Vampyre's Byte...by aeon
Don walked into the bar, pausing to kick the black guy crouched just inside
the doorway atop the steel staircase, avoiding the cold mist blowing down
from above, his coat and jeans covered in denim patches of various colors
and some greys.
"Stupid fuck," he muttered, half obligated.
"Fuck you, man," the bum answered. Neither of them had the desire or
strength to fight, so they left it at that. Something crawled over the guy's
left eye and disappeared under the eyelid. Something black. He didn't even
blink.
Emerald light spilled forth from the globe in the corner, fighting with the
blacklights above -- mold against the darkness, warm and fuzzy, fighting
with the unnecessary bonfire of vanity raging in the fireplace. Green motes
danced around the room as he walked to the bar. Spores. He tried not to
breathe too many of them in and went downstairs to the bar.
He ordered a beer from the see-thru bartender and watched some guy hawk
batteries on the television screen above the bar. The screen was cracked and
what looked like vines were growing through the top half, holding the glass
together. He wondered, briefly, if the guy was still alive. Briefly.
Alive ... he wondered what that meant in a city like this, a world like
this. What sort of life was this? He realized he was starting to
philosophize, and shook it off. Checking his beer, he noted the spores
settling into the foam, greening the surface. He set it down and ordered
another from the greenish bartender, watching the guy by the door. He felt
like a sidekick without a hero. The beer arrived, and he checked for spores
before drinking. He looked at the TV, at the bum, and finally settled for
staring at the dancers on the floor, writhing around to some pounding
neo-techno crap.
"Who ... who ... who are you?" the song asked everyone in the room. Nobody
answered. Some chick in a black skirt and torn black stockings looked past
him, then, and he watched her. Her legs were spread, revealing legs shaven
two days ago, and green underwear. Intentional? Her hair, done up in a
mohawk, was painted silver, and had little red ornaments or bells or
something strung up in it.
She didn't smile at him -- he thought she should have, for some reason. He
was considering something along the lines of buying her a drink anyway when
they walked in. There were twelve or thirteen of them, all chromed up and
sporting matching jackets -- gang colors. "Fangs" was scrawled on a patch on
the back of each jacket, and could have been a logo, the name of the gang,
or even a band name -- he didn't know or really care, and to tell the truth,
it didn't really matter.
One of the Fangs was sporting some sort of techie-goggles, busy crawling the
Web while his buddies led him along on a 6 foot chain, keeping him in line.
He was buying drugs, selling copied software, having a chat with the
cyberpope, whatever. He wasn't going to be a problem -- the guy with the
fucked up hair, on the other hand, was. He was their hero, and wore the
patch and belt to "prove it". Patches -- holding together memories as much
as they held the fabric together.
"What's with the green hair, dude?" He stood as if in a battle position,
legs slightly spread, fangs curled over his bottom lip, claws already half
popped.
Truth was, this guy probably wasn't interested in fighting. Nobody really
felt like fighting, anymore, especially in this place. But the challenge was
part of the ritual, after all, as empty as the ritual itself was. They were
both freelance mercs, and they were in the same room. Protocol and tradition
demanded a challenge. For that reason alone, he stood up, his chest even
with the guy's furry face, and looked down at him. This wasn't about
fighting, so he chose a different approach. He drew a katana from beneath a
spore-encrusted oilskin trenchcoat, and quickly reversed the blade.
"Once," he said, quoting, "a lord asked Miyamoto Musashi 'What is this "Body
of a Rock"?' Musashi replied, 'Please summon Terao Ryuma Suke, my pupil.'
When Terao appeared, Musashi ordered him to kill himself by cutting open his
abdomen. Just as Terao was about to make the cut, Musashi stopped him. 'This
is the Body of a Rock,' he said."
He looked down at the guy's spiky hair, noticed that the guy was holding his
own blade out at an angle, intending to stab, not slash.
"Are you a rock?" The shifter didn't even flinch. Spores settled on his
hair, frosting the spikes. Nobody moved. The music pounded on, oblivious.
Everyone, except the Daemon, busy jacking himself off in webspace somewhere.
With one smooth movement, he brought the sword up and around, then back
under his trenchcoat. The faintest of red lines traced itself along the
bottom of the guy's chin, not even blood. Neither of them moved.
Don nodded, satisfied, and sat down, offering the guy a seat. The rest of
them walked off and huddled in a corner, muttering and snarling. The kid was
still unshaken. Looking more closely, Don saw the dilated pupils. The eyes
darted back and forth in his head every few minutes like goldfish in a bowl.
He noticed the bruises and stopped wondering why. He sighed. Fucking
pointless. The whole lesson, wasted on a jackhead, so doped up on inhibitors
to control the symbiote in his skull that he was only half alive.
"Who are you?" the song asked everyone again. Still, nobody answered. And
then again, and nobody continued to not answer. Or something like that.
"Who are you?"
"I don't know who I am," Don said quietly. Nobody answered him, either. He
bought the wolf-kid a drink anyway, telling him to watch out for the spores.
The kid ignored him, snorting something green -- or it could have been
white. It was so hard to tell, in this light.
What difference did it make, anyway? He stared himself down in a mirror
covered with patches of moss, watching as the green crept across his face,
becoming part of him, infesting him.
He moved a seat over and the illusion vanished.
