Which was saying something, because I couldn’t actually remember any of my other hangovers. Memory’s a funny thing when a snake-man has pumped you full of purple poison. You remember the concept of hangovers, the general sense that you’ve been through this before, but the specific instances are gone. Like someone went through your photo album and pulled out all the embarrassing pictures but left the empty sleeves.
Maybe it was the hit my head had taken. Maybe it was the ill-advised Fireball shot. Maybe it was the three additional shots Shep and I took after the Falcons won, because apparently when a large bearded man wants to celebrate with you, the word “no” doesn’t compute.
Or maybe it was the fact that I’d slept in a mop closet, on a cot that I’m fairly certain was stained in the rough outline of Timothée Chalamet’s face.
(“It won’t support me anymore, kid. Best I got for ya, unfortunately,” Shep had said. Far from bitter. I was grateful the big goofy guy let me stay anywhere with shelter and a door that closed.)
My HUD was already awake, because apparently it didn’t need sleep:
╔══════════════════════════════════════╗
║ ? GOOD MORNING, BILLY ║
║ ║
║ STATUS: Hangover ║
║ All stats: -1 (temporary) ║
║ Chance of embarrassing yourself: ║
║ +25% ║
║ ║
║ TIME: 8:47 AM ║
║ WEATHER: Overcast. Obviously. ║
║ This is Fanhattan. ║
║ ║
║ QUEST ACTIVE: Meet Shep's Contact ║
║ Status: Pending ║
╚══════════════════════════════════════╝
I pulled the light chain. It hovered conveniently near my face, which should have been a blessing. Unfortunately the “pull” was more of a “yank,” and the lightbulb and socket dislodged from the ceiling. The bulb conked me square on the nose with a timpani-like CRASH that added a lovely new percussion section to the symphony already playing inside my skull.
“DAMN!” I cried out.
EVENT: Minor Head Trauma (Again)
HP: 26/30 → 24/30
Bad luck, or is the universe just hazing you?
Within seconds, the door opened.
“Mornin’, sunshine!” Shep beamed. He was polishing a mug, which I found both charming and physically confusing, since no more than three of his enormous fingers could fit inside the bowl at a time. I was surprised he didn’t just shatter the thing.
“Ya wear it to bed, do ya?” He nodded at the bag. It was mushy and musty now, smelling like a combination of stale beer, rain, and the faint echo of that shit puddle. Every breath was a sensory experience I did not ask for.
“Yeah.”
A moment of silence.
“And why did ya say ya wear it again?”
I took a deep breath. The big oaf seemed trustworthy enough. But how much should I tell him? The embarrassment of not being able to explain my own life?
“Your, uh… lightbulb’s broken,” I deadpanned, rubbing my nose.
“Yeah, I forgot to mention that to ya.” His face reddened and a single bead of sweat formed on his brow.
“Don’t worry about it. Thanks for keeping me out of the shit puddle.”
“Hey, as long as ya think ya can keep makin’ picks like that, ya can stay here as long as ya want.”
“Wow.” I hoped my tone conveyed my rolling eyes, since the bag certainly didn’t.
Cut it out, wise-ass, I thought.
“I, uh… thanks, Shep.”
The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
“Nothin’ of it.” He waved me off. “Now fix yerself up. I got company to take ya to.”
He tossed a pile of clothes onto the cot. Lost and found. They looked a little grungy, but truly beggars couldn’t be choosers. They smelled like they’d been washed with beer instead of detergent, but they fit.
As I started to change, I felt something hard and rectangular in the pocket of my hoodie.
How had I not noticed it before? I reached in and pulled out…
A deck of playing cards.
But these weren’t ordinary playing cards. The deck was worn, edges frayed, and the back design showed a stylized brown paper bag with eye holes. I turned the top card over.
The HUD went absolutely haywire:
╔══════════════════════════════════════╗
║ ? QUEST ITEM DISCOVERED ? ║
║ ║
║ ITEM: "Brownbag Codex" ║
║ Rarity: LEGENDARY ║
║ Cards Detected: 52 ║
║ Cards Deciphered: 0/52 ║
║ ║
║ DESCRIPTION: Your father's coded ║
║ messages, hidden in plain sight. ║
║ Each card contains encrypted ║
║ intelligence about the Syndicate, ║
║ your family's location, and ║
║ abilities waiting to be unlocked. ║
║ ║
║ NEW QUEST: Decipher the First Card ║
║ Reward: Memory Fragment + ??? ║
║ ║
║ WARNING: The Syndicate is actively ║
║ searching for this deck. ║
║ Guard it with your life. ║
╚══════════════════════════════════════╝
My breath caught.
The top card showed a crude drawing of a snake-like man. Fangs dripping. Yellow eyes. Around the figure, a series of numbers and symbols I couldn’t make sense of. In the corner, in handwriting I recognized the way you recognize your own heartbeat:
R.B.
Robert Brownbag.
My father.
I tucked the deck back into my pocket before Shep could see it. My hands were shaking, and not from the hangover. Whatever this was, it was important. And it was personal.
“You alright there, kid?” Shep’s voice carried genuine concern.
“Yeah,” I managed. “Just a headache.”
I finished changing and followed Shep out of the closet, through the bar (empty now, smelling like Pine-Sol and last night’s beer), and out the back door into a dark and dreary Fanhattan morning.
The murky brown puddles from last night’s rain reflected the sky, which was the color of an old nickel. We trudged through the cobblestone streets of Stadium South. The buildings were old brick, most of them sporting faded team logos and hand-painted signs for businesses that had been open since before my father was born. A few early risers nodded at Shep as we passed. Nobody seemed to find it odd that I was wearing a bag on my head.
This was Fanhattan. Apparently, a bag on your head barely cracked the top ten of weird things you might see before lunch.
“So how long ya been runnin’ numbers, kid?” Shep asked as he lumbered along. For as large as he was, he moved like a man who’d learned long ago that the world wasn’t going to speed up for him, so why bother trying to keep pace.
“You mean pickin’ games?”
Shep turned his entire upper body in a tortured, unnatural way from the waist. The man’s spine had all the flexibility of a telephone pole.
“Come ahn, don’t give me that shit.” He laughed. “Yer a regular sharp, kid. You’re a pro. I know your kind. Normally all designer clothes and five-dollar words rollin’ off a silver tongue. Before ya know it, they’ve got all the money in yer account, yer second wife is packin’ her shit, and yer prayin’ for Mike Mishkin to hit a buzzer-beater three, which of course he bricks.”
“That was oddly specific,” I said.
“Yeah, happened to my brother-in-law. Nice guy, shitty gambler. You know the type?”
I nodded, though I wasn’t sure I did.
“The point is, you ain’t ‘the type,’ kid. You talk numbers like them, but you ain’t got…” He motioned upward with his hand. “The airs same as they do.”
“Well, that’s the first time anyone’s put it quite that way.”
“And yer smart. You talk good, but not so good like a fancy pants from Fan U. If ya can talk to me, ya can talk to the guys we’re goin’ to visit.”
“Yeah, speaking of those guys…”
Shep nodded down the street at a dilapidated building with faded daffodil siding. It looked like it belonged in an ex-Soviet war zone more than the middle of a major American city.
╔══════════════════════════════════════╗
║ LOCATION: Uncle Sal's Deli ║
║ Stadium South District ║
║ ║
║ Danger Level: Moderate ║
║ Potential Allies: 3 ║
║ Armed Individuals: 2 (minimum) ║
║ ║
║ RECOMMENDATION: Be charming. ║
║ These people could save your life. ║
║ Or end it. ║
╚══════════════════════════════════════╝
“These guys? They run numbers like you,” Shep said. “And I think you both might be of, uh, how do ya say? ‘Mutual benefit’ to each other.”
He stared at me. I realized that no matter my actual expression underneath the bag, to Shep I probably looked permanently blank. Either charitably “tough to read” or more likely just “slow on the uptake.”
“Ya wanna get paid, right, kid? Well, I think this is the easiest way. Maybe not the cleanest, but the easiest. And unfortunately, I don’t exactly have the bankroll to get ya even scrubbin’ my toilets right now.”
He glanced away when he said it. Quick. Ashamed.
I thought about those PAST DUE notices on his desk. About the probability of his bar closing. About the fact that he was sleeping on a loveseat in his own office.
And I thought about how he’d hopped that bar three times trying to help a stranger in a paper bag.
“Lead the way,” I said.