A Barfly admist the Rubble

"What the..." Ryan hopped off of the barstool, almost bumping into, no, almost bumping through a girl carrying a pitcher of beer back to a table. The entire place was hazy like it was still being constructed. The walls wavered for a moment as Ryan checked it out. The hipsters in the corner discussing poetry, the too-cool geek in the back wearing shades typing on his computer, the sorority girls giggling in the background - everything seemed in place for a Friday night at the bar.

Only it wasn't supposed to be Friday night. I was supposed to be Friday afternoon.

"Dude, are you okay?" Chad stared at him for a moment. He was dressed in his normal plaid shirt (not tucked in) and jeans.

Ryan was definitely not okay. Heart racing, palms sweating, he paced slowly back to the bar. Making sure to rub his feet across the carpeting, so it wouldn't disappear on him too. He held onto the back of the leather barstool for a moment, rubbing the cow hides, listening for the squeak. He had to be going crazy, there wasn't any other explanation.

His friend got out of his stool and took a step over to him, picking up his forgotten drink from the bar. "Here have a drink. Look man, it's not the end of the world. And it might just be nothing."

Lifting the pint to his lips, the black beer seeped down his throat and into his stomach. "What might be nothing?" He managed after putting away another slug.

"Um... Dude are you sure you're all right. I know it might be a shock and all, but really. I've heard of post-traumatic stress and all, but this might be going a bit too far." He clapped Ryan on the shoulder and then went back to his stool.

Then Ryan remembered the alarm clock. The conversation he'd heard through the tinny speaker. No, that couldn't be here, could it? Chad couldn't have just told him that he'd seen Alice cheating on him? Sliding down into the seat, he noticed the bar seemed as solid as it had when he was sitting with Havelin.

He took another sip. Searching the bar again, his eyes stayed on the too-cool geek in the back with the leather jacket and the laptop. He'd seen him somewhere else.

The Meeting Part 2

A chill crept up Ryan's spine, working its way down into his hand until his entire body felt cold. For a second, he tried to move his mouth, but then stopped. What the... He should be getting used to this by now. But he the entire world seemed to be tipping on its side, spinning around him.

The red-haired man tilted his head, his words mushing together, first fast, then slow. "Are you oooookkkkaaaayyy?"

"No..." He managed to get out. "Who did you say you were? And why are you looking for me?"

"Havelin DeCourt. I'll explain everything, but first we need to get out of here. The paradigms have been altered, that's why it took so long to find you. You aren't supposed to be here?" He said it all like he was talking about a Math problem.

"Wait? What do you mean? I'm not going anywhere until you start making sense." Ryan gritted his teeth. His heart raced and his head swam.

Havelin's brow wrinkled together. This time he spoke a bit slower, drawing out each word. "We need to leave. You can trust me."

For a second, Ryan thought he could trust him. The guy seemed nice enough, even with his leather jacket and the scar across his face. His heart started to slow down, the chill that had covered his body started to fade.

And then everything went to hell.

A flash of white boomed inside of the bar, making everything seem like a reverse echo. White turned black. Black turned white. The guy across the table tried to reach out for him, but Ryan looked down and saw that the other man was fading. He reached out to try to grab him, but it was like he was being pulled apart. Strings of ones and zeroes leaked away from him.

Ryan's fingers went straight through the other man's hands. He tried to decipher the rhyme and reason, but it felt like he was missing a variable. Something vital was being leached away and he needed to figure it out, or it would be lost.

But then the other man was gone. And he was sitting at the bar. It was night. People crowded around him.

And Chad was talking... "Are you going to be okay?"

The Meeting Part 1

Ryan had settled into a table in the back of the bar and was working through his homework. A soft jazz soundtrack played in the background, while he glided through the matrices, shifting numbers so everything made sense.

The bar was styled like an Old World pub. A stuffed goat's head hung over a black and oak bar. Leather stools sat empty except for a professor puffing on his pipe. But he had managed to slip into the problem, wiping away all of the earlier struggles of the day.

In fact, he was so engrossed that he didn't notice the man sidle down in the chair across from him. He didn't pay attention to the way that man adjusted his leather coat, or unbound his red hair and put it back into a pony tail. It wasn't until he leaned forward and looked at the math problem that Ryan started.

"Shit, you scared me." He managed after he caught his breath. Tilting his head, he tried to place the man who sat across of him. He could have been any graduate student who'd taken a little too long to finish their dissertation. "Do I know you?"

"No, not yet." The red-haired man leaned back in the captain's chair. "My name's Havelin DeCourt."

What She Thought She Heard

Alice stepped into the hallway after taking her shower. She really did need to get to class, her philosophy teacher counted class participation. That was a joke, she was the only person who ever raised her hand in class.

But still, this was her second year at college, she couldn't afford to screw up now. Plus, she would end up hearing about it from Ryan if she didn't pass this class. He still got on her about changing her major to philosophy from psychology.

She was still thinking about the reading that she should have done last night, when she bumped into the guy in the hallway. Stopping to say excuse me, her heart sped up when she looked him in the eye.

He was tall, at least six five, wearing a button down shirt and tie, that didn't quite cover the way his muscles bunched under her shirt. But most of all when he stared at her with his grey-blue eyes, there was a smile there like he was laughing at some kind of joke that only he knew. But part of her right at that second wanted to know so badly what he was laughing about that her knees could hardly take it.

"I'm sorry." She managed.

He paused, running his eyes down her for a moment. "That's perfectly fine. I haven't seen you around here. My name is Dustin."

For a second, she swore she heard something else, and then pushed it out of her head for the childish nonsense it was. "Hi, I'm Alice. It's nice to meet you."

Part of her was screaming that she should get to class, she had grades to make and, hell, she already had a boyfriend. "Really. I'm sorry for bumping into you, Dustin. I really should get to class." Why did she have to say that?

Grinning, he said. "Of course. Say what are you doing after your class?"

The part of her that was still trying to figure out the joke in his eyes kept her feet firmly planted against the carpet. "Um... nothing." Her stomach turned a bit on that, but Ryan was a distant thought in her head.

"Good. Why don't we have dinner?"

Her mouth dried out, legs shaking a bit she managed to spit out. "Okay."

The Fun

Ryan set the notebook back on his bed and closed his eyes. People don't go crazy in twenty minutes. There had to be something going on here. Standing up, he started to pace his bedroom. Occasionally he tossed a look at the notebook on his bed.

Maybe if he went out all of this would stop. Slipping on his coat and shoes, he started for the door. For a moment, he stared at his math homework. Sighing, he snatched it off of the bed, stuffing it into his backpack. Then he left the room.

-------

The man on the lobby chair slipped the brand new pair of Mitsubishi hi-res, full-emersion goggles off. Truely, they were one of the best things he'd found. They really let the player get into the game. The gasping and hard breathing had come through in surround vision. He was going to enjoy this. Smiling, he snapped the deck closed.

He heard a thump from the desk. The "girl" who'd been standing up there smiling had collapsed. These sims were so weak-willed here. No wonder the target had managed to get the girl and start to have the good life.

He didn't bother checking on her. Instead, he got out of there before the target managed to traipse on through again.

Adjusting his sweat shirt and jeans, he mumbled to himself. "Ryan, the fun is just starting."

Prime

Ryan set the alarm clock back on the shelf as the noise went dead. Between Christy, the elevator and now this he couldn’t get his mind to settle down. It kept looping the conversation over and over again. Was he going crazy? He’d gotten enough sleep. He’d brushed his teeth. He’d gone through his morning ritual like he always did every day.

I need to stop thinking about it. Reaching behind him, he picked up his book bag. Homework, he would do homework. Math would salve all of these problems.

Yanking out a textbook that could have doubled for a club, he started doing his homework. A notebook laid across his lap, he started sketching down the first problem. Variables splayed out on the page, he tried to make sense of them.

Dude, she's cheating on you.

His pencil stopped on the page. Somewhere along the way he’d made a mistake and now variables weren’t making any sense. Flipping his pencil over, he furiously erased what he’d written. He kept erasing until he wiped the lines away from the page, wearing the paper thin.
And he started again. Working through the problem step by step, switching through trig laws and derivations and integrals, his pencil scratched along the page.

Don't get angry.

The pencil tore through the page. “Darn it.” he muttered, tearing away the page. Starting the problem again, the symbols looked foreign. “Come on. Just focus on the problem. You’re just imagining things.” And now he was talking to himself.

Sucking in breath through his teeth, Ryan closed his eyes. Math had never failed him before, it wasn’t going to now. All he had to do was open his eyes and the follow the formulae. All he needed to do was take it a step at a time.

Opening his eyes slowly, he stared at the wall for a minute. He followed the pattern of the acoustic tile on the wall. The darker tiles made a diagonal traveling to the ceiling, six tiles up. Six was a good number, divisible by two or three. Two and three were good numbers too. Both of them prime and only divisble by themselves and one. Prime. He was prime, indivisible and unshakable.

And when he looked down at that paper he would be able to work through that problem like he’d worked through so many others. Why? Because Math was his life.

He lowered his eyes to the page.

He looked up and shook his head. Tearing the piece of paper out of the notebook without looking down at it again. His fingers shaking as he pulled it against the rings. He didn’t need to see that.
Because when he looked down at the paper, all he’d seen of his problem was a single line: Ryan divided by Alice equals one.

False Signal

She's cheating on you.

Ryan checked over his shoulder trying to find out where the noise came from. The words still boiling around behind his ears. He stood up and checked his bookshelves (all neatly ordered and alphabetized).

"She's cheating on you," The voice said again. It was louder this time and broken by bits of static. The only piece that was out of place on the shelves was a palm-sized blue IKEA alarm clock.

He stared at the tinny speaker in the back. Noise floated up through it in staticy chunks. A few notes from a saxophone peeked out between the bursts. A voice that was barely recognizable muttered. "What?"

Then he heard it again. "Dude, she's cheating on you." Then some more static, this time it was a lot louder. "... I didn't mean to see it... you should know."

His fingers started trembling, while his heart slammed in his chest. But he wanted to know, what these people were talking about. He needed the data. This time he could definitely hear people in the background, the sound of a band playing smooth jazz floating between them. Again the responder said. "I can understand."

"Don't get angry." Was that Chad?

"I'm not angry... I'm... I don't know what I am."

"You're pissed. I can tell. Just don't do anything stupid."

"Do I ever?"

Ryan's mouth started to dry out. He could picture the image in his mind, butt planted in the pleather bar stool next to Chad. People swinging around him, getting their drinks. He would be looking deep into a cup of coffee - watching the creamer swirl, fall down and rise back up to the top. As Chad answered. "Of course not. But you're kind of a golden boy, if you know what I mean. You haven't had something like this happen to you before."

"I'll be fine." The way he said it made Ryan know that he wasn't all right. That things would be heading south really soon.

Then the feedback kicked up, lancing him in his ear.