“And who might you be?” Buchanan called out over the music, he looked me up and down. “As cute a thing you may be, you look better suited for a hospital bed than my own.” His words were smooth and naturally persuasive.
“Audacity Buchanan?”
“Normally I’d say ‘who’s asking,’ but for you I’ll just say yes,” He patted the booth beside him, motioning me to sit. “Are you with Hector?”
“No,” I sat down as close to the end as possible.
“I didn’t think so but can’t be too careful…” He slides along the booth towards me, “So what exactly are you here for?” The closer he gets, the more imposing he becomes. He’s a lot taller than expected, not as tall as the bouncers I had passed on the way in, but at least a foot above me.
“I want to talk to you about the incident at your previous place of employment,” His eyes narrow as he slumps back, suggesting clear frustration. “If that’s okay?”
His eyes fell to my chest, “Don’t know too many cops that wear Dust City shirts to work, are you some kind of pint-sized undercover operative?”
“I implore you to watch your mouth,” my words laced with venom. “I’m trying to help you.”
“Oh hey hey hey, take it easy, I was just joking,” Audacity picks up a white cloth napkin from the marble table and waves it over his head. “I surrender the bad boy persona, please miss won’t you introduce yourself.” His final sentence was recited with a high-pitched geeky accent.
“My name is Misha, I’m a detective.”
“The last detective, Castellan, didn’t want to do shit for me, why should I think you’re going to do any better”
“You worked with Detective Castellan?” He pulled out an old-school tobacco cigarette wrapped in some sort of tightly wrapped cloth, people wouldn’t dare waste paper on such a pointless activity.
“Yeah that's the one,” he takes a long drag and blows a smoke ring above our heads. “A real stupid bastard that one.”
“Why is that?”
“Just was… didn’t take me or the job seriously if you ask me.” Curious, Castellan not only left a terrible report but also a terrible rapport with the victim. Something seems off.
“Could you tell me what happened on the night it went down?” I activate a recorder on my optic.
“My my, you gotta buy me a drink before we get down to the nitty-gritty,” he smiles coyly—two white rows of perfectly aligned teeth.
“Whatever it takes,” I go to stand. “What do you want?” Audacity laughs and knocks on the table.
“Oh sit down Misha, I was kidding,” I sat back down and gave him a pointed expression. “I’ll tell you, but you have to relax a bit. You’re so jumpy it’s making me nervous.” Places like this make my skin crawl, even this very booth is probably coated with layer after layer of… nothing ideal. Yet, Audacity seems to bathe in this atmosphere, as if he were right at home.
“Yes, well, this isn’t exactly my side of town,” I reply, trying to find a part of the table that my arms won’t stick to.
“Where is your part of town then?”
“My apartment, preferably.”
“Hah! I’m not surprised to hear that.” His voice booms but the sound is consumed by the chaos around us. “How about a quick dance before I start spilling the beans? I just ate so it would be nice to burn off the calories.” I replied with a cockeyed stare. Audacity cracks his knuckles and lets out a sigh before continuing, “Alright, I can tell you’re going to be no fun until we get this over with… Here we go.”
______________________________________________________________________________
Interlude: Audacity’s Story
“For about a year and a half, I was a croupier at the Golden Rear Casino and Restaurant. It wasn’t a classy place, but trust me, Prayer Beads makes it look like a Martian Steakhouse. I worked craps tables on Fridays, I was good at it and made some damn good tips. The crowds around my tables would get massive and my regulars would wait hours just to take a couple shots. It was the best night of the week.
When you sign on at the Golden Rear, croupiers are required to have one artificial optic and an organic eye. It was strange at first but you get used to it faster than you think. My right eye was artificial and had all sorts of programs installed to detect cheating on every game we offered at the casino. The organic eye was supposed to be a vanilla look at the game in case there was any digital tampering.
So, that Friday night I had a new customer come to the table early, just when my shift started at seven. Short little round guy with a pinstripe coat and rat for a mustache. We’re talking about a really ugly son of a bitch. He comes in and starts playing, not much for conversation but he’s tipping me well, really well. Then all of a sudden, about five tosses in, the dice changed. The exterior remained, but inside I could see that the weight was off and that he was cheating. I still don’t know how he switched out the dice, but that doesn’t change the fact that I had to stop the game.
It shouldn't surprise anyone that he wasn’t a big fan of that. The little guy couldn’t handle the accountability, he had one of those Naples complexes.”
______________________________________________________________________________
“Napoleon complexes,” I interject.
“What?” Audacity asks.
“That little man complex is a Napoleon complex.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. Naples is a city in the Mediterranean.”
“I’ve been saying Naples complex every time I’ve told this story,” Audacity exhales and rubs the back of his neck. “Man, that’s kind of embarrassing. Why do they call it that?”
“Don’t know,” I reply.
“Well. He had a really bad Napoleon complex.”
______________________________________________________________________________
Interlude 2: The Rest of Audacity’s Story
“So he starts yelling as I return his chips and tell him that he is welcome to cash out all of his current earnings. When he was yelling all the blood in his body went into his pumpkin-sized head and he kept shouting, “You’ve got a lot of balls kid!” Over and over again. He was plastered out of his mind and starting to scare the other guests so I knew I had to step over and deal with him until security arrived.
I tried to calm him down but he kept pushing his sausage fingers in my face or against my chest. I made an executive decision to get him off the floor, so one of the dancers and I grabbed him by opposing arms and tried to lift and drag him out. Some of the other patrons were grateful, others were prodding us for no other reason than that they were bored and didn't know what the hell was going on. Before I knew it he threw a haymaker at the neck of the dancer who was giving me a hand and was reaching for his coat pocket.
I had rehearsed in my head a hundred times for a moment where I would need to step up and beat back some asshole in over his head. I’m a coward. The worst part is that I wasn’t always that way. I was a soldier, Back in the third Martian war I drew a lot of men's and women’s blood. I faced death a hundred times over and yet I never felt such a fear as what I felt that night.
He drew a gun and instead of attacking him, snatching the weapon, or even just shouting “gun,” I just stood there. An eternity passed in those few seconds, and all I could think about was everything that I was about to lose. My daughter, my dog, my friends, hell… even my job. This world I find myself in. It was like my life flashed before my eyes way too fucking early, I was like a solid fifteen seconds premature.
Because of that-”
______________________________________________________________________________
“Fuck.” Audacity put his cigarette out on the glossy table, “ I’m about to go on. Please stay and watch a while, I'll finish my story afterward.”
“What kind of music do you play?” I ask. The slim man begins to slide out of the booth and tosses his cigarette on the ground.
“Honestly Misha,” He turns and hits me with a wicked smile, teeth so bright it feels as though it’s reflecting the spotlights into my eyes. “Can you even call this modern garbage nowadays ‘music?’”
“Is this a trick question?” Buchanan burst out laughing, a kind of laugh that doesn’t just encourage one to join in but demands it. One wink later and he leaves me to sit alone as he takes the stage. People pat him on the back as he walks, but he pays them no mind. On one of the dimly lit side stages, a tan-skinned gunky-looking woman grips a guitar, and a shaggy-headed drummer grips drumsticks over his head humming to himself. But when Audacity takes the stage, the others seem to almost fade away. I’ve never met someone with so much natural allure, with each step the crowd got quieter and quieter. Buchanan reaches over to a cream-colored bass guitar leaning on a metal stool behind the guitarist and begins to finger the thick steel strings.
The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
A wilting tune creeps through the speakers as the crowd grows completely silent. Audacity’s hands flow like water, and that somber tune begins to build, with each pluck of the metal strings this tension in the melody grows. The singer and drummer only wait and watch as they await the crescendo. A building is being built, note by note, which turns to sand the minute the rest of the band chimes in. The woman’s voice tears into the ear like a plate being shattered, and the drummer is either too stoned or too untalented to keep up with the others. Regardless of the others, Audacity is focused, not concentrating on anything but his part. I close my eyes and try to tune out the others, to try and isolate myself with that passion, but the chaos is too great and I snap out of it. By the end of each song, you have already forgotten how the last one goes.
Time passed, and soon he was by my side again.
“So whatcha think?” Audacity throws himself into the booth across from me, drenched in sweat.
“You did fantastically,” I take a sip from a lukewarm glass of water a rabbi brought me halfway through the seventh song.
“Appreciate it,” he pulls out another cigarette, his hands shaking as he lights it. “You know, I wasn’t sure if you were going to stick around for the whole thing. You really ought to want to hear the rest.”
“I do.”
______________________________________________________________________________
Interlude 3: The End of Audacity’s Story
He placed the gun squarely on my chest and smiled, for such a well-dressed man his breath and teeth were horrid. Even the overwhelming scent of liquor could not conceal the rot leaking from that man's mouth. I didn’t even have time to speak before his finger broke the “five pounds of pressure” threshold. It had been so long since I had heard that noise, the leitmotif of death, a never-ending theme of any battlefield.
My existence is split in two.
In my left eye, I saw that same ugly excuse for a man and the many faces of horror that watched as I was shot at point-blank range.
In my right eye, I saw a beautiful porcelain gate sitting atop a mountain of clouds. In a moment I had made the trek up to the entrance and was welcomed in by thin white angels. There was a warmth and serenity that I had never felt before. They guided me through the gate and into this kingdom among the clouds. I could see other specters, like myself, getting acclimated to the ethereal nature of this ponderous existence. Then the clouds shifted, and emerging from the sun's light I saw a man with open arms who secured my soul. With one look, he assured me that even though I encountered tragedy, this was where I was supposed to be. That everything will be okay.
Then I fell unconscious.
______________________________________________________________________________
“There you go, exactly what I told the other detective.” Audacity says breathing heavily, “I need a drink.”
Two different deaths, two different eyes.
This scene that took place within the optic goes beyond a glitch or error in the production. This was choreographed.
What triggered the scene? Speculation: Extreme stress. PTSD. Could the human mind's conception of one's life flashing before their eyes have translated to some sort of chaotic neural transmission to the false optic?
By who? Speculation: Assuming that the implementation of this scene was an accident, all fingers need to be pointed at the cooperation. Though if this is some sort of cyber religious stunt it could be just about anyone with the right skills.
Why? Speculation: I have no fucking idea.
“Do you believe me?” Audacity asks, his shoulders tense and eyes opened wide.
“Without a doubt,” I responded instantly. He leans back and the tension breaks in his posture. “But I’ll have to ask you a few questions. Is that okay?”
“Of course, ask me anything,” Audacity leans back forward and lays his arms, pointed in my direction. I opened up another recording.
“Are you a religious man?”
“I didn’t think so, but when you’ve seen what I’ve seen… It’s confusing.”
“So you think that the glitch was spurred by some sort of higher power, not a technical issue?”
“I just mean to say that I’m not sure,” he rubs where his artificial eye once was. “I want to believe, but since it was just one eye, that is where the doubt sets in.”
“I see, that is completely understandable. At that time did you-”
“Are you religious, Misha?” Audacity interrupts. I pause and think for a moment. My faith is something that I’ve never been public about. In the 2400s, religion was considered something of a bygone era.
Yet I still believe.
In what?
I don’t quite know.
“Yes, I am.”
“Shit,” his eyes darted around to the many scantily clad religious figures serving drinks. “How about we go and finish this conversation somewhere else? My car? Or?”
“To be truthful, I’d appreciate that.”
“Of course,” Audacity starts to slide out of the booth. “Let's fucking delta.” As I follow him outside of the club, every other person exchanges a greeting with Audacity. It must be a unique feeling to simply exist in a place where everyone knows your name. He can’t say all of these people’s names. With such a large circle, I bet he doesn’t really know anyone here at all. Every few feet he turns his head back, checking that I haven’t ditched him or been swept away in the crowd. Audacity slips through a curtain behind one of the many stages, and as I follow I can see the dramatic tonal change from the bar floor and the backstage. Those who would be smiling just past the curtain seem so exhausted as they sulk in this back room. I realize now that I so closely associate one’s work with one’s nature, and that is ultimately inexact. These workers droopy-eyed glares at Audacity before turning their heads down or away. He even attempts to greet some of the other workers as we pass through the dimly lit dressing rooms and yet they still offer him nothing in return.
Moving through the many shades of Prayer Beads, we finally make it to an emergency exit and push past the metal door into the dark alleyway. Garbage litters the streets along with a few scrappy individuals passed out along the club’s walls. Just a few feet from the exit is a car, a red four-door Penta G3, and an outdated sedan. For its age, it seems to have been kept in good condition. Audacity reaches into his pocket and causes the car's headlights to blink, when he does the silhouette of a girl reveals itself through the half-tinted windows.
“And viola,” Audacity says, his right arm motioning to the car.
“Is someone waiting for you?” I ask. He squints his eyes and flashes the light once more.
“Oh yes, Lucy, my daughter must have left the cafe early.” Daughter? Cafe? In this part of town on her own?
“She’s a brave kid,” he leans over and whispers over to me.
“It also helps that she’s a bit dim in the bin if you know what I mean?” Audacity points to his head.
“Who are you calling dim?” A high-pitched voice calls out from the car window. The door pops open and a set of black sneaker-clad feet land onto the blacktop. A young girl, who couldn't be over the age of ten, confidently struts out from behind the red door. Lucy’s hair was a dark red, she had black holes for pupils, and a sickly pale face, just like her father. Her voice echoes through the car speaker as the door opens, ambient microphones on the outside of the car amplifying the surrounding volume to within. Uncommon for an ordinary man, but I’ve gathered that Audacity couldn’t be further from any sort of baseline.
“Oh I’m sorry Lucy, I should have included you in the conversation,” Audacity smiled as she approached him with open arms. “I was talking about you of course.” When she went in for the hug she punched him in the chest before he wrapped his arms around her and lifted her off the ground with a squeeze. I stand there, shifting my feet. After a moment the young girl steps back and analyzes me from head to toe.
“Hello Lucy, my name is Misha,” I say.
“You don’t look like the normal girls my dad has sleepovers with, I’ll give you that.” She replies I snort, and Audacity gasps.
“Lucy watch your mouth,” Audacity barks. I can’t help but break into laughter, and Lucy quickly joins me.
“Should I take that as a compliment?” I ask through my giggling.
“Oh BIG time,” Lucy replies with a hearty childlike emphasis on the word “Big.”
“Lucy, she's just an acquaintance,” Audacity said as he pointed to the car. “Now go back to the car.”
“Oooohhhh acquaintance,” she said before scurrying back to the car without another word. Audacity rolled his eyes before turning back to face me.
“She seems like a sweet kid, if a bit wise beyond her years,” I joke.
“You have a diluted concept of wisdom I’m afraid.” He sat on the hood of the car and drew another cigarette. “But you’re right.”
“We can continue our talk another time. ”I look into the tinted windows of the car and see the girl making some sort of perverse hand symbol behind his back. “I bet you probably just want to head home.”
“Yeah…” He replies, his voice carrying a weight of fatigue. “Can I ask you something?”
“Of course,” I lean on the car next to him.
“Why do you do the things that you do?” His question resonated with me for a moment, at first it seemed surface-level, but I couldn’t help but consider the overarching reach of his words.
“Police work?”
“Nah.” He seemed different, even more, shell-shocked now than during our discussion earlier. Seeing his daughter has caused the man before me to shift into someone else.
“Then… what?”
“Care,” He stared back towards the door of the club. “Fight.” Then looked directly at me, I shivered when his gaze met my own.
“To tell you the truth, for a long time I thought I was some sort of chosen one.” He doesn’t laugh, I expected him to laugh. “I thought I was put here as some sort of divine avenger, but now, after everything that’s happened over the past months…” I pause.
“Hey,” Audacity chimes in. “It’s alright, keep going.” There is care in his eyes, his words are caressed by a tenderness only rivaled by Glenn on his brightest day.
“It’s just,” I care about what he thinks. I care about how he’ll forever see me as the words drift from my lips. Why? “Because I think humanity is special and worth protecting. And even if I’d forgotten tomorrow, I want to die knowing that I have done something that people can look to as an example of how to be…good.” I let out a long drawn-out exhale, “Sorry I must sound pretty crazy right now.”
“Crazy in all the right ways.” Audacity reaches into his pocket and pulls out a business card, he flicks it through his fingers a few times before extending it out to me. My heart flutters in my chest as gallons of blood rush into my cheeks.
Audacity “Courage” Buchanan
Neo-Jazz Extraordinaire
13894220949#
“Courage?”
“Yeah,” I take the card and slip it into my front pocket. “It was my nickname in the service, and since then transitioned into a stage name. Do you like it?”
“I do, both of your names seem to fit you quite well.” I stand up straight and ruffle my jacket on my shoulders.
“You better call me soon, Misha,” Audacity says, putting the cigarette out on the hood of his car.
“I will,” He flicks the crushed cigarette out onto the street and walks around to the driver's side door. Audacity cracks it open, Lucy’s voice emits from within the vehicle before he speaks over her, offering me one last goodbye.
“Stay safe,” he sank and the door closed behind him.