Initiations
“Hey Jaq!” Crash sang, as she skipped past him across the cold floor. Today she was wearing a bright green sundress, spotted with yellow flowers. Her hair was swept up in a loose bun, held by two silver sticks, with a few wisps of hair trailing down by her face. She clunked across the smooth floor in monstrously spiked boots that could probably make mincemeat out of concrete, before settling down on a small leather stool. She pulled out the silver sticks in one smooth motion and her hair paraded down to her shoulders, glistening and unkempt. “What do you think?”
Jack stepped forward. In comparison to Netto’s room, Crash’s was nearly bare. The paint on the walls crumbled away, rippling down through the history of green and plaster. The chipped paint left tiny, beautiful wounds on the wall. Here and there, a poster or newspaper article flickered across the surface, a projection from nowhere. A cot was scrunched in a corner, though it didn’t seem to get much use. But all of this was upstaged by the centerpiece, standing smack dab and proud in the middle of the room, under a green spotlight.
Jack’s smile opened up as he stretched out his arms. His fingers glanced over the smooth white metal, tracing the graceful arch of the base drum. He curled his fingers around the knobs, and then the taut green skin. Jack kissed the tom-tom with a rap of his fingers.
“This is beautiful…” Jack circled the drums, delighting in their white chrome and anticipating silence. Crash twirled on of the sticks between her fingers. As she did, little sparks of emerald flew into the air, and faded to wisps, leaving the air yellow.
“I thought you’d appreciate it,” she said, patting the huge bass drum fondly. “You know, a lot of musicians have abandoned the acoustic, and gone all out on the electronic beats. I mean, I like them enough, but––”
“Nothing compares to the real thing.” Jack felt a grin spread across his face.
Crash nodded. She flipped one of the silver sticks into the air, and came down on the drums with a crescendo of quick and subtle hits. She ended on the cymbal. A wave of tiny tremors leapt up her arm, ta-ta-tatata, and she shook her head to that fading beat. A smile in a perfect percussion. Jack could taste the trill on his tongue.
Crash pushed her hands against the frame of the drums, and inhaled the pulse still reverberating from her quick flare. The bones in her fingers tensed around that beat.
“I used to be in a band.” Eyes closed, she moved her palms against the edge of the drum. “Captain Crash and the Misfits. That’s what I wanted to call it, at least. Those were good times.” Her eyes snapped open, and out to a far away time. Her gaze softened against the peeling walls, filling with reminiscence. Jack took a seat on one of the pillows scattered across the nearly empty room. She rubbed her fingers against her neck, her eyes suddenly caught in a transfixed sadness.
“I wasn’t even thirteen,” she continued. Her feet swung back and forth as she sat. “We had all ran away from our homes, for whatever reason. We didn’t ask, and it didn’t matter. But we found refuge in our music, I suppose. There was this wicked cool singer, with these crazy dreads for hair! She was a junkie; so was the guitarist. I think they had a fling, er something. Anyway. I was already developing my color power, but we said that we wouldn’t let the gang war catch up with us. And for a while, it was fine. We played gigs, barely scraped by, but hey, we were doing what we loved.” She tapped an invisible rhythm on her lap with her fingers, the drum sticks forgotten.
“Well, the gang war caught up to us. You can’t avoid something like that down here.” She swallowed, looking to the bare wall for an answer. Words parted her dry mouth, and her tongue danced against them, searching for something to say. “I’m sorry.” She looked back at Jack, dismissing her darkened eyes with an uneasy laugh. “I don’t know why I went off like that.”
“No.” Jack shook his head. The skin around his eyes tightened as he strained to meet her gaze. “Please… go on. I don’t mind.”
Crash sighed, crushing her hand into a fist by her shoulder. She gazed back at the wall, as though to carve pictures into the peeling paint. “Well, it started to get a bit tense. Especially when I would use my color for some really sweet light shows. The band didn’t mind so much, nor did the audience, but every now and again, someone would. It got to a point where nearly all of our sets ended in fights, or Blackshirt raids.”
“Do the Blackshirts target musicians?” Jack asked, biting his lip.
“Not specifically. It’s more like they target teenagers.” Crash rolled her eyes. “’Fucking hate them. Anyway. We disbanded. It just wasn’t worth it anymore. That’s when Darc convinced me to join a Green Gang. I guess that was the final straw, or something.” She bit her thumb, shrugged, and turned back to Jack.
“So you bought into the gang life?” Jack asked with a frown.
“Not at first. Don’t get me wrong… the fighting’s terrible. I mean, Ace and Jade really like it. They get a thrill, or something. Me, I don’t think about it. I just, you know.” She punched the air, and laughed. “Back when I was young, people didn’t think much of it, in the Upper District I mean. But it’s not just kids pushing each other around, not anymore. I guess I did give into it.” Crash leaned back, and let out a relieved laugh and bitter smile. Her eyes found Jack’s finally, and a familiar spark of excitement brightened in them. “I went mad just like the rest of them.”
Jack smirked. For a moment, their eyes held—his gray and uncertain, hers green and determined. The silence rested around them.
“Well!” Crash broke the look with a shake of her head. She hopped off of the stool, and sat down before Jack. “I really brought you here to show you some music!” She reached out, and touched his hand. At the same time, she slid down her cybershades, and motioned for him to do the same. “I’m going to send you some files, okay?”
“Oh… uh, do I have to do anything?” He pressed his glasses against his eyes. At once, they lit up with a scroll of numbers. He could see the chaos of his thoughts spelled out before his eyes, or rather shone through his eyes. It took him a moment to clear the jumble. Netto said that the bitmites would take a little while to get used to.
“It’ll take a minute to transfer. Just accept it when it comes through,” she replied. She blinked her eyes.
At once a shape popped in front of Jack’s eyes. At first, it was a computer file, and then it morphed into a bizarre swirling motion. “How do I accept––” But at that word, at that thought, the bitmites seized the new data streaming through his eyes. He squeezed Crash’s hand.
“I can talk a lot, if you haven’t noticed,” Crash said apologetically. “I mean… I don’t really know anything about you. Besides that music… color… thing.”
“There’s not much to me.” Jack shrugged. “Nothing you can’t figure out yourself.”
Crash frowned. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I don’t want to talk about where I come from. Everyone keeps bringing it up, but I don’t––”
“I haven’t asked you anything.” Crash withdrew her hand from his without much fuss, and folded hers in her lap. “Don’t freak out on me.”
Jack felt his face flush with embarrassment. “Sorry. Can I…? Hmm. Can I be honest with you?”
Crash looked back at him as if to reply, but just nodded.
“I’m not used to being around people. I didn’t really have any friends, so all of this…” He gestured vaguely around the room. “It’s new to me. I’ve lived with people for short periods of time, but that was…” Pretending to be someone else while hiding out in another person’s delusion of history? “Well, I’m not the best talker I guess.”
“You don’t need to justify it. I’m not really upset.” Crash smiled, and took his hand back. “You’ll fit right in with the freaks here.”
A single word popped up in Jack’s head: Play?
Jack grinned, and nodded.
At once, the music came through him. He could feel it moving in his blood, rattling across his bones, but it wasn’t coming from any source he could see. It was coming from inside him. He nodded his head to the galloping beat.
“This is good.”
“You can turn it up, if you want to.” Crash stood up, taking his hand with her. “As loud as you want. Your ears will be fine.”
In his mind, Jack imagined turning the dial on a speaker set. At once, the music inside of him blared into life. The eerie tone in the background lit up against the green walls, half in his mind. The electronic beat blazed, buzzing around him in a swarm of sound. He stepped back and forth as the music grew in motion, building up slowly…
The air around him exploded into fast fireworks. He turned that mental dial up, until he couldn’t even hear his own breathing. They moved across the floor, soundless, and invisible. Jack spun around, smiling at this complete sound. It pulsed through him, wave by wave. The song burst into a strobe light around them, and Jack closed his eyes. The song consumed him.
These colors were only in his mind. He could feel the bitmites question it, like they questioned everything. He didn’t hear them speak, but somehow felt them look at these visions, and adapt. He secreted synesthesia from every pore.
“What do you think?” Crash’s lips formed over the words, muted by the song.
Jack turned down the music in his head. His heart was racing to the beat, and his smile was stretched wide. “That was amazing.”
“Here, I’ll send you all the best stuff.” She reclined back against her drum set, and tapped her fingers against her cybershades. Another wave of tiny motions passed through Jack’s senses, flooding to a file in his head he named ‘Crash’s Songs.’
“You know, I’ve been thinking.” She pulled off her glasses, and twirled them in her hands. “About your… music thing? Do you think you could play a green song?”
“Just green?” Jack mused for a moment. It was certainly possible. His music tutor had played single colors to teach Jack the names, but to find a single chord progression that was just green? “I’m not sure. I don’t know if it even works like that. Why?”
“Well, color is color,” Crash said, lifting her finger up high. “And besides…” Her teeth flashed in her grin. “It’d be good for combat.”
----------
“I’m sorry. What?”
The workout room was little more than a cube with white, padded walls and a solitary steel door. A single white light hung in the ceiling 30 feet above them, making the white walls seem garishly bright. A few splatters of green were fading on the soft floor.
In the corner, Ace wrapped his wrists in green bandages. He cracked his fingers and squeezed his hands into fists. A subtle, offhand threat. “Combat. If you’re hanging around our crew, you’re bound to get into a few fights.”
“A few?” Jade was leaning against a wall, stretching her legs casually. Her long hair was pinned up, and both of them were wearing tight, flexible clothes. Jack felt rather out of place in his tired jeans.
“You’ll have to be ready for anything,” Jade continued, walking up to Jack with a sweet smile.
“I’ve been in fights before,” Jack replied, shaking his head. “I don’t know why everyone thinks I’m such a wimp.”
Jade raised her eyebrows, and muttered, “Heh.” She swept Jack’s legs out from under him. He crumbled against the wall, letting out a startled “Oof!” From across the room, Ace let out a stark laugh.
“There’s only one way to truly learn to fight.” He rolled his wrists around, and stretched his neck as he walked over to them. “We could show you different styles, and techniques. But everyone has their own way of fighting. And, well, there’s only one way to bring that out.”
Jack pushed himself upright. His eyes flashed between the two gangsters. “You’re kidding.”
“Think of this… as a trust exercise.” Ace gave him a half smile. And crashed their heads together.
The gangsters fell upon him with a wave of punches and kicks. Knuckles chewed up Jack’s skin, lighting his senses aflame as a barrage of bruises washed over him. Open palms swept red slaps across him, while his bones clattered against their bodies. Elbows, heels, knees, shins and fists collided in a clumsy fury. Then and again, the clash would be disrupted by a swift punch into soft gut. The breath flew out of Jack. He stumbled back into the wall, a coppery flavor burning in his mouth. For a moment, the two gangsters held back. Jade kissed one of her busted knuckles. That had been for Jack’s jaw. Jack seized the opportunity, not waiting to gain back his air. He lunged towards Jade, and shoved her against Ace. They fell backwards. Using his own momentum, Jack pushed off of the padded wall and slammed back into the two. Cries filled the empty room.
They all scattered away from each other. Jade shook her wrist violently in the air, drawing in a wince through her teeth. Ace clutched his stomach, but made no noise. Jack finally grasped a ragged breath.
“But I’m… outnumbered…” Jack wheezed, stumbling against a wall. His adrenaline was running wild, his heart shaking in his chest. Every pump of blood brought new awareness to the cuts and bruises rising up from under his skin.
“You will be.” Ace stood up straight, brushing his hair out of his eyes. He looked over at Jade, and gave her a nod. “And they won’t give you mercy.”
The two gangsters rounded on Jack again. Jade clapped her hands together, and pulled them apart slowly. Ace held his hands stiffly by his sides, a malicious smile spreading over a busted lip.
The room overflowed with green light.
----------
Finally, he was alone. Jack lay against his bed, staring up at the naked ceiling before him. The soft mattress was a relaxing change from the pads of the workout room. It swelled up around the contours of his body, quieting every ache and sore that racked him. He knew better than to move.
Fighting. Gangs, gang wars, color. Color. And music. His mind swayed with restless thoughts, and he doubted that it was the bitmites giving him a headache. He called out to those little nano-tech friends of his, and they quickly obliged with some soothing music.
__Status Check: 10 mild bruises, swelling around the right cheek, sore neck, mild lacerations on the right hand, beaten, bloodied, embarrassed(?)
__Run Analysis: Embarrassed
–Analysis canceled–
^Command: activate internal monologue
__Diction: contemplative
__Subconscious Heightened
I took a deep, shuddering breath. The air filled up my lungs, making my ribs ache and strain. Even the warm, comforting mattress couldn’t ease the worries that were pressing upon me, like a scratchy wool blanket.
^Command: Halt Similes
__Search: improved Figurative Speech Drive
What am I doing here?
The time passes but I don’t register it. Each night bleeds into the next. Has it been days or weeks since I arrived here? And how did I get here? Each night, the answers come to me in my dreams, and each morning, they’re lost to me.
But I’m starting to remember more.
I close my eyes. Even here, there are colors. My eyelids are heavy with reds, dark purples and streaks of green. I press upon them, and the colors swarm in—webs of purple and gold cross my gaze, and blue dissolves in my third eye. Suddenly everything twists and morphs into green gold honeycombs. A pavonine phosphine of dreams.
I have my bitmites replay all the memories they recovered from the day before I fell into this city. Path leads me into another recording studio, different from the one with the members of the Resonance, but also the same. We talk for a long time… the bitmites stir in my brain, drawing up strings of memory. Her voice is clear, but far away.
I don’t want you to be just another dead musician. But I don’t want you to join the Resonance.
To tell you the truth, I don’t know when the Resonance really started.
That I Am and his apostles run the city…
That I am. The Black and White Conspiracy. Could they be here? I think back to the man in the museum, and the hatred of the instrument in his eyes. The ‘color-crushing’ Blackshirts, as Darc described them, sounded like they could be part of the monochrome conspiracy.
It's the connection between them that's the same... I need your help.
How can I possibly help you? I hear my own voice from distant memory.
Be my eyes.
You know that slimy feeling you get when you know you’re missing something? There’s something important your mind tries, and fails, to latch on to. Why hadn’t Path come to this place as well? And why did she choose me? I didn’t know anything about the City of All Cities, not really, until she told me. If the Black and White conspiracy is here, what can I possibly do about it? Be my eyes…
A knock comes from the door, halting my train of thought. The door creaks open.
“Hey Twitch.”
He steps through the threshold, hands moving restlessly across the doorframe. Each of his movements is harsh and jagged. He looks around the barren room quickly, and winces as he sees me.
“You look like shit!” Twitch’s face bends in a sharp smile.
“Yeah, well, tell me something I don’t know,” I reply, trying to cover my pain with a casual shrug. The muscles in my neck pinch. “Do they go around beating everyone up, or am I just special?”
Twitch sits down on the edge of my bed. “Well, we’ve all fought each other at some point. Ace s-sorta has it out for you, but J-Jade totally likes you.”
“I’m honored.” I look Twitch up and down. “So. What are you doing here?”
“Finished my rounds, and I-uh, thought I’d check up on you.” He shrugs, tapping his feet rapidly against the floor.
“C’mon, Twitch.” I manage to pull off a confidant smirk. “I’ve been taken away by nearly all of the gang members, had little computers injected into my brain, and gotten the shit kicked out of me. So. What do you want with me?”
I didn’t intend to sound defensive or demanding, but I can see a sudden surprise on Twitch’s face. He runs his tongue across lips, and again, trying to taste the next words there. His eyes hold to mine, and I can see the gears working behind them. I feel him trying to size me up. And his eyes brighten.
Suddenly, he sweeps his hand into the inside of his coat. In a clear, theatric motion, he pulls out a small shimmering vial. It is much like the vial Netto presented to me before. Netto’s was filled with bitmites—black, dark, questioning. What Twitch holds is the exact opposite of that. Shining, swirling, iridescent eyes of an abalone shell swim in the vial. Pure color sifts against the glass, sending rainbow light dancing across the walls. I can feel the energy as I breathe in the colorful light. I can taste it. The urge to reach out and touch it, feel it, drown in it, rises up my spine.
“What is it?” I lean forward; extend a few fingers to the vial. The color fills my eyes so completely, that everything else looks dull.
Twitch twists the vial very carefully against the skin of his fingers. His voice is filled with adoration. “Colorshock.”
The name sends a tremor through--
//_Connection detected_//
__Run Scan: Subconscious
<”colorshock”>
.//. Processing .//.
__Negative, connection lost
__Scan: colorshock, 8bit24p12
<”He’s not on colorshock.”> <”Changed…perception…”>
––Sends a tremor through my skin.
“I have to say, when I first saw you I was sure that you were a ‘shock-head.” Twitch’s attitude changes dramatically. He flashes me a poisonous smile. “An overdose would have explained your sort-of-amnesia, and all your messy colors. But you didn’t have any in your system. You’ve never used any, then?”
I shake my head.
“I’ll tell you, this color can kill a grown man, tear open his chakras and infest all his senses. But it can be the one thing in the city worth living for.”
I eye the drug warily. As if my paradigm of color hasn’t been completely broken already. Color… as a drug? I don’t doubt a word Twitch says. I can see the power waiting in that solid light. I can feel it call out to me, like something that has hibernated long in the base of my mind, locked up in the cage of my subconscious, and has awakened, hungry and restless. The urge to fall into it is almost unbearable.
“If you ever want to try it, I’m the man to talk to. Most everyone’s tried it, except Netto and Il, I think. Of course, it’s not inexpensive. Until we figure out a way to pay your debt––” He folded the drug back into some hidden pocket. “Don’t think about touching the stuff. But… are you interested?”
“Is this some sort of test?” I ask.
Twitch shrugs. “Are you interested?”
My teacher used to say that music was defined more by the silence than by the sound. He always said that you could put so much more meaning into the silence before the first few notes. And it was the same for these moments, where the air filled with harmonic overtones that vibrated against our ears as a silent tension. The silence echoed across the walls, danced through the space between us, ringing like an alarm that at any moment, all the music in the world was going to go off.
“Maybe,” I reply.
Twitch stands up without a word, and walks shakily to the door.
“Wait, is that it?” I give him a confused look. He winks, and slips out into the hallway.
__Internal Monologue: disabled
<end>
----------
Dawn was always the quietest part of the day. The garish, surreal lights from the nightlife that shone up from the underbelly of the city had begun to fade. Slowly, the Upper District towers returned to their gleaming white chrome. The air was clear from flying bikes and scattered lights. Silence settled upon the city, as the sky turned a pale green.
Up on the Club Vertigo roof, a strong wind flew up from the desert, and cooled off the hot night. Darc stood at the end of the roof, his metal tipped boots hanging out over the edge of the sky. He rocked back and forth on his heels, tempting the architectural abyss below him. A solitary cigarette clung to his lips, the butt pulsing with green embers. The light from the brightening sky cast an illuminating outline across his profile, catching around the contours of his horns, a devil in angelic light.
“I’m done playing host.” His voice stretched through the dusk air, its tone low, and strangely resolved. His wind-swept hair obscured his expression, and his intention in this sudden outburst was masked.
Jack glanced up from his seat on a heating vent a few feet away. He had expected this, a challenge from the great gang leader himself. He stared out at the swelling sunrise, and was silent.
Darc took a drag of his cigarette before continuing. “I’ve given you a place to stay, and a chance to get yourself together. But I’m not generous, and I’m not kind.”
This sudden dissonance in his attitude was alarming. There was no threat in his words, no malice or expectation. He was defensive. As if all the love and adoration that the Green Teens obviously had for their leader wasn’t justified.
“You want me to leave.” Jack spoke slowly, looking anywhere but at the other teen. He gripped the edge of the metal vent.
“I want you to stay.” Darc finally looked back at the musician. The light from the yellow-green sky illuminated his steady face. “But it’s your decision to make. You may be safer here, and you still have your debt to pay off. But you could go to the Paint District, keep your head low, and expect me to call on your for a favor. It’s the smarter route, if you ask me.” He looked over the edge of the roof, way down to the city below. For a moment his body hovered out into the dawn, his clothes rippling from the wind gusting up from the streets below.
“You’ve already proven yourself to most of my gang. Well, maybe Ace isn’t convinced, but Crash has convinced him of the potential of your… music. Initiations,” he explained, spinning around and walking out to the center of the roof. He skipped across the concrete, boots slapping the ground in a one-two beat. He glanced at Jack’s bruises and grinned.
“Yeah, I gathered,” Jack said grimly, rubbing his jaw.
“And you’ve proven that you’re willing to give yourself to recklessness, with that daring leap of yours.” Darc drew out a long string of smoke from his lips. The cigarette fell lightly to the ground, and he smeared it across the roof. “You were willing to risk your life for something you love. Or maybe you were just a cornered rat giving into abandon. Either way, it’s respectable.”
Jack couldn’t help but smile. He didn’t mention that the thought of being caught by that guard scared him shitless.
“Of course, you can’t technically be part of my gang. You’re not a green, honey.” He crossed his arms, a jaunty expression returning to his face. The sun was beginning to creep over the first buildings, slicing true light across Darc’s back. His eyes grew dark with passion, and his grin grew with excitement. His voice boiled with it. “But the way I see it, you have the potential to be better than any of those gangsters. You’ve got something that’s going to tear down this whole city, if you only take that opportunity. So. What’s it gonna be, Jac baby?”
Darc held out his hand.
A wave of deja vu crashed over Jack. A thousand miles, a thousand years away and at the exact same moment, Path is offerent her delicate hand to him. He gazes into their omniscient eyes... and takes their hands in his.
“Hey Jaq!” Crash sang, as she skipped past him across the cold floor. Today she was wearing a bright green sundress, spotted with yellow flowers. Her hair was swept up in a loose bun, held by two silver sticks, with a few wisps of hair trailing down by her face. She clunked across the smooth floor in monstrously spiked boots that could probably make mincemeat out of concrete, before settling down on a small leather stool. She pulled out the silver sticks in one smooth motion and her hair paraded down to her shoulders, glistening and unkempt. “What do you think?”
Jack stepped forward. In comparison to Netto’s room, Crash’s was nearly bare. The paint on the walls crumbled away, rippling down through the history of green and plaster. The chipped paint left tiny, beautiful wounds on the wall. Here and there, a poster or newspaper article flickered across the surface, a projection from nowhere. A cot was scrunched in a corner, though it didn’t seem to get much use. But all of this was upstaged by the centerpiece, standing smack dab and proud in the middle of the room, under a green spotlight.
Jack’s smile opened up as he stretched out his arms. His fingers glanced over the smooth white metal, tracing the graceful arch of the base drum. He curled his fingers around the knobs, and then the taut green skin. Jack kissed the tom-tom with a rap of his fingers.
“This is beautiful…” Jack circled the drums, delighting in their white chrome and anticipating silence. Crash twirled on of the sticks between her fingers. As she did, little sparks of emerald flew into the air, and faded to wisps, leaving the air yellow.
“I thought you’d appreciate it,” she said, patting the huge bass drum fondly. “You know, a lot of musicians have abandoned the acoustic, and gone all out on the electronic beats. I mean, I like them enough, but––”
“Nothing compares to the real thing.” Jack felt a grin spread across his face.
Crash nodded. She flipped one of the silver sticks into the air, and came down on the drums with a crescendo of quick and subtle hits. She ended on the cymbal. A wave of tiny tremors leapt up her arm, ta-ta-tatata, and she shook her head to that fading beat. A smile in a perfect percussion. Jack could taste the trill on his tongue.
Crash pushed her hands against the frame of the drums, and inhaled the pulse still reverberating from her quick flare. The bones in her fingers tensed around that beat.
“I used to be in a band.” Eyes closed, she moved her palms against the edge of the drum. “Captain Crash and the Misfits. That’s what I wanted to call it, at least. Those were good times.” Her eyes snapped open, and out to a far away time. Her gaze softened against the peeling walls, filling with reminiscence. Jack took a seat on one of the pillows scattered across the nearly empty room. She rubbed her fingers against her neck, her eyes suddenly caught in a transfixed sadness.
“I wasn’t even thirteen,” she continued. Her feet swung back and forth as she sat. “We had all ran away from our homes, for whatever reason. We didn’t ask, and it didn’t matter. But we found refuge in our music, I suppose. There was this wicked cool singer, with these crazy dreads for hair! She was a junkie; so was the guitarist. I think they had a fling, er something. Anyway. I was already developing my color power, but we said that we wouldn’t let the gang war catch up with us. And for a while, it was fine. We played gigs, barely scraped by, but hey, we were doing what we loved.” She tapped an invisible rhythm on her lap with her fingers, the drum sticks forgotten.
“Well, the gang war caught up to us. You can’t avoid something like that down here.” She swallowed, looking to the bare wall for an answer. Words parted her dry mouth, and her tongue danced against them, searching for something to say. “I’m sorry.” She looked back at Jack, dismissing her darkened eyes with an uneasy laugh. “I don’t know why I went off like that.”
“No.” Jack shook his head. The skin around his eyes tightened as he strained to meet her gaze. “Please… go on. I don’t mind.”
Crash sighed, crushing her hand into a fist by her shoulder. She gazed back at the wall, as though to carve pictures into the peeling paint. “Well, it started to get a bit tense. Especially when I would use my color for some really sweet light shows. The band didn’t mind so much, nor did the audience, but every now and again, someone would. It got to a point where nearly all of our sets ended in fights, or Blackshirt raids.”
“Do the Blackshirts target musicians?” Jack asked, biting his lip.
“Not specifically. It’s more like they target teenagers.” Crash rolled her eyes. “’Fucking hate them. Anyway. We disbanded. It just wasn’t worth it anymore. That’s when Darc convinced me to join a Green Gang. I guess that was the final straw, or something.” She bit her thumb, shrugged, and turned back to Jack.
“So you bought into the gang life?” Jack asked with a frown.
“Not at first. Don’t get me wrong… the fighting’s terrible. I mean, Ace and Jade really like it. They get a thrill, or something. Me, I don’t think about it. I just, you know.” She punched the air, and laughed. “Back when I was young, people didn’t think much of it, in the Upper District I mean. But it’s not just kids pushing each other around, not anymore. I guess I did give into it.” Crash leaned back, and let out a relieved laugh and bitter smile. Her eyes found Jack’s finally, and a familiar spark of excitement brightened in them. “I went mad just like the rest of them.”
Jack smirked. For a moment, their eyes held—his gray and uncertain, hers green and determined. The silence rested around them.
“Well!” Crash broke the look with a shake of her head. She hopped off of the stool, and sat down before Jack. “I really brought you here to show you some music!” She reached out, and touched his hand. At the same time, she slid down her cybershades, and motioned for him to do the same. “I’m going to send you some files, okay?”
“Oh… uh, do I have to do anything?” He pressed his glasses against his eyes. At once, they lit up with a scroll of numbers. He could see the chaos of his thoughts spelled out before his eyes, or rather shone through his eyes. It took him a moment to clear the jumble. Netto said that the bitmites would take a little while to get used to.
“It’ll take a minute to transfer. Just accept it when it comes through,” she replied. She blinked her eyes.
At once a shape popped in front of Jack’s eyes. At first, it was a computer file, and then it morphed into a bizarre swirling motion. “How do I accept––” But at that word, at that thought, the bitmites seized the new data streaming through his eyes. He squeezed Crash’s hand.
“I can talk a lot, if you haven’t noticed,” Crash said apologetically. “I mean… I don’t really know anything about you. Besides that music… color… thing.”
“There’s not much to me.” Jack shrugged. “Nothing you can’t figure out yourself.”
Crash frowned. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I don’t want to talk about where I come from. Everyone keeps bringing it up, but I don’t––”
“I haven’t asked you anything.” Crash withdrew her hand from his without much fuss, and folded hers in her lap. “Don’t freak out on me.”
Jack felt his face flush with embarrassment. “Sorry. Can I…? Hmm. Can I be honest with you?”
Crash looked back at him as if to reply, but just nodded.
“I’m not used to being around people. I didn’t really have any friends, so all of this…” He gestured vaguely around the room. “It’s new to me. I’ve lived with people for short periods of time, but that was…” Pretending to be someone else while hiding out in another person’s delusion of history? “Well, I’m not the best talker I guess.”
“You don’t need to justify it. I’m not really upset.” Crash smiled, and took his hand back. “You’ll fit right in with the freaks here.”
A single word popped up in Jack’s head: Play?
Jack grinned, and nodded.
At once, the music came through him. He could feel it moving in his blood, rattling across his bones, but it wasn’t coming from any source he could see. It was coming from inside him. He nodded his head to the galloping beat.
“This is good.”
“You can turn it up, if you want to.” Crash stood up, taking his hand with her. “As loud as you want. Your ears will be fine.”
In his mind, Jack imagined turning the dial on a speaker set. At once, the music inside of him blared into life. The eerie tone in the background lit up against the green walls, half in his mind. The electronic beat blazed, buzzing around him in a swarm of sound. He stepped back and forth as the music grew in motion, building up slowly…
The air around him exploded into fast fireworks. He turned that mental dial up, until he couldn’t even hear his own breathing. They moved across the floor, soundless, and invisible. Jack spun around, smiling at this complete sound. It pulsed through him, wave by wave. The song burst into a strobe light around them, and Jack closed his eyes. The song consumed him.
These colors were only in his mind. He could feel the bitmites question it, like they questioned everything. He didn’t hear them speak, but somehow felt them look at these visions, and adapt. He secreted synesthesia from every pore.
“What do you think?” Crash’s lips formed over the words, muted by the song.
Jack turned down the music in his head. His heart was racing to the beat, and his smile was stretched wide. “That was amazing.”
“Here, I’ll send you all the best stuff.” She reclined back against her drum set, and tapped her fingers against her cybershades. Another wave of tiny motions passed through Jack’s senses, flooding to a file in his head he named ‘Crash’s Songs.’
“You know, I’ve been thinking.” She pulled off her glasses, and twirled them in her hands. “About your… music thing? Do you think you could play a green song?”
“Just green?” Jack mused for a moment. It was certainly possible. His music tutor had played single colors to teach Jack the names, but to find a single chord progression that was just green? “I’m not sure. I don’t know if it even works like that. Why?”
“Well, color is color,” Crash said, lifting her finger up high. “And besides…” Her teeth flashed in her grin. “It’d be good for combat.”
----------
“I’m sorry. What?”
The workout room was little more than a cube with white, padded walls and a solitary steel door. A single white light hung in the ceiling 30 feet above them, making the white walls seem garishly bright. A few splatters of green were fading on the soft floor.
In the corner, Ace wrapped his wrists in green bandages. He cracked his fingers and squeezed his hands into fists. A subtle, offhand threat. “Combat. If you’re hanging around our crew, you’re bound to get into a few fights.”
“A few?” Jade was leaning against a wall, stretching her legs casually. Her long hair was pinned up, and both of them were wearing tight, flexible clothes. Jack felt rather out of place in his tired jeans.
“You’ll have to be ready for anything,” Jade continued, walking up to Jack with a sweet smile.
“I’ve been in fights before,” Jack replied, shaking his head. “I don’t know why everyone thinks I’m such a wimp.”
Jade raised her eyebrows, and muttered, “Heh.” She swept Jack’s legs out from under him. He crumbled against the wall, letting out a startled “Oof!” From across the room, Ace let out a stark laugh.
“There’s only one way to truly learn to fight.” He rolled his wrists around, and stretched his neck as he walked over to them. “We could show you different styles, and techniques. But everyone has their own way of fighting. And, well, there’s only one way to bring that out.”
Jack pushed himself upright. His eyes flashed between the two gangsters. “You’re kidding.”
“Think of this… as a trust exercise.” Ace gave him a half smile. And crashed their heads together.
The gangsters fell upon him with a wave of punches and kicks. Knuckles chewed up Jack’s skin, lighting his senses aflame as a barrage of bruises washed over him. Open palms swept red slaps across him, while his bones clattered against their bodies. Elbows, heels, knees, shins and fists collided in a clumsy fury. Then and again, the clash would be disrupted by a swift punch into soft gut. The breath flew out of Jack. He stumbled back into the wall, a coppery flavor burning in his mouth. For a moment, the two gangsters held back. Jade kissed one of her busted knuckles. That had been for Jack’s jaw. Jack seized the opportunity, not waiting to gain back his air. He lunged towards Jade, and shoved her against Ace. They fell backwards. Using his own momentum, Jack pushed off of the padded wall and slammed back into the two. Cries filled the empty room.
They all scattered away from each other. Jade shook her wrist violently in the air, drawing in a wince through her teeth. Ace clutched his stomach, but made no noise. Jack finally grasped a ragged breath.
“But I’m… outnumbered…” Jack wheezed, stumbling against a wall. His adrenaline was running wild, his heart shaking in his chest. Every pump of blood brought new awareness to the cuts and bruises rising up from under his skin.
“You will be.” Ace stood up straight, brushing his hair out of his eyes. He looked over at Jade, and gave her a nod. “And they won’t give you mercy.”
The two gangsters rounded on Jack again. Jade clapped her hands together, and pulled them apart slowly. Ace held his hands stiffly by his sides, a malicious smile spreading over a busted lip.
The room overflowed with green light.
----------
Finally, he was alone. Jack lay against his bed, staring up at the naked ceiling before him. The soft mattress was a relaxing change from the pads of the workout room. It swelled up around the contours of his body, quieting every ache and sore that racked him. He knew better than to move.
Fighting. Gangs, gang wars, color. Color. And music. His mind swayed with restless thoughts, and he doubted that it was the bitmites giving him a headache. He called out to those little nano-tech friends of his, and they quickly obliged with some soothing music.
__Status Check: 10 mild bruises, swelling around the right cheek, sore neck, mild lacerations on the right hand, beaten, bloodied, embarrassed(?)
__Run Analysis: Embarrassed
–Analysis canceled–
^Command: activate internal monologue
__Diction: contemplative
__Subconscious Heightened
I took a deep, shuddering breath. The air filled up my lungs, making my ribs ache and strain. Even the warm, comforting mattress couldn’t ease the worries that were pressing upon me, like a scratchy wool blanket.
^Command: Halt Similes
__Search: improved Figurative Speech Drive
What am I doing here?
The time passes but I don’t register it. Each night bleeds into the next. Has it been days or weeks since I arrived here? And how did I get here? Each night, the answers come to me in my dreams, and each morning, they’re lost to me.
But I’m starting to remember more.
I close my eyes. Even here, there are colors. My eyelids are heavy with reds, dark purples and streaks of green. I press upon them, and the colors swarm in—webs of purple and gold cross my gaze, and blue dissolves in my third eye. Suddenly everything twists and morphs into green gold honeycombs. A pavonine phosphine of dreams.
I have my bitmites replay all the memories they recovered from the day before I fell into this city. Path leads me into another recording studio, different from the one with the members of the Resonance, but also the same. We talk for a long time… the bitmites stir in my brain, drawing up strings of memory. Her voice is clear, but far away.
I don’t want you to be just another dead musician. But I don’t want you to join the Resonance.
To tell you the truth, I don’t know when the Resonance really started.
That I Am and his apostles run the city…
That I am. The Black and White Conspiracy. Could they be here? I think back to the man in the museum, and the hatred of the instrument in his eyes. The ‘color-crushing’ Blackshirts, as Darc described them, sounded like they could be part of the monochrome conspiracy.
It's the connection between them that's the same... I need your help.
How can I possibly help you? I hear my own voice from distant memory.
Be my eyes.
You know that slimy feeling you get when you know you’re missing something? There’s something important your mind tries, and fails, to latch on to. Why hadn’t Path come to this place as well? And why did she choose me? I didn’t know anything about the City of All Cities, not really, until she told me. If the Black and White conspiracy is here, what can I possibly do about it? Be my eyes…
A knock comes from the door, halting my train of thought. The door creaks open.
“Hey Twitch.”
He steps through the threshold, hands moving restlessly across the doorframe. Each of his movements is harsh and jagged. He looks around the barren room quickly, and winces as he sees me.
“You look like shit!” Twitch’s face bends in a sharp smile.
“Yeah, well, tell me something I don’t know,” I reply, trying to cover my pain with a casual shrug. The muscles in my neck pinch. “Do they go around beating everyone up, or am I just special?”
Twitch sits down on the edge of my bed. “Well, we’ve all fought each other at some point. Ace s-sorta has it out for you, but J-Jade totally likes you.”
“I’m honored.” I look Twitch up and down. “So. What are you doing here?”
“Finished my rounds, and I-uh, thought I’d check up on you.” He shrugs, tapping his feet rapidly against the floor.
“C’mon, Twitch.” I manage to pull off a confidant smirk. “I’ve been taken away by nearly all of the gang members, had little computers injected into my brain, and gotten the shit kicked out of me. So. What do you want with me?”
I didn’t intend to sound defensive or demanding, but I can see a sudden surprise on Twitch’s face. He runs his tongue across lips, and again, trying to taste the next words there. His eyes hold to mine, and I can see the gears working behind them. I feel him trying to size me up. And his eyes brighten.
Suddenly, he sweeps his hand into the inside of his coat. In a clear, theatric motion, he pulls out a small shimmering vial. It is much like the vial Netto presented to me before. Netto’s was filled with bitmites—black, dark, questioning. What Twitch holds is the exact opposite of that. Shining, swirling, iridescent eyes of an abalone shell swim in the vial. Pure color sifts against the glass, sending rainbow light dancing across the walls. I can feel the energy as I breathe in the colorful light. I can taste it. The urge to reach out and touch it, feel it, drown in it, rises up my spine.
“What is it?” I lean forward; extend a few fingers to the vial. The color fills my eyes so completely, that everything else looks dull.
Twitch twists the vial very carefully against the skin of his fingers. His voice is filled with adoration. “Colorshock.”
The name sends a tremor through--
//_Connection detected_//
__Run Scan: Subconscious
<”colorshock”>
.//. Processing .//.
__Negative, connection lost
__Scan: colorshock, 8bit24p12
<”He’s not on colorshock.”> <”Changed…perception…”>
––Sends a tremor through my skin.
“I have to say, when I first saw you I was sure that you were a ‘shock-head.” Twitch’s attitude changes dramatically. He flashes me a poisonous smile. “An overdose would have explained your sort-of-amnesia, and all your messy colors. But you didn’t have any in your system. You’ve never used any, then?”
I shake my head.
“I’ll tell you, this color can kill a grown man, tear open his chakras and infest all his senses. But it can be the one thing in the city worth living for.”
I eye the drug warily. As if my paradigm of color hasn’t been completely broken already. Color… as a drug? I don’t doubt a word Twitch says. I can see the power waiting in that solid light. I can feel it call out to me, like something that has hibernated long in the base of my mind, locked up in the cage of my subconscious, and has awakened, hungry and restless. The urge to fall into it is almost unbearable.
“If you ever want to try it, I’m the man to talk to. Most everyone’s tried it, except Netto and Il, I think. Of course, it’s not inexpensive. Until we figure out a way to pay your debt––” He folded the drug back into some hidden pocket. “Don’t think about touching the stuff. But… are you interested?”
“Is this some sort of test?” I ask.
Twitch shrugs. “Are you interested?”
My teacher used to say that music was defined more by the silence than by the sound. He always said that you could put so much more meaning into the silence before the first few notes. And it was the same for these moments, where the air filled with harmonic overtones that vibrated against our ears as a silent tension. The silence echoed across the walls, danced through the space between us, ringing like an alarm that at any moment, all the music in the world was going to go off.
“Maybe,” I reply.
Twitch stands up without a word, and walks shakily to the door.
“Wait, is that it?” I give him a confused look. He winks, and slips out into the hallway.
__Internal Monologue: disabled
<end>
----------
Dawn was always the quietest part of the day. The garish, surreal lights from the nightlife that shone up from the underbelly of the city had begun to fade. Slowly, the Upper District towers returned to their gleaming white chrome. The air was clear from flying bikes and scattered lights. Silence settled upon the city, as the sky turned a pale green.
Up on the Club Vertigo roof, a strong wind flew up from the desert, and cooled off the hot night. Darc stood at the end of the roof, his metal tipped boots hanging out over the edge of the sky. He rocked back and forth on his heels, tempting the architectural abyss below him. A solitary cigarette clung to his lips, the butt pulsing with green embers. The light from the brightening sky cast an illuminating outline across his profile, catching around the contours of his horns, a devil in angelic light.
“I’m done playing host.” His voice stretched through the dusk air, its tone low, and strangely resolved. His wind-swept hair obscured his expression, and his intention in this sudden outburst was masked.
Jack glanced up from his seat on a heating vent a few feet away. He had expected this, a challenge from the great gang leader himself. He stared out at the swelling sunrise, and was silent.
Darc took a drag of his cigarette before continuing. “I’ve given you a place to stay, and a chance to get yourself together. But I’m not generous, and I’m not kind.”
This sudden dissonance in his attitude was alarming. There was no threat in his words, no malice or expectation. He was defensive. As if all the love and adoration that the Green Teens obviously had for their leader wasn’t justified.
“You want me to leave.” Jack spoke slowly, looking anywhere but at the other teen. He gripped the edge of the metal vent.
“I want you to stay.” Darc finally looked back at the musician. The light from the yellow-green sky illuminated his steady face. “But it’s your decision to make. You may be safer here, and you still have your debt to pay off. But you could go to the Paint District, keep your head low, and expect me to call on your for a favor. It’s the smarter route, if you ask me.” He looked over the edge of the roof, way down to the city below. For a moment his body hovered out into the dawn, his clothes rippling from the wind gusting up from the streets below.
“You’ve already proven yourself to most of my gang. Well, maybe Ace isn’t convinced, but Crash has convinced him of the potential of your… music. Initiations,” he explained, spinning around and walking out to the center of the roof. He skipped across the concrete, boots slapping the ground in a one-two beat. He glanced at Jack’s bruises and grinned.
“Yeah, I gathered,” Jack said grimly, rubbing his jaw.
“And you’ve proven that you’re willing to give yourself to recklessness, with that daring leap of yours.” Darc drew out a long string of smoke from his lips. The cigarette fell lightly to the ground, and he smeared it across the roof. “You were willing to risk your life for something you love. Or maybe you were just a cornered rat giving into abandon. Either way, it’s respectable.”
Jack couldn’t help but smile. He didn’t mention that the thought of being caught by that guard scared him shitless.
“Of course, you can’t technically be part of my gang. You’re not a green, honey.” He crossed his arms, a jaunty expression returning to his face. The sun was beginning to creep over the first buildings, slicing true light across Darc’s back. His eyes grew dark with passion, and his grin grew with excitement. His voice boiled with it. “But the way I see it, you have the potential to be better than any of those gangsters. You’ve got something that’s going to tear down this whole city, if you only take that opportunity. So. What’s it gonna be, Jac baby?”
Darc held out his hand.
A wave of deja vu crashed over Jack. A thousand miles, a thousand years away and at the exact same moment, Path is offerent her delicate hand to him. He gazes into their omniscient eyes... and takes their hands in his.