Reading: "CATACLYSMAL" (A.Glass 2017)

“Ceremonial?” Jansky asks in a sincere manner, noting Mia's Indian heritage.

Mia laughs. “Nope, you mean drums and all that?” She shakes her head. “For me, you'd like this, it's just just staring at the stars...I'll tell ya it's fucking wild with a little fire going...” She looks at Jansky curiously. “...Are you keen?”

Jansky nods. “I am.”

“Alright...Meet me out the front in twenty minutes.”

“A date?”

“Alright...Meet me out the front in twenty minutes.”

“A date?”

“You could say that...” Mia replies.

Twenty minutes later Jansky exits the bar, she looks up trying to get a glimpse of the stars above, faintly she sees what could be Orion, tempted to lift up her phone and check it against the phone’s star-map. She resists, knowing that she would look at the attached letter from the astronomers in relation to the Artifact's core structure. Not reconciling? Fuck! Better check what they've written. Jansky begins to looks at her phone

“Elly!” A female voice is heard, Jansky turns around as Mia walks towards her smiling. She places her phone back into her bag.

“So, the cocktails. Were they good?” She asks

“Yes, really good. Not to sweet and you can taste the spirits. That's important.”

Mia looks down at her phone as she requests a cab. “That's right it's all about the balance...Ok, cab is five minutes way.”

“So how long have you been working at this bar?”

Mia looks over her right shoulder in the direction of the Diecast bar. “About six months, it's a great place, good idea setting up a speakeasy style bar. Someone acts like an asshole, you just ban them from making another appointment. Doorman does the rest. Cool management, relaxed. But, no pickups?”

“Pickups?” Jansky asks as she sees the cab approaching the curb.

“Not dating customers”

“But we ain't dating” Jansky replies smiling

Mia nods with a cheeky grin, as she opens the door allowing Jansky to sit, she then moves to the opposite side of the cab’s passenger seat. Closing the door, the cab drives onward.

“My place is about ten minutes away...So, can I ask you...What is it?”

“The Alien-Artifact...” Jansky peers out of the window at the neon lit street. She the looks at Mia, a woman in her late twenties, dark brown straight hair, her features are of a racially mixed native American appeal. The cab nears the curb, pulling up along side a small apartment block. “...We think it is structural but not what would be deemed as a structure within our current understanding...A lot of brilliant people are working in it, I've been the conduit. Cleaning up the equations, smoothing out the theories. I think we're very close to understanding the Artifact's physics.”

“Ok, this is my place.” Both Jansky and Mia exit the cab, with Mia leading towards her apartment block entrance.

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Reading:  "CATACLYSMAL"  (A.Glass 2017)