Forty-eight hours later, as he watched the serum drip down the IV line in Doc Ivar’s office, Damon would look back on the encounter with the greenbacker and realize it had been some kind of omen.
The way it happened was, he was out Visibly Consuming and therefore Modeling Demographic Ideals, as he did most days. Specifically on that Thursday, he was just leaving the exclusion zone surrounding the main entrance to the Fairfax Sneaker Bazaar, where he had just scored custom retro Lukas in a color that would be trending next month according to his friends who moderated proprietary Pantone socials. The exact second his entire body had left the exclusion zone, a bedraggled rando caught his eye and said, “Hey, man, you got a dollar? Or ten?”
A little charity (but not too much) was good for his Social Cap, so Damon tapped his watch to send the guy a few bux. “No, man,” the guy said. “Like, a real dollar, with a pyramid on the back.”
“What, seriously?” Holy shit, Damon thought. A greenbacker. His drone hovered nearby, capturing the interaction as potential material for a reel. “My man,” he said, with what he hoped was a palatable mixture of respect and aversion, “I have literally never touched paper money.”
“Then you haven’t touched money, pal.”
“You’re right, because money isn’t something you touch. That’s like . . . fuckin’ antediluvian, or something.”
The greenbacker grinned. “Good word, my man. But I’m not that old. Probably not as old as you think.” He stretched and struck a pose, playing more to Damon’s drone than to Damon himself. “Just weathered to perfection by exposure to the elemental world.” ...
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