[ WP ] Humanity is pushed to the brink of extinction and you could n't be happier .

She props her feet up on the bar, but there's spilled beer up there and it's getting on her boots. God, these boots. Lambskin, softer than a baby's whatever, stitching tighter and more regular than she'd ever seen. When she'd bought them for $ 20, she'd rubbed one of her cheek. Dead baby lamb. Dead babies are the theme of this decade. 
 
 A year ago she could n't have afforded them, but everything is within reach these days. The prices started falling when it became obvious that inheritances and legacies were meaningless. Society did n't collapse like the pundits thought it would - it just relaxed a little bit. Nearly all vices are legal now and it's hard to find anybody who's stressed. 
 
 There's a guy in her apartment building that was taking it really poorly, so the girls at the brothel that formed in the cathedral next door, they sent one after the other over until he finally gave in. Paxil was n't helping with his feelings of impending doom, he said, but Anne-Marie? She cured him in an evening. He wanted to give her money but she said it was a public service, but maybe next time he could pay. 
 
 When it first started, everybody really believed it would go to hell. Some of it did. People stopped showing up at shitty jobs pretty quickly. If there are no mouths to feed, there's no reason to scar your hands working a press for a few bucks an hour. And yet those same people did n't just lie down and die. 
 
 There's another guy in her building who used to do welding and still does, but it's all art now. He's fastening bronze animals all over the city in the middle of the night, and sometimes people track him down and pay him. `` The metals wo n't run out,'' he said. `` They're melting down all the office buildings. There's more copper than we'll ever be able to use.'' 
 
 That's not to say there are n't shitheads, but there are fewer. It's what she does now, tracks down the problems and fixes them. She walks around the city and looks for those signs, listens for those sounds. Nine times out of ten the screams are a scary movie. Moans coming from an alley are usually not someone bleeding to death - she has learned to stop checking on those. 
 
 The last time out she'd heard someone crying in one of the lower-floor apartments. She walked in on a dominatrix and a man in cuffs. He explained from behind his gag that it was consensual, that he'd hired her in exchange for doing her lawn. `` But thank you for checking,'' he'd said. The woman whipped him for speaking without permission. `` If you need lawn services, let me know. I like landscaping.'' Whipped again. 
 
 If she were actually looking for trouble, she'd be bored, but it's never boring. She goes out and watches people, to see what they do when the pressure is off, when it's winding down. It's like a restaurant at the end of the night. The waitress offers you cake and tells you it's going to be thrown away if you do n't eat it. On the house. Or a hurricane has killed the power and the neighbor downstairs beats a broom against his ceiling. `` If you do n't help me eat what's in my fridge, it's going to rot,'' he yells. 
 
 It's the end of the parade, when the people on the float realize they have too many beads left, and they pick a kid in the crowd and bury him. He's going to share and nobody's going to feel left out, but he'll feel like a king every time he remembers it. 
 
 There's a little perverse impulse everybody's discovering they have - how can I blow that person's mind? Leave him in the dust, wondering how he got so lucky. Maybe it's sex. It's usually sex. But sometimes it's fixing his tires. Or giving him a hug. Sometimes she needs a back rub. Or she can not get this fucking dishwasher to stop leaking and while you're here do you know anything about computers? 
 
 A week ago she got cornered by a gang while walking down a side street. They formed two rows, blocked both exits. She was going to die. And then they did three acapella numbers. And at the end, when she clapped, one of them pointed and said `` now do n't you tell _anybody_, bitch.'' 
 
 She guesses it's because there are no more kids to spoil, so everybody's turning it on each other. Everybody's gone feral. She orders another round and pushes an old Madonna CD across to the bartender as payment. `` You know the internet exists, right? iTunes is still a thing.'' He laughs. `` Come here,'' he says and opens the door to the back. He's built a half-disco ball, half-star out of the things. `` I want to start a dance night.''
