spun, feet moving to the beat so fast I could scarcely keep up. His drone buzzed around, catching it all on social and when I looked at his feed on my hud, millions were dialed in, stamps of approval flooding his feed. This was what he lived for, what we all lived for, and he was a legend.
We mixed with the crowd and soon I lost sight of Nightfox and I was bumping skin with everyone around me. It wasn’t like the parties below, everyone was hungry to make it to top level, hungry for the social trending. But here, everyone had arrived, and it seemed like they just wanted to be pleased and have a good time.
The person I danced with sent me a private link asking to hook up. It included their advice on where their genitalia was located on their green alien form. I linked up with them on the dance floor. Like most of the mutates, we both had both male and female parts at different parts of our bodies. We contorted on the floor to make it work; and the best orgasm of my life ensued.
I hooked up with a couple others here and there, and after one hook up Fox found me and pulled my ear close to be heard over the music. She already had a different mutate. Her skin was purple and gray with accentuated masculine features.
“Having a good time?”
I looked at her and nodded.
“Great, I saw some of your partners on social. Looked fun. There’s someone I want you to meet.”
Something in the way she said that about the partners struck me as off, but I kept it to myself. She took me by the hand and pulled me through the crowd.
* * *
Jackal sat on the platform, surrounded by some of the top trending people I’d only ever seen on social. Nightfox led me right in front of him.
“Jackal this is Gekko, he’s a potential trender.”
Jackal grinned and his beady eyes bored into me. “Hasn’t anyone warned you about hanging with Nightfox? She’ll get you wrapped up into shit quick.”
I giggled and he turned his attention back to Fox. “So when are you going to let me in on your little secret.”
“What are you talking about?” She did a pretty good job feigning innocence.
A couple of the trenders came up behind us.
“This is my station, Nightfox, I don’t appreciate you or your friend playing some game to try and take it from me.”
Her eyes narrowed. “I wouldn’t dare.”
“I’m glad we understand each other. I would hate for someone to be sent back to Earth to hang with the skins.”
I shuddered and the people behind us regressed.
He put a smile back on. “Now make sure you guys have a good time and remember what we talked about. Maybe you’ll be talking to me soon about how you are managing mutates so many times per day.”
Nightfox turned and blended into the crowd. I gave the Jackal one last look before hurrying to catch up with her. “What was that all about!?”
“He’s scared. He knows his days are numbered so he thinks he can bully us. But I’m not scared.”
“Scared of what?”
“What do you mean of what? Of us! Of the mutates and being able to take the power he has away by trending up. Whoever runs the social runs the station. By being able to mutate into different things faster we could get more hits, more trends, and we could take that from him.”
My curiosity got the better of me. “How exactly are you even able to do faster mutates.”
She looked at me like she was measuring what I said in her brain, debating.
“Not here. But if I let you in you can’t say a damn word to anyone, you feel me?”
I nodded.
“God this is getting outta hand. Follow me.”
She led me back to the lift.
* * *
I hadn’t been to the bottom level of station in a long time. I’d been so focused on gaining more followers, more status, that I forgot about the culture of the bottom level. It was a bit of a mixed bag. Some of the lower status people who couldn’t make a vid or pic happen or get any kind of decent looking mutates spent all their time on the bottom level trying to get recognition while doing what we like to call “grunt jobs” where they did menial things like keeping the station running smooth.
I shuddered when I thought about what it might be like to be one of the skins. Some of them didn’t give a shit about social or any of that back on Earth. They wanted to do menial jobs, live life in the same skin all the time, not try to have a following. It made me cringe to think about. What would it be like to not have something to chase?
Fox led me through some of the hallways where people with lame looking mutates bumbled to and fro, looking all depressed and shit as they did their boring ass jobs until we came to one door that actually looked pretty trendular with a spray painted half dog spider on the front. Looked kind of badass in a basic sort of way.
Fox stopped in front of the door and motioned for her drone to stay behind and motioned for me to do the same with mine.
“No matter what’s said in here, you keep it between you and me, you got it?” She looked fierce, dangerous even as she looked into my eyes. But it seemed whatever she was using was working, so I couldn’t really blame her for wanting to keep it to herself.
I followed Fox inside. There was a skin. A plain ass, skin all plain and no mutates, human inside. I gaped, and knew I was gaping, but I hadn’t seen one of these since I was small and Fox and I told our mothers we wanted to rise to the top and left their crying asses behind. This was unreal. And there was no way to detrend faster than hanging out with one of these.
The skin looked at me and frowned. “Who’s your friend?”
“Gekko, he’s my cous and trending up. He wanted to know what my secret sauce was.”
She winked over to me and I appreciated her vote of confidence that I was trending up.
“Gek this is Scrub. He makes some of the mutates that get passed around station topside.”
“You make what I do sound so boring.”
Fox laughed. “Okay, so his are super special. They transmute your body in less time. I can get off twenty four mutates in a day. That’s what has everyone so damn curious about me. They get their couple off during the course of the party whereas I get a whole bunch of chances to change and impress.”
It was so outside the structure I was impressed. “How do you manage that?”
Scrub put a finger to his lips all retro human like. “It’s the secret of the sauce. No one innovates anymore like they used to, they take shit and run with it. I like playing around, inventing things, and making the system better. But like I said to Nightfox, what is mine is mine. I’ll let you guys have samples, but the secret is mine.”
He was totally redoing the system and giving Fox and I an in. If we played our cards right, we’d be standing on top of where the Jackal was with no cares or worries in the world, the station bending to our desires and trying to get what we had. It was the most badass thing ever and when I looked at Fox I could see she already knew what I was thinking.
“What do you have for us now?”
Scrub had a sly grin. “A new batch, this one doesn’t quit. You’ll know what I mean, but wait until you hit the next party topside. It’ll be a real game changer.”
He handed both of us a couple of vials.
“Thanks Scrub. You’re the best.”
He smiled. “No. I just want to see change.”
* * *
When we got back to the lift I asked Fox something that had been in my brain for a minute.
“Why me?”
She laughed. “What the hell do you mean, cous?”
“I mean you could have shared your secret with anyone, let anyone go with you to the top, but you chose me. Why? I’m a midlist midlevel nontrend motherfucker, not a top level station running badass.”
She seemed to stop breathing for a second. “Do you really not know?” She looked at me with her foxy eyes and it seemed to dawn on me all of a sudden.
We’d hooked up lots of times but we’d both hooked up with lots of people, usually daily. We both expressed to each other how much we liked to experience the different types of mutates and hookups but some retro relationship had never crossed my mind. It wasn’t really all that popular anymore. At least not until you got old or wanted to be a skin.
“You want something more with us?”
“I’m about to make a run for the top. It puts a lot of what we have in life into perspective. I think I want you there with me. Is that a status killer?”
“No. I think that would be super trendular! Fox and Gekko running the show!”
She kissed me then, letting her mutates link up with mine. There was more behind it this time, the added meaning that I think was always there but never quite defined. I laid into her as much as she did me and she let the social drones buzz to life around us, raking in hits.
* * *
We took the vials Scrub gave us when we hit top level and Oh. My. God.
It had us spinning through mutates every ten minutes! First I was some mythological lion with wings and a dragon head then next thing you know I’m an oversized frog with an alligator head. It was so sick and lit and everyone at the party didn’t even know what the hell was going on so they all stopped linking up with each other and dancing and just started getting their drones to watch Fox and I ride through mutates like we were changing our underwear, hoping to capture a little bit of the audience that was swarming to us.
Damn the hits kept climbing in. Everyone who was someone was watching us. Even Jackal, with his beady, hateful eyes glaring down on us, had his mouth agape.
That was when Nightfox took point. Her social trend skyrocketed. Huge numbers crushed Jackal’s status ratings. He wasn’t the king. Wasn’t even second, that fell to me. Nightfox and I were running the show.
We made our way to the leader platform, ready to run this station and turn the party up.
Jackal stepped out in front of us. “I don’t know who you think you are but this won’t last, it will never last. Take care of them.” He nodded to all his subordinates and then to us. No one moved.
“Do I have to repeat myself?”
One of the henchmen stepped forward. “It would be a status killer to stand up against the new Queen.” The others grunted in agreement and Jackal bubbled up with rage and charged forward. One of the brutes stepped in and knocked him to the floor like it was nothing.
“Get lost Jackal.” Nightfox said with a smile.
She was the big badass now. I smiled and she saw me looking at her and smiled back, giving me a wink.
Hell yeah, this was gonna be lit.
* * *
I danced until my body was sore and Nightfox and I hooked up about three dozen times in three days, the most our mutates could keep up with. I decided to stop pushing myself with the vials and wanted to get some actual sleep. I told Fox as much.
“Hell no, we’re toplevel motherfucking badasses now. We can’t sleep, that’s how you lose the top spot.”
“You can’t keep me pushing this shit and sleeping on the floor up here.”
“I can if you wanna keep being at the top.”
She had a fierce look about her that I wasn’t fond of. She’d never been shitty with me before.
“Well I’m cutting out anyway. I won’t be real long.”
“Whatever.” She sounded so cold and popped another vial.
I rolled my eyes and went back to the lift to shoot back to my apartment.
When I stepped off and rounded a corner I saw Jackal. He was slumped against the wall in one of the dimly lit hallways. I didn’t have to walk any closer to see that his wrists were slit. Purple fluorescent mutate fluid mixed in and shimmering in the blood on the floor around him.
Shit.
I guessed that losing everything he worked hard to achieve must have hit him harder than expected. He’d been the top level motherfucker for at least a year. Couldn’t take the decline.
I thought about Nightfox and her concern with keeping up the toplevel status. It was what we all wanted wasn’t it? How bad would it be to lose it? I thought about my blooming feelings with her. I wanted that to last for sure. But how long could we keep things up like this. Did she want an after?
My social drone captured the image and I sent it over to Nightfox’s private feed.
She threw a thumbs up and shot back that the motherfucker messed with the Fox and Gek!
That hurt my heart more than I expected it to, but I decided I must have just been tired.
I went back to the apartment and hit the bed.
* * *
The next day I went toplevel again and when I saw Nightfox she smiled and gave me a hug. “Sorry for yesterday cous, I hope I wasn’t a status killer. Of course you gotta get that sleep!”
I could tell even with her unicorn-foxhead mutates that she hadn’t slept at all.
“No big. But there was something I wanted to ask you if you could manage a private sec.”
She nodded and we walked over to the edge of the room by the wall, pinging the nearby social drones to give us a few moments of privacy. Kinda hard when everyone wants her attention to get a snapshot and some free hits but we made it happen.
“What’s up Gek?”
“You ever think about what next with us?”
“Yeah, killing the social game and running the station’s sickest parties!” She laughed, a sweet and beautiful sound.
“I mean after that. Like when we aren’t at the top anymore.”
“Shit. We just got here, don’t be a status killer.”
“Flatter me?”
“If we ain’t at the top then we gotta find a way to be again.”
“You’d never consider heading back to Earth to be a skin with me?”
The look of disgust on her face turned my stomach. “Gek when did you get so old? Ew. No, it’s this or die baby. Fuck skins.”
She turned and walked away from me, back to the platform while the drones buzzed overhead again.
I tried to dance and drink to get my mind away from the convo with Fox but she ignored me all day and didn’t hook up with me so I felt weird and couldn’t stop thinking about it. A couple days of that awkwardness later she came rolling up to me with wide, frantic eyes.
“Gek, what the fuck!?”
“Huh?”
“You told people about Scrub and his formula?”
“Hell no!”
“Then how the fuck do you explain this?” She shared a video to my feed of someone switching bodies every two minutes, they had millions of hits already and climbing.
“Damn.” I didn’t know what to say. Scrub seemed to have his own game he was playing after all, and our success had been contingent on being on his secret sauce list. “Scrub must be trying to give out more samples. He’s probably just ungrateful he isn’t getting the cred.”
“Fuck you, Gek. I trusted you. He’s never given out samples to anyone but me, then I let you in and this? Fuck. You.”
She stormed away.
I didn’t stop her. My feet just wandered to the lift. On my way through I saw Fox get back up on the platform, down several vials at once, and instantly grow new mutates. She’d kill herself trying.
* * *
I bought a passage to Earth.
It was the hardest decision I’d ever made but something inside of me broke when I talked to Fox about our future. I loved her. But the sweet taste of the toplevel of the station had a bitter aftertaste. Nightfox was blind to it and I couldn’t stand to be around to watch it end her or drive her mad.
I loved her, and I didn’t want her to think of me as a coward, so I told her my plans. She just sent me a middle finger back with a fuck you.
I sat in the shuttle. The last thing I saw on social before I powered it down, as my skin went back to normal dark human skin, was the headline.
Nightfox was trending down.
* * *
About the Author
Eric Fomley’s fiction has appeared in Clarkesworld, Flash Fiction Online, Daily Science Fiction, Flame Tree Press, and other anthologies and magazines. More of his fiction can be read at his website ericfomley.com, or in his latest collections Futures and Cold Memory.