Chapter Two: Doctor, Doctor

Metal doors with Plexiglas windows slide open with a mechanical whoosh as I walk into the lab. I head inside, and drop the bag onto an examination table, looking around the oddly empty room.
“Hey Mauress, you here? Diane?”
As I call out a man, slightly shorter than me with a mop of messy brown hair, and heavy bags under his eyes walks out of the back room, coffee in hand.
“Geez, you look like you could use some rest Mauress.”
He smirks and gives a small laugh.
“I could say the same to you Erasmus.”
As he walks over to the table I give him a friendly punch on the shoulder
“Come on, you know I prefer Ras, can’t you just once use my nickname?”
He just smiles and shakes his head, taking a sip of his coffee he looks over the bag. He opens it up just enough to see the decaying, glossed over eyes, looking out from under the medical hood. I sit on a nearby desk and toss an energy tablet into my mouth.
“Say Mauress, where is Diane?”
He looks up from the living corpse and shrugs
“I dunno, she said she was going out for lunch, and she hasn’t come back yet. She is probably slacking off back at her apartment, like usual.”
“That’s my Diane, but you just gotta love her, huh?”
I say with a smile as I jump back off the table, feeling the energy tablet kicking in. Mauress scoffs at me.
“Well, you do, I on the other hand only need to tolerate her. But lucky for her, I do like her enough to call her a friend.”
I laugh a little and pat Mauress on the back, as I head out.
“I’m going to go look for her, have fun with this guy, he was a fighter; some of the Elites should be bringing back my jeep and the other two later. See ya Mauress”
With that I walk back out the mechanical doors, leaving Mauress with the corpse. I’ve barely made any progress getting to the building’s exit when the sound of rapid footsteps reach my ears. I turn around to see a blur of ragged clothing and a mass of black curly hair rush pass me. The blur stops just past me, stopping himself from stumbling and instead turning on his heel to face me. An ecstatic young face grins at me from under the amorphous onyx curls.
“Ras! I heard about what happened, you got to tell me about it!”
“Sure Dyl, walk with me, I’m going to find Diane.”
He nodded and took off one of his headphones so he could hear me as we walked. While we were walking down the city sidewalks Dylan assaulted my ears with question after question about the event earlier today. Dylan here worked as a gun runner, meaning he piloted a turret gun. He works at East Gate however, so he did not get to see me today.
After talking about the events of the day, Dyl looked about ready to explode with awe, but also with the desire to put his headphone back on. I smile and plop the phone back over his ear, flooding his head back with the song. Luckily he can read lips.
“So, you seem particularly energetic today, listening to a new mix?”
He nodded in response, and let his head bob to the sound waves.
He is a clever kid, mixing songs together to create whole new songs no one ever knew where hidden within the individual songs themselves.
After not too long we found ourselves in front of the apartment complex Diane and I live in. I lead Dyl in and we ascended the stair to the third floor, almost immediately hearing the singing coming from room 330, unmistakably Diane’s. We knock on the door and are soon greeted by the cheerful, and somewhat flushed, face of my sweet Diane. She greets me with a hug and kiss, then invites us in.
“Hey Ras, Dylan, what’re you guys doing here?”
I wait until she switches off her stereo so I do not have to yell.
“Well, Mauress told me you went out to lunch, and I thought I would see how your multi-hour lunch is going.”
Her hands shoot up to cover her mouth and she takes a step back looking shocked.
“Oh no, I totally forgot about work! I came back here for lunch, and I started listening to music, then I just got swept away in it….”
At the mention of music Dylan goes off to peruse the large collection of CD’s, records, and cassettes.
“Anyway, we should get back to the lab, I brought in another corpse, and I feel like there is something off about him”
I smirk as I see the spark of interest shine in her eye. She swiftly puts on her white coat as I call over Dylan, and we set back off for the lab.

every chapter has a music reference for a title