"Yeah, I really kinda dropped the ball on that one," Aaron said. Reaching out with a scuffed boot, he edged an old plastic milk crate closer to himself, then sat down on it. Best do as he was told. "Sorry about that, Captain. I wouldn't have come in here if it wasn't important, okay? I just have one question for you guys, and then I'm gone."<br/><br/>Still keeping his hands up, he looked around the cluttered workshop. "Your place, Captain? It's kinda nice. You know what it makes me think of? My dad's grodge. My dad was an interesting guy. A garbage collector, for the city. He was always finding stuff people threw out because they thought it was broken. He'd take it home and clean it up, fix it, get it like new. Yeah, Mom wasn't thrilled that our toaster came out of someone's dumpster, but me, I thought it was awesome. Dad was smarter than all of his customers." Aaron was rambling now, the words pouring out without forethought or plan. A consequence of talking to no one for weeks. "I got my first guitar, an old Yamaha, that way. It was our little project. We had to restring it, and get the neck back on with some wood glue, and sand down the body and oil it. That guitar was a piece of shit, eh. It sounded awful. But I liked it, and I thought my dad was so smart for making it."<br/><br/>Aaron was getting lost in his own story, not realizing just how his logorrhea was coming across to his audience. He hadn't ever really talked about this in the last couple years, and now all the sudden it was pouring out. "But, y'know, being smart didn't help my dad at all, right? Red Fog came while I was staying with him. Husks ripped him to pieces." He shrugged. "Sorry, not trying to get your sympathy. Not a sob story. Just sayin'."<br/><br/>"Fact being, my family's dead. Watched them die. So I need to find the next best thing. Need to know what happened to them. Because, all this, this bullshit, right?" he said with an expansive gesture that was meant to somehow encompass the entire world. "No one should have to face this alone. I had friends that were always there for me. They paid my rent when I was broke, they took care of me when I was sick, they backed me up when I got jumped outside a bar in Lansing. You'll notice I said Dad was smart. Not that I loved him. Kinda sounds wrong, eh? That I didn't love my own dad? Just cause he was smart didn't mean he wasn't an asshole too. No, my real family was my band. Get me? I should have been with them when the Red Fog came, but I wasn't. And now I have to find them. I gotta make that right with me, and I gotta make that right with them. Cause like I said, no one should do this all alone."<br/><br/>Aaron reached into his pocket, not caring that the action might easily get him shot, and pulled out the dog-eared, yellowing photo from so long ago. Outside the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland. The first stop on their first tour. Not for a concert, of course, that had been that evening at the Wolstein. But they had insisted on the bus stopping at the museum and this quick photo. Aaron pointed to each face in turn, skipping himself and poor Tim, his face covered with a faded X from a blue Sharpie. "Adam Huntley. Waldemar Kopacz. Stevie Sutton. Have you seen them?" Aaron stared at the others. "Please. I have to find them. Please just answer and then I'll go."