Flux: Chapter 1 & 2 (Patreon)

1: Roen

It was early evening by the time Roen got to Vinny's. The bell above the door did its usual jingle, getting lost within the lively atmosphere already filling the café.

He shook off his coat - making sure not to bump into the lady sweeping up broken plates off the floor - and made his way toward the back corner, past the spiral staircase leading to the upper balcony.

In his two years frequenting this place, he never set foot up there. Just the thought of it made his stomach churn. New things were scary.

"Roen, my dear boy! What kept you so long?"

Roen winced at the shrill voice that pierced through the café. He quickly corrected his course, steering his feet toward the neon bar instead. Of course it had to be Zoe tending the bar tonight.

"Sssh!" Roen got there just in time, narrowly avoiding another call. "Please-- Hi. But please for the love of all, keep it down."

Zoe was, unfortunately, old enough to get much of her entertainment from embarrassing other people. But she seemed to have chosen mercy, what with the rain and his soaked clothes.

"Skittish, as ever." She shook her head, giving him a baffled look before resuming sorting through the green-tea shelves. "You'll get the usual?"

"Um. Yes. Thanks, Zoe." Roen stood there for a long moment, shifting his coat to his other arm. He cleared his throat. "Sorry."

"Tsk. Go." She waved him away, already moving down the bar. "I kept your place free."

Roen ducked his head, refusing to look around. It felt as though the entire café watched his march. That was, well... It was dumb, because his looking around would probably have dispelled the fear that only existed in his head. 

That dilemma kept his mind occupied until, finally, he slid behind the table in the corner. He swept the 'Reserved' note from the ashtray and pocketed it. One could never complain about more paper.

Only then, finally isolated within his pocket of reality, Roen let out a shaky breath. The storm was picking up, sending a wet assault against the window on his right. He watched a pack of students hurry across the street, bags above their heads. The flickering red light of the magazine shop across was still visible, albeit only slightly, with the middle portion faint enough to almost spell out 'MAGE' from here.

Laying his coat in the wedge between him and the window, he unhooked the cross-strap of his bag and, relieved, confirmed that the material was waterproof. You never knew with advertisements nowdays.

It took another minute to find everything inside. Both boxes of graphite pencils - one 7B to B, the other F to 6H - erasers, sharpener, and blending stump. He frowned at the short stub. He'd need another one, and soon.

As always, he lined up everything neatly on the table, creating a little frame around the paper so that Zoe and the others would know where not to put his order.

He then licked his lips, took his trusty 2B between his fingers, and watched the empty white surface for a bit. It always started with an idea. Nothing concrete, just a direction from where he could branch out and shape along the way.

Maybe. What if...

"Hey, man. This seat free?"

For the second time that day, Roen flinched. He looked up to see a heavyset man take the seat opposite of him. The plastic table rattled just enough to send one of his pencils at the edge tumbling down. Roen didn't reach for it.

Not when he was cornered by one of his people.

"Charming little place, this. Just charming." Though Roen had never talked with him outside of jobs, he'd run into Franklin a few times before. His voice matched his tone - ragged but overbearing, as if wanting to project his unpleasant shadow across every inch of space. He froze in the process of wiping his hands upon the edge of his seat. "I'm not interrupting, I hope?"

"Yes. No," Roen muttered, slowly clasping his hands before him, where they were nice and visible. "You're fine."

"Good!" Franklin said, leaning back with both his knees jutting over the sides. "When your brother told me, 'Ey Frank, just go to Vinny's, he practically lives there', I pictured some kinda broken down tavern with those, er, animal coops at the sides."

"You mean stables?"

"That, Roen, that!" He raised a meaty palm, but thankfully caught himself before he would slam it down on the table. "Proper and all, this place. Keepin' up with the times."

Roen did his best to suppress the pit of despair opening up within. They never, never before found him here. Just the prospect of his brother's men barging inside on the regular made the neonlights of the café dim.

"Anyways. Yes. So, Arlo, hm?"

"Yes. I know who my brother is."

"Heh. But do you reeeally?" Franklin barked another laugh, slapping his thigh. "I mean, it's not everyday that a sibling puts another sibling through shit like this. You know?"

Roen knew. He knew more than anyone.

"You're gonna have a delivery. The details are on this," Franklin said, sliding a yellowed piece of paper across the desk. His hand broke through his frame of pencils like they weren't even there.

"When?"

"Like I said, details are on the fucking paper. But it should be obvious it's a disassembly job." Franklin stared at him. "You know? Takin' those shits apart, putting them back together? The one thing that makes you useful?"

Roen wasn't talking anymore, his gaze down and kept firmly on his clasped hands. He watched that little divot in the table, the one that used to annoy him to no end before he'd brought a clipboard. How little it takes. How fucking little it takes to bring it all down.

"Hey!" The slap was light, soundless, but it connected with his cheek like a jolt of lightning. Franklin was already leaning back again, one knee bouncing up and down, and up and down. "You listening, buddy?"

"Yes."

"Good. That's very good, Roen. For the both of us. You know?"

"Yes."

Somewhere far away, sounds of raised voices came from the balcony above.

"Roen, darling, here's your strawberry shake coming up!" Zoe approached their corner with a tray balanced on one hand, keeping perfectly steady even as she dodged a stay elbow. She leaned in and placed it on the table, a lock of graying hair escaping her bun. 

Roen saw her eyes take the disarray of his tools, the pencils on the floor. "Is everything alright here, boys?" she straightened with a benevolent smile.

"Mmh, yes-yes, nothing better!" Franklin said, clapping his hands together. "I was just leaving, hm? I was just leaving." He stood, shuffled sideways until he freed himself from the narrow confines of the seat. He scratched his belly. His shirt depicted a half-open door with a hand reaching out, making a peace sign. "We're pals, you know?"

Not waiting for an answer, Franklin turned and waddled away. The sounds of the storm intensified, then hushed back out as the door fell closed behind him.

"That was..." Zoe squinted out the window for a moment. She then shook her head and bent down to pick up the mess. Roen cursed to himself and hurried to help, muttering apologies.

"It's fine, this is quite literally my job." Zoe smiled when everything was returned back on the table, though without any order still. She paused, giving him a look. "Is everything alright?"

"Yes. Thanks, Zoe." Roen said faintly. He attempted to return her smile. His grip was tight upon the yellow piece of paper. "Everything's good." 

Zoe gave him a reassuring pat on the shoulder and retreated from his corner.

Roen sat, numb.

Was he good?

It would be disassembly, again. A delivery drone. Take it apart. Rig an explosive, probably. Acid, maybe. Get it back to working condition. Let it fly to wherever it would fly, and him none the wiser.

Good?

Nothing was good. Would anything be, ever? He tried - he really did, but he couldn't find a single thing to look forward to.

It had always been rare, for him. To see the bright sides, of people and plans and prospects. Even in school, from before this charade all started, there were times he just couldn't bear the sight of the engineering sheets. He just stared out the window - like he did now, watching the rain.

And wonder... what was the point of it all?

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2: Flux

Ding!

Flux paused, her fingers hovering over the keyboard of her laptop. With deliberate slowness, she shifted to the side so she could reach her phone in her back pocket. She caught the message before the screen darkened.

Fffffff did you see that new mimic toothpaste commercial?

Flux dropped her phone on her table with a huff. It fell on its screen with a thunk, the rain drowning out the sound. She glanced at the couple sitting two tables down the balcony, then turned back to her laptop.

Ding!

She frowned down at her phone. Turned it over.

False advertisement if you ask me, not to mention the prejudice. Mimics are all tongue!

Silence.

Ding!

Flux tapped on the message, raised the phone to her ear, and waited three seconds until Korella picked up.

"Ey, yo, now I'm not complaining but–"

"Shut the fuck up I'm working!" Flux screamed into the phone at the top of her lungs. A crash followed, something brittle meeting its end on the ground floor, and the couple stared at her with wide eyes. If it wasn't for the rain, the café would have gone completely silent.

Her phone probably landed somewhere behind her seat, not that Flux gave a shit. She let out a breath, ran a hand through her spiky silver-blue hair, and pulled her laptop off the table to rest on her lap.

"Alright, so... Which fucking CMD was it..." she muttered.

It was a twisted kind of logic that somehow a café had better net access than her apartment. She'd made peace with it long ago, though. It was just a bonus that the shakes were to die for in this place.

A little popup appeared on her screen, asking for a call. Flux muttered some more, debating whether it was worth risking getting banned from this place. In the end, she just popped one earbud in her ear and clicked the accept button.

"Holy shit, girl. Didn't know pixies had these kinda lungs on them."

"Which part of I am working did you not get?" Flux said, shuffling through the dozens of open windows.

"Good thing I know you can multitask," Korella said. There was some shuffling on the other end. "Ow!"

Flux shook her head. "At least one of us is."

"Dude, I still can't believe how you managed to land that job," Korella gushed. Flux had to turn down the volume a bit. "The first cyber-hacker of NullCorp!"

"It's called net security, thank you, and it's a new division." Flux rolled her eyes. "No shit I'm the first."

"Aaaaand you're gonna be the best, too! Go get'em crimmies!"

Flux squinted at the screen, adjusting in her seat to reduce the glare of the overhead neon lights. "Are you high, Korella?"

"Don't need to be when I've got my favorite hacker chasing the baddy-baddy ones and zeroes."

"I'm going to fucking punch you."

Catching movement, Flux glanced past her open laptop, down between the rails of the balcony, and saw the human slide into his corner on the bottom floor.

She cursed herself, running another hand through her hair and wrestling her face into a focused yet bored expression. Damn it, she had missed the sound of the opening door in this weather. She opened the webcam app, using it as a mirror to make sure her makeup was all good.

"Flux, did your breath literally just hitch?"

"What? No, fuck you. What?"

Silence from the other end. 

"Are you, by any chance, sitting in a way that gives a perfect view of one particular corner of the café?"

"No."

"And did you, maybe, just on the off-chance, order the same thing he always orders?"

Flux glanced at her table, a strawberry milkshake on it.

"...No?"

That fucking silence again.

"Girl, you've got issues. Just go and ask him out already!"

"Look, it's nothing," Flux said, absently tabbing through windows on her laptop. Alt, tab. Alt, tab. "Really."

"If you call two years of non-stop stalking and obsessing over every little detail about him, ever since you first laid eyes on him, nothing, then sure, it's nothing."

The way she said it almost made Flux feel guilty. "I just... I don't know." She peered past her screen once again. "He's, well... he's kinda cute. And smart. And, and, draws so fucking well..."

"Holy mother of..." Korella groaned. "Is there something specific about pixie-pussy that gets all wet for nerdy guys?"

"I don't like nerdy guys!"

"Yea, true actually. You don't like any guys. Except the one."

"So?" Flux scowled, her tone challenging. "What's wrong with that?"

Korella's voice was like syrup. "What's wrong, my little clueless nightbug, is that while you practically fell in eternal love and even keep track of the size of his pencils, he doesn't even know you exist."

"Hmph."

"That, love, is really fucking weird."

Flux was about to reply when she noticed something strange. Something that, in all her time she'd been watching him, had never happened. Not once.

Someone sat down across from him.

"Shut up!" Flux said, slapping down a hand on her earbud as if the gesture was aimed at her friend's mouth. "Someone's with him," she whispered.

"Oooh, is it a girl?"

"No," Flux scowled. "He's a man. The type of man that looks like bad news."

Immediately, her fingers began flying across her keyboard. It was buried underneath several locks and passwords, but within seconds she found the software that controlled the little microphone she had installed in the corner. "I'm gonna listen in."

"As I said. You've got issues."

"...mean stables?"

Roen's soft voice - god, she could listen to it for hours - was followed by a gruff bass.

"That, Roen, that! Proper and all, this place. Keepin' up with the times."

"It's not gonna look proper with your guts stewn about," Flux muttered, eyes drilling into the man's side profile.

"Flux... You're a cop. Please try not to murder anyone."

"Sssh!"

When she heard that Roen had a brother - Arlo - she quickly opened a notepad and began writing the info down.

"...I mean, it's not everyday that a sibling puts another sibling through shit like this. You know?"

Flux frowned. "He's got a piece of shit of a brother, Arlo."

"Uhum, okay, got it. We don't like Arlo."

Flux continued to write without looking, eyes on the ground floor instead. "Something about a delivery. He needs to... disassemble stuff? Then repair it?"

"Makes sense. You did ask the bartender about his engineering studies."

She was about to reply when she saw the man lean forward in his seat, reach over - and hit Roen in the face.

"He is fucking dead!" Flux shouted, the wings folded against her back buzzing to life. A trace of pixie-dust began leaking from the corner of her eyes, blurring the edges of her vision.

"Stop, Flux! Whatever you're about to do. Stop. It. Now!"

"He hit him," she growled, her laptop vibrating in her lap. Or was it her who was shaking? "He hit him!"

"And if it caused him any harm, people will contact the authorities and the man will be dealt with." Gone was Korella's care-free tone. Each word that she spoke was like a boulder in her ear. "Vinny's a respected establishment, and you, Flux, are above throwing a tantrum."

"That man - whoever he is - will die."

"We all die," Korella said quietly. A sigh came through the line, exhausted. "Sit down. Please. Look at him, look at Roen - does he seem hurt?"

Flux stilled the erratic flaps of her wings, and looked.

He just... sat there with a blank expression. Sat watching the disarray of his table, the one he always set up so precisely, with so much care. Sat with his drink untouched,  the only movement is the shallow rise and fall of his chest.

Flux slammed shut her laptop and stood. She pocketed her phone, removed the earbud, and stomped toward the upper exit of the café. She then paused for a moment, grabbed her strawberry milkshake, and resumed her stomping.

"I'm going after the guy."

She stuck the straw in her mouth and took a sip. Mmh. It tasted like him.

"Be glad the NC didn't give me a gun, because it'd be all too easy to pull the trigger tonight."

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Thanks for reading this early chapter. If you haven't yet, please leave a review for the first book in the series (Zevara)!