I was sitting at the drum set, with Max’s eyes looking at me expectantly. I tried to explain to him that the only abilities I seem to have are anti-assassin ones, but he just wouldn’t listen to me.
“Relax,” he says to me, “let it come to you naturally.”
“I told you…” I try to interrupt.
“Just imagine you are back in high school or whatever, you probably played an instrument, now what instrument was it?”
“Actually, I am pretty sure my school cut its funding for music before I got there.”
“Okay fine, just bang around a little bit and see what you can do.”
I started banging the drums with the drum sticks in a way that might sound cool, but it quickly mutated to just me hitting all the drums trying to get a feel for what they sound like.
“Alright, alright, it was worth a shot,” Max says as he takes a hold of the hi-hat, “Just try and hit a 4/4 beat okay?”
I wasn’t quite sure what that meant and I sort of just drummed to my own heartbeat. Max but his hand on his chin, it was remarkable how much he looked like Maxwell. It is as if Maxwell cut the longish hair, spiked it, and decided to ditch the fancy vest look and go for a tank top and brown cargo pants. The similarities ended with looks though, as his voice sounded much less serious and his body movement seemed much looser.
After what seemed like ten minutes of drumming to my heartbeat, Max says exhaustively, “That’s enough.”
“Can’t I just go as a back stage hand or something?” I say defensively.
“No, I already told the guy that we were adding a drummer to the band. Also, I wouldn’t be so sure if they would let back stage hands in, the drummer is the best bet. I told them you were ‘unorthodox and experimental,’ so as long as you are consistent, people shouldn’t notice too much. Worst case scenario, we tone you down in the mix, and nobody will even hear you.”
The plan was that everybody needed to sneak into the Chamber club at different points. Maxwell, Kate, and the rest of the crew have already took a plane to set up and do reconnaissance, while Max, Ben, and I will go as one of the bands playing. Everyone will have their roles and such, and apparently our role is to be stuck in the middle, whether things go well or not.
Max heads to the tiny kitchen in the trailer, “Let’s take a little snack break! BEN! GET UP!” he yells at an indistinct pile of blankets on the floor.
Max’s trailer is very messy with clothes, blankets, and miscellaneous things, but other than that, it has a very warm, nice atmosphere. There is not much furniture, and what there is all low on the floor. There is a drum set and some guitars on one side, the other side is a mess of brown clothes, blankets, and translucent purple curtains not just on the windows, but hanging from everywhere.
The indistinct pile of clothes on the floor than slowly gets up, and reveals the while haired, white shirted, and white pants man I always see whenever I see Max. I suddenly remember that little tiff Max had with his brother.
“So, Max, you and your brother are…” I say cautiously.
“Perfectly fine,” Max responds right away. The white man clears off some clothes of the floor in front of me, and it turns out to me a sizable table that is low to the ground. He sits down at it and gestures me to sit down at the table as well. I comply, and Max continues while fixing something up in the tiny trailer kitchen, “Maxwell was just mad that I pretty much quit the business to focus on my music. I was never any good at it anyway, so I thought he would be fine with it, but I underestimated how serious he takes everything. Man, I love my brother and all, but he can be an asshole at times.”
“What made you come back?”
“Not really back, to be honest, but I wanted to try and make amends, so here we are. Once this is done, I think me and Ben here are going to move out of here.”
“Oh, right, hi Ben! I don’t think we have been properly introduced!”
I hold out my right hand to shake hands, and he holds out his. It is an okay handshake, but there wasn’t much effort put into it. I find myself trying to focus these things in order to remember people, but Ben doesn’t seem too interested in whether I remember him or not.
After he shakes hand he lets out one “Yo’,” and that was the totality of his introduction. I didn’t know what to make of Ben. I couldn’t tell if he was shy, quiet, or just not that bright.
We sat around the floor table, Ben looking like he is spacing out, Max is busy in the kitchen, and I am sort of fidgeting trying to figure out how I should act in this situation. I remember that I am still carrying around that packet about ‘The Catastrophe” in my pocket. I changed out of the anti-assassin suit, and into a sweat pants and wind breaker combo that wasn’t quite appropriate for the desert weather. Luckily, it fit the air conditioned trailer environment just fine. I pull out the packet out of one of the windbreaker pockets and I start looking through what looks like pages and pages of statistics, trying to find some sort of narrative, when Max comes back from the kitchen with some hors d'oeuvre. It was a simple platter of saltines, what looked like cheddar cheese, and maybe some sort of salami. Max starts to make a little sandwich when he spies what I’m reading, “Gimme that,” he says as he snatches the packet away from me.
“Hey!” I yell.
“Did Maxwell give this to you? Hoooooly crap, what is this nonsense,” he looks through and throws it to Ben, who picks it up seemingly uninterestedly, yet keeps reading it anyway.”
“Well, you see, I am somebody who uses MCN or..” I start to explain.
“Yeah, yeah, everybody knows about you and your brain. So you forgot about the Catastrophe, huh? I wish most people would do the same, but people can’t let go when they think the world has wronged them, you know what I mean?”
“Uh, kind of?” I say honestly.
“Here, let me tell you how it is,” Max starts.
“It all starts 30 years ago when people got their head out of their ass and started caring about shit like ‘global warming’ and whatever. Of course, by the time this happened, the world was already f’ed, and the ice caps were about to melt and cause a domino effect that would just mess everybody up, so most the countries in the world banded together to start a coalition to deal with the problem. Every country was given ten years to get everybody up to safety standards and make sure that when the shit hits the fan that losses would be kept to a minimum. Everything was looking alright until 5 years in, an asteroid that was supposed to completely miss us, hits the ice caps, causing even a worse domino effect than they predicted. Turns out, even the countries that already started on building their defense measures were hit bad, but the countries that just embezzled any funds they were getting and did nothing got hit worse. These people were completely devastated, and it created an uproar that went worldwide. Some people argued that the safety guidelines were unreasonable and investments had to be made to afford surefire protection, other people argued that if they had the whole 10 years, things would be different, most people, though, were just filled with anger and sadness with how much life was just wiped off the planet. Those were some scary times. Eventually, the UWG was formed and it gradually sucked up every country, and become the government for the entire world. Things calmed down, but things were never the same after that,” Max ends and finally puts the cracker sandwich he made in his mouth.
“Oh man, that is terrible,” I say automatically, not really being able to process all that I have heard.
“2 Billion people,” Ben says out of nowhere, “According to this, 2 billion people were lost.”
“Really? That many?” Max says with a full mouth, and quickly swallows, “I think that is a broad estimate. Nobody really knows how many people were lost. I remember hearing about a big controversy at the time about people being cautious to not lowball the number to not seem insensitive. There was a big movement early on to try and ‘move on,’ but it got a huge backlash because people thought the higher ups were trying to minimize the loses for their own agenda. Very touchy times, as you can imagine.”
“Honestly, I am not sure I can. I think that is why I don’t really remember it” I answer.
“That’s the thing though; people are still trying to come to grips with it. The whole Smoker guild is based on mistrust of the UWG,” Max responds.
“Why do they mistrust the UWG?”
“For many reasons, but the big one is that they believe the ‘asteroid” that hit the ice caps weren’t an asteroid at all. They believe it was all a set up, a conspiracy to create the perfect environment for the UWG to form and rule.”
“So, they think it was a bomb or something?”
“Not necessarily, I heard that some people believe that people knew that the asteroid was going to hit, they just chose not to tell anybody.
“Is any of that true?”
“If you ask me, doesn’t matter. How things are, are how things are, and obsessing about the past is not gonna bring you nothing but grief. Though, I am just a guy who is trying to be a musician, what do I know?”
What started as just an awkward moment, turned into something even darker. I was just trying to process everything. Is my family still alive? I am not sure how old I am, but I think I am probably about 20-something, so I most probably lived through the Catastrophe. What did I feel? Did I feel anything? Was I old enough to understand what was happening? Why did I forget all this? I found myself banging on the wall of my own head, desperately trying to unlock any sort of tidbit, any at all, but I came up with nothing.
“Haha, sorry to bring everybody down, but those are the breaks. We play more moody music anyway, so this will get us in the mood for tomorrow,” Max says, I am sure pretty much only to me, as he sounds fine, and Ben looks unfazed, “Oh I know, Ben has this amazing ability to read peoples’ minds”
Ben gives Max a dirty look, the most emotion I have seen from him since I met him, “OK, its not mind reading, it is just he ‘reads’ people and tells them something ‘deep and profound.’ Wanna try Josh?”
I wasn’t in the mood for this, but I figured I would play along anyway.
Ben begins to speak, “Max, I don’t think…”
Max interrupts him right away, “C’mon Ben! Lighten up! Joshy-boy here needs some perspective, and you can give it!” Max looks at me, “This guy is crazy perceptive! He is like a fortune teller, here! You gotta try this out!”
I look deep into Ben’s eyes, and Ben begins to speak again, “You…are hiding something.”
“Oh come on!” Max laughs, “Who isn’t?”
Ben continues, ignoring Max, “What you are hiding isn’t just from other people, but from yourself.”
“And…?”
“And this thing, whatever it is, this idea is guiding you. It is leading you to your destiny.”
“Ooo, this is getting good!”
“Your destiny will fulfill you, but it will also… destroy you.”
“HO-HOO! WHAT DID I TELL YA’! HOMERUN EVERYTIME!” Max starts laughing hysterically, “SO DRAMATIC! Ben doesn’t say much, but when he does, it is so great!”
Max continues to laugh but I find myself beside myself. I had a feeling that Ben knew exactly what he was talking about, but I couldn’t tell if it was so broad that it would fit anyone, or if Ben really understood me more than I did myself. In either case, I felt more fired up than ever to bang on some drums.
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