the hidden - urban decay ch. 3

8/14/2019 The Hidden - Urban Decay ch. 3

1/11


2/11

This is part of a podcast novel. If you like what you're reading, you can visithttp://mindofbryan.com/thehidden for more news and to hear the chapters.

Chapter 3

The beginning of the paperwork was as close to a ritual as Nami ever came. Hestarted with a meditative review of the initial evidence, laying out the ingredientsthat would eventually lead to a reading and a suspect. It began at the end, thescene of the crime, where the visualization of the evidence begins. Each piecewas a node in a matrix, waiting to be connected together, coalescing to form a

whole picture of the crime, a visual network in Namis cortex.The paths of the individual pieces of the tale of why Fadil Marak was founddead on the floor of his convenience store formed brightly lit paths, like a complexmolecular diagram. As he introduced new evidence the diagram would shift, newlinks were made, a new result was formed eventually leading to an ending point, asolution. The paperwork was the first added chemical, the first process of review,where some suspects were ruled out, some were flagged for their potential as theprotagonist in this drama. Namis gut told him who to focus in on, and in some ofhis cases, he was right even this early in the process.

At this point his list of suspects was thin. The only people known to have beenin the store in the morning were the victim, a delivery driver, and this gang kid

out for an early morning robbery, who instead called in the ambulance. There hadbeen no credit card transactions, and the security cameras had picked up only acouple other customers who had paid and left prior to all of this happening. Thiswas not looking like a homicide.

On the other hand, there had been a gun in the store, and nothing could beruled out quite yet. He would have preferred to hand this off to street crime, sinceit appeared to be a robbery with utterly bad timing. Suspicious circumstanceswere the only things keeping this in his current case load.

He started in on the typewriter, filling in the first of many forms, but had hardlyforefingered his way through a word when he heard a knock at the door. DetectiveGarcia, a relative newbie from street crime walked in.

You ever going to use more than two fingers to do that? he mockingly askedNami.

Call me when youve ended the gang problem, Nami replied without lookingup. You had to hold your own in the ego games of the station.

Garcia smiled, he didnt have a comeback to that one.I saw your tape. The kid on the surveillance camera.You know him?Grew up with him. When I was working juvie, he was a regular. Now that Im

on gangs, its like he never left.
http://mindofbryan.com/thehiddenhttp://mindofbryan.com/thehidden


3/11

Nami stopped to assimilate this into his story, his motion picture of the event.Whats his name?His name is not quite as important as exactly who he is. Tobias Stinson, the

youngest brother of Wesley Stinson.These names meant nothing to Nami. He shrugged and shook his head.Wesley is in the upper echelon of The Blooddogs, a younger brother, Lavon, is

in middle-management, but is never going to make it. Your boy Tobias is Wesleysprotg, but when you look at it, hes got even less potential than Lavon.Nami immediately wrote the name down on a note pad for inclusion to his files.

We know how to get our hands on any of them?Tobias has to keep a permanent residence at his mothers, terms of his

probation. But you probably wont find him there. Not after something like this.Youll have to find him on the street.

Great.Dont worry. Hes not too smart. Hes still a kid. Youll find him, Garcia

reassured Nami.You know, Im not too sure this is a homicide. It might fall back into your lap.

You want me to pass it your way if it is?Garcia considered this for a moment, then dismissed the thought.Attempted armed robbery, probation violation, maybe assault. Not much on

the camera, no witnesses. The gang retains a local Johnny Cochran for theirdefense, so the whole affair is a time consuming wash.

He started to step out, but realized it might be a bit of a high-profile case if itcame to all that.

Still, call if it turns my way. Ill see what I can make of it.

Somewhere in the wilds of Chicago, another side of the death of Fadil was runningscared, unsure of exactly what kind of trouble he was in, but certain that it didnt

bode well for him. Tobias tried to avoid eye contact with everybody heencountered on the street. Nearly every face seemed hostile now, threatening,and the hot chills of a fever sweat had begun to run through his body. He wasn'tsure if his nerves were driving him, or he really was sick. His judgment seemed soclouded right now, he couldnt trust his instinct.

Over seven hours had passed since he'd left the convenience store, so hefigured the police may have come up with his ID if they were on their game.Response time was at least one of the characteristics of the police with which hehad intimate knowledge. When they finally got it into gear, hed catch wind of itlong before seeing a cop. He kept to the side streets and alleys, he was in histerritory, so he felt a degree of comfort and ease to get around inconspicuously.

Still, he didnt want to be seen, just in case the cop that landed on the case was ayoung go-getter.

Tobias carried a rider on his shoulder that he wasn't aware of, it was invisible,and had no weight at all. This world was very new to it. On its home world, therewas nothing like what he was experiencing now. It knew of cities, but had neverbeen to one, it had only sat on craggy desert mountains and looked at them fromafar. If its kind ever went near cities, they would be chased away or killed. Thecities there didn't look anything like this. This was huge. It'd never seen anythingas tall as the formations around him that were built with intelligent hands. They


4/11

looked like cliff walls, but straight and regular. It didn't know why it wasn't beingthrust away, expelled, destroyed. It didn't even know how it had found its wayhere, and so it went about its ways cautiously.

It just knew it was hungry. In the outskirts where it lived on its homeworld, foodwas scarce and it was nearly always hungry, but not like this. The food it hadtaken so far should have been able to last months, but it had been hours only, and

it was already weak with hunger. Its belly was gaunt, it could see its sinews andorgans outlined. It would need to feed again soon, or it wouldn't survive.The things in the places its host had taken it had shown little weakness, its

last meal had taken nearly as much energy to consume as it had given, but it wasnecessary. The prospects were looking better, though. It could smell frailty in theair. Where it smelled frailty, there was easy prey. It was only a matter of time.

Tobias crossed 113th and headed west on a one-way, ever deeper into hisneighborhood. The bricks of every building bore the familiar tags of his gang,which were repeated on the aluminum surrounding every payphone, on everystreet sign and every streetlight. His plan to avoid capture started with a changeof clothes. In order to last much longer, his appearance couldnt match what was

on the security camera tapes.Every step he took, though, made him more angry. Why the hell did I followLevons advice, he thought. What the fuck does he know? Show Wesley that Imready for advancement by robbing somewhere? Fuck. How stupid can I befollowing that advice. Dumb piece of shit.

When he rounded the corner to his block he stopped and waited. He didnt seeany cars that might be police, marked or unmarked, there didnt seem to beanyone just sitting in a car somewhere, which would have been a suspiciousenough sight to make him deviate from his plans. He waited for ten minutes, butthe cars that passed by were all locals, no patrols were out looking for him, atleast not yet.

Even so, he took the back stairs up to his mothers apartment, hesitating stillto be sure no one waited for him in the alley. He took the stairs with apprehension,stepping as light as he could, one decrepit paint-peeled step at a time. He didntneed anybody hearing his footfalls, the creaks and bumps that brought theresidents of this neighborhood to glance out the window from around a corner tosee if they were going to be broken in on or not. Behind all of his hesitation hidthe reality of why he didn't want to go back home: he was ashamed of what hedid.

The back door to his mothers apartment led directly to the kitchen. Throughthe narrow holes in the old lace curtain in the window he could see the silhouetteof his mother, lumbering about the kitchen.

Tobiass mother was a large woman, who bore the rough complexion, gray hairand the strained voice of a hard life. Her presence meant she hadn't gone in towork at the church, which was just fitting for the way today was going for Tobias.Hed been hoping not to run into her.

He slipped his key into the lock with dread, as if he was a kid who had playedhooky from school to have his own adventure and was now expecting hispunishment. The lock was a new deadbolt that Wesley had installed for protection,but more for his merchandise than for them. It was about the only shiny new thingin the house.


5/11

The lock popped open, and the door jumped a bit; Wesley hadn't done a greatjob aligning the lock with the jamb and it was impossible to sneak in. He openedthe door with as little noise as he could, as if to do so with any more noise woulddisturb a delicate natural balance.

But the balance had been disturbed, and the disruption provoked a startledand spastic movement from his mother, and he heard, half concealed, a hard

object sliding across the counter. She was trying to hide her bottle of booze.Tobias pretended not to hear, not to notice her sudden start, her alcoholism wasbeneficial to his own purposes at the moment. If she was drunk, she was easier todeal with when there was trouble.

Smiling wide, she turned around to face him, slipping a fifth bottle into herpurse with the discretion of a kid caught with his hands in a candy jar. He couldsmell the alcohol from across the room, gin, by the smell of it.

The demon smelled her. She would do. She was ready. It could smell liverdamage, and a hint of arthritis.

Tobias. What are you doing sneaking up on me like that?He didnt answer, just gave her a gruff look.

I Im just heading off to work. She clutched her keys. Youll be alrighthoney?He looked at her expressionless, feeling nothing but anger. He forced out an

excuse.Just stopping by, Ma. No worries.She held on for a second, waiting for something else to be said, but nothing

was. She grabbed her purse, stepped past him, and headed out the door, closingit with a hard push that shook the house.

The demon didn't worry that she'd be back. Traces of her disease were allaround.

Tobias didnt dwell on his thoughts, though. He had an objective. Theyd be

looking for him sometime, and this was the first place theyd come knocking. Herushed into his bedroom, and pulled off his basketball jersey, donning instead aPMZ Gangsta Designs shirt. His shorts were traded for jeans, theyd be hot now inthe sun, but if he had to stay outdoors tonight, theyd keep him warm enough.

He dug into the hip pocket of his shorts, and pulled out his cell phone, whichwas a Swiss army knife for street survival. He found the lead for his power adaptoron his floor and connected it, five minutes would top off the charge. He also pulledout a knife and a dime bag of weed. The weed he tossed on his dresser. The knifehe slipped into his jeans pocket, he knew how useful even the glint of a knifecould be on the street in the right circumstances. There were plenty of pitfalls onthe street, even the street people were dangerous. Some of them would kill you

for the few extra cents they needed for a dollar bottle of gin, but a weapon woulddissuade them easily.

He flipped open the phone and hit speed dial for his brothers number. It pickedup immediately to the grating static of wind noise. His brother was in convertible,or a car with the windows down, Tobias never knew what he found for himself todrive on any given day.

Yo, Wesley said.Wesley, I--, Tobias started, but he was cut off.Hey, little bro! Whats shaking? You take care of what I asked you to? Tobias


6/11

heard the car accelerate and horns.Wesley, see, II dont want excuses little bro. I need it done. Its important for you if you

want out of that house. Other people are watching your performance on this one.Tobias pulled hard on his dresser drawer out of frustration. It fell to the floor,

dumping out socks, underwear and large satchels of weed. He'd never felt so put

in his place, suffering the results of his own actions, unable for the sake of pride totell Wesley what hed done, and staring down at the dresser that hed had sincehe was a kid, beaten and worn out long ago, nailed together several times andbarely still standing. He stopped everything, too helpless to do anything. Then heswallowed his pride and tried to tell Wesley everything.

Yeah, sure look, Im inHold up, hold up. He heard Wesley talking to someone else, quietly. Lavon.

You see this shit? What the hell is Latrell doing here? This is our territory.The wind noise disappeared from the phone. He had no choice but to wait.

Tobias picked up two t-shirts from the floor, and a pair of socks, not even lookingat them, and then grabbed a pair of Calvin Kleins, and stuffed them into his

backpack as well.Through the muffled phone, he heard Lavons deep voice mumbling, butcouldn't make out what he said. Lavon wasnt one for precise elocution. Then heheard Wesleys voice again, No, no. Were going to call the cops on him. Gottago, little bro. Remember, to take care of that for me.

Hey Wesley I, Tobias tried to get him back, but Wesleyd already hung up.That settled that, Tobias decided. Hed have to go it alone for the day, try to

hide on the streets since he didnt have a real safe house to run to. It was almostbetter that Wesley hadnt heard yet. Maybe he could find his own way out of thistrouble.

He looked at the weed. The big packages werent his, and hed have to offload

them to someone with less heat. He decided that the dime bag had to be flushed.It was part of the private stash and Wesley had sacrificed good money for it, butleaving it would only compound the problem. The police would search the housefor the gun that was on the scene if they hadnt found it already, and if they foundany drugs, it would be almost as bad as if he had it on him. He didnt need to addpossession to the list of charges, he was already going to need enough defense tomake Wesley very angry.

He ran to the bathroom down the hall and emptied the contents of the littleplastic bag in the toilet and then tossed the bag in after and flushed.

As the water swirled down the drain, so did his world, his head felt like it wasflowing around a bowl, he wavered forward and back, he felt like he was seeing

from far behind his eyes. He fell back to the door, then his knees weakened,faltered, gave way, his whole body dropped to the floor, and his head dropped tothe porcelain, catching his forehead. After a moment, it cleared, and he stood,using the doorknob for support. That had never happened to him before.

He returned to his room to grab his phone, verified the charge, and pocketedit. Next, he had to find a way to get rid of the kilo in his bag. That was intent todistribute, and any bit of anything that he had going for him in the Blooddogs. Heran through his list of contacts, and the closest and easiest was Droob, who livedupstairs and three apartments over. He tossed the kilo in his bag and ran out the


7/11

back door.He pounded on Droob's door for a minute or two before it opened. Droob

looked strung out on something, but it was better than being caught out in theopen with the stuff.

"Droob, I got trouble. Can you do something for me?" Tobias asked. He heard atelevision with some talk show on in the apartment.

"Man, I just got my shit on. What you need?""I got somebody on me. I can't get this over to The Doctor's. Can you do it?"He held open the bag so that Droob could see what was in it.

"ManWhat's in it for me?""They said they'd give me a hundred bucks. Its yours if you get it done today.""I could turn this into a couple G's myself.""You know if Wesley knew you did that, you wouldn't make it two days.""Shit, coupla days'd be all I'd need.""But if you helped Wesley's little brother out in a jam like this, you know he'd

look favorably upon you.""Really?" he said, still hesitant. "Alright. Alright, I'll do it, soon as I come down,

you know what I mean?""Yeah, sure."Tobias handed over the package and turned away before the door was closed.Now there was nothing for him to do but brave the streets.

Malcolm arrived home, still hungry, but with milk, eggs and other victuals, but itwasnt time for food. It was the time for processing the information he hadcollected. There was something more involved here than just a simple death,something that Nami wouldnt be able to fight, wouldnt be able to stop. That waswhat he'd learned at the Convenient Store.

So he put the eggs and milk in the refrigerator and left the non-perishable

goods in the bags on the counter, to be put away later. He thought for a secondthat after being in the store this morning, hed have to reconsider his notion ofnon-perishable goods, and maybe buy another refrigerator. But there was a timeand a place for that as well. He opened a drawer and pulled out a dishtowel, ran itunder the faucet for just a second, and then opened his freezer for ice. Using this,he wrapped his hand. Maybe the swelling would come under control, thethrobbing would end, and hed be able to move his fingers without pain again.

It was just like his mother had done. He knew about ice packs like they had athospitals, but preferred his utilitarian approach to life. Modern conveniences werenot so great when you needed them and they weren't there.

He headed to his study. The first clues in a case like this were always elusive,

but he had his means to suss them out. They came to him from the papers hecollected, miscellaneous bits of information that seem to gather relevance bydirect experience of the environment and then a viewing through Malcolmsperception. He arranged them on his desk, finding a grocery list with six of eightitems crossed off, and a phone number written on the side in another personswriting; an address scrawled under the words "massage therapist," though, by thename next to it, Thumper, shell probably give a bit more than a massage.These and the rest he arranged on his desk. He didnt need to look at them toknow another demon was on the loose, he was looking for his starting point.


8/11

He spent a minute in complete silence, breathing slowly, letting go of theweight of the day and taking in the calm and quiet of his home, and when hisheart had reached a slow, normal pace, and his breathing had relaxed into deepbreaths and longer exhales, only then did he look at the papers.

Nothing happened. No revelations. Nothing.He moved the pieces around a couple times at random, thinking maybe the

recombination might spur a further clue, but they still gave him nothing. He couldnever make the messages materialize on command. This fact that told him thatwhatever his ability may be, he didn't produce the messages, he received them.

The papers were silent, and that was just the fact of the matter. He put themaside until they found it a fitting time to say something to him. He turned to hisjournal.

June 24th, 2003, contd:

Ive handled more demonic cases so far this year thanin the previous two combined. Things are on the increase,

and I cant keep up on my own. Understanding themechanisms of the crossings is, in the long run, mostimportant.

Fadil didnt die a natural death, and the kid didnt killhim. The message at the fire showed me whatever theinspector determines, the fire started with a demon.Unfortunately the messages were as obtuse as usual, andI have nothing else to go on.

Demons are something separate from our religions,though many of our historic religious demons have beentransplants mistaken for religious experiences. Rather

they are invasive species, come from a higher plane of theuniverse.Lenore told me, their world is dying, and theyre trying

to escape into ours. The demonic underworld has a tightgrip on the scene in town. Any newcomers are discoveredand either assimilated or dealt with quickly. Lenore mayhave information about any new crossings. She would beable to check her contacts and find out.

She can be hard to find at times though. You cantsummon a succubus, they have their own ways of findingyou when they need you, and rarely does it work the other

way.Ive learned much from Lenore, despite her

understandable reluctance to give up too muchinformation on this subject.

She says they have to feed quickly when theyvecrossed over, to establish some stores of power, or return.Or die.

The old breed were content to lay low, feed slow,establish themselves over eons.


9/11

It doesnt work like that anymore. People move faster,there are more to feed on. People dont perceive demonslike they used to. Were too busy, we dont notice themuntil theyre in your face, sucking the manna from you,and sometimes not even then.

Somewhere about the eighth ring, when the answering machine picked it upwith the clicks and whirs of its tape decks, Malcolm realized the phone wasringing. He decided to ignore it.

The machine clicked to life, the cheap plastic box vibrated harmonically anddistorted while playing the message. It was from his boss.

Malcolm, remember that job you didnt come in to today? I hope you do,because you dont have it anymore. Ill mail your final paycheck.

This didnt hit Malcolm, it was of very little consequence today. He stood tolook at the north wall of his study. There was no window, and so it afforded himthe greatest possible surface area with which to post pressing issues. Years ago,Malcolm had covered it with corkboard, floor to ceiling and long enough to pace in

front of when he had to take in the bigger picture, and occasionally the biggermessage.The wall did to text what Jackson Pollock did to paint, and Malcolm was the

artist that oversaw the confused placement of the materials. Covered with papers,clippings, and notes pierced through the heart like an insect collection mountedfor study, the papers were tacked in a specific and irregular arrangement thatdefied all logic save Malcolms. Some had been up long enough to be yellowingwith age, but most were quite recent, cases that were most pressing.

Malcolm removed some clippings from a spot on the wall that hadnt had anyaction for weeks. Either the demon had died of natural causes, or the trail wasirrevocably lost. He collected those papers, bound them together with a large

paperclip, and labeled the stack for filing according to specifics, symptoms,locations. He'd developed an easy reference system to track demonic attack. Thebundle was moved to Malcolms files, a card catalog spared demolition from alibrary that got the computer budget early in the previous decade. The drawerwas labeled Cold Case, a drawer Malcolm hated to open, because it representedso many failures.

The new scraps of paper were put up in this cases place. The Polish menu. Apiece of notebook paper with hastily scribbled directions to a sordid hotelrendezvous, a cast off advertisement for a pest control outfit. This one read, infull:

Direct Pest ControlCertified * Licensed * Insured20 years in the neighborhood.Reasonable rates.Safe and effective.Call Brad 773-145-8900

It had pictures of various home pests in the margins. A second glance, andMalcolm saw none of that. He saw, in irregular, uncertain script only one word.


10/11


11/11

Now Algauer knew that this was not an established scientist, but he cautionedhimself that Einstein did his best work as a patent clerk, you never knew whenanother one of those would come along. What field is your research in?

Im working on something along the lines of your multiverse theory,concerning naturally occurring points of weakness between the universes, andspecific types of matter crossing between, Malcolm offered.

A little early for that type of work, isnt it? We havent even proven theexistence of other universes yet. Algauer countered.This is more speculative. Malcolm was very tentative. He was in over his

head.Youre a writer, arent you? Sci-fi? Is it a novel, or maybe some ill-conceived

film script?Malcolm thought hed lost it. This would never work. He backpedaled, turned

himself, adjusted. It was always this difficult, gathering research without letting onwhat he knew.

No. Im not. Im investigating a case for the police, and I think your workmight help my investigation.

Youve been reading too much Douglas Adams. Algauer was having his funnow. He thought he had Malcolm figured out like a Bose-Einstein Condensate. Hewas wondering who put this guy up to it.

You propose that the disappearance of gravitons into another dimensionshould be detectable, but you havent found your evidence. I think that thecollision creates a void, and something from that dimension must rush in to fill it.Something that wouldnt be detected as a graviton, it wouldnt even be detectedbecause we arent even looking for it. I think it's some form of mirror matter.Malcolm said it quickly, as if it were much more difficult to think than to actuallysay.

This statement changed everything for Algauer. He stopped his work for a

moment, stopped typing. He thought for a moment that whoever this Malcolmwas, hes an amateur, but hes read up on the subject. And there was thedirector's community outreach program to consider.

Malcolm, on the other hand, didnt know what was happening, he thoughtAlgauers hand might be slowly placing the handset back on the receiver, to getrid of whoever this crank was.

The fear was allayed as the scientist became aware of his ellipsis, andmuttered something just for the sake of muttering something. IIll be freetomorrow morning. If youre here at 9:00, I can see you.

Malcolm released a relieved breath. Thanks. Nine oclock. Ill be there.

the hidden - urban decay ch. 3

Documents