“So… you think that someone is killing everyone who came into contact with this machine?”
He shrugged. “Don’t know, don’t care. All I’m interested in is payin’ off your daddy’s debt to The Farm, so that I can get us back to doin’ good work.”
“But you have to admit that it’s a possibility…” She pressed.
“Everything’s a possibility in Reichelt Park, chère.” He returned to looking out the window. “This has always been a sordid lil’ town, where impossibilities are only temporary.”
“So, just to be clear: you have no idea who’s doing this or why?”
“I can think of heaps of reasons why folks would want the Doucets and Merridew dead.” He answered nonchalantly. “They weren’t exactly beloved ‘round town, especially not lately. Doucet was borrowin’ money and not payin’ it back, his son was a whiny twerp, and Merridew was sellin’ out the community to mainstreamers. That don’t sit well with some folks.”
“But enough to blow up a warehouse to kill him?” She made an uncertain face. “I don’t buy it.”
He shrugged again. “Like I said: none of my business either way.”
They sat in silence for several blocks more.
“Thank you.” She told him finally, glancing at him while still trying to keep her eyes on the road.
“’Bout?”
“Thank you for telling me about Anderson Observatory.”
“It’s your daddy’s mess.” He informed her simply.
“But you obviously don’t want to talk about it, so I’m glad you did.” She was silent for a beat. “What did the machine do exactly?”
Thraex snorted in amusement. “I was countin’ to three, Miss Sasha, I swear I was. I knew you wouldn’t be able to let it drop, no matter how ominous I made it sound.”
“I have a natural curiosity about science, particularly if it’s something that could scare you.” Honestly, she couldn’t even imagine such a thing. Thraex wasn’t scared of anything, but whatever her father had bankrolled at Anderson Observatory… it terrified him.
“There are some things in this world that man wasn’t meant to mess with, Miss Sasha.” He ran his hands over his face. “Your mama, she said to me once, she said: “Thraex, there is nothing scarier in the world than the realization that there are things we can’t understand. Things in this universe that the human mind is not strong enough to conceive of or withstand against.’” He nodded. “She wasn’t talkin’ about that ‘God Machine’… but she was talkin’ about it all the same.”
Sasha pulled to a stop at another intersection and turned to look at him again. “What. Did. It. Do?” She demanded, carefully spacing out the words.
Thraex silently looked out the window, watching as the decorations for the Reichelt Park Festival were being put into place. “…It gave everyone a perfect world.” He said, his voice quiet and sad.
There was something about that tone which sent a chill up Sasha’s spine. She wasn’t sure why, but it was unnerving. And absolutely terrifying.
Thraex’s cell phone rang a second later and she jolted at the sudden noise.
He fished it out of his pocket. “What d'ya want?!” He all but shouted into it, then silently listened to the person on the other end. “I understand. I will be right there, thank you for notifying me.” He hung up the phone, then turned to look at her. “We gotta swing by the Decomposing Turtle on the way home. Kurtz is causin’ a scene again.”
Sasha swore silently to herself. “Why does he drink at the supervillain bar?”
Thraex put his phone away. “Because no other drinkin’ establishment in the city will even allow him through the door. Besides, all of the women he dates are trashy whores, so where else would he go?”
“He’s having a personal crisis.” She reminded him. “It’s not his fault.”
“He’s a drunken idiot who has tried to sleep with every woman in town but the Statue of Liberty.” Thraex retorted. “And Kurtz only dates women who treat him like shit.”
“Why?”
“I have no idea.” Thraex shrugged. “You’d have to ask him.” He went back to looking out the window. “We all make choices that are bad for us. But… but we make them anyway.”
****
Fifteen minutes later, the car was pulling up across the street from the Decomposing Turtle. The bar had been opened as long as anyone in the city could remember, serving “the wrong sort” of folks. It was a hard-scrabble kind of place, where nobody ever saw anything, not even the cops. Much like the Westgate Foundation, it seemed to be from another era. The kind of place which hated mainstreamers and resisted all impulses to be inviting to new people.
It was what it was and it made no apologies for that.
Thraex had never particularly liked it. The drinks were watered down, the company was lousy, and more people had been killed in there than in several European wars.
He’d spent a lot of his youth inside though, seeing it as an escape from the controlling folk of Reichelt Park high society.
He stepped from the vehicle, looking up at the tall expanse of the dilapidated hotel atop the old bar. “Stay here.” He told Sasha, knowing that this wasn’t the kind of place you took a woman like Sasha Westgate. “And lock the doors.”
She made a face at him. “I’m entirely capable of taking care of myself, you know.” She reminded him, opening her door and beginning to step out onto the curb.
He slammed her door closed again, shaking his head. “I mean it,” he warned, “don’t go in there.”
She watched him for a moment, then nodded.
Satisfied that she would remain in safety for… he calculated another 6 minutes, until she decided to come into the building anyway, Thraex made his way across the street.
This part of town was much cooler than Reichelt Park proper, but was still much warmer than would have been normal. It was jacket weather, but still nowhere near snowing.
The villains who frequented the bar were taking advantage of the manipulated heat wave and several of them were currently sitting in front of the bar in lawn chairs. Standing on the corner next to them like the world’s most irritating Santa ringing a bell, was a fella dressed in a robe with the symbol of the Freedom Squad-er “Templar” on it. That man was truly fucking insane. His disciple appeared to be preachin’ the views of the Human Unification Guild, which stressed the importance of human cooperation against empowered folk and those who weren’t quite human.
They’d been around more and more lately, tellin’ folks in Reichelt Park that science was a danger to their souls and would lead them all to destruction.
They skinned a fella alive last month. Left him hanging from a lamp post.
The villains from the bar were sitting in lawn chairs listening to the crazy zealot scream at innocent people on the sidewalk, and they seemed to be havin’ themselves a fine old time laughin’ at him.
Thraex stalked towards the entrance of the bar.
The religious fanatic saw him coming and instantly recognized him as non-human. “You shouldn’t be here!” The man screamed in indignation and disgust. “You have no place in…”
Thraex decked him without breaking stride, knocking him out and sending him straight down to the pavement.
The villains assembled around cheered in amusement, raising their drinks up and shouting their approval.
Thraex ignored them, marching into the bar.
The interior of the Decomposing Turtle smelled about like the name implied, and the air was thick with cigarette smoke.
He glanced at the bartender, Hedy Marcus, who smiled at him in greeting but didn’t look happy. “We can’t have your pets making trouble in here every other day, Thraex.” She warned. “We’re willing to cut you some slack on account of you being our kind of man, but…”
He held up a hand, stopping her but acknowledging her complaint. “I’ll talk to him.” He assured her, pushing his way through the crowd.
On the stage at the back of the bar, a gorgeous woman
in a pinstriped suit jacket was belting out a sultry country rock rendition of Wanda Jackson’s Right or Wrong.
You could say a lot of things about her personality and about the woman’s peckerhead boss… but Oklahoma could sing. And she managed to make utterly innocent 60s pop songs sound downright nasty.
She winked at him flirtatiously, then gestured with her head to the backdoor, indicating where he could find his stray Westgate.
He nodded to her in thanks. “Tell your boss I owe him one.”
She shook her head, holding her hand over the microphone to answer him. “This one’s on the house, sugar. But Mister Welles appreciates the offer. He was happy to clear up your friend’s legal troubles and now you’re even.” She winked at him again. “Stay outta trouble now, it’s not good to owe men like my employer.”
He shouldered his way through the emergency exit door and out into the alley behind the bar. It was at least twenty degrees cooler in the back of the establishment than in the front, and it was just as disgusting as he’d expected a dank alley behind a cheap bar that served a clientele of villains to be.
He glanced around and then spotted his wayward Westgate, sitting in the gloom with his back against the wall of the other building.
He stormed over to him. “Your workshop is on the 14th floor of our building, Kurtz.” He reminded him sternly. “If you have somehow forgotten the address, just look for the building with your last name emblazoned on the side in huge letters.”
Kurtz looked up at him and swore. “Great. Just what I need right now.”
Thraex’s gaze settled on the man’s black eye. “Who hit you?” He demanded, trying to keep his voice level.
If someone was trying to rustle his Westgates when they wandered outside the boundaries of their preserve, then Thraex would track them down and settle things.
Kurtz laughed humorlessly. “The Farm says ‘hi.’”
Thraex’s fist clenched. “The Farm did that to you? As a warning?”
All them bastards were dead, debt or no.
Kurtz shook his head. “Nah. Apparently Peachtree did not want to dance.”
Thraex’s eyebrows soared. “You asked Peach McDonald—‘Cornfield’— to dance?”
Thraex shrugged. “She’s cute. In a Raggedy-Ann kind of way.”
“She’d demented.”
“And?” Kurtz took a swig of alcohol from a bottle wrapped in a paper bag. “What, like I can be picky?” The man rolled his eyes. “Besides, what do you care? Word on the street has it that you and some mean red chick are out there doing a little murderous science experiment, off the books.”
“I got no idea what you’re goin’ on ‘bout now.” Thraex held up his hands in exasperation. “What… what’s wrong with you, son?” He finally asked in confused amazement. “Answer me that. You always seem one step away from dyin', and I can't for the life of me figure out why.”
Kurtz pursed his lips in thought. “I’m suffering from intellectual solitude, and I’m told I don’t have enough self-confidence.”
“By whom?”
“By everyone who leaves me when I disappoint them.” He took another long swig of his drink. “Do you know what ‘L’appel du vide’ is, Thraex?” He didn’t wait for a reply. “Dad took us to Paris this one time to investigate the murderous ghost of Marie Antoinette, and I learned about it from a Parisian waitress I was seeing. Ines.” He gestured with his hands. “It’s like… it’s like you’re standing on a street corner, watching the traffic go by, and for no reason whatsoever, you have the sudden impulse to throw yourself into the street in front of a passing car.” He nodded. “That’s what L’appel du vide is: it’s a momentary self-destructive thought. You don’t know where it comes from, but in that instant, it takes you over.”
“I’ve had them, from time to time.” Thraex admitted.
“It means: ‘The Call of the Void.’” Kurtz continued. “I have them all the time, honestly. Sometimes, I think they’re all that’s left of my life.” He looked down at the pavement he was sitting on. “She left me for a painter named ‘Marceau.’” He shared randomly. “She said my ‘ennui’ made loving me impossible. That she couldn’t even hear me when I spoke, because every word out of my mouth was just ‘The Call of the Void’ for her.” He took another swallow of his booze. “She threw herself off the Pont du Garigliano a few years back, due to what I assume are unrelated reasons. You know French women. Everything is so overly dramatic and poetic to them.”
Thraex sat down next to him on the pavement, hoping the icy liquid beneath him was just water and not something more disgusting. “Your sister and I came to pick you up and get you home before you hurt yourself.”
“My sister.” Kurtz nodded, looking irritated by that for some reason. “Nice that she trusts you with that.”
“She cares about you.”
“Cares about you too.” He raised his bottle in a toast to his sister. “Here’s to you, ‘Mrs. Robinson.’”
Thraex’s eyes narrowed dangerously. “Watch your mouth, Kurtz.”
Kurtz rolled his eyes and leaned back against the brick wall. “I was kidnapped by ‘Subterra the Subterranean Queen,’ when I was 16.” He reminisced. ”She wanted to make me her king. Said she could tell it was love.” He was quiet for a moment. “In retrospect, I should have really accepted that proposal. I mean, yeah, I would have had to live the rest of my life in total darkness and the filth of the sewers, but it’s not like I have a lot of competing offers.” He rearranged himself on the pavement, stretching one leg out in front of him. “She left me. She said I ‘stank of the surface world’ and ‘lacked vision.’ Which, given the fact she commanded an army of shit-covered mutant moles, was pretty ironic.” He took a long swallow of gin. “My father almost pissed himself laughing.”
He reached over to take the man’s bottle and drank some. “Life isn’t perfect. Not supposed to be.”
“Not supposed to be one failure after another either.”
“You ain’t a failure.” He told the man sternly. “You have to try in order to fail, and you’ve never really tried at anything. Your whole damn life.”
Kurtz immediately reached down to the ray-gun which rested in his holster and pressed it to his temple.
Thraex opened his mouth to scream at him to stop, but he didn’t get the chance.
The man pulled the trigger… and the weapon simply made a “ZZEEE!” sound.
Kurtz let out a hollow laugh. “It never worked right.” He explained, voice tight. “Science didn’t pan out. I was sure it would though. Positive. Dad invited over some of the other scientists to see how I’d captured the power to create miniature suns… And then he was so embarrassed when I couldn’t get it to do anything.” He held up his hand to his face. “And Dad looked at me… and for the first time, I saw disappointment in his eyes. And that… that never really went away.” He grabbed the bottle back and took a gulp. “Carried this every day since. Like an albatross.”
Thraex shrugged. “Didn’t see him out there harnessin’ the power of the sun either.” He snorted. “All he ever did was throw mugs around. Whatever else he wanted to be, it didn’t happen.”
Kurtz looked up towards the sky. “There is no special purpose which I alone can fulfill. No promised happy ending which I’m getting closer and closer to. The universe is random and at a scale beyond human conception, to say nothing of thinking about it in a 4th dimensional sense or taking into account the infinite number of alternate realities.”
“Why can’t ya just get drunk like a normal fella, Kurtz?” He wondered to himself, tiredly running a hand through his hair. “Why do you gotta get all existential on me every time I come all the way down here to pick your drunk ass up?”
“I am not special. I will never be special. There are undoubtedly hundreds of trillions of me in the multiverse, none of whom have any real power over the vagaries of their lives either. And no god or magic or achievement will ever change that.”
“I’ve known p
lenty of special folk. None of them are happy.” Thraex shook his head. “Sometimes I think the world gives folks things just to see if they can bear havin’ them.”
Kurtz thought that over. “I used to want to be somebody.” He finally said, sounding sad. “But I don’t want to be anybody anymore.” He gestured helplessly with his hands. “It just… it just all went wrong. My whole life. I just… I don’t understand.” His voice cracked. “I was supposed to be something great, Thraex. You know that? ‘The next big thing.’ Everyone said. It was the central fact of my life. I was supposed to change the world.” He rubbed his nose with his palm, then reached up to wipe away a tear. “But… but that didn’t happen.” He looked down at the bottle in his hand. “I drink too much and I’m dying in obscurity. I’ve wasted all of the amazing opportunities I was given. And my wife left me because she couldn’t stand the sight of me anymore. I don’t blame her for that. I want to leave me too. I fucking hate my life. I hate the decisions I’ve made. And I hate that I’m too weak and scared to do anything about it. Nothing will ever change...”
Thraex nodded sarcastically. “Yeah, this kinda thinkin’ will help things, sure enough. Sittin’ in a dark alley behind the worst bar in town, drinkin’ and whinin’, certain to fix your problems. Nice plan. Worthy of any Westgate.”
“Some days…” Kurtz continued as if he didn’t even hear him, “some days just getting out of bed seems like the hardest thing I’ve ever done. And then I spend the day watching the clock, waiting for a time when it’s not too early to go back to sleep.” He used his fingers to flick the cap to the bottle away, where it bounced along the wet pavement and disappeared into the darkness. “Everyone said that I was special. That I’d do great things. But I didn’t. And I never will.” He nodded in growing certainty. “I live my life in the shadow of who I could have been. Who I was supposed to be.” He hung his head. “…Who I almost was.” He took his bottle back, then looked up at him, a tinge of hope in his voice now. “But I’m kicking ass at Skyrim. Seriously.” He took a belt of gin. “I’ve killed, like, all the dragons.”
“That’s good, Kurtz. Good job.” He patted the man on the shoulder. “We’re… we’re all real proud.”
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