Tcr 26) Music Appreciation
It had been a while since I had been in an Arcology suite.
The city in a single building concept tended to only be a single building below ground. Shops, subway entrances, storage, and fast food places, were all down below. Along with clubs, libraries, theaters, and places to do sports. Apartments fill the parts that were above ground along with some fancier places up on the top floor, restaurants, and the like.
Those apartment were broken up into long narrow building so that people could have windows and balconies.
Raven’s rooms had been furnished with some of the cheaper Core Values furniture, which looked like it had had some previous owners. But there wasn’t much of it since most of the room was set up with various musical instruments and recording devices.
All of which looked pretty familiar since I had watched some of her videos she had recorded right here trying to find her sound by trying out hundreds of songs in various genres.
I liked her bluegrass covers of rock ballets.
And of course, with her Sonic based Rank 3 Forming Superpowers she didn’t need any sort of expensive studio editing.
I had the corpse give the Crows sitting out on the guard rails of the balcony a nod, then turned to face the frowning young woman glaring at me with her hands on her hips.
“Nine minutes.”
I grunted at her and set the cardboard box down on the couch. “So some people wanted to buy the gas station you used to live below to set up a storefront for scale models. They wanted someplace out far enough to not be bothered with the kind of customers you get with foot traffic, but only the people who were as into their hobby as they are.”
Raven nodded with a thoughtful look on her face. "I'd have thought that the Circle would have cleared the place out of anything dangerous?"
I nodded back at her, “They did, mostly. No one dug up the parts of the base that got wreaked in the fighting, which turned out to be the personal quarters. Core gave it the once over checking for survivors, or anyone that didn’t survive, and any big machinery.”
“But with people moving in above, they wanted to make sure there was nothing down there that would be a danger, or that Dr. Talon might come back for.”
She crossed her arms and began rubbing them. "No, Heron got us all out. And father would have had anything important set up to destroy itself.” She walked over and sat down beside the box giving the cardboard a haunted look before pulling on the lid.
I took a step back to give her some space. “Some friends of mine sewed up the rips on the stuffed animals, as well as cleaning them up. Everything electronic was scanned and recorded by the Circle. But I got them to promise not to put any malware on them. Or any kind of tracking devices on any of it.”
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
She looked up at me after a moment and nodded absently before she began to hesitantly lift items out of the box.
I wasn’t sure if she was listening all that well, but some of what I had to say was for her family.
The young woman was one of several of Dr. Talon's children. Each one an experiment in creating a person with Powers rather than having them get Powers from being Triggered or inheriting them from a parent.
And he made each one with bird like features to ensure that they would never be able to live in normal society because of their looks. Keeping them all loyal to Talon no matter how badly he treated them.
Except Raven who surrendered herself at the age of eighteen to get away from her family, and some of her siblings had defended her from Shrike when the eldest sister came around to collect her.
My assumption was some of her family was still keeping an eye on her, as well as an ear.
“We filled in the base with dirt packed in enough to support further construction, which the Model guys don't seem to be planning on. Which brings me to this."
I pulled out the folded over index card I had stashed in my grandfather’s shirt pocket.
Raven reached out and took it from my hand. "What is this?"
"The combination of a storage locker I rented. The units are all free standing rather than being in a building and I have promises from several members of the Circle that they will not be monitored and no one will be waiting to jump anyone that shows up to access it.”
I gestured at the cardboard box. “There are similar boxes in there for all your siblings and Talon himself. And it's all paid up for the rest of the year. Anyone in your family can collect them at their leisure, either just their own or pick them up in one trip for the whole family.”
The dark feathered woman gave me a long look. “Why are you doing this?”
I shrugged. "It's a bunch of personal belongings. Children's mostly. Giving it back costs me nothing, and it's the decent thing to do. Of course, I had to tell the Circle it was part of a long game to influence the behavior of people I might end up fighting against, which is true, but I had to think that up after the fact. Originally it was just me thinking about a bunch of kids losing their home and all their stuff."
As I headed for the door she caught up with me to pull it open, as I stepped out, she held out her hand out to me with a challenging look in her eye. She stared down as we shook. “Oh god, it’s so cold.”
I let out a huff of amusement, "I had the air on in my car all the way here, got to keep my ride nice and perserved." I waved at the corpse's chest so she would know which ride I meant.
Before she could close the door behind me, I held up one finger and fished out another index card from my pocket. “I had a few suggestions for more cover songs, you might even like a few of them.”
Outside I called over a few of the crows, "Did anyone approach the truck while I was in there?”
They shook their beaks but I still pulled over and ran a scanner over the car, as well as driving by a No Drone Zone near a school to try to make sure no one was tracking me on my way home.
A few hours later I was out on the old green glider strumming the pale six string guitar I had bought as a Christmas gift for myself years ago.
It wasn’t part of a plan or anything, it was just hard to strum while in my rocking chair and the visit to the girl had reminded me how long it had been since I had played.
Too long by the way.
As I was playing I realized Scorn had wandered over to the edge of the porch. I had done up a pot of Au Gratin potatoes with diced up bacon and green beans on the side, but she had passed on dinner.
I gave her a nod, which she returned as she stood there and listened. After a while, she asked. "Do you sing as well?"
With a slight grin, I shook my head. "Every time I try, the dogs howl."
After a while, she sighed and made her way over to sit next to me in the glider. “You’re in my seat.” But she didn’t chase me off.
A little bit later I started up another song and tried to quietly sing along with it. Muffin got up and headed to the kennel, with Fafnir close behind her.
Scorn looked me straight in the eye, then let out a low pitch slow howl at me without breaking eye contact.
Message received. I shut up but kept playing.
When the song ended, she got up and held her hand out for mine. “It’s late, let’s go to bed.” Then she led me inside.