For a car ride that was supposed to be a victory lap on the way back to conquer our oppressors and set the world free again, it was pretty fucking dismal. Lance never spoke. I was fairly sure I wouldn’t see him again once we got back, and only loosely positive he wasn’t planning to kill me or run the van off the road and do us all in. It’s not like he and Hank were close or anything. I put him through something though and he wasn’t about to forgive or forget. The bridge was burning, I just hoped he’d let me get to the other side before he cut the ropes too.
Kyle was a different story.
“Johnny, I haven’t told you yet. I called my girl on the way back from Omaha. I got some good news.” Kyle was positively brimming with pride. “I’m gonna be a daddy.”
"Wait, what?” I said.
"Yea, I called my girl up. Asked her how things was, and she said she’s pregnant. Can you believe it? Me, Fat Kyle, is gonna have his own little baby boy. I always wanted a little boy Johnny. I’m gonna be a good dad. We’re gonna play catch every day. If that’s what he wants. I ain’t gonna make him Johnny. But if he wants it, I’ll always play with him. I ain’t had a dad growing up, so I am gonna be the best damn dad I could ever be. Gonna make my boy proud of me.”
What’s that joke about timing and tragedy? I wish I could remember. “Fat Kyle, you know you were just on the internet, dragging a knife over your tongue, with the whole world believing you just killed a 10-year-old girl? I hate to say this man, but you know we talked before we did this thing. You can’t go back to regular society. Fat Kyle, they will find you, and if they do, shit, when they do, they will string you up and execute you. They know you helped me. Dude, I don’t know how else to say this, but your life is over. There is no more outside for you.”
Kyle didn’t seem to care. “Nah Johnny, you got it all wrong. Gonna grow my hair out, get me a beard. Maybe get me some of those colored contacts. Plus, I wore that ski mask. Plus, and you aren’t gonna believe this Johnny, but I been foolin’ you the whole time. My real name ain’t Fat Kyle. It’s Boyd. Nah, police are gonna be looking for some dark headed fella named Kyle and I’m going back to being Boyd. Boyd the blonde with a little boy. Boyd Jr. What do ya think? That’s gonna be me.”
“Does Carla know about this?” I asked.
Kyle was confused. “What does Carla have to do with it?”
“Wait, who did you impregnate?” I asked.
“Shelley. I told you, I didn’t dump inside Carla.”
“You impregnated Carla’s wife?”
“Yessir. Don’t you worry though Johnny, the way I figure it, it’s wrong to steal someone else’s wife. That’s what Shelley done to me. So we’re gonna try a Three’s Company type deal? All of us together. I already love Carla, and she loves Shelley, and we’re gonna have a baby, so it’ll work itself out from there. Johnny, that’s what I got to talk to you about though. I can’t be runnin’ around lightin’ shit on fire and meetin’ other women and shit if I am gonna be a family man. I been fuckin’ two or three girls a week since comin’ to KC and that has to stop. I know this is gonna disappoint you, but once we get back to KC, I got to get on the road. Go take care of my baby’s momma. You get me?”
“I understand... wait, what? You had sex with two to three women a week in Kansas City? When did you do that? Did you take these girls back to arcade? Were you having sex with unknown women in the arcade?”
“Nah Johnny, it weren’t like that. You see…”
I drifted out of his story. Fat Kyle brought a smile to my face. Was the relationship doomed? Probably. But maybe he’s right. Maybe the right wig and the right contacts and the love of two good women is enough to push anything through. “I do get you Fat Kyle, one quick question, what if it’s a girl?”
Fat Kyle thought for a second. “Ah fuck you Johnny, why the fuck you go say somethin’ like that.”
"Oh umm….sorry,” I said.
We drove in silence for a few minutes.
“Hey Johnny, I thought about it, and if it’s a girl, I’d play catch with her too.”
“Nice to hear. I’m going to miss you Fat Kyle.”
"Me too bud. You too Lance. This was fun as hell runnin’ round with you boys. Plus, you got that good China White. Johnny can I take me some?”
“Take a fistful Kyle, you’ve earned it.” I said.
“Fat Kyle. Actually, hell Johnny, you earned it. Call me Boyd.”
“You earned it too then Boyd.”
“And Johnny, just so you know, I do hope that you get your mission accomplished. You know, gettin’ all them people to take the Protectall.”
“Fat Kyle…Boyd, that is the literally the exact opposite of what we’ve been doing this entire time. You do know that right?.”
He looked shocked. “Oh? No shit. I guess I got lost somewhere along the way. That makes me feel better. You know to be honest Johnny, I never took mine. I just thought you was cool and wanted to hang out with you.”
“Thanks Boyd.”
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We got to the sewers, but Lance never left the van. He just drove off. I understood. No hard feelings. I considered the van to be his severance package. Was okay by me. Kyle headed off to find his girlfriends. Said he was giving up the powder and he didn’t need it anymore. As much as I doubted that it didn’t seem like convincing him otherwise would do any good. Just like that I was alone. Again. Hank’s dead. Lance is gone. Kyle, Boyd, whatever, was a future proud papa. It was back to just John Brunsen. That was probably for the best.
When I stepped in the sewer pipe, it didn’t take long to realize there was a problem. The sewers were nearly empty. Ancient camp sites were left in utter disarray. Where once there was a statue of a human, slowly fading into his surroundings, high on God knows what, long sense given up on his existence, now there was a faintly discolored human shaped shadow against a slab of previously unseen concrete. Everyone had moved on. People that hadn’t moved in the better part of a decade all suddenly came apart at the seams at the same time and headed out en masse. I’d like to say I had no idea how something like this could happen, but I was pretty sure I had something to do with it.
The remnants, the last few still remaining, weren’t particularly of help. Many of them were at the brink of insanity, sobriety, or both. I found a man, one who looked better than the others, at the end of the tunnel. He was pacing and talking to himself with the gait of a someone who had lost his touch with reality long ago. His clothes were dirty and disheveled but at least he was wearing some. Was it drugs? Was it the Samskara? Was it both? Harder to tell now, all of society, all of Kansas City at least, was very circumspect. You can turn your back on a person, but not on a drug, and certainly not on a person full of Samskara who is also on drugs.
“Hey. Hey!” I yelled.
The man looked towards me.
“Where’d everyone go?” I asked.
The man looked back towards the ground.
"They’re gone. Everyone’s gone. Everyone left.”
“Yea, I’m with you there. Where did they go?”
He looked up and smiled. “They went to see you.” He looked back at the ground and started drawing in the dirt with an unshoed toe.
“Uhh…hey dude. I’m here though? Where do they think I am?”
“Where you showed them. Where you showed everyone.” He smiled a toothless smile at me.
Shit.
I started to run. I emerged into the sunlight, only for it to hit me like a bullet.
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“I’m afraid I can’t allow you to do that.”
“Oh fuck off, seriously, you again? Didn’t we already do this?”
"We can do this indefinitely.”
"I can’t. I’m busy.”
"That we cannot allow.”
“Why?”
“You aren’t supposed to intervene.”
“I don’t have time for this shit. Why is that I can’t intervene? Why is it that you can intervene and not me? You’ve been in my head for as far back as I can remember and it’s been ‘kill this’ ‘murder that.’ Wouldn’t you call that intervention? When I killed that guy in a parking lot? When I shot Pearl? When I launched an RPG at 50 dudes and blew up an apartment complex? I am pretty sure you had a lot to do with all that? Now I can’t intervene? What is it that you expect of me? What the fuck do you want?”
White hot pain again. Soul wrenching pain. I try to tear my eye out of the socket. I look for something long and sharp to pry it out. I can’t move. I can’t find anything. Then it stops.
“See you soon John.”
I felt myself fade into the coolness of the rancid sewer pipes for a long, peaceful nap.
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Shit. Shit. Shit. How long was I out? It was dark now. Gotta go. Gotta get home.
At least it didn’t take long to figure out what was happening. Kansas City was a warzone. Helicopters, gunfire, building fires, airplanes, bombs, fights in the streets. I picked a handheld radio off a dead guy hoping to get some sort of information. Every single radio channel was the same thing, or some iteration of the same thing.
“Massive civilian attack on unknown BIMPT facility prompts military intervention, thousands dead.”
“Brunsen kills child live on air.”
“Protectall outed as containing Grey Plague, global lockdowns anticipated.”
“Murdering terrorist Brunsen claims BIMPT intentionally poisoning society.”
“Brunsen killed, forces routed outside Kansas City facility.”
“Up to 22 NGOs operating in greater Kansas City Area according to newly released reports in wake of Brunsen video,”
“Worldwide unrest over misinformation, leaders call for answers from BIMPT after release of internal documents from raid.”
The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.
“BIMPT CFO confirmed dead during riot, Brunsen at large.”
It happened too fast. It was over before I even got started. What would I have even done though? Stop them? Help them? I thought about all this as I sneaked home, back to my arcade, back to somewhere I thought of as safe, even though I knew that was likely no longer the case.
I arrived at the arcade and threw back the fake door to go to the basement. I needed to get my head right and to figure out what was happening.
“Hello John. Long time no see.”
Robert Geist had his feet propped up on Fat Kyle’s old table.
Something was wrong. Something was extremely wrong. Robert Geist did not put his feet on tables. He would literally say “Salutations” when he wanted to say hello and he certainly would not have surprised me as he would’ve known full well that’s a fast-fucking ticket to lead poisoning. “How’d you know I would be here?” I asked.
Robert chuckled. “I did say I would see you soon. You loved this place. Where else would you be? It was our understanding you are dead. I am glad to see this isn’t true. We don’t wish violence on anyone.”
“So that was your group then? After everything you said? ‘Don’t do it John.’ ‘No more bloodshed John.’ Was that just bullshit?”
Dr. Geist looked confused, “I don’t follow.”
"You said ‘we’ and ‘our’ and not ‘I’ and ‘my’. I assumed that meant you were taking responsibility, that you were the leader. That you attacked BIMPT without me to accomplish…” I flicked my hands in the air aimlessly, “whatever the fuck you wanted to accomplish.”
“I am afraid not. You are most certainly their leader, although you have done a poor job of leading them.” Robert paced around the room uncomfortably. “John, I am afraid I have some unfortunate news, and I am concerned you will be upset with me. What is your mental state?”
I growled the word at him. “Agitated.”
“Do you think medication would help settle you?”
“I think some fucking answers would help settle me.”
“Fine then, answers indeed.” Robert began set down at a table. “John, Dr. Geist’s mental imprint barely exists within this entity at this point. While he has control at times, I can exert control when needed. Where once we shared control, I have decided I no longer can allow that luxury.”
A stabbing pain in my eye. “Perhaps it is time to do the same with you.”
The pain ramps up quickly. Now the pain is more than just pain. It feels like my soul is leaving. Every neuron in my body screams in agony at the same time. This is Hell. This torture feels like eternity. This is the worst moment in time and space. Then it fades and now it’s gone. Now I am on the floor and Robert is still sitting at his table.
“What the fuck is happening? What the fuck just happened to me?” I said aloud. “Where is Robert? Who are you?”
Robert rose form the table. Maybe I should say what I thought was Robert rose from the table. “John, we have commandeered Dr. Geist as to speak with you so we could help things along the way. We decided to use him to set about righting some of the things that were going wrong. We’ve come to thank you for helping us.”
What was happening? Was this real? “So you...you are the Samskara? I am not sure how to say this? Usually I’d ask Robert but you seem to have mindfucked him into oblivion and now you’re the same thing so I am really struggling for translation here. What are you again?”
Robert or the Samskara or what the fuck do I call this thing now? Robskara? Sambert? The god damn monster that stole my friend and destroyed my life and planet? “We are…perhaps I should just use the first person as Robert is none of this. I am a lever John. Do you know what a fulcrum is? It’s like a tipping point. I guess I should say I am both the fulcrum and the lever. My job is to make sure that when your society reaches a certain point, that I control whether or not it is allowed to move forward, or if we need to, shall we say, try again. There are those outside your planet, outside your solar system, who have worked extremely hard at maintaining a peaceful and co-existent galaxy. I am a gift of sorts from them, here to guide you.”
“None of this feels much like a gift? I didn’t have much before you came, but you’ve destroyed basically everything. You know that right? That the world is in utter chaos because of you? Because of this?”
"That’s certainly one way of putting things. Let me try and enlighten you.” Sam-Bert – I liked that better than Robskara – the Sam-Bert amalgamation began to speak. “I have been here longer than humanity. I was sent to observe and correct. On a galactic scale, humanity would best be described as a potential annoyance. Unrefined, unkempt, impolite, and largely incapable of controlling yourselves.”
“We’re like the bad neighbors on the block?” I asked.
“No John not even close. Think at a much larger scale.”
“We’re like a bad guy country or some shit?” I asked
“No, dear God John, that’s narrow of vision and narrow of mind. Were you a “bad guy country” we would simply step in and help you. Unlike your planet, we do not allow for suffering only for suffering’s sake. You are more like…a termite colony. Your presence is known, it is tolerated, but we will not allow it to overstep its bounds. Just as you might call an exterminator, or setup barriers to prevent the expansion of a colony into your property, others have setup barriers to your invasion into their world, I am such a barrier. I am the barrier in fact. Perhaps another way to think of it is that I am your guardian. You see, the genetic programming of this planet, your DNA as you all refer to it, it is so…inefficient, so prone to error. Constant mutation, and so difficult to control, so difficult to design rationally. The mutation that you bear is no mutation at all my boy. Once upon a time, everyone was like you. Anyone could be “infected”, although that term is grossly inadequate, and we could guide things as needed, but we encountered a substantial issue. Your entire existence, your very DNA, everything about humanity is so sloppy, so mistake prone. Even the enzymes that replicate humanity at the genetic level appear to be so highly flawed. Everything is so poorly connected, so poorly structured. When the first actual mutations happened, when I initially lost control of guiding your species, I was worried I would never regain it. I was worried the planet was doomed to forever be some backwater infestation of failure and misery unguided by any hand but chance. But then you came along John, you and others like you. You and others who could be infected again, and who could carry out my wishes and begin to set things right. By this time of course, what remained of my attempts to guide your species to dignity and prosperity had been twisted into the aberrations you see around you today. As such, we now must take more drastic measures. A course correction if you will. We now have to intervene, amp up the program, and tip the scales back towards Order. The Samskara that your peers have been exposed to is the result of that. A program designed to remove all these violent, narcissistic tendences. To burn out those amongst you who do nothing but indulge themselves in constant neurochemical saturation through mindless drug abuse and self-gratification. To purge from your species the preservation of fear and hate that drives you all to spend so much time desperately trying to convince yourselves that the only way you can be successful is to watch others fail.” Robert spat the last two sentences through a clinched jaw. Emotion? From the sentient spaceplague? Human failure? Samskara weakness? How much of Bob was still left in there? “The human amygdala is a curse. It’s nothing more than a tightly held coil of preconceived fear, and addiction, and dependence, and sadness, and worse of all the capacity to permanently retain all of those things that hurt you and rationalize it into the next moment of destructive behavior. I am a simple program, a heuristic whose only purpose is to short circuit the portion of your brain that leaves you incapable of advancing. What prevents you from becoming more than you are, this fixation with saturating your brain with chemicals, we simply turn this dial to the point where your species would be without my guidance. We simply force upon you that which you desire most, your primitive neurons flooded with the neurochemical soup you all seem to crave. The ultimate advance in evolution, the pinnacle of selective pressure. For many that means death. For others, certainly pacifism today, but over time? The violence fades and the violent with it. What is left? Enlightenment! This is the only path for humanity.” Robert stopped to take a drink of water from a bottle he had in the pocket of his lab coat. The moment was quintessentially him, a thing I had seen him do a thousand times. Seeing him do it now made me feel sick and betrayed. “That’s where you had to come in though. We needed one of your own. For evolution to take hold, we needed a spark. Your species has advanced far enough to remove selective pressures. Famine is gone. Plagues are gone. Illness is still present, but mostly only the things you do unto yourselves. You have no predators. You are the dominant species on the planet. Who better to start a war than the war-like amongst you?”
At a loss for words I said the only thing I could think “You wanted me to do all this? Why though? Why undo everything we did build? Is that really the best option?”
“Why? You could answer that for yourself. You have before, you know that right? Look what happened when our existence was discovered? An arms race. Look what happened when your people split an atom. An arms race. Go to any city in the world and watch as one group lives in squalor while another has excesses wildly beyond their needs. Turn on your radio and listen as groups battle to paint you as either savior or Satan. For what? For ratings? To push an agenda? What about your species is noble? I don’t mean who, but as a whole, what about your species improves the world around them?”
I thought for a while. All my answers: baseball, cheeseburgers, Notorious B.I.G.’s debut album, he was right about all of it. Baseball fucks over 100,000 minimum wage workers so 100 guys could make millions, cheeseburgers were basically an industrial torture complex for cows, and Suge put out a hit on Biggie that ruined rap until The Chronic 2001 came out. I had a hundred more answers but it was always the same. Things we made were sort of awesome and badass, but also sort of shit and awful.
"Maybe we make mistakes. I mean, we do, we make mistakes. We’ve caused a lot of problems. So that’s it. Everyone dies? Society ends? That’s your master plan? Let me just speak for all of humanity when I say fuck you and fuck your horrible plan. Why do you get to pick? Why do you get to determine what’s good enough for the galaxy? Humanity has its problems but fuck you dude. At least we don’t go around planting genocide bombs that fuck up people’s brains and force them all to kill each other.”
"Don’t you? How much dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane or DDT has been sprayed on fields? Have you ever seen a locust exposed to DDT? Do you think because the creature is small it cannot feel pain? DDT spontaneously activates every sodium channel; the creature’s entire nervous system turns on overdrive simultaneously. It spasms, writhes, and then suffocates in its own fluid as do all those around it? Is this the benign nature of humanity of which you are so proud? Do you know what borax is? It’s a simple chemical. Ants love it. It has a sweet taste. They search it out and bring it back to the colony. They feed it to their queen. They feed it to their children. It proliferates throughout the nest until the whole colony is gone. It’s a poison that destroys their gut from within. Poisons their bellies through simple trickery. Who is left? How does a colony survive? Those who were out foraging move on. A small population, absolutely, but enough to begin again, another chance. Do you remember those whom I was studying shortly before you arrived to see me John? The ones our friend Mr. Grady so violently executed. They were kind, docile. This is what we can provide John, don’t you see? Certainly, many will die in the coming months, but those that survive? Can you imagine the advantages of not constantly being so tethered to chemical dependency? Of not constantly being afraid? Of not always worrying about whether you’re being “ripped off” or whatever your term is? The next wave of humanity will usher in a golden era of peace and prosperity the likes of which this planet has never seen. It may take 10,000 years or it may take 100,000 years. Whatever develops from the most recent events will not look like you, it will not act like you, it will not be human, but John, this is the only way. You did this John. You and I together. I will see you heralded as a hero, if only in textbooks to be written far in the future.”
I started laughing. This was too much I guess. Too much for one brain to handle. Too much space shit and too much science and too much killing and too much coke and too many downers and too much god damn too muchness. The only thing left to do was laugh at the misery and the failure and how shitty my life got because I just wanted enough money to buy a decent bong and a working tv. “All this time, you’ve just been using me too then? Even when I thought I was finally doing my own thing, had my own free will, it was you pulling the strings. Another fucking puppet master with his hand up my keister moving my arms this way and that. God dammit. God fucking dammit.” I started laughing.
“I helped guide your choices, but your choices were your own. Dr. Geist tried to show you right from wrong, but what did you do? More violence. More drugs. More war. Snorting cocaine aimlessly, almost vibrating from high and then what? Stumbling around with your body at the limits of overdose. Slumped over a pinball machine, barely able to stand as the balls swim past you while you laugh yourself silly? You blame me for what occurs around us, but what have you done to stop it John? Compare to what you’ve done to incite it? You have only served to further my cause despite professing your desire is the opposite. I never forced you into anything, I barely even nudged you. This is your way. This is who you are, who your people are.”
He was right.
“God dammit Bob. Samskara shit. Whatever the fuck you are. Every fucking person I meet is the same, man or fucking spacedemon and ya know what Bobbo? I kinda get it. I kinda do. You’re right, it would be nice to have one interaction on this godforsaken shithole where the other person just said what they meant. Ha! I know a guy actually. Someday I might have to introduce you to my friend Fat Kyle. He’s got an amygdala the size of a motherfucking medieval cannonball, but at least the guy shoots straight.” I paused a second. “Bob I gotta be honest with you, I am so fucking sick of doing everyone else’s dirty work. What happens…what happens if I just blow your fucking brains out right here. Plaster your fucking Samskara bullshit all over my walls and forget you ever existed. Maybe we can save this planet? Maybe you’ve been feeding me bullshit. But how do I know you aren’t lying Bobbo?”
“You know that I am not your friend, and he is not me. Were you to shoot me you would simply be killing him. It would not surprise me if this was your choice, you do not seem to have even the basic concept of action and consequence. As to if I am lying? Of course you do not know, but at this point, intervention must be made impossible.”
I saw a flicker in the corner. No point in risking it, so before he could pull his pistol, the shotty I had taped under the table was in my arms and I was leaning the chair back to hit the ground. I let two rounds rip, both of them catching him yet another would be assassin in the forehead. I heard a shot from the other side of the room and felt it hit me in my chest. I turned and fired only approximating where it might come from. The pain started in my head, but I kept firing. When it finally stopped, another figure was slumped dead against the wall. I turned back to fire on Bob’s position but the creature or whatever the fuck it is was gone. Great, now Bob or Evil Bob or whatever the fuck that is also wants to kill me?
I looked down at my chest where the bullet had gone through my shirt. I popped my shirt off and pulled the round of out my vest. I had started wearing one months ago when I’d pulled a slightly undersized one off a would-be assassin, but this was the first time it got put to use. The other shot from the now deceased man had only grazed my arm. Another lucky break I guess. “Credit where credit’s due Bob.” I knocked on my head. “This old amygdala might make me a big stupid savage, but the god damn thing has kept me alive more times than I can count.”