-Dreamscape(Zed's Memory)--

The walk to Cabavi was filled with random chatter and a dissemination of pointless information. The latter was more the work of Peter, unsurprisingly.

“Do you know one of the janitors has a crush on instructor Torent?” Peter asked conversationally.

Nurifa shook his head, and while no one was sure if it was in response or exasperation, Peter continued.

“Yeah.” He stepped over something no one saw in the dark. “Poor girl, though, cute thing with the biggest knockers.”

“Why ‘poor girl’?” Anthony asked, stepping over what Zed was sure was nothing.

“Well, because he’s engaged.”

Takeshi stepped over nothing. “I don’t think he is.”

Nurifa stepped over nothing. Zed got to the place, looked down, saw nothing and looked up at the others. They were too engrossed in the conversation to notice.

Zed shrugged then stepped over nothing.

“And why do you say that?” Peter was asking.

“No engagement ring,” Takeshi answered, displaying his empty engagement ringer finger.

“Doesn’t mean anything,” Nurifa disagreed. “It’s women that wear the engagement rings. Not men.”

“My mum said my dad wore his until when they got married,” Anthony said.

Nurifa hesitated. “Then I guess most men don’t wear it.”

“Must’ve been your mum that forced him to wear it,” Peter mused, turning a corner casually. “Never heard of a guy wear his so happily—Trip wire.”

He stepped over something and they followed.

Takeshi looked back at the trip wire then around nervously. “Why are we in a place with trip wires?” he asked.

“And what does it trip?” Zed added.

Peter waved their worry aside with a casual gesture. “Just something from before the first awakening, when people used to try and break into the facility. It’s nothing to worry about. I’m sure it’s so old it doesn’t work anymore.”

“People used to break in before magic?” Takeshi asked, surprised. “I thought this place was built because of the first awakening.”

“It was. But that was when the government started noticing readings of new energy before the first awakening. They built the place to study it and it turns out it was mana.” He shrugged. “Then people started treating it like Area 51 or something, so the dumb ones started ignoring the whole military men with guns and kept trying to sneak in.”

“Don’t you think something like a trip wire might’ve been too much for civilians?” Anthony said.

“Can’t say. A lot of people were very stupid back then, and when I say stupid I mean dumb as a bottle kind of stupid. They also didn’t have much of a sense of self preservation. Besides, they weren’t the only ones. Other government spies kept trying to get in, too.”

“I thought the new energy phenomenon was happening everywhere before the awakening,” Zed said.

“So why would they want to sneak in?” Takeshi asked.

Anthony adjusted his glasses, looked up at Nurifa and said, “A phenomenon is when something happens with a questionable cause.”

“Thanks,” Nurifa said. “I actually didn’t know that one.”

“Well,” Peter said, gesturing between both boys. “Just like that. English is the language of the country but there are things Anthony knows that Nuri doesn’t.”

“Oh,” Takeshi scratched his chin. “How do you even know all this?”

“Cause I’m smarter than I look. Also, my mom works for the government so I have the ins of the whole thing.”

“Isn’t that, like, a breach of confidentiality or something?”

“Nope, I’m family.”

“I don’t think that’s how it works, though.”

“Nope, it is,” he said, then gestured with his hand as if shooing a fly away. “We’re going out of point here. What I was saying was…” he paused. “What was I—Oh, yes. So when other countries started trying to sneak in, they beefed up security. Then, after the first awakening the institute switched to magical defenses, runes and all that. I’m guessing after the next one it’ll get more elaborate and deadly. In conclusion, the trip wire is harmless.”

“Then why are we stepping over it?” Nurifa asked as Anthony hung back and grabbed the sleeve of Zed’s jumpsuit.

“Sorry,” he muttered. “Can’t see anything.”

That’s cause you keep smudging your glasses with your jumpsuit, Zed thought as he shrugged. “Not a problem.”

“Safety?” Peter shrugged, answering Nurifa’s question. “Dunno. Everyone just does, I guess.”

* You have received a piece of information (Origin of the institute).

That’s odd, Zed thought, dismissing the notification. It never gave him information like this when he was in the dreams. It was mostly information regarding quests or items he recovered, sometimes even people. But not things like this.

They turned once more and it was only a matter of time before they deluged onto a stretch of tarred road.

“Civilization at last,” Anthony declared dramatically.

“Yup,” Peter said, then turned and started walking down the road. “And five more minutes of civilization to walk before we’re there.”

“Five minutes,” Zed gasped.

“Five, maybe ten. Depends.”

“Peter,” he growled, and Anthony’s hold on his sleeve tightened.

Peter turned, walking backwards with hands raised in appeasement. “It’s not long, I promise.”

“Ten minutes’ walk is long.”

“Alright. Then five.”

“Now you’re just lying.”

Peter grinned. “Two?”

Nurifa rubbed a hand down his face. “Now you’re just calling random numbers.”

“Zero, eight, zero, three, five, five, zero, four, five, two, eight.”

This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

Everyone paused.

Peter’s grin widened and he snapped a finger at them. “Now that,” he said, “is calling random numbers.”

He turned back to the road and continued walking, knowing they would follow. They did.

They walked down the road until it started sloping downwards and they could see clusters of lights, yellow and white. A sign of actual civilization. Even from a distance it was enough light that they could see with it. All the while Anthony kept his hold on Zed’s sleeves.

“What exactly where you doing before the first awakening?” Takeshi asked.

“It was thirteen years ago,” Peter mused, “Sooo… ah, I was four so… I’ve got no idea at all. You?”

“My family was moving to Oklahoma and we were in a car.”

Peter groaned softly. “No cover. Out in the open. The earthquakes and hurricanes must’ve hit you hard.”

Takeshi nodded. “They did. My mother said the winds pretty much threw our car away.”

“I want to say it’s better than those who ended up slipping between space, but I can’t be certain of how you’d feel about that.”

“Slipped between space?” Zed asked. They were well within civilization now, flanked by tall brightly lit buildings. It was also noisy. Countless people were chatting and muttering, talking over mobile phones so loudly it was as though they were trying to out shout each other. The roads were no longer safe to walk on so they joined the chaotic crowds of people on the side walk as cars blazed up and down the road with blaring horns and angry engines.

A homeless man passed them in baggy clothes that smelled of dried shit and piss with the occasional stains of age old detritus. The beanie on his head was patched and torn and a few locks of brown hair poked out of it at the top. He moved with a can he shook to make sounds with and begged with incoherent words.

He grinned as he passed them, revealing a set of missing teeth but didn’t approach them. Zed wasn’t sure how he felt about the homeless. His mother often said it wasn’t their fault they were homeless. His older sister said it was a good enough reason to pity them but not enough to go near them. For him, he couldn’t really say he cared, he just didn’t like the way they smelled.

“You didn’t hear of them?” Peter asked, as they came to a stop amidst a crowd waiting to cross to the other side of the road.

“I didn’t,” Zed answered.

“Me, too,” Takeshi said.

Peter put a finger to his lips. “Odd. Well, the government called it the slip-space phenomenon. So get this,” the crowd started moving, and they followed, “apparently, the world is smaller than it once was. There are places across the world that just disappeared—closed in on themselves—and,” he pantomimed disappearance with a single hand, “poof. Gone. Just like that. It happened at the institute too. I hear they lost a lot of their staff.”

“Shouldn’t that have left something, you know…” Takeshi twirled his hand with a skeptical frown, “Obvious,” he finished.

“It did, at the time. But the parts that had gone missing came back after the awakening. But not all of them, though. For instance, Manhattan never got the places it lost back.”

They were on the other side of the road now and Peter led them down an alley between two loud buildings. At the end of the alley a suspicious man in a black hoodie whispered with another who looked inebriated.

“Rune grafters,” Peter said in a low voice, catching Zed’s eye on him. “They sell runes with certain properties.”

“I thought the government has a monopoly on those,” he whispered back.

Peter gave him a questioning look, then sighed. “Sometimes I forget you grew up in some small town in the middle of nowhere. The government has a monopoly,” he stressed the word with air quotes, “on anything magical. But there’s this thing called the black market. It’s—”

“I know what the black market is,” Zed frowned.

Peter flicked his head.

“Shush,” he hushed as Zed rubbed his forehead, “the corrupted are talking. Now, as I was saying, there’s magic in every nook and cranny. Every dirty alley and questionable establishment. I know the number of mages that turned up after the awakening are few but you can’t really believe the government got all of them in their employ. Anthony’s naïve but even he’s not that naïve.”

Zed looked at Anthony and the boy shrugged apologetically.

“The trick with the black market and the non-governmental bodies that have it, is figuring out who’s selling you the real shit and who’s just scamming you. Like that guy could be a scam for all we know. His runes could be fake.”

They stopped halfway into the alley and Peter knocked on an iron door built into the side of the building. It let out the loud clanging of hollow metal and the men at the end of the alley raised their heads to look at them.

Peter raised a hand at them in greeting. “Don’t worry about us, bro. We’re not here for you.”

Nurifa tensed and Zed noted Takeshi’s stance shift so that he stood sideways and his hands curled into fists. On his part, he was terrified out of his mind and Anthony practically grabbed his arm.

To their surprise, the man in the hoodie nodded before asking, “You sure you don’t want any?”

“Certain,” Peter called back, then knocked again, three knocks, the first broken from the rest by two breaths. “We’re good.”

The man slipped something into the inebriated guy’s hand, took a step towards them and fear held Zed by the back of his neck.

“You sure?” the man asked again, approaching them now. “I’ve got the good stuff.” He raised up a sleeve and revealed an arm covered in countless rune markings. “I got something that can make you feel alive, or take you to heaven, or keep you up all night for the ladies, if you know what I mean.”

Zed’s hand went to the arm Anthony held on to and rubbed it absently, he still felt empty without The Berserker’s runes. He was no mage but he’d heard rumors of non-mages who could somehow use runes.

Will I be able to use one, or two? He wondered.

Peter knocked against the door once more in the same pattern, completely unfazed by the man. “We’ve had the good stuff before,” he assured the man, “so we’re sure when we say we don’t want one. Not today, at least.”

“Nah, bro.” The man slipped his hand inside the hoodie pocket, then nodded at Zed. “Your boy over there looks like he’s interested.”

Peter spared Zed a quick glance before shaking his head. The metal door opened before he could answer and A mountain of a man stood there. He was dark skinned, like Nurifa, but heavily built with a chest the size of a barrel and so tall Nurifa’s head barely reached his shoulders. He wore a tight fitting black t-shirt that accentuated his bulging muscles and equally black jeans and kept his hair very short.

“What’s good, Bruce,” Peter greeted with a smile and raised his hand for a handshake.

Bruce looked at it then back at him.

“No?” Peter paused. He looked at his upraised hand then dropped it. “So that’s a no then. No matter. Me and my boys want in.”

Bruce groaned as if already stressed out before looking at all of them. He wasted no time on them as if looking simply because he had to, then did a double take. His eyes landed on Anthony with his broken glasses and round face.

“He old enough?” he asked in a deep voice.

Peter shrugged then slipped him a tiny round object. It looked like a spherical blue stone with a light crack running along its side. “He should be now.”

Bruce looked down at it, grumbled something Zed didn’t hear, then slipped it inside his pocket. He held the door wide open. “Welcome to Cabavi. And try not to get into any trouble.”

The man with the hoodie was slowly backing away when Bruce noticed him. “Hey! What did I say about selling your fake ass rune-drug around here? Now get the fuck out of here before I call Jake on your ass.”

The hooded man held up his hands and backed away slowly. As he did, he kept his eyes on Zed. Zed thought he saw a smirk on the man’s face but couldn’t be sure. There wasn’t much in the way of details that could be seen in the dark. Also, Peter was already entering the building and Anthony was tugging him along.

They stood in a small space with a well-lit stair case in front of them and a hallway with red lighting beside them.

Bruce locked the door behind them with another grunt then gestured to the hallway. “This way.”

Peter shook his head and patted the man on a bicep, having to reach up to do it. “We’ll take the steps tonight, big guy. My friend over here hates elevators.”

Bruce spared Zed a look, likely wondering why anyone would hate elevators, then shrugged.

Peter grinned then turned towards the stairs and headed up. They followed behind him, taking the initiative of the leader in unknown territory. Behind them Bruce muttered. “I’ve got no idea why he lets you come in dressed like a failed astronaut every time.”

“What can I say?” Peter answered without looking back. “Failed Astronaut’s kinda my thing.”

Zed grumbled to himself as they headed up the stairs. He was glad Peter was willing to take the stairs for his comfort but he didn’t like that he’d put it out there in front of Takeshi. The boy was their classmate but not necessarily their friend. They’d only spent a week with him, how could they already trust him with information about him?

Sounds like one of your personas talking, he told himself as they went up the stairs.

Besides, it’s not like he hated elevators, he just didn’t trust them. Every persona the mind mages had drafted him into in all the dreams had possessed a healthy dislike for them. They were contraptions they had almost no control over. Small prisons that went up and down, keeping them trapped inside. It left the occupants at its mercy. He’d had nothing against them before joining the institute but had come to share his personas’ dislike for them quite easily.

As they went up the stairs, the silence of the building faded away. First it was intruded upon by the muffled sound of distant music too far away to be heard, then it was completely usurped by loud blaring and banging. Soon the soft white lights that filled the staircase was replaced with red, and they came into the full force of club Cabavi.

They walked into a large hall filled with a crowd of madness, people jumping and dancing, drinking and smoking, songs blaring at a volume so high the beats shook the building. Zed spotted a few people with one or two rune markings on their neck, and judging by the soft glows of different colors from the runes that depicted they were active. he doubted they were fake. There were red, blue, green, yellow, and orange.

One thing was for sure: he didn’t like it here.

Peter turned and faced them as he slowly drifted into the crowd.

“Welcome,” he said with a wide smile, “to club Cabavi. Home of Cabana, Arch-angel of debauchery.”