Taurus Jupiter's Arc

Chapter 6 of 6

Taurus walked back to the hall with the pamphlet in her coat, but she did not go inside. She stood at the door long enough to hear her own voice behind it, echoing from the last lecture, and knew a second reading of the same thesis would not save her. She needed the boy with the blue hair. She needed a steady supply of the ideas he carried, or the cushions would empty within the month. So she asked around the slum until someone pointed her to a squat building with peeling paint, rusted iron over the windows, and graffiti climbing the brick like weeds. A hand-lettered sign above the door read Punk Haven. She sat on the curb across the street and waited. He came at dusk with a guitar case on his back and a fresh stack of pamphlets under one arm. He saw her and stopped. "You again." "Me again," Taurus said. She stood and brushed her coat. "I have a proposition. Come to the hall. Speak once a week. Say whatever you want, however ugly. I will pay you, feed you, and put a roof over your head that does not leak." He tilted his head. "You want to buy chaos." "I want to rent it," she said. "Steady, so my lectures don't die. I am a Jupiterian. I expand. My method is comfort, but I am willing to stretch that to include whatever you bring through the door." "Sounds like a cage with better food." "It is a stage with better food. You keep your press. You keep your pamphlets. You keep every word." He looked past her at the graffiti on the wall behind her head. "Jupiter expands too," he said. "That part I know." "Then you know the shape of the offer." He set the guitar case down on the pavement between them and thought about it for a full minute without moving. "One night a week," he said. "I pick the topic. You don't edit. If your cushion crowd walks out, that is your problem." "Agreed." "I sleep at the Haven, not the hall." "Agreed." He picked the case back up. "First lecture is Thursday. Title is Comfort Is A Bribe." "Wonderful," Taurus said, and meant it. He walked past her into the building without looking back. Taurus stood on the empty street a moment longer. She had come out for an idea and left with a supplier. The hall would not empty on Thursday. It might empty on Friday, once he opened his mouth, but that was a different problem, and she found she was hungry for it.