A DARKNESS PALE

MISSION

…After 30 years an unexpected visit from Irie’s dad, who disappeared almost as soon as he arrived…

Mission

And now she was having a stroke, or something. Her brain was broken, that soundless explosion. Irie opened her eyes. She wasn’t blind. Control, but… Her father was gone.

Irie checked the bathroom. She hurried down the hallway and checked each of the units and raced down the stairs. Outside she didn’t see anything except the wet.

“Dad!” she called. “Dad!”

She jogged up and down Avenue 26 and saw no signs of him. Drizzle on her bare head, grit dripping down her face and the back of her neck. It wasn’t good for you, despite what the authorities said, everyone knew that. Chemicals in the water. Chemical reactions. The CDC didn’t know shit, Covid had made that clear. Too much change, too fast, too extreme.

Irie booked it back to the Abbey and called the police and gave them the update. She called AES and told them she was taking sick time. She cleaned herself up and threw on her shoulder holster and poncho and drove off into the night. Where was she going? She pulled over. He needed to be held accountable. He needed to pay for his crimes. He was a bad guy. He’d made the decision before she was born.

But he was gone.

Irie stared into the darkness, her heart pounding. She squeezed the wheel and thought, calm down. You need to calm down. What was she doing? There was no way he was good guy who’d made mistakes. She’d grown up with him. He never cared about her. He’d run off. He was a fugitive. He was bad. He was gone, again. Or… that talk about love along with the weirdness. What if he’d gone crazy. There was good, bad, and crazy. LIFE MATTERS. Instead of being the enemy of the environment, he could be victim of the environment. This meant mental health instead of prison, or prison with a focus on mental health. A mental health assessor would decide.

And what if everything was wrong. If everything was wrong, she was wrong. She was so worked up because she knew this was a possibility. What was false might be true. Irie unholstered her Beretta, feeling unsafe. It felt like something very bad could come at her, punch through the Prius’ windows. She was losing it. No control. She needed to do something or she was going to lose it. She saw the business card in her cup holder, that dude at the rec center, the one who knew the guy who knew where Motown was. Supposedly.

The address was on San Pedro in the heart of Skid Row. When she opened the door to the Absolute Truth Mission a little bell tinkled. Four rows of folding chairs facing a weary podium. Posters featured the centipede, the one Evie had been obsessed with. Now everyone knew about the centipede. Evie would say nobody knew shit. Some of the posters were black on a white background and some were white on a black background.

Daimon came through a set of threadbare curtains with a handful of papers and reading glasses perched at the tip of his nose, all the wisecracking good humor from this afternoon gone. “Irie. Wasn’t expecting to see you here tonight.”

“I wasn’t expecting to be here.”

“I’m going to go out on a limb and say I don’t think you’re here for any sort of spiritual intervention.”

Irie barked a discordant laugh. “You’re going to take me too him. I don’t know the hive. I’d owe you. Having an operator owe you favor is money in your pocket. I would say it’s worth more than the reward.”

“True that, true that. But ah… Hmmm, let’s just say I’m not popular on that ring.” He looked off and mumbled something, talking to someone only he could see.

“Just get me to his block. We’ll find a spot to drop you off. You’ll be the invisible man.”

After the second round of Covid vaccines, Bomb The Hives became the slogan of of 2023. Many of the people who’d survived Covid decided these monoliths were still festering with infection. The hives were burned and gutted. The remaining hazers were in no position to put up any resistance and focused on surviving.  

There was no more security check points getting in. The Frenzy was deserted, though she saw pockets of light blinking within all the structural nonsense.

Daimon said, “No more AES in the hives. No more law in the hives. Coming in solo like this seems kinda risky. You know, where ever she is, she’s hitched up to one of the gangs.”

“I just want to locate her.”

Daimon nodded. He guided her onto the on ramp for the third ring, nodding to himself, whispering something to himself. He said, “Uh huh. You real different than you were this afternoon. Something got to you, huh?”

“Let me ask you something.”

Daimon said, “Shoot.”

“The whole Moluxhc thing, the clearing the throat name shit, the centipede god. What’s the deal with that? I don’t know, seems like it’s blowing up.”

“I can tell you this. I used to smoke a lot of crack and it brought me to him – not that I ever saw him, or knew he was a centipede or whatnot. But I felt him. He was the man for sure, you know what I’m saying? Then Covid happened and now I don’t need to burn no more rock cause he got brought to me. Put inside me. I don’t got no other way to say it. Getting in touch with him is like getting in touch with yourself. That’s what I’m trying to help people with. Finding belief. You find belief you find strength. You get organized and wolves can’t mess with you so bad.”

“Uh huh” Irie said. “But he’s all about death, right? My friend told me he’s like all about destruction.”

“Life is about death. But like for real, not like some prophet nonsense. You get in touch with Moluxhc you know what is true, and you get hope from the truth. Got me all connected. I used to have this enemy, inside me, and now he’s my best friend.”

Irie instinctively turned onto a boulevard and said, “Sounds fucked up to me, but what do I know. If it’s helping you and other people then good luck with that.”

Daimon said, “Much thanks.” Then, “Shit, we’re here.”

Irie said, “You want me too…”

Daimon folded into himself, shrunk down in the passenger seat. “Naw, just make a turn at the end. Keep driving. Be cool.”

…Gunshots… Three victims…