The Altonevers

by Frederic Merbe

  “Why does everything look like that?” she asks, interrupting Yaku from a face reddening fit of rage.

  “Like what dear Anna?” he asks kindly.

  “All shiny like that, is it all glass?” Cider asks.

  “It's a glass, everything here is made of bioluminescent glass, though we called it that eons ago.”

  “Everything?” she asks.

  “Yes everything, even most of the people, and the animals. The plants and leaves, snakes on the trees, and the trees themselves. Everything that looks all shiny, which is everything if you look closely enough,” Yaku says smiling a foxes smile.

  “That's good to know,” Cider says.

  “Yes, interesting,” she adds, triggering Yakutom to go on a half hour long riff about technology and control, ending with “We are so advanced we no longer know what it even does. It's just there, seamlessly interlaced to our nature.”

  “Are the rivers like glass?” she asks.

  “As smooth, yet as porous as that old woman over there,” Yaku says. The city is filled with nineteen fifties Americana architecture, and styles with the ambiance of a society living on the whims of the casino’s fortune. Everywhere you go displays small to systemic aspects of their culture being drenched in the ways of the atomic age. Of casinos, cigars, slicked back hair, and miniskirts walking over neon writing reflecting off stainless steel looking furniture and checkered floors. The men are all zoot suited as though in a cartoon doo wop group, and the women are mostly nude, dressed in body paint and miniskirts, often on roller skates. Cider casts a favorable glance to Yakutom’s midnight purple suit and Elvis styled hair.

  Assuming her usual perch of looking through the window, though through the bright transparent facade of this lavish, marble floored room of luxury. Having stained violet walls with deeper shades of purple atmosphere emerging around him portraying his present mood. The floor length facade offers a panoramic eye full, filling her eyes with a multitude of mammoth bio-luminescent glass structures. Lit and constructed so the structures complement each other and form a single, almost monolithic, illuminated techno-metropolis. She finds the scene stimulating, seeming as though a meal for the eyes to see, and enticing a hunger to see it more.

  The suite stinks of filth and liquor and is permeated with the scent of sex. Littered with a banquet's worth of half eaten meals, empty bottles, and nude sex kittens waiting to appease Yakutoms demonically gluttonous appetite for any sort of self indulgence. Of which he is never sufficed, and demonstrates within five minutes of returning to his room. Changing the album on the gramophone of a broken jukebox from old rock and roll, to doo wop, to some kind of jazz that he says is the infusion of melody with the electronic synthesis of the primal subconscious to form a new pattern of music.

  Huffing his satchel a few times, and finishing a bottle and a half of dark liquor, then devouring a pot roast platter with no help, as he snarls and growls and gurgles like a monster. Then putting on a foul mouth comedian's album before taking four of the whores to kiss and hug in his master suite. Anna gets up to slam the door behind him, then enjoys the comedian, and Cider says he's heard of him.

  The debauchery lasts for hours with continuous groans and moans and sometimes screams. The two of them have been uncomfortable for the last two. Unable to even covertly communicate as they sit in a room surrounded by sleepless goons who're unwavering in watching them. She realizes, the whole suite is filled with what seems to her to be like a soup of sensory stimuli, of fragrances, foods, fabrics, music’s and hues of illuminated shapes all over the walls. And that the two are sitting in the middle of it as unbound hostages, waiting forever for him to stop feasting on the women as he does his satchel.

  “You look nice but why are you blushing Carrots?” he asks, to see her face flush, one of his favorite things to see. Sometimes preferring when she's only a little upset, so he can lighten her tightened face from it.

  “Nothing to worry about,” she says, not wanting to seem scared or suspicious to the six unflinching goons around them.

  “Oh, okay, I was just thinking it could’a been you thinking about me, but if it's another guy,” he says teasingly.

  “There is no other guy,” she shakes her head at him.

  “Yeah, I guess not,” he says. The master bedroom doors fly open and Yaku emerges, bathed in his carnal over indulgence, to ravenously delight his gluttonous desire for meat. This happens two more times with each lasting for a few hours less. Trying anything, to do anything but hear the animal groans and growls, so she follows Cider’s lead in picking things to eat of the feast. The two begin bickering amongst themselves about their predicament and what to do. Standing close while picking through the tables feast like foraging field mice. Unsure of what any of it is but seeing that the plates of food share the glowing colors and shapes of the panoramic view of city from seen his suite's windows for walls.

  “You don’t know where that’s been,” she says, slapping a piece of meat that Yaku touched from Ciders paw.

  “I think I do,” he says wiping his hand to his shirt.

  “What are we gonna do?”

  “What else can we do?”

  “We better make it outta here. I don’t want that guy touching me. Okay,” she says pointing her finger in his face.

  “He seems alright,”

  “What?” she says “everyone’s alright to you, idiot. Alright? like that lunatic on that battlefield.” The two pick at their plates then take a nap until Crash! Boom! the heavy wooden doors swing open, slamming against and cracking the walls on either side. Startling Anna awake to lift her head from a plate with blueberry filling blurring the vision of her right eye. Cider slides out of a grease cheeked slumber, jumps to his feet and says, “Oh,” then sits down and slides right back to sleep.

  “Cider!”

  “What?” he asks, looking to his to right to see the glutton emerging, his ambient bending demeanor demanding devout attention. Dripping fresh from bathing in lustful descent of demonic soul devouring, dehumanizing self indulgent depravity. Leaving the women drained of their energy as lifeless corpses on the bloodless bed and floor behind him. Yaku’s naked, unblinking, brimming with a deep purple aura emanating from one of the few places on his body not painted with ink. The scar tissue stretching across his chest to his left shoulder is pouring a glowing flow of violet light that follows him as he walks to see the sight through the wall high windows view. Not even glancing to any of the glazed meats or glasses of whiskey, or meeting either of the two in the eye. Standing stiffly in stark silence with his tattooed back to them for minutes, only staring out to the self illuminating metropolis closely resembling the food filling Yaku's room and stomach. His presence is atmosphere dominating, feeling almost like he has his own gravity as the dust in the air is swelling in slow uneven circular cycles around him.

  Did I just eat a school or something, she asks herself eyeing the blue pie she wiped from her forehead, then looks over to the window.

  “Cider, Cider look,” she says, kicking his foot and pointing toward the thickening lines forming into spectral faces and figures as though from condensing moisture across the translucent walls and windows. Contorting to flow with expressions of agony and sorrow toward Yaku, who's tessellating with astral looking purplish energy. Drinking in the lifeforce converging on him as though he is the spectral faces in agony’s center of gravity.

  “What I need the both of you do is go to a club,” Yaku says, his voice now of an unshakably certain tone.

  “Sounds fair enough?” Cider agrees.

  “For what?” she asks.

  “You two not being from here will have no trouble gaining access and staying close to the bartender, where my men will be recognized. You must take the bar area when the time comes,” Yaku says.

  “See I told you he was alright, just a bar fight,” Cider says.

  “When? what time?” she asks.

  “When the lights go out,” Yaku says.

  “I don't know,
that sounds a bit sketchy,” he says.

  “It is...sketchy. The club is used as a rival clan's base of operations,” Yaku says.

  “So why are we doing this?” he asks waving his hand even though Yaku’s

  only seeing the skyline through the window.

  “If you have any doubts, just remember, maybe they will kill you, but I definitely will if you do not obey me. So do as your told, and that fate won’t become yours,” the nude man at the window says.

  “I mean why do you want to do that?” Cider asks. He takes a snorting and snarling huff from his satchel before he replies.

  “An old clan boss has passed away. Leaving his young nephew to take his place, with another of the elders is to act in the child’s place. It is the deceased man's good friend and one of the most powerful of all the bosses. If my plan works then the Asagawa will go to war for honor, and the elder will have to choose between staying true to his oath, or succumbing to the will of the other clan bosses, it will cause a war either way. One that will sunder the might all of the clans. Mine the most ruthless, the Tenaru, will be victorious in the scramble of hundreds of warring clans, and I will assume my place as the ruler of this entire realm,” Yaku says raging through his clicking jaw, and growling with a rasp creeping into his voice. Laughing, giggling and being on the verge of tears in just one sentence.

  “After tonight, the entire city will erupt into battle. There will be chaos everywhere you look. It will be beautiful, glorious from shattering glass to burning ashes,” he's now orating euphorically while twitching and stroking the scar on his neck.

  “Then I will march triumphantly through the embers and take my rightful place as conqueror of all clans. To then hold every square meter of this Alto in the grasp of my hands. In my ascension I will devour this entire dimension.” The spectral violet light strobes brighter from his shoulder, pulling the air of the room into ghostly clouds encircling him like a minuscule volcano erupting in reverse. As Yaku speaks static starts charging through the air, making the hair stand straight off Anna's neck.

  “Descending everything into chaos, feasting on millions of souls until I ascend into immortality. Then forever bathing in pleasures of my paradise, with unfathomable energy at my fingertips for all of eternity.”

  Anna is scared, even Cider looks as though he's seen a ghost, and he's seen many and this man is engorging himself with them by the hundred without even flinching.

  “Psst,” he says, she shakes her head no.

  “Psst psst.”

  “What?” she asks.

  “Is that an alligator tattooed on his back?” he asks.

  “Or a crocodile,” she answers.

  “It is a crocodile,” Yaku says in a guttural tone. Facing her with a suffocating gaze while still seeming like he's standing miles away. Displaying a divine focus as though seeing something that isn't there wherever he looks.

  “Dude, are you a vampire?” he asks, causing Anna to bursts out of from being scared stiff into a belly aching fit of bellowing laughter. Cider laughs along, even Yaku's deep purple light lavenders a little though his manic expression remains unfazed.

  “I am not a vampire,” he says grinning.

  “It’s not that,” she says between gasping and giggling, “not that at all, it's ahahaha!”

  “What?” Yaku asks with an insulted tone.

  “He, hahaha he...his. While giving his...hahaha. Giving his big, hahaha, big grandiose plan, about...eternity and eternal power..hahaha.”

  “What is it Carrots?” Cider asks.

  “His ass, his ass cheeks were twitching and tightening when he was speaking ahahahaaaa,” she laughs, all three burst into laughter simmering a minute later

  “But really though are you sure you’re not a vampire?” she asks.

  “No I am not,” Yaku says sternly.

  “I think this guy's a vampire,” Cider says to play along.

  “I am not!”

  “You are,” he says.

  “No! I’m not!”

  “Are you a robot?” she asks

  “No.”

  “Are you sure?” she asks.

  “Actually no I’m not sure. As I said before our technology is somewhat seamless, so none of us know what flesh is real flesh, or if the blood is synthetic or not.”

  “And you drink it?” she asks.

  “I am not a vampire! stop calling me a vampire,” Yaku shouts in a demonic rasping tone reddening the violet with a violently loud outburst. Blowing the hair back of the two for a second.

  “So what happened in there?” he asks.

  “I consumed their life force, their energy” Yaku answers.

  “Are they’re dead,” he asks.

  “Yes, they are dead..”

  “And you’re not a…,” she says.

  “No! whatever, it's time to go. I must conquer and consume, feast on the energy of everything my eyes can see,” Yaku says while flaring up the violet ghostly force gushing in and out of his horribly scarred left shoulder.

  “I told you he was alright,” Cider says as the three leave the sour feeling suite of over indulgences.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Glutton's fill

  The two are in a wave club, already a few drinks in, talking with their lips to the other's ear to hear each other. A wave club is a voluminous space where a mix of frequencies and bass filled sounds resound into something resembling music. Everything is amplified so that the sensory system of the patron is so over indulged they often spend the entire nights drooling on their seats, then falling on the ground. There are all sorts of perception disrupting substances saturating anything you eat or see, even the aromas laced with pheromones. having the pungency of a lush rainforest, are made to mask one of many mild psychoactive intoxicants misted hourly into the air. The air itself is fabricated to feel like satin and silk against your skin as you move through it. Gyrations of beautiful women dressed in primal skirts under strobe lights draw in the mesmerized men and women like flies to a flame. Hardly anyone is dressed, though everyone is luminously glowing against the pitch black patches of the walls and checkered floor. Otherwise the lights of the people intermingle into a single tessellating body, like seeing a forest and not single tree. Those who're dressed are fashioned in a mix of atomic era and stone age clothes. The women having different colored hair are wearing miniskirts with glowing body paint and feathers as clothing. Often gliding around on rollerskates. Some are only pieces of people, beautifully sculpted legs and torso, some just the legs, there are even a few hands just running around eager to please.

  Drug fueled orgies are all around when they’re not dancing in large open circles. A tribal looking dance with one person dancing to its center from each side of the circle a time, coupling up and shuffling to the other side, then another one would come from where in the circle the first two coupled would land. Having walls of shifting and swimming psychedelic patterns and depictions sexual imagery, and large panes of glass spread through the room showing time lapse images of splitting atoms and thermonuclear explosions, solar flares and black holes birthed into being, and dying. Trees and leaves, whole forests growing. Water flowing, filling and draining oceans all at once. Meteors falling and mountains forming, volcanoes erupting everywhere you could look. In what they call the dance floor is a holographic platform, that grants the people who stand on it the pleasure of satisfying even their deepest most perverse desires. The dance floor is filled with people living out their own wildest fantasies melding with other’s minds when under the nightclub’s beaming lights.

  Anna is actually enjoying this place from her bar stool, practically a mile from the dance floor. Liking their primal way of dancing, indulging herself in what it must feel like to be on the hallucinogenic everything most of these people are on, and of have your most primal desires expressed publicly. It must be so liberating, she thinks, though only as long as participation in the often impromptu orgies and other sensory delicacies is elective, which she isn’t sure
of or too interested in joining, though is a bit flattered by the occasional requests for her to do.

  “See he's not so bad, there’s a bunch of people, naked and stuff,” he says.

  “Are they talking about reigning over an kingdom of gluttony and death for all eternity,” she asks.

  “I don't think so, but I haven't talked to most of them,” he answers. The two sit enjoying the scene and guzzling the peppermint tasting phosphorescent fountain soda, that flows as small glowing water falls down the wall of the back bar behind a stocky bull of a bartender. Holding her attention as she starts to suspect there are doses of something in what they've drinking. She delves deeper into an irregular rhythm creeping into coming into phase with the atmospheric flashes of light filling the whole of the club until seeming as though the light has body, mass and density, for a split seconds at a time.

  “I think there’s something in these drinks,” she says.

  “Yea me too, this is great,” Cider says then leans in speaking gibberish and tapping the inside of her right thigh, signaling he's spotted another goon. That makes three in total, one gorilla standing directly behind Anna, who’s facing Cider, the other a thin man spotted fifteen feet away. Then there’s the bartender, a stern looking man with the eyes of a serial killer, whose been eyeing them suspiciously since they've strolled in. The booming sounds and all lights and glowing surfaces go suddenly black, leaving a complete void in the place of the sensory over saturating stimuli of the wave club’s design. Putting Anna and Cider and the rest of the club into a momentary state of shock, paused in a vacuous pitch black stasis. A violet light bursts out, hollowing the dance floor of holographic fantasies like a flare through the air to begin the violence.