"Hello?"

"Jiào nǐ shēng háizi méi pìgu yǎn! Oh, hi, it's The Future. So sorry you had to hear that, but this place stresses me out sometimes."

"It's been a few weeks since I heard from you. Given the conditions of your last call, I was a little worried."

"Sorry, cybersphincter. I was at Beth-Israel-Rey getting my iPortal upgraded. Bùyàoliǎn de dōngxī! Ugh. Shopping really brings out the worst in me and it's packed here today."

"Where are you, anyway?"

"I'm just trying to get my gift shopping done here at the Bleecker Street Mall."

"There's a mall on Bleecker Street?"

"Oh. I guess they haven't enclosed it yet?"

"Enclosed it? As in the whole street?"

"Yeah, from Christopher up to Greenwich. You see, one day James Wilkie Broderick was walking down Bleecker with his mother, and a pigeon, deliberately, according to Sarah Jessica, shat on him. He was rushed to a homeopath and seemed okay, but then refused to leave his home in fear of another avian attack."

"That's seems like over-reacting."

"Well, his mother is sort of known for overacting, so I guess...."

"No, over-reacting."

"Well, that was just the beginning! There were fund-raisers and vigils. Eventually Mayor Quinn gathered a lesbian hunting expedition to kill off all of the pigeons, but even that wasn't enough to convince James that it was safe in the city. That's when J. P. Jacobs came up with what was the first of his many brilliant ideas: To enclose Bleecker Street to make it safer for shopping."

"J. P. Jacobs? That name sounds familiar."

"Oh, he's one of the most prominent fashion designers around. He's had stores on Bleecker for a very long time."

"Oh. You mean Marc Jacobs."

"Wait. That's right; I forgot about his partner. So sad when he died in the Pilates Plague. But Jason Preston was the brains in that duo, and he carried on the Jacobs name. So brave. Anyway, covering the street was his idea and it's taken off wildly. One of the anchor stores just added another level actually."

"Another level of what?"

"Sorry, another floor. Now there's five floors to the Magnoliaplex. The first floor houses the cupcake department."

"And the other floors?"

"That's for the lines to get to the cupcakes. All of those different flavors. But I think the most popular one is the original flavor: Sawdust."

"Well, I guess it's sort of good to hear that some businesses from the present have survived. What other kinds of stores are there?"

"Where to start? There are clothes by Allie Hilfiger, and Kelly Klein and Cougarama. All kinds of specialty shops like Heidi and Spencer's Gifts, and Cory Haim's Cat Corner. Conveniences like Whole Foods, a Lohan Pharmacy, SUV City, and three ProphetBoxes. And of course the mall's other anchor, CondoMania."

"CondoMania? Wow. It's great to hear that it's back and doing well."

"Totally. Just the other day I stopped by and picked up a new two-bedroom. With a self-sanitizing kitchen! Hold on, one second. Back off, xiao dao dan gui! Hey. I'll call you next week. Some tool is trying to get the last 'Gossip Girl, The Movie' DVD and I totally have to have it!"

"Hello?"

"Zhe shi shenme? Is that you, nanonips? I must have hit the wrong avatar on my iPortal! I meant to call the police!"

"The police? Are you okay?"

"I was just having lunch at CNNZone in Times Square when all hell broke loose."

"Is it a terrorist attack?"

"A what? ... No. Far worse. It's a Tranny Reclamation Riot."

"What does that even mean?"

"It all started when the Supreme Court overturned the extension of copyright laws. For years, Congress, at the behest of big business had prevented the passage to public domain just about anything. The original intent of the laws, to protect creators, had been perverted to just sustain creative ideas as corporate assets."

"And how would that affect trannies?"

"I'm getting there, micromuff. At first some of the smaller companies were affected. Characters like Spider-Man going into public domain meant that the assets of places like Marvel Comics were simply wiped out. Some of the larger concerns had some adjustments. TWA for example just shifted some assets around."

"TWA?"

"Time Warner/American Media? The company Harry Levin runs? Hold on. I have to find a place to hide. I'm going to try this closet. ... Damn!"

"What happened?"

"Anderson Cooper's in there with Rick Sanchez. There's no more room. I could make try to run across the street to Madame Tussaud-o-Vision."

"Where?"

"MTV. It's a portal-vision network that shows programming by wax dummy replicas of humans. Another result of the copyright rollback. Viacom, which had very little creative content, did fine. I wish the same could be said for Walt Disney. If they had survived I wouldn't be hiding from the tranny rebels out there."

"How would Walt Disney affect ..."

"Duibuqi. Walt Disney was pretty much propped up by their licensed holdings. Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Jessica Simpson. All those lunch boxes, t-shirts, toasters and everything else were where their money really was. Following the copyright changes, they quickly went bankrupt. And for Times Square, that meant that about 70 per cent of the theaters and other businesses were suddenly just gone. Completely undisnified. Some locals tried their hand at bringing theater back, but people were wholly uninterested in shows like "Rosie's Ruff-Riding Rodeo" or "Apprentice, the Musical".

"So without theater, what happened to Times Square?"

"There was an attempt to continue some of the tourist interests. ESPNZone became where I'm hiding out right now, CNNZone. LOLCaiteteria has very nice interpretations of Franco-American products. And the Jolie-Pitt Adopt-o-rama is quite popular with the gays. But the area is sort of going downhill. Thus the reclamation riots."

"What exactly are the trannies trying to do?"

"When they were first pushed out of the area back in last century, many of the trannies and the prostitutes and the hustlers all felt that they had been pushed away from their motherland. They had to leave the streets and hole up, resorting to advertising for their services. At some point, local magazines pushed them out as well. Now with so many of the buildings in Times Square just sitting empty, they're trying to reclaim the land from which they were forced out. Last year they used slingshot garters to take out the Macy's balloons from the top of the former Conde Nast building. And now, with the riots, I don't even know if there will be a parade this year."

"But trannies can't be that scary."

"Are you kidding me, robo-roids? They're thousands strong and ... Oh, no. Zhe shi shenme? ... It's a Press-On Pipebomb! I'll call you soon!"

"Hello?"

"Ni hao, internuts! Did you vote yesterday?"

"Oh, hmm! Was it Election Day? To be honest it sort of skipped my mind. I don't think there was much on the ballot this year."

"You should've voted anyway, just for the fun of it. It's a chance to see your saltier neighbors and, if I know my history, it was the last year to use those fun lever-machines. It's not nearly as adventurous now."

"How so?"

"Well, now it's as easy as yi, er, san. Just look at the ballot on your iPortal and make your choices. In fact, I'm doing it as we speak."

"So you're voting via the Internet?"

"TransPortalWeave actually. They did try to use the Internet at first, but it was a disaster. Thousands of people in Philadelphia hacked the system and found a way to vote for Mayor!"

"Well, what's wrong with that? Philly has a May—"

"No, digidouche, Mayor of New York! After Staten Island seceded to New Jersey, Philadelphia was determined to become the fifth borough, going as far as leaving Pennsylvania. But New York simply didn't want to be associated with them, so they ended up as part of New Jersey too. But hacking wasn't the most chaotic election event."

"But voting is one of the most important foundations of our society. What could be worse than hackers?"

"Hurricanes!"

"A hurricane on Election Day? That would be disruptive."

"In 2008, both parties nominated candidates from New York. One was sort of the "sure thing" legacy history-making candidate and the other was more of a "seat warmer" while his party tried to pull itself back together."

"Well, it seems like you're talking Hillary Clinton and Rudolph Giuliani, right?"

"Exactly. Hillary was carrying like 70 per cent in the polls. Rudy had been wrecked by scandal after scandal, the last of which being video proof that he was in bed with this unscrupulous guy, Bernard Kerik."

"Well there's all sorts of links between the two that go back for years, I can't imagine what else...."

"No, I mean they were literally video-taped in bed together. This was pre-gaylightenment, when the Republican Party was still in the closet, even though most of its leadership were Flambeau Rambos. Anyway, he was still the party's candidate and he had come back to New York just before the election. At the same time, a huge storm was working its way up the Atlantic—Hurricane Judith."

"They named it after Giuliani's wife? Is that...."

"Apparently these things are decided in advance so it was just a coincidence. Anyway, the storm just ravaged the city with huge amounts of rain and wind and flooding. It was probably the most transformative event the city had ever seen. Coney Island became an actual island. The high-rises along the Hudson toppled like dominos. Glorious Lake Zero was formed. And Giuliani became president."

"Hold on. How did...."

"All of the media was covering the storm more than the election, so Giuliani made it look as if he was out in the storm helping people, delivering cookies to shelters, and whatever else it took to get on camera to defend what he was calling 'Storm Eleven.'"

"Storm Eleven?"

"According to him, he couldn't use his wife's name for such a terrible event. Since 'J' is the eleventh letter of the alphabet, he renamed it 'Storm Eleven' and the name stuck with the media. They stopped focusing on the nightmare of Judith and instead turned to stories of how Rudy was saving people from Storm Eleven. Hm. Schumer or Allison for Senator? Voting is hard sometimes."

"A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I. Hey J isn't the eleventh letter...."

"You know, not one person in the press caught that twist until after the election. Anyway, I need to close out my voting session and then I've got to get to the Upper East Side for a performance art auction. I'll call you soon! Zai jian!"

Previously: Once The Fertilizers Move In

"Es salaam aleikum, giga-glans! I've been wanting to call you for years! This is The Future."

"Wait. Who?"

"Pay attention, tera-tits. It's The Future. I've had your number for years on my iPortal, and it seemed like it was time to call."

"But, why now?"

"It's as clear as the waters of magnificent Lake Zero. It's Halloween."

"Okay, but hold on. Um, I was on another call. Just a second.... Oh, I guess they hung up."

"You can always call them back. Ah, Halloween. It's really my favorite soujorniday. All of the—"

"Soujorniday? You mean holiday?"

"That's right. Language desecularization hasn't occurred yet. So yes, holiday. What are your plans? Have you selected a costume?"

"Um, well, I've been working my ass off, so I honestly haven't thought about it."

"Putting all your effort into the last minute, huh? I've made that mistake before, but you simply must go to the Halloween Parade."

"That's something I tend to avoid. That crowd in the West Village is sort of rough with all the people coming in on the PATH train. A guy could get shot or stabbed or bleach-gunned."

"Well, the parade hasn't been in the Village for years. There was the brief time it changed course to follow the migration of the gays up Ninth Avenue from Chelsea up to Hell's Kitchen, but once the construction of the Moynihan Mediaplex was done, it had to go. Something to do with the outrage when Anna Wintour's mobility scooter was dragged into the parade route."

"So wait. Where exactly is it then?"

"It followed the gays of course. To Governor's Island."

"Gover—but that's so remote."

"Exactly. The gays were tired of having to leave a neighborhood once the fertilizers would move in. After stints all over Manhattan, most of them were at a loss, because a move to a borough would have been too stigmatizing. Instead they moved on to Governor's Island. It's perfect really. They've built up the water taxis, creating a vast system of piers all around, which is an added plus."

"So you're going out there in your costume?"

"Actually, no. This year I've been invited to the Mayor's residence for a very swank affair. For the first time in decades, I'm going to break out the drag and go as the First Lady. Everyone thinks I'll make a great Hillary."

"Wait. Hillary Clinton?"

"Yes, Hillar—wait. Clinton? No one's heard from her since she moved to Lesotho. No, the current First Lady. I think her maiden name was Duff. Anyway, this party is going to be simply jayed!"

"And it's up at Gracie Mansion."

"No, quadri-cooze, that burned down after former Mayor Quinn tried to get all butch and fix some electrical problem on her own. But Tinsley Manor has been a stunning replacement."

"Tinsley?"

"Yeah, naming the mansion after his wife was controversial at first, but Mayor Mortimer paid for the entire construction with his personal prophets."

"Profits from what?"

"Oh, um, no. After the last non-millionaire moved out of Manhattan, there was a dearth of certain businesses. Along with Simon Hammerstein, the Mortimers opened a high-end fortune telling boutique called The Prophet Box. It did so well they created a chain of them, taking over all the empty Starbucks after the caffeine prohibition. Everybody adores the Mortimers now here in Tinsley Town. But they are sticklers for punctuality, so I should get going. I have to get to the Cover Girl shop and find the right labia-pink shade of lipstick if I'm going to be the First Lady."

"But you've told me so much, I...."

"Don't worry, kilo-cock. I'll call you again and explain everything. Asavakit!"