Chapter 1

‘Grey apps. Grey apps,’ shouted a woman dressed in a muddy cut-off wedding dress and high-heeled pirate boots. Her head was shaved except for small tufts of dyed jet-black hair with ice-blue beads sewn into them.

Three girls dressed identically in grey smock dresses and steel toe-capped boots stopped and stared. Ashley was only a few steps behind, following closely. On each of their dresses was a print of a famous piece of underground art: a giant rat with human legs poking out of its mouth and a pile of skulls defecated behind it.

"Oram is one of those rare authors who is able to create something remarkable by staring the future deep in the eyes and challenging everything that it seems to promise." Luke Robert Mason, Director of Virtual Futures.

This stand-alone short story, set in the speculative near-future of the novel FLUENCE, follows Magenta, Sepia and Turquoise through the Friends on the Fringe market.

In their bid to find The Secret of the Algorithm they encounter illegal app sellers, vomit voyeurs, a dice man and a naked cat-girl.