You are Alabaster Soliloquy, weeaboo and fuck quester.
April 21, 2015
"I'm gonna hang this on my wall! No, wait -- I'm gonna make it into a lamp and put it in my bedroom! No! I'm gonna eat Cocoa Puffs out of it every d--"
You snatch the trophy from Whitney. "It doesn't belong to you. It belongs to the team."
"Like fuck it doesn't belong to me! I won it!"
"You answered one question. ONE!"
"P'yeah," Whitney chuffs derisively. "The most important question of all. If it wasn't for me, we'd all be going home losers right now."
She hurries ahead of you and twirls around, blocking your path through the hotel's hallway. She holds her index finger and her thumb in the shape of an L on her forehead. She uses the wrong hand; the L is backwards.
"If any single one of us deserves the trophy, it's me," Rose says. "I was the most valuable team member, points-wise."
"Fuck you," you say. "I had better stats in the tournament. I answered 229 questions right and only 12 wrong. Your score was 190 right, 14 wrong. I win - again."
"You were keeping count?" Rose hums.
"I swear to--"
"Anyway, you're off. You only answered 227. And I answered 194. More importantly, my cumulative point total was higher. Ergo, I'm the MVP."
"The ONLY reason your point total was higher is because the score distribution is biased towards math questions--"
"So? If you knew how to fucking count, you wouldn't be behind on points--"
"I swear I will beat you until y--"
"Suckers!" Whitney cries. Only as she's halfway down the hall do you realize she took advantage of your bickering to steal the trophy back from you.
"Get back here, you idiot!" Rose screams. She breaks into a trot and tries to chase her, but it's an embarrassing display. She isn't even a quarter of the way down the hall before Whitney rounds the corner and disappears.
"I blame you for this," you tell Rose.
She stops and steadies herself against the wall with a forearm. "Go to hell," she says, panting lightly. "YOU let her take it from you."
"Go get packed, you dumb fat cow," you sneer as you pass her by. "...See you on the bus."
You get back to your hotel room a couple minutes later. You figure you'll find Cerise there passed out drunk. She wasn't at the championship match, so where else would she be?
But when you open the door and step inside, she's not there.
"Cerise?" You call, expecting to hear her respond from inside the bathroom, telling you to fuck off.
No response.
You feel the beginnings of a knot in your stomach.
---
"No, no, no -- I won't! I WON'T, Alabaster!"
She's serious. Whitney never uses your full name.
You force the slip of paper into her hand. It has Saul's phone number written on it. "Please. This is our future now... if what that lawyer just told you is true, you need to act as fast as possible--"
"I need to be with YOU! You can't just, just -- go on a suicide mission and expect me to stay
---
The next thing you know, you're on your back, staring at the ceiling of Galatea's apartment. The power flickers. Her generator must be running out of juice.
"--all right?" You hear, as your vision comes back into focus from out of a blurred white thrum. You sit up, rubbing your head. Whitney is kneeling beside you.
"I'm fine..." you say, but even you can hear how groggy your voice is. "What happened?"
"You fell over."
You shake it off. "Did Tyrus's men already leave?"
Her brow furrows. "Yeah... you've been passed out for like 20 minutes, Ally."
You try to stand, but you're still woozy, and you almost fall again. Whitney grabs one of your arms with both of her hands to steady you. She rises now, and helps you the rest of the way up.
"Call Saul," you tell her. "He can help get started on whatever legal bullshit you need... to make sure you get your inheritance..." You weakly try to push past her, but she stops you. "Whitney... I gotta go..." you mumble.
"You just fainted for literally no reason. You're not still thinking of going back there, are you?"
You sit on the couch in the living room to gather your strength again. Only as you sit do you notice Galatea beside you, her knees curled up under her tee in her usual stance. She's staring blankly ahead at nothing.
You glance back up at Whitney. "Alex is in trouble. And it's because of me. I need to be there for him."
Whitney rubs her elbow and can hardly face you.
Despite what she said at first, Alex matters to her too. She understands how you feel.
It's not just Alex, either. You have Sable to worry about. And more than that: the fate of Darkbloom Analytics.
Everything is different now, after that phone call. Darkbloom Analytics isn't a beast you need to slay. It's your girlfriend's chief financial asset.
No - more than just a financial asset. According to his attorney, David Darkbloom had traps and key-man provisions baked into the legal structure of the company. It was his final twist of the knife to Mara from beyond the grave: he secretly retained the ability to name the next CEO in his will. And that CEO is Whitney.
"You're a multi-billionaire now," you say, still unable to process the meaning behind those words.
"No shit, Sherlock. I hit the lottery. Great. It doesn't mean anything if you're dead!"
"Then I won't die."
Whitney stomps her foot.
>[x] Let her come with you to rescue Alex and Sable.
[ ] Better call Saul. (Sideline Whitney to keep her safe and get her started on claiming her inheritance.)
"Don't get carried away," you warn her.
She salutes you. "Aye aye! Operation Rescue The Bottom Bitch is a go!"
"Don't be that enthusiastic about it, either."
You click open the two latches on the aluminum case underneath Galatea's couch. Rose brought it with her from Cerise's apartment. Inside, there's two pistols: one for you and one for Whitney.
"Take this," you tell her. "Don't use it unless things go crazy."
She puts it in the waistband of her spats. You follow suit, concealing your gun in your waistband too.
Just as you're ready to go, Stackleford bursts through the front door. He's got a plastic bag from Subway in one hand, and an open bag of Cheetos in the other. He eats the Cheetos by throwing his head back and waterfalling them into his mouth.
"Power's out all over the place," he tells you as he bumps the door closed with his considerable girth. The orange stains around his lips are repulsive. "Also I heard someone say something about David Darkbloom dying, so congratulations I guess."
He approaches Galatea. "Hey Gal-Gal," he says, "I got you a ham sub. Check it!"
This finally snaps Galatea out of her seeming fugue state. She blinks a few times, then glances at you.
"there's a problem," she says.
---
"do you want to stop the bombs?" She asks as she settles into her computer chair, folding her ankles beneath her butt. It's the right question -- one you need to decide an answer to, quickly.
Before you respond, she opens a virtual OS, and then some sort of baroque, probably proprietary statistical process control program. You can't make heads or tails of its mostly text-based output, but Galatea explains it for you: "it's what i thought. darkbloom's servers remain down as of now. the power outage is keeping them cut off from the internet."
So despite all the efforts Darkbloom made to keep her out, this whole time she still had access to their internal systems.
"What does that matter?" You say.
"it's making us sick. or i think so."
You take a step back. "You think."
The glare of the monitor against her glasses obscures Galatea's eyes. "yes. the same thing happened to me on march 10th when the servers went down. i started
She stops mid-sentence, going still as stone. You wave a hand in front of her face.
She continues as if she had been speaking the entire time: "and she froze completely. like she was paralyzed."
"You cut out, Gal."
She looks at you. "i didn't realize until now. camelia didn't either... there's something about our implants that ties our brains to darkbloom's servers... if they blow up..."
"Dang," Stackleford says. "This is some Snow Crash craziness."
"Fuck off," you half-shout.
"there's another thing." Galatea pulls up a simple browser page now, with two input fields. "dead man's switch," she says.
"Don't tell me what I think you're telling me," you say.
"camelia didn't want to leave it to chance... if we were captured... or killed... she rigged it so it would still go off if we don't input our pgp keys every 24 hours..." She bows her head. "i have my key... but not hers... and she's dead..."
Whitney grabs her by the collar and hauls her up. "Then hack it or something! That's what you do!"
"i can't," Galatea says.
Whitney scowls and shoves her to the ground. "Yes you can! Fix it!"
"it would take the computational power of the entire universe... running for billions of years... there's no way... alabaster has to physically defuse the bombs."
"What's the deadline?" You say.
"3:00 am."
That's time enough. You can do this. Rescue Alex and Sable, clear out the Russians, defuse the bombs... easy, right?
A sudden rush of blood to your head leaves you stumbling as if drunk - you catch yourself on the back of Galatea's rolling chair before you fall over. Galatea's eyes are glassy again, vacant.
Maybe not so easy.
The sun is already setting on a darkened Palo Alto. You have to use a flashlight just to see your way down the stairwell of Galatea's ratty apartment building, to the front entrance, and out to the curb.
Outside, Tyrus is waiting. He's leaned up against your car, arms folded.
"You made me a promise," he says.
"Step off, asshole," Whitney says. "We've got errands to run."
He ignores her. "You said Darkbloom Analytics wouldn't exist by this time today. Far as I can tell, it still exists. What happened?"
"Change of plans," you tell him.
"Bull fucking shit. You have the detonator? Press the goddamn button."
In the descending gloom, you can't see anyone else on the street, but you have that certain psychic tingle on the back of your skull that tells you other eyes are watching. Tyrus is not alone.
Whitney's brash tone becomes more serious now: "I'm warning you," she says. "Get back. Let us go."
"You said no delays. Now you're ordering my own men around like you fucking own them? Who made you king shit, motherfucker? Telling them to go into a building you were supposed to blow up more than an hour ago? This shit is simply not gonna fly."
He steps forward, looms over you and Whitney. "I did my part," he snarls. "Now you do yours. Press the fucking button."
[ ] Fight.
[ ] Run.
>[x] Negotiate
Whitney reaches for her waistband - you grab her wrist and stop her, sliding between her and Tyrus at the same moment, hoping that he didn't notice her grabbing for a fucking gun just now.
"You motherfuckers are straight up retarded," Tyrus says. So he definitely saw it -- great. "I've got heat on you from 360 degrees and then some. Go ahead. Pull a gun and see what fucking happens."
"See this girl?" You say. You indicate Whitney with a wave of your palm. "She may not be the brightest. Granted. But she owns Darkbloom Analytics now."
Tyrus arches an eyebrow.
"She's David Darkbloom's biological daughter. He left a will behind giving her everything - billions and billions of dollars. And the company itself. You're looking at the new CEO right here."
"That's the stupidest goddamn thing I've ever heard," he says. "Do I look like I was born yesterday?"
You hold up both hands in a sign of nonaggression. "I'm going to reach for Whitney's cell phone now," you say. "All right?"
"Watch yourself," Tyrus says, but it seems like he's going to let you.
You reach slowly into Whitney's pocket, pull out her phone. You hold it high aloft so any unseen, would-be assailants can see it's benign. You speed dial the last number and put it on speakerphone.
"Adam Epstein," the man on the other end replies.
You nod at Whitney, holding the phone to her lips.
"Hi Adam," she says. "Uh... just wanted to get some quick math from you... I kind of zoned out the last time we talked."
"Go ahead, Ms. Price."
"About all that money I'm gonna get."
"Yes."
"How much, again? Like how many billions?"
A pause. "There's a great deal to sort out, Ms. Price," he finally replies. "But Darkbloom's wealth is estimated at around $100 billion, in various forms."
"And I get to be CEO?"
"Err... like I said, there's a great deal to sort out. I advise you find a lawyer... there will be legal battles ahead, and I must remain a neutral executor on behalf of Darkbloom himself."
"Okay. Thanks Adam."
You hang up.
"Jesus fuckin' Christ," Tyrus says. "That was Darkbloom's lawyer."
"Believe me now?" You say.
"What are you offering?"
---
"Crazy ass," Tyrus says. "If the two of you need another gay little white boy, I know where to find 'em by the fuckin' dozen. I could give you five or six each. We don't need to go James Bond on these Russian assholes."
"There isn't a gay little white boy who's better," Whitney avers, leaning through the passenger side window. "Trust me."
"Marquis'll meet you up the street from the building," Tyrus says. "You'll go in the back way with him. Save the poor little white boy and the mad scientist. Then when he gives the signal that you're all safe, we'll hit the Russians from the front."
"We can't make a scene," you tell him. "The last thing we need is police."
"No shit," Tyrus says. "I don't want police to be the first thing I deal with as the company's new CPO. We'll keep this clean and stealthy like."
He taps your hood and watches as you peel away, towards the belly of the beast.
April 21, 2015
"Where the hell are you?"
Cerise, on the other end of the line, is slow to respond. "Home."
"We have to be back on the bus in less than half an hour. Stop fucking around."
"I'm not. I went home."
"How did you get from Idaho back to California on your own?"
"Took a bus."
You heave a frustrated sigh. "Really. When?"
"Last night, not that you noticed. Or cared."
Usually, Cerise is better than this. The death of your parents turned her into an oddly caring, supportive sibling -- most of the time. But when she's badly drunk, and feeling sad, she gets like this. Petulant.
"Are you really back home already?"
"You sound happy that I'm gone."
"The only thing I'm happy about is that you're not about to end up stranded in goddamn Boise, Idaho. This is seriously the worst city on the planet."
"Uh huh. I guess I should leave you alone now. Have fun with Rose and Whitney."
You soften your voice. "Hey. By the way. We won the cham--"
She hangs up.
---
Marquis is at the head of a retinue of armed men, in a garage down the road from Darkbloom Analytics. It's unsettling how excited he looks.
"Ready to bash some skulls?" He says.
He unfurls a map on the hood of a nearby Caddy. "We're gonna Batman this shit," he says. "I'll get up on this building here--" he points to an annex on the west wing of the facility, where HR is headquartered. It's only about 20 feet tall. "Climb in through the skylight, disarm the alarm on the emergency exit... let you in. We can swing around and go down to the server room. They won't see us until we're right on top of them. Probably."
You don't like the sound of that "probably."
"What if they do see us?" You say.
"You're strapped, right?"
You grimace.
"Ready?" He says. "Time's ticking, right? You've still got shit to do when we're done here."
[ ] Second thoughts - let Marquis handle the rescue on his own.
[ ] Go, but hold Whitney back.
[ ] Let's go.
>[x] Custom strategy.
"I've got a different strategy," you say.
"Excuse me?" Marquis says. He clearly doesn't like being second guessed.
"We need more people with us when we first sneak in. And people hanging back to get us out of there if things go sideways." You turn to Whitney. "Can you wait in my car for me? Be ready to go as soon as I come out."
"Fuck you," Whitney spits, slugging you. "I'm not letting you hide me out here while you go get shot at by mobsters."
"Naw..." Marquis mutters, staring off into space for a moment. "That's actually a good idea. Butchy here is the next CEO. Right? If Mara knows that, her minions know it too. You'd be going in there with a big fucking target on your head."
He signals to a couple of his lieutenants. "Shawn, Freddy, you're with us. Tenacious, stay out here in the car. The rest of you, plan doesn't change. Ready to go on my mark."
They nod their understanding.
You put your hands on Whitney's shoulders. "I'll be back in a few minutes with Alex and Sable."
She glowers, but after a few moments she relents. "If you die, I'll kill you!"
Night has fallen even more quickly than you expected, but that's for the best. You skulk through the darkness with Marquis and his two men.
The first one, Shawn - you remember him from the garbage dump, when he held you and Whitney hostage - throws off a backpack and pulls out a dremel as you get up to the gates on the west side of the building. The tool makes quick, if a little loud, work of the wrought iron bars. It's enough to slip through.
A rope with an honest to god grappling hook comes out next. Marquis wields it like a cowboy with a lasso, looping it over roof of the HR building in a single strong toss. After checking its hold with a few tugs, he gets to climbing. He's remarkably fast and limber. He's definitely done this before.
So far, so good.
He disappears into the gloom and you hear, faintly, the sounds of him on top, jimmying the skylights open.
Anxious moments pass. You keep glancing around the corner, towards the main entrance of the building, although only a vague silhouette of its main features are visible -- the fountain, the broad front windows, the trees and bike racks -- all swathed in deep and foreboding shadow. If there are men lying in wait, they're invisible to you.
And then: klaxons. Marquis accidentally tripped an alarm mechanism.
"Fuck!" Comes the far-off echo of his voice. "Get ready!"
It happens again. Your vision blurs for a moment. The sudden cacophony blends into an indistinct smear of noise. Gunfire and shouting and wailing alarms all become nothing but a shrill, insistent hum. The noise is focused on a spot that feels like it goes past your eardrum, into the space beyond - like a dentist's drill boring into your brain. Everything goes white for a second, two seconds, three.
When you gain your bearings again, you're on your hands and knees in the grass, heaving. The dark night lights up with muzzle flashes from the two men next to you.
"Go, go, go!" Marquis is yelling, presumably into his walkie-talkie.
Fast approaching are opposing muzzle flashes, and the voices of men shouting in Russian.
Damn it, damn it... you reach half-blind for your own gun and find it warm against your hip. It's awkward in your hands. You're not a crack shot like Rose is, far from it, and you may be more of a liability with this thing than not. But seconds matter now; above all else, you need to get inside the building and down to the server room where Alex and Sable are. They could be executed at any moment now that you've been found out.
You struggle to your feet as Shawn and Freddy flank you. You hold your gun aloft and try to see who the hell they're firing at, but it's hopeless; between your little pseudo fainting spell and the near total dark, plus the chaos engulfing you, you can't see anyone. It's all moving too fast.
From several yards away, at the tall front gates, comes the squeal of rubber on asphalt: the strike team of ten or eleven men Marquis had in waiting just rolled up.
Marquis bursts through the emergency exit at the side of the HR building and loops an arm under yours. "We're falling back now. They'll grab your friends."
"No fucking way," you spit, heaving off. You step forward, past Shawn and Freddy.
But as you do, Shawn goes down. His head is just suddenly gone: it explodes in a shower of gore. You duck, shouting, and roll out of the way. His corpse lands next to you with a thud.
"Goddamn it," Marquis shouts. He steps quickly back, foxtrotting, and Freddy follows suit.
"Don't you fucking abandon me!" You holler, still lying prone. "You leave, and your husband gets nothing! You hear me?"
Marquis wheels on you. The gunfire is retreating now, turning in the direction of the front gates as the second group of men stage their assault the Russians now.
"What did you just say?" Marquis demands. "My guys are dying 'cause of you."
"They're dying because of you!" You say. "You tripped that alarm!"
An orange bloom and deafening explosion rip through the night. You turn, and in the illumination of the fireball you see Russians lobbing grenades at Marquis's men. So much for not making a scene.
You stand, kick through the emergency exit and enter the HR building. Whether Marquis comes along or not is immaterial. There's no time to waste.
You cut through the darkened hallways and office space, the obnoxiously loud security alarms still blaring. You hold your gun in front of you, finger on the trigger, ready to fire. And as you enter into the main lobby of Darkbloom Analytics, you see your reason to: Vasily Kerimov, watching the vicious firefight from the safety of indoors.
Vasily's reaction time is unfortunately quicker. He spins: in his hands is a machine pistol, and he fires at you. You dive behind the main reception counter, the one sitting just below the massive 20-foot portrait of David Darkbloom.
You pant like a dog as your eyes adjust to the even dimmer space under the counter.
"Give it up, Alabaster!" Vasily calls. You hear the clack of his approaching footsteps. "If you cooperate, you can still save your friends downstairs. We will kill you, naturally... but they can live, at least..."
You sit on your butt, back against the wall, and wait, your breath running ragged. He could approach from any number of angles and you have no way to cover them all.
"Alabaster, please. Come out. Don't make me radio Stasi and tell her to slit Mr. Best's throat."
You set your jaw and try not to hyperventilate.
"Fine," he says. "I will treat you like a child, if I must. I am counting to three."
You've got no choice. You're going to need to stand up, and fire blindly.
"One."
You steady yourself and try to clear your mind of all other thoughts.
"Two."
You rock back and forth, preparing to spring up.
"Thr--"
A bang that echoes off the smooth wood-paneled walls. Bright light. The ruffle of something heavy hitting the tiled floor.
"Fucker!"
It's Whitney's voice.
You peek out from around the counter. Vasily is dead at her feet.
"I told you to wait for me!" You hiss. The gunfight continues apace, past the front entrance. You see the giant bronze globe that surmounts the fountain out front come loose from its pedestal and roll with a squealing crash to the ground. It barrels to the side and bowls over a screaming Russian, crushing him to death.
"It's a good thing I didn't!" Whitney says, running over and helping you to your feet. "Did you get Alex?"
"Not yet," you say. "But that's next."
"What are we waiting for? Come on!"
You kneel behind the counter again, pulling her with you. "I'll go. You need to wait behind -- for real now."
"Absolutely not. The CEO can't just sit around while a bunch of mooks shoot up her company."
"Goddamn it, Whitney. Don't you--" you sigh and shake your head.
"What?" She says.
"You can't. You have to go back, where it's safe -- wait for me. If I lost you..."
She cocks her head like a confused puppy.
"You idiot," you say. "Don't you understand what I'm telling you?"
"I understand you're wasting time. We need--"
"I love you."
Her jaw hangs slack for a moment. When she can move at all, she clasps a palm over it, eyes bulging.
"So for the last time -- please. Go wait somewhere safe. I'll be out soon."
"Ally..."
You pull her hand away and kiss her. It's a deep and forceful - if brief - kiss. She swoons against you, opening herself completely to your mouth, going almost limp.
"Okay?" You say when you pull back.
She shakes her head. "But I love you, too. You stupid... how can I let you go risk your life like this?"
"Because everything happening tonight is my fault. So it's up to me to fix it."
"Promise you'll be okay!"
"I promise."
"Double promise!"
"I double promise."
"Triple promise!"
"Whitney..."
She stands and steps back. "Back to your car?" She says.
"No. Across the street. The parking garage there. I'll meet you on the third floor."
"Why?"
"Just trust me."
Down the stairwell, down, down, down into total darkness. The flashlight on your phone illuminates nothing but a tiny cone a few feet in diameter at its greatest extent. Anyone could be waiting to ambush you down here.
You quickly try to see if there's a setting on the phone that will let you turn the flashlight's brightness up; while fumbling around, you pull up your camera app instead.
It still has only one photo on it: Alex.
>"Take a picture of me! I want to be the first photo on your new phone!"
Alex's happy double peace sign from just a couple months ago stares back at you. How did everything come to this in such a short amount of time?
You shake that thought off and hurry forward.
At the very bottom of the winding stairs, you push through the door to the server room.
The servers are running, even if they're not connected to the internet, and their eerie blue light is still illuminating the vast maze down here.
You call out, bluffing:
"Come out, Stasi. We've got you surrounded."
But the response that comes back isn't her:
"She's gone."
"...Marquis?"
You stride down the aisles of the server farm, towards the sound of his voice, your gun at the ready. He's standing in front of a wheeled chair, where a bug-eyed Alex is still hogtied with duct tape. You rush over, rip the tape from Alex's mouth.
"Ally... Ally..." he weeps once he can speak again, shaking all over like a wounded bird.
"Scared her away," Marquis says darkly, from beside you. "Almost had her... but not quite..."
"Are you okay?" You ask Alex. "Where's Sable?"
"I don't know... she's gone..."
You pull a pocket knife out and cut the duct tape off his hands. As you work on his ankles, Marquis taps you on the shoulder.
He's holding Penelope.
"You said Sand Reckoner wasn't done yet. But Stasi told me everything."
"What?" You stammer.
"You're double crossing Daddy? Huh? Thought you could team up with the Russians, wipe us out, we wouldn't realize till it's too late?"
You stand on shaky legs and step back.
"Marquis... I don't know what you're talking about--"
From seemingly nowhere, he produces a baseball bat, and whacks you in the back of the knees. You fall to the ground with a howl and your gun clatters out of your hands.
"Ally! Ally!"
"Give me the detonator," Marquis says. "Right now. Or I'll bash your fuckin' brains out."
That ringing comes, again. That crossing vision, that disconnection from reality. You're losing it.
"M-Marquis..." you manage. "Please... listen to me... whatever-- whatever-- whatever Stasi t-told you, it's--"
"You lying motherfucker!" Marquis screams. As your vision clears, you see him raise his bat above his head. You cower and try to cover your face with your hands, as if that will do anything.
"--GRAHH--!!"
You hear it before you process what you're seeing - the swift blur of motion that tackles Marquis to the ground.
Alex, even with his ankles tied, has managed to knock Marquis over. Marquis lands with a loud knock against the tile floor, his head rebounding back in a really painful looking bounce.
He lies there dazed for just a split second, his bat on the ground next to him. He and Alex both glance at it. With the concussion Marquis just sustained, Alex is quicker on the uptake. He grabs the bat and wriggles back up onto his knees. With a savage scream he brings it down - no hesitation at all. There's a sickening 'krr-ack' and blood runs darkly all over the ground.
Marquis is still alive. Groaning, he reaches for your gun and gets his hands over it.
But that's the last thing he ever does. Alex is already bringing the bat down again.
And then again. And again, and again.
"AAHHHHH!! AAAAAHHH!!!" He shouts as he beats Marquis's head into a bloody, pulpy mess of brain matter.
You haul yourself to your feet and get behind Alex and pull him away from the horrible carnage of it. Only with your hands around him does he let go of the bat.
With halting, trembling motions, Alex looks down at his own bloody hands, his gore-spattered shirt, the corpse he's responsible for -- and it seems this is the first moment he actually processes that he just took a human life.
"I-- I--" He stutters.
And then he screams. Horribly -- way worse than the savage grunts he unleashed when he was actually killing Marquis. Those were screams of adrenaline and fear. This is a wail of pure despair. You've heard it once before: when Cerise got the call that mom and dad were dead.
You embrace Alex, hug him tight and pet his head, but he keeps screaming into you. His cries are only slightly muffled by your chest, and you feel him heaving. There's nothing you can do to console him.
Outside the front entrance, there's nothing but corpses and charred Earth. If anyone survived this mess, they're long gone.
Distantly, you hear sirens, and you know you need to hurry too.
You find Kay exactly where you expected her to be: camping out in the parking garage across the street, leaning against her shitty Subaru's hood, waiting. Whitney is next to her.
When Kay sees you, she throws up her arms in frustration. "Where's the kaboom? There was supposed to be an Earth-shattering kaboom!"
Only as Alex rounds the corner now does Kay realize that something terrible has happened. Still splattered with gore and looking even paler than usual, Alex is an awful sight.
"Good lord," Kay says. "You ruined a perfectly good little gay boy. What the hell happened?"
Whitney is at Alex's side now, petting him like he's a sick kitten who needs to be nursed back to health, cooing and hugging him.
"I need a favor," you say. "Take Alex and Whitney back to Galatea's apartment and wait there."
Alex has a thousand yard stare that seems to indicate he isn't really present for this conversation. Not even Whitney can rouse him.
Kay considers him for a few long moments, then: "All right. But I want a favor in exchange."
"Oh my god. What?"
"Whitney told me everything," she says. "I have to imagine you're not planning to blow up that building anymore. Assuming you survive the next few hours and she actually gets to serve as CEO, I want in too."
You give her a bewildered look.
Kay pokes you in the chest. "I want to be embedded. 24/7, unrestricted access to the inner workings of Darkbloom Analytics 2.0. For a year. No, two years. I'll start with a series of Time articles, then parlay that into a book deal--"
"For fuck's sake."
"Take it or leave it, Alabaster."
>[x] Deal.
[ ] No deal.
"Fine. Whatever. Just get Whitney and Alex out of here."
"You got it, chief."
She gets in the car. Whitney helps Alex into the backseat. Before getting in too, she says: "do you have enough time? You know... to do the thing with those bombs."
You check your phone. You've got five hours. You're not at all confident that's enough time.
"I've got more than enough time," you say.
Whitney kisses you goodbye and climbs in alongside Alex. Kay pulls away.
On your way down to the manhole cover where you'll gain access to the sewers with the bombs you need to defuse, you take a quick look for Sable's van.
It's gone.
Somehow, in all the confusion, she slipped away.
You hope she's safe, wherever she is.
---
Wearing a lighted helmet, your hands work quickly, pulling charges off the garland of colored wires you have rigged beneath the building. You know every moment that passes is one moment closer to accidentally jihading yourself.
But your estimate of how long this would take, already conservative, soon proves to be an awful underestimation.
Two, three hours pass; you're hardly making a dent in the massive cache of bombs you have rigged beneath the building. Should you abandon the effort? Let Darkbloom Analytics blow up?
It doesn't matter. Either way, you're probably dead. If those servers go down permanently, you have the sinking feeling that you'll be a vegetable within a couple days.
12:00 AM comes and goes. 1:00 AM. 2:00 AM. You wipe the sweat from your brow and fight off the woozy, brain-foggy malaise gripping your every cell. Time isn't on your side. You're not going to make it.
"Alabaster!"
You turn. It's Rose. Back in town at the worst possible time, as expected.
"Goddamn it," you say. "How the hell did you--" but you already know how. She still has a tracker on you.
"Aren't you running out of time?" She says.
"Yeah. And the longer you annoy me, the more time I waste. Go away."
You turn and set back to work.
She doesn't go away. She comes up and kneels down next to you. "Show me how," she says. "I can help."
"No, you can't. You'll fuck it up."
"I'm not stupid!" She insists. "In case you forgot, I scored more points than you at the quiz bowl championship. That makes me smarter--"
You turn, putting an index finger in her face. "I'm serious, Rose. Go away. I don't need your help. And I don't want it."
She shoves you. "You stupid ass!"
You shove her back. "Dumb bitch!"
You're both standing now, facing off. But is this really the time for one of your brawls?
"You're going to get yourself blown up!" You say. "Get the hell out of here and let me work in peace!"
"I'm not leaving," Rose says, her voice low and level. "So show me how to help."
"Why?" You shout, seething. "Why can't you just, just fucking -- LISTEN to me for once? Why can't you just go away?"
"It's because..." Rose drawls. Her voice is full of uncharacteristic trepidation. She trails off and wrenches her eyes closed. "Because... because..."
"Out with it!"
"Because I'm in love with you!"
Her confession echoes off the dark, grimy walls.
She stands there trembling, breathing heavy, waiting for a reply.
You turn in a worried little circle, unable to formulate a response. It comes as a shock to you, those words, from that person... but another part of your brain tells you that you actually shouldn't be shocked at all, tells you that you're a fucking moron for being surprised even a little bit.
Either way, it's out now. And now you know you'll never convince her to leave. Unless -- unless.
You stop in place, your back to her, and you realize what has to happen. You kneel down, keep working on defusing the bombs -- can't waste time, even now. This gives you a moment to prepare, too.
You take a deep breath, and then you let it go. "I hate you," you say.
All the thousands of times you've said those three words over the years, you've never put that kind of venom into it, that kind of forcefulness and meaning. You say it with real hatred dripping off every syllable.
When you glance over your shoulder, you see it landed with the force you needed it to. Tears stream down Rose's face, glinting in the light of your helmet. "W-what?" She says.
You keep going: "Did you think I was joking all this time? I hate you. I've always hated you. You're an obnoxious, pretentious, fat, stupid bitch. I hate you."
Rose is stumbling backwards as if you're physically striking her. You can't bear to watch; you look back down at your nimble fingers.
"Alabaster..." she breathes, her voice hoarse and hardly more than whisper. "Please... y-you don't mean that... be serious..."
"You're an ugly, unloveable harpy." Another bomb defused. "Sure, I played with you for a little while... because I didn't have anything better to do. Because it was fun for a little bit. And just like the pathetic waste of skin you are, you thought it meant I cared about you. But to tell you the truth? I'm bored of you now. I have other girls to fuck... girls I actually care about."
You steal another glance back. She's stammering but no words are escaping her lips. Her face is a wet mess of tears. She holds her hands to her cheeks as if to try to catch them and force them back inside.
"Leave me alone," you sneer. You turn to face your work again. "Fucking cunt."
You quickly wipe the tears from your own face as Rose's pathetic weeping fills the sewer.
Your heart flutters: once, then again. You grunt in pain.
"A-Alabaster...?"
"I told you to go away!" You manage. You wave a hand wildly behind you, the universal signal for "get the hell back."
You lurch forward, catch yourself, try to keep working. But all the colors are blending, you can't see anything. You're on the verge of blacking out.
"Alabaster! What's wrong?"
"I'm having a fucking heart attack..." you say, your voice weak.
You fight against it, but no use. Your chest feels like it's exploding, your brain feels like it's melting. You sway and finally fall over. Rose kneels down next to you.
"Tell me how!" She insists. "Tell me how to defuse the bombs!"
"I'm..." you say.
"Please! Tell me! I can do it!"
"Go..." you say. "Just go... leave me..."
"I'm not leaving! I love you! I love you, Alabaster! And no matter what you say I know you love
You pass out.
When you wake up again, you're alone.
You stumble groggily to your butt, grope for your phone, check the time. 4:21 AM.
You glance at the bombs -- they're still there, a majority of them live and wired.
They were supposed to go off at 3 AM.
But you're not dead. And they haven't exploded yet.
You get to work again anyway, working with the urgent assumption that they'll go off at any second. It's almost 7 AM before you're done.
--
You climb out of the sewer.
On your knees trying your best to conceal yourself against the concrete barrier, you peek out from the first level of the parking garage, and catch a glimpse across the street to the cordoned-off scene of the violence at Darkbloom Analytics. Men and women in FBI coats are wandering around, taking photos and surveying the mess.
Noelle is there. As if she's goddamn psychic, she snaps her head around, looks directly across the street and locks eyes with you.
You freeze, terrified; but after a moment she turns, and doesn't seem to warn anyone else that she saw you.
Nonetheless, you beat a hasty retreat and leave out a side entrance down another road.
You walk back to Galatea's apartment. The sky is periwinkle in the immediate predawn, and streetlights are flickering back to life. People are milling around, talking excitedly about all the insanity that happened in the past 24 hours. You're anything but excited.
April 21, 2015
Cerise isn't at home when you get back from Boise. Was she lying after all? Is she stuck in that shithole town?
If she's anywhere else, you know where to find her.
You drive to North High.
It's past 11 PM; the school is deserted and its halls are lit only by the occasional emergency light -- the ones that stay on no matter what. It gives the school a sort of weird, otherworldly quality. You navigate the halls slowly, somehow worried about being seen. As you approach the anime club room, you see the lights are on, and then you hear the opening theme of NeeKyu blaring loudly.
Of course. Cerise came here, plastered no doubt, to drown her sorrows in the Weeb Clubroom and watch anime on the big projector screen. You could throttle her for worrying you like that.
"Goddamn it, Cerise--" you mumble as you step into the clubroom.
But she isn't there, either.
You turn in a confused semicircle, searchingly, but nope -- it's just you here.
Only when you close the lid of her laptop and kill the music do you hear it: whimpering echoing off the walls.
You step into the hall again and follow the source of the noise.
Around the corner, you find her. Cerise is sitting against a wall, hands clasped around her knees, crying.
The school janitor is lying on the ground in front of her, his eyes open and his tongue lolling from his mouth. He isn't breathing.
"Oh my god, Cerise..." you say. You kneel down, check for a pulse. His skin is already cool and his heart isn't beating. There can be no doubt: he's dead.
"I'm sorry... I'm sorry..." she says.
"What happened?" You say.
"Damon... he... he came at me..."
She speaks slowly and her words are slurred. She's obviously drunk -- more than drunk, she's on the verge of passing out.
"He attacked you?" You say.
She nods. "He... I choked him... he was going to rape me..."
"D-did he?"
She shakes her head.
The blazing panic within you, of discovering a corpse that your older sister is responsible for, passes like a stormcloud. You quickly assess the situation with a rational mind.
These are the facts.
Cerise, a student who graduated years ago, is trespassing on campus after hours, drunk, and has no obvious sign of physical trauma.
She killed a man -- one who wasn't trespassing. More than that: she choked him, let him die, and didn't even have the presence of mind to call for help when it was over.
She says it was self-defense, and you believe her unquestioningly. Will a court?
This is manslaughter. At the very least.
"I'm sorry... I'm sorry..." Cerise says, over and over.
You grab her shoulders.
"You didn't kill Damon."
"Wh-what?"
"You didn't kill Damon. Damon was an arsonist. He's been burning down buildings with specially wired Roombas for a couple years now. Tonight he made a mistake. He accidentally burned down the school. And he died in the fire."
"Alabaster..."
"Say it. Tell that story to yourself again and again until you believe it."
She collapses against your shoulder, weeping. You hug her tight.
"I'll take care of everything," you tell her. "I promise... I promise."
---
At Galatea's apartment, it's all hugs and smiles from Whitney and Rose -- Stackleford tries to get in on the action too, but you swat him away.
Gal, Alex and Cerise aren't here, though. You ask where they are.
"Asleep," Whitney says. "In there." She points towards Gal's bedroom.
You head for the room, unafraid of breaches of privacy in a moment like this. You need to see them.
You open the door.
They're not asleep.
Cerise is sitting at Galatea's desk, staring dead-eyed at a laptop screen.
Alex is sitting on Galatea's bed, his face grim; beside him, a still-bloody tarp.
Galatea is on the floor next to the computer, hugging herself and rocking back and forth.
"Cerise...?" You say as Rose and Whitney elbow into the bedroom too.
She looks at you now. Her eyes are a brilliant, gleaming sapphire blue.
"Oh no... no, no..." You say.
"Sand Reckoner..." Rose breathes.
Whitney kneels in front of Galatea. Cerise gazes down at them, but it's like she isn't fully here.
"What did you do?" Whitney demands. "What did you do?"
"she told me to... she told me... it was the only way to get the pgp key..."
"Fix it! Fucking fix it!" Whitney yells.
You catch Cerise's attention. "Hey. Hey, are you--"
When her eyes lock with yours, she starts shaking. She looks like she's seeing hell itself. "I... I..."
She clutches her face.
"Cerise?"
"My eye... my eye..."
It starts as a barely audible whisper and increases in volume until she's shrieking. She slides to the floor, her face in her hands, rocking side to side, yelling in agony.
You cradle her, unable to shake her to her senses. Whitney is punching Galatea in the face, vicious blows, bloodying her up; Rose is on her phone, calling an ambulance; Alex's shellshock has been replaced by an utterly helpless look of despair.
And in your arms, your sister's shrieks turn back to whimpers, and then she passes out.
July 4, 2009
Of course your faggot brother had to ghost right before the fireworks. Mom, sitting on the towel and too tired to bother, sends you to go find him.
"Why me?" You complain.
"You have Alabaster-dar," she says, holding two fingers at her temples like antennae. "Bewwwww. Ala-bast-or," she says in a robotic voice.
You groan. "Fine..." you say.
You go searching along the shore. You follow the curve of the beach, passing by family after family. They all seem happier than yours, laughing and joking and having a nice time. You wonder what the difference is.
Finally you come across a little isolated cove. Maybe you do have Alabaster-dar, after all. You know he's probably here.
You climb over an outcrop of rocks and into the cove.
Yep. He's here. And he's jacking off, the pervert.
He senses your presence. He whips his neck in your direction, at the same time falling forward and tugging his swim trunks back up. Not in time. You saw it all.
"Pfff-- were you-- oh my GOD, Alabaster!"
"What are you doing here? Go away!"
"I was looking for you, you little dork. Mom was worried."
You sit in the sand beside him. He looks away, turning bright red.
"You're such a pervert," you say. "Only someone like you would do something like that in a place like this."
"I don't want to hear it," he says. He points at you. "Or maybe you think Mom would like to know about that copy of Limewire you keep hidden on the family computer in a folder labeled 'homework.'"
Your laughter turns into a choke. "Y-you-- how do you know about that?!"
At this moment, a brilliant burst of green pyrotechnics in the sky illuminates your blushing faces. As the light fades, the crackling boom reaches your eardrums.
A few quiet moments pass. Alabaster stands. "I'm going back."
"Wait--" you say, but you're not sure why. You reach out to clasp his hand. "Why don't we stay here for a second?"
A blue burst of light flashes like a strobe in the sky. You see his confused look.
"What?" he says. "Why should we?"
You don't know. You can only shrug.
"If you want me to do your summer homework for you," he says imperiously, "you can just forget it. You're not going to butter me up so easily."
"That's not it. It's just... it's so nice and quiet here. I thought we could watch the fireworks together."
He pulls his hand from yours and steps back, looking you over. The fireworks begin to come in a continuous stream now, the bubble-wrapping pop of explosions and white smoke accentuating the glittering panorama of color.
A beat passes, the kind of beat that feels like it has the whole universe hinging on it.
"Okay." He sits down. "But don't try anything weird."
As you sit there beside your annoying little brother, leaning against each other, something feels somehow different. Like a critical moment has come and gone without remark - like a choosing has changed it all.
END OF SEASON 2.