The Hipster Who Leapt Through Time (The Hipster Trilogy Book 2) Read Free Page A

neck had popped out of place as he picked up a metal grabbing device, lifted the tongue from its well-lit resting place, and slid it into a paper bag. He flicked the bag over itself, tying the end of it. He then repeated the process for the sirloins and asked JoEl for £19.91.
    “£19.91?” JoEl repeated.  
    The piglet nodded his head and blinked his eyes and said, “Yes, please.”
    JoEl opened his long dark overcoat, revealing, for a second, his overalls — slim and form-fitted to his skin for efficient travel and adorned with the tools for whatever the job demanded. He reached into a pocket for his per diems. He’d given himself just enough human money to get by comfortably on his work trip. He handed the piglet a crisp £20 note — printed the month before on Gamma Nebulous. The piglet held the note up to the light coming in from the window. Once satisfied he handed the bags of meat to JoEl and said something about a good day.
    Without leaving the butchers, JoEl reached his hand into the bag, pulled out one of the sirloins and held it in front of his face. The slab of flesh felt wet and firm in his hand. The animal that the flesh had been ripped from was a strong animal. Strong indeed. He saw the red run down to his fingers before biting down on the raw meat, ripping a chunk out of it.  
    The piglet man watched with a loose jaw as JoEl gorged on the juicy raw flesh. He swallowed down the bite and smiled at the piglet man.
    “Thanks again,” JoEl said, showing his teeth in their reddened glory, the juices all around his mouth and down his chin. “You have a good day now.”  
    Before he left he took another bite of the meat and stepped out onto the street.  
    His tablet computer beeped and sent a shock of nervous excitement through his body. It was a notification, a signal, that only meant one thing. It was time to go to work.  

Luna Gajos

    “Tomorrow, when you’re in, can you make sure you give the floor a good mop?” Blaise said. “When I unlocked this morning I could see so many lines of dirt in on the floor I thought I was in a helicopter, looking down at a freshly ploughed field.”  
    “What?” Luna said. “My mopping is fantastic. You’re lying.”
    Blaise looked at her with the big wide eyes of shame, his caramel skin already showing some wear and tear. His eyes had lost some of their vim and vigour. It was only six months ago that he was showing off about his Twitter followers and spouting nonsense about middle-management. And now look at him. The restaurant manager of CrunchyBites in the King’s Cross station. Doing the job that he heckled Luna for doing only a few months prior.
    “Well, I don’t bloody know, do I Luna?” he said. “Maybe you were having an off day.”
    Blaise twisted a key in the wall and the steel shutters of the café screeched from the ceiling to the floor. She waited her turn to reply, to remind Blaise that it wasn’t that long ago she was teaching him how to clean the coffee machine, ring staff discount through the register, deal with a customer complaint. And now here he—
    The metal crashed as the shutters rooted themselves into a groove in the floor. Blaise removed the key and looked back to Luna.
    “You do realise that I was the one who showed you how to use the mop in the first place,” she said.
    “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He spun the ring of keys around his finger. The ring of responsibility that Luna used to look after. “All that was so long ago now … how long was it?”
    “Six months,” Luna said.
    “Oh yeah. So, you tell me then, what happened?”
    Luna thought about the alien, the cat, the parasite, the fact that she’d played an integral part in saving the world. She thought about the brother who was pulled apart by the beast. She thought about his lifeless face, similar to the butchered pig-heads you see on dinner platters, apples in their gobs. She hadn’t stopped thinking about it. Even now, looking into the