Tales of a Madman 2
For a short while I was partnered with a Brain Waster by the name of Rage. We only worked together for a couple of months but I got to know him very well in that little time. I know what everyone thinks of Wasters, they think that they are dangerous psychopaths whose only pleasure is inflicting pain on others. That's simply not true! In the time that I spent with Rage I learned that there is a lot more to them than that.
Rage got very drunk one night and he opened up to me in a way that he would never have done if he was sober. He told me how he'd always been treated as though he was a bomb that could go off at any time. Even when he was a kid everyone around him was so careful not to do anything to upset him. Could you imagine what it must be like to be feared by all the people around you?
At first I thought that it must have been wonderful, no one to tell you what to do or what not to do but then I thought about it a bit more. You would never be able to tell if people were being honest with you or were just saying what they thought you wanted to hear. You would never have any friend, even among the other Wasters, especially among the other Wasters! You would see kids playing together and having fun but as soon as they saw you everything would go quite.
That night Rage told me that he hated the marks on his face that forced him away from the world. He said that every morning, when he first looked in the mirror, the burn marks seemed to be like prison bars that locked his real self away. I think he was wrong about that though, the bars didn't lock him away from the world, they locked the world away form him. People would see the marks and avoid him without even thinking about it.
Rage said that as he grew older he learned to deal with the way that people thought of him. For as long as he could remember he had been told that he was going to be a soldier for Mr Slayer. It was his duty and his destiny to train himself so that he would be good enough to become an operative. The only way a Waster could hope to gain anything out of life was by becoming an op, so that is what he did. I don't know what happens to any Wasters that slip through the training net, but I don't think that life will be easy for them
During his training, Rage again had it drummed into him that he was one of Slayer's soldiers, that he was one of the elite. All through the training he was taught that other beings are lesser and should be treated with contempt. Rage surprised me by saying that he was never taught to hate anyone, but he was taught to be contemptuous of others, especially Ebons.
That's one of the things that I could never figure out. Why would Slayer encourage this conflict between Ebons and Wasters, what possible benefit could he get from this? The only reason I could think of was that he had done it to limit Intruder's power. If Slayer was concerned over Intruder's loyalty what better way would there be to weaken his pet army than to keep them at each other's throat? I didn't dare suggest this to Rage though, he was fanatically loyal to SLA, still is I suppose. I hope what I'm saying doesn't get him into any trouble but it's too late to worry about that now I suppose.
Once Rage finished his training he was let loose on the streets with a tremendous power. Rage and all the other Wasters, and the Ebons as well I suppose, can hurt and kill people simply by thinking about it. The Power of the Ebb they call it, bloody dangerous is what I call it! It must be like walking around the whole time with a gun loaded and ready to use, and having an itchy trigger finger. Rage said that his biggest problem was keeping his temper in check and I can quite believe it. With that much power floating around inside your head it must be very tempting to simply destroy anything that you don't like. All through Rage's training he'd been told that his power was there to use, that only Slayer was worthy of respect and that all other beings were due only contempt. Suddenly, he's thrown into a situation where he has more power than ever before and he's not allowed to use it in the way that he's been taught. It's fine to kill your enemies if you're on a BPN and they are enemies of SLA as well but you can't do anything to your enemies if they're in The Pit or walking the streets of Downtown. These creatures you have been told are worthless suddenly have rights and you are expected to treat them as equals. Small wonder that so many Wasters are screwed up.
That one night when Rage got drunk completely changed the way that I saw Wasters. I still think that they are crazy, but I can understand a bit better why they are like that. It's been drummed into them that they are a superior race and now people get upset when they act superior. What do we expect from the? It's just another one of the many games that Slayer is playing with us. When I was a kid living in Downtown I used to collect cockroaches and race them with the other kids in the neighbourhood. We must seem like those 'roaches to Slayer. Bugs to manipulate for entertainment.
I'd better stop talking about Slayer like this since my white-coats get upset when I do. They keep talking some crap about how my treatment is progressing and how I have to cure my fixation with Slayer before I can advance to the next stage of my therapy. I'm in no particular hurry to get to this next stage. Did you ever hear of anyone who was released from a place like this?. They wander around like zombies and are lucky if they have enough sense to unzip their fly before they take a piss. I would rather be dead than like that!
Anyway, one time I managed to get Rage really pissed off with me. I can't even remember what is was that I'd said, but he was ready to kill me and I was the only friend that he had. Those white eyes of his seemed to light up and the Flintlock that he always carried seemed to just appear in his hand. To this day I swear that I never saw his hand move towards the gun, one instant his hand was empty and the next he had the Flintlock pointed at my face. He was trembling with anger but the muzzle of the gun never shifted a millimetre. I have no idea how he managed to keep the gun still, but he did. I was convinced that I had gone too far and he was going to blow my head off, but he slowly lowered the gun and looked at me with those weird, white eyes.
"You will never know just how close you came to dying, friend," he said.
It was the way that he spoke that scared me more than anything else. It was so calm and matter of fact, as if my death would only have been a very minor thing. Just seconds after that he went back to laughing and joking as if nothing had happened and he never mentioned it again. I couldn't understand how he could flick through those different emotions so quickly and I suppose that I never will.
I'd seen that sort of thing happen with Rage so often. One time we were sitting in a Downtown bar called the Spot-Light, just having a few beers when a bunch of street punks walked in. For some reason, I have no idea why, they decided to have some fun with the SLA Ops. They started laughing and joking and talking just loud enough so that we could hear some of what they were saying but not all of it. It was pretty damned obvious that they were taking the piss but I couldn't be bothered to do anything about it. They were just kids who didn't know any better. I was worried that Rage was going to flip but he didn't seem to be paying them any attention what so ever.
This went on for a couple of minutes when I heard one of them mention the word Ebon. Rage was in the middle of taking a drink at the time but when he heard that word, he gripped the glass so hard that it shattered and beer and glass went everywhere. This got a real laugh out of the kids but they quickly shut up when Rage stood up and walked over towards them. He leaned forward and muttered something to them, I couldn't hear what it was he said but I can guess that it wasn't pleasant. One of the punks jumped up and reached for a knife that was stuck in his belt. Big things it was, black plastic handle and a wicked looking serrated edge. It looked very impressive but I doubt if it would have pierced the Waster's DeathSuit.
Trying to draw that knife was the stupidest thing that kid ever did, it was also one of the last. Before the kid even managed to free the knife from the belt Rage had lashed out and caught him by the arm and the throat. He wrenched the arm forward and to the side and twisted at the same time and you could hear the kid's elbow snap all the way across the bar. The rest of the punks at the table were too scared to do anything, which was just as well for them since I had my Blitzer trained on them by now. Rage just lifted this kid up by the throat and pinned him up against the wall. His feet were a clear 50cm off the floor and they were kicking and scuffing the wall as though he as trying to burrow through it.
The Waster tightened his grip on the kid's throat and lowered him to the floor. By now the punk was on the brink of fainting through lack of air but Rage didn't want it to be over that quickly. He let go of his throat and slapped him a couple of times, just to make sure that he had the punk's attention. Once the kid seemed to have a vague idea of what was going on Rage leaned forward and screamed into the kid's face, "I am not an Ebon, understand?"
The kid was too terrified to do anything but nod but this seemed to be enough for the Waster. Rage pushed the punk to the floor and told him to get the hell out of the bar while he still could. The kid couldn't believe his good luck and rushed for the door. Calmly, almost casually, Rage drew the Flintlock that he always carried, aimed for the kid's head and then the punk's head just blew apart. No shot, no explosion, just brains and bone over half the bar. For a couple of seconds everyone was too shocked to say or do anything and Rage took the time to look around and shout, "I am not a fucking Ebon, now get out!"
You have never seen a bar clear as quickly as that one did. The barman was on his way out when Rage grabbed him and told him to start serving again. I can't say that I approve of what Rage did or that I was happy about it but I wasn't about to say anything to him after what I had just seen. Maybe I should have but I was shit scared of the Waster and I don't think that anyone would have done anything else if they were in my place. We stayed in the Spot-Light for about 20 minutes before the Shivers arrived and started to ask questions. They didn't push it too much and they must have been more scared of Rage than I was. For some reason that made me feel a bit better about the whole thing. Not a lot better but it did help.
It wasn't very long after that that Rage and myself parted company. He'd been offered a BPN that involved him teaming up with a couple of Stormers and I never felt comfortable with those things, so we each went our own way. The last I heard of Rage, he had made quite a name for himself and his squad were regulars on one of the Gore Zone programs. It would be nice to think that he had calmed down and got his head sorted out but I don't think that that is very likely.
Rage scared the hell out of me but I would still consider him a friend that I could trust. I know that it doesn't make any sense but that is just the way it is. I would like to see Rage again some day but somehow, I don't think that I ever will.