Soundhouse

By: SilvorMoon

Jack leaned against a wall and watched Yusei and Bruno loading up their supplies.

Like every courier, he knew all about tankers, and looked on them with a certain amount of scorn and a certain amount of pity. Courier cycles were built with one goal in mind, and that was to go from place to place as fast as humanly possible. Tankers, on the other hand, were built to carry large items or loads of cargo, or occasionally human beings, and that meant that they were sturdy to the point of being nearly indestructible. They also moved at a crawl, covering the space that Jack could cross in a day over the course of a week or more. He could and occasionally did drive rings around them when he was feeling like showing off.

Yusei and Bruno's "battleship" turned out to be an old tanker that they had obtained somehow or other, and apparently stripped down and refitted to their particular desires. It still had the armored hull, but the tank treads the original model had come with had been removed and replaced with large tires, and the insides had been gutted and refurbished with a variety of computer equipment. It would be a lot faster than a normal tanker, but still resilient enough to provide some protection against storms or monsters. There were also two cycles secured in the back, presumably in case they needed to make a hasty exit. Jack watched as Bruno revved it up and sent it lumbering up a ramp to the outside world.

Crow met them outside.

"Looks like we're ready to roll," he said. "Where to?"

"We're going to talk to someone who can hopefully tell us where to find the professor," said Jack.

"Works for me," said Crow. "Ready when you guys are."

Jack was prepared to be frustrated by the speed of the battleship, but much to his surprise, it rolled along at a good clip, with Bruno at the steering wheel and Yusei manning the computers, guiding their course and occasionally radioing instructions or warnings to Jack and Crow when difficult terrain came up ahead. After a while, Jack began to relax. His life revolved around having a series of destinations and moving towards them, and it was good to finally know where he was going.

At least he was going somewhere that sounded interesting. He had been listening to Carly's voice for years, and now he was going to meet her face to face. As he rolled steadily over the featureless terrain, he whiled away some time by wondering what she looked like. The other women, the ones who ran the sex-talk programs, always described themselves as impossibly gorgeous, with measurements that bordered on the unreal and hair of whatever color was trendy this month, but he doubted they actually looked like that in real life. Or maybe some of them did - perhaps if you were impossibly gorgeous, living alone in a soundhouse was preferable to living in a city and being ogled all day.

He couldn't picture Carly that way, though. She had to have some imperfection to her - had to have an unsightly birthmark or crooked teeth or overlarge ears, something that would place her squarely within the realms of reality, like the flaws that the artisans purposely put into rugs or art glass to show that they had been made by human hands. He wanted her to be a real person.

While he was daydreaming, he let his cycle pull up ahead of the battleship. The team had been keeping to a relatively straight course, after all, and Yusei was still comfortably within radio distance. As long as he could still see his companions in the rearview mirror, he felt comfortable with driving ahead of them. The need for speed was a hard habit to break. He almost didn't notice when the wind started picking up.

"Jack, wait up." Yusei's voice cut into his thoughts, hissing with static through his helmet's receiver. "Our radar is picking up a storm building through here. You need to get under cover."

Jack stopped his cycle, skidding and kicking up a cloud of dust that was swiftly snatched away by the wind. He looked up at the sky. The smooth gray clouds that had been no more than a pleasant shade from the sun a few moments ago were now taking on the tell-tale spiral shape that meant a spirit storm was on its way. Jack swore. The vortex wasn't tight enough yet that he was in danger, but that could change at any second. He revved his engine and began driving back towards the battleship at top speed. Even if though he had gotten well ahead of them, it should only take a matter of seconds to backtrack.

"Jack, look out!"

Yusei's exclamation was all the warning he got before a shadow fell over him.

That was the other danger of spirit storms: they attracted monsters.

Jack risked a look over his shoulder, and immediately wished he hadn't. A monster was sailing through the sky above him, moving with an ease and speed that put his cycle to shame. It looked like a dragon straight from an old storybook - a reptilian thing with broad wings and a body covered in red and black scales. Its horned head moved from side to side as it scanned the ground below it, but it always kept pace with Jack.

"Damn it," he muttered. "Yusei, can your battleship contraption stand up to that?"

"I don't know. We've never tried," Yusei admitted. "Not with something that big."

"Fine," said Jack. "Just get out of the way, then."

He executed a sudden swerve, and the dragon dipped its wings and followed him, roaring with what Jack could only imagine was excitement at pursuing its prey.

You want a chase? Then let's have one!

Jack wove his way across the wasteland, dodging rocks and ruts, executing hairpin turns. His plan was to distract the monster - to shake it off his trail entirely if possible, but if not, to keep it away from the others long enough for them to find some sort of safety.

A gust of wind pushed him hard enough to make his cycle wobble, and he gritted his teeth and forced it upright again. The storm was picking up its tempo. At this rate, even if he wasn't eaten by a dragon, he might well find himself caught in the storm. Of the two possibilities, the storm worried him more. He might yet save himself by finding a rut to hide in, something narrow enough that the dragon couldn't reach him. Monsters were dangerous, but they were essentially a physical threat, and could be understood by normal physical laws. No one seemed to know what the spirit storms did. Anyone who had the misfortune to get caught in one was rarely seen again. Sometimes their cycle or a stray scrap of clothing might turn up, dropped somewhere further down the line, but bodies usually just vanished. The ones that did reappear tended to be crushed and broken, as though dropped from a great height. Neither possibility was one that Jack wanted to gamble on.

The wind was blowing steadily now. Jack could see the center of the storm growing darker, becoming visible as a solid column of dust. More trails of dust and rubble were being drawn into the vortex. He stared at it in fascination. No, it wasn't spinning, the way a tornado would. It was a perfectly straight and stationary column, pulling a steady stream of air and debris towards it as though it were a magnet and they were iron filings. It was as though someone had pulled a plug in the sky and the world was draining out. What kind of thing could do that?

Whatever it was, Jack didn't want it. He tried to angle himself away from the heart of the storm, but the winds fought him. It wasn't just the wind, either. He could feel the force of the storm on his skin, now, and pulling at his hair and clothes, as though he was being drawn along by strands of invisible glue. He fought it. He gunned his cycle's engine and tried to pull away, but his tires spun uselessly on the sandy ground. He realized in a flash that he was already too late; that he was already past the point of no return. He fought the futile urge to throw himself from his cycle, as though the storm might be satisfied to take that and leave him. He wished the monster would come eat him and get it over with.

The center of the storm was only a few yards away now, and approaching rapidly. Clouds of dust billowed around him, making vision all but impossible, even with the visor of his helmet protecting his eyes. He couldn't see the ground anymore, but he could feel that the storm was pulling him gently upwards, so that his cycle bobbed and bounced and finally left the earth altogether. The irrelevant thought slipped through his mind that he was at least going to learn what it felt like to fly before he died.

Then he passed into the eye of the storm, and his vision cleared. He was inside a tall funnel of air and dust. Instinctively, he looked upwards, straining for a look at the sky, and he thought he saw sunlight, bright and glowing and... green? There was something green up there, bright as an emerald, and he squinted at it, trying to get a better look.

Something slammed into him. It hit him with such force that at first he thought the storm had picked up a rock and sent it hurtling at him, but then he realized that whatever had struck him now had hold of him. It was the dragon, of course, apparently answering Jack's earlier wish to eat him. Ignoring the storm, the dragon dropped to the earth, landing awkwardly on its hind legs, with Jack in one claw and his cycle in the other. Jack struggled, but the monster was stronger than he was. He wondered if it would kill him swiftly or play with him a bit first.

It did neither. It lowered Jack gently to the ground and crouched over him, shielding him from the storm with its wings. It was like being inside a very large, warm, breathing tent. Jack sat perfectly still, waiting for whatever came next.

The storm ended with a sudden silence. One moment, the wind was howling, and the next, everything was completely calm. The dragon looked around a bit, reassuring itself that all was well. Then it rose back on its hind legs and looked down at Jack, and all at once, he knew for certain that this creature wasn't going to eat him. It wasn't going to hurt him at all. Its eyes were utterly inhuman, but there was more intelligence in them than he'd seen in some people, and no malice whatsoever. Jack stood up and dusted himself off.

"Thanks," he said, because friendly or not, a dragon was something to be treated politely.

The dragon dipped its head in response, then launched itself into the air and flapped away. Jack stood and watched it go, and he wondered.

A few minutes later, the rest of the group pulled up next to him. Crow screeched to a halt and vaulted off his cycle.

"Are you crazy?" he shouted. "Man, you could have gotten yourself killed! I thought we were trying to avoid that."

"I think I did well, considering I had a storm on one side and a monster on the other," said Jack.

Crow punched him lightly on the shoulder. "Man, you are the luckiest bastard I ever saw. I thought you were a goner for sure."

"I lead a charmed life," said Jack dryly. "Can we get going before anything else tries to kill us?"

"Not a bad idea," said Crow. "But hey, just for kicks, maybe you should ride in the tank for a while."

Jack considered.

"Not a bad idea," he said.

Evening was drawing near by the time they saw the soundhouse in the distance. Jack was mildly intrigued. He had never been inside a soundhouse before. Each major city had a broadcast station that existed mainly to send out basic news to be picked up and passed on by the neighboring soundhouses, but most of the real work was done by stations that were scattered far afield, and he'd never had any reason to go near one. It looked like every other safe house he'd ever been to, a squat and heavily reinforced building not unlike a miniature colony dome, except for the antenna. Just now, it was standing proudly above the structure, though he'd been told that the device could be withdrawn into the safety of the building if a storm or some other threat appeared.

Crow pulled up alongside of him.

"Looks like we're in luck. We get to sleep indoors tonight," he said cheerfully. "Nice of you to pick out a woman for us to visit. Do you suppose she's cute?"

"That's not the point," said Jack, "and I have no idea and I don't care."

Crow laughed. "Hey, if you don't want her, maybe I stand a chance."

They pulled up to the door of the soundhouse and parked their vehicles. Out of curiosity, Jack tried his passcard in the slot by the door, and was surprised to see the machine spit it out again. He looked to Yusei and Bruno, who were getting out of their battleship.

"Tech people, a little help?" he asked.

Bruno walked over to the security mechanism to give it a closer look. He was just reaching under his vest for a tool when the door suddenly slid open.

"I didn't do anything!" said Bruno, raising his hands to show his innocence.

"Who cares?" Jack retorted. "It's open. Let's get inside before someone changes their mind."

They pulled their vehicles into the airlock. It was a small one, barely large enough for the battleship, and Crow and Jack were forced to park their cycles inside the larger machine to make everything fit. Once they were safely inside, the inner door opened, and a young woman came bursting out.

"I'm so sorry I made you wait!" she said. "I don't usually have visitors. Um... who are you guys, anyway?"

Jack looked at her. Down at her - she barely came up to his shoulder. He scrutinized her, trying to work out whether or not she was attractive. It wasn't something he could decide as a snap judgment. Her clothes had clearly been chosen for durability and ease of movement, rather than fashion, but the figure cloaked by them was shapely. Her hair was in an unflattering angular cut, but it still had an attractive gloss to it and looked thick and soft. Her face was half-hidden by a pair of thick spectacles, but the eyes he could see behind them were bright with intelligence, and her skin was smooth, without wrinkles or blemishes. Jack was not much in the habit of staring at women, but he thought he could get used to the idea of looking at this one. She rewarded a closer look.

Yusei stepped in and took over the task of making conversation.

"I'm Yusei," he said, "and these are my friends Bruno, Crow, and Jack. We were hoping you'd share some information with us about one of your reports."

"Hi. Nice to meet you," she said. "I'm..."

"Carly Nagisa," Jack filled in. "I recognize your voice."

"Oh, yeah, I guess that makes sense," she said, flushing slightly. "Anyway, I guess as long as you're here, you might as well come in."

She beckoned them out of the airlock and into her domain. It was not a very big place, Jack noted - it reminded him strongly of a more orderly version of Yusei and Bruno's home. Apparently they felt the same way; he could see them looking around and nodding with approval. There was a little living area off to one side, with some chairs and a scrap of rug, but it looked like it didn't get used much for sitting. Papers had been scattered all over every flat surface, piled as though someone had intended to organize them and had never gotten around to finishing. There was a shelf tucked between the two chairs, holding what appeared to be a well-worn collection of books. He ambled closer, carefully avoiding the heaps of paper, and inspected the titles; they all had names like The Desert Wanderer and The Adventures of the Lone Rider. Beyond the sitting area, an arched doorway showed him a glimpse of an equally well-used kitchen, with plates and dishes piled wherever they would fit.

In contrast, the other side of the building was almost fanatically well-organized. Through another arched door, Jack could see rows and rows of shelves, each containing flattish boxes that he guessed were recordings of some sort. They seemed to have color-coded labels on them, though he didn't quite dare to go in there and find out more about them. It wasn't the kind of place that looked like it welcomed intruders. Against one wall, almost out of his range of vision, stood a bank of computer monitors, flickering and humming to themselves. At the center of everything was a spiral staircase, leading up into the unknown.

"Sorry it's such a mess," said Carly. "If I'd known you were coming, I would have cleaned up a little." Something about the guilty way she said it made Jack guess that no, she probably would have gotten interested in something along the way and ended up with nothing more than good intentions.

"That's okay," said Crow. "We weren't expecting a luxury hotel."

Bruno nodded. "Like he said, we just came to ask some questions. We won't stay long."

Carly gestured at the chairs under their blankets of paper. "You can sit down. Just shove stuff out of the way."

Yusei, Bruno, and Crow dug seats for themselves. Jack opted to lean against the bookshelf, not yet ready to make himself at home here. Carly sat cross-legged on the floor in a manner that suggested she was accustomed to doing so, and began distractedly sifting through the nearest stack of papers.

"So what did you want to know?" she asked.

"Jack tells us that you recently aired a lecture by a Professor LeBlanc," said Yusei.

Carly nodded. "That's right. He was talking about whether monsters are sentient. Do you want me to play it for you?"

"That's all right," said Yusei. "What we really want is to find Professor LeBlanc. Can you tell us where the recording came from?"

"Sure, that's easy," she said. "It came from the university at the Cavalier colony. I have a deal with them."

"Perfect," said Bruno. "So we just need to go to Cavalier and visit the university. Or one of us does, anyway."

Yusei put a hand over one of Bruno's. "You had better not do anything to draw attention to yourself."

"So send Jack," said Crow. "He's still a hotshot courier. Just tell 'em he has a delivery for someone in the university and they'll let him right in."

Carly gave Jack an intrigued look. "You're a courier? Does that mean you're Jack Atlas?"

"You've heard of me," he said, nodding his head in acknowledgement.

"Well, yeah, of course I've heard of you! You're famous!" she gushed. "I mean, everybody tells stories about you, and I hear everything that gets broadcasted. Wow, I can't believe I'm meeting you in person. You look just like I imagined..."

"So do you," said Jack.

She blushed crimson. "You mean you... that is..."

Crow rolled his eyes. "Oh, boy, here we go."

Jack shot him a look, and Carly pushed her glasses up her nose self-consciously.

"Sorry," she said. "I don't really get to meet a lot of people out here."

"It's all right," said Yusei, looking amused.

"So, are you guys going to visit a while?" she asked. "I mean, it's getting late out now - the university is probably all closed up for the day. Wouldn't it be better if you stayed the night and set out in the morning? I don't mind fixing breakfast."

"Well, we are kind of in a..." Bruno began, and Crow stepped on his foot. "I mean, I guess we could stay a while."

"I wouldn't mind having a look around the station," said Yusei. He and Bruno were already gravitating towards the computers Jack had glimpsed in the other room.

"I guess that would be all right," said Carly. "The broadcasting studio is upstairs. That room over there is just the library and the receiver. The trapdoor in the kitchen leads to the pantry - there's food down there if you want it."

"Are you sure that's okay?" Crow asked. "I wouldn't want us to eat you out of house and home."

She waved him towards the kitchen. "It's fine. They feed us keepers pretty well, I guess to make up for us not getting to go to the city. And I have tankers drop by every couple of days anyway, so I won't have to wait long for more."

"That's all I need to hear," said Crow. He stood up and winked at Jack. "You two have fun. Don't do anything I wouldn't do."

Jack raised his chin. "I have no idea what you're talking about."

"If you guys are staying the night, I guess I'd better see if I can find somewhere for you to sleep," said Carly. "I'll go see if I can find some spare blankets or something. Be right back!"

She scrambled up the staircase and disappeared. Crow glanced at Jack and raised an eyebrow.

"Well?" he asked. "Aren't you going to follow her?"

"Why would I do that?" Jack asked, puzzled.

Crow rolled his eyes. "Come on, don't play dumb. You haven't taken your eyes off her since you got here, and she's obviously into you. You've got the whole mutual admiration society thing going on. You ought to talk to her."

"About what?"

"Geez, man," said Crow. "You spend too much time on the road or something. A cute girl's got her eye on you. Aren't you interested at all?"

"Well..."

"Shoot, for all you know, you might be dead tomorrow. Might as well have some fun while you can," said Crow. "As for me, I'm going to have dinner. Good luck, champ."

"I don't need good luck, because I'm not going to do anything," said Jack, but Crow was already walking away. Jack huffed and stalked off.

But not far. With Crow in the kitchen and Bruno and Yusei in the control room, there wasn't much privacy to be had. The only way to go was up. He contemplated the stairs for a moment. After a moment, he shrugged and began to climb. At least there would be something at the top that he hadn't seen before.

The second floor was another donut-shaped space, with a lot of equipment in the center that he guessed was for extending and retracting the antenna. The rest of the area was lined with doors, one of which was standing open. Jack could hear noises inside, so he peeked into it. Carly was there, moving things around. Apparently the room, while originally conceived as a bedroom, had been converted to storage space instead, and Carly was busy trying to clear a trail through it.

"Need help?" he asked.

"Huh? Oh!" she said. "Um... I guess that couldn't hurt."

Jack began moving boxes, stacking them in a pile in one of the corners. Carly worked on the other side of the room, shooting him glances when she thought he wasn't looking.

"Can I ask you a question?" he asked.

"Sure, I guess," Carly replied.

"Who writes those adventure stories you read on your show?"

She blushed. "I did. I guess it's kind of presumptuous to read my own work on the air but..."

"No, it's not," he said. "They're good. I listen to them a lot."

"Oh!" she said. "Wow. Thanks! That... that means a lot to me."

"I'm surprised you're not living in one of the bigger colonies, writing for a paying audience," said Jack. "You could do it. What are you doing out here?"

"To tell the truth... well, I grew up on stories about couriers. I wanted to be one," she said. "You know, traveling the world, bringing the news to people... but I couldn't pass the physicals." She pushed her glasses up her nose self-consciously.

Jack shook his head, feeling an unaccustomed stab of sympathy. One of the requirements for a courier was that they had to have vision good enough to drive safely without any sort of eye-gear. There were too many ways a pair of glasses could be lost or broken out in the wilderness, and if you couldn't see to drive without them, you were as good as dead.

"So after that," she continued, "I figured my options were to either drive a tanker or run a soundhouse, and I liked the soundhouse idea better. At least here, I'm still delivering the news."

Jack nodded. "You'd have been wasted on a tanker."

She smiled. "You know... I based the main character off the stories I heard about you."

"Somehow, that doesn't surprise me as much as it should," Jack said. "But it does surprise me that you never wrote a woman into his life."

"It didn't feel right," she said. She turned a little away, avoiding meeting his eyes. "I guess I always imagined myself that way... it would have been too personal to put on the air for everyone to hear. I guess that's not very realistic, though, is it? I mean, somebody like you probably has dozens of girlfriends, right?"

"No," he said. "Actually, I haven't."

Despite a lot of fiction that had been written over the years, the life of a courier was not a particularly romantic one. They didn't socialize much, beyond their mandated rest periods, and there was no predicting when any given one of their number would return to a particular colony, or if they'd ever come back at all. When it came to attachments, they seemed to fall into three categories: the ones who had a lover in every city, the ones who were faithful to someone they might only see a few days out of every year, and the ones who never took the trouble to get involved. Jack was in the latter category. He was not a sociable man by nature, and the idea of letting even an attractive stranger put her hands all over him made him uneasy. He had always told himself that he was a courier, and that meant that his life would be an unattached one by necessity.

"That sounds lonely," said Carly softly.

"It wasn't that bad," he said. "That's what you're here for, isn't it? The voice in the wilderness that talks to us all and keeps us sane. That's what they all say."

It occurred to him that he was still talking like he was a courier, and that it was no longer true. He wasn't sure what he was anymore, but the odds of him ever going back to being one were getting slimmer by the day. But now, for the first time, he was beginning to wonder if maybe it wouldn't be all bad. His old life had been a lonely one. He wasn't sure who he was going to be from now on. Maybe the new Jack had relationships.

It was possible that Crow had a point. Not that he was going to admit that. Not to him, anyway.

"I'm just the one who reports the news and weather," said Carly. "I would have figured if you'd listen to the other ladies if you wanted... you know."

"You're the one I listened to," he said. "You're the one who told me the things I needed to stay alive, and the one who gave me something to think about besides how many miles it will be until the next rest stop. Even if we've never met before now, I feel like you've been a good friend to me."

She blushed. "You don't even know me."

"You don't know me either," he pointed out. "And by tomorrow, I'll probably be gone again. But for what it's worth, we've got tonight to get to know each other."

"I guess you're right," she said. She smiled, suddenly and brilliantly, like someone who has just realized that things are much better than she realized. "Let's get to know each other then."

To Be Continued