In Over Her Head by Elsie Russell - Parnasse.com

ight up your alley, my alley, our silicon alley!"
"Well, I'm not playing anymore. Get some other sucker to
wiggle around in that thing for you. I'm out of here." She kicked the
empty suit into the corner.
"You can't go, we have a deal!"
Hastily slipping on her clothes, Ula declared, "We don't have a
contract. I'm an artist, I make art, and I don't care what you say, this
stuff is not art. You conned me. Virtual love goddess? More like virtual
love slave! I thought you were cutting edge, I thought you were useful!
But you're just an amateur, you're nobody. I don't have time for this
bullshit!"
With a swoosh of her cape Ula slipped out the door and
sprinted down the stairs and through the parked camionettes down
through the iron entrance gates of Silicon Allée. It took Ng several
seconds to extricate himself from his tangle of wires, and by the time
he ran out the door she was gone.
Ula stepped into the first bus headed for St. Germain, and
rummaged in her bag for her phone as the crowded bus lurched
through traffic. She couldn't find the phone. She would find it
eventually. Dick wouldn't have gotten the prize and would be in a
horrible mood.
There was no answer at Max and Maia's. Once upstairs she
could see that Maia's key would be useless as nails pierced through the
wood from a hasty fix of her bashed in door, but she knew Max's
combination. Inside, Maia's floor was covered in smeared blood, blood
and had soaked into the floorboards. Maybe he was dead.
She broke through the coagulated film on a channel between
the irregular floorboards. The blood was sticky on her fingers. It tasted
alive. Her panic subsided. She was filled with a sudden flush of arousal,
but lurking behind that was a nasty wave of nausea. She ran to throw
up in the little bathroom, but her stomach had long been empty and
she could only wretch long threads of bile, that, kindled by the
prismatic light of the tiny window, shimmered deep into the bowl. Had
Maia gone religious on them after all these years? Had to be li'l miss
E.L.F. Dry retching now, scraping her throat raw. It was just hunger,
no weird pathology happening here. She swished her mouth with water
and went to peek in Maia's barren fridge, finding nothing but a wrinkly
apple. She grabbed that and her cape and her tricorn from under the
futon, and rang the elevator.
She decided to check on Dick anyway. Not the apartment but
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