Jason Taverner is at the top of his game. He's a famous singer with his
own, mega-succsessful TV show. That's because he's a Six. It's not
explained at this juncture, but he and his girlfriend/special guest that
night Heather Locklear are both people who got themselves genetically
modified - Stage six modification? They just finished Dick's TV show,
and now have to run a gauntlet with police to get to Dick's Rolls-Royce
skyflyer.
Things are maybe not the best between Heather and Jason. They are a
celebrity couple professionally but also a couple outside of that, and
Heather is sounding burnt out. She hates People, especially her fans,
and wants to give up being a celebrity, marry Jason, have Jason's kids,
etc. Though this could just be burnout; she also thinks flying to the
secluded house they have in Zurich is stupid. This surprises Dick, as
the house was chosen especially so they could get away from People. (She
does not look like Heather Locklear, being described as having a roman
nose, red hair, and violet eyes, but the showbiz/30 million viewers
immediately put me in mind of Locklear and Mary Hart, this kind of
inhumanly perfect beauty, a flawless diamond, never scratched even as
they bore through concrete at the end of a pneumatic drill.)
Dick takes all this, and much else, in. Evidently being a six gives you
one king-hell-ass brain, as he's managing his GF on the brink of a
psychological crisis, flying his Rolls, feeling smug at how awesome he
is, thinking about some of Heather's secrets, flashing a big wad of
cash, promising to use said wad of cash to buy Heather something nice,
then dreaming of using said wad of cash to hit up a Vegas casino to play
blackjack (Sixes win all the time, even beating the dealers) even as
Heather rolls her eyes and calls him a selfish asshole.
Dick then gets a call. It's from Marylin Mason, who is some
starlet Dick got an audition for. She's also having a nervous breakdown
and threatening to kill herself, which Dick thinks is a sign she's
pregnant. (Of course he's fucking her on the side.) And after he got her
*two* auditions, the first one for the president of Columbia records!
Typical "ordinares"! She blew both auditions and can't process it,
blaming Taverner instead. Dick's tired and already managing crazy, but
MM is super insistent he stop by briefly. He lands on the field in her
building complex. Heather waits in the skyflyer.
There's something strange with Marylin Mason - spooky. Dick doesn't let
it show , but Mason's mood is something hidden and dangerous. Before he
can even begin trying to calibrate what's going on, Mason takes a
plastic bag, and hucks an alien jellyfish at Dick. It attaches to his
chest and begins boring through his suit with its 50 tentacles. As a
Six, instead of screaming, Dick instantly grabs a nearby whiskey bottle,
unscrews it, and empties it on the jellyfish. This kills the jellyfish
in a few seconds, but now the tubes are inside him and can apparently
survive jellyfish death, and continue to tunnel into his torso. Dick and
Mason have a moment of "well, wasn't expecting that", and then Dick
passes out.
Dick comes to as he's racing through a hospital on a gurney. Heather is
there. Apparently Dick was seconds from death at Mason's, and is being
rushed to emergency surgery. Holding Heather's hand, Dick passes out
again.
Addition, chapter one: Jason momentarily wonders if he's given himself
brain damage using the "phone-grid transex network", but dismisses the
through with a junkie's excuses: he didn't do it much, and there had
been no premature aging or brain damage. (Point of fact Heather had
noticed Jason needs to dye his hair, which apparently is unusual for a
Six, so one of those signs is definitely a question mark.)
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