It’s weird shit. Far weirder than I’m willing to believe myself. Or it was anyway. Before Daniel showed me some weirder shit. Before he told me about that thing. The Wraith. Now I’m not sure what to believe. But it’s still not for me. No matter how many times Daniel says it is.
– Simon. Look at you. So healthy and well fed. You’re just about glowing.
– Daniel. You’re looking fit yourself.
He laughs, unbending his skeletal frame from the floor of his little cubicle in the loft above the warehouse floor. He takes my hand. I feel the heat that pulses from his fingers and palm. I run hot, anyone with the Vyrus runs a little hot; Daniel scorches.
He holds my hand and looks me over.
– Yes. Just about glowing.
– Thanks.
He releases my hand.
– It wasn’t meant as a compliment. I was trying to express displeasure.
– Sorry, missed it.
– Oh well, passive aggression was never my strength. With my own children. Did you know I had kids?
– Nope.
– I did. Long time ago.
His eyes drift.
– Two girls. Twins. And a wife. I wanted boys. A cliché. She gave me the girls. And several miscarriages. She died of one in the end. Girls. I could never get them to do as I said. A poor father.
His eyes come back to me, refocus, and he shakes his head.
– Odd. I don’t think of them much. That other life, I hardly think of it at all. The sleep before waking. Before I discovered my true nature.
He shrugs.
– Senility at last. Sit.
He points at the floor and I take a seat. He takes a place across from me and rests his back against the wall.
– What’s on your mind, Simon? I assume you’re not here to reconsider joining us.
– Nope.
– Something else then. Information I suppose.
– Yep.
He waits. I wait. He waits longer and I give in.
– I need a name.
He rolls his eyes.
– A name. You already have two. The one you were born with and the one you gave yourself.
– Someone else’s name.
– Whose?
– I don’t know. I need an Uptown name. I have to go above One-ten and I need a contact, someone to help me with the territory.
He scratches the ribs that protrude from beneath his skin, his fingers all but disappearing into the gaps between them.
– Above One-ten. The Hood. Luther X’s turf.
– X is dead.
– Is he?
I watch his eyes, trying to see if he’s playing me. They’re unreadable; black stones sunk deep in dark wells.
– He got taken out over two years ago. Coalition assassins. They say. His warlord runs it now: DJ Grave Digga.
– They say. Well, I would say the Vyrus was simply done with him, consumed him and passed him into the other world. The real world.
– Tell that to the guy stuck the daggers in X’s eyes.
– The instrument is immaterial. The Vyrus has him now.
– Yeah. Right. Daniel, I’m not telling you anything you don’t know. You know the X is gone. You know everything. What I need to know is if you have a name, and if you’ll share it with me.
He stretches his legs out, crosses them at the ankles and tucks his hands behind his head.
– Long trip to the Hood.
– Yep. That’s why I should be getting started.
– What do you need up there?
I could lie. But he’d know.
– I’m looking into something for Terry Bird. His new fish are into something.
He raises his eyebrows.
– Terry’s new fish are into something he doesn’t know about. How unlike him. What is it?
– They have a new high.
– A new high?
I lick my lips.
– They’re shooting the Vyrus. Someone found a way to, I don’t know, preserve it outside a body, and the new fish are shooting it.
– Oh.
He closes his eyes.
– That again.
I blink.
– Excuse me?
He opens his eyes.
– Nevermind, Simon.
– Did you say, again?
He takes his hands from behind his head, draws his knees up and rests his forearms on them.
– There is nothing new under the sun, Simon. It’s all as it has always been. There is only one change, and the world is still waiting for it. The world is an egg, waiting to be born, waiting for Enclave to usher it across. Until then, it’s all the same old shit.
I lean forward.
– Sure, sure, you’ll transmute yourself into ectoplasm and lead your crusade and we’ll all be turned into pixie dust and join the cosmos. But you said, again.
– Did I? Funny. Well, as I also said before, senility at last.
– Daniel.
– Simon. Enough. I’m tired. You said you wanted a name.
– I do.
– The Enclave who brought you up, did you recognize him?
– Man, you all look the same to me. All just a bunch of cadavers waiting to happen. You’re the only one I can tell apart. And that’s just because you look more dead than the rest.
He laughs, lips peeling up over gray gums, mouth open wide, barking laughter.
– More dead. You know better, Simon. I’m more alive than you, more alive than anyone else with the Vyrus. Certainly more alive than the sleepwalkers out there on the streets with no idea of the universe’s true nature.
I shift, unfolding my legs.
– A name?
He nods.
– A name. Yes. The Enclave who brought you up, he used to be with the Hood. He’ll give you a name.
– Good enough.
I push myself up off the floor.
– Simon.
– Yeah?
– I will want something in return.
So much for a clean getaway.
– What’s that?
– We talked the last time you were here.
– Uh-huh.
– I told you something.
– You told me you thought you were failing.
He looks at the floor, running his fingers over a nail head that sticks up from the floorboards.
– That’s true, I am. But I told you something else.
Fuck.
– I don’t remember.
– Don’t be like that, girls.
– What?
He looks up.
– Did I?
He taps his forehead.
– What did I say?
– Nothing.
He watches me out of those holes in his face.
– Senility. Strange. Well.
He stands.
– You should go.
– What about?
– Hm?
– You said you’d want something for the name.
– Yes. Yes. Come see me, Simon. Come see me more often.
– Daniel, I’ll try, but. I’m pretty busy most of the time.
He puts his hand on my shoulder. The heat radiates through my jacket.
– Come see me, Simon. It’s what I want.
Like I said, it’ll cost more than blood or money.
– OK. I’ll come.
– Good. Good. Now go downstairs and get your name.
I start for the stairs.
– Names. Simon, that reminds me.
– Uh-huh?
– You had a perfectly good one: Simon. It suits you. It says something about you. Why did you change it?