The contractor came next.
Buck Roachman arrived with clipboards, safety vests and a team of smiling inspectors. His company had won a government contract to conduct free disaster-preparedness assessments.
They went door to door.
Could residents survive a radiation leak?
Did they have emergency solder?
Where were their communication ports?
How many bugs lived in each burrow?
What frequencies did their household circuits use?
Residents answered because the questions sounded responsible.
Roachman transmitted everything to Gilden.
Dewdrop refused the inspection.
“Government ain’t counting my drawers.”
Then his new single created a different problem.
As Nasty as I Wanna Be was filthy even by Nest standards.
It sold out in a day.
The Hood County Decency Board banned it on the second.
Dewdrop performed it anyway.
Hoppity arrested him at The Nest.
The room went silent when the deputy walked through the door.
Everyone had heard he was dead.
His repaired face was almost right, which made it worse. One side smiled a fraction later than the other.
Dewdrop stared at him.
“I watched you disappear.”
Hoppity tightened the cuffs.
“Rumors.”
The lewdness trial became the biggest show in Hood County.
False Black turned the courthouse steps into a rally.
Ms. Ladybug sold drinks.
Filmy sold shirts.
Dewdrop represented himself for eleven disastrous minutes before a lawyer took pity on him.
The jury acquitted him.
Outside the courthouse, Dewdrop climbed onto a roach coach.
“They tried to ban the record,” he shouted. “Now everybody wants it!”
The crowd cheered.
Across the street, Hoppity stood beside Reverend Mercy Mantis.
His eyes flickered red.