From: ah804@FreeNet.Carleton.CA (Kipp Lightburn)
Subject: Square One- - Part One to Eight
Date: Wed, 11 Jan 1995 19:11:54 GMT
Square One - Pt.1
-----------------
They can't run faster.
They can't run faster than me.
The thought screams in my head like a whistle. Adrenaline
is pumping from sources I had expended days ago. Bare feet
slapping down on tile, dilutes the sound of my thought. Have to
run faster. Cold tile, on bare feet, pushing the sensation to
the front of mind, concentrating on it. Numb my pain riddled
body with my doped, and hazy mind.
Hurried steps. Feet in creaking, leather boots, stomp the
floor a few corridors away. The metallic slam of clips entering
weapons, and the coiled signature of loading. Hard to tell,
maybe a half dozen of them. Right now, in my chipped out funk,
one footstep occasionally sounds like twenty.
Civilians cleared the hospitals halls as soon as the
security alert went off. Better this way. They only stand a
chance at hitting me. I'm dead now anyways. Woke up a week ago
in a hospital bed, no personal memories. I was tired of staring
at a stranger so I shattered the mirror in my room. That's when
they started drugging me. Saying that the procedure may have
effected my brain in inconcieved ways. Possible psychotic.
Scratch 'possible', I want to snap all their bloody necks.
Though the memories were cleared out, my knowledge was still
there. Still know how to mix a Long Island, still know how to
drive a car, and more clearly in my head, I still know how to
kill a man in every conceivable way. With my fists, with
weapons... christ even with a friggin stapler if I had to.
Boots coming closer. Sound travels like crystal now. With
the drop of the boot comes an accompanying noise of wet rubber on
tile. Wet rubber?
At the dead end of the corridor behind me, a window sits
comfortably. Rain glances off of it, leaving behind a webwork of
droplets that distorts the view of the city beyond.
Stagger towards the supply cart, haphazardously strewn in
the middle of the hall. Supplies free of their four wheeled
prison, carpeting the floor. Toilet paper, gauze, boxes,
bottles.. the boots are about to turn into the corridor when I
see them. Hypo-patches. Instant pain killers. I frantically
slap them all over my naked body, drugs begin kicking in
immediately. My body starts convulsing into numbness.
They start screaming as they see me force myself into a
sprint.
"What the heck's he got all over him?" One of them puzzles,
as I slap the last Hypo-patch onto my chest and brace for impact.
"No! Plug him quick!!"
Pain killers stop pain. I'm hoping that this many will
prevent it.
This body, which even after a week still seems foreign to
me, hurtles through the glass. The gunshots begin to cry out. I
see clouds of blood all around me, as shards fly past me. I see
two bullets exit my body, one through my stomach and one through
my thigh. The bullets take streams of my blood with them.
I don't feel the wind on my skin as I plummet, gravity
strung, earthbound. A self service, computerized, hot dog vendor
breaks my fall. Feet first. I see my right leg snap out at an
awkward angle, as it takes the weight of my fall. The hot dog
vendor folds inward like aluminum foil.
Sights flutter past as my vision toys with me.
A thin woman leans over my body, "Kyle? Kyle, don't move,
we'll get you out of here." Frantic look over shoulder, her pale
hand hammers into her coat.. searching. "Spiro! Ash! Stop
screwing around and get over here! I can't carry him!"
Two more figures pull into my peripheral. Tall, stocky,
both of them.
Her, "Get him into the van, I'll cover..." Frantic look
turns to terror, as she pulls a gun from her coat, and the two
lift me off of the ground. As I'm lifted my sights change. A
dozen of the security who were chasing me spill out from the
hospitals front doors. The rain is no match for their full body
security armor.
I'm being dragged to a nearby van, as the girl starts
unloading her clip into them. Gunshots and flashes. My mind
begins misinterpreting the two as thunder an lightening, while
the rain continues to stream down my face.
The girl and the gun. Almost opposites. Love and war.
Beauty and beast. They would be opposites if she didn't use it
so well.
Sixth sense forces me to peer down. Cartilage and bone
protrude out of my right leg, at the knee. The sight forces me
into blackness.
Square One - Pt.2
-----------------
Petrol fumes invade my senses as consciousness penetrates
my soul.
Blurry afterimages of the woman and the gun, mix with the
flesh coloured paisley designs that obstruct my vision. My head
spins. My body rocks.
I'm wedged into the back seat of a car. The bottled sound
of an orchestra is filtered through cheap speakers.
My body rocks.
The image of the woman and the gun locked in firefight
fleets in and out of my half dazed mind.
I stare up through bloodsoaked eyelashes at the driver in
the front. Short, dark, curly hair hangs above his shirt collar
like the dot on an i. The rear-view hands me a vision of his eyes.
Dark like his hair, and black like his shirt collar.
And then the thought stings me. Two men carrying me to a
van, while the woman protects them with hot fury from cold steel.
I'm in a car.
My body so numb. Still. I force the pain into my
throat, "....van..where's the girl."
The driver throws a glance out of his window and chuckles.
".....the girl...where is she?"
The response is silence.
".....who are...you?"
He finally looks into my line of sight, and his eyes speak
to me through the rear-view,"Soon you won't care. Just go back to
sleep."
Sitting up makes me look down, as one leg refuses to
respond. I see everything at once. Holes. Bullet holes. Blood
gently escaping them. Left leg moves at the thigh when I ask it
to, but the rest, the knee down, hangs from torn flesh. My body is
still naked and numb. But my skin is tinted red, with the
occasional splash of pink. As I straighten up, the car seat,
blanketed with my blood, clings affectionately to me, and lets go
with a sound like velcro.
"Whoa there buddy. You better lay your ass down if you
know what's good for you." The mirror shows me his panic, as if
this naked, half dead chassis of mine could actually do anything
harmful.
One arm strays from the wheel into the seat next to him.
I hear metal scraping on leather, as he pulls something closer in.
The car hurtles through the dark, as headlights paint a
path ahead of us.
".....where's the girl." I try again as I look at the
dash. The clock reads 11:05:27. We're going eighty as he eyes me
in the mirror.
"Look pal, I said lay your ass down! I mean it!" His hand
strays to his metal next to him. The car accelerates as his body
weight shifts to look at me face to face. His nose has been broken
a few times before and he hasn't shaven in days,"LAY DOWN!" Panic,
fear and anger write lines on his face. He swings his arm up and
levels the gun at my head.
Instinct.
My good leg pushes me into him. One hand grabs his gun, the
other pushes the arm down at the joint, forcing his forearm back
and the gun into his face. He lets go of the wheel and spins right
around. I squeeze my thumb into the trigger guard, over his
finger, pressuring it back.
The windshield is sprayed with crimson as his head falls
apart.
His body slides back, down the seat, and jams itself under
the dash. My body is thrown into the wet, sticky seat when the
car's speed increases. His ass pushes down on the pedal. The
stump of his neck rubs the steering wheel. My dried blood cradles
me as the car slams left and I go right.
Headlights shine pink through the drivers blood. The
distance to the approaching vehicle drops instantly.
And again I'm flying.
The weightless journey through one windshield and into
another plays itself out slowly. As my body shatters this cars
windshield, someone crashes through the one in front of me. We
soar past each other, trading places. I grate through jagged glass
and flop down into the front seat. I'm still numb from the
hypo-patches I applied at the hospital. I pray the effect doesn't
wear off anytime soon.
Motionless. The woman. Mind won't let me forget her.
Keeps hammering her image out. I don't recognize her but I feel as
though I should.
A loud hissing noise cries out, as the air bag on the
drivers side finally kicks in. It inflates without a thought next
to me. Ninety-nine percent effective. He's lying in the other car
proving the margin for error.
I bleed as red as the flashing lights when they come to
take me to the hospital. Back to the hospital...
I black out again as they pull me onto the stretcher...
Square One - Pt.3
-----------------
The beating siren and the rattle of medical supplies drowns
out the sound of the paramedic's neck snapping. I cradle his
weight and lower him onto the bloodied stretcher that nestled me.
I can't go back. I know nothing about myself. My past
isn't a blur, because there isn't an image to tamper with. There's
nothing.
The ambulance takes a sharp turn. I have to steady myself
on my one good leg as I drag towards the rear. The driver, drowns
in his own ignorance. My sporadic breathing plays with my rib cage
as if it were a razor edged, tuning fork.
The doors lend me leaning sanctuary. Out the back windows,
the sight of morning spilling onto the city, looms. And traffic.
We're riding down the spine of an eight lane highway. The
ambulance is a white metal coffin immersed in the transom of
morning rush hour. Ambulance.
Hospital. The reason for the paramedic's death. I tell
myself it wasn't instinct. It wasn't a programmed response to the
smell of my own blood. I force myself to believe it was self
defense. He was one of the couriers delivering the package of my
flesh. I agree with myself.
There's one more. Adrenaline overrides thought. Body
controls mind. Instinct rules over logic. One of the guard rails
is torn from the stretcher as the driver falls into view. I clutch
my new weapon with a dazed grin. My body ignores my conscience.
The sound of my leg dragging along the floor pulls him from
his submerged bliss. He sees me. Sees my weapon of choice for
this kill. Confusion, fear, and horror, etch themselves
elaborately into his body language. Blood. I memorize the sight.
Blood. The feel. Blood. The emotion. Blood. The exhilaration.
I crave memories.
The ambulance begins to sway. This chariot's guiding angel
is dead, and the horses that pull it can smell the killing of fear.
I heave myself to the rear again. I toss the guard rail to the
floor and hammer the doors open.
This hurtling tomb opens and I'm slapped with the caress of
cold, polluted air. The sports car in front of me swerves out of
the lane, the driver looks at me frightened. Is that all? I'm
hunted and feared?
A car horn calls to me as a small grey convertible pulls
itself behind the ambulance, matching speed. A bald man in the
drivers seat watches me calmly, his passenger grabs the top of the
windshield and stands up. Her face meeting the wind head on. Her
face meeting the wind. Her face. Her.
Her.
The ambulance swerves nervously into a parallel lane. The
calm man in the convertible, swerves in unison, as if he'd
anticipated it.
"Kyle!" Her hand motions for me to go to her. The same
hand that clutched the gun at the hospital. "Come on Kyle!"
And I stare at her. In a baffled trance I stare. I don't
hear her anymore, I don't smell the stale air, I don't feel my
ribcage contracting. I just see her calling, motioning. My mind
won't let go. My body, which was once in control, now follows my
mind's every whim.
Arm outstretched, I lean forward out the back of the
ambulance. Gravity, my master now, tugs at me. Like a sack of wet
gravel I collide with the hood of the convertible
For the first time it hits me with a scream. Pain. The
toxins which held back the side effects of my damage lift like a
cage door. Pain comes howling out of its dark cell with a
vengeance. I scream. I'm pulled off of the hood and thrown into
the back seat. I scream and scream. Her hand touches my face.
Skin. Electric. Fire. I forget pain. I only know her. Only
her.
Her.
Square One - Pt.4
-----------------
"Who do you suppose he is?"
"I don't know. I just don't know."
There's a sigh. My ears hand the conversation to me
gently. Behind it all is the low hiss of a ceiling fan, two
actually.
"He looks awful."
"Yeah well, don't judge a book by it's cover right? If
the last day has taught me anything. It's exactly that."
I lay motionless, pushing the nearby conversation into the
background and pulling the memories of my week long life span to
the forefront. Everything violence. Everything blood. Everything a
hunt.
As my eyes wrench open sunlight slaps me with full force.
My eyes beg to be shut again but my ears want to see the voices.
Softness surrounds me, caresses me. Blankets wrap themselves about
me like welcome arms. Across the linoleum floor on the other side
of the room stand the two voices.
The bald one. He drove the grey convertible. Ambulence.
Girl. Bleeding. Leg. Hospital. Girl. Rain. Her.
I don't know the other. My mind see's him as much smaller,
my instinct tells me he's an easy kill. Under one arm he holds what
looks like a keyboard.
Above me two ceiling fans challenge one another.
Occasionally they turn in unison. They wave to me.
I move to sit. I find a brace on my right leg, chromed and
cumbersome. Looking into it I can see the reflection of my face
and my body, covered in bloodstained bandages.
I still don't recognize me.
"You're awake," the bald one walks toward me,"I didn't
expect you would be for quite some time."
"Who are you?" I waste no time.
His eyebrow shoots up and his head cocks. The other one.
The one with the keyboard, he sits down on the floor and stares
like a child.
"Who am I?" He looks down at me, and moves closer. That's
when I see the gun in his hand. The gun which was not there
before. "No my friend, I'm not the one with the identity crisis.
We want to know who you are."
Confusion sits with me like an old friend.
His body is patient, his eyes are calm. "You see I have a
friend named Kyle..."
Kyle. She called me Kyle.
"...and he went missing a while back. I've spent the past
few months trying to find him, and I managed to dig up you." He
talks with his hands, my eyes follow the guns movements.
Occasionally the barrel winks at me curiously.
"The problem being?" I ask.
"The problem being, you look like my friend, you move like
my friend, you kill like my friend. Everything I know tells me
you're my friend. You can lie to my senses, but you can't lie to
his." He points at the smaller one who now strokes his keyboard
like a pet.
I scan the apartment. Aside from a few chairs and the
blanket covered couch that I'm sitting on there's nothing.
The bald one turns,"You explain this part Goldie."
The small one stands but doesn't move any closer. He eyes
me intently, as if trying to read my reaction to him. He's an easy
kill.
He shifts his weight onto one leg,"You see when we were
patching you up we had to run a body scan to see how much internal
damage was done... You would have fooled any other computer you
know, but not mine."
Baldie turns back to me and the gun is levelled at my
head,"Which leaves us with a question I will quote from you, Who
are you?"
I don't follow a word of what they say. My silence
portrays this.
He pulls the keyboard up in front of him,"You're DNA pal.
There's an unexplained change in your DNA. It's so insignificant
a difference I almost didn't pick it up."
Goldie lets the bald one talk,"I'm going to ask you one
more time, very very slowly..." I see a second gun slide into his
other hand from the sleeve. Goldie edges toward the door. His
head turns sharply.
"Spiro someone's coming up the stairs!"
"Stay right there," The bald one says as he moves to the
door. The metallic click of two hammers being cocked in unison are
almost drowned out by the sound of a key hitting the lock.
That's when I see them, dropping in front of the windows.
Four men armed with submachine pistols. Wearing harnesses attached
to cords. They swing towards the expectant glass while Spiro and
Goldie, unaware, watch the door open. I'm about to dive behind the
couch, when they hurtle through the windows blocking the sunlight,
breaking the silence, and she walks through the door.
Square One - Pt.5
-----------------
The scent of blood pulls me out of confusion, and into
instinct.
The flashes from their gunfire illuminate Goldie's shocked
face before it's torn in half. His bullet ridden body slumps to
the floor. The noise of bone on wood is drowned by the gunshots, as
his bare skull hits the floor.
I use the couch as a trampoline to compensate for my
cumbersome, metal, leg brace. My body finds its way on top of one
of them. And the two of us fall to the floor as I take him down
for a death roll.
I throw my body weight behind my punch and find my hand
plunging under his vest, and into his stomach. My fist swims
through warm, tranquil blood, and squeezes the heart into
submission. The faceplate on his helmet, frames his last look of
confusion.
One of them looks across and down at us. He doubles over
to the ground, his helmet fills with vomit, and his body heaves.
Gun.
I take the gun from this ones hand. The gun levels itself
at the one doubled over and tears a hole from his hip to his
shoulder. The heaving stops.
The third corpse lets me know that Spiro isn't useless. I
spin to face the fourth as he and Spiro exchange ammunition. Two
screams. Two shots. Two corpses.
The smell of blood hangs rank in the air. The ceiling fans
waft the scent at me. They taunt me.
Calm.
The sound of bleeding is drowned out by the squeak of the
front door. She slowly steps in.
"When I said you guys could shack here, I should have said
no parties..." She grins slightly as she surveys the damage. I
watch her like a child watches his mother. Love and curiosity.
She walks toward me and stops as she sees the body I'm
kneeling on top of. Her eyes squeal with illness, but her body
stands strong. Confident.
She's standing in a pool of mismatched blood in hiking
boots and a white summer dress. "I guess this means I'm screwed if
I want my damage deposit back."
I strain to see her through these eyes that I'm still
trying to get used to. In a sea of death she stands confident.
"Who am I?" I give her my second thought.
"Kyle Raimi."
"Who are you?" I give her my first.
She tilts her head in confusion, the ceiling fan sits
behind her like a halo. Her hand extends in front of her to help
me to my feet.
Touch. Skin. Warmth. Ecstasy.
"The street calls me Stick." Her head goes upright and her
eyes lock with mine. "Goldie said you'd be out of it, but I didn't
think it'd be this bad."
She looks back to see his body. Then to Spiro.
Her lips form the words, "Sweet Jesus".
We both hear the sudden rush of heavy boots and the creak
of body armor rushing up the stairs. Her eyes and lips go into a
formation of panic. I point to the bloody heap that was once a man
named Goldie.
"Grab his computer," I say, "What floor are we on?"
She looks back at me astonished as her boots wade through
the blood, "The third." She scrapes up the keyboard and slings it
over her shoulder.
I limp to the window, dragging my brace behind me.
The crackle of a radio joins the footsteps as the cavalry
gets closer. The beast in me begs for the kills, craves the sweet
aroma of fresh spilt blood.
She rushes to my side and looks down. Her face calms
pumping adrenaline. Then she looks up at me her eyes shocked.
"You don't think I'm going to.." she manages before I wrap
my arms around her and push off with my good leg.
"Don't worry I've done this before."
Square One - Pt.6
-----------------
For a brief second I can feel the sky.
And then we fall.
I twist my weight and push her above me, then brace myself
for the impact of the fall. I crane my head back to see where
we're dropping to. One of them. Directly beneath us standing next
to an armored van, and talking into a radio. Unaware. I don't
fight the urge to grin.
Collision occurs as cold metal body armor touches the skin
on my back. He squeals as his body betrays him. I hear and feel
his spine crumble in several places. Then the three of us become
intimate with the ground. His armor absorbs most of the fall, and
my brace falls to the concrete with a metallic crackle.
"Are you okay?"
She looks at me dazed and doesn't answer. I sit up slowly
and roll her off of me gently. My eyes scan her body for damage,
for blood.
"I'm alright." She mutters still clutching Goldie's
computer.
I wobble to my feet, scraping up the gun from the one who
broke our fall. Blood leaks through the cracks in his armor and
spills out onto the street, mingling with the yellow dotted line.
"DOWN THERE!! OPEN FIRE!!" Screams the window we jumped
from. At least a dozen of them crowd the windows and begin to
spray bullets. I grab her again and throw her into the van, diving
in after her. The bullets, aided by gravity, smash into the vans
armor.
I slide upright in the drivers seat. The engine is still
running so I slam the car into drive and feed it gas.
When I see her body relax she starts to talk,"I thought
we'd lost you back at the hospital."
"What happened? I blacked out just before those two guys
got me to the van." I manoeuvre down streets that I have never
seen.
"Well Spiro handed you over to Ash so that he could come
and help me out. Then this car screeches up from around the corner
and two guys get out shooting at Ash. So spiro and I are shooting
at both the hospital and at these new guys. They nailed Ash then
grabbed you. Spiro managed to kill one of them though. Then you
and this guy take off in the car. So Spiro and I jumped into the
nearest car we could find and got out of there."
Information. I need it almost as much as I need my
memories. Almost as much as I need her.
I look at her, "I can't remember anything Stick."
"I could have guessed."
"Why was I in the hospital, and who were the armored
guards?"
I watch the road and feel her watching me, "You just
disappeared Kyle. One day you just up and disappeared on us. We
were organizing a counterstrike against the Dreamhaven
Communications Corporation, and you were our key tough guy. Spiro
figured Dreamhaven caught wind of something and then nabbed you."
"Why me?"
She shrugs and turns to watch the road.
"What else?" I urge her to keep going.
"Well then one day, months later, one of our insiders calls
up Spiro and says she's just seen you at the Alexander Babbitch
Hospital, and Dreamhaven had called in their SecuriCops to keep you
from getting away. Well he grabbed me and Ash and we got our asses
over there." She sighs, "And you know the rest from there."
She turns to me expectantly and shuffles her weight around
in the seat.
It's my turn,"They performed alot of tests on me. Jabbed
me with alot of needles and stuff. Mostly though, they just
watched me. They sat and observed." Images of them prodding me
and staring sit fresh in my newborn memory. Inquisitive faces. I
start to remember the way they made me feel. The need to escape.
To run. They couldn't run faster, they couldn't run faster than
me.
"Hey, you okay?" Stick leans toward me.
I nod carefully, "Goldie said there was a change in my DNA.
His computer picked up on it. Any idea what that means?"
She pulls Goldie's computer into view, "Not a clue, they
didn't mention anything to me about it."
"I want to know." I need more than what I've got, I need
it all.
She pulls a tiny computer out of a pocket in her dress and
pushes a few buttons. I stare at the road as it flies past us. My
mind wanders through this new knowledge with renewed focus.
"Well I know someone who could tell us what's on Goldies
computer. Pull over, I'll drive us there." She tucks the tiny
console back into her pocket.
And for the first time that I can remember, I trust. I
trust her. And the car finds its way to the side of the road...
Square One - Pt.7
-----------------
The noises of mechanical limbs echo off of my loneliness.
She's brought me to her friend's.
I'm lying naked on a large, metal cube. It chills the skin
that it touches. I begin to feel like a corpse in a coroners
office. Then the irony giggles out loud.
This IS a coroners office. Her friend is a coroner, who
makes his living selling body parts to the bio-ware market. When
she explained it to me, I expected that the place would be tucked
down some back alley, hidden from the naive eyes of society. We
didn't pull up to an alleyway though. We drove for quite some
time.
He lives in one of the suburbs, and his office is in his
house. Not in the basement where you might expect to find corpses
and a shopping mall for body parts. We walked up three flights of
stairs to get here.
He and stick are in another room. I'm here with the
mechanical limbs that circle me sporadically. Blue lights scan my
body as long arms with needles syphon blood out of me. It seems
that my purpose in life is to go from lab to lab giving blood and
tissue samples.
And killing.
I have embraced death as if it were a hobby. Remorse has
never occured to me and I don't feel as if it ever will. I can see
every kill. Smell. Feel. Taste. Savour. These are my memories.
The largest arm of the group swoops down from the ceiling,
and on the end of it rests a group of small pins. It moves towards
me and pushes its way into my arm painlessly. The arm begins to
hum with slight vibration.
My sight goes a little fuzzy as tiny pulses of energy find
their way into the sanctuaries between the bones, behind the
muscles, and under the tissue. Their scavenger hunt of my body is
a thorough one.
A few of the monitors on the wall at my feet begin
flashing, and racing through complex patterns and diagrams.
The high pitched buzz of the monitors tangle with the low
drone of the mechanical arm's gears. The sounds grow louder as my
vision dims.
I can now barely make out the arms swooping and circling
above me. Vultures.
I can feel more come down on me. One on my good leg the
other to my abdomen. These are the blood hunters. I can feel
their needles penetrate.
And as I lay on this slab the vultures continue their
ravenous feeding...
...I wake up yet again.
If nothing else, I have at least gotten plenty of rest
lately.
I lie awake but my eyes stay shut. Darkness hugs me.
"Kyle?" Her.
I slowly open my eyes. The only thing warmer than
darkness, is the fire I find in her.
She and her friend stand by the monitors watching me.
Observing. Their image is framed by the vultures. The arms have
folded into positions of slumber. It's like the bastards fall
asleep after a good meal.
"Kyle he's found it."
And the man steps forward. I never asked his name but I
feel as if that's probably the way he wants it. After all, he
never volunteered it.
"Well with the help of the data on your friends computer,"
He reaches out and pushes a few buttons that sit alongside the
monitor, "I have tracked down the problem."
I shuffle to the end of the cube and dangle my feet off,
kicking them slightly. She stares at me. As if she's waiting.
Its then that I realize that I'm kicking two legs. Not a
leg and a brace.
"My leg..."
"Yes, I gave you a new one," he says carelessly, "As I was
saying. There is a change in your DNA. Very slight, but it's
there."
"What is it?"
He points to some diagram on the monitor assuming that I'm
someone who understands it, "Well, when compared to the DNA records
taken off of your friends computer. The ones he had before you
disappeared that is. There is a change between your patterns now,
and your patterns then."
In the time it's taking him to get to the point I could
kill him four times over.
"You're not Kyle Raimi." He says it like a scientist.
I can see the gun in her hand now.
"Could you maybe elaborate on that?"
"You are a genetic copy of Kyle Raimi. A very good copy.
But a copy nonetheless."
I look at him dead on and keep the gun in my peripheral.
"What else?"
She begins to raise the gun, "There's nothing else you need
to know. But I think you can answer some of my questions."
Her hand is shaking and her voice tells me that I was the
last person she was expecting to hold a gun to.
Danger exists and I fight my instincts as they try to
react.
"Where's Kyle?" She pulls the hammer back on the gun.
"I don't know."
"Why were you made?"
"I don't know."
"What _do_ you know?" Her finger seems restless inside the
trigger guard. Her friend is making his way to the door in the far
corner.
Staring down the barrel of her gun is not unlike looking
into myself.
Darkness and the promise of death.
"I don't know anything more than what I've told you."
Her weight shifts from one leg to the other. Fatigue pulls
at her expression as she grows tired of the situation.
"Well then," she uncocks the gun, "We're just going to have
to get some answers now aren't we?"
The gun retreats to her side once again.
I don't who I am, but at least I know who I'm not.
I'm not Kyle Raimi.
Square One - Pt. 8
------------------
Peices of green, in a dead world.
Small patches of grass jut out from between concrete slabs. Green with
life, identity, and soul.
I sit on the steps to one of the tall buildings that remind us just how
small we really are.
Mirrored windows from top to bottom, so that the people in the street
might see what they'd look like if they were looking out at themselves.
I look in those windows. I'm there but I can't see myself. There's
no-one to see.
"Okay Kyle it's all set up."
She emerges from the building with a briskness to her walk. I can only
stare.
Stick looks down at me,"What?"
"I'm not Kyle remember?" Losing your identity before you even find one
is a cruelty that little else can match. I have no sense of self. No feeling
of green.
"Well what do you want me to call you then?" Her eyes have a hardness.
"I don't know." I stretch to my feet, "Don't call me anything."
My new leg feels a little odd. It's exactly the same length as my old
one, but this one is more muscular. Stronger. If I run, my other leg will have
to try and keep up.
Her boots echo off of the concrete as she steps towards the car.
I have to kill some more now I suppose.
The grass looks at me with a pale stare.
I slam the car door beside me and sink into the seat. Stick pushes the
car into drive, and my seat begins to vibrate.
Vibrations. Dancing around my quiet insanities. Rubbing the occasional
thought with warm friendliness.
"I'm going to drop you off two blocks down." She never takes her eyes
off the road, "The guy you want is supposed to be at home now. We need his
wallet and his uniform."
Brief. As if she feels she's talking to someone she has reason to hate.
She hates me. She hates the idea of me. I am evrything that Kyle Raimi was.
Almost. I'm walking around but where is he? The man who is both my father and
my twin.
We drive in silence. She wants nothing to do with me, and all that I
want now is her. Not her love, not her touch. I just need her to see me and
know that I'm alive. That I'm sitting next to her.
But to her I'm just the shadow of a man she may never see again. And
you don't normally talk to shadows. Shadows are all around us, but we never
actually see them.
I shuffle in the seat and break the silence, but she doesn't even throw
me a sideways glance. I was her friend. I'm her tool now.
The car slows to a stop and she unlocks my door from her side, "Get out
here. I'll be waiting at the diner across the street."
"Stick..."
"We're running on a time limit here." She hasn't looked at me once.
I'm well aware that I don't exist, but she doesn't have to cram the
idea down my throat.
I step out of the car and onto the sidewalk. As the car door swings
shut, she's already got her foot on the gas. I feel like hurting something.
The door buckles then snaps under the weight of my foot. Instinct
becomes my guide. And I hunt.
"What the hell?!?" He staggers into the hall with a magazine in one
hand and a television remote in the other. Death will thank me for my gift.
My new leg pushes me into a sprint as his eyes grow wide. Shock. I
don't want shock, I want terror. I want fear.
The magazine hits the floor. He spins and bolts into another room. I
hear a door slam when I round the corner.
"...oh god oh god oh god..." The sound creeps under the door and into
my everloving arms.
He's not going anywhere, so I look around for something to use on him.
Something painful. Raw.
I find it. I grab it. She hates me now. She doesn't know me. She
hates me.
Another door falls in front of me. Anger spurns a giggle from my deep
inside of me. Rage. Rage. Rage. I focus on it. He sees it.
"Please, just take whatever you want." The boar cries.
The metal ruler spins in my hand.
"I'll give you anything you want..."
And I'm on top of him. My weight forces the air out of his lungs with
a wheeze. When he squirms and flails, I know I have terror. I have that fear
that has become my fuel.
"...please..."
I sit there. For some reason I simply wade in the moment. It ripples
around me.
"...please..."
She hates me. I'm not the Kyle she wants.
"...I haven't done anything..."
His squirming stops as my eyes leave him and survey the room. A bed.
A dresser. Photographs.
Square memories. Boxes of captured time.
I feel him move beneath me but my eyes fix onto the pictures. Scenes
of him. Scenes of others. Catalyst's for memories.
I get off of him and walk over to them. They hold my fascination. I
don't know why. They just do.
I hear the drawer to the nightstand drag open. He wouldn't dare. I
turn on my heel and find myself looking at my prey. My armed prey.
He cocks the hammer on the gun. It's then that I notice the wet stain
in his pants. The gun shakes.
I have to drop him. Instincts are screaming now. They want to smell
the warmth of red. The loss of green.
When I leap towards him I hear the shot. Loud. Rigid. Hot metal
pulls it's way, furiously, through my shoulder. Though I bleed red, I can
never bleed my green.
My hands clasp the gun and yank it free.
He watches me bleed on him for a few seconds.
I smash him with the gun's back end. His eyes roll and conciousness
seeps out of him.
The uniform hangs in the closet, and the wallet rests on the dresser
next to the photographs.
I look from the photos to him, and back again.
I take what I came to get, but I leave something behind.
I leave him his life.
--
Kipp Lightburn (ah804@freenet.carleton.ca)=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
"One ring to rule them all, One ring to find them, One ring to bring them
all, and in the darkness bind them. In the land of Mordor where shadows lie."
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Subject: Square One - Part Nine
Date: Wed, 11 Jan 1995 19:13:20 GMT
As usual, any and all comments are welcomed and appreciated...
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Square One - Pt.9
-----------------
The firm presence of steel presses against my forehead like
the cold caress of loneliness.
I look up into his eyes and see someone who has done this far
too many times before. His stance seems practiced, and the scowl
on his face sits like it had always been there.
I've come willingly so far. I let them push me. I wanted to
see what would happen if I let them surround me. I feed my
curiousity and let them corner me like an animal.
She never intervened. She never told them to go easy.
I can see her leaned up against a pale green dumpster, with
her gun at the ready. Just like all of them. Maybe she'll be the
one to kill me.
"This whole things been screwed. Do you know what I mean,
when I say this whole things been screwed?" He presses the gun
against me a little more.
My eyes survey them. In a semi circle behind him, all hefting
the same firepower. It's almost as if they're the clones and I'm
the unique one.
His weight shifts from one leg to the other. Impatience.
"I'm waiting." I can feel the vibrations of his voice echo
off of the alley's concrete walls. My skin itches with noise.
"I'm in no hurry."
He pulls the hammer back on the gun in response to my answer.
They all follow his lead and take aim. And I'm the copy?
"You let him live. He was nothing to you and you let him
live. Now they're expecting us."
His words crawl on my skin. He was nothing to me and I let
him live. I look up at her but she avoids my eyes.
Without her I'm nothing.
Nothing.
He's nothing to me.
I look at him straight. His words still drip off of my skin.
He's nothing to me. So I won't let him live.
My two hands fly free of control. One takes his wrist and
wrenches it away from my head, and the other locks into a fist and
careens upwards. There's a wet popping sound as his nose slides
inward.
I push myself into him as they start in with their weapons.
I can feel the bullets pummeling into his corpse. I grab him by
the belt and heft him up in front of me. Three bullets dig into my
new leg. They burrow until they find bone.
I pull his arm around him and slip my finger into the upside
down trigger guard. Another bullet takes the top off my ear off as
I begin to drop them with his gun.
Pain screams like a newborn child. It drowns out the
deafening rip of gunshots. I liked the gunshots better.
It seems that I have christened my entry into this world with
blood.
The strobe of muzzle flashes make the noise inside my head
double, and then double again.
Blood streams into the air triumphantly from a variety of
sources. I watch one of them lose his neck entirely as I put a
bullet into either side of it.
The stench of moistened gunpowder creeps into the air and
assaults the senses.
My ears beg for relief as the last one drops.
I drop the bullet riddled corpse that I carry. He hits the
ground with a dull splash. I turn his gun right side up in my
hand. I know nothing of the people in this world, but this
inanimate object knows everything of me. I don't hold it. It
holds me.
Sense.
Her.
She stands at the end of the alley, behind the dumpster. Her
arm stretches out over it's lid as she extends the barrel of her
weapon at me.
I don't want to kill her. She's something to me. She's the
only one who holds a piece of me.
Without her I'm nothing.
My gun lands on the ground next to me and I step forward
slowly. I have eye contact. I look inside of her to see if I'm
dead.
"Don't move!" Her hand shakes and the barrel shifts side to
side in response. "Stay right there."
She sees Kyle Raimi. She can't kill him.
She's something to me.
"I'll help you find him." My body is that of a killer but my
voice is that of a friend.
"Find who?"
"Me."
She steps out from behind the dumpster. Her gun still eyes me
with curiousity. In the distance sirens echo off of skyscrapers.
"You mean Kyle." She says quietly.
"Yeah." I limp forward, my palms turned upwards. "I'm his
shadow, I have as much reason to find him as you do."
"We're wasting time." I hear her say it, as blood fills one
of my ears entirely.
She's something to me. I make myself something to her.
--
Kipp Lightburn (ah804@freenet.carleton.ca)=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
"One ring to rule them all, One ring to find them, One ring to bring them
all, and in the darkness bind them. In the land of Mordor where shadows lie."
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
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