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| And tell me do you
feel like dying - David Usher, 'Numb' (***) The fact that he wasn't a fool sat very clearly in Crawford's head. After all, he was a man who'd prided himself on his intellect and his rationale during times of danger and survival. But he also knew that he was as far from being an angel as the tooth fairy was from being real. So where did that leave him? He was walking toward the door at the end of the corridor, and although he wasn't rushing to his destruction like the so-called fool [1], he knew that forces beyond his control were slowly dragging him closer. This wasn't the first time he'd been here. The immaculate hallway, the high ceiling, the dim lighting, the unmarked doors ... they all haunted him like incessant shadows clinging stubbornly to the outer fringes of his memory. Indeed, he'd been here before ... a countless number of times actually. Yet, no matter how many journeys he made down this corridor, no matter that he was aware of how this whole thing would end, that prickling sense of sick foreboding always pulled at his chest. This was a dream. He'd known it was one from the moment he'd realized he was standing in this dark, familiar hallway. No, it was not a dream exactly; a flashback was more fitting. It seemed like all his slumbering adventures had taken on this nostalgic air recently. And like an actor who hadn't delivered his lines properly, he found himself repeating the macabre script of that fateful night. Part of him wanted the director to yell 'cut' from the sidelines that very second so he wouldn't have to relive this pivotal event, but the other part - the dominant part that had defined his very character since his early days at Rosenkreuz - forced him to go through with the whole thing lest he ended up condemning himself a coward. Thus, he walked, one leg in front of the other with the familiar hardness of his gun in hand. He already understood what awaited him in the room beyond, but that door still beckoned to him like the Holy Grail, a prize that he was compelled to reach regardless of the imprint it would leave on his soul. And so, with the warped temporality inherent in all dreams, he moved faster and he moved slower, his sense of linear time distorted and yet, somehow normal in this illusory world. The doorknob was cold to the touch, its metallic properties easily stealing away the warmth of his free hand, and sending an involuntary chill up his arm and into his mind. Still, he wasn't deterred, and with the fortitude of a man resolved to suffer the inevitable, he twisted the handle and entered. The threads of fate had always played a malicious game of cat and mouse with the clueless minds of humanity, and even with his acute precognition, Crawford had often found himself at wit's end trying to avoid those entangling strands. But despite all his experience, intelligence, and arrogance, he sometimes faltered. He could have prevented it. He could have done something differently. He could have made another choice, or perhaps altered a decision. He could have ... he could have ... Second-guessing and self-doubt were as dangerous to him as a lethally-honed knife; succumbing to them meant that he straddled the line between sanity and insanity, and he had long learned to refrain from ever thinking about it. And yet, at the sight that sat before him, he felt all vestiges of rational thought slip away, its usually comforting presence slowly dissolving into an emptiness he had never encountered before. He wanted to scream in protest, to yell his disapproval at the abrupt loss of control that had overtaken the course of events, but a lifetime of self-discipline and years of rigid training prevented him from doing so. A decidedly loud clatter suddenly filled the room, and it was only after a few seconds did he realize that his gun had fallen from his lax fingers. The echo of the resounding crash seemed to reverberate endlessly in his ears, its deafening quality steeped in a surrealism that went beyond that of a typical dream. Then, it happened. It was as if all five of his senses had come alive at once, leaving all the stimuli around him to assault his fragile core until he wanted to fold into himself and beg for mercy. Blood ... there was so much blood ... everywhere. The stagnating scent swam thickly in the air, intrusive and pervasive enough that he was certain he could taste the coagulating substance in the back of his mouth. Yet, it didn't disturb him. He'd seen and been the cause of such carnage for almost half his life, and hadn't ever wavered from confronting such a scene. What paralyzed him however, was the source of the whole mess. The room, if one could call it that, was set up as a poor imitation of a makeshift laboratory. In the blurred periphery of his vision, various medical instruments dwelled, stainless surgical steel tools that undoubtedly shone bright from newness beneath the reddish-brown crust of recent use. And where memory failed to fill in the voided details of the small room, his imagination easily took over. His over-stimulated mind played over the grisly tableaus that must have occurred here just moments prior to his arrival, ghostly screams and phantom images luring him into their isolated world of torture and experimentation. His eyes fell onto the metal operating table in the center of the room, the single, overhanging halogen bulb casting an eerie spotlight onto the blood-speckled, sheet-covered form lying stationary under its revealing glare. They had killed him. The thought rang like a death knell in his head. They had killed him. They had tied him to that table and killed him. They had dissected him as if he were some damned lab animal, and had not given any consideration to the fact that he had still been alive when they'd done so. A muted cry of pain rang through the still air just then, and for a moment, Crawford wondered where it had come from. He looked around the room, his head moving with a feverish, desperate motion that went unnoticed by any living soul, even himself. There was no other person in the room; only the abandoned metal toys that had already served their purpose remained. Subconsciously, he knew where the sound had originated from, but it would be a long time - if ever - before he admitted it. Thus, he left the issue alone. Slowly and steadily, he began to move, his feet shifting forward in small, stuttered steps that he couldn't seem to control. The rust-dappled sheets loomed closer and closer with each passing second, and before long, he could feel his mouth dry and his throat constrict. Death was death, simple and straightforward, wasn't it? Then why did it feel like he wasn't acting like himself anymore? Why was it that he felt as if he were two people - one cold and unemotional, the other vulnerable and hurting - but each duplicitous, and deceiving the other into believing he was something he wasn't? He didn't like it. He didn't like one fucking bit of it. He didn't like the conflicting thoughts, the contradictory urges, or the tumultuous feelings ... Feelings? When had he ever let his feelings dictate any of his actions? He bit his lower lip to prevent further speculation, and touched the roughness of the starched linen sheet. He wasn't feeling anything. He was merely evaluating the damage and cost of tonight's failed mission. With one decisive motion, the sheet folded over and revealed a sight that caused the acidic contents of his stomach to rebel. But he quelled it, swallowing hard and trying to assess the state of the body. 'Liar ... you're such a fucking liar, Crawford,' he heard a far-off, German-accented voice say. His lips twitched upwards at the distant, petulant accusation, which eventually gave way to a bark of hysterical laughter. And so, he laughed, a rich, deep, saddening sound that filled the dimly lit room with a vivacity that vanquished the death pall that had recently painted the space. He laughed as he leaned against the metal slab, as he pulled the barely recognizable remains into his arms, ... and as he felt the mess of thickening blood and grey matter soak eagerly through his clothes. He laughed until it was all his body knew how to do, until nothing existed but the corpse and himself, ... and until trails of wetness streamed down his cheeks. He laughed until his voice began to desert him, and even then, in the back of his throat, he continued to chuckle ... (***) He woke up coughing, the air somehow catching in his throat and causing his lungs to spasm. Sitting up abruptly, he forced himself to expel whatever was lodged in his windpipe, and breathed deeply. His mind was still trudging its way through the thick mire of his dream, and his body still felt the familiar imprint of his dead lover's body pressed against it. It had been too vivid ... too real ... as had all the dreams he'd had in the recent months. Was it any wonder why he avoided sleep whenever possible? Squeezing his eyes shut momentarily, he shook his head in an effort to clear it of that distant laughter he heard. Crawford could feel his heart pounding heavily in his chest as a residual reaction to his recent mental excursion, and consciously, willed the damned thing to slow down. Perspiration clung uncomfortably to his naked body, the cooler ambient temperature causing it to form a clammy, sticky film against his skin, and without thought, he rubbed his palms against the bed sheets beneath him to dispel some of the discomfort. He looked around at his surroundings. His bedroom ... when had he come back here? Then, everything came rushing back to him like the raging waters from a broken dam: Advantech, the assassination, the hotel, the chase, the church, ... and the boy. They had fornicated in that cramped confessional, and not long thereafter, he'd led the stranger back here for another bout of sex. What had prompted him to do it, he didn't know - and probably would never know - but at the time, it had seemed like the right thing to do. A muffled shuffling to his right caught his attention, and casually, he turned his head in the direction of his window. There was enough pre-morning light coming in that he could make out the other figure in the room. His form easily recognizable in the grainy grayness, the shirtless figure stood lazily by the paned glass, his head resting against the side frame and his clear, blue eyes staring sightlessly into the abyss beyond. Quietly, Crawford shifted off the bed, grabbed the pair of trousers he'd dropped on the floor earlier that night, and pulled them on. That done, he padded over to his window, and took up a position opposite that of the other man. Here, from this spot, he could clearly make out his companion's clean-cut features. The nicely set cerulean eyes, straight nose, and strong jaw were offset by such a deeply contemplative, yet innocent, look that Crawford had a difficult time believing the boy was who he had claimed to be. Even after their passionate session of intercourse, he had a hard time accepting it. Not wanting to dwell on that thought at the moment, he decided to turn his efforts to the city skyline. The apartment suite was high enough from the ground that he could make out the grey-tiered gradient of the sky. Streaks of feathered clouds littered the wide expanse, a weak reminder of the storm that had visited just hours earlier, and in the east, he could sense the sun beginning to peak over the horizon, warning the drones of the city that life would begin again very soon. God, how he hated this time of day. But for some reason, today, with the other man standing an arm's length away, it was moderately bearable. "Timor mortis conturbat me quia in inferno nulla est redemptio." At the whispered voice, Crawford glanced over at his companion. The younger man still hadn't moved, his gaze fixated on the approaching dawn. " 'The fear of death troubles me for in Hell, there is no redemption'," the boy said slowly, and finally turned his head to acknowledge the dark-haired man. Then, he smirked. "For the first time in my life, I feel as smart as you." Crawford stiffened. That insolent expression ... that mocking tone ... He clenched his fists as an indescribable burst of heat washed through him. He didn't know if it was anger or joy or relief - it might have been all three - but he managed to remain unreadable as it made its way to his extremities and tried to convince his mind to accept something he usually never gave the time of day to - hope. "This kid, Chris ... he's some sort of wannabe med student. And I think I have all his memories. It seems he took Latin sometime during his schooling, and that saying just popped into my head." His lips pursed briefly, and then, he looked at the older man with his features contorted in angry confusion. "Shit, this is fucking weird, Crawford! It feels like I've lived two lives. I remember this boy's entire past ... and then, there's mine ..." Hope ... it was such a detestable thing, but it was so damned addictive. "How much do you remember?" "Everything, I think," Chris - no, Schuldich - replied as he straightened his head, and removed it from the supporting window frame. He cast his eyes downward, as if trying to recount a list of memorized items. "My life in Germany, Rosenkreuz, Schwarz, you, us ... and that night ..." "That night?" Crawford watched the other man intently, somehow not relishing an account of that night, at least not with that dream sitting so fresh in his mind. "It was a set-up, wasn't it?" the boy asked, almost in a matter-of-fact tone. Crawford nodded and turned to stare out the window, secretly wanting to avoid any blame that would come from those expressive blue eyes. "Was I the goal? They wanted me, didn't they?" "I tried to follow the best course of action," the Schwarz leader said in his best business-like voice, "but no matter what scenario I tried, I couldn't avoid the result." "Bastard." The insult was thrown readily enough, but it lacked any harshness. "Trying to justify what you did, huh?" The dark-haired man didn't respond. He kept his gaze steady on the slow emerging life coming from the streets below. "They cut me open, Crawford," Schuldich said softly with neither anger nor accusation. "I felt my own skin split, and I felt every one of their goddamned rubber-gloved fingers probing into me. You know, if a person digs deep enough into you, you don't feel it. Apparently, there aren't any pain receptors below a certain level so there's no pain. And I know that from firsthand experience, not from this Chris's pre-med knowledge." A small, sad smile played on the speaker's lips at that point. "I screamed, Crawford. It's embarrassing for any grown man to admit, but I actually screamed and I cried." The dark-haired man tried not to flinch and barely succeeded, the casually spoken words somehow digging painfully into him. "I know," he managed to say levelly. "You left our link open ..." 'And I felt everything,' a small voice continued quietly in his head. 'I heard every scream, felt every cut ... and I died with you that night ...' Crawford almost had to bite his tongue in an effort to silence those nagging words. Where that voice had come from, why it had said what it did, he didn't know. He didn't want to know. He could feel the other man's eyes drill into him at his recent comment, and although he attempted to subdue it, a part of him began to squirm. Then, after a brief silence, Schuldich decided to let the matter go, and spoke. "Chris lost his family in some car accident a few weeks before that night. I think he volunteered to be a part of this experiment out of some kind of survivor's guilt. He was the only one to walk away from that car wreck." Here, he paused, the hesitation enough to draw Crawford's eyes back to the younger man. "I ... I don't know what happened," Schuldich said, a hint of insecurity creeping into his voice as he caught his companion's gaze. "But that moment right before I died, I connected with someone. I connected with Chris telepathically, I think, and I couldn't let go. I can't remember what happened exactly, but I just wanted to get the fuck away from that operating table." "So you think you projected yourself into the boy?" At this, the blond man shrugged and turned to lean his back tiredly against the window. "I don't know. Maybe. He wanted to die, and I wanted to live. It's screwed up, but it makes sense. I must've been dormant inside him until the right catalyst came along." Schuldich stopped for a moment, and reflected on the conclusion he'd just revealed about the convoluted situation he was in. With a sigh, he tilted his head back to stare blindly at the ceiling, and swallowed. Crawford watched, transfixed, as his companion's Adam's apple bobbed, and fought the urge to touch the other man. "Timor mortis, Brad." Pristine blue eyes returned back to the taller American. "I was scared to die. I never thought about it before, but when it came down to it, I was fucking scared of what was on the other side, especially after everything I've done." "That's just silly religious babble used to keep good little children in line ... Schuldich." It was the first time he'd used the telepath's name in the conversation, and a strange sensation spread through him as the word hung in the air. Calling the boy by that name ... was it possible that he truly believed that his dead lover was standing right beside him? "You think so?" The younger man let a small, depreciating smile form on his lips, and after a few seconds, he chuckled. "I didn't want to risk it because I'm sure I wouldn't have found redemption in Hell. The funny thing is, I was raised a Catholic. The old woman who took care of me when I was a kid used to literally drag me to church every damned Sunday. She was a tiny thing, but man, she had a killer grip. She raised my mom too, or so she claimed. She said that my mother went crazy and got committed to some looney bin." His smile took on an almost nostalgic air. "I wonder if it's genetic. Apparently, I was the result of some indiscretion on an orderly's part ... a mistake that wasn't even supposed to exist." The dead scientist's story ran through Crawford's head just then: the experiments, Project Prometheus, and the mother's origins. Schuldich didn't know about it yet. "She was a telepath," Crawford said in the way of alleviating the other man's ignorance. "Your mother, I mean. She was an artificial telepath that they created during the war ..." "I know. Project Prometheus," the blond man supplied as he shifted his eyes forward and glanced around the grey-toned room. "'Limited in his nature, infinite in his desires, man is a fallen god who remembers the heavens.' [2] - another funny quote floating in Chris's head." One side of the Schuldich's lips lifted up further into a lopsided smile as he turned back to his companion. "So where does it end, Brad? When is science considered sacrilege? When is it considered human progress and when does it begin to trespass on the laws of God and nature?" "There is no such thing as God," Crawford replied easily, "or any gods for that matter." "No?" A blond eyebrow rose. "Do you think so? Maybe it's Chris's philosophical thinking speaking, but how do you know that for sure? How do you know that me being alive right now isn't some twisted way for Him to fix this mess we've made of His handiwork? How do you know that there isn't some force at work here, making sure that we don't drown ourselves in our own shit?" "There's no evidence." Even as the words left his own mouth, the conviction behind them sounded weak in Crawford's ears. "I would've said the same thing maybe four months ago," Schuldich conceded, "but when you find yourself facing your own mortality, you need something to believe in ... and I think I needed to believe that He existed when I died." Crawford wanted to respond to the other man's comments, but for some unknown reason, his mind drew a complete blank. And so, he said nothing, letting silence reign as Schuldich's revelations slowly sank in. Then, without warning, the blond figure pushed off the window, standing straight and exuding an energy the dark-haired American hadn't seen all morning. Only Schuldich could change the topic so suddenly and ... Crawford stopped the thought before he could finish it. "Well, I think I'm in the mood for a bit of revenge," the telepath said cheerfully, the customary wicked gleam twinkling in his eyes. He made his way toward the door, grabbing his discarded shirt from the floor as he did so, and shrugging it on. However, when he reached the exit, he stopped and pivoted back to face Crawford. "Promise me something, Brad." Now, it was the Schwarz leader's turn to raise an apathetic eyebrow. "What I am ... how I exist, I don't think it was supposed to happen. If they catch me again, do it quickly. Not like last time, okay?" Crawford didn't need to ask what 'it' referred to. The meaning was unspoken, but clear. And at the younger man's expectant look, all he could do was nod. (***) Mornings had taken on a dull routine for Nagi in the past three months: wake up, wash up, grab whatever food he could find, and leave. But this morning, something was different. He sensed it the moment he stepped out of his room. Opting to bypass the bathroom for the moment, he rubbed the residual sleepiness from his face, and walked slowly toward the kitchen. Blue eyes widened in surprise at what he saw there. A stranger - a tall, blond, foreign stranger - in wrinkled clothing was traipsing around like he owned the place, repeatedly returning to the gas stove where something was sizzling. The boy felt his own jaw drop slightly as speechlessness overtook him. Who ...? What ...? It was then that the man finally noticed his presence. Taking a break from stirring the cooking food in the frying pan, the stranger turned to look at the youngest Schwarz member. "Finally up, pretty boy?" The words were in Japanese, and they'd been spoken with an accent and tone reminiscent of ... Nagi gulped, not knowing whether to assume the man was a threat and fling him out the window, or to just walk back to his room and pretend this was some weird dream. In the end, he simply nodded. "Good," the blond stranger said. "Because maybe you can explain to me why there's no fucking food around here. You'll have to settle for eggs instead of your typical Japanese breakfast today. Now sit down." Again, the wide-eyed boy nodded and mechanically moved to obey. The stranger smiled at the youth's quick compliance, and turned back to the cooking food. Nagi watched the foreigner silently, too stunned by the familiar treatment to do much else. Then, the blond man said something that both shocked the telekinetic and confirmed his blossoming suspicions. "You'd better eat up, Nagi ... because tonight, we're going to bring down a corporation."
Endnotes: [1] "Fools rush in where angels fear to tread." - Alexander Pope (one of my favourite 18th century satirists!), An Essay on Criticism [2] "Limited in his nature, infinite in his desires, man is a fallen god who remembers the heavens." - Alphonse de LaMartine, Méditation Poétiques |
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