Riven
I’m sitting in Reverb’s private room waiting for our cue to go on stage. I’m not one to get nervous, especially after how long we’ve been at this. This thing that started as a few friends playing in a beat-down garage on discount, shit equipment. Typical run-of-the-mill story, right? Wrong. I’m not a good guy. I’ve done terrible things to even worse people. I don’t know why I did it. Call it Vigilante Personality Trait, VPT for short. It would fit right in with the DSM-5. Psychology is kind of my thing, I guess. I got my bachelor’s in psychology at Blackthorn University, where I also teach. The degree was at least good for something. I know how to read people, and I know most of their darkest secrets before they even become aware of them.
I was good at it, too. The psychology stuffandthe killing. I managed to stay hidden, to stay in the darkness where a monster like me belongs. I’ve never danced around the fact that I enjoythe places my mind goes when I’m getting my hands dirty. Seeing the blood of these assholes covering my hands is a high like no other. I told myself I did it for all the right reasons. Truthfully, I also did it for all the horribly wrong ones. I loved the way it felt to rid the earth of scum. Ilovedthe feel of a jugular being sliced wide the fuck open.Shit. Did I forget to mention that I kill people? Cold-blooded, if you ask the law. Vigilante, if you ask me. At least, Idid.
? ? ?
Two years ago, I was approached by a man while the guys and I were rehearsing. I don’t even fucking know what we were rehearsing for, because it’s not like we were playing outside of the garage. I told the guys I’d be back, leaving the garage and walking around the back of it. I heard the man’s footsteps, heavy on the gravel side road, before I saw him. He was an older man, maybe somewhere in his mid-fifties, wearing an all-black tux, carrying an all-black briefcase. Very official-looking. His silver-gray hair was slicked back, and he had the slightest hint of a five o’clock shadow. I thought that it was one of my old psychology professors coming to try and talk me back into a doctorate program. They were always down my throat about that.
“You’re going to regret throwing this all away,” they would tell me. But when the man made his way to me, I recall that the only thing I could focus on was his eyes. He had eyes that were devoid of life. I remember how looking into them was akin to looking into my soul. I felt it because Iwasit. I knew the second I looked into his lifeless, dead eyes that it wasn’t a friendly meeting with an old professor. I instantly pulled him off to the side and asked him what he was doing there. He got straight to the point, telling me that he knew my secrets. I didn’t ask him toelaborate because I knew he was referring to my murderous side job. Like I said, I’m good at reading people.
“Are you sure you have the right guy?” I asked Mr. Dead Eyes.
“Is this you?” he said back, holding up a phone with a very incriminating video of my fucking face on it. I brought my gaze back to his, contorting my expression into one of indifference.
“I see,” was all I could say, because I didsee.I saw that I was royally fucked. Of all the kills I’ve made, it was a video ofthatpiece of shit assho—
“I hope you do, Riven. Because this is not an offer you are going to want to turn down, unless you fancy life behind bars. You’re as good as dead without me,” he said, breaking me out of my thoughts. “Look, I know you thought you were making the world a better place by playing Batman, but you’ve pissed off the wrong people this time. This guy wasn’t anobody. You had to know someone would come looking,” he added, jaw flexing.
How did he know? I was so careful. I covered my tracks. I …
“So, you have two options. You can go to prison and probably be killed on the inside by one of his cronies. Or you can become part of a social experiment,” he stated.
“Social … what?” I asked, confused and mildly curious.
“I work for Sonus Corp. Our company intercepted before you were taken by the feds,” he said, pulling a cigarette out of his slacks and lighting it up. It was fuckinggross. I always hated the habit. “We’re branded as a music and technology company, but we run an underground social experiment lab. When the boss lady saw what you did, she looked into you. Says you’re perfect for the gig.” He inhaled long, blowing out the smoke before continuing. “You and your crew over there”—he motioned with a lazy hand to my friends back in the garage— “are going to become a band. You will be anonymous and masked. You will keep your talent and your artistic visions, of course.” Hepaused, tossing the cigarette to the ground and stomping on it. “This is where it gets interesting, so keep up. We will integrate a frequency into the music that we believe will increase a listener’s desire for it. It wi—”
I stopped him. “You … what?” I said, taking a breath before my temper decided to show off. Instead, I let my not-so-useless psychology degree show off, recalling a lecture that I did a while back that covered similar thought processes.
“Let me get this straight. You want to use us as front men, so that you and your underground lady boss can test a mind control theory on people?” I asked, acutely aware of how serious his words were. Howdangerousthey could have been.
He studied me like he was impressed that I made the connection so quickly. I remember thinking that only a rookie wouldn’t do their homework on a guy like me.
“Well, yes. That’s exactly what we are proposing. We simply want to know if this frequency can make people think and feel certain things. We want to determine if it can draw people in and make them respond to it, in a sense. All to increase sales, of course. Sonus is a record label, after all.” His smile widened while he looked off into the distance like a weirdo. It was the first time I saw any sort of light in his eyes. It was more of a raging fire. And in that moment, I knew that he was withholding a greater truth.
“And if I say no? Are you just going to turn me in? Take me off to prison in a pair of cuffs?” I laughed because I actually would’ve loved to see him try. For a split second, I considered cutting open his carotid to see how fast he would bleed to death. I stopped myself, realizing that he probably had a tracker on him that would alarm at any sign of duress.
He smirked, really looking at me. It felt as though I had just broadcast that entire throat-slicing scenario out in a little thought bubble above my head.
“I think we both know you won’t,” he said, and he wasn’t wrong. I didn’t have much of an option. I didn’t think I’d fit in with the prison crowd anyway. I’m not a petty criminal.
I knew enough about psychology and the mind to know that these people weren’t going to stop at “testing a frequency.” I’ve read about shit like this. I’ve taught on shit like this. I’ve gone down conspiracy rabbit holes as much as anyone, and I knew that mind control through frequency was plausible. It was terrifying, but plausible. I knew he was hiding the whole story, that he probably couldn’t tell me too much in case I tried to bolt or attempted to murder him where he stood that night.
So, I asked him outright. “What aren’t you telling me?”
“Nothing you don’t already know,” he said knowingly. It made me think that maybe he did do his homework, after all.
“What are the terms?” I asked. Guys who looked like him always had terms.
He recited the list like he was reading me my rights. “You and your friends will remain anonymous and masked. You will not give your identity to a single person. You will not speak of the social experiment aspect to anyone. You will record in our studios. You will go on tour when and where we place you. You will sign a two-year contract, and then we will re-evaluate.” He paused before continuing. “Oh, and you will not kill a single person during this time, unless we give you an order to.”
I almost choked at that last part. “That’s it?”
“That’s it,” he repeated.
“Do we like, shake on it? Do I sign my name in blood?” I joked. I’m not gonna lie, I kind of felt like I was making a deal with the devil. A deal with the devil, or a life sentence. Those were my choices. I ran my hand through my hair, pacing around the gravel road. I did not want to go to prison, and I saw no way out at the time. I did what I had to do for myself and the guys. And I would do it all again.
“I’ll do it,” I said without hesitation.
