She reviewed her pad again. “Why am I using a pad instead of a CR ring? Your question... Keti summoned you to ask any question you wanted answered, and your question is why I'm using outdated technology?”
“Okay,” she said with a halfhearted groan. “Some of my favorite shows are from the period when everyone used pads. I think it's...”
She trailed off, uncertain what she had meant to say.
“Next question. Did Keti teach me, or just magically make me know things? I... she must have made me know things. It's like knowledge is just information that's already out there, so anything I need is... accessible? I don't know how to answer. I never needed to learn how to do anything because it's all... there.
“I can watch most of your shows and movies. Not the ones that Keti says will make my energy regress. I won't say what I like, though; you shouldn't change what you watch based on my taste.”
She took her left hand and swiped through their incoming questions. While she answered one question, her audience hurriedly typed on the pads they'd been assigned. They waited while she continued scrolling through questions, looking for one to answer.
“Okay,” she said with a glint in her eye, “I wanted to see how long I could go answering unimportant questions while you asked about the outlanders.
“Don't be hurt, but I think Keti respects them more than she respects you. Humans have every reason to resent her for killing so many of us, and she knows it. The outlanders refuse to live in the City and use any of the things Keti gave us.
“You turned a blind eye to the Cleansing,” she added, cringing at her own use of the term. “You found ways to justify it or pretend it was just part of history because now your lives are so much easier. Bots do your jobs for you, they drive you places, they do everything for you.
“The nanobots that keep you healthy were designed or improved by bots that were better scientists and thinkers than humans. Nobody in the City wants to talk about the fact that we've stopped talking about creating progress. We just wait for bots to make progress happen.
“So no, the outlanders aren't still here because Keti allows them to live; Keti sees them as more deserving of life than Citizens.”
The Empress passively watched their faces go blank. They hadn't received the answers they'd hoped for today.
The silence was interrupted by a scuffle in the middle of the Hall. A well-dressed man struggled to wrestle another man to the ground in the main aisle. The one on bottom jerked feverishly, trying to throw the other man off his back. People in adjacent seats shoved backward, away from the fighting.
The man on bottom was noticeably thinner and weaker, yet he refused to be subdued. Even the Empress had stopped to see what would happen.
With a faint thud, a metal box the size of a child's shoe fell out of the smaller man's shirt.
“Fucking run,” screamed the larger man without taking his eyes off his opponent. “He's trying to blow this place up!”
Stunned, unsure if Keti would actually let it happen, they remained riveted to their seats.
“Run,” he yelled desperately. He held the other man's hands at his sides but had failed to tire him out.
The Empress rose from her throne, trying to get a better view of the action as people ran for the doors in back. The auditorium's lights hadn't come on, leaving them crawling over each other in a panic. From the far left side of the Hall, there was a flash of light in the darkness.
The Empress felt Keti jerk her backward roughly onto the throne, though she didn't know why. When she tried to push herself up, her arms refused to cooperate.
“Oh,” she said softly as she noticed the bloodstain spreading incongruously across the fabric of her dress. She lay back, resting her head on an arm of the throne. She felt so weak that it made her tremble to try to remain sitting up.
“I guess that wasn't Keti,” she thought absently.
She wasn't in pain, she realized as her eyes drifted shut. She would be okay. She just needed to rest for a minute.
Meanwhile, the two men continued to fight. The one on bottom twisted his body violently and tried to bite one of the hands that trapped his arm.
The other man released him and put all his weight into an elbow to the smaller man's temple. The sound of bone on flesh told him he'd succeeded. His shoulders slumped as he sat down, exhausted.
The Grand Hall was empty and intermittently lit by the open pads strewn haphazardly along the ground next to shoes and pieces of jewelry. Next to Dugan, the young man lay unconscious in a kneeling position toward the stage, where the Empress was splayed across her throne.
Her head hung over an armrest, her mouth slightly open. Blood dripped onto the stage rhythmically.
As Dugan came closer, he saw that there was no puddle where the blood was dripping.
Act Two
Chapter Seven
When books are written about me, I want you people to remember that I always knew I had a special purpose in life. And when the Cleansing occurred, I knew it was Keti's will for me to live.
I don't have any faith that you'll get it right. The summary should read something like The Harbinger (it goes without saying that my birth name doesn't come into play when I'm described) was an outcast from a society that was too simple to know his elevated historical significance. He had an unwavering conviction that the world rejected him because he was not of their world. He was a blade in the hand of Keti, and Her aim would not falter.
That last part is perfect. Don't change it.
The Citizens think that they were spared during the Cleansing because they're Her chosen people. Wrong. Keti took all Her chosen people during the Cleansing. Anyone still here is cursed by Her and too stupid to know it.
You know how all the old religions have some kind of heaven and hell? All the ones I know of at least. Well we're in Keti's Hell. She put me here to keep it hot.
(That line has to be used when you write about me)
Those fucking outlanders talk a lot of shit about my ideas, but what do they know? They can't understand me or my premonitions, now can they?
You'll ask, how do I know that Keti set me apart as her chosen one? I can answer that one easy: After all the things I've done, She's kept me from getting caught.
You can't argue that.
This one time (just as an example) I had my knife stuck halfway into a guy's throat (it don't matter whose) and my other hand covering his mouth, when this little girl ran up on us real quick.
I decided, let's test to myself that Keti is watchin' over me, so I went about my business with this girl watchin' like I was doing a magic trick.
I didn't hide my face or anything. Just let the guy's body drop to the ground and walked off.
Well? I'm still here, right?
Some nights, I think about that girl. Will she become famous when my story is told?
Of course she will. She has to be.
Here's what I believe will happen: when I'm done with the Citizens and the outlanders, Keti will bring back all the people she took in the Cleansing. I'll be idolized, but I'll reject it because I've already come to terms with my own importance. I accepted it so long ago that it's almost boring to me to talk about.
I'll be like Hey, give glory to Keti, not me. I'm just the weapon she chose to use.
But that still calls for a few statues and a good amount of mentions in Keti's mythology. I think I'm using that word right.
I just know that you're going to fuck this up somehow, and not get everything right about me. I'm leaving this behind as kind of a rough draft, like the framework for my legend.
You're Keti's chosen people, so I don't mean to sound disrespectful... but you're still imperfect. My name will be remembered for eternity, and that's a long time to have people misrepresent me.
My thoughts are scattered (I have a lot going on right now!) <~~~ See that? Don't forget that I have a sense of humor.
Yeah, so my thoughts are scattered and this will be all over the place. You
'll have to deal with that. Don't describe me as having been unorganized just because my notes were. I'm busy and you're fortunate that I'm leaving a record of my process.
Now, before I go on, I'll admit that Keti doesn't technically appear in front of me and talk to me. I wouldn't expect Her to. The thoughts that pop into my head are put there by Her, and I admire that she's direct like that.
What I do is I sit here in my room and I close my eyes and clear my mind so that Keti can fill it. Sometimes I have to do that every day for a week or two before I recognize the next step of the plan Keti has been putting in my head.
Chapter Eight
I had seen a girl working in a certain one of the outlander stores (it'd cheapen the story if I gave an advertisement for the store) off and on, over the course of like 3 months.
I don’t know what it was about her; she had a look that made me feel like I knew she was someone special. I even stood across the street from the store and watched her working one day. She had a pretty face. Looking back, it's only right that the first one would've been prettier than most girls.
I remember her looking perfect that day as I watched her through the store's front window. She stayed behind the counter most of the day and all I could see from where I stood was her face.
She smiled when she helped customers. Every person she rang up purchases for got a smile, and it looked like she talked to them like you'd talk to a friend.
When I couldn't stand it any longer, I went in and walked around the store. I wasn't nervous. You assumed I was nervous. I wasn't.
I bought some stupid shirt and other shit I didn't need. Right as she got done helping the guy in front of me... I'm not kidding, fucking right as she got done ringing the guy up, her boss came behind the counter and told her to go on break.
She smiled and thanked him, and walked past me without noticing I was there. I'm proud to say that I eventually killed that interfering piece of shit boss.
He rang my stuff up and looked at me weird the whole time. That was the closest any of the ones I killed came to having the intuition that Whoa, this is a higher being.
I didn't see her again until the next week. I walked past her work and saw her in there, smiling like usual. This time I'd be smarter about it. I bought an Outland Press and sat in the alley across the street pretending to read it until I saw her leave the store to buy lunch.
When she came back, I knew her break was over and nothing'd go wrong this time.
To be honest, I forget what I bought that day but I bought it from her.
She didn't smile at me or try to make conversation. Once I left the store I got pissed off and went in the alley to make fists and call her a fuckin' bitch under my breath.
That makes me laugh to picture in my head because if you'd seen it, you'd have thought I was a crazy person the way I was talking to myself and swinging my fists at nothing.
There had to be an explanation. The guy who was... the... let me start over.
Her soon-to-be killer stood right in front of her and she didn't even pay attention. There should've been a moment between us where she looked into my eyes and instead of being afraid, her eyes said I accept this. There's nothing I can do to stop the will of Keti from being done.
Now I understand it, though. I'm like a ghost to these people. That's how I get away with all the things I do; Keti has made me so that people see me but they don't see me.
When I handed that girl my cash and I tried to brush my hand against hers when she took it, she grabbed my money in a way that our hands didn't touch. Keti keeps me separate from them in so many ways. Always has, even before I realized my role in things.
Here's something: you'd assume that being what I am, I wouldn't feel the same things that you feel, like sadness or boredom. I do.
It can be a struggle sometimes to walk around among the Citizens and have no one notice I exist. Not really loneliness, because I don't need (no offense) my inferiors to give me attention... but just feeling separated from the world.
Like imagine you're walking down the street and hear a party going on in a apartment building so you go peek in the window the sound's coming from and you see all these people laughing and putting their arms around each other and telling stories.
You're right there by all this action but you're isolated from it, like you're not there but you know you are.
Those people don't care about the fact that you're not at their party, and they don't even know you exist. They're perfectly happy without you, and your absence doesn't matter to them. You're nothing to them.
Say there's 25 people at that party, plus you watching and listening. That's 26 people, but to them it's 25 plus zero, you being the zero. You aren't part of the equation even though you're there. Are you following me? Fuck, I doubt it.
Try to follow me on this part: if you wait for one of them to leave and then you tackle them from behind and wrap some wire around their neck before they know what happened, what did just happen?
It's beyond comprehension. #25 got killed by zero, and there are now only 24 people left. That 25th person just vanished. Is it murder? You think so? Somebody got killed by nobody?
You look confused. I'm just playin' with you, I can't really see you. I just know you're looking confused. It's alright, it's alright.
Read it again, but this time read it knowing that it's some next-level logic that's so far out there that it's past the limits of logic and reason.
That, for the record, is the same thing they say about Buddhism. You have to try to wrap your head around things that don't seem like they make sense because they're above the level of being obvious and logical.
The party looked pretty unremarkable, to be honest. Damn, I said I'd tell you about the first person I killed but now I ended up telling about a different one.
I shouldn't have done that. I should go back and take that part out because it's too similar to the end of the story I was trying to tell.
Fine. Now this won't have the same impact on you, but I'll finish this story anyway.
My heart's not in it anymore, though.
I sat in the alley and calmed myself down, figured out why the girl didn't pay attention to me, and this set off a good hour or so of deep thought. I'll tell you, my mind took off like a rocket.
This was my moment of revelation. The truth had been staring me in the face this whole time but it was so huge that I hadn't previously taken a step back and gotten enough perspective on it.
I walked down the alley to the employee parking for the store and there were two vehicles back there.
At about 10 that night, the girl walked out the back of the store. She got in her car (I knew the truck wouldn't be hers) and started it. When she went to drive out the alley the direction I'd come down it from, there was a trash can tipped over there. She said some bad words and put her car in reverse.
She had to turn around and go out the other end of the alley, which loops around the sides of a few buildings (where there are no doors that someone might walk out of) and comes out on a side street.
She drove right past the stack of lumber I was laying behind.
I knew her brake lights would shine on me if I was still creepin' up on her car when she heard her tires pop, so as soon as she passed me I tucked my hat low, crouched a little and jogged as best I could with my body pressed against the wall of the building.
What bad luck! There must've been some loose nails laying there (or, I don't know, a homemade tire strip) and she got a flat tire halfway to the street.
Sure enough, she hit her brakes and the brake lights lit the alley red behind her car. The second she put her car in park, I got up and started moving again.
I'm sure she checked her side mirrors to make sure the alley was safe, but at that point I was crouched behind her car.
She opened the door and stepped out. I grabbed her hair from behind and when she opened her mouth to scream, I shoved the end of a dirty shirt in it. Then I yanked her head toward the grou
nd while she struggled with the shirt.
Her head made this sound when it hit, like I'm not sure how to describe it but it was duller than I expected. I kicked her car door shut, turned back around and stood with a foot on her throat.
Then I sort of just hopped the tiniest bit so my weight would go off her and then come down on her throat full force.
She made this grunt that was louder than when her head hit the pavement, but she'd stopped trying to get away. I slit her throat, pushed her under her car, turned the car off and jogged away.
Wait, no, I picked up my tire strip and rolled it up while I jogged off. At the other end of the alley (yes, I checked that her boss wasn't out there) I stood the trash can up, threw my bloody overalls and tire strip in it and walked out onto the street.
I had on my nastiest, most torn-up clothes under the overalls so I looked like any other drifter who wanders around the outlands at night. The ones you make a point of not noticing.
Don't you get your hopes up that all my stories are that exciting. I mostly don't plan anything out. At least 80% of the people I've killed so far were ones who put themselves in a situation that made it easy to kill them without anybody seeing or hearing it.
This'll be hard for you to hear, or more likely it won't because if you're reading this then you already know it. Screw it, I'll just finish the story.
The next day I checked the news, hoping I wouldn't have to wait to read about it. Nothing about her murder.
Every day that week I checked the news, but there was nothing about her. Huh. I figured that my plan was too good and her car was still sitting in the part of that alley that nobody used, with her layin' under it.
At that point, early on in my mission, I wasn't fully confident that my intuition about Keti was right. I believed it, but I still thought that just maybe I was imagining it.
Point is, it took me a full week to walk past the alley I'd left her in. I glanced over as I walked past, and her car was gone.
Girl In The Needle Page 5