KULT - CHAPTER 01

Kult breathes through a respirator, a black rubber mask which packs away carcinogens into the fibers of a well-used filter. The sound of it, of his own breath, rushes in his ears. Black lenses block out his eyes. From a distance, he looks menacing but it’s just a mask and a waxed-canvas jacket. He doesn’t feel menacing. Right now he feels like so many others, frustrated maybe or disillusioned.

He walks past patchworks of rusted steel walls welded together with thick, untidy seams like veins. These buildings feature some with groaning air filtration systems that rattle and cough and with dead metal boxes, tombstones for deteriorating graveyard factories and communes.

He marches a fixed path toward Grievances with only a few dollars in his pocket. Streets are usually empty at night, so when he passes three figures—each masked, carrying heavy clanking duffle bags—he passes on the far side of the street and picks up his pace. The black, emotionless masks follow him in unison. Before rounding a corner he pauses, looks over his shoulder. The figures watch him for a second more then move along.

They’re up to no good. They’re dangerous. Or could be they are thinking the same of him. Doesn’t matter. Not tonight. Kult just needs to drink. Just needs to forget for a little while.

---

A hand-painted sign next to the entrance chamber reads, “Grievances” in garish orange, the last few letters squished together as the artist ran out of room. It’s surrounded by bright graffiti and artist tags. Beside the sign a cartoonish masked stability officer pointing a stinger at the viewer is painted in saturated greens and pinks. Scrawled at a cockeyed angle next to it is the phrase, Top becomes bottom. Bottom becomes top.

When was that one added? Kult looks behind him but the potholed streets are empty and the alleyways are still except the dry wind. The graffiti could be a warning or it could be there just for the hell of it. Maybe from one of those wannabe-nihilist teenagers looking for an adrenaline fix.

He knocks against the thick steel door. A bolt within retracts with a click. He spins the hand wheel on the hatch, pulls it open, and enters. Closing it behind him, air suddenly whooshes out in a rush making his ears pop. A fine mist coats his waxed canvas clothing for a second, then the next door clicks open. Entering any place, anytime, is always an uncomfortable exercise.

Inside the room is dim, the air thick with brownish fungal smoke rising from crude steel pipes. Kult removes his mask and curls his nose at the thick musk. There’s music, a beautiful feminine song underscored by the sound of people mumbling quietly together.

He takes a seat at an empty table and smiles. Anonymous in the crowd, something lets go and let’s out a sigh. He can feel content for a little. On a small stage without a microphone sings a woman named Astira Lockhart. She’s a regular here who Kult has listened to many times before. She sings just a simple song, low and slow, and Kult’s tense muscles relax one at a time.

With graying stubble and new wrinkles around his eyes, Kult isn’t old but sometimes he looks it. Sometimes he really feels it. His skin tone is a contrast of a deep red-brown-tan along his neck and jaw with his face a pale patch where his mask often covers. It’s a very specific look. When people meet his eyes, they react. Only a few types have these kinds of tans. Only those who spend enough time outdoors—freelancers, officers, terrorists, and maintenance—so everyone wonders, which are you, because only one of them is safe.

He places a couple bucks on the table and watches Astira sing. The music and psychotropic smoke in the air lull him into a dreamy state. For a second, his and her eyes link and Kult takes a breath. But the moment is short lived.

“Drink?” someone asks.

He doesn’t look up, just nods and keeps watching the way Astira dances slow in her hand-me-down rags. A cup of frothy brown fungal wine appears before him. He sips it, savoring the mossy flavor and the tingling sensation on his tongue. The mild hallucinations make his brown and gray surroundings shimmer at the corners of his eyes the way the sky shimmers toxic rainbow colors at dawn and dusk.

Mal takes a seat next to him and Kult frowns then inches away trying not to make it look obvious. She has light brown-red hair and skin off-white with freckles speckling a hawkish nose. He’d think she’s almost cute if he din’t know any better. But Kult knows her, so he tenses his jaw.

“Haven’t seen you in a while, Kult,” she says in a matter of fact way. Kult nods. “Things must be good for you lately.”

“Yup.” He scratches away the irritating mites that drink from the rim of his eyes.

“I bet. Oof, your eyes don’t look so good. Bug’s been rough this season? I wouldn’t know. I got these drops that take care of it, haven’t had an issue in months. You can have a drop if you want. Stings like hell but it’ll keep the bugs away. Have a drop. C’mon, don’t you trust me?” She grins wryly. She hands him a small tin with a dropper and he eyes it.

“C’mon, Kult. Calamity. See.” She takes the dropper back and drips one into her eye then blinks it away. “Tada.”

He takes it with a begrudging frown. After a drop a burning sensation and a moment, the tickles around his eyes seem to ease. He shakes his head, breaths in deep, blinks like mad as the stinging dies. “Thanks,” he says. “Fucking hate those things.”

“Feel better?”

“Yeah.”

“My pleasure. So, how’s things?” Mal smiles which makes the skin around the white scar on her forehead crinkle. It’s almost charming, but Kult still has his guard up. “I hear you’re getting more credible by the day.”

He know’s she’s poking at him, but says, “Reputation’s important in my line of work.”

“I bet it is for a freelancer.” She flashes a cocky grin.

“Something you’re looking for, Mal?”

She leans back in mock offense. “You need to relax. I’m not judging. It’s a lot of work building a criminal enterprise. Especially one so theatrical. I’m impressed. Really, I am.”

“Looking for pointers? Who’re you working for these days?”

“You haven’t heard? I’m gonna be your new best friend.”

Kult looks sideways at her.

“I’ve taken the plunge. I’m self-employed too. Freelancer, just like you. I bought out all of Silke Thomas’s contracts. Cashing in on all the owed debts.”

Kult narrows his eyes. “So that’s why you sat next to me.”

“I did notice your name on that list.”

“What’cha trying to do, Mal? Ruin my night? Coming over here while I’m trying to relax with my friends.” He motions an empty hand at the preoccupied patrons around him.

She laughs. “You’re funny.”

“I try.”

“Don’t worry. You’re small fry. You have no idea the kind of debt people get into. Compared to the communes, your a rounding error. So maybe, I’m thinking I can keep you at the bottom of the files for a while.”

“And what’s that cost me?”

“Buy me a drink for a start. Answer some questions. Consider giving me access to…”

His eyes flash to her and narrow.

“…to things. Sources. You know?”

“I can’t access the network, if that’s what you’re asking,” he lied.

She holds her gaze with an unconvinced half smile.

“Yeah, you can ask me some questions,” Kult laughs. “I’ve only got a few bucks and change. That’s it. And I don’t want to talk about work all night.”

“Great.” Mal smiles. “Put it on the table. We can pool our resources and get a pitcher.”

He puts his money up and she tosses a couple more bucks down to round it out. More fungal wine comes and she raises her glass and he clinks it with his.

“You had questions?”

“Where’d you get your computer?”

Kult puts a finger to his lips. “You mean Max?”

“Your computer’s a boy?”

“Gender neutral.”

She smiles.

He shrugs. “Foraged for parts from a bit of everywhere. I made it myself.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

“How?”

“Trial and error. I had to crack open a few books and dumpster dive for years before I could get anything really working. It’s not something I can teach over a drink. And then there’s the software problem. You get that far, knock on my door. I’ll get you booted.”

“Shit. That sounds like a long shot.”

“Look,” says Kult. “If you can get my name off your list, and any other list that might come your way, I can look shit up for you, let you borrow some resources, whatever. From time to time.”

She nods. “I’ll think about it.”

“Anything else?”

“Yeah, what do you know anything about the blackouts?”

Kult smirks. “Nothing.”

---

Their conversation get’s stilted. They drink more, talk less. He feels distracted. His replies are delayed and distant. Soon, they sit in silence both watching the singer and pretending like they’re friends, but it’s a thin veil. Beyond work, they have nothing to discuss.

Within the hour, the whole room seems to shimmer and sparkle to Kult. His head warbles. Mal loses interest, says something about the bar, then walks to it and doesn’t come back. Kult nods to himself. With a sigh, he downs the rest of his wine, puts on his mask, and stumbles through the ear-popping exit hatch in a crummy mood.

Outside, the sun has long set, the graffitied walls dark shades of purple. The wind blows hard. He clicks on a small bright lamp on the top of his mask and walks back in the direction of home. And there they are again. Three masked figures with duffle bags hovering around the walls of Grievances. They pause, watch him, but this time a shiver runs up his spine. Groggy, he shrugs it off and continues on until Grievances is out of sight.

Then it hits. From a less than a quarter-mile away Kult feels a small burst of air at his back, hears the boom!

He spins around and see’s nothing but darkness. He rushes back towards the bar, and sure enough a plume of brown smoke leaks from burst seams. He stumbles, eyes wide behind the black lenses of his mask, breath caught in his filter. A four foot hole with petals of metal peeled outwards, the edges of it licked by flames, is blown out of the side of the metal graffitied wall. It’s eerily quiet, only the sound of flames.

Without thinking, he runs to the entrance hatch, tries to twist the handwheel, but it’s locked tight. He bangs on the door three times. Nothing. 

He gasps for air hard, wants to rip off his mask. A glint catches his eye, the reflection of a flame in the black lens of a mask hugging the edge of wall not far away. A group of three watching him. They look at each other for a surreal moment. The one nearest tilts its head and gives an exaggerated shrug, palms up in the air. 

Kult swallows, mouth intensely dry.

They slinking away, three specters, nihilists, people who just want to watch the world burn for their amusement. No message, no ideology, just end times shenanigans.

Kult takes a stilted step, as though he could pursue them, and then what… He stops short. And then another thought dawns on him. The graffiti on the wall next to him is of the masked stability officer pointing a stinger directly at him. If he’s discovered next to this wreckage… Officers are surly on their way. The city survives on a knife’s edge and stability must be preserved.. He’ll feel that edge if he’s implicated with this, so he turns and runs without thinking if it’s in the direction of home.

---

Everyone knows someone who’s died before their time. It’s not unusual, in fact the opposite is true. Everyone knows a stillbirth. Or the sound of breathing with tumor filled lungs. Or someone murdered by nihilists or disappeared by the government. Suffering, abuse, death, it’s all a fact of life. Funny isn’t the exactly the correct word for it, but there is a macabre sense humor in when distance from you to any, every, ill deed on Earth—every murder, disease, kidnap, and rape—is within walking distance from home.

Kult’s seen the humor in this before. He’s made that very point several times in heated debates with people powerless to make a difference, both arguing the same side but arguing nontheless. Now with the arteries in his neck pulsing and a rhythmic bu-dump bu-dump bu-dump bu-dump drumming in his ears, he doesn’t see the humor in it.

His eyes are tearing, blurring his vision, and he can’t wipe them dry, and when he tries the back of his wrist is met with the rubber of his mask. He breathes hard, chest burning, head light, the night spinning, and walks with quick yet unsure strides then stops and falls back against a wall. He pushes off, kicks the wall with his heel, paces like a madman in the dark deserted street.

He’s not far enough away. But he was just there, inside Grievances, and then… Shit, damn it! How many people? How many were in there? Thirty? He finds himself revisiting the bar in his mind, looking from table to table for anyone else he recognized. Shit, Mal! And the singer, what was her name… Faces that were familiar, folks he’d said a word or two in passing. All twisted metal and fire. Oh fuck! And that shrug. That smug shrug. The way they watched him and shrugged. They took a life, took so many, and they… In his minds eye, it wasn’t a single shrug, all of them make the same gesture, the same tilt of the head. It fills his view, more real than the night that surrounds him. What… What… What can he do now?

He pounds his fist on a metal wall, then again and it echos dully in the night. There’s noise from the other side, muffled tin voices, then someone pounds back and yells something unintelligible but angry.

His damn mask feels claustrophobic. Several times he almost rips it from his face, but after a while, a thread of reason overrides his hysteria. After a while, with all the same images in his mind, his body goes numb. He realizes he’s been walking parallel to home and is no closer now than when he started running. He takes a long deep breath, then without thinking about it, his feet carry him towards the sanctuary of home.

The wind blows. Too warm for Autumn. Seasons don’t really mean much these days. No one alive associates the word ‘Autumn’ with red and orange leaves. No, it’s the season of the mushroom bloom. Clusters of them peek out in the most unexpected places.

As he nears his street, the gusts become more intense and somehow the voice inside his head grows silent. Kult rounds a familiar corner, finds his back against a cold steel wall, blinks the tears from his eyes, and doesn’t even notice the mites are still gone. 

This is nothing new. It happens to everyone. This time it just happened to him is all. It was just another hundredth of a percent of the human race, that’s it. Just a hundredth of a percent. An endangered species gleefully killing itself.

A block from home, a speck in the air floating in the light of his lamp catches Kult’s eye. A subtle drifting puff dances in the wind, then vanishes in the dark. He pauses and sees another, then another.  They appear whipping around in circles, falling, dancing with the wind. His eyes go wide. Spores. Kults covered head to foot in rubber and waxed canvas, but it’s not air tight. If a single spore sneaks in the gap of his collar touch it will be a neurological nightmare, a slow death of paralysis and suffocation. With his gloved hands covering the back of his neck, Kult runs the rest of the way home.

---

Tens of dull, hand-painted signs hang upon Kult’s building. Two hang over his entrance hatch. The first reads: ‘Artisanal Animals.’ The second is written in a less formal hand, letters of hashed crowfeet. It reads: 

Kult Braxton, Investigator

Anomalies, Conspiracies & the Supernatural

Inside the dark room, Kult removes his mask with trembling hands. He rubs them together, opens and closes them, flaps them in the air. He takes a long deep breath then and flips a switch. The lights don’t even flicker. Blackouts have already started.

“Damn it,” he sighs in defeat.

 The blackouts come more frequently these days, but no one from the undercity has felt the need to explain why. When they first started, nobody thought anything of it, but over time it was clear this was now a part of daily life. Kult had searched the network for clues but never found any records. There must be records somewhere, stored in closed system, some intranet without any outside ports.

He drops his mask on the floor, then his gloves, then arches his back and slacks his shoulders and lets his jacket fall off careful to touch as little as possible. He kicks them into cubby built into the wall, strips down the rest of the way using gravity as much as possible. It’s a practiced routine he does on autopilot. He takes a hooked metal wire from the wall, and uses it to lift the door to the cubby, then pushes it closed with a toe.

Palms out before him, he walks through the pitch dark, feels the fur of the great synthesized bear taxidermy and lets his fingers slide through the bristles. It’s soothing. The tufts of imitation hair against his fingers feel so real, and something about the action of petting lets a breath that was trapped in his chest free.

Climbing the dark stairwell to his office, he pulls an electric lantern from a plug in the wall. It flickers to life and lights up the room in a lonely quiet glow. He sits at his desk, rubs his forehead, and tries to push the stubborn images—three figures in the night, that heartless shrug, the sound of the explosion, Mal and everyone else—out of his mind with a quick shake of the head and a crack of the neck.

His mind races with a shatter of thoughts which repeat ad nauseam. He sits anxiously, feet tapping agains the metal floor, hands fidgeting, and waits for the power to return. Some time past the night and into the dark early morning, after the air has gone thick with carbon dioxide and the smell of sweat, an air filter whirs to life, the light overhead pops and illuminates, power on. He drops the cloth, takes a seat at his makeshift desk, and kicks a switch. The computer whirs to life. He waves a hand over it.

“Max?”

It’s is a corroded somewhat feminine voice pushed through a decayed buzzing speaker. 

“Can’t sleep,” says Kult. His eyes are bloodshot. But over the hours, he’s receded into himself, living remote-controlled from deep in a cave far away from the nights events. The numbness saved him from going mad. But now he’s reaching to his computer to pull him back out. To make him feel human again.

Kult yawns, only now exhaustion taking hold, and rubs his forehead until it turns pink. “You know I do.”

“Just read them all to me. I want to hear a familiar voice. I’m going to close my eyes.”

Kult leans back in his chair and half listens to the relaxing static hum of Max’s voice.

At this moment though, Max says,

“Wait a sec, Max,” Kult says. He leans forward, curious. “What’re you reading from?”

Max modulates mid-word, cut short.

“Assistance?” He scoffs. “My ass. What did it say, just now?”

“Episodes?” Kult eyes the tiny window on the far wall, his peephole to the world. Tan fluff spores rap against it, some cling to the frame. A small fog of mites collects on the rim inside. “Go on, what’s it say after that?”

Max goes quiet and Kult mulls on her words.

“Formal assessment.” He laughs bitterly. “Jeez. Good luck with—“ He pauses. “Wait wait wait. I think I remember something. Max, do we have anything else related on file? Not from the network, from, uh, Dao-Tai Yen.”

“What? Shit. Come on, she’s in the archives—”

Kult hurries to a cluttered shelf. “That’s fine. I backed it up last time I wiped your system. Just need to find it. Max, how long until the next blackout?”

“Damn.” Kult scans the mess of mini drives oh his shelf. He shuffles through them and the lights shut off. Max’s speakers pop. Everything goes dark and quiet except the pattering of spores against the metal wall. Blackout came early. Kult flips on an electric emergency lantern, rubs his eyes, and continues searching.