Station

by Jarrett Brandon Early

  Reena put her arms around both Lilly and Hadder, pulled them in tight against her tiny frame. "This is gonna be the best Haela. I've missed you both so much. Let's never stay away from each other this long again." Hadder and Lilly shared a look that agreed with Reena, that said their lives would indeed be richer if this charming woman were a more substantial part of them. Maybe Reena couldn't talk about the Before, perhaps she needed to continue running from the past, but that didn't mean she didn't bring other invaluable things to the table like empathy, love, passion, and unencumbered joy. Things of which Lilly and Hadder always had more use.

  Just then, a burst of light issued from in front of the Bar as Monty the Mod made his appearance on his magical disc, floating above his attentive audience. Appropriately, Monty was cloaked in the garb of Eldon Tyrell, his shining square glasses bathing the crowd in soft silver light. Monty carefully perused the group and began calling out individuals, applauding some and insulting others for their costume selections.

  Reena, already too excited to stand still, couldn't keep quiet. "Monty, you old cadaver, let us in," she yelled above the throng. "It's me and Jonny VV, with a resurrected Marlin Hadder and Lilly Sistine! There is no party without us!"

  Monty's rimmed eyes swung Hadder's way. "Marlin Hadder! You sure you wouldn't rather visit Inferno? Jackie Crone says she misses you!" Hadder almost responded, but was stopped by Reena's soft hand gripping his neck. He remained silent. "And Lilly Sistine! I thought you too good for us. But maybe not tonight, huh?"

  Jonny VV had had enough. "Monty, you old dog, too much talk! Either let us in, or we'll be happy to make another party the event of the Haela!"

  To his credit, Monty laughed off Jonny's threat. "Oh, Jonny VV, too posh for a little barbed banter? Your concerns are unfounded, and threats unnecessary. How could I not let you all in dressed as you are? Entree, s'il vous plait."

  Jonny VV joined Reena, Lilly, and Hadder as the four, connected by arms and shoulders, made their way into The Soiree Noire. Hadder's chest pounded with excitement and delight, his three good friends together at last, determined to make this Haela one impossible to forget.

  The Blade Runner party did not disappoint, and Hadder had to admit that Monty had really outdone himself. The magical walls depicted Ridley Scott's vision of future Los Angeles, dropping the partygoers amid dystopia. Holographic advertisements appeared and disappeared throughout the party, large images that bent down to touch, then pass through, residents. Manikins walked around, as usual, serving an assortment of mind-altering beverages, oblivious to their close relation to the movie's replicants. Most jarring, however, was the rain. In line with the dark theme, the party was caught in a perpetual rainstorm, with holographic water falling from the ceiling only to disappear as it touched the crimson floors. Hadder and Lilly were so mesmerized by the effect that they actually held their hands out, their minds telling them that they should be soaking wet, only to find themselves as warm and dry as when they entered.

  The residents of the Celebration Cluster also did not disappoint. In addition to the myriad of Deckards and Rachaels, various Roy Battys, Zhoras, and J.F. Sebastians, among other characters, paraded around the party. True to the individualistic nature of the Cluster, many residents chose not to be characters at all but created their own costumes that aligned with the movie's unique look and feel. This gave the party an authentic feel, a shared belief that everyone was dancing on the bones of a dead future, that all of them must make now the best for tomorrow is promised to be shit.

  The four friends hung out and drank, Number 9s going down like water, lubricating hips that began to sway to a combination of Vangelis and synthwave. A Zhora with glowing purple eyes sauntered up to the quartet, a snake draped over her shoulder and hugging her naked glittered body. Hadder thought the snake a prop to complete the woman's costume, but upon closer inspection saw that it really was the Ophidian, its hooded head offering next-level revelry.

  Hadder looked to Reena, who looked to Jonny, who looked to Lilly, and all four quickly reached silent consensus, Lilly leaning forward first to accept the serpent's smoky offering. In order, eyes glazed over, goofy smiles pasted onto faces, and laughs were injected into all sentences. As the Zhora moved on to the next group, the four hugged as one, the real party just beginning.

  Dancing dominated the next few hours, Reena with Hadder, Lilly with Jonny, Lilly with Reena, and even Jonny with Hadder to much laughter. At some point, Jonny VV caught the eye of a tall, dark woman in a white Grace Jones suit and faded into the crowd to join her.

  The now-trio, legs aching from constant movement, took seats on one of the large leather couches, grabbing more drinks from a serving manikin on the way. As the three sat drinking, heads spinning and hearts racing, The Weeknd's "Tears in the Rain" started to play, Lilly and Hadder's favorite song. As the Ophidian's gift continued its journey through their systems, Lilly began to massage Hadder's shoulders as Reena's hand found his thigh. Soon, Lilly’s lips found his neck and Hadder shuddered from the sensation. He turned, meeting her lips with his own, and both gave in to what the music demanded. As they kissed, a form slid atop Hadder to rest straddling both Lilly and him. Hands rubbed both Hadder's and Lilly's head as they lost themselves in each other.

  Then there were three sets of lips, the electricity between them building to a crescendo as tongues came out to explore. Reena writhed on top of Hadder as she passionately kissed Lilly, who clawed at the back of Hadder's head as he watched the provocative scene. In that moment, three close friends became closer, losing themselves in each other, all bullshit gone, with just a sincere appreciation of enjoying this moment together, understanding that nothing lasts.

  They separated as the song ended, breathless laughs a testament to the intensity of their embrace. Reena leaned in to be heard over the music. "It should always be like this. Here's to us never being apart too long again." The three raised their glasses and finished their drinks, feeling complete in each other's company.

  "Never again," Hadder agreed.

  More drinks, more smoke, and more dancing followed. Lilly and Reena moved off to use the bathroom, leaving Hadder alone on the dance floor, which now encompassed the entirety of the bar. Darksynth boomed over the hidden speakers, mirroring the ferocity of the drug-fueled dancers.

  Hadder danced with anyone and everyone, got sandwiched between Helen and Nestra, and even got close with Yasmin Dash, who had her wings tucked in neatly to avoid hitting others in the crowd. Lightning crept into the party, as well, incrementally lighting up the cavernous room as the bass hit. Letting loose in the artificial rain, sharing an experience with these strange creatures, Hadder couldn't help but smile, a genuine and telling thing.

  Then it disappeared.

  As holographic lightning struck the party, Hadder saw over the sea of faces, his eyes drawn to a hooded figure. Although the top half of the man's face was shrouded in shadow, the bottom-half revealed an unmistakable sneer, a hatred that stood in stark contrast to the joyousness around it. As if feeling Hadder's eyes on him, the hood moved to face Hadder, the sneer transforming into a wicked smile. And then he was gone.

  As lightning faded, the party was momentarily lost to darkness as Hadder's eyes adjusted. Once clear, he searched again, looking to locate the fiend hiding in their midst, to no avail. Hadder fought his way through the dancing crowd, eyes up and searching, but found nothing.

  Eventually, he gave up, tried telling himself that it was all in his head, a figment of his imagination created by too much drink and smoke. He relaxed and danced again. He was almost himself once more.

  And then a scream cut through the party, freezing everyone in place.

  More screams followed, ripped from the depths of those delivering them. The party came to a standstill as the music stopped and the lights were turned up.

  Anxiety pelted Hadder from all angles, that feeling of knowing that something is terribly wrong, that your life is inevitably changed for the worse. A feeling that
Hadder knew all too well.

  Hadder raced through the crowd, pushing residents aside roughly, rushing towards the source of the cries. As he neared the back wall of the Bar, he encountered a semicircle of shocked observers and tore through the line. He stumbled as he passed through, his legs failing him as the scene he came upon assaulted his senses and shattered his heart.

  Sitting against the wall, her pristine costume soiled by gore, was Reena Song. Her beautiful head no longer sat on her swanlike neck but had been laid on her lap, eyes still open in a look of absolute horror, her beloved light crown rotating above her, but slowly now, as if it too was in mourning.

  A figure crashed into the catatonic Hadder. "Oh no, Marlin, why," shouted Lilly into his shoulder, burying her face in him as to escape the vile imagery around them.

  Hadder stood, holding a shaking Lilly Sistine, staring at a torn apart Reena Song, the angel that Station and, especially, the Celebration Cluster didn't deserve. Her loss shattered something inside of Hadder, the last levee that had been keeping an ocean of anger at bay. The growing pain of her death brought his other losses back to the surface in a torrent.

  As the crowd continued to stare at poor Reena Song, the rain continued to fall in The Soiree Noire. And although they all remained dry, an icy cold had fallen, soaking Hadder to the bones. And Hadder knew what that meant.

  The love affair with Station had ended. His new home would no longer feel like home.

  PART TWO:

  A Desire Called Revenge

  CHAPTER 15

  For two Solays and two Haelas, Hadder sat in the living quarters he shared with Lilly Sistine, lights dimmed when not off. Lilly came and went, bringing him food he barely touched and playing music he barely heard. And although he appeared unmoving, a battle was being waged inside him.

  As long as Marlin Hadder could remember, there was a Rage within, making unspeakable demands. Hadder had employed numerous strategies over the years to keep the Rage at arm's length. As a youth, he used sports to drain himself of the energy required to sustain the Rage. As an angry young man, he used combat training to leech the Rage out lest it reach critical levels, first boxing then Muay Thai then Brazilian jiu-jitsu. As an adult, the love of and for his family overwhelmed the Rage, pushed it down into a small corner of his being where it had no real power. As a widower, grief and self-hate stole his will to act, extinguished the life-force need by the Rage to thrive. As a Station resident, first drugs, then friendship, then love and, finally, a sense of home would not allow the Rage to take hold.

  That sense of home was now gone, had been severed just like poor Reena Song's head. And now all that remained was the Rage. And it had new demands. And it would no longer be silenced.

  "We need to talk."

  Royal could tell from Hadder's tone that he was serious, maybe dangerously so. He felt a change in his friend, that person who seemed to bend so much like bamboo, quickly adapting to environments and willing to go along with whatever the situation called for. The man that stood before him no longer seemed bamboo. He seemed iron.

  Royal motioned towards one of the side booths at The Royal Jelly. Solay had just broken over the city, so the Bar was empty save a few manikins cleaning up from a concert the Haela before. As they sat, Royal felt compelled to offer his condolences. Although he, too, was Reena Song's friend, hell everyone was Reena Song's friend, he imagined that Hadder and Reena were more than friends, but less than a couple. "Hadder, I haven't gotten a chance to see you since it happened, so let me just say, I'm so sorry about Reena. She was one of the good ones. One of the best of us."

  "I want to know who did it."

  Royal sank back a little in the booth at the look in Hadder's eyes, a barely controlled mania that he had never seen in his usually stoic companion. "No one knows, Hadder. It could have been anyone. Maybe just a resident tweaked out on some drugs he couldn't handle. God knows they take enough shit in the Celebration Cluster to make anyone lose their minds."

  "No."

  "What do you mean, no?"

  "This wasn't just some fucked up resident. I saw him. It was dark, and I didn't get a good look at his face because he was wearing a hood. But I saw him, evil-looking fuck with only bad intentions swimming through his head, not party drugs."

  "What are you getting at, Hadder?"

  "I didn't tell you this before, haven't told anyone. Just before the Caesar found me, when I had lost my mind and was lying half-dead on the Skirt, I saw something."

  "What did you see?"

  "Some twisted creature came out of the Haela, Elevated to all hell, with long razors implanted along its forearms. It came at me. The Caesar Cal got there first, fought it off. But not before I saw its face, its wicked smile as it had me in its sights, in line for a killing blow. I saw that same smile at The Soiree Noire. On the man that butchered Reena Song."

  Royal remained silent, unsure of what to say next, scared that the wrong thing could set off this new unpredictable man who sat across from him. "What do you want to know?"

  "The Skirt. What is it? What's on the other side? The man who killed Reena is there. I demand retribution."

  "What kind of retribution did you have in mind, Hadder?"

  "The ugly kind. The messy kind."

  "What exactly do you need to know?"

  "Everything."

  Royal went to the bar and retrieved two beers before beginning. Hadder declined his drink, another bad sign. Royal took half his down in one gulp, then started.

  "Station is supposed to take away all those things that become obstacles to one's happiness. Hated your job? Nobody works in Station. Were always stressed about money? Everything's free in Station. Didn't like the way you looked? Elevations can make the person on the outside mirror what you feel on the inside. Couldn't handle the weight of responsibility? There is none in Station.

  "Unfortunately, Station itself can't fix what's wrong with us on the inside. And in some ways, it makes things worse. In the Before, life is busy, often leaving little time to really reflect, allowing one to get by on inertia. But here in Station, with nothing to do but think, there's two ways to go. One, you start to fix that shit that's been eating away at you for years. You and Lilly are good examples of this. The shit is never gone, but we can clean a lot of it up. Two, with no distractions and the only direction to go being inward, stuff can go sideways real fast. Some people refuse to clean up the shit; instead, they feed it with chemicals and hatred and guilt and pity, expediting the eating away process. Next thing you know, nothing's left, nothing human anyway. Those poor bastards in the Weep are one example. Those across the Skirt are another.

  "For years, who knows how long for sure, there was no Skirt. All of Station was just random Bars, some clustered together, as you see on this side - the Setting. But as some were driven to Station by melancholy, guilt, or fear, others were driven here by anger. They continued to act out, showcase violent tendencies. The Caesars would lock them up temporarily to cool down, but they would come out just as white-hot. All they knew was anger, all they wanted to do was inflict pain onto others.

  "Regardless, things were still manageable at that point. That is until this group of residents, we called them Seethers, found Elevations. They started ordering weaponized Elevations. Metal knuckles and hands. Blade inserts like your twisted friend. Muscle implants that increased strength and speed. If they thought they could hurt someone with it, they got it. Things that were once manageable spiraled out of control.

  "Mister Rott has always maintained a laissez-faire approach to the governing of Station. But the situation quickly grew out of hand. The Caesars couldn't be everywhere at once, and day by day, more residents turned to Seethers, underwent Combat Elevations. Eventually, Mister Rott decided that the two groups had to be separated, and if the Seethers thought that continual fighting made them happy, so be it.

  "Mister Rott gave a speech, one of the few he's ever delivered, and declared that the eastern third of Station would now be home to
those who wanted complete autonomy. In the East, there were no restrictions on Elevations. In the West, no Elevation could be executed for the sole purpose of harming another. What he really meant was that the fucking Seethers were gonna be sent packing East and if they wanted to kill each other, godspeed. Then, out of nowhere, in that deepest of darkness between Haela and Solay, the Skirt appeared, and the Caesars went on a mission to round up Seethers and move them East.

  "Most of the Seethers went willingly, more than happy to relocate to what would become a theater of pain. But others, of course, fought just for the sake of fighting. It took seven Solays and seven Haelas, but almost all the Seethers were eventually moved. As western Station was now known as the Setting and eastern Station the Rising, the term Seether fell to the wayside, and they became the Risers. The Caesars now mainly patrol the Skirt, making sure Risers don't cross into our world, and drunken residents like yourself don't fall into theirs."

  Hadder sat engrossed in the tale, his Rage momentarily quieted. Perhaps it, too, was intrigued. "But what do they do over there, Royal?"

  Royal finished his beer and shrugged. "Beats the shit out of me. There's two Elevation Centers over there, with no rules to speak of. I'm sure all those angry freaks are Elevated to the hilt; they may be more Elevation than human at this point."

  "But what do they do? How is there even a semblance of civilization over there?"

  "Well, limited information comes across the Skirt, but from what I've heard, most spend their time like a lot of residents on this side. They drink, they smoke, they fuck, and they dance. Then they wage war. Apparently, groups of residents started cliquing up at certain Bars. They spend all Solay getting wasted, then launch all-out assaults on other Bars. Sometimes they just arrange battles between Bars in open fields, like it was the goddam Dark Ages.

  Anyways, I heard it’s a wasteland over there now. Lots of Bars have been leveled or looted."