Embedded Files
Sorry its late everyone. I had to get the story smoothed out as best I could, so here's the annual E.Q. Halloween Special. For the first time, its a Side A story, so we get a lil Quentin too. XD Inspired by the Michael Hoenig & Manuel Göttsching song, of the same title: Early Water. Enjoy!
~~~
"I wouldn't say its an urban legend, if it has good eyewitnesses," Pollex said, leaning back in his chair. He raised an eyebrow at his open chat screen at Django. "If, that is, you have some."
"Eyewitnesses? Hell, old friend, I've been there." The older man, taking off his trademarked fedora, ran a hand through his sandy colored hair. Today's outfit was a navy colored button up shirt with grey pinstripes, and navy colored slacks. The usual contrast from Pollex's usual all-white attire, with light accents of lavender.
The man in white sat up slowly, a look of puzzled concern on his face. "You've...been there? Are you mad? You don't know what else could have happened!"
"I'm not the sort of man who sends his men into unknown territory, you know that." Django sighed and leaned back in his chair, a hand across his eyes. "In any case...the rumors are true. That place...is.... Its quite dangerous if word got out more."
"Indeed. The young and adventurous often seek out higher highs than they're prepared for. I've already got the Suits and Hoover working the acid wave that's hitting recently, but no bites there."
"You think they're related?"
"I don't believe so. From your description, there isn't even the inkling of music. Is there?"
He frowned in recollection. "Something's going on there. Definitely infrasound first, because you're getting nausea in the first part of the place. But if there was music...I don't rightly recall it. I'm sure there was. I can't think of anything logical that would cause me to see my late wives so vividly."
Pollex frowned harder. "You saw your wives..??"
Django sat up and gave him a long pained look. His eyes were the color of watered down aquamarines.
"I don't believe in ghosts."
"Nor I."
"But I did see them, Pollex. I.... I held Mary in my arms....I could hear Lora's voice. This was...so real on every level, Pollex. If they weren't ghosts, they were one hell of an illusion. One hell of one. I'm thankful I had enough of my senses to take off and leave. Because if you were me....you wouldn't have believed they'd been dead for over 15 years."
~~
Bass was on the floor of the music room, laid out on his back, smoking as he listened to Quentin and Treble play on some synths he'd whipped up on a building lark. He'd had the pieces lying around and wanted to see how much of a machine he could get out of them. Though the pair had spent most of their time mildly bickering over style choices and instruments, it'd been quite a pleasant, Ocotber afternoon. Treble was dressed lightly, jeans, blue converses, a light blue shirt and dark blue jacket. Bass stared at the ceiling lazily, wearing black denim jeans, orange high top converses with yellow laces (his candycorns, as he called them), and a long sleeved black shirt with red sleeves, sliced at the shoulder to expose them. Something halfway between summer wear and fall wear, but Bass was a Cali boy and he needed the transitional wear more than most. Quentin had similar colors in his outfit; a red and white hoodie with black sleeves, brown trousers and a pair of red sneakers, matching the color of his hair.
"You know," he trailed off as he took a drag. Treble and Quentin glanced over from their bickering. "You guys sound like a married couple."
Quentin went pink nearly immediately, but Treble rewarded him with a withering look and pushed his glasses up his nose.
"Oh please," scoffed Treble as he unplugged the synth to test another piece of machinery. "I'd sooner swallow my tongue."
Quentin gave him a matching look. "Gee, love you too, darling."
Bass laughed. "We used to snip like that when we first started dating."
"As if you actually remember that time period," Treble said coolly. Had anyone else mentioned Bass' memory loss--particularly that part of his life--Bass would have clocked him clear across the room. But from Treble, he only gave him another chuckle and drag from the cigarette, blowing a thin trail of smoke. Fade came in, plainly dressed because she had been working on Bass' side car to his motorcycle, wearing black tights beneath a long sleeved gray t-shirt dress that ended at her mid thigh, and white sneakers. It still had her usual touches, in that the cuffs and bottom hem had a trim of faded cream lace, and her neck ribbons were of a silken, silvery gray. She also had a kind of frilly, laced maid headband on, like a french maid, only it was adorned with a single black bat.
Bass gave her a lazy wave. "Ey, Babydoll. How goes my second baby?"
Her hands signed, and Treble had to look up because Bass was one of the few people he knew who didn't understand a lot of sign language. Your springs need replacing soon, but the oil is topped off. He repeated her verbally and Bass nodded.
"Yeah, sounds about right. How 'bout my Lady?"
He meant his kneeling racer, the RS80 Elegant Lady, a non-street legal kneeling bike with a side attachment made for sidecarcross or sidehacking. The 2 of them had been planning on installing lights for night riding, and refitting the sidecar portion to be a little more safer for riders other than Treble. It was a personal pet project ever since Bass scored half the engine and the frame from a junker months ago. To Bass, it was his ultimate plaything, besides the frankensynths he was wont to making on whims. To everyone else, it was a deathtrap to everyone but Treble and Bass.
We're going to need to hack the frame to fit the components for the lights. The brakes need a ton of work.
"Lights don't fit, brakes need work," translated Treble.
"I'll do a frame hack when I can get my hands on the fiberglass and materials."
She shrugged but part of her was excited for the project. She liked the challenge.
"You ever gonna race that monstrocity?" asked Quentin.
"Fuck yeah. I've been dreaming of a EL for ages to drive."
Balance entered the room, a little more pensive than usual.
Fade and Treble waved, but Quentin questioningly looked at her. She was dressed lighter for the season, with a black bandeaux style top that showed off her middrift, brown shorts and a short sleeved brown canvas top with faux fur trim. That was the English part of her showing. "What's the matter, Bal?"
She was chewing her thumbnail in thought then looked up at them. "Mm. Dunno. Heard some weirdo stories, trying to decide if they're true."
"What kinda stories?" asked Bass, sitting up to put the butt of his cigarette out.
"Ghost stories."
Treble raised an eyebrow. "Didn't think you were the type."
"I was just messing around with some guys in the painter's department, getting stuff for the next few easies and directions and stuff." The painter department in question were Pollex's street artists and graffiti artists at the ready to tag places in the city to tell people where the next easy he was hosting was. It took a practiced hand to make the seeming vandalized art convey messages like locations and times and musicians, and it took a practiced eye to decipher them. Part of the department was usually made of artists and cryptographers. "Bass likes scary stories," Quentin said, pointing a thumb at him.
Bass shrugged. "I like hearing them...been in maybe one or 2 in my life."
Quentin gave him an incredulous look. He never knew that; just that Bass liked marathoning scary movies on a whim, though mostly in October.
Treble had to hide a tiny smile. He remembers one of those.
What was it about? signed Fade.
"They say its a building where you can see the dead in."
The 4 of them looked at her with varying degrees of belief. She looked at them and shook her hands at them. "I don't really believe in that stuff! I just heard about it. One of those, I heard from my friend's sister aunt's nephew's boss kinda thing."
Treble rolled his eyes. "Well, then why do you look so concerned, if you don't believe in that."
"Well, I wouldn'tve normally. But....well, I think I heard Cash and Moebius also talking about it when I went to see the boss. Like, I didn't think they knew I was there until I came around the corner. I mean, Cash, I dunno, but you know Mo. They're pretty clinical and stuff. Not superstitious. But they were talking about why people might see the dead. I dunno. I don't understand that psych stuff, they're hella advanced."
"They were talking about it?" asked Treble, seriously.
"Apparently the boss had a friend who went through it. I mean that could be anyone....but...I dunno. I mean if he was talking to Mo about it, maybe its serious?"
There was a small silence, then Bass clapped a hand on her shoulder. He smiled gently.
"Let's go ghost hunting, shall we?"
~~
By dividing and conquering, the 5 spread out to each of their respective branches, hitting the streets, the internet, and other members of the Gemini Network. Bass easily gained information while Treble stuck to researching with Fade online. Quentin tried Mo.
Moebius was having tea when he entered but the psychologist was rather evasive to him. "C'mon, at least throw me something," he said.
Moebius had a face of mild dismissal. "Confidentiality."
Quentin tried his little pout.
"You're cute, Seek, but I'm afraid I can't do anything for you." Sipping tea, the young psychologist then sighed. "You didn't hear it from me."
Quentin nodded.
"Django."
He was mulling that over when they met back up a few hours later.
Treble and Fade were able to pinpoint a location somewhat: based on the eyewitness reports they were lucky it was within the city. Moreover, the recent rumors about it were relatively new, perhaps only starting in the last year or so. According to Bass' sources, it was an obscure test of courage, at least now that it was beginning to gain traction. Quentin waited until everyone had gone and simply reported back what he heard from Mo.
"Django."
Bass' and Treble's eyes sparked in sudden interest.
"He knows?"
"He's been. At least I think that's what Mo meant. She wasn't exactly the most enlightening, since it was confidential between her and I presume Di--er, Pollex." He was still getting used to the boss' "real" name these days.
Bass glanced at his partner. "Maybe we should check it out. I mean...if the old man's ok, I mean."
"I'm sure he is. I'd have heard something, or even Quentin," Balance said.
Bass was looking at Treble now. "Well? Whatcha think, Treb?"
Treble was quiet a long while, his deep blue eyes in calm, but deep, thought.
"Let's go check it out. Just in case."
~~
It was part of the abandoned parts of Staten Island, parts of the city that hadn't been rebuilt in decades, looking like a place most filmmakers go to film their post-apocalypse short films. In one of the condemned areas of a neighborhood there was a duplex that matched the descriptions. It had once been teal colored, but the paint was faded and peeling. Many of the windows and doors were boarded up, and covered in graffiti. Most of it was the usual gang tags, but a few were more cryptic. Crude spray painted tombstones and doors across the walls and boarded windows.
What do you
A pair of painted eyes replaced the word "see".
Who are you looking for
A few arrows painted on the front, dead lawn and sidewalk, all lead to the front door. The boards had been pried off, and were leaning against it, so it wasn't hard to get inside.
Bass, Treble and Quentin all were wearing the back units, but opted instead for the visor headsets rather than the helmets. Treble wanted a wider field of vision than the helmets would afford, and forwent the extra armor for the ability to see clearly. Balance was armed with a handgun (as were Quentin and Treble), but Fade only brought her tablet, though in her backpack was a wireless harddrive set that could continually "talk" to the boys' units. It wasn't ideal, but Treble reasoned that perhaps it was merely rumor that was more dangerous than anything factual.
"You don't believe we'll see dead people in there?" asked Balance, a little unsure.
"I don't believe we'll see ghosts," Treble replied, as they inspected the outside.
"A dead bum on the other hand..." Bass said, probably a bit too blithely than he should have.
"That's not funny!" Balance and Fade said/signed at the same time, and Quentin was also a part of that chorus.
Bass gave them a silly look but Treble nudged him sharply and rolled his eyes.
They made note of the exterior, which didn't seem to have been disturbed or lived in for years. Quentin gingerly inspected the boarded windows with a light, expecting something to be looking at him.
Fade was tracking anything she could with her tablet, moving towards the front with Balance as the boys inspected the grounds slowly.
"Don't think anyone's been here except thrill seekers," Bass commented as he toed aside an empty beer bottle.
"I don't understand," Treble said quietly. It made Quentin and Bass pause to look at him.
"What?" asked the redhead.
"A test of courage like that....like.... I don't understand why anyone would want to do something dangerous just for a thrill."
Quentin considered that, but Bass looked up at the house thoughtfully. "Its what make some people feel alive I guess," the blonde said. He put his thumbs in his pockets and cocked his head. "Like easies....or riding roller coasters, or even doing drugs.... Some people just can't get the juice outta life till they squeeze the really dangerous stuff, you know?"
Treble was quiet a long time. Then, "I know.... But sometimes I wonder...maybe they do that because they're emptier of the things that would normally make them feel alive."
Quentin watched them both. There were times he could sit and listen to Treble and Bass talk and feel like they shut out the rest of the world while they did. Sometimes it was because they were so into something they just plumb forgot about everyone else.
Times like this, he felt invisible because he knew they were trying to do something on a deeper level. Get into each other's heads. It wasn't as uncomfortable as it used to be, he admitted.
Before he could add to it, they heard the sound of wood falling down. Immediately, Treble and Quentin took point back to the front of the house as Bass followed up.
Then something took his attention. He slowed as the 2 disappeared around the corner. An unshakable feeling in the pit of his stomach, blossoming. He looked around for the source, but didn't see anything immediate. Still it was a gut feeling, like a slow wave of nausea building. He'd felt it once or twice before, but this was more subtle than he was used to.
"The fuck....?" Instead of following his partner and Quentin, he activated his visor and started a scanning program.
Treble and Quentin came to the front door where the boards had been moved aside, some had slipped to the ground with a clatter, which is what the boys heard earlier. There were no signs of the girls.
"Shit, you think they went in??" Quentin asked.
Treble inspected the entrance, where wood, debris, and even broken furniture had been blocking the foyer inside. He could see the telltale prints of sneakers on the thick layer of dust on the debris.
"Unfortunately, most certainly."
~~
Balance, while the boys had been in the back, peeked into the front door, scanning for anything. She turned on her flashlight and peered into the dusty darkness.
Fade was behind her, peering in with apprehension.
"I don't see much," she said, as she straightened up and started to move some of the wood blocking the way.
Fade caught her elbow and shook her head, pointing towards the back. Let's wait for them, she seemed to say with her yellow green eyes. They looked a little scared.
"I just wanna look in the entrance." She managed to make a space for her to enter the foyer a bit of the way. Even with the sun trying to push its way in, it was still unimaginably dim. She climbed over a broken chest of drawers and part of a dining room chair set as she followed the front door hall. She was a yard or so in when she pointed her flashlight down the hall and gasped.
The hallway walls and floor and ceiling were covered in writing. It wasn't anything vulgar, obscene or even horrifying. They had writing, long passages from something she'd longed to read with her own eyes. Every so often was a signature she'd only seen in blurry internet photographs when she'd gone hunting for them.
Trancer 9
Like handwritten scripture on the walls of the duplex were the very passages written in a book rumored to have been lost in the fabled City of Lyrics. The answers to all her questions for the future of music, the very weapon the rebel networks needed to tear down the Music Corps. Here, on these walls, like a siren song. Abandoning Fade, she quickly began to follow the lyrics, the words and passages further into the house.
Fade, hearing Balance move away from her, began to panic. She pounded and smacked at the boards, trying to call her back, but her friend was already moving away, as if in a trance. Nausea and a small headache had started to build in her, and she quickly turned, thinking she would get the boys to come back. On the other hand, there was no telling if they were alone in the house. What if something or someone came for her?
Without another thought, Fade quickly scrambled after Balance, kicking over and off the boards and dilapidated furniture to follow her, despite her feelings of sick and dread. Her own small flashlight barely gave her much light to see, so she used her tablet as a light as she made her way into the hall, and then into what looked to be a living area. The walls were full of graffiti, holes from vandals or just chipping and peeling paint and wallpaper. There wasn't a sign of Balance in this room.
She was about to head back out to get help when she heard a thump in the next room, probably a hallway or even the kitchen. She froze, straining her ears, but heard nothing more than her heartbeat, and the silence making the barest of hums, like a slow fan turning.
Not hearing anything else, she cautiously made her way to the hall and looked towards the kitchen. Nothing.
The hall to what she assumed were bedrooms were also dark and empty. How far did Balance run off to?
She turned to the hallway and saw someone standing in it. She opened her mouth in a silent scream, but the figure only stood and watched her. With the sun streaming in behind them, it was hard to make them out. Her body was completely frozen in fear until the figure began to move towards her. When it was close enough, she could see, amid the backlighting and the haze of dust, it was Treble.
Tearfully she threw herself into his arms, where she sobbed silently, trying to calm down enough to tell him what happened. His arms closed around her and she felt one of his hands run through her hair softly. As she caught her breath, she looked up and was about to sign to him what had happened when she froze again, this time in shock.
It wasn't Treble anymore.
It was Angelo.
~~
Bass came around the corner as Treble was moving aside larger pieces of debris with Quentin hurridly. "Guys, you gotta hear this." He was attempting to link what he was tracking to them when he finally noticed what they were doing. "Whoa. What happened?"
"The girls went inside by themselves," Quentin said, his voice tinged with a little panic.
Bass quickly went to the open doorway and peered in. "Jesus. Why??"
"I have no clue why they would go in by themselves." Treble unholstered his gun and was about to go in when Bass caught his arm.
"Maybe its this." He pointed to his visor, so he nodded once and activated his, and Quentin did the same. Bass shared his headphone input he was receiving. It was a low hum, and by the look of their HUD sensors, it was unmistakably infrasound. "Something just started the infra broadcast. I can't pinpoint all the speakers, but I know they're in there. Maybe they went in to check it out." Treble glanced at his open texting windows and they were blank. "If Fade had noticed them, she'd have told us."
Bass chewed his bottom lip, and Quentin let out a frustrated exhalation.
"Let's not waste time, let's go get them and get them back out." Treble led them in, and looked around. The hallway, and kitchen areas were empty. Bass took note of the increasing level of infrasound on his visor, but swept the area with his eyes.
"Split up?" asked Quentin.
"Shit, doncha watch horror movies?" snapped Bass.
Treble was moving down to a hall and found a bedroom, where he found Fade collapsed. Quickly he was gently checking her for injury before moving her too much. The blonde and redhead were right next behind.
"Is she all right?" asked the younger Trancer as Treble gently pulled her into his lap as he checked her.
"No, she has a left too," quipped Bass, though his tone wasn't at all joking.
Quentin, irritated, snapped, "Damn it, Bass, now's not the time!"
Treble shushed them both, but his own unease and irritation was growing as well; perhaps the infrasound was beginning to take its toll. "She's passed out, but I think she's ok."
Instead of coming to, as Treble gently shook her to wake her, she only wordlessly mouthed something over and over.
"What's she..." asked Bass, uneasy.
Treble paused, watching her, and then, "....I think...its....'Angelo'."
Bass started at him as he pushed past Quentin, to kneel at his side. "Are you sure?"
"I know how to read lips. I'm positive now."
The blonde watched her as her half opened, yellow green eyes blankly stared at something far away. It did seem like she was mouthing those syllables.
"Why's she doing that? He's...." Bass shook her her a little more forcefully. "Hey. Fade. Come on, babygirl, wake up."
Unresponsive, she only lay limply in Treble's arms. Bass exhaled, and turned to Quentin. "Hey Quent, can you--"
The redhead wasn't anywhere to be seen.
~~
Quentin heard someone calling his name, so he turned to look down the hall as Treble and Bass tried to rouse the poor collapsed girl. Finding no one in the hall, he went towards the kitchen, following the sound towards the foyer as it led him towards the stairs to the second level. At the top of the hall was a figure.
"The fuck are you?" he asked, drawing his gun. The figure didn't speak, only moving towards the rooms upstairs, and against his better judgement, Quentin ascended the stairs to follow it. It wasn't until he followed it to a bedroom and it stopped that he got a better look at it in the dim light coming from the single unboarded window in the staircase hall.
They were wearing a Corps suit, with a blue armband with Trancer 0004. Rust red hair. Deep green eyes. Small creases near his mouth and eyes, portraying graceful age. Quentin nearly dropped his gun.
".....Father....?"
HIs father only gave him a small smile. "My little suzerain...."
Quentin shook, as his hands slowly pulled the headphone visor off his face. "You're...you're not dead....what are you doing here?!"
~~
Bass lifted Fade and Treble followed him back out, as the sun was beginning its climb down the sky. They had a few hours left before sunset, but it wasn't prudent to push their luck. Not at this stage.
He leaned her against the house in the backyard, and looked up at Treble. "I don't wanna leave her here by herself."
"I'll go back in for them," Treble said as he checked the gun and activated his visor again.
"I don't want you to go in by yourself either."
"We don't have a choice. I don't want her by herself while we're inside. That may be what they want. Whoever they are."
He exhaled. "I know but...."
Treble reached over and gave his hand a squeeze. "I'll be careful." He started back around the house, and Bass decided to make himself useful while standing watch. He linked up with Fade's tablet and the harddrive, trying to sort out the data he was finding, trying to find a source. Damned if he wasn't going to try finding the source of the mystery.
Treble reentered the house and listened. He could almost hear that droning, the infrasound that was making them all irritable and sick. Still, that couldn't be all that was happening. He was sure he heard voices; Quentin? Balance? Someone else? On a hunch, he started up the stairs when he heard Quentin talking to someone. He paused, straining his ears, but couldn't hear anyone else.
Was he talking to himself? He frowned. Infrasound doesn't usually make people talk to themselves. It merely made them sick, anxious. Slowly, as silently as he could, he climbed each stair with deliberate slowness. He couldn't hear the conversation yet but it sounded one-sided.
"N...no.... I...I can't. I can't...go back...."
Treble reached the landing, then he heard another sound, a loud thump as if someone had fallen onto the floor. Still, Quentin continued to speak.
It obviously wasn't him.
"I.... I want to. I want to so bad....but I'll be...." There was a pause, as if someone was talking to him, and yet the TC still couldn't hear them. Was it possible they were signing to him?
The thump had come from another room, and the raven-haired man made the decision to check that first; Quentin was obviously conscious. Maybe in danger, but not so far. It was possible that what Treble heard was Balance, and she could need the help more than he. He found an open bathroom where a light was coming from, floor level, and quickly peeked in.
Balance was on the ground, her flashlight on the floor. He checked the hall, listened for Quentin, then quickly checked on her. She was breathing, didn't seem to have hurt herself badly, and seemed to also be in the same, half-lidded trance as Fade had been. He was about to pick her up when he heard the barest sounds of music. He thought it was being patched from Bass, but it wasn't, through that channel. He removed one headphone to get a better bead on it.
That's when he heard the sound of Quentin hitting the ground in the next room.
~~
Quentin's hands were trembling uncontrollably. HIs father was supposed to be in Paris. Why or how was he here? Of all places, the middle of nowhere, in a supposedly haunted house?
And his father wasn't even dead. As far as he knew, his father was a live and well.
"Father, what are you doing here?!" he asked, hoarsely.
"I've come to take you home." His father sat on a dusty table and gave him a gentle look.
The redhead fumbled for words. "Go back...home? I can't go back! I'm....Father, I've....I've defected!" The magnitude of the word slams into him hard, saying it out loud makes the last few months now startlingly real. After the Sound Tower, he was effectively a dead man. His father of all people should know that.
"Oh son....that won't matter. Come back home. I'll take care of everything for you. You'll never have to worry again."
"N...no.... I...I can't. I can't...go back...." He shook his head, trying to clear it, but it only became more muddy and foggy. As small tinny in his ears began, as if there was the sound of a song far, far away, on a radio, barely picking up the signal.
"Of course you can, suzerain. I'll make sure of that."
"I.... I want to. I want to so bad....but I'll be...."
"Nothing is going to happen to you. I promise. You'll never have to worry about a single thing anymore."
There was a throbbing ache in Quentin's chest. The thought of going back to the way things were before the tower. The freedom to play music again, the way he was trained. The release of all the sleepless nights, never knowing when the Corps would catch up.
If...if his father could manage it....
If he could go back to the way things used to be....
His ears were ringing, filling with the deep sounds of music, and his longing was so painful and powerful, he barely registered it.
Where...is that music....coming from....?
Quentin dropped to his knees, then to his side, slipping away into the eternal moment of an endless possibility.
~~
Treble could hear it plainly. It was a gentle ocean of music, so soft he could barely hear it. He removed his headphones to get a better listen, slowly getting to his feet.
He knew it as soon as he could clearly hear it.
Ambient.
Dealers on the street called it Ambi for short, an offshoot of 303, or Acid. Insidious stuff, one doesn't understand what's quite happening until its too late. Once the listener drops into Loss--the feeling nearly all musicians and listeners alike feel when listening to music, where the world can be shut out, and the mind opens into mild suggestion and pacification--the mind picks up and takes over, often inducing visions or hallucinations in the listener. Acid often delivers highs that the mind quickly finds addictive, causing the abuser to constantly feed their addiction by listening constantly to it, forgoing all necessary functions of life until brain death.
Ambi on the other hand is mostly unpredictable, causing hallucinations and visions that one can't tell if they're real or not. Instead of cutting off the world like 303 might, Ambi augments it, adding to the world the listener still occupies, so that they can't separate illusion from reality. While it normally lacks the addictive nature of Acid, Ambi still claims its victims every year through manipulation and misuse. There was a reason it was banned and outlawed, with many Trancers in the Corps being unauthorized to even sample or use it without special granted access.
Somehow, amid the infrasound jacking, someone had inserted Ambi into the broadcast. That was why Quentin had been talking to himself, or Balance had run off, or Fade was lapsed into her litany of her dead fiancee's name.
Treble got to his feet and made his way to the hallway to the stairs. He had to tell Bass. If they could interrupt the jacking, they could conceivably break the spell over the house, and maybe find the culprit. He paused at the landing, as the music was now audible enough for him to catch it without having to strain his ears. With the layer of infrasound, it made for an uncomfortable feeling of nausea and anxiety amid his determination. Putting a hand to his face and shutting his eyes, he tried to clear his head.
Too late, a voice in his head scolded, You idiot! Put your headphones back on! You're falling in!
That's when he felt arms around himself, warm and comforting. His instincts, still sharp amid the dulling senses, made him tear himself away and reached for his gun reflexively.
Bass was behind him, his eyes puzzled. Treble let out a sigh of relief.
"Damn it, Bass. You scared the hell out of me." He shook his head, and reached for his headphones he dropped. "Bass, we need to get Quent and Balance out. This place is being pumped full of Ambi."
Instead of saying anything, Bass reached for Treble and, with firm force, pushed him to the wall, pinning him. In shock, his partner looked at him incredulously.
"The hell are you doing?!" he cried before his partner leaned in and started to lap hungrily at his neck. In spite of the situation, the raven-haired TC let out a thin groan before trying to escape. "Nnn...B-Bass, stop...."
But Bass only continued, his hands groping around but still keeping his partner against the wall as he chained kisses from his neck to his ear, then to his mouth where he deepened the kiss. His tongue darted against Treble's, hot and forceful. He moaned, trying to protest, but they were drowned out by his partner's lust as they slid to the floor.
Counterpoint to his partner's assault, the music continued as Treble struggled both to throw him off, but also struggling to not fall under that same spell. He groaned as Bass ground himself against them, trapping Treble as he writhed and tried to rise off the ground.
"Stop...! Bass! Stop...! Its the...its the music! Try to....try to fight it!"
He was quickly losing his battle as he found himself returning the kisses and lustful moaning, and just before he became overwhelmed, he had a sinking, terrible thought:
This...this isn't Bass.... This...this is me.... I'm....I'm....
He let out one more whimper before shutting his eyes and allowing it to take him over.
I'M the one who's under the music.
~~
Bass, after a few minutes, found the source of the infrasound, and tried to isolate the channel. He frowned as he saw more layers to the audio data flow than he expected. There was more than the base noise he could feel and hear. He spent some time tuning it, unpacking it until he found an audio channel and he isolated it further and amplified it.
He immediately regretted it. He knew the type of music within seconds, and he quickly got to his feet. He made an aching decision and quickly left Fade in the corner and entered the house. He pulled his own headphones off to hear better, and just above that barely imperceptible hum, he could hear it. Ambient, and it was in the house. It wasn't obvious until he reached the stairs and heard a soft groaning.
He quickly climbed the stairs and found Treble, on his side in the hallway, trembling, his sapphire colored eyes half open and glazed over, his alabaster skin flushed pink. He knelt down and touched his partner's shoulder, and he groaned lustfully, softly.
He shut his eyes briefly, calmly listening, then he slid his headphones on, and using Fade's tablet, started to trace the signal. Outside it was hard to get a bead on it, but inside was a different story. Almost immediately, the visor began to pick up all the speaker sensors, and he followed them to the back bedroom of the duplex, where it was shut and boarded up. The boards looked newer, the nails were still slightly shiny, so he found a sturdy chair and began breaking the door down. It took awhile, but he gained entry into the abandoned room. A single computer machine was in the back, near the back window, and it was on. He checked the screen, where a program was running. Speaker setups were shown to be in every corner of the room. An infrared sensor was at the entrance of the downstairs foyer, and when tripped, would activate the entire system for just about 48 hours, before shutting down into sleep mode for the next trigger.
Bass reached over and yanked as many cords as he could out from the back of the computer. He checked an impulse to pick up the devil machine and throw it out the window or to the floor. They would need to investigate it further, of course. The sounds gone, it was like a weight immediately listed off his shoulders. He sighed in relief, and leaned against the wall as his thoughts started to collect like rain in a dish left outside in a storm.
After a few minutes, he picked up the keyboard and slammed it repeatedly against the floor, trying to rid himself the the anger he was now feeling. The betrayal of music. The mishandling of the art. The wretched feeling of having someone be taken advantage of.
Bass clenched his fists in anger. How dare they. How DARE they do this to his friends. To HIS Treble.
He heard someone come in, but he didn't turn around. He was too angry.
He felt Treble wrap his arms around him. The anger began to evaporate like dew off the grass in the morning.
"Let's go home," Treble said quietly.
~~
"I....I didn't know Ambi could do that," Balance said as they debriefed with Pollex, Moebius, and Django on a video call. Irate at their impromptu investigation, Pollex had to forgive them quickly when they were able to bring back the machine for analysis. He began to regret giving the EQ unit the autonomy he had, though he couldn't argue with the results. And in any case, it seemed like Django was additionally grateful.
Moebius, dressed in a lazy japanese gakuen style uniform, nodded. The psychologist conveniently left out her little lead she gave to Quentin, and no one brought it up, thankfully. "Ambient's pretty potent stuff in the right Trancer hands. It makes some pretty convincing hallucinations. Anyone with any sense of Loss is at its mercy, and when it gets combined with some 303 elements, you've got some serious recipes for disaster. More so with the layer of infrasound."
"That was part of why it was so diabolical," Bass replied. "The infra layer was pretty strong. It masked the audio layers until I was able to rip and isolate. That shit ain't kids play; that's some next level mind control shit with the right mix."
"If we get a hit on the machine, we'll let you know," Pollex said to Django whom tipped his hat to them.
"I'm grateful to you guys," he said. "Still....don't make it a habit."
"They won't," Pollex said, icily, giving them a look. The 5 responded with varying degrees of shame, from Balance and Quentin with the most, and amusingly Bass with the least. He ended the call and waved them off. "You're dismissed....but don't let me catch you doing that kind of stunt again."
They filed out of his room as Mo followed them out. They were on their way back to one of the music practice rooms when Mo piped up.
"Actually...if you don't mind me asking....what DID you guys see when you were under Ambi?"
Treble simply flushed and glanced to the side as they sat down around the various instruments, himself and Fade at a piano bench, Quentin and Balance on chairs by the guitar rack and Bass, predictably, on the floor, already lighting up.
Fade hesitantly signed, I....I saw my late fiancee.
Mo gave her a look of sympathy and nodded. "I'm sorry, sweetie."
It looked like Treble at first though. She flushed a bit and looked at him, and he gave her a questioning look back.
"Hmm. Par for course, I hear. They can make hallucinations change, depending on mindset."
Balance spoke up. "I...I saw the Book of Trancer 9." Quentin and Fade looked confused. "Its...something I've been looking for....it was on all the walls, like writing and stuff...." She cast her eyes away, embarrassed. "Never mind...I guess its hard to explain."
"You didn't see anyone deceased?" asked Moebius, interested.
"No. I wonder why."
"I didn't either..." Quentin said softly. He was looking at his hands. "I saw my father. But he's alive. And he told me...he wanted me to come back to the Corps."
Treble considered that; it made sense for his responses he remembered.
"That's interesting. Only one person saw the dead."
Treble didn't say anything. The only person he told was Bass, and he was disgusted with himself. That he had allowed himself to fall under so easily.
Bass watched his partner and sighed. "It would make sense then...for what everyone saw. The file name for the audio was 'desire'."
Mo looked particularly interested. "Oh so? Maybe that's why everything was so...varied with you guys. I mean, I know some people see deceased loved ones, according to the rumors. Most everyone does. I guess if they heard the rumors, their inner desires would manifest illusions of their dead loved ones. On the other hand, yours all seem to...tie into your deeper desires. I assume." She gave a quick pointed look at Treble, whom evaded the look by setting himself at the piano and beginning to play. She gave him a disgruntled look of disappointment then stood up. "Well, if you guys wanna unpack it, you know where to find me." She headed for the door, and Bass followed her out. She looked to Bass, as he was heading down the corridor towards the drink vending machine. As he fed the machine his card, she poked him on the arm.
"What about you, candycons?"
Bass shrugged. "I didn't see anything actually."
She blinked. "Really?"
"I don't Loss. So Ambi doesn't work on me. It never has."
She was quiet a long time. Then, "What about your Acid reaction?"
He was also quiet a long time, sipping his bottle of water as his deep black eyes stared off onto some unseen point.
"Acid's different. You said it yourself. Rejection Fallout. I'm having an allergic reaction to the music....not falling under its Loss. Or whatever."
They were silent in the hallway a long time. Moebius sighed, then gave him a reassuring ruffle to his hair.
"You're lucky you're Lossless. That's a really rare quality." She started down the hall, and was around the corner before Bass also sighed.
He leaned his head against the wall and looked at the ceiling with a look of unease. "I have loss in other ways, sweetheart. And I'd never call it a good trade off."
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