Saturday, July 14, 2007

The Catalyst, chaptor 7:TACTICS (w00t! cameos!)
(Authors/narrators note: unfortunately I was not present for the occurrence of the following events. But for the sake of this story, everybody’s favorite human Mardi Gras decoration has recounted them to me. [Because, obviously, since I’m writing it down, everything in this story already happened.] So, anyway, here we go…)

Jason Wenterz was not happy.
And in case you can’t tell by his worried expression, anxious incoherent muttering, sweaty palms, and his avid pacing in a frantic circle threatening to ware a hole in the linoleum floor of his room, he was also not relaxed. Or confident. But luckily for the Mobile Fallout Shelter-hating, Sunday school-attending, oh-so-aggravatingly narrow-minded Mormon family across the street, he also wasn’t quite in a trigger-happy mood either…. Or, at least, not yet he wasn’t. (Be afraid, Mobile Fallout Shelter-haters of the world. Be very afraid.) Now, we’re not psychologists—or even psychics, for that matter; but if we had to guess, we’d say Jason’s alleged potential blood-bath of a break-down was somewhere between an anxiety attack and a melt-down. So, yeah. He ain’t doing so well. However, I’m sure you would be a bit anxious too if your manager had just informed you that you had only one month to shoot a music video, convince some cyber poet in Baltimore to re-consider being your bands co-lyricist, present said cyber poets stolen lyrics to the composers of said band, and defeat your oh-so-uncompromising spell of writers block, while simultaneously preparing for the impending year-long tour of Asia, on which your biggest rival has been scheduled to accompany you. And then, as if all this weren’t enough, now imagine that your nephews and nieces, who you love like your own children, are not speaking to you because apparently you’ve been “neglecting” them. Yeah. Um, would you like extra angst with that?

“Dead-lines, dead-lines…” Jay half-growled, half-muttered; “Damn it. I need more time!” And, indeed, he did. After all, everything- and we mean EVERYTHING- was blowing up at once. His family life, his career, his poetry, his rivalry- they were all going boom AT EXACTLY THE SAME TIME! And what did Jay have to show for it so far? One song. No, not even a song, but melody-less LYRICS to a song. Oh, sure, the lyrics were brilliant, there was no denying that. The kid-“What was her name again? Yuki Whoever…?”- had done a great job. But still- ONE potential song! One measly little semi-song! That was it! Oy… It was times like this where Jason wished he could just disappear into the oxygen molecules.
But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. So let’s clear one thing up first: Yes, the lyrics we’re talking about were in fact the ones written on the paper Jason had made a copy of yesterday. In other words, the ones from Yuki’s portfolio. In other words, YUKI’S lyrics. Yeah, I know, I know, Jay had PROMISED the girl that he wouldn’t steal her poem. But that was only the rhyme on the FRONT side of the paper. The one on the other side was another matter. Nobody had EVER said anything about those lyrics. And, okay, yeah, we admit that Jay had done a bit of surreptitious, James Bond-esque scheming/planning/sneaking in order to obtain said lyrics. But so what? What was the worst that could possibly happen? Oh, fine, so the kid would obviously recognize her own lyrics once they started playing on the radio and all that. And, yes, she would definitely be a little pissed at first and probably feel a little taken advantage of. Not to mention, the soon-to-be song sounded extremely personal, so she probably wouldn’t be too thrilled about complete strangers listening to/reading said lyrics and thus delving into the matters of her personal life either. But then what? I mean, the so-called “out-rage” of Jay stealing her poetry was in actuality just the fact that the leader of one of her all-time favorite bands liked her rhymes so much that he wanted to make one of them into a musical, chart-topping hit. Was that REALLY so horrible? Well, Jay didn’t think so. In fact, according to him, she should be flattered! And, after all, it wasn’t as if Jason hadn’t asked her permission. He had. Not only that, he had offered her the long-term job of co-lyricist. But she turned it down. So if she didn’t want to help Jason and receive the credit for it, well, that was her problem. If she wanted obscurity, than that’s exactly what she’d get.
So, no, it wasn’t guilt that bothered him about having to use Yuki’s lyrics. What REALLY got to him was the fact that he was so desperate for lyrics that he had to use those of a FREAKIN’15-YEAR-OLD ANIME GEEK STEREO-TYPE. Not that there aren’t worse things to be than an anime geek and not that the girl wasn’t talented, but really, A ---ING HIGH-SCHOOL STUDENT? I mean, he was Jason ---ing Wenterz, the world-renowned, critically acclaimed master of incoherent poetry, the mad-hatter of the webzines, the damn prince of emo rock. What was HE doing chasing around a mere eccentric artist stereo-type? It just didn’t make any sense. None whatsoever. Then again, that was supposed to be Jays’ specialty, not making any sense. It’s true, he was 1 of those rare cases where unpredictability was both expected and predicted. (And if his queer song-writing habits aren’t proof enough for you that this is true, then you might want to consider the fact that that last sentence about him didn’t make any sense either.) And maybe that’s why he had asked Yuki for lyrical help in the first place instead of some lucrative, well-known super star like Linda Perry or Tyson Ritter or Amy Lee. Because, as stated before, people not only expected originality and spontaneous creativity from Mobile Fallout Shelter, they predicted it, they guaranteed it, they COUNTED on it. And, honestly, would it really have been so original and creative of Jason to co-write a song with some notorious it-girl/boy celebrity? Not so much. In fact, it probably would’ve been just plain boring. And so, by trying to recruit someone who was not only obscure, but under-age AND unglamorous-slash-geeky, Jay was, indeed, being original. And slightly insane. But, hey, what else is new, right? I mean, Jay and the boys have ALWAYS had a reputation of being creative to a point of insanity.(“The Only Good Thing About Divorce is You Get to Sleep with your Mother,” anyone?) And Yuki might as well be the next level of their insanity. So, I guess, when you think about it that way, technically the girl sort of fits. Besides, Mobile Fallout Shelters last album, “Well, Excuse Me While I Fake an Orgasm,” debuted had debuted in last place in “Alternative Press” magazines “10 greatest albums of the month.” It barely even placed. Which is REALLY bad, considering the M.F.O.S. C.D. before that, “Take Us To Your Grave,” debuted at 1st place and then held the spot for the next 6 months. Translation: Total down-ward spiral. In fact, at one point, one of the writers for Alternative Press’s exact words, when writing the review for “Well, Excuse Me While I Fake An Orgasm,” had been: “I just don’t get it. I mean, just when I was about to give Jasons lyrics a second chance, Mobile Fallout Shelter releases this mediocre bull----. Oh, don’t get me wrong, the band sounds phenomenal. And, as always, Mikey Ralphsons voice is the very definition of amazing.(Especially throughout the chorus’s of songs like “The Notch in Your Bedpost Wants To Be The Friction in Your Jeans” and “Don’t Just Stand There, Dumb Ass.”) But seriously if I have to hear one more song about getting drunk on kerosene or spitting on bridges or some Paris Hilton-wannabe standing in the way of a ‘50 foot, fire-breathing, fantastically seething human revolution,’ I might just kill someone. Possibly Jason Wenterz.” Yeah. Like I said, total downward spiral Oh, sure, almost everybody had purchased the C.D. Sure, due to all the publicity and praise the band had received for their previous C.D., the record sails had been through the roof. And, yeah, of course the 2 most popular hits on the C.D., “Emily” and “The Notch in Your Bed-post wants to be The Friction in Your Jeans,” had indeed received a lot of appreciated—and often requested—time on the air-waves. But almost no one had liked the C.D. in its entirety. Almost no one considered it the master-piece Jason, Mikey, Brent, and Andy had wanted it to be. This, of course, was the fault of Jay’s writers block. You see, the majority of the songs on “Well, Excuse Me While I Fake an Orgasm!” had such horrible lyrics that not even Mikeys’ ingenious melodies and astoundingly brilliant vocals or everyone else’s phenomenal musical skill could compensate enough for them. And thus began the love/hate relationship between Jasons lyrics and whoever listened to or read them. In other words, if Jason continued to singe-handedly write the words, then there was a good chance people would give up on Jason as a lyricist. And if people gave up on Jason as a lyricist, everyone would stop buying his bands records. And no one wanted to produce a band who couldn’t sell a record. Meaning, Mikey, Andy, Jay, and Brent would be out of a job. Either that, or the band would give up on Jay before the fans did, and Jay would lose his job as lyricist. Permanently. And that would just plain suck, because in case you can’t tell by the fact Jason has been The Human Shields primary lyricist for more than 4 years now, Jay LIKED writing the words. It was his passion. So, yes, as much as it killed Jay to admit it, or even think about it, he NEEDED Yuki. Weather he liked it or not—and Jason definitely did not—they needed Yuki. So he might as well get over his pride while he still had some. At this point, his arrogance would only get in the way. Besides, this whole “hiring-the-most-unlikely-candidate” thing might be fun. “And who knows,” Jay murmured, with a shrug, taking a momentary break from the pacing; “maybe having someone as obscure and unglamorous as that chick around will even give me some kinda edge.” Or at least, that was the plan.

But in the mean-time, Jay had to make sure the girl stayed completely unknown and unemployed to Mobile Fallout Shelters competition. Well, no, perhaps “competition” is too broad of a phrasing. After all, EVERY loser with a record deal was their competition. No, what they really needed to watch out for was one competitor in particular. What they REALLY needed to worry about was a certain flamboyant, slacking, sabotaging, lanky, guitar-playing Attention Whore finding out. Yes, we mean THAT Attention Whore. Vashoutoh Malluste, the bitter ex-bassist of Paranoia! Academy, the “will-yaoi-for-attention” current guitarist of Dashi & The Attention Whores. And don’t let the slacker attitude fool you. We assure you, he’s an evil genius. He is malevolent, he is deceptive, he is manipulating, and he is extremely thorough. He is also not above cheap sabotage and cheaper yaoi incest gimmicks with his brother, Dashi. (Yeah, they don’t call them The Attention Whores for nothing.) So you can only imagine how much of a disaster it would be for Mobile Fallout Shelter if Vashou found out about the girl. But fortunately, even if you can’t imagine how much of a disaster it would be for Mobile Fallout Shelter, Jason can. And even if Jason can’t describe it, Yuki can. And will. Therefore, allow me to state the unstated: For one thing, Vashou might blab to the paparazzi about it. For another, while doing this he might make the story of the connection between Jay and Yuki even more embarrassing by implying to said paparazzi that Jay had FORCED the job of co-lyricist on Yuki with the threat of something along the lines of rape or sodomy or murder. Or, before going to the paparazzi, he might try to black-mail Jason with the information first. The best possible out-come would be, the conniving little Attention Whore would give the information to the media then spread a bunch of insane rumors somewhere along the lines of: “Oh, Jason was just taking credit for the bass-playing and back-up singing the entire time. Yuki’s the REAL bassist-slash-back-up singer! AND she wrote the real lyrics for all the good Mobile Fallout Shelter songs, too!” Hell, the sneaky little succubus might even do all that, and then convince Yuki to work for The Attention Whores. “Oh, but how could someone possibly be capable of making people believe such outrageous lies?” That’s what you’re thinking, right? Well, like we said: Vashoutoh is an evil genius. AND a talented actor. In fact, he was almost as convincing and cunning as Jason himself. So, does Jasons anxiety about the possibility of Vash discovering his secret make sense now?... No? Well, put it this way: If Vashoutoh finds out, then all Hell breaks lose. Okay? Okay.

But even if no one did find out, Jay still had to worry about Yuki herself. After all, just because she was millions of miles away from Vashoutoh or any other sleazy Hollywood serial user type, that didn’t guarantee she would remain unharmed. Or even alive, for that matter. And what do we mean by that, you wonder? Does that mean Yuki is in danger of being assonated by Hello Kitty’s evil clone and demon-possessed Care Bears, you wonder? Um, no. (Yeah, sorry folks. No evil plush toys Vs. incoherent rock stars action here.) You see, more than half of the little semi-poets rhymes/poems/notes were completely melancholy. As in, down-right emo-tastic. In fact, some of them, such as “Blood-stains on Window-panes,” were just plain suicidal. Excerpt: “She said: ‘Shut up. Because with all these contradictory emotional needs and the complexity complex to not match and always clash, you can’t afford to come clean.’ They’ve got the cure, we’ve got a war. So, suffocate me somewhere beyond the window-pane. And bury me somewhere beneath the blood-stains. Because God knows I’ve already spent my entire life being on the outside, looking in- why spend my entire death doing the same? And, I don’t know, it might just be a side-effect of being left like this. Then again, God knows I can never be sure of anything anymore. Her last words: ‘Kill me to death.’ (Just suicidal enough to be redundant.)” Um, yeah. The girl definitely had some poetic tragedy in her. And ordinarily this wouldn’t be a problem, but Jay barely knew the girl and for all he was aware of, she could be in danger of suicide. Hell, she might even be planning out how to do it as we speak. (Or, “write,” as it were.) And we must remember, Jay is at least 10,000 miles away from anywhere near Yuki, so if she were to die, he wouldn’t know. And even if did, there wasn’t much he could do about it. So if she was suicidal, or if she was even in looming danger of becoming suicidal, well, that would be a problem. Because, as we all know, dead lyricists are very hard to work with.

As this thought drifted through Jasons mind, it automatically spawned an idea. And the idea? That he should check on said alleged suicidal. How? By way of his computer, the tracking soft-ware he had on it, and the tracking device that went with it. But it wasn’t just any tracking device. Oh no, this little gadget not only revealed it’s wearers location but also measured their body temperature, blood pressure, heart rate, and told of how profusely they were using their lungs. In fact, if interpreted correctly, the information this clever little device gave could even tell the tracker the emotion of the tracked. And, in this case, the tracked would be Yuki-slash-Belinda-slash-Shadowme. (“Man, I have way too many names. Argh…”) Yes, that’s right, Belinda/Yuki had a tracking device on her. Jasons’ tracking device. And how did Jasons tracking device get on Yuki? Simple. Jason had put it on her. When? Right before Yuki left with her mother at the air-port. How? By getting her out of the supervision of her mother long enough to put the tracking device on her back and then distract her with a kiss on the fore-head so she would be too freaked out to feel the small, mechanical, metallic dot on her spine. Translation: the kiss at the air-port had been nothing but a distraction. A tactic. And Yuki/Belinda/Shadowme had fallen for it. Which is why she had absolutely no idea-or even a shadow of one- that she was being tracked and practically stalked from Jays computer. She was also completely oblivious to the fact that Jay was currently hunched over said computer, absorbing whatever information about Yuki it had to feed him. And it did, indeed, have information to feed him.

As Belinda’s heart-beat pulsated through 1 corner of the screen, Jay’s auburn gaze fell on the digital clock located at the bottom left corner of it. The girl lived in Maryland, Jason lived in Illinois. So if it was [INSERT TIME HERE] in Chicago… then, that meant it was about 12:30 in Baltimore. About an hour or so after lunch, for her. In other words, Yuki was still in school. (“Or, at least, she is if she goes to public school,” thought Jason.)The tracker, which currently dominated the majority of the screen, proved Jasons assumption right. She was, indeed, still in school. The weird part was, she was in the bath-room. (Or, at least, Jason guessed she was in a bath-room because said room was far too small to be anything else.) And why was that weird? Well, it’s just a bit odd that her heart was throbbing violently; she was feverishly hot, breathing like mad, and sweating as if she were in a sauna, despite the fact that she was standing perfectly still. In a bath-room. Which, to Jay, meant one of four things: 1: she had just vomited; 2: she was crying, 3: she was dangerously constipated; or 4: she was so sick to a point of deliriousness in which the toilet bore an uncanny resemblance to Johnny Depp. (“Hmmm…. Yuki + the toilet. BEST CELEBRITY COUPLE EVER!”- Jay Wenterz.)

Now, it was this part of the job that was going to be challenging. Oh, sure, Jason knew were Yuki was, how fast her heart was beating, and how warm her body was. But he had no idea WHY she was there, why her heart-rate was so fast, or why her body was that temperature. Or what she intended to do about it. Oh, yeah, sure, he had THEORIES as to why. But theories are just guesses, meaning they really don’t guarantee anything. And if Jason guessed wrong about something, well, then what? Come to think of it, what would happen if he even guessed right? After all, as stated before, the 2 were more than 200 miles away from each other. If something happened to Yuki, what could Jason possibly do about it from over 200 miles away? It was these questions and this semi-paranoid self-doubt that led Jay to the hatching of another idea. And that idea? A body-guard. A body-guard for Yuki. But not just any body-guard. Oh, no, not just any protective, impersonal, unsmiling, stereo-typical, intimidating, gargantuan hulk of a body-guard, but what Jason called a “ninja body-guard.” Now, a ninja body-guard was the next best thing to a guardian angel. They were agile, they were strong, they were compact, they were durable, they were just protective enough to be convenient, and, for added safety, they had stealth bordering on invisibility. (Key part of sentence: STEALTH BORDERING ON INVISIBLITY.) Translation: If one of these “Ninja Bodyguards” was making sure Yuki never got hurt TOO severely and was always watching over here without her knowledge, therefore said bodyguard would never get caught in the act, then not only would Yuki remain unharmed but Jason wouldn’t have to expose his latest potential scandal to her too early. And thus everything would go according to plan. (BWAHAHHAHAHA!…. Sorry. Couldn’t resist.)

The only 2 problems with this plan were: 1.) Ninja body-guards were unbelievably rare and hard to find. And: 2.) even when you did manage to find one, they were EXTREMELY expensive. But luckily, Jason just happened to be related to a ninja body-guard. Well, no, perhaps “body-guard” isn’t the right word to describe Jays’ pretty little nephew. But Shanty was definitely a ninja something. That much was certain. After all, the boy had spent 5 years of his life stalking one of his class-mates and had NEVER once been caught. Oh, Shanty had never attacked said class-mate or anything, of course. But nevertheless, he had been there. He had always been there. The only reason he had stopped stalking was because his secret obsession/class-mate had died in a car accident. Shanty had been the one to dial 911 when she was hit. But by the time the paramedics arrived, the poor girl was already dead. And Shanty had watched her die. Watched her die and watched her live. Watched her until the very last. After that, he realized how much of an unhealthy habit his little hobby had become. Besides, now that SHE was gone, in Shanty’s mind, there was just no one else worth watching. Thus ended his career as a stalker. After that, he had told come to Jason with the secret story of where he had been these last 5 years. For some reason, Jason had been the only person Shanty could bring himself to tell. Of course, Jay being the incoherent poet he was, the poor little ex-stalkers memoirs were completely wasted on him. In fact, Mr. Nonsense-pants’ exact words to his nephew had been: “Hey, little guardian angel. Are you as obsessed with obsession as I am?” Of course, Jay Wen had been the only one who understood this remark. But it was actually quite comprehendible. For, that was what the boy had been: a guardian angel. A ninja body-guard, only better. And his stalked had been the guarded. Because throughout the 5 years Shanty had spent on his obsession, he had defended her countless times. Twice when she had been about to be mugged. Once when she was escaping from a burning building. Once when she had nearly fallen to her death. And more. It had been a mere 2 years since the death of Shanty’s obsession and the end of his hobby. He still hadn’t told anyone except Jason and his mother. Every now and then he surreptitiously followed his cousins around just for thrill of the stalk.
It was occasions like this that proved Shanty definitely hadn’t lost his touch over the long hiatus he had taken after his obsessions death. He still never got caught. Ever. Therefore, he would make the perfect bodyguard/guardian “angel” for Yuki.

Which, of course, is why the first thing Jason did once he established Yuki needed more “guaranteed safety” was dial Shanty’s phone-number. Or, at least, what he THOUGHT was Shanty’s phone number… (Patience, dear readers. You’ll find out what we mean by that soon enough.) Now, Jason being the vain, relentless attention addict he was, he just couldn’t help having the urge to sound attention-seizingly “badass”/insidious that afternoon. And evidently he also just couldn’t help not even bothering to suppress that urge either. So, once he heard the phone being answered by what sounded uncannily like the voice of his 20-year-old nephew, the first thing out of his mouth was a suggestive, playful: “Hey, guardian angel. Are you as obsessed with obsession as I am?” Pause…
“Huh…? Wait, what? Who the Hell is this?!” Came the half confused, half incredulous reply. Jason froze. It wasn’t Shanty. At all. No, it wasn’t even a boy, but a girl with a slightly masculine-sounding voice.

Authors note: Um, yeah, about that girl with the slightly masculine-sounding voice? *CoughMEGAN!cough, cough*

Comments (3)