On the Price of Slut Root

On the Shelf:	Behind the Counter:
₵$36 Ghost Tobacco (20)	₵$63 Fire Chicken Feathers (doz.)
₵$15 Bloody Mary	₵$16 Fine MRE Spice (p/g)
₵$50 El Dorado Green (1/4)	₵$340 Four Pack of Beer
₵$28 Black Meat (g)	₵$20 Sex Doll Goon Sack
₵$1 Slut Root (kg)	₵$120 Bux. Semp. X Cannabis
₵$30 Marital Aid Potion	₵$47 Bottled Emotions (qt.)
₵$50 Quetzalcoatl Feathers (doz.)	₵$20 Self-Cooking Olive Oil (375 ml)
₵$5 Blue Roses (doz.)	₵$205 Brick of Cocaine
₵$29 Mythril (oz.)	₵$86 Memory Coffee
₵$14 BZTCN	₵$40 Christian Repellent

This Week's Special:

The backyard is a dull grey blanket in dawn's blue. April loses her shins in foliage heavy with last night's rain. The garden fork's teeth sink into earth. April levers fork - the crackle of tearing roots and a tuber is raises above canopy.

It screams: 'Venus! Cock! Trap!'

April removes fork, twists it 90° and stabs it into the tuber again. And again.

Slut Root, or 'Dull Man's Drake', is a weed endemic to April's backyard. April's front yard is mostly a heap of the dried tubers topped with a tarp, like immodest boob with nipple tassel. Dried Slut Root tubers have an energy density of roughly 24 megajoules per kilogram but are a slow burn.

April throws her latest harvest/victim into the front yard pile to dry. Parked on street with trailer, Kev leans on black Toyota Prado. He has two coffees.

April, thank you: 'You? A morning person?'

'I have chores.' Rizz. 'First on my list, buy some firewood. The best firewood.

Click of the tongue: 'Sorry, eftpos is down. Must be another software update. Perhaps you'd like to barter?'

Passing her a newspaper clipping: 'Oh, I would.'

Kev is a mortgage broker but moonlights as Australia's leading K-Pop girl group: 'So I've got connections. Bought a smaller, household prototype from Hanwha. Consider the opportunities. Fast food could one day be delivered by drone, and you could shoot it down for two-fifty. Fish and chips. For two-fifty.'

Yeah, that checks out: 'How much do you want?'

'My trailer carries half a ton?'

#####

Ryan slips between dream and light, every roll comfortable with yeah, a little longer. His rational mind is amused by his sleeping brain's murmuring, because they mean returning descent into sleep. He was woken earlier but he does not recall how. He recalls upon the screech of 'seeemen deeemon'.

Ryan sculls bedside water and turns the coffee on. Pissing out the door, he admires his backyard. It is a crop rotation of illegal tobacco.

(The price of Ghost Tobacco has continued to trend downwards due to this new supply. Ryan had hired a landscaper to swap his backyard with an American Indian burial ground, atop which he planted tobacco. Julielle had been paid to negotiate with the undead strata. a cemetery just outside Kadapa favoured by US expats.

Ryan throws on a dressing gown and, coffee steaming, strolls down street. He waits patiently through a shriek of 'commuuunity kiiitchen' followed by laugh and start of chainsaw. April eventually comes out front with a full kindling box.

Ryan blurs: 'You? A morning person?'

Of course: 'I'm doing Dry July. I have more energy in my mornings.'

'It's August.'

'If everyone did the same sober month, there'd be an oversaturation of designated drivers.'

'Fair.'

Magdalene pulls up in her Toyota Hilux. She used to be Australia's leading trans alchemy YouTube personality but the algorithm has since fucked her. Not that she minds - free of trend chasing and upload grind, she can pursue her side hustle at (still rigorous) ease. Perhaps this inspired her throwing spice bag of Retrograde Amnesia into pot of water before keys hit counter.

'But I'm still an alchemist.' She assures. 'And I have a Potion of +2 Enjoyment Derived From What You Enjoy.'

'Uh.' April chooses her words. 'Have you heard of marijuana?'

'Everybody says that.' Frustrated, but: 'What if what you enjoy is smoking dope?'

'Still.'

'Now now.' Ryan tuts. 'What did we talk about?'

(He had previously insisted: 'Accept every taker. The more this root gets around, the more word of mouth about its accessibility.')

April: 'Fine. Fifty kilos.'

#####

Noon has risen on this mostly clear day. April has removed jumper and Ryan has opened dressing gown. They lounge on deck chairs in her front yard. They drink glasses of Lipton, with ice cubes and mint garnish and Pina-Colada umbrellas.

Janessa and Shane come skipping down the street. Their arms are linked and they each carry a carton of beer on their spare shoulder.

Ryan demurs: 'There is no image more wholesome than skipping with beer.'

'True.'

 Shane does the brewing and Janessa does the books. One tends to kids whilst the other tends to drunks, then they swap roles. A microbrewery greater than the sum of its beers. Shanessa* have (has?) become good at this dance. They do-si-do. They allemande left and right. They weave the rig and box the gnat. They grand the wrong way but everyone holds their tongue, pretty sure that Shane and Janessa are unaware of their own dancing. The in-joke amongst patrons has grown customer base by 8%.

Alcoholics of taste are not the only sentients to notice. A rearrangement of the heavens had placed the Beer Gods' keg in the Square Dance Gods' hall. Their first week had been icy, both parties cliquey and everyone wishing to work from home. Then a moment from Heavens above (management): both parties sharing Janessa and Shane's dancing, looking over to the other party and realising.

'Colab?'

'Colab.'

'Colab!'

Their enthusiasm was somewhat premature. There was dancing, there was drinking, there was too much electro-swing. The interns of respective factions produced a British sitcom's worth of discrete hook-ups.

Still, they looked on the tank of dopplebock and smiled. It became a West Coast IPA. Janessa waved down the panic of Shane's tastebuds:

'Magic's happened before. Let's sell it again.'

They tapped it and found their regulars returning, driving licences unmolested, because they were skipping home. Janessa and Shane canned a batch of +3 Skipping West Coast IPA. The 7.4% alcohol increases confidence in skipping and the +3 Skipping improves skipping. Shane and Janessa skip past April and Ryan.

April: 'Mo-ther-fuck. I wanted something to drink tonight.'

Ryan chuckles.

#####

Overcast afternoon. April is a salivating troll silhouetted in shed door. Eyes darting before she selects her latest implement, a Dutch hoe:

'Hne hne hne. Amsterdam.'

The blade is plunged into earth.

Muffled: 'The people's dildo.'

The Dutch hoe has killed the slut root and April is disappointed. Blue boobed. she unloads her dishwasher. The doorbell plays Crazy Frog.

April answers the door: 'I don't know who you are but you have a bottle of McWilliam's 'On the Grapevine' 2022 Pinot Noir. Come in.'

Elise and Todd take stools (the sitting, uh, wooden kind) at April's kitchen top. They are crypto-zoologists with a knack for uninvasively profiteering from their research subjects. Low-hanging urban fruit has already been picked, much like the Mirelurk dung, so they have been venturing further out. A stockpile of lightweight firewood is therefore useful.

April empties bottle, refilling all glasses: 'And what is useful for me?'

So. On the 16th, the lovely couple (they brought booze, after all) had been walking down a main road when heavy rain hit. Todd had brought an umbrella but it proved insufficient, so they ducked into a convenient shopping centre.

Elise's white shirt became transparent. Fortunately, their corner of the shopping centre was unoccupied, no foot traffic. The Asian grocery was expanding into the space vacated by Commonwealth Bank. There as a piece, elevated in the corner between tenancies, where they could both sit. Todd expanded umbrella vertically for privacy whilst Elise peeled off her shirt. The cleaner came by to empty the bin, gave no shits and left.

The Gods of Public Sex had long ago subscribed to Elise and Todd. For reasons. They hang around their celestial water cooler, scrolling phones for shit to talk about, but that shit is public sex. They talk about public sex - after all, it is public.

Todd and Elise kissed before the umbrella popped. The Gods were indulging electro-swing and their reaction was definitely premature. The umbrella became the Umbrella of Sex Discretion.

'But.' Elise adds. 'All I did was change my shirt.'

Todd: 'And now it looks like this.'

April's glass is done, so she's done: 'That's cute. 25 kilos.'

Elise: 'Mmm.'

            Todd: 'Higher.'

Because the Umbrella of Sex Discretion carries a list of other bonuses:

a) +1 sneak

b) Once per day, the wielder can cast a giant umbrella that is used specifically for people doing it

and, c) just to cover all linguistic bases, a +2 Gender Ambiguity and Everyone's Okay With That

d) +110% melee damage

'Hm. All right.' April thinks on her feet. 'Four perks. 25 kilos a perk. 100 kilos for your penis umbrella. Now, if you don't have any more booze, get out of my house.'

 

*Ew..

Brick(s) of Cocaine

 

The south of Australia was hit by an arctic front in late May, early June. Through kitchen window, through blanket of 4mm/hr rain, over corrugated fence, Michael watched Ryan kneel amongst vegetation wilted to sodden ground that Ryan pounded with fist:

'My tobacco! My tobacco!'

Michael's focus withdrew to his reflection in kitchen window, sipping glass of water:

'At least he has something to do now.'

Kristy rolled sardonic eyes hidden behind unfolded Weekend Australian. Michael plonked onto couch with glass of Puratap and flicked through a dozen television channels at ~10 second intervals, settled on Bargain Hunt. It was a Natasha Raskin episode and Kristy bristled invisibly. They needed something to do. Lo, on page 3:

 

So why not cocaine? Kristy's heels itched as she broached the subject with a 'Heeey schmorkel poos?'. Michael read the article and Kristy recognised her own epiphany in his eyes. Hence followed an afternoon of brisk pacing, chins in palms and fingers caging smiles, imaginations accelerated by a Concha y Toro Casilero del Diablo - Reserva Privada 2019 Carménère, hands tumbling mid-air to unspool trains of thought.

'What if we _______?'

'Then we could ________.'

'Then we could _______.'

Kristy and Michael had their three months couple's project. They shelved the idea of applying the Japanese scientists' methodology directly to the coca leaf because the coca leaf does not refrigerate well. They instead sourced cocaine from various suppliers and tested said bricks for additives. Each particular additive suggested a different pathway of chemical reactions to create a substance, of weight and tactility similar to construction bricks, which can also be ground and rehydrated (and then dried again via microwave) to make a passable cocaine hydrochloride. Michael and Kristy then figured out what food colourings replicated fired clay. They used the Japanese scientists' lacquer because fuck mice.

 

Now it is October. Michael and Kristy share smiles over brunch and dozen Bricks of Cocaine. Said bricks could technically be used for construction but are more suitable for discrete storage - instead of a drug stash in the space behind the loose brick, the drug stash is the loose brick. Also: 72% purity and a five year shelf-life.

Kristy sops egg-yolk with toast: 'So now what?'

Michael mangles grapefruit: 'Keep a couple, I 'spose, and sell the rest.'

Finishing Bloody Mary: 'Who do we know would pay the best price?'

'Hm.' Drying sticky hands. 'Maybe we put a rumour out, like on the local k-pop scene or something, see who comes to us.'

'Not here.' Crunching celery. 'We need a venue.'

Nathan's voice: 'Maybe I can help with that.'

'Fuck's -' Kristy clenches fists and teeth. '- sake.'

Michael turns wide grin: 'That shit never gets old.'

Nathan appears in the dining room entrance by shedding the Hi-Vis Invisibility Cloak that he won in a game of strip poker. Safe to say that Felicity has a woeful poker face.

Nathan has discovered a discrete location in which to commit black market dealings, within this realm but something of an Easter egg. Each Bunnings Warehouse, specifically the door handle aisle, usually has a sample line of door handles attached to a rail, so that customers may see and test said door handles as if they were installed, such as on a door. Pushing down on these door handles in a specific order (Satin Chrome Bailey Set, Matt Black Square Angular Passage Set, Stainless Steel Leno Passage, Satin Chrome Bailey Set, Satin Chrome Gala Passage, Satin Chrome Gala Passage, Satin Chrome Olive Passage Set) will open a door to a two metre by four metre courtyard which is on Bunnings' property but is not Bunnings' property, by Common Law. Nathan leases this courtyard to Kristy and Michael in exchange for a Brick of Cocaine.

So word is slipped to the street (or, rather, granny-flat speakeasies) and a long desk moved to the far end of the courtyard. Michael stacks a three long, three high cube of bricks on the table before standing right and behind Kristy, seated, with hand on her shoulder, all very family portrait. They hold this position for a minute and 43 seconds before their first customer arrives - a middle-aged man in trench coat and jeans that give him an almost neo-western aesthetic.

(An aside regarding the mechanics and origins of enchantments. Some enchanted items, such as the Fiery Pool Noodle of Mark, are the product of an enchantress transferring magical properties from one artefact to another. Other enchanted items, such as the Driver's Licence Photo of Todd, acquire their magical properties through esoteric energies channelled via ritual. Other artefacts, such as The Metal Chair, are the result of feats catching the attention of higher powers who need material for water cooler conversation. The last is relevant to the following product.)

Kristy: 'And you are?'

'Alexander Wong. My details are on the form I submitted.'

Michael pats pockets: 'So that was that thing.'

'Do we even -' Kristy, brief goanna eyes. 'Nuh, whatever, what are you offering?'

Alexander: 'A 10 Pack of Condoms of +4 Bureaucratic Efficiency.'

Michael unfolds paperwork: 'He, uh, he pleased the God of Bureaucracy by, uh, doing bureaucracy?'

Alexander spits tobacco: 'Two metre "In" pile. Two metre "Out" pile.'

Michael: 'How?'

'I'm good.' Smirking cocky. 'Also, cocaine.'

'Checks out.'

Kristy: 'So you pleased the God of Bureaucracy and they...'

Alexander, paperwork: 'Bestowed a +4 Bureaucratic Efficiency on the next thing I purchased. Condoms. Again, cocaine.'

'Checks out.'

Kristy looks to Michael with glance loaded with meaning: I can't use condoms, for obvious reasons. Michael returns loaded glance: paperwork makes my dick limp. But, like, if bureaucrats are a thing of yours? Kristy scrunches face: Ummmm. Nah, we're good.'

Michael raises apologetic hand: 'Sorry mate, we're going to have to pass.'

Very well, Alex spits bemused tobacco and leaves. Kristy and Michael doodle around on their phones for thirty-two minutes. Standing perpendicular to table with eyes down on the Wikipedia page for the 2021-present global energy crises, Michael catches new customers in his peripheral vision and texts Kristy: Them peeps gone fucked in turtle enclosure? Kristy snorts, covers it with a cough.

Indeed, it is Elise and Todd. Their Quetzalcoatl Feather side hustles brought them together and their being together, very publicly, shunned them from the Quetzalcoatl Feather game. They continued using their networks and skills to produce goods exchangeable on the esoteric shadow market - Todd is a cryptozoologist and  Elise is a zoological psychologist. Their own couple's project of late has been nursing a scaff gremlin alpha back to health.

Like the fire chicken, the scaff gremlin is the sterile cross breed of cryptids that only meet in Australia. On the mother's side is the skunk apes that stowed away on cargo containers of Floridian palm heart. On the father's side is the yowie, Australian native also known as bunyip, pangkarlangu or Greg, because it is just the one individual with the inclination and suave to sire an entire generation of creatures that look like gravelings.

Scaff gremlins are so named because of their nocturnal habit of assembling unattended scaffolding, which helps them catch moths. Todd had been remotely viewing this practice when an amateurishly secured transom fell on top of one of the scaff gremlins. Elise, standing right and behind Todd with hand on his shoulder, all very family portrait, suggested responsibility. Yeah, fair enough, it was Todd's drone that buped the scaffolding. They Ubered there and carried the thrice-swaddled scaff gremlin to their home.

It took three months for the scaff gremlin they named 'Mary' to heal a broken leg. Elise and Todd took turns in taking Mary out for short walks. They discerned that Mary is the rostrum's alpha and that it is the alpha's urine that marks scaffolding for assembling and gathers the usually disparate rostrum of scaff gremlins. By the time they released Mary back into the wild, a very 'get the fuck out of the cage it's been half an hour already' affair, they had a litre of Scaff Gremlin Alpha Urine.

Kristy: 'And you're hoping to trade this litre of urine for a brick of cocaine.'

Todd: 'We'll throw in a spray bottle because you can dilute it at ten-to-one. Then you just liberally spray scaffolding and leave it for the night.'

Michael: 'Yeah, uh, we don't want or need this urine.'

Nathan's voice: 'I want that urine.'

'Fuck's -' Kristy clenches fists and teeth. '- sake.'

Michael turns wide grin: 'That shit never gets old.'

Nathan appears at the far end of the table: 'Would you like the Hi-Vis Invisibility Cloak?'

Elise: 'No, we want a brick of cocaine.'

Michael sulks: 'I wanna' Hi-Vis Invisibility Cloak.'

Nathan: 'I have a brick of cocaine.'

'Wait.' Kristy's eyes pop hopeful. 'How about we give you guys cocaine for the urine and give you -' turning to Nathan '- the urine for the Invisibility Cloak?'

Michael: 'It's ok, porky-schmoos, I don't really want -'

Kristy ignores him: 'Deal?'

Everybody shrugs ok and goods are exchanged. Michael giggles and throws the Hi-Vis Invisibility Cloak over his head. His feet are still visible as he waltzes around the courtyard going 'woo-ooo, woo-OOOooo'. Todd and Elise leave discretely.

Nathan says to Kristy: 'Should I...?'

'How about you go dilute your urine?'

Exit Nathan. Michael gets bored with playing ghost in twenty-four minutes. Kristy kinda' wants to bone and laments that they did not buy those condoms, +4 Bureaucratic Efficiency or otherwise. Well, onto the next customer.

Liam saunters in with long steps matched by sways of arms bent 90° at the elbow. Folded over his shoulder is a brown faux-mink blanket.

Kristy frowns: 'There's a story here. There always is.'

'Yeah.' Liam's smile widen and he tilts his head back slightly. 'Last Saturday, I had a bottle of red and two stouts. Went to bed feeling ok and woke up vomiting in an hour. Most of it landed on the floor but also the curtains, walls, quilt, pillows bed sheets. But not this blanket. It was on top of the quilt.'

Kristy: 'Sooo blanket is magic? Stain dodging blanket?'

'If it wasn't before, it is now.'

Michael: 'I doubt magic. Just a fluke.'

Liam: 'How about I also throw in -'

Liam pulls, from within blanket, a clock. The hands move backwards, what would conventionally be called counter-clockwise. The numbers on the clock face are also reversed - the 11 is just right and below the 12. This clock therefore tells accurate time.

Kristy: 'That's fucking stupid.'

Michael is fascinated.

The Driver's License Photo of Todd

 

Another of the daft impositions placed by governments on citizenry is the bad driver's licence photo. Anyone hoping for vehicular mobility is mandated to take a single picture that serves as their legal introduction for, at least, the following year. The photographed is legally required to rest into bitch face and is allowed to choose from one option, which is not how choice or options works. Death, taxes, bad driver's licence photos - all supposedly inevitable, but that has never stopped people from trying.

Perhaps one may find, on the pop-up community market circuit, the arts and craft stall of Abby. Feign interest in the weavings, the sculptures and other utterly useless art until one is alone at Abby's stall and ask her to make you a fake I.D.. This is what Todd, bowl-cut academic fresh off completing his PhD in cryptozoology, does, Abby leans back her chair to better appraise this prospective customer.

The usual patrons for Abby's illegal side hustle are middle-aged women. Two decades ago, at a craft-sale school fundraiser, fellow Mums inspired her foray into fake I.D.s by complimenting her small art works and then sharing joints behind the change rooms. A consumer base of parents necessitates certain moral restrictions - specifically, that all of Abby's fake I.D.s give completely true information but have a more flattering photograph. (Although, in cases of more complicated I.D.s such as airport access cards, she can outsource digital mischief to Jessica to have flattering photograph inserted into government databases.)* It is mere vanity, but Todd has a more complicated vanity in mind:

'I want my driver's licence photo to change appearance in lieu of my own.'

Ummmm: 'You mean like The Picture of Dorian Gray?'

'Bingo.'

'But.' Contingencies run behind Abby's eyes. 'Sooner or later you are going to pull it out, see it, then die.'

'I believe you are confusing the novel with the film adaptation of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. Or my dick.'

April crosses arms: 'Why?'

'Because you said "pull it out".'

'No, why do you want this magical I.D.?'

'I have a skin condition that flares up in summer.'

Also, last visit to the barber revealed, reflection in reflection, the beginnings of a bald spot.

Abby has raised three daughters and the middle one was a particular shit, so Abby has developed a nuanced bullshit detector. In this case, the bullshit detector detects no bull. Well. Shit.

Abby considers: a magical side hustle to her illegal side hustle to her artsy side hustle to her job, plus feeding the third child who has just started uni. Imbuing Todd's drivers licence with the requested properties would require proper witchcraft. Abby would have to get the old gang back together - school friends with whom she extracurriculared in channelling esoteric feminine energies by dancing in forestries under the full moon and shouting 'cunt' a lot. They got pretty good at it.

Bringing the old gang back together is not as socially difficult as it sounds. Dear Felicity did so two years ago in order to hex whoever her husband was fucking, making for an interesting Christmas where all four of her brothers painfully vomited upon entering her premises. However, middle-aged witchcraft has expenses:

·         The booze must be stronger and better quality, all relevant witches having outgrown West Coast Coolers.

·         Then there are the hangover cures, because adult women have shit to do.

·         A mattress on the floor no longer cuts it, everyone will want their own room, which means glamping.

Which brings Abby to the taxed brass: 'How are you going to pay for this?'

Matter of fact: 'Quetzalcoatl feathers.'

'I dooon't really need Quetzalcoatl feathers.'

'No, but someone will, and they have gone up in value after Amy's, um, episode.'

Meaning Amy's hunting trip where she did a lot of peyote in the hopes of contacting (and killing) her spirit animal. No luck there, but she did mistake the I.S.S. for a flying saucer and fired about four dozen arrows, fletched with gravity-defying Quetzalcoatl feathers, at the satellite. Only two hit, the rest drifting into space. This scarcity has tilted the usual supply and demand.

Todd has an ample supply of Quetzalcoatl feathers because he wingmans for them, the serpent dragons using human networks much like how people use hook-up apps. Whilst human sex leaves sweat and other fluids, Quetzalcoatl fornication leaves their feathers and other body fluids, quite often blood. Todd has been saving feathers in the hopes of purchasing a bouquet of blue roses to gift to Elise, another wingman, as a beautiful statement of their impossible love. Todd changed purchasing preferences when he realised that he could just ask Elise:

'You wanna' just fuck already?'

So now Abby feels, in a swell rising from her tum-tums, the epiphany of opportunity. The Quetzalcoatl feathers will be exchanged for The Driver's Licence of Todd. Feathers will then be traded for Ghost Tobacco, cigarettes which give form to spirits yet to pass onto the other side. Abby's youngest is studying psychology at uni and so this ghost tobacco will pay for her informal tutoring by Sinead, who is hot-shot counsellor, ghost and also a smoker.

 

*As an aside, does anyone else think that these Chinese/North Korean/ Russian hackers operate like privateers i.e. they don't work for the government, per se, but the government gives them free reign to digitally loot and pillage foreign assets?

Quetzalcoatl Feathers

Two creatures: over a hundred metres long, four metres wide, a dozen sets of legs which are squat like a lizard's and end in raptor's talons, a dog's head with snout like an alligators but shorter, a whipping tail, all covered in feathers mostly azure but sometimes bright green, rust orange, white or puce. They stand on their hind legs and tower parallel. Clawing air, short of reaching the other's torso but locking paws at four points. One jumps to be slightly atop the other and the two fall, knocking down a stobie pole.

The locked dragons roll 1420° together, crushing small gums and knocking a pine 30° askew. Claws dig into the other's flesh, the lower sinks teeth into the higher's throat, which roars akin to an elephant. The two coil at three curves like overenthusiastic, twisted 'S's, the higher's curves being (from the head back) horizontal, vertical and then horizontal, the lower's curves horizontal, horizontal, vertical. Another roll, 180°, throat bite reversed.  The two coil loosely together and writhe like bubbling mud. One, then the other: a great inhale followed by a high-pitched bellow, long over three slowing, softening beats.

The higher rolls off the lower and, laying content on their back, lights a metre long cigarette. Next to their head, Elise pipes up:

'Do I get paid now?'

The dragon flies away, slithering above treetops.

THREE DAYS EARLIER

Elbows on armrests, forearms steepling with left hand clasped over right, her back to the office door when it knocks.

'Come in.'

Meek: 'Elise Por Favor? The zoological psychologist?'

Damn straight: 'Yes. How can I help?'

'I'm looking to impress the females of my kind.'

'I can do that.' Elise finally spins chair to face the customer and her smile drops. 'Wait. You're not a turtle.'

One large eye gazes through the doorway: 'I'm a Quetzalcoatl. A feathered-serpent dragon.'

A job is a job. Elise had quit working at the zoo, citing 'oppressive political correctness of snowflake millennials triggered by a loose tiger'. She started an independent consultancy two months ago but the workflow is yet to become steady.

In a residential backstreet, Elise dishes out advice: 'Rule one. Stand straight with shoulders back. That's how lobsters assert dominance.'

The Quetzalcoatl complies. His snout barges into a lounge room and knocks over a chimney stack. His read third stretches through three backyards.

Elise flips rapidly through a well-worn self-help book: 'Um, um, OK, how about "Pet a cat when you encounter one in the street"?'

The Quetzalcoatl raises a massive paw and locks eyes with Chubs, a Burmese frozen and praying for the love of Tom, do not.

Elise: 'No no no. Scratch that. No, I mean, stop. Let's stop. Rethink this. Why do you think that lady dragons aren't interested in you?'

'It is a complicated ritual.'

'Ahhhh k.'

'I need a mejor amigo. In your tongue, a "wing man".'

'More details.'

The inner-suburban cafe is sparse at 14:00, one coffee date and another pair finishing lunch. Minimalist paintings of native flowers hang from cream walls. Elise takes a flat-white and sits at a bench near the front window. 16 minutes before a man, in slim tartan jacket and thick-rimmed glasses, takes the seat next to her with vanilla slice:

'107. 9-point-3. 64:17:8.'

Elise: 'Damn straight.'

A moment before he smiles smug: 'You're new to this? You know a Quetzalcoatl, right?'

Elise nods with a slight glare.

He raises digits from a right-handed fist, one at a time: 'Length, height, proportion of blue, green, purple. Yours?'

Elise sips coffee. Uh oh.

He frowns, annoyed: 'I need to know your guy's numbers to check if he's suitable.'

Ahah! She takes her phone out: 'I took a photo.'

He takes a look: 'This is not accurate data.'

'I've tried Tinder. Everyone's photo is of their good side.'

'That is not his good side.'

Elise turns a slightly manic smile over the empty cafe.

He sighs and stuffs mouth with vanilla slice: 'My name is Todd.'

BACK TO THE PRESENT

The second feathered-serpent dragon takes off, slithering away in the opposite direction.

Elise: 'What is this hit-it-and-quit-it bullshit?'

Todd climbs from a trench, scribbling into a notebook: 'Thatz-coo-et-sal-co-a-til-bang-in.'

A touch of screech: 'Without paying me? You. Why you do this?

Eyes remaining down: 'My thesis.'

'Well. Fuck.' Elise looks over the mangled grass and notices at least a dozen feathers - 35cm long, multicoloured with a jet-black shaft. 'Those look nice. I call dibs. All of them.'

Todd shrugs. Elise ends with 146 Quetzalcoatl feathers. She slips two favourites in the band of her pith helmet, accessorising, which she wears whenever she walks city streets. At a pedestrian crossing, a voice at Elise's side:

'You selling those feathers?'

'No I earned them they're valuable.'

Elise turns and softens before the smiling-cheeky first impression of a short, spunky woman with left sleeve-tattoo of monkshood and hawks. This is Amy, a bow hunter. Arrows fletched with Quetzalcoatl feathers are immune to gravity and air resistance, granting greater accuracy and range. Amy has, on eleven occasions, missed her target with such an arrow, which flew forever away into lost property, likely leaving the Earth's curvature and drifting into space, whereupon it becomes Denmark's problem. (Regarding the possibility of hitting someone: Amy pays a monthly premium to The All Knowing Machine, which specialises in specialised insurance policies.)

Amy and Elise go to a pub.

Elise: 'Why don't you just wingman a dragon?'

Wistful: 'It's a very heteronormative scene. Women wingman for the male dragons, men wingman for females. Also, I burnt bridges. Apparently it's taboo for wingmen themselves to get some.'

Finishing second pint: 'I have 144 spare feathers. I'd love to help you, but I love animals more.'

'Hm. That's 192 CatScript.' Amy thinks. 'You work with animals. I have something you want.'

They get a six pack to go and leave for parkland discrete in dusk. Amy presents a crossbow: grey and black carbon fibre, 30cm wide and twice as long, half the length being a butt-stock with a right-angle triangle lever tucked beneath. Amy aims one-handed at a pigeon roosting in an electricity transformer and pulls trigger - a 5cm pin digs halfway into the pigeon's breast. The pigeon thinks eh, close enough and promptly falls asleep.

Amy: 'The NOS-KAL. One-of-a-kind designed for a Lemurian special operation, since sold at Mitchells Adventure. No need to chamber, infinite tranquiliser mini-bolts so long as -'

Amy flips the NOS-KAL 360° around her hand, fingers remaining within the lever which is thereby pressed down. The crossbow's elastic is drawn and locked when Amy catches it back in her hand:

'- you can successfully flip-cock.'

'Gimme.'

Yawning: 'I'd advise practising the reload beforehand. Also, avoid use when intoxicated.'

A pin sticks through Amy's shoe. She curls up and falls asleep, dreams of Goku flashing behind her eyes.