Re: Journal of Sociology [S!6] - [Round One: The Pacific Spire]
05-14-2012, 10:37 PM
Originally posted on MSPA by Solaris.
Nemo landed on his back. This had more to do with the fact he had been sleeping prior to being whisked away to a battle to the death than any subtle implication on the part of The Sociologist.
The air rushed by his ears for a moment, then BUMPed as his back collided with the cheap-carpet floor, followed by a smaller thump as his head did the same. He stared at white ceiling tile for a moment, half-dazed, half-waking-up, half furiously trying to stuff the past ten minutes or so of monologue into his long-term memory. The all important brief, the goal, the modus operandi, those minutes were perhaps the most crucial information for his continued existence, at least in the short term. Additionally, it allowed him to not wig out at the impossibility of his current situation oh god oh god oh god
click
“D…d-don’t you fuckin’ move!”
He didn’t. Not. a. hair. That click was the familiar sound of a handgun’s safety being flipped, and considering the situation, probably being flipped off. Furthermore, lying prone with no familiarity of the surroundings made attack an option only for idiots and people with a death wish. It also gave Nemo more time to think.
A long silence, save the underlying presence of office ambience. Nemo let the white noise sink in, to let Nothing slow his heartbeat…
There.
Finally, Nemo spoke.
“Could I, at the very least, sit up? As much I’d like to lie on this carpet while somebody points a gun at me, I have considerably more important things I could be doing. Like getting on with my life.”
Silence, again, before a stammered reply.
“J-just don’t try anything, ok!?”
Slowly, he sat up, using his feet to push him back, back, until he reached something reasonable to lean against, one of those half-walls that divide office spaces. He scanned his surroundings. Normal office, for the most part. Little to no signs of decay, literally nothing off, save for the emptiness of the place, along with the 30-something-year-old white male pointing a gun at him. Nemo was painfully aware of the shackles around his wrists, the claustrophobic facemask, the orange jumpsuit, his breaths, his heartbeat.
Silence, still. Still scanning, the gunman this time, about the same height and weight as him, wearing one of those white dress shirts with rolled-up sleeves, a distractingly bright red tie hanging limply around his neck. His hands, and consequently, his gun, were shaking, unsteady, unsure. Everything about him oozed an aura of fear.
“This floor doesn’t get a whole lot of fighting, does it.”
Not a question, merely a statement of fact.
“T-this is floor fourty… fourty-two,” the gunman replied, staring, wide-eyed. “It’s too close to… to the ground. For there to be fighting. People might find out there’s an… that there’s an all-out war going on up there. People like you, murdering and killing and who the… who fuck knows else what.”
He glanced wildly, looking at everything and nothing in particular. “I…I even get to see my wife. And my kid. Every so often. Christmas, usually. I don’t want you to take that from me. I don’t want you to take that from me.”
Nemo blinked, nodded. Slowly, calmly, trying to continue the conversation, he replied. “I don’t want to do anything I don’t have to, mister…”
“My name is Chuck.”
“Chuck. I don’t want to do anything unnecessary. And neither do you. How would it look, killing an unarmed man?”
“You’re in a prison jumpsuit. I could claim self-defense. It would be my word against a dead felon’s.”
“As well as that might be,” Nemo continued. He was almost close enough now. “Do you really want to deal with all that fuss? Court proceedings, so on and so forth. I’ve been in court, it’s not fun.” a slight pause. “And do you think, do you really, truly think, you could kill a man? Could you kill me? Right here, right now, your target, your victim sitting right front of you, do you think could pull that trigger? Do you?”
The dull drone of the office, of AC and computers and alternating-current humming through fluorescent light bulbs. Chuck stared at Nemo for a long time. A long time.
“I—“
And that’s when Nemo leapt forward, pushing off the wall, transforming the position of his legs into a forward run and then a sweeping kick and beforeyoucouldknowit made contact and BLAM, Chuck pulled the trigger. But he was already falling, his arm swinging wide, gun at a useless angle, bullet flying about fifty-six degrees into the air and effectively ruining a ceiling tile, hand letting go and letting the obsidian “L” spiral into the air, only to be caught again, caught by shackled hands, Nemo’s slight jump giving him just enough power and momentum to grab it and turn, half turn, one completed in a single backward step and a metallic death-dispenser pointed at its former owner.
“Take off your clothes,” Nemo said, without hesitation or second-thought.
“What?”
“Take. Off. Your clothes. Strip. Get naked,” a look of second-thought at the last statement.
“But keep your freaking underwear on.”
He glanced around the room. Fairly basic, one urinal, one stall. Not the best place to prepare oneself for a battle to the death. But decent.
First, the handcuffs.
Nemo grabbed paperclip he snatched from an office desk, bent it, stuck it in the lock, bent it a bit again, fiddled with it click. Unlocked. He repeated the process again, with the other hand.
At approximately nine point eight meters per second squared, Nemo’s handcuffs clattered to the tile bathroom floor. He stared at his wrists, rubbed them with his gloved hands. They felt so raw.
The facemask was next. Grabbed and tugged as hard as he could, flung it into the nearby urinal. The blinders were gone. The shackles were gone. The jumpsuit was the only thing left, and all that took were a few emphatic rips and tears.
He stood, naked, save for undergarments, in the bathroom, smiling. Smiling wider and wider and wider until he burst out laughing. He was free! He was fucking free! Compared to prison, this was a cakewalk! A vacation! Battle to the death? This was what he was BORN to do! god, he was free. he was free.
As he began to climb into Chuck’s old clothes, he began to think through strategy. Advantages, disadvantages. The most striking was information he had on everyone—Alchemist lady, the Gemini dudes, Miss Blacklight (how could he not forget someone like that, my god), costume guy, the…clothes, the android, and Dr. “differently alive”—while they had nothing on him. They knew what he looked like, sure, but he was already changing from his Obvious Orange into something subtler, and they had nothing else. No name, no history, nothing about his “ability”—once again, he was the absence of information, an unknown with all the cards, the most intel—the metaphorical and historical resonances were not lost on him.
He looked in the mirror. The white-rolled-up-sleeves-dress-shirt was alright. Blends in. The pants were good too—black, but a good black. Not prison black.
The tie, however, was gonna have to go. It was tacky. It stuck out. He threw in the garbage, simeltaniously grabbing the gun, and slipping it into his belt.
He stared in the mirror. He looked good. He looked normal. For a moment, he could almost imagine he was, not some hyperaware IQ-over-who-the-fuck-cares former-prisoner former-double-agent former-street-thief sonofagun. He could almost imagine he was.
But then, his eyes dropped down to the water bottle, and he remembered. He had one last thing to do.
“Thanks for the clothes, Chuck,” he said, holding up a bottle of yellow Something, staring at it, the light shining through it, the light. “Thanks.”
“What’s… what’s that?” Chuck said, keenly aware the gun was holstered, that something was up, that there was something important about that Something.
Nemo glanced away from the bottle to his captive. He studied him, naked and chained and afraid. How tables turn.
“Piss,” he said, and splashed it on him.
First was a look of confusion, then one of comprehension, then one of revulsion.
“What…?”
“Is it any consolation that your child does not need you,” Nemo said, a sad glint in his eye. He screwed the cap on remaining lotium and stuffed it into a pocket.
That look of confusion again.
That look of agony again. The scream, this time, was earth-shattering.
“BECAUSE LET ME TELL YOU, HE OR SHE WILL GET ALONG PERFECTLY FINE WITHOUT YOU. YOUR CHILD NEVER NEEDED YOU,” he screamed above Chuck’s screams. “YOU SAW HIM OR HER, WHAT, ONCE A YEAR? YOU’RE A STRANGER TO HIM—”
“HER!” Chuck managed to cry, throat already raw and worn, ringing the last intelligble word he’d ever say. Hives were breaking out on his face.
“YOU’RE A STRANGER TO HER! SHE DOESN’T REALLY KNOW YOU! YOU’RE THE GUY WHO PAYS FOR HER NICE THINGS AND COMES OVER FOR CHRISTMAS WITH SOME PRESENTS! YOU’RE THE MAN WHO COMES OVER EVERY CHRISTMAS WITH THE PROMISE OF BEING A FATHER AND THEN YOU BREAK IT. LET ME TELL YOU, YOU WERE ALREADY DEAD TO THEM. YOU WERE ALREADY DEAD TO BOTH OF THEM.
YOU WERE ALREADY DEAD
YOU WERE ALREADY DEAD”
And then, Chuck was already dead.
Raggedly, Nemo breathed in. Breathed out. He stared at the corpse.
Smiled and laughed, too sad to be uplifting and too sincere to be deadpan. Stretched his arms, his legs. Stared a while longer.
Turned, took a few steps, pressed the “up” button on the elevator console. Waited. Pressed it a few more times.
ding
doors slid open. Empty, thankfully. Two steps, in, turn.
He pressed a button. Up as far as he could go.
the doors slid close
ding
Spoiler
Nemo landed on his back. This had more to do with the fact he had been sleeping prior to being whisked away to a battle to the death than any subtle implication on the part of The Sociologist.
The air rushed by his ears for a moment, then BUMPed as his back collided with the cheap-carpet floor, followed by a smaller thump as his head did the same. He stared at white ceiling tile for a moment, half-dazed, half-waking-up, half furiously trying to stuff the past ten minutes or so of monologue into his long-term memory. The all important brief, the goal, the modus operandi, those minutes were perhaps the most crucial information for his continued existence, at least in the short term. Additionally, it allowed him to not wig out at the impossibility of his current situation oh god oh god oh god
click
“D…d-don’t you fuckin’ move!”
He didn’t. Not. a. hair. That click was the familiar sound of a handgun’s safety being flipped, and considering the situation, probably being flipped off. Furthermore, lying prone with no familiarity of the surroundings made attack an option only for idiots and people with a death wish. It also gave Nemo more time to think.
A long silence, save the underlying presence of office ambience. Nemo let the white noise sink in, to let Nothing slow his heartbeat…
There.
Finally, Nemo spoke.
“Could I, at the very least, sit up? As much I’d like to lie on this carpet while somebody points a gun at me, I have considerably more important things I could be doing. Like getting on with my life.”
Silence, again, before a stammered reply.
“J-just don’t try anything, ok!?”
Slowly, he sat up, using his feet to push him back, back, until he reached something reasonable to lean against, one of those half-walls that divide office spaces. He scanned his surroundings. Normal office, for the most part. Little to no signs of decay, literally nothing off, save for the emptiness of the place, along with the 30-something-year-old white male pointing a gun at him. Nemo was painfully aware of the shackles around his wrists, the claustrophobic facemask, the orange jumpsuit, his breaths, his heartbeat.
Silence, still. Still scanning, the gunman this time, about the same height and weight as him, wearing one of those white dress shirts with rolled-up sleeves, a distractingly bright red tie hanging limply around his neck. His hands, and consequently, his gun, were shaking, unsteady, unsure. Everything about him oozed an aura of fear.
“This floor doesn’t get a whole lot of fighting, does it.”
Not a question, merely a statement of fact.
“T-this is floor fourty… fourty-two,” the gunman replied, staring, wide-eyed. “It’s too close to… to the ground. For there to be fighting. People might find out there’s an… that there’s an all-out war going on up there. People like you, murdering and killing and who the… who fuck knows else what.”
He glanced wildly, looking at everything and nothing in particular. “I…I even get to see my wife. And my kid. Every so often. Christmas, usually. I don’t want you to take that from me. I don’t want you to take that from me.”
Nemo blinked, nodded. Slowly, calmly, trying to continue the conversation, he replied. “I don’t want to do anything I don’t have to, mister…”
“My name is Chuck.”
“Chuck. I don’t want to do anything unnecessary. And neither do you. How would it look, killing an unarmed man?”
“You’re in a prison jumpsuit. I could claim self-defense. It would be my word against a dead felon’s.”
“As well as that might be,” Nemo continued. He was almost close enough now. “Do you really want to deal with all that fuss? Court proceedings, so on and so forth. I’ve been in court, it’s not fun.” a slight pause. “And do you think, do you really, truly think, you could kill a man? Could you kill me? Right here, right now, your target, your victim sitting right front of you, do you think could pull that trigger? Do you?”
The dull drone of the office, of AC and computers and alternating-current humming through fluorescent light bulbs. Chuck stared at Nemo for a long time. A long time.
“I—“
And that’s when Nemo leapt forward, pushing off the wall, transforming the position of his legs into a forward run and then a sweeping kick and beforeyoucouldknowit made contact and BLAM, Chuck pulled the trigger. But he was already falling, his arm swinging wide, gun at a useless angle, bullet flying about fifty-six degrees into the air and effectively ruining a ceiling tile, hand letting go and letting the obsidian “L” spiral into the air, only to be caught again, caught by shackled hands, Nemo’s slight jump giving him just enough power and momentum to grab it and turn, half turn, one completed in a single backward step and a metallic death-dispenser pointed at its former owner.
“Take off your clothes,” Nemo said, without hesitation or second-thought.
“What?”
“Take. Off. Your clothes. Strip. Get naked,” a look of second-thought at the last statement.
“But keep your freaking underwear on.”
*
Nemo locked the bathroom door behind him, took a few steps forward, and placed the handgun on the brim of the sink. He threw the water bottle in bowl itself and tossed the clothes on the floor. He glanced around the room. Fairly basic, one urinal, one stall. Not the best place to prepare oneself for a battle to the death. But decent.
First, the handcuffs.
Nemo grabbed paperclip he snatched from an office desk, bent it, stuck it in the lock, bent it a bit again, fiddled with it click. Unlocked. He repeated the process again, with the other hand.
At approximately nine point eight meters per second squared, Nemo’s handcuffs clattered to the tile bathroom floor. He stared at his wrists, rubbed them with his gloved hands. They felt so raw.
The facemask was next. Grabbed and tugged as hard as he could, flung it into the nearby urinal. The blinders were gone. The shackles were gone. The jumpsuit was the only thing left, and all that took were a few emphatic rips and tears.
He stood, naked, save for undergarments, in the bathroom, smiling. Smiling wider and wider and wider until he burst out laughing. He was free! He was fucking free! Compared to prison, this was a cakewalk! A vacation! Battle to the death? This was what he was BORN to do! god, he was free. he was free.
As he began to climb into Chuck’s old clothes, he began to think through strategy. Advantages, disadvantages. The most striking was information he had on everyone—Alchemist lady, the Gemini dudes, Miss Blacklight (how could he not forget someone like that, my god), costume guy, the…clothes, the android, and Dr. “differently alive”—while they had nothing on him. They knew what he looked like, sure, but he was already changing from his Obvious Orange into something subtler, and they had nothing else. No name, no history, nothing about his “ability”—once again, he was the absence of information, an unknown with all the cards, the most intel—the metaphorical and historical resonances were not lost on him.
He looked in the mirror. The white-rolled-up-sleeves-dress-shirt was alright. Blends in. The pants were good too—black, but a good black. Not prison black.
The tie, however, was gonna have to go. It was tacky. It stuck out. He threw in the garbage, simeltaniously grabbing the gun, and slipping it into his belt.
He stared in the mirror. He looked good. He looked normal. For a moment, he could almost imagine he was, not some hyperaware IQ-over-who-the-fuck-cares former-prisoner former-double-agent former-street-thief sonofagun. He could almost imagine he was.
But then, his eyes dropped down to the water bottle, and he remembered. He had one last thing to do.
*
Nemo walked out of the bathroom. Chuck had been tied to a desk with a length of computer cable.“Thanks for the clothes, Chuck,” he said, holding up a bottle of yellow Something, staring at it, the light shining through it, the light. “Thanks.”
“What’s… what’s that?” Chuck said, keenly aware the gun was holstered, that something was up, that there was something important about that Something.
Nemo glanced away from the bottle to his captive. He studied him, naked and chained and afraid. How tables turn.
“Piss,” he said, and splashed it on him.
First was a look of confusion, then one of comprehension, then one of revulsion.
“What…?”
“Is it any consolation that your child does not need you,” Nemo said, a sad glint in his eye. He screwed the cap on remaining lotium and stuffed it into a pocket.
That look of confusion again.
That look of agony again. The scream, this time, was earth-shattering.
“BECAUSE LET ME TELL YOU, HE OR SHE WILL GET ALONG PERFECTLY FINE WITHOUT YOU. YOUR CHILD NEVER NEEDED YOU,” he screamed above Chuck’s screams. “YOU SAW HIM OR HER, WHAT, ONCE A YEAR? YOU’RE A STRANGER TO HIM—”
“HER!” Chuck managed to cry, throat already raw and worn, ringing the last intelligble word he’d ever say. Hives were breaking out on his face.
“YOU’RE A STRANGER TO HER! SHE DOESN’T REALLY KNOW YOU! YOU’RE THE GUY WHO PAYS FOR HER NICE THINGS AND COMES OVER FOR CHRISTMAS WITH SOME PRESENTS! YOU’RE THE MAN WHO COMES OVER EVERY CHRISTMAS WITH THE PROMISE OF BEING A FATHER AND THEN YOU BREAK IT. LET ME TELL YOU, YOU WERE ALREADY DEAD TO THEM. YOU WERE ALREADY DEAD TO BOTH OF THEM.
YOU WERE ALREADY DEAD
YOU WERE ALREADY DEAD”
And then, Chuck was already dead.
Raggedly, Nemo breathed in. Breathed out. He stared at the corpse.
Smiled and laughed, too sad to be uplifting and too sincere to be deadpan. Stretched his arms, his legs. Stared a while longer.
Turned, took a few steps, pressed the “up” button on the elevator console. Waited. Pressed it a few more times.
ding
doors slid open. Empty, thankfully. Two steps, in, turn.
He pressed a button. Up as far as he could go.
the doors slid close
ding