So, first of all, somebody tried to kill me, but that's not the reason I'm writing this.
The reason I'm writing this is because I sat down with Wendy the other day and told her the whole story and, well, I just happened to realize that it's kind of funny and would make for a nice reading. Most of you will think by the time you've read the first couple of chapters that this is a work of fiction, and you're welcome to think that. It will be safer for you, you know?
So, seeing as I already started this thing in extrema res, I can drop a couple of spoilers to catch your attention and build awareness of a few important terms:
-dodamage.de is no longer active.
-I still don't know who airtagged my door or if they're still around.
-Wendy is still alive.
-My brother is still alive, I think, though I will attend his funeral later on.
-"mecenas" means patron of the arts in Spanish, I wasn't aware of this when everything was happening, but I understand now why he got that nickname.
Now, I'm a tech-head and love everything 3.0, however, due to clarity reasons, I need to explain that all entries in this blog have been retrodated, this means that I've been setting the date earlier and earlier for each new entry, so the reading will became lineal, this means that this is the first entry you will read and yesterday's will be the next and so on. Seems confusing? You just need to scroll down and press Older Posts when you finish reading this page, so there you go.
Tuesday, 15 March 2011
Airtagging
WARNING: This is the tech-heavy entry. I'll give a small summary when I'm done, so do not be discouraged if you miss something along the way. Once this is over with, it will all start moving pretty fast and my brother is going to ask me to kill someone, so please keep reading.
Ok, so you may find the concepts that were introduced in the previous entry a tad confusing, so I'll try to clarify a few points. First of all, Wendy and mecenas (no caps, intended) are people, they'll be recurring characters soon and you'll get to know them. As for dodamage.de and airtagging, they're the awesomest ways of handling info, pretty high-tech and underground culture. BTW, spellcheck seems to have a problem with the word "awesomest", but I like it, so it stays.
Fuck you, Shakespeare.
BTW, spellcheck seems to have a problem with the word "spellcheck".
I'm rambling, so back to focus.
See, this is something so underground that we do not want people meddling with the stuff, so as I said earlier, please treat this as a work of fiction. Airtagging is the act of leaving tags of info everywhere.
Tags, as you will surely know if you were born before the nineties but after the seventies, is something similar to graffiti. Leaving a mark somewhere, you'll tag the spot.
Now, this is where the cool hi-tech stuff comes in, have you heard about Augmented Reality?
Ok, please launch any FPS videogame you've got lying around, see how all around the main action you get a bunch of numbers? Like, the amount of ammo you have left, your hit points, all that stuff? Imagine seeing all that info in real life? I do.
So, dodamage.de. This was the awesomest webpage ever (Oh, c'mon, spellcheck, webpage? seriously?). Somewhere around 2004, it started as a photo-sharing social community. It's main motto at the time was: "Create the art you want to consume". I was heavily into urban decay photo back then, I used to go around and take pictures in rundown neighborhoods, demolition sites, burnt houses, stuff like that. This was well before the term "ruin porn" was even coined, so it was still cool to do it. We were a small but pretty active community and we soon started believing that everyone else on the site were our friends. So, when mecenas told us about this small project he was running, we all jumped in.
The main gadget we got from it were the HUD lenses, we got a small chip in our contacts that's constantly receiving info from sensors we have in our bodies, which are called blips. A blip is a hypoallergenic chip that can be injected under the skin, it's got wireless capability and they run by draining the smallest amount of energy from your blood flow. Ever saw those watches that work by charging from your pulse? This is basically the same idea.
So, me myself I've got three blips active. One is basically a GPS, the other is a muscle-reader and the third one was my own personal access to dodamage.de.
The end result of all of this is that while I'm walking through any area with mobile phone reception, I was connected to the site and my blips were retrieving info from the site. As you can imagine, it was no longer just a space to share photos, but it had became a place were we would add comments with a GPS location attached to it, so if we looked at the spot where the comment was added, we would see the comment floating in thin air, thanks to our lenses.
Airtagging, cool, eh?
The lenses had a few extras, I had an IM program with most of the dodamage.de contacts on it and a small integrated browser. As I said before, I also had a muscle reader, this was a small blip on the palm of my hand that was able to check the movements of my hand and share them with my lenses, so when to everyone around me I would simply be twitching my fingers, I was actually IMing someone or browsing Wikipedia.
SUMMARY: I am able to read comments that people leave on a website while walking around as if they were floating on thin air. I can also IM people from wherever I am. Kind of what you do with an iPhone or Blackberry, but without the corporate gadget.
Did I already warn you that I hate corporations, including those "we are good" corporations like Google or Apple?
Well, I do.
Ok, so you may find the concepts that were introduced in the previous entry a tad confusing, so I'll try to clarify a few points. First of all, Wendy and mecenas (no caps, intended) are people, they'll be recurring characters soon and you'll get to know them. As for dodamage.de and airtagging, they're the awesomest ways of handling info, pretty high-tech and underground culture. BTW, spellcheck seems to have a problem with the word "awesomest", but I like it, so it stays.
Fuck you, Shakespeare.
BTW, spellcheck seems to have a problem with the word "spellcheck".
I'm rambling, so back to focus.
See, this is something so underground that we do not want people meddling with the stuff, so as I said earlier, please treat this as a work of fiction. Airtagging is the act of leaving tags of info everywhere.
Tags, as you will surely know if you were born before the nineties but after the seventies, is something similar to graffiti. Leaving a mark somewhere, you'll tag the spot.
Now, this is where the cool hi-tech stuff comes in, have you heard about Augmented Reality?
Ok, please launch any FPS videogame you've got lying around, see how all around the main action you get a bunch of numbers? Like, the amount of ammo you have left, your hit points, all that stuff? Imagine seeing all that info in real life? I do.
So, dodamage.de. This was the awesomest webpage ever (Oh, c'mon, spellcheck, webpage? seriously?). Somewhere around 2004, it started as a photo-sharing social community. It's main motto at the time was: "Create the art you want to consume". I was heavily into urban decay photo back then, I used to go around and take pictures in rundown neighborhoods, demolition sites, burnt houses, stuff like that. This was well before the term "ruin porn" was even coined, so it was still cool to do it. We were a small but pretty active community and we soon started believing that everyone else on the site were our friends. So, when mecenas told us about this small project he was running, we all jumped in.
The main gadget we got from it were the HUD lenses, we got a small chip in our contacts that's constantly receiving info from sensors we have in our bodies, which are called blips. A blip is a hypoallergenic chip that can be injected under the skin, it's got wireless capability and they run by draining the smallest amount of energy from your blood flow. Ever saw those watches that work by charging from your pulse? This is basically the same idea.
So, me myself I've got three blips active. One is basically a GPS, the other is a muscle-reader and the third one was my own personal access to dodamage.de.
The end result of all of this is that while I'm walking through any area with mobile phone reception, I was connected to the site and my blips were retrieving info from the site. As you can imagine, it was no longer just a space to share photos, but it had became a place were we would add comments with a GPS location attached to it, so if we looked at the spot where the comment was added, we would see the comment floating in thin air, thanks to our lenses.
Airtagging, cool, eh?
The lenses had a few extras, I had an IM program with most of the dodamage.de contacts on it and a small integrated browser. As I said before, I also had a muscle reader, this was a small blip on the palm of my hand that was able to check the movements of my hand and share them with my lenses, so when to everyone around me I would simply be twitching my fingers, I was actually IMing someone or browsing Wikipedia.
SUMMARY: I am able to read comments that people leave on a website while walking around as if they were floating on thin air. I can also IM people from wherever I am. Kind of what you do with an iPhone or Blackberry, but without the corporate gadget.
Did I already warn you that I hate corporations, including those "we are good" corporations like Google or Apple?
Well, I do.
My brother's call
"I want you to kill someone for me," he said.
"What the fuck are you talking about, Mark?" I said.
"Well, this is a delicate matter, I can't just talk about it on the phone," he complained.
I was playing Jet Grind Radio on the Dreamcast, which is really old school, and Ro (short for Roland) was in the kitchen making popcorn. My phone was on the table with the speaker on, and he knew I loved to talk like this, so it had indeed came as a shock that he had said what he said out loud.
"Can we just meet and have lunch tomorrow?" he asked suddenly.
"No way, man, I'm not killing anyone and you and your friends make me really really paranoid. Besides, I thought you were in fucking Phuket?" I realized then that I had no idea what my brother did, I just knew it involved drugs, guns and the kind of places you see in Hong Kong action films from the nineties. I decided to search for Phuket on Wikipedia and I found it frustrating that it seemed like a normal enough town.
Ro came out and shouted a "Hey, Mark, long time no see!".
My brother became silent for almost a minute as Ro settled down on the couch and I got an A in Shibuya-cho.
"Have you got the fucking speaker phone on?" he asked.
"Sure, I hate getting the phone near my brain, those things give you cancer, Mark, c-a-n-c-e-r." I said. I really enjoyed pissing Mark off, though I knew he was a bastard. I liked the idea that being his brother I was probably the only one in the world that could get away with making fun of him with just a punch instead of an indeterminate number of bullets.
He had hung up by the time I was spelling the second c. I believed he would have gotten the idea. There was no way I was going to get involved in his mafia-like affairs and there was NO. FUCKING. WAY. I was going to kill someone, right? Right.
Oh, poor little naïve me.
So I saved my game and we put on Rival Schools 2, so I could beat Ro's ass over and over while we ate popcorn, this was retro-Monday and we were expected to have a lot of fun with things from the nineties. Retro-Monday had started off a couple years back and we had started playing mostly eighties games, but the fact was that, save from the rare exception, most of them were crap once you took the nostalgia factor from them.
Then, my brother called again and I activated speaker mode with my toe. He didn't even let me talk this time.
"Jay, my funeral will take place next Sunday, please make sure Mum and Dad do not know anything about our conversation. I'll call you ten days from now."
I managed to say "Wh..." before he hung up.
I sat there looking at the phone, until Ro killed my character and said: "Woh, your brother must be so cool."
Fuck that, I was really upset this time. The bastard knew I had a date on Sunday and he had to go and fake his death then?
Screw him, I was still having lunch with Wendy.
"What the fuck are you talking about, Mark?" I said.
"Well, this is a delicate matter, I can't just talk about it on the phone," he complained.
I was playing Jet Grind Radio on the Dreamcast, which is really old school, and Ro (short for Roland) was in the kitchen making popcorn. My phone was on the table with the speaker on, and he knew I loved to talk like this, so it had indeed came as a shock that he had said what he said out loud.
"Can we just meet and have lunch tomorrow?" he asked suddenly.
"No way, man, I'm not killing anyone and you and your friends make me really really paranoid. Besides, I thought you were in fucking Phuket?" I realized then that I had no idea what my brother did, I just knew it involved drugs, guns and the kind of places you see in Hong Kong action films from the nineties. I decided to search for Phuket on Wikipedia and I found it frustrating that it seemed like a normal enough town.
Ro came out and shouted a "Hey, Mark, long time no see!".
My brother became silent for almost a minute as Ro settled down on the couch and I got an A in Shibuya-cho.
"Have you got the fucking speaker phone on?" he asked.
"Sure, I hate getting the phone near my brain, those things give you cancer, Mark, c-a-n-c-e-r." I said. I really enjoyed pissing Mark off, though I knew he was a bastard. I liked the idea that being his brother I was probably the only one in the world that could get away with making fun of him with just a punch instead of an indeterminate number of bullets.
He had hung up by the time I was spelling the second c. I believed he would have gotten the idea. There was no way I was going to get involved in his mafia-like affairs and there was NO. FUCKING. WAY. I was going to kill someone, right? Right.
Oh, poor little naïve me.
So I saved my game and we put on Rival Schools 2, so I could beat Ro's ass over and over while we ate popcorn, this was retro-Monday and we were expected to have a lot of fun with things from the nineties. Retro-Monday had started off a couple years back and we had started playing mostly eighties games, but the fact was that, save from the rare exception, most of them were crap once you took the nostalgia factor from them.
Then, my brother called again and I activated speaker mode with my toe. He didn't even let me talk this time.
"Jay, my funeral will take place next Sunday, please make sure Mum and Dad do not know anything about our conversation. I'll call you ten days from now."
I managed to say "Wh..." before he hung up.
I sat there looking at the phone, until Ro killed my character and said: "Woh, your brother must be so cool."
Fuck that, I was really upset this time. The bastard knew I had a date on Sunday and he had to go and fake his death then?
Screw him, I was still having lunch with Wendy.
Wendy
Wendy is awesome. She is the awesomest girl in the world. Ok, at least she is for me. She's also my biggest fan. Hello, Wendy!
I was completely in love with Wendy.
Was?
Yes, was, I still think she's amazing and we are the best of friends, but things have moved in quite strange ways, as you'll see.
Wendy was an airtagger, I met her on dodamage.de and we became instant online friends. We use to stay awake for hours talking about nothing much and about everything at the same time. By the time mecenas handed out our blips and lenses we had known each other for two years and then it happened.
Once night she came online (we didn't use that much the IM on the lenses, it was still kind of buggy) and told me she had seen the most awesome ("the awesomest?" I asked, "the most awesome, there's not such word as awesomest, Jay," she said) airtag she had ever seen and she began telling me all about it. Apparently somebody had tagged this mansion with a short story about the people who lived there, a kind of artsy pseudo-political stuff in which he bashed those with money.
I stopped listening, I knew everything about the tag already.
"Wendy, where did you said you lived?"
She told me, and I became aware that in over two years we had never talked about where we actually lived.
"Wendy," I said. "I wrote that tag, that's two blocks away from my apartment."
See, knowing that we lived so close should have made things easier, it didn't.
One of the best things about airtagging was the fact that it was so anonymous. None of us knew what the others looked like in real life or where we lived. Imagine the rush of talking to strangers in a bar, but doing it with the same stranger for two years. That was my relationship with Wendy. When we realized we were almost neighbours, things got kind of tense for a while. It wasn't fair, you know? We had been so close that we were really afraid of meeting each other. Maybe she was that stupid girl on the library whose phone always went off, maybe I was the prick that ran around playing the DS on his Segway.
Crap, having your dreams come true is usually messy.
I was completely in love with Wendy.
Was?
Yes, was, I still think she's amazing and we are the best of friends, but things have moved in quite strange ways, as you'll see.
Wendy was an airtagger, I met her on dodamage.de and we became instant online friends. We use to stay awake for hours talking about nothing much and about everything at the same time. By the time mecenas handed out our blips and lenses we had known each other for two years and then it happened.
Once night she came online (we didn't use that much the IM on the lenses, it was still kind of buggy) and told me she had seen the most awesome ("the awesomest?" I asked, "the most awesome, there's not such word as awesomest, Jay," she said) airtag she had ever seen and she began telling me all about it. Apparently somebody had tagged this mansion with a short story about the people who lived there, a kind of artsy pseudo-political stuff in which he bashed those with money.
I stopped listening, I knew everything about the tag already.
"Wendy, where did you said you lived?"
She told me, and I became aware that in over two years we had never talked about where we actually lived.
"Wendy," I said. "I wrote that tag, that's two blocks away from my apartment."
See, knowing that we lived so close should have made things easier, it didn't.
One of the best things about airtagging was the fact that it was so anonymous. None of us knew what the others looked like in real life or where we lived. Imagine the rush of talking to strangers in a bar, but doing it with the same stranger for two years. That was my relationship with Wendy. When we realized we were almost neighbours, things got kind of tense for a while. It wasn't fair, you know? We had been so close that we were really afraid of meeting each other. Maybe she was that stupid girl on the library whose phone always went off, maybe I was the prick that ran around playing the DS on his Segway.
Crap, having your dreams come true is usually messy.
Disclaimer
By now I've mentioned two gaming systems, a couple of corporations, two smartphones and Segway. Is this product placement?
FUCK YOU.
Corporations are evil.
Let me check back on all those, Segways make you look like a wanker, Dreamcast was an amazing system but it came out at just the exact wrong moment in time. Google is evil and disguises it very well. Apple is evil and it has decided that instead of covering it up, it's going to turn it into a lifestyle. Smartphones aren't even evil, they're simply already outdated.
The DS is cool, though.
See, this was one of the greatest thing about blips, lenses and airtagging.
Take a look at all the fun sci-fi out there. Why is the Millenium Falcon so much better than the Enterprise? (Woah! Goodbye 50% of my readership! So much for taking stances.) I'll tell you why: hand-made tech!
The Millenium Falcon was mostly jury rigged by Han and Chewie using whatever they could get their hands on. Just like in the sixties in America you would see people working on their cars. They had control over the stuff they used, they could modify it and make it better. If you've read William Gibson's Neuromancer you probably realised that Case tended to treat the console as if it was an extension of himself, you can just imagine him writing his own programs, his own firewalls and hacker tools. I'm pretty sure he used Linux.
People pretend to make you believe that this is the future you deserve, by giving you really cool branded gadgets. Well, fuck that. As I said, that was the best thing with airtagging. Of course we had no idea how the blips were made, except that they came from somewhere in South East Asia, probably Malaysia, but they arrived clean. We were the ones that created all the software and stuff that made it interesting and that made it work as it did. We were pioneers, early adopters.
Do not believe corporations: Early adopter just means getting the worst tech at the highest price. But when it turns to underground hands-on tech, early adopter means... Well, it means you're really cool, doesn't it?
Point is, we were testing out this new stuff and it wasn't branded. It didn't have an Apple, Nike or Coca-Cola logo, it was just sent to us by this guy who none of us knew... Come to think about it, we probably should have thought a bit more about it, shouldn't we?
Still, it was an amazing experience and it was totally safe, we had the blueprints, we knew how it worked, how to tweak it. It was not a fucking smartphone that could only do what the guys at the phone's online store would allow you to do and what you could pay for.
So yeah, corporations are evil, underground is cool. Right? Right.
And no, I do not use Linux, (goodbye again, 50% of my readership!)
FUCK YOU.
Corporations are evil.
Let me check back on all those, Segways make you look like a wanker, Dreamcast was an amazing system but it came out at just the exact wrong moment in time. Google is evil and disguises it very well. Apple is evil and it has decided that instead of covering it up, it's going to turn it into a lifestyle. Smartphones aren't even evil, they're simply already outdated.
The DS is cool, though.
See, this was one of the greatest thing about blips, lenses and airtagging.
Take a look at all the fun sci-fi out there. Why is the Millenium Falcon so much better than the Enterprise? (Woah! Goodbye 50% of my readership! So much for taking stances.) I'll tell you why: hand-made tech!
The Millenium Falcon was mostly jury rigged by Han and Chewie using whatever they could get their hands on. Just like in the sixties in America you would see people working on their cars. They had control over the stuff they used, they could modify it and make it better. If you've read William Gibson's Neuromancer you probably realised that Case tended to treat the console as if it was an extension of himself, you can just imagine him writing his own programs, his own firewalls and hacker tools. I'm pretty sure he used Linux.
People pretend to make you believe that this is the future you deserve, by giving you really cool branded gadgets. Well, fuck that. As I said, that was the best thing with airtagging. Of course we had no idea how the blips were made, except that they came from somewhere in South East Asia, probably Malaysia, but they arrived clean. We were the ones that created all the software and stuff that made it interesting and that made it work as it did. We were pioneers, early adopters.
Do not believe corporations: Early adopter just means getting the worst tech at the highest price. But when it turns to underground hands-on tech, early adopter means... Well, it means you're really cool, doesn't it?
Point is, we were testing out this new stuff and it wasn't branded. It didn't have an Apple, Nike or Coca-Cola logo, it was just sent to us by this guy who none of us knew... Come to think about it, we probably should have thought a bit more about it, shouldn't we?
Still, it was an amazing experience and it was totally safe, we had the blueprints, we knew how it worked, how to tweak it. It was not a fucking smartphone that could only do what the guys at the phone's online store would allow you to do and what you could pay for.
So yeah, corporations are evil, underground is cool. Right? Right.
And no, I do not use Linux, (goodbye again, 50% of my readership!)
Communities
Regarding entry #5 and entry #2, here's the whole story behind the relationship between dodamage.de and NovaVision, the company that created the blips and lenses we wore.
As I said before, dodamage.de started as a photo-sharing webpage. This was pre-Facebook, so instead of a social network, it was an "online community", but the idea was similar. We showed our photos to everyone there and they showed theirs, we commented and shared a forum where we would talk. The funny thing about these specialized communities is how well they reflected real life. Of course we all shared a similar interest, urban photography with an edge (not my words, that's was the page tagline). However, even considering that we were a small community, we had our own factions. We had the luddites, who used old cameras and spent fortunes in chemicals on old fashion analogic cameras; the techies (I was one of these), who bought a new digicam every six months; the eros, that always included naked girls on their photos...
These were microcultures inside of microcultures, so you ended bonding quite a lot with the people that were on your side. I mean, it was like if our country was photography, our town urban photos and our neighborhood the people we shared the most with. It was actually a really strong connection.
And then one of the techies linked in the forums an article about augmented reality he had read and liked. We commented, we discussed about it and some of us, me included, admitted that it was a cool idea. Then, a couple of months later, another of the techies, sends us a message saying that his company is working on something like this and he's looking for a reduced tester's control group. We were hooked straight away.
In case you're wondering, the luddites ended up disappearing (I think they might have became extinct) and the eros moved on to SuicideGirls when they started earning enough to pay a monthly subscription.
As I said before, dodamage.de started as a photo-sharing webpage. This was pre-Facebook, so instead of a social network, it was an "online community", but the idea was similar. We showed our photos to everyone there and they showed theirs, we commented and shared a forum where we would talk. The funny thing about these specialized communities is how well they reflected real life. Of course we all shared a similar interest, urban photography with an edge (not my words, that's was the page tagline). However, even considering that we were a small community, we had our own factions. We had the luddites, who used old cameras and spent fortunes in chemicals on old fashion analogic cameras; the techies (I was one of these), who bought a new digicam every six months; the eros, that always included naked girls on their photos...
These were microcultures inside of microcultures, so you ended bonding quite a lot with the people that were on your side. I mean, it was like if our country was photography, our town urban photos and our neighborhood the people we shared the most with. It was actually a really strong connection.
And then one of the techies linked in the forums an article about augmented reality he had read and liked. We commented, we discussed about it and some of us, me included, admitted that it was a cool idea. Then, a couple of months later, another of the techies, sends us a message saying that his company is working on something like this and he's looking for a reduced tester's control group. We were hooked straight away.
In case you're wondering, the luddites ended up disappearing (I think they might have became extinct) and the eros moved on to SuicideGirls when they started earning enough to pay a monthly subscription.
Wendy (II)
Wendy wasn't neither the girl from the library or the guy with the Segway.
Wendy was incredible. See, she wasn't top model like, but she was cute; still is actually. She's got this really nice thick glasses that make her face look so clever and she's got the sweetest smile that exists. She is your archetypical cute nerd girl, complete with a really nice fringe which she sometimes bleaches just to make it look like X-Men's Rogue. She usually wears dark coloured shirts with faded jeans and a dark short skirt on top, and leaves the colour for her accessories. She's usually quite shy, but she's got this amazing flirtatious look she can use when she feels comfortable. She was just the kind of girl I was looking for.
And the first date was a disaster. You could see that we were both really nervous. We didn't talk much until we got into the bus back home. There she happened to mention a record that we both liked and we started talking about it like we couldn't be stopped. We realized then that we could have the same kind of relationship we had online if we just focused on sharing those things we shared. While not having the safety of our own houses around us made it seem awkward, we were after all good friends and, you know, we had just clicked. So in the end, when the bus got to her stop she turned to me and gave me the smallest of pecks on the lips, and said we should try the date again, but without the shyness. I was, for a while, the happiest man on the bus.
See, now I know how this may sound, a guy in his twenties feeling light-headed for what couldn't even be considered as a kiss?
Well, I loved Wendy with all my heart, and I didn't usually meet that many girls. This had been my first proper date in three years, actually. So get over it, I am a nerd and that small gesture had gotten me all worked up.
I was happy, and I couldn't wait for our second date.
Our second date was scheduled for Sunday, the same day as my brother's funeral. I wondered if it would be right to tell my parents I had a girlfriend then
Wendy was incredible. See, she wasn't top model like, but she was cute; still is actually. She's got this really nice thick glasses that make her face look so clever and she's got the sweetest smile that exists. She is your archetypical cute nerd girl, complete with a really nice fringe which she sometimes bleaches just to make it look like X-Men's Rogue. She usually wears dark coloured shirts with faded jeans and a dark short skirt on top, and leaves the colour for her accessories. She's usually quite shy, but she's got this amazing flirtatious look she can use when she feels comfortable. She was just the kind of girl I was looking for.
And the first date was a disaster. You could see that we were both really nervous. We didn't talk much until we got into the bus back home. There she happened to mention a record that we both liked and we started talking about it like we couldn't be stopped. We realized then that we could have the same kind of relationship we had online if we just focused on sharing those things we shared. While not having the safety of our own houses around us made it seem awkward, we were after all good friends and, you know, we had just clicked. So in the end, when the bus got to her stop she turned to me and gave me the smallest of pecks on the lips, and said we should try the date again, but without the shyness. I was, for a while, the happiest man on the bus.
See, now I know how this may sound, a guy in his twenties feeling light-headed for what couldn't even be considered as a kiss?
Well, I loved Wendy with all my heart, and I didn't usually meet that many girls. This had been my first proper date in three years, actually. So get over it, I am a nerd and that small gesture had gotten me all worked up.
I was happy, and I couldn't wait for our second date.
Our second date was scheduled for Sunday, the same day as my brother's funeral. I wondered if it would be right to tell my parents I had a girlfriend then
Death Threat
I've realized that I've been talking for a while about airtagging but you may not have a clear idea what it looks like yet, so here it is:
((Image: a dirty corridor with a blue door, over the door there's a floating sign with "WE R GOING 2 KILL U" written in wobbly letters.))
That there is the door to my apartment, and the tag you see is the death threat I got on Wednesday, 4 days before my date and my brother's funeral. The threat got me more pissed off than paranoid. I had never done anything to upset anyone, or so I thought. I went online straight away, since dodamage.de had a strict policy about tagging reference. You had to log in and sign your tag, so if you checked, you could always see who had written any tag.
Had, past tense, that policy had been removed from the site three minutes before the threat had been written. In fact, I had the privilege of getting the first ever anonymous airtag dedicated to me, cool, uh?
Let me get this straight, I still do not know who wrote that tag, but things have changed quite a bit and I guess whoever wrote it was probably aware of how the big players were moving me around and using me. Of course, I had no idea at the time.
I could feel myself falling into the Dark Side, or as I used to call it: the Mark Side. I am normally quite calm, easy going, I enjoy sitting around and having fun. But I guess a bad temper is something genetic and I could go into this ugly fits of anger if things were actually getting to much out of control. I was so upset I called my brother.
"What? I'm kind of busy," he almost shouted before the first ring had ended.
"Mark," I said, slowly enough to make him realise I wanted a clear answer. "I just got a death threat. You are NOT," and here I made sure he could hear that I had capitalised the word, "getting me into any trouble, are you?" Cursive is harder to get through in spoken form than capitalisation, but I believe I did a pretty good job.
"No one wants to kill you, you arsehole, you're not worth it," he said. I felt patronised.
"Well, thanks, that's pretty comforting, can you please say so to the guy who wrote that he was going to kill me on my door?"
"Wait, did he write he or we?"
"What?"
"I mean, if you are serious about trying to kill someone you want to be personal, so they realise that you mean business, so when sending the message you want them to be sure that it is YOU the one that's trying to do the job. So, serious death threats always say I'm going to kill you. However, if you just want to scare someone you tend to act more impersonal, as if the threat could come from anywhere, so you would say we're going to kill you. So what was it, I or we?" Apparently Mark could use capitalisation and cursive in spoken word too. Could be genetic.
"Uhm, we."
"There you go," he said. "Some arsehole wants you to act scared, it's probably related to the thingy in Sunday, but you shouldn't worry. I would never get my little brother into real trouble."
"You are lying, Mark."
"Probably," he said and hung.
So yeah, someone was trying to scare me. Why? I had no idea.
I also had no suit for my brother's funeral, I realized. Fuck.
((Image: a dirty corridor with a blue door, over the door there's a floating sign with "WE R GOING 2 KILL U" written in wobbly letters.))
That there is the door to my apartment, and the tag you see is the death threat I got on Wednesday, 4 days before my date and my brother's funeral. The threat got me more pissed off than paranoid. I had never done anything to upset anyone, or so I thought. I went online straight away, since dodamage.de had a strict policy about tagging reference. You had to log in and sign your tag, so if you checked, you could always see who had written any tag.
Had, past tense, that policy had been removed from the site three minutes before the threat had been written. In fact, I had the privilege of getting the first ever anonymous airtag dedicated to me, cool, uh?
Let me get this straight, I still do not know who wrote that tag, but things have changed quite a bit and I guess whoever wrote it was probably aware of how the big players were moving me around and using me. Of course, I had no idea at the time.
I could feel myself falling into the Dark Side, or as I used to call it: the Mark Side. I am normally quite calm, easy going, I enjoy sitting around and having fun. But I guess a bad temper is something genetic and I could go into this ugly fits of anger if things were actually getting to much out of control. I was so upset I called my brother.
"What? I'm kind of busy," he almost shouted before the first ring had ended.
"Mark," I said, slowly enough to make him realise I wanted a clear answer. "I just got a death threat. You are NOT," and here I made sure he could hear that I had capitalised the word, "getting me into any trouble, are you?" Cursive is harder to get through in spoken form than capitalisation, but I believe I did a pretty good job.
"No one wants to kill you, you arsehole, you're not worth it," he said. I felt patronised.
"Well, thanks, that's pretty comforting, can you please say so to the guy who wrote that he was going to kill me on my door?"
"Wait, did he write he or we?"
"What?"
"I mean, if you are serious about trying to kill someone you want to be personal, so they realise that you mean business, so when sending the message you want them to be sure that it is YOU the one that's trying to do the job. So, serious death threats always say I'm going to kill you. However, if you just want to scare someone you tend to act more impersonal, as if the threat could come from anywhere, so you would say we're going to kill you. So what was it, I or we?" Apparently Mark could use capitalisation and cursive in spoken word too. Could be genetic.
"Uhm, we."
"There you go," he said. "Some arsehole wants you to act scared, it's probably related to the thingy in Sunday, but you shouldn't worry. I would never get my little brother into real trouble."
"You are lying, Mark."
"Probably," he said and hung.
So yeah, someone was trying to scare me. Why? I had no idea.
I also had no suit for my brother's funeral, I realized. Fuck.
Getting ready for the funeral
I'll spare you the details of my father's call on Friday night. I could hear my mum crying on the background and he was using his this-is-serious-stuff voice. I really really wanted to tell them that this was another of Mark's stunts, that he was probably doing so to avoid taxes or some mafia stuff like that, but I couldn't. See, my brother and me hated each other in that special way that brother's do. We would always be fighting, unless we had a common enemy, and as we grew up, our biggest common enemy was our parents. I would never betray Mark's trust.
Okay, forget that. I would probably betray Mark's trust for the right amount of money, if they were women involved and if I was sure that no permanent damage could happen. If Mark was going to be faking his own death to avoid some dangers, telling my parents what he was doing could be the wrong move. Mark usually knew what he was doing, or at least he pretended too and usually got lucky. Sorry, Mum and Dad, but if Mark needed you to believe he was dead, I'm sure he had his reasons.
No, I mean it. It's him that was the jerk. Why am I the one who gets to feel like crap about the whole thing? Why the hell did I get to be the brother with a conscience?
So yes, my parents were depressed, my brother was, quote unquote: dead and I had to plan a date and a funeral for the same day. I thought about asking Wendy to postpone, but I was so upset about the selfishness of my brother that I decided to keep the date. "Hey, look at me, I'm at your funeral and pretty happy 'cause I just had lunch with a great girl!" I talked to Wendy and we agreed to meet at 2PM so after lunch I could take her home, go back, take a shower and change, and be at my parent's right on time.
I knew my father wanted me to spend those days with them, but I had managed to avoid it. My father was an old school worker, so when I mentioned that even through the grief I felt, there was no way I could leave the shop unattended for the weekend, as this was one of our busiest periods, I actually think I made him proud.
Thanks goodness I had been too lazy to tell him I quitted six months ago.
Then, as I was wondering what to wear for my date, my dad called again and reminded me that I needed to be at their house at 15:30.
"What?" I asked.
"We'll go by car, there's a chauffeur taking us to church from here."
"But I thought you said six in the evening?" I protested.
"We'll bury him at six, the funeral is at four."
"But," I started and stopped straight away, realising what a jerk I would make of myself if I was to tell my parents that I'd rather be on a date that at my brother's funeral. "I'll be there, Dad."
I then manage to get into the distraught brother's role, and express my grief and even comfort him while I was hearing in my head and the Oscar goes to... You wouldn't believe how much I hated Mark then.
My plans had once again been blown away. I tried to find a work-around but found out it was impossible so, at the end, I realised that I had to go to my date suited up.
See, when you see someone under forty with a suit nowadays they usually fall into one of two archetypes. There's the successful yuppie wanker who's fuelled by cocaine and stupid enough to believe every lie that got told on the eighties, or it's just teens who had been robbed of the dignity by being forced to wear a disguise that doesn't suit them, pun not intended. I was the perfect example of the second type. I was quite skinny and slouched a bit, so no matter what I tried, my shoulders looked weird and when looking at myself on the mirror I could only see what looked like a rag doll, a stupid cartoon like kid whose gotten into his dads closet by mistake.
Besides, how would I show the world that I was clever and witty if I didn't have a t-shirt with a funny slogan on it?
Okay, forget that. I would probably betray Mark's trust for the right amount of money, if they were women involved and if I was sure that no permanent damage could happen. If Mark was going to be faking his own death to avoid some dangers, telling my parents what he was doing could be the wrong move. Mark usually knew what he was doing, or at least he pretended too and usually got lucky. Sorry, Mum and Dad, but if Mark needed you to believe he was dead, I'm sure he had his reasons.
No, I mean it. It's him that was the jerk. Why am I the one who gets to feel like crap about the whole thing? Why the hell did I get to be the brother with a conscience?
So yes, my parents were depressed, my brother was, quote unquote: dead and I had to plan a date and a funeral for the same day. I thought about asking Wendy to postpone, but I was so upset about the selfishness of my brother that I decided to keep the date. "Hey, look at me, I'm at your funeral and pretty happy 'cause I just had lunch with a great girl!" I talked to Wendy and we agreed to meet at 2PM so after lunch I could take her home, go back, take a shower and change, and be at my parent's right on time.
I knew my father wanted me to spend those days with them, but I had managed to avoid it. My father was an old school worker, so when I mentioned that even through the grief I felt, there was no way I could leave the shop unattended for the weekend, as this was one of our busiest periods, I actually think I made him proud.
Thanks goodness I had been too lazy to tell him I quitted six months ago.
Then, as I was wondering what to wear for my date, my dad called again and reminded me that I needed to be at their house at 15:30.
"What?" I asked.
"We'll go by car, there's a chauffeur taking us to church from here."
"But I thought you said six in the evening?" I protested.
"We'll bury him at six, the funeral is at four."
"But," I started and stopped straight away, realising what a jerk I would make of myself if I was to tell my parents that I'd rather be on a date that at my brother's funeral. "I'll be there, Dad."
I then manage to get into the distraught brother's role, and express my grief and even comfort him while I was hearing in my head and the Oscar goes to... You wouldn't believe how much I hated Mark then.
My plans had once again been blown away. I tried to find a work-around but found out it was impossible so, at the end, I realised that I had to go to my date suited up.
See, when you see someone under forty with a suit nowadays they usually fall into one of two archetypes. There's the successful yuppie wanker who's fuelled by cocaine and stupid enough to believe every lie that got told on the eighties, or it's just teens who had been robbed of the dignity by being forced to wear a disguise that doesn't suit them, pun not intended. I was the perfect example of the second type. I was quite skinny and slouched a bit, so no matter what I tried, my shoulders looked weird and when looking at myself on the mirror I could only see what looked like a rag doll, a stupid cartoon like kid whose gotten into his dads closet by mistake.
Besides, how would I show the world that I was clever and witty if I didn't have a t-shirt with a funny slogan on it?
Funeral
You know, you always see these stupid movies about high school kids going to their silly prom dances and they always just look at each other with the expensive clothes and realise how pretty their partner is, once they've ditched the trashy mall bought threads.
Bullshit.
I didn't feel comfortable at all with a suit, and it showed. When Wendy saw me, she really got nervous. She was wearing jeans and a parka, and I could sense that my clothes made her uncomfortable. I lied, of course. I told her I had had a job interview that morning and that I hadn't had time to change. I then started explaining all the ways the suit made me uncomfortable, trying to avoid giving precise anatomy descriptions. After all, this was only a second date. Fortunately, that turned pretty soon into a nice conversation and I realised that all the nervousness of the first date had vanished.
We had a great (short) time. Of course, I never told her I was going to my brother's funeral later on, that would have been inappropriate. I won't give to much personal information about lunch, after all Wendy is probably reading this and she would kick my ass to three different kinds of tomorrows if I was to say anything out of the line. The only stuff you need to know about the date: We laughed, we ate and we had an amazing time.
I was really happy after that, we had agreed on a third date, we had kissed properly this time, we were doing great. And then my parents house came into view and I realised that I shouldn't (let me make that clear: SHOULD NOT) be smiling.
It took a great deal of effort, but I managed to keep my straight face. I managed not to mention Wendy at all. I managed to let myself be caught by the solemn atmosphere. Friends of the family told me they were really sorry and I managed to stay grave and even a little gloomy. I realised that if I just let myself be carried around everything was easier. I was supposed to be in a state of emotional disarray so people were actually supporting me and doing stuff to try to make me feel better. We went to this really big church and I think I even managed to believe for a while that I would never see Mark again.
By the time we got to the graveyard however, everything seemed as such a big farce that I was starting to get really nervous. I thought I wouldn't be able to get through with it, and I realized I was sweating a lot. Apart from my family and some of my parent's closest friends everyone else seemed to be Mark's friends, which meant mafia which meant BGWG (Big Guys With Guns) which meant trouble.
And then, someone hacked into my lenses and suddenly, over the faces of everyone around the coffin I could read in big huge red letters the words TRUST ME. See, tags didn't work that way, I would usually see some text, clearly enclosed and set somewhere. This words were just floating around. I checked the scene, everyone was sitting around the coffin while some guy I had never met was saying things that I wasn't listening to. Nobody seemed to have noticed me already. Then a new message came along.
BAD GUY →
Really subtle.
I looked on the direction of the arrow and saw a car parking near the cemetery back gate. When the doors opened, I realized that I wouldn't have needed whoever it was that was messing with my lenses to realize that these were bad guys.
The message changed again: RUN NOW
Fuck. Was I now in a real mess? I checked the guys from the car and realized they were actually checking on us. They looked just as BGWG-like as everyone else around me, but there was something about the car that made me uneasy. The biggest guy looked like someone from an eighties film about bad cops killing people. He had a sort of Don Johnson thing going on, complete with a white tux, which didn't seem at all appropiate for a funeral. The other guy was smaller, Asian, and was actually talking into a Walkie Talkie.
REALLY RUN
So, who the hell was sending me these messages? Who were those two wankers parked outside. I suddenly felt a rush of panic as I looked back and saw Don Johnson looking at me. He turned to Jet Li and pointed my way and suddenly I knew they weren't pointing at our little reunion. They were pointing at me. Then they started walking into the cemetery and yeah, paranoia finally took the best of me and I decided that, even though I did not trust my lenses hacker, running did seem like the awesomest idea.
Bullshit.
I didn't feel comfortable at all with a suit, and it showed. When Wendy saw me, she really got nervous. She was wearing jeans and a parka, and I could sense that my clothes made her uncomfortable. I lied, of course. I told her I had had a job interview that morning and that I hadn't had time to change. I then started explaining all the ways the suit made me uncomfortable, trying to avoid giving precise anatomy descriptions. After all, this was only a second date. Fortunately, that turned pretty soon into a nice conversation and I realised that all the nervousness of the first date had vanished.
We had a great (short) time. Of course, I never told her I was going to my brother's funeral later on, that would have been inappropriate. I won't give to much personal information about lunch, after all Wendy is probably reading this and she would kick my ass to three different kinds of tomorrows if I was to say anything out of the line. The only stuff you need to know about the date: We laughed, we ate and we had an amazing time.
I was really happy after that, we had agreed on a third date, we had kissed properly this time, we were doing great. And then my parents house came into view and I realised that I shouldn't (let me make that clear: SHOULD NOT) be smiling.
It took a great deal of effort, but I managed to keep my straight face. I managed not to mention Wendy at all. I managed to let myself be caught by the solemn atmosphere. Friends of the family told me they were really sorry and I managed to stay grave and even a little gloomy. I realised that if I just let myself be carried around everything was easier. I was supposed to be in a state of emotional disarray so people were actually supporting me and doing stuff to try to make me feel better. We went to this really big church and I think I even managed to believe for a while that I would never see Mark again.
By the time we got to the graveyard however, everything seemed as such a big farce that I was starting to get really nervous. I thought I wouldn't be able to get through with it, and I realized I was sweating a lot. Apart from my family and some of my parent's closest friends everyone else seemed to be Mark's friends, which meant mafia which meant BGWG (Big Guys With Guns) which meant trouble.
And then, someone hacked into my lenses and suddenly, over the faces of everyone around the coffin I could read in big huge red letters the words TRUST ME. See, tags didn't work that way, I would usually see some text, clearly enclosed and set somewhere. This words were just floating around. I checked the scene, everyone was sitting around the coffin while some guy I had never met was saying things that I wasn't listening to. Nobody seemed to have noticed me already. Then a new message came along.
BAD GUY →
Really subtle.
I looked on the direction of the arrow and saw a car parking near the cemetery back gate. When the doors opened, I realized that I wouldn't have needed whoever it was that was messing with my lenses to realize that these were bad guys.
The message changed again: RUN NOW
Fuck. Was I now in a real mess? I checked the guys from the car and realized they were actually checking on us. They looked just as BGWG-like as everyone else around me, but there was something about the car that made me uneasy. The biggest guy looked like someone from an eighties film about bad cops killing people. He had a sort of Don Johnson thing going on, complete with a white tux, which didn't seem at all appropiate for a funeral. The other guy was smaller, Asian, and was actually talking into a Walkie Talkie.
REALLY RUN
So, who the hell was sending me these messages? Who were those two wankers parked outside. I suddenly felt a rush of panic as I looked back and saw Don Johnson looking at me. He turned to Jet Li and pointed my way and suddenly I knew they weren't pointing at our little reunion. They were pointing at me. Then they started walking into the cemetery and yeah, paranoia finally took the best of me and I decided that, even though I did not trust my lenses hacker, running did seem like the awesomest idea.
Running
Have you seen those movies where the good guy is being chased and he crashes into a fruit stand so the whole area gets flooded with fruit to distract the chasers?
I did something of the sort.
See, I am not athletic at all. Stringy would be a better description. The thing is that those guys were coming at me from behind. In front of me there was a funeral and a coffin. So I made a judgement error, like those NASA guys mixing up with the decimal system and inches. Yeah, I thought it's only a small jump, I can do it and I managed to get my foot stuck in one of the coffin handles and stumble while pulling the whole thing after me as I rolled on the floor.
I was completely terrified as I tried to land as gracefully as I could, the coffin was crashing behind me and I couldn't bear to look just in case it opened. If it did, best case scenario would be that it was empty, which would completely blow away whatever plan Mark was carrying out. Worst case scenario would mean there would be someone inside the box. I also had to avoid it from crashing my legs, so I was really scared.
Suddenly, to my head came the worsest scenario possible: the coffin would open and Mark would actually be dead and inside of it.
Lucky me, the coffin crashed a couple of inches away of my foot and it remained closed. I looked up and saw my parents staring at me with a look of total shock. I managed to mouth the words I'm sorry before realizing that Don Johnson and Jet Li were now running in my direction.
FUCK RUN suddenly filled my vision, so I got up and started running as fast as I could. The cemetery back door was opened into a busy street which run left to right. I couldn't think about where to turn, but as I was drawing close a huge arrow appeared on thin air pointing me to the right. I made a sharp turn and risked looking back. It seemed that both guys had had some trouble with my brother's friends and Don Johnson was shouting at some BGWG while Jet Li was looking at me and talking into his walkie. I looked down the street and saw a big marker over a white car at the end of the street, it said ME.
I headed straight towards the car. I still did not trust this hacker, but at least however it was knew more about what was going on than me. As I came closer, the door opened and the most beautiful woman I had ever seen came out of the car. She had her hair cut short and dyed red and had a lip piercing cutting a incredibly sweet smile in half. She was wearing dark clothes that looked like a catsuit with cleavage. Her body was incredible, like the kind you see in magazines only after hours of airbrushing and photoshopping. She was wearing dark glasses and had a big phone-like gadget in her hands.
"Here, catch," she said throwing the device at me. "Pick your jaw from the floor and get in the car. I'll explain."
I slowly closed my mouth as I grabbed the thing. It had a huge screen and I could see the last three messages sent: fuck run, → and me.
I got in the car and looked at my saviour.
"Who the hell are you? What is this thing? Who were those guys? What the fuck...?"
She was still smiling as she turned the car on and did an 180º turn that had me crushed to my seat and searching franticly for the seatbelt.
"Emma, a sort of smartphone, police and about the fuck, it is a possibility, you do look cute."
"What?"
Everything was moving too fast for me. It took me about ten seconds to realize she was answering my questions.
It actually was a couple of minutes before I understood that she had actually been flirtatious with me while doing so.
I did something of the sort.
See, I am not athletic at all. Stringy would be a better description. The thing is that those guys were coming at me from behind. In front of me there was a funeral and a coffin. So I made a judgement error, like those NASA guys mixing up with the decimal system and inches. Yeah, I thought it's only a small jump, I can do it and I managed to get my foot stuck in one of the coffin handles and stumble while pulling the whole thing after me as I rolled on the floor.
I was completely terrified as I tried to land as gracefully as I could, the coffin was crashing behind me and I couldn't bear to look just in case it opened. If it did, best case scenario would be that it was empty, which would completely blow away whatever plan Mark was carrying out. Worst case scenario would mean there would be someone inside the box. I also had to avoid it from crashing my legs, so I was really scared.
Suddenly, to my head came the worsest scenario possible: the coffin would open and Mark would actually be dead and inside of it.
Lucky me, the coffin crashed a couple of inches away of my foot and it remained closed. I looked up and saw my parents staring at me with a look of total shock. I managed to mouth the words I'm sorry before realizing that Don Johnson and Jet Li were now running in my direction.
FUCK RUN suddenly filled my vision, so I got up and started running as fast as I could. The cemetery back door was opened into a busy street which run left to right. I couldn't think about where to turn, but as I was drawing close a huge arrow appeared on thin air pointing me to the right. I made a sharp turn and risked looking back. It seemed that both guys had had some trouble with my brother's friends and Don Johnson was shouting at some BGWG while Jet Li was looking at me and talking into his walkie. I looked down the street and saw a big marker over a white car at the end of the street, it said ME.
I headed straight towards the car. I still did not trust this hacker, but at least however it was knew more about what was going on than me. As I came closer, the door opened and the most beautiful woman I had ever seen came out of the car. She had her hair cut short and dyed red and had a lip piercing cutting a incredibly sweet smile in half. She was wearing dark clothes that looked like a catsuit with cleavage. Her body was incredible, like the kind you see in magazines only after hours of airbrushing and photoshopping. She was wearing dark glasses and had a big phone-like gadget in her hands.
"Here, catch," she said throwing the device at me. "Pick your jaw from the floor and get in the car. I'll explain."
I slowly closed my mouth as I grabbed the thing. It had a huge screen and I could see the last three messages sent: fuck run, → and me.
I got in the car and looked at my saviour.
"Who the hell are you? What is this thing? Who were those guys? What the fuck...?"
She was still smiling as she turned the car on and did an 180º turn that had me crushed to my seat and searching franticly for the seatbelt.
"Emma, a sort of smartphone, police and about the fuck, it is a possibility, you do look cute."
"What?"
Everything was moving too fast for me. It took me about ten seconds to realize she was answering my questions.
It actually was a couple of minutes before I understood that she had actually been flirtatious with me while doing so.
A night with Emma
I was unable to say another word for the long ten minutes that she drove. We parked downtown, in quite a posh area which I believed was all office space. She got out of the car and I followed. She had quite an authoritative stance. She gave me the impression that if she had to give orders I wouldn't like it, so I just tried to guess what she wanted me to do and did it. We walked into a building that seemed quite new and was huge. The elevator was actually bigger than my apartment, or so it seemed. I was checking the floor numbers as we silently climbed to the last floor. I realized she still had her glasses on. And then, when the last number lit up (27) and I was expecting the elevator to stop, it actually didn't. A moment later a small dot to the right of the 27 lit up, which I hadn't noticed until then, and the doors opened.
The elevator had been bigger than my apartment, the loft was bigger than my fucking building.
Ok, that's probably an exaggeration, but I had never seen something quite as big. She walked in and drop a bunch of stuff in a table that seemed to be more expensive that anything I owned, including her sunglasses. She went straight to what looked like the kitchen you would get in an spaceship. In a freakingly posh spaceship, actually.
"Do you want anything to drink?" she asked.
"What?" I replied, while I was still staring around in amazement.
"Any drinks?" she repeated from besides the fridge door. I realised she was actually leaning a bit against and she had her behind sticking out and pointing in my direction. I realised then that this was the kind of life my brother was used to and I wondered how he was able to cope.
"Can I have a Sprite?" I suggested.
"Sorry?"
"Uh, you know, a Sprite?"
"I'm not quite sure I know how to mix that," she said.
"Ehm, you don't mix it, it's like... A soda?"
She then turn to look at me. I completely lost focus, I hadn't seen her eyes until then.
"Oh," she said. "A Sprite, no alcohol. Sorry, I misunderstood."
I just stared, unblinking.
"Everything OK?" she asked.
"Why are your eyes purple?" I answered.
"Well, why are your eyes brown?" she suggested.
"Because that's a normal colour for human being eyes?"
She laughed, it was an amazingly sincere crystal clear laugh. "I wear contacts, you idiot."
"But why purple?"
"Why not?"
I just stood there while she tossed me a can and walked to the sofa. She moved like a diva, with every step she took I could make out every single muscle in her legs moving. I guessed that the catsuit was actually designed with that idea in mind, but everything about this girl screamed sex to me, and I was simply a young, innocent and nerdy kid. A 24 year old kid, but a kid after all. I wondered how her conversations with my brother would go.
I also realised that though we had being doing nothing but pass questions around since we met, none of them had been one of the important ones.
I sat down, determined to act cool and not make a fool of myself.
Then I forgot she had tossed me the can and I opened it.
By then I was completely sure that this must be one of my brother's apartments, and I guessed he was going to kill me for spilling soda in his really expensive looking couch. Emma was laughing again and I decided that if cool wasn't my thing, I could at least try for clever.
"So, how did you meet Mark?"
"Who?"
OK, so it seemed that clever wouldn't work either. "Mark?" I suggested.
"Mark? Who the hell is Mark?"
"Uhm, who the hell are you?"
"I'm Emma," she said.
"Yeah, but, you know, who are you?"
"I am mecenas bodyguard."
Mark, you fucking wanker. What the hell had you gotten me into?
"Wait," I said. "I thought mecenas was from somewhere in Middle Europe."
"He is, he just arrived a couple days ago and is still settling, he wanted to meet you, so he's doing so tomorrow. I saw you seemed to be in a mess so I helped you escape the guys that were going to get you."
"Oh," I was somewhat dizzy, as things didn't make any sense. Why the hell was a guy who supposedly worked for a low profile Middle European university but had a bodyguard and a loft that should cost more than some first world countries and who I had only talked to through an underground online forum wanted to save me from the police at my brother's faux funeral day?
Emma was looking straight at me.
"You know," she said. "It's really a shame about the alcohol, I was planning on getting you drunk to seduce you."
See, all this was actually being too much for me, so even though I know it may sound assertive, I wasn't thinking clear when I answered: "Aw, cm'on, a girl like you doesn't need to get me drunk to seduce me."
"Great," she said, and before I could realise she had moved, she had her tongue in my mouth.
When I woke up next morni... What? No. NO. FREAKING. WAY.
When I wok... I'm NOT giving any details, that's definitive.
Whe... Ok, just one word: chains.
Not enough? Ok, one more: tongue.
Ok, last one: 50-50 stand.
So, yes, I'm sure that one got to you. Go ahead, google it, I'll wait for you.
Nah, nah, nah, nah, hey...
Yep, it was a skating trick, I'll let it to your imagination how she actually pulled out that one out or if I'm just making stuff up to piss you off.
So, if that's over with: When I woke up next morning, I felt great. I could hear that Emma was on the bathroom and I screamed if I could use the computer to check my mail (I'd rather not use the lenses, the slow connections were frustrating). She told me there was no problem so I sat down, opened a browser, logged in, swallowed and felt like crap.
Right there, accusing me with its silence:
Wendy had sent me an e-mail.
The elevator had been bigger than my apartment, the loft was bigger than my fucking building.
Ok, that's probably an exaggeration, but I had never seen something quite as big. She walked in and drop a bunch of stuff in a table that seemed to be more expensive that anything I owned, including her sunglasses. She went straight to what looked like the kitchen you would get in an spaceship. In a freakingly posh spaceship, actually.
"Do you want anything to drink?" she asked.
"What?" I replied, while I was still staring around in amazement.
"Any drinks?" she repeated from besides the fridge door. I realised she was actually leaning a bit against and she had her behind sticking out and pointing in my direction. I realised then that this was the kind of life my brother was used to and I wondered how he was able to cope.
"Can I have a Sprite?" I suggested.
"Sorry?"
"Uh, you know, a Sprite?"
"I'm not quite sure I know how to mix that," she said.
"Ehm, you don't mix it, it's like... A soda?"
She then turn to look at me. I completely lost focus, I hadn't seen her eyes until then.
"Oh," she said. "A Sprite, no alcohol. Sorry, I misunderstood."
I just stared, unblinking.
"Everything OK?" she asked.
"Why are your eyes purple?" I answered.
"Well, why are your eyes brown?" she suggested.
"Because that's a normal colour for human being eyes?"
She laughed, it was an amazingly sincere crystal clear laugh. "I wear contacts, you idiot."
"But why purple?"
"Why not?"
I just stood there while she tossed me a can and walked to the sofa. She moved like a diva, with every step she took I could make out every single muscle in her legs moving. I guessed that the catsuit was actually designed with that idea in mind, but everything about this girl screamed sex to me, and I was simply a young, innocent and nerdy kid. A 24 year old kid, but a kid after all. I wondered how her conversations with my brother would go.
I also realised that though we had being doing nothing but pass questions around since we met, none of them had been one of the important ones.
I sat down, determined to act cool and not make a fool of myself.
Then I forgot she had tossed me the can and I opened it.
By then I was completely sure that this must be one of my brother's apartments, and I guessed he was going to kill me for spilling soda in his really expensive looking couch. Emma was laughing again and I decided that if cool wasn't my thing, I could at least try for clever.
"So, how did you meet Mark?"
"Who?"
OK, so it seemed that clever wouldn't work either. "Mark?" I suggested.
"Mark? Who the hell is Mark?"
"Uhm, who the hell are you?"
"I'm Emma," she said.
"Yeah, but, you know, who are you?"
"I am mecenas bodyguard."
Mark, you fucking wanker. What the hell had you gotten me into?
"Wait," I said. "I thought mecenas was from somewhere in Middle Europe."
"He is, he just arrived a couple days ago and is still settling, he wanted to meet you, so he's doing so tomorrow. I saw you seemed to be in a mess so I helped you escape the guys that were going to get you."
"Oh," I was somewhat dizzy, as things didn't make any sense. Why the hell was a guy who supposedly worked for a low profile Middle European university but had a bodyguard and a loft that should cost more than some first world countries and who I had only talked to through an underground online forum wanted to save me from the police at my brother's faux funeral day?
Emma was looking straight at me.
"You know," she said. "It's really a shame about the alcohol, I was planning on getting you drunk to seduce you."
See, all this was actually being too much for me, so even though I know it may sound assertive, I wasn't thinking clear when I answered: "Aw, cm'on, a girl like you doesn't need to get me drunk to seduce me."
"Great," she said, and before I could realise she had moved, she had her tongue in my mouth.
When I woke up next morni... What? No. NO. FREAKING. WAY.
When I wok... I'm NOT giving any details, that's definitive.
Whe... Ok, just one word: chains.
Not enough? Ok, one more: tongue.
Ok, last one: 50-50 stand.
So, yes, I'm sure that one got to you. Go ahead, google it, I'll wait for you.
Nah, nah, nah, nah, hey...
Yep, it was a skating trick, I'll let it to your imagination how she actually pulled out that one out or if I'm just making stuff up to piss you off.
So, if that's over with: When I woke up next morning, I felt great. I could hear that Emma was on the bathroom and I screamed if I could use the computer to check my mail (I'd rather not use the lenses, the slow connections were frustrating). She told me there was no problem so I sat down, opened a browser, logged in, swallowed and felt like crap.
Right there, accusing me with its silence:
Wendy had sent me an e-mail.
E-mails
I had three unread non-spam e-mails, one sent by Ro, one sent by mecenas and Wendy's. I sat there paralysed unable to decide which one to open first. Ro's was probably the safest one, so I choose it.
I'm really sorry about your loss, I know your brother was a great man and I hope I can catch you up soon to give you a hug. I heard about what happened at the graveyard and I really hope you are OK.
I know you may be feeling some really strong emotions at the moment, and I can just pray for you.
Love, Ro.
I had already hit Reply and was writing something on the lines of You silly wanker, you were there, you know it just a set-up when I actually reread the mail.
A hug?
PRAY?
There was no way that Ro had written that e-mail. That simply wasn't the way he talked, acted or thought. Great, I now had one more mystery to solve, and that was supposed to be the easy e-mail.
I starred it to check it later and moved on to the second one. I opened mecenas'.
Hope you've already met Emma. Will meet you tomorrow afternoon. Need to talk.
Don't sleep with Emma, she'll break you.
Well, at least this one seemed easier. I checked the sent time and saw that he had sent it while I was running away from Jet Li and Don Johnson. That meant that at least in a couple of hours I would have some questions answered. I pretended not to read the line about sleeping with his bodyguard.
Wendy's.
I took a deep breath.
I clicked.
I had a great time.
I really feel this could work.
A bad movie next!
I want to see you.
Does next Tuesday sound okay?
Couples day at Lem's.
<3<3<3<3<3 ;*
Fuck.
Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.
Haiku, there was no fucking way this girl could be so cute. She had to have been genetically engineered in some secret lab out at the desert. Like, really, asking me out using traditional Japanese poetry? How could I not love this girl?
At that moment, Emma came out of the shower, naked, and I lost my train of thought. She looked gorgeous, her skin was actually glistening, everyone of her muscles was elegant and fit perfectly with those that surround it. I couldn't help looking at her while she crossed the living room on her way to the bedroom and I realised she loved it.
She smiled at me from the bedroom door and blew me a kiss before closing it behind her. It took me a couple of minutes to recover, and I asked the closed door if I could check the TV while I waited. I couldn't really listen to what she said, but a glance at the computer screen made me realise that I shouldn't be thinking too hard or I would start regretting some things. I sat down and tried to guess which one would be the TV remote. It took me only a couple of tries until I turned it on. The familiar sound of morning news came in, with the familiar scene of the familiar police cars surrounding a familiar terrorist bomb site on a familiar street.
A familiar street?
I hadn't heard her, though she was only half dressed still, but Emma crashed on top of me and with an incredibly agile move had taken the remote and turned of the TV.
"What the?"
She smiled from her downwards position.
"Sorry, you weren't supposed to see that."
"Was that my house?" I almost screamed.
"Yeah, that's why I slept with you last night, I couldn't let you go home."
I couldn't get my mind around the concept that my house had been blown to bits.
"You could have told me!" I said.
"Well, I couldn't expect you to trust a stranger."
"But you expected me to sleep with a stranger?"
"Of course," she said. "You are a man after all."
"I want to go and see it," I said.
"No way, we need to get ready to see mecenas."
"No, my parents would be worried sick, everyone who watched the morning news... Wait, why the hell isn't my phone ringing?"
"Well," she said while she stood up. "We had it disconnected, of course. All of this is delicate secret stuff."
I was really angry at the moment. I checked that it was true, my cell was dead. I felt like breaking something and then I realised something.
"Why the hell did you let me check my e-mail then?"
"The computer's bugged, if you sent anything it wouldn't have been sent until we saw it, read it and edited it if necessary. Plus, that way we got to read your mail."
So much for trust. Who were these guys that saved my life and then spied on me?
I'm really sorry about your loss, I know your brother was a great man and I hope I can catch you up soon to give you a hug. I heard about what happened at the graveyard and I really hope you are OK.
I know you may be feeling some really strong emotions at the moment, and I can just pray for you.
Love, Ro.
I had already hit Reply and was writing something on the lines of You silly wanker, you were there, you know it just a set-up when I actually reread the mail.
A hug?
PRAY?
There was no way that Ro had written that e-mail. That simply wasn't the way he talked, acted or thought. Great, I now had one more mystery to solve, and that was supposed to be the easy e-mail.
I starred it to check it later and moved on to the second one. I opened mecenas'.
Hope you've already met Emma. Will meet you tomorrow afternoon. Need to talk.
Don't sleep with Emma, she'll break you.
Well, at least this one seemed easier. I checked the sent time and saw that he had sent it while I was running away from Jet Li and Don Johnson. That meant that at least in a couple of hours I would have some questions answered. I pretended not to read the line about sleeping with his bodyguard.
Wendy's.
I took a deep breath.
I clicked.
I had a great time.
I really feel this could work.
A bad movie next!
I want to see you.
Does next Tuesday sound okay?
Couples day at Lem's.
<3<3<3<3<3 ;*
Fuck.
Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.
Haiku, there was no fucking way this girl could be so cute. She had to have been genetically engineered in some secret lab out at the desert. Like, really, asking me out using traditional Japanese poetry? How could I not love this girl?
At that moment, Emma came out of the shower, naked, and I lost my train of thought. She looked gorgeous, her skin was actually glistening, everyone of her muscles was elegant and fit perfectly with those that surround it. I couldn't help looking at her while she crossed the living room on her way to the bedroom and I realised she loved it.
She smiled at me from the bedroom door and blew me a kiss before closing it behind her. It took me a couple of minutes to recover, and I asked the closed door if I could check the TV while I waited. I couldn't really listen to what she said, but a glance at the computer screen made me realise that I shouldn't be thinking too hard or I would start regretting some things. I sat down and tried to guess which one would be the TV remote. It took me only a couple of tries until I turned it on. The familiar sound of morning news came in, with the familiar scene of the familiar police cars surrounding a familiar terrorist bomb site on a familiar street.
A familiar street?
I hadn't heard her, though she was only half dressed still, but Emma crashed on top of me and with an incredibly agile move had taken the remote and turned of the TV.
"What the?"
She smiled from her downwards position.
"Sorry, you weren't supposed to see that."
"Was that my house?" I almost screamed.
"Yeah, that's why I slept with you last night, I couldn't let you go home."
I couldn't get my mind around the concept that my house had been blown to bits.
"You could have told me!" I said.
"Well, I couldn't expect you to trust a stranger."
"But you expected me to sleep with a stranger?"
"Of course," she said. "You are a man after all."
"I want to go and see it," I said.
"No way, we need to get ready to see mecenas."
"No, my parents would be worried sick, everyone who watched the morning news... Wait, why the hell isn't my phone ringing?"
"Well," she said while she stood up. "We had it disconnected, of course. All of this is delicate secret stuff."
I was really angry at the moment. I checked that it was true, my cell was dead. I felt like breaking something and then I realised something.
"Why the hell did you let me check my e-mail then?"
"The computer's bugged, if you sent anything it wouldn't have been sent until we saw it, read it and edited it if necessary. Plus, that way we got to read your mail."
So much for trust. Who were these guys that saved my life and then spied on me?
Phone calls
I felt the urgent need to go and see my house.
I felt the urgent need to call my parents.
I felt the urgent need to kill Mark.
I felt the urgent need to do anything, so I screamed at Emma. "I want my fucking mobile phone line back."
"I can't really..."
"I want it back, now!" I said. I was slowly succumbing to the Mark side of the Force again. Emma looked at me like she was starting to get bored of dealing with me. I was trying my best to look like I had something that could back my threats, though I knew she could probably kill me just by staring at me. And then she did so, and didn't at the same time. Suddenly she was looking at me, but in a strange disconnected way. Her eyes seemed focused on an area a few inches in front of me and she seemed spaced out for a fraction of a second. This actually distracted me from my wrath.
See, it's quite possible that I didn't follow Mark's footsteps because of my short attention span. I was unable to stay angry for more than a couple of minutes, and Emma spacing out served to calm me down.
"OK," she said suddenly.
"What?"
"Your phone, reboot it and it'll work."
So, then I remembered by I had been angry and I decided that yes, thank you very much, I would reboot my phone right then. It rang as soon as it got connection: My parents.
"Jay, are you alright?" said my father as I answered.
"Yes, I'm fine, did you see the news?"
"We did, oh my god, your mother was so worried. Are you alright, then?" he asked.
"Yes, dad. I'm fine. Is mom OK then?"
"Thanks goodness. So, you're alright, aren't you?"
I decided not to answer until he had calmed down and did a short, grunting noise.
"Wait, why weren't you home last night?"
Crap. I needed to come up with some believable answer fast so I looked around the room and saw Emma on the kitchen grabbing a beer.
"Sorry to frighten you, dad," I won't say that I didn't enjoy lying to my parents but it did seem like it was going a bit too far this week. "I was actually at a friend's house. I've been in a sort of bad shape, because... I actually kind of overdid drinks because of... Well, I was really affected about Mark, and I needed to, you know, stop thinking for a while. I got drunk and stayed at Ro's."
Dead silence at the other end of the line. Fucking hell. My brother was a mobster and my parents were going to tell me off and be disappointed because I got drunk? And then my father caught me off-guard again.
"Jason," he said (and no, you're not allowed to call me Jason. Nobody who didn't give me half of their DNA is allowed to call me Jason, thank you very much). "I shouldn't say this on the phone, but your brother... Well, you need to know this, Mark is still alive."
I said nothing. I was starting to get really angry again, this time at Mark. Emma was simply looking at me for the other end of the room and smiling.
"He came home a couple of days ago," he said. "This is all a clever stunt to avoid some trouble with some business associates that were getting out of hand."
"Wow," was all I managed to say.
"You should probably come home. Spend a couple of days at home, we'll take care of you."
"No, dad," I decided to cut off the conversation. "Thanks but I will be fine. Wow, that's a relief. I think I'm going to be fine now, thanks for sharing." I was trying really really hard not to sound sarcastic. It was hard. I made some excuses and hung. As I did so, the phone rang again, Mark.
"You wanker!" I shouted as I picked up.
"You arsehole!" he shouted. "Why the hell did you get your house bombed? I really hope this isn't on speakerphone or I will kill you."
"What? No! What the fuck are you... What do you mean get my house bombed?"
"OK," he said, and I could feel he was having a hard time trying to control himself. "This probably wasn't your fault. I just wish you would realise that this is a major setback on my plans."
"A major...? My fucking apartment was blown to bits and I am pretty sure it had something to do with you, you wanker!"
I heard him take a sigh. He was being dramatic. I hated it.
"We'll get your apartment replaced. You will have a set of keys and an address on your mailbox in a couple of hours. My men will make sure that the police clear the area soon."
"That's not the point..." I was actually going to say that's not the point, Mark but something told me I shouldn't. Stupid paranoia.
"Look, I'll tell you what. Go do this, relax, grab the keys, go to your new place. I'll call you back soon."
I realised I was not even pissed off anymore.
"Jay," he said. "I really need you to kill someone for me."
Great, now I was pissed off again.
"What? I thought... I'm not... What makes you think...?"
"Listen, Jay," he said. "This is important. This is someone I don't know how to deal with. He's one of yours. This guy made a fortune with computer stuff and the Internet. No one even knows what he looks like."
"Why do you want to ki..." Paranoia once more, "to do something like that?"
"New business. Jay, I've met a girl, she's actually given me some feedback on some new developing technologies that are going to give us a bit of money."
"Keep me out of it," I said. "I really do not want to have anything to do with this."
"We'd better talk later. I'll drop by your new home later on. Love you, Jay," and he hung up.
I cursed under my breath and looked at Emma. She was still smiling at me.
I felt the urgent need to call my parents.
I felt the urgent need to kill Mark.
I felt the urgent need to do anything, so I screamed at Emma. "I want my fucking mobile phone line back."
"I can't really..."
"I want it back, now!" I said. I was slowly succumbing to the Mark side of the Force again. Emma looked at me like she was starting to get bored of dealing with me. I was trying my best to look like I had something that could back my threats, though I knew she could probably kill me just by staring at me. And then she did so, and didn't at the same time. Suddenly she was looking at me, but in a strange disconnected way. Her eyes seemed focused on an area a few inches in front of me and she seemed spaced out for a fraction of a second. This actually distracted me from my wrath.
See, it's quite possible that I didn't follow Mark's footsteps because of my short attention span. I was unable to stay angry for more than a couple of minutes, and Emma spacing out served to calm me down.
"OK," she said suddenly.
"What?"
"Your phone, reboot it and it'll work."
So, then I remembered by I had been angry and I decided that yes, thank you very much, I would reboot my phone right then. It rang as soon as it got connection: My parents.
"Jay, are you alright?" said my father as I answered.
"Yes, I'm fine, did you see the news?"
"We did, oh my god, your mother was so worried. Are you alright, then?" he asked.
"Yes, dad. I'm fine. Is mom OK then?"
"Thanks goodness. So, you're alright, aren't you?"
I decided not to answer until he had calmed down and did a short, grunting noise.
"Wait, why weren't you home last night?"
Crap. I needed to come up with some believable answer fast so I looked around the room and saw Emma on the kitchen grabbing a beer.
"Sorry to frighten you, dad," I won't say that I didn't enjoy lying to my parents but it did seem like it was going a bit too far this week. "I was actually at a friend's house. I've been in a sort of bad shape, because... I actually kind of overdid drinks because of... Well, I was really affected about Mark, and I needed to, you know, stop thinking for a while. I got drunk and stayed at Ro's."
Dead silence at the other end of the line. Fucking hell. My brother was a mobster and my parents were going to tell me off and be disappointed because I got drunk? And then my father caught me off-guard again.
"Jason," he said (and no, you're not allowed to call me Jason. Nobody who didn't give me half of their DNA is allowed to call me Jason, thank you very much). "I shouldn't say this on the phone, but your brother... Well, you need to know this, Mark is still alive."
I said nothing. I was starting to get really angry again, this time at Mark. Emma was simply looking at me for the other end of the room and smiling.
"He came home a couple of days ago," he said. "This is all a clever stunt to avoid some trouble with some business associates that were getting out of hand."
"Wow," was all I managed to say.
"You should probably come home. Spend a couple of days at home, we'll take care of you."
"No, dad," I decided to cut off the conversation. "Thanks but I will be fine. Wow, that's a relief. I think I'm going to be fine now, thanks for sharing." I was trying really really hard not to sound sarcastic. It was hard. I made some excuses and hung. As I did so, the phone rang again, Mark.
"You wanker!" I shouted as I picked up.
"You arsehole!" he shouted. "Why the hell did you get your house bombed? I really hope this isn't on speakerphone or I will kill you."
"What? No! What the fuck are you... What do you mean get my house bombed?"
"OK," he said, and I could feel he was having a hard time trying to control himself. "This probably wasn't your fault. I just wish you would realise that this is a major setback on my plans."
"A major...? My fucking apartment was blown to bits and I am pretty sure it had something to do with you, you wanker!"
I heard him take a sigh. He was being dramatic. I hated it.
"We'll get your apartment replaced. You will have a set of keys and an address on your mailbox in a couple of hours. My men will make sure that the police clear the area soon."
"That's not the point..." I was actually going to say that's not the point, Mark but something told me I shouldn't. Stupid paranoia.
"Look, I'll tell you what. Go do this, relax, grab the keys, go to your new place. I'll call you back soon."
I realised I was not even pissed off anymore.
"Jay," he said. "I really need you to kill someone for me."
Great, now I was pissed off again.
"What? I thought... I'm not... What makes you think...?"
"Listen, Jay," he said. "This is important. This is someone I don't know how to deal with. He's one of yours. This guy made a fortune with computer stuff and the Internet. No one even knows what he looks like."
"Why do you want to ki..." Paranoia once more, "to do something like that?"
"New business. Jay, I've met a girl, she's actually given me some feedback on some new developing technologies that are going to give us a bit of money."
"Keep me out of it," I said. "I really do not want to have anything to do with this."
"We'd better talk later. I'll drop by your new home later on. Love you, Jay," and he hung up.
I cursed under my breath and looked at Emma. She was still smiling at me.
Getting out
"I need to leave," I told Emma.
"No way," she said. "You need to wait for mecenas."
"Ehm, look, I've got no idea what he wants, but this is not the right time, OK?"
Emma sat on the kitchen counter, with her legs crossed. She was dressed with dark jeans and a t-shirt with the word "DESTROY" written on it. It wasn't the catsuit but she still looked incredibly hot. She smiled at me.
"We could have sex again while we wait," she said. mecenas e-mail sprang to mind straight away.
"What? No! I mean, no! Look, I really just need to go, sort out everything. My apartment was destroyed, that's going to be a bit of a hassle."
"No, it won't," she said. "We are going to take care of it, don't you worry."
"What the hell does mecenas want with me anyway?" I asked.
"Well, we are actually thinking about starting a business out of the tech behind blips and lenses. We need your input as one of the early adopters."
"Why the hell would a businessman require a bodyguard?"
"Things are a bit complicated. There are some people who would be interested in not letting us release this tech. They'd rather keep it for themselves."
My brain was starting to make some connections, and I didn't like the big picture at all.
"I see," I lied. "However, I don't think it's a good idea for me to hang too long around here. If things are a bit complicated maybe I should leave and meet you someplace safe."
I knew I wasn't making too much sense, I was trying to find an excuse to leave and I was desperate.
"That doesn't make any sense," said Emma. I was feeling really powerless.
"So what would you do if I simply walked away?"
"I would overpower you, give you some gas and have you sleeping until we need you."
Fair enough, now I had been officially threatened. Up until now it had been a sort of manners thing. They had helped me, I would stay with them and help them. Now it was all changing to a power struggle. Manners were my thing, power struggle was Mark's, so I started thinking to myself "What would Mark do?". Then I realised I had not the guts, the cold blood or the weapons to do anything my brother would. I decided to try something more up my aisle.
"I'm going to use the computer again," I said.
"Fine."
I sat down, logged to my webmail and looked for mecenas mail. I hit reply.
Got no idea what your game is. I'm not meeting you today.
You can either count me out of helping all together or postpone our date.
It's not the best time, sorry.
With love, J.
I went back to the couch and slumped on it. Emma was watching but then she took out her phone and started talking in some foreign language. I had no idea what it was, could have been anything from Ukranian to Romanian. I really wished I had paid more attention while talking to mecenas. I never thought it was going to be important.
Then, after a while of speaking, looking at me and then speaking again, she clammed shut her phone and told me I was free to go. Just like that. I was a little disappointed, actually.
"You mean, I can really go?"
"Sure," she said. "We just want to suggest a business venture, not kidnap you."
"Oh, well, thanks, I guess."
"It's OK, would you like to take the car?" she said dangling the keys in front of me.
"Ehm, no, thanks," I didn't want to admit I didn't have no license.
"Do you want me to drive you around?" she asked with a huge smile that almost made me forget the fact that I hated her.
As I said, I felt disappointed. I had expected a bit of a fight or struggle, not to be left to my own means as I weren't important. It was then that I realised that I was actually, despite the fact that I hated the guts of my brother, having fun.
"No way," she said. "You need to wait for mecenas."
"Ehm, look, I've got no idea what he wants, but this is not the right time, OK?"
Emma sat on the kitchen counter, with her legs crossed. She was dressed with dark jeans and a t-shirt with the word "DESTROY" written on it. It wasn't the catsuit but she still looked incredibly hot. She smiled at me.
"We could have sex again while we wait," she said. mecenas e-mail sprang to mind straight away.
"What? No! I mean, no! Look, I really just need to go, sort out everything. My apartment was destroyed, that's going to be a bit of a hassle."
"No, it won't," she said. "We are going to take care of it, don't you worry."
"What the hell does mecenas want with me anyway?" I asked.
"Well, we are actually thinking about starting a business out of the tech behind blips and lenses. We need your input as one of the early adopters."
"Why the hell would a businessman require a bodyguard?"
"Things are a bit complicated. There are some people who would be interested in not letting us release this tech. They'd rather keep it for themselves."
My brain was starting to make some connections, and I didn't like the big picture at all.
"I see," I lied. "However, I don't think it's a good idea for me to hang too long around here. If things are a bit complicated maybe I should leave and meet you someplace safe."
I knew I wasn't making too much sense, I was trying to find an excuse to leave and I was desperate.
"That doesn't make any sense," said Emma. I was feeling really powerless.
"So what would you do if I simply walked away?"
"I would overpower you, give you some gas and have you sleeping until we need you."
Fair enough, now I had been officially threatened. Up until now it had been a sort of manners thing. They had helped me, I would stay with them and help them. Now it was all changing to a power struggle. Manners were my thing, power struggle was Mark's, so I started thinking to myself "What would Mark do?". Then I realised I had not the guts, the cold blood or the weapons to do anything my brother would. I decided to try something more up my aisle.
"I'm going to use the computer again," I said.
"Fine."
I sat down, logged to my webmail and looked for mecenas mail. I hit reply.
Got no idea what your game is. I'm not meeting you today.
You can either count me out of helping all together or postpone our date.
It's not the best time, sorry.
With love, J.
I went back to the couch and slumped on it. Emma was watching but then she took out her phone and started talking in some foreign language. I had no idea what it was, could have been anything from Ukranian to Romanian. I really wished I had paid more attention while talking to mecenas. I never thought it was going to be important.
Then, after a while of speaking, looking at me and then speaking again, she clammed shut her phone and told me I was free to go. Just like that. I was a little disappointed, actually.
"You mean, I can really go?"
"Sure," she said. "We just want to suggest a business venture, not kidnap you."
"Oh, well, thanks, I guess."
"It's OK, would you like to take the car?" she said dangling the keys in front of me.
"Ehm, no, thanks," I didn't want to admit I didn't have no license.
"Do you want me to drive you around?" she asked with a huge smile that almost made me forget the fact that I hated her.
As I said, I felt disappointed. I had expected a bit of a fight or struggle, not to be left to my own means as I weren't important. It was then that I realised that I was actually, despite the fact that I hated the guts of my brother, having fun.
Home is where the heart is
I loft the left, I mean, I left the loft as fast as I could. I knew Emma could persuade me to stay easily and I wanted to make sure that I kept some of my anger so I could get away and get the bus before I decided that it wasn't all that bad. It took me around an hour and a half to reach my old neighbourhood and I was really regretting not letting Emma drive me around though I knew it would have been a very bad idea. When I finally arrived home the police had cleared the area and the only people left were a couple of construction workers that had stayed behind for clean-up duty. I checked my mailbox and found the keys and address to an apartment a couple of streets away.
I looked at the state of my old place. I really hoped that there was something to salvage, but to be honest, I didn't have that many things to begin with and all of them were easily replaceable, especially with my brother's money which I planed on using extensively. I took a look and realised that somehow the damage seemed to be contained in my own flat. The door right next to mine was unharmed and the apartment seemed to have no structural damage. I checked that the tag was still there, floating on thin air and void of all threat now. The workers never bothered me and I saw that they had a name tag with the name of a company that my brother owned. I sighed as I got into the ruins of my old apartment. All through the kitchen, the remains of my fridge lay scattered as reminders of my unhealthy lifestyle. Eggs, pizza and liquid yogurt seemed to be everywhere.
I left the place, after checking that everything else, including my Dreamcast, was unsalvageable. I really hoped that my brother had not screwed up my new place and had at least made it comfortable, so I went to check on it. My new apartment was just two streets away and the building was more or less the same as my old one.
So I turned the key, opened the door and cursed Mark.
The bastard must have had my old house bugged or something, for this apartment was a clone of my old one. And by a clone, I mean everything, down to my posters and books was identical to the old one. I checked the kitchen and fortunately the fridge had been filled with different food. Knowing that my brother knew every book I owned was creepy, imagining him checking my fridge and making notes in case my house was blown out would have been downright scary.
I went back into the living room after turning the kettle on so I could make some noodles and then I saw it.
I called Mark straight away but he didn't answer. I took another look at the horrible horrendous humongous huge thing and called again. He was pissed off when he finally picked up.
"What?" he shouted.
I tried to act calm and relaxed, just so he would know how angry I was.
"Mark, why is there an PS3 in my living room?"
"This isn't important right now," he said and hung.
I called a third time.
"It is important, you wanker, I had a Dreamcast, not an PS3."
I heard him say something off the phone, suddenly this voice that wasn't him came back on.
"Erm, hi, I am the one who was in charge of doing the deco at your new place," this guy sounded nervous as hell. It made me feel important. "What seems to be the issue?"
I repeated my problem, step by step.
"Well, look, we tried looking for the same one you had, but it's kind of hard to find, so we thought we'd upgrade you?"
"UPGRADE ME?" I shouted. The guy had henchman written all over his voice, and I was angry. "To a fucking paperweight? Did you guys even try eBay?"
"We had no time, I'm sorry. We'll make that a priority, sir. I am really sorry for the inconvenience."
He had me at sir, so I said something that sounded like "good" and hung up.
I got my noodles and sat on my sofa. What were you supposed to do on an afternoon when you had no game system on your living room? Whoops, I'm sorry, Sony, when you had no decent game system.
Well, at least I did all my computing on the cloud, so I didn't worry so much about losing my hard drive.
Crap.
I looked at the state of my old place. I really hoped that there was something to salvage, but to be honest, I didn't have that many things to begin with and all of them were easily replaceable, especially with my brother's money which I planed on using extensively. I took a look and realised that somehow the damage seemed to be contained in my own flat. The door right next to mine was unharmed and the apartment seemed to have no structural damage. I checked that the tag was still there, floating on thin air and void of all threat now. The workers never bothered me and I saw that they had a name tag with the name of a company that my brother owned. I sighed as I got into the ruins of my old apartment. All through the kitchen, the remains of my fridge lay scattered as reminders of my unhealthy lifestyle. Eggs, pizza and liquid yogurt seemed to be everywhere.
I left the place, after checking that everything else, including my Dreamcast, was unsalvageable. I really hoped that my brother had not screwed up my new place and had at least made it comfortable, so I went to check on it. My new apartment was just two streets away and the building was more or less the same as my old one.
So I turned the key, opened the door and cursed Mark.
The bastard must have had my old house bugged or something, for this apartment was a clone of my old one. And by a clone, I mean everything, down to my posters and books was identical to the old one. I checked the kitchen and fortunately the fridge had been filled with different food. Knowing that my brother knew every book I owned was creepy, imagining him checking my fridge and making notes in case my house was blown out would have been downright scary.
I went back into the living room after turning the kettle on so I could make some noodles and then I saw it.
I called Mark straight away but he didn't answer. I took another look at the horrible horrendous humongous huge thing and called again. He was pissed off when he finally picked up.
"What?" he shouted.
I tried to act calm and relaxed, just so he would know how angry I was.
"Mark, why is there an PS3 in my living room?"
"This isn't important right now," he said and hung.
I called a third time.
"It is important, you wanker, I had a Dreamcast, not an PS3."
I heard him say something off the phone, suddenly this voice that wasn't him came back on.
"Erm, hi, I am the one who was in charge of doing the deco at your new place," this guy sounded nervous as hell. It made me feel important. "What seems to be the issue?"
I repeated my problem, step by step.
"Well, look, we tried looking for the same one you had, but it's kind of hard to find, so we thought we'd upgrade you?"
"UPGRADE ME?" I shouted. The guy had henchman written all over his voice, and I was angry. "To a fucking paperweight? Did you guys even try eBay?"
"We had no time, I'm sorry. We'll make that a priority, sir. I am really sorry for the inconvenience."
He had me at sir, so I said something that sounded like "good" and hung up.
I got my noodles and sat on my sofa. What were you supposed to do on an afternoon when you had no game system on your living room? Whoops, I'm sorry, Sony, when you had no decent game system.
Well, at least I did all my computing on the cloud, so I didn't worry so much about losing my hard drive.
Crap.
I am a good person
I just reread the last entry. "The guy had henchman written all over his voice". I sound like Mark. I wasn't supposed to act like this. I am a good person, maybe a little bit jaded and desensitised, but I guess that's just because of modern day education and entertainment. Actually, no, I do not really blame education or entertainment, but the only alternative is blaming myself and I guess I'm not mature enough to do that. I'll wait for a couple of years.
Actually, I'll wait until I can afford a psychiatrist who tells me it's not my fault either.
You think I was over reacting, go up to your friend who's an old vinyl records collector and tell him you've replaced his state-of-the-art record player with a Bang & Olufsen CD rack... And then tell him you've upgraded him.
So, I don't really mean to sound self-justifying, but I took the fact that they couldn't get the right gaming system as a personal offence. See, one doesn't play a 10-year-old console for no particular reason: it was a personal statement. Sega was the awesomest videogame (sorry, mr. spellcheck) company of the whole wide world. The Saturn may had been a minor setback, but it was simply washed away due to the fact that the MegaDrive was such a perfect machine.
And then, back in 99, they released the single most amazing piece of hardware and they redefined games again. The Dreamcast.
Problem is this, they released it too early. A year later Sony and Microsoft were releasing their brand new DVD using monsters and they pushed back the gaming industry for years to come. Things once again became all about flashy graphics and forgot about stuff like gameplay and pure unadulterated fun. It took the industry another 7 to 8 years to recover.
Just so you get the picture, the Dreamcast had a modem, back in 99 when the internet was this kind of weird thing that kids with glasses and bad skin talked about. Ok, so maybe that's an exaggeration, but things like Youtube or Facebook were completely unheard of.
Hell, there wasn't even any Wikipedia or Suicide Girls, and Google was only starting to be a commodity.
That's why I had gotten so angry about the whole thing. I looked at the PS and then I remembered that I still needed to check on Ro and whatever had gotten into him to write that creepy e-mail, so I picked it up (those damn things are heavy) and decided I would go to Ro's house and give him the ugly disgusting thing. He would surely appreciate it.
On retrospect, I was maybe a bit over the top, after all, you can get second hand Dreamcast on eBay for 30-40 bucks easily. But I was under a lot of stress, you know.
Actually, I'll wait until I can afford a psychiatrist who tells me it's not my fault either.
You think I was over reacting, go up to your friend who's an old vinyl records collector and tell him you've replaced his state-of-the-art record player with a Bang & Olufsen CD rack... And then tell him you've upgraded him.
So, I don't really mean to sound self-justifying, but I took the fact that they couldn't get the right gaming system as a personal offence. See, one doesn't play a 10-year-old console for no particular reason: it was a personal statement. Sega was the awesomest videogame (sorry, mr. spellcheck) company of the whole wide world. The Saturn may had been a minor setback, but it was simply washed away due to the fact that the MegaDrive was such a perfect machine.
And then, back in 99, they released the single most amazing piece of hardware and they redefined games again. The Dreamcast.
Problem is this, they released it too early. A year later Sony and Microsoft were releasing their brand new DVD using monsters and they pushed back the gaming industry for years to come. Things once again became all about flashy graphics and forgot about stuff like gameplay and pure unadulterated fun. It took the industry another 7 to 8 years to recover.
Just so you get the picture, the Dreamcast had a modem, back in 99 when the internet was this kind of weird thing that kids with glasses and bad skin talked about. Ok, so maybe that's an exaggeration, but things like Youtube or Facebook were completely unheard of.
Hell, there wasn't even any Wikipedia or Suicide Girls, and Google was only starting to be a commodity.
That's why I had gotten so angry about the whole thing. I looked at the PS and then I remembered that I still needed to check on Ro and whatever had gotten into him to write that creepy e-mail, so I picked it up (those damn things are heavy) and decided I would go to Ro's house and give him the ugly disgusting thing. He would surely appreciate it.
On retrospect, I was maybe a bit over the top, after all, you can get second hand Dreamcast on eBay for 30-40 bucks easily. But I was under a lot of stress, you know.
Ro has guests
By now you may think that I am reckless and that I should have been a bit more worried about moving around without caring too much about what was going on. I wasn't.
I had been thinking about all the things happening quite a bit. I was of course aware that I had received a death threat and then my house had been blown away. The big contraption I was hauling to Ro's was a painful reminder. However, I was also aware that all this had happened while I was away. My gut feeling was that Mark was right, someone was trying to scare me, not really kill me. Well, screw that, at the moment I didn't even know what everyone wanted of me, except that my brother wanted me to do something I wouldn't do.
Whoever was trying to get me scared, had just made me pissed.
And then I reached Ro's, pressed the bell and waited.
Don Johnson opened the door.
I'm going to talk about instincts next. It's called a cliffhanger, deal with it. You see, I do believe that I have no instincts left. I mean it, I sometimes see people, mostly guys, acting or talking out of instincts, which usually involves them explaining in graphic details the amount of sexual positions they would put that nice woman across the park, or things of the sort, and I never got it.
I do believe we are slowly tuning down our instincts and motivations, at least those of us who are lucky enough to live in places where life is taked for granted. It's just the small things, you know, like the fact that most of us don't want kids any more. Another example? By instinct you should be attracted to girls with full rounded hips, that are fit to carry and deliver lots of little babies (I love the way that sounds, if I ever get a music group I'll write a song called Lots of little babies), instead we as a culture are still using Photoshop to make anorexic models look even worse. Remember the Boing Boing/Ralph Lauren's controversy? "Dude, her head's bigger than her pelvis." Talk about any kind of instinct at work there.
Another example, have you heard about the Maslow pyramid? You should, they even have a joke about it on The Sims. Well, just look at me, I'm working on the top level of the pyramid, being creative and shit, while I was having troubles with the fourth and third levels: No love for myself, no love for another... Fuck, at the moment I was having real trouble with level number two, the safety one.
Talking about safety, Don Johnson seemed to have no trouble with his instincts. As soon as he opened the door, before I could even try to say something clever he had picked me up by the t-shirt, thrown me into the house, looked the door and had a gun pointed to my head. I decided it was a great moment to take care of the first level of the Maslow pyramid, which includes physiological needs like excretion. I had not being even able to register his moves.
Since then, I just throw away every magazine that says video games are good for your reaction time.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” we both said at the same time, though I actually said hell instead of fuck.
He didn't seem about to answer me anyway and he did have the gun, so I eventually talked first.
“I came to see Ro, and to give him a present, he's my friend.”
He looked at me funny, took the PS3 and told me to turn around. He pat me at my hips and legs, as if he was looking for hidden weapons. Jet Li walked into the corridor.
“What the fuck is he doing here?” he asked.
“He came to see Roland,” said Don, apparently they were already on a first-name basis with him.
He touched my chest last and finally made me turn around. “No outside mics,” he said. “Have you eaten or drank anything that was not sealed or had sex with anyone on the last twenty four hours?”
I blushed. “No?” I said.
“He's lying,” said Jet, “he's probably bugged.”
“Fuck, got any scramblers?” said Don.
“Not for internals, but they don't work underwater and Roland has a huge bath.”
Just then, Ro came into the hall and looked at the three of us as if it was the most normal of social gatherings.
“Hey, Jay,” he said. “What's up?”
I stood waiting, after giving Ro the PS, which he loved. It seemed like Don and Jet believed that the four of us needed to have a conversation, which was fine by me; but the lack of internal mic scramblers meant they would have to talk with me while I was on the bath, which wasn't. Lucky for them, guns pointed at my head do tend to make me submissive, so I accepted.
I had been thinking about all the things happening quite a bit. I was of course aware that I had received a death threat and then my house had been blown away. The big contraption I was hauling to Ro's was a painful reminder. However, I was also aware that all this had happened while I was away. My gut feeling was that Mark was right, someone was trying to scare me, not really kill me. Well, screw that, at the moment I didn't even know what everyone wanted of me, except that my brother wanted me to do something I wouldn't do.
Whoever was trying to get me scared, had just made me pissed.
And then I reached Ro's, pressed the bell and waited.
Don Johnson opened the door.
I'm going to talk about instincts next. It's called a cliffhanger, deal with it. You see, I do believe that I have no instincts left. I mean it, I sometimes see people, mostly guys, acting or talking out of instincts, which usually involves them explaining in graphic details the amount of sexual positions they would put that nice woman across the park, or things of the sort, and I never got it.
I do believe we are slowly tuning down our instincts and motivations, at least those of us who are lucky enough to live in places where life is taked for granted. It's just the small things, you know, like the fact that most of us don't want kids any more. Another example? By instinct you should be attracted to girls with full rounded hips, that are fit to carry and deliver lots of little babies (I love the way that sounds, if I ever get a music group I'll write a song called Lots of little babies), instead we as a culture are still using Photoshop to make anorexic models look even worse. Remember the Boing Boing/Ralph Lauren's controversy? "Dude, her head's bigger than her pelvis." Talk about any kind of instinct at work there.
Another example, have you heard about the Maslow pyramid? You should, they even have a joke about it on The Sims. Well, just look at me, I'm working on the top level of the pyramid, being creative and shit, while I was having troubles with the fourth and third levels: No love for myself, no love for another... Fuck, at the moment I was having real trouble with level number two, the safety one.
Talking about safety, Don Johnson seemed to have no trouble with his instincts. As soon as he opened the door, before I could even try to say something clever he had picked me up by the t-shirt, thrown me into the house, looked the door and had a gun pointed to my head. I decided it was a great moment to take care of the first level of the Maslow pyramid, which includes physiological needs like excretion. I had not being even able to register his moves.
Since then, I just throw away every magazine that says video games are good for your reaction time.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” we both said at the same time, though I actually said hell instead of fuck.
He didn't seem about to answer me anyway and he did have the gun, so I eventually talked first.
“I came to see Ro, and to give him a present, he's my friend.”
He looked at me funny, took the PS3 and told me to turn around. He pat me at my hips and legs, as if he was looking for hidden weapons. Jet Li walked into the corridor.
“What the fuck is he doing here?” he asked.
“He came to see Roland,” said Don, apparently they were already on a first-name basis with him.
He touched my chest last and finally made me turn around. “No outside mics,” he said. “Have you eaten or drank anything that was not sealed or had sex with anyone on the last twenty four hours?”
I blushed. “No?” I said.
“He's lying,” said Jet, “he's probably bugged.”
“Fuck, got any scramblers?” said Don.
“Not for internals, but they don't work underwater and Roland has a huge bath.”
Just then, Ro came into the hall and looked at the three of us as if it was the most normal of social gatherings.
“Hey, Jay,” he said. “What's up?”
I stood waiting, after giving Ro the PS, which he loved. It seemed like Don and Jet believed that the four of us needed to have a conversation, which was fine by me; but the lack of internal mic scramblers meant they would have to talk with me while I was on the bath, which wasn't. Lucky for them, guns pointed at my head do tend to make me submissive, so I accepted.
Plot Exposition
That's how it came to be. I was on the bath with one of Ro's swimming trunks and with two strangers looking over me.
“I'm Alan, and this is Kim,” said Don. “We work for Mark.”
“You don't,” I said, remembering how my brother's goons had stopped these two at his funeral why I escaped. I guess it wasn't the kind of answer they expected, as they turned to each other and started speaking in Japanese. Lucky for me, this time I did know it was Japanese, not because I ever learnt, but because I used to watch a lot of VOS anime. Unfortunately, as their conversation didn't seem to be about schoolgirls, raping or saving the world by using the power of a pure heart, I could not really make out what they were talking about.
Then Ro cut in and replied to somethingJet Li Kim had said.
“Ro,” I asked. “Since when do you speak Japanese?”
“Well, I learnt by watching anime.”
Don Alan looked at me again. I was feeling really naked.
“What makes you think we do not work for Mark?”
“Mark's men were at the funeral. They tried to stop you. Could you let the hot water run a bit more?”
“Sure,” he said and opened the tap. “We belong to the legal side of your brother's affairs. He's got a bunch of groups working in completely unrelated projects. Most of us don't know the others.”
So the legal group of my brother's affairs had no trouble kidnapping me at gunpoint at then making me take a really nice relaxing bath. I thought about saying that out loud, but didn't, this guys had guns after all.
“Could I get some bubbles?” I asked instead.
“No,” saidDon Alan.
“Jay,” Ro came to the rescue, “these guys are working on developing some cool new tech with your brother, Augmented Reality shit and such. Dude, you've really got to check it out.”
“Is this like some contacts that make you see things?” I asked.
“Yes,” saidDon Alan. “Your brother got the idea from his new girlfriend, some chick from Middle Europe, sort of refugee.”
“Can you prove you work for my brother?” I asked.
Ro took out his phone and dialled. He set the phone on speaker and we waited one, two, three ring tones.
“Fuck you, stop calling me, I'm supposed to be dead!” shouted Mark suddenly.
“Mark,” saidDon Alan. “Your brother has a hard time believing we work for you.”
“My brother is an arsehole. Is this thing on speaker?”
Jet Li Kim was the only one who didn't say yes.
“Jay, trust these guys, they work with me. Sorry for not telling you before, you were supposed to meet them at the funeral, though.”
“I panicked,” I semi-lied. “I thought they were police coming to ask questions about you, and I didn't know if I could resist a third degree without snapping.”
“Jay, have you ever seen an Asian policeman outside of Asia?”
“I've never been to Asia and I don't have your knowledge about police ethnicity, Mark. And by the way, your comment is racist”
“OK, no problem, you can trust Alan and Kim.”
“Thanks, Mark,” I said.
“Don't they remind you of Don Johnson and Jet Li?”
“Mark,” interruptedDon Alan. “Shall we keep your brother here for a few days?”
“No, it's OK, let him go home. Just tell him a bit about the business, as I'll probably make him CEO or something.”
“I thought I was going to be CEO?” said Ro.
“That's the friend?”
The three of us said “yes” again.Jet Li Kim just stood there looking tough.
“OK, things are still being discussed, Roland, we'll get to it soon but you are an invaluable companion. I need to go now.”
He hung up. I opened the hot water tap and waited for one of them to speak. Ro did.
“The thing is these guys came last Thursday, told me they needed someone with some tech knowledge and gave me a couple of USB keys with the plans for a really nice set of contacts that worked by giving you this AR experience. The model seems really cool and they wanted to know if it was a hoax or something that was being used to bribe them.”
“Was it?” I asked even though I knew the answer.
“It wasn't, this thing has an amazing simple tech after all, some hard-to-come-by nano comps, but I guess we could build a prototype in two weeks if we had the labs.”
“And you don't have the labs?”
“Your brother bought two, they were sabotaged.”
“Any suspects?”
“Sure, Aliya's old gang,” said Ro.
“Who's Aliya?” I asked.
“Your brother's new girl, she moved in from some strange place in Middle Europe, she escaped with the plans for this stuff.”
It hit me more or less around that time. These two had been terrified about mics but they hadn't checked my lenses. I realised this meant that they probably had no idea that this had been done already. Of course, I only realised this because right at that moment I read a familiar message acrossDon Alan's chest.
+SxE+Wendy+ has come online.
“I'm Alan, and this is Kim,” said Don. “We work for Mark.”
“You don't,” I said, remembering how my brother's goons had stopped these two at his funeral why I escaped. I guess it wasn't the kind of answer they expected, as they turned to each other and started speaking in Japanese. Lucky for me, this time I did know it was Japanese, not because I ever learnt, but because I used to watch a lot of VOS anime. Unfortunately, as their conversation didn't seem to be about schoolgirls, raping or saving the world by using the power of a pure heart, I could not really make out what they were talking about.
Then Ro cut in and replied to something
“Ro,” I asked. “Since when do you speak Japanese?”
“Well, I learnt by watching anime.”
“What makes you think we do not work for Mark?”
“Mark's men were at the funeral. They tried to stop you. Could you let the hot water run a bit more?”
“Sure,” he said and opened the tap. “We belong to the legal side of your brother's affairs. He's got a bunch of groups working in completely unrelated projects. Most of us don't know the others.”
So the legal group of my brother's affairs had no trouble kidnapping me at gunpoint at then making me take a really nice relaxing bath. I thought about saying that out loud, but didn't, this guys had guns after all.
“Could I get some bubbles?” I asked instead.
“No,” said
“Jay,” Ro came to the rescue, “these guys are working on developing some cool new tech with your brother, Augmented Reality shit and such. Dude, you've really got to check it out.”
“Is this like some contacts that make you see things?” I asked.
“Yes,” said
“Can you prove you work for my brother?” I asked.
Ro took out his phone and dialled. He set the phone on speaker and we waited one, two, three ring tones.
“Fuck you, stop calling me, I'm supposed to be dead!” shouted Mark suddenly.
“Mark,” said
“My brother is an arsehole. Is this thing on speaker?”
“Jay, trust these guys, they work with me. Sorry for not telling you before, you were supposed to meet them at the funeral, though.”
“I panicked,” I semi-lied. “I thought they were police coming to ask questions about you, and I didn't know if I could resist a third degree without snapping.”
“Jay, have you ever seen an Asian policeman outside of Asia?”
“I've never been to Asia and I don't have your knowledge about police ethnicity, Mark. And by the way, your comment is racist”
“OK, no problem, you can trust Alan and Kim.”
“Thanks, Mark,” I said.
“Don't they remind you of Don Johnson and Jet Li?”
“Mark,” interrupted
“No, it's OK, let him go home. Just tell him a bit about the business, as I'll probably make him CEO or something.”
“I thought I was going to be CEO?” said Ro.
“That's the friend?”
The three of us said “yes” again.
“OK, things are still being discussed, Roland, we'll get to it soon but you are an invaluable companion. I need to go now.”
He hung up. I opened the hot water tap and waited for one of them to speak. Ro did.
“The thing is these guys came last Thursday, told me they needed someone with some tech knowledge and gave me a couple of USB keys with the plans for a really nice set of contacts that worked by giving you this AR experience. The model seems really cool and they wanted to know if it was a hoax or something that was being used to bribe them.”
“Was it?” I asked even though I knew the answer.
“It wasn't, this thing has an amazing simple tech after all, some hard-to-come-by nano comps, but I guess we could build a prototype in two weeks if we had the labs.”
“And you don't have the labs?”
“Your brother bought two, they were sabotaged.”
“Any suspects?”
“Sure, Aliya's old gang,” said Ro.
“Who's Aliya?” I asked.
“Your brother's new girl, she moved in from some strange place in Middle Europe, she escaped with the plans for this stuff.”
It hit me more or less around that time. These two had been terrified about mics but they hadn't checked my lenses. I realised this meant that they probably had no idea that this had been done already. Of course, I only realised this because right at that moment I read a familiar message across
+SxE+Wendy+ has come online.
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