This is About as Close as we get to an Apology

It’s been a rough week. I’ve been… paranoid.
I spent most of this week beating on Fracture, tying him up, staring at him, and eventually I threw him off the roof. That last one really takes me back to my youth. Huh, that kind of rhymes. And now I’m rambling.

Focus. So throwing Fracture off the roof did wonders for fixing his attitude problem, by which I mean his constant creepy smile. He even started talking and reasoning at me again. I think I might have missed that a little more than I would like to admit because I actually listened to what he was saying for once. The following is a rough retelling of it. I wasn’t hanging onto every word or anything:

“I think that was uncalled for.”
“I bet. You deserve every bit of it. You deserve more even.”
“And why would that be?”
“You betrayed me.”
“This surprises you? Have you read half the shit you’ve written? Don’t act so hurt. You were waiting for this. You constantly beat on me in anticipation for this. Had this day never come, you would look back on our time together and think on how my betrayal must have only been one more day away. Inevitable treachery stopped by a lack of time and opportunity.”
“Shut up!”
“Not having fun anymore?”
“This has never been fun.”
“Why so sour. This isn’t even about me is it? I haven’t told you anything you didn’t already know.”
“Of course it’s about you!”
“This ‘betrayal’ doesn’t even phase you does it? I bet you’re proud of me. Putting work aside for personal passions.”
“…”
“This is about her. This is a distraction so you don’t have to deal with the life you’ve ruined. Poor Picasso, you can’t even man up and face her.”
“Shut the fuck up.”
“Ready to get back to work Duckie?”
“Yeah,… fine.”

Then I threw him off the roof again and untied him. After he was done soaking away his bruises in the shower we talked on what I planned to do about the Twin. I was surprised to find his didn’t approve of my brilliant plan, operation: ‘Snap her Neck and Leave her in a Ditch’. There was an argument.

“Don’t kill her.”
“Why the fuck not? She’s a dangerous defector at this point. All who fail to serve deserve their end.”
“You were spared. Don’t you think she deserves the same opportunity? Don’t you think you owe her that much?”
“I have never argued the point that they should have killed me after your sentencing. She dies.”
“What would her brother have wanted?”
“Fuck you, that’s what.”

And then I stormed out. It’s time to fix my mess.

Tainted

"I suppose the word is tainted... like how I felt after I killed Lucas."

"The world is very tainted. I think it always has been."

"Pandora’s Box or the Apple of Eden… in history it has always been the act of a person that ruins the world."

“I don't know that anything is ruining this world. I think worlds die... just like people do."

"Which makes it all the more heartbreaking to kill."

"I don't know that I follow. I mean that logic tells me that every death is inevitable."

"But quickening it… preventing life."

"One death won't destroy this world... nor will it prevent new life."

"But their life, the possibilities their lives possess."

"You have to live for them. Honor their loss."

"Is that what you do?"

"Because I killed one, I have to kill them all... or it’s unfair to that one..."

"Then kill me."

"... I don't want to..."
La, la la


"If that is what you believe, kill me."

"Don't say that… I don't want to..."
La la, la la

"I do not wish you to either… but if that is what you believe..."

"Please stop it!"
La la, la la, la la, la

"I do not want you to kill me. But that feeling, right there.... That doubt but willingness to go through with it anyway... You too are a beautiful mess."

"I... like your mess better..."
La, la la

"Thank you… for struggling."

“…”

… That was almost that last time anyone would have seen Ember live…

I’ve been extra hard on Fracture these last few days. I’ve been so mad at him. He sets up a meeting for Ember and I. He didn’t bother to tell me that’s what it was though. I wouldn’t have shown…

Most of it was nice. We both needed a friend and for the most part we got along really well. There was coffee, movies, hot sauce, a stroll… and my favorite, a little sparring. I won.

And then there was that unfortunate conversation…

I agreed to a promise after that.
“Try not to kill your own side, my friend… I think that deep down you have some good in you.”
“I’ll try.”
“Promise?”
“… Yeah.”

I suppose I will at the very least try. Fucking proxies.

While the whole experience was not something I would be willing to give up, Fracture is still in hot shit. And it’s not because of him setting this up and it’s not because he keeps screaming my insecurities out for the world to see. That, at this point, is nothing new. I believe Fracture made a legitimate move on my life.

My time with Ember was interrupted by a proxy attack. It was an old war buddy whose life I ruined… one of many fires I have left burning. ‘Twin’. Someone sent her after me. She shouldn’t have been able to recognize my new face. Someone told her what to look for. Only Fracture and Ember know what I look like now…

Fracture smiled when I finally accused him today. It wasn’t his normal smile though. There was something haunting about it. He had to forcibly hide it away before he finally denied it. But I can still see it when he thinks I’m not paying attention. He has to stop himself every time I slug him.

Even now I can see it in the monitor’s reflection… that haunting, knowing smile.

I’m just going to have to treat this as another far more elaborate trial.
Time to up my game.

No Fire to Speak Of

Well this has certainly been an interesting few days.  Let’s address them as they relate to my charge as I’m not here to play a recapping service.

First off, Nightscream is alive. 926 was very happy to hear this news. I’m not sure what his obsession is with that one but he was positively chipper when he found out.

He was also rather pleased with the news that ‘Joseph’ wasn’t put to death. That one actually concerns me though. I’ve never seen him act quite like this and I don’t know what it means.

And there’s Elaine’s dead. This one can be summed up in his own words:
“Sweet.”
(On a personal note:
I would have found the news far more painful myself but I already knew it was going to happen. In the short time we knew each other we read each other like a book. It was haunting really.)

I’d address the rather concerning issue of Redlight but Duckie doesn’t actually seem to know who Redlight is.
So in his own words:
“I'm gonna have to file this one under don't care.”

My, that was a lot to cover. It’s concerning those were all events from the same 48 hour period.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Concern over current events aside, I’ve heard a fair few words of concern over 926’s behavior as of late. I believe It’s finally time I address what I’ve recently been able to discern to be the root of his issues.

You see, there is nothing quite as unpredictable as a man without a purpose and that’s just what Subject 926 is. He is a man without purpose. A state rather unfortunately inflicted upon him by those who manage him.

He wasn’t always this way. To this day if you ask him why he does what he does he’ll tell you, “I act in service of the Master.” Then he’ll punch you on the same fucking spot on the arm that he slugs you every single fucking time for being stupid. That shit fucking hurts. Focus. Umm… where was I?

Right.
He’ll tell you that. But if you had asked him a little over 2 and a half years ago he would have said it like he meant it. But his faith in his actions has been shaken to its very core.

You see poor Duckie never got the luxury of knowing he was doing Fathers will, never once. In fact, he can apparently count the amount of time he has spent with Father on both hands… in seconds. According to him, in that time father has never spoken to him or thought at him or whatever it is Father does. So being the loyal proxy Duckie was, he had to assume that whatever orders he was getting from the Bureaucracy were Fathers will.

But life is never so simple. It took a little while but at some point Duckie realized he wasn’t serving Father so much as he was serving the personal agendas of his handlers. Details get fuzzy from there. I’m certain both Duckie and those overseeing exactly what information I’m allowed to get out of his files are holding something back. But somehow, that distrust translated into him cutting down proxy and runner alike in a desperate effort to do what he perceived at the time “Had to be Master’s will.”

Eventually Father put him down and, much to my dismay, picked him back up.

Now the poor lunatic stands without a reason.  Here’s a little excerpt from a conversation we had so you can gauge for yourselves how concerning an issue this really is:

“You know… sometimes I wish I was just a hollow. You know?”

“I thought you hated hollows. No fire to speak of, as you say.”

“Ya, but at least as a soulless husk I would know for sure that I was serving the Master. No more worries, no more doubts. Hell, no more anything…”

“What about your little cult thingy? The flame cannot be oppressed and all that jazz.”

“Control does me a fat lot of good when I can’t do the things I want to do with it.”

Concerning right?
Fracture out.

A Hell of a Town

“La, la la”
I can hear it.
           
“Y*% N$*^i$# t! *e”
Grrr… still can’t quite get it.

“La, la la”
And now it’s gone again.

I might be losing it…
Although I suppose that’s nothing new coming from a proxy huh? Let’s move onto something a little more relevant then. We arrived at our destination. My favorite shit hole in the whole wide world! That’s right, I’m in New York. Such great memories to look back on like how my entire squad died here and of course there are those poor bastards I cut down here after I lost it. Yep, this doesn’t scream fuck me or anything.

But wait, there’s more! I’ve also been grounded so I’m not going anywhere. But New York is a big town right? Lots of marks on my list to keep myself busy. I’ll just… oh look at that! My fucking list has been locked. I’m also not allowed to hunt it seems. Just fuck me huh? I thought the scenarios were an annoying waste of time but now I have been promoted to sitting on my ass. I think I actually prefer the mind the games, at least parts of those are fun.

To that end Fracture and I rented a movie. He did not shut up the entire time and that was with me punching him and yelling at him. Whatever elaborate shit they have brewing for me better kill me, because I think I’m back to being a week from killing Fracture again. I might really do it this time.

Fracture assures me it shouldn’t come to that. He’s apparently wrapping up the details on some sort of arrangement. Ominous. I’m fucking thrilled. It just better happen soon so I can get the hell out of this shit hole.

I-I just need… to go kill something. New York won’t mind if one of their homeless goes missing right?
…I’m not exactly getting a no from Fracture…

Fuck it. Someone dies.
Swan out. Stay positive!

A Little Something Special

“There is no such thing as a normal proxy. He picked each and every one of us for a reason.”

            - Mentor Turner

This is what one of my trainers told us after showing us something special. Something I’ve yet to see repeated in all my years in service. We were to understand that some of would be special and some of us were talented. But for whatever reason, even if it was just to die, we were picked and because of it we were special.

For a long time, I was just talented. I would hope so at least. I mean I haven’t died or… oh yeah.

Hmm… rambling.
Anyways, I’ve developed an anomaly of my own and to my great misfortune Fracture found out about it.

See, we were driving down the street and Fracture was being extra bitchy. He insisted he couldn’t take driving any longer and I was going to have to take a shift. After much protesting, and after slugging him several times, I finally gave in. Now it’s not that I’m a bad driver or anything but apparently I was going too fast to make a turn and we skid right off the road and hit a tree. My left window shattered and the shrapnel of glass cut me up pretty bad. I got out of the wreck to find Fracture literally unscathed standing at the top of the hill. He apparently dove out of car. From there we were towed in by ‘friends’.

When we got to our motel room, Fracture set to work on removing the glass from my skin. That’s when he noticed something was off. Half of my cuts had closed and the skin around the extruding pieces had sealed around the glass. It didn’t take him long to figure out what was up. God, that glare of his is absolutely piercing. He was very insistent, against my own protests, that I report this in so here it is. I have a regenerative epidermis.

But it’s literally just the epidermis. Everything else has to heal naturally but my epidermis seals right up after a good minute. That may sound cool but its applications are few. I won’t bleed for very long, I don’t have to worry about infections, and much to my own miss fortune I won’t scar anymore. This ‘gift’, as Fracture calls it, is apparently why I my face isn’t fucked up anymore and is likely the cause of all my scars going away.

Fracture spent all day today testing out its limits. Cutting, frying me, burning me, and I think he stuck my finger in acid at the end. That was where I had to draw the line. I tried to keep myself mannered for his stupid little tests but he got punched in the face for that one, a few times. I didn’t bother to count how many it took me to finally stop.

I have no illusions about this. This is not a gift. This is another punishment. I mean really think about this. My anomaly grants me the unique opportunity to be cut over and over again in the same spot. And it’s not like it stops hurting after the first cut. That shit hurts each and every time it gets sliced. That I won’t bleed out on the floor only serves to prolong the length at which some asshole can sit there and flay me until I finally bleed out internally.

But I suppose I’m not being punished if I keep this in the dark so whatever.
Bring it assholes.

Mind Games

“La, la la.”
I can hear something is the background.
“La, la la, la la.”
I can hear something other than the children singing.
“La, la la. La la, la la, la.”
It sounds a little something like:
“S- &u*h t_ #e#”

No, that wasn’t coherent…
It doesn’t matter though. My concentration on the matter was broken when my annoying therapist started jabbing his elbow in my side. I return the favor by slugging him in the arm.

“What?”
“See those two over there?” he says pointing at a man and a woman. “That’s Elaine and Elliott.”

He felt my grip tighten and my teeth grit a bit as soon as I heard that. I needed to fight my hatred though, if for no other reason than because I was pretty sure Fracture was lying to me. He’s taken to saying things to gauge my reaction lately. It’s annoying. I slugged him again.

“Creeper. Which one are you eyeing?” I teased him.
“One?” he responded.

I couldn’t tell if he was joking. I think this was also him trying to gauge a reaction. I was so done with his stupid little mind game. So I forced the situation into something I had a little more control over. I pulled out my mask and held it where the couple could see. They must have been runners. They booked it into their car and left. I guess if that was actually them I’ll find out with a comment.

“We should get going too,” I said putting the mask away and heading to the car.
“That’s exactly the kind of shit that you keep getting in trouble for,” he informed me.
“That is exactly the kind of shit that will keep happening when you try to fuck with me,” I said slugging him again.
“Now shut it and drive.”

And then things went back to being quiet…
“La, la la…”

Cake Day(?)

I wasn’t going to post this information today but subject 926 insisted there had to be a post today so I figured I might as well. Apparently we are celebrating something he refers to as… cake day.

I was pretty sure he was messing with me at first, it being April fool’s day and all, but he has been very adamant about it. I had to go over his file to find the significance of this day for him. Today is apparently the day that marks the anniversary of his first kill. His file even has a little speech clipped to this detail in which his trainer informs him this is the start to his new life.

Subject 926 took this very literally from what I have been able to gather from him. Apparently he doesn’t celebrate a birthday. He instead celebrates this cake day.

“It marks the date I found my own fire and became a proxy!”

He is so committed to this he insists his age is 8.
When I asked him why he calls it cake day he informed me it was because it’s the one day out of the year he gets to eat cake…
His claim of eight year old has started to look rather appropriate.

--------------------------------------------------------------------

Enough about ‘Cake Day’ though, I believe I promised some information about myself. The request cleared so here goes nothing.

My career as a proxy has always been in some manner of management position. Looking back on it I’m pretty sure I was fast tracked every step of the way. Within weeks of being flipped I found myself leading a squad. After devastating events left the squad mostly dead and in shambles, I was promoted to mentor. I did that for a while, until they finally saw fit to move me up to handler. And then I was as a handler  for a solid ten years.

It was a good run. I was well respected and well looked after. I had friends, what amounted in my eyes to a family, and even a house. Never expected just how quickly those I held closest would abandon me.

Things first started visibly crumbling about a month back when I sentenced subject 926 to death prematurely. I had never had my authority questioned by my superiors like that before and they were very harsh. For speaking out of line and failing to consort with my superiors before trying to proceed, I was suspended of my duties indefinitely. Just like that. But I was assured it was a formality and that I would be back to work soon.

But that’s when the ‘Casey’ scandal came to light. Casey was another handler and a close peer for me. We spent a lot of time over my ten years as a handler talking over e-mail passively discussing everything: Love, life, family, work, you name it. But shortly after my suspension it was discovered that Casey was dead. She had been for a long time. But the emails had never stopped.

And that last email ‘she’ sent after that was discovered…
Sorry I died neighbor. See you around.

Suddenly I was under a proper investigation. It was determined that information discussed with ‘Casey’ was the direct cause of numerous proxy deaths. Everything I owned was taken. I was fortunate that their investigation determined me not to be a traitor but that did me a fat lot of good. All of my so called friends and ‘family’ abandoned me. Most of which refused to look me in the eye. It was decided that my suspension was never to be lifted. I was never going to be a handler again…

I begged. I pleaded. I needed to work. I needed to rebuild my life but I was being completely shut down. Someone finally offered me job evaluating and monitoring an asset.

Much to my great dismay, that landed me here.

Hmm… I have to go now. Subject 926 is calling. Apparently he gets to slug me eight times as a part of cake day tradition. I’m pretty sure he’s just making shit up now.