“Let me see your phone for a second,” said Basil, holding out his hand. They had reached the top of the stairs and Basil had paused in the act of knocking on the door. Nolan gave him a quizzical look and handed over his cell. Without bothering to turn it on, Basil ran the tip of his finger over the screen several times in a looping pattern. Then he spat a large quantity of clear spittle onto the screen.
“What the hell!?” Nolan exclaimed, trying to snatch back his phone.
“Calm down. Would you rather I bleed on it?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Look,” said Basil, holding up the phone for Nolan to see. On the black screen a symbol traced in blue light pulsed for a few seconds and disappeared. As it vanished Basil's spit bubbled and evaporated away.
“Protection spell,” said Basil, “electronics, particularly devices that store digital information, are notoriously vulnerable to certain types of magic. They call it “Technomancy” and the man you're about to meet happens to be especially adept at it. And don't worry, any germs I'm carrying wouldn't have survived the process.”
“At least warn me the next time you want to spit on my belongings, okay?”
“Deal,” said Basil and he knocked on the door.
From the sound the hinges made as the black door eased open Nolan suspected the occupant of this building was not one for frequent outings. There was no one at the door but at the far end of an exceptionally long room, sitting in a pool of light emitting from an overhead lamp, Nolan could just make out a hunched figure sitting behind a wooden desk. Deep shadows fell over his features making them hard to make out but Nolan didn't need to see them to know he was watching both of them closely. He could feel it like a weight pressing against him.
The door closed behind them as they entered and Nolan heard something scurry away in the dark. It sounded like a metal rake dragging across the wood floor. As his eyes adjusted to the darkness Nolan first noticed that the room was not completely dark. There were lights everywhere, tiny little lights in a myriad different colors, glowing up and down every wall. Green and red and orange and blue, square and round and thin, some blinked and some flickered, and a few even followed them as they made their way up the length of the room.
Power lights, thought Nolan in amazement, there must be hundreds of them.
As his eyes adjusted more Nolan began to see the shapes belonging to those lights and he smiled a little in spite of his nervousness. All along every shelf were strangely constructed mechanical devices. It was difficult to make out precisely what they were but they all had the general appearance of something a child might cobble together from various found objects. Except these devices appeared to actually work. They twitched and bobbed as Basil and Nolan passed by, their tiny lights dancing like multicolored fireflies in the dark.
“Remember what I said: touch... nothing,” Basil whispered to Nolan, almost inaudibly, over his shoulder.
The man behind the desk continued to watch them, a faint yellow glow shining from his hooded eyes, as they stepped into the circle of light around him. He was small and thin, like a very old man, but he had no marks of extreme age. His completely bald head was smooth and unblemished. His small hands, interlaced and resting on the top of the desk, had few wrinkles. He was wearing a plain, white t-shirt and Nolan could see cords of hard muscle running up his narrow arms. His appearance was deceptive and easily misinterpreted. It was also, Nolan suspected, deliberately so.
The man opened his mouth and when he spoke Nolan felt every hair on his body stand on end. His voice was extremely deep. Every word seemed to hum with a faint buzzing sound that rose from deep in his throat and lingered in the air after it was spoken. It reminded Nolan vaguely of the sound created by those electronic devices smokers used when they lost their voice boxes to cancer.
“Basil,” the man intoned with a smile, “if I'd know you were coming I would have made tea.”
“Sorry to drop by unannounced, Garrity,” replied Basil, not sounding sorry in the least, “but I'm afraid this couldn't wait.”
“Yes, very rude. You know how I feel about uninvited guests,” Garrity shot Nolan a hard look and he again felt that feeling of something heavy pressing against him, “especially unknown persons.”
“Nolan, Garrity. Garrity, Nolan. Now we're all acquainted...”
“Pleased to meet you, Nolan,” said Garrity, not sounding at all pleased, “you seem a bit out of your depth. New to the game are you?”
Nolan remained silent. He tried to lock eyes with Garrity, wanting to give the impression of not being intimidated, but it wasn't easy. Staring into Garrity's eyes felt like drowning in a pool of gravity. Nolan forced himself to hold his gaze. Finally, Garrity turned back to Basil with sly grin.
“Quiet type isn't he?”
“Whatever,” said Basil knowingly, “we're here on business and that's all you need to worry about. Something's up in the city, any idea what that might be?”
“Hmmm. Rumblings. Something big is stirring. Something new.”
“Again I ask: what?”
“And again I say: something new.”
“Do we really have to do this dance? Huh? I'm so very not in the mood.”
“Then maybe you should have called on someone else.”
Basil leaned on the desk. “Please don't waste my time, Garrity, if you know something just spit it out.”
The two men continued to go back and forth, verbally sparring, and getting nowhere. Nolan watched them without really listening. Something was happening. He felt something move inside his mind, a palpable, visceral shifting. This man, this moment, something about it felt achingly familiar. It was impossible but there it was. And with that familiarity came a overwhelming sense and frustration and anger. What happened next felt like a dream, like he was watching himself from the outside.
Nolan snatched something off the shelf without looking; a little, round thing with spindly legs. Holding it by one twitching limb, he brought it crashing on the center of the desk. The clockwork contraption exploded. Gears and diodes and machine screws scattered everywhere. Wires splayed out like burst veins, bleeding sparks in all directions. Basil jumped back, dancing out of the pool of light and back into the shadows. Garrity withdrew, tipping back in his chair, and nearly falling over. Nolan slammed both his fists down on the desk, driving several small gears and screws into his hands in the process. He didn't notice. Words spilled from his lips with a snarl.
“Stop fucking around!”
Garrity rose from his chair and shoved his face into Nolan's, their noses almost touching. His yellow eyes glowed brighter and their color deepened until they burned like filaments. In the darkness behind him Nolan heard a rising cacophony of clicking gears and whirring motors. Already Nolan could feel the anger leaving and his control returning. He held his ground and didn't flinch. He had made his play, such as it was, and all he could do was see it through to whatever conclusion awaited him.
Slowly Garrity's eyes began to return to normal and a tiny smile twitched at the corners of his mouth. He drew back from Nolan and regarded him curiosly. Behind them the rising mechanical din subsided. He looked to Basil, who was still standing well back, muscles tensed, waiting for the shit to hit the fan.
“And here I was thinking Basil was the one to look out for,” said Garrity, casually sweeping the shattered remains of his creation onto the floor, “very well, since you're so insistent, I may know something, but not much I'm afraid.”
Nolan relaxed and stood back from the desk. He could feel the tiny fragments of metal embedded in the skin of his hands but made no effort to remove them. Basil stepped back into the light and resumed their conversation, trying his best to pretend as if nothing of consequence had transpired.
“Well?” said Basil.
Garrity leaned forward on the table again, steepling his fingers in front of his face, adopting a clichéd posture of ominous foreboding. “Rumors abound of something moving through the streets in the night. It isn't like anything any of us has seen before. It hides for now, waiting for something. There is a great deal of tension out there. Much of the weaker element has fled the city already. Others are on the move, seeking the hand behind these events. Someone brought it here, obviously, someone with a great deal of skill and a complete lack of fear.”
“We've already identified the summoner,” said Basil.
“Gang,” Garrity said with a frown.
“Gang,” replied Basil, “we need to know what he summoned and where to find him.”
“I don't have those answers but, if you're willing to deal, I'm sure I can use my skills to find them.”
“No deals. You help, we'll pay, that's the end of it. If you don't like it we'll go elsewhere.”
“Do you really think you have that kind of time? Because I don't.”
Now it was Basil's turn to get angry. He leaned in close to Garrity and practically spat his words at him. “And what do you think Sound is going to say when he hears how uncooperative you're being? Do you really want to go there? No... fucking... 'deals'.”
Garrity waved him away like he was a fly buzzing in his face. “You're no fun at all. Fine, simply business. But I at least want a promise of protection. If I'm going to stick my neck out I expect you and yours to be there keeping it from being chopped.”
“We'll keep an eye on you.”
“I suppose that will have to suffice. I'll dig up whatever I can and get back to you in the usual way,” Garrity stood up and motioned towards the door, “ now if you will excuse me, it appears I have some cleaning up to do.”
Basil turned and pushed Nolan gently towards the exit. Nolan could feel Garrity's eyes on his back as they headed for the door. As Basil opened it Garrity called after them. “Nolan!”
Nolan turned and looked back at him. He was smiling the same crafty grin as before. “Wonderful to have met you.”
As they made their way back down the rickety staircase Nolan picked distractedly at the metal shards in his hand. Thin trickles of blood ran down his palm from a dozen tiny puncture wounds.
“I did say 'be quiet and touch nothing' right? I could have sworn I did,” said Basil, his voice sounding tense beneath his usual veneer of nonchalance.
“I know, sorry.”
“You have no idea how lucky you are to be standing there picking metal out of your hand right now. I don't even know why he let you walk away after that. He certainly wouldn't have done the same for me. You mind telling me what happened?”
Nolan picked the last of the machine screws from his palm as they walked through the maze of metal and tossed it aside. It landed on the edge of a rusted out washing machine, leaving a faint smear of blood where it landed, and rolled inside, making tiny metal on metal clinks as it fell.
“I don't know. One minute I was fine and then suddenly I couldn't stop myself. It all felt so familiar and for some reason that just made me incredibly angry without knowing why. It was like I was trapped in my own head, watching everything happen.”
“Well, you'd better figure it out. I can't have you freaking out on me in situations like that. It seemed to help us out this time but we might not be so fortunate in the future,” Basil gave Nolan, who was still intently examining his bleeding hand, a sympathetic look that he didn't notice, “maybe you should talk to Mr. Sound when we get back, he might be able to help you figure things out.”
“Well isn't that sweet. On the job only one day and you two are already bonding,” said Constance as she stepped into the open end of the alley, her body casting a long, shapely shadow across the dusty concrete.
Basil stopped so suddenly that Nolan nearly ran into him, his body instantly becoming a rigid statue of tense muscle.
“This day just keeps getting better,” hissed Basil.
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