Ascension Chapter 6- Hustle Bones

Book 2: Red Green and Blue

"Ashley, I'm telling you, I really don't wanna be here."

"Tania, it'll be fun! Kendra's here."

don't be a bitch all you ever do is watch netflix and

Tania sighed. Ashley led the way as they approached the townhouse, the bass audible from the street. Hopefully, the cops would converge on the scene soon and scatter everyone, but for the moment the frat party was in full swing.

Tania wore a red and green checkered flannel with a white Death Grips shirt underneath. A green hairband sat on her mousy brown hair, where one could see on it a little red light softly blinking in the right lighting.

Tania checked her phone, absentmindedly. She looked at the event page and saw somewhere around five hosts.

"Whose party is this anyway?"

Ashley shrugged, her hoop earrings jangling with the motion. "Don't know, don't care. I'm getting fucked up tonight."

There was a lone man in a sports jacket who nursed on a cigarette while checking his phone. He glanced at them, then back at the blue glow of his iPhone, releasing a puff of smoke towards the sky.

where this dude at it's six already

They rang the doorbell, and after a moment a guy in a red blazer answered the door, his eyes glazed over. He smelled as if he had just bathed in bong water. They were immediately assailed with the boom of an 808, high hats clicking in rapid sixteenth notes like the mating calls of insane, dancing cidadas.

"Ladies!" He paused and glanced over the both of them. "Uh... Who are you?"

"We're friends with Kendra." Ashley said brightly.

"Dunno who that is." He muttered.

"Do you care?" Tania asked.

eh could always use more babes

He pursed his lips and shrugged, and stepped out of the way.

They climbed the stairs, where a few people stood apart, a couple of males talking in eachother's ears while one gently touched the other's arm (oh god he's perf), a guy in a Tyler, The Creator hoodie standing in the corner, (how could she do this to me) slurring and belligerent while on the phone.

Tania glanced over them once as they followed the guy in the blazer up the stairs, to the loft.

A disco ball spun in the ceiling over a throng of people, bouncing and swaying to the beat. The lights dancing over them changed from red, to green, to blue.

Tania twisted her mouth at the sight. She cupped her hand to her mouth and spoke into Blazer Boy's ear. "Where are the drinks?"

"Over in the kitchen." He pointed ahead to a brightly lit doorway, with Christmas lights hung around the doorframe.

She touched Ashley's arm. "I'm gonna get a drink. Want anything?"

"Smirnoff Ice." Her expression brightened as a girl in dyed red hair came out of a circle of friends, they hugged and spoke ear to ear.

wow, she's getting fat and those sequins don't work

Tania brushed past a group of cheering and shouting guys into the kitchen, where a scattered few laughed jovially and bobbing their heads enthusiastically in between swigs of a beer. Tania made a beeline for the granite island, on it a punch bowl, a bucket full of ice, various beer and wine coolers, and a plethora of liquor bottles, with red Solo cups in a dozen stacks.

She popped the top off of a bottle of Jameson, and poured it over some ice into a Solo cup. She poured to the first line and sipped, enjoying the cool whiskey running down her throat. She felt the headache subside a little.

"Hey, what's up Tania?"

Tania recognized the voice immediately, felt her insides turn to ropes as she turned to see Mark standing nearby with his horrible, plastered on smile. Small patches of cystic acne covered his cleft chin, and he stared at her through coke-rim glasses. He was tall, and also muscular.

"Hey... Mark. How are you?"

"Did you read my Facebook message?"

"No... Nor did I read the other sixty you sent me this morning..."

"Aw, c'mon, Tania. Don't be like that. I don't like it when you play games."

"I'm not the one who plays games, Mark. That's you. Now if you'll excuse me, Ashley's thirsty."

Mark stepped in front of her, blocking her exit from the island. She clutched the solo cup tightly with two hands.

"Why do you always wear that hairband, Tania?"

"None of your business, Mark. Get out of my way."

she thinks she's better than everyone else because she can read minds I'll show her I'll fucking show everybody

"Who built it for you?"

"Mark, you have three seconds before I kick you in the balls. Don't fuck with-"

He grabbed the hairband, yanked it off her head.

She growled and punched his chest, forcing him back, but it was too late. The voices stabbed into her consciousness, snapping her sense of balance off like a blown fuse. She leaned against a cabinet, feeling nauseous and frightened.

now i have proof knew it you cheated you cheated all through high school and i'm the only one who knew

Two of the closest guys glanced in their direction.

what's up with

Tania's eyes darted painfully and by reflex to each thought-

is she okay

i can't tell if it's in

i'm definitely not driving

this guy is burning a hole in my chest

my dad would kill me

i think i should just kiss her

going to smash on this guy if he so much as looks at her

i have a midterm tomorrow why am i doing this

She screamed. "SHUT UP!"

The gathering in the kitchen came to a lull.

"I'm gonna go viral with this," Mark growled. "You're done. The Feds are gonna come after you. Or worse."

A woman stood between him and Tania, a sudden blur in Tania's soaked eyes. She was clad in a leather jacket with a black hood, and ripped jeans. Locks of dirty blonde hair peaked out from under the hood.

"Do we have a problem here?" She asked.

"Who the fuck are you? Get away from me!" Mark hissed.

"Give me back the hairband, or you'll take it with you to the ER."

"Ha, are you kidding? I'm onto a revelation here."

He trailed off, and looked around; Nearly everybody was looking in their direction, and one bearded guy with a Necrophagist tee-shirt placed his Sam Adams on the counter and crossed his thick arms ominously, his chin raised slightly and his attention full on their conversation.

Mark narrowed his eyes, looked almost like he wanted to run away with the hairband, but with hesitation he handed it over.

The woman snatched it from his hand and grabbed his shirt collar, lifting him slightly onto the balls of his feet.

"Now listen to me, you little conspiracy theorist freak."

"Oh, I'm the freak!" Mark scoffed, though it was becoming increasingly evident nobody was going to bail him out of this situation.

The woman got in close to his face, and Tania could barely hear what she said next.

"You're going to close this little case of yours. Otherwise, I'll find you. And when I find you, I'll make sure you never talk to anyone ever again. I'm gonna dig a hole; and you, your laptop, and all your little research articles are going to share this hole, while I pour lighter fluid on you and set you on fucking fire. Do you understand?"

He blinked, and gulped, the blacklight in the kitchen practically making his face glow. After a moment he nodded, and she let him go, thrusting him back with one arm.

Someone shouted from the back, probably Necrophagist guy. "Yeah, that's right, Chemtrails. Get the fuck outta here."

As Mark slunk away into the party, the girl gently placed the hairband back on Tania's head, and the din gradually dissolved, and conversation around them returned to normal.

Tania moaned and touched her forehead; It burned like a coal furnace, and her back was slick with sweat.

"Are you alright?" Her savior asked.

"Yeah... Thanks for helping me out there."

"What can I say... Guys like that really piss me off. What do you say we get some fresh air?" The stranger jerked her thumb towards the balcony.

Tania could not read her mind, and decided she liked the stranger already.

They stepped outside, and Tania leaned against the railing. She stared blankly at the shady silhouettes of trees in Franklin Park.

"I'm Lynn by the way. Lynn Cho." Lynn offered Tania a cigarette from a pack of Marlboro Reds, the tin foil sort of just wrinkled and ripped instead of removed. Tania took it gratefully, and Lynn lit it with a lighter shaped like a grenade. Tania thought this odd, but not any more than anything else that had happened tonight.

Lynn offered a hand to shake, and Tania took it; The grip was surprisingly strong, and direct. It was then that she got a good look into her eyes, and saw stark, almost lacquered-looking blue irises, drawing her own eyes in fascination. Eyes that blue were exclusive to Anime characters, and wolves.

"Tania Moretti," she said. "Thank you for the cigarette by the way. You know you can rip the foil out... It's perforated."

"Oh shit, are you serious?" Lynn boggled at the pack, and ripped the front sheet out. "Well. You learn something new every day."

She took one out for herself, and lit it, leaning back against the balcony railing.

"You're studying astrophysics at MIT, right? You're a junior."

"Yeah..." Tania felt her stomach drop again. "How did you know?

"Let's just say... We have a mutual friend."

She tapped Tania's hairband playfully, and Tania took her meaning almost immediately.

"Oh god... Are you with the Feds or something?"

"No. God no." Lynn laughed. Her eyes were mirthful and her skin showed no sign of age... But her tone was mature and experienced. From her voice, Tania could almost peg her at around fourty to fifty years old. "I'd probably have brought you out front and handcuffed you, or shown that sleazeball Mark a badge... No, the good Dr. Allen and I work very closely. No, I'm here to tell you there's a place for you, Tania. You have
a great purpose in this universe, and the Doctor and I would really like to tell you about it."

The things Lynn was saying were weird in any other context, but Tania smiled. "So why a lame frat party? Do they drug test at Allen Corp?"

"I dunno. Why anywhere, Tania? Why Boston? Why Massachusets? Why the planet fuckin' Earth? Questions like that lead you nowhere. Say, you wanna go to Mars?"

Tania looked over at glistening stars peaking over the purple horizon, the moon crowned by a red, static, non-blinking entity that Tania knew at a glance to be Mars, fourth planet from the sun.

"Do I... want to go to Mars?"

"Yes."

"Um, I dunno. It's kind of impossible at the moment, isn't it? I can't just up and leave everything. Plus we're talking about Mars here."

"Oh, I know," Lynn said, crossing her arms. "And as an astrophysicist in training, I'm sure you have a lot to tell me about how dangerous it is, how many years it would take, how a solar flare could kill us in our sleep... If only we had infinite time to get to Mars, with none of the limitations of being human..."

"Whatever that means," Tania scoffed. She smiled, though Lynn's expression was dead serious.