“Spotty,” said Darlene. “All these hysterically funny Dick Too Dibbs ads kept popping up. Poor Gerry. Not that his gig would have been much better without the interruptions. Banality is an exabyte of data, yes, but it’s just images of San Francisco at noon on the day after Orphid Night, with Gerry’s voiceovers. No story, and no characters besides our host, the virtual Gerry Gurken. Banality is about a lonely kiqqie who pokes around in alleys and has these sad, wry little insights. A metanovel can be so much more.”

“Oh, give the guy some credit,” said Thuy, who was good friends with Gerry. “Some of his juxtaposes are transcendent. But, yeah, I’m aiming for my Wheenk to have a suspenseful action trajectory. If I can swing it, I’d like to have several inter-locking plots, the whole thing like clockwork or a program or a complex knot.”

“But it has to be authentic,” said Darlene.

“We’re alchemists,” said Thuy. “Transmuting our lives into myth and fable.”

Metanovelists’ bull sessions could go on for hours. Jayjay privately wondered how much work Thuy had actually done. She kept all her notes and drafts under secure protection and had never shared any of her metanovel with him, other than that one metastory.

“What’s that?” interrupted Kittie, peering down the block. A group of people were gathered around an inert, stick-thin figure who’d just been pulled out of an alley.

“It’s Grandmaster Green Flash!” exclaimed Sonic, as they ran to see.

Hip, sparkling Grandmaster Green Flash had been the reigning San Francisco Doodly Bug champion at one time, a kiqqie whom Jayjay and Sonic looked up to. The Grandmaster had gotten heavily into the Big Pig, hitting the sacred sow for days at a time. Jayjay had gone on a few runs with Flash, but he hadn’t been able to muster that same stare-into-the-sun intensity that the Grandmaster had. For Grandmaster Green Flash, any activity other than total ecstasy was a meaningless uptight social game.

And now Grandmaster Green Flash was dead on the sidewalk, his skin splotched with diamond-glitter paisley run amok. He’d let himself get too far out of the loop; he’d stopped eating and drinking, and then he’d even let go of breathing. His face was frozen in a triumphant, terrifying grin.

“I really am going to get clean,” murmured Thuy to herself. “I’m ready for the turning point.”

A cop pulled up in an electric car, alerted by the onlookers.

“This guy was the best,” said Sonic, kneeling beside Grandmaster Green Flash, squinting against the mephitic stench.