by Darr, Brian
The Troll.
In all the excitement, The Guide hadn’t found time to be angry, but suddenly his thoughts were back to The Troll, who’d tried to escape in the night, who’d tried to open the door for the bounty hunters, who couldn’t hand over the damn memory stick and let them end this.
If he’s alive, him and I have some shit to sort through, he thought. He hoped he was dead—that Iris would leave without him. He didn’t like the thought of them together. Iris had chosen The Troll because on some level, she admired him. She believed in him. She believed in the man who was willing to give up more than the man who brought down a helicopter.
He took a break and sat, watching the direction he came to confirm no one was behind him. His mind spun as his thoughts of Iris and The Troll came and went, but he reminded himself to stay on course. They had to get the Rainbow to Vegas and kill Psi. Anyone that stood in the way would have to be eliminated: Even The Troll.
Chapter 5
The Troll kept still and waited until he could determine who had survived and who hadn’t. He heard the bounty hunters run for the forest, but had no idea what the fate of The Guide or Iris was and sensed that if he revealed himself, he’d come face to face with The Pilot or The Acrobat. The chopper had crushed two sides of the barn, but there was no explosion and it fell straight down. He feared The Pilot walked away unscathed.
But what if he didn’t? he thought. What if we managed to kill one or more?
On the downside, it could be an unforgivable act. The men of Circular Prime were not just co-workers. They were a community. He could be blamed for their murder.
Transmitting might not even be possible at this point. The Moderator had been clear that perception was everything and no harm was to be done.
“Troll,” he heard, but it was a whisper, and the person behind it was moving back and forth in the wreckage, searching for him. His ears perked and he tried to make out the voice. “Troll,” it said again, and he knew it was female.
He slowly emerged, catching a glimpse of the wreckage before revealing himself to Iris. Everything had caved in on one side and in the middle of it all was the chopper.
Iris spotted him and ran to him with relief. “I thought you were dead,” she said, and he knew from her tone that she was happy he wasn’t. Because he had the memory stick? Because she liked him? He was unsure, but when she hugged him, it felt personal—not mission related. He liked the feel of her body pressed against his and became aware of the fact that in his usual environment, this could never happen. The people on the boards who he spent his time with, despised his existence. Somehow, being a troll was important to Iris—more important than anything anyone could be.
Iris told The Troll everything that happened and he couldn't help but be impressed. He’d almost opened the barn door, in which case he’d possibly be dead, but The Guide and Iris had proved to him that they weren’t just underdogs—that maybe together they had a fighting chance.
“We need to go,” she finally said. “We have to meet up with The Guide.”
Something about meeting The Guide was dreadful to him. He knew The Guide didn’t like him and didn’t want to continually face him. He liked Iris and wished they could conquer the mission together. With The Guide around, he was just a third wheel—the guy carrying Rainbow.
They walked around the chopper slowly, watching The Pilot closely through the window. It was hard to tell if he was alive or not. If not for the steady movement of his chest as he breathed, he could be mistaken for dead. He still wore his sunglasses and golden wings on his lapel. Under the glasses, his eyes could very well be open, watching them with that intense focus he possessed. But as they passed, he didn’t move, which told them he was out. He had a gash under his hairline and a solid wall of blood had covered half his face. The Troll hoped he was out of the game, but The Pilot didn’t feel like the kind of guy who could be so easily defeated.
The light of the day hit their shoulders as they exited. The Troll turned back and smiled at the perfectly good barn which they’d destroyed. He was seeing and doing things he’d never believed possible. Iris saw him smile and smiled too. “What?” she said. “You like that?”
“Sure do.”
“Me too,” she said, “But not for the same reason as you.”
“What’s your reason?”
“Because The Moderator thought this was going to be easy, and when he sees what happened, he’s going to know it’s not easy. He’ll see you’ve escaped, his guys are injured, and you brought down a helicopter.”
“It wasn’t me though.”
“He’ll think it was. You’ve presented yourself as on his side, but this will scare the daylights out of him.”
“We might have killed his friend,” The Troll said, a hint of worry in his voice.
“No,” Iris said with a nod of her head. The Troll followed her gaze to where The Acrobat was struggling to walk toward the tree-line. His left leg looked to be crushed, and he used a board from the rubble as a crutch.
“What should we do?” The Troll asked, coming to a halt.
“Piss off The Moderator more,” she said, a skip in her step. “Take his friend as a hostage.”
The Troll watched, perplexed as Iris walked toward The Acrobat with a fearless stride. He did look harmless in his condition, but he couldn’t understand how she was so sure of how to do this—how easy it all was for her.
The Acrobat easily submitted, without much choice, but they kept their eye on him. It seemed as if he knew it was better off to be taken to somewhere he might get medical attention. He also didn’t seem too invested in killing them. The Troll wondered if he’d even really wanted to go on this mission at all. He thought about fighting him in the barn and how the only thing The Acrobat wanted to do was let the others in. Maybe he just wasn’t a killer.
They took turns holding The Acrobat under the arms and walking with him, and though Iris didn’t want to talk to him, The Troll couldn’t stop.
“If we help you, do you think The Moderator will call this off?” he asked.
Iris rolled her eyes.
“Of course not,” The Acrobat said. “Don’t get me wrong. He won’t be happy about this, but he’s not one to admit defeat. Look how he handled losing his job.”
“Yeah, but can’t you put in a good word?”
“I don’t think you’re as good at reading people as you think Troll. When The Moderator sets something in motion, he sets one course, and he won’t stray from it.”
“You sound like you don’t like him much,” Iris said.
“He’s my friend,” was all The Acrobat offered.
“So you like that stubborn kind of thinking? You all were on board when he wanted to kill millions of people?”
“It wasn’t quite like that,” The Acrobat said. “No one knew what the fallout would be. Even The Moderator was shocked when he saw the collateral damage, but it was too late to turn back. When people started to rebel due to the takeover, he felt he had no choice but to shut them down and he only had one way. I admit he was desensitized by it in time, but at first, no one believed that many people would die. Things settled, the heat died down, and pretty soon the world was pretty damn orderly. When it was better, there was no use in giving up or surrendering. We realized we were in a unique position to have eyes on everything and give zero tolerance to the kind of stuff that used to go on.”
“No one has murdered more people than you guys,” Iris said with disgust.
“He said he didn’t mean to,” The Troll said. Iris stopped and turned to face both of them.
“The whole world is so used to defending Psi by force and they’ve been doing it for so long that they forgot why they defend it in the first place: Fear of death. The world was brainwashed out of fear. Both of you very likely knew people who died: Your parents or siblings, teachers, friends…”
“Who was it for you?” The Troll asked. He could see her passion and knew it was very personal for her. “And why don�
�t you have Psi?”
“That’s none of your business,” she said, walking again.
The Acrobat fell silent and The Troll sensed his guilt. Maybe he really wasn’t proud of the things they had done. He stored that information in the back of his head for later.
They walked another hour before The Troll could no longer take the silence and re-initiated conversation. “So there was this one time…” he said. “There was this male pop-star all the girls liked, and there was a website for him and a message board, and all the fans would post how in love they were and how they wanted to marry him. His name was John Melmann.”
“I remember him,” Iris said.
“Hated that kid,” The Acrobat added.
“Yeah, most guys did,” The Troll said. “And so I went on his message board and created the user-name: JMelmann1 and started posting like I was him, feeding the girls all the lines they wanted to hear. I had to create a dozen dualies who knew and believed it was him just to really sell it.”
“What are dualies?” The Acrobat asked.
“A term the board used for fake profiles. I was basically one person pretending to be about a dozen. At the center of it all was JMelmann1, who eventually was convincing enough that the girls were throwing themselves at me. I started getting private messages all the time, and you know what I did? I finally messaged each one back personally and told them I decided to get them a ticket to my show. John was in Memphis one weekend and I said if they could get themselves there, there would be a ticket waiting for them which included two front row seats and a backstage pass. I don’t know exactly how many of those girls flew out there, but the next Monday, I had dozens of hate-mail messages from girls who actually made the trip, only to be turned away.”
“Is that supposed to be funny?” Iris asked.
“Yeah, that’s actually pretty mean,” The Acrobat said.
“Says the guy who probably assisted in executing every single one of those girls, their mothers, and John Melmann himself,” The Troll said, effectively shutting The Acrobat up. “I just wanted to point out the power of illusion—smoke and mirrors. I was actually contacted once by a big organization who was getting bad publicity. They wanted to pay me to troll in favor of them and bombard those against them with insults. They wanted a persuasive defender online.”
“Go figure,” Iris said.
“Back then, you would go on a site that reported news like CNN and the comments below were always politically driven. The world was divided so strongly that you were one or the other and one side hated the other and there was no gray area. Group A believed everything group B said was 100% wrong and vice versa. You could have everything in common with someone, but if you didn’t vote the same, there was an unbreakable dividing line. The mention of liking this candidate or that provoked death threats and evil disdain. School kids were bullied and committing suicide at high rates on-line, video sites were filled with teenagers trying to find their fifteen minutes and every comment below ripping into them until they went insane.”
“Isn’t that what you did?”
“No. I always take my own position. My belief is that there are no sides, and those who believed there was needed to be mocked into order. I didn’t hate John Melmann. I just hated the unthinking obsessive types of sheep who believed he cared about them in any way other than what was in their parents bank account. I wasn’t a blue or red state, atheist, theist, agnostic. I don’t fall into one category. I just hate the lack of resolve and commonality between sides, just for claiming a label and sticking to it without an open mind. The only statement I ever made, in all my statements, was that taking these views so seriously to the extent they did, was so laughably stupid that I had no choice but to mock them until they realized how small their opinions really were. It was to create waves—not ride them.”
“Maybe saying that instead of pissing people off would have been effective,” Iris said.
“No, because then I wear the label of crusader—of Internet vigilante. People tune that shit out. No one cares about people who appear that they’re trying to change behavior, but manipulate them by mocking their beliefs…worked all the time.”
“So you’re saying that by being a troll, you were just attempting to better society,” Iris said, in disbelief.
“On some level. I won’t lie. I loved it for all the wrong reasons, but I did it because everyone’s priorities were in the wrong place and no one wanted to be blunt enough to say so.”
“Is that why you’re glad Psi wiped out so many people?”
“I don’t dance on graves,” The Troll said. “But I don’t feel bad either. Most people had petty problems. Psi was a reminder that other things matter more than the latest celebrity or which politician is the biggest liar.”
They overcame a hill and their eyes went wide as they saw a town in the distance. The Acrobat let out a breath of relief, happy to be close to rest. His leg would give out if they let him go, and he needed water badly. “What’s next?” he asked.
“We meet with The Guide and go from there,” Iris said. “He knows what he’s doing.”
“I don’t understand how you intend on walking all the way across country,” The Acrobat said.
“We’ve got nothing but time,” Iris said.
“Look, I understand your position and agree on some level, but you have to see that this isn’t a fight you can win. Things didn’t need to be interrupted by this quest, and you are only inspiring unnecessary violence. I don’t agree with everything The Moderator has done, but this is such a lost cause that I can only strongly urge that you stop now and give up. If more people die or if you keep moving forward, you’re going to piss him off, and he will kill people just because he’s annoyed.”
The Troll looked to Iris, waiting for a reaction. She took a deep breath and considered momentarily before finally speaking. “You asked me why I’m so invested in this fight,” she said. “Why I don’t have Psi, why I’m even here…”
The Troll was transfixed as she spoke, finally about to learn her role in the whole thing. Something told him he didn’t want to though—that if she kept talking, he might find himself against Psi, and he wasn’t prepared yet.
“The morning Psi took everyone’s minds, I still had it, but I also came across one of those devices that removes it and I had mine removed.”
“Did you know the attack was coming?” The Troll asked.
“Nope. Pure coincidence, but I knew who The Moderator was and I saw how much hatred he had toward the world and how dead set he was on revenge…”
“How did you know…” The Troll started, but was cut off.
“I broke into a Pharmacy, removed Psi from myself with the device, I even kept the device, because I knew I wanted to get it out of as many people as possible, and I didn’t know why. That evening, my mother and I were in her car, on our way to the mall, and that’s when Psi froze everyone. It was dreadful watching my mother behind the wheel, unable to react or do anything more than stare forward. I could see in her eyes that she was aware. She just couldn’t move. I didn’t know why at the time. So I grabbed the wheel and swerved and the car ended up rolling down a hill and hitting a post below. The driver’s side hit the pole and I watched my mother die, the whole time, she didn’t scream or move. She died, unable to even talk to me, though she could have if Psi wasn’t inside her. I got out of the car and watched as cars piled up and the world changed while no one was even able to scream for help. Later, when I learned what happened, I knew that no matter what it took, I would end this, because…”
The Acrobat’s head was turned away but The Troll was fixated on Iris as she began to cry. “Because what?” he asked, softly.
“Because The Moderator knew we were in the car. He knew our lives were at risk and he didn’t do anything to stop it. Taking over was more important to him.”
“But…” The Troll started, confused.
She turned to him, pain in her eyes, and choked out the words. “The Modera
tor is my father.”
Chapter 6
“Something happened here,” The Magician said, kicking at the hay throughout the barn to see what could be uncovered. “No bodies, a broken helicopter…The Troll could not be capable of this.”
He turned to the remaining bounty hunters. Chameleon stood at his side, loyal to everything he did and said. The Weatherman sat on a bale of hay, wearing jean shorts with his fat spilling over the sides. The Poet walked through the barn, searching the corners for something to piece together the events that happened. The Mentalist stood outside watching the distance. The Gambler sat on the grass with a bottle of booze in hand and his cowboy hat blocking the sun from the deep grooves in his eyes.
The Magician turned and walked to the chopper. He tugged at the door handle for a moment, but it didn’t budge. He then covered it with his hands and suddenly a ball of fire and smoke burst under his palms and the latch just fell off and the door swung open. Without word, The Pilot stepped out and walked past.
“Oh please,” The Magician said. “No need to thank me.”
The Pilot walked straight outside and looked off in the distance.
“Alright, let’s piece this together,” The Magician said with some flare. “Four people surround The Troll in the barn. He takes down a helicopter and walks off with three. Makes a lot of sense.”
“I doubt he was alone,” Chameleon said.
“Or maybe we underestimated him,” The Mentalist said.
The Poet shook his head and stepped forward. “No no no. Do not cast thy doubt on the illogical, immoral, immature, incredibly useless countenance of our enemy.”
“Please stop,” The Magician said, simply. He went back to observing the scene and plotting in his head. “Okay, we need a strategy. Let’s hypothetically pretend our Troll is more than just a Troll or has an army with him. We need to cover some ground. I’m splitting you up into teams.”