Selina takes a minute to answer, face looking as if struggling internally.
"I-it has drugs i-in it... doesn't i-it? H-helps a lot? Nothing t-t-too bad? Wh-what kind of place i-i-is this!? Some r-r-random still in a guys h-house!?" Selina's face has anger and fear plastered on it, not truly all her right now. To Rita, it would probably look like she was overreacting, or having a PTSD moment of some sort to dark basements and possible drugs.
"No drugs in it, I swear. It's just alcohol. Well, as far as I know. And I feel kind of okay right now, so... uh... that's great, I guess."
She sighs.
"Look. I'm sorry. I didn't know you'd react like this. I just thought, hey, you're in a really shitty headspace right now, so I thought I'd make room in my own world, you know, just so you can maybe hop over to something, well..."
You think she was about to say 'normal', but immediately reconsidered.
"... different, you know? Clear the mind with something new. There's not even any drugs in there, just a couple of those funspheres. Nothing to really be worried about - and I can vouch that they're definitely better if you've had a drink beforehand. No stills or anything. This isn't the roaring twenties, you know."
She pauses, thinking.
"Although I really don't know where Hadrian gets it from. I think it's from medical supplies or something. Maybe some watered down ethyl rubbing alcohol? I dunno. Or maybe he does have a still somewhere."
She shrinks back a little.
"Anyway, you don't have to have any of his stuff if you don't want to. We can leave right now if you think you don't wanna stay. We'll leave Lynn behind if she feels like it, even. Just please don't run off. I'd feel really bad if you were out there alone somewhere, you know?"
"If she doesn't show, it means it's a waste of my time." Jake remarks as he check if he can maybe jump up and pull the fire escape down all the way so he can climb it.
You think you can, but then you try it and realize you can't. You try harder, and your fingers brush tantalizingly along a part you could maybe grab onto and pull down, but that's all you get before you lose hope and thus any motivation for jumping higher, convinced that it probably isn't meant to be. Not like this, anyway.
Kyle ignores it and goes to leave. Never staying in this shit house again that's for sure. Even the street would have been better. You know, because random shit only molests you when it's sure you are asleep.
You walk over the door, opening it wide and greeting the new day (eyes still shut, since you're not quite sure if something's not about to suck them out were you to actually look at something).
Outside you hear screaming. A high-pitched, immature, afraid voice crying out in pain, screaming for help in the parking lot.
"Ive never been to one before, but id assume that this one at least would be fairly large. As for what they are doing... its hard to explain, they are either randomly expanding and contracting space... or they are somehow affecting our sense of scale to imitate such an effect."
"You mind sharing the booth for a little while? Ill probably want to take a closer look once it gets into full swing."
"It's probably the sense of scale," the man contributes nervously. "What I've read up on it says it's like LSD, but it fu-uh, messes with select parts of your brain, see? Haven't heard of anything doing Alice in Wonderland effects, but they can do stuff like make you the happiest guy in the universe for a bit, get you a personal meeting with God, make you numb all over, make you numb in
certain places, anything!"
He pauses.
"Well, that's what I read in some forum posts, anyway. Maybe the people who wrote those were liars as well as semi-illiterate. We'll find out, eh? Hah! And yeah, you can chill here. You seem cool. Want a drink?"
Alex knew the search was going nowhere fast. He would head back to his apartment to make a call in house. He would attempt to call Jeremy, the guy who always needed a magician to make someone "disappear". He was looking for work, and this would give him something to do while looking for the culprit.
Luckily for you, Jeremy's always got something lined up, even if you need to hunt a bit for a payphone so that you can call him. Jeremy says this one's a pretty important one - some guy's got a birthday coming up. The two of you arrange a meeting to discuss things further, and as usual you don't actually see him, but somebody you don't quite see but suspect to be Jeremy in disguise does slip you a note from him that says you can look for the details in a particular gutter under a particular grate. You find it without issue and discover that it seems to be a bit of an interesting job - you're supposed to find a guy named Simon Black, who seems to be the Mr. of that Mrs. Black you killed some time previously, and figure out if he knows anything about Mrs. Black's contacts. Regardless of his knowledge, you are then to kill him inconspicuously and report your findings in code (fucking Jeremy and his cryptography) on a piece of paper taped to the inside part of a loose brick in a crumbling factory building. Preferably within a week or so, yes.
You had to decode all this with some equipment you had to go over to Jeremy's house to borrow, and then promptly return it without speaking a word. Jeremy's a bit weird that way, and he shot you in the chest, fortunately non-lethally, when you decided one time to just ask him about what he needs directly.
Author
Topic: Worm: Edwardstown (Read 136420 times)