April 15th, 2110.
It is still dark outside, but then it is always dark outside. I don’t know why I say “still” as though I’d wake up to the sun, because that’s impossible. Most of the time, I know this, but every now and I wake up and half-expect it, and only then do I slowly remember that there will never be a sun.
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Wednesday had arrived before I realized it. It was my first day off, and Uncle Kevin and I had worked out the details the evening before. He gave me a house key and said that I had to be home for dinner, which fit my plans just fine. Cutler had called later on and said that we played from one to about three. I told Uncle Kevin that I needed to go get my film from Edward’s Photo Hut also, so after LARP I’d head down there and explore Tarrant a bit more. He was ok with everything, so it looked like tomorrow would be smooth sailing.
D’Cardi’s was an upscale women’s clothing store with an Italian flair. The store featured signs in Italian and English, murals of the countryside and ancient churches and villas along the walls, and of course, the strands of opera at a gentle volume; mingled together with the fashionable leather coats, bags, belts, and earth-toned jewelry, the store exuded a sophisticated class that made it perfectly at home as a mall highlight. Jennifer Tabarone worked there, one of the junior members of the DMIC. Tuesday nights were slow nights and she was idly scanning the CD rack for something interesting. She had just come across a tenor described as the Pavarotti of Gregorian chant when Tristiana walked into the store.
The Complexitor sat at home in his favorite lounge chair before a wide-screen TV, drinking a perfectly chilled microbrew beer. The camera followed a tiny white ball as various golfers tried to hit it into a hole impossibly far away. He wasn’t watching. He was sulking.
Saturday began as an unexpectedly boring day. It turned out that Cutler and his family were taking a day trip to Akron. “It’s better than it sounds,” he had said, “because there’s this awesome gaming store in the mall. I won’t be here. I’ll be there.” He had spun around and pointed off to the northeast. Kirandra had the day shift at the antique store, so she wasn’t around, and Uncle Kevin had left for errands before I woke up.
O-Man stood against the door leading out of the concession stand, one hand in his jacket pocket, the other spinning a socket wrench the wrong way by the socket end. Wenchy sat behind a laptop with a large screen with headphones tossed to one side and a microphone on the other. Her outfit — an elegant off-white dress — seemed strangely out of place amid all the communications equipment. In the back, HIM stretched out in a nice leather chair, looking distinctively bored.
Wenchy looked around the room. “Let’s go through our roles one more time, shall we?” Her voice struck a characteristic semi-serious tone.
It was Friday. I took a deep breath and basked in that fact before realizing that it was summer and so Friday wasn’t the end of the school week. Still, it was summer, and I felt like anything could happen.
So far, just about anything had happened. In three days, I had gone to see my uncle, halfway across the country, found out that I’d be working most of the summer, met Kirandra, her mom, Shira, Culter and Steve, gone to see TOGAC, and had taken tons of pictures. I ate some cereal, a little overwhelmed by it all.
“So why do you want to come to my house?” Brandon asked Wenchy.
She flipped her honey-brown hair and said, “Why else? To meet your mom.” She wore a long white dress that grew transparent around her ankles, where it was met by stockings of a similar hue and matching pumps. Her hair was done up in a style Brandon didn’t recognize, but it used a circlet of hair across the back of her head, leaving the rest to dance just above her shoulders.
It made perfect sense. His mom hadn’t met anyone from the DMIC. Why didn’t they all come together, though? He felt nervous. “Don’t worry,” she said. “I’ll come the first week, then O-Man, then HIM, then Velvet Katherine, and then Veero. Oh yeah. Then Jackie will show up.”
“So how did it go?” asked Brian.
Brandon and his best friend, Brian, rode their bikes to school. They pedalled hard because the sky was grey-to-black and the wind was beginning to pick up.
“How did what go?” asked Brandon with a smile.
“C’mon, man. Don’t tell me you’re not even allowed to talk that much!”
Uncle Kevin was impressed with the back yard. “Now I won’t have to mow it for another six months,” he said. I didn’t find that funny, so I crammed some more fries in my mouth instead. “All you have to do is finish up the murder strip.” I knew that he meant that last bit between the trees.
“So did you meet Kirandra?” he asked.
“Yeah,” I said, quickly following up with, “You were right. She is different.”
If he could hear my mixed emotions, he didn’t say anything. I asked him, “Have you heard of a guy called John Cutler?”
