Chapter Text
Condiment King was singing "Ode to Condiments" by Priska Neely when Syder edged toward the secret bar behind the bar.
Traci was still levitating drinks—six at once from the brass taps, three more swirling toward waiting patrons—but she still had enough spare focus to be social.
“Hey, hot stuff,” she said, grinning as she guided a pint glass through the air. “You’re kinda famous, right? What can I do you for?”
Syd sighed. “George is the famous one. Nobody knows what the drummer looks like, even after three times at the top of the charts.”
“Maybe,” she teased. “But being a Prince of Faerie has to count for something.”
Syder twisted his mouth. “Technically a minor regional king. It’s complicated. Abaton doesn’t speak for all fae. Most of the time I’d rather not speak for Abaton either.” He nodded across the room. “Can you pass John Constantine a pint of tap 8 for me?”
“I’ll pour it,” she said, filling a glass with a flick of her fingers, “but it might be a while. You're not the first person to buy him a drink but he’s been reflecting my unseen hands back at me all night. I don't have a waiter. If I have to bring it to him in person, who knows how long it’ll take. Honestly, you could probably order here and walk it over yourself faster than I can.”
Syder looked toward the cluster of bodies orbiting John—Tim dressed for his night job, Jazz pressing a hand to her temple, Detective Chimp nursing a whiskey, Danny glowing faintly silver around the edges—and shuddered. “I’m staying the hell out of that guy’s way.”
Traci blinked. “The dead boy? He seems harmless enough.”
“Not dead, and no; not him. Your boss. The Chimp.” Syder whispered. “Do he tell you what he did to the King of America?”
“America’s got no king?”
“Sure,” he said, eyes widening meaningfully. “America’s got no King now. What he did was terribly effective. As someone in the genius locai game I’m not risking it.”
“I haven’t heard this one. Better or worse than John selling the spirit of New York into slavery to the Faerie courts?”
He gave her a flat look and repeated himself very slowly. “Abaton. Does. Not. Speak. For. Faerie.”
She lifted her hands in mock surrender.
“But,” he added slyly, leaning one elbow on the bar, “Yes, about the same. The spirit of America is in shambles. I know you lot don’t want a monarch, but it’s one hell of a power vacuum. These next few years? You’re not going to get what you need."
He glanced down the bar and leaned closer—
"Most of the world is afraid you’re going to get exactly what you deserve instead.”
Traci winced. “Now that’s a scary thought. You think you could do better?”
“Who, me?” he laughed. “I’m just the drummer.”
“A drummer who knows—”
The lights winked out mid-sentence, plunging the bar into sudden, sharp darkness.
The lights flickered back on, but the festive mood had been interrupted, causing confused silence to spread out across both bars like an explosion in reverse.
Conversations died mid-laugh. Glasses stopped clinking. On the stage, Condiment King choked mid-note.
John was moving before he consciously registered any of it. —wrong, something was wrong with the music—and he bolted for the stage, weaving through tables and chairs with the frantic intensity of a man chasing a disaster already in motion.
Bill gave his soundboard a hard, frustrated smack. The board thumped under his fist in a dull, plastic thud. In response, the overhead lights sputtered back to life once then died completely— lights that weren’t even remotely connected to the karaoke setup.
It wasn’t actually dark. Not fully.
Here and there patrons cast their own glow: the faint amber shimmer of someone’s metahuman biolight, the flicker of cell phone screens, the cold LED-blue of a cybernetic eye. The crackling aura around Lightning was brightest creating a ten-foot radius around her that was relatively well lit.
John pushed harder through the crowd.
With the party atmosphere gone, the room had taken on a dangerous stillness. Drunk, paranoid villains in low light. It was a powder keg, and the fuse was burning down.
The stage shown acid green. Bill was sure there was more of green than the bars one dinky novelty disco light could account for.
John vaulted onto the edge of the stage just as the autocue screen flickered and spat out a glitchy message in the same neon shade:
"Welcome to the Internet"
The words stuttered out in a lagging stereo chorus, echoing from every wall-mounted TV, every cellphone, every smartwatch in the building.
John didn’t hesitate. He met it and sang along with focused will desperate to convince the heavily armed crowed that this was just a very weird, very planned performance—
“Have a look around,
Anything that brain of yours can think of can be found.”
It was working. Barely. He grit his teeth as a glowing white-and-green form flickered into existence above the crowd, coalescing out of pixel dust and static.
“We’ve got mountains of content,
Some better, some worse.
If none of it’s of interest to you, you’d be the first.”
Green skin, white trenchcoat, mullet, sunglasses, beard—
Technus.
The technology ghost was grinning madly and singing. Sweat beaded on Johns forehead as Danny ignored the subliminal message to remain calm and decided that this was definitely a threat.
“Welcome to the Internet,
Come and take a seat.”
Bill lunged for the second mic, He tried to take control of the situation by yelling for everyone to sit down and shut up but his mic was dead. The people closest to him heard; the back half of the room didn’t react at all. And John—voice steady but jaw tight— like a man possessed, was still singing.
“Would you like to see the news
or any famous woman’s feet?”
Technus spun in midair.
Danny fired an ectoblast and followed behind —
“There’s no need to panic,
this isn’t a test, haha—”
Technus twisted, serpentine, out of the way of the attack, body contorting in impossible angles,
“Just nod or shake your head,
and we’ll do the rest.”
Jazz whipped a Fenton lipstick from her pocket and fired.
Welcome to the Internet,
What would you prefer?
Kite-Man winced as a hole appeared in his wall.
There weren't supposed to be any form of projectile weapons in Noonans. You certainly weren't supposed to fire any form of projectile weapons in Noonans.
Those were the rules.
"Would you like to fight for civil rights or tweet a racial slur?"
Then again— they were villains and rules were made to be broken.
"Be happy."
Technus was joyfully twisting between a .22 a .38, a bird-a-range, and three different colored lazer blasts from the crowd.
"Be horny"
Danny was forced to dodge too as he attempted to grab the technology ghost by the lab coat. Technus turned in midair and sang directly in the ghost boys face—
"Be bursting with rage—
We got a million different ways to engage"
John’s illusion held by a thread. Gunfire tapered off as patrons—astonishingly—began to believe the lie he was projecting.
“Welcome to the Internet,
Put your cares aside—”
Technus soared, the chase streaking in and out of walls like a surreal laser-light show
“Here's a tip for straining pasta
Here's a nine-year-old who died
We got movies, and doctors, and fantasy sports
And a-bunch-of-colored-pencil-drawings-of-all-the-different-characters-in-Harry-Potter-fucking-each-other"
The ghostly chase went in and out of walls like a lasar light show
"Welcome to the Internet,
Hold on to your socks,
'Cause a random guy just kindly sent you photos of his cock,
They are grainy and off-putting—
He just sent you more,
Don't act surprised, you know you like it, you whore"
Left then right Danny hurled his ecto bolts in a rapid cadence pushed along by the rhythm of the song
"See a man beheaded get offended, see a shrink,
Show us pictures of your children,
Tell us every thought you think,
Start a rumor, buy a broom or-
Send a death threat to a boomer,
Or DM a girl and groom her,
Do a Zoom or find a tumor in your—"
Which of course made them easy to dodge in time to the rhythm of the song. Like a dance.
"Here's a healthy breakfast option,
—You should kill your mom—
Here's why women never fuck you,
Here's how you can build a bomb!
Which Power Ranger are you?
Take this quirky quiz,
Obama sent the immigrants to vac-ci-nate your kids"
Technus closed his eyes, smiling warmly on the crowed.
“Could I interest you in everything?
All of the time?”
Green light pulsed from him with each line as he floated like a techno-priest giving sermon.
“Apathy’s a tragedy
And boredom is a crime—”
Then—
CRACK.
Danny’s fist connected solidly with Technus’s jaw.
The music changed. Not gone—just down to the soft, nostalgic bleed of Bo Burnham waxing nostalgic for Gen Z. No one bothered picking up the lyrics.
Danny hovered there, breathing hard, ecto-energy still crackling around his knuckles. He held the technology ghost one handed by the collar and waved the fistful of green energy in his face.
Danny shook him once. “What do you want, Technus?!”
The man blinked, dazed. “Oh. Um. Karaoke?” He looked around, clearly confused. “This is karaoke night, right?”
Danny stared. Same ghostly green skin. Same black glasses. But… a short white beard? And an exhaustion that made him look genuinely old.
Old, and tired.
Technus’s gaze slid toward the stage. Yearning softened his face. Danny followed the look—John stood there holding the mic loosely, wearing an equally baffled expression.
“You just gonna stand there, man?” Technus's eyes darted back at the ecto bolt without turning his head. Danny's hand had wavered and it was searing the edge of his beard. ”Or are we going three for three on watching me die?” he still spoke in a New York accent but he dropped the pitch and said it softly with hardly any of his usual grating twang.
Danny’s hand faltered. He immediately dispersed the bolt, offended. “I’m not going to kill you! Don’t say it like that!”
John squinted. “…Ritchie? That you?”
Technus blinked slowly. “I think so? I feel more me than I have in ages.” He touched his chest, surprised at the solidity of it. “I— I heard you. I heard you and I found myself and it’s all so very— what’s the word for when you kill yourself but it makes you a better person?”
“Catharsis.”
Technus hummed thoughtfully. “Hm. Feels weird.”
He turned back to Danny, “Comp-sci 101, kid: the fun thing about computers is that they back up information and store it for later use.”
His voice crackled strangely—like an old speaker reconnecting to itself. “I know you aren't going to believe me, but I sort of factory-reset myself tonight?”
His fingers—gloved, faintly pixelated around the edges—flexed as if checking whether they were still attached. “Still digging through my recovery files.” He held out his hand in a peace offering that smelled faintly of burnt electrics. “Ritchie Simpson. Nice to meet you?”
Danny finally stopped throttling the ghost.
He shook Ritchie’s hand cautiously. “I have questions.”
“I have answers.” Ritchie’s grin flickered like corrupted video. “But not now. Not tonight. It’s still my set.”
Danny opened his mouth to argue— but the ghost laughed suddenly, deep and booming and ominous.
Danny’s muscles tightened instinctively. For one sharp, bright moment he was absolutely certain he’d made a mistake letting go. But instead of lunging or attacking, the technology ghost drifted back towards the stage,
“Could I interest you in everything all of the time?”
The words bounced off the walls—tinny through broken speakers, warm through the karaoke system, and eerily intimate where it vibrated inside phones and smartwatches.
It took a long moment for Danny to realize that Technus—no, Ritchie—had simply picked up the song again.
The question was directed at John and it wasn't just the Internet he was offering.
Hesitantly Constantine lifted the mic again and asked—
“A little bit of everything… all of the time?”
Something in Ritchie lit up at the response—recognition, maybe. Relief. Shared damage bouncing between them like feedback.
He fed John the line softly, almost like he knew what the last 4 hours had been like for the wizard.
“Apathy’s a tragedy—?”
John’s expression cracked, something raw flashing through his eyes as he answered with perfect synchronicity like he knew what the last 40 years had been like for the ghost “—and boredom is a crime?”
Then they were off. Biting out the final verses with a kind of manic urgency, voices overlapping, chasing each other through distorted harmonics.
"Anything and everything
And anything and everything
And anything and everything
And all of the time!"
Danny watched as Ritchie half-collapsed into John’s shoulder, and John into his, both of them laughing the wheezing, exhausted laugh of men who had survived something they couldn’t name.
“Ritchie! You’re up and about!" He grinned "What level of hell makes a kid from Portobello sound like fucking Gilbert Gottfried?”
Ritchie barked another laugh, clutching the mic stand for balance. “Don’t remember,” he said, voice glitching up an octave then back down, “but I got a theory.”
Yeah?”
“Ye-ah. Nostalgia keeps me sane!”
Bill brushed plaster dust out of his hair and scrambled back onto the stage, tapping the microphone until it hummed back to life. His voice carried easily over the scattered laughter and aftershock murmurs.
“Damn. That was exciting!” he exclaimed, sweeping a look across the room. A few tables were still smoking slightly. “I need a palate cleanser and a shot of tequila after a performance like that—and I bet you do too.”
A tired, appreciative cheer rose from the crowd.
Bill raised a calming hand. “Let’s all take a deep breath and share a moment of quiet contemplation… as Mute performs 4'33” by John Cage.”
There was a groan from the locals who had sat through Mute's prefomence before.
Mute—a nondescript man in immaculate business formal, stepped up onto the stage and took the mic from John. Without ceremony, he squared his shoulders, and “sang”...
“—*
***
–—–*"
Absolute nothing.
The bar immediately dissolved into animated chatter. Glasses clinked. Someone laughed too loudly in the corner. A few villains argued about whether projectile weapons were still banned after what had just happened. Lightning’s glow dimmed to a calmer pulse, illuminating drifting smoke. Danny landed lightly near the back, folding his arms as he watched people return to their drinks like nothing unusual had occurred.
Onstage, Mute held the mic with the solemn poise of a concert pianist, letting the silence stretch, controlled and intentional, while the room buzzed around him.
Despite the destruction the show went on.