Patricia rocks her twenty-six year old head right and left like a one marble brunette hair bun pendulum. Breaks eye contact with the arrogant asshole teenager in front of her. Anger shadows her like a sweaty dark cloud. Grabs the boy by his scalp and slams his bum chin into her swiftly raising spandex knee cap. Not too hard but not too soft. His face flings back from the loud crack and the possibility that cause and effect isn't just a theory. The boy falls to his knees. Holds his wobbly flow. A crimson curdle waterfall contortion of a snotty nose. Patricia sighs like an impatient elementary school teacher who's about to lose her shit and quit. She won't. Instead chuckles and smirks at the stupidity of the boy and at his new experience in epistemology.

"I'm sorry. Geoff, is it? We don't call our instructors "a cunt" if we know what's good for us. Next time, I'll hurt you."

The boy staggers. Stumbles back into the group of belligerent sour face sixteen somethings. One girl with unicorn glittery gel rainbow hair smiles at the exhibition of swift Homeric brutality.

They're all wearing standard patchwork blackout attire with distracting and almost un-functional hair styles, such as disconnected mushroom cut mullets and upswept mohawks and pastel pigtail braids. All have similar looks of revelation upon their youthful countenances. Decorations of vermilion and smoky eye shadow with blackening greyscale to scarlet swirling white permanent lipstick. Don't call the new instructor a cunt.

"Go to the infirmary, Geoff. Let them know why you're there, please. And Lara! Go with him. I see you staring an axe into my face with your asshole hump buddy eyes. Go plot against me like a good little girlfriend. Get it out of your system. But just remember that I'm the big bad wolf and your house isn't even built of straw."

Lara and Geoff leave the group with a trail of red blotches dripping upon the sable rubber flooring. Patricia watches their backsides as Lara turns her icy face around. Looks at her instructor like corpse in a coffin, dead in the eye. Curls a small devious smile. Oh, she's not really mad. Maybe she was pretending to be furious just to get the opportunity to spend time with her wounded fuck buddy. Clever.

"Ok, anyone else have a problem with me? No? Good. Five hundred pushups in reps of fifty. Everyone on the ground. I want to see how badly your last instructor ruined your conditioning. Then we're going to climb some ropes."

A lot of mumbling and squints of malediction shout into Patricia's knowledge. But everyone drops into position to begin their first set of pushups.

"Get it in on baby Ghosts."

One boy grunts and sweats and stops and starts. A blue banged red freckled girl collapses after twenty. Everyone  has issues on the very first fifty. All except the rainbow hair girl. She kicks ass.

Patricia rolls her eyes and knows she has a lot of work to do breaking the rest of them. Must be the bad guy until she can be the good guy when it's time to build them all back up. They need conditioning and consistency before she can really begin teaching them.

"Hey, rainbow. What's your name?"

The girl who just did fifty pushups without breaking a sweat looks up at Patricia. Curls a purple lipstick half smile at her.

"I'm Glare."

"Were you moved down to this group or something?"

"Yeah. I'm being punished. I told my instructor, who's a temporary placement, that he doesn't know what he's doing. He just stands around and watches us and says nothing. It's fucking creepy. He's too dumb or disinterested in us to give feedback. He told me to come here. But we're supposed to be getting someone new in a few days whose apparently bad ass. Or so I've been informed. I'm supposed to stay in this group until then."

"Glare. Your punishment is over. Go back to your group and tell your instructor to come talk to me if he has a problem. My group isn't a punishment for other groups. You tell him that. And tell him I'm watching him now."

"Will do, instructor Candor."

Glare jumps up and addresses the rest of the struggling group of red faces and shaking arms.

"See you around, kids. Have fun getting your balls broken."

Glare turns and walks up to the mat wall, drops to her belly and rolls underneath. Patricia watches Glare's pink and green hiking runners sprint away.

They're in the giant rock face cavern of the underground crater. It's the immense track and training facility which is the main hub of the Factory. The compulsive consciousness of the obsessive subliminal in the recipe that is the Factory's ideological state apparatus.

They're training within the inner portion of the track, away from the spandex racing runners and blurring veiny leg sprinting bicyclers. The group are behind the shroud of an enclosure. A ceiling-less room of giant mat curtains which hang from chains fastened to metal rafters bolted into a maze of other metal rafters and scaffolding and the heights of slim bridges that shake when run upon at a hundred feet in the air. The thick mat curtains on all four sides give the group a sense of painful privacy. Velcro holds the square room together with a one foot gap at the bottom. They can witness the movement from outside the square walls while on their bellies. The hovering makeshift room is a subjugation of the students to the instructor for a private lesson and a haze of gazing tests.

Patricia remembers being beaten down in this place. Beaten down and built back up. Stronger. Faster. Confident. Conditioned for physical pursuits and mental stability in the face of pain. Remembers training so hard her body would vomit. Her instructor at the time had enough of an honour code to mop up her students second hand lunch when she physically destroyed them in such a way. Patricia will do the same for her kids when she pushes them to the brink of physical and mental collapse. She will soon.

They have to be made into physical specimens or they'll be cast out. Though perhaps being sent away isn't as bad as it used to be. There's life after the Factory. But there's nothing like the Factory. It's a world unto itself. A faction. A district. A house of black with ghostly faces who appear as apparitional shadows from the darkness. Misfits and soldiers. Ninjas. The Ghosts.

After the sweaty abusive training work day within the Crater finally ends, the orange Halloween ceiling of the underground city awaits. Bright white street lights under the Samhain sky vanish the darkness into light as the tiny tenebrous walking tunnels which enter the city turn the claustrophobic famish bodies into the smiling hungry heart thumps of excitement. Fifty high rise blocks of bars and parlours and hash houses. Specialty clothing emporiums greet the entrances into the Factory's nightlife. Food truck cuisine of protein burgers and fried pickles. Breakfast and dessert. Calories galore. Scent molecules of sweet cakes at the doughnut shop coat the nostrils in an explosion of pastry orgasm. The fresh evening is ripe and the sore bodies loosen noose skin.

Breathing the city in is like a Julia bazooka pumping a blurring late night future into a swollen arm of veins. The adrenaline of friends and enemies and greasy fast food art calls to kids like an unpaid pied piper. The whistling call of fun.

Angrily sad Eric Draven guitars echo from venues which fondle the heating air of penis and clit piercing twenty four hour tattoo parlours who's artists are the psychologists and psychoanalysts in session. Molten churches of coffee and liqueurs and baking hold the laughter and philosophy of conversation without the anxiety of sobriety. Chukka and Derby and Tanker and Engineer boots romp through the hungry crowds with knee high shit kickers and flat ankles and biker straps and flare and spool and kitten heels. Moist smooth stone streets are a chisel of sliding and stepping. Popsicle skateboards and roller derby skates and freestyle and flatland bikes pursue the atmosphere of physical aggrandizement as a ritual. Both men and women are able to be shirtless in this place. The ancient patriarchy isn't the norm in the Factory. A penis isn't a privilege. A vagina isn't a subjugation.

Some Ghosts show a lot more skin than others. A completely naked boy parkours from a cement pillar railing on a fourth story balcony up onto a black brick wall. Dangles and shuffles close to the iron rock face. Hold fingers and toes onto grout lines. Springs toward a stone landing upon the extension of a flat shale platform. Lands and immediately flips off the footfall. Descends and stomps upon a three story rooftop without missing a stride. Bows to a group of teenagers on the ground while they cheer and laugh. He's drenched in nude sweat and the paint of dust. Patricia knows what she bares witness. An initiation. Knows because she had to do the exact same thing when she was fifteen.

A woman swiftly roller skates past Patricia. Just misses a collision. Creates a slight breeze of strawberry vanilla which emanates from the sweaty rolling body. White whiskey script font on the back of the woman's tight black shirt forces a smile upon Patricia's lips. "I fuck with my skates on."

This is where the Ghosts haunt their house. The possessed city of the Factory. Patricia has missed this scarecrow the most.

Her feet find her favourite bar without a thought. The establishment of Good And Evil And Beyond. Walks up to the black light dusky entrance. Metal door was always hard to open with its rust sharp silver edge industrial square handle-set. It's been changed sometime in the last five years. The present aesthetic is of an ornate raven black feathery moustache lever handle. Poe mixed with Nietzsche. Pushes down on the left stache. Door opens easily. Her action creates no distinguishing sound against the echo of the city upon the rock face which the peripheral structures are built into. Walks through the door like a simulation and finds her world of yesterday.

A giant wall mirror greets her. Watches herself for a moment before advancing into the known unknown. Still wears the day's all black tight tatter training clothes. Ratty hoodie. White sewn arm rings like military chevrons. Brand new trail runners which aren't broken in yet. Torn leg black spandex. Witnesses her bulging camel toe. Touches her lumps. Smiles. Scratches a crotch itch. Breathes herself in. Catches a body odour whiff. Feels she needs to witness the memory of her favourite bar more than she needs to head to her apartment for a shower. She'll bathe later. Smells her armpit. Sweet and sour rot apple musk. Shrugs to herself. Walks past the wall mirror.

The bar's olden. Exterior walls are like partitions of dead shadows. Black ironwood tables and chairs sit upon an orange alcohol stain, two and a quarter width, crudely finished stiletto gouge oaken floor. At the end of the bar is a small crooked stage with a single haunting dim corpse grey spotlight holding service eschatologically upon a black shrouded young woman who sings as if she's lost the love of her life. Forever mourning to a small crowd who believe every gesture behind hidden lips. The burdened voice tries to be Jesus Christ but after every pleading verse, Lazarus remains in his tomb.

Looking like an unblinking corpse above the stage in a Benguait font are the carved words, "How is man to be overcome?" Below the words are the effigy of two snowy peak Antarctic mountains in the form of double entendres. The peaks are like two breasts being pulled invisibly upward by nipples. Stretches white areoles and grey fatty skin. Below the twin peaks are a pattern of half circles made of black fabric that remind Patricia of humps on the spine of a dragon from a violent childhood picture book.

Turns her attention to the bar counter. Black marble with orange veins. Vodka. Ginger zest, cucumber, coconut, pomegranate, lemon. Only ever with vodka. Martinis, Veridiction mule, screwdrivers, cosmos, water, bloody Leonard. And the drink Patricia always has when inebriating within the memories of this place.

"Hey, Al. Can I get a Coal?"

"Fucking Candor! Long fucking time. Been awhile, hasn't it?"

AlEngine speaks in the language of tautology. Patricia can speak his language.

"It is what it is."

Al smiles. Bares his rotten yellow teeth. Pours her a straight Vodka in a cloudy beer glass. Drops a handful of black ice on top. Splashes drops on the Stygian counter. Wets the orange veins. Produces the illusion of a flowing twinkle of blood.

Patricia takes the glass and downs the liquid. Coughs. Places the glass back within his vicinity. Al pours her another and then one for himself. How they've always done it. She goes first and he joins on her second. Always. Ever since Al lost his best friend, Patricia's dad. Ever since Patricia lost her family. For a time, a hopeless time just before her and Garret left, this was a nightly affair.

"So, welcome home. Her bitch highness let you back in."

"Janice doesn't seem so bad anymore. I was a bitch to her so I figure that I had it coming. But yeah, she let me back in."

"I'll drink to that, Pat. I guess she can't be all fucking terrible."

"Yeah, well, there's no way Garret will be let back in."

"With that one, I understand. A Grand Ghost who deserts his own people is a piece of shitty defecation. The fucker left us with a real fucking piece of shit in that Malice. And now Janice. Thundercunt!"

"I know, Al. I'm sorry. He's not coming back. He wants David. He won't stop."

"I hope he finds him and takes his time on the clock."

Patricia raises her clanking ice cube beer glass to those words. They tap cups and swig vodka until both are empty. Al fills them back up to the brim so the ice floats just at the edge of tipping over onto the counter.

"So, judging by the rings on your arms, I'm guessing you're a teaching instructor?"

"That's my lot in life and I'm happy to have it at this point. I need to live. I've done my dying and sadness and anger. I want to live for myself for a change."

"Good for you, girl. Good for you. Their all gone away and I do think the best way to honour them is to get on with it. Take whatever happiness you can smile back at yourself with and make something of it. Fuck em all and build your bridges."

Patricia looks into the translucent darkness of her glass. Places a hand on her forehead. Stares at it. A green glow like two suns in the sky of her drink seem to watch her. Can witness Terra's eyes behind the glow. Paula's eyes. Her dad's eyes. The alcohol brings closed aperture tears. Shudders into sobs. Pounds her fist on the counter and the contents of her glass shake. Al reaches over the glass. Hugs her. He smells like used bath water. Patricia leans into him like a daughter being held by a father.

"You've got this, girl. You'll be fine. It's a fresh start and I ain't going fuckin nowhere. One day on the calendar at a time. You've got this. You're not alone. I've got your back."

~*~*~*~

On the way out of the closing dichotomy-less bar of her past and present and foreseeable future, Patricia stumbles and lumbers and stops to hold onto a rigidly smooth cylinder street light to find her bearings. Feels adventurous and horny but in no condition to do anything about her ragged and rugged intensity. She's drank too much. Cried too much. But also laughed just enough to feel like she's at least a bit happy. As happy as sadness can get. Burps. Feels her stomach turn. Burps again. Can feel the back of her throat like a phallus or finger is slipping down it. Gags and vomits like a garden hose into the street. Shits like an enema in the heaving process. Liquid defecation tickles the back of her knees.

"Oh, well...goddamn. My...fuck. Bleah."

Falls to her knees. Pukes vodka and the treats she had for dinner. Takes her shoes off. Pulls her spandex and panties down. Kicks the garments off her legs with bare feet. Vomits. Shits. Pisses. Dizzy.

Patricia stands. Holds her shoes. Stumbles through the empty dim streets. Finds the exit into the dark and weary claustrophobic tunnels. Climbs flights of the poorly poured crumbling cement stairwell up to the apartments. Manages to find her door. Thumb print. Green light. Door opens. Walks in and turns on a blinding white foyer recessed ceiling bulb. Drops her shoes. Places a hand upon a wall of support. Strips off her hoodie and black sports bra. Finds a plastic bag in the small dark kitchen for her never to be worn again spandex. Realizes she doesn't have them on. Giggles at the thought of walking around the complex with her lady bits exposed. Throws the bag into the air behind her. Makes her barefoot way into the bathroom. Finds the porcelain bowl and dry heaves into it. Should've eaten more today.

Eventually feels like the worst is over. Sits and urinates. Undoes her brunette hair bun. Lets the length fall down her back while sitting on the toilet. Falls asleep and startles herself by falling over. Stands and manoeuvres into the shower. Steadies herself. Soaps and washes her hard body. Washes her ass. Brown liquid drains at her feet. Touches her soapy crotch. Pulls on her clit. Sensitive. Becomes very horny. Fondles her nipples and loins while crouching under the shower head. Rubs and penetrates both orifices with a thumb and three fingers. Slips in and out. Pleasure wanes. Can't find an orgasm to save her life. Gives up. Steps out. Dries off. Stumbles around. Her doorbell rings. Rings again.

"The fuck is that?"

Patricia holds her towel to her body. Walks out of the bathroom. Opens the front door without peering through the peep hole.

"Garret?"

Her towel falls to her feet.