"What's wrong with that?"

"There's nothing wrong with it, except I've been somebody so goddamn long I've had it."

Wanda-Jean wasn't sure she could handle this. She wondered what Priest was on. "You don't mean that. You wouldn't go on doing the show if you didn't like it."

"So I don't even get a night off now and then?" He waved his arm around the room. "You see these weirdos here? They don't know from shit about me or you or game shows or feelies, and they care even less. That's what I call a night off."

"I'm sure you need it…"

"But not on your time. You wanted to go to some joint where everyone would recognize us. Right?"

"I didn't say that."

"But it's true."

"I don't want to fight with you." Wanda-Jean was actually scared. It all seemed to be going wrong on her. She couldn't afford to get on the wrong side of Bobby Priest.

"Yeah, well…"

To her surprise Priest suddenly slumped. His shoulders sagged. He looked older and much less energetic than before. "I expect you want to go."

It was too fast for Wanda-Jean. "I…"

"We'll go back to your hotel."

The totally flat statement was much too fast. Wanda-Jean had expected to wind up in bed with Priest, but she had expected at least some sort of token persuasion. She let out a confused laugh. "Sure, yeah, okay, let's go."

Back at the hotel it had become even stranger. Priest had lapsed into silence again on the ride home. Wanda-Jean had half expected to be taken to the hotel bar for a drink. Instead she was steered straight into the lift and up to her, or rather the network's, suite. The silence continued as they rode up in the lift and went through the living room into the bedroom. The moment they were in the bedroom, Bobby Priest had started taking off his clothes. There hadn't been a word. Something rebelled inside her. There was a limit to everything, even for Bobby Priest. She planted her hands squarely on her hips.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?"

Priest turned and looked at her. His face registered surprise. "I was taking my clothes off. What else?"

"Why?"

"What do you mean, why?"

"What I said, why? You going to take a bath or something?"

"I imagined we were going to fuck."

Wanda-Jean became really angry. "That's what you imagined, did you?"

"Well…"

"No sweet talk, no build up, nothing. Just strip off and get to it?"

"What do you want, champagne and flowers?"

"Why the hell not?"

"It all comes to the same thing in the end. Why bother with a whole lot of phony bullshit?"

"Phony or not, at least I get to keep some pride. I get to be more than just something for you to jerk off in. Even hookers get paid."

Priest sneered. "So how much do you want?"

"You bastard!"

"Yeah? Why so worked up, sweetie? Don't make me laugh with all this crap about pride. You lost all your pride when you went in for the show. All you got left is greed. You'd do anything to stay on the show, and as far as you're concerned, I am the show. You screwed everyone you thought might do you the slightest bit of good, so why waltz around?"

He had started to move toward her.

"You might as well just get down. I'm only one more."

He put his hands on her shoulders and pushed her back on the bed. Wanda-Jean was way past resisting. She fell back limply. Priest started tearing at her clothes. A part of her wanted to fight him off, to kick and scratch and hurt him, but the rest of her just couldn't raise the energy.

There has been a certain relief in the fact that it was all over in a flash. Priest came almost as soon as he had started. Wanda-Jean wondered if maybe he got his real kick beforehand. Was he a degradation freak? He lay flat on his back staring at the ceiling in silence. Wanda-Jean gathered up what was left of her clothes and her dignity and and retreated into the bathroom. She felt as though being sick might be an appropriate gesture, but even that seemed a bit futile. Instead, she took a shower and cleaned her teeth. When she returned to the bedroom, Priest was asleep. She slipped into bed. Fortunately, it was so large that there was room for an appreciable space between them.

It had been a tense, unhappy day at the vault.

There were rumors all over the building, rumors that had even penetrated as deep as the underground dreamworld over which he and Sam presided. There were changes coming. That seemed to be the only point of agreement in the numerous conflicting stories. There was some major reorganization being planned. What exactly that meant was far from clear. Everyone claimed to know the inside scoop. Everyone had the details, but when taken as a whole, all the gossip really added up to was a mass of contradiction and confusion. Some said that there was going to be massive cutbacks and thousands would be thrown out of work. Others whispered that there was going to be equally massive expansion, and that with thousands of new jobs and increased bonuses, happy days were really here. Many responded to that with mutterings of "Don't hold your breath." The worst doomsayers claimed that there was something radically wrong with the entire system, and that the government was going to close down the whole IE operation. Those last claims, however, were made very quietly. To talk about anything like that within the walls of CM and in the places that CM employees gathered was viewed as a clear case of sedition, and although it wasn't actual grounds for dismissal, grounds could be easily found. Needless to say, Ralph feared for his job. Although he cursed it, Ralph's job was everything to him. It was all that stood between him and being absolutely lost in the twilight as just another wino. Sam probably feared, too, but on this particular day, he appeared too doped up even to approach his anxieties.

Ralph had actually started out going for the RT in the usual way, driven by the force of habit. He made it as far as Reagan Plaza when something inside him revolted. He couldn't face the ride; he couldn't face sitting on the slowly emptying train, watching the doors, waiting for some mob of sociopath weirdies to come storming aboard and make him a victim. Without really thinking about it, he stood up as the monorail pulled into Reagan and left the train along with the late shoppers and the executives on their way to the heliport and their comfortable apartments in the security towers that surrounded the plaza. As he came out of the station and walked through the lavish Reagan atrium, he had no real idea where he intended to go, but that soon fell into place. Beyond the Reagan development there was a small enclave of traditional streets with shops and old-style Irish bars. They were not unlike the streets he had known when he was a boy, streets that were reasonably well policed and safe to stroll down without having an obvious reason for being there.

The first bar he came to was an executive hangout, recognizable by its polished brass and hanging plants. He gave the place, ironically called Ralph's, the go by and continued to walk. The next bar he came to, the Saddle Horn, was too dark and gay and noisy for his taste, filled with too many cruising figures briefly illuminated by spinning lasers. He kept on going, enjoying the chance to walk aimlessly, in no hurry to get anywhere. It was another two blocks before he saw what he wanted. The green neon shamrock and the red and white Himmler beer sign glowed like the lights of home in the gathering dusk.

The place was called the Pride of Erin, and the inside was quite as welcoming as the exterior. It was filled with the comfortable smell of beer and cigarette smoke. When one lived out in the twilight sprawl, it became all too easy to forget what comfort really meant. Sure there were bars along Lincoln Avenue, and they also smelled of beer and cigarettes, but out there, one could never quite get away from the tension, the automatic glance up when a stranger walked in, the ostentation of the antitheft devices on the cash register, and the nagging fear that at any given moment one of the other customers might explode. There was too much poverty out around the bars on Lincoln Avenue. There were always the broken fittings in the bathrooms, and the Christmas decorations that no one had bothered to take down in five or six years. In the Pride of Erin, there were bowls of pretzels on the bar, and the bartender actually smiled at Ralph when he walked in and sat down on a stool.