“Hey, somebody should go find Derrick,” DeMarcus Cousins announced. “He’s not responding my texts, but he’s always down for some clubbing, and we shouldn’t go without him.”
Rudy Gay stood up. “I can look around for him. This arena’s not that big, there’s not many places where he could reasonably be.”
———————————–
“Derrick! Derrick!” Rudy shouted, the empty hallways echoing his yells back at him. “Damn it dude, we just wanna go to the club and get hit on by chicks! Don’t you want that?” There was no response. Rudy had been through the entire arena, and his teammates had doubtlessly left for their night of fun, leaving him to his fruitless search. Looking at the time, he found that it was almost midnight.
“Well, I haven’t tried this door yet,” Rudy thought to himself, spying a plain metal door in a side corridor. “But if it’s not this one, I’m definitely done with this crap.” Pulling on the handle, Rudy could see stairs descending into interminable blackness. Taking out his phone for light, he descended the steps until he came to another door. There was a sign which read, “Dub Factory.” Wondering what a dub factory was, and doubting very much that Derrick would be found in such a place, he opened this second door.
The room was filled to overflowing with various electronic equipment, most of which Rudy couldn’t identify. On one wall was a bank of spinning magnetic tapes; on the other, a vacuum-tube computer with hundreds of switches. But he took little notice of these things, for Derrick himself was sitting at a desk adjacent to the far wall, staring intently into a computer screen. Derrick appeared not to have noticed the door’s opening, nor the intruder’s entry.
“You really should respond to DeMarcus’ texts, Derrick,” Rudy said, causing Derrick to jump in his chair and spin around.
“It’s not what it looks like!” Derrick exclaimed, eyes wide with panic behind rectangular-framed glasses. “I’m just…uh…reading some blogs and stuff. Definitely nothing weird going on down here!”
Rudy walked over to the screens, where some kind of music production software could be seen to be running. “Cool, you producing some music? Hip-hop? Rap?”
With a loud sigh, Derrick answered, “Yes, I’m producing music. No, it’s not hip-hop. Just leave. You wouldn’t like my stuff anyway. I’m feeling nice, so I won’t detain you with the other prisoners who have stumbled upon my illicit dub operation.”
Rudy looked around for signs of others, but they were the only two in the room. “Whatever, Derrick. We wondered if you wanted to come and party with us, but I’ll just leave you to whatever it is you’re doing.”
Sighing again, Derrick said, “Okay, fine, I’ll give you a preview of what I’m working on, but you have to promise not to tell.” Rudy began to protest, as he didn’t really care what kind of stupid music his teammate was cooking up, but when Derrick pushed play, talking became an afterthought.
Unseen speakers throughout the chamber played a basic electronic drum beat. Getting up from his seat and pushing the sleeves of his flannel shirt up his arms, Derrick ran to the switches on the computer, which he began to flip with practiced precision. Slowly, distorted synthesizer tones began to build on top of the beat.
“This sucks,” Rudy said, but Derrick was too engrossed in his work to pay attention. The synthesized warbling loudened to near unbearable levels before cutting out completely.
Eyes closed, Derrick raised his arms to the ceiling, his fingers extended like claws, looking very much like a demented scientist. “Here comes the drop!”
“What’s a-” Rudy started, before all hell broke loose. Extremely heavy bass tones blasted out of the subwoofers, mingling with horrible, near-static treble tones. The rhythm of the song, if such a depraved composition could be labeled as such, was erratic and syncopated. Rudy, his yells inaudible in the chaos, clapped his hands over his ears as unanchored items in the room began to fall from their places. Bassy “wub” sounds loosened his control over his own bowels.
The terror continued for two full minutes before ending. By the end, Rudy was huddled in a ball on the floor, tears streaming down his face.
“So, Rudy, how do you like my new dubstep track? That drop was brutal, yeah? Do you think it was better or worse than the new Skrillex?” Derrick asked. Getting up without a word, Rudy shook his head and walked out the door. Derrick could hear his footfalls on the steps and looked down sadly.
“Nobody ever likes my dubstep.”