Casting the Net

[Abacus]

His hands formed a steeple; his thumbs pressed against his brow.


How hard could it be to find a single vinyl record? This was a question for auctioneers and twenty-somethings clinging to twentieth century nostalgia. But Dark Revolution was not just a disc with an obscure heavy metal track-list. It was an inscribed piece of Enlightened Work. Cheap and dirty, but nonetheless authentic; a genuine artifact of Libertine propaganda.


Before making his rounds through his various Contacts, he decided to give it another go on the internet. He needed names or a record label or whatever corporation signed off on media releases. Company data would be enough to ping them on the stock market and track their sales. Labels would be well known in the consumer circles they catered to.

  2 successes

Date		Action		Roll		Result
2020-02-25 08:23:35		Abacus rolls 5 to Wits + Computer (Schattenbahn Internet Search) (10 Again)		3, 9, 7, 5, 9		2 successes

His phone screen was a rolling list of names. Daniels, Klein, Romaine…the Phyrex Front Desk. His thumb lands on Will Putnam, a peer from his days at the University of San Diego. He studied music and the last time he checked, he was teaching theory at Sacramento State.


The Enchanter paced in socks on hardwood flooring. The loft was sparse and rustic and currently being filled with the incessant ringing of his cellphone. The conversation is short.


Hey, Willie, it’s Holden.


Carmichael? Holy shit, man, how are you? Making seven figures?


Ephemeral small talk; “catching up” as is the custom with friends from the past.


I’ve found myself back in my metal phase. Can’t seem to get enough of it. Think you could hook me up with something? I heard about this band online but I can’t find a retailer.


And then the seed. Dark Revolution.


Can I get back to you?


Another chorus of rings. Another phone call. Adell Cardona. Phyrex Analyst. Broker. His heel raps against the floor like Thumper and his tail. His other hand pushes and pulls on the corners of a metal puzzle cube.


Oh my goodness, Holden? Still working from home?


You’d be surprised how lucrative freelancing is with all these hungry startups. I was wondering if I could call in a favor? There’s this band…Schattenbahn? I’m running some models to help a friend of mine with his thesis and I need someone with your net access.


You want some vitals? I’m a little swamped at the moment, sweetheart. Can I get back to you?


It’s all cordial. But the vastness that came after was beginning to grate on him. For once, he would be leaving it to chance and chance alone. This was an attempt at triangulation, not spear fishing. None of them could fetch Dark Revolution for him. He had to do that himself. But at the very least, he could have an image with a better resolution. If they returned back with anything at all. It was entirely possible the vinyl vanished into the ether with nothing left but the ash of obscurity.


But Abacus had faith in his luck.

  3 successes

Date		Action		Roll		Result
2020-02-25 08:39:58		Abacus rolls 6 to Asking for Help (Manip + Persuasion + Contacts II) (10 Again)		9, 10, 6, 9, 2, 3, 1		3 successes

Hope I did this right. Yumyumcrow

[Yumyumcrow]

The band still exists. With a minimal presence on the European metal circuit. It is still run through SBMusik and still - very rarely - puts out an album now and then. The rest of the company's output is limited to project pieces by Blixa Dark. None of them have reached the heights of the early years.

Adell Cardona comes up a blank. But she does offer some tickets to minor metal festival in San Francisco where a tribute bands will be covering Schattenbahn corpus.

Will Putnam comes up better - understandable given his academic credentials.

He comes back with the rumour that the legendary album, in Vinyl, has been circulating in the Bay area for years. He can even relate the full tale - in excruciating and painful detail - should Abacus want it*

And he knows of someone who might be able to tell truth from falsehood - music store owner, musician, club critic Striga Mortis. Of course, Putnam doesn't have the woman's number, but he does know the location of her modest store - near Haight Ashbury in San Francisco proper.

Abacus will simply have to drop in and hope for the best.

*Not going to make a scene about it. It will be a long, complex, contradictory and baroque tail as ownership of the album passes through a string of persons, with side-tales and digressions and tall tales, to the point that a lot of it cannot be believed. Or can it.