The knob on the record player is set to a faint 2.
Congratulations, it's 9AM and you have survived the night.
The measly four hours of sleep in a stranger's bed is the prime ingredient for a migraine, but better a throbbing head than his body in a dumpster. But, hey, there's still time for the latter.
The smart thing to do is get the hell out of Dodge before Raglan wakes up; be the ghost Ricky is determined to become and drop off his radar for good. The accumulation of coincidences coupled with last night's nightmare are more than enough to get him on the road without looking back, but as it goes, curiosity killed the cat.
Raglan's entire existence rests on the tip of Ricky's tongue and if he doesn't put two and two together soon, he's going to be the one looking for Raglan in the future, rather than the other way around.
Freddy Fazbear's.
It's been ten years, and if history didn't slap red tape on those doors, then its gimmick would have driven it to bankruptcy. In this brave new world of 1997, only The Big Cheese is king. Everyone else is obsolete.
Ricky doesn't think about that place often, his half a dozen shrinks made sure he repressed the fuck out of that night.
A frying pan is placed on a burner. The carton of eggs is removed from the fridge. Ricky dusts off the toaster and, at the lack of bread, reaches for the box of Eggos at the back of the freezer. It should be illegal for a middle-aged man to live like a freshman.
With the stage prepped for the inevitable performance, he sets out on his mission.
Barry Manilow sings about the Copacabana as the dial is turned up to a risky 4.
The house looks no more lived in than it did at the predawn hour, the walls bare for the exception of a few mass-produced Kinkades sun-bleached with age. The couch is an ugly suede thing in lime green that hurts to look at, and with a discreet sniff he can't even blame it on being a stoner couch. Wedged between it and the far wall is a filing box filled with olds bits and chunks of machinery.
The drawers in the kitchen are cluttered with miscellaneous crap. Screwdrivers, nail clippers, dead batteries, a thermometer, paperclips. Faded receipts from Sam Goody and a ticket stub for Independence Day. All this says about Raglan is that he's as boring as, well, a counselor, and that he likes his music and may or may not be into sci-fi flicks.
Not a single family photo, though.
If the divorce was messy, going by last night's indiscretion, Ricky can't really blame the ex-wife. Guy fucks like a rabbit with a few loose screws. He would at least keep pictures of his kids, right? Unless he couldn't have any, and that was the reason for the divorce.
The desk that occupies part of the dining room has seen more love than anything else, with piles of papers neatly organized in wire trays and a rabbit-shaped pencil holder set on a Las Vegas coaster. The surfaces are dust free, but the most surprising discovery comes in the form of a computer tucked away in the top drawer.
The laptop is a Toshiba Tecra 740CDT, and a glance at the back plate signifies it's been retrofitted to run a Pentium R.M.N.T processor with sixteen megabytes of RAM and an added three gigabyte hard disk. "Dude. Wicked."
Ricky's expertise is more to do with the coding that marries all these pieces together, but one thing's for certain: either this guy's loaded, or he's some sort of genius. While a computer of this magnitude can be purchased with a fat stack of cash and knowledge of where to acquire it, it's more to do with the why. Why the fuck would some nerd with nothing going on need a personal computer this powerful? The ISS isn't this up to date.
Whatever available information there is on Steve Raglan must be on it, but Ricky's going to need a password. When the flashcards prove fruitless, he grabs the leather journal with nonsensical notes jotted down on the yellow pages. Nothing password-like in sight. Without looking, he yanks open another desk drawer and—
"Hello!"
"Jesus, fuck!"
Ricky's hand flies up to his chest, heart hammering against his ribcage as the toy's rotund body rocks back and forth inside the otherwise empty drawer, its vacant blue eyes staring into his soul. The ugly bastard looks like a Happy Meal reject, its open-mouthed smile mocking the near heart-attack it gave him.
He pauses to listen, hand still on his chest.
Despite the music, he can hear the faint click of a door.
Game over.
As quickly and quietly as humanly possible, Ricky resets the desk and slinks back into the kitchen, where he adds noise to the already loud and unsalvageable situation.
He lets the stove burner click even after the flame has gone up, then cracks an egg into some butter on the pan. He opens the fridge then slams the door shut without taking anything out. He grabs the third plate out of the stack and lets the others clatter into place.
"Music and passion were always the fashion at the Cooooopaaaa—"
The record scratches to a stop. Ricky blinks in its direction to find Raglan standing beside it, the needle in his hand, his expression perfectly blank. He's dressed in a pair of gray sweatpants and a black t-shirt, and despite the brief pang of unease that crawls up Ricky's spine, a pulse of heat trickles towards his groin.
"Good morning," he greets with an impish grin. "I'm making breakfast."
"You're still here."
Never has a statement offended him more. Ricky's smile falls away, the egg sticking to the spatula as he tries to scrape up the edges. "I thought I'd express my gratitude for letting me spend the night." He flips it and the yolk breaks. "I'll get outta your hair once I get this plated."
Silence stretches far beyond the lines of awkwardness, and the abrupt sound of the record being removed and the player clicking off has him eyeing the knife block within reach.
Beneath a shroud of forced coolness, Raglan's fury is palpable. It leaks, like liquid nitrogen.
"I'll get started on some coffee," Raglan says, slipping behind him to reach for the top cabinet. "Dark roast is all I have."
His other hand is on Ricky's hip as he tries not to fuck up delivering the already botched sunny-side up onto a plate. "Any bean water is a-okay in my book."
A pot is set to brew.
Ricky glances around the area to make sure nothing is out of place, that there is no evidence of him scrounging around. Two waffles pop. The percolator chugs along. Sunlight creeps in through the vertical fabric blinds.
"I don't like that song," Raglan says. He's rubbing his eyes and looking like he needs another five hours of sleep. "It's overplayed and melodramatic."
"My bad. Want anything on your waffle?"
"Butter is fine." He takes a tube of frozen orange concentrate out of the freezer and sets it on the counter. "How do you like your coffee?"
"Diabetes inducing."
Raglan snorts. "Pour your own sugar then."
The morning gets worse as they move to occupy the tiny table in the dining room, eating in silence and scrutinizing each other in unsubtle ways. Raglan isn't wearing his glasses but he seems to see just fine without them.
Cars drive by with growing frequency as time passes at a crawl, proving that this place isn't as isolated as Ricky thought.
"You were having a nightmare last night," Raglan says as he starts on his second cup of coffee. He takes it black. "I considered waking you. But the last time I did that, it did not end well for me."
Ricky takes a bite out of his plain waffle to delay answering. "S'cuz you were such a lousy lay." Nightmares are infrequent enough to not pose a problem in his day to day life, but it makes sense why his brain would be acting up now. Everything about the last couple of hours has felt wrong on a transcendent level. "What do you do for fun, Mr. R?"
Raglan leans back in his chair, eyes rolling towards the ceiling in thought. "Let's see." There's a bruise below his chin and satisfaction zings in Ricky's veins. "Sadly, not a lot. Most of my days are spent working, but whenever I find the time I tend to dabble in robotics."
"Trying to live vicariously through me, huh?"
"Sure would seem that way." Raglan takes a deep breath which he holds for too long to deem casual, his silvery eyes seizing Ricky up with something that might be intrigue or straight up contempt. "I'm not even sure what field of computer sciences you're in."
"I thought you read my file."
"The office wasn't particularly specific regarding degrees when all it aims for is to get you off the streets. You know, no one with a reputable stamp of approval is stopping by social services on a Tuesday morning with a request to get matched up with anyone who'll take them. Standards, self-respect, arrogance, and all that."
Ricky has stabbed people for less insulting comments. "A guy walks into your office with an IBM-worthy degree in machine learning and your recommendations are Radio Shack and security guard. That's real fucking rich."
IBM would never pick up someone with a record like his, but goddamn if a good report card from a respectable agency meant to help would have swung things in his favor. It might not be as spiritually fulfilling as Anaheim, but a decade in could have made him enough money to maybe start his own shop. Another five years and he could have stepped into a business venture with several theme parks.
Raglan's chair scrapes against the hardwood floor, startling him. "Machine learning," he says, wandering into the kitchen with his coffee cup in hand.
"Artificial intelligence," Ricky clarifies, although he does not need to.
"Ever since the 80s we've been saying AI is our future."
Ricky twists in his chair to face him, and it looks like he's forgotten to brush the hair on the back of his head. It's charming. "Nah, man. AI as we know it goes further back. We're talking late 60s, since people first started writing code by hand. Those babies got plugged in around 76' and astrophysicists started getting spooked when outputs began mimicking the same data as black holes. We're talking quantum physics. Shit that'll give you nightmares, straight up. Like—"
"Have you ever considered fusing AI with robotics?" he interrupts.
"We've been doing that for a while," Ricky says. "Disney's got some rudimentary programming running on some of its newer attractions—"
"I meant organically."
"... You mean like… Blade Runner? Androids?"
"No," he snaps, dragging a palm down his face. Ricky can see his shoulders tense, back growing straight before slumping again as if he were running three mental Olympic marathons. "Never mind."
"Listen, if you want to talk programing, I'm your—"
"I don't," he says flatly. "You just remind me of an old pal of mine."
Yahtzee.
Ricky knew something was up, and he's got a sinking feeling that old pal might have been more than just a friend. It makes sense, even if the admission further adds to the creepiness of this 'coincidental' meeting. "Is he also a computer scientist?"
"He was an entrepreneur. Most and foremost, he was an entertainer."
That was feels raw.
"Something happen to him?"
"No, no. He's uh…out of the picture. Personal differences, as it goes. Some people grow apart, as is the way of things."
Ricky drums his fingers over the back of his chair, still staring at the back of Raglan's head. "Yeah, I get it. It's whatever."
The space lapses into silence again, a beam of sunlight now slicing through the room and heating up a strip of Ricky's exposed arm like a radiant cut. If only it could reheat the last of his egg.
"Pretty recent too, I reckon," Raglan says. His head tilts, as if affronted by the escaped thought. Then, louder, "that table must have been sharp to leave a cut like that."
Ricky glances at the table he's sitting at, the old circular surface chipped where placemats don't reach. "Table?" He sifts through conversations until he crashes into last night's exchange, heart skipping a beat or three as his hand flinches to his side. The lack of bandages can be felt through his shirt. "It was a metal table," he says, and it sounds like the lie it is.
Ricky looks up to find Raglan staring at him. Not with a smile, not with a frown, but with a whole lot of nothing on his face.
"Might have required stitches," Raglan says. "There's an awful lot of blood under your nails."
Had it needed stitches, it would have opened right up mid ride. Ricky knows that. Raglan knows that. "Ran out of time," he says, and to throw him off in the same way, he adds, "where do I know you from?"
Raglan cocks his head to the side, a gesture meant to tell a child that he's listening, that he understands. That he's safe to follow. "I was your career counselor." The statement feels like a warning.
Whatever he says to you, do not listen to him. You do not follow him. You do not think yourself smarter than him. You run. Do you understand?
"Right." Ricky shakes his head. "Not to sound cliché but it feels like a missed connection, if you catch my drift." He bites his lower lip, aiming for coy. "But I guess you also look like every other middle-aged man affiliated with tech. My brain's probably confusing you with an old tutor." He doesn't need to outsmart him, he just needs to be smart enough to get out. "Can I get a fresh bandage?"
Raglan doesn't answer. He finishes his coffee and puts the mug in the sink before he nods his head. "I should have some in the bathroom. Stay put and I'll get you fixed up, little rabbit."
He turns down the hallway and into his bedroom, the world slowing to a standstill as Ricky stares wide eyed at the spot he's abandoned. His mouth falls open, the warnings in his head going beyond klaxons and into air-raid territory.
Something clicks. The nightmare draws puppet strings over the handle of a half-repressed memory. Little rabbit. Raglan doesn't look like the man in the nightmare, but the man in the nightmare was hardly formed, just a cloud of smoke but his name… the names were wrong. Something is wrong. Something is very wrong and Ricky still cannot put a finger to it.
He hears water running in the ensuite.
If there is one thing he's good at, it's running.
With nothing but the socks on his feet, Ricky slips out the front door. He doesn't close it, not trusting the seam to meet without sound. He takes the concrete steps two by two.
He could run but he doesn't know where he is. It's not quite suburbia, but the row of white houses promises a sawed off shotgun to the chest for trespassing. If he books it, he might find a bus stop, maybe a diner where he can hunker down for a couple of hours before heading in the opposite direction.
Or he could take the Chevy.
The door on the driver's side is locked, but Ricky did not lock his on the way out at ass o'clock this morning. He crawls inside, considers hiding in the well but no, that's stupid. Raglan isn't stupid. Ricky could hotwire it, though. It's been a while, but it's a skill that never goes out of style with older models.
Crawling onto the driver's side, turns out he doesn't need to. Some form of divinity does not want him to die today because in his fumbling he hits the visor, causing the keys to fall into his lap.
Ricky spares it no further thought.
The last thing he sees as he shoves the key in the ignition is the front door swinging open through the rear view mirror. He shifts gears and slams his foot on the gas, leaving whatever the hell this is, and whoever the hell Steve Raglan actually is, in the dust.
• 
