What do you get when you cross a dead vehicle with a whole pile of work deadlines with a less-than-deadly lingering illness?
Who cares? There's a new chapter! :-D
I hope you enjoy!
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"Well, follow all of them, and then you won't have to wonder." FP smirked.
Of course he was smirking.
This was not just a sensitive situation that required a deft touch and the ability to predict several moves into the future – and counter every possibility before anything could arise.
Nope. This was apparently also fun.
Brand bit back a retort; it wasn't like it would serve any purpose and, dang it all, FP was right.
Giving Brand a lengthy list of orders and ensuring that they were a dizzying mix of vital, helpful, and completely useless would achieve their three desired outcomes:
FP's strategy would be set into motion.
Brand could not easily figure out the heart of FP's machinations.
Nobody would be able to read into Brand's movements and make an educated guess at the master plan.
All the same…
"You're asking an awful lot when it comes to Dax. I can't help but wonder if you could maybe…" The smirk was widening, so Brand chose his words carefully, "...save us both a lot of time, and potentially get more accomplished, by just acknowledging that that one item on the agenda is merely for your own personal amusement, and not in any way-,"
"I have spoken." FP's smirk was approaching grin territory and showed no signs of slowing down. "There is nothing left for you to do but obey. Or, you know, you could salute if it makes you more comfortable about following orders."
Oy.
"Sarah isn't going to like it either-,"
Crap. Brand realized a moment too late that this approach would yield him precisely nothing: FP knew that Sarah liked Dax, for whatever her completely unknowable reasons might be.
"Shoo." FP chuckled as he waved Brand away.
Brand figured that was that. He heaved a sigh, deciding to just do what FP wanted and hope for the best. However, before he did that…
"Have you heard anything at all from Jones today?"
All traces of mirth disappeared from the old man in an instant. It would have been gratifying if it hadn't meant that their worst case scenario was still their reality: they had been unable to make contact with the kid since receiving his tainted information dump the night before.
It was now late afternoon. The first concert had gone off without a hitch – and without the kid. The second concert was coming up in a few short hours.
It had been far too long. Something was wrong, and new dire possibilities were occurring to Brand with every hour of silence that passed.
If the kid's head injury had damaged something vital, there might have been a delay before his heart simply stopped. Jones would have been fine right up until he was overcome by the telltale feeling of panic – a warning that would last for just enough time for the kid to realize that something was very wrong.
Jones would have had time to wonder why his father and godfather were not there to help… and then he would have slipped into unconsciousness and never reawakened.
"Well, now you look like you're taking things seriously. Good. You know exactly what you can do to help," FP said in a low, grave tone.
And, yes; Brand did. He had just been given a hefty list of orders to start working his way through.
Not to mention keeping up with his day job.
But first he needed to go collect Sarah from where she'd been keeping an eye on the band while FP and Brand had conferred. Brand did not relish lying to her again, but he did have to admit that she was rolling with things a lot more ably than he could have hoped.
Man, she was a class act. And good at what she did.
Brand shot FP one last look, but that was all the reminder he needed of why they were playing things this way. As frustrating as it was for Brand, it was the best possible protection for Sarah. And for that payout, he would put up with an awful lot.
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FP braced himself. He'd distanced the others from what he was doing and he'd shielded them from fallout as well as he knew how, but that didn't make his next step a whole lot easier.
Taking a deep breath, he said the words that would change everything: "I need help."
"What do you need?" She didn't hesitate, and her voice was surprisingly gentle. Even the words were unexpectedly supportive.
FP wondered for a split second whether it would be that simple. Whether it could really be that easy.
But the answer seemed all too clear and damning: it never was.
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So far, nothing. The search has been fruitless and everyone had been as closed-mouthed as Clark about Jughead's whereabouts and condition.
There were just a few hours remaining before the band's dinner and sound check would begin, and Archie wanted to use that time as wisely as he could.
There was one other source of information that Archie was pretty sure he could tap - and maybe nobody else could, or not in the same way.
Breaking Fast.
While most of the tour had been explicitly banned from disrupting their midday meeting, Archie was almost certain of a warm welcome if he wandered in.
What they could possibly know about Jughead was the question.
But Archie did have another question that he didn't mind getting answered.
"Hey, Arch! Great dancing. I want to review the official tour footage and get the full experience," Paul greeted Archie immediately, lighting up.
Archie had choreographed some simple movements that looked really striking when the whole band executed them in unison - and he had changed up the order of the set list so he, Kevin, and and Veronica could mirror a few movements, do an easy-but-showy slide, and change relative positions onstage - ending in front of the correct microphone for the next song.
Alice had even tweaked their costumes so Archie's shirt and Veronica's sleeves trailed dynamically as they moved, in a way that even Gunnar had admitted was visually arresting.
Betty was releasing her photographs of the concert right now, since the debut was behind them and the press was slavering for decent quality images.
It was cool. It brought another dynamic into the full experience.
Archie found that he could not care all that much, though, as long as he could not locate Jughead.
"Thanks, man. Our official photographer is getting photos out this afternoon and probably a video clip. It isn't actually that fancy, but we put some work into it." Archie smiled, watching Paul closely. A careful read of the room would likely serve him well in this conversation.
"You are way too modest. Simple is often the hardest thing to pull off," Paul disagreed with a grin. He stretched in his chair, arching his back and then reaching over his head to stretch his arms and shoulder. "I need to pick your brain, so I am glad to see you. But first, what actually brings you here?"
Archie relaxed his shoulders and moved toward the chair closest to Paul, intentionally mimicking the older singer's casual posture. He sat heavily and leaned back to stretch his own back. He made his voice as natter of fact as he could. "I wanted to find out who the drugs were really for."
The careful approach must have worked: Paul laughed heartily, and without hesitation.
"You caught that, huh? Well, there are only two lead singers on tour and sooner or later the curse was going to miss its mark." Paul's back cracked and he made a satisfied sound. "It didn't get you into any trouble, did it? Because I have some ideas of who might have sent it and what they were trying to do."
Archie shrugged, but he made careful eye contact as he answered: "Only a little. Who do you think it was?"
"Our security team was probably behind it. They like to play games sometimes, and do a little red teaming."
Archie made his expression blank, as if the term were new to him, but in reality he'd heard more than he ever needed to know about the practice from Jughead and Brand. It was often the excuse they used for pranking each other.
Paul took the bait and kept explaining, spilling more information in the process. Yeah, Clark's training must be working well, if this was any indication - Archie was pretty sure he was seeing what a complete lack of op sec training looked like.
And it was darn convenient since he was hunting for information that people should normally know better than to share.
By the time Paul had explained the theory behind red teaming, or attacking one's own defenses to identify any vulnerabilities, he had related several stories as examples - about prior tours, his marriage and the complications that had led to, and at least three separate occasions when the band had caught their actual security team attempting something illegal or unethical.
Seriously. And they remained employed.
Moreover, the security team did not even realize that the band knew about those incidents.
"Why?" Archie asked, trying not to sound shocked and horrified. "Why didn't you fire them the first time they did anything like that?"
"We had to replace our entire security team after Madrid. Obviously. So we get that we have to train Dax and his crew, and that means letting them make mistakes and move on. It's better without us micromanaging and getting into their business. I mean, considering the curse, they do amazingly well. And who else would we get, under the circumstances?"
Archie frowned, wondering for a split second if Paul was making all of this up, but the unblinking gaze seemed too sincere. Yikes. "You're, um, completely sure that they're red teaming and not, you know, uh... sabotaging the tour?"
Paul laughed again, apparently completely at ease with the idea that his security team might be a bunch of inept professionals at best - and criminals at worst.
"They have total access," Paul said, motioning broadly with his hands to indicate how far that access extended. "They could take the tour apart at the seams. If Dax didn't want the tour to succeed, it would be shut down by the end of the day."
Oh. Okay. That actually made sense.
It also bothered Archie to realize that the same was almost certainly true of Brand. The tour was only continuing because Brand was allowing it to, and under the circumstances that was actually kind of big of him.
Man, Archie hated feeling indebted to the guy.
He also hated assuming that anything going wrong on the tour was the product of a curse. Or a red team training exercise that hadn't quite gone off without a hitch.
Something about that seemed less 'optimistic' than 'willfully blind.'
Archie bit his lip. He had another card he could play here. "So. Madrid was bad."
Paul nodded emphatically. "The absolute worst. Never again, Archie. Not ever."
"You know that Veronica and I are..." Archie trailed off and channeled all of his acting skills when he made eye contact again. "You know; serious. So. Do you have any advice? How are you dealing with the possibility that it could happen again? That it's freakishly common in bands?"
Paul sat up straighter and was suddenly more serious than Archie had ever seen the man.
"Okay. Straight talk. We put a lot of time and effort into this, and we never, ever talk about it. But you have made this tour a springboard into a new era for the band. So I am gonna give it to you straight."
Archie leaned forward eagerly to listen.
And wow, did Paul ever have advice. And one hell of a story to go with it.
Archie couldn't help but see the wisdom in Paul's approach, and he wondered if he could do the same with his friends and his family. Maybe he could. Maybe this was going to change everything.
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Betty held up her camera, framing the gorgeous wooden doors and thinking about the many, many people who had passed through them before… and those who would pass through them today, on their way to the evening's concert.
This freeze frame of the middle of things – looking back, but also forward – suddenly felt momentous.
The tour was going by so quickly, and with so much drama that it was almost possible to miss how much it had done to grow the band and their following in unexpected and almost impossibly accelerated ways.
Archie was suddenly being hailed as a genius for his quirky mid-concert surprises and their consistently high quality.
Veronica's cult following was growing as more and more fans thronged to praise her vocals, her stage presence, her mannerisms. There was a groundswell of curiosity about her perspective on the band and the tour, and Betty would not be at all surprised if a petition was circulating to get Veronica to appear on an interview show to share her side of all of the excitement.
Gunnar had been working to establish himself as a solid working drummer who was respected by longstanding bands, and his success at that had been augmented by his performances on this tour. His reputation was strongest among the musician magazines and websites, and in marked contrast to the press surrounding Archie and Veronica, which centered on their current abilities and accomplishments, there was a lot of talk about potential.
It was obnoxiously clear that the media assumed Archie and Veronica had peaked, and were a viral flash in the pan, but that Gunnar was the real deal and had hidden depths.
Oh well. Time would tell, and Betty had faith that it would treat the whole band fairly – and hopefully very, very well.
Betty felt her phone vibrate in her pocket. It was probably her father again, a thought that tempted her to turn the phone off entirely…
But she needed to check, on the off chance that she was needed for something related to the tour.
Huh.
Gladys Jones of all people was reaching out, asking how she was doing.
Weird.
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Brand walked up to Dax, Sarah almost breathing down his neck, she was so close on his heels.
Her words still echoed in Brand's head, too: 'be nice.'
He was always nice. It was basically his Achilles' heel.
"Gonna need my intern back, Dax," Brand said shortly, ignoring Dax's raised eyebrows and the judgmental sweep of the man's eyes over Brand.
What was there to judge? Brand wondered incredulously.
When Dax did not respond right away, Brand spoke again: "Now."
Sarah nudged him from behind, a movement that Dax did not miss – and which caused him to smirk.
Unhelpful, Brand thought, but he kept his expression still.
"That so?" Dax sounded exactly pitch perfect bored-and-belligerent, as if he'd watched one too many mainstream military films and thought that real people actually sounded like that.
"I'll get him myself," Brand said with a rough exhalation of breath. "Where is the kid?"
"You don't know?" Dax's smirk widened at whatever Quinn's expression was doing behind Brand. His eyes were dark with malice, though, and it seemed to Brand that he was on edge.
Hmmm. Maybe something was up.
FP had probably anticipated this being a problem when he'd ordered Brand to confront Dax about returning Jones to their security team.
"Well, I guess that means when he took off he didn't run to you." Dax's eyes narrowed as he spoke, and he began studying Brand as if he were composed of hieroglyphs.
Huh. It almost seemed like Dax thought Brand knew what was up and was intentionally messing with him.
Which would be an effective ploy if Dax had tied Jones to a chair and stuffed him in a hotel closet. Or maybe Dax had slipped something into the kid's food and then shoved his limp body into a suitcase and sent it ahead to their next venue.
Nausea rose in Brand. He tried to squelch the mental images; it was entirely possible that FP had already sent in someone (Clark maybe?) to extract the kid and was orchestrating this tense set of interactions for a purpose that had nothing to do with getting Jones back where they could keep an eye on him.
But it was also entirely possible that FP was having an attack of intuition and had sent Brand because Dax had figured out the kid's cover and taken him out of the picture.
Yeah, this was probably what the situation would look like in either case.
Brand glowered at Dax, hoping the man would give any indication whatsoever whether he was bluffing – claiming that Jones had disappeared from his floor and team – or if the kid had actually left Dax's team under his own power.
"Where did you see him last?" Sarah asked urgently. "We could really use him."
Dax shook his head. "You're messing with me. You know exactly where he is, don't you?"
"No," Sarah insisted.
"For the record, you are selling the wide-eyed innocence way too hard," Dax retorted flatly. "Leave me alone."
The man turned away. He strode off. He shot one baleful look back at them before he turned a corner.
Hmmm. Brand rubbed the back of his neck as he considered the possibilities.
"Is Jughead... missing?" Sarah asked unhelpfully.
Or maybe it was helpful in ways that FP had predicted, but that completely eluded Brand at this moment in time. He tried to weigh the information he had and find any pattern that made sense.
"Nah," Brand finally decided. His eyes narrowed in the direction in which Dax had disappeared. "He knows exactly where the kid is."
Sarah looked confused for a moment, but almost immediately her expression turned frustrated. "Is this some kind of a game between you two?"
"No." Brand didn't need to ask if she meant between himself and Jones or himself and Dax; either way, this was no game.
This was serious.
And, loath as he was to admit it, Brand needed to report back to FP, who had a bead on more of the moving parts than Brand did.
It looked like he'd be needing new orders.
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Archie stretched his right shoulder as he walked around the venue. The exercise felt good, and the time alone certainly helped clear his mind.
Breaking Fast was an interesting band. Paul had given Archie a lot of food for thought.
Archie paused as he reached one end of the venue, pivoting to wend his way back through the labyrinthine halls and continue his pacing.
Something caught Archie's eye, though, and he stopped in his tracks.
Good grief. Somehow Jughead had managed to lose a shoe.
Archie let out a gusty, audible laugh at the bizarre sight. It was against a low storage built-in, which gave the visual a distinct "wicked witch of the east" vibe.
How in the world had Jughead lost a shoe without realizing it? Man, Archie was going to tease his best friend when he returned it to him.
He crouched to scoop up the shoe - and yelped when it was suddenly apparent that it was on a foot. And attached to a leg.
"Oh God, don't be dead. Don't be dead. Oh God, don't be dead..." Archie threw open the cabinet and had to force himself to keep his eyes open and look at what was inside.
Jughead blinked at him blearily.
"Ohhhhh, thank you, thank you, all that is holy. You are a nut, you know that? You scared me. What are you doing here?" Archie dropped his hand when he realized he was clutching his chest. That was more than a little dramatic.
"Arch?" Jughead squinted up at him. "Huh?"
The words were slurred.
Jughead looked like a raccoon.
Archie felt a chill rush through him. "Uh, did... Um, how did you get in here, man? What's going on?"
"I need..." Jughead's brow furrowed with concentration. "Brand. Or my dad. Dax is... Um..."
What followed was gibberish about an app, a gun, warring factions on the tour, evidence left behind in a hotel room, and a wild story about why the tour had to continue in order for the culprits to be caught.
"Jug," Archie said carefully after his friend had finished and seemed to collapse in on himself where he was lying in a cupboard, "What I'm about to say... I don't mean it as a joke, okay? You look and sound like you are on drugs right now."
"Yeah, that too," Jughead said, still slurring even though he looked a little more alert.
Uhhhhhh, okay?
"What... What do you think we should-," Archie heard his own words and shook his head at himself. Asking his drugged friend who had been passed out in a cupboard what to do next was really, really stupid.
Archie needed help. Jughead needed help.
They needed someone they could trust, beyond a shadow of a doubt.
And Jughead's version of what was going on could be totally and completely wrong, and he wouldn't have a clue.
Moreover, ideally, they needed to get somewhere safer than the exact location where someone might have dumped Jughead's body.
Oy.
"I've been drugged, yeah, but I can prove what happened," Jughead suddenly became animated. "Call Brand. He can-,"
And Archie suddenly realized exactly how he had known at a glance that Jughead had been drugged: Jughead looked exactly the way that he had when Brand had drugged him.
Jughead wouldn't suspect Brand, since he trusted the maniac with his life, but Archie was worried. The guy had been acting weirdly aggressive throughout the tour, and it wasn't like FP had wanted to turn himself in for murder the previous fall. There could be complicated, unseen circumstances.
Moreover, Jughead wouldn't be super clear on the last twenty-four hours. He'd had a major head injury.
The more Archie thought about it, the more worried he became.
The story about Jug being with Dax had been really suspect from the outset. Maybe none of that had been true.
A door banged open somewhere nearby, and a flash of panic went through Jughead's expression.
"Hey, man, we need help," Archie said apologetically as he started to move toward the sound that had spooked his friend - he would find whoever it was and flag them down to help while he figured out what his best move was.
"No. It could be..." Jughead was suddenly holding up a gun. "Someone coming back to finish the job."
Archie felt the blood drain from his head.
Okay, maybe nothing else was true about the drug-fueled tale he'd just heard. But he had to suspect Brand's involvement, given his drug of choice maybe being in play.
And now Archie had to suspect another party being involved, because that was a fake gun, and Brand didn't do fake.
Not necessarily to his credit, Davies was uncompromisingly lethal.
"I need to get to the hotel. Everything is in the room I was sharing with Dax. At least, it will be for as long as nobody else gets to it. I have tons of evidence - videos, recordings." Jughead was pleading, and his eyes were no longer drugged-glassy. They were Jughead-on-a-mission glassy. Archie wasn't convinced that was a reassuring change, though. "Can you distract everyone so I can make it without anyone knowing, or catching me there?"
Uhhhh. Archie looked down at his friend worriedly. Clark's words echoed in his mind. "Can you even walk?"
"Yeah. I just needed to, like, sleep it off or whatever." Jughead was still slurring slightly, but it was possibly a little less. He also pushed himself up until he was sitting, and then started to pull himself fully upright. "I'm okay. Better than yesterday, for sure."
That seemed unlikely.
"But if anyone catches me getting the evidence, the next gun might be real," Jughead said with a small frown. Also known as: the first sign of self-preservation he'd displayed so far in the conversation.
That got Archie's attention.
And suddenly he had a plan.
"Okay."
"Really?" Jughead's expression lit up with hope, but he still looked like he was afraid that Archie was lying.
Probably because a lot of people in Jughead's life lied to him on the regular, Archie thought bitterly. With a quick shake of his head, he tried to focus on the task at hand instead of reflecting on his dark suspicions.
"Yeah. Okay. But-,"
Jughead's expression fell.
"It's a good 'but,'" Archie clarified quickly. "I'm going to send Alice and Betty to our floor to meet you, and then I'm going to call my dad."
Jughead made a face, confused. "He's not here. Isn't his leg still-,"
"Yeah. But, given the drugs, neither of us can be sure you aren't hallucinating everything. We don't know who we can actually trust. So I'm going to call him for advice." Archie was surprised to feel completely confident about this plan. It was no secret that he'd felt a lot of tension with his father lately, and it was shockingly reassuring - a full-on tidal wave of relief - to realize that his dad was still the person he most trusted in a crisis. He thought of his conversation with Paul and felt even more assurance that this was the right move. "If he says to call Brand, I will. If he says to call your dad, then that's our play. If he says we call Dax, that means you are overruled."
Jughead nodded gratefully. "I can live with that. He won't say that."
Another door banged, and this time it was closer.
This time they exchanged panicked looks.
"We've gotta get you out of here. And, to be on the safe side, we need literally everyone involved with the tour to be right here in the venue," Archie said firmly. "Which means I need three things, starting with access to that app you were talking about." If it exists, Archie added silently.
Jughead reached up. "Give me your phone. I can pull it up for you."
Thirty seconds later, Archie was composing a post for the tour app, directed to all members of the tour.
He included the link Jughead had given him.
They completed the next step of the plan in tense silence.
Once that was done, Jughead snapped a photo and Archie attached that to the post as well.
And then there was nothing left to do but execute the plan.
"Get ready." Archie eyed Jughead nervously, but his friend seemed to be right about his improvement and was steady on his feet - albeit moving slowly - as he made his way toward the nearby exit. "We're sure that door isn't alarmed?"
"Yeah. That's how I got in here."
Allegedly got in, Archie added silently. Oh well; they were going to have to take a few risks, starting now.
"All righty, then." Archie made the post live. "You need to get clear. They'll be swarming the place any second now."
A shout rang out, and Archie's head swiveled toward the sound.
In that moment, behind him, the door clicked shut behind his best friend.
Archie took a moment to remind himself that everything he'd been told was almost certainly a drug-induced hallucination. He was protecting his best friend and keeping Jughead's confidence, but there was almost zero chance that Archie was putting himself in any danger whatsoever.
Turning up the collar of Jughead's jacket and pulling his own dark hat lower over his hair, Archie took a deep breath - and then began wending his way through the maze of corridors.
It was only a matter of time before someone spotted him.
And then all hell would break loose.
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Oh, we are hurtling toward the end now... I hope you enjoyed! I'll look forward to any and all notes as I work on the (gasp?) final twists and turns!
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