The Belonging Kind
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The Belonging Kind is a science fiction short story; a collaboration between William Ford Gibson, noted cyberpunk author, and John Shirley. It appeared along with several other stories in the collection Burning Chrome. It is a departure from the Sprawl which contains several of Gibson's novels and stories, taking place in a setting much more like contemporary American life.
The main character is Coretti, a dull, scholarly man who studies and teaches linguistics and social interaction theory. He sometimes visits bars to help dull the tedium, only choosing bars which have a low chance of putting him in social interaction.
Coretti meets a woman who seems to fit perfectly in that bar. He follows her to various bars and clubs, watching as she constantly drinks and talks with a companion of hers, her appearance and clothing shifting to let her fit in wherever she goes. His performance at work suffers as he devotes all his time and resources to tracking the duo, his appetite lowered.
Coretti spots the man secreting money from some kind of pocket, and realizes that he's discovered a new kind of creature, one that has adopted to modern society more completely than any cockroach, fueled by the alcohol of a hundred bars. The story closes with his realization that he is, and final transformation into, one of the belonging kind.
