Variant Exchange

by Fox J Wilde

  “And yet here we stand—this motley few—clothing our skin in common colors, the way we wrap our hearts in common opinions. What good does it do us?! We dance a fool’s dance, singing songs that others have written! We give lip service to a theme we dare not expand upon, lest we suffer the indignities of rebuke! Oh this, I tell you: if our cause were truly just, so that all our ilk stood together as one, no one would dare stand against us!”

  The crowd responded to the verbal haranguing with the mass hanging of heads, and silent murmuring. It wasn’t common for a speech to be uttered at such shows, and it was even rarer for the speech to be directed at wounding the crowd so deeply. This was the Mad Bunny, however; if she was bent on chastising them, well, they must have deserved it. Yet their heads began to raise as she began building them back up.

  “I ask this of you, then, Germany! Would you know a cause if you saw it?!”

  The crowd responded with a roar.

  “If I were to give you a cause…a purpose…a common interest to give strength to your blows and an edge to your blades…would you be prepared to swing at the enemy?”

  The crowd roared ever louder.

  “Germany, are you prepared to follow me, if even into the depths of Hell itself?!”

  The people roared with such conviction that Patrick shook nervously. Chests filled to bursting with ever-expanding hearts, and shoulders squared with the newfound posture of worthiness. Jaws set, fists balled, and millions of mouths opened, to erupt with agreement as one.

  “If that is your choice…” Lena began, “then look to the back of the room! Because that guy back there is the Stasi asshole that raped my friend, and you need to fuck him up!”

  “What are you talking about?!” Dragon Lady demanded.

  “I think our little charge here has pulled one over on you.” Red Hat laughed, “She would have no idea who Patrick is working for—she never had a chance to see him. No one here is working for the Soviets; and to even insinuate that they would get involved in this is absolutely ludicrous. And while I can’t say for a certainty that our little charge here works for the West, I know there’s no reason for her to go into a phone booth in the middle of the night.”

  Vivika swallowed her heart again. “How did he see me?!” she yelled at herself, “I was so careful!” She had been after all—she had walked the route she walked nearly every night, making sure to take three sides of a square any time someone was behind her, and force anyone past her by taking a smoke break.

  “We’ve been monitoring that phone booth, you little twit.” Red Hat sneered, as if sensing her disquiet. “We have cameras absolutely everywhere—especially anywhere that you could contact the outside world.”

  “You’re bluffing.” Vivika said.

  “Let me see your key ring.” Red Hat said, holding out his hand.

  “I don’t have it.” Vivika said, thanking the Gods that she had decided to leave that at home.

  “No matter—we’ll be raiding your apartment soon enough.”

  “Trying to play night games, were we?” Dragon Lady said as she stared daggers at Vivika.

  “I get around.”

  “Oh, we know you do.” Red Hat laughed. “After seeing you in the photo-booth, I decided to take a little stroll…and you will never guess what I saw!”

  “You saw nothing.”

  “Oh, you know that’s a lie.”

  “No…you saw nothing.”

  “What did you see?” Dragon Lady asked with a note of glee, sensing Vivika’s discomfort.

  “I saw our little friend here…” Red Hat started, before being cut off by an increasingly emotional Vivika, who stared at him as if he was giving away her most precious secrets.

  “You. Saw. Nothing.”

  “...getting around with Patrick!” Red Hat laughed, “Oh, that must have been an experience!”

  “Shut the fuck up!”

  “You know, I’ve always wondered. How is that little prick hung?” He continued, while grabbing his crotch, “Is he a real man like me?”

  Vivika stared at him. It was so terribly hurtful, the things he was saying; but what could she do about it? Anything she said would likely just increase his enjoyment, and remaining silent would likely do the same thing. Worse, the Dragon Lady seemed to be enjoying it as well.

  “Well I hope you enjoyed it.” Dragon Lady laughed, “Because that’s probably the last cock you are ever going to get. At least until I’m done working on you …I suppose some of the other officers might want to have a go at you.”

  “That’s not all I saw, though.” Red Hat said. “You will never guess who was also there.”

  “You can’t be serious!” Dragon Lady giggled shrilly.

  “Oh, I am—old Warty Face himself was out on one of his famous photoshoots!”

  “Oh? What did he take pictures of?”

  “Well…let’s just say that we don’t have to ask our little charge here how much of a man Patrick really is.

  Vivika felt so god-forsaken exposed, just then. She imagined Wart Face leering at her as Patrick raped her. She imagined Red Hat doing the same. She imagined how they would all gather around the pictures of Patrick spitting on her, and hitting her, and doing those terrible things…and she imagined them all laughing at her pain, the way that everyone always did.

  Everyone knew everything about her darkest secrets—things they had no right to. Was nothing sacred anymore? What was the meaning of life, if she had nothing to herself? Her privacy was a complete fabrication—a toy for others to play with. She was property, and a mere plaything to be abused and discarded at will. As Dragon Lady spit coffee out of her nose with laughter, and Red Hat slapped Vivika’s knee as if some mutual jape was being enjoyed, and Vivika cried, and no one in the cafe seemed to care all that much…Vivika finally stopped caring.

  “You know what I think?” Vivika started.

  “No one really cares that much, dear.” Dragon Lady said.

  “You know what?” Vivika started again.

  “No, none of us know.” Red Hat laughed.

  Vivika thought back to Lena’s bedroom, and all the illegal things she had hanging on the walls. She remembered the Never Mind the Bullocks album, and everything that the Sex Pistols stood for. She remembered the ‘zines, and everything stuffed between their DIY covers. The alternative love, the rebellion, the activism, the fists pumping in the air, the chest-beating, and the images of women flexing their biceps or holding automatic rifles.

  She remembered the pictures of masked men cocking back an arm to launch a Molotov cocktail into the lines of oppressors. She remembered the articles of women violently proclaiming their liberation from situations precisely like this. She remembered all of the homosexuals that were tortured in prisons, only to escape to the West…only to return to the East in print, to give strength to the struggles of those still in hiding. She remembered the stories that Lena had told her about the great things that women had done, and the crazy things that youth were capable of. She imagined what it must be like to be a bare-chested and thoroughly rocked-out bitch smashing a pile of bricks with a sledgehammer…and what that might be like if the pile of bricks were a few Stasi officers.

  But more importantly, she remembered the stories of Harriet Tubman and Sojourner Truth—wild women who couldn’t be bothered to care about the lopsided nature of the struggle. These were people who didn’t see odds. They only saw the path forward, however barred, and decided to push their way through. Armed with sheer conviction, the bad bitches saw the world around them and decided to ignore the reasons why, in favor of what might be, if one simply gave enough of a shit to try.

  “No,” Vivika said plainly.

  “Excuse me?” Dragon Lady laughed.

  “No. Absolutely not.”

  “Shut the hell up, you twit.” Red Hat dismissed her.

  “No. A
bsolutely not. I’ve had enough!”

  Suddenly, every eye in the small cafe was on her and her table—and for once, Dragon Lady and Red Hat looked genuinely surprised. By contrast, Vivika felt amazing. A feeling was coming over her, drenching her through-and-through with an adrenaline-soaked intoxication that threatened to explode out of her pounding chest, if not unearthed immediately. Words and phrases smashed into the sides of her skull, begging to be unleashed into the air about her. She had seen this once before…she had seen Lena do it. And Gods be damned, Vivika was about to do it herself.

  “I’ve had enough!” Vivika screamed, “I’ve had enough of you people! I’ve had enough of your mind games, your hands around my throat, your eyes in my private life, and your insults! You know nothing about me except the things you see through a camera lens, or the things you read on a transcript! You know all sorts of ‘facts’ that you’ve viewed through the lens of conspiracy and fear…but you know nothing about me! You don’t know who I am, what I’ve been through, what a struggle it’s been, what I’ve had to overcome…and you might not think that it matters, but it does. It matters because it means you don’t fucking own me.”

  “Shut that pretty little face of yours, or I’ll shut it for you!” Dragon Lady said in hushed, seething tones—yet the damage had already been done. Vivika heard the sounds of angered agreement from booths nearby, and the sound of a few chairs sliding away from tables.

  “You don’t own me…” she continued, gaining steam with the sounds of agreement, “…you can’t own me, because I’m not a thing that can be owned! I’m not just meat. I’m not just a brain attached to legs and arms—things that you can bend and break, hurt or demean. I’m my thoughts and I’m my own loyalties. I’m my memories, my ideas, my experiences, my knowledge, and I’ve come to my own conclusions. Moreover, I am the conclusion that I’ve come to—including the realization that you are worthless fucks, and that you are now irrelevant to me! I’ve concluded that I will never stop thinking what I want to think. I will never stop hating you. I will never stop resisting you. And even if I’m just one person, that’s enough…because I will never stop inspiring more people just like me.”

  “Will you please keep your voice...” Dragon Lady seethed nervously, as Red Hat’s face went white. Suddenly, what had begun as a murmur, evolved into angry shouts of agreement as the inhabitants of the café rallied to Vivika’s impassioned outburst. Several of the men in the further booths stood and began walking over, angrily cracking their knuckles.

  “Make no mistake,” Vivika continued with excitement and conviction in her voice, “If ever I have the chance, I will absolutely slit your fucking throats like the pigs you are. But if I never get the chance, there will always be someone who will try. And if no one succeeds, you will forever live in fear of the possibility. Because as long as even one of me exists…it is a possibility. And as you pace in your houses, waiting for that possibility to come crashing in to kneecap you, I hope you realize the cruel irony…that we are a possibility, which means that we own the future. One of these days, in your lifetime, we will win, and we will murder you. That means that we own the future! Not the other way around!”

  “What’s the problem here, miss?” one of the closer men asked Vivika, towering over the Dragon Lady.

  “Back off!” Dragon Lady hissed as she attempted to stand, “I am an Officer of the Secret Police of the German Democratic Republic! You are in violation...”

  “You’re a what?” the man asked her.

  “I’m an Officer of the...”

  “You got a badge?”

  “Yes of course...” Dragon Lady said angrily, as she quickly fumbled through her purse for her badge, before producing it. With this, the man yanked it out of her hands and casually tossed it behind the cafe’s bar.

  “Doesn’t look like you have a badge to me. Anyone else here at the table got a badge?”

  “Sir, I will see you...” Red Hat began, before another man’s fist slammed into his jaw so hard, flecks of blood and saliva smacked into Vivika’s face.

  As a large crowd began to gather around Vivika’s table, hands began roughly grabbing the Dragon Lady and the now-unconscious Red Hat, pulling them back into the crowd. Voices reached a furious tumult as the threat of violence in Vivika’s honor loomed.

  “Tell me young lady,” one of the bigger men with a large wart on his face said, “are these two causing you problems?”

  “Yes sir,” Vivika said acidly, without an ounce of pity. “One stood by as his friend raped me, and the other is threatening to kill me.”

  “Well, that doesn’t seem very decent to me.” the man said, cracking his knuckles and slamming his fists together as the sound of Dragon Lady’s voice began shrieking from the angry crowd. “Let’s see what we can do about that.”

  Pantheon

  They moved silently. Despite the thick, dry underbrush, their combat boots made not a sound as they crept through the dense, night-time forest. No animal was this stealthy; no predator this lethal. Not even panthers, genetically predisposed to this sort of night-time fare, could hope to be this disciplined. For panthers sit at the top of the food chain, wanting for nothing and fearing even less. The panther grows sedate on his perch, assured of his success and true to his violence. These men had no such weaknesses.

  Their training—rigorous. Their discipline—unmatched. Their mission—classified. Silent as the grave and far, far deadlier, they stalked through the blooming fauna the way a hot knife slices through butter…and the same way it does through flesh and bone if used correctly. Every man of the Green Beret team was prepared for that possibility. They were blooded, branded, and bonded together into a band of brothers so perfect in planning and execution, they couldn’t help but know exactly where they stood. It was their birthright…their calling.

  These weren’t the men to accept their place. They trusted only their Brotherhood of high-carbon steel and armor-piercing lead. Their gear was tried and trusted—yet they carried backups. The night vision worked—but so did eyeballs when allowed the adjusting. Their commo was the best and most encrypted that money could buy—yet remained unused in favor of hand and arm signals unique to them alone. The night was dark; but nothing could be dark enough to forego charcoal paint on what few spots of skin lay exposed to the elements. No stone lay unturned, and no detail went unchecked. With hardened soldiers like these, trust wasn’t earned; it was briefed before chutes deployed. Everything else was to be shot on sight.

  They walked mere meters from each other. They had cover, of course. The snipers had been in place hours ago to cover their grim procession into the night. Their mission was simple: wait, watch, and if need be, react without pause or mercy. They were here because He was here: the Man…the String-Puller. As grim as their duties were, His were far more important, with unprecedented and far-reaching consequences. He would make it to His meeting, and He would make it out—there wasn’t a cost the Green Berets wouldn’t pay to ensure that eventuality. It wasn’t just their lot in life. It was their honor, and they would happily die knowing their fate ensured the sound sleeping of millions who never knew how close things might have come without these grim sentinels.

  Hours passed, yet time was irrelevant to them, with attention to detail pinpoint despite the chill. Still the hours passed, until finally the objective lay in sight. There, one-hundred meters ahead, lay an old barn rotting with time and long-since forgotten. This would be the only possible place for His meeting—dignity be damned, it was the damnable face of politics that determined it. He was The Man, yet he was here to meet Another: the other String-Puller. This was the only thing both parties would be expected to agree on: the location. Thus, the Green Berets, and their East German counterparts, who were no doubt posting in similar fashion, proceeded.

  One-hundred meters became fifty, fifty became twenty, and soon the small team was stacked up outside of the barn door, prepared for an
entry that must be perfectly executed. Military diplomacy—threats without determinate outcomes. They must be earnest, but they must be sure of their target. Any less would risk it all.

  “Five coming in!” one soldier shouted.

  “Five coming in!” a strong voice responded in broken English from the other side.

  “Archangel entering.” the soldier breathed into his comms. The snipers would never respond unless bullets needed to fly. To respond would be to give up their position to the GDR-snipers that lay in wait a few hundred meters the opposite way.

  Quickly, the soldiers rushed into the building, taking up position, with one on each side of the large barn, and two near the door in case a quick egress was required. The space was musty, and only dimly lit, which combined to set an eerie stage for the dealings of the evening. In the middle of the barn sat a chessboard on a table, with two chairs on either side, as specified. On the opposite end of the barn stood an equally elite unit of the GDR’s finest, along with a shadowy figure clad in a long black overcoat and fedora, much like Archangel was.

  “Metatron present.” the soldier breathed into his comms once again to signify the presence of the other String-puller. The soldier knew that the snipers wouldn’t relax. The presence of the String-puller meant nothing to them. Bullets went through String-pullers just as well as everyone else, should the need arise.

  “Sir?” the soldier spoke to Archangel. He knew the room was exactly how it needed to be.

  “Good job, captain, we’ll take it from here.”

  “Yes, Sir.” the soldier responded, before fading back into the shadows.

  “Well?” Archangel stated plainly, as he approached the chessboard. He noted the shadowy figure on the other side approached as well.

  “Well what?” the aging voice of Metatron responded, as the two finally met in the middle.