"Yeah." Max nodded, watching as he left, "Lemme know if there's anything you need."
He closed the door slowly as Jax left, paused, and then, at the count of ten, scrambled for the lock and dialed Wade's number as quickly as was physically possible.
Wade held onto his phone. Still sitting in his room, he wasn't actually sure how he wanted to bring up 'hey can we go meet Cato out in the sticks of Area 1 again?'
However, he didn't have long to stew on his thoughts.
His phone jingled with the generic ring. An unknown number this time.
What was this, a telemarketer? One call after another.
Wade picked up and spoke, apprehensively. "Hello...?"
"JAX IS FRYING-"
Max paused, and, nestling himself into the farthest corner away from the door, started again without shouting.
"Jax is frying gone." He said, "He's in trouble. Serious, serious trouble."
Wade yelped and tossed up his phone, fumbling with it in the air. When he finally grabbed it, he took a moment to double over on his bed and exhale for dear life.
Taking in a gulp of air, Wade hissed into the phone, "Max?? Wha-- why do you have my number?"
"No... no, wait. Hold on," Wade said, rubbing his forehead. "What are you even talking about? What happened? Is Jax okay, is he gone, like... D-did Deepv-- oh no, is--"
"It's not Deepview." Max said. "It's worse. Much worse."
He glanced at the door before continuing.
"I got here early." Max explained. "And it's bad. There's holes in the floor, corruption oozing out of his hands. Jax has enough bags under his eyes to rival a frying raccoon, and he couldn't even remember what happened with him a few years back in the valley."
"He wants to go back to the tunnels." He added. "There is absolutely no way in shell I'm letting that happen. No way. Not with him like that."
Wade froze, stricken by the sudden wave of information. He blinked.
"What... is that supposed to mean?" Wade asked.
"Wha... what do you mean corruption?" he started questioning. "Is Jax okay? If Deepview didn't do this then, what's up with his memories...? I..."
Wade brushed that one, pesky strand of tentacle back as he took a deep breath.
"Seriously," Wade hissed, "how did you get my number?"
“Jax gave it to me.” Max stated, dull-tone, before relapsing into his original panic with a loud, “BUT IT HAS TO BE THE-.”
He paused again.
“...It’s the tunnel.” He said, more slowly. “It has to be.”
He glanced around the room before speaking.
“Look,” he began, “When I was in the tunnels looking for you two, I ran into Jax lying half-dead on the ground, bleeding black acid from his eyes. There was writing along the wall by him, glowing the same color as that ink.”
“I... tried to destroy it,” he continued, frowning, “Managed to cut one sliver from it before it caused the air to erupt with corrupted holes. But that sliver stopped some of the ooze coming out of him.”
He sighed tensely. “There’s something down there, kid.” he said, “Something trying to kill him, or... worse. We need to go down there again.”
He paused. “And we need to go before Jax has the chance to do so.”
Wade went silent again, trying to process all the things that Max was saying.
He thought the skeptic was beat out of him by inexplicable cults and conspiracies, but this felt... off. Suddenly going back to the tunnels with Max felt sketchy ...and kind of unbearable.It didn't make sense.
"I... saw that too," Wade began, slowly getting off his bed and reaching for his laptop. "Jax and the ooze, I mean."
Wade spoke slowly, trying to reason with Max."We don't really know the connection of the symbols yet. Or anything about them really."
He even asked Cato if he knew anything about them this morning.
"Are you ...sure he stopped oozing because of the symbol...?" Wade asked. "'Cause maybe he stopped... because he was waking up from the memory coma."
Because Wade pulled Jax out of his memory, right before he woke up. Y'know. Didn't want to brag about that last night.
"Should we really be going back there so soon?" he asked.
Flipping to the notebook page with Jax's phone number, Wade turned back to his keyboard. His computer was now warmed up. He opened a texting app and typed something quick to Jax, all while listening to Max intently.
“If we don’t, Jax is going to drip his way to an early grave.” Max muttered. “I know what I saw in those tunnels. The ooze stopped as soon as I destroyed the symbols — not when he woke up later.”
He shifted. “Look, for all that happened... you and I came out of there fine. We’ve got the will to keep ourselves safe. We know their traps. If anyone’s gonna go down there, it’s gonna be us.”
Wade laughed dryly. "'Willpower'?" he asked.
"I didn't escape out because of willpower," Wade said. "I have some weird 'reality sense' now. I could have left anytime I wanted, but I didn't. Because I wanted to stay in the illusion."
Wade paused at how icky those words felt, but then scoffed.
"Yeah, you're right I won't be 'caught.' I still don't want to go back right away."
He shook his head. "Is Jax okay? Is he unconscious?"
Wade glanced back to his laptop to see a response. No, Jax was definitely conscious. This only added to his confusion.
"What is going on?" Wade murmured.
“Are you fryin’ deaf?” Max muttered, a note of frustration in his voice, “Look, I already said-“
He paused and buried his head in his hands.
“...You know what, nevermind.” He muttered. “You don’t wanna go? Don’t go. I’ll go by myself, then. Just... keep Jax away from the tunnels.” He paused. “...Please.”
"Whoa whoa whoa. Hold on," Wade said. "You can't just announce you're going back to hallucination purgatory by yourself."
Wade gave a quick frustrated groan, pulling his ideas together before speaking. Max sounded crazy, and genuinely worried, and maybe not trying to sabotage everything. He had to stop Max.
"Listen, Max? Cato called me back this morning and he wanted to meet up in person to discuss something. They met up with the informant..." Wade rolled his wrist trying to get ideas to come around.
"So I tried asking Cato if he knew what the symbols were about," Wade said. "He mentioned that the Octarian government was involved with something occult but he didn't know exactly what. That was probably what we saw last night."
"I... I just don't think we know enough?" Wade suggested.
"We can take steps before this... Have some plan.. Seriously, don't," Wade ran a hand through his hair. "Don't just leave."
"What the shell do you care?" Max sneered, a bitterness creeping into his voice, "It's not like you need me for anything. Not with your fryin' reality sense making you invulnerable."
He leaned against the wall with a dry huff. "Listen, kid," he muttered, "The tunnel was my catch way before I started fryin' with you two. I've got nothing holding me from going in alone." He paused, tching, "Especially not someone else's fryin' concern."
"Look, if there really is some occult conspiracy involved in everything going on," he continued, "then it needs to be investigated, because it sure as shell isn't going to do it itself."
"That's my point! I..." Wade paused, looking down at another response from Jax.
Corruption oozing out of his hands... an all-consuming ink? Changed from the tunnel? Wait a second...
Barely typing back at Jax, Wade stood from the computer and pulled the phone close.
"Okay, Max I agree. We need to investigate. We also need to not die or there isn't a point to investigating," he said. "For Deep's sake..."
Wade gave a hopeless sigh. "You can definitely go there alone, and I probably can't stop you from my freaking apartment, but I'm coming over. If you are still there ...I'll head to the tunnels with you."
Immediately he shot back, "I want to come up with an actual plan and figure out what the shell we're doing! Because, you know, we still don't know what the tunnels are even for," Wade seethed.
"But if you're so frying set on running into the first sight of danger, I'm going to at least tag along so I can drag you out of it," Wade said.
"Good." Max said, a note of surprise in his voice, "I'll be waiting here, then. And in the meantime, while you're heading over, we can both start thinking about a way to keep Jax out of the tunnels. In any case, I'll catch you late-"
He paused. The line held in contemplative silence.
"...Right, sorry," he started, "I know you need to go, but I just... I wanted to ask…"
He lapsed into silence, fiddling with his phone for a moment before blurting out, "Why the fry would you ever want to stay in that godforsaken illusion?!"
Wade stopped. In that moment, he could feel his heartbeats, a rush of hot and cold, harsh silence and grating thoughts, all at once. It was old wounds with poor stitching that just barely held together, and now the strings had been tugged once again.
The memory he saw last night was one he played over and over in his head, wondering if he could have done something and now... There it was. Hollow. Incomplete. Unreal.
The resolution he wanted.
Starting to raise his voice, Wade shot back, "What does it matter to you why I wanted to stay in my memor--?!"
Wade stopped and caught his words.
He was angry, but at himself. He hated being angry, and he hated lashing out, and he hated how this followed his life like a dark cloud. Wade swallowed. He knew this was a reasonable thing to ask and to answer.
After a moment, he spoke and his tone was calm and deliberate.
"Because my sister was there," Wade said.
He didn't wait to hear Max's response. He didn't want to hear it. Wade pressed a button, then hung up.
“Your sis-“ Max began, but by then the line was dead.
It was a moment before Max hung up himself. He cupped the phone in his hands hesitantly, his thumb running over redial without much thought or form. Sister. The word repeated in his thoughts, an echo of that kid's voice.
A memory played in sound alone. "As they say," it said, "I had an older sibling. So I know to how to-."
Max stopped it there. There was no need to listen. He knew what came next.
For several seconds, he did not move. The phone fell and flew in his hands with clumsy, loud shuffles.
“...Fry,” he found himself saying.
The phone returned to his pocket. Max stared at the ground, thought-gazed, before pushing his way out and into the foyer.
