Other Fan Fiction / Romance Fan Fiction / Original Stories Fan Fiction ❯ The Adventures of Thad Gunter ❯ The Depressing Chapter ( Chapter 14 )

 

THE CONTINUING ADVENTURES OF THAD GUNTER!!!

 

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Chapter 14: The Depressing Chapter

 

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Headache. A serious one. Again. It seemed like headaches were all Dr. Isaac Thaddeus “Thad” “Dude” “Mammy” Edgar Allen Poe Howard Philips Lovecraft Sam Leroy Jackson Gunter III, Jr. ever had any more. A slow, deep, aching throb, one that felt like it had been there for a long time.

 

Raising his head from the pillow, Thad began to get a grip on his surroundings. Ah, yes, another hospital room. So predictable. This most have been the second or third time this month Thad had wound up in one of these. And what were the exact events that brought him here?

 

Thad groaned and placed a hand to his constantly aching head as the memories came rushing back. DJ Silloc, the Para-Deity Communiqué whatchamacallit, Rachel, the car crash, and then…!

 

He glared at his hands. He had killed someone now. These were the hands of a killer. Not just anybody, a friend. Oh sure, DJ Silloc was hardly a friend there at the end, more of a half-dead lunatic desperate to replace his own torn skin with Thad's, but once upon a time, they were close. Pals. Confidants in a world that didn't completely understand either of them. (Or in Silloc's case, at all.) First being finagled into working for his enemies at Renn-Tech, and then taking a life. Thad was slipping, he thought.

 

Before he could stumble off the cusp into that deep, black, stinky pit of existential despair, a sound caught Thad's attention. His surroundings were called to his attention once again. Hospital bed. He glanced to the neighboring cot and the groaning occupant resting there.

 

Rachel Merchawitz, bandaged in several places around her body, rubbed her own head, presumably suffering from a headache of her own. The dentist office lime green hospital gowns didn't do anybody any favors, even the usually stunning Rachel.

 

Thad leaned over his safety railing, whispering to her.

 

“Rachel, are you okay?”

 

She groaned again, flopped her head over on the pillow, and stared at him coldly, intoning sarcastically, “I'm fine. It's not like I just got tossed from a car crash and then throttled by an aggravated, thoroughly demented gnome.”

 

Ah. “Hmm. Well, you're personality appears to be intact.”

 

She chuckle slightly, “Your's too, you big dumb lovable galuth.”

 

“I really don't think I fit the definition of a galuth.”

 

“Oh, but you're so old-fashion in your need to make sure everybody is okay. It's sort of honorable, in a really irritating way.”

 

“Hmm, thanks. And your need to strip everybody down to your level of cynicism is equally endearing.”

 

She laughed again and Thad couldn't help but chuckle along with her. All this laughter all most raised the somber mood of the medical center. Almost.

 

“So where are we, exactly, do you think?” She asked.

 

“I'm not sure. I can't remember anything after I passed out.”

 

“I passed out not that long after you did.”

 

“Really?”

“Yeah, you know, car crash.”

 

“Right.”

 

Thad decided to take a look around. Decided anyway, because as soon as he sat up, an IV tugged at his arm. That might make things difficult.

 

“Just rip it out,” Rachel insisted.

 

“What? No! It's, you know, in my arm! There'd be blood and stuff.”

 

“Says the guy who popped Silloc's head like a zit.”

 

Ouch. That stung, and it made Thad reconsider the severity of his situation once again. murderer. Sure, there was that thing with Derneck before but that was really more of self-defense then anything else. Plus, its not like A) Thad really liked that monster, and B) Derneck was all that human anyway. But this was different. Once upon a time, they were close friends, lone vigils in a world that rejected…

 

The self-important character development came to a sudden halt, a metallic pang, as an empty bedpan wacked Thad square in the forehead.

 

“Owwie!” He wailed and rubbed the ass-shaped red mark.

 

“Snap out of it!” Rachel reprimanded, “There's no time for introspection.”

 

“Right, right, figure out where we are.”

 

As if to answer all of there questions, a near by door parted ways, swooshing open like on “Star Trek,” allowing two divergent odors to waft into the room. The first was obvious and pungent, the stench of somebody who maybe had some colon control issue. The second was more subtle but just as deeply penetrating, the smell of dread. Thad knew who they were immediately.

 

The aromas answered Rachel's query. Obviously, they were deep in the bowels of the Renn-Tech headquarters.

 

“Mr. Gunter! I'm so glad to see you back!” James Eaalhi spoke in his typical tone. Even when congratulating someone, he spoke as if he was about to stabbed you in the eye with an awl.

 

Wobbling behind him was the crippled, limping Ass Renn, stinking and trembling as usual, drooling slightly and clutching a clipboard in one of his twisted claws.

 

Eaalhi continued his patronizing speech, “And I see you met Rachel, another one of our employees. What a coincidence.”

 

Thad's headache increased, “Cut the nonsense. I know you sent her there to kill Silloc.”

 

Rachel chimed in, “Yeah, what was the point of sending me after the child molester if you knew Thad was going to be there?”

 

James was obviously in what passed for a jovial mood around here as he chuckled sardonically, “Ms. Merchawitz was a sort of an insurance policy. As unpredictable as Silloc is, I figure it would do you good, Thad, to have someone watching your back.”

 

“Yeah, I'm sure.”

 

“Besides, it seems like you did Rachel's job for her.”

 

There it was again. With that one sideway swipe, Thad was, once again, dangling on the precipice, over an unending trench of continuous, eternal darkness. He wasn't a killer. He couldn't take another life like that. Sure, it was probably justifiable and, yeah, DJ Silloc surely had it coming but… But…

 

James Eaalhi's razor sharp cold voice brought Thad back from the village of emo nonsense and made the Author stop reading from his collection of self-made Goth poetry.

 

“Your mission was a success, Thad. Though we had to scrounge around the wreck side for a while, but we did retrieve the Para-Deity Communiqué Apparatus. You have no idea how important this is the Renn-Tech and my self. Our very mission as a corporation depends on it.”

 

“What exactly would your corporate mission be?”

 

“Well… We have our fingers in many different pies here at Renn-Tech. Let's put it that way.”

 

Ass tugged impatiently at his shirt before saying what should have sounded like, “But, Mr. Eaalhi, I always thought we pursued software publishing and pornography as businesses because those were the fastest way to finance your diabolical schemes for ungodly power and dimensional dominance?”

 

But it sounded more like, “Blurt, Miztah Alley, Iz algweeyz felt wed purguuuded scockwarve putinsting amb pnongovgetprhy ab butitnezz…” He then stopped to gasp and cough for a few seconds before continuing, “betkuts toes ur tha fattest kays tut ficatance bur dipatolical skeemes fur unguutley purwers und dickmenstal docatence?”

 

Eaalhi continued to smile but his composure cracked just a minuscule bit. He reached into his back pocket and removed a stapler gun,

 

“Here, Ass, go play with this.”

 

Ass dropped his clipboard and jumped up and down like an excited puppy on Christmas morning. He grabbed the stapler gun and stumbled off to the dark corners of the room, hooting and honking enthusiastically.

 

James cleared his throat, coughing into a clenched fist, before focusing on Thad and Rachel once again, “Now… Where were we?”

 

Rachel, her eyes closed, head on the pillow, grumbled at him, “You were congratulating us on a job well done or something. Also, guilt-tripping Thad about killing Silloc. God you talk a lot.” She rolled over, wrapping the pillow around her head, continuously grumbling.

 

Eaalhi continued, “Ah yes. So, anyway, good job, Thad.”

 

Thad, still dangling over the Sarlacc pit of ghastly revelation, was blasted back into reality by Rachel's grumpiness as if she was Boba Fett's jetpack.

 

(Author's Note: Oh God, did I just make a “Star Wars” reference? That's it. I'm going to stick to that New Year's Resolution. No more cocaine for me.)

 

Sternly, Thaddeus looked his enemy/employer straight in eye. “There, I did what you want. Now, let me see Helena.”

 

James Eaalhi made a reptilian smile, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. “Well, I suppose there wouldn't be any harm in that.”

 

Thad was surprised by the answer, to say the least. After the running around Eaalhi had given him, actually being allowed to see Helena was the last thing he expected. But, first, better stipulate.

 

“And when I say “See Helen,” I mean, have her brought to me in a simple room where we can have a teary reunion before I take her the hell out of this, uh, hell, and off to the rest of her life. I don't mean I want to see her award winning forced supporting turn in `Anal Buffett 41.'”

 

Eaalhi snapped his fingers sarcastically, “Oh gee, Thad, always one step ahead of me. Haha.”

 

Without a moments notice, a troupe of machines descended from the Frank Miller style darkness the medical ward was bathed in. The three metallic orbs best resembled pimped-out disco balls, save for the number of spindly arms, each topped off with a different medical device of some sort, extending from the center of their bodies. Oh yeah, and the whimsical, red and white Nurses caps perched atop each. Can't forget those.

 

It was that last detail that comforted Thad. When he first saw the Medical Droids slowly coming down at him like spiders silking down from a bedroom ceiling, Thad was convinced they were going to hollow out his body so that Ass could have a brand new Thad-skin suit. All those sharp, pointing objects in their hands were certainly enough to give our hero that thought. But he knew all was well when he caught a glimpse of that Florence Nightingale approved head gear.

 

The machines carefully plucked the IV from Thad's arm and stood him up. One of the nursing units tore the patient's gown from his body as if it were a male stripper's red leather pants, leaving Thad bare-ass naked well within eye-shot of James Eaalhi, Rachel, and even Ass Renn, who had crawled off to a corner and stapled his entire face open. The machines, quicker then jack rabbits on trucker pills, washed and styled Thad's hair, shaved his back hair, brushed his teeth, clipped the in-grown nail on his left big toe, and slapped him into a brand new set of clothes, lickety-split.

 

The droids even buttoned up the cuff-links on Thad's sport jacket before ascending up into the shadows of the room. He admired his smile in the shiny gold link.

 

“Wow. What nice robots.”

 

He turned to Eaalhi, “All right, James, you promised.”

 

“Yes, I suppose I did. Let's go.”

 

Thad took another glance over at Rachel, who was now snoozing soundly, wrapped up in the sheets. She looked peaceful. He even took the time to spy out Ass who, having moved on from the staple gun to a rusty old nail file he must've found somewhere, was busy craving a Glasgow smile into his cheeks. Thad could only shake his head in dismay at that one.

 

“Don't worry,” Eaalhi reassured him the way only he could, which is to say he wasn't reassuring at all, “We'll stitch him back up later. It's not like this is the first time Ashley has defaced him self.”

 

The two exited the room, prompting another calming swoosh from the door. Their feet click-clacked against the floor in the ominously bright white hallways. It was then that Thad realized they wore the same style of shoes. Wooh. Weird.

 

“What exactly is wrong with that poor kid?” Thad asked.

 

Eaalhi answered, “Oh, a multitude of things. He was born with a number of bone disorders. That's why he's all twisted like that. It's also extraordinarily painful, hence the self-mutilation.”

“With all your limitless power, why don't you just fix the guy?”

 

James' brow rose, the cruel detachment disappearing from his reflective glasses, as if the thought had legitimately never occurred to him before. “Huh. I guess I could do that.”

 

Thad's thoughts drifted back to the room and its occupants, “Rachel's going to be safe in there, right?”

“I assure you, Mr. Gunter, Miss Merchawitz is safe from harm from any outside forces.”

 

That word usage was tricky but Thad decided not to call him on it, “And how exactly did we get all the way from a field in Centralia, Pennsylvania, to Renn-Tech headquarters over here in LA?”

 

“I'm so glad you asked, Thad. We had you both hele-vacced over to a near-by diner owned by Renn-Tech and operated solely by Porno Bots. Once you were safe from the eyes of the greasy spoon craving customers, the Bots teleported you here, were your wounds were dealt with.”

 

“Wouldn't the people in Centralia notice a bunch of robots with dildos for arms operating a diner?”

 

“You know, it's never comes up.”

 

A grim thought arose from Thad's gut. He didn't want to talk about it, for fear of being casted out into blistery, heartless, Bauhaus style misery, but the situation called for it.

 

“What about Silloc? I mean, are we going to have to explain that one to the police?”

Chuckling in a completely condescending matter, as if he considered all of Thad's emotional turmoil to be near melodramatics,

 

“Don't worry. It's all dealt with. Besides, it's not like DJ Silloc was without a considerable criminal record. Most police would commend you for doing such a thing.”

 

He was right. Silloc was a cold-stone bastard to the core. When Rachel talked about him being a child molester, Thad didn't doubt it. But if what he had done was right, why did he feel so bad?

 

In this darkness, Thad began to realize things. No, Eaalhi just wasn't going to let him take Helen, was he? It wasn't going to be that simple.

 

But… What of the chance that, just this one, Eaalhi wasn't being his slippery, deceptive self? What if his quest truly was close to being over? Every time he stepped into the Renn-Tech building, he grappled with that anxiety, the chance, no matter how slim, that he might see her again, be able to talk to her again, hold her again, make her life worth living again. His heart was just about in his throat. Did she really remember him? Was there any way her love for him could have last all these years apart? He remembered the tape recording, her voice crying out for him, to help her, save her, take her away from all this. Yes, that was enough. She must've still cared for him.

 

At any time, Thad could have slipped his shoe off, clobbered James Eaalhi over the head, and ran off with Helena. But… No, that wouldn't work. First off, the underground tunnels and rooms of Renn-Tech were labyrinth in the truest meaning of the word. No way Thad could navigate them successfully. And if he tried anything that brass or bold, lord knows what Eaalhi would do to his beloved. If he dared to let things get ugly, he knew his adversary was more then willing to match and surpass that ugliness. The only way he was ever going to relinquish his beloved from the sticky, questionable-substance-coved claws of Renn-Tech's pornography section was playing by Eaalhi's rules. He hated the thought, but it was the only way.

 

No matter what, that day wasn't today. Thad knew it, he felt it in his gut. The correct dramatic tension hadn't built yet. No way was the story going to come to such an anticlimactic end.

 

The walking came to a stop. Eaalhi paused before a small alcove in the hall, a little shelf were two coffee makers as well as an appropriate amount of accompanying cups, creamers, sugars, stirrers, and napkins. All ready standing by the machine was the crazed looking fellow Thad remembered seeing in his employer's office a few days ago.

 

Eaalhi spoke to the coffee sipping partner, “How is the production on “Death Truncheon” going, Bristol?”

 

Bristol Gneiss picked up the conversation. “It's going good, Mr. Eaalhi. Every thing should be all wrapped up within a few days. We'll make that release date, no problem. For a fact, I just finished talking to Stephanie and McHugecock a while ago.”

 

“Oh good.”

 

“I'm actually over here to get coffee for Stephanie.”

 

Eaalhi snapped his fingers at Thad, knocking him free of his moody retrospective.

 

“Thad, would you be kind enough to take a cup of coffee over to Miss Stephanie's dressing room?”

 

“I thought you were going to take me to see Helen.”

 

“Oh yes yes, later. I assure you, you will see your Helen. But just do this one little thing.”

 

Thad yanked away the cup of coffee. “Fine. Where is it?”

 

“Just down the hall. Room 175.”

 

Thad grumbled and set off down the hall. Doing sinister deeds for a nefarious task masters was one thing, but getting coffee like a lowly gopher? Gee whiz. It made him feel down right exploited.

 

Bristol scratched at his whiskers, “Who was that guy?”

 

Smiling like he was revealing a major plot point in a causal way, Eaalhi said, “Just a tool.”

 

---

 

As he stalked the halls in search of room 175, Thad realized a major design flaw in the Renn-Tech building. Everything looks exactly the fucking same. Oh, yeah, sure, that was probably an intentional move, to crush the spirits and self-esteem of the employees. The same reason every major corporation installed those soul-crushing halogen lamps. But it made finding specific rooms a real production. Thad had been going around in circles for a while, he was sure. How many times had he passed that scourged patch of carpet? If nothing else, the winding, identical hallways made quick errands anything but. Thad was certain the coffee wasn't exactly nice and toasty by now.

 

Ah well. There was no use in grumpin' about it. Do your job, get the pain over as much as quickly as possible.

 

After spending seemingly forever scanning the various numbers, doors, and titles along the walls, Thad came to the desired 175. It appeared out of nowhere, like a sentinel popping its head out of the mist. Thad was almost startled by the sudden appearance of the door and the accompanying number. He wasn't sure what he did to get there, if he had made a turn he wasn't aware of or had simply managed to miss the entrance every time. Either way, it didn't matter. Thad was just as likely to head back in the opposite direction and become lost for hours in the endless, uniform hallways. He suspected that the laws of logic and physics did not exactly function the same way inside the Renn-Tech building like it outside.

 

He stepped forward, clenched his fist and knocked on the faux-wood finish, three times. There was silence, a lack of response. Grumbling, switching the cup of tepid coffee between hands, he re-clenched his fist and re-knocked on the door a few more times. A reaction came, soon enough.

 

“Hold your fucking horses! Be-jeezus, I'm coming!” A raspy voice spoke.

 

Thad could only imagine what kind of aging over-the-hill porno queen that voice belonged to. The brimming, stretched to their limit, implanted breasts, the Thanksgiving turkey skin, overcooked from repeated hours in tanning booths. Plucked, sucked, repeatedly fucked facial features. A grey, wart infested neither region that best resembled a pursing dead bloated sea anemone. A worn derelict of a human body, hopelessly fighting an up-hill battle to maintain her misbegotten youth against the years of god awful, endless abuse from the hands of lord knows what type of people, armed with the “best” plastic surgery ill-gotten gains could afford. The type of person the adjective “ravaged by time” was made for, what Clint Eastwood would look like if he was a woman and a porn star. (Author's note: Eeeeagggh! Thanks for that mental image!) It was pretty much inevitable to happen to you when you made a habit of showing your gaping asshole to thirty thousand people every day. And yet, despite these smut-hags being the human equivalent of a World War II battle ship rusting at the bottom of the Pacific, Thad was sure they caused hundreds of confused, awkward, budding teenage boys to spend their Kleenexes every evening. Horny adolescent didn't discriminate. As long as a hole was being plugged, even if it was a redwood knothole being thrust into by a railroad spike, somewhere, somehow, a fourteen year old male was rubbing one out to it.

 

These overblown ruminations on the flesh industry came to a sudden, very sudden, the most sudden-est stop possible, when the door opened up. Because…

 

There she was, again, in person, for the first time in forever. Thad almost died. He froze.

 

Standing before him was… It was too awful to say. His… His Helen. His gorgeous, perfect, treasured Helen. Right here, in the halls of the Renn-Tech building, looking the same now that she did all those years ago… But, something wasn't right. Yes, this was his Helen, he was sure of it, the full cheekbones, the perfect joyous smile that you could get lost in so easily if you stared at it for even a second, the crystalline green eyes, the wispy thin blond hair, the pale china doll skin, the trim sloping shoulders. But, but… There was more. And it was awful.

 

Not that what he saw was awful. No, no, quite the opposite, it was as gorgeous as the rest of her. But, no, it was the context that made all the difference.

 

Thad, of course, had known Helen, in the Biblical sense, before their parting a decade and a half ago. Obviously, being young people and in a certain stage of their life, that was a big issue for them and an aspect of relationships neither shied away from. So, yes, he had seen her in the buff before. Her flat, smooth belly, her perfectly symmetrical, succulent breasts, her trim, comforting posterior… But it was always in the most private of contexts. Thad and Helen were always a private couple. They were reluctant to even hold hands or kiss in public. Sure, there was the occasional fling in the janitor's closet or under the bleachers after school, but only when it they were utmost certain they wouldn't get caught. Both were boy/girl-next-door sweet, in that regard. They only dared showed that most personal side of themselves to one another, the most trusted of friends.

 

But, obviously, that had changed now, hadn't it? Because there she stood before him, completely nude, save for a thin, grey, stained robe that didn't cover anything. Her disregard for her own privacy was so large that she didn't even bother to cover herself while opening the door. What had happen to his Helen?

 

She snatched the cup away from him, her movement, still graceful. She spoke again, gone was the soft angelic tones he had known for so long, replaced with a gravely indifference.

 

“Thanks.” She was so causal. If his heart wasn't all ready putrid sea-sick green, it would have shriveled up and died completely.

 

This girl, this former, corrupt shadow of the Helen he knew so well, walked back to her chair and sat down, sipping at the coffee, glancing briefly in the mirror, yawning. It was only after a moment of stillness that she noticed Thad had not removed himself from her dressing room's entrance.

 

She looked to him, eyebrow raised, “Is there something you want?”

 

His lower lip twitched ever so slightly, twisting into a hopeless, demented smile. “H-h-Helen? Don't you remember me?”

 

Her eyes casted accusation onto him, once again. She looked at him as if he was a crazy person. “What did you say?”

 

Letting go of self-control, Thad's feet carried him into the room. His mouth began to move and form words, thoughts poured out of his head and out of his heart. Suddenly, he was frenzied, as if catching up for his moments of inactivity.

 

“I'm here to take you away from all of this awfulness. Just like you asked. Just like you asked me too on the tape. I'm here to save you, Helen. I have to. It's what everything has been leading up too.”

 

She backed away, further into her chair, putting an arm to keep him at bay. “Mister, I think you're confused. What tape? What are you talking about?”

 

Barely containing himself, Thad reached out to her, desperate for her to understand. Yes, she must understand.

“You remember, the recording Eaalhi made, the audio recording. Surely, you must remember. You have to!”

 

Her face showed signs of confusion, of trying to recall an obscure detail, “An audio recording? That thing Eaalhi wrote for me? Oh yeah, that. What was that all about?”

 

All hope was slipping away. Thad was straining to hold himself together, to prevent himself from plunging into that black pit. For real, this time.

 

“No no no no no, you can't mean that. It was real, I know it was!”

 

“Mister, it's called “acting.” I might work in porn but I can read a few lines with conviction.”

 

There was that awful word again. Another reminder of just how much she had changed. How much she had impossibly changed over the years. It wasn't feasible.

 

“Something had to happen. Are you drugged? Mind-control? Why Helen, why would you do this to yourself?”

 

“Who the hell are you? What are you talking about? Who do you think you are to come down here and start judging me? Listen, I may not have a glamorous life style but I'm not ashamed of what I've had to do.”

 

Quivering, a million different emotions rushing his brain at once, Thad moved forward and put his hands on her shoulders. He might have been screaming, he might have been whispering. Everything was a blur. He couldn't believe what was happening.

 

“No, I'm Thad! You have to remember me! You loved me! We loved each other! We were going to have a life together! You can't… How… How could you forget me?”

 

The tears were coming steadily now.

 

“How could you forget me so completely and put that part of your life behind you f… For… For this? How, goddamn it, Helen, how? You can't… B… You have to make me understand! You owe me that much! Why?”

 

Disturbed and frighten by his ramblings, the actress delivered a series of swift kicks to Thad's groin region. He fell like a tranquilized elephant, stumbling to the floor. She backed away to the corner of the room, in fear of her life, cowering and screaming for help.

 

“Please somehow, get over here! There's a maniac in my room! Help! HELP!”

 

The pain was intense but it was slight compared to any of the other harmful emotions storming inside of Thad at that time. The tears ran from his face, mingling with the carpet fibers. Soon, he felt someone, a machine or perhaps some sort of burly body guard, hefting him up, screaming at him for his supposed attack. His eyes remained on Helena, on her quivering form, on the fear in her eyes. That was the worse part, not being so swiftly rejected by her, not being torn away from her, not her completely denying their memories together or explaining the awful things that had happened, but the fear.

 

That Helen Maria Rudwalnagirctekahs, the girl that he had given so much for and had gone through so much for, would actually be afraid of him, that was the most heartbreaking thing of all. It was over for Thad. He could feel it, the sickness enveloping him, overflowing, growing out of his gut and pulling him down. It was over.

 

----

 

The screens glowed softly in the dim light. They casted an eerie blue reflection over the entire console area, bathing the pair of remotes and the assortment of varied toggles with a mysterious aura. It was appropriate, considering the uncertain origins and hideous power of the machine.

 

The amount of light was changed by the opening door, as the illumination of lamps from outside flooded the room. However, the mood changed none at all. If anything, the mood moved from “mildly ominous” to “shit-your-pants scary.” And all of that had to do with the man that stood there now.

 

Eaalhi, in full on Blofeld /Voldemort /Mr. Burns mode, sat before the device, easing calmly into his well-worn ass-grove. Out of all of Eaalhi's wicked inventions and discoveries, none had served him better then this. His rise to power was directly tied into its creation. His whole scheme would have been impossible without it.

 

As he seized the Manipulator's remote, he thought back to the time before he built the incredible machine. His hunger for power was always an attribute, since he was a young boy, that had been instilled in him by his uncompromisingly strict military father. Or, perhaps, by the hatred he felt for his father and that lifestyle. That was the must likely origin of his quest to maintain real control over his life and, later, the lives of others. Whatever the reason, the desire to control the world and fates of those around him had always been his defining characteristic. It was what brought him to work for his uncle Robert Renn out on the east coast as a lackey in the software business. It was what drove him to murder said uncle and win the company for him self. It was what caused him to use whatever needs necessary to get ahead. Even his interest in the occult and the metaphysical could probably be traced back to his Freudian quest for power.

 

Perhaps, in some grander way, it was even what led him to that occult book store that evening, years ago. Where he, by complete chance, also bumped into a charismatic documentary filmmaker. Where he tripped over the glazed McGuffin that said filmmaker had dropped and then hit his head on the corner of one of the bookshelves. None of this would have happened if it wasn't for that chance encounter. The foundation had been laid but that meeting.

 

In his dazed state, Eaalhi saw the strings. He became aware of the awful truth at the center of the universe, the terrible lie that was seemingly unapparent to everyone else. He realized the force driving every single person through life and he realized that it was placed in his head, quite intentionally.

 

Others might have been pissed off at such a revelation, about the true worth of life itself. But not James. Fore, as the system was revealed to him, it was only a few simple steps ahead to see how to usurp the system. How to jerk control out of the hands of those above and into earthly hands. Or, more precisely, his hands. The blueprints of The Manipulator and, indeed, James' entire scheme, had its genesis in that vision.

 

But none of that was important. It was all near exposition. There was work to be done. Things had spiraled recently. Thad had, through his special brand of incompetence, throw a few damning monkey wrenches into Eaalhi's plan. He even feared that his designs had been completely derailed. That fear was short lived, though. Yes, he had done quite well over the past few weeks, sweeping up those loose ends and eliminating them, all the while setting the players into their correct positions.

 

Smiling, he looked to the screens before him. Lying in the medical ward, he saw the last remaining stray thread. Well… Time to deal with that.

 

James moved the remotes correctly. The Manipulator went to work.

 

----

 

“Damn it!”

 

Rachel cursed, under her breath. She rolled over again, burying her face in the pillow. It didn't help. Partially because the pillows stank of bleach, the icky hospital variety that seems to infect everything with its stench and only goes further to remind people of the smell of disease and death. But mainly because she couldn't stop thinking. No matter how hard she clamped her eyes shut, sleep wouldn't come to her.

 

They weren't the normal anxious thoughts that kept people awake at night, either. Rachel was never a particularly depressive sort. I mean, she had gone through a goth-y, emo-y stage during her teens years but, hey, who doesn't? After so many depressing poems, she moved on and, you know, grew out of that shit. Self-loathing and intense regret were not her style. And yet, at that moment, she found her self moping around on her various failures over the past year.

 

A few months back, everything was going pretty friggin' well for her. She was enjoying work for the first time in years with her new job at a modeling company and was happily married to Joe. Sigh, Joe. He was such a great guy. He was compassionate, gentle, and always put everyone before himself. He was so deeply caring in a way that Rachel hadn't seen before. More importantly, he loved her.

 

That had always been Rachel's problem. You know, her household wasn't a real affectionate one. I mean, Mom and Dad never left her to want for anything. But it was obvious that love had gone out of that arrangement years ago and things became strictly practical. Both had affairs on the side, both knew. Being an only child, Rachel always had to depend on herself. She was alone, most of the time. So love was always a deceptive concept. She had boyfriends and guys from time to time, but… They never really, like, loved her. Maybe because she didn't attract guys like that. Or maybe because she pushed them away before they had that chance. Whatever the reason, she had never been to that depth of emotion before.

 

But Joe was so different. He made her feel accepted, wanted, needed. Made her believe in all that mushy stuff, deep romantic longing, love poems, and such. And hey, if nothing else, she and Joe had the same taste in music and movies. That was way more important than you'd think.

 

So, when the Silloc issue came up, when she suddenly found her gentle husband caught up in the tangled limps of that twisted, devious little dwarf, it broke her on a deep level. She was back to square one. Loveless, to be melodramatic. Thrown adrift in a heartless world, where compassion was meaningless. Ah, the agony. Oh, the ceaseless despair. Alas.

 

(Cough. Jeez. The Cure, much?)

 

More then anything else, it was completely out of character for Joe. He had certainly never expressed any interest in the kind of sexual acrobatics demented little people are prone to. It was as if some outside force was pushing Joe into the swarthy little misshapen claws of Dalek Jalapeño Silloc. (I bet that wasn't even his real name.)

 

So, fuck it, Rachel said. No more, I'm done. She decided to push things even further. She wasn't going to care anymore. Back to before, but heavier. She knew it was this self-destructive path that led her to being a paid assassin for Renn-Tech. Oh, sure, anybody would have good reasoning for gunning down Silloc. And though she justified the attempted murder with some of that evidence, the real motive was purely selfish. He had ruined her wedded life and she wanted revenge.

 

Even though DJ was as dead as disco, it didn't make her feel any better. She should have taken that lesson from Batman. Vengeance doesn't make anybody feel better. You might have wiped the source of your sadness off the face of the earth but… It didn't fix things. It didn't take things back to how they were. Nothing was really resolved. She realized that now and should have realized it sooner. She didn't even get to pull the trigger. Her misery had been forced onto someone else.

 

Thad… Goddamn it, Thad. She could have handled DJ's blood on her hands, she wasn't a nice person. It wouldn't have made her feel any better but she could handle that dirt on her conscious. But Thad… He was a gentle soul. A real cream-puff, deep down. It shouldn't be his burden.

 

That's all Rachel ever did, she realized now. That was where her cynicism came from. She wasn't happy until her general dissatisfaction with her life, with her world, spread to everyone else in the near by vicinity. She liked to make others feel miserable. It made her own suffering seem less if everyone else suffered too. Maybe that's why Thad infuriated and interested her so much. He was seemingly impervious. Maybe he'd stumbled onto the chink in her armor of disparagement. But he wasn't here to help her anymore. He'd find his Helen and move on, leave her behind, just like everybody else. He didn't really care. So fuck him. Let him have angst. He probably deserved it anyway. Everybody's been an asshole to somebody, at some point in their life, right?

 

In the darkness, something glinted and caught Rachel's eye. She took her head from the pillow and looked that way. Sitting there, at the edge of a nurse's trey, was a pair of scissors. The blades had been extended, pushed as far apart as possible, to the point where they seemed more useful for slicing then cutting. Where could they have possible come from? Maybe one of those crazy robots had left them there, though that didn't make much sense… They had to have been used to cut the gauze for her wounds. Yes, that must be it. Inexplicitly, she found herself drawn to the shiny blades.

 

Reaching out, she grabbed the implement from the trey. Turning the blade over and over in her hands, the light refracted off the surface… Suddenly, it was all clear. Without reproach, Rachel had a course of action. She wanted very much to drag the sharp edge of the scissors down the inside of her arms. She wanted to see the vain split. She wanted to see the life blood drain from her. She wanted to feel that.

 

Pushing, pushing, push… Pushing apart, pushing away, pushing underground. Yes, there wasn't anywhere else left to run too. No one could hurt here there.

 

Rachel Merchawitz pressed the point of the scissors to the beginning of the long blue vein. And then she began.

 

----

 

Why would Renn-Tech need a brig? That didn't make any sense. They were a software publishing company, an adult movie studio… Why the hell would need a prison in addition to that? Not that it mattered. Thad was at the point where nothing mattered.

 

But they sure went the extra mile to make the place as miserable as possible. Black stone walls, cast iron bars, ludicrously uncomfortable cots, dripping water sounding from somewhere. Cold, dark, dank, every cliché fit. Of course, the environment perfectly matched Thad's mood at the moment. Maybe a little too well.

 

He was so despondent that he didn't even bother with the cot. No, no, the floor was much better suited to his self-induced crapulence. Cots were for people who had not had their reasons for existence, or at the very least, their reason for changing their life so drastically over the past several months, torn away from them. Thad was a floor kind of guy at the moment. Or for forever. That's how it felt, anyway.

 

The wretched solitude of the prison ended. The solitude part, anyway. Now Thad would have to suffer with company, he thought. For the second time that day, James Eaalhi inundated a dark room with light but stepping through the door. His loafers clicked on the stone floor as he walked over to Thad's cell. Behind him, the sound of a squeaking, wobbling wheel could be heard. A cart with one wiggling wheel brought a small moderator into the room, pushed, appropriately, by Ass Renn, the human equivalent of a wobbly wheeled cart.

 

Peering through the bars like a predator peering at its hapless prey, Eaalhi quipped,

 

“Thad, you and I have to stop meeting this way.”

 

Thaddeus gave him a sideway glance but didn't bother uttering a response. He wasn't in the mood to play verbal jabs with his nemesis. Not that he ever was, but today especially.

 

“What exactly did you do to end up down here, Thad? Honestly, always the trouble maker. I send you to bring a poor girl some coffee and you wind up behind bars.”

 

He spoke like a parent, scoffing at their mischievous son's little exploits.

 

It's not like he could hide his contempt. Thad was aware of what Eaalhi was doing. He knew well enough what had happen. He knew everything that went on in this building. James knew it too, he saw it in the oppressed eyes.

 

He continued, “I don't see what the big deal is. She's not anybody important. Thad, you should see the things that's been done to her body. The phrase others would use is “whore.” Quite literally. She is paid to have sex with men. Yes, that actress is a whore.”

 

“Shut up!” He pressed his palms over his ears. It didn't stop the pain. Because he was right. She was a… God, he couldn't say think word.

 

Chuckling, satisfied, the fiend snapped his fingers and called out, “Ashley, bring that over here, please.”

 

“Yezzh, Miztah Owllah.” The poor bastard groaned and pushed the cart into Thad's point of view. The Renn-Tech corporate head removed a remote from his pocket.

 

“I'm afraid something rather unfortunate has happened. Miss Merchawitz has suffered an inopportune accident.”

 

He tapped a button on the remote and the monitor flicked on. Showed on screen was Rachel, an oxygen mask over her mouth, eyes closed, tubes running in and out of her body, surrounded by beeping machinery. Her wrists were bandaged but dried brown husk seeped through the white covering. It was obvious, even to Thad in his darkened state, what had happened.

 

What next? It was just another turd on top of a shitty day. Disheartening a revelation as it was, Thad couldn't summon up any sense of compassion or outrage.

 

He muttered the only thing he could say to completely express his absolute loathing at everything. Himself, the world. What was the point. Not a question asking for purpose in the universe, but a textbook slogan. An empty utterance of total unhappiness.

 

“It doesn't matter.”

 

Eaalhi smiled, showing his whiten teeth, pleased beyond belief. The keys jangled as he opened the cell, swinging it open widely.

 

“Come with me Thad.”

 

“Why?” There was no emotion in his voice. He couldn't muster it.

 

“You're ready now. It's time for you to fulfill your purpose.”

 

----

 

Shivering, nude, sweaty, hairy, stinking, covered with partially eaten particles of food and his own excrement, The Author continued to type, his fingers bloody steak raw.

 

Isolated in his room, poorly boarded up with whatever barriers he could find or make, the young man shivered so hard his eyes nearly popped right out of his head.

 

“Man, I sure could use a hug.”

 

TO BE CONTINUED!!!