Part 56: 15:09-16:52: Nihilism, And What Comes After
Chapter 56: 15:09-16:52: Nihilism, And What Comes After
ARIST: [Medium: Success] Go on. Lay down that hot fresh evidence on this clown. Pin him to the crime.
THE DESERTER: "Petty-bourgeois law…” He snorts and spits. “This is all you care about right? The only thing in the world for you types…”
PERCEPTION (SIGHT): [Medium: Success] A drop of blood in the saliva…
THE DESERTER: “Damn may bells…” He looks at the blossoming field behind you. “The whole island is turning white with them…”
EMPATHY: [Medium: Success] He seems tender suddenly, nostalgic even. A strange mood swing.
THE DESERTER: “They blossom on the islets before. We fertilized them with our blood.” He looks to the water. “Rèsurrection was snow white in May, before they ruined it.”
SHIVERS: [Medium: Success] South, the Bay of Martinaise is dotted with little freckles of islets, turning green, with white flowers in white snow…
THE DESERTER: “The coast too—before they piled their containers on top of it. Filled with broken, useless trash for fat fingered bourgeois children to play with…”
KIM KITSURAGI: “You must get around a lot—to stay undetected all these years…” The lieutenant’s voice is soft, friendly. “Do you know any *secret* paths? Pinball workshops?”
THE DESERTER: “*Klaasje*…”
THE DESERTER: “With the *victim*…” He turns his sight from the whitening field of flowers and falls silent. Then the muscles in his jaw twitch, a spasm.
COMPOSURE: [Medium: Success] There is a small tremble—looks like a smile. A crooked smile. Yet it isn’t quite voluntary. He’s about to burst…
ARIST: [Challenging: Success] It looks like you won’t even need the firing nest at this rate. But it’s nice to have that security, nevertheless.
THE DESERTER: “Everything is brands with you individualists… Who cares what *brand* my shoes are? Sansa…” He looks at his running shoes, covered in mud. “Some shit.”
KIM KITSURAGI: “Show me the soles please, Mr. Dros.”
THE DESERTER: “Fucking imbecile…” The old man stretches out his leg. A black and white spiral pattern covered the sole of the worn out old running shows on his feet.
PERCEPTION (SIGHT): [Challenging: Success] The maker is called Sansarique—and the size is 42-44.
VISUAL CALCULUS: [Easy: Success] These are not the unusual, horizontal patterned soles you saw in the dust on the floor of the hidden room. They do, however, seem to be about the same size…
THE DESERTER: “Racking those brains, are you?” He squints at you, black pearls gleaming with hatred. “Desperate to report something back to your masters. They must really have loved that dead fuck.”
KIM KITSURAGI: The lieutenant gives you a quick sideways glance and nods to acknowledge…
DRAMA: The prints were his, you can see it in those eyes, he can’t keep them from flickering, looking for something…
THE DESERTER: The old man stares at his own prints in the ash around the fire. Silent suddenly, some strange process within him. A gush of wind. Seagulls in the distance.
THE DESERTER: “…beating us to the ground. Moaning with joy…” He breathes in with strange animation: You hounds get so thorough when a company-trained killer dies. I haven’t seen you on this coast for *forty years*. You know… maybe I should have killed one sooner? …Got your attention…” He looks you dead in the eye, pupils shaking. “*Now* you stop beating druggies and prostitutes in your basement. *Now* you come to investigate. Not when they die by the hundreds…” He breathes through flared nostrils…
THE DESERTER: “Oh the inhumanity… He closes his black eyes. “One paramilitary less in Revachol.” You can almost see him squeeze a tear out of his eye. His fists begin to tremble from the anger.
KIM KITSURAGI: The lieutenant raises his right arm to hush you…
ESPRIT DE CORPS: [Medium: Success] Hush, he does not need to be pushed any more. The ball is rolling…
THE DESERTER: “I *had* them in my sights, both of them—him and the whore. I was breathing with them, in phase, and I pulled the trigger and flew on the air until I landed in his mouth…” He begins to smile.
THE DESERTER: “Nothing. I went to sleep. Next morning there were may bells everywehre. The world was white—or what’s left of it anyway. My last spring here… I knew the fascists would come to avenge their own… And so they did.”
KIM KITSURAGI: The lieutenant just looks at him for one, maybe two seconds, then breaks the silence: “Mr. Dros—are you aware you’re confessing to murder?”
KIM KITSURAGI: The lieutenant takes out his notebook slowly, very slowly. “And you were looks at them—the victim and a young woman—having sex? Through the scope of your rifle that night? Before you shot him?”
THE DESERTER: The old man nods.
KIM KITSURAGI: “Why?”
THE DESERTER: “Because that’s what they were doing…” He shrugs, then smacks his lips.
LOGIC: [Easy: Success] The motive! This is where the motive is going to come from…
SUGGESTION: [Medium: Success] You can coax is out of him, the lieutenant’s preparing the ground.
THE DESERTER: “I’m always looking…” He cocks his head to the side—then turns his eyes to the city. Another tremor passes his right side, lower in intensity.
KIM KITSURAGI: “Are you *always looking* through the scope of a rifle?” He explains: “I’m just trying to *understand*.”
THE DESERTER: “A rifle’s scope has the best magnification.”
KIM KITSURAGI: “And if you don’t like it…”
THE DESERTER: “Yes.” He looks you in the eye. “Think of it as a form of critique.”
THE DESERTER: “Jealousy is a reactionary concept. I didn’t *like* the reaver enjoying himself—drugged out, soothed in the arms of a young woman. I wanted him to die so he could not enjoy life anymore. And I wanted her to see his head explode,” he nods. “That too. She should know better than to hold a child murderer between her thighs. I knew he’d be there for one more second, *writhing*… That’s all it takes for the bullet to reach his head.” He squints. “Now that I think of it, I wasn’t aiming for his mouth. I wanted his brains to spill out on her… but…” he shrugs, “you can’t have everything.”
SUGGESTION: [Medium: Success] He wants to see her covered in blood.
THE DESERTER: “She practically breastfed that man. You wouldn’t believe the things she let him do to her…” He shakes his head and stares at the ashes.
THE DESERTER: “Since she came to Martinaise. I saw her sneaking in the reeds early in the morning, behind the Feld building. It was dark, still winter. She didn’t have her skimpy outfit on then, just a spot in the night, moving…”
KIM KITSURAGI: “Past the Feld building, on the coast? What was she doing there?”
THE DESERTER: “Her passport. And tickets to Villiers.” He coughs. “And from there to Casherbrume.”
THE DESERTER: He nods. “After she was gone.”
KIM KITSURAGI: “Did you keep what was in it? When we found the submersible it was empty.”
THE DESERTER: “No. Why would I do that? I didn’t need tickets to Villiers… I put them back. If I wanted to extort someone I’d do better.”
RHETORIC: [Medium: Success] This implies that he’s thought about extorting her.
THE DESERTER: He looks to the reeds, confused. “Why would I need that trash? I’m not going to Villiers…”
THE DESERTER: “I did.” He almost smiles. “She had a face like an archipelago, with those birthmarks. And a body, hard and lean and bruised all over—black and yellow. I could see she’s taken a beating. I could see who she was, too,” he nods. “A spook. On the run. Revachol’s the cloaca of capital now. All the bagmen and arms dealers end up here. To do drugs and have sex like animals.”
KIM KITSURAGI: “You could tell she was a *spook* from the documents?”
THE DESERTER: “She had different colour hair on the photo, and glasses. *Forged*. Some sordid, bourgeois affair. I’ve heard about this kind of thing on the radio…”
DRAMA: [Medium: Success] He’s setting it up for you…
THE DESERTER: “Oh yes,” he smacks his lips. “Cutting those drugs of hers into little lines with a knife, masturbating…”
KIM KITSURAGI: “Did you make that hole?”
We put this new point into Empathy and continue the interrogation.
THE DESERTER: “Yes, that too.” He shakes his head, almost in awe. “The things they did in that little room. What she’d *do* to feel good…” He explains: “Funny, the way light works… You turn it on inside and it gets so dark out you can’t see a man looking in. I learned that in the Twenties when they were still hunting me. I’ve seen people do *some* shit, but…” He keeps shaking his head.
RHETORIC: [Medium: Success] Those two took the cake.
KIM KITSURAGI: You hear the familiar scribble of the lieutenant’s pen. A quick glance at you…
KIM KITSURAGI: …then at the man. “How did you get in there? The hidden pinball workshop?”
THE DESERTER: “I can just walk in there now, after a good wash—I told you they think I’m an antisocial. Closing hour is a good time. The kitchen’s empty.”
KIM KITSURAGI: “You had to open the steel door in the kitchen? How?”
THE DESERTER: “I got that open a long time ago. Some bourgeois game-merchant lived there—I don’t know… fifteen years ago? He left spare keys all over and I took one. Then I saw her turn the light on one night in my scope…” He points toward the Whirling-in-Rags.
THE DESERTER: “There’s…” he sighs, “there’s nothing to hold on to, only this… It’s not enough.”
PERCEPTION (SIGHT): [Medium: Success] The coals of his eyes glisten suddenly, like stones dripping with water. Is he crying?
THE DESERTER: “Yes,” he looks at the charred logs. “I don’t know why I do the things I do anymore.”
THE DESERTER: “What do you mean *put*?” He raises his eyes. They’re round and wide.
THE DESERTER: “Maybe…” He lowers his head and just stares at the logs. “I told you, I have holes in my brain now. I wouldn’t just sit here waiting for you… If you came ten years ago, I would have killed you.” He wipes his eye.
KIM KITSURAGI: In the silence, the lieutenant draws a line in his notes. Then nods at you once more.
THE DESERTER: “Her…” He repeats, staring at the ashes—then the reeds. There’s a twitch in the corner of his eye.
ESPRIT DE CORPS: [Medium: Success] That’s it. Motive. We have it.
THE DESERTER: “Gone…” He looks to the city and nods: “I knew it. She kept staring into the scope this last week. At the island, like she knew…” He sighs. “She’d look—at night crying or smoking on the roof, staring right into me…” He adds, to no one in particular: “It doesn’t matter.”
SHIVERS: On the platform a young woman is withdrawing from amphetamines, barbiturates and alcohol. Yet still she smiles among the crowd, among the great ghost of the city she’s leaving—for another, far South. Smaller. Distant. Hidden. Not like the great chandelier she sees sparkle in the spring air below her. Streets and towers, tenements and water—and across it, a dark strip of ruins barely visible, if she didn’t squint her eyes…
ESPRIT DE CORPS: [Medium: Success] There, on a dilapidated jetty in a nameless village, two police officers and one special consultant look across a narrow strip of sea. The ruins of a seafort stick out of the water, built by Filippe II, re-appropriated by the Commune, then lost in the Landing… “He’s there, doing… *what* exactly I don’t know,” Satellite-Officer Vicquemare points at the ruins. “Behind that anti-aircraft something. That’s why we can’t see him.” Special consultant Heidelstam is optimistic: “We’ll see the boat when he comes. Let’s go get a coffee until then. I know this interesting little place, where…” His voice trails off as the three walk down the jetty. As the men go, Patrol Officer Minot looks back over her shoulder—at the crumbling fortification, like a rotten tooth rising out of the water…
EMPATHY: [Medium: Success] Good luck, Harry, she thinks. You need something *good* for this…
KIM KITSURAGI: “We could get more… the lieutenant uses the opportunity to tell you—in a lowered voice. We’ve got him talking…”
LOGIC: [Medium: Success] Who knows what he’s seen and done over the years?
THE DESERTER: “A tragicomedy…” He shakes to life. “Druggies, prostitutes and rentiers.”
THE DESERTER: “Because of the *racists*. Everyone is a racist in Martinaise, it’s their favourite thing to do in the whole world—listening to race themed radio shows. In the ruins, in their lorries.” He points inland.
THE DESERTER: “Not since the serfs of ancient Perikarnassis has History produced a more *inert* social class than the Martinaise proletariat. The rest of Revachol at least *pretends* to rebuild, these people still live in ruins…”
THE DESERTER: “The worst of them is the blood-drenched *soucriant* on her yacht, licking her lips. The old whore’s gone now, her gun toting porcelain men are dead—so, actually, no… The *worst* is that old cock parading around in his uniform, throwing balls all day. It’s not enough that the racists and liberals are dancing on our graves! The old loyalist ghouls still parade the ruins too.”
THE DESERTER: “We did good when we pushed him under the horse car. Until, in the Thirties, those disco whores…” He breathes in, his breath heavy with hatred, you cannot make out a single word.
HALF LIGHT: The disco whores are too much; hatred shuts down his brain’s language centre, leaving only a nonsensical sputter.
THE DESERTER: “Another hideous disappointment…” He pokes at the ash: “Unions are the *real* enemy; the true enemy of the proletariat, placating the masses.”
THE DESERTER: “That deformed toad? I wouldn’t expect him to wipe his own ass. I mean the *brains* of the operation. The smart one.”
THE DESERTER: “First against the wall with him…” He’s stopped poking at the ash now, just shakes his head.
KIM KITSURAGI: “The Claires wouldn’t miss a man hidden in their own back yard—not all this time. Nothing happens in Martinaise without them knowing.”
LOGIC: [Easy: Success] Of course. Maybe the Claires asked him to…
THE DESERTER: “I haven’t approached anyone! I’ve hid. It was Edgar who came to me.”
KIM KITSURAGI: “How did he know you were here?”
THE DESERTER: “He didn’t just stumble in like an oaf,” he nods to you. “He figured it out. Some kids told him about a monster on the island. I told you, he has brains.” He points to the path leading to the tower. “Stepped right off the boat and walked down where you came. I even kept the door open for him—thought he was a man of the left. Wouldn’t rat me out.”
THE DESERTER: “Twenty years ago. Neither of them could *walk* now, could they? They were less fat then.”
THE DESERTER: “Edgar did the talking. Paid his *respects*, like I were a fossil in a uniform. Offered platitudes about *the struggle*, flaunted his pink degree. Even quoted Mazov.”
THE DESERTER: “*Let* me be here?” He looks around. “The ZoC is an unlawful successor of the Commune of Revachol. We took this fortification from the loyalists. Even the Claires understand this…”
THE DESERTER: “You know why I killed that fucker, droite…” he shakes his head. “As to Edgar, I’m not doing anything for that swine again.”
KIM KITSURAGI: “Again? What have you done for Edgar before?”
THE DESERTER: “Tried teaching him some Mazovian socio-economics. They didn’t stick. We parted ways.” He coughs.
RHETORIC: [Medium: Success] Okay, he didn’t do the hanged man for them. But he’s insinuating something.
THE DESERTER: “Heh…” A sputter from the old man.
THE DESERTER: “That bourgeois cow… Tiphaine Holly was her name.” He narrows his eyes. “Licked the rich man’s hand every time he came to town. Never seen a labour leader so hot on mutual cooperation…’
THE DESERTER: “Called in they say—on the eve of battle. Ran away. Vanished like a piss-stain…” He squints and smiles at the black logs.
LOGIC: No. That’s not quite it, is it?
KIM KITSURAGI: “Did she?” The lieutenant’s voice is calm. “They say her *daughter* called in, not her personally. But that wasn’t really her daughter, was it?”
THE DESERTER: “She couldn’t make the call herself.”
THE DESERTER: “Because she was dead.”
THE DESERTER: “The cow caught a bullet in her right lung, fell into the canal grasping her tit and drowned. Or bled—hard to say. It was a sloppy job. And a moving target. She was going home, waddling. Dressed in yellow. Drunk like she often was. The runs were black around her and she had a yellow leather bag under her arm. She tried to cross the canal.”
THE DESERTER: “Heh.” He does not fall for it. “It was someone. *Someone* shot her,” he shrugs. His eyes grow cold suddenly. “Or maybe she just fell. I get these violent ideations… My memory is filled with holes, especially the Thirties. All I know is… Nothing changed. Not in the *material base*, not in the *hegemony*, there was no uprising. Just words… The Union fizzled, sogged. Nothing came of it. Nothing.”
KIM KITSURAGI: “Edgar didn’t keep his part of the deal.”
THE DESERTER: “Heh…” A sputter again, nothing more.
KIM KITSURAGI: “If you were to testify to this—give the RCM something on Edgar—you could walk,” the lieutenant says in a voice even calmer, as if it was nothing at all. “We would strike everything you’ve done and process you as a POW. You were in a war. You were on assignment. We could even extradite you to the Samaran People’s Republic.”
THE DESERTER: “I saw it happen and I liked it. That’s all I have to say. I didn’t live and fight for forty years to end up as a collaborationist. I’ve heard it on Channel 8, 40AM, Radio Revachol Late Night…”
One point into Esprit de Corps.
THE DESERTER: “Every *fucking* morning, for thirty-four years…” He grinds his teeth in rage. “Throwing that ball. One ball against the other… I’ve always loathed that game. That is *not* a working class game. I don’t care what they say on Radio June.”
THE DESERTER: “I remember him…” He points to his black eye. “I remember him from *La Noce*—not him personally, his make and model. There were tens of thousands of them. I thought we took them all out before the liberals came to their rescue. We missed one…” With his shaky finger he points to the city, toward the crater near the plaza where a lonely pine tree stands. “*That* one.”
THE DESERTER: The smile lingers. “Not yet. I like to *look* at him strut around, place the cross-hair on his medals. Right on his face, and just… fiddle the trigger. *Think* about it. Let the bon-bon melt in my mouth…”
KIM KITSURAGI: “Save the treat for later?” the lieutenant asks cheerfully.
THE DESERTER: “He *is* a juicy bon-bon, that one. A real treat. For the black day—the blackest. When I put that gun in my own mouth. I think: no, don’t waste it. Put this lead in that cock René. For the boys he killed—and then I look at him throw those balls and I suddenly feel…” He lets out a wistful sigh. “Better. I even hid one bullet so I’d always have one. For him…” The lines on his face straighten as he looks inland. “Haven’t seen him around lately, strutting around… must be down with arthritis. I hope it hurts like hell. I hope he sweats blood.”
THE DESERTER: “Heh, yes, of course.” He seems to relax a bit. “I hope it hurts like hell, I hope he sweats blood. Must be torture—not to be throwing his balls for a *whole week*…”
EMPATHY: [Easy: Success] He seems relieved. Could he have been worried for him?
SUGGESTION: [Easy: Success] He reminds him of himself. The same hatred. The same… you try to think of another thing—but no, it’s just the hatred.
ESPRIT DE CORPS: [Challenging: Success] They are veterans of the same war. Somewhere west, in Coal City his enemy is lying in a dark room, on a metal slider. In L’Ossuaire Municipal, like he will to. Soon. Half of the war between these men is over. With an agitated gait Satellite-Officer Jean-Heron Vicquemare paces the jetty, 22 kilometres East—in Martinaise: “What could he *possibly* be doing there for so long?” he says. “Policework?” Patrol Officer Judit Minot replies, with a tinge of hope in her voice. A tinge of warmth too, against the cold air rising from the water…
COMPOSURE: It’s a mystery. This animation comes at a cost too: erratic hand gestures, thought processes cut off like threads, as he just stares at the logs or the reeds. He also suffers mood swings, bubbling to the surface, unconstrained by his nervous system.
EMPATHY: Perhaps. But his seems more than that. The inner turmoil takes unexpected turns, as if forced upon him in a way…
THE DESERTER: He waves his hand, chasing something that’s not there. “No I’m not *okay*, I shit blood and I’m surrounded by insane people…”
THE DESERTER: “Yes, where is he?” he tenses up. “I hope he doesn’t have *debilitating* arthritis. Or kidney stones. He can still come out to play with balls and get shot in the head, right?”
THE DESERTER: The old communist looks at you, his blackberry eyes shaking—in disbelief. “I waited too long… I waited too long and now he’s dead.”
KIM KITSURAGI: “I’m sorry, Mr. Dros,” the lieutenant says, softly. “I understand you knew him for a long time.”
THE DESERTER: “They’re all dead now.” He just shakes his head. “Fuck it…”
THE DESERTER: A little flash of anger. “All human beings care about each other. I cared for… seeing his head explode. And now… god damn this world.”
THE DESERTER: “You think I haven’t seen people die? It’s all I’ve seen them do. Fuck and die—all the other plans we had. To love. To colonize the pale. It’s all fucked…”
ARIST: [Medium: Success] Enough of this dance. Let’s finish up here.
THE DESERTER: “What?!” The old man’s eyes fill with sudden, unexpected terror at the words: “But you said I would be taken to the…”
EMPATHY: [Medium: Success] This terror is the sum of all the uncontrollable movements and mood swings he’s been exhibiting.
SHIVERS: [Medium: Success] The wind picks up. The silence on the water is broken all around you, little shivers of waves appear. The lieutenant continues, like an incanation…
KIM KITSURAGI: “Your Wayfarer rights have been suspended. Information provided to the officers on the scene will be used against you by the prosecution. You will be given legal counsel within one week, and must face court in 44 days—do you understand?”
THE DESERTER: “…”
KIM KITSURAGI: “Do you understand?”
THE DESERTER: “No, I don’t want to! I have to stay here.” He looks at the reeds, eyes submerged in growing terror.
PERCEPTION (SIGHT): [Medium: Success] He’s sweating. Beads are forming on his forehead.
Odds are… unfortunate. Let’s proceed and see if we can’t improve them.
KIM KITSURAGI: “Not really.” He shakes his head. “We could escort him to the pier, then either one of use can take him inland while the other stays here, but…”
KIM KITSURAGI: “You come back for me? How about I go and send a boat back for you?”
THE DESERTER: “What is this… farce?” He looks around with strange desperation. “This is a fucking farce, I can’t…”
INLAND EMPIRE: [Legendary: Success] Something is happening. Stop.
KIM KITSURAGI: “This is no harmless old man.” The lieutenant shakes his head.
THE DESERTER: “This fucking world…” He stares at something—who knows what—in the dust. “This world… what is this?”
PERCEPTION (HEARING): Something completely different. It sounds like a bow, very slowly being drawn against the strings of a violin. A very small violin made of reeds and rushes.
KIM KITSURAGI: "What?"
THE DESERTER: "What are you *talking* about? Is this..." The old man's voice drowns in a sudden gust of wind. "...really us..."
SHIVERS: [Easy: Success] Your skin crawls.
ARIST: [Godly: Success] You can barely even see it through the reeds, but when it moves, suddenly it’s there before you.
LOGIC: [Medium: Success] It’s unlike anything you’ve ever seen before.
REACTION SPEED: [Challenging: Success] Even still… it feels familiar. No, not just familiar. You know exactly what this is…
INLAND EMPIRE: It’s what you’ve been waiting for all this time. The spectre.