The Tower of Brahma - Chapter 57.2 - You New All Along

4/16/09

She went on to be a super secret agent. Slipped in and out, saw the world, and put it all behind her. But on my first mission, she betrayed me, left with an enemy agent. On my graduation, she betrayed me, leaving my far behind.

Now, with her pocketknife against my throat, my fingers wrapped around her neck, windpipe in the grip of my thumb and forefinger, I'd gladly die, neck slashed open, bleeding out all over her bed, her vocal chords in my fist.

Wake up. Past. Dream. Wake up. Past. Dream.

I never was good enough, a failed experiment. I died a few years earlier. She knew that. They all knew that. They all saw me on that first day when I was awakened, snarling and sneering with my fangs bared. I knew nothing save instinct, felt nothing but rage.

Training. Mission. Decomission.

Marcus, Master Maker. The madman behind it all. He created this world for us to play in, to test me. He had my friend, my watcher, Tom Trainor take it all down as he monitored me. When he needed to, he broke me, leaving Tom to gather the pieces and give me clues to heal.

I was a secret agent kid, but now just a spent man, with no cynaide capsules left in his teeth, a shaky hand with an itchy trigger finger, and a head full of bad wiring. I saw the subtext of my self, the veiled explanation for my consuming madness. I was once so much more than I am now.

But I still got enough in me for some payback. I looked up at Agent Strange, seeing her now with my memories intact, my entire persona now shifted to include a secret past. She rambled on about trivial matters from her past as I shut down the audiowaves in the air.

"Babel." I whispered, and everything went silent.

When time and space froze down to near absolute zero, I pressed through the friction of the moment, retrieving my gun from my jacket. I took an eternity to look it over as I rested my grip comfortably around it. It wasn't heavy this time. It was simple.

Pull the trigger, kill her, shoot down an agent for the people that did this to you, the ones that drove you mad and took away a life of action and adventure, replacing it with a dysfunctional disaster. The life of a damaged science experiment called for revenge.

Completing the mission, killing the persona. Evolving past the idea of itself. Fenris and Spider emerged from HotShot, kid superspy, being denied the action he was trained for, a powder keg of impossible imagination, kept under wraps for years.

Their sentimentality in keeping me alive was their mistake.