I have notes, that look after my back, and I remix back. We share, we work, we love. I have community. We are of one song, we follow the beats of life together, we share a common rhythm, I have culture as well.

I have a job of the underground tho I don’t tap, I can support myself, I help my notes, roasters cook, beats eat, we dance.

But with every songs come rivalling genres and censor cops, wanna down our volume to mute, we will blast them back.

I cut, I sing, I fight, I eat, I play, I speech, this is the way of life and no heartless noise can say otherwise.

*

It was night time at a Sunday, luxury district were filled with young people dancing and drinking. Rather than being at the Technovania, I was at the Luda district, which was the heart of the luxury districts, there was hip hop music, rap music, and some strange kind of dub step and western classical? There was one large, six-lane main road curved while may smaller roads connected. There was a multicoloured array of bars and restaurants. I was there to explore the other communities and Reba’s wrestling show was today here.

I got a phone call from Reba, “Hey buttercup, you don’t mind ordering an album worth of pizza and personally bring it to the, cake bakery? The DJs are hungry. Sly crust.”. I responded, “Of course, midnight hon?”. Reba replied, “Upper!”. I depart, “Okay, end track Reba.”. She then hang up. I’m usually the one that does the heavy lifting, make sense considering my strength. I also don’t really like pizza, not much of a calcium note, I like my red meat and a variety of seafood, especially crab and beef. Just thinking about food makes me hungry.

I drink, I eat mini steaks, I hanged out with a group of senior, post-secondary students who were into electrical engineering and/or business. They were interested on my strange eyes, observing with speculative gestures.

As I hit the streets, a loud screech can be heard down the road. Nearly everyone didn’t seem to notice, I walk towards the screeching sound to see if I can get a look what that screeching is coming from, but it was twenty minutes till midnight and I needed to go to Ziggy Pizzaria now. So I made my way to the pizza place.

As I made my way, the population density was decreasing the closer I get till there was no one at the street of the food place. I then saw four police cars and the place closed, no lights, glass broken and pizza scrambled on the floor. Next to the Ziggy Pizzaria on its right, there was The Chuckies, which was also close but had its lights on, and scratches at its concrete walls. Finally on its left was the Panda Chow which was a large restaurant and it had its large parking lot nearly empty.

I started to speculate if the screeching was related to the happenings here. I reach for my phone to tell Reba the closing of the Ziggy Pizzaria but then hear the screech once more and this time it was coming from the right of the Luda district. Followed by the screech, I heard people screaming and police sirens. I ran back towards the district as fast as I could, jumping through traffic and running through the sidewalks.

I arrived at the large road of the Luda district and people where running towards me as they were exiting the district. To avoid the them, I climbed to the bar at my right, up to the roof. I take a look at the main road, empty and found a young, skinny black man with large talon hands, artificial pipes and tubes going through his head, torso and limbs, had barely any clothes, and little lights attached to his head and upper torso, two ambiguous thugs with one having a pipe and another having a baseball bat, and four police officers behind two cars, guns pointing at them.

The talon man stab the thug with the pipe in the stomach with his right arm, he vomited blood and began to fall. The baseball bat thug take his bat and try to hit the right arm of the talon man, but then the talon man retracted his right arm and cut the thug with the bat with a back hand slash, knock him down.

A male police officer yelled, “Get on the ground, get on the ground! This is your only warning!”. The Talon man look at the officer and ran up to them. Scared, the police officers fired at the talon man but missed their shots, only one hitting the baseball bat thug in the left side of the upper torso. The talon man slashed and stabbed them, screaming “You are not the law! I am the hero!”.

After the fight, he was taking deep breaths. The road nearly empty, I’m sure the military could arrive at any moment. I took a closer look and see that the talon man’s pipes look facility made, it was advanced cybernetics that even the rich could only dream of. I jumped down and move up towards him.

As I get close, he stared at me and yelled, “Who are you? Are you not afraid? You look familiar.”. I questioned, trying to calm him down, “Hey, what are you doing? Why are you attacking people?”. He respond frustrated and heavily breathing, “They were attacking me. I was gifted with superpowers. I attacked and killed gangs, no longer can I can be just, another guy. I am someone, I am somebody. You, I seen people that look exactly like you, the breach. They were running around, grabbing subjects and killing escapees. But they were all taller. Who are you!?”. A large burst of fear flowed through my body, I replied, “I feel your pain, look I got friends, we can help you out, get you a job, have a sense of community, and good techno beats, if you like.”. He roar in anger, “You think that I want to be a normal like you!? You were gifted at being the one percent at birth while I had to muddle my way to have the higher ups made me a guinea pig? You are spoiled!”.

He proceed to jump and slash me with his left arm. I dodged to the left and took out my knives, then warned, “Stop, this won’t solve anything.”. He ignored me and attempted to vertically slice with his right arm. I rolled to the left and cut his leg with my right knife. He made that screeching noise and I had to cover my over sensitive ears. He elbowed me in the stomach and it hurt a little, I kneed him in the stomach, then stab my right knife to his right hand and he yelled. When I impaled him, he tried to push with his other hand but doesn’t have the strength to do so. I punched him in the face, knocking him over.

He was starting to panic and crying, and crawl away from me frantically, “Why don’t you want to be a hero? Being hero is great, entrepreneurship is the great objective of life.”. I walked up to him and yelled, “Stop, listen to yourself!”. He started to cuddle up then whimper “I rather die a lion than live a sheep.”. I told him calmly, “Look, maybe your just young and... Fuck Reba is better at this then me.”. I then took the knife stabbed on his arm and yank it out, followed by his screech. I covered my ears, walked away, then took my phone and called Reba. She didn’t pick up. I texted her, “Hey honey, I found a cool kid. I can’t get the pizzas because it was closed, I will be making my way there. I’ll see what I can pick up.”.

I walked back towards the talon man and informed him with a concerning voice, “You know they will be coming for you, and they will put you in a normal jail.”. He simply spouted, “Leave me alone.”. I didn’t wanted to carry him since his mind might have gone to far and I feared that he may attack me once he recovered his energy. So I simply left him there.

I arrived at the code named cake bakery place with sushi and seafood. An underground wrestling ring with a crowd of Technovanians watching a wrestling match of two fat guys, one wearing a burger man uniform and another as a sumo wrestler with a ninja hood.

I went to the backstage were three body guards was blocking the entrance. As I step up, “Lue?”. I reply, “Yes. Got food for Reba.”. He opened the door and stated, “In you go.”.

The back stages had lockers, beds, couches, monitors and a mini bar with some automation. I put down the food and called out “Reba... Reba... I’m here.”. A female Hispanic wrestler wearing a yellow tight outfit came up to me and said in disappointment, “Oh, you must be Lue, she told me about you, our show is cancelled because she said she had, lone tiger business.”. I said, “I tried to talk to...”, she interrupted, “Up here kitten.”. I make eye contact with here and rephrase, “I tried to talk to here on my phone and she didn’t respond.”. Then I took out my phone and see no messages from her.

I asked, “Do you have any idea where she went?”. She replied, “Noper, she just told me she had to fly with lone tiger business and left out the back door.”. I looked at the back door, then open a sushi container and eat two California rolls. I mudder, “I’m gonna find her, tell her DJs that we got sushi.”. She replied “Okay buttercup but I’m snatching one.”. I replied, “That fine.”. Then made my way to the back door.

I entered a small and under alley with stairs going up to the city road floor. I look around for clues but didn’t find anything. I climb the stair and see a green helicopter in the sky with missile cannons and a turret. I tried to take a closer look to see what this helicopter had no insignia, a dark green coat much like the military from the facility and had this railgun turret on the infantry platform, it must be them!

 I look to my left, a United States army tank come roaring through and I hear hard, coordinated footsteps, they must be soldiers. Bullets started firing, then the lights shut off, all of them. I went down the alley, check my phone, thankfully this was connected to a private server so any government influence could not hinder our communication. I connect to the internet via VIP and look at the news sites. I read Syfia city on quarantine due to newly found virus, but I know the real reason, they are looking for us, the escapees.