The pretty girl with the raven-dark hair was crying bitterly to herself. She was sitting outside a dance club, her butt parked on the curb, her bony knees raising in the air. Her miniskirt was torn. All of a sudden, shameless, she let out a primal scream that echoed down the back alleys and front street surrounding the club, reaching a green dented Dumpster where a solitary man was having a smoke. He put out his smoke with a twist of his hand, sauntered around to the front of the club, and peered at the girl sitting there. She appeared to be in some trouble. Without eagerness or puppy-dog need to please, Cadman Gray approached Fiona Vanclief for the first time.

She looked up at the shadow falling over her. Fiona was aggravated by the visitor, not relieved. Her mascara had run from her tears of anguish, but crying time was over now. She resolved to be strong, no matter what the cost. “Hi,” Cadman said. “Something the matter?”

“Someone stole my purse,” Fiona said bitterly. “It had all my money, my ID — my tampons. I’m on my period, and I have about an hour left before the tampon I’m wearing sops over with disgusting blood. Just so you know.”

Cadman leaned back from the violence of her remarks.

“Tough shit,” he said sympathetically. “Smoke?” He flashed a pack of Marlboros.

“Please,” she said.

He smoothly extracted a Bic lighter with the Toronto Maple Leafs logo on it — classic style — and snapped it open, flame flickering in the black night air. He gave her a ciggy and let her hold it up to the Leafs lighter. She was puffing contentedly a moment later. “Thanks. I needed that.” She blew out a cloud of smoke. “How’d you know I smoke? Less than one in five people do, these days.”

“You looked like you were jonesing for one, that’s all. I get that feeling more and more often myself, these days.”

“These days.” Fiona laughed jaggedly. “Everyone’s living these days.”

“It’s the only way to live,” Cadman said dryly.

The only thing that set him apart from the crowd was the fashionable glasses he wore. Otherwise, in his black silk shirt and green reptilian boots, with his expensive watch on a hairless wrist, he could have been a young dancer at play in the corridors of music and muse.

“I hate to bother you, but could I borrow 20 bucks? I need to take a cab home.” Fiona smiled winningly, hoping to appeal to the man’s heart — or his groin. But slowly the man shook his head.

“I don’t carry cash. I always use this:” He held up a black card that read MAGIC DEBIT CARD with a trail of rainbow sparkles across the front. The magnetic stripe on the back of the card was shown to her next. The power of digital money. She was not impressed. It was just a card, so what? Little did she know.

“What if the business doesn’t have a digital reader?”

“They all do… these days. Even the anachronistic, archaic vintage locations have hookups to the big five banks. My card was issued through RBC. It’s good till the year 3000.”

Fiona blurted laughter. “That’s impossible. Those debit card thingees run only about seven years on average, if I recall.”

Cadman adjusted his glasses and smiled, a private joke to himself. “Nevertheless, my card won’t run out for another thousand years or so. Assuming we still have private banks in that time. Personally, I plan to be immortal. How about you?”

“Oh yeah,” Fiona said cynically. “With my smoking habit, I’m sure I’m a shoo-in for oldest lady on earth.” She stood up and walked over to a parked Saab car, whose rear-view mirror was sparkling clean. She bent over at the waist and scrutinized her face, with the smeared thick black mascara. Made a face. “Oh God, I look disgusting. Look at me. Gross, gross. I wish I had a handi-wipe to get this crap off my face.”

“Come to my place and clean up,” Cadman invited. “I promise I won’t try to jump your bones. And I have a fully equipped bathroom, with women’s tampons under the sink. What do you say?”

Her initial reaction was a curt fuck you, joe, but then she realized that her was a man of money and power, and she was new to the city, and he could be a very good… friend… to have. Besides, he wasn’t that unpleasant to the eyes. Maybe she could use him. Fiona Vanclief fished a tentative smile out of thin air, and beamed it at Cadman Gray.

“I’d like that. Should we take a taxi?”

“I think we should. We’ve got 45 minutes and counting till you start ‘sopping over.'”

The yellow cab cruised slowly out of the night, growing bigger and bigger.

The back door popped open.

Cadman gently escorted Fiona inside the back of the vehicle. Her ripped miniskirt tore a little more as she sat down. Silently, she cursed to herself. Cadman sat down, smoothed his black dress pants with both hands, stared straight ahead. He gave quiet directions instructions to the driver, who appeared to be from the Indian subcontinent. The driver nodded and slowly took off in the night.

Cadman closed his eyes. Began humming “Don’t Stand So Close To Me” by the Police from 1986, before he was born. He loved the Police. Thought it was one of the likeliest groups to be remembered in a century’s time as a classic band with talent and poise. Like a cornered wild beast, Fiona was charmed by his humming, which was melodic and deep. She subconsciously moved closer to him. The smell of her menstrual blood subtly infused the air as her panties scrunched up under her skirt.

They rode the streets for fifteen minutes, getting closer and closer to the Rosedale neighborhood. “Stop here,” Cadman commanded. He swiped his Magic card. Popped the door. Got out. The night had gotten noticeably chillier. A cold front of air was moving in rapidly, with tremendous force. There was a street off of Bloor Street. It descended down to a neighborhood of large houses within sight of the big city. Cadman took her hand and commandingly lead her onward. She didn’t mind. She surrendered her volition to him.

The third house over from the exit street, Cadman took out a fob and ran it over a rectangular tall and narrow black box. A green light beeped on. The door clicked and automatically popped inward one centimeter. Cadman inserted himself in the door, half dragging a now-reluctant Fiona with him.

The lights were dark. Suddenly they all flared on. Like a surprise birthday party, 20 or so young people shouted, “Welcome back, Cadman-man!”

They applauded him, surreptitiously looking at the girl he’d brought.

They were all well-dressed, and smelled of various shades of perfume and cologne, depending on their gender. Fiona had a keen nose. She recognized Drakkar Noir and J’Adore. Not a one of them appeared to be over 25. The youngest looked to be 15. “What’s this?” she whispered to Cadman, who was kicking off his shoes with the toes of the other foot.

“It’s my menagerie, my circus of freaks,” Cadman whispered back, shielding his mouth with his hand. “Just kidding. They’re my strays. One way or another, I took them in. I have a huge house and it gets so empty without company. They need food, and a roof over their heads. It works out.”

There were 10 boys and 10 girls. They appeared to be in the process of pairing off with each other. Only Cadman seemed left out — and that seemed only right, somehow. It was as if he was waiting for someone special to enter his life. Could it be me? Fiona thought wildly, her heart pounding suddenly as if it were a bell that someone had whacked with a mallet.

Cadman led her down to the basement, where two small but powerful lamps made of light gray metal, and effortlessly weighted, were beaming light at a computer screen and two chairs. He gestured at her to sit down. She obliged him.

“This is my workstation,” Cadman said grandly. “It’s where I turn out my Magic cards. I’ve made ten so far, but haven’t given out a single one. You’re the first person I’m going to give one too. Why? Because I believe I can trust you to keep your mouth shut about it. None of my strays are exactly private about their interests. They’d blab. You wouldn’t.”

“You hardly know me,” she demurred.

“Aren’t you curious what the card does?”

“Alright, what does the card do?”

“It gives the holder unlimited money for one thousand years. It never runs dry. Never runs out. You can buy whatever you like within a typical debit card’s limit, and if you run it through multiple times on the same reader you can extend this limit… magically.”

Fiona whistled. “Really?”

“Really.”

Cadman went to the computer and typed in a few commands. There was a burning smell and a card popped out of a toaster-like device with Fiona’s first and last name on it. The black Magic card was hers, and hers alone.

“Try it out,” Cadman said. “The truth is, I’m dying. I want to leave a legacy — a network of people linked by the Magic card that I created. I hacked into the banks. I made them do my bidding. Now that I’m on the verge of passing away, I want people who can keep their mouths zipped to have my Magic cards. Think you can handle that?”

“I think so,” Fiona said seriously.

“Ready to go shopping?”

“When? Now? Everything’s closed.”

“They open stores for people willing to spend thousands of dollars. Let me call up a few numbers I know…”

the end