The Edge

Arian: Part Eight

Arian was good at pissing people off. It was one of his defining traits. He didn't mean to do it most of the time. He was just genetically predisposed to being a smartass.

Well...his therapist would probably beg to differ. He'd tried to spin some theory about how Arian pushed people away to avoid rejection, which, yeah, okay whatever. That was sometimes true. But it wasn't true with total strangers, and he pissed them off just as often as he pissed off the people in his consistent proximity. This meant he'd found himself in a lot of sticky situations throughout his life. He'd figured out how to work his way out of most of them.

Most of them. Waking up handcuffed to a random pipe in a service corridor was a new one, he had to admit. He was going to need some time to figure that out.

"Oh, good, you're up."

Arian recognized the voice instantly; the mishmash of accents coming together in an almost musical way could really only belong to one person. He also recognized the silhouette when he cracked open one eye. "...Alistair Black, I presume?" Arian said. He tried to sound cool and confident; instead his voice cracked twice. Early puberty levels, too. Ugh.

"You're very astute." As Arian opened both eyes, he could more clearly see that weird red hair, held down by what he thought was a newsboy cap (though he wasn't good at recognizing hats). "So. Your sister."

All plans of keeping his chill and talking his way out of this flew out the window. Arian sat up as best he could. "Listen, fuckface, if you did anything to hurt Cass..."

Alistair Black, if that was his real name, waved Arian off. "Calm down. I haven't laid a finger on her. I don't even know where she is. But I would like to have a word. She and I have some unfinished business, I'm afraid."

Damn it, Cass, what'd you do now?! Stealing the ship on New Frontier had been one thing—he'd honestly endorsed that particular life choice, even if he didn't say so out loud. He could even excuse engaging with the cult vibes on that forum, because sometimes you had to go to weird sources to get what you wanted. But Alistair Black was clearly on a different level. He was a kind of dangerous that Arian made a point of avoiding, and he had a different danger threshold than most. "What kind of unfinished business?" Arian asked.

Alistair Black held up one of the CDs. "This."

The CD was labeled with Lighthouse Radio, 3.05. It was so weird seeing one if those. Most information was transmitted digitally these days, unless you were big into retro tech or trying to send sensitive information to someone and really wanted to make life difficult for anyone who might try to steal it. Most people didn't have a disc reader, so unless you were a very prepared thief, you'd just end up with a chunk of plastic that you couldn't use. Arian had been in that situation before. It was annoying.

Alistair Black was, apparently, better prepared than Baby Thief Arian had been, because he had a disc reader with him, and a cheap-looking speaker to go with it. "Listen," he said as he inserted the disc. "I'd like your opinion on this."

The recording started with the tail end of an advertisement for some engine cleaner. After a pause, a short, laid-back guitar tune started playing. A male voice followed: "Hello, everyone. I've got another story for you."

So, that was the infamous John. Even with the situation sucking as hard as it did, Arian had to admit the guy had a pretty soothing voice. He could see how people would use this to help them sleep or chill out. The story was about a celestial rabbit trying to find his family and having all kinds of weird conversations as he went. Sort of The Little Prince met that weird surrealist theater Matteo liked so much with a dash of Prodigal Son themes (enough that Arian felt kinda called out). It ultimately had a happy ending, though Arian couldn't enjoy that when his legs were starting to go numb. "So, uh, what am I listening for?" Arian asked.