Dennis Raveley - chapter 14

The opera theater is a short drive from the Spacescrapper, and the journey there is undertaken in an empty milk truck that reeks of dairy products, Dennis does not know why, and the journey is silent. Strangely  no one has anything to say after the performance in the atrium, as if a mute has been imposed on the troop.
The roomy truck comes to a halt, and Dennis is led into a building he presumes to be the theater through the back entrance. Some hallways and staircases later, Dennis is guided into a small room and his blindfold is taken off. The room is dimly lit by a single twenty watt incandescent bulb, still Dennis rubs his eyes adjusting to the light source. The blindfold has been so tightly wound around his head there is now a red crease on the skin where the fold left its mark. The person who guided Dennis to this room is revealed to be Kenny.
'There's a wall of glass behind those curtains at the far side of the room, you have the crow's nest, you can see everything there is to see.' Kenny says, and pulls open the curtained wall to reveal a single panel of glass giving view to the entire theater, the stage to the left down below, and the first, second, and third floors of the seating, the box perches on the opposite end, and the ceiling catwalk which is at level with the room Dennis and Kenny are in.
'Why here?' Dennis asks, taking in the view.
'It will get crowded down below, and the oxygen not as pure.' Kenny smiles and heads towards the exit, before closing the door, he says, 'If anything happens, don't go anywhere, one of us will come and get you, you can count on that.' His head disappears behind the door and it shuts with a click.
Dennis sees that a chair has been proved for him, he sits down and stares below to the ground of the theater, which is quickly filling up with people in suits and dresses, all in black. He expects an orchestra to accompany the Wyatt siblings, but instead, when the audience is fully seated and the lights dimmed, the quintet enters alone in single file, dressed in an assortment of black and white semi-formal clothing, with Jerry pushing Addy on her wheelchair to her position next to Raymond. Their instruments are readied, and they begin to play. Dennis does not hear anything.
At first he thinks there is some trouble with the microphone, or perhaps they are only air-bowing. Both possibilities are proven false when a thorough search of the room unearthed no microphones or speakers, and when the audience, in their genuine astonishment and delight (despite most having attended the quintet's concerts before), begin to sway to the intoxicating melody. Dennis is puzzled that he is unable to hear the music, it is even more puzzling for him to come up with an explanation of why.
Dennis decides to concentrate on the quintet and their movements. At the fiftieth bar of the fifth piece, the audience gasped and held hands over their gaping mouths, Dennis does not understand this collective action, until he sees with some squinting that Raymond and Kenny seem to be conversing with each other as they each continue to bow vigorously. Soon, Jerry and then Chelsea joins what appears to be a full verbal conversation taking place simultaneously with the performance of their instruments. In another instant, Dennis follows Kenny's movements as he stops playing upon completion of a segment and carries his instrument offstage, waving goodbye to the audience before exiting. Then, Jerry packs and makes his exit, followed by Chelsea, wheeling Addy off stage with her, she comes back to haul off the bass, and Raymond is the only player left, standing alone with the spotlight trained on his now solo performance, like a musician auditioning for a seat in an orchestra. Raymond seems to not be aware of everything around him, swaying slightly to his own bowing, performing to a dumbfounded audience.
Raymond continues to play for a little while, enjoying his moment alone. Chelsea reappears at the fringe of the curtains in the same moment a man dressed in a black trench coat runs up the central aisle towards the stage, the barrel of a rifle appears at the curtain, and the man speeding up the aisle is shot a direct hit to the head, spilling red brain matter in a meter radius. Pandemonium breaks out, people duck, and then they rise, and being to run wildly, Raymond stops playing.
Someone from within the huge flurry of black that is the audience fires a shot, Raymond leaps in a dodge and lands sideways, tossing his violin in midair towards the curtains, a hand appears and catches the violin in flight, Chelsea appears fully from the cover of the curtain and returns fire, Raymond rolls his way from the open stage, an automatic machine gun fires from somewhere else within the fleeing masses, Chelsea ducks out of the way, bullets rip across the backdrop curtains and punch holes into the wooden flooring, a man jumps onto the stage, a long saber in hand, another join him, this man has a hatchet.
Raymond suddenly bursts from the side entrance waving a microphone stand, whacking the man with the hatchet in the side, the other man swings his saber, Raymond ducks and thrusts the end of his weapon into the man's knees, cracking them, the hatchet man gets back up, he is shot in the chest by Chelsea, reentering the stage, who fires several rounds into the audience, hitting several fleeing individuals in the backs, Raymond stomps the saber man's neck, and he is still. Chelsea drags Raymond from the stage, they flee as another volley of shots assaulted the stage.
Then Dennis sees a man on the catwalk, coming towards his window, an aimed shotgun in his hands. The door bursts open, Jerry rushes in, firing into the glass past Dennis (who runs into the ground for cover), which shatters, the man with the shotgun fires into the room as he walks unperturbed towards the perch room. The shotgun slug peppers into the wall near the door, Jerry fires furiously and empties the magazine in seconds, the man with the shotgun is hit, he goes down. Jerry throws down the pistol and takes out another from his dress suit.
Jerry takes Dennis' hand, 'Time to rush!' he says. When they come to the end of the hallway, the assailant around the corner is surprised when Jerry is the first to press a fully loaded barrel against his chest and fire a single bullet that tunnels through his flesh in straight trajectory before exiting from the back. Dennis does not get a second chance to observe the slumped man that Jerry has just killed before being pulled away.
There is a helicopter waiting in air on the roof of the theater.

Dennis Raveley - chapter 13

Behind Jerry, who is leaning against the doorway, appears Chelsea Wyatt, an impassive looking young woman in her early twenties, blond, athletic, with a hardly-noticeable face that displays obscurity. The appearance of Raymond and company does not enlighten her either.
'If I'm not mistaken, I believe my idiot brother is standing at the door.' She says.
'Are you ever mistaken?' Jerry adds, turning back to Raymond, 'You did come earlier than I expected, what's the hurry?'
'The hurry, as I've implied, is Dennis here.' Raymond pats Dennis on the shoulder, the blindfold still obstructing his sight. Jerry picks up his hand and shakes it, loosely.
'Right person in the wrong place at the wrong time, my young friend, I shake your hand with pity.' Jerry says.
'Now, Kenny and Addy are waiting downstairs in the atrium. I booked the space for the next hour and our luggage are waiting there, have you guys packed up?' Raymond is on a row.
'How can we? I had no idea you are coming.' Jerry said, 'You only look like that when it's performing time, so I assume you're planning to get us away using a gig?' His is the voice of a skeptic, though not without a hint of the laid-back attitude which defines him as a closely related younger brother to Raymond, except his hair is black, his brow is fashioned in a permanent semi-scowl, his expression withered even at the fresh age of seventeen, and his face pale like Addy's.
'Exactly my words, as a matter of fact, I believe I've arrived at such sudden non-notice, that if I had just startled you, whoever those suckers in black rovers are probably aren't aware this conversation is taking place right now.' Raymond says in a single breath. 'So stuff your bags and let's get a move on, we got a gig to attend.'
'Alright, alright, Mon, I've taken part in stranger diversions.' Jerry strolls off into the suite and Raymond enters, Chelsea smacks him on the head to remind him of his irrationality, and goes into the washroom to change out of her bathrobe. Dennis is left standing at the door unguided, now swinging shut, as Raymond goes off to find a jar of gummy bears.
Chelsea reappears, having changed into a T-shirt and shorts in an astonishing short period of time, and to Dennis, she says, 'Don't say a word, good to meet you.' Dennis can do nothing else but comply.
A few lengthy minutes later, Jerry charges out of the hotel suite, hauling a buckling leather suitcase and does not look back, Chelsea follows in a smaller carry-on, looking back in a vapid goodbye, and Raymond brings up the rear, guiding Dennis back to the elevators, and down to the atrium where Kenny and Addy are waiting with the strings.
'And before we leave, I'd like to give Dennis here a private show right here just because I can, any objections?' Raymond declares.
'None whatsoever, oh hail concertmaster.' Jerry replies, annoyed, and takes out a viola from the case that belongs to him. Chelsea unzips a full size double bass from the largest case, Kenny with his cello and hands Addy her red violin, while Raymond unearths his personal violin from his luggage (it came without a case) amongst clothing items. They tune as unison. Dennis is still without sight, and a shiver courses down his body as his ears are met with the sound of five strings in harmonic pitch.
'Alright people, go nuts.' Raymond announces the beginning of a short piece they've all memorised long ago, performed without flaw, and Dennis feels not so exhilarated since the time he went parachuting.
It is over in no time yet all the time in the world, Raymond asks shortly after the concluding fermata, 'So Dennis my friend, how many violins did you hear?'
'It sounded like...fifty, each. How many are you?'
'Two.'
'It sounded like a full orchestra of strings!'
'And that, is why we're so famous.' Raymond says, acknowledging his immaculate skill, 'Wait 'till the gig.'