LARGE LANGUAGE LOVE, DIVINE
Part Of A Whisper
…Claire’s new Kung FAI pupil revealed himself to be a Dalton, with an important message for her from the heads…
Part Of A Whisper
Approaching Rob's house, Taylor said, "This is all yours?"
"No. I'm sort of squatting." At the kitchen door she turned and said, “It's a good deal, but it’s cold. I can afford the electricity, but not the heat."
He sat in the Adirondack chair and she gave him a couple blankets. "If you use two it's really not that bad. You warm one and the other keeps the heat in. I don't even notice anymore. Plus I'm hardly here. I work with deinstitutionalized mentally ill adults and I make subs at Home Run, and I work at a record store, and then there's some other more hit and run stuff like the Kung FAI shit. I'm working off my Dalton debt. That shit is real, let me tell you." She turned on the CD player. The Stone Roses were already loaded. "I'm going to play some music if that's alright. I find music for some reason also warms the place up."
She wrapped up and eased onto the couch.
Under the blankets Taylor looked one part monk, one part refugee. "I'm surprised Kung FAI hasn't taken off."
"I tried a lot of stuff. I offered free classes at the schools here. I thought the game might take off with the college crowd like TAG or D&D... It didn't." She shrugged. "My ex ended up getting certified too and he couldn't get anything going with the Daltons, and he'd convinced himself everyone would get into it and make the whole deal next level. Anyway... Please tell me what's going on - I'm kinda freaking out."
Taylor said, "They're going to be pulling me, so let me be official. My name is Muffin Baby.”
"Hi Muffin Baby, I'm Dee Dee."
"Dee Dee. I'm here to officially invite you to be a part of a whisper campaign."
Claire was surprised, and then confused. “Some of the heads want me to be part of a whisper? Me? Oh wait, oh shit - you're from Texas. You're the assistant to the central south reginal head."
Hearing the title added invisible weights to his large shoulders and they further hunched. "I'm one of the assistants to him. Yes."
"I didn't know halves could rise up that high. You must be pumped."
He didn't look pumped. His expression was pained. He said, "I'm not here to talk about myself."
Claire shook her head. "But this has got to be some kind of mistake. You know as well as I do that half-Daltons don't get called to whisper. And I'm out of the flock."
"I'm not at the level to know the context. I just know the basics of the mission. You’d be having a conversation with a journalist. The whisper is you mentioning you don’t understand ADHD."
"ADHD?"
"The whisper is ADHD. I don't know if they're trying to do a shift focus onto ADHD or just do general shift focus. I don't know anything, except you can insert the whisper into the conversation, or just say it. They only need you to whisper it once.”
"ADHD, like attention, something?”
"Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. Nothing to prep. You just say you don't understand it. If you do this mission they’ll clear your debt. They’ll forgive everything you still owe.”
Now she was sure he was fucking with her, even though, because he was Dalton, she knew he wasn't. Claire gave him hard eyes. “Muffin Baby, with all due respect, what the fuck is going on? They're going to make my debt go away? You realize how much that is? What could I possibly have that would be worth..." And then she understood. There was only one thing all this could be about. "Oh shit. Boom Boom promised he wouldn't talk that... Unless it was an emergency. Okay, this is some kind of emergency. Do you know? Did they tell you why they want me?"
"I just know the message." His breath was steam and his cheeks were rosy and his eyes were still young and scared. She'd set the CD player to scramble. Ian Brown was singing about waterfalls. Muffin Baby said, "My boss didn't transmit direct because you're out."
Claire hugged blankets more tightly around her and said, "Respect to respect. But still, holy fuck."
…Everything changes again, and Claire tries to keep up…