WnW 4.11

The gang climbed the stairs to the second floor of Henry’s barber shop. I spotted Graham’s wide frame out on the balcony, talking on the phone. Vanessa was lounging on the couch. The T.V. had something on but Vanessa was ignoring it in favor of her phone.

“We’re back,” Terry said as he opened the fridge and pulled out a beer bottle. “I’d say it was a success.”

Nell shot him a nasty look.

“No kidding,” Vanessa said, tapping her phone. “I’ve already downloaded a bunch of texts from the phones you tapped. It’s just a matter of time until I find something juicy. I’m running them through a translator as we speak.”

AJ walked past me and threw himself over the back of the couch. He rolled over and spoke to Vanessa, “you missed something amazing.”

“Mm?” Vanessa didn’t look up from her phone but she reached out to pull on AJ’s hood with her other hand. 

AJ shoved it away, unfazed. “Nick did a superhero landing.”

That got her attention. She looked at me and cocked her head. “Really?”

“Fell all the way from the tenth floor,” Zola remarked. “It was a sight to behold.”

I held up a hand and said, “Before you get any ideas, it was the sixth floor and it hurt like hell.”

“He bounced back up like he had just tripped,” Zola said, grinning without showing his teeth.

Vanessa put on a pouty face and threw herself on top of AJ, wrestling him. “Damnit Peep! I can’t believe I missed that! Why do I miss all the fucking cool shit?” She shouted, pulling the strings of AJ’s hoodie, tightening the opening to a tiny hole. She shoved him off the couch, sending him toppling onto the ground, arms flailing. “I might as well find a Dice dealer myself. At least then I could…” Vanessa trailed off as she noticed Graham coming up behind her.

His stare was heavy. “Care to finish that statement?” he rumbled.

Vanessa shook her head and turned back to her phone, cowed into silence. AJ managed to loosen up his hoodie and then worked on evening out the draw strings.

Graham turned to Terry. “How did it go?”

Terry shrugged and took a swig from his bottle. He sighed appreciatively, then spoke, “We got a few plants on their phones. Didn’t get as much as I anticipated, but that’s only because they were on such high alert.” He raised an eyebrow and grinned. “The rumours are true. It appears the Jiezhi are planning something big.”

I spoke, “AJ overheard some talk about a demon in the Old Town. Any thoughts as to what that could be?”

Graham’s brow furrowed as he considered it. “Nothing comes to mind. An Aberrant perhaps.”

“Or the Goblin,” Terry remarked. “But I doubt they would be so vague about him.”

“Who is the Goblin?” Nell asked.

“He’s your competition,” he replied, staring at me slyly. “The other well known Wolf of Sillwood. He roams the Old Town, looking for trouble.”

“Found something!” Vanessa called out gleefully. “The Jiezhi are getting a shipment in a few days. It’s a bit vague, but it seems to be weapons.”

“Guns?” Terry mused.

Graham stroked his beard. “An army touting guns would be a huge pressure on the other Rings and probably would mean they centralize control over the criminal underworld. But there’s no way they could get enough into the city to arm a whole army. The government has too much control over firearms to allow that.”

“And that does not explain the 3D modeller they were hiring,” Zola said.

“Do you have a location?” Graham asked Vanessa.

“No, but we can track the phones. If they gather in one place at the time of the meeting, that’s gotta be the spot.”

“Not the most proactive option, but it should work,” Graham said, nodding in approval. “We’ll discuss the details later. Nell and Nick, may I have a word with you in the other room?”

Nell and I exchanged a look, then followed after Graham.

This room was smaller with a large flat table in the middle. Several lockers lined one wall and a large whiteboard hung opposite to them. There was a detailed drawing of a dragon in one corner that had been messily vandalized with a different colored marker to have lipstick and a penis. In the middle of the whiteboard was a row of patterns lined up like columns. I recognized the pattern that was on the fingers of many of our team members. It was labeled: “The Gambler’s Ring”. So the other patterns must be the other Rings.

Let’s try to commit these to memory. There was the Gambler’s Ring, a band of differently shaded stripes, like a roulette table or a poker chip. 

Next was a lion’s head, with a pattern on either side that looked like the fur lining of a coat. The Fedyaev Family Ring. Some sort of big shot crime family that was trying to muscle into Sillwood.

Then the Red Ring, which wasn’t red. Instead it was two black parallel lines, like racing stripes, except spikes poked out from either side of the stripe, like they were thorny.

The Eyes Wide Ring. A simple design of pointed oval shapes, like snake pupils, staggered one after the other like footprints.

The next pattern didn’t look like it could be wrapped around a finger to make a ring. It was a Chinese character. Beyond that, I couldn’t garner much. The Jiezhi were also part of a larger syndicate. According to Terry they were strictly hierarchical and quick to answer insults to their pride. I could vouch for that…

My eyes slid across, expecting another pattern. But under “Ghost Ring” there was nothing.

Graham shut the door behind us. “I have an unfortunate ask for the two of you,” he said somberly. “Sullivan has asked that you participate in a more dangerous mission.”

Nell bristled. “After what Terry just pulled? I’m not keen.”

Graham blinked. “You’ll have to tell me the details later. I want to give you time to consider your response. You could say no, but Sullivan keeps score. He may be less quick to come to your aid if the ledger is unbalanced.”

“Give us some more details first,” I said.

“Sullivan wants to build back some connections to the old Rings. I’m inclined to believe after the revelations of today that it would be prudent. However, the leader of the Red Ring is my brother. I know him well but he can be especially combative at times. Quick to throw his weight around just to get a reaction. It could be dangerous. But to be quite honest, I would be relieved if I could count on the two of you for a different reason.”

Graham steadied himself on the table and looked up. “You seem interested in finding out more about the drug known as Dice. I want to tell you what I know about it. To be upfront, I first joined the Rings to search for the distributor.”

His grip on the edge of the table tightened. “After what happened to the students I should have protected, it only felt right to seek justice. But I was lying to myself. What I truly wanted was to find the creator of such an abominable drug, and to wring their life out between my palms.”

“That makes three of us,” I said, glancing at Nell. “We’ve had run-ins with who we think is responsible. We even went to one of their old production facilities. They’re a group known as Organ and they’re the reason we’re in this mess. Human life is expendable to them.”

Graham took that in. “I should have expected it wouldn’t be just one person, but I’d had hope. That perhaps one villain could be stopped and the chaos would end,” he gave us a wry grin, “like a fairy tale. Laughable, no?”

“You mentioned students? Were you a teacher?” Nell asked.

He nodded. “I was a professor at Sillwood University.”

Suddenly Graham’s professionalism and the way he led people made a whole lot more sense.

“That’s a pretty extreme career shift,” I said. “What happened?”

Graham sighed and rubbed his temple. “You know the hypothetical, ‘if you had a time machine, what one thing would you change?’ It would be this.”

Then he straightened up and began his recollection, “I had been working at the university for only two years when my brother, Louis, started selling drugs to the students. I was aware he was selling to my students, but I turned a blind eye to it after my brother promise he wasn’t selling anything hard. I admit, I’ve never been particularly against drugs. I think they can expand our perception of reality in interesting ways. Some even have therapeutic use. I bought from Louis myself when the stress of professorship was becoming too much.

My stomach turned. Partly because of the subject, partly because I suspected what happened next.

“I still believe that some recreational drugs can be used quite positively, making oneself more aware of your ego and the world.” Graham’s face darkened. “But my negligence cost others dearly.”

“Louis excitedly told me about a new drug that was harmless but gave you an entirely new experience. I was obviously skeptical, but he said he had tried it without ill effects. I refused to let him sell it until I had tried it as well.” 

Graham stared at his palm as if seeing something. “The drug came in syringe form. I will admit, it was truly a strange and enlightening experience. Every emotion I felt was deeper, as if I was connected to the source of anger, the source of wonder, every feeling was part of a great power that drove through us all. And when I came down from it, I felt fine, in fact I felt better than before, if a bit heavier somehow. After a week with no apparent side effects, I relented and allowed Louis to sell it to my students.”

Graham’s eyes were full of sorrow. He paused here and looked for a place to sit down. Nell pulled a chair out from the table. Graham sat and took a deep breath.

“Louis called me during a class. He said that something had gone horribly wrong and he needed my help. I rushed to the forest behind the school and found that some of my students had taken this drug. That is when I discovered why the only proper name for that drug is Dice. In a stroke of luck, my brother and I rolled well. The students did not. Two had transformed to the point that they could not possibly hide it. Another had become a mindless, murderous monster. And in the ensuing struggle I discovered that I had also been changed by the Dice.”

Graham gestured to his chest. “As you saw before in my terribly theatrical demonstration, I am extremely resilient to injury. Not because I can deflect bullets, but because a bullet will never deal a dangerously fatal blow. I appear to have countless contingencies in my body. When an organ fails, that route is switched and a replacement organ takes over. I can occasionally feel my insides shifting as it makes new, different contingencies. That is the extent of my knowledge, although I have arranged for an autopsy when I expire. Excuse me, that’s my inquisitive side taking over.”

“My brother and I managed to keep the two students safe in the moment. The monster, my former student, disappeared into the trees. I realized, while staring at my forever changed students, that they would never be able to live normally again. They would be outcasts for the rest of their lives, unable to contact their family. And I realized that I had no place leaving them to that fate. I alone was responsible.”

Graham shrugged wearily. “Where could they go? What community would accept them? I did not want for their lives to be ruled by scientific examination or the media parading them as abominations. So I leaned on my brother’s expertise. The Ring didn’t ask questions. So I joined as well to keep an eye on them, to ensure that they wouldn’t be employed to do dubious tasks.” 

“But I wasn’t satisfied with just that. I had drilled my brother for information on who sold him the Dice. When I tracked down his supplier, I was met with disappointment. The supplier knew less about the drug than I do now. So I went further up the chain. The Ring was still intact at this point, so the only way for me to reach these higher ups was to ascend the ranks myself. 

Graham shook his downturned head. “I am a fool of course, I realize it now that I was only getting my hands dirtier and dirtier, but at the time I thought they were already as dirty as they could be so it couldn’t get any worse.”

Nell leaned forward, “So did you find them?”

Graham nodded. “I did. I discovered that the Boss of the Ring was personally handing out this drug to his subordinates with instructions to distribute and record. He didn’t tell anyone what Dice actually did. I informed others in the Ring of the Boss’ strange behaviour, hoping that he would be ousted. Instead, all hell broke out. People began to accuse each other of all sorts of treachery and backstabbing. Each thought the others were lying. My own brother accused me of ratting out his dealers to the cops. At one point, I swear I saw him rifling through my possessions, but he denied it adamantly. Through all this, an impossible suspicion began to form in my mind. That this was all the doing of the Boss somehow.”

I looked at Nell to see that we were on the same page. We had heard a story similar to this one before. Albeit this was on a much larger scale.

“Helen,” Nell whispered.

Graham looked at her inquisitively, “Hm?”

I held up a hand. “Finish the story. Let’s make sure we have all the details.”

Graham nodded. “Eventually, the Boss was discovered to be dead. An impersonator had been acting in his place. This discovery fractured the Ring and led to the worst of the gang wars. After a long time of violence, some of which I partook in, the Rings settled into generally the form they are in now. I refused to believe that the Boss had just vanished. So I took it upon myself to be the information unit of the Gambler’s Ring.” 

“That was when I heard rumours of something strange happening in the Old Town, with members of the same Ring going crazy and killing each other. Those who survived claimed that they saw hallucinations of people from their personal lives that were dead. Ghosts. I began to suspect that this Queen of the Ghost Ring was none other than that impersonator. The fact that Dice dealers have been coming to and from the Old Town has only solidified that theory. I convinced Sullivan that the Queen would be trouble in the future if left to her schemes.”

Graham’s wide shoulders drooped. “But that feels like ages ago. Since then, I have lost that desire for vengeance. One of the changed students I worked to protect killed themself, likely out of despair at their predicament. The other has become a murderer working for my brother. Then after I had given up hope, the two of you showed up, wanting to help find the Ghost Queen… All I see now is another young person whose life may be destroyed by my actions.”

I didn’t know what to say. I shared Graham’s feelings of responsibility and wanting to make things right. I shared his feelings of despair when progress seemed to slip through our fingers. Could I really say to him that we could see things through to the end?

Nell spoke first, “Graham. I think you are a good person.”

Graham looked up with bemusement. “After what I just told you? After you just met me?”

“I share Nick’s experiences and I’ve seen you act. I trust you. And I think we got a good lead from your story,” Nell said, grinning impishly. “The Queen of the Ghost Ring. I think her name is Helen, and she is, or maybe was, Alek’s girlfriend.”