Page 11 of Tapeworld Induction

“Outreach, at the Office for Veganism.”

He’d heard about that. Changing the hearts and minds of resilient carnivores, one phone call at a time. Frankly he had no idea how she had patience for it.

Noticing a change in her tone of voice, he probed further.

“You don’t like it?”

She glanced at him. “Convincing people who have never even tried going off meat to switch diets…?” She waved her hands as she answered, and she gave a huffed breath. “Yeah, not easy. Not much fun either. Most carnists are set in their ways, don’t want to change. Summers should make it mandatory for everyone in the Kingdom and be done with it.”

Carnists. Isaak flinched at the word. He didn’t particularly sympathise with meat-eaters but they were still people. His dad for one. He still had memories of his dad pushing him to “get eatin’ some bacon.” “No, thanks,” he’d reply. It got worse after Maria left. Maria was his mum, but she’d very much stopped feeling like it after she just up and left one day. She never spoke to him or his dad again. His dad became a different person after that too. Never cared. One day, Isaak left home and didn’t return.

“They should pay a tax for every day they eat meat,” Dylan said, absorbed in thought.

“Would you do it?”

“What?” she asked, lifting her head from his shoulder, a smile forming on her lips.

“Break out the cows from the farms,” he said, with absolute seriousness. He wanted to know how far she’d go.

Her mouth formed a shocked “O” for a moment, then she recovered herself. “O-of course. I wanted to protest at the farms but they’ve—”

“They’ve what?”

“Hidden them! Cows, pigs, chickens all in ‘uncertain locations’. It’s like fucking Area 51, but for cattle.” She was speaking so fast she seemed to be running out of breath.

Not knowing what to do, Isaak returned the swear. “Fuck ’em.”

“The animals?!”

He chuckled. “No, the ministry!”

Relief over her face. “Ah… yeah. Fuck ’em.” She nuzzled under his arm again, and started tracing each letter of the London Lazarus logo on his shirt. He liked that. A lot. She not only had values but would be brave enough to defend them.

“I punched a wall once. Broke my hand.” The words came out of his mouth before he had a chance to think them through. Whether through some self-pitying instinct or a strange desire to be judged, he couldn’t tell.

“You punched a wall?” She moved out from under him again, laughing and smiling at him.

As Isaak stayed still, her mouth formed a pout. She caressed his hand. He pulled it away, avoiding her examination.

Then he sensed it. A spike of dread. What if they went back to his place and… had a one-night stand, and then it was all fucked, and he never saw her again after that? He’d never been able to make a one-night stand last longer before. The magic was always tainted somehow. He’d move on to the next night, the next woman he’d meet, after another victory for the Lazarus.

Before he let the same thing happen here, he got up and made to leave.

“You’re off?” Her voice sounded slightly wounded, hitting him like a punch. He didn’t want to go, but at the same time he didn’t want to stay and let it go to a place he wasn’t ready for. Yet.

He’d gone further with her than he had for a long, long time. Being with Dylan soothed and excited him all at once. But he felt like a loser. He knew he was a loser, a wash-out, an ex-ReSports team captain forced into early retirement. They’d been close to kissing earlier, on the dance floor, and it didn’t happen, and that hurt. Like jabs in his heart. And now it might happen again, with their closeness, and quickly formed intimacy, but the self-preservation systems in his brain flooded him with anxiety and panic chemicals, and Isaak so desperately wanted to see her again, and make it last instead of flaming out in a passionate one-night fling.

Wait. “Desperately”?

They traded phone contacts. Dylan pulled him closer to her just before he turned away. Aching to lean into her kiss, but wanting to save it for another day, to keep this feeling going for longer, Isaak began to unravel.

It might have been the alcohol, or the near panic attack, or the fear that came from his long history with women when he was popular and a star – that they’d spend the night, that he’d ghost them afterward, that he’d fuck it up.

To Dylan, he was just some guy with a limp she’d had some fun with tonight. He’d avoided explaining what he did for a living. Avoided explaining his Lazarus t-shirt. With the beard, she probably wouldn’t have recognised him from the team, not from all that time ago.

He thought long and hard about it, as long and hard as he could in the space of a few desperate seconds.

It definitely wasn’t the alcohol talking. He was sure of it. How much could five G&Ts really do?