Of course I bolted again before Nathaniel woke up. I just can’t help myself really.
At least I am self aware enough to know that it is not just the job that makes me act like a dick head. I’m pulling the same crap again that I did to Ivy, my first/only-ever girlfriend. It was all well as long as she was just a beautiful trophy to be earned, but as soon as I started to have real feelings for her it scared the hell out of me and I treated her like shit. I guess losing the one person who loves you really messes with your brain, especially when you are just a kid. Nathaniel deserves better…
But I can’t lie around here all morning, feeling bad for myself, so I get up and start collecting my clothes from all over the floor. “Hey, are you leaving?”, the girl I woke up next to mumbles still half asleep. “Yeah, I gotta get to work. I’ll see ya!”. Or probably not. She was cute, but boring, and this was meaningless. Which used to be good enough for me.
The first thing I notice as I get home is the book. My book. ‘Mathematics 2 for Junior High-school’. My name is written on the cover in still somewhat childish letters. Andúril Irdan. I haven’t used this name in ages. The only place that still has it is the funeral service that I pay to regularly make sure my mothers grave is taken care of. It seemed fitting, but I will have to change that now. That is how Discord found me, after he found the book at the black-site. How the hell did it end up there?
Gosh, I was so bad at Math. My Mom insisted that a real paper book would make things easier for me. Another reason for the bullies. I could just as well have worn braces and glasses. I was pretty mad at her about that, I remember. I took it out on her whenever she tried to help me with my homework until she one day decided that from now on Robert would help me with Mathematics. Did he take the book to work and leave it there?
Robert. He is probably the reason I lost my Mom. I didn’t believe the cops for a moment that their death was an accident. Things just didn’t add up. My Mom was too careful a driver to speed on that road. And what would she have done with Robert in her car in that part of the city, when she was actually supposed to pick me up from school?
Also, I could overhear their conversations at night when they thought I was asleep. In the beginning she helped him with something he needed for work. I always knew my Mom was brilliant, and I was quite proud of her for explaining to All-Knowing-Robert how to do his job better. Then their conversations turned into discussions. My Mom was angry that he had used her work for something she did not like. And then discussions turned into fights as she claimed that whatever he was doing was dangerous. “Your VASRL can go fuck themselves!” I remember well. My Mom would never have approved of me saying something like that. And then they where gone, and I was alone.
Anyways.
Yesterday Discord sent me a message that he was going to have another look at the black-site. That is what he calls the place that used to be the main laboratory of VASRL, and he asked if I wanted to come along. I was very much eager to do so. I had been looking for Roberts old work place for years, but somebody had made sure to make it look as if it had never existed. I even asked some of the hackers I had worked with for help since I certainly wouldn’t trust in my own abilities to find useful information in the Matrix, but they gave me nothing.
Discord basically stumbled over it by accident. While I’m always carefully trying not to give away too much about myself, Discord is more like an open book, so he told me a lot about it.
He used to be in a gang called the Hounds. Back then he already had a first version of this weird hand-crafted weapon that he calls Silencer. It used to be a gutted sub-woofer frame with steel struts bent into a crude tuning fork, and the barrel of a sawed-off shotgun bolted through the core.
Then one night during a turf war the Hounds chased a rival crew into this building. They didn’t know that it used to be a sound research lab, used for some kind of sonic weapon tests. It was just another abandoned place. But in the heat of the chase, Discord slammed Silencer against the wall and, as he put it, “the building answered. Silencer's boom multiplied, folded, and crescendoed back as a cacophonous storm. The chamber itself began to hum, resonance tearing through steel and flesh. Rivals collapsed screaming, ears burst, the Hounds staggered in terror.” But Discord didn't.
For a heartbeat, he wasn't just hearing sound, he was inside it. “Every surface sang. The footsteps of enemies lit up like drumbeats, their guns rang like discordant notes, even my own heartbeat became part of the score. I stood at the centre of it, every bone in my body gyrating. And there, for the first time, I understood that the world wasn't matter. It was vibration. Concrete, blood, steel, even magic and thought are all oscillations.” That night, his adept powers awakened and he found his new purpose: dissolving dissonance and bringing harmony to the sound of the world.
After his experience at the black-site Discord left the Hounds and, for several days, scavenged the building for whatever he could find to reforge his weapon. It is still part tuning fork, part shotgun, part club, but looking less crude and resonating his new powers in ways I don’t think I can comprehend.
What he also found, were some hints to the history of the place - the remnants of the VASRL logo painted on walls, engraved in some metal plates and on rat-chewed pieces of paper left behind. And somehow my book. That’s how we got here.
So in the afternoon I met Discord at the remains of the VASRL building. From the outside it really just looks like every other abandoned place around here. Only when exploring its lower levels things become interesting. The underground centre of the black-site is shaped like a dome. It feels to me like a cathedral of steel, build for some industrial god of sound. Not that I know a lot about these things.
Discord shows me around, so I can see the logos for myself. He brings me to the place where he found my book. He has even brought it with him, and tells me I can keep it. It feels weird holding this piece of my past in my hands. Looking at it I think I can remember my mothers voice, which I had forgotten for so many years.
Somewhere in these walls, now crumbling and falling apart, Robert was working every day, doing whatever he did, using my Moms calculations to improve some instruments of death. She hated it. For a moment I wonder if she would hate me now. And then I notice the rats.
I know rats. I see them every day in the streets. There is a family of them living in the hallways of my apartment building. But the rats here, they seem somewhat more… organized? And I think they are surrounding us.
Discord also becomes alert. He listens, and tells me that he believes the rats are communicating with each other. They are also getting more, and more. I think it is time to get out of here!
As the rats start to circle us Discord uses his tuning fork on them, carefully, not to create any unwanted effects inside this place. The rats are not amused. They seem to become more angry.
By now a stream of them has formed around us, circling us at a fast pace. I get closer, try to shush them away, but they hardly move. Discord says he can hear more of them coming and some of them seem to be quite huge.
I remember hearing stories about enormous rats living in the dark places of the city, taking control of their smaller counterparts and turning them into organized little armies of teeth and claws. But those are just urban legends. Or aren’t they?
Either way, I really want to get out of here! The stream of rats may be too dense to walk through, but I can still easily jump over it. Discord follows, and we start heading for the exit. But those beasts actually start chasing after us, so we run, and we have to run fast. Those bastards can get quite a speed out of those stubby little legs!
As we pant out of the building, back into the sunlight, the rats stop their hunt. We can still see them at the edge of the shadows, hear them squeaking to each other as their noses are sniffing around in the air. We can also see four huge rats, completely hairless, their eyes reflecting the sunlight red, rather then the greenish-blue of other nocturnal critters. I can feel them staring at us. Devil rats. So they are real!
We cannot deal with this many rats on our own. If we do not want to give up the black-site - which I don’t, and Discord certainly doesn’t want either - we will have to come back with a plan and with the rest of our team.
But for now, I need a shower!
After that we met Romeo. Discord got some Longhaul for me from his dealer, and some other goodies for Romeo. We told him about our afternoon with the rats. Discord was quite eager to go back, but I have had enough of rodents for one day, so I suggested that we could take the night off and go clubbing instead. Romeo was all in and took us to his usual hangout. Club 42. It's a 2040s/1940s retro club.
I have had the occasional beer in silence with my teammates after a run, but this time I actually had fun going out with a team in my spare time. Good conversations, good drinks, decent music, and pretty girls. I wouldn’t mind if this arrangement turned into something more permanent this time.
Discord left first with quite a stunning Ork-lady on his arm.
Romeo seemed fine chatting with the two not-quite-so-pretty girls that had joined us at our table, so I left with cute boring Whatshername. Her place, not mine. I don’t like bringing people to my apartment. Makes it harder to get rid of them.
Ha, I just got a message from Romeo saying he’s got a job for us.
Time to go get my workout done before meeting the new Johnson.