“So, what exactly is a sim-suit and why do the Grateful Dead have one?”
“The first question is much easier to answer.”
“Then start there.”
“”Well, Katydoodle–”
“Don’t call me that.”
“–it’s a self-contained haptic projection unit.”
“What does that mean.”
“I have no idea, but that’s what I was told and I wrote it down so I would remember. It’s like a mask on Mission Impossible, but for your whole body.”
“Yes, I know that. I am intimately familiar with what it is. I have seen it in action and watched men unzip themselves out of it.”
“Oh, that sounds unsettling.”
“Your mind will not accept it and you vomit. And it wasn’t just me – big security guys, lawyers, backup dancers: every one who saw a human being shed another human being’s skin threw up in confusion.”
“Wow.”
“You ever been so confused you puked, John? Because that’s what your idiot friends did to my entourage.”
“I told you: there will be a conference call.”
“And now the second question: why in the name of all that’s holy would a semi-defunct choogly-type band have this kind of technology? This stuff is decades ahead of where humanity as a collective now resides; if it exists at all, it should be in a NASA warehouse or Elon Musk’s garage, not the Dead’s office.”
“I think Bear invented them.”
“No.”
“Alembic?”
“They make fancy guitars, John.”
“Tony Stark?”
“He is a make-believe person. Spit it out.”
…
“Over the years, the Grateful Dead may or may not have acquired a number of magical, sentient, and/or multi-trimensional objects and devices.”
“Multi-dimensional.”
“No. Trimensional. A point has three sides; it’s complicated; Bobby tried to explain it to me. Anyway, long story short: they’ve got things that do stuff, and alternately, they have stuff that does things.”
“Don’t make the long story short. I’d like to hear the story. Do I have to interrogate you?”
“Ooh, ya gonna question me, officer?”
“Stop it, John.”
“Sorry.”
“These stupid magic suits your baboon buddies used to try to get a handful of my yum-yums? Where did they come from?”
“Garcia’s Briefcase of Infinite Felonies.”
“Excuse me?”
“Do you remember the Room of Requirement from the Harry Potter books? It was a room in Hogwarts that only appeared when someone was in need of it?”
“Okay.”
“Well, the briefcase is like that, but it responds to people who need to get up to some criminal bullshit.”
“You’re describing a weapon.”
“And, you know: anything’s a felony if you do it hard enough, so everything is in there.”
“You’re describing a magical weapon. Where did this thing come from?”
“Steamer trunk and a duffel bag made love; nine months later, a briefcase came down the conveyer belt.”
“Stop it.”
“Sorry.”
“You’re saying the Grateful Dead have a magician’s hat, but for real?”
“That’s one way to put it, I guess.”
“And they use it for?”
“Pranks, mostly.”
“Right.”
…
…
…
“John, some of the idiots in the suits have been dead for years.”
“The Grateful Dead also has a time machine.”
“Right.”
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