Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said; Chapter 3

Jason and the hotel clerk (pencil mustache, slightly effeminate, telepathic) are in the clerk's quibble, driving to Watts. [Note: I'm not sure of a quibble is distinct from a skyfly, as right now the clerk is driving but quibbles also might be able to fly. I'm picturing an old Checker Marathon.) Because of the clerk's telepathy, he functionally has access to Jason's thoughts just like we do and comments on them. An elderly black man is crossing the street, and the clerk comments nowadays black people are like whooping cranes, rare and protected by extensive laws. So, fun story: apparently the civil rights struggle ended with African-Americans getting what they wanted: equal protection under the law, etc. The price they paid for this was genocide, with a forced sterilization program and the right to only have one child per couple. With the later police state, this has resulted in all [surviving] black people actually *retaining* all their old fashioned legal rights while everybody else lost theirs. The sight of the black man causes the clerk to say "I don't like your racist views, even if you are paying me $500". Jason responds "there's enough blacks alive to suit me." Watts is not only run down but abandoned.

They reach their destination, a abandoned restaurant. The clerk and Jason go inside, where a wall opens to reveal a small but well organized and equipped workshop. Kathy is the forger - Jason thinks she's 15 or 16, [not much in tits, but with nice legs, he thinks] though for reasons that will soon become clear I sorta doubt this and think she must be in her mid 20s. Maybe she's like Sissy Spacek in Badlands(1973) in that was in her mid 20s in that role but really does look 16? Not sure.

Anyway, Kathy charges Jason $2000 of his $5K wad o' cash for comprehensive documents, but appears to really know her fake document shit. At the same time, she's clearly a little lonely and intrigued by this well dressed non-student who suddenly needs all the docs. She hasn't heard of Jason, but like the clerk, quickly buys that for some reason Jason is a man who believes he was a big celebrity until yesterday. We learn her husband is dead, killed in national service. She then makes Jason guess her age (he guesses 16, she say it is 20) and then guesses his age to be "about 50" which enrages Jason, who tells between clenched teeth he's 43. Kathy is sorry for the accidental offense and turns to sorting Jason's shit out. But the troublesome conversation continues. She asks about Jason's career, and all the people he'd fucked over to get to the top. Jason (who in Chapter one briefly thought about exactly this) denies fucking people over is a thing, saying it's a business so talent and rationality - he doesn't use the term meritocracy, but Dick would definitely find it amusing to use a term created specifically to mock the whole idea used with a straight face.

As she's counter-fitting, Kathy confesses she thinks Jason is insane, which on the basis of his story and beliefs only makes sense. Eddie (the hotel clerk) is lurking in the background, smoking a big cigar. Kathy then gets into a booth with Jason on some counterfeit pretext [] and confesses both Eddie and herself are police informants. She shows him the subtle purple dots on his cards that act as tracking beacons and as microphones. She tells him this because she wants to help Jason escape. Her deal: get rid of all the tracking stuff on his cards and docs, slip Eddie an extra $500 to keep quiet, and spend the night with Kathy. Jason is angry because he has no choice but to agree. Or does he? He attempts to say "fuck it then' and strides out of the little shop. Kathy stops him, first saying he's already got a tracker on him, and, in an eerie replay of Mason trying to put a lid on Jason says "cmon, one night, and you get everything. That's all I'm asking." So Jason, completely outplayed, agrees. Now operating under Phillip K. Dick levels of paranoia, he realizes this could all be a grift to squeeze a little extra money out of Jason before the big net descends.

So once again, Jason is attached to a female who he has to make happy, or else.