Now, as always, he tried to keep to the alleys as he navigated Subtown. Peering out from one of these, he spotted an outdoors cafe (if it could be spoken of as such), spilling onto the sidewalk. He lingered in the alley mouth until a nicely dressed couple got up from their table, leaving behind a little coffee in their mugs and half a croissant on one plate. He emerged from the alley and went to the table, snatching up the piece of croissant just before the waiter reappeared and started shouting at him. He hurried away, glancing over his shoulder to see the waiter protectively gather up some slips of colored paper that the nicely dressed couple had also left behind them on the table.

He ducked into another narrow passage between buildings, and there brought the croissant up to his face. Some of it had flaked away in his tight grip, but he studied the smashed bit that lay in his palm. He stared and stared at it, so hungry. But he could not think of how to get the succulent morsel into that empty place that yawned inside his body.

Two youths stepped into the end of the alley, laughing, holding a woman's handbag between them. As they clawed through the pouch, little bits of this and that dropped to the alley floor. Coins. A container of mints. A little glass bottle that smashed with a tinkle and emitted a strong flowery scent.

Giggling, babbling. Their happiness inspired the homeless person. He moved forward out of the shadows, shuffled toward them. Maybe they could help him. Show him what to do.

"Whoa!" said one of the youths, looking up at the homeless person's approach.

"Dung, man," the other laughed, to hide the fact that he'd been startled. "What the hell you want, you mutated freak?"

The homeless person stopped a few paces away, almost the same height as the two boys but bulkier. The rustling plastic cloak he wore made him look bulkier still. He lifted his arm, extended his fist and opened it, revealing the smashed remnant of croissant there. He wanted to make the noises they made, but he could not. All he could do was hope that they understood his mute gesture. Helped him to feed, and appease this perplexing hunger.

"Thanks, freak, but I'm not hungry," the darker-skinned of the two boys said. He stepped up to the homeless person and slapped the piece of croissant out of his hand. It went flying, landed on the ground. The boy then backed off, sputtering laughter. They both laughed.

The homeless person looked down at the morsel on the ground. He then looked up again, and moved closer to the boys imploringly. So confused. So hungry. He continued to hold out the empty hand in which the croissant had rested.

"Get back, wanker," the lighter-faced youth snapped, lunging and shoving at his shoulders. "Go beg someplace else."

But the homeless person was heavy, despite his hollow hunger, and barely moved when pushed. He did not drop his extended arm.

The dark-faced boy tore something out from under his jacket. Was he taking pity? Knowing that he had not been able to find a way to get the croissant inside, did the boy have something more suitable to offer him? But the hard black object he gripped in his fist did not look like food, and it did not look like he was willing to hand it over, either. The gun made a little electronic blip to announce that its safety feature had been thumbed off.

The homeless person reached out his arm a little further. He tried to touch the lighter-skinned boy on the arm.

"Get off me!" he cried, stumbling back against the alley wall.

"Blasting freak," the black boy snarled, lowering his gun and putting one shot into the homeless person's distended belly.

This stolen gun did not fire solid projectiles, but a short beam of light of an intense purple color. Like an arrow, it pierced his belly, its entire length disappearing inside him. The arrow of light left a black, puckered hole. A little dribble of clear fluid, as thick as syrup, wept out of the puncture beneath his poncho.

Had the boy meant to feed him, by injecting some sort of nourishment directly into that hungry place? He didn't think so. It only made him feel more hollowed out in there. And besides, it hurt. It hurt badly.

The homeless person didn't like to hurt. He didn't like these would-be friends.

He swept his other arm, and it struck the black boy on the wrist. There was a snap of bones and the hand flipped over at an extreme angle. The gun he'd been holding went sailing down the alley, skittered across its floor. He began to scream, but the homeless person's other hand clamped across his face, and squeezed, and lifted. Between thick digits, the boy's eyes darted madly. The hand squeezed tighter, causing one of the maddened eyes to be ejected from its socket, bulging out between two of the fingers. When the homeless person slammed the boy's limp, dangling body against the wall again and again, the other eye stopped moving, too.

"Dung, dung, dung!" the lighter-skinned boy cried, bolting out of the alley. He even tried racing through a gap in the street's traffic, but he misjudged his trajectory and the speed of the vehicles he plunged between. A silver hovercar tapped him enough to spin him around, but a red hovercar struck him hard enough to sweep him right out of the homeless person's range of sight.

He released the black boy, watched him flop to the alley floor at his feet. The smell of the red fluid leaking from the splits in the youth's skull made his innards gurgle all the more insistently, but he didn't know how to get that stuff inside him, either.

Tensing up his body against the molten pain inside him, he turned and sought out the dropped morsel of croissant. He went to it and stooped to retrieve it. This action made the pain stab him more deeply, but he dealt with it. Straightening, he studied the morsel again. Then, he lifted the edge of his makeshift cloak, and crammed the food into the little black hole the boy had burned through the blue plastic, burned through his flesh.

Using his finger, he pushed the crushed pastry inside as far as he could. But it did not even begin to alleviate his hunger.

Later in the day, as he resumed his wandering through the labyrinth of alleys, his body finally pushed that crumpled piece of croissant out of him again. There was one good thing, however. The black hole closed, sealed up, and was gone as if it had never existed. And shortly after that, the hot pain inside him subsided as well.

But the hunger remained.

As he followed John Fukuda to their table, Stake took in the people who had already sat down to their lunch. Most of them were men in expensive five-piece suits, some of whom had left overcoats and bowler hats-the current fashion for the stylish businessman-with a robot attendant which would not misplace a single item. But one article of clothing that many of the men continued to flaunt proudly caused Stake to give a derisive smirk. Tucked into a pocket of their jackets like a handkerchief, these men wore a soiled pair of teenage girls' panties. Preferably white, though sometimes with a soft flowery pattern or even cute-kawaii-designs such as the adorable jellyfish that proliferated on clothing lately. Other men, though, wore their panties tucked into the collar of their shirts, hanging down their fronts like a tie. One gentleman who was just being seated actually wore his pair across his lower face like a mask to filter his breathing. Presumably he would remove it in order to eat. The two sharply dressed adult women being seated with him appeared utterly indifferent to this accoutrement, apparently not insulted by the fact that their own larger personal garments would not be coveted in this way.

Stake touched Fukuda's elbow, causing him to pause and face him. "What do you think of this fad with the panties, Mr. Fukuda, having a teenage daughter of your own? I've heard girls even younger than Yuki sell their underwear to panty brokers, who put them in those vending machines you see around."