They Tell Me I'm The Bad Guy

by R. D. Harless

  I stood up and walked right out of the shade of the canopy. "Fuck this shit, man." I turned around and raised my arms to the three of them. "Come on. You gonna have that," I screamed up at the sky, "Commie pussy shoot me? Go ahead." I waited and looked up. "No bullets! How 'bout that!" I stormed back under the canopy and locked eyes with the Father. I kicked my chair into the table to rattle all the bottles again. "What the fuck is this, and who the fuck are you three? Why in the goddamn fuck am I here?"

  He stared me down without flinching. "I'm going to give you another chance to be cooperative. I'm not out here in Buttfuck, Mexico to play grab-ass. I'm not antagonizing the SCEIA and Ibn Meghar and the Shining Beacon Coalition and agencies worldwide for the pure hell of it. Singular traits, that's what we're after. You've got a big one, an elemental force. You come to camp, and you'll be neck-deep in clean whores, booze and whatever drugs turn you on. You walk away from camp when we're done, and you're paid. You walk away from this table right now, and the Red Ghost gets an answer about your state that I guarantee you won't like. It's a long walk to the border."

  I leaned in and looked that fucker square in the eye. "Singular traits. Well, check this shit out." I thought of winter, of freezing my ass off getting my truck out of a snow bank with Will's heavy ass passed out in the cab, of my granddad's deep freezer full of deer meat. I fought past the spike of headache pain pushing while this dehydrated caused me and cooled the hot desert air until we could all see our breath. And then I set my chair back up and sat down in it, arms crossed over my chest. "That put some shit in your cereal, boys?"

  All three of them sat there with nothing to say until the Mother piped up. "It must not be pyrokinesis, at least not solely. Cryokinesis as well suggests--"

  The little girl picked up the ball and ran with it, "It suggests we've been put on or Tracey didn't know what the fuck she was talking about, which is par for that fucking course. He's got temperature control, full-on affecting atomic motion acceleration and deceleration, not just conjuring up fire. He keeps the burn going without a fuel source, but there's way more to it than only that. It'll take time to decode."

  I didn't take my eyes off the Father. He had disappointment all over his face. He nodded and crushed his cigarillo out on the table. "You've been hiding that?" he asked me.

  I laughed at him. "I didn't know I could do it until a couple of days ago." I leaned back in my chair and looked at each of them in turn. "Good thing my entire fucking life didn't get pissed down the drain over it, right? So what now? You gonna let Duck have me?"

  The little girl flicked his/her joint away and snagged a bottle of Jameson Whiskey. He ignored me and turned to the Father. "Well, old man, do you want to begin a new search or call this whole thing off at this point? I've been saying Darwish is out best bet."

  The Father nodded to her. "Yeah. Get him. And tell Duck he's got Tracey for a half hour with the cameras off."

  The little girl put down her bottle after a hefty gulp. "Fuck, make it an hour."

  Shit. "Hang on, she didn't know," I told the three of them. "Tracey didn't know I could do that. I didn't even know."

  "Due diligence," the Father said, adding, "Don't worry, we won't make you watch this time," as an insult.

  The little girl flung the bottle of Jameson over my head with a shitty glimmer in his/her eye to make me flinch. Little shit. "I've got company here, boys, so I'm done. Moses, it's been real, have yourself some fun. See you two soft dicks at dinner. Silvy, play me out." The little girl's body went limp in the chair, Mr. Earle's mind gone from her.

  I pushed my chair back from the table. "Yeah, so I'm done with this shit. I'm done. Send me back stateside. You can't use me, and I swear to God I won't say anything to anybody, I just want to forget the whole thing. Hell, send me anywhere."

  The Father shook his head and screwed the top back on his Gentleman Jack. "I'm not going to pretend with you that that's an option anymore because neither of us is that stupid. You know how this has to go. You're our guest now. Like I said, we've got whatever you want here. It's Dodge City with no Bill Hickok. Go buck wild. Your time will be more than worth it. We're nearing the end, and everybody here gets a payday of their wildest dreams once we kick off. They'll set you up with a bed at camp. Get tore-up and get some sleep. Silvy."

  He went limp too.

  "Motherfucker."

  The Mother put the top back on her/his Basil Hayden. "Well, that went off the rails fast. How're you holding up?"

  "Not fucking great, Two-Stroke."

  He/She nodded. "Yeah. It's a lot to process, I know. It's not every day you find out your entire outlook on the world, top to bottom, is a sham. These first meetings are, well, this was one of the better ones, believe it or not. You did fine. Don't mope. You got dealt a bad hand, make the best of it now."

  I stared at the Mother. "I got dealt a bad hand? Who the fuck are you guys? I know Bob's a fucking serial killer or some shit, but what is this? Do you fucking dicks have any idea what you've done to my life?"

  He/she scowled at me. "Hey, c'mon. Life's hard. We've made sacrifices, the three of us have, but life goes on--"

  "'Life's hard?' Is that what you just fucking said to me?"

  "Let me finish," he/she shouted. "Life's hard, and the ones that move on with it come out better for it. I'm sorry that you lost your little civilian life, but keep in mind that it was gone when you burned down that block. I didn't do that. Bob didn't do that. That was you. It was only a matter of time before agents showed up at your door for it. And your friend was," he/she sighed, "Look, let's call a spade a spade. He'd already been inside, odds are he was going to be pulling jobs one way or another with or without Tracey. You did what you could to set him straight, and that's admirable. You did everything you could with him. You know you did. What happened to him was bound to happen."

  "What the fuck do you know? He would've been fine," I lied.

  The Mother shrugged and said, "Maybe you're right," and did another hit of whiskey. The wind whipped up and shook the liquor bottles. "Come to camp," she said. "Come get laid. Come get tore-up like Bob said. Don't worry about us. We're irrelevant. We're close to harnessing this thing, and I promise you if you stick with us the rewards will be un-real. Focus on that.

  "I do want you to hear me when I say this, however: Tracey is off limits, and we mean it. I know you've got a score with her and we all know she's not the sharpest knife, but you can still cut with her if you use enough pressure. Other than that, there aren't many rules. They'll fill you in when you get to camp."

  This was bullshit. This whole fucking thing. Dehydration and alcohol made the world spin, but I pushed past that shit. Fuck these guys. I could ruin them with a thought; I just needed to know where to think it. If I got into wherever they were doing their shit for just a second, I could bring it all down in flames.

  I took another drink and kissed Two-Stroke's ass. "Fuck it, you're probably right. You guys got me out of a cell at least. If there's anything I can do, you guys just call me, all right? I'll try to help however I can. You guys can still study me if it helps."

  The Mother smiled at me with missing teeth and bad gums. "All right, well," he/she stuck out her/his thumb the right. "Camp's that way. You can hang out here until night if you're tired of walking in the heat. I don't know if the heat affects you or not. The family here will be coming 'round soon, but they won't give you any trouble. They'll cook you something if you're hungry."

  I put on my best sincere, shit-faced face. "I mean it. Just let me know if I can help. I owe you guys, really. You got me out of custody. I owe you, and I pay my debts." I just needed for one of them to let me in and this whole fucking thing would go tumbling down. I just needed this fucker to buy my bullshit.

  The Mother smiled again.

  Take the bait, asshole.

  "I'll mention it," she/he said. "That's nice of you to offer."

  Fuck nice. Take the bait, you asshole.

  She/He put the top back on the Ba
sil Hayden. "And, last thing, those nanites in your head that were preventing anyone from reading your thoughts, they were deactivated when you got here."

  Aaaaand, fuck.

  "They did their job keeping the cops and everybody out of your head and keeping you healthy, but we don't need secrecy like that here, so they're turned off. Back to being an open book, bud."

  Fucking son of a whore. This whole fucking time they had Silvy reading me.

  "I'm going to go," the Mother said. "I've got some wiring to get back to. Any time you're ready to leave the canopy here, feel free."

  My head reeled from this shit. "Wait, hang on, is the Ghost gonna let me walk away?"

  Her body went limp without answering.

  The little girl came to across the table from me and started crying and coughing her lungs out.

  I kicked the table leg and up-ended the bottle of Johnny Walker into the sand with a "Fucking shit!"

  Chapter 19

  The Many Colors of the Shit Rainbow

  Three hours and a sunset later, I was still sitting in my chair under that canopy. I had to let the whiskey I'd drank back out a few times, and when I did, I just pushed to the edge and unloaded in the sand. The three assholes knew they couldn't trust me. They knew exactly how I felt about them and what I would probably do to them if I got the chance. The look on Two-Stroke's face had said it all. They knew I wanted to fuck them over. In my chair, I wondered how long they would let me live. I watched my hand for ten minutes trying to see the nanites I swore I could feel crawling all over me. They were inside me, too, in my fucking head. For all I knew, they could hit Control + Alt + Delete and give me a goddamn aneurism.

  Flies gathered on the piece of Tracey's ass I had been left with. I waved them away every few minutes, and they buzzed around and eventually settled back on it until I decided to scatter them again.

  I stared at the wood grain of the table. "You're a stupid fuck," I told myself.

  The Mexican family cooked me up a plate of some kind of meat, tortillas and beans. I choked it down to help sober me up. The father pestered me constantly with broken English questions about my powers. Apparently, Uncle Bob had promised to make him like us 'supermans' after the experiments were finished. Then he would go to the 'magic city' that had appeared in the desert the night before. He begged me to light one of his cigarillos with my mind.

  "Very useful," he said, watching the tobacco burn. "I may choose your fires."

  I kicked his chair out from under him so his chin came down on the table. "If you ever let Bob or those other two take control of you daughter again," I seethed at him, "I'm gonna come back here and put a bonfire in your lungs." I didn't know if he understood me, but he sure as shit went back into his shack with his tail between his legs.

  At sundown, the glow of lights had kicked on past a rise on the horizon. The magic city. That's where I was supposed to go, but I would be damned if I was gonna just walk into something like that completely blind, in the dark, with a sniper flying above me. If they wanted me, they could come fucking get me. Hell, the Ghost had to be an old man. I would probably outlast him if I stayed up 'til nine.

  "The Ghost can shoot you even through the canopy."

  "I know," I said. "But I'm not gonna make it easy for him." I puffed on my cigarette. "Wait, who the fuck am I talking to?"

  "HeY, fIrE bEaSt," Psycho Silvy said in my head with a voice stolen from a memory of my first girlfriend. "BeEn A lOnG tImE, hAsN't It? AmStErDaM, rIgHt?"

  Aw, shit.

  "I kNoW. 'sHiT.' dOn'T tRy AnY oF yOuR fAlSe CoUrAgE wItH mE, eItHeR, bAbY. iT dOeSn'T wOrK."

  I flicked my cigarette away. "What do you want, Silvy? You come to--"

  "tHaT's WhAt YoU'rE aFrAiD oF, mE kIlLiNg YoU?" She pulled my string, and I hit myself in the face. Right in the bridge of my nose with a fist.

  "Fuck, Silvy!"

  "sTaRt WaLkInG. eVeRyBoDy'S iN tOwN."

  "Are they gonna--"

  "nObOdY's GoInG tO kIlL yOu. UnLeSs YoU dOn'T cOoPeRaTe."

  "That's not what I was gonna--"

  "It WaS wHaT yOu WaNtEd To KnOw."

  "Why are you--"

  She made me stand up. "To MaKe YoU wAlK."

  God damn, I fucking hated psychics. They never let you get a sentence out.

  "aNnOyInG, iSn'T iT?"

  "Y'know what, shut the fuck up, Silvy."

  "aRe YoU gOiNg To WaLk oR aM i GoInG tO hAvE tO mAkE yOu?"

  I took a step out of the canopy. The Red Ghost didn't take a shot at me.

  "SeE? nOw WaLk. YoU'rE wAsTiNg My TiMe WiTh ThIs. AnD, yEs, I dId EnJoY mYsElF iN cHiCaGo. YeS, i Am A cRaZy BiTcH."

  "I'm not talking to you," I said. I took a step back and didn't hear or feel anything. She must have left. "Silvy?" Nothing. I went back to the table, wrapped the hunk of Tracey up tight and brought it with me. It didn't seem right to just leave it there. The family would probably cook it or something.

  In the dark, ignited a hovering flame to light my way. I asked "Silvy?" again, but still didn't get a response. She was just an errand-girl; they used her even for piddly shit like getting me walking. Who the fuck were these guys and how the fuck did they get somebody like Psycho Silvy to jump when they said? What did they promise her? And why the fuck did I seem to be the only person not just going along with all this shit?

  I got back to the ruts and followed them toward the lights. Down the road a little bit, an overturned semi trailer laid on its side like a beached whale. Spray-painted in red on its top was what looked like the same three sentences over and over in every language, or at least the popular ones. I expanded my fire to the length of the trailer to read it. 'Do not be misled by what you see around you or be influenced by what you see. You live in a world which is a playground of illusion, full of false paths, false values and false ideas. But you are not part of that world.' - Sai Baba.

  Same thing that had been painted on the wall in the bunker. Same damn thing. This bullshit had been on Bob's mind for years. God damn, if this was the reason he killed people, man--did he carve them up for this reality code shit? What had those other books on his coffee table been about? One of them had been about reality or something. And quantum something. I read and re-read the words on the trailer until my cigarette died, then I lit another and got back to walking.

  "How much did the shit we stole back for you help?" I said. "Did we give you the last piece you needed?" I stopped walking. Yeah, okay, it was me asking myself those questions.

  I asked "Silvy?" again, accidentally thinking 'you rabid bitch somebody needs to put down' after it. If she was listening, she would have known that too. Fuck, I hated psychics. But she didn't reply. Tracey's Blood seeped through the newspaper onto my fingers. I wiped it off on Red's jeans. I guess it shouldn't have bothered me, though, since me and the piece of ass weren't actually separate from each other and didn't really exist.

  "See if my foot exists when I ram it up your ass," I said like a badass to nobody in the dark.

  Up ahead, way above the glow of the lights, fliers chased each other with glow-sticks and flashlights. They dropped empty bottles and whatever else they could haul up there to smash against the ground. Trucks off-roaded through the desert, their headlights bouncing up and down. A beer bottle landed a few feet from me, and two others followed. I was fucking target practice for somebody. Welcome to the goddamn 'magic city.' The place was a town full of plain buildings that looked like government housing spread out with cracked streets and half-dead grass filling the space between them. Fucking magical.

  Sports cars tore ass through the streets; the sound of engines redlining and gears being badly shifted echoed everywhere. Somebody plowed a Ferrari into a mobile generator, knocking out some of the harsh white lights that were bright as fuck. The streets and grass ended in a smooth line that circled the town. Like the whole thing had been cut out from somewhere else.

  Tracey had teleported a whole damn city.

  Shit. Somebody was gonna notice that.<
br />
  Posters milled around everywhere, drinking and smoking and yammering the fuck on in a bunch of different languages. I had never seen so many of us in one place before. The whole thing was a disaster waiting to happen.

  My feet went from sand to grass in front of a tall, red metal tower mounted on a brick base. A pale green piece with a white anchor painted on it stuck out to the side. Beneath white letters in Russian or some shit, a set of block letters read: 'PYRAMIDEN.'

  Next to the tower was another tagged trailer. 'The dividing line between this world and eternity, between suffering and bliss, between good and evil, is also an illusion.' - Herman Hesse. And then sprayed on the side of a building a stone's throw from it: 'Even if there is only one possible unified theory, it is just a set of rules and equations. What is it that breathes fire into the equations and makes a universe for them to describe?' - Stephen Hawking. Like a fucking nerd ghetto.

  Under another canopy like the one out by the shack, some loud white boys blasted Tupac around a keg. One of the shirtless jackholes came down from doing a keg stand to cock his visor sideways on his spiked hair and put his designer sunglasses hanging backwards off his ears. He told nobody to fuck with his cup and headed my direction.

  He jerked his chin at me. "'Sup, bro? You American?"

  "Yeah."

  "A'ight, cool, cool. I was expecting you a while ago. Beast of Fire, right?"

  Fuck, man. I was a household name now. "Yeah, that's me."

  "Ha, yeah, cool." He stood there grabbing the crotch of his shorts like an idiot. "Okay, here's the run-down fast 'cause I don't trust those faggots back there," he said loudly, "with my drink!"

  One of his buddies pulled his pants down and shouted, "Suck it, son! Come here!"

  "Call your sister, she's good at that," the jackhole shouted back to the loud approval of everyone except the moron with his dick hanging out. Christ. The three assholes had picked the cream of the fucking crop to bring here.

  Back to me, the jackhole said, "The town showed up last night, so everything's fucking wild, man, you know how it is. It was abandoned, so nobody's protectin' their homes from us or anything, everything's just old. I'm'a give you the rest of this quick, so keep up. If somebody fetches you an' tells you you're needed, you go to that big-ass metal building." He pointed outside of town to a barely-lit spot half a mile away. Tents of every kind surrounded a huge beige metal building that looked big enough to store a blimp. "If you do not get fetched, you keep yo' ass away from said metal building. Everybody moved their shit to town this morning, so there's no reason to go back there 'less they call you."