Superego

by Frank J. Fleming

  “Don’t give me the ‘greater good’ crap!” Diane screamed as she moved her gun closer to Rudle’s face. “Don’t pretend this is about anything other than your own interests. You’re just another person profiting off the syndicates’ death and destruction, and I’m not interested in hearing whatever nonsense you tell yourself so you can sleep at night!”

  Rudle’s face turned stoic. “Fine. I don’t care about your damn opinion of me, you psycho. Who is the worse person here? Who actually murdered for those people?”

  “I’m not the one trying to justify it! I’m not the one trying to perpetuate it!” Diane was now seething. “They murdered my friend. And her family—her children! And you just cover it up for them like it’s nothing!”

  “I’m not covering up anything!” Rudle yelled, matching her anger. “You killed them! You brought this world to their doorstep! You aimed the gun right at them, you selfish bitch!” He rose to his feet and pointed at her. “If you wanted to do some good, you’d take that gun and—”

  Diane fired. Rudle fell back to the couch and slowly slumped down until he fell off it and became a motionless heap at Diane’s feet.

  I could have done without the pointless conversation, but at least it was over.

  But then I saw Diane staring at Rudle, a tear streaming down her cheek, and her gun hand trembling like it was her first time killing someone. I walked over to her. It looked like she needed some support, and all I could think of to do was put my arm around her. “It had to be done.”

  She looked at me. I felt like I should have had a supportive expression, but I didn’t know what that was. “He was egging me on. He wanted me to kill him.”

  “Well, then he got what he wanted.”

  “It means behind the bravado he felt remorse. He felt remorse, but I was too filled with rage to care.”

  He’d been in our way and we needed him dead; it was just so far beyond my understanding why this was emotional for her. “This isn’t an easy situation; we have to cut ourselves some slack.”

  “Let’s just get it done.” She bent down and found Rudle’s wallet and took his police station access card. “Let’s hurt the syndicates as much as we can and hope that keeps them from destroying any more lives.”

  “Are you going to be okay?”

  She picked up her drink and quickly downed what was left. “No. I’m not, and I need to come to terms with the fact that I never will be. I’m only good for one thing: destruction. I just need to make sure it’s directed at the right people.” She looked at me, her face rather serious. I tensed for the question. “So you’re the real Nystrom assassin.”

  “Something like that,” I answered, though it wasn’t really a question.

  “And they had you handling the terrorist attacks?”

  I didn’t have the energy to keep up the subterfuge. It had been a mentally draining time for me, trying to be the person she needed. I just hoped she wouldn’t ask too many questions. “I didn’t know it at the time, but that was part of the plan. They had the terrorists attack the city so I could be the big hero and stop them.”

  She shook her head. “They had terrorists murder random people as a small part of some other plan—like the attacks on Zaldia. These people have to be stopped. I can’t tolerate their existence in the universe anymore.”

  “You know, even if we’re completely successful in this, we’re not going to end them with this one act.”

  “It will be a start.” Diane glanced one last time at Rudle and headed for the door. “A nice, bloody start.”

  CHAPTER 35

  It was called the Gray Beetle. Gray would not have been the word I would have used to describe its color, and it didn’t in any way resemble the Earth animal known as a beetle. It was just a big, nearly black, hulking mass of a vehicle with a battering ram on front. It possessed extra-powerful thrust engines to allow it to break through walls while hovering. That would be fun to use…especially in unintended ways.

  And it wasn’t that hard to steal, since we had Rudle’s access card. There were a lot of feds hanging around the police station lately, so we wore suits and dark glasses. Diane made her hair black for the occasion, and I went with the fake facial hair again. We simply strolled in late at night as if we belonged and headed into the controlled garage when no one was around. In a couple minutes’ time, we took off in the Gray Beetle. We landed in an empty lot far out of the way, disabled its locating device, and then took it back near Diane’s hideout.

  I noticed Diane had been very quiet. For a while I assumed she was just focused on the task at hand, but she also just seemed more distant to me. Something was going on with her, but I wasn’t sure what. I started to realize that not knowing the other person’s thoughts was one of the more infuriating aspects of interacting with other people. Usually there was nothing more irrelevant to me than the vapid thoughts of others. The only time I cared what others were thinking was when I was engaged in combat, but fear often brought my enemies’ thoughts to the surface and made them quite evident. Starting to care about someone, though, made her thoughts surprisingly of interest to me, but they were also disappointingly impenetrable. I thought perhaps I should just leave her to work them out herself, but that conclusion was partially based on my not knowing what else to do.

  “I have quite a bit of info,” Dip told me. “Are you ready for it? I could send it to your local console.”

  I sat down at the small computer table in the hideout. Diane came and stood behind me. “Did Dip get what we needed?”

  “I’m finding out. Dip, why don’t you move to the computer’s audio so Diane can hear you?”

  “Because I might inadvertently reveal something you don’t want me to, but I’ll try it out.” His cheery voice now came through speakers on the computer. “Can you hear me?”

  “I can hear you,” Diane said. “Nice to finally meet you…and to know Rico’s not just talking to an imaginary friend in his head.” She seemed to perk up a bit; perhaps having another person to talk to—or a reasonable facsimile of a person—made her feel less isolated.

  “Nice to finally talk personally to you, too…What alias do you prefer?”

  And then her mood deflated a bit. “Diane, I guess.”

  “Then I will use that instead of what I have recorded as your legal name.”

  “Just get to it, Dip,” I said.

  “Certainly.” The screen changed to a number of images of Galactic Alliance officials. “These are Gredler’s own files on the people who will be attending the conference, including which criminal syndicates they’re linked to.”

  Diane studied the data. “This matches my own research. A number are Nystrom bought-and-paid-for, but not enough to influence the vote on the change in the Alliance—but they’re probably the ones who will be propped up as leaders in Nystrom’s power grab. Is this everyone who will be in attendance?”

  “The list matches all the main officials who will be in the closed conference,” Dip answered. “They’ll each be accompanied by their own aides and security teams.”

  “And we can be sure with all the notice of Nystrom’s intentions, those extra people will be syndicate thugs,” I said.

  “So many evil people…in one room.” I could see the passion come back to Diane’s face. It was like a dog staring at a juicy steak.

  “As for building security,” Dip said, “Gredler tried to check up on that himself. And since he has full access, I now have full access and should be able to manipulate it until the codes are changed.”

  A number of different ideas ran through my head. “Good.”

  “Finally, when Gredler checked on his escape plan, that included the current access code for traffic over the city. That will only allow access, though, if sky control isn’t being particularly observant.”

  I had plans for that. “Will you be able to get a craft into the conference if it’s a one-way trip?”

  “Um…that is certainly possible.”

  “Um?” I aske
d.

  “It’s an optional syllable I can use when I’m busy processing information and trying to come up with a response. You told me to stop using it, but it’s supposed to make me sound more human, so I thought I should use it again for the benefit of your guest, who may appreciate more human-ness.”

  Diane smiled. “Well, thanks.”

  “It did seem considerate, based on my considerate heuristics. Anyway, I have a few extra notes for you. As I am required by my programming to point out, your guest with the alias Diane is a wanted criminal, and what you’re doing now is considered aiding and abetting by this planet’s laws.”

  I sighed. “Thanks, Dip; that’s really useful.”

  “Also, you seem to be planning a mass slaughter of Galactic Alliance officials. This is also illegal.”

  “Got it. Anything else?”

  “Actually, I have something for Diane.”

  “Really? What?” she asked.

  “To help with my data, I was wondering if I could ask you some questions about your impressions of Rico. We can skip over the ones that are sexual in nature if that makes you uncomfortable.”

  “That’s enough, Dip. You can disconnect.”

  I saw that Diane was giggling. “Well, he’s an interesting fellow.” For some reason, it made me happy to see her happy. But the happiness didn’t last long. “So,” she said, becoming quickly more serious, “this is going to be pretty big, isn’t it?”

  “Well, that’s the point. No one will be able to ignore this. Everyone will see how embedded the syndicates are within the government.”

  She nodded. “They’re so powerful—so vile. What else can we do?” She had an odd smile. “No choice, really.” And she was silent for a while—that frustrating unreadable silence where I knew something was going on her head I wasn’t privy to. And then suddenly she was all over me, kissing me and pulling off my clothes. It was a little weird. But I went with it.

  She was much more aggressive this time, though strangely distant. I sensed she was trying really hard to get lost in the moment; I figured it wasn’t so much that she felt passion for me as that she wanted an opportunity to escape her reality for a while.

  Or maybe that was just in my own head. Maybe I had to admit that I didn’t really know her motives. I was afraid that since she had a better idea who I really was, she would begin to reject me. Yet here she was, making love to me again, but I wasn’t sure what that meant.

  Afterward, she seemed to avoid eye contact. Maybe she was ashamed. I didn’t know, and it was driving me crazy.

  So I did what I always did when the world around me turned chaotic. I focused on the task at hand.

  “We have a lot of work to do,” I said as I got dressed. She nodded, doing the same. I spent some time looking over our weapons, preparing the explosives, and studying the layout of the capitol building we’d gotten from Gredler. I needed to have the plan well memorized, as well as the backup plan and the backup to the backup plan. That’s always my advantage in these situations: no hesitation. I know exactly what I’m doing now and what I’m doing next. That simple sense of purpose in every situation is always such a comfort—to get lost in the moment and not worry about later. There is just the job at hand and nothing else.

  But the truth is it was always so fleeting. I could live like that for moments, but my life as a whole would always be an aimless mess struggling for purpose. What was the solution to that? I didn’t know. There probably wasn’t one. I just kinda wanted to believe there was one.

  I looked at Diane, who wasn’t working but was instead sitting on the bed looking at a handheld. From the emotions showing on her face, what she was looking at wasn’t mission-related. “What’s the matter?” I asked.

  “I’m sorry, but I had to check on my church.” A tear glided down her cheek. “They’ve been my family for a decade, and I couldn’t just mentally abandon them. I’m not that person anymore.”

  This wasn’t helpful, but there was nothing to do about it now. “How are they?”

  “On their message page, they announced that tomorrow is the funeral for Hana and her family. And then they left a message for me…” She started to lose it. “They said…that they love me and are praying for me.”

  “Do you think they believe you killed Hana and her family?”

  “If they did, that’s all the more reason I would need prayers.” She looked up at me. “I wonder what they’ll think of this massacre we’re planning.”

  “No point in wondering,” I said. “It’s the only way to try and strike back at the syndicates. It’s what we have to do.”

  “No choice,” she whispered. She was quiet for a few seconds and then set down her handheld. “I can’t do this anymore.”

  My reaction to this was unusual for me. A tingle down my spine. I think it was a physical manifestation of fear. “What do you mean?”

  “Rudle was right: I’m such a hypocrite. Just look at this place.” She set the handheld down and stood up. “I wanted a second chance, but I kept this place and stocked it with weapons ‘just in case.’ Just in case of what? I decided I wanted to be Melanie again? I set a trap for myself, and now I’m spiraling downward into it. I’m making all the same mistakes again. And I’m telling myself that this is my only choice—this is my only path—the same lies that kept me trapped for so long. I’m marching right into the abyss again, and…I just need to stop. I can’t go through with the plan.”

  I decided to try logic, though I suspected we were not operating in that realm. “All the syndicates will be there—this is our one big chance.”

  “I know. I kept telling myself that. This is for the greater good—but that’s not what this is about to me. I’m angry; I want revenge. And it’s all happening again. You saw how coldly I struck down Rudle. I’m tired of feeling so hollow inside. I’m done.”

  I took a deep breath and tried to think of the situation from her perspective. “Then what? We just let them all get away with it?”

  That gave her a moment’s pause, though I didn’t really believe I had gotten anywhere with her. “We can give the information we have to others who can maybe act on it, but I’m not going to be part of a slaughter. I can’t pretend it’s righteous or that it must be done. There have been tyrants all throughout history, and they live, and they fall. This isn’t worth my soul.”

  I decided one last try at an emotional appeal. “And the killers of your friend, her husband, and her children?”

  She teared up. She was silent for a few moments and a couple times looked like she was about to speak but couldn’t bring herself to say the words she had in mind. Finally the tears stopped, and her conviction seemed to firm up. “I know what I’m supposed to do, but I can’t bring myself to say it. I’m too angry—I want to hurt the people who murdered my friends. I want to see them suffer. It’s just like with my parents. And I know how empty that is, but I’m drawn to it. I’m just so filled with hate for them, but I know what I have to do to break free…it’s very hard. These people who destroyed my friends, my family…and me…they’re just like us. They’re broken people who need my sympathy, not my violence. I can’t control their actions, but I can do the greatest thing that is in my power to do. I…” She choked up but quickly got a hold of herself. “I can forgive them. I’m through seeking comfort in the suffering of others.”

  She cried some more—I didn’t know if it was out of sadness or relief. “Should I just continue this alone, then? It’s how I usually work anyway.”

  She snapped out of it a bit to grab my hand. “No, Rico. I still don’t know everything about you, but I know you’re in a dark place, too. And I’m not even trying to help; I’m just letting you take this doomed path with me.”

  I chuckled. “Sweetheart, you really don’t know me, because you haven’t dragged me down anywhere. This is by far the best I’ve ever been in my life.”

  “What I do know about you is that you can be so much more. That I can be so much more. But we have to leave th
is life behind. It sounds like with some help Dip could extract us from here. We can just leave this mess and not let it destroy us. I don’t want to leave my family here, but it’s the only choice I have to keep them safe.”

  “Then go. Leave me to what I do best.”

  “No, I’m not going to do this alone this time.” She touched my cheek and pushed against me. “We’ll go together. Start a new life together.”

  “You don’t even know me.”

  “I know enough. I know…” She hesitated, her lip trembling slightly. “…I love you.”

  As I looked into her eyes, sincere and longing, I knew she really meant it. I felt warmth on my cheek—something moving on it. A tear? Just that one statement broke me down. Simple words, yet it was like a spacecraft had plowed into me and left me paralyzed. I stood there, trying to comprehend what was happening to me, then realized there was nothing to comprehend. I loved her; she loved me. Was there anything more perfect? And I leaned in to kiss her.

  And then the logical part of my brain finally broke up the party. Because where was this going? I could try settling down with her and living a quiet life—maybe have kids, which was just an abhorrent idea to me—but I would soon get bored. And then I would probably kill her, because it would be logical. I certainly would kill any children, because that was also logical, as they would mean nothing to me but might one day want vengeance. In the end, that’s all I really am: a simple, logical being. I had some irrational emotions after all, which right now were telling me I didn’t want to see Diane hurt, though they couldn’t really provide reasons. But my logical side is the greater one. It’s how I’ve survived. It’s all I’ve really cared about. Being reasonable. And occasionally engaging my id with a little fun gun play.

  So why was I here on this doomed path with some woman? Because I was in love with her. And these feelings for her kept me from wanting to think things through, because I knew where that would lead. I didn’t want to face what I knew logic would tell me: that my relationship with her would only lead to tragedy. The happiest possible outcome was that she would die in this foolish assault against the syndicates while still believing the lie that I was someone who could ever love her back in the way she deserved.