29. The Curator
The Curator
Dylan
Isaak might as well have vanished off the face of the Earth.
Another day went by.
She texted him. Called him. No answer.
She missed him.
She’d run out of tape after their last meeting, so she couldn’t even go look for him in the other place. Three days without jacking into the Tapeworld… She was starting to forget what it felt like to have her mind adrift in neonscapes.
Her parallel chats with Talia were a back and forth of “He still hasn’t replied”s and “Forget him”s.
Maybe he just didn’t want to see her anymore. She couldn’t believe he would just stop talking to her like that, after everything they’d been through, pulled into his heist, escaping those black spheres… Fuck.
Her friend kept telling her the sensible thing to do would be to forget him.
But since when had she ever been a sensible woman?
And sure, maybe he didn’t want to see her, but maybe he needed her help.
What if those things had got him? Or what if Astrid had turned on him?
Seeking revenge for his quitting, wanting the Gunkatana back.
She’d rather be spurned in person than let him suffer because of her cowardice.
The spying thing was icky. But she’d be happy to talk to him about it, hear his side, if it meant he’d be talking to her. Anything to hear his voice again, see him smile. IRL or in the Tapeworld – she didn’t care where.
Insides gnawing with worry, she began formulating a plan. She didn’t have his address, nothing besides his phone number, but she did know someone that might be able to help.
@dylan: dress posh, we’re going to find isaak.
@talia: it’s a workday, girl, I’m already dressed posh!
@dylan: meet me at this address after work, and bring the fancy camera drone you use for Jab
The above-average temperature meant lots of passersby visiting the museum franchises and eateries, despite the dark grey clouds high above, punctured by the skyscrapers in the city core.
Talia looked like a complete smokeshow, exhaling a puff of yellow-purple synthtube smoke.
She was wearing a double-breasted black faux-leather coat over a formal red cotton shirt, paired with fluid black satin trousers, flared at the bottom, covering knee-high black boots.
Dylan had told her to dress posh, and she had, looking like an action star from old vids.
They hugged when she arrived, and Talia did her whole spiel: We shouldn’t be looking for that deadbeat, but you’re my ride or die, so I’m with you all the way.
Dylan rang the doorbell and stepped quickly aside, leaving Talia in front of the intercom camera. Her anxiety was like an electric blanket installed under her skin, threatening to burst out.
“Fingers crossed,” she whispered.
“Just be cool.”
A voice crackled through the old speaker. “Hello? Yeah, I can see you.”
“Hi, Mr Vogel.” Talia’s voice buzzed with coffee energy. “I was wondering if I could have a chat? Do you know Jab?”
“The magazine? Sure, what about it?” He spoke in a guarded tone.
“I’m Talia Williams, associate editor. I heard from a friend that you make art installations now?
” Her eyes flicked to Dylan, who pointed her back to the camera lens.
“I’d love for you to present your work. It’s quite a story, a rising star of ReSports, becoming an abstract artist, speaking out of his soul.
Our scrollers just love that sort of content—”
The door buzzed.
“Please, come up!”
They walked through the door, letting it close behind them with a clank, the old air in the stairwell prompting Talia to cover her nose.
“That was easy,” she said. “Is he really that gullible?”
Dylan sighed. “I wasn’t sure it would work. But I figured it had a better chance than me turning up on his doorstep asking about Isaak and tape, especially after the other night…”
Talia nodded, and they continued up the stairs.
Just like before, Sacha was waiting on the landing for them, wearing his green tool vest.
“Miss Williams, please, come…” He stopped in his tracks. “Dylan?”
“Sorry, Sacha, I didn’t want to—”
Talia rushed to shake Sacha’s hand. “Dylan is the friend who told me about your art.”
He looked sceptical, but what could he really say with Talia there? His expression shifted to a smile. “Well, I guess you’d both better come in.”
He waved them inside. The kettle was boiling, and all the random electronics and gadgets and wires looked to be in different places than last time.
“Can I interest you ladies in a tea?”
“Yes, please!” Talia said.
While Sacha was occupied in the kitchen, Talia flashed a glance at Dylan, a huge grin on her face. “You didn’t mention how gorgeous all of Sacha’s… art is!”
Dylan swallowed a chuckle. Classic Talia. “Didn’t I? Well, I guess, Sacha, maybe you should show Talia around.”
He raised his hands, disarmed, voice weak. “Of course! And thanks for arranging this, Dylan. Maybe Isaak does do a decent thing from time to time, like finding you.” He handed out the teas.
Talia wrapped her arm around his, faux-leather sleeve squeaking. He led her into a room parallel to the one with the couches where they’d taped in last time. Dylan followed.
Isaak’s on-again-off-again friend showed them his work.
Abstract arrangements of all manner of mechanical contraptions, metaphors about the rampant technocratic capitalism that had led the planet to near ecological and systemic bankruptcy.
While at first Dylan couldn’t tell if Talia was feigning her interest in Sacha’s work, it soon became clear her friend was really into it, and into him.
Was that a coffee meet Talia just proposed? Sacha nearly spilled his tea cup.
“Sorry to interrupt…” Dylan said. Her friend gave her a sullen look. “But, Sacha, your art isn’t the only reason we’re here. I ran out of tape, can you just give me some—”
Sacha furrowed his brows, his already pink cheeks going red.
“Tape? I told you, I don’t do that anymore.
” He turned to Talia. “I don’t know what your friend’s talking about, Miss Williams.” He turned to her again.
“Please, Dylan. Just drop it.” He sounded exasperated, trying to impress Talia while admonishing Dylan at the same time.
“Please, Sacha, call me Talia…”
His gaze ping-ponged between the two of them.
“I don’t know what happened to Isaak,” Dylan said. “He stopped replying to my texts. I want to try and find him in the Tapeworld.”
Sacha glanced at Talia.
“Don’t worry, she knows all about it. It’s fine.” She would be so fucking pissed off if he kept up the act or didn’t cooperate.
He was silent for a moment before he said, “Okay, okay! I don’t know where he is. But you can’t just tape in and hope to find him, unless… you’re going to summon him?”
Dylan nodded. “That’s the plan.”
Sacha scratched his chin, deep in thought. “I have a better idea. Let me just check this thing…” He raised his phone, jabbed his fingers at it, swiped, swiped some more. “He’s home. At least, his phone is home. I have the address.”
Her anxiety wavered, melting into hope.
“Let’s go!”
Brixton and Oldton shared commonalities with many non-central boroughs.
The floor was plastered with fake chicken bones.
The walls had been dirty for fifty years, pre-rebellion.
Grime, dust, dirt accumulated on top of grime, dust, dirt.
Yet the people were genuine, for all the lack of council funding.
An antithesis to Dylan’s neighbourhood, which was further out of the central radius. Trees and semi-detached homes, the occasional park. Part of the cost of that was knowing too much about your neighbours, she thought. Less private life.
Dylan, Talia, and Sacha stepped out of the carriage.
“This is it, ladies.”
It was market day. Stalls lined the road beneath the raised train track, continuing all the way into the neighbourhood. There were stalls for cheap VR headsets, stimulant injectors, various hallucinogenics, vinyls, militaria, antiques, barbecue paraphernalia, comics, and old cameras.
They soon made it to Isaak’s. An ancient four-storey block of flats on a road full of other, similarly ancient, buildings.
“Should we ring?” she asked.
Sacha shook his head. “He hasn't replied to you for a few days, or to my message tonight. Something’s up.”
The implication of what he said made her insides hurt. “Then how are we going to get in?” She tried the front door as she spoke, and it immediately gave way.
“Like that!” Sacha gave her a know-it-all grin. “Top floor.”
“Is there a lift?” Talia looked around with a hopeful expression. There was a dingy-looking metal door at the end of the corridor.
But Sacha made for the stairs, ushering them to follow. “Death-trap.”
Three flights to the top. Nothing much for Dylan, but she felt sorry for Isaak, having to climb that every day with his injury. Poor thing.
They gathered around the door to his flat.
“I’ll make up an excuse if someone shows up. Get to it, guys,” Talia said. She stood at the mouth of the corridor.
“Get to what?” Dylan whispered. “Are we breaking in?”
“Shhh,” Sacha said, finger to his lips.
“I’m already whispering!”
Sacha knelt in front of the door, pulling two metal prongs of different lengths out of a pocket, and sticking them in the keyhole. A thunk of metal against metal. “I lock-picked the door but—”
“You did the lock already?!”
Sacha smiled. “You think I wear this tool vest because it’s fashionable?” He pushed the door open until it hit a chain. More than one chain was visible, and the opening was only a few inches wide, not large enough for any of them to fit through.
“What now? Have you got a blowtorch in there?”
He chuckled. “Sadly not. And no bolt-cutters or hacksaw either. We’ll never get in that way.” He looked around, and walked quietly back to the stairwell.
Talia looked confused, hissing, “What are you two doing?”
Dylan shrugged, looking to Sacha, who was peering out of the window.
“How do you ladies feel about heights?”
“Very little, if I’m honest,” Talia answered quickly.
“I respect them.”