“Last selections, gentlemen,” came the call from behind the counter, as the clock flashed quarter to midnight. Orders came from around the noisy room. Bloody Mary, Black Russian, Irish Red…

“Smoky Widow,” I called out to the waiter. My buddy next to me was silent. “Not getting one for the road, Marv?” I asked.

“I think I’ve had enough, Joe,” he said with a little wink. “I’ll sit this round out.”

“Suit yourself,” I said. I leaned back in my chair with a sigh, and tried to remember the last thing we’d been talking about. “You know, I haven’t seen Stu around for a bit.”

“Stu? Stu got married.”

“No shit? First I heard of it. That musta been awful quick. He knock her up or something?”

“Nah. He didn’t look like he was in a panic, ya know? He just said that time is marching on.”

“That it is, that it is…” I sighed. I looked up at the thinning crowd, hoping my order would be on the way soon. The guys were mostly the same, familiar faces wherever I looked, but something nagged at me. 

“Sometimes they just stop coming, you know?” said Marv, chiming in on my thoughts. “Get married, get religion, go on the wagon, get hit by a bus, haven’t got as much pep as they usedta. Just drifting away.”

I nodded. “Yeah. But, you notice? The old faces aren’t being replaced so much by young faces anymore. They’re not getting out so much nowadays. Whatever kind of bend they’re getting on, they’re doing it in private, in their rooms with their VR gear and sims.”

“I can understand some of that,” said Marv. “It’s hard when you go home and, well, there isn’t much waiting for you there. It’s like your apartment is a place where you grab a bite and sleep and wait to go back to work. Who’s got time to get out to the bar, or go dancing, or start a family?”

“I know that feeling, believe me. They could at least get outside once in a while, though.” I shook my head, looked at the clock, then glanced around the room for a sign of the waiter. “It can’t be healthy just lying on a couch or in one of those suspension tanks, with a scanner on your head and those implants that go in your eyes and those electrodes that keep your muscles from shriveling up, with an IV in your arm or tube of protein paste down your throat. You gotta get out, and meet people. There’s a whole big world fulla things going on, right? You’ve got one life, might as well go take part in it all, keep it moving along. Do something physical, something with meaning out here in the real world.” 

Marv gave me a funny look. “I remember Stu talking like that. I think that’s what he was after, taking a place in the world, being a piece of it, doing his part. I remember now, he was saying that, if you think of all your ancestors, whatever they all did with their lives, every single one of them had time to make a kid, and if you don’t do it yourself, you’re breaking a chain, a winning streak that goes back thousands of years, and that’s gotta be worth some kinda bad luck…”

“Jeez, Marv. Way to put pressure on a guy, huh?” He looked somber for a moment, watching my face, then I laughed and gave him a little pat on the shoulder. “Who’s got time to worry about luck? I just take it as it comes, man. No one owes me, I don’t owe anyone, and I just do what I gotta do, and come here to relax. I have no regrets, buddy, don’t worry.”

I didn’t hear his reply, for the last round of orders was finally coming out. They all headed for the guys who had ordered them, and one, the one, that special one, she was coming straight for me. You couldn’t hear her walk; the motors were very quiet nowadays and her balance was inhumanly perfect, like her skin and her shape and that sway in her hips. As she looked me in the eyes with that smoky look and confident smile, my heart leaped in my chest and for a moment the years reeled back and I felt like a king of the jungle, like a sultan in his harem, like I was eighteen again.