The Midnight City Social Hour

--VtR pt2

A loud bell sounded after Tommy cracked open one of Cat Girl's beers. They were the only two in the room; although with that bell, a few others walked in, but only to get to the kitchen. Most were lower ranked members of the gang.

"Should we follow Tommy?" Cat Girl asked. 

Tommy didn't know. Seeing what the gang did; what he was doing; it was a sick feeling. A morose and debauched hallucination.

But that's just how Tommy felt—that it was an hallucination. Because what the gang did, it was happening and in front of his face. Like the feeling of his skull when he shot Goo into his veins, or the joints he burned between his teeth. 

"I'll need a lot more beer. Or a lot more than beer." Tommy finished the beer in his hand.

Cat Girl asked, "Do you want me to get more?" Though she was already in her phone and messaging one of the lower ranked members.

From his pocket Tommy pulled out a baby aspirin bottle. He said, "This is what I'm looking for. It may or may not help with what's going on in the kitchen." He poured Buzz Pills onto his hands and onto Cat Girl's. 

"It still hurts Tommy?"

"When we do this, these events, it comes back. I don't feel it afterwards. I hardly think about it... It's like my brain knows how to forget."

"There are some remedies that I have, if you want to try them."

Tommy replied, "I'll just end up feeling like one of your cats."

A member of the gang that followed Cat Girl's orders, a short stumpy gentlemen with a handlebar moustache, brought out a case of 6 bottled Heineken. His voice was grungy; as if it had a permanent crackle. He said something to them. Tommy wasn't listening. The roar from the kitchen had mounted. Vince was hooting.

The gentlemen was gone when Cat Girl started snapping her fingers in front of Tommy's eyes.

She said, "Best not to think about it."

That was something Tommy had trouble doing. After all, he was one of their newest members. The newest of their elite squad. The experience, even with his brain repressing a lot of it into fragments, was still fresh and easy to visualize. Especially when Tommy was reminded.

Right then, a loud boom of everyone's voice cause Cat Girl to jump. She almost dropped her beer.

The Buzz Pills in Tommy's hand, he swallowed them with a Heineken. Tommy knew how much he needed them if he was going to walk into the kitchen.

The gang was taking bets on The Recruit.