Tales of a Madman 4
There was a time when I was the perfect SLA operative. I was a machine that the programmers fed a routine into and then let loose in the city. That's how most of the Slops still are, unthinking machines that never vary from their set routine. They all think they are so unique though. Everyone of them is convinced that they are something special, that there is no-one quite like them. Wrong! There isn't a single one of them any different from all the rest. They are all machines that can only follow their programming. Sure, they might look slightly different from one another but that doesn't change the way they are inside.
It really makes me laugh, all those self-important little people strutting around with their guns and armour, trying to make an impression on the camera. All their made-up personality quirks and attitudes seem so false if you sit back and study these people. The Slops put forward an image of independent wild men but they are just puppets on the end of Slayer's strings. They look so good for all the sad citizens who have nothing better to do with their time than watch the vid, but they are just colourful shells with a void where there souls should be.
That's a word you don't hear very often, souls. I learned it from a young man I had to kill. He wasn't even a young man, the kid couldn't have been any older than 13 at most. Barnaby Hei was his name and he had gathered a small following from the people in Downtown. Barnaby was something of a prophet in the area where he lived, he could read your future from the lines on your hand or from those fancy cards he always carried around with him. Tarot cards I think he called them. For some reason Slayer took a dislike to Barnaby and ordered him terminated. Great word, terminated. It means murdered but sounds so much better. Anyway, I got he BPN to take out the kid and I thought that I would go and see what it was all about before I pulled the trigger. Even all the way back then I was having doubts about Slayer but not enough to make me think of refusing a paying mission.
It must have been about that time that I started to question whether I was doing the right thing or not. I was starting to pay attention to what was going on around me and it must have been some time around then that I realised that all the people I saw everyday were actually thinking, feeling beings like me. Not just scenery but real people. That's a hard thing to come to terms with, the fact that you are not the centre of the Universe. If you know that everything you do and say has an effect on the people around you, you have to change the way you think of everything. You can't simply blunder through life with no thought for anyone else, you have to think about how others are going to react to you. The next time you are speaking to someone, stop to think that they are real people too, no different from you!
Sorry, I was rambling again. My white-coats say that rambling is a sign of a disorganised mind but what do they know about it? Anyway, Barnaby lived deep in the lower levels of Downtown. The streets were cluttered with garbage and were mostly underwater and the only light was the dim glow that the few remaining street lights gave off. Dogs were running wild in the streets and the whole place looked as though it was about to fall to bits. There were a lot of people hanging around, drinking from bottles in brown paper bags and warming their hands over open fires. A burned out taxi lay on its side and there were about half a dozen kids playing on it, none of them wore shoes and they all looked to be on the edge of starvation.
When I pulled up on my expensive bike everyone turned to stare at me. Absolutely everything stopped while these down-and-outs examined the intruder in their home. They looked at me as though I was from a different planet and I suppose I might as well have been. They had torn and dirty clothes, not enough to keep warm let alone anything else and not enough money to feed themselves. I had the latest designer fashions, guns and armour that cost more money than they would ever see in their entire lives and a bike that cost more than their block would do.
I turned to the biggest of the kids who were playing on the taxi and said, "If the bike is here when I come back, you get 20 Uni but if it isn't here, I'll come looking for you and I will find you! Now, where do I find Barnaby Hei?"
I followed the kids directions and went into one of the smaller tenement blocks. The place stank of some sort of spicy food but the smell had to be better than the usual stench of Downtown. The halls of the block were even darker than outside and it took a few moments for my eyes to adjust. Once they did I was surprised by how clean the place was. There was no graffiti on the walls and no garbage lying on the floors. Something about the place made me feel nervous and I had the feeling that I was being watched by someone or something. I couldn't see anyone around and my motion scanner didn't pick anyone up so I just put it down to an overactive imagination. Now I'm not so sure.
Barnaby was meant to be staying in a flat at the back of the block so I carefully made my way back there, still looking out for anything out of the ordinary.. The door that I had been directed to had a symbol of some kind painted onto it. The centre of the design was a large, ornate sword with some sort of weird runes painted down the middle of the blade. Cutting across the sword was something that looked like an elaborate waking stick. Whoever painted the stick must have been out of his head on something good because the design twisted and turned and it was virtually impossible to follow the pattern of it without finding yourself back at the start again. To the right of the crossed sword and stick was a painting of a coin of some kind. Instead of the normal design of a bit coin this one had an image of a five-pointed star engraved in the centre of it. There was some kind of writing around the edge of the coin but it made no sense to me at all. I can't read too well but I had never seen anything like that writing before. On the left of the pattern was a goblet of some kind. It looked as though it was meant to be made of a dark, yellow gold and was studded with dozens of different gems. In the goblet was a dark red liquid that seemed to be bubbling and moving slowly.
The whole thing was so realistic that I just stopped myself from reaching out and touching the design. Just looking at it sent a shiver up my spine and I came very close to turning round and walking away. I was on the edge of leaving when the door swung open and a scrawny woman poked her head round the corner.
"Barnaby has been expecting you," she said and stood aside so that I could go into the room. She was the thinnest person that I have ever seen. There was nothing to her apart from skin and bone and her face made her look as though she had been dead for a month. Her eyes bulged out from the sockets and her lips were drawn back in a fierce grin that showed yellowing teeth. Her hair lay in greasy tangles around her face and her ears had no lobes at all. She was wearing a plain grey dress that hung on her shoulders and she had a necklace of beads around her neck. On the necklace was a large, cloth pouch that had a dark, red stain on it.
My FEN seemed to jump into my hand and was pointing at her when a voice came from inside the apartment.
"Put your gun away, Mr SLA operative, Isobel won't hurt you. Please come inside, I've been waiting for you."
There was something very soothing about the voice and almost before I realised what I was doing, I had put the FEN away and was stepping past the woman who was called Isobel. The room was decorated with pictures and paintings of hundreds of different symbols, many of them similar to the one on the door. The only window had a heavy curtain over it and the room was lit by dozens of candles. In the middle of the room was a boy sitting at a table covered by a white cloth. The kid must have been Barnaby but he wasn't anything like I had been expecting him to be.
He was tall, thin and didn't have a hint of hair on his head or face. The kid was wearing a pair of faded jeans and a plain, black T-shirt and was shuffling a pack of oversized cards. His pale skin seemed to take on a reddish shade in the light of the candles and he was looking up at me with an amused expression on his face. Isobel closed the door behind me and went to stand in a corner of the room. The whole thing looked like something out of a bad horror vid but there was something about the atmosphere in the room that scared the shit out of me.
The kid looked up at me with dark, dark eyes and gestured towards a chair that was at the opposite side of the table for him. Without thinking, I reversed the chair and swung my leg across it to sit down. To this day, I don't know why I just did what the kid wanted but it seemed like I had no choice.
"I know that you have been sent to kill me, Mr Operative, and I know that you won't be able to do it. Already doubts are in your mind and when you listen to what I have to say, you will know that there is more than one path. You can't hurt me, Mr Operative and I don't want to hurt you. I want to be friends with you and I always get what I want."
There was something very calming about he way he spoke and for a few seconds I completely believed in him. I didn't want to hurt this harmless kid and if I went back and reported that the mission had been completed, no-one would know that I hadn't murdered him. From outside I heard the crash of a window breaking and the sound brought me back to my senses.
What was I thinking about? I had a mission to do and if the kid had to be terminated that was his bad luck. There was no way I was going to leave this room if the kid was still alive and no amount of mumbo-jumbo was going to change that. I shook my head and looked up at the kid just in time to see and expression of pure rage pass across his face. It vanished as soon as it appeared though and he looked as calm and placid as ever.
He spread the cards he was shuffling face down on the table and invited me to pick out any four.
"This will give me an insight into your soul, Mr Operative, it will foretell your future and show you the path. It is obvious that you don't believe in my powers, Mr Operative, but what do you have to lose by humouring me? If I am to die before this day is over surely there can be no harm in us listening to what the cards have to say? Please, humour me."
What the hell, I thought. Maybe I should listen to what the kid had to say, it might be a laugh. I wish now that I had never touched those cards. I should have just wasted the kid and got out of the place while I could but no, I leaned forward and pulled four cards towards me.
Barnaby leaned across the table towards me and said, "The cards can read your soul, Mr Operative. They can see your true nature, what you long for and what you are scared of. They can see what you really believe in and they can see past the false images you put forward. The cards will look deep inside you and that tiny place where you hide from the world will be plain for them to see. Your soul, where you hold all your deepest emotions and the real you waits to be released will open itself to the scrutiny of the cards."
The kid snorted a laugh, harsh and unpleasant, "But that doesn't matter to you because you don't believe. How simple it must be to dismiss the lost science of a different age as the ramblings of a stupid child. How nice to live in a black and white world where things are either right or wrong!"
He stretched across the table and took the cards from me. I was shocked to find that my hands were trembling so I crossed my arms ad leaned forward into the back rest of my chair to hide my fear. Barnaby looked as me as though he knew exactly what I was trying to hide and turned over the first card. It was the picture of a boy holding a pair of burning sticks.
"The Two of Wands," said Barnaby. "The card says that there is a new idea burning in you. This idea will draw you away for your current path and aim your life in a new direction, but it will be up to you to make this goal come to pass. Do you have the strength of Will to change directions? I think not."
The next card that he turned over showed a man imprisoned by a ring of swords. The man seemed to be trying to break free from the cage but the swords somehow forced him back.
"This is the Eight of Swords. It proclaims that you are unable to act because you fear the consequences. No matter what you do, it will be wrong and you know that you have only yourself to blame for the situation. The time will come, Mr Operative, when you find yourself in a dilemma and there will be no easy way out, no right choice to make. Not a good card, not a good card at all."
Barnaby turned over the next card and it showed some weird half human, half animal.
"The Hierophant shows that you will soon begin the quest for answers to questions you have not even asked yourself yet. Questions about life and where you fit into it. Doesn't seem like you, does it, Mr Operative? But the cards never lie. They don't always tell the whole truth, but they never lie."
The kid picked up the last card and looked at me before turning it over.
"This is the card that will show you where your life is going. It will show your destiny and the path that is written in your soul."
It had a picture of a large building on it. It was being struck by lightning and was crumbling down into the sea. Barnaby smiled as he placed it on the table.
"The Tower, Mr Operative. This card tells me that all you believe in is going to come crashing down around your years. Your whole life is going to be turned upside down and everything you have worked for is going to be worthless. That is, Mr Operative, if you live that long!"
I sensed more than saw a movement behind me and as I was turning to see what was going on when something crashed against my back. Isobel was standing behind me with a large, broken carving knife in her hand. She must have been moving around the room while I was engrossed with the cards because I swear that I never saw her move. The knife blade had shattered on my armour and I wasn't ever bruised from her feeble attack.
Almost casually, I back-handed the frail woman around the face and sent her reeling into a corner of the room where she collapsed to the floor. Turning back to the kid I saw that he had got to his feet and was backing up against the wall. He grabbed a bundle of cloth from his pocket and held it up between him and me.
"You can't hurt me, Mr Operative, and you know it. Why not just turn around and go back to your nice home? As soon as you walk out the door you will forget all about me, so go quickly, before it is too late."
Whatever he had used last time to make me believe had no effect this time. I slowly drew my FEN 603 an pointed it at Barnaby. As soon as he saw that I wasn't going to leave his bold exterior crumbled and he turned back into the 13 year old kid that he was. He grabbed the bundle tight enough for his knuckles to go white and started mumbling some kind of chant. Tears were streaming down his face and he kept stumbling over the words he was trying to say.
"Sorry kid," I muttered as I pulled the trigger. The shot took him in the centre of the throat and knocked him flying backwards into the wall where he slowly slid to the ground, leaving a trail of blood behind him. A high pitched wailing sound started up from behind me and I spun round to see Isobel crawling towards the kid. She had got maybe 50 centimetres before she collapsed to the ground. Leaning forward to check her pulse I was struck by the stench of death coming off of her. She smelled as though she had been dead for a long time and was falling apart in front of my eyes.
I don't know what sort of disease she had that made that happen to her, but I wasn't going to hang around to find out. As soon as I got back to my bike I called in to report that the BPN had been completed and that they should send out some Shivers to verify. Even before I had been acknowledged I had thumbed the bike into life and was out of there.
There was something about the whole mission that had freaked me out and I couldn't get Barnaby Hei out of my mind for a very long time. For days afterwards, every time I closed my eyes I would see him holding up the card with the picture of the tower on it and hear his voice saying, "All that you believe in is going to come crashing down around your ears."
All the time I just dismissed the kid as another freak but now.... Too many things have happened that are too close to what the cards said for me to say coincidence. I wish that I could put it down to a fluke, but I can't. The kid looked into my soul and told me my future. What would I have found out if I had let him live? Would he have told me that I was going to end up in a padded cell because I had finally come to my sense?
Did the kid plant those thoughts in my head or did he really read what was there already? Did he know that I would end up talking to a camera, or is it because of him that I am? There are too many questions that I am never going to get an answer for and I try not to think about all the maybes. It's only now that I realise that the kid must have had some real power or Slayer wouldn't have had me murder him. If it had all been trickery Slayer wouldn't have cared what happened in that rundown part of the city, but he did care. He cared enough to send an operative to deal with the situation. Try to look up the files on Tarot and you will find that it is listed as a "game of chance played with cards". No way!
If you believe that maybe you should find someone to read your cards. I wouldn't advise it though, you might just hear something that you are not ready for.