Then…
It started with a knock on my door.
More specifically, it started at two in the morning with someone meting out a lifetime of pent up violence on my door.
Not that I wasn’t used to waking up in the dead of the night for visitors, but as a courtesy they usually called first. As this particular visitor was both unannounced and unexpected, and as I am cranky as hell upon waking to these conditions, I grumpily grabbed for the little snub-nosed revolver I tucked under my pillow for just such an occasion.
My hand rifled beneath the feathery softness of the cool side to find an empty spot where a weapon that should have been, was not.
I had a moment of the kind shared by everyone that has ever sought something late at night and realized through a sleepy haze that no only is the object missing, but that said object is also extremely dangerous. It was the uncontrolled, completely justified irrational panicking routine that comes with just waking up. Heart hammering, I threw my pillow across the room in an exasperated huff while simultaneously flailing around with my other hand amongst the confused heaps of linen in the desperate search for my gun.
The knocking increased in volume and intensity. Whoever it was, was either very pissed at my door for reasons unknown to me, wanted me dead, or was in dire need of what I had to sell them. My money was on the later, though the door might have had a life of its own, going out on weekends while I wasn’t home, stealing girlfriends, locking itself from the outside.
“Shit!" I called out in breathless annoyance, "hold on!” I added to no effect. Panic gave way to alertness, calming me down just enough to notice a sharp pain in my ass. At some time in the night, the little shooter had apparently managed to migrate from the relative safety of under-the-pillow-land to the dangerous territory of under-my-right-buttcheek-ville.
I chuckled to myself.
My bed was warm, the steel grip on the gun was slightly sweaty. The room was cold and unbelievably dark, which meant as soon as I turned the lights on, my eyes were going to be subject to a world of discomfort. For a minute, I debated whether or not it would be easier to simply shoot through the door so the knocking would stop. In the end, I decided not to. I liked my door, shooting it would probably seriously hinder its nightlife. Well, that and I didn’t have clear shot from the bedroom, so I untangled myself from the sheets instead.
Incredibly, as my frozen feet shuffled my now frozen body towards the light switch, the knocking continued. This guy must have been a professional doorknocker in a previous life, or a boxer. I will admit to being impressed by the determination he’d shown to this point. Still a little pissed, but impressed all the same.
Something snagged my foot. My momentum carried me onward, and I narrowly avoided breaking my face open on the corner of my coffee table. Might’ve been an end table, guess it depends on location.
Not important.
I struggled to my feet, an apartment-bound kraken rising indignantly from the depths of a filthy carpet. Unwashed clothes from the couch that I’d accidentally taken with me on the fall and a discarded pizza box destined for the trash can – first thing in the morning, I reminded myself, again – cascading off my back as I rose tectonically from the ground.
Knock knock.
As soon as the lights were on, I immediately wished they weren’t. With the mess of my living area now visible, the apartment looked wretched. My eyes hurt as predicted, and I considered giving up this whole thing as a lost cause.
Eh screw it, I was already there. Squinting, with gun in hand I opened the door. Fortunately for both of us he had the foresight not to continue his steady assault onto my face. Having to shoot him after all the effort we had both gone through would have been such a waste.
Odd.
Her.
There was a woman, well dressed for someone who comes about calling in the middle of the night, at my doorstep. Thick, untamed chestnut colored hair was piled hastily atop her head in a partially intact bun. Messy wisps hung down, teased out and frazzled from the humidity, and judging by the deep black circles under her eyes, just below her horn-rimmed glasses, stress as well.
She couldn’t be a prostitute, they don’t make house calls; those that did never posed as faux high class. I don’t remember ordering one, either. Ever… recently. So the question remained: why was she here?
Oh, right. I sell drugs. Takes all types I suppose.
Despite her three days awake look, she was rather attractive. I tried mustering my sexiest voice, which came out as a tired and probably hostile grumble, “Help you?”
Big, doleful brown eyes came up from a narrow face as she almost whispered, “Got any Muse?”
Well, dammit, she didn’t look like a cop, not that that’s ever mattered. She actually looked like a museum curator. Not sure why, but lawyer was too cold and librarian too stale. “Yeah, come on in.” She pushed passed me without a second glance, not returning my smile. I closed the door behind her, must be a pretty bad night, everyone loves my smile.
“Grab a seat, I’ll go fetch a batch,” I instructed. She lowered herself onto a portion of couch not covered in clothes. The woman took a moment to run her hands through her tousled hair, pulling off her glasses in the process and setting them down on the table.
Normally, new clients try engaging me in nervous conversation to ease their own personal tension. This woman just sat and stared straight ahead. Oh well.
I maintain a lab in the back of my house, so like any good mad scientist, it is a total disaster. Let me clear something up, I am not a middle man. I do not have ‘contacts’ that ‘hook me up’ with ‘the stuff.’ I know for a fact that I am the only non-governmental producer of any human-base, and they would kee-heel me dead without a second thought if they knew it.
Fortunately, even cops have difficulty with cases, who am I to deny them the help that only I can provide? It’s an arrangement that allows for friends in high places. As long as I keep my nose out of the bigger forms of trouble and toss a batch of inspiration out to the law, no trouble finds me.
And potential-of-a-God willing, this Museum Curator woman will not disturb my stable little world.
It only took a minute to find the product. I walked calmly back to the living room. She stared up at me while I splayed my wares across the table, little glass ampoules of different colors, each indicating a potency measured in ideas a minute, clinking together as they rolled to settle. Soft chiming notes that broke the pale silence in the room.
Everyone seemed to be under the false impression that the higher the thoughts per minute, the more expensive Muse should be. Take the time to ask anyone who is able to think for themselves, which is a rapidly emptying pool should you need to look, a million ideas makes it impossible to concentrate. One idea, churning over and over in your head gives you time to focus it, hone it, develop it into something useful.
I caught her gaze again, her eyes a mixture of bland confusion and pleading desperation. This was obviously her first time, she was terrified. I gave my obligatory user caveat, “Okay,” pause, wait for name.
Waiting.
Wow, uncomfortable.
“Okay, right.” I held up a medium dosage ampoule, “This is Muse. 2cc’s at a time, no more than 10 a day or your brain will start falling out of your ears.” Not even a giggle, tough crowd. “Break off the top of the bottle,” I mimed a twisting motion. Not surprisingly, I’ve had customers return with bloody hands, or the shattered remnants of the bottle asking for a refund. “Inject intravenously. Not recommended if you are currently taking other medications, mixing with alcohol or mind altering substances,” oh yeah, when you lack the inhibitions to try all your shiny new ideas, the results are news worthy, “or pregnant. Do you have any questions?”
Fourth word of the night, “No.” Her eyes never left mine as she reached in her back pocket for payment.
I am going to regret this. This is somehow, someway, going to come back and bite me in the ass, and I’m going to do it anyway. Curiosity will end mankind.
Deep breaths.
“If I was to ask you why you need this, would you give me a straight answer?”
Without blinking, without flinching, her fifth word came out in three very controlled syllables. “Aliens.”
And we’re done here. Time to call it a night.
“They found us, or we found them, and we screwed it up. I tried to stop them, but,” she started crying.
Awesome.
“Okay crazy person, I don’t think –“
“I’m not crazy! I was there, I work at the Astro-lab, I’m the head of astronomy there.” Heh, I was close.
“Look,” I lightly took her hand and stood her up, “I’m sure whatever story you’re about to tell me will shock and awe with it’s difficulty to believe.”
She followed me lamely towards the door, protesting slightly between sobs, “It is hard to believe! They screwed it up and I can’t fix it!”
Ugh, ughhhhh, high pitched whining does not piss me off like most people, it twangs that annoying chivalry nerve. Even with all the warnings signs that this could go horribly wrong, that damsel in distress routine is a blaring call to every shred of DNA I wish I could selectively breed out of our species.
I hate that fucking nerve. I am going to ignore it, kick her out, and snort some coke. What? I’m a drug dealer.
I wrapped my hand around the door knob and started to twist, “Lemme stop you there, sweetheart. You’re cute, granted, and under normal circumstances I’d talk to you in a bar and try to bring you home with me. But there is this whole threshold on the graph of hot versus crazy which you just crossed. Wow, did you ever cross it.” I opened the door for hopefully the last time tonight, “It’s been fun, but now it’s way past my bed time. Have a nice life.”
She shuffled out. Before I could close the door, she said the one thing that broke my will in two while sobbing, “I need the Muse. I still, I still have to-to fix it.”
I don’t really have cocaine.
Dammit. “Alright,” I stepped aside to let her back in. “Tell me what happened.”
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