white noise [sam solo]

[jamie]

Part 1
2015 August
Denver, CO

Sam was beginning to realize that if he wanted to avoid his landlord on the first of the month then he either needed to start running from the stairwell to the apartment door or he needed to ward the apartment door right out of recognition.

In the landlord's defense it wasn't as if this particular tenant were here on legal terms but so far as he could tell this particular tenant had submitted an application and a deposit with first month's rent when he moved in three months ago. This particular tenant had. The application had been a forgery and the deposit with first month's rent had been also. Easy enough to conjure up a driver's license or a money order once he got the hang of the program but what he hadn't accounted for was the fact that his paperwork had a tendency to disappear. Same as his face had a tendency to fade from memory.

His landlord couldn't remember his name and even if he had Sam had given him a fake name anyway. No one in the building had done much more than pass him in the hallway and grunt out a cursory greeting or ask him for money if they acknowledged him at all but the landlord came around every month to shake down the folks he didn't trust yet.

The key had just scraped into the lock when from down the corridor came:

"TWO-OH-FIVE. MISTER TWO-OH-FIVE."

Couldn't remember his name or provide an accurate description of the young man but Mr. Kim could remember which room he was in. Sam was not in the mood to stand and have the same conversation he had had the month before with the guy. He grit his teeth and twisted the key back out of the lock and put it into his pocket.

Downstairs a laundromat cranked hot air out into an already hot afternoon and through the open windows crawled the sound of foot traffic. People chattering in English and Spanish and Mandarin Chinese. Sam did not understand the Mandarin but he was working on it. The carpet in the hall was new as of just after the vernal equinox but the stench lingered. He felt the urge to pace back and forth in front of the door before entering. Not sure if he could blame the awareness of the stink of the hall or on the landlord's presence but he forced a smile and turned to face the man anyway.

"Mister Kim," he said. "Hi. I know, I'll have it to you later today."

"Why are you wearing a jacket?" Kim asked. A head shorter than Sam and well into his forties he owned the apartments and the laundromat downstairs. His parents were immigrants and this had been their operation before they died six months apart several years ago. Sam had looked him up before he decided to forge an application. Before they had met the first time. He was a busy man and nothing terrible had popped up but Sam felt better about the entire arrangement knowing the man did not hurt for money. "It's ninety degrees outside, you've got to be broiling."

"I'm fine. I..." Sam cleared his throat. "I run cold."

"Great." Junkie, he didn't say. Sam knew that tone anyway. "So you have the money?"

"Yes, sir, I just need to go to the post office. I'll slide it under the door soon as I have it."

"You'd better get moving," Kim said. Checked his wristwatch. "It's already two o'clock."

"Yes, sir."

"Alright."

The two men stood in the hall with the weight of the moment dispersing. Expectation from one and anticipation in the other. Not until Kim turned and began to walk down the hall towards the next door did Sam release the breath he had been holding. Ran his palms over his hair nervous useless gesture and then he paced.

Four circuits unbroken back and forth in front of the door. No one saw him do this. He preferred for no one to see him do this. Outside on the sidewalk he didn't give himself much choice but neither did the world notice much. Pacing was a quiet form of indulgence and it eased the itching of his madness.

After the fourth circuit he reached into his pocket and removed the key. Unlocked the door. Checked the hallway both directions before he stepped inside and shut the door harder than he meant to.

Behind him the studio apartment yawned. He felt the change in pressure same as he would have passing through an airlock. Safety and solitude their own atmospheric conditions and even in here he had his rituals of approach to perform but once he threw the deadbolt and threaded the chain into its slot he felt a measure of assurance. A sanctum becomes a sanctum through use and effort and this was a poor excuse for a sanctum but he was learning.

Keys he put into a small ceramic bowl filled with loose change and small bottles of hand sanitizer. He plucked up one of the bottles and squeezed gel onto his hands and put the bottle back. Walked from the door to the computer desk rubbing the gel into his skin and thinking. He had not lost track of time. He still had several days to appease Kim. Last month he had not put the money order under his door until the third of the month but Kim had hounded him last month too.

The windows in the unit faced the parking lot in the back of the building and he kept them closed. Same as the stench of new carpet assailed him so did fresh asphalt and burnt tire rubber and hot garbage and human vomit come in through the window. He could imagine the particles of other people's carelessness floating in on a breeze. Easier to keep the windows shut and run an air conditioner. The air conditioner was broken when he found it in the closet but a bit of jury-rigging fixed it. Now it churned and occasionally dripped water onto the floor. He used it to water his cactus. The cactus didn't give a shit from where the water came.

All of the windows were closed up tight and with the exception of the one housing the air conditioner the shades were drawn down tight too. No sunlight came in and when the earth's rotation took away daylight he turned on a floor lamp tucked in the corner where the living area gave way to the kitchen. The only other furniture in the unit was an air mattress he had stolen from a big box store and a bookcase he had made out of cinder blocks and lengths of wood. Those he had not stolen. Not technically. The construction site where he had found them had stood abandoned for weeks.

Before he sat down at the desk he turned on the television occupying the middle run of the bookcase. It didn't boast the strongest reception but it picked up local news and the anchors' voices provided a white noise for him to ignore as he worked. The desk itself was two desks he wrangled together. With all the monitors running the room behind him glowed in the pale light.

On one of the screens he had left open a series of programs he was writing. They would test the strength of the local Gauntlet and locate spirits in the area. Thus far he had only encountered spirits on the Digital Web and they had ignored him. It felt to him like walking as a ghost among survivors. Easy to lose track of time on the Digital Web and easier still when he was in pursuit of new knowledge.

He preferred not to use the Digital Web to crack into the cosmos and make it do what he wanted it to do. It was a greater challenge to do it here in the apartment.

On another screen ran the Dark Net. Email notifications popped up with such random regularity that Sam had learned long ago to ignore them until he was ready to respond. He glimpsed his inbox as he plugged his phone into its charger and set it aside and then he awakened the middle console.

He pulled a length of scrap paper out of a desk drawer and set it on the table. Eyeballed its measurements and weight and began to type on the keyboard. Focus on the clicking of the letters rather than the newscasters' banter. They were talking about an upcoming exhibit at the Botanic Gardens laughing and he wasn't listening. Maybe he should have been listening.

At first the effect began to take shape as if it would then take hold. Plain white paper began to take on the coloration and watermarking of a money order. But then he hit the wrong keystroke. Changed the wrong element in the paper. It ignited in blue flame and Sam did not have time to react to the paper's combustion because something inside his head popped and white pain rang in his ears.

Though he cried out nothing came of it. His neighbors made more noise than he ever could and it was the middle of the day besides. Sam put a hand over his eyes like that would keep his brains inside his skull and when he took his hand away and looked at the room the spirits of stolen time swarmed on the wall behind the computer desk wispy smoke and faraway lighthouse bright coiling up towards the ceiling roiling and roiling like the paper had caught the entire desk. He shook his head and the fire went out and

you might not want to say that to the next person you sleep with

came a voice from behind him the echo of a door closed and he jumped to his feet and turned around to face the door and he felt then strong as he'd ever felt anything in his life that if he went to the door whoever was behind the door would throw it open and that would be the end of all of this he might've left a window open he went into the kitchen to check they could not come in through the fire escape and the newscaster on the television laughed

you are the chosen one. jesus is dead. god is dead. slice. slice it. slice your flesh. do you want them to hurt? do you want your brothers and sisters to hurt?

and he could mutter shut up shut up shut up all he wanted but the devil in the box wouldn't listen anyway and he did not want to touch the blinds to check the fire escape so he stood in the kitchen listening to the water drip sense into a small pool at his feet and when he glanced down he saw the pool glowing red glanced up again

hurt yourself. do it. they're coming to kill you. they're going to kill you, sam. sam. sam are you listening to me? samir lakhani. they're coming for you. jump. jump out the window. they're coming. they're coming for you.

and he veered away from the window walked back into the den and the presence behind the door grew heavy pregnant aware of him he held his breath and he knew it was aware of him and when he reached out to turn off the monitor the red dripped from his palm made a new pool by the bookcase and he put his finger beneath his nose to test the flow

you're bleeding. your hands are bleeding.

another voice and he slapped off the television with a stained hand went into the bathroom threw on the light the echo of a closing door bounding after him

"Oh my god, stop. Sam, your hands are bleeding, stop."

Amanita grabbed his wrists and held them apart until he jerked them out of her grip. That was six months ago. Sam stared at her and then he reached behind her to close the door again.

The dying lightbulb flickered overhead and burned on for the time being.

---

Sam @ 1:16AM
ALRIGHT. matter/prime: gotta pay the rent. vulgar = diff 6. only thing he has going for him here is he's taking his time.
Roll: 2 d10 TN5 (6, 8) ( success x 2 )

Sam @ 1:16AM
extension +1
Roll: 2 d10 TN6 (1, 4) ( botch x 1 )

Sam @ 1:16AM
YOU MADE THIS SO EASY SAMIR THANK YOU.

Sam @ 1:23AM
Intelligence + Enigmas: A WILD PRONE TO QUIET APPEARS.

... which he can't even roll bc I didn't give him Enigmas OH MY GOD SAM I'M SO SORRY YOU'RE GOING INTO QUIET OVER FOUR POINTS OF PARADOX YOUR LIFE SUCKS SO HARD.

Sam @ 1:25AM
Paradox: BASHING TIME.
Roll: 4 d10 TN6 (7, 8, 8, 9) ( success x 4 )

Sam @ 1:25AM
... are you serious. SOAK.
Roll: 4 d10 TN6 (1, 4, 7, 7) ( success x 2 )

Jacqui!
3:29 LOL
3:29 Poor Samir!
3:30 Also did you need me to yell WITNESSED cuz I can

[jamie]

Part 2
2015 May
Los Angeles, CA

This was not supposed to be a complicated hack.

Of course there were risks. There were always going to be risks. They had sat down all five of them and talked about the risks of even initiating this project and they had fought because of course they had fought. Perez and Amanita wanted to take the quickest cleanest route and Richardson didn't care how much of a mess they made because the program she was working on would clean up after itself and Lakhani hated messes period. He didn't see the point in sneaking around.

Kayf liked the fact that Lakhani had his moments of boldness. But Kayf would have burned down the whole building if that were the most elegant way of solving the problem.

They had stayed up late the night before all five of them and then they had agreed and then Kayf had taken Richardson and Perez off to initiate the first stage of the hack and left Amanita and Lakhani behind to lay the groundwork for the third stage and that was all well and good. This wasn't total upheaval of western capitalism. This was cooperation with local Technocracy to investigate a corporation that may or may not have Qlippothic influence behind it. The enemy of my enemy is my enemy. That sort of cooperation.

One minute Amanita and Lakhani were typing away at their separate keyboards. Amanita was listening to music while she Worked. It helped her focus. Her code helped them to control probability and affect predictable patterns. Thirty seconds after she executed Lakhani was supposed to come in behind her and take out the building's backup generator.

Sure it was vulgar but reality was vulgar sometimes. Faulty wires or electricity just doing whatever the fuck it wanted. Man failing at constraining nature. Within the confines of their sanctum it was coincidental code but Lakhani still fucked it up somehow. It happens.

But this was not supposed to be a complicated hack.

---

"The lights are still on," Perez said. Dry tone.

Everything about Perez was dry. Sarcasm the forefront of his wit and they wrote it off as being a product of his environment. The guy had been writing science-fiction stories since he was a teenager was now living a very successful double life as the author of a series about the world's first gay cyberpunk superhero and he had an outline due in a few hours but Time wasn't a variable to which Perez often held himself captive.

Tonight was one of the rare occasions in which time was a factor. They were fifty miles from their base of operations in a used van for which Kayf had paid with cash. Distance meant nothing. Not to them.

The lights were still on though. That meant the backup generator was still on. Might mean the main generator hadn't gone offline yet either. They had seen a flicker a few moments ago but that could either mean nothing or it could mean someone had fucked up.

"No shit, Sherlock," said Richardson.

Richardson was seventeen years old. Kayf had picked her up in Seoul a few months before he relocated to Cairo. The rest of them had a bet going that he had tapped her for Awakening or that she was his daughter but they weren't invested enough in the bet to actually investigate it. Already she had a tight grasp on space and minor forces. She was interested in simple patterns and physical transformation.

"The lights were supposed to go off thirty seconds ago."

"They're gonna go off. Calm your tits."

"I don't have tits, kid, and we're gonna have to get out of the car if the lights don't go off. I don't want to get out of the car. The whole point of Lakhani turning off the generator from base was so we wouldn't have to get out of the car and do it ourselves."

"What is this 'getting out of the car' shit? We don't gotta get out of the car, we can--"

"That's enough," Kayf said from his place in the back of the van. His voice like a bear rousing from slumber. Calm but powerful. He removed his headset and tapped a few keys. "We're switching to Plan B."

"What?" Perez said. "Why?"

"Does it matter why?" Richardson asked.

Perez turned around in the driver's seat. "What happened?"

"Lakhani's offline," said Kayf. "We have to go on without him."

"Fuck's that mean?" Kayf said nothing. Richardson pursed her lips and climbed out of the passenger seat to join him in the back of the van. "No, seriously, what the fuck does that mean? What'd he do, quit?"

"Christ on a fucking cracker, dude," Richardson said, "it means he got 'doxed."

---

"Sam!"

Amanita wasn't having any luck getting him to open the door. She had looked up from her console when he shouted thinking he had shocked himself. He had shocked himself. It was the backlash of a botched program though and not static electricity. The force of it had knocked him out of his chair. By the time she had realized what was going on and stood from her own seat he had found his feet and locked himself in the bathroom.

Knocking wasn't doing any good. She knocked anyway.

"Sam, open the door, I can't help you if you won't open the door."

Bullshit. They both knew it was bullshit. She could scan him for injury and assess his mental status with a few keystrokes but Amanita believed in consent and so long as she could get him to open the door himself she didn't have to do it for him.

Nothing. He was talking to someone but it wasn't her. A chill ran up through her spine and the hairs on her arms stood up. They all knew Lakhani had obsessive-compulsive disorder and they all knew it made him act a little nutty sometimes but it didn't make him hallucinate. It sure as shit didn't make him argue with things she couldn't hear in the bathroom.

In the months that followed she would have a difficult time forgetting what she had overheard from her side of the door. Even after things went bad and they lost Perez. Amanita had always known Perez would be the first to go. Perez knew it too. Hard to fight a portend once you're aware of it.

Lakhani didn't open the door so Amanita rushed back into the office and bent over her console to type a message to Kayf.

> WE LOST LAKHANI. DOX.
> HOW BAD
> IDK. BAD.
> QUIET?
> HE'S IN THE BATHROOM TALKING TO HIMSELF
> VIOLENT?
> IDK. I DON'T THINK SO. DOOR'S LOCKED.
> OK. WE'RE GOING TO BE A WHILE.
> I'M SORRY, K.
> SHIT HAPPENS. BACK ASAP. I'LL TAKE CARE OF HIM WHEN I GET THERE. DO NOT LET HIM LEAVE.
> OK

---

and he heard amanita on the other side of the door heard her pounding and calling for him but the walls were bleeding and they were bleeding because of him and if he opened the doors the techs were going to come bursting in

and this was a setup of course it was a setup they should have listened to perez he hadn't wanted to cooperate with the techs they never should have taken that sit-down with them in the first place

and every time he opened his eyes the walls glitched like a television eating static and out of the static he heard the cosmos screaming he looked down and he saw the blood on his hands this was his fault he should have killed perez while he had the chance

---

"SHUT THE FUCK UP!"

Amanita pushed away the keyboard and reached into the top drawer to find a paperclip. She could have cracked open the door with a computer program but there wasn't any point to it. It was such a simple lock it wasn't even worth the effort to find her lock-picking purse. She rushed back over to the door and dropped into a crouch and said a silent prayer to a chorus of deaf entities that they didn't have any windows in the bathroom on the ground floor.

"Sam?" she said. "I'm coming in. Okay? You're gonna be okay."

The water was running. She wasn't sure if that was a good sign or a bad sign. The water was running and she could hear him muttering to himself and the paperclip put up no resistance as she unfolded it and introduced the two ends to the inside of the doorknob. Small pop and the lock disengaged. Small click and the paperclip hit the floor. Amanita opened the door.

It hadn't taken long but he was using a nailbrush to scrub at his hands and he had pushed back the cuticles of his right and blood was coiling pink down the drain. Amanita tried to grab the brush away from him but Lakhani jerked away from her.

"Holy shit. Sam, stop, you're bleeding!"

What happened next happened because of adrenaline. He kept scrubbing at his hands which were clean and blood was running down his face the backlash gotten to him before the Quiet did and she saw nothing in his eyes that would tell her he was even hearing her. Amanita forgave him and then she grabbed hold of his thin wrists and wrenched them apart. Pressed down on the tendons so he would drop the brush and when he flailed against her she kicked out a knee and took them both down to the floor.

Lakhani never was the strongest member of the group. He wouldn't even go outside to jog around the block and he didn't trust the gym because of all the germs. Amanita sat behind him on the floor and held him and though he tried to resist her she did not have to lock his limbs to hold him. She knew he didn't like people touching him. Right then she didn't care.

"Sam, it's Nita. You're safe. Nothing's gonna happen to us, okay, you're not gonna hurt anyone, you're just having a bad trip. Fuck them. They don't know shit. Listen to my voice, don't listen to them."

That was how Kayf and the others found them when they returned to base hours later having completed Plan B. Lakhani fog-eyed and bloody-nosed on the bathroom floor Amanita behind him stroking his hair and singing to him her strong voice going hoarse for how long she had been singing to him and when they both looked up out of the dark Perez was the first to decide he could not handle what he saw and to step out of the doorway.

"Lakhani," Kayf said. "Can you hear me?" Nothing. "If you can hear me, say 'Yes, Kayf.'"

"... yes, Kayf."

"Say 'I'm gonna be okay, Kayf.'"

"... I'm gonna be okay, Kayf."

"Could be worse." Lakhani closed his eyes. Richardson met Amanita's. Amanita kept humming. She didn't know what else to do. "Could be a mindscape."

"Can you fix him?" Richardson asked.

"Nothing wrong with him. Nothing we can do for it, either, unless you know anyone who can nullify paradox."

There was a small group of Celestial Choristers out in East Los Angeles who had their own Node and a larger Chantry run by the Order of Hermes. Either one of them might have had a Master of Prime among their lot but Kayf wasn't about to ask any of them for help.

So he didn't. They waited it out. Ten days of moving on while the younger reality hacker swung between drugged unconsciousness and wild-eyed raving. Most days he could convince himself the things he heard and saw and thought weren't real but some days he couldn't. Those were the worst days. Amanita loathe to leave his side. Richardson and Perez ready to leave him altogether. Kayf had a plan and it didn't involve dead weight but Kayf had never left anyone behind and he wasn't about to start now.

On the tenth day Lakhani came out of Quiet. They went ahead with the third phase of the plan.

On the eleventh day Lakhani went back to the apartment he rented in Elysian Valley. Frogtown. He thought he would be alone but he walked up the steps and unlocked the door and there was Amanita standing in the middle of the room arms crossed over her chest eyebrows raised like to ask what the hell he thought he was doing. Not sure if he was still hallucinating or not.

He doesn't like to think about that night. Neither does she. So they don't. That night ends with him alone in his apartment.

So does this one.