Sasha waved her wristpad at the autocontrol, which allowed her to board the bus, and squeezed into a seat near the front. The shaking, crowded bus rattled along Whitechapel Road. Sitting two rows behind the autocontrol, she trawled through the internet on her wristpad. She couldn't stop thinking about Nug. Tinker, her fairy friend, flitted around the edges of her mind, trying to get her attention.

What is it?

'It's too complex to talk about. Here's where Nug's at.'

She examined the mental image of Nug lying in a room with two scanners, while a white-torsoed bot prepared him for some sort of surgical procedure. The medical bot positioned Nug's prone body on the bed of a long cylinder. He was conscious, blinking in the harsh glare, and groaning softly.

Her stomach lurched as the bus hit a bump in the road. The bot slid the cylinder into one of the scanners and sealed it. The autosurgeon inside the scanner, examining Nug's abdomen, looked like a machine bristling with surgical tools: scalpel, forceps, hooks, soldering irons, and needles. Within the long chamber, the machine began repairing the internal organs damaged by Nug's fall between the rails.

Thank god he's gettin' autosurgery. Is he in a hospital or a cop shop with a medical room? Horrible if he's in custody. The image faded.

The bus came to an abrupt halt in front of the Whirly Girly, a sprawling outdoor market in Whitechapel. She stepped onto the sidewalk and headed into the market. The hoarding-sized hologram of a cowgirl in a white stetson and fringed buckskins whirled and trick-roped her lariat a meter above her head. Its edges were studded with colored light bulbs that winked continuously on and off.

She walked beneath the twinkling rope girl and mingled with the myriad of people wandering around the stalls. Nostalgic memories trickled through her mind. When she was a kid her mother and older sister used to bring her here to buy clothing and household knickknacks. She would often give Mum and Nika the slip and stroll among the gaudily-decked stalls, sniffing pungent spices, and peering at curious items like Squelchi cones and ILikeIt! body massagers. Tinker kept teasing her she would find a stall selling fairy dust, but she never did.

She drifted toward a booth where knots of people stood gawping at a showman and listening to his patter. The showman, a droid dressed like a traditional Frenchman in dark blue pants, a red-and-white striped jersey, and a black beret, beckoned his audience to come closer. 

"Messieurs et mesdames," he called. "I invite you to admire the skills of our chefs, as they prepare for you delicious crepes Suzette."

He gestured to a kitchen range behind the booth, where a trio of shiny robots in chef's hats and aprons were at work. One of them seized a large mixing bowl from a frame-mounted rack hung with metal cooking implements, while a second bot plucked a whisk from the rack. The first bot filled the bowl with flour, splashed milk into the bowl, and began cracking eggs on the side. After he had dumped six eggs into the liquid dough, he passed it to the second bot who used an articulated claw to whisk the mixture. The third bot unhooked a frying pan from the rack and melted butter on the range. Their alloy faces looked intently serious.

She cracked a smile, in spite of her somber mood. One of the onlookers, a woman in flame-patterned tights poked her arm. "None of 'em can do it as well as real people," she said. "Just watch."

The second bot offered the bowl of runny paste to the third, who part-filled the pan. She noticed the claw terminating the spindly arm looked wonky, and when the pancake mix was cooked on one side it flipped the pan with a fast upward sling. The half-cooked contents flew over the pan's rim and landed somewhere behind the range. 

The spectators, including a sprinkle of domestic bots out shopping for their owners, cackled with glee. She gave another weary smile as the woman, who had wild hair, nudged her again. "See what I mean? Bots are nowhere near as good as they're cracked up to be."

Tinker frisked about her as she sauntered away from the Frenchman droid's hapless robots, beckoning her to a sunlit path that wandered through a forest of trees. She stopped and floated her mental self to a dappled glade where Tinker was hovering above a giant toadstool, twiddling her wand.

What does this toadstool mean? 

The reply to her question was a thump of Tinker's wand against the toadstool, shedding fat white spores that fell like snowflakes around her feet. The spores melted one by one. 

This is Nug's mind, ain't it? Fucked up with drugs. 

Tinker's high, flutelike voice piped up. 'The spores are his thoughts, falling in confusion and fading away.'

Where's Nug now?

'Where he prefers to be--in a mental twilight zone.'

She slathered the toadstool with loving thoughts, like a soothing balm, until the spores stopped falling. Tilting her head to the sky, she savored the warmth on her face and the breeze that ruffled her short red hair. A faint network of trails imprinted in the clear blue radiance shimmered with the light-deflected EME traffic pulsing over it. A moment later, a gap appeared in the network as vehicles descended to a Designated Landing Area somewhere behind the Whirly.

Her mind nudged her with images of a mangy white kitten, crouching deep inside a hole in the ground. The kitten was mewing in the slimy pit, and an ancient memory of panic flickered through her. The image felt familiar, yet distant. The kitten gave a plaintive wail, and she knew it was dying.  She shuddered. Tinker's presence interrupted her misery at watching the kitten die and a new image--a slice of strawberry cheesecake--slid into her thoughts.

She remembered lying on a scratchy Navaho blanket with her older sister, the two of them clutching pieces of cheesecake. Christ, I musta bin about five.  She brought herself back to the present.  

The image of Nika, the blanket, and the cheesecake disappeared.  She was left with a feeling of nostalgic affection for the sister she hadn't seen in ten years.

Last time I looked her up she had a college job. 

 A gray oval skimmer, which she knew was a Law Enforcement Drone, floated toward her from the descending vehicles. It settled above her head, casting an ominous shadow. 

Looking upward, she frowned. "Get the fuck out of my life."