The Rage. Aptly named for its share of abandoned inhibition, hosting crowds twenty-one and up, teeming with angst & hormones made all the more wild with recreational drugs thrown in the mix. Or all the more mellow depending on your drug of choice. And yet despite the prominent rumors of drug use, the established business maintained a reputable status as a legitimate dance club. Those on the street knew better. In any case the party wasn't expected to start for another hour or so. The doors were closed, but folks still congregated outside in the parking lot, gathering around their vehicles for smokes and conversation.
The sky was clear, still daylight but the sun progressed downward towards the horizon.
Stepping out of the taxi a few blocks down from the club, Reverb tipped the driver and closed the door behind him. He exhaled and sucked in a lung full of sweet, not incense smelling air. It had felt like he had practically breathed incense sticks in the car. Pull out his iphone the mage looked through his contacts and tapped Jammer's number calling the mage.
Reverb hears the tone ring over the phone for a moment before it connects, a familiar voice replying over a track of thumping music in the background. "Hon-nah, Bredren. Big up, wa a gwaan?" Jammer's tone is relaxed with traces of mirth as he answers.
Reverb blinked. Fuck. It took a second for him to hopefully translate whatever the Jamaican said. Or Hacian? Lets just not ask shall we?
"Hey man, its Reverb. I was wondering how open your schedule is tonight? I'm looking into the thing that happened to Miach at the bookstore a while back and there's some potential leads I'd like to run by you." Reverb explained as he continued to walk down the street.
There's a pause on the other end, which is just filled with the background music. His voice returns a moment later. "Ah-right, all fruits be ripe, they be droppin' off them branches," he cackles with laughter for a few seconds before his voice becomes smooth again. "Right now I be gettin' fit and flexin' for anotha bad like yaz show. But ya ca rope-een. Gimme a few."
The line cuts off. A few minutes pass outside the Rage before the doors open up and Jammer is there, walking leisurely and directly towards Reverb. Other occupants of the parking lot look over at the sound of the door shutting and see the famed DJ making his way across the pavement. Several of them start to walk over excitedly, hoping to intercept, though Jammer makes it to Reverb first.
"Greetings, Reverb. Leggo inside, ah-right?" he says.
Right now I be gettin' fit and flexin' for anotha bad like yaz show. But ya ca rope-een? The fuck? "Sweet." Reverb chirped and put his phone away. He hoped that all meant 'I'm getting ready for another show.' As for 'roping'? he had no idea.
Walking back toward the door, the Obrimous meets his fellow half way. "Hey Jammer." (Reverb will offer what ever hand based greeting he's seen Jammer use in the past) "Sounds good." Didn't they look the pair, some guy in a suit and eye-patch and a jamacian DJ. Wait..I've seen this movie before...no not Bourne..one of the Roger Moore Bonds? Reverb ponders as he follows Jammer back into the club. "You hear RJD2 is gonna being doing some sets at the Bootie in SF next month?" No reason not for some non-shop.
"Ya, mon, big up uno dem," he says, a wide grin of pearly teeth. "Mek haste, fren'," he urges Reverb, not even looking to the other fans as they approach.
"Whoa, DJ Jammer? Man, I love your beats. What've you got lined up tonight?" says one man sporting cloth gauntlets and a visor cap.
"Jammer, could you play Radio Jammer again tonight?" says a girl with snakebite piercings and goggles perched across her forehead.
Jammer ignores them and keeps walking, though more swiftly now that his fans were upon him. It only takes a moment to reach the doors though. The door opens for him by one of the club staff. It stays open for Reverb to follow, and shuts after he enters, silencing the cries of fans.
Inside is the familiar scene, though the normal lighting is up and there aren't clubbers filling the floor. Staff walk about or wait patiently at their stations, anticipating the doors opening. The bartender is arranging bottles and taking out crates from the back room. The Jamaican DJ doesn't stop at the lobby though and continues on through the club, taking a left and heading to the far wall past the spiral staircase. They get to a door that Jammer opens himself and heads through to a long back hall.
"Ya ca speak free here," he says as the door shuts, though even saying that he doesn't stop walking, expecting Reverb to follow.
Gotta be nice to have an adoring public. And annoying. Little Column A, little of Column B. Vincent thought has he followed Jammer inside.
Finally reaching a place they could talk shop, Vincent nodded. "Sweet. Um. Right." he began organizing his thoughts. "So the shooting I'm sure you head about at the Water? The backstory on that is a mage named 'B', that's all he's giving us, decided to look into this drug called 'Glo'? Not sure if you've heard of it?" Reverb queried as he cast a curious eye at the DJ. "Heard mixed things about it on the Aethernet, an hallucinogen or it's like ridlen?" He shrugged. "Anyway he poked around a few night clubs looking into it and whoever is dealing it didn't like the attention so sent some people with guns to whack him. This led up to him meeting with me at the Water where two hitmen showed up to kill him but mistook him for Miach and shot Miach and the rest of the place." Reverb tastefully withheld where Miach got shot. "So now we're at the point where we figure if someone is willing to send hitmen out over this Glo thing in board day light, it's probably worth looking into. So we were wondering since your dialed into the club scene more than any," Reverb's look turn speculative. "have you heard anything about this Glo stuff through the grave vine? Like if we wanted to our hands on sample, which clubs might be the ones to look at?"
If anything Reverb had to say to Jammer had been surprising for the dreaded DJ, he didn't show it in his stride. Further down the hall they reach a door on the west wall which Jammer opens into a lounge of sorts. Aside from the comfortable furnishings and a table with a vegetable fruit spread, it was empty. Looked like a sort of green room for performers or groupies to relax in.
After Reverb finishes, Jammer answers, "Yah, I heard a da Glo. It show up sometime a fi mi club, like nuff pyur odda, though I dun wan none a dat stuff 'round dayha. It naa hat no one, just mak em brukout a bit. Sound like dem boys mekin' a real fuckery outta yu key. But eff yah aks mi, dat Glo nuh worth bunnin' ova. More like dey hab bad blood witchu key."
He plucks a grape from off the food spread and pops it in his mouth, munching without looking back at his guest.
"Huh..." Reverb said as he ran though what Jammer had, or at least what he thought the DJ had said. It sounded like whatever the drug did, it wasn't all that bad at least according to Jammer. Granted he wasn't a doctor like Miach. But on the other hand, promoters would probably be on top of drugs so they knew what they did and didn't want in their clubs. Or you just don't want too look to hard and get a gun barrel in your face. Flopping down on couch he pulled out his iphone. "You got a rough idea on when you first heard about it? A timeline would be helpful, when it first hit the clubs, when B looked into thing and when people started hitting the hospitals. "And...could you humor on this one? You wouldn't say it makes like people act like they're..going through a...God help me, fake awakening?" he asked with a little bit of tension in his voice.
Draft this Post