The rain smells like metal. Cold, corroded metal that chafes against her exposed skin. She leans against the locked door of Eddie's Emporium trying to find shelter in the alcove, but the wind sweeps the pounding rain her way despite her efforts. The neon sign blinks on and off, the broken first d and last m darkened into the night. Inside, the store is darkened also, closed on a Friday, an event this street hasn't seen since Eddie's first opened thirty years ago. Even after several days, it hasn't occurred to anyone to turn off the sign. She wonders why the police didn't think of it when they wheeled Eddie's laser-strewn body out. Forensics must have figured the detectives would do it, and vice versa. The sad thing is that Eddie had no one to leave the store to. No wife, no children, no nieces or nephews. The Emporium housed (still houses, actually, as though the regular thieves have decided to give homage to Eddie by leaving his stuff alone) every miscellany, legal or illegal, that anyone could ever use. Eddie's store of meds alone rivals even the best-stocked clinics, most of which in this 'hood are pretty much a joke. Eddie had done a killing on Viagra alone.

Eddie's sad ending is just one of the many tales this street contains. A venue Akaia's been watching over for almost a hundred years now. She’s born witness to a metropolis morphing from sandstone to redbrick, from brick to metal and glass, from two stories to pinnacles piercing the sky. From phone booths to cyber kiosks, from cars to skypods, all within a blink of an eye. Or so it seems to her.

A buzzing sound clues her to a blaster nearby. She spies it, the menacing eye at its nose blinking red. Kill mode. It follows an internal trajectory that bypasses her on its way up the street. She wonders who the target is. But that's a question best not answered. She is not invulnerable to the vagaries of today's technology. And basically, she's tired of dying.

She leans into the door, wills her exposed skin to increase its warmth, demands her blood to speed its course through her avatar. She'd stupidly worn a t-shirt today instead of a sensible sweater; she decides as the umpteenth chill wracks her body that she will no longer dress for vanity, and with the next thought, wonders how long she will maintain that promise. She likes the form she has chosen, from the dark flesh tones, the full lips, the eye-pleasing curvatures. The long twists at the top of her smooth dome blow in the wind. She is sexy, something she hasn't allowed herself to be for centuries.

In the distance, the blaster emits a familiar buzz as it releases a round of skin-searing beams. It has found its target, or by the several screams she hears, targets. Up the street several kilometers in the opposite direction, a group of teen Goths spills out of Misa's. Akaia smells several odors at that moment, the nearest the waft of smoke from a cigarette some bot is smoking, his exposed abs a signal to those looking for someone or something to pass the night with. The aroma of Misa's Friday's special, tangerine beef, tickles her nose, reminding her of her own hunger. Toward the group is also the smell of impending Death. His smell is all over this place tonight.

Across the street a young woman using a cyber kiosk laughs, her face half in shadow, the other half blurred by the fluorescent blue of the kiosk's overhead lights. The laughter is a peal of joy, of something free and fleeting. Something Akaia wishes she could capture, even if for a little while. But she's not human. Another shiver in the cold rain seems to belie this fact.

The bot notices her then and smiles, the cig burning down between two fleshless digits as he drifts over to her. She smells the pheromones he's deliberately emitting. Her female flesh responds accordingly, but she has long overcome its call.

"Fifteen?" he asks, indicating minutes, not currency.

"Get away before I rip out your chip and feed it to you."

He sneers, but steps away quickly. He's programmed to give obeisance. He goes back to his corner, his rain-glistened chest beautiful in the ambient lights of the street. It isn't long before he's chosen by a woman, her citrine hair interlocked with circuitry. Enhancers. Although her skin is particularly supple, she's eighty, if a day. With the enhancers, the bot will automatically tune into her waves, anticipate her needs. Her sex will be good tonight. The couple takes off in her skypod, a Cessna 2029, the latest model.

Akaia feels Death drawing near. She's out here tonight because he's here. This is her quadrant and she has to report on each demise. According to the original plans, Eddie wasn't due to die for another decade. And yet, he's gone. Eddie had been particularly good in turning newbies on to a plethora of addictions, whether hormonal, chemical or technological. His shoes would be hard to fill.

A speeding car almost hits a woman crossing against the light. Four-wheelers are just a few of the relics that have managed to survive the years, although most have been replaced by pods. The woman picks up a discarded can from the gutter and flings it at the car, but the can only glances the moving vehicle and bounces back to the street. Overhead, another relic speeds along the el tracks. Fumes from the air-clogging diesel fill Akaia's lungs. She likes the smell.

On the other hand, she does not like the smell of putrid decay that follows Death on his approach. Soon he's standing in front of her, nearly seven feet. She straightens her form; she stands just as tall. This is where they have chosen to meet. She looks into eyes that tonight waver between amber and green, a constant vacillation. He's chosen his avatar carefully. His lips form a perfect, sensuous bow symmetrically positioned between sculpted cheekbones. A Roman brow anchors the features. Hollywood flawlessness. The lips open onto a smile full of serrated teeth.

"You've gone over your quota," she informs him.

"I'm not bound by quotas. I'm free to take as many souls as I like."

"How is it that you're liking all the souls in my territory. You need to fuck off."

He raises a hand; he is wearing Armani; the shirt cuff is silk. The woman in the cyber kiosk drops dead.

Then he presses close to her ear. The feel of his breath tingles. "Because I'm liking you."

She can't admit to herself that she's tempted, that each time she gives over a little more of herself. That he's siphoning off her right now. That it's orgasmic.

The sign across the rain-slicked street blinks, "Girls, Boys, Bots" with a display of varied color asses shifting left and right. Below in smaller text: "Enhancers available." A few feet away, several people gather around the body, a couple of them on holophones, probably notifying the police. Or probably just calling friends. Sure enough, they aim their phones at the body, take shots. The 3D vision forms near them; now everyone can see the woman's contours, the glitter that sparkles her face, the leather skirt that has hitched above her waist. The face is so young, so surprised.

"Bring her back. Now!"

He shrugs, the smile gone. "I need an incentive, something worth my while."

She hugs herself against the cold. Looking around, she notices that no one is really dressed for the weather. The Goths, the bots, the young kids, the prowlers... This is a night to forget work, to forget the drudgery of living, to somehow fill the emptiness. Technology wires them together in an illusion of symmetry. And she is wired along with them. When had she started to care?

"These are mine. You have no right..."

"You know, you’re starting to become boring. All this humanity is sapping you."

"Just like you want to."

He glances over his shoulder at the gathering crowd. "They're nothing," he spits out with venom. "Nothing but pulses, surges, synapses...what do you care?"

She realizes he is truly curious. And the realization forms a syllogism that makes sense. Her caring is a personal insult to him.

"I DON’T care," she lies. "But you're over your quota, and you're throwing off the schedule. Like with Eddie. He was a great enabler. Now I have no one to pull in more bodies. I need to reach a core number."

"Well...maybe we can arrange something then." He fingers the curve of a breast. She feels a draw of life from her and slaps his hand away.

"I don't do arrangements. This territory is mine. You've surpassed your quota and you need to back your shit up...or else."

He moves in, his chest almost touching hers. "You threaten me again and you're going to have an empty quadrant. All connections gone."

She can't imagine it. An empty quadrant, with no bodies. Just empty buildings, pods and cars with no one behind the controls, holographic cines without an audience, no more smells of tangerine beef, no laughter, or cries, no smiles, no grunts and groans of hookers and bots plying their wares in the alleys. She'd be alone, in a peopleless world. The thought frightens her and she is rarely frightened.

He gauges her. "You do care. You need these...these empty shells around you. You're just a weak, pitiable..."

"But you like me weak, pitiable. That's the game between us. We both pretend that you're the one with all the power. That you don't have your own weakness...and that I don't know about that weakness."

For a satisfying moment, the amber-green glitches to pure ebony, two gaping holes. Then glitches back.

"It seduces you before you know it. It traps you. You think you're the one with the power, but before you know it, they're the ones who make you feel...who make you FEEL. You know what I'm talking about, otherwise you wouldn't keep up this game between us. You need them as much as I do. No, you need them more. You need me to pull them in so that you can feed on their juice."

In their world...and this is their world...time is ephemeral. A minute can be a hundred years, a decade simply a blip. They may have been here for a century...or born just yesterday. Their whole existence is ever changing, as are the rules. And there is a god to appease, a shadowy presence always behind the façade of every body, every building. There is someone gauging their actions, rating their successes, recording their losses...

She doesn't like feeling powerless. Doesn't like dying. But she is pulled by the allure of Death.

"What's the arrangement?" she finally asks.

He smiles. And whispers in her ear. A gasp arises from the crowd across the way. The police siren blares in the background as the young woman, once dead, is newly revived, her face a mask of confusion. But Akaia doesn't hear anything. And no one notices as her body drops in the doorway of Eddie’s Emporium. Nor the tall, handsome man walking away. Hollywood handsome.

Eddie, just inside, looks out at the pandemonium across the street from his store. "Ah fuck, what's going on now?" The door opens as another customer comes in. A newbie; the avatar isn't rezzed properly.

Meanwhile, the body in the doorway disappears.