Glass Houses
an excerpt

Ryker dumped the rest of the contents of the rolling garbage bin into the garbage disposal inside the main park district building. That was the last of his rounds for today, thank Liozar. Cleaning up the parks and related areas had never been a pleasant job, but today had been even worse than usual thanks to some festival or other that had been going on. Ryker swore that every time he turned his back, the garbage in the wastebaskets (or, more likely, on the ground) started copulating with each other, thus producing four times as much as there had been previously. He would've liked to just incinerate the whole of it and be done with it, but city ordinances prevented him from turning trash to ash on the spot. That, and he wasn't sure what else he'd end up burning in the process.

"Oy, Ryker!" One of Ryker's fellow park workers waved at him as he hauled in his own garbage bin. "What are you, a god or something? How could you work practically non-stop today? I didn't even see you take so much as a sip of water! It's the fucking hellpits out there!"

Ryker laughed. "It wasn't that hot, Damien."

"Are you kidding me? It's a hundred and three degrees out there still! Do you get me? A hundred and three."

"Liar. It's only ninety."

"Yeah? How would you know?"

Ryker pointed at a TV screen at the wall nearby, which displayed current weather conditions.

Defeated, Tamien turned his attention back to his trash. "Well, whatever. It's still hotter out there than I'd like."

Ryker shrugged and headed for the exit, intending to drop by the changing room down the hall. "Well, I gotta pay the rent somehow. And I'm not all smart and bookish, you know, so I'm stuck with these sorts of jobs."

Damien only shook his head. "You're lucky you didn't just drop dead of heatstroke. And I'm surprised you've never gotten sunburned with that skin of yours, either!"

Ryker pointed at a wing-shaped mark on his right cheek. "It's the burn scars from normal fires."

"That reminds me," Damien said, heaving a large bag of garbage into the disposal. "How'd you get those scars on you, anyway? They look badass."

"Eh, stupidity as a kid. Things that were decidedly very not badass."

Damien thankfully chose not to pry. "Ah, well, don't let me stop you from boozing up tonight," he said. "Liozar knows I could use a bottle or ten after today."

"You gonna be in tomorrow?"

"Hell if I know."

Ryker rolled his eyes. "You damn well better know, if only so old man Forrest doesn't chew you out for missing work for a fifth time this month."

Damien flipped him off. "What are you, my stepmom? Get the hell out of here!"

Ryker did.

***

The small apartment that Ryker shared with his best friend Cade was empty when Ryker got home. A note written in thick black marker on an old piece of newspaper taped to the television lazily informed Ryker that Cade had left for "the usual place" - a bar two blocks down - and probably wouldn't be back until after fifteen o'clock midnight, if not later.

Dumbass, Ryker thought as he tossed his backpack on the couch. There's a reason I bought the whiteboard for the fridge, you know. He wondered if he should catch up with Cade later. The guy was normally level-headed and responsible, but with alcohol, well...the last time things got out of hand, Cade had sent at least ten people to the hospital and burned down part of the bar he and Ryker had been at. Admittedly, though, Cade had just been trying to get some jackass to quit hassling Ryker. Neither him nor Ryker had counted on said jackass having some of his yes-men to back him up on this grievous display of disrespect.

I'll just rest for a bit, Ryker thought, heading for the kitchen to get some pop. He headed for the kitchen and opened the fridge, rummaging around for a cola. He's probably been gone for half an hour. He'll be fine until I get there.

"Ryker is home!" squeaked a high-pitched voice ever so slightly distorted by the limits of digital substitutions.

Ryker suddenly noticed a round fluffy thing toddling about on the kitchen floor - the plushphone that Cade had gotten for him as a joke gift one nameday. It looked just like a stuffed animal, with floppy ears and large eyes, but underneath all the fluff was a complex android system that allowed the "phone" to walk, talk, and respond to voice and visual cues in addition to taking calls and other such functions. It was a little embarrassing having it around considering that it was marketed for young girls, but Ryker had to admit that it amused him. And that it was actually kind of cute. The best part was that he didn't even have to get up to answer the phone...not that he got very many calls. "Got any messages for me, Ani-Tan?" he asked it.

"Just one!" Ani-Tan responded cheerily. Its dark eyes flashed green as it played the message.

"Uh, Ryker," came Cade's quiet voice, his words stretched out like a string of drool. "Forget what the...the thing said, yeah? Not there right now. Gonna be at Omega Gears, 'kay? Better see you there, jerk." The message ended with a drunken laugh.

"Omega Gears?" Ryker muttered in the middle of pulling back his pale hair with a rubber band. "What's he going there for?" He grabbed his can of cola and went over to sit on the living room couch. Ani-Tan followed after him, and climbed onto the coffee table, which was actually a wooden board propped up on two stacks of old magazines. "Ani-Tan, call Cade's cell phone," he ordered, taking a gulp of cola.

"Calling the cell phone of Cade!" Ani-Tan chirped.

Omega Gears was a well-known club on the questionable north side of Verthrand. Ryker and Cade had been there twice before, and while the music had been pretty good, the bar had been one of the crappiest he'd ever had the displeasure of drinking from. So Ryker was perplexed as to why Cade was on his way there, especially considering that reaching the boundary of the north side from here took at least an hour and a half, even if you went by AG board - which Cade was probably in no condition to be doing.

It took six or seven rings before Cade answered the phone. "Heeeeeeey, 'sup?" he drawled. There was some muffled conversation in the background. "Was wondering when you'd get back. Took you long enough."

"At least I get overtime. Where you at?"

"Here."

Ryker sighed. "Where's 'here'?"

"How should I know?"

"Are you with anyone?"

"Sure. We're all in the limo together."

A limo? Ryker thought, raising an eyebrow. "Then why don't you just - "

"Hey, guess what? There's some chicks here who wanna meet you!"

Ryker blinked. "What?"

"I said, there's some chicks here who wanna meet you. I told them all about you and they think you're great!"

"Asshole! Who's the one who said that we should be quiet about that?"

"Oh, come on, they're blondes, they'll be too dumb to remember afterwards!"

"...are you insinuating something about me with that blonde comment or something?"

"What? Dude, you're white. Totally different story."

I'm going to kick his ass when I see him, Ryker growled to himself. "Whatever. Just ask them where you guys are."

"Sure. Hey, either of you know where we are?" A feminine giggle, followed by something unintelligible. "Uh...Carina says we're by 35th and Runagard."

"Fine. I'll AG on over to Omega Gears and wait in front. But for the love of all that is holy, can you tell me what the hell possessed you to head over there again?"

"Not me, man! Carina and Brian...Bri...what's your name again? Briandry and Carina invited me and said they'd pay." Cade lowered (raised?) his voice to a loud whisper. "And come on, if you saw these two, you'd come along too!"

Ryker choked on his cola. "Dear Liozar," he said, coughing, "you must be trashed as hell if you're checking out girls. I think I now have a civic duty to drag you back home from there."

"Ooh, Ryker's jeaaaalllloous..."

"Will you shut up? I'm just saying that if Uncle Sven found out about this, he's not going to be happy - especially since we're supposed to be visiting Thanideka again tomorrow and telling the kids how we've totally made a respectable life for ourselves and all that sort of fluffy jazz."

"Aw, who's gonna tell him? Not you, my bestest buddy ever in this cold, cruel world, right? Certainly not you!"

"I wouldn't need to say anything. It'd just be kind of odd if the whites of your eyes were redder than your hair. Now sit back and enjoy the limo, and don't do anything stupid before I beat the everliving hell out of you." Before Cade could respond, Ryker added, "End the call, Ani-Tan."

"Call ended!"

Ryker sank back in the couch cushions and smacked a hand to his face. Just when the day's work was finally catching up to him, he had to go and run after Cade to make sure the guy didn't end up in the gutters.

Then again, he thought, getting to his feet and heading to his bedroom, I suppose it's payback for all the times he had to save my ass.