After the mental breakdown started to wane, Lashbrook neglected to enter the bar, instead deciding to grab dinner. The abomination with a bacon neck, waffle face, and egg eyes had put the old detective in an all-day-breakfast mood, but the admittedly adorable (yet equally guilty of crimes against nature by means of existing) talking chef dog with the ravioli mustache had put him in the mood for a good, authentic Italian meal.
He was dissociating too much on the drive to notice all the other colorful characters now littering his city’s streets, but the unshakable feeling that something was just not quite right hung heavy in his chest, closing off his smoke-stained throat bit by bit. He unbuttoned his collar and struggled unsuccessfully to shake off the funk. It was just jet lag, he kept telling himself, knowing full well in the back of his head that he had driven himself to Florida and back.
Lashbrook had felt a similar sensation before, in a recurring dream he’d struggled with for years. In it, he would arrive home from work like normal, exhaustedly waddling from his cruiser to his front door, but the home he would enter was not quite his own. The light didn’t move the way it was supposed to; the shadows stretching at angles just one or two degrees off. The layout of the home was so close to correct that he couldn’t even pinpoint what was wrong with it. His game to avoid the accompanying panic attacks had become to focus on finding these glitches in his mental simulation, but they were never truly found, and the panic was never subdued.
His wife and daughter were still there, waiting at the table when he’d enter. Shirley sitting at the table wearing her gingham skirt and his favorite red blouse, and Charlotte wearing one of those shirts with those anime whatevers on it he didn’t understand, mercifully reminding him that she had inherited her mother’s looks alone. It was all idyllic, common, how things should be--but he always knew immediately that it was fake: that they weren’t back. That telltale feeling was the indicator… that something wasn’t quite right. Wasn’t quite real.
Nothing could bring them back. Not even his mind, just as his mind couldn’t get the shadows and measurements from his foyer quite right. So, he’d sit there at the fake table, dissociating, ignoring the doppelgangers, trying to keep them from tugging at his heartstrings. He’d sit, staring at the room, trying to figure out which wall was one inch off from normal… but nothing could keep him from waking up in a cold sweat when Shirley would turn to him, bite her lip, and when he’d hear a perfect recording of her voice say... “What would you like to drink?”
“What would you like to drink?”
“Um, sir? What would you like to drink?”
Oh, shoot. That wasn’t his flashbacks, that was the hostess. Cute little blonde thing, nice measurements and a tight dress. Huge green eyes, like a cat’s. Lashbrook hated himself for being unable to feel anything when he looked at her. Any were doused by the image of his wife buried in the rubble and the guilt he’d feel to stray from her, even this much later. Lashbrook just chuckled, feigned a smile, muttered a breathless apology, and ordered a Corona and an ice water. The waitress nodded and stepped away, and, for a second, this brief human interaction drew Lashbrook back from the brink of madness. That sinking, dreamlike feeling--he hated it. It was supposed to stay in dreams, damn it. But how could it, when so much more was amiss now in reality than the angles of simulated shadows?
He stared out the window, taking in the scenic view of the dumpster outside. At least this was a typical small-town scene: just a dumpster outside an Italian restaurant, with a filthy looking dirty-blonde kid standing next to it, and… is that… a Matt rummaging through it? Here came that feeling again.
Goddamn it, Lashbrook thought. “Goddamn it,” he also said aloud, deeming this occasion worthy of audible blaspheming. He groaned, peeled himself out of the booth, and headed back out the door. He straightened the tar-painted fedora on his head and spat as he rounded the corner. “Hey! Kid!” he boomed, “What the hell do you think you’re doing!?”
The tattered blonde kid recoiled, stepping behind the Matt. His big brown eyes held the fear of a six-year-old about to get spanked, but he had to be at least twelve. From the layers caked on, he probably hadn’t showered in a week. “I-I’m s-sorry, sir,” he said, barely audible, “I--”
“Hey,” a deeper voice snapped, “What did I tell you about talking to pigs?” The Matt frantically removed his torso from the trashcan and shook the excess marinara from his arms, crossing them and squaring up to glare daggers through the old man.
“What the hell are you doing out here!?” Lashbrook sounded angry, but he was as curious as he was annoyed.
The young one opened his mouth to speak, but was quickly and loudly hushed again by the Matt. “None of your freakin’ business,” he spat, menacingly pointing a black painted fingernail at the Detective. “You found your man. I’m innocent. Piss off. I don’t want to hurt an old geezer, but I won’t hesitate either.” Behind him, the child was trembling, terrified.
“Oh, so you’re the same Matt I ran into earlier, eh?” Lashbrook was laying on the confidence thick, but he was terrified. What could this monster do? He knew guns, at least, were useless. “Yeah, we found the uh… the ‘Matt’ who did it. I’m not here to arrest you, kid, either of you, but you can’t be playing in the trash, either. This is a nice restaurant.”
“I know,” the younger one piped up, peeking warily from behind his hulking punk-rock protector. “It tastes great.” Lashbrook didn’t process that he was talking about eating from the dumpster.
“Where the hell are your parents?”
“Oh, first you make fun of Kev for eating from the trash, now you’re gonna’ make fun of him for not having parents? Alright, I’ve had it--it’s bacon time.” Something in Matt snapped: his burgundy pupils dilated, he clenched his right hand into a fist, and with a bellowed war-cry, he raced at the old man, winding up his arm as he ran. Kevin tried to hold him back, but knew it was no use. As Matt threw the punch, a blast of sonic energy launched backwards from his elbow, propelling him forward with frightening speed.
In that moment, by an instinct he didn’t understand, Lashbrook was calm. He raised his hand and caught the punch with his palm. The resulting shockwave sent the loose trash around the dumpster sky-high, but the old man stood unfazed, grinning under the shadow of his fedora.
“Wh--how the fu--”
“Experience, kid.” Lashbrook didn’t counterattack, simply lowering Matt’s fingerless-gloved hand and locking eyes. In the punk’s he saw remorse, regret, fear, and anger--but no evil. Nothing like what he’d seen in the other Matt. “Listen, kid. I’m not going to hurt’cha, and I’m definitely not going to hurt--Kevin, you said? I didn’t mean to hit a sore spot about the kid’s parents, and I’m definitely not mocking either one of you--there are just laws to be followed, and not swimming around in a dumpster is one of them. Alright? I have to do my job. If that makes me a pig, then I’m sorry.”
“Look, gramps,” Matt continued in a softer voice. “If I don’t ‘play in the dumpster,’ this kid doesn’t eat. So, unless you wanna’ feed him, I must respectfully ask that you go back to the pigpen and let me resume my ‘swimming.’”
Lashbrook’s blood went cold. He had somehow failed to fully grasp the situation. To be fair, the fact he was speaking to someone who had suddenly appeared from thin air in the week he’d left didn’t help his cognitive ability… but that didn’t change the fact that he’d wound up bullying someone stealing from a dumpster to feed a hungry child. He could just hear Shirley’s usually gentle voice chewing him out the next time that dream came around. “Alright. You know what?” It took every ounce of willpower to retain his composure in the face of such blatant disregard for authority, but this was something he had to do. “Come here.” He turned towards the restaurant and motioned for them to follow.
Matt’s face went blank. “...what?”
“You heard me, you little punk. I’m calling your bluff. Dinner’s on the pigpen’s dime today. Whatever you want--both of you. Just go wash that trash off your hands before you start eating. It’s a nice restaurant, after all.”
Of all the day’s events, making an orphan suddenly weep with joy was the thing Lashbrook had been prepared for the least.
The busty waitress brought Lashbrook’s Corona and water and then took Matt and Kevin’s drink orders. Matt was as uninterested in her physique as Lashbrook. Kevin gawked in an embarrassingly obvious manner. “Unless you’re ordering a bra, you might wanna’ look a little higher, kiddo,” Matt whispered in his ear with a snicker. The poor boy turned as red as Matt’s eyes.
“Alright,” Lashbrook began, cracking his neck and staring across at his strange dining partners. “First, I don’t answer to ‘pig.’ The name’s Lashbrook. Detective Lashbrook.”
“I’m Matt, but you knew that.” He eyed the detective warily, mentally noting the nearest exits, and primed to use a sonic attack with a hair trigger. Why would an angry old authoritarian give his time and money to help them? This screamed ‘setup.’
An awkward silence passed. Matt gently jabbed Kevin in the side. “O-oh. I’m, uh, I-I’m Kevin.”
“Alright. Now we know who everybody is, let’s talk.” Lashbrook placed an elbow on the table and leaned towards the other two--he immediately regretted it, as they immediately flinched. “Come on, you don’t have to be scared of me. This is a dinner, not an interrogation.”
“Could’ve fooled me,” Matt said, daggers in his breath. It was only this morning that he’d been handcuffed, pulled off the street, and dragged into a brick, windowless room to be screamed at and spat at by the old man. Who knows what would have happened if the Chief hadn’t intervened, dragging along the culprit Matt in tow? Matt had a pretty good guess, as he’d heard a series of rapid-fire gunshots from the room as he’d started to exit. “What happened to the other Matt, huh?”
“I don’t know,” Lashbrook replied. “But, considering he murdered an old woman, I don’t particularly care. To be perfectly honest with you, I got the hell out of there after realizing that I was trapped in a cell with an invincible monster who’d randomly spawned from nothing during my one-week vacation.”
“Monster, huh?” Matt replied, pulling a cheap cigarette from the inner pocket of his leather jacket. Lashbrook expected him to breathe fire to light it, but he pulled a perfectly ordinary BiC lighter out to do the trick. “I guess that’s how you see me too, eh?”
“The invincibility and the existing beyond the laws of nature or whatever aren’t the things that make the other Matt a monster, Matt.” Lashbrook considered scolding him for smoking indoors, underage no less... but he realized they were seated in the smoking section and thought better of it, instead pulling a Camel from his own pocket and lighting it. He took a long puff. “All those things make him someone I am fearful of, in the same way I would fear a bear at a campsite, sure. But it’s murder that makes him abominable, makes him a true monster. Did you know him?”
Matt shook his head. “Probably not. They all look the same.”
“Isn’t that kind of racist?” Kevin piped up.
Matt shrugged. “Against myself? Maybe. But I didn’t ask to be born as the most common character.”
The waitress interrupted to hand out their drinks. Matt was surprisingly courteous. They moved on to the food order--Matt ordered the Tour of Italy for Kevin, and only a side of breadsticks for himself. Lashbrook ordered the fettucine alfredo. The waitress chirped something to the effect of “I’ll get that right out, sweetie” and sauntered back to the kitchen. Kevin’s eyes followed. Matt jabbed him in the ribs. “Rude,” he whispered.
“How does that all work, anyway?” Lashbrook inquired.
“I think she takes the orders back to the kitchen, tells the chefs what to make, and then brings it to us when it’s ready,” Matt quipped, taking a drag from his cig.
“Smartass,” Lashbrook mumbled, trying his hardest to stifle a chuckle. “I mean, all this... ‘common character’ talk. You’re talking about these--these people and these… creatures like they’re kids meal toys or something.”
“That’s not far off,” Matt chuckled. “I’ve been told we come out of those capsule vending machines, like they have in the front of K-Marts and Food Lions and such. Everyone wants the cool rare ones, like Breakfast Dragon or Armatank, or the hot ones like Nyancy or Fem Fatal. Nobody wants a Matt. Which, I’m sure, is why you almost always get a Matt. If you get an Existentia with your first four hundred quarters, you’re never gonna put another four hundred in. No point.”
The casual tone with which the boy mumbled such arcane things just made it all the more unsettling for Lashbrook. “So how do they work?”
“What, the capsules?”
“Yes, the capsules! How the hell do you come out of one just--thinking and feeling and breathing? How is that possible?”
Matt shrugged. “Dunno.”
“Who puts them there? Who profits from it?”
“No idea.”
“Is it a company? An individual?”
“No clue.”
“Are you, like--are you demons? Aliens? Gods? Organic machines? Clones? A glitch in a simulation?”
“Hell if I know, my dude.”
“Why are you all here? How is it even possible?”
“Dunno, dude. It’s not possible, really, I’d think. But, you know, here I am, so… oh well, I guess.” He shrugged.
Lashbrook sighed and took a huge drink of his Corona Extra. “Is it that you don’t know, or that nobody knows?”
“I don’t think anybody knows.” Matt shifted in his seat uncomfortably, and Lashbrook could tell that he wasn’t as nonchalant and cool with all this as he put on. “Look… I’ve been here for two days. By here, I mean... existing at all. I think.”
“You don’t remember anything before two days ago?”
“I mean... like… sure, I have bits and pieces of memories... working at a Blockbuster in the city and playing guitar in a rock band and whatever... but it’s all just flavor text, it’s mental fluff. Bullshit, every last bit and piece. I ran an AskJeeves search on the movies I remembered selling and none of them ever existed. The city I lived in isn’t on a map. The only one who remembers them are the other Matts--they all have the same ‘mental programming.’ I have no memory about irrelevant things like parents, or childhoods, or anything.”
“Oh. That’s gotta’ be sad.”
“Not really. Kevin has no memory of that either, and it’s because he never had it. That’s a hell of a lot sadder than just kinda’ starting out past the point where you really need it as much, yeah? I know everything I’d be expected to for a punk who just turned eighteen, but it’s built-in, prepackaged; it’s not real—I’ve only existed for two days. I popped out fully formed in a puff of smoke when this kid pricked his finger and smeared his blood all over a capsule he’d found tossed aside in an alley.”
“I find it hard to believe someone would throw a capsule away if they spent four hundred quarters on it.”
“There’s a sticker on each capsule saying what’s inside, but of course, you can’t make out from outside the machine what’s going to be next. The rich kids get one out, see the Matt sticker on it, and just toss it aside and pump more coins in to get something better. We’re the AOL Free Trial discs of the Gacha Glove world.”
“So, there’s… no point in having a Matt?”
“There are rumors around Kev’s school that if you fuse like, a hundred, we can turn into something more powerful, but nobody’s gonna’ bother to get that many, let alone afford to. It’s stupid. A cruel prank on the part of whatever asshole put us here to begin with.”
“I see,” Lashbrook nodded. He paused to process this all. “You said blood opens the capsules?”
“Not opens them. Makes them disappear and turn into gacha characters.”
“So you can’t open them otherwise?
“Nope.”
“Well, that’s not sketchy at all. Why would you need to do a freakin’ blood sacrifice to open your vending machine toys?”
Matt shrugged again.
“And they don’t go around… killing the kids who… ‘summon’ them?”
“As if. Not if the kid has a Gacha Glove. It requires them to follow whoever opened their capsule--they have no choice but to do what they’re told.”
“Kevin isn’t wearing a glove.”
“Yeah?”
“But you listen to him?”
“Someone has to watch out for him, even if it’s just a Matt.”
“Do kids get those glove things then from... another machine?”
“Nah. From KB Toys at the mall. It’s like twenty bucks.”
Lashbrook fell silent. The food came. Matt politely thanked the waitress again.
Lashbrook finally spoke up again. “You didn’t have to just order breadsticks, though it was uncharacteristically polite of you.”
“Nah, I didn’t give a damn about saving your rich old ass the cash. I just wanted the flavor,” Matt said as he chewed. “I don’t need to eat. Ever. I just like the taste. Not worth the effort of eating more than this.”
“Ah.”
They finished the meal in silence.
The sun had started to set outside. Lashbrook covered the bill, left a hefty tip for the waitress, and walked the boys to the parking lot. He was leaving with more questions than answers: this was his own personal hell. Not that his intention had been to offer them food to interrogate them, of course. He really did feed them to be nice. His curiosity had only gotten the best of him once they’d been seated.
“Thank you so much,” Kevin said softly.
“Yeah, I guess you did kind of save our asses tonight,” Matt added, bashfully. “You’re not bad for a member of the po po. You better not come after me for dumpster diving again tomorrow, though.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Lashbrook muttered. “Why don’t you get a job at a real, non-imaginary Blockbuster, and you won’t have to anymore, eh?”
“Cause somebody’s gotta’ keep an eye on this kid. You never know when someone’s gonna’ jump your ass with their gacha.”
“Yeah, yeah. You kids have a good night.” Lashbrook had taken Matt’s warning as laziness and hyperbole and climbed back in his cruiser, but no sooner had he turned on the headlights than a teenage brat appeared from the shop next door accompanied by what vaguely appeared to be a giant, industrial strength refrigerator. Two cat-like, organic eyes glared out from the freezer door on top, and it seemed to roll of its own volition. Lashbrook’s instinct was to grab his gun in case things got violent, but he knew from experience that bullets would almost certainly be useless.
“Well, well, well,” the brat said with a voice like a whoopee cushion, “if it isn’t street-rat Kevin and his illustrious boyfriend Matthew.” He wore a blue and pink windbreaker under an orange and green baseball cap, so he was admittedly far more fashionable than the orphan he was currently tormenting.
Kevin panicked and hid behind Matt, who crossed his arms and took a step forward. “Well, well, well, if it isn’t Lyin Brian. You got the illustrious part right at least. You had to rob The Home Depot to get a friend, I see. Most kids just try not being pricks to their classmates.”
“Man, eat my shorts, One Star!” Brian mocked. “Fridge Horror is a rare, three-star gacha, and I got him on my second pull!”
“Woooow,” Matt sneered, checking his fingernail polish. “What did you get on your first pull? A microwave?!”
“Nope. Just a Matt, so I threw him away, ‘cause he was worthless… just like you. I’m eager to see what this thing can do, though!” Brian threw his hand out dramatically, a red LED on the back of his cheap purple plastic glove shining brightly as he shouted, “Fridge Horror! Do your worst!”
The refrigerator roared, its large bottom door exposing countless blood-stained teeth around its edges. It rolled up to face Kevin and Matt and took a deep breath before launching a blast of powerful elemental ice magick like a massive beam. Matt grinned and shook his head, pulling an electric guitar from the side pocket of his jacket. Lashbrook watched in amazement and terror, absolutely baffled as the massive Les Paul emerged from a normal sized pocket without shrinking itself or ripping the pocket. Nothing seemed to stretch or adjust at all in the process, either: it was utterly impossible, enough to give Escher sleepless nights. The very laws of physics and reality seemed as thin and fragile as a dictionary page before these beings. Lashbrook really didn’t remember taking any LSD on his vacation, but he was mentally retracing his steps now to make extra sure. The blast of frigid magick, along with a random McDonald’s Happy Meal Toy, deflected harmlessly off the guitar.
“You really wanna’ throw down?” Matt laughed, cracking his knuckles. “God, you’re dumber than I thought. Alright mofo, let’s rock.” He played what was, in Lashbrook’s opinion, an absolutely god-awful riff on the guitar, but the notes didn’t seem to matter. Massive shockwaves emerged from the guitar’s neck, distorting the air between him and the fridge like black pavement on a hot summer’s day. The blasts of sonic energy met the frigid beam head-on, and as Matt played faster and louder, the windows of Lashbrook’s cruiser--and the restaurant--shattered and rained down in tiny shards in what felt like slow motion.
The sonic energy nullified the fridge’s next attack before it could even release it. It shrieked, the blast tossing it backwards like a pebble, sending it careening into the distance. A couple seconds later, a car alarm echoed from a shopping center several streets over.
Brian burst into tears and fled, tripping and falling flat on his face before he had even made it off the lot. Matt only chuckled to himself and high fived Kevin, who simply uttered, “Nice!”
Lashbrook couldn’t let this guy stay on the streets, but he also couldn’t arrest him. Not that he hadn’t just broken several laws, just… there was no way in hell he could physically restrain him to do so. It would be like a housefly trying to defeat a cat. “Hey, kids!” he screamed out the hole where his cruiser’s window used to be, “get over here.”
“Uh oh, daddy’s salty,” Matt groaned, motioning for Kevin to walk over with him. He casually slid his guitar back in his pocket as he approached. “Wassup, you gonna’ ask the orphan for money to fix your window? Because I hate to tell ya’, but--”
“Where are you two staying?”
“...pardon?”
“You heard me,” Lashbrook replied, leaning further out the window. “Where do you go at night? Where do you sleep?”
Matt and Kevin looked at each other for a second. It was immediately clear they had no answer and were both too embarrassed to tell the truth and too taken aback to formulate a proper lie.
“It’s not much to look at, but Chief Omni gets me a good deal on an old apartment by the oceanfront. It’s two bedroom and I only use one. You’re welcome to the spare room--”
Lashbrook paused. Obviously, he’d meant for the nightto be the logical conclusion to that statement, but a stupid idea popped into his head. The emptiness of those dreams, those flashbacks, was eating away at him from the inside out. It made him miss having a family... someone to rely on him, someone to work for, someone to come home to. These kids clearly needed a place to stay long term, and he made decent money as a detective on the force.
But then, the reality of having a family came back to him. Not that anything about it was unpleasant while it lasted--it was the “while it lasted” part that haunted him. His body was still moving, but Lashbrook stood firm in the belief that had truly died inside the moment he had arrived home to find the emergency crews and ashes. His whole family, his whole life, his whole reason for being: consumed in an instant.
If he’d never cared about them, never added them to his life, he would never have died that day himself. But here he was, a walking zombie, a man with a hole where his soul should be. The only thing that scared him more than having that void screaming inside of him forever was the thought of filling it, only to have it all snatched away again. He couldn’t let himself care again. He couldn’t take that risk. It was self-preservation. The idea had been stupid, a flight of fancy from a desperate widower.
“--for tonight, at least,” he finished. “I don’t want you two going around destroying more property, and you’re smelling up the whole town with your not-showering shtick. Sun’s going down and it’s about to get cold--I seriously won’t ask for anything in return. Think of it as an old pig giving back to the community for one night.”
Matt immediately opened his mouth to throw out a sick diss, but Kevin looked up at him with those frickin’ dinner-plate eyes, an excited grin across his face like a five-year-old getting his first game system. Matt bit his tongue and sighed. “Alright, fine--and, thanks, I guess--but no more interrogating.”
“Only if you promise not to break my windows,” Lashbrook laughed. Matt and Kevin did not laugh. He unlocked the car’s doors, waited for the boys to climb inside, and sped off towards the oceanfront.