For 2017's special, please click here: Early Water.
Treble and Bass are on the move. Another chase. Another rogue musician. Another abandoned building in those places in a city were people rarely went or thought about.
Another brush with that insidious beast called Ambi.
Backmasking: a year ago, in the heavy, humid days of an indian summer October, a purported haunted house was enticing thrill seekers to enter to see their deceased loved ones. And it worked, due to a frightening cocktail of infrasound and a long play track of Ambi pumped through speakers rigged in throughout the dilapidated house. 5 members of Gemini's E.Q. unit walked in.
One was able to walk out Lossless.
And now he was out for blood.
Vengeance for his comrades taken by that music. Tricked. Lied to. Assaulted.
And Bass....Bass is not a man who takes such things lightly.
And so, while the Gemini Network's experts--Fade included--took the machine claimed in the house to pieces trying to crack is secrets, Bass and Treble hit the streets, trying to trace its invisible creator.
A different kind of Ambi is being piped through this former hotel, a modest 4 story deal with a mediocre history before and after the war decades ago. Just another building that was left behind to rot because there was no one loyal enough to stay. Pre-War made, Post-War abandoned, so this litany of speakers that was throwing this music at Treble and Bass were just as much as a mystery as the musician they were chasing. Every floor had them, nearly every room. Every hall.
This was certainly a plaything of a madman, to have installed speakers into a building no one used, before such a thing was mandated by the Music Corps.
"We've been played like a cello," Treble said over their internal helmet speakers. They had brought the big guns of course, including Bass' modified, lighter, yet more powerful back units. A library that would have made their Sound Tower run and ask it for autographs.
Treble knew there isn't much that makes Bass angry. Loss of his favorite shoes. Lack of his favorite sweets in the house. Finicky machinery work. Tiny screws getting lost in a project. Laying hands on his Treble.
But tampering with his ideas and ideals of Music?
It makes you Bass' enemy for life.
Bass nods in agreement as they see their prey dart to the elevator. The doors open.
"Mother fucker has the fucking elevators up too?!" he growls as he sprints faster.
"Jesus," snaps Treble, same tone, same frustration. The doors close just as they make it, but funnily enough, the car does not seem to move. Bass is about to go for the stairs when Treble alerts him of the fact.
"He's....he's not going up or down??" Bass stands, ready to make for the stairs in any case as Treble starts to pry the doors open. His partner comes to help, and when the doors are wrenched open, its empty.
"That fucking cunt," rages Bass as he looks to the roof of the car, and the emergency escape panel is open.
They split up: Bass to the stairs, and Treble straight into the car and up. The door above is open. The nimble, former Rothbart has no trouble scaling something so dangerous.
Hell, he used to dance with demons. This is nothing.
~~~~
Bass' research from the last year was amounting to a hill of rice. People were familiar with Acid, but this so tightly controlled Ambi was on a whole other level. Most deep street dealers weren't even familiar with the stuff; too good, too deep, too expensive. There weren't many who had the talent to make it this good, let alone afford to have it made. Its home grown, and its pure.
A couple months ago, Treble and Bass hit a single lead. There were easies making their way lazily across the country. Leaving behind small clusters of permanently Locked listeners in recovery wards, this mystery musician wouldn't take a straight line or even a logical path through the states.
They would have been considered isolated incidents except for one thing: each listener who ended up going down and never coming back up bore a small tattoo somewhere on their body. It wasn't even the same artist who made them all, yet they all had the same, unusual and striking elements at its core.
A single letter, the letter D. And an airplane. On some, it was an elaborate calligraphic letter, and sometimes just a block or the merest indication of the letter. Capital, lower case, it didn't matter. The airliner also was similarly different. For some a biplane. Others commercial aircraft. Gliders, jets. Even rough approximation of some craft with wings. One particularly impressive tattoo took the entire back, with a katakana rendering of the "di" sound and an intricate Zero fighter.
But never a rocket ship, or helicopter, or other letters were found. Only the letter D and an airplane.
Bass put out feelers. Let him or Gemini know they've seen the ink. ASAP. He received his first hit soon after, and with a "live" specimen. A tattoo artist Bass was friendly with called him right after inking a young man with a stippled D beneath a 747 on his upper left bicep. Tailing began immediately after finding him at an easy. He looked like some college student, but neither Quentin nor Cash discovered anything more than an ordinary easy goer.
Until tonight. Abruptly, the young man left his apartment at 11. Took a cab (didn't take Cash's; "Oh that would have been Plot Convenience Playhouse perfect," he chided), and drove out to those abandoned neighborhoods north of the city. Bass and Treble, aboard his new, nearly silent bike he'd been tuning for tailing, took over when the man exited his cab and went on foot.
He entered the old hotel, going down to the basement banquet hall, where there was a modest 20 person easy.
And that was where things started.
~~~~
Treble comes to the door and swings in as Bass comes out of the stairwell, panting. Their chase seems temporarily stopped.
"Ain't here," he says, out of breath but his tone is passionate.
"Let's go slow."
Bass sweeps the floor with a look, his helmet tracing data flow to speakers. "Speakers all live here." Neither man wanted to be caught like last time. Treble still privately burned with shame when he made that rookie mistake and removed his earphones to listen to the Ambi in the house. Without blocking the music, he quickly fell under its spell, lost in a hallucination of Bass's lust. So between the both of them, they pipe only their mics and their own libraries. Bass runs coding to keep signals out except their own internal system.
Never someone to rest on his laurels, Bass was continually improving their units, more so now that they were doing more rigorous missions under Gemini. And so, while passively hijacking local speakers on the outside to control easies or scratches, they could stay safely ensconced in their own world, while still interacting with the outside one. The motion controls were getting tighter too. Flicks of fingers and wrists could control more samples while wider movements could control whole chunks. The HUD could track their eye movements within the helmet to cut down on extra movements normally used to cycle through their samples, giving more options for playing rather than selecting.
It didn't take long to shut the easy downstairs down, but so powerful was the Ambi that the listeners merely dropped in exhaustion. Nothing so lethal as Lock or Romero, but this would need therapy to pull them away from the addiction.
The musician fled, working up through the hotel, as the pair gave chase. And that's when both men realized that the easy was merely a cover. A trap? Treble and Bass didn't want to make assumptions but with the speakers wired everywhere rather than the main dance easy area made them think twice.
"Jacking it."
"Don't go too hard," Treble cautioned. "They're still all on, and we haven't moved the listeners. I don't want to call in anyone til we get this shit to stop."
"I'm taking this floor." Bass prepares to play, allowing the sound of the outside world to bleed into his ears. The music being piped through the hotel was... disquietingly ethereal. There's no wild and intricate melodies, no hard hitting or abrasive sounds, not even any percussion; primarily, it was constructed out of very soft synth pads playing very pleasant sounding chords, always in sequences that were complete and sensical. Lackadaisical harps fluttered underneath at a very quiet volume, playing very simple melodies with very few flourishes- very occasionally, various woodwind instruments would take its place to play short musical phrases, with heavy reverb applied in a paradoxically gentle manner. The only real low end the song had was a warm bass synth that wasn't cranked too high, and followed the chord patterns precisely. Nothing challenging, nothing uncomfortable, nothing that could provoke intense negative emotions; everything was designed to be as soothing, calm, and even inviting as possible. The musical equivalent of someone saying 'come on in, don't be shy'.
Bass trusted it as far as he could throw it.
"Let's pull him out." Bass and Treble know they can't do a hard shift into something fast and hard without harming the easygoers, so they keep it mellow by at first introducing a breakbeat- one that's not overly complex rhythmically, and that's fairly relaxed and 'soft'- matching the BPM of the song. It seems to catch their pursuer's attention, as the harps drop out entirely, leaving just the chords and the bass. Seeing an opportunity, Treble sneaks in a guitar loop--a snippet of a recording of him performing a breezy and light folk song of Spanish origin, pitch shifted to match the chords. Bass drops in a light congo beat behind the drums, giving the track a chilled but slightly groovy feel that stays relaxed, but felt more genuine to the ear.
Their song holds before the Ambi hits back harder. Bass doesn't feed it into Treble's speakers in the helmet, but he keeps his own feed of it on low. In order to counter hit, he has to listen, and because Bass does not experience Loss, he's able to withstand it and play against and with it. Treble, hearing only what Bass is playing, matches his rhythm. After all, like 2 hands playing in concert, he doesn't necessarily need to hear the Ambi, only Bass, to support him.
"Come out here before I make you come out here," demands Bass, his mic feeding into the speakers. He preps some hard bass lines, close to Acid. Treble notes the choices and frowns ever so slightly.
The music changes--the spacey woodwinds have been swapped out for wordless choirs, at once hauntingly beautiful sounding yet deeply unnerving--as Bass steadily walks to the hallway intersection. He looks down the hall at a myriad of locked or closed rooms. He doesn't see movement.
The music changes again; the chords drop out, and the bass holds a sustained note. A long-form field recording of a wind chime jingling in a steady but gentle breeze plays over it, as the wordless choirs continue their unsettlingly pleasant harmonizing.
Treble hears the sound of a door opening, and he snatches Bass' elbow gently. Someone is exiting one of the doors at the end of the hall.
Bass and Treble turn to face him, and now they get a better look at his face. He's about their age, no older than mid 30s, clean shaven and handsome. Sunkissed skin, caramel colored eyes, distinguished salt and pepper hair with a slight wave to it. White suit and tie, white polished loafers. A black pocket square in the jacket, white vest.
The overall look is that of a maitre d', and completely nothing like a DJ or Dance Easy runner.
He gives the pair a wide smile, a hand casually in his pocket. "Smiles, everyone, smiles."
Treble doesn't give any answer, but Bass' body language is a bit more aggressive, his helmeted head tipping back slightly in a scoffing motion, right hand at the ready.
"You'll forgive me for not."
"Perhaps I should, even if you are." His body language is relaxed, welcoming.
It makes Treble and Bass tense slightly. While both had assumed their prey would be formidable, neither expected his appearance, though something in Bass told him that more than his musical skill, he would have to be wary of his charm. Repeated listenings, even against Mo's and Treble's warnings, taught him there was something of a charm to him. Something seductive, even beyond the single song's implication from its title: "desire".
Something that, like his music, draws in listeners and others around him. The smile, the distinguished air, the well-dressed sophistication.
A devil in white, Bass decides.
"Who are you?" asks Treble, his voice calm, barely masked by their optional vocoder. He didn't particularly like using it, despite the fact it was his decision to ask Bass to install one. He found it made his intimidation less effective.
Another smile, this one just as welcoming as the first. "My dear guests, I am Roarke, your host."
"Your real name?" snaps Bass, his vocoder actually off. It wasn't even a question of interrogation. It was merely sarcasm. He intentionally left his off because he wanted the man to hear him, his real voice, to know him best. To know his fury.
"Of course."
"Shut off your music." Always to the point, Treble. Its part of why Bass loved him, and the clean efficiency kept him from going to deep in emotionally.
He still wanted to cave this guy's pretty face in though.
"And end the fantasy for our guests? That wouldn't be very nice."
"Your fantasies have been getting people killed...or even worse, Locked. So shut the damn stuff off before I make you," growls Bass.
"Being Locked in some pleasant fantasy, without a care in the world, until the end? It sounds like a beautiful mercy."
Neither man likes the way he talks. Its beginning to get Bass worked up and Treble can feel it.
"Mercy? You call taking away someone's will a mercy?"
Roarke has a look of confusion before it morphs into an indignant scoff. "Taking someone's will? I would never. My guests come to me with intent and will. They come because I offer them a release from the ugly world around them. I admit, perhaps, the price may be high for some, but I assure you that they are not forced into partaking my gifts."
"Ain't no one takes Ambi this fucking potent if they knew how bad it was."
The other man seems to have the barest pout as he frowns. "I'm appalled. Have you even tried it?"
Treble cracks his knuckles without meaning to and it makes Bass angrier. Remembering Treble in the arms of the music a year ago, taken without consent. His body tenses, but before he could launch himself at the man in white, Treble switches briefly to their internal speakers, his head barely turning to him.
"Bass."
The blonde clenches his jaw, takes a slow deep breath. His voice is still dark, barely under control as he snarls, "I'm...not a fan."
Roarke seems dismayed but curious. Ever since he found his little fantasy house had not only been disarmed but taken, he was curious to find out who would have the fortitude to find it, and who would have the curiosity to figure his music out. Were they fans? The MC looking to eliminate the competition (he recalled that he was initially appalled by the possibility)? He had checked his hidden camera in the computer room and found 2 men who had taken it with them. Though he decided to lay low afterward, as he couldn't ascertain who the thieves were, he was enthralled. He decided to take some time outside the state, lazily testing, and visiting older clients.
Then as his trail made its way back, he decided to craft another location, hoping to find them, lead them back. Were these the same men? Associates? All he can tell is that both of these men are quite talented.
His eyes aren't idle, taking in those barely perceptible movements between them. These two have been working together a long time, its that evident from their music. But from their skill, they're not just mindless Corps dogs, nor are they uncultured thugs. They play easily with his own music, yet vehemently play against it. They're not trying to scratch, but they're not falling in either.
The tech is impressive too, though he laments he cannot see either of their faces.
"I think perhaps you and I can come to an understanding. You're musicians, greatly talented....and I feel as if we can resolve this....peacefully."
"Shut your music off, and maybe I'll be willing to talk," Bass growls, losing patience.
"I fear I might be at a disadvantage in case things go, as the saying goes, south. However, I can capitulate, slightly." He turns down some instruments, but it doesn't cease completely. They can't see his mechanism at all, and as he hasn't taken his right hand out from his pocket, Bass assumes that's where it is. He checks the status of the speakers. Both of them are currently streaming, at the same strength.
Treble is still on their private line. "Bass?"
"I don't trust him. He talks way too fucking pretty."
"I agree. But if we can talk him down and out, I'd rather that than take him head on. Especially if we can take him in to Gemini."
"I don't trust bringing him anywhere close to EQ or Gemini."
"What do you want to do then?"
"Cave his fucking face in."
Treble actually turns to look at him and Roarke blinks as its the most movement he's seen from one one with the blue and black helmet since they'd all stopped chasing each other. He runs his thumb pad over one of the many rings on his right hand in his pocket. He subtly adjusts some of the background ambient sounds. While not nearly as expansive or physically intimidating, Roarke's system is run by a small remote control, and rings on his fingers that use contact with his thumb and NFC.
The men's 2 systems are capable of passively sharing his stream, and that's no small feat. He's no slouch, at least in his experience, and the passive hacking while crafting intricate melodies over his own with little physical effort impresses him greatly. He feels a kinship, but is dismayed at their open hostility. He's met resistance before, sure, and such people who reject his gifts, he leaves be. But its obvious they have been looking for him, as their chase and passion are evident in their tenacity to follow him.
So why the tenseness? The enmity? Unwillingness to just....give him a chance to show them he meant them no harm?
It is apparent they are still having a private conversation, so he assumes they have a system of microphones that allow private communicating along with projecting it to nearby speakers. The one with blue accents on his black helmet is tense, but waiting. The one in red, however, is most obviously angry, hostile, on edge.
Roarke takes a gamble. These men do pose a threat if he isn't careful, so he needs to soften them up first. First things first: he needs access to those helmets. He finds the recessed dial on the side of the control with his index finger; this controls his bandwidth settings for the speakers immediately around him. He usually keeps it at mid level at the most.
He begins to flick the dial up.
The effect isn't evident right away, but it starts with a soft static that Bass notes in his speaker flow. He frowns, but as soon as he hears the static in the background grow louder, that's when he realizes what it means. He quickly checks their feed, and sees the competing code.
That's when the infrasound and the basic portions of ambi begin to flow in. Both helmets immediately alert their users of a foreign stream but it cant keep up to keep it out. Bass sees the failsafes prompt pop up. Deactivate helmet: Y/N?
"Shit!"
"Treb! Stay calm!"
That's what the man in white was waiting for. He flicks the dial up until it stops and launches one of the pre-made songs he has on deck. Horrified, the music envelopes them all. All around them, a chorus of wordless voices erupts into harmony, loud yet soft, bombastic yet gentle, alternating between singing chords and humming simple, yet ever changing melodies. Underneath them, the sound of a pipe organ plays simple, happy arpeggios, as well as providing a warm but not intrusive bass note that remains static, unchanging. It sounds almost reverent; a song of praise without lyrics, a melody of joy for joys sake. Treble's mind begins to race, fighting the urge to actively succumb to the music, throw off his helmet, or retaliate incorrectly. He can feel someone take his shoulders and shake him, as if to bring him back but all he can hear is the sounds of the song lull him.
Bass, in a fit of desperation, override's Treble's helmet and deactivates it manually, yanking it off. He quickly takes his off as well, momentarily forgetting Roarke in favor of trying to bring Treble to his senses. However, it seems the music has already begun to take effect; Treble's eyes are misty and his mouth mumbling along to a conversation only he can hear, though the words 'Bass' said in hushed, pleading whispers can be discerned. His face begins to deepen in hue, his temperature growing hot, and his breathing grows quiet yet sharp, and Bass is trying so, so hard to remind himself that he needs to bring Treble out of the illusion and not waltz up to this silk-suit motherfucker and strike him repeatedly in the face. The ever growing dissonant serenity swallowing him and his lover only heightens the mans fury; the voices are now solely singing their simple melodies, the organ has taken up the duty of playing chords, and the faint sound of tubular bells ring out, mixed low into the track yet still present.
Seeing their faces now, the man in white inhales sharply, then breaks into a smile of recognition as he changes the tune, literally, bringing it a little more down. He wants to be able to speak with them, so he drops some instruments but keeps his calming pace.
"My invitations did reach you!"
The bizarreness of the phrase snaps Bass' head to look at him in a combination of confusion and fury. He lets go of Treble slowly and glares at him.
"Invitation?!" growls the blonde as he checks himself from launching his body at him.
Treble groans quietly, leaning against the wall and sliding down until he's sitting. He's trying to focus on Bass, trying to be the logical tether that keeps him from doing something stupid. But the music is creating a disorienting paradox; he can feel Bass' arms around him, but see him standing in front of him. His eyes tell him that Bass isn't touching him, but he can feel his fingers run through his hair, catch the light notes of tobacco and cologne next to his face, feel the warmth of his arms. He can hear the Bass in front of him desperately trying to keep him grounded, but it's drowned out by the sensual murmurs of another Bass, pleading with Treble to lie down with him, to hold him, to kiss him. Both Bass' sound desperate, but in different ways and to different degrees. It makes his head spin even more.
Roarke is again confused, but now its twofold. The blonde's reaction is so hostile in the midst of the music and it baffles him. But most tellingly, he can clearly see that he isn't experiencing Loss at all. No glaze-over to his look, no distracted look as he glares with hard, jet black eyes. He knows this rock hard focus well.
Its the look of another Lossless listener.
".....You...." he starts, quietly.
Bass inhales, and keeps on glaring. "What?"
"You...are Lossless. Aren't you." The jovial smile is gone, replaced by a completely neutral look. Its not even a question; its a statement.
This stops Bass in his tracks. He notices the same telltale signs of a listener that is completely in control of his faculties while in the midst of listening to music, especially potent ones that effect the mind.
It all makes sense to Bass. Though his investigation, he wondered who could produce such potent songs, if they themselves were addicts, but the length and craft in the single one he found said otherwise. It took a concentrated effort, and an effort that was purposeful.
"Yeah."
Roarke's face has a forlorn look to it. "I've never met anyone who was."
"Well, the world is a fucking surprising place. Shut the fucking song off or I'm gonna cave in your head."
"What does it sound like?" he asks, the tone suddenly belying his initial confident and jovial personality. It was almost as if he was asking for approval.
"What are you talking about?!" snaps Bass, beginning to lose patience.
"Don't you ever wonder what your music sounds like to someone who doesn't Loss? Like....things used to be a long time ago."
Its a question Bass never really thought he'd be hearing during a moment of duress like this. Sure he's thought about it, but he isn't about to talk philosophy with someone doing this to the man he loves. Through with the games, Bass changes his approach and starts ramping up the song, aggressively showing his anger. Perhaps too aggressively; the distorted, synthesized kickdrum he introduces is much faster then the Ambi being piped in, and the threatening, fuzzy bassline that lays atop it contradicts the tone entirely. Bass had already queued up a sequence of minor chords ready to be dropped at any moment, and is prepared to tweak the cutoff of the bass sound as is necessary.
Roarke hears he isn't kidding around, nor is he willing to talk. He thinks to respond in kind, taking his control out from his pocket and actively. But he stops. Literally. He places the control back in his pocket and the music winds down rather quickly. He has a look of dismay but its also overlaid with melancholy. Bass quickly has to control his end, winding it down but not completely cutting it off for both Treble and the other easy goers in the banquet hall.
He starts to walk away from them, but Bass isn't finished. Even as Treble is trying to get his bearing quickly, the blonde dashes to Roarke and tries to stop him. The man in white is fast, and he turns to face him as he's slammed against the wall. He eats the impact then gives Bass a hard push kick to get distance between them and takes off to one of the rooms that wasn't locked. Bass grunts and nearly loses his balance before continuing in the chase. He turns into the room to see him hops out the window to the fire escape. He sprints to the window and growls wordlessly, but he feels Treble grab him by the shoulders.
"Bass!"
"Lemme go, Treble, damn it!"
Treble doesn't let go but his voice is cool and calm. "Let him go, Bass. Let him go."
It brings him down just enough, and he backs up a bit from the window with a curse.
They both take a couple minutes to calm down, and then the blonde looks at his partner. His black eyes are a swirl of calming fury and frustration.
Treble apologizes, quietly, "I...I'm sorry, Bass...I tried but...."
"Don't," he interrupts, and it cuts his partner off. It isn't angry, but still forceful. He takes a breath, then, "This isn't your fault....and it doesn't mean you weren't trying."
Treble can feel there's more. "It was...unprofessional of me...."
"Treb....Treb, you ain't immortal." Bass turns his head away then he looks back at him. The anger is gone, replaced with a slight melancholy. He pulls Treble into him, resting his chin on Treble's shoulder. He can't see his face, but he returns the embrace, however uncertainly. "I mean, shit I've been saying that with Fleace and the Corps for years, even more so now.... But this too. You....you Loss. Just like everyone else does." He gets a sting remembering Roarke's lack of it. "You...are Lossless. Aren't you."
"Even if I...don't.... And...yeah, we're supposed to be looking out for each other.... You've done double time on that for years. I've been telling myself I need to step up to do that....even when I know I don't got the experience you got. But this....this is where I do have something to do. I can protect you. I think...I'm the only one who can now. For this. So...I'm gonna." He holds him a bit tighter. "I'm not...gonna let him do that to you anymore. Never. I won't let him...ever get his filthy mitts on you again."
Again. Treble exhales and nods against him.
"Thanks....Fel."
Bass gives him a sigh against his shoulder. Treble pulls away slightly
"Come on...we still got clean up to do."
Collecting the listeners wasn't as messy as it had been for other busts. While the tattooed clients (as Bass and Treble learned later) would definitely need additional therapy and investigation, that wasn't for the EQ unit, at least not yet. In the coming weeks, Roarke's existence would make its way around, and more eyes would be out for him and his tattoos.
The laptop left behind had an automatic wiping system that kicked in after it was collected, but a single song seemed to be found in its library.
succor.cfi.exe
Bass recognized it as the song he played as Treble slipped under after their helmets were hacked. The personal shame that burned both Bass and Fade could have burnt a forest, and their efforts for upgrades often ended in sleepless nights.
It was a couple weeks later, just before Halloween that Treble finds Bass on the roof of one of their apartments, smoking. He comes to lean against the railing with him, back to the city Bass is watching.
"How you holdin' up?" the blonde asks his partner. He offers him a drag from his cigarette.
Treble shrugs, taking the the lit cherry and taking a long pull. He hands it back as he exhales slowly. "I'm fine. Busy with Fade and Balance....they're still poring over the laptop.
"Thing's not that clean. We can work with it. I think it even responded with a remote access but I haven't been able to trace back reliably."
"Its likely he's wiping it remotely."
"Yeah. Mother fucker seems to be clever enough." He still bears the hard, cold edges of fury when he speaks of Roarke.
They let the silence settle in a bit. Treble looks at him.
"What else is bothering you?"
He's quiet longer. Then, "What....does music sound like to another Lossless person...."
Treble watches him, the conflicting curiosity get frustration in his eyes. "I wish I could tell you."
"Of all the people in the world....of all the Lossless fucks I coulda met.... Its this guy."
Treble feels he has to say it. "He's nothing like you."
He expected Bass to react as he would have, when Fleace said the same. How alike they are. But Bass doesn't react at all.
"Bass?"
"Maybe....maybe he isn't...but a part of me does...wonder."
Treble turns to watch the city with him.
"Even so....a guy like that though....makin' Ambi that potent.... I don't think I'll ever understand him. And I don't want to."
The blonde snuffs out the butt of his cigarette on the railing, then tosses it off the side of the apartment building. The ephemeral smoke quickly dissolves in the night air.
"You don't have to."
"I know. But it still fucking sucks on ice."
Treble tries to hold in a smirk from the phrase but Bass gives him a glance and softens a bit. "Let's get some rest."
"Yeah."
--(Dio (10/25/19)
E.Q. is a collaboration project between Dio and Decon.