His current role as the City Solicitor’s unofficial and unacknowledged man-at-arms appealed to his innate sense of civic pride. He was a patriot at heart, and had preserved the city state numerous times through a well-placed bullet, a timely blade, or, on one particularly memorable occasion, a greased hippopotamus. Through his deeds he had quietly staved off insurrection, crushed rebellions, and preserved the eternal order of the state.
Unfortunately, Socrates’ reputation didn’t match his self-image. He saw himself as a civil servant, a man of the polis, a keeper of peace. To the people of Detroit — those who believed in him, at least — he was something else entirely. In order to understand the prevailing view of Socrates, you have to bear in mind that people in Detroit (apart from those who wear white coats that tie in the back) had no concept of their own mortality, and therefore no mythology of death, no symbology representing the deep-seated fear (common to mortals) of what happens when life ends. Detroit had no grim reaper, no rider of pale horses, no cloven-hoofed chicken clad in cakes of unleavened bread and a floral hat (an obscure but picturesque harbinger of death peculiar to a devoted cult of Bronies in Morocco). All that Detroit had was Socrates. He was the Death of Detroit; the personification of that inexplicable, nameless terror that prickles the skin of even those who don’t understand what it means to die.
While no one apart from Socrates and the City Solicitor knew precisely how the Socratic Method worked, rumours had spread about its effects. “He can kill you,” people said in cautious whispers, using a word that seemed obscene when applied to humans. “He can erase your mind,” said others. “He can tear your essence out of your body,” they said, “destroy your soul,” they said, “leave you a shambling, empty husk,” they said.
Some people will say anything.
Most people, though — including Llewellyn Llewellyn, up until two minutes ago — believed that Socrates was a myth, a sort of arch-criminal bogeyman used to frighten nasty children, a personification of baseless irrational fears, some sort of holdover from the time before Detroit was founded, before mankind had evolved sentience and immortality, from a time when humans had, it was widely assumed, been as mortal as other animals. Socrates couldn’t be real, said rational voices at the sort of social gatherings where such subjects were discussed — he was just an archetypal image, an anthropomorphic personification of a vestigial fear of death buried deep in the primate mind.
The whole idea of an assassin in Detroit was ludicrous. “Pshaw,” people would have said, if anyone anywhere actually used the word pshaw. Preposterous, they said. People don’t die. And no assassin — no silent dealer of death, destroyer of minds, or shredder of souls — no assassin stalked its prey in the dark places of the City.
And so it was that most people of Detroit didn’t believe in Socrates at all. Yet here he stood, looming over Llewellyn Llewellyn in blatant defiance of popular opinion and basic democratic principles.
Socrates reached for his backpack and removed a piece of fabric. He handed the fabric to Llewellyn Llewellyn who, on closer inspection, discovered that it was a large pillowcase type of arrangement with a drawstring sewn in. Socrates always came prepared.
“Gather up the important bits of your colleagues,” Socrates said, reaching into a compartment in his wristguard and withdrawing a syringe. He held it up to the light and flicked it twice with his index finger. “Take them with you after I leave.”
The most important message this imparted to Llewellyn Llewellyn was that he was being allowed to leave, apparently intact — at least sufficiently intact to carry a bagful of his gangmates. In any event, he had a future. One that he hoped would soon include several generous shots of whisky and a change of underpants, not necessarily in that order.
“You . . . er . . . you’re not going to . . . you know, with the mind-killing thing?”
“You?” said Socrates. “No, no. I’m not going to kill you. Can’t say the same for your friends, though. I’ve already wiped them. They won’t remember you, your gang, this attack, or anything else once they’ve pulled themselves together.13 Try to give them a fresh start. Steer them toward some kind of productive activity. Teaching might be nice.”
He shook the syringe and then crouched down beside Llewellyn Llewellyn. Encountering no resistance, he injected something into Llewellyn’s forearm.
“Ernk?” asked Llewellyn Llewellyn, his silver tongue momentarily tarnished by abject terror.
“Nano-transmitters,” said Socrates. “Very effective. They’ll send a signal if you come within twelve hundred kilometres of City Hall. Remember that number, Mr. Llewellyn. Twelve hundred kilometres. If you come within twelve hundred kilometres of the Spire, I’ll know exactly where you are. I’ll pay you a visit. You won’t enjoy it.”
“But . . . but why?” Llewellyn Llewellyn managed. “And why wipe them and not me?” he added, never having heard the one about gift horses and mouths.
“It’s a new approach to criminal justice,” said Socrates. “There’s no point in punishing criminals. It’s better to stop crime at the source. A balance of rehabilitation and deterrence.”
“Huh?”
“I don’t know,” said Socrates, dismissively, “some economist thought it up. I just do the legwork. Anyway, your friends over there have been rehabilitated,” he said, nodding toward the writhing bits of the Eighth Street Chapter’s casualties. “You’re being deterred. And, if you’re the type of fellow I think you are, you’ll continue to mix with other thugs, you’ll tell them about tonight, and they’ll think twice before they try to attack defenceless noobs and DDH14 guides. That’s what they call general deterrence, by the way. Funny how respect for the law can be contagious.”
“But . . . but why us?” asked Llewellyn Llewellyn. “I mean, I’m sure you have bigger fish to fry, we’re just into small stuff, you know, a mugging here and there, nothing serious, we —”
“You have information I need,” said Socrates. “And now you’re going to give it to me.”
“Um . . . yeah, of course . . . sure, yes, whatever you need,” said Llewellyn Llewellyn, trying to think of additional ways of indicating absolute and unconditional co-operation.
“Good man,” said Socrates. “Let’s start with everything you know about Ian Brown and Tonto Choudhury.”
* * *
12Projected Daily Economic effect: the estimated daily effect the target’s continued existence has on the client’s welfare. Examples of high-PDE clients might include a business competitor who undermines the client’s wealth, a politician who blocks a needed zoning change or license, or, in many cases, a spouse. The elimination of a single high-PDE target can support an assassin in grand style for more than a year.
13This was Socrates’ favourite joke. He was an assassin, not a comedian.
14Detroit Department of Hygiene.
Chapter 7
Up-to-the-minute polling reveals that 86 per cent of readers who’ve reached this point in the narrative happily accept that Ian died when struck by a train, that he awoke in an afterlife that failed to correspond to popular expectations, and that he spent an unspecified period of time in a netherworldly mental institution. They also accept that he was accompanied by an Indian guide named Tonto while occasionally pursued by an undead philosopher-assassin armed with an impressive array of lethal, high-tech gadgets. In short, these readers believe what they’ve been told. These readers are straight-shooting, early-rising, salt-of-the-earth types who like to take things at face value, trust their neighbours, pay their taxes, go to bed early, and never, ever, skip to the last page of a book.
The remaining 14 per cent of the readership includes mistrustful skeptics who suspect the moon landing was staged, that professional wrestling matches are faked, and that the Society of Freemasons is something more than a club for creepy introverts who fancy stonework and complicated handshakes. These readers — these su
spicious, contrary-minded, and insufferably skeptical readers — refuse to accept what they’ve been told. They believe, despite the evidence, that things in Detroit are not exactly as they seem.
These readers shouldn’t be trusted. Please ignore them and enjoy the rest of the story.
Chapter 8
Slipknot Holloway’s Annotated Bestiary describes the inverse chameleon as the 232nd strangest creature in Detroit. This inoffensive, newt-like lizard has the unhappy distinction of being the most nutritious, flavourful, easily digested, and conveniently bite-sized member of Detroit’s animal kingdom. It is also brightly coloured, virtually blind, completely toothless, remarkably clumsy, and slower than an injured snail in line at a passport office. It is the favoured quarry of 78 per cent of predators living in its environment, including enterprising herbivores who’ve learned that inverse chameleons offer less by way of resistance than most cabbages.
Nature has not been kind to the inverse chameleon.
Faced with its numerous disadvantages, the inverse chameleon has adopted a peculiar strategy for coping with its environment. Unlike the common, colour-changing variety of chameleon, the inverse chameleon does not alter its own appearance in order to blend in with its surroundings. It cannot change its colour, camouflage itself, or otherwise fade into the background in the hope of avoiding detection. Instead, the inverse chameleon changes its mind about its surroundings, allowing predators, natural hazards, and other terminal dangers to fade, as it were, into the background of the inverse chameleon’s perceptual frame of reference. Rather than aiming to be ignored by dangerous predators, the inverse chameleon ignores them. It achieves this useful form of ignorance by focusing its attention on trivial matters to the exclusion of large-scale dangers.
It will be apparent that this particular coping strategy — dubbed vexum sublimatus by experts at Detroit University’s Department of Iguanic Studies and Non-Humanoid Linguistics — has no apparent survival benefit for the inverse chameleon. But it does make the creature’s brief and peril-ridden life somewhat more bearable than it otherwise would be.
Many experts in the field of Iguanic Studies believe that inverse chameleons evolved the practice of vexum sublimatus over countless generations through the painstaking process of natural selection.
The truth is that they picked it up from humans.
Humans — described in Holloway’s Bestiary as the most unusual creatures in the universe — are nature’s undisputed champions of vexum sublimatus. Thus it is that 84 per cent of people struck by buses spend their terminal moments fretting about the cleanliness of their underpants; thus it is that middle-aged men, finally facing their own mortality, spend several hours each day worrying about the appeal they hold for buxom women half their age; and thus it is that many earthlings, faced with an astonishing array of environmental threats and mortal dangers, focus instead on taking the perfect selfie.
And thus it was that Ian — who really ought to have been curled up in a ball whimpering over his recent death and subsequent confinement in a mental institution — was instead trying to wrap his mind around the rules of Brakkit while sitting at a card table with Rhinnick and six Napoleons.
Ian had met the six Napoleons on his third day in the hospice. By now — exactly two weeks after washing out of the Styx — he’d gotten used to having them around. For those readers who have never met a Napoleon, a word or two of explanation might be warranted.
The Napoleon Complex was first identified by West-Central Detroit’s most celebrated psychologist, Dr. Isabelle Napoleon, at the Ainsworth-Halperin Centre for Advanced Psychological Study in the year of the Simpering Finch, 16,983 AD.15 Dr. Napoleon discovered that patients afflicted with this condition present a distinct array of symptoms, the most noteworthy of which include a persistent inferiority complex, heightened aggression, an almost superhuman talent for military strategy, and a characteristic pattern of speech caused by a slight deformity in the Napoleonic Brain. This last symptom, known as the Napoleonic Cadence, leads those suffering from the Napoleon Complex to place the em-PHA-sis on the incorrect syl-LA-ble when they speak, and frequently robs zem of zere ability to pronounce ze “th.”
Lesser symptoms include an appreciation of mimes, mild addiction to pungent cheeses, and a pervasive rash on the subject’s upper abdomen (often leading to constant scratching).
Interestingly, Napoleons have a greatly increased likelihood of suffering from Beforelife Delusion. In Napoleons this disorder often presents as RBD (that is, Reincarnate Beforelife Delusion), in which the patient believes not only in death-before-life, but also in the potential of rebirth in the beforelife. This has led to speculation that if reincarnation were, in fact, possible, roughly 30 per cent of reincarnated people would return to the beforelife claiming to be a reincarnated Napoleon.
The six particular Napoleons relevant to the present narrative were, as has been indicated, seated around a card table with Rhinnick and Ian Brown. This particular card table was located in Detroit Mercy Hospice’s Sharing Room, a standard activity room such as one might find in primary schools, church basements, legion halls, and community centres everywhere. The Sharing Room was occupied by four Hospice Goons16 — standing guard by the doors and windows — as well as several dozen hospice patients pursuing approved sharing activities. The early evening air was filled with the sound of happy chatter and the mingled scents of fabric softener and mental health.
Napoleons, it turns out, have no particular aptitude for gambling (being inclined to go “all in” even when the odds are overwhelmingly stacked against them). As a result, the six Napoleons seated around the table were in the hole to the tune of $300,000 (backed by IOUs scribbled on paper napkins). All six Napoleons had folded out of the game and, as Napoleons are wont to do, thrown their support behind their respective conquerors: Napoleons Two and Five were now enthusiastic Ian-supporters while Napoleons One, Three, Four, and Six were firmly in camp Rhinnick. Ian — who by all accounts was having a monumental streak of beginner’s luck — was leading Rhinnick by 212,000 imaginary dollars (the difference between imaginary and real dollars lying exclusively in the number of people who say that they exist).
The game was Brakkit, which Rhinnick had introduced to Ian (roughly forty minutes earlier) as the single greatest card game ever conceived. Brakkit was, as far as Ian could tell, a game designed for the sole purpose of shifting wealth from novice players to veteran Brakkiteers. It involved the use of seventy-two cards of five suits as well as three eight-sided dice, a rubber ball, and a wooden cup. It had an inordinate number of convoluted rules, subrules, customs, and conventions, some of which varied with time of day, number of players, relative humidity, gender identity of dealer, snacks being served, and so forth. Think of it as an evolved form of bridge without the quaint, homespun simplicity.
“Sooooo,” said Ian, furrowing his brow while examining his cards, “the cards with an eyeball surrounded by squiggly lines —”
“It’s not an eyeball, chum,” said Rhinnick. “It’s the sun. The number of rays around the sun is the card’s value.”
“So an eyeball with six squiggly lines —”
“The six of suns, Ian. Suns. Not eyeballs.”
“Looks like an eyeball to me,” said Ian, reshuffling his hand.
“Look into Monsieur Rhinnick’s eyes,” said Napoleon Number Two (a devoted Ian-supporter). “See ze fear in zem? Rhinnick will not survive zis hand.” He elbowed Ian’s ribcage in what was meant to be an encouraging, friendly gesture before turning his attention back to the bowl of potato whizzies he was sharing with Napoleon Number Five.
Ian examined his cards for the space of several seconds, scratched his head, and squirmed uncomfortably in his seat. “So if I play the six of suns on your . . . wait, I know this one,” he said, “if I play it on your . . . your two of spires, then, er . . . hold it, I remember this —”
“That,” Rhinnick began, smili
ng his broad, salmony smile, “would turn the suit. Not really your best move under the circumstances, chum. See, if you —”
“Shhh, Monsieur Rhinnick,” interrupted Napoleon Number Three, using the hoarse sort of whisper generally reserved for animal documentaries. He nodded toward Ian, who was staring at his cards with apparent puzzlement. “Never interrupt your enemy when ’e iz making a mistake. Let him turn ze suit if ’e wants, and zen go in for ze kill.”
“I say,” said Rhinnick, in the manner of one whose gentlemanly sensibilities have been wounded. “No need to be so combative, Number Three. I mean to say, don’t get me wrong, if you were to ask around the hospice you’d find no end of Brakkiteers whom I’ve left quivering in an impecunious heap, if impecunious is the word I’m thinking of. Show me a seasoned Brakkiteer who’s in need of a bit of fleecing, and fleece away, says Rhinnick. But here we’re dealing with a novice,” he continued, inclining his head toward Ian. “A certifiable, rank amateur — a babe in the woods, as the expression is. I’m helping him learn the rules. You can’t expect me to take advantage of —”
“Pfft,” said Napoleon Number Four (a petite female Napoleon of the strawberry-blonde persuasion).17 “Learn ze rules. Pah! Look in front of ’im,” she continued, adjusting her curls and nodding at Ian’s impressive mound of Brakkit chips and IOUs. “Zees novice playeure ’az all of ze money already. ’E iz bluffing, drawing you een, leading you toward une trappe. ’E iz un sharque du cards.”
Beforelife Page 7