Concrete Underground, Moxie Mezcal [best books to read for teens .TXT] 📗

the music that spilled out of the stray bud as Le Tigre, which I found a bit surprising based on her appearance, expecting her tastes to run more pop and mainstream.

I shrugged and headed for the train door. On my way out, Seamus held out one hand to my chest to stop me, then passed me a piece of paper with the other. It was a half-sheet flyer, a cheap black-and-white photocopy with three narrow vertical pictures - a closeup of the pyramid from the back of the dollar bill on the left, a police officer in riot gear in the middle, and a woman in lingerie on the right. The phrase "You Are Being Lied To..." was emblazoned across the top, and right below the images, it continued "Trust Us". At the very bottom, in tiny letters, was the words "The Highwater Society" along with a stylized logo of a globe with a crown floating above it.

"How do you know so much about all this?" I asked Seamus.

His deep blue eyes twinkled as he replied jovially, reeking of sweat, piss, and Mad Dog 20/20, "I used to work for Abrasax. I helped them build the damned thing."

2. Can't Be Held Responsible

The address I had been given was a flophouse called Casa Salvador in the scummy side of downtown, the part where the city's redevelopment (read: "gentrification") efforts hadn't yet managed to drive out the sundry undesirable elements.

I walked inside past the front lobby. I could tell the desk manager wanted to hassle me, but he was too busy arguing with a middle-aged peroxide-blonde woman in a leopard-print top. Her skin was leathery and weather beaten, and I guessed she was the type who was actually a good ten years younger than she looked.

I made my way up the narrow staircase that smelled of urine and bleach, going all the way to the third floor. I continued down the dimly lit hallway, past a series of closed doors that muffled the sounds of women faking moans of pleasure.

Room 313 was down at the far end of the hall, and its door was already slightly ajar. I knocked anyways, but there was no answer. Pushing the door open just enough to poke my head in, I called, "Hello? Is anybody in there?"

There was no response, so I went in and felt along the wall for the light switch. A single weak bulb came on, lighting up the tiny, sparse room with a dim yellow glow. The room was about 8 feet by 8 feet, and the only furniture was a dingy, unmade bed and a metal foot locker. There were no windows, no closet, and no bathroom. As I stepped all the way in, I noticed a wooden baseball bat propped up beside the door.

My watch said 6:20 - twenty minutes late for the interview. I sat on the edge of the bed to wait, hoping that maybe my contact had just stepped out momentarily.

After a few minutes, a phone started ringing out in the hallway. I let it ring six times with no one answering before I decided to get it - partly in the off chance it was my contact, but mostly out of morbid curiosity as to what kind of business someone would have calling this dump.

On my way to the door, though, a small blue flash of light caught my eye. It came from inside a vent at the top of the opposite wall. I moved closer and saw that there was something blue and metallic stashed behind the grating. The flash must have been a reflection of light off the metal surface.

I slid the foot locker over and climbed up to get a closer look. Inside, I could make out what appeared to be a small rectangular box about five inches long and two inches thick. I tried to pull the vent loose but found it was screwed in place. Digging my pocketknife out of my jeans, I started loosening the screws and had managed to work two of the four out when I suddenly heard a voice call out from behind me.

"What are you doing here?"

I spun around to see an old man standing just inside the doorway, thin and gaunt, wearing a cheap brown suit. He had picked up the baseball bat and was pointing it at me threateningly, as if trying to keep me at bay. I stepped down off the locker, and he advanced on me quickly, extending the bat out to just barely tap my chest with the tip.

"Stay right there."

"Whoa, calm down," I said. "You called me and asked me to meet you here."

"I didn't call you. Who are you? Who sent you here?"

"Look, someone called and told me to come here. I'm a reporter."

I started reaching inside my jacket to get my card, but he jabbed at me with the bat. It wasn't close enough that he meant hit me, but close enough that I got the message.

"I'm just gonna reach into my pocket to get my business card and show you who I am."

He watched me silently as I slowly tried again for my jacket pocket. I produced my card and handed it to him.

The top of the card was stamped the Concrete Underground cut-out logo. Underneath was printed:

D Quetzal

Punk-as-Fuck Investigative Journalist

He glanced at the card before training his gaze and the bat back on me.

"Is this supposed to be some kind of a joke?"

I took a couple steps forward. "It's no joke. I'm a reporter and--"

He swung the bat square into my mid-section. I doubled over, my abdomen on fire from the blow. Before I could recover, another swing brought the bat down on the back of my head, dropping me to the floor as I quickly faded out of consciousness.

I am having that dream again.

I sit in a crowded movie theater. On my right is an empty seat. To my left, a woman sits beside me. I think that I followed her into the theater because she looked familiar, like my old girlfriend from high school, but now I can see that she's not who I thought she was. She rests her head on my shoulder, and I sweep away her purple hair from her forehead and give her a kiss.

I watch a man on the movie screen riding in a car as it drives onto a small airfield in the middle of the night. Actually, I don't see the man himself; I see through his eyes. The man on the the screen is me; the me in the audience fades away, and I focus my concentration solely on the me on screen.

On screen, I get out of the car and am greeted by a short, balding man carrying a flashlight. He says something, but I can't make out his words over the sound of the film projector behind me. I follow the man with the flashlight into one of the airplane hangers. It is dark all around.

_There is a single plane in the hanger, a small private jet. The forward hatch is open and a rolling staircase has been moved into place. I follow the other man up the stairs and into the plane. Inside, the beam lights up only small parts of the cramped space randomly, the flashlight bouncing in the man's hand as he walks down the aisle toward the back. _

He stops at the end of the cabin and points the light at one of the seats. I move closer to see what he's showing me. It is a woman. She is dirty and disheveled - clothes torn, greasy black hair matted to her face with grime and sweat, large purple bruises on the exposed flesh of her neck where she has been strangled.

_I kneel down and sweep away a few strands of hair to expose her face. I touch my hand to her cold skin, which feels almost unreal, like she's a wax dummy. Gently, tenderly, I run my fingers down along her lifeless cheek. I know her, but the me sitting in the theater can't quite place how or where from. _

On screen, the man with the flashlight tells me, "Look in her hand." He moves the beam down so I can see her clenched fist. I force her grip open and see she's holding a necklace with a large, brilliant ruby mounted on a pendant. I flip the pendant around; there is a symbol etched on its back - a globe with a crown floating over it. I take the necklace from the dead woman's hand and stuff it in my pocket.

_Back in the theater, I cough. The woman on my left shushes me angrily. The me on the screen whips his head around and looks over his shoulder, past the fourth wall and into the audience. I can see his face, and he isn't me. His deep blue eyes are filled with piercing anger, glaring at me through the darkness, projected larger than life. _

The image on the screen flickers and dissolves briefly into static before cutting to a grainy, wide-angle shot of a room, the monochrome image washed in blue, giving the impression it is a feed from some kind of surveillance camera. The room is small and sparsely-furnished with only one occupant - a man sitting on the edge of a bed, his back turned to the camera. In the bottom right corner of the screen are digitized numbers reading: 00033.

I turn to my left. The woman beside me casts a disapproving look at me and says, "You shouldn't be here." Her face is covered by a half-mask made of dark gunmetal. I reach out to lift the mask, but when I see her face, I realize she's not who I thought she was.

_I turn to my right and see a man sitting in the previously-empty seat, his face covered in a grotesque black mask pocked by red boils oozing puss. A long crooked nose protrudes from his mask, and underneath his lips part to reveal a mouthful of jagged yellow teeth jutting out from purple, bleeding gums. _

The man in the mask starts laughing - a tinny and mechanical laugh, like the sound of a clanky old film projector.

When I came to, my assailant was gone. I struggled slowly to my feet, feeling my head throbbing and my stomach stinging like hell. Then to make matters worse, that damned phone in the hallway started ringing again.

Once I finally regained my bearings, I realized that the vent cover had been fully removed and the box had been taken.

My head still swimming, I staggered out into the hallway in time to see the leopard-print lady from the lobby pick up the phone.

"Hello?" she answered and then turned her head to look directly at me.

"Yes, he is," she said after a brief pause, then held out the receiver to me. "It's for you."

I took the phone from her and took out my reporter's notebook from my back pocket. "D's Sporting Goods. This is D speaking."

"Did you find the parcel?" asked