CHAPTER 6
“SATURNALIA”
WINTER
UNDERGROUND
It’s dark in the tunnels. Not the grandiose subway station of the club, these are maintenance tunnels, damp narrow hallways, a twisting and turning underground maze. Theo is running, blind, and covered in blood. He’s being chased by something big and fast and it’s coming for him.
EARLIER THAT NIGHT
THE BAR
THEO gazes out at Broken Land, decked out for the winter Saturnalia party. The decor is more elaborate and ostentatious than ever, with the winter theme more “diamonds” than “ice.” There’s a jeweled curtain on stage and crystal icicles hanging from the ceiling. It’s packed, with guys in suits at bottle service tables mingling with the regular crowd of misfits. What’s happened to this place? It’s feeling more and more like GR€€D, and the finance bros have decended like a plague of locusts.
He says hi to SHARON at the bar, mostly recovered from her attack at GR€€D except for a jagged, pink line of scar tissue across her neck.
THEO
How are you doing? I know that night at GR€€D was hard.
Sharon smiles, and seems to get taller.
SHARON
Before I came out, I spent way too long hiding in the shadows. Learning ballroom and drag taught me to step out of the curtain and onto the stage. Own it. If I let every douchebag like Cyrus tell me what I could or couldn’t be, I never would have had the strength to step into the spotlight.
Besides, scars are sexy.
They do a shot together, then Sharon heads back up front to work the door.
SHARON (over her shoulder)
Congrats on the photos, by the way. I always knew you were talented.
Theo stares at his work, blown up and hung all over the club. The center piece, hanging directly over the bar, is his multiple exposure photo of Aria from the memorial, her graceful dance movements captured in ghostly, overlapping images. Other photos fill the old poster frames that dot the walls of the station, around the bar and along both subway platforms. Theo “solarized” them while developing, resulting in high contrast, shadowy black and white photos. They were candid photos of the staff, taken as they were getting ready to open the last big party. Bartenders, coat check girls, buss boys, go-go dancers, all at their most unguarded and human. His message— we are ALL monoChrome.
It’s a surreal moment, getting recognition for his art. Getting that thing you wanted, but not being able to appreciate it when it finally happens. The naive artist Theo was a year ago feels like a different person. He now had much bigger concerns. Like solving Russ’ murder, getting back at Minus, and figuring out Deadalus’ plan.
THE DJ BOOTH
Theo enters the booth, taking his requisite party photos. A head nod to DEADALUS and one of the SERBS, daggers shot at MINUS and the bad ERINS. The trio was heading to the stage, but Theo pulls the nice one aside and gives her his instant camera.
THEO
Grab some pics after, will you? I have to take care of something.
He makes eye contact with ARIA before she ducks behind the curtain to prepare for her big number. She looks away, not ready to engage. He knows this might be her last night here, but he also knows her performance will be the perfect distraction. With all eyes on her, and no one hanging out behind the DJ booth, he can figure out how to get into the Lab unnoticed.
As Deadalus brings the music to a crescendo as the Erins meet on stage in costume. They wear crystalline versions of the paper masks— a witch, a queen, and a wild thing. Aria appears on the catwalks above, dressed in skintight metallic scales and black feathers. Her Aura’s tendrils arc out to touch the entire crowd, focusing their attention and whipping them into a frenzy. She loops her silk around the railing for support, and dives off. She falls to within inches of the crowd below, swinging back over her podium and sailing through the air to land on stage. The Erins surround her, and tie her in intricate knots of red cord like she taught them. It’s an amazing performance. A winged serpent. A sacrifice. Theo’s hit by the resemblance. This is like his vision.
Thick smoke billows out into the crowd as Deadalus enters at the climax of the performance, strobes pulsing in the haze. Seeing his chance, Theo heads toward the subway car, but is stopped by Minus.
MINUS
Where are you going? You’re gonna miss the big finish.
Just then, The Serbian gets a message from his “other” at the door, and breaks the news to Minus.
THE SERBIAN
There’s some fancy asshole with an eyepatch demanding to see you at the door. And he is pissed.
Minus hurries away, as Theo ducks backstage. Looks like Theo’s surprise plus one got here right on time.
BACKSTAGE
Making sure he’s alone, Theo walks into the small space between the two train cars. He searches the walls to try and find the door Deadalus must have used. There is no lock, no handle, no anything. Just an almost inperceptible seam suggesting a doorway, across from the concave relief in the back of the giant astrological clock. Ah, the place where he almost lost half his face. He crouches down and looks closely at the ring of small symbols for the Sun, the Earth, and the Moon, and three small crescent holes in a triangular pattern in the middle. Theo is hit by the memory of Deadalus taking his keys and combining the intertwined pieces.
Theo takes off Russ’ sword necklace, removing it from the scabbard. It has the same crescent tube shape as the prongs of Deadalus’ keys. He concentrates and, like the Serbian, duplicates his Aura into two other bodies. They form an overlapping, triplicate image of himself, clothes and jewelry included. It’s unstable, but lasts long enough for the three swords to go into the three locks and turn. The slowly rotating gears in the clock stop, rotate quickly to line up Sun, Earth, and Moon. The door behind him opens.
THE DJ BOOTH
Erin and Eren carry a still-bound ARIA offstage, MANNY meeting them just out of sight of the crowd. ERYN heads back into the booth, snapping photos of DEADALUS as he begins the next phase of his set. He plugs his headphones into the microphone jack, and gives a speech about the four seasons. The winter solstice. The alignment of the planets. Brooklynhenge. And the dawn sunlight that will light their way into the future.
The crowd is rapt. Eryn rolls her eyes.
DEADALUS
Vermillion, the almighty source of Rust and Chrome, spoke to me in my visions, foretold this day. Our path began with an alien spore that hitched a ride through space, on a chariot of the gods. It found a home in the underground caverns hollowed out by the impact. This is where I first encountered it.
With much bombast and flair, Deadalus cues up three different reel-to-reel tapes and starts mixing them together. A bassline, a melody, and lyrics, intertwined into one new song. The speaker stacks around the dance floor begin to pulse, sending out colored waves of sound into the crowd in overlapping reds, blacks, and golds.
DEADALUS (continued)
One tiny fungus changed the entire course of evolution on earth. Like Prometheus bestowing fire to mankind, Vermillion rewrote humanity’s brains, gifted us with the very concept of society. Its symbiotic influence guided prehistoric man and insects alike into eusocial colonies, into tribes. And now OUR tribe will fuel the next phase of existence in New Brooklyn!
THE TUNNELS
Theo walks down a narrow corridor that cuts though the collapsed tunnel, pushing onward into the darkness. As he goes, footsteps reverberate behind him. Is he being followed?
THE LAB
Theo emerges into a dank, echo-filled chamber. Condensation drips from the ceiling. He stumbles around, finds a light switch, and turns it on. The cavern is bathed in a sickly light.
It is the laboratory of a madman. Photos of Mayan temples, Tesla’s Wardenclyffe Tower, and cross sections of ant hills and bee hives surround huge blueprints of the club and maps of New Brooklyn, written over in crazed handwriting. The city map, with significant locales circled in red, looks an awful lot like Theo’s tattoo. The map shows the location of Broken Land, the Gates, and the four “schools of thought. A large circle surrounds the club, marking the edges of the earthquake devastation. A smaller circle overlaps the three 2012 Memorials. The blueprints of the club are marked with the same diagram, confirming Theo’s theory. But it’s the side view of the club blueprint that’s most edifying— a wide pyramid, with Deadalus’ tower as the pinnacle, Broken Land stretching across the middle, and a massive network of old tunnels forming the base of the pyramid. There appears to be a stairway down from where he was to this lowest level, and a special area marked off in the center of the maze.
This was a temple dedicated to Deadalus’ genius. And madness. Parts of the Opus are labeled as well, with components in the Tower, the club, and in the middle of the maze at the bottom. Arrows point from the maze, up through the club, up to the Tower, then out to the 2012 Memorials. This whole thing is some massive machine, an evil Rube Goldberg contraption that does WHAT exactly?
On the desk, Theo notices a red journal. Russ’ journal. He walks over and picks it, then notices what’s around the corner. He stashes the journal in his shoulder holster, and follows the diagrams around the corner to a row of seven sarcophagi. The raised steel capsules are each attached to a series of wires and tubes, with singular port holes that look down into each one. The echoes behind him grow, but he’s transfixed, scared of what he might find. In the first, a body frozen or dead. Two, three, four… each body seems newer than the last. The fifth almost seems human, a young girl. He looks into the sixth window to see RUSS, immobile as the rest. He jumps back in shock. Transfixed, he can only stare, first at his friend, and then at the last beckoning porthole. Whose face will he see? Steps become louder, echoing around the damp room. He looks in the last porthole.
It’s empty.
VOICE (OS)
Hey!
The SERBIAN comes into the room, the mean one, and he was angry.
THE SERBIAN
I thought I saw you sneak off. What the fuck are you doing in here?
THE SERB summons a duplicate to fight, and THEO powers up his Aura in return. They grapple, shoving each other about the room, about to come to blows. Theo gets him in an arm bar, and bends him over a sarcophagus, putting his face up against the porthole to stare at Russ.
THEO
Explain this!
The Serb is shocked, his steely persona rocked by a wave of sadness. He had no idea. Theo lets him go.
THEO
Then why were you following me?
THE SERBIAN
What? No, I just found that open door backstage, and came to see who had gone in. No one is allowed back here, even me.
THEO
Well if it wasn’t you who was following me earlier, then—
The lights go out.
THE ENTRANCE
MINUS is at the door, flanked by a SERB duplicate, with CYRUS screaming. He’s wearing an eye patch and is very, very angry.
CYRUS
This place is complete bollocks! I’m gonna get it shut down for good. You took my customers, my club, my eye!
THE SERBIAN’s duplicate steps in to break it up, then suddenly vanishes in a scream.
THE LAB
The Serb screams in pain. His central form, illuminated only by the glow of the port holes, is shaken back and forth vigorously like a rag doll.
A VOICE
Shut up! Shut up! Shut Up! You’re ruining everything!
The Serb’s neck snaps. His entire body goes limp as it drops to the floor, his duplicate fading away. Behind him, draped in shadow, is MANNY, a crazed look in his eyes. As his Aura subsides, so does the darkness, leaving the simpleton Theo recognizes.
THEO
What the fuck, Manny? Why??
MANNY
It’s all gonna be ok. We just have to follow the plan. Follow the plan and it’ll all be ok.
THEO
I don’t understand!
MANNY
I’m sorry about Serby, amigo, I really am, but he was gonna ruin everything. Deadalus has it all figured out. He’s the smart one. We just need one more, one last one, and things will go back to the way they used to be. We’ll all have enough Rust, Minus will be nice to me, Deadalus can put it all back together again. And I can go back to just playing with My Little Ponies! Just one more sacrifice.
THEO
One more what?
MANNY
A sacrifice, of course. We need seven.
THEO
This is fucked up, Manny. I’m not gonna be your sacrifice.
MANNY
Oh, you don’t have to be. Deadalus likes you. I mean, that was the plan at first. But I already took Aria, right after her big air dance. I get to play with you while they take her gold. I hope you last longer than the Serb.
Manny’s Aura expands, taking all available light with it, leaving Theo blind. A huge Chrome hand smacks him across the room to crash into the wall with the blueprints. He gets up, and is smacked again, landing by a door at the other end of the room. Above the door is a faded directional sign, pointing to the L train, Airtram and Boats. L.A.B.
Down the stairs, however faint, is a hint of light. He’s no match for Manny like this. He has to change the situation. He pulls himself up, and stumbles down into the tunnels, into the labyrinth, with Manny chasing after.
THE ENTRANCE
CYRUS is still screaming at MINUS, emboldened by the disappearance of the Serbian. Minus summons his Aura, the chains snaking out from his hands. They wrap around Cyrus’ throat, and find the Rust still lingering in his system. His eyes go blank as Minus takes control of his mind.
THE TUNNELS
THEO runs, smashing into walls and tripping through puddles, trying to put distance between him and MANNY. The darkness chases after him. He follows his training, and expands his senses into the infrared. He can see, barely, but he’s still lost and being chased by a murderous man-child. He pushes his Aura out further, like Aria would, and serches for her presence. There, in the dark, a faint thread. It is a barely perceptible trail, glowing, pulling at him. It’s Aria. He can sense her, trapped, somewhere up ahead. More sure of himself, losing Manny for longer stretches, Theo runs.
The tunnels get straighter and wider, and her thread gets brighter. Up ahead, Theo sees a large archway into a cavernous space, when he’s hit by a familiar wave of nausea, like that day on the dance floor. Bass-heavy waves rattle his teeth as the edge of his vision goes red. He struggles down the corridor, towards Aria and the source of the energy, his Aura sputtering with each step.
Whatever it is, he’s going to have to save her without his Chrome.
THE TERMINAL
Theo emerges into a round, stone room, a convergence of multiple tunnels, walls covered in pipes and cables and tanks of liquid. Theo can feel the importance of this location, knows intuitively that he’s directly under the dance floor of Broken Land. Loud, electronic-sounding vibrations fill the air.
In the center of the room, guarded by the two ERINS, is ARIA. She is bound tight at the center of a rusted, triangular truss. Looming over her, mounted at the top of the structure like a hunting trophy, is the head of GR€€D’s bull statue, with Aria tied to the ring in the bull’s nose. She is surrounded by three massive speaker stacks, familiar black monoliths with large red woofers — just like the new stacks Deadalus installed on the dance floor. Cables snake from each speaker stack and into the glass tanks along the walls, filled with a clear solvent. Waves of energy pummel Aria, not the colorful Pyrite, but a black & white nothingness.
Aria screams as tiny gold droplets — her Aurum — are pulled out of her eyes and ears. The drops collect in the speaker cones, travel into the tanks, and are diluted into a viscous, blood-like fluid. Like what Minus put in Cy’s eye. It travels through various tubes and filters, is condensed, distilled, and heated, finally falling like red snow into small vials. Rust.
A stomach-churning realization hits Theo. This is where Rust comes from. From the brains of the Alchemists themselves. And the process looks both painful and lethal. Those coffins upstairs contain the drained husks of the last six victims. Theo retches in horror.
He rushes to help Aria, pushing through waves of energy. The pain intensifies as he gets closer, and his Aura sputters before going dim. The Erins step in to stop him. Theo inhales a deep breath, summoning one last bit of Chrome.
THEO
Just.
He puts a hand on each of their faces—
THEO
Don’t.
—and shoves, sending them flying through the air. As he’s reaching up towards Aria’s bonds, from behind him booms the voice of a spoiled toddler on steroids.
MANNY (OS)
Stop! Get away from there! You’re gonna mess up everything!
Theo turns just as MANNY slams into him, sending him bouncing off the nearest speaker stack. They fight, trading blows, with a battered and powerless Theo on the losing end. But he knows Manny’s moves, and maneuvers him closer to the stacks. After a few more punches, Manny’s powers start being drained as well. On Manny’s next charge, Theo sidesteps, tripping him. Manny’s momentum carries him into a filling tank of liquid Rust, cracking it. The caustic fluid sprays across Manny’s face and chest. His skin smokes, bubbles, and peels. Enraged, Manny’s Aura explodes outward as it absorbs all the energy in the room, darkening everything. The evil machine whines to a stop.
Aria is ready. She pulls a knitting needle from her wrist cuff and loosens her bindings. Getting out of knots is kind of her thing. The two Erins come rushing toward her, fighting like screeching cats. De-powered but still acrobatic, Aria dances away from their lunges, landing high kicks and stabbing at them with the knitting needle. They move back toward the end of the chamber, Aria soundly kicking their asses.
Theo, however, is trapped in Manny’s preternatural darkness. He waits, listening to Manny’s yelling, and barely dodging his crushing blows. He can just start to make out shapes in the pitch black, when Manny grabs him in a bear hug, spikes stabbing into Theo’s skin. He’s thrown out of the darkness into the rack between the speakers, Manny powers down, and Theo is suddenly pummeled with the full force of the speakers. The world goes red. Tiny drops of gold begin seeping out of his ears and eyes.
Theo is wrenched out of his body. Sure, he’s dying, but the dissociation sure offers some clarity. He looks down on New Brooklyn, seeing Deadalus’ evil architecture in full. A stream of dawn sunlight pours through the East Gate, its beams streaming uninterrupted through the remains under the Tower, and across New Brooklyn. Brooklynhenge is upon them.
Theo can see Deadalus’ plans come to life— the Tower, the club and labyrinth around him all forming the pyramid of the architect’s diagrams, matching the temple from Theo’s dream. The full extent of the Magnum Opus, jump started by a sacrifice on the first level, fed by the collective energy of the entire Rusted club crowd upstairs, and broadcast out through a psychic antenna in the Tower. His vision shifts, showing the dance floor filled with fellow victims. Controlling it all from the booth was DEADALUS, awash in energy, his powers amped to godlike levels.
Theo can feel his consciousness dissipating. It would be so easy to just give in.
He hears Aria’s voice a world away, down through the haze, near his physical body.
ARIA
Hey, be here! Look!!
Slowly, Theo shakes out of it and rises to his feet.
Manny charges, an unstoppable force. Theo feels the rope hanging from the nose of the bull statue, an immovable object. He reaches up and grasps the ring. He pulls hard with both hands, tilting the head down. Manny, with no time to stop, runs straight into it, the horns going all the way through his chest.
Empaled on the horns, a shocked Manny coughs up blood. His Aura fades, and a calm expression washes over his face. The old Manny returns. He hangs limply from the horns, not even touching the ground.
MANNY
I’m sorry, Theo.
He coughs up more blood, and gazes at his friend.
MANNY (continued)
I just couldn’t. I couldn’t go back to being small.
Triggered by his death, the energy from the speakers increase. Theo jumps aside as Aurum is ripped out of Manny’s eyes, ears, mouth, and wounds. The tanks fill with gallons of liquid Rust, completing a circuit. The full power of the Magnum Opus roars to life, sending Chrome energy up through the club, through Deadalus, and up to the Tower. The speakers in the Tower rotate outwards, blast out the walls, and send the familiar overlapping Chrome triangles of Deadalus’ Aura out to the 2012 Memorials.
NEW BROOKLYN
When the ripples of energy reach the memorials, the stones begin to vibrate and glow, electromagnetic loadstones humming to life. The red metal sand blasts into the air and out into the entire city. It coats everything it touches, filling entire city blocks with Deadalus’ triangular Aura. The whole city was now his plaything.
This is it. This is Deadalus’ crazy plan, to remake the entire city the way he built the club. Walls shift, buildings crumble in reverse, and towering spires grow out of the devastation to form insane structures, uncaring for any in their path. Morning joggers are thrown by the urban stalagmites, commuters are crushed by moving walls, and dog walkers are entombed in the foundations of the impossible new skyscrapers. In a time-lapse, New Brooklyn is being rebuilt. Like a dream. Like a nightmare. UnBrokenLand.
THE TUNNELS
ARIA steps over the battered and beaten Erins, and helps Theo to his feet.
ARIA
What’s happening? Another quake?
THEO
Yeah, but way worse. Deadalus is behind all of this, just like the first one. Minus and Manny were harvesting Rust from Alchemists like Russ, but the real madman is Deadalus. He’s willing to sacrifice everyone in Broken Land to create a New Brooklyn in his own image. You have to get up to the club and get everyone to safety.
ARIA
What about you?
THEO
I’ve got to get up to the Tower. It’s the antenna of this whole thing. I’ve got to shut off the broadcast somehow before he kills us all!
Journal Entry
Good God, I’m such a drama queen. “The Sun calls, I must fly?!” BLECH.
That shit sounds like a suicide note. Not the Dear John letter to all my friends I’m actually trying to write. That’s what you get when writing with this much Rust in your system. Look, I’m over all this. And I legit think something bad is gonna happen. But I’m not planning to end it all.
My visions have been all over the place lately, but I can tell people are gonna die, and this club is never going to be the same. I see everything coming down around us, and I don’t think it bodes well for my friends. And I think it’s my fault.
This all started at GREED, when I dragged Theo into our madness. Now Deadalus has something planned for those cursed Broken Records of his, the first of which I played at Greed the night we met. Fuck, it’s why I knew he was special in the first place. Under the Pyrite, He spazzed out like someone who was fully oxidized, while I saw his future here at the club. I took off when Cyrus came running out of the club, cuz fuck that guy, and I left that damn record. I tried going back to get it, but that asshole has more bouncers than Aria has hand knitted scarfs.
I think this is for the best. I need out. I’m hoping things won’t go south if I’m not around to keep messing it all up, and I HOPE my friends forgive me for leaving. But maybe I’ll grab a little Rust for the road, first. Oh, Manny!