“This is Fizzznitzzz radio, the best low-key high-fee station to keep you mellow all the way to Monticello. Keep the lights on till the moon’s gone baby, because tonight we’re going next level.” A group of Sparks sit around a table, twisting and turning the radio’s dial each time interference interrupts their jam.
Blackberry leans on the makeshift countertop. As far as spots go in the outer ring, this wasn’t the worst where they’d set up a speakeasy. It must’ve been a ship of some kind in the (g)oldtime. “Oi! Keep it down, will you!” The group responds with a loud cheer, but dial the volume down as the jockey announces the next ridiculous ode to white noise.
The room is soundproof; Blackberry made sure of it using redundant layers of hi-poli carbon sheets. But it still unnerves him. If the extinguishers found a group of Sparks congregating then… He dismisses the thought, pouring himself a drink.
He’d taken the necessary precautions. Never set up in the same spot during the same month. Invites scattered in stashes with a GPS location stored in jank phones. He had lookouts too — that hung around stashes to make sure no extinguishers came across them. He thought he’d bested them last week. The Hounds came knocking, and that was that. It was bad for business. Usually he’d be packed with customers itching for a fresh Bira. Today it was only the regulars dripping in like a fluxed faucet.
Three knocks on metal cut through the room. Everyone shifts nervously. Blackberry signals. The group turns the radio off and scatters clumsily, like ants whose hill has been disturbed.
More knocks. Then silence.
“What the flux was that?”
“Probably a youngling playing around the rig,” Blackberry responds — hoping. “Keep drinking. Next round is on the house.” He steadies himself on the makeshift countertop, hands shaking while he fills the cups. No way in hell he was going to close out.
A Spark’s gotta make a living.
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