Ethics

It turns out I already know French, the minute I heard people speaking it around me it just started flowing out of me like I was a native. I wonder what else I know…

It takes a considerable amount of lying and thievery to get anywhere if you intend to stay off the radar, damn computerized everything. There are cameras everywhere. I’ve dyed and cut my hair, I try to change my style of clothes every couple of days and had started applying ridiculous amounts of make up. I talked my way onto a private boat that was crossing the channel, I gave them some of the money I had and worked off the rest, but now I think I could navigate a small boat if my life depended on it. You can’t have too many skills I don’t think.

But it bugs me that I have to deceive absolutely everyone I meet. I mean elaborate, convoluted lies. I can never give any hint of who I really am, where I have come from if I want to disappear completely. It's what I hated most about being a part of Warlike's world but to avoid going back it's what I have to resort to. It’s such a crappy set of choices, be the real me and a sucker or fake it for the rest of my life, never letting anyone know that real me.

That’s it really, I have been constantly surrounded by people at all times and yet I am totally alone. I have had to be on my guard at all times, and even when I was “myself” with the MI6 agents, I was able to use that against them in my escape and in the end being contrary to who I really am. Do normal people have to deal with— a work persona versus a home persona? I’m sure on some level everyone has layers but the depths of what I am having to resort to is exhausting. I don’t know how long I will be able to keep this up.

Retribution

MI6 thinks they can control the situation. Warlike thinks he rules the world. They’re all wrong. I ditched the whole lot of them. Just another day in the life of Peaceful the naïve tourist. A few strategic purchases, two items from a food store, and another at a gardening store, and an extended time in a women’s rest room, I mixed the ingredients and then decided to ride the tube at rush hour. A little smoke, someone yells fire, and you have an instant stampede.

I find now that I have not prepared appropriately for London weather, it’s freezing and has been raining some, but I warm myself with thoughts of them running around that house in a state of panic because they’ve lost me. I had to show them, I had to know for myself that I can make it without them, that I don’t need anyone. I will slum it for a few days, see if I can’t make it to Portsmouth and get a ferry to France or Spain. I have already given my mobile to some shoeless street kid, but I have memorized the numbers of some of the agents, I will call them in a few days just to mess with them.

I lifted an iPhone off of a yuppie in the tube, so I could write this, it will be shut off soon. The next question is what to do next. If I manage to drop off the radar long enough to have a new life who do I want to be, what do I want to do? I can think about that once I have gotten the English channel between myself and them.

Hell Hole

I lied. I told them it had been a long day and I just want to go to bed. It has been a long day. I am in pain in ways I didn’t even know were possible.

What do they expect me to do? Why are they doing this to me, what do they want? If I can’t go back with my parent’s, if I can’t live the life I once had, what is the point of torturing me in this way? These are supposed to be the good guys. This reunion has resolved nothing for me. I don’t know what they hoped to accomplish from this. If it was to encourage me toward some future hope, that too is no good. Without the past to draw from I cannot imagine my future with them. If it was to comfort and reassure me that too has failed.

All I feel is anger mixed with confusion. I hate them all! I am just a tool to them, all of them, no matter whose side they are on. Is that my fate?
They tell me it’s gonna be okay. Warlike has lost his advantage. The game is ours now. With my parents safe I can go back, without fear and together we can get him. All this team talk of their’s, its bullshit. Do they really think that after I hand them his head on a platter that somehow I can then go “home?” I don’t even know those people, why would I want to be with them. In a strange way they are asking me to hand over the only family I can recall. If anything I should be running to Warlike and his merry band of mercenaries. Everyone wants to use me, at least he pays.

Homecoming

I awoke this morning to the smell of bacon. I come down the narrow servant stairs into the kitchen to find Pure cooking, nothing unusual there, they all alternate, the ones that can cook. We greet each other and that is when Protector comes in. He meets me at the bottom of the steps. He’s wearing a brown t-shirt that says “Bass Master” with fish flipping across his chest. “Today is a very special day.” He gives me wide smile, his black hair standing straight up like he had been electrocuted. It’s seems so strange to me that someone with his job should be so…weird. He takes me by the arm and starts leading me toward the sitting room. “Now I don’t want you to freak out. We’re here, we’re all here for ya. If you need anything just let me know.”

Their names are “Counsel Rule” and “God is Gracious” (different names from those agents with the same meaning.) Mr. & Mrs. M. have been introduced to me as my parents. And as if to bring evidence of their claim they came armed with pictures of me: As a toddler in a blue and red bikini with a young Mrs. M kneeling next to me. On Santa’s lap in a red dress and white lace collar, black patent shoes shining brightly. My first soccer uniform, my hair pulled back in long dark curls and a black and white ball under my arm. Each photo progresses in age, finally a newspaper article showing the mangled car and the announcement of my death.

I felt nothing. I held those photos in my hands and stared hard into the eyes of the girl that was me. I want to feel something. I want to believe this is the truth, it’s such a nice truth. All I can feel is anguish for my lack of connection and anger because the only emotions I have felt are a result of Watchman’s appearance. Why should he have a place in my emotional life while my parents have none? It’s screwed up.

Of course they could have been faked, I can trust nothing but myself and that is the problem, I can’t even tell what is me or what was suggested or implanted or whatever else Warlike did to me. Maybe that was Warlike’s plan from the start. It is impossible for me to accept anything as truth or reality.

Life is but a Dream

I wish sleep was optional, I've decided to become an insomniac because they crap that comes out when I sleep is so messed up. I was in my room, in my house. I know this in the way that you know anything in a dream, you just do. It’s not the room I have now here in London or is it anything like Warlike’s house. It’s suburban America. It’s a school day and the only things left to do are put on my shoes and grab my stuff. I have my backpack, but also my duffle bag with my track clothes for practice is after school.

As I come down the stairs I can smell bacon and I am hungry. As I come jogging down the stairs I pass by a series of framed photo collages, they are always there, I have no need to look at them, I don’t have time either. As I attempt to recall the details, all my mind will conjure are rectangles of fuzzy images.

I come into the kitchen. Dad is at the table, half a cup of coffee still steaming, only the top of his head can been seen above an open newspaper, the “Wall Street Journal.” Mom is at the stove tending to the frying pans, her back to me. “Have some juice dear,” she says without turning around. That is her voice, I know it like I know my own, the voice that had been there my whole life until…

I am so overwhelmed at the sound that I run up and kiss her on the cheek. “What is that for?” She turns to look at me. With what, eyes of compassion, arched eyebrows, what! WHAT! Nothing. There’s just contoured skin over eye sockets and a mouth. I scream, stepping back, I trip and fall. I hear the newspaper rustle, followed by my dad’s voice, “What’s going on here?” It’s not a mad tone; it’s a confused tone, that is all I have to go on because he too is a blank slate.

I’m crying, I don’t know what is happening. The swinging door from the dining room bursts open and Watchful and Usurper come crashing in, they grab me by the arms and start dragging me from the room. My parents, with their blank faces, “watch” as I am pulled out of sight and dragged out of the house.

I wonder if they will give any drugs to suppress this crap.

Together Again

I was in the Megastore today, honestly standing at a listening station. I had forgotten all of them, Warrior, He Gave, Pure, the whole lot. I was just me- discovering a new (possibly renewed) love for new wave music. Surely I appeared as any teenager does, bouncing my head, tapping my foot, peering closely at the back cover, blending in. Satisfied with my selection I pulled the headphones off. As soon as I set them in the cradle, I feel it, a change in the atmosphere.

‘What once was lost has now been found,’ an American accent, coming up from the chest, ragged on the edges from years of chain smoking. His voice made the deepest part of me freeze with terror. Watchman.

I looked up across the CD rack. In the next aisle over he stood there holding the headphones and staring directly at me. His black hair tussled, his jaw shaded with bristles, and a slight smile on his lips. As always in his dark blue sports jacket and white dress shirt. Pretending to listen, he held the earphones to one side of his head making his jacket gap a bit, the butt of a gun stark against his shirt.

‘Pardon?’ I asked in the Queen’s English.

He scoffed and set the headphones aside. Winking he turned and started walking toward the doors. Quickly I looked around to see if anyone who should have been was watching. I saw no one immediately. I started toward the front of the store. An employee opened the door and let Watchman loose on the streets, into the crowds.

Again I looked around to find no one; maybe they were outside, following him now. He should be followed; the man is essentially a serial killer. He is also free lance, who was paying him is a troubling mystery. This was the moment we had been waiting for, the pieces were moving again. How can I be surrounded 24 hours a day and yet this is the one moment I appear to be alone?

The security feed revealed only what I have told you. The angle and distance of the camera’s gave only a grainy image of a customer looking at CD’s. I have spent the better part of my evening looking through the MI6 and CIA databases for an ID match. There are none and all I know about him is his first name and the murderous tenacity he has for his quarry. The next move has to be mine.

Close Encouters

There is a Hagen Daas store just under Tower Bridge. Going in for a mid-day snack I hold the door open for a man coming in behind me—this is the beginning of the end.

I wish I had faked a French or Russian accent but I have already ordered a double scoop with Pecan Praline and Cookies ‘n’ Cream in perfect English. Besides, persistence like his is not a to be discouraged by such a trifling thing as language. His name is Kennedy (yes, that’s his actual name), and he is from Brazil. He has been on vacation for the last six months and London is his latest stop.

He asks if I am married. No, do I have a boyfriend? I tell him it’s none of his business and hope the hard edge in my voice will give him the encouragement he needs to move on. He does not move on, he sits down next to me and leans close, telling me what beautiful eyes I have specifying the various hues and tones, blah, blah, blah. I look around the room for help. The other patrons are focused on their cup or cone and I can’t get anyone’s attention.

I tell him I’m seventeen but this has no effect. He accuses me of being a terrible liar and puts his arm across the back of the plastic seat back. I thank God that it is not a bench seat. I need an escape or at the very least a plausible excuse. I am quickly working my way to the bottom of my cup and have yet to taste anything it contains.

Where are the agents? Have they taken his photo and sent it to MI6 for identification already? I am hoping this will be my salvation but as I think it through I realize that he is indeed a man on vacation and therefore of no immediate threat. I hope he has a record so they will come pull me out of the situation. But with an ever-increasing sense of dread I know that I am on my own for this one. Why did I hold that door for him?

Empire Strike's Back con.

As I had said before there is not much I can remember from that time. In this case I imagine it to be a blessing and not a curse. Through all that haze I remember one thing for sure, the face of Protector above me. His face was like the others, meaning he was Chinese, but there was a quality about it that was different. It could have been hours or days, time was irrelevant there. It turns out that it was just short of six weeks we were there. Protector had been there from the start so he must have been under deep cover long before our arrival. Am I glad he was, every day whispering in my ear like an angel, he spoke to me in words I knew but I was so drugged I could not make sense of what he said but they gave me hope. Hope for what I do not know but hope is all it takes to get you through any disaster. It’s all like a weird and way too long dream. I am never sure if the people and things that happen in my head at night are/were real or if my brain is making it all up.

But him and Noble Lady they are with MI6. What a coo for the British government, I wonder if the American’s are pissed that they didn’t get to me first, I mean they probably feel they get dibs since I’m a US citizen, I think. This whole operation is run by the Brits so maybe they have a thing against Warlike, though I can’t imagine who wouldn’t. What ever you can call this life it’s the best one so far. Long live the queen.

Empire Strikes Back

One day I’m Warlike’s prisoner and the next I am the prized possession of MI6. But still I have not gotten to how MI6 has come into this long and sad tail. I’ll tell ya how. The Chinese, not to be out done by anyone, still desperate to prove themselves a force to be reckoned with, are investing in genetic alterations. Russia couldn’t afford us and I don’t imagine any terrorists would be interested, they aren’t organized enough as a single group to afford what the Chinese paid, besides they tend to like the good ol’ fashion warfare with explosive weapons and stealth.

Anyways next thing I woke up to find myself in a padded room. I couldn't even recall the last thing that had happened to me. All I knew was that I was alone in a cushioned box with only the barest of clothing on and electrodes all over my body. The lights came on full force, the door swung open and I was surrounded by four compact but very cut men. I had no idea what this was about so I waited. They thought the same I guess 'cause there we all were ready to fight but no one moved.

Then there was shout from behind that filled the tiny space with ear bleeding effectiveness. Seemed one of them had decided they'd had enough and they jumped me. I decided until I knew what was going on I would only defend myself. After the fourth or fifth dog pile I had changed my mind about keeping it friendly.

Until now I had never had to actually hit someone for real, Usurper and Bright Flame did not count. I mean really hit, with the intent to harm. A-it hurts, being nigh invulnerable is not mutually exclusive of pain. B-it’s noisy, the sound of cracking bone or fist to flesh is not something I had heard before. The whole experience is jarring. I was able to hold them off for a good bit just out of shear brutality, but these guys were fast. And did I mention there were four of them.

Then as suddenly as they had started, they stopped. I was one knee on the ground just trying to breathe. They were bloodied and out of breath as much as me. As I pushed myself to standing a jolt of electricity bit my skin. Then another. And another. It was the electrodes, there were dozens of them and they all started shocking me. I reached to pull them off and the intensity of the shocks increased.

I must have passed out at this point because the next thing I saw were lights moving above me, I floated along the ground as my attackers carried me down a tight hallway, I could see the walls past their heads. My fingers and toes still tingled with electricity. I kicked and screamed to the best of my ability. My new strategy being to make things as difficult as possible for them.

Quickly we passed through a door and I was harshly thrown up onto some sort of surface or platform where they strapped down all my extremities before I could regain my coordination. The room was uncannily similar to what Warlike’s facilities were. Maybe they had the same designer. Looking I around there is a table next to me. Usurper restrained in the same way, the rise and fall of his chest indicated sleep. Holding my head in place a mask is put over my nose and mouth. I can smell the gas that will usher me into oblivion.

If I ever see Likeness of God again he’s a dead man.