“I remember this one!” I exclaimed. “This is the one with the haunted orchard. Oh man, this is one of my favorites. I love the part where he rips the roots out of the ground and stabs the troll in the eye with it.”
“Yuh pro’lly don’t ‘member it so well as yuh think yuh do.” Mission Creep said. “Havin’ somethin’ on the tube hep’s me when I’ma briefin’ a newbie on a mission, y’uhnerstan.”
“Sure. Watching monsters get blinded with tree-roots helps me concentrate. Let’s hear what the puppet masters need me to do next. It better not involve drinking anything that’ll likely kill me without any good side effects.”
“Nope. Simple wetworks—easy peasy ‘sassination. Fella that’s been causin’ our people all kinds a grief with his ‘pop’lism’ and his ‘re-form.’”
This in itself didn’t come as a shock. I’d caused grievous bodily harm to people before, and I was probably responsible for a couple of deaths already, though I’d be hard pressed to give names and dates. Reverend Burstin probably counted as a murder, since I prevented his soul from returning to his body. Eva too, though I wasn’t sure of the law surrounding killing lab-grown people. It was no time to pussy out now. The Heep embryo was in the dish and it had to be swallowed. And when you got right down to it, it was either the poor dweeb I was supposed to assassinate or me at this point. I wouldn’t make it on the dole, and there was almost no shot of wrestling a new press pass out of the teeth of the sick bureaucrats who controlled such things. The threshold had been crossed.
The Black Paladin was making his way across the haunted orchard, with some old guy next to him. The oldster was probably the one who had put him up to the quest—I couldn’t remember that part. “Name of Baron Von Dredge.” Mission Creep tossed a vaguely familiar photo into my lap.
“Is he with the Ignobles?”
“Not so far as we can tell. Hell, in a better world he’d be one of ours. He thinks folks that criticize the Gods and nobles oughta be locked up.”
“I thought you said he was some kind of reformer.”
“Poor ol’ corpse walkin’ fucker is a reformer. I guess he’s just confused hisself when yuh get right down to it. He’s runnin’ for first Selectman of Archland, and he’s got that tranny-parencie in his platform.”
“Transparency? Why are we so afraid of…” Mission Creep grabbed the remote with the speed of a gunslinger and paused the tape. The photograph fell from my hands.
Between the staticky freeze bars of the pause, I saw something that made no sense. The old man who was walking with the Black Paladin was having his death scene—he was being stabbed in the back by one of the animate trees. But in this moment of the show, the tree was for some reason wearing a loud shirt, the kind of thing that I would wear.
“Shit.” I said. “What…”
“Yuh gone tell me what that looks like to yuh, boy?” I polished off my Rumble Rum at one go.
“That tree looks just like me. How the fuck is that possible?”
“And who does that old pin cushion sumnabitch look like?”
I looked down at the picture on the floor incredulously. The actor looked remarkably like Von Dredge. “How…”
“I done cued up this oldie ‘cause I knew yuh’d ask a buncha questions, and yuh’z gotta learn that yuh gotta be patient for the answers. We’s on a staircase tuh paradise, son. Yuh don’t climb stairs five at a time, do yuh?”
“Are you saying some of the people who shot this episode knew that I was going to kill Von Dredge?”
“Ayuh. Sumthin’ like that.”
“This episode aired when I was a kid. I doubt Von Dredge was even in politics, let alone taking a position the Dry Men didn’t like back then. Hell, I didn’t even have my bark yet. This has to be a coincidence.”
“The God of coincidence is dead, but that’s a story for another time. What you’re looking at here is a gen-u-wine case of pre-dictive programming.”
“This isn’t real. You’re shittin’ me.”
“There’s Dry Men operatives everywhere, and not all of them are cut out to be killers and fixers. Some of them advance through the ranks slowly by casting oldsters and putting shirts on tree puppets. Enhow, I’ma showin’ yuh this so yuh ask fewuh questions, not more. We got a job to do. The folks we work for know all ‘bout the long con. We gotta do this thing.”
He put a dagger in my hands that was just like the one the animate tree monster was using. The weight was perfect—it was like it had been crafted just for me, like the engravings on the handle spoke a language that only I could understand. “Yuh very own piece a Black Paladin hist’ry.” He said.
2
We were taking the Trash Junction Superhighway, a white-knuckle monstrosity that was like the ninth circle of hell for automobiles. The weirdest garbage known to man would blow across the road. I’d heard campfire tales about clumps of garbage that came to life and turned into highwaymen. ‘Refuse Raiders,’ people called them. They’d use assault rifles to shoot the wheels off people’s cars and loot the corpses. Less interesting but more dangerous were the random tarps that blew across the road and covered your windshield when you were doing 80 miles per hour and cranked on amphetamines.
“Von Dredge s’all set to give a talk in a chapel for the Provisian Legion this afternoon. Assassination’s a helluva lot easier than folks make it out to be, even when guards’re posted ‘round like they are today. Our man done sabotaged the fire ‘stinguishers, and these re-actionary folks done love their torchlight. All yuh’z gotta do is stab him after the fire starts.”
“So it is supposed to look like an accident.”
“Folks’re getting more pair-noid these days, so there’ll be talk. Just so long as he don’t walk outta that there infernah to tell any tales. I hate the thought of burnin’ up all those Provisian flags, but what we do we do for the good of our nation.”
“We’re patriots.” I said.
“Ayuh. And you’re gonna be a mighty rich patriot and get yuh plenny of tail.”
We made it to Archland in good time. I was feeling fine as we drove under the Arch. “Welcome to Archland.” The sign said. “Where Angels and Heroes Reside.” We pulled up to a building called the Lotus Cathedral. “They’re about ready to start settin’ up.” Mission Creep said. “I’ma sign in and offer to help out. Yuh go use that side door—yuh’ll find it unlocked. Hide yuhself near the big flag draped behind the podium. She-it, but I hate to burn that flag.”
“You’re going to sign-in and offer to help?”
“How many times I gotta go an’ tell yuh not to ask so many questions, boy? Go hide. Get comft’able but not vis’ble. Yuh gon’ be waitin’ awhile.”
3
While I was hiding behind the Provisian flag with the dagger in my hand, I did some thinking. First I thought about how of course it made sense for Mission Creep to sign in and offer to help. He was with his people. He was the type of earthy super-patriot that these sorts of organizations always attract. Hell, he was probably a member, though his allegiance no doubt took a far back seat to the Dry Men. You don’t sneak around in corners and do with guile what you can do with openness. I don’t blush, obviously, but I still felt my face grow so hot that I worried my bark would ignite. I thought my years as the greatest Outlaw-Journalist alive had taught me better. I was going to have to be sharper if I was going to survive this fucked up new world I’d been thrown into.
After that I went back to the predictive programming. That was a puzzle I was not likely to solve soon. Had it really been put there on purpose? And if it had, how could the Dry Men possibly benefit by announcing their intentions so far in advance? Had they known that I would be the assassin, or had they just wanted someone with my particular obscure sexually transmitted enchantment? For that matter, what else was buried in the freeze frames of a million old television shows and forgotten movies? My thoughts were cut short as the meeting started.
“My friends and fellow patriots,” began a toadish old fuck in a Provi
sian Legion jersey, “It is my honor to introduce someone who is a member of a dying breed. His blood is as red as the heroes of old, his oratory the stuff of legend. Today, he will lay bare for you the insidious conspiracy that has been assembled against our beloved nation, and the steps that we must take to unite the conservative factions and stand against it.”
Through a gap between the oversize Provisian flag and a curtain draped over an altar, I watched as Von Dredge approached. He looked just like his picture, and just like the man the tree had stabbed in the show. There was utter silence as he approached the podium. Some people have a certain gravity, a pull that surrounds their whole being. And they always shape the universe or collapse in on themselves.
“I am an old man, and I have not time nor life to waste on fancy oratory. I will be brief. The patriots of our great nation are running scared. A wicked and relentless conspiracy has dogged and oppressed us since long before the days of the Schism. It puts down roots and blossoms wherever spinelessness and cowardice make the atmosphere damp.”
I shifted uncomfortably. I was balanced on my haunches, trying to remain calm, still, and silent without letting my legs fall asleep or poking myself with the dagger. I tried to keep an eye on the torches. As I understood it, the plan was to wait until one of them flared and started a fire, then quickly ventilate Von Dredge as the exodus of self-righteous fuckers began.
“Openness has become a bad word in Provisia. The world teems with official secrets, protecting our insectile enemies that have wormed their way into positions of power.”
Mission Creep was nowhere to be seen. I hated to admit it, but I was starting to get the Fear. There was a magician called the great Flexenco who I used to follow when I was a kid. He gave a performance right near the orphanage once, but of course that greedy pederast Burstin didn’t let us go. Old Flexenco had no sorcery capabilities whatever, but he could make anyone think that he did, because he was a master of distraction. He could make people think he had made a Provisian Tusk Beast appear on stage by whipping up a big conflagration and then leading it in on a leash. Would that kind of trick work now? Would these people, who regarded themselves as oath-preservers and veteran patriots, be as easy to distract and manipulate as children?
“They call us ‘conservative.’” Von Dredge was now saying. “A ‘conservative’ is defined as one who wishes to preserve the established order. Is that what we do? Is that who we are? Maybe a hundred years ago. But the wind is blowing a different way now. There are secularists and levelers nested in the highest positions of power in the land. They are taking your money. They are taxing you, and using your hard-earned cash to house the poor, to give fat pensions to themselves, to hide their secrets.”
“It is time for us to reveal the truth. As your First Selectman, I will expose the hoodwinking of the Fatherland. Together we will throw open the doors and windows and watch as the maggots quake in dazzled terror! WE WILL LET THE SUNSHINE IN!”
As if on cue, the sunlight seemed to intensify as it passed through a stained glass window above—it was like the Gods were truly endorsing what Von Dredge was saying. And then the fire started.
4
“Fire!” Someone yelled, near the back. There was an awkward moment, as if a baby had farted in the middle of the speech. But then everyone realized that the cathedral was really on fire. There was a crashing tumult as everyone ran for the door. Von Dredge was heading for the side exit. I could almost imagine him planning out how he could turn this disruption to his advantage. Perhaps he would climb up on someone’s parked car and redeem the speech with more fiery oratory. “This fire is an act of the Gods.” He would say. “Our message is one of openness, of letting the sunshine in. It is only fitting that our rally be held outside, in the light of day, just as we promise a new day to the Provisian people!”
But this was not to be. The side door that I had used before was now locked. I sprang from behind the flag and stabbed him with the dagger, working my way upwards from his back to the base of his lungs. There was a wet gurgling. I scooped him up and laid him on the pews, which seemed to be the most flammable things around—the best bet to prevent any hope of an autopsy.
“…Vengeful woodsprite…” he said. The fire was spreading around me, licking its way upwards to the rafters, but I felt a deep chill. The side door opened. “Forrest! Get you out!” I slit Von Dredge’s throat from ear to ear for good measure, and fled.
Driving back with Mission Creep, I did not feel much like a murderer. I felt like an actor, like someone playing a necessary role in something that had been written long in advance. Mission Creep was oddly silent, even after we got off the exit from the TJSH and even the boldest drivers breathe a sigh of relief. “Is that what we are? Secularists and Levelers? Is that why we had to kill him?”
“Do I seem like a Leveler type to yuh, boy? I wipe my ass with thousand noble bills. Naw, son. We had to kill him dead ‘cause he was confused, and ‘cause his tactics was no good for the country he loved. Even a good dog’s gotta be put down when it goes rabid.”
But there was something wrong in his manner, something like a body hitting a deadspot on a combat court in Questball. I filed this with all the other shit I had to wonder about now, in the same drawer as predictive programming, lost memories, and transferred consciousness suits. I was still in the dark, but high above, the sun was shining.
“FORREST OF MIRRORS”
1
Picture this.
You’re a free range heep living the good life. Your food is provided for you by some dumbass peasant farmer. No work is expected of you. The equivalent of getting a haircut is your productive output, along with the eggs that you put forth by fucking. It’s a great arrangement. But one night, curiosity begins to take over. You wonder what else is out there, behind the shoddily constructed fence inbred peasant children hastily assembled years back. So you nose around until you find a hole and you squeeze through.
As your heepish eyes adjust to the darkness, you awaken to a beautiful monochrome world, alive with new sights, sounds, and tastes. You peck wrigglers from the cool soil and discover that there is shade even in darkness. Then something is changed. The lights and shadows don’t move as they should. You hear a sound that you cannot place, like the roar of an oncoming predator. Some primal part of your domesticated being kicks into gear, as you see two glowing eyes approach.
You are mowed down by the oncoming car before you have time to react. The treads have burst your guts, but because we live in a merciless universe, you are not dead. The beautiful night is suffused with a hateful red mist, and a sound like the buzzing of a thousand malignant insects. You know suffering such as you have never known. But then, you feel warm all over. You think of the verdant fields, the warm body of your mate, the simplicity that was your birthright. And everything that has happened does not matter. And you are safe and comfortable as death begins to caress you with her warm hands.
But then you feel something like a fang jabbing into your neck. You are more awake than you ever have been, and you feel as if a thousand maggots are eating you alive. You cannot close your eyes. You are tossed into some cavernous mouth, and you hear a slam that is like the jaws of some horrible predator. And you find yourself in a strange place, with unnatural lights and patterns. The people that probe and cut you are not like the peasant farmer, not like his fat wife and his misbegotten children. They are different, somehow. They keep you alive as they prod and poke and cut you. The blood that they draw from you has no power unless it is taken from something suffering and alive. And who is there to hear the screams? And are those the screams of a heep? Or an owl? Or a person? And who will care?
This is the world I had awakened to as the Dry Men gave me my second degree. There were many secrets that I did not know, but the world as it was started to come into sharper focus, like an optometrist swirling and clicking the right lenses in front of my eyes. And it was a dark and morbid world, but one that I could understand. In a world of heeps
and humans, it was better to be a human. It was better to gathering the wool and eggs, and much better to be drawing the blood.
In this spirit, I was eager to start my next mission.
2
Mission Creep tossed me a dossier. We were sitting on his porch again, pounding back Rumble Rum. “This one done been made for you. I ‘spect I cain’t b’lieve yuh been this lucky this early.”
I unclasped the dossier and had a brief struggle to keep my rum down. The liquor was singing in my blood, and my laughter floated out on a waterbed of hiccups as I tried to read the hilarious file through the haze of drink. A big glossy photo of Sir Robert Wolfram, with his trademark deer-in-the-headlights look. It looked like someone just told him that renouncing his title meant that he could no longer be called ‘sir,’ and then hastily snapped a picture.
Fables of Failure Page 9
