He gives a heaving grunt, +8.22 one last burst, +9.81 then pulls himself free. She is irritated: she knows she could have gained more from him. She’s worked too quickly, the innocence too strong, the allure too thick. Are you all right, mister? –0.54 He sneers at her: he is bored with her. No further transactions will be in her favor. She pulls the thin pink dress up over her head, wipes herself, winces at the cold, opens her bag and rolls the dress in. She pulls out her walking clothes. He walks away. This is everything; there is nothing else. There is no law but the law of transaction. All interaction is transaction. It is night in Nowkown. No one has watched them: there has been no extra profit from adventurous eyes. Agents pass by the blue metal bench, none of them seeing or stopping. Nowkown is busy: a bright rush of advertisements, food stenches, voices and bodies stumbling over cracked paving. Wispy trees burst with new leaves, though just five streets away the leaves are brown and elsewhere there are blossoms. The buildings above climb high with rickety extensions, extensions that so often creak and crumble and collapse onto the street below—a shower of wood and chipboard and broken bricks. A man is shouting jokes at the flow of bodies, earning small amounts from unwary ears. She smells hot dogs and feels her stomach rumble. The real-time price of a smell. She hears piped music she likes. She walks along the street, keeping her eyes on the advertisements. She could weave her body in and out of the others without even looking. The advertisements offset inadvertent expenditures. She doesn’t understand that one; it has too many letters. Who needs letters? Numbers are important. Numbers follow you. It starts to rain globs of sandy water. Her hair is getting wet so she rips an umbrella from the fingers of an agent with graying hair. It will be worth the cost: if she is soaking she will be of little value. Her second problem: her mouth is dry: a dry mouth will lower her market potential. A drink
40 · Transaction
–1.13 –0.38 –0.54 +0.12 +0.11 +0.23 +0.01
–13.56