"Ozzy?"

"Yes, Adem?"

"How do you shave?"

Baxter cocked an eyebrow at the alien, the two strolling the perimeter of the festival. It was evening, now, and a nice spring-like breeze had begun to kick up. The fresh air was enough to flutter the man's tee-shirt a bit.

"I don't." he finally admitted.

"You don't shave...at all?"

"No point, really." Baxter replied. "My hair doesn't grow anymore."

"So, no haircuts then, either, I take it?"

"What could do it?" Ozzy asked, the concept seeming to irritate him slightly. "Damn hair's as indestrucible as the rest of me. Otherwise, I'd probably be bald by now, from all the fires and explosions I've stood through...."

Adem eyed his widows-peak hairline.

"Well....looks like it's close enough."

"...says the hairdo created by Curt Swan...."

"What?"

"Nothing." Ozzy smiled.

The two strolled along a bit further, silent. They took in the sounds of the festival drifting along the breeze.

"Anymore." Different said outloud. "Your hair doesn't grow anymore. That is what you said, right?"

"Yeah..."

"So, then, it used to grow?"

"Sure, when I was younger..."

"When did it stop?"

"When my metegene kicked-in, and told it to stop." Ozzy explained. "Look, you're awfully obsessed with my hair today...."

"Just a curiosity." Different shrugged. "Why, have I fondled a conduit?"

"...touched a nerve...?" Baxter asked with a slight grin.

"Exactly."

"No, man, it's just....you seem very suddenly interested in my hair, is all."

"Should I be interested in something else?"

Ozzy paused, trying to explain.

"I just mean, for human males....it's a highly irrelevant topic....hair, that is..." he said.

"Certainly more relevant than those colored pieces of paper you humans seem so keen on collecting."

"You mean, money?" Ozzy asked. "Come on, Diff! Money is important to everyone....everywhere! Don't tell me that your society had some form of advanced, enlightened system that eliminated the need for money. Because, if that's true, I want to hear about it."

"Of course we have, what you would call, money." Adem nodded. "However, ours is not a system of using worthless slips of molded wood in place of the actual object of value....that being here, the mineral you call gold."

"So, what do you use?"

"Numbers."

Ozzy looked over at him, coming to a stop.

"...numbers?"

"Yes."

"Numbers."

"Yes."

"Want to...I don't know....explain that one for me?"

"Which part?"

"The part where it stopped making sense."

The alien detective paused, considering this.

"...'Hello, my name is Adem'...?"

"Har-dee-har-har."

"I beg your pardon?"

"Stop playing stupid-alien and answer my damn questions!"

Adem crinkled the corner of his mouth in his best 'grin', yet.

"The point isn't what we use, Ozzy. It's how we use it." he explained. "Humans shift this monetary system around as a means of barter. All well and good. However...and correct me if I'm wrong....but there is more currency in play than there is actual gold to back it up. Correct?"

"Well...in the States, definitely..." Ozzy shrugged.

"This is common knowledge." Adem continued. "I learned it off the internet. And, yet, everyone continues to use it...knowing that it can never be paid out in its' absolute worth."

"Sure, but, who needs to lug around bricks of gold in their pocket?"

"I do not believe you are following me here."

"I believe I am, and my point is, show me something better. Show me a better way."

"With numbers." Adem offered.

"Again with the numbers-thing...."

"Use a numerical system to shift estimated worth at every level. Eliminate the need for physical representation of monetary value, and simply rely on absolute mathematics."

"I'm not good with math..."

"...Ozzy..."

"They're imaginary, Adem!" Baxter exclaimed with a slight chuckle. "Numbers are imaginary!"

Adem reached over, slipping a euro out of Baxter's pocket.

"So is this." he replied shaking the money at the boxer.

Ozzy paused, finally snatching the money back from the man with a smile.

"Well, I'll just hang on to this particular hallucination, if you don't mind. That is, until everyone else in the world starts imagining numbers like you..."

"...humans..." Adem sighed deeply.

"Heh...come on..." Ozzy said, turning to continue their stroll.

"You." a voice said from behind them.

Ozzy and Adem turned to see a gun being brandished towards them.

"Over here. Now." the man with the small pistol hissed, motioning for them to step over near one of the generator trailers.

Ozzy and Adem looked at each other with an almost amused expression. Ozzy raised his hands with a grin, elbowing Adem to do the same. Of course, Adem had never really gotten the whole 'raising-your-hands-in-submission'-thing, and raised his hands in such an odd position that he looked like he should be holding a planet up on his back. They walked over behind the trailer, being led at gunpoint.

"Now...hand it over..." the man hissed, looking around to make sure he was clear.

"What?" 'Atlas' Different asked.

"The money you freak!" the man replied under a harsh whisper. "Give me your money! Now!"

"Heh." Ozzy chuckled, lowering his arms.

Adem looked at him, still holding an imagined globe.

"He's mugging us." Baxter said, Adem finally lowering his hands again.

"As in, stealing?" Different asked.

"Yep."

The gun cocked, leveling at Ozzy's face.

"The fucking money, NOW!" the man demanded.

"Oh, come on." Baxter shook his head. "What's that...a .35? Man, if you fire that thing out here, every cop in a three-mile radius will be on you like crazy. You could have at least put a silencer on it..."

The mugger reached out, grabbing Ozzy's shirt and jerking him into a pointblank range, by pressing the barrel to his chest.

"Give me the money right fucking now, or you'll see just how loud this thing is!"

Ozzy glanced down at the gun, and back over at Adem.

"Anything else you want to observe, or can I end this?" he asked nonchalantly.

"No, it's okay. I've seen enough." Adem shrugged.

Ozzy nodded, and rammed his forehead into the mugger's nose with a sharp crack of impervious skull. The nondescript man's nose gushed blood as he hit the ground quite unconscious.

"...you're right...it's much more interesting in the movies..." Different nodded.

"Motherfucker!" Ozzy exclaimed, staring at the blood stains splattered across the chest of his white-tee.

"Don't you have alot of those?" Different asked, the boxer pulling his shirt off.

"Yeah...got a ten-pack from Wal-Mart.com...." Baxter replied, wadding the ruined shirt up. "...still, this asshole just cost me at least seventy-five-cents...."

He bent down, turning the man over and searching his pockets. He finally pulled out a wad of money.

"He was carrying alot for a man desperate for more." Diff commented.

"Probably from other scores today. Some poor tourists or something..." the boxer replied, pulling the navy-blue tee-shirt off the unconscious man.

"So...he robs people..."

"Looks that way, doesn't it?"

"And...now, you're robbing him back?"

"Damn right." Ozzy said, slipping the new shirt on. "It's what he deserves."

He reached down, picking up the pistol.

"We aren't going to alert the authorities?"

"What's the point?" Ozzy asked, popping the spinner out, and shaking the bullets out. "All they'll do is detain him for awhile. And, then he'll get out and go straight for his next fix..."

"Ah, drugs..." Adem stared at the track-marks from needles lining the unconscious man's arms. "He could afford a gun...and had all of that money on him...and yet he wanted more?"

"His kind of good-time is very expensive...." Ozzy said, wiping the pistol down with the ruined white-tee, and tossing it under one of the generator trailers.

"Sad."

"It is."

The two continued back onto their original path.

"See, if you would listen to my number-system, no one would go without..." Adem began.

"Oh sure, what...'Hands up! Now hand over your calculator!'....?" Ozzy shook his head.

"Harley-harley--"

"No, no...har-dee-har.."

"Harley-dee-harle--"

"No, not harley...there's no 'ley'...where are you getting the 'ley' from? Har-dee-har-dee-har..."

"Har-dee-har-dee-har...."

"Right, right....like laughter...." Ozzy nodded.

"It's supposed to sound like laughter?"

"Right."

"Who laughs like that?"

"It's a--I don't know---No one! It's an exaggeration, Adem!" Ozzy sighed.

"So, it's represenative of laughter?"

"Yes!"

"And, yet...no one laughs like that?"

"I guess..."

"So, it's like your money, then?"

"Oh, fuck off, Adem...." Ozzy sighed with exhasperation, slapping his hands to his side.

"Quite." Different nodded.

The two strolled the perimeter quietly for a bit, taking in the sounds of the festival.

"So.....why is your hair white?"