FOR THREE DAYS, Dante watched shapeless patches of magnetism caper around the room like a shifting fractal. Field lines were everywhere, thinning and thickening in their cross-crossing interference patterns. And there were a lot of lines. After all, anything that uses energy generates magnetism. A laptop, a light bulb, a radiator, they all send out field lines, but they quickly get drowned out by Earth's own prevailing magnetic presence. Dante swatted at the lines, but they passed through his hand like holograms.

Now and then, a passing car cut through the dancing blobs outside and left a messy hairball of vectors in its slipstream. Occasionally, a sheet of magnetism from a solar flare would descend upon the atmosphere and compress the Earth's fields until it rebounded and then continued in its wild dance. Dante could sense when something turned on or off nearby. The tenants next door changed channels, and new magnetic eddies swirled around the antennae on their television set. The refrigerator upstairs switched circuits and the defrost timer came back to life for the third time in the last hour. Transient sparks of magnetism flew past his eyes like confetti. It was a light show that he couldn't shut out. He once read in a book that birds could use magnetic fields to assess their direction, location, and altitude while they flew. Poor bastards, he thought. He began to wonder how Misaka Mikoto dealt with this. A single line from a song he once heard repeated itself in his head:

Fucking magnets, how do they work?

Virgil was upstairs nursing a glass of red wine and reading a book, a fiction novel about a virus or something like that. It was thick but worth its weight in sweat. A real good way to spend some time, he said, and he meant that with sincerity. With three days already wasted, perhaps reading something might not be a bad idea after all, thought Dante.

His neck stiffened, and he looked around to see if Cerberus was anywhere, but he wasn't. The dog could tell when an attack was coming on. Two days ago, Dante woke up to the dog's slimy tongue on his face. It was four in the morning and darker than a smoker's lungs. His eyes adjusted slowly, and he hawked up a wad of phlegm that had built up in his throat for the past three hours. He spat it into the dustbin and then felt a tic start in his neck. The dog whimpered and straightened his tail as the tic expanded into his head and then the rest of his body. Yesterday, the same thing happened, except it was at midnight. Dante rubbed his neck, and the ache eased away.

The dog was outside searching for scraps. He had always been animal of the streets. Dumpsters provided shelter for the few years that he roamed The Strange, and his meals often consisted of nothing but what the restaurants threw out. Every night, Cerberus scratched on Virgil's door, and most of the time, he would come outside brandishing a broom and the German shepherd would squeal and find somewhere else to sleep. On rare occasions, he would let him in, and he would lie down on the linoleum, careful not to knock anything over. The last time he did that, Virgil threw a glass of wine at him and struck him square between the eyes. The dog didn't come back for a month, but then the nights grew longer and colder, and by the time he scratched on Virgil's door again, he had thinned out to his bare bones. This was four years ago.

That December, Virgil let Cerberus sleep in the kitchen. Sometimes, he allotted a small portion of his meal to the dog. On Christmas Eve, Virgil brought home a steak and left it bloody on the kitchen floor next to the sleeping dog. By morning, the floor was spotless and streaked with tongue marks. To Virgil, their relationship was not one of a master and owner. He provided Cerberus with a place to live and food to eat but only because the damned dog would not go away. He was a man who valued privacy more than companionship. The dog gradually grew to respect him but not to love him. He was as a child who lived with a father who beat him but would never grow old enough to forgive him. Dogs die too soon. But he was thankful towards Virgil for giving him sanctuary and sustenance, and it was in this thankfulness that Cerberus lived up to the reputation that dogs don't take things for granted.

But he was good to Dante. Another person may have mistaken that for a fake kind of friendliness, the kind of friendliness that imbues a conman's handshake as he feels through your wallet and steals a week's worth of wages. But the dog was good to him. Ever since Dante fed him the shish kabob meat, the dog waited nightly by Virgil's door for his return. Spoiling a dog, however, was worse than beating one. That was Virgil's philosophy, and Dante subscribed to it.

The magnetic field lines continued to swirl around the room as if they were in a cotton candy machine. Cerberus scratched on the door upstairs. Virgil grunted and then opened the door, mumbling something. The dog came downstairs, looked at Dante, scratched his ear with his hind leg, and then settled on the couch with a cathartic yawn.

Dante heard Virgil wheeze and then light another cigarette. He was a large man with weary eyes. Years of alcohol and nicotine had shredded his innards into mush, but he still had a nasty jab. It wasn't always like this, he'd said to Dante. And it was true. Dante had seen it himself. Trash didn't always line the curbs, and people still remembered how to smile. A long time ago, The Strange was a respectable place to live. Virgil ran a medium sized pub down the block. It was a cozy one-story tavern that used to be a grocery store. Green and white awning hung above a window with a mug of beer painted on it. The interior was wooden and dimly lit, and the smell of dry beer was everywhere. Bottles of every shape, size, and origin – France, Germany, Russia, among others – lined the shelves behind the bar. Waitresses smiled, patrons laughed, flies buzzed. On Friday nights, an occasional voice would rise above the chatter and shout, "Round o' beers on me!" and the bartender would get busy.

Virgil wore a three-piece suit to work when he was sober and a grey sweater when he wasn't. He drove a black Mazda for show and once buzzed his hair for a good laugh. He had been an important man with a loose entourage and some fair-weather friends that he kept around for fun. Dante's father was a regular at Virgil's bar, and the two men quickly grew to be buddies. When Dante was three, his father brought him to the bar and offered him a sip of vodka. He took a swig and vomited. The burly bodies around him laughed, and his father sent him on his way back home by himself.

On his way back, he passed the grey cemetery (the only cemetery in Academy City) and the equally grey penitentiary beside it. The old abandoned warehouses came next. The walls here were also drab, and Dante spotted people inside the building standing in a semi-circle around a tall man with red hair. It was the Big Spider gang. Dante squinted and saw nothing interesting. He shrugged and continued on his way. The color returned when he entered the residential area. He said hi to a few old folks sweeping their doorsteps. The neighborhood knew him as a good kid, and the kid knew it as a good neighborhood. The air was fresh, and the wind turbines turned in the distance.

Judgment began its crackdown on District 7 in November of 2005. Their official goal was to "suppress rampant gang activity", but Dante knew better. What motivated them was the same force behind hate crime or religious strife. Espers disliked non-espers. It was that simple. Dante remembered the raids. They were the last things he did remember before his memory crossfaded into a long stretch of nothingness. They started out small. A squad of five level-four espers would find an address that was given to them and go through the procedures that they read from their little handbooks. Early on, the squads gave warnings and ordered the gang members to come out. Most of them did. The ones who resisted were promptly paralyzed or burned or frozen. Some of them died, but no one in District 1 really cared. The higher ups there had bigger things to worry about. In response to the crackdown, many gangs joined forces and developed a warning system throughout the district. Whenever someone saw a uniformed squad enter The Strange, a call would be made to the underground gang centers. The gangs then escaped through back doors and dispersed throughout the district. By January, the squads began to take alternate routes to their destinations and raid only at nighttime. It was a horrible game of cat and mouse.

Virgil's bar remained busy until Judgment raided the gambling house across the street in late January. A week later, Judgment raided his bar and arrested two patrons. After that, people stop coming, and the bar closed down. Now, a dilapidated electronics store stood in its place. That bar was my baby, Virgil would say. He took a job as a clerk, but quit after a month. After that, he lived off of his savings, which wasn't much, but kept the collectors away. Yesterday, Dante offered to wire a billion yen into a bank account for him (using his electric abilities, of course). He refused and promptly poured himself another glass of bourbon.

Another wheeze from upstairs.

Dante put on his trench coat and yawned. The magnetic field lines had thinned out a bit, which meant the sun was setting. He lugged himself upstairs and found Virgil pouring himself another glass of wine at the kitchen counter.

"Leavin'?" he throated. Dante nodded and stepped for the door.

"You know," he started, "You know-" Virgil cut himself off mid-sentence and then smiled. He shook his head, chuckling to himself.

"What?"

"You know why your name's Dante?" he asked.

Dante told him he didn't.

"You may not 'member this, but you didn't get your name until you were six months old. See, your ma wanted to give you a Japanese name, and your pa wanted to give you an English name. So they let you decide. They named you after the very first words out of your mouth. Your ma kept saying Japanese to you, she did. Your pa did the same but with English names. One day, your pa brought you to the bar when you were only six months old. Not good parenting, yeah, I know, but what can you do, eh? Anyway, they brought you to my bar when you were six, and I remember that night. It was eight o'clock and it was blowing like a bitch outside, windy as all hell, and I took one look at you and I said to you, I said, 'dada'. And you scrunched up your little lips like sponges and said, 'Dante'. Oh, your father was laughing like a crazy man. He tossed you in the air and yelled, 'Dante! Dante!', and the crowd chanted with him. Hell, even I started saying it after the fifth or sixth time, you know? Then he bought a round for everyone. Damn, that was a good night, a good, good night. Outside was still windy. It started drizzling too, I think. Your pa came up afterward and actually shook my hand. He was on-his-ass drunk for sure, but he slurred out, 'He almost called you dada, Virgil. He likes you.' So he got me to promise to look after you if something happened. Well, something happened, and there you went. You were gone for five years, and when you came back, I was still here waiting. But I'm an old man now. I can't protect you, can't give you any advice except to be careful, can't help you besides that."

"You've done a lot for me, Virgil. I can thank you for that."

"My name sounds weird coming from you. You know, like a dog meowing. Anyway, you have something to do, and I can't stop you. Young souls are tough like that. I used to be one, believe it or not. Be careful, and don't be stupid. That's what I would've told myself, and that's what I'm telling you."

"And you. Will you be alright?"

"Yeah, I'll be alright. Don't worry about me. I got my thoughts to keep me company," he said, almost smiling.

Dante looked at his hands. They were old and hard. His fingers were yellow and far too large to thread a needle. He produced a phlegmy cough and sighed. Every single second that Virgil had experienced seem to aggregate in his eyes, which were like tarnished pennies. Dante wanted to take him away from that place. Grab his arm, shove him into a taxi, lock the doors, and drive him to another city, another country, anywhere but Academy City. But that would've been selfish. When the time came, Virgil just wanted to hold a book in his hands. It did make Dante sad, though, in a bittersweet kind of way. It can't be helped, he supposed.

"Don't get yourself killed," said Virgil.

And yourself, old man.

He turned and quietly closed the door behind him. That was the last time Dante saw him alive.

AUTHOR'S NOTES: Yeah, I probably should've wrote this a few chapters ago (the backstory and all), but oh well. I'm still learning how to structure a good story. It's winding down now, and I'm hoping to finish it by the time the second season finishes.