Friday May 24th - 7 h 59 PM - Troposville

Clark is in the middle of the house, watching the news.

Something is up.

It’s Musika, the new media star of Atmos (if the 36,6% spike in viewership is anything to go by).  She’s talking about the 26 “new” cases… from yesterday… Same beat, similar tone of voice, the exact arguments. It's as if she’s reading a play-by-play of her own words, without any new information.

Something is definitely up.

Clark immediately dashes to his room before coming back to the salon with a strange gaze at the screen, as if he just deciphered a huge piece of a puzzle. In his hands he now possesses a green notebook. It is filled with scribbles and different writing, marks, cuts, a beaten down tool that categorizes every thought he had recently, in minute detail. 

Inside, a section dedicated to all the times in the last ten months where the news flash felt off, like re-runs that shouldn’t be repeated 48 hours past their date unless updated.

The emergency case in September; the three-headed thieves from November; the strange carnival incident this February. There are a dozen more like this. Clark’s notes are fuzzy, indicating patterns of weird feelings, perhaps misremembering, but nothing like he’s feeling now.

Clark can’t tell if he’s going psychotic or if he’s actually seeing an anomaly in this new host being forced to regurgitate her lines like the spectators are in kindergarten.

Is it some kind of prank?

[ Clark Deschaines { LV : 00 } - { EXP : 275/1000 } ]

It doesn’t feel like a time for pranks. Not now, not like this.

“Wait wait wait, but I heard their surveillance guards were already at the borders yesterday. So what, they’re just reminding us of this…?” Clark asks himself, confused.

He takes a blank page and notes down all his thoughts about this optus-esque skip of logic.

The television shut down. Clark lifts his head up, panicking. He turns to his right.

It’s Jano, remote in hand, with a childish smirk on his face, blushing for some reason. Clark wants to fly toward the sun and combust himself.

“You bastard. I thank you. I congratulate you for your steak n’ fries by eating All of it. Very delicious, I might add! STILL, you can’t give me enough of a break to not clOSE THE TV ON ME WITHOUT ASKING TO TALK!?”

Jano is looking down as if he silly goofed, when Clark expects his housemate to stare him down like he committed burglary.

“Well, listen, the ETTAD just began to work, I’m thinking we can do something like a step up in activities?” Asks Jano, still blushing, nervous.

“I can feel the ETTAD’s effects wearing off” coldly replies Clark.

“Clark I swear it’s worth skipping TV for the night” States the orangehead. Two hours after dinner, Jano seems jumpy, thrilled even. It’s like he’s been waiting to propose this for a long time. It’s in a mixture of genuine worry, morphed into that twisted fake personality Clark despises, that he screams the following:

“Clark, I wanna teach you some basics on how to defend yourself.”

“I CAN LIFT YOU AND FOLD YOU LIKE A OMELET, ASSHOLE!”

Jano gulps. He’s afraid of what’s gonna come out of his mouth.

“I disagree. I’d knock you out before you get to that.”

“I WILL… excuse you??”

The word “insulted” would fail to reach the complexity of Clark’s feelings. His overwhelming physical strength advantages him against everyone, never needing to be a master at hand-to-hand combat. People jacked on steroïds are scared to approach Clark. It’s about the facade. Jano seems to be a special breed if he thinks he’s got more in the tank than these guys. It’s because of his past experience that Clark can grunt, ignore his anger, then get up to grab the remote by force from Jano.

“Well, fuck you and your ETTADs. Now give me back the remote and go train by yourself.”

“No.”

Clark accelerates the cadence.

“Jano LeGrand, I promise you-”

Clark doesn’t sense it. It lasts only a split second. Jano meets him half way in the corridor between the living room and the kitchen.

Jano hesitates for a second. He’s so stressed he’s about to break the controller in his hand. He doesn’t bear pride in doing that.

“Be honest with me. Have all the people who tried attacking you ever feared you?”

“Yes, obviously.”

Jano gulps. 

Clark is getting a tad more agitated.

“What if I made you fear me? Could you defend yourself?”

Dead serious.

They stare at each other for a few seconds.

Clark can see in Jano’s eyes that he is dead serious. 

It’s because he looks so worried, it translates to something akin to harmful intent. The gravity of the situation is hard to grasp. Jano is also barely keeping himself composed, hiding a deep rooted fear he’s exposing for the first time by simply showing off. A part of him hoped thai day wouldn’t come.

“Jano, seriously, what the fuck is going on here?”

“I… there’s a 0.01% chance that this happens, and you sounded like the type that wasn’t gonna put himself in trouble when you got here… But now that we’ve been just a teeny tiny bit closer these last few days and that I understand more your views on politics, It would be a mistake to not see for myself how good you actually are in a fight.”

It’s the timing of everything. Coïncidences are connecting dots that shouldn’t have a connection. The weird shenanigans with the news channel repeating the same material; Now Jano forcing Clark to show him his fighting skills. It’s because of his toxic idealisation of an information war, combined with these aforementioned coincidences, that Clark opens the possibilities of a show-off, rather than shutting it down and diagnosing Jano as insane. At this point, both their brains are rotting down.

“I assume you’ve overheard me in the last five minutes then”, Clark asks.

As if he got caught red handed, Jano silently nods in agreement. “My master told me that, even if I end up quitting martial arts, I should train every day, because you never know what can happen and what kind of people are sitting behind these desks. You keep talking about wanting to take a glance at those archives, which I can only assume are government papers, right Clark? Then I wanna show you a few tricks up my sleeves you could learn.”

He feels bad for the ways he’s been treating him for half a year. It’s his way to make up for the broken doors, the stupid pranks, the bizarre adventure that living with him has been so far.

Clark sighs of relief, which surprises his housemate. Two nights in a row, Jano found his own path in shocking Clark.

“If I have to work on how I approach women, you HAVE to work on how you approach friendships in general.”

“Yeah… I was homeschooled.”

“That explains half of the madness.”

“It’s a long story I guess.”

“You better show me those talents of yours. Let’s see if I have anything to learn from your dumbass”, concludes Clark with a competitive spirit hidden behind the bruised ego.

8 h 11 PM

The word “flabbergasted” would not be enough to paint Clark’s facial expression. His jaw is on the floor.

He never took the time, until today, to watch Jano in action while he trains.

The youngster is assaulting the wooden mannequin in the basement at an incredible velocity.

His speed is terrifying. His movements are effective. Each strikes left on the mannequin are coarse, as it’s having a hard time demonstrating Jano’s monstrous martial arts ability. This guy alleged he stopped practicing. It doesn’t seem like it.

Clark’s whole world flips upside down, previewed to the result of Jano’s true passion, the one hidden behind the cartoons, collectibles and ridiculous TV shows: his love for martial arts.

“Okay, well I was so animated I forgot to stretch so it’s not exactly peak performance for me, I’m a bit rusty too so…” Admits Jano, embarrassed.

The mannequin’s front looks like it got half-devoured by an army of hungry beavers. Clark’s got his hands grabbing his bald head in pure shock.

“A bit rusty!? Don’t you have any eyes!? That’s what the septic truck guys are gonna say when we’ll have to throw this thing out next garbage day! Goodness gracious! The same dude collecting kid figurines trains thirty minutes like this??”, exhale Clark, stupified.

“They are not kid figurines!”, retorts Jano, the ego bruised for him too.

“Cool, and what’s the point of training like this, joining the Atmos army??”

Nervous laughter. Jano tries to keep that one in but is unable to fade out the awkwardness of what was an honest compliment. Clark fails to notice that Jano is holding back his strength. Any more would have broken the mannequin.

“Well, master thought a mixture of kung-fu and karate, mister Clark. Though that didn’t last very long…”, responds the orange head, nostalgic. “Anyway! Enough about me, and all about you! Any martial arts you prefer?”

“Right. I guess boxing.”

“Good choice for a start!” Jano turns around the Mannequin, its back now facing Clark. He forces the black man to assume a classic boxing stance, firm knuckles protecting his face and elbows at stomach level, hunched back, right foot leading.

“Clark, when you punch something, it all starts with the position. If you put your right foot as a lead, you follow the movement with your left hand.”

Clark’s feeling a bit cramped, not because the position is awkward, but because something in his brain already sends a panic signal.

[ Clark Deschaines { LV : 00 } - { EXP : 295/1000 } ]

“When you punch your opponent, it’s with your whole body, not just your arms. With just the arm you’re spreading but a spec of yourself on the canvas. We want the whole painting here, your full power. For that, your body must follow and push the movement, got it?”

Jano puts emphasis on the word “push”. Clark hasn’t heard him this passionate ever.

The youngster keeps talking basics in Clark’s ears, but the bald man’s concentration on the mannequin is razor sharp. His breathing is more agitated, less controlled. That panic begins to swell into something less uptight. It loosens, as if it’s not the first time Clark boxes.

[ Clark Deschaines { LV : 00 } - { EXP : 310/1000 } ]

Jano’s energy, as the talking feels distant, is electrifying, near addictive.

“The key here could be the part that feels beyond human, depending on your P.O.V., which is why I personally stopped my master’s “pure teachings” if I can call em’ that way. But here’s the keys to the car, you gotta drive safely with that, alright? For maximum results, the master told us to focus on something poignant, a deep dark secret you keep to yourself. That’s your motivation to smack that mannequin upside the head!”

Clark gets it.

The image of a bottle stuck inside a television screen.

It spins endlessly.

Clark gets it.

Inside, a bipedal creature. A perfect triangle prism shape for a head.

Claws and teeth spread from everywhere on the thing’s body.

Clark gets it.

A few more bottles, empty or half chugged, lay on the floor.

Clark gets it.

Static.

Dark voices.

Cries of a young child for help.

The bottles accumulate to the thousands, crushing themselves like a wave, crashing on the television.

The nightmare that hunts Clark for what feels like forever.

Clark gets it.

“When I tell you to go, you punch that mannequin, Clark. No hesitation. Okay? GO!”

It’s sudden.

A ferocious anger that took years, like mucus and spit stuck for too long, a weapon.

Clark grinds his teeth.

His eyes widen.

Something or someone, in the back of his mind, begins to scream out of rage.

Clark sees red.

This results in one of the most gorish, well executed punches Jano has ever seen in his life.

In one shot, Clark destroys the remains of the mannequin in pieces, leaving a trail of dust in the basement.

In one shot.

It’s Jano’s turn to be amazed by this brutal demonstration of strength.

“Holy…! Dude, I’ll gladly take that as payback for the doors, that was sick! You had that in the chamber all this time!? You sneaky little rascal Clark Deschaines! You we’re playing me all this time, I knew you had that one in the chamber man I knew it!”

Jano’s ecstatic, like a kid at christmas, bouncing around like he found a new dancing partner in this wild dance that can become martial arts.

Clark is judging his own fist with his two globes. Catastrophe. Clark doesn’t remember being able to do this. He is horrified. 

“H…How did I? No, that's impossible.” He whispers to himself, in disbelief.

His nightmare became reality.

[ Clark Deschaines { LV : 00 } - { EXP : 350/1000 } ]