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Part 2
[255D[20C[0;36mT[1mh[37me [0;36mR[1me[37mtarded
[A[33C[0;36mW[1ma[37mrrior [34m[[0;36mi[1mC[37mE[34m
[A[45C] [37mPresents:[0m
** The Music Quest: Part 2 **
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
* * * * *
Marcus Ing, callsign Memory Lapse, liked to consider himself a rebel of
the underground if for no other reason than because it made him sound like
a bad-ass. Technically, he WAS a rebel but only by default. He refused to
get a job, he liked to snub the Corporate Commission in plain sight and he
decided to help Ryan set up his club. These credentials made him no friend
of Aurora Inc., and therefore a rebel. He hadn't killed a man or been fired
upon, but that would all change in due time.
* * * * *
Footsteps hurriedly ran across the first floor, leaving behind a trail of
thumping echoes sounding into the basement. They continued to the spiral
staircase and onto the steps. Memory Lapse stopped halfway down and, leaning
over the railing, said: "Hey Ryan! Eddie's got our stuff!" He was panting
just slightly. On his face was a toothy smile that stretched from ear to
ear.
Ryan stopped grinning at Nikki and turned to Marcus who had taken a
momentary seat on the third step from the top.
"He's got it?" Ryan said in semi-disbelief. He wasn't used to having his
dreams come true.
Memory Lapse took another breath and nodded quickly.
Ryan hopped down from his perch on the edge of the stage. "That's great!"
he exclaimed. "Go fire up the van, we'll be right up!"
Without another word, Marcus picked himself up and ran back across the
first floor, his footsteps thumping as he went.
Nikki lowered herself off the platform and wrapped her arms around Ryan's
waist. She rested her head against his chest and sighed. "The dreaming ends
tonight, eh?" she said. "The birth of Atomic Nature."
Ryan put his arm around her and kissed her on the cheek. He couldn't
think of anything else dramatic to say so he replied with a simple "Yeah."
He savoured the moment a while longer then said "Come on, we got to get down
to The Leaky Faucet before Eddie decides to leave!" He slid his hand off her
shoulder and nudged her in the back towards the staircase. Reluctantly,
Nikki let go and started to walk, slowly at first and then increasingly
faster until she reached an excited rate of movement.
Ryan followed her up the stairs. Halfway up, the logical and rational
half of his brain was convinced by the other half, currently in a
dangerously giddy state, to grab her ass. She shrieked in astonishment and
shot him an surprised look over her shoulder. But since she made no clear
objection to the location of Ryan's hand, he kept it there. If, at this
point, his smile got any bigger, it probably would have ripped his face in
half.
* * * * *
It was pretty warm for February. Ryan guessed that it must have been a
couple of degrees above freezing. A flurry of wet snow was blowing lightly
across the front of the apartment building and down the street. It had let
up considerably over the past half hour and would probably stop soon. Memory
Lapse climbed into the driver's seat and they headed off for a small bar
downtown, where a little man named Eddie Worrall was patiently waiting with
mixers, speakers, amps and all sorts of miscellaneous equipment required to
keep the music booming at a decent dance club.
* * * * *
Marcus pulled the van into the parking lot next to The Leaky Faucet Pub,
and parked neatly beside Eddie's old, run-down blue Chevy.
Ryan didn't like coming here. The place was a somewhat popular watering
hole for Gestapo members (since only they and Aurora corporate executives
were legally allowed to have any money), and it just so happened that Eddie,
the only member of the resistence that would trust him and his friends, was
the manager of the place. If Ryan were better known in the underground and
Nikki's father wasn't a Headhunter himself, then perhaps they would have had
some other choices that didn't involve The Leaky Faucet in any way, shape or
form. But playing 'What If...?' was completely pointless so he had to settle
for what he could get.
The three of them hopped out of the van and strolled with false
casualness to the front door with the snow crunching pleasantly under their
feet.
Ryan opened the door and was greeted immediately by the reek of stale
beer and cheap booze.
"Hold on a sec," Eddie said from behind the bar at the other end of the
room. He was rummaging around carelessly under the counter, searching for
ingredients to his not-so-famous drink, Worrall Sex. He just loved it when
his customers ordered it in rapid speech ("Hey bahtenda, gimme anutha rounda
'Oral Sex!" That really cracked him up).
Eventually, after some dangerously loud sounds of glass clinking
together, Eddie popped his ugly face up over the bar. His head was hunched
forward, his nose was red and his hair stuck up in tufts. He also needed a
shave.
He set a liqueur glass down on the counter in a puddle of draft beer
accompanied by three unlabelled bottles. He gave little squirts from each
one, alternating the three. Pick up, squirt, put down. Pick up, squirt, put
down. Again and again at a dizzying pace, until he managed to half-fill his
glass which he triumphantly held aloft, gave a small, wordless gesture of
cheers and then took a sip.
"Want one?" he asked. He hoped they wouldn't. It would save him a lot of
picking up, squirting and putting down.
"No thanks," said Ryan nervously.
Eddie was relieved. "Don't worry, the place closed half an hour ago.
Nobody's going to be coming around." He held his Worral Sex in his left hand
and waved them into the back room with his right. "Your stuff's right back
here," he said. "It's some heavy shit." Eddie laughed at something that Ryan
didn't quite get.
* * * * *
Leon Napoli sat in the driver's seat, cursing the day that Frederick
Cawthorne had designed the standard Vision helmet for the Corporate
Commission. The fucking helmet was the source behind his deep hatred for
patrol duty. They seemed to go onto his head fine, but once on they'd
viciously twist his ears in every direction at once, leaving no angle
unexplored. Day in and day out, he'd bitch and complain about it to everyone
and anyone who was within earshot. Tonight, his victims were his partners
(amusingly named Bob Richards and Rick Roberts) who had to survive four
hours of Leon's whining while trapped in a car with him on night patrol.
"All right, all right. I'm sorry, okay?" Leon said annoyingly. Presently,
he was pissed off because his bitching had pushed Bob and Rick over the edge
of sufferable irritation and they had told him so.
He check his watch. It was currently 3:25 am, five minutes before Leon
was able to take his Vision helmet off and go for a coffee break. "Listen,"
he said, "how about if we drop by The Faucet and see if Eddie's still
around? Maybe we can grab a couple of beers?"
No response. He took that as an answer in favour of his suggestion and
hung a right at the next intersection. The Gestapo patrol car emerged onto
Bay Street. A block or two up ahead was The Leaky Faucet Pub. Leon smiled
when he saw that the lights were still on.
* * * * *
Nikki stood next to the van, loading plain cardboard boxes into the open
trunk one after another. Memory Lapse and Eddie Worrall brought them from
the storage room of The Leaky Faucet (where Ryan was handing them out),
across the fifteen feet of asphalt and into the parking lot.
Out on the street, there came a pair of bright headlights set onto high
beams. On the door was the word 'Police' in black block letters. Eddie held
his breath, hoping they'd just go past without noticing the activity outside
the pub, but he knew it was futile. This sort of thing was what the Gestapo
night patrols were looking for and tonight, they seemed to have found it.
* * * * *
Leon turned the wheel gently to the right to avoid fishtailing all over
the road. He drove expertly into the parking lot, catching Eddie motionless
in his lights, much like the way deer tend to freeze in the sight of
oncoming traffic. He was carrying a large cardboard box to a van with an
open trunk.
Leon didn't bother to park the car. He just stopped it in the lane
between the rows of parking spaces and Bob and Rick hopped out. Checking his
watch again, he saw it was 3:26 am. The situation looked out of the
ordinary.
"Car alpha-6 reporting," Leon said into the transmitter set into his
ill-fitting helmet.
"Station 41614.B here," buzzed back a voice in the speaker set over his
right ear. "We copy, over."
"This is Napoli," he said. "We have some suspected underground activity
at The Leaky Faucet Pub on Bay Street. Please advise, over."
"Approach with caution. One man should stay in the car in case it's
something big. We'll send two cars down your way."
"Roger that. I'll keep you posted. Alpha-6 out."
Bob and Rick were talking to Eddie. He still had the box craddled in his
arms, looking pretty antsy. Leon waited.
* * * * *
Eddie just stood there, or, to be more accurate, his feet had been rooted
to the ground by fear. Two Headhunters got out of the patrol car while the
third remained behind the wheel.
"Hey Eddie," said one. "Is the bar still open?"
"Bob?" Eddie said in a surprised tone. He got a positive reply and
suddenly he felt less scared. Bob Richards was partnered with Rick Roberts
and Leon Napoli, all of whom enjoyed a good Worrall Sex. In his eyes, the
three of them were too weak to be Headhunters.
"Sure it's open," Eddie said. "Go on in." He pointed to the front door.
"What's in the box?" Rick asked in a curious tone of voice.
"This?" Eddie replied quickly. "Nothing. Just some bottles of tequila,
vodka and scotch."
"The good stuff!" exclaimed Bob greedily. He snatched the box from the
cradle of Eddie's arms and opened it. Inside was a dual cassette stereo with
a CD player sitting in a pile of wires.
He looked down at the box for a moment, wondering what to make of it.
Suddenly, Rick pulled his gun on Eddie, pointing it at his head. "That's
contraband shit from the rebel underground!" Upon hearing this, Bob whipped
out his weapon too, and also pointed it at Eddie's head.
Eddie gave a short, shocked gasp and instinctively started to back up. He
didn't know where he was going, but he figured ANYWHERE was better than at
the wrong end of a pair of Glock 17's. He baby stepped through the soft,
still snow, one foot following the other. Step by step, Bob and Rick
followed.
Suddenly, from out of nowhere, came the unmistakable first bars of
Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. Bob and Rick stopped dead in their tracks and
Eddie released a sigh of relief.X-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=--=-=-=-X
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