It takes Felipe a day to get back into the swing of things, and he does it by frequenting a couple dance-easies to play what he does best, that sparkling bright music, full of life. A couple hours are spent at the MC district building, in a practice room, with Arpeggio. His partner is glued to his side, and Sergeant Corvin senses something deeper, so when Felipe heads out to grab lunch, he catches the raven-haired man before he leaves his office.
"Hey…there's something I want to ask."
Arpeggio nods, as if understanding what he's going to ask.
"What's his deal with Acid? He didn't go junkie on that, did he? After he went into the Corps?"
Arpeggio sighs and sits down. "Fel…had a bad experience, and no, he didn't get hooked on it. If anything…he's always hated it."
The elder man nods for him to continue.
Arpeggio's eyes grow cold, but they don't focus on anything. Thinking of Egypt in his mind's eye, he tries to find the right words without going too deep. "I think Felipe is remembering how dangerous it really is, and how hard it is to control."
The sergeant shrugs. "Well, maybe he remembers something from before he forgot everything."
Curiously, Arpeggio asks, "You mean, before he got his amnesia?"
"So he told you?"
"Well, it was in his report before I started working with him, but he's told me before too."
"Yeah. We considered having him examined, but he was really resistant to the idea. When he came back up here from Eagleton, I was afraid maybe he'd gotten worse, but…."
The TC had never heard about this place before. "Eagleton?"
He smiles. "Not my place to tell you. Maybe you should ask him. You both seem so close."
The younger man can't help the barest flushing of his cheeks. "Oh."
"Were you the one who took him up after he was drafted?"
"Yes. Neither of us were in a team before 42. I was training when I partnered with him." Its not an entirely true story, but he didn't see the need to explain that.
"He certainly is a handful. I was always getting calls about him."
Arpeggio winces slightly. "Easies?"
"Yeah. Though there were a couple fights he was in that we didn't book him on. He always had a temper."
"Still does."
"I figured. But he seems mellowed out."
Arpeggio's eyes have a fleeting emotion that the sergeant can't catch. "I would argue its just the weight of the Corps."
There's a knock, and Felipe pokes his head in. "All right, who ordered the meatball sub?"
~~
2 nights later, Felipe goes back to the easies, and finds a small one by the ballpark. This time, Arpeggio is going with him. It wasn't his first undercover job, but it wasn't something he did often. He stuck out like his own hair without the hair gel. But Felipe managed to get him to look somewhat like he belonged, forgoing most of the hair gel, and allowing it to spike. Dressing him in layers of oversized clothing to make him look a little less imposing. Colored contacts, but Arpeggio drew the line at hair coloring.
They agree to come in spaced out by an hour, with Arpeggio going in first. Both of them are tapped. When Arpeggio enters the easy, the atmosphere is much different than others he's been to. In fact, he's never been to an easy catering to acid. He's been to a few with Felipe, and they've all been a little different. Lively or energetic, though some have sometimes been overwhelming and frenzied (and those were the ones he and Felipe always had to bring down before a bust). His first as an attendee rather than a gangbuster was quieter but still lively. People chatting and enjoying the music, like a party more than an event.
But this was a much different beast. That powerful droning and squelching bass was considerably dimmed by his earplugs, but it was no less powerful. He was thankful his had an additional speaker in one that was a line to the sergeant, and the other was connected to his phone which had a selection of music to keep his head in the game. Felipe would be outfitted the same, but he was worried. Hearing him play the other night made him more anxious than he'd been since Egypt. The obvious desperation to keep his wits about him, fighting what he knew were flashbacks to that war zone.
No matter how good their masking music was in those earplugs, it may not be enough to ground his partner.
That scared him more than anything.
People were lying about on just about anything that could be laid upon, including the floor. Jonestown. That's what it first reminded Arpeggio of, those pictures of that centuries old mass suicide at a cultish compound.
Don't fear the reaper, he thinks. He recalls the music that a documentary on the incident used. The documentary dealt with historical events against a single song that evoked the time and the event. It was old, and sometimes the songs weren't chosen carefully.
This one fit though.
He keeps his Loss at bay with his music, and his observations. He doesn't see that woman in red, but he catches other people whom are doing things other than the music. Drugs, sex, harder drugs. He comes to a corner adjacent to a speaker, where the sounds can't reach as well, and sits on the cold concrete, feigning a high. The DJ has a pair of noise blocking headphones on. Its how he's able to keep playing without feeling the negative effects as bad. He keeps an eye on his watch, counting down the time Felipe would be heading in.
With 15 minutes left before his cue, Arpeggio hears his partner's voice on his tap.
"Coming in soon, Pege." There's a shuffle, like clothing moving, then, "You sure look dressed to kill."
His partner presses his hand to the tapped ear. He can hear a woman's voice.
"You kept me waiting, Harker."
"You said you were gonna be here, figured I wait for my arm candy. Gonna take me in?"
Arpeggio maneuvers himself to see the door. A few minutes later, Felipe enters, and Lizzy is on his side, her arms draped around his body. Arpeggio narrows his eyes slightly. Something inside him wants to slap her arms off of him.
~~
Felipe barely hears Lizzy speaking to him, because his cover music on his earplug/earphones are louder than usual. He also hears Arpeggio's low voice.
"Corner, 2 o'clock."
His eyes meet his partner's. Then he turns his attention to Lizzy, whispering in her ear. "C'mon, you know this stuff ain't hard enough, tell 'I'm I want to go up there."
She smiles and turns her head to whisper in his ear, and his left hand in his pocket quickly lowers his masking music's volume. Her lips brush against his earlobe. "All in good time. Come with me." She punctuates that with a quick flick of her tongue.
She leads him by the arm to a back room, past the DJ, and he gives the barest of glances back, but can't see Arpeggio from his angle. They walk to a room and shut the door. The acid dims considerably, and he quickly lowers the volume again. Its a room with another kit, and a couch. Its empty except for that and bottles of hard liquor. He looks around.
"Waiting room?"
"You could say that." She doesn't wait long before she throws herself onto him, locking her lips on his, and pushing him against the couch until they topple into it. Normally Felipe liked his women like his motorcycles. Fast, sleek, and always ready to go. Tonight, he's more motion sick, needs to downshift, and Lizzy doesn't have a clutch.
He doesn't know how long they're a tangled web of carnal desires, but when he hears the door open and there's a sudden rush of Acid into the room, he disengages and sits up with difficulty. He has all the coordination of a teen caught by his girlfriend's father while making out.
The door closes behind a tall man, nearly 6 foot 7, with a bald head and skin paler than anything he's ever seen. Arpeggio's alabaster skin was more akin to a clump of snow in a warm palm. This man's was the color of a cold corpse, with all the contrasting features of one, from the deepened dark circles beneath his eyes and bone pressing against his thin skin. He wore a black overcoat, with 2 rows of buttons nearly all buttoned up to the top, save 2. It only made him seem more pale, as if he was in a black and white noir film. Its not until he catches Felipe's eyes that his thin lips break into a smile, his white teeth against red gums.
Lizzy untangles herself lazily. She sits up and tucks all her bits and bobs into place, and Felipe rises to a sitting position to, his face settling into his neutral causal smirk.
"Sorry. Was I borrowing her too long?"
"You must be Harker." His voice is deep, but not overly so. Almost ordinarily so. Felipe wasn't sure what he expected, but he finds himself surprised. He has an accent, but its faint, and he can't place it. He guesses something european.
Felipe nods.
Orlock says, "I saw you at an easy the other night."
He isn't sure which, but he rolls with it. "Yeah? What'd you think?"
The tall man's smile is long for his face, his thin lips giving the impression of a slit more than a mouth. "You play with a lot of life."
Its a compliment Felipe is paid with often, but hearing it from Orlock, whose voice says it with a visceral hunger, it seems more like a threat. "I live music."
"Indeed. Most do." He stands over Felipe, and the blue-haired man stands up. Its an intimidating distance. "Would you…play for me?"
Felipe's insides lurch, but he only smiles that half smirk. "Whatcha need? A high?"
Orlock shakes his head slowly. "No, not what's out there. Play for me whatever…you like."
He isn't sure what's going on, but he shrugs and starts everything up, plugging in his smaller sample library and flicking through what he has.
He finds some elements from a song that he and Arpeggio put together as part of a premeptive riot pacification set at a Halloween even in Vermont a few years back; even before he arranges the elements, he remembers how much he liked the piece they put together and right now he needs something that calming to help keep him grounded. It starts simple: climbing piano chords, in a C minor scale, something vaguely morose sounding but not overbearingly so. It doesn’t take long until melodies build on top of it, following that same scale and backing it with a robotic edge that matches that warm, plasticy-feel of the synth pianos, eventually joined by crunchy high hats.
It’s a long buildup, but it’s a gradual one that lets the atmosphere of the track permeate around the room, thick enough that you could cut it with a knife. Felipe liked to hope it managed to bypass the sound proofing, but he accepted that his ego would withstand the hit if it couldn’t.
He wasn’t getting a good reading on Orlock, so he couldn’t tell if the buildup was having the same effect, but he did see a slight spark go off in his eye when the buildup finally gave way, and the beat kicked in proper: a gritty, not particularly hard hitting beat, almost lo-fi sounding, but with a heavy bass on top; deep, sub booming bass that cut through the mix like mack’s knife, filling the room with vibrations powerful enough to resonate across the room. The elements from began to slowly build back up on top of the beat and bass, never really evolving and changing too much in of themselves, but keeping that vaguely mysterious air of the climbing scales and airy melodies was, the sub bass now backing it only doubling it’s impact, one part calming, one part intense, 100% passionate in it’s scope. After building back up and breaking back down, he let the track play itself out by repeating the chords over the breakdown, gradually taking even elements out slowly, in an almost bittersweet way.
Music usually flows through a listener, and opens them up to Loss. Their eyes have an inward look as they are carried by the music, a kagura but with music instead of gods inhabiting the vessel of the body. Those that experience Loss normally through dance-easies will dance, and their bodies become one with the music, with their highs and lows, their crescendos and plateaus.
Acid does something completely else. As if there's Loss, but its not music inhabiting a body. It divides mind from body. The mind sees, hears, even experiences highs and euphorias never felt by a human body, but the body itself becomes inert, literally an empty vessel, what japanese Trancers often called utsusemi. Locked away in another world, the mind journeys while the body stays behind, and it seems life itself begins to separate from the body. Those under the spell of Acid too long often Lock, that terrible limbo where the body is under complete sway of a musician, a hypnotic trance where they cannot even control themselves. A puppet state where the strings are pulled by the musician.
Most musicians use the Lock state to paralyze a crowd. From there a MC team will attempt to make them disperse, or if the Lock is too deep, leave them in such a state until they can recover or are taken for musical treatment. A DJ can use it to cause riots, going from a docile sheep to rabid maenad in an instant, or use it to create utter chaos.
And as Felipe plays his music, that lifeline, his heartbeat, his life and soul laid bare for all to hear, he can feel Orlock watching him. Its the way he watches him that bothers him the most. Hungry but not starved. Tantalized, but controlled. Desire without carnality. Lust without eroticism.
And Felipe has no clue what he could possibly want besides him, because he's so used to people wanting him physically. He expects it. But there is none of that in Orlock's black eyes. Even his musical talent doesn't seem to be that focus.
It scares him, and its all he can do to keep playing.
~~
Arpeggio has been making the rounds on the floor. The DJ has changed since Felipe has been there, but the previous one only hands those soundproof headphones to his back up and settles in by the stage with a few other listeners. There's not even a single gap in the music. Occupied with the music, the DJ doesn't notices as Arpeggio comes nearby.
The small group by the stage are deep in the thrall of the song, face euphoric, but gaunt. He realizes with a start that 6 of them are the 2 Trancer undercover teams that were sent in, recognizing them from the files. Corvin hadn't mentioned what had happened to them to Felipe, but did tell Arpeggio what had happened. Seduced by the potency of the Acid, they simply never came back, and followed Orlock's gang. According to the scant interviews they got from some of the less addicted listeners, nearly all of Orlock's throng were musicians, or formerly were. The former undercovers were just the latest addition.
Orlock's M.O. wasn't really explained to Felipe, because Arpeggio insisted he needn't be told. He knew if his partner was aware, he'd only try to make himself more of a target, and be more reckless. So Arpeggio only told him the basics, that the DJ was interested in simply adding to his gang of addicts.
There's one near the front that listlessly rolls to their side, one of the few movements he's seen in the listeners since he came in, and he makes his away to their position carefully. Its a young man around his age, skinny, and still wearing the MC uniform he had when he went missing, though the blazer is gone. The armband is still there--Trancer 8862--but the embroidered patch on the shirt seemed to be missing, ripped off neatly with a seam ripper. Either it was removed voluntarily, or it was removed whilst he was in the midst of a high. In any case, Arpeggio had a feeling he knew where it had gone.
He was panting shallowly, and as Arpeggio reached to check his pulse, his body simply went limp. The glassy look in his eye told him everything he needed to know yet he still gently put his fingers to his neck.
There was no pulse.
It wasn't the first time Arpeggio had seen someone die from Acid. In fact he'd wielded it before, laying all those in his path to waste. The difference in this was the ease in which the man passed, the slip into the final abyss without so much as a death rattle. It was too gentle. Too soon.
And more than anything, it made him angry. Because it all felt like a huge lie. In his last moments, that poor man had no idea his body was shutting down and giving up, a combination of starving a slow brain death.
He could only hope he never realized it before the end.
This
had to stop.
~~
Orlock watches Felipe as he finishes, and Lizzy comes by with a lighter as he pulls a cigarette from behind his ear. She starts pouring them a drink, as the young Trancer exhales a thin stream of smoke. The short performance was enough to take the edges off his nerves, as well as the acid from the floor, and his hands are thankfully like rocks.
"What makes you play so vibrantly?" asks Orlock, and his voice is curious.
Felipe shrugs. "That's just how I play. Its how I like it."
"You play very well." He smirks playfully, but to Felipe it looks sinister. "Are you in the MC?"
His heart starts beating wildly but he masks it with a chuckle. "Oh man, you think a junkie like me would be in the Corps? I couldn't pass the regular drug test, let alone anything else."
Lizzy asks, "You just play easies?"
"Honey, I couldn't play a bongo set if my life depended on it."
It makes Orlock cock his head curiously. "You…don't play other instruments?" It stings Felipe, and he lets a little of that come through the hurt tone of his voice. "No. I prefer kits. 'Nother reason I'm not in the Corps."
"It doesn't seem like it. You seem very talented." He unbuttons his coat slowly and deliberately. The room has grown warm.
Felipe leans his head back and lights up another cigarette, putting out the butt of the other on the leg of the table. "What about you? Lizzy says when it comes to Acid, you got the best stuff."
"Its a passion of mine," Orlock says, standing and coming to the kit. He runs his hand along the long side, his long fingers like bones. The opened coat reveals a black buttoned up shirt, and black slacks. Black on black on black. "I don't have much more in my life, except my passions. Nothing else in life ought to matter more."
There's something on the inside of the coat, and its not until he faces him that he sees what they are.
5 embroidered patches.
All from the Music Corps.
Stitched by hand to the inside of his coat.
One number sticks out to him:
8862.
"Harker," he says, noting Felipe's change in demeanor with a smile. "Why don't we…go start our little party…?"
~~
Arpeggio has stepped out on the pretense of smoking a cigarette, but reports his findings in the little alley behind the easy's building. Corvin is preparing his bust team, but its going to take time, at least and hour, 40 if they're lucky.
"Can you handle it until then?"
"I don't have a choice."
"Where's Felipe?"
"Inside." He adjusts his tap to listen in to Felipe's tap, but hears only the hiss of white noise.
Corvin is silent.
"Fuck." Arpeggio goes back to the door, but the doorman is gone, and the door is locked. He presses his fingers to the door and recoils in shock.
The music has stopped.
Without the transition of a more active style of music, stopping an Acid line is like stopping a passenger train going 60 miles an hour with a building. With just as many casualties.
"Arpeggio?"
"Get them here. Now." He finds the fire escape, vaults onto it from a dumpster and starts climbing to the first available window. He kicks it in, and all his fears have coalesced.
Its dead silent.
~~
Felipe winces in the transition from the semi-sound proofed room to the Acid on the floor. As he follows Lizzy and Orlock, he scans the room for Arpeggio. He doesn't see him, and it makes him more uneasy.
Orlock comes to his DJ, and reaches up to pull the earphones off. The musician turns to look, and there's a fleeting look of horror that's replaced by the glassy, docile look of someone slipping into Loss. Orlock casts them aside like an empty water bottle, and the headphones clatter off the stage, to the floor, and onto a listener who does little more than twitch reflexively.
Its not until the DJ stumbles to his knees and Lizzy pushes him aside dismissively that Felipe recognizes the man. Its one of the members of Trancer 8862.
Orlock's fingers slide over the console and with a few flicks, the Acid abruptly ends. The wave of silence hits Felipe like a linebacker, and he stumbles. Lizzy's smile grows sinister as she reaches over and grasps his jacket and gives it a hard yank. He nearly falls over, bracing himself onto the side of the large kit as she rips the jacket off his back and arms. She drops it to the floor and starts to stomp over it, and he can hear the tiny crunch of his tap and cover noise player being smashed over his ringing ears.
"Fuck," he gasps, as he rights himself and backs up from her. She no longer has the face of a devil or seductress. Its the look of a woman out of her mind in bloodlust.
Orlock clicks his tongue at her and she looks up at him, her face a combination of eager to please and out of her skull. "My darling Elizabeth, you needn't be so rough with my new toy."
She only giggles insanely. Felipe wonders if its the fact the music had stopped so suddenly that she binarily went from calm to crazy.
Orlock motions Lizzy to the side, and she obeys but she doesn't take her eyes off him. He waves a hand at the kit.
"Play with me."
Felipe finally has enough. "No."
"Why not?"
"Because you're under arrest." Inside Felipe winces at the triteness of the phrase and the weakness of his voice.
Orlock's mouth slits into a too-wide smile. "Is that so?"
The listeners begin to stir, some groaning in pain, others thrashing as they attempt to get off the ground after laying so still for so long. Orlock watches with bemused interest, but Felipe begins to panic.
"I think you better come play." He takes a step towards Felipe menacingly. "Now."
Felipe narrows his eyes. "Make me."
Orlock only laughs and its simultaneously the most cliched horror movie laugh he's ever heard, as well as the most sinister. It doesn't feel real. He touches his panel and a line erupts, and the listeners that are able to stand pause, waiting for commands. When Felipe doesn't move, he drops in another hard baseline. A few of his listeners cry out in pain. When he sees the boy hesitate, he starts another song, but its barely 30 seconds in when he cuts it all off, and that deafening silence slams into all of them, causing some of them to drop like puppets snipped from their strings. Ones on the floor scream in pain.
As he watches the scene serenely, Orlock steps forward and grabs Felipe by his hair, the other hand grabbing his arm and locking it behind his back. He shoves him against the kit, knobs stabbing into him, and the young man cries out in pain. Felipe can't understand how he can be this much stronger, looking little more than a corpse.
"Harker…my sweet little Harker…. I don't think you see the situation you're in. When I tell you to play…." He pulls him back a little then slams him into the kit, hard. "You will play. Otherwise, you're going to be just another one of my little toys."
"Go to hell," Felipe growls, but its little more than a winded groan.
Orlock pulls him back and throws him to the ground. Before he can get his wind back, Lizzy pounces. She's on his chest, her heeled shoes jamming into his arm and hand, and she leans over and grasps his throat and squeezes. He struggles for air as Orlock comes over and pins one hand beneath his boot.
"Do you know what I love more than Acid, my darling Harker? I love the moment of utter destruction, that moment of death when life passes from my toys. I used to play for days on end just to watch the life seep out. But that wasn't enough…and it wasn't until I found out that DJs break so much better than just ordinary listeners. Musicians break much more beautifully. Their minds open up, and you can see all of that life drift right out with their breaths. It takes longer, of course…but that's what makes it so wonderful."
Felipe gasps for air, and finally, Orlock grabs Lizzy by the shoulder and roughly throws her off. She tumbles against the wall, and laughs, frenzied. He grabs him by the collar of his shirt and forces him to stand, then throws him onto the kit.
"When I saw you play, I knew…I just knew you'd be the best one yet. You'd be my work of art. You're going to be so beautiful, Harker."
"You're insane," gasps Felipe as he drinking in the stagnant air of the easy.
Orlock smiles coldly. "So, Harker…what was your number?"
Felipe glares back, and doesn't answer.
"Its a pity you're not wearing your uniform…I would have loved to have your number to add."
"You're a monster!" screams Felipe, and he hates how terrified he sounds as his voice echoes in the dirty dance-easy.
He grins maniacally. "You're going to be the best one yet, Harker. But I think you'll be even better…motivated to fight for your life."
He comes to his console and begins to play, and his listeners all begin to gain movement. Its nothing close to what Felipe would call life. If anything, the way they rose off the floor--like dolls who can only move joints and unevenly put weight down--was more…like unlife.
"No," Felipe gasps as he gains his wind. He looks from the crowd to Orlock, glances at the former 8862, the numbers of the MC patches he's stolen in his "passion". The listeners grow more animated, lurching towards the stage, stepping on the ones who don't have the energy to rise.
He can't let him continue. His hands go to the kit, without another thought except to stop the crowd. He had to get some control of the crowd back, for everyone’s safety- shit, for HIS and Arpeggio’s safety, but damn, Orlock has them deep under. Very deep under. Shit, some of them seem to have been in the throes of Romero Syndrome. After what little time he had to weigh up his options, he realizes there was no other way. He was going to have to go just as deep.
~~
Arpeggio hears the music start and stop and winces. He's broken into the second floor and wanders the office he's in frantically. He finds the elevator, but its not working, so he locates the stairs. There's wood barricaded on the ground floor's door, nailed shut with numerous boards. He curses and looks around, then goes back up to the second floor and finds the emergency box. There's a fire extinguisher and a fire axe.
Equipped, he goes back down and starts working on the door, and freezes when he hears the floor erupt in music.
"Fel!!"
~~
Felipe's hands tremble as he flicks through his sampler. He needs something raw, something pungent enough to get into the heads of the crowd.
He loads a 030 patch--a patch he never want to use again--and silently prays to any god that was listening that they’d forgive him for what he was about to do.
He starts off sans bassline, focusing on a 090 beat--a good staple--and some synth stabs. He takes a headnodder approach to the beat, and it seems to be a good approach, as he could see some of the less Locked members of the crowd falling in line with the slower, swingier tempo. But it isn't enough, and after a brief breakdown with a vocal sample, his fingers dances over the keys, and the bassline kicked in.
The second his ears registered what he is doing, he's already feeling sick; at least the last time he did this, there was stuff going around the bassline, the beat was more complicated, less stripped down, but this was naked, practically; the sensation and the grim images forcing their way into his head only made it more distracting, but somehow, he gets his body to do what it needed too, tweaking and morphing the bassline in realtime. He can see, one by one, the listeners were falling in line with his groove, and he tries to push them back now he had them, pacify them in some way with the high, keeping the bassline from becoming to intense and focusing on the hypnotic groove alone.
Its not enough.
Some of the crowd turn smoothly, but some of them start to buckle, their already teetering minds collapsing, and not long after, their bodies with them. Felipe wasn’t a doctor, but he's pretty damn sure that what he was seeing was immediate brain death, people’s minds so battered by the hypnotic effects that too many sudden stops, starts, shifts and emotions just couldn’t take any more. He can feel the sweat running down his forehead, claming up his palms, and the sensation in his stomach is almost painful by this point. It felt like there was an ugly bubble resting on top of his stomach, his insides knotting up around it, and it only gets worse the longer he plays. It isn't much longer until his brain starts to follow, his head pounding, rebelling against all the music itself trying to overtake his brain. It doesn't take long for the power he had over the parts of the crowd he had to wane, and it was this sight of control loss that made him double over, losing it all in a single 8.
And that was all the opening Orlock needed.
He wrestles control of the atmosphere first with what sounded like an ambient drone and some wispy hats, causing all the crowd to stop dead, but remain prone. As Felipe tries to collect his shattered thoughts, he could hear Orlock laughing.
Then, came the bassline.
Oh god, Felipe thinks, the tempo was faster. Not breakneck, but fast enough to make a difference. And it does; a lot of the crowd begin to twitch, their minds shifting gears from one of a placid calm to a much more ferocious one, and their movement became faster because of it.
Felipe knew if he didn’t start moving, he was toast. Looking around the club, he can see a speaker stack he could probably scale nearby that would likely take him out of the cone of sound and lessen the effect, to boot.
He tries standing up, noticing two things: his arms and legs feel heavy and the intense nausea is still there, but his heart is pumping faster, and his movements aren't as labored as they felt. That paradoxical limbo between his mind and body, that terrible shearing as they began to separate from one another, utsusemi setting in. His mind and body were caught between highs, and he had enough lucidity to know that was bad news.
He involuntarily pushes and shoved the crowd aside much harder then he really meant too, only driving home how potent Orlock's song was. The droning sounds and filters warping around the beats are hypnotic enough, but the bass sample he was using isn't an 030 sample. No, this is somewhere between an acid bass, and a sub bass; primal in nature, something that tapped into that subconscious part of Man much quicker and with much more effect then the usual acid.
This isn't recreational use, this is mind control, and it was perfected to an art.
Felipe starts to feel his own control over his movements going, swaying over to Orlock’s high no matter how much he fought it. His vision clouds with a thick, red dust, and he felt hot, so hot, its sweltering, his blood is boiling, he thought he could hear screams; he can see his hands balling into fists, punching wildly at the frenzied listeners that got close, he can smell the salt and sand in the air, he can taste copper, he feels sick, his head hurt, can’t stop, want to stop, why can’t i stop, don’t make me do this again--
And then that universe simply snaps off like an exploding cracker.
~~
Orlock sees the door in the back burst open, but it was the beauty of the young musician's breaking point that takes his attention. But the movement from the door is so startlingly different--not slow and wavering, and not even close to that teetering balance beam of death--that he finally focuses on it.
He tears his eyes away from his toy just in time, as a long red object comes spinning at him, barely dodging it as it embeds itself in one of the huge speakers behind him, shorting it. As his hands leave the deck, the music stumbles, then crashes to a halt.
Its a young man with raven-dark hair, the color in the dimmed lights of a wet crow, with flares that matched feathers. He is looking around the floor, at the listeners in their trances, the chaos of the interrupted battle.
"Who are you?" demands Orlock. He's annoyed with the interloper.
The man doesn't answer, instead finding what he's looking for. He beelines for his new toy just as he collapses.
Again, he demands, a king bereft of his kingdom. "Who are you?!"
But his only answer is a single, cold glare from dark sapphire blue eyes.
~~
Just like that, the sand and the heat and the copper taste and the heavy feeling in his arms and legs are gone, but the world is spinning, a sensation that only worsened as he falls to the floor and felt pain shoot through most of his left side. He feels his stomach tighten, and spasm slightly, dry heaving, rolling on to his side. He feels his eyes start stinging, and his cheeks get wet, and he just wanted to go home; but then, he feels a cool hand on his forehead. He can vaguely make out an accented voice shouting, demanding, but his focus is on this tender and gentle hand running through his hair.
He gazes up; he could vaguely make out the shape of a person. Dark hair, burning blue eyes. Simultaneously the warmest and coldest blue he’d ever seen, an intensity that betrayed the gentle hand of the person.
Arpeggio stands, gently carrying Felipe back to the mixing desk, his gaze never leaving Orlock’s. The face is cold and without emotion but the eyes are livid, and with good reason. His colleague, his trusted partner, the most important person to him, is suffering a bad case of Rejection Fallout. And that was to say nothing of some of the bodies violently spasming on the floor, those yelling in pain, those that had already fallen victim to brain death.
Its the way he carries himself, holding the limp musician in his arms almost effortlessly. The way he crosses the room, as if there's nothing impeding his progress, not even once glancing at the dying listeners at his feet.
It infuriates Orlock, though he doesn't know why. Its not until he's at the stage, climbing the steps, past Lizzy's spasming body, and he gently lays him down that he begins to understand. The tenderness of his actions, the way his hands linger on his body.
Coldly, Orlock asks him, "Partner?"
Arpeggio doesn't answer, but glances at the deck. The patch is still loaded.
"Number?"
"You're not going to get it."
"Is that what you think?"
"You want me to play?"
Orlock's mouth twitches into a death smile. His hands hover over the deck.
Arpeggio's voice is glacial. "I'll play."
His hands are much faster than Orlock thought.
Its a subtle bass at first, but its a much more basic rhythm then either of the songs Orlock or Felipe had played, mixed at a higher volume then the breakbeat and subtle drum machine backing it. His fingers tease the cutoff tweaking ever so slightly, enough that it starts to sink in, the crowd falling under his control. The bpm is slower, but even as Orlock fights for control, his basslines are drowned out by Apreggio’s, which in it’s raw simplicity seep into every Locked mind with the ease of some of the most potent Summer of Loves.
The eyes change slightly in the fury, as Orlock watches him, forgetting the crowd. They go from almost god-like judgement into a more focused anger, tinged with disdain. Its enough to make him slip. He is stunned into silence when almost the entire crowd turns around, facing him, just as the breakdown hit, and all that is left was the bassline and a very quiet synth string, a second, deeper bassline building beneath it.
That’s when Arpeggio’s control becomes absolute. And its so effortless that deep down, Orlock feels a sting of awe and envy. The TC feels the rising intensity in his own bones, as if falling under his own own spell, but Apreggio allowed it, repurposing those ugly feelings as he slowly drives the cutoff into overdrive, the crowd slowly advancing on Orlock as it did, until the leading bassline turns into a high pitched scream, barely audible anymore--barely even melodic--driving the crowd into an absolute frenzy as they rush the stage, against it, until a rush of snares brought the breakbeat back, and all that rage, all that anger poured forth, Arpeggio not only wildly altering the cutoff of the bassline, driving it between higher notes and lower notes, but actively bending the pitch, accenting the warping nature of the basslines.
This continues for what felt like eternity until some slight sobriety comes back into the TC's head, breaking through the sea of red, heat, and dust that clouded his vision, but he doesn't bring it down.
Arpeggio watches coldly, his fingers doing all the work as he changes the momentum. He doesn't even need to look at what he's doing as the crowd surges at the stage, hungrily grabbing for them. But its Lizzy that makes it to Orlock first, and she pounces onto him like a jaguar. Her hands are like talons at she rips at him, her fingers digging in deep to his flesh, and blood begins to bloom over his dead white skin. He makes a wordless cry for help, but one of the other former 8862 members stumbles up, and starts in too, stomping and kicking at both of them. Hands reach for him and begin to grab and tear at him, the coat, his arms and legs.
She leans down and sinks her teeth onto his cheek, biting hard and tearing off a chunk, before spitting it out and going for his neck. His cries gurgle and his frantic thrashing slowly starts to fade. Other listeners start tearing and pulling, and there's a wet noise as one arm is wrenched from the socket.
The kit falls over and parts of it go out. The crowd clambers and steps over and onto it in their frenzy to get to their victims.
Arpeggio grabs Felipe and they stagger to the back as more of the listeners storm the stage. Right now they're focusing on Orlock, or rather what's rapidly becoming what's left of him, but they also start to turn on Lizzy, and from her manic cries, its not as pretty.
The doors of the easy bust in and the SWAT team comes in. Both members of 42 roll back off the stage and Arpeggio pushes Felipe beneath it as the team and the crowd rush at each other. They crawl along the side then make a break for the doors where a Trancer has set up for pacification. Without a word, Arpeggio commandeers it and begins to play, and Felipe follows afterward, clumsily but purposefully. A piano riff they know works wonders cuts through the air, followed by the sounds of synthesized thunder, and a calming Trancer sample. They're playing out of order of the usual protocol but the effect is magical. It doesn't take them more than maybe a minute or two to get the crowd down from their maenad fury.
As they bring the crowd down, Corvin watches from behind, and when the Loss has taken over, many of the crowd simply drop. The energy and unlike the acid lines brought now out of their systems, their bodies follow their minds, utsusemi.
The sergeant sighs and Felipe's knees finally buckle as he drops. Arpeggio catches him, and that's when his dead calm face opens into shaking unease. He's given a blanket but Felipe is too drained to put it on. In fact, as Arpeggio covers his shoulders, the young man collapses against him. At first the raven-haired man is alarmed but he can see the deepness of his partner's unconsciousness that he knows what it really is.
Part of him is thankful. Because he knows most of this night may be evaporating away as he sleeps.
Corvin insists he get to a hospital or at least the Corps district building infirmary, but Arpeggio only fixes him with that cold and unemotional stare and says he'll take him to a hotel room. The sergeant doesn't argue, but he isn't exactly happy with the news.
As Arpeggio carried his partner to the car and loaded him in, he could feel the weight of Felipe's body against him. To him, he felt it was twice as heavy, with the guilt of his actions that night.
~~
Felipe was under for 2 more days, and Corvin came to visit the second night. Its been raining the whole day, and the rain pelts the windows in the cold autumn day. As the young man sleeps, Arpeggio offers him a bottle of water and closes the door to the bedroom before Corvin finally speaks.
"How is he?"
"Still under."
"Is it…?"
Arpeggio shakes his head. "No. Its…how Fel deals with stress. He sleeps it off."
"That's not sleep. That's a coma."
"Exactly." Its the finality of his voice that makes the sergeant remember why he's there.
"Did you sign off the report?"
Arpeggio stands and brings him a folder, and as the sergeant flips through to check signatures, he finally stops on the crime scene photos. What was left of Orlock's body when his crowd and Lizzy turned on him was barely more than a torn up, limbless torso. Even the eyes were missing, and no one wanted to stay in the easy long enough to go looking. Lizzy wasn't much better, though she still had most of her limbs. They were the only riot scratch casualties that night, since the one member of 8862 that had died before the riot didn't count. Not that there was much of him either, from the stampede the assaulted the stage before the SWAT team had arrived.
Arpeggio senses the sergeant's unease and sighs. "It had to be done."
He's silent for awhile, then, he opens the file and flicks it across the table, scattering some of the photos. "That? That had to be done? Is this how you national Trancers do business?"
The barely pent up anger in his voice isn't surprising to the raven-haired man. He calmly looks at him, disregarding the photos. he didn't need to see them. He was there.
"That is what had to be done to get results."
"Do you realize what you did?"
He cuts the sergeant off. "I indirectly had other people murder 2 criminals in cold blood."
The older man stares at him.
Arpeggio stands and collects the file. "Yes. I understand what I had to do. And yes, I've done it before. It was necessary. Men like Orlock live only for harming people with music. And as a member of the Music Corps, its my responsibility to keep them from harming anyone else. By any means possible."
"You had innocent people murder." Corvin can barely articulate the injustice of it,
"Sergeant," Arpeggio starts, his voice no longer emotionless, but now coaxing and gentler. "The people who did it. How are they? Are they still in Lock?"
"That's beside the point--"
"Are they…still in Lock?"
The sergeant sighs. "Yes. Including what was left of 8862."
Arpeggio's eyes are now sincere. "I know what you're thinking, sergeant. I understand. And yes, I don't feel good about what I had to do. You think its taking advantage of people who cannot act for themselves, and forcing them to commit acts they normally wouldn't do if they had their mental capacities in full. These are people forced to kill without them knowing. And I understand your anger. Its heinous."
The sergeant listens and when Arpeggio pauses he exhales. "And?"
Arpeggio is quiet a long time. Then, "There is no 'and', sergeant. What's done is done."
The sergeant takes the file and gets up to leave. Before he exits, he growls, "You're just as much as a monster as he was."
Arpeggio smiles mirthlessly. "You're absolutely right, sergeant. And that's why Felipe is still alive."
When the door shuts, he sighs heavily. That's when he hears another door open softly. He turns to see Felipe standing in the doorway of the bedroom. His eyes are dulled, and he has circles under his eyes. But he looks more concerned than sleepy.
"Pege?"
He goes to hold him, and his partner's body leans heavily on him.
"Did we get him?"
"Yes."
"He's…not going to do it every again?"
"…Of course not."
The rain on the windows abates a little, but the wind is howling, rhythmically, against the sides of the building.
--Dio (10/31/14)
E.Q. belongs to me.