4/20/09
It was our first date, a second chance meeting, the third time I'd let her slip away. We knew each other when we were kids, but so much had changed since then. I tried to find the girl I fell for all those years ago.
Her name was Jasmine Jones, Jazz we called her down in ABC Block. Her movements as erratic and beautiful as escalating notes emanating from a trumpet, like disciplined chaos slipping into the public system, she flowed with a natural grace and hit like a hammer.
A tomboy in pigtails, a dichotomy of duality, she was awkward and alone coming into the gang. Jazz kept to herself and went with the program when it benefited her, rebelling when she needed to be herself. The others all wanted her or wanted to be her.
I was a dog, loyal and simple. They dragged me in and gave me games. I had to learn from scratch, how to speak, think, feel like a human. I was the team mascot, kept around for morale more than anything. The artificial intelligence they instilled in me helped me rebuild what momentary death robbed from me.
Was I just a pet to her? A project to kill time inside? A lost soul she could guide so as not to focus on herself? I had no idea how she felt, nor the capacity to even know the difference. But she sparked something in me. I had to make sense of this madness in my head.
I saw what pleased her and repeated it. She smiled sadly at me when she left me to train. I processed everything around me faster and faster, hoping I could stand as her equal. Running faster, thinking more, fighting smarter, I was improving.
Tom Trainor came in and saw my improvements, remarking to Marcus, the kid genius who made me from the raw matter of a kid, binary code, and a dog spirit. He thought he could improve on ordinary child super secret agents. I wanted to be good, to help, to have the approval of those I thought to be friends.
I began processing data at superspeeds, my reaction time shooting to seconds. Canine instincts gave me a momentary headstart, the computer in me gave me the processing speed. I was faster, smarter, and stronger than all my classmates, no longer the dogboy, laughed at and scorned.
They saw me fit for active duty and I dressed for success, slipping into a suit, and dropping behind the wheels of a hotrod red sports car. I hit the gas and roared out of the warehouse, jumping the drawbridge before it was fully down. Tom thought it was a mistake sending me so soon, although curious of the outcome.
Marcus just wanted me to crash and burn.
I met up with Jazz after leaping from the low flying plane with my low altitude jetpack on. She whipped around me playfully as I grinned back at her. The sun shined down on us lighting the way, but we soared up together, dancing in the clouds for too long. The missiles and laser cannons had pinpointed us.
Dr. Ether Ore had shot us down and we were separated, scattered to the winds. I landed on the backside of his isle of doom, clinging to the cliffs. I worried about her, knew she must be in danger, I had to rescue her. Surely his robot drones must have captured her, dragging her back to his lair.
Sneaking in was easy. I had figured out the location of cameras and guards were easy enough to take down with my enraged strength. I ran wild through the inner core of his hideout, smashing the doors down to his sanctum. Sure enough, there was Jazz, now adorned in one of his soldier's uniforms, probably made to bend to his will.
Then she shot me. I never saw it coming. I stumbled out onto the balcony, he stood there gloating, she coldly glaring. I was bleeding and betrayed, both hurting more than I thought possible. Jazz, or the girl, the friend, the agent, I called Jazz, walked slowly over to the evil doctor, the bastard mastermind of a thousand disasters, and put her arms around him.
I tossed myself over the railing after that, tumbling down ridges and falling into an open drainage ditch. Letting the flow drag my body down to the coast, where I surfaced among the corpses of a hundred dead agents. Others like me, maybe not so like me, not damaged and dead like me, for I was still alive.
Eventually I was returned back to the foundation for information retrieval, then decommissioned. They castrated my potential and plugged me back into the machine. Gave me normal and suburban life once again, letting my family raise me, not that they knew what to do with a failed superspy, half dog and half program.
The man with the murky past, now cleared and revealed, held a gun to the head of the woman who was once a girl who betrayed him. All was revealed, and he knew who he was and why life hurt so bad. She was the reason, she cut his life short, ended his adventure and caused his suspicious paranoia.
She was the enemy. The barrel hit her temple and he imagined watching in slow motion as the bullet exploded from the chamber, slid down the length of the gun and burrow into her brains. It'd dig through layers upon layers of her self before ending everything she was.
He thought about her. The action she saw, the life she led, the others she fought and betrayed. And then what came after. Put out to pasture, left out in the open like a discarded toy, she'd be a broken shambles of a human as well. Too long spent playing the game to be any good at being normal. So much like himself.
With experience. But he's had another headstart, thanks to Marcus and Tom, he was placed out into regular reality way before the others, the first to fail and be forgotten. Didn't he then have the advantage? Wasn't life experience gained regardless of specifics? Wouldn't he now be able to help?
It was Marcus he needed to kill. And she could lead him to that diabolical director of his destiny. That villain who robbed him of everything. She was just serving the agency when she shot him. Probably seduced Dr. Ore into betraying his own plan. After all, the Earth was still intact, not dismantled by machinery.
Agent Fenris put away his gun and let time slip through his hands. The date continued. Charles Crown got to know Jasmine 'Jazz' Jones, and that night they kissed. He walked home in the rain, smiling to himself.
Charles awoke, startled and screaming, crying tears of fear. Jasmine put her arms around him, soothing him back down to the bed besides her. He turned to face her, the tears shifting with gravity, dropping off his nose. She was beautiful and he loved her.
"It was just a bad dream sweetie. Go back to sleep."
And so, he did.
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