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The Jackrabbit-
The mind of Jay Ethelon was broken
decades ago by the man who became Talon. As the delirium worsened, he has become a darker, deeper man than those
days, with an undiscovered secret that has made him the victim of attempts on
his life. There was a time when his friends were his everything, but times have changed.
A betrayer in their midst broke their little gang apart, and the Jackrabbit now stands as the weapon of an unlikely ally- the scheming Tero Haber. Recently he destroyed the mind of an elderly man at the whim of Haber, but now he has been given a new victim- Vanilla.
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Vanilla-
The girl who calls herself Vanilla has
felt misunderstood her entire life. The Jackrabbit was the first person since
her sister Cassie that Vanilla could finally feel comfortable with.
But when her ex-boyfriend Spyke proposed to her, the Jackrabbit did something unthinkable. Vanilla betrayed her friends for reasons unknown, and this has led her to a homeless life on the streets- lost, alone, and broken. The only person to even talk to her in the past months is Jenson, an unlikely ally who knows more than he lets on. |
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Stevie Guile-
For nine long years, and at the behest of the hacktivism group the Zero People, Stevie put his
personal life aside to join the lunatic Jackrabbit on
the road, protecting him from the endless organisations trying to enslave him.
But when Vanilla betrayed them, Stevie was forced into hiding. An encounter with the omnipotent Hive-Mind has left Stevie reeling, and out of his depth in a war he only thought he understood. Once again returned to the Zero People faction, Stevie has been unwillingly tasked with solving a case- recovering the identity of the leader of his own faction. |
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It’s been over a year since I spoke with
the Hive-Mind. He’s not someone you can describe to people easily. Not without
getting some really weird looks. A masked dude locked in a tower made of lead,
who can read the minds of everyone in the world, simultaneously, and has the
entirety of human knowledge tucked away in that head of his. Like a human
Wikipedia, sure. But it wasn’t what he knew that gives me
nightmares each night. The Hive-Mind could project what he knew,
and he let me share his visions. He showed me the love of my life, Tamsin, as I
walked out on her on another “super
important” Zero People mission. He showed me my dad, who had spent so much
of my life disappointed in me that I’d missed an important truth. He loved me. And he showed me that I was all the
Jackrabbit had in an otherwise lonely existence. Goddamnit, I was all he had. He showed me more about myself in that
moment than I’d known in two centuries. But that wasn’t what gives me
nightmares each night. The Hive-Mind showed me the betrayal that
was amongst us. Our lives at risk week-in and week-out because of her deceit.
The cancer within. Vanilla. He opened my heart then tore it in two,
forgive the cliché, but that wasn’t what gives me nightmares each night. It was the words he said to me last of all
that truly scared me. A simple sentence that keeps me up at night. “There’s
a war coming, Mr. Mills,” because of course the psychic knew my real
name, “An invisible war that will tear
your known world apart.” *
* * “Is
that all?” The waitress placed the change on the
counter, the coins clinking down on the red and white tiled surface. 45 cents.
Vanilla scooped them up, pushing them into the back pocket on her jeans. The
waitress moved quickly away, making herself look busy despite the lack of
customers this morning. Vanilla had become used to reactions like this. She may
have been homeless, lost, and destitute but she hadn’t lost her wits. She knew
her jeans were muddy, she knew her torn hoody smelt like mold, her hair washed
out and withering. She had become a waif, a stray, and people were quick to
avoid her now. No one knew what she had been,
who she had been, and nobody cared to ask. Good thing then that the diner was quiet.
It was never busy even at peak times, but now it was just past opening time,
and practically abandoned. A classic style American diner, polished décor, license
plates on the walls, vintage Coca Cola posters. She took the milkshake the
woman offered her. She had ordered vanilla without a hint of irony, selecting
it for the simplicity of its flavor in hopes of keeping it down. It had taken
all of the money Vanilla could beg on the streets to buy the drink, but she had
felt the need. She positioned herself strategically in
front of the large floor-to-ceiling glass windows, climbing up onto the stool
and resting the shake on a coaster on the bar-style table. Her legs dangled
uselessly underneath the table, her battered sneakers swaying gently. For a
moment, Vanilla massaged her aching neck, resenting the poor night’s sleep she
had received on the step under the diners’ doorway overhang. She took a small sip of the shake, the
sweetness almost burning her tongue, her lips making an awkward slurping noise
on the straw. It was the sweetest thing she had tasted since she was last here
and Jenson had gifted her a cake. She hadn’t seen the mysterious man since
he had emerged randomly from the shadows and offered her his hand up from the
ground. He had questions for her, many questions and most of them about the
Jackrabbit. In exchange, he had offered her cake and companionship… no, she
scolded herself, not companionship. He had wrung her for intel; an inquisition
disguised as kindness. She knew this… yet still she could not get him out of
her mind. And this brought her to the window, allowing
her dark eyes to scan past the stickers on the reverse of the glass and down
the alley where a lone apartment sat, cordoned off by police ribbon and squad
cars. There she had found a boy, and met a man. The boy had been the victim; the man the
savior. And yet somehow it was all tied inextricably to one person. The same
person it had always been… She heard the laughter from across the
diner, that familiar howl, her eyes darting suddenly to… a small child entering
the diner with his mother. “You’re
not having ice-cream at this time of the morning…” the
elder insisted, and Vanilla turned her gaze back to the window, a scowl on her
face. The same nightmares following her around dusk to dawn. “I’m
sorry” she said outload, to nobody at all. “For
what?” came the reply, and she started suddenly,
turning around on the stool. His eyes were deep, dark portals staring back at
her, his tall silhouette against the sun soaking in through the window. “Jenson?”
“Hello,
Vanilla” Another vision, another specter come to
taunt her, just one more fantasy to listen to her mutterings… “I
wondered if I might find you here.” “Is
it you?” “Yes…
Sorry, you were expecting somebody else?” “No,
no…” she admitted. She couldn’t tell him she’d
come here hoping he might show. Scraped the dollars together for just one
shake. And after all that she had been distracted when he came in. She turned
her eyes quickly to the drink. Could this crazy plan have actually worked? “Take
a seat?” she asked, sucking on the straw, eyeing
him over the rim of the glass. His brown hair was neatly kept, a dark shirt
unbuttoned at the collar and sleeves, unintentionally revealing surprisingly muscled
tanned arms. She noticed a bruise on his cheek, out of place on his otherwise
flawless complexion. “W-what
happened?” she asked, finding herself having genuine
concern. “It’s
nothing,” he replied off-hand, ignoring her stare as
he beckoned the waitress over. He mounted the stool next to her, and looking
down into her glass she noticed that under the table his feet did touch the floor. She smiled at that
idly, as he ordered a coffee. “Can
I get you anything? A sandwich?” he asked. “No…
th-thankyou...” The
platitude felt odd on her chaffed lips. The cake he had given her before had
been a gift more than she deserved. More than she was worth. She would not take
any more from him. She turned her eyes to Jenson. “So…”
she struggled, realizing at once that her plan had
never accounted for him actually
showing up. “I… guess you’re not here to
catch Pokémon then?” “”Sorry?” “Uhhh…. It’s a thing that… Never mind. Why are you here?
There’s plenty of diners you could be in?” She took a sip of the shake, careful not
to slurp this time. She became suddenly conscious of his eyes on her, and wiped
the moisture of the drink from her face. “I
actually came hoping to find you, Vanilla. I checked the… uh..”
“The
sidewalks. Right.” “Right.
But here you are…” “Here
I am.” She caught his eyes on her. She’d just
sipped her shake; she couldn’t sip another without looking weird. “Awkward…”
was all she managed to say, and he laughed. “I
did not like how I left our conversation before,” he
said, allowing the smile to fade from his lips. “I hoped you’d give me a chance to...” “Be
kind rewind, huh?” “I
don’t underst-“ “You
want a do-over.” “A
do-over,” he smiled, “Yes, a do-over.” “You
left pretty suddenly last time. Get what you came for?” there was just a hint of accusation in her voice. It was there before
she could catch it. “Yes.
No! I mean to say…” he gathered himself, “Your information was of crucial importance to me. To my… friend. She
is in dire trouble and I need to find a way to…” “Jackrabbit
hurt her...” It’s not quite a question, but he had
picked up the query in her tone. That hope that she might be wrong. Jenson
stared at her, those dark eyes burning into her, searching her soul for
something. Trying to determine how she might take the news. The tension was
broken by his coffee arriving, the waitress placing it down carefully on the counter.
Black coffee, two sugars, a stick for stirring. Vanilla caught the woman’s eyes
dodging between the pair, likely trying to understand the relationship this
well-dressed man had for the stinking vagrant. “Yes,”
he said. It was a measured response, almost a test.
Would she wince, or would she laugh? Would she throw his coffee all over him,
would she storm out of the diner, or break down in tears? She slurped her shake. “He…
hurt someone I knew once,” she confessed. “Andrew
Taylor.” Jenson knew? “You…
do your research...” He
simply nodded, discarded the sugars, took a sip of the coffee. “He
was close to me,” she said, the story flowing unbidden. She
hadn’t confided in any one since… since… “He
wasn’t perfect, don’t get me wrong. Hell, no one is, right?” “I
believe perfection is a matter of perspective.” She became momentarily aware of how close
the seats were placed in this diner. She shuffled, but the stools were screwed
down. “Well…
Spyke wasn’t perfect in anyone’s perspective. But he meant a lot to me, once.
He came back into my life when... when we were on the road with ‘Rabbit. He’d
cleaned up, he…” She found herself laughing, unsure why. “He started wearing shirts.” She caught Jenson looking down at his own
shirt, dark cotton with gold inlays sewn into the hems, and she gave out an
involuntary giggle that was a million times more girly than she’d have liked. “Okay,
well his weren’t as nice as yours…” “Well,
thank you, Vanilla…” What the fuck was she doing? She didn’t
even know this guy. She didn’t know anybody anymore. “But
he… Spyke, uh… Andrew didn’t get along with ‘Rabbit. I don’t... I don’t think
‘Rabbit has ever felt threatened by anybody but he... maybe he didn’t trust him to change, or maybe I
shouldn’t have brought him on the road with us. You know, I don’t think I ever
actually asked if Spyke could join us...”
“What
happened, Vanilla?” “Spyke
proposed to me. I know, I know… what the fuck, right? ‘Rabbit freaked. I’ve
never seen anything like it from him, he just… ‘Rabbit found Spyke and he… I
don’t know what he did or how he did it, but Spyke fell down, and he was
screaming and…” She stopped herself, feeling the tears
building up in her eyes. She refused to cry here, refused to cry in front of
Jenson. He placed a hand on her shoulder and she jolted, pulling away, wiping
at her eyes. He respectfully folded the hand back into his lap, making her feel
like a complete ass. “Sorry,
I don’t know what the hell… Anyway, Spyke forgot me.” “He
forgot you? Your name or…” “Everything,
man. It was like he’d never met me. It fucked him up good, all the… I don’t
know, continuity gaps or something? They had to… He got hospitalized. ‘Rabbit
put him in a hospital.” “Is
that why you left?” Jenson asked, his voice level.
Calculating, she thought at first. No, caring. “No,
it’s not. I did…” Something she hadn’t talked to anybody
about since it happened. A reality that had sat before her for months, but that
she had never before stared in the face. “I
betrayed him to an enemy.” “The
Council.” He knew. This calm, collected man knew
everything about her, understood her life like nobody else could. Like he could
get inside her head. “Who
are you?” “Now,
just a concerned friend.” Whose friend? Vanilla didn’t want to ask
the question for fear of the answer. “I
betrayed Jackrabbit to the Council,” she
confirmed, reaching suddenly for her shake, distracting her eyes. She sucked on
the straw, but nothing came forth. The glass was empty, forcing her to look up
at him, his chiseled jawline, olive skin. “I
had to. You have to understand,” she was practically
pleading. She steadied her voice. “They…
Tero, he... blackmailed me.” “Your
sister…” “That’s….
that’s right. I sold them out for Cassie. I sold Jed out, I sold Stevie out, I
sold Jackrabbit out.” Why was she telling him all this? Wasn’t
he a complete stranger? “That
does not make you a bad person,” he said, coolly. “You did what you thought was the right
thing.” “I
did the selfish thing!” She’d raised her voice, felt her own fists
clenching on the counter. The family behind them looked over in shock, but fuck
them, it was just her and Jenson now. “Saving
another life isn’t selfish, Vanilla. You were put in an impossible position,
made to choose between two people you cared deeply for… Anyone in your position
should have chosen family. You did what you could.” “Yeah,
I… I guess. Where has it gotten me though?” He took a sip of his coffee, and his other
arm returned to her shoulder. This time she did not flinch, just measured him
with her eyes. Was he right? Would anybody else have made her same mistakes? He
seemed to know so much, understand so much. Understand her. “It
has gotten you into a position where you punish yourself. In my life I have
seen all kinds of abuse- physical, mental, emotional… and I have known
self-abuse. The position you are in is the position you feel you must be.” “It’s…”
“What
you deserve?” He stole the words from her lips. ‘Yes’,
she wanted to answer, ‘what I deserve. What I deserve for everything I did to
Jackrabbit, for betraying my friends, for betraying myself, for betraying my
feelings.’ “You’ve found him?” She said instead. “Jackrabbit?
No. But I know someone who can. You were right, Vanilla.” “Right?
About what?” “Jackrabbit
is behind these Fatebreaker Incidents on the news. All of them. He is damaging
minds like he did to your friend. Sometimes worse. He is….” He paused. His hand tightened on her
shoulder, she could feel his warmth through one of the rips in her hoody. He
placed the cup down with his other hand. “He
is what,
Jenson? Tell me what it is…” “He
joined the Council. He’s working with Tero Haber.” She gasped out loud. Her mouth hung agape
awkwardly, but she was unaware, only lost in the swirling of thoughts inside
her head. She’d known that Jackrabbit was back in NLW, back in wrestling again.
That alone had come as a massive shock to her, after he had sworn off the
wrestling because of the damage OWF had done to him. But for him to be aligned
with the Council. And aligned with Haber. All of the pain she had endured, all
of the lying and deceiving as she did Haber’s bidding, and for what? For
Jackrabbit to hand himself over anyway… To give himself in to their
machinations, to go down the dark path and lose himself, to allow himself to be
manipulated and twisted… to do their dirty work. To hurt more people. Willingly. “Vanilla,
he’s not what you think he is. You have to understand this.” She gave up her life for him. “I’m…
I’m starting to…” she said, barely hearing him. She felt
dizzy, the stool swaying underneath her. Jackrabbit was working with Tero Haber
to inflict his unique weapon on innocent people. He hadn’t regretted what he
had done to Spyke at all. “The
Jackrabbit you knew, he’s gone. The man that is left is unpredictable,
dangerous… unhinged.” He hadn’t regretted it; he had embraced
it. He had repeated it. Relished in it. Time and again. No more crimes of
passion, these were calculated, these were vindictive. Acts of terrorism. “And he is not worth punishing yourself over,”
Jenson continued, unabated. “The man you think you betrayed, he’s…” “He’s
a monster...” Jenson stopped, noticing suddenly the
change in her demeanor. She couldn’t hide it, the whirlwind raging inside her
mind, the thoughts cascading against one another over and over. “Thank you, Jenson. Thank you.” She reached over and threw her arms around his neck in a quick embrace.
His arms did not come up to encircle her, but he did not push her back. “I’m
glad to help. If there’s anything I can…” She pulled herself back from him, an unexpected
smile on her face. “You
know? I could… I could go for that sandwich now. I’m starving.” *
* * Fuck that Hive-Mind guy. I woke up in a
cold sweat again, bed sheets tangled around me. “An invisible war that will tear your known world apart.” This guy
had clearly seen one too many Michael Bay flicks. It didn’t count as much rest, but sleep is
sleep and I had a job to do. I’d already delayed enough on my detour with the
new kid, Seph Nexus (yes; that’s his name. No; it’s not his birth name.) But
Jed had given me a mission and with Seph’s new kit I was primed to accomplish.
Somebody had infiltrated important government documents that had jeopardized
the identity of Mr. Blanc, our illustrious leader. Even the deck-men of the
Zero People had no idea who or where Mr. Blanc was. Anonymity is the first
bastion of the digital world. It was an important job, and I’m under no
fucking illusions as to why Jed gave it to me. No down-time means no chasing
‘Rabbits. The six-foot tall pro-wrestler kind, of course. Throwing on a pair of shorts, I made my
way across to the VR headset I had stashed in the corner. I’d gotten a bit of
practice with this thing over the last couple of weeks, so it no longer felt
entirely weird to strap a massive black box to my face, to hook my arms up to
the mo-cap controllers. >//autoident.user Every time I booted, Seph’s warning echoed in my head. “The corps getting smarter; stronger
firewalls, they starting to fight back with sims. It’s real in there. You come
out all epilepsy, total mindfuck…” Real reassuring, right? And they said I was crazy for suggesting we just
stick to the old mouse-and-keyboard combo. Huh? >user.accept[] The room disappears in a woosh of black,
I’m alone in the Void. My first time here freaked me the fuck out, but I’m wise
to it now, and I fire up some protocols to help me navigate. Burning pillars of
fluorescent fire and coiled snakes of neon whizz past as me as I traverse the
Void. Here in the web, nothing looks like how it looks like. It’s all pulled from
your own head, what one man sees here another man might see really differently. Good job I haven’t
seen anything weird in my lifetime… Exploding heads in an Arcade and an
omniscient demigod, that’s normal right? I’m locating a certain databank in here. I’ve got a lock on a
corporation called KiteShark that may be responsible
for the leak of Mr. Blanc’s details. If the big boss’ identity has leaked, it
could spell the end of the Zero People. And if KiteShark
are a front for the Council as I suspect they might be, then that could be very
bad news for us. Of course, that’s where I come in. Stevie Guile, hacktivist
extraordinaire. Or something. KiteShark’s
databank is firewalled, but that’s to be expected. The inferno plumes in front
of my virtual eyes, almost imagine I can feel the heat. I can’t though, not in
here. It’s all a trick of the mind in virtual reality. The fire begins to
encircle me. They’ll do that, the bigger corps have Walls that will entrap
anyone who even thinks about breaching. >//launch.IceBreak(GuileIB_x.exe) I can get past the Wall with one of my standard IceBreaker
protocols. Pre-built coding specific to this kind of Wall. Think of it like a
sophisticated app. But instead of swapping your face with your pet cat’s, this
one lets you crack open the security software of mega-corporations. I employ the Icebreaker, watch the yellow tendrils spiral out from my
avatar towards the Firewall. Of course I coded them yellow. I told you, it’s my
trademark. The tendrils ensnare the plumes of flame, which
no longer look like flame, but an enraged animal caught by its tail. As the
Icebreaker begins to do its work, the writhing orange animal begins to
pixelate- chunks of code ripping off the whole. The Icebreaker acts like a
disease, spreading through the Wall, knocking the damn thing down
brick-by-brick. This gives me leave to push forward, approaching the central
databank of KiteShark. >//access.centralbank[datamine] The data breaks apart in front of me, a
holographic screen floating in cyberspace as the Icebreaker continues its work
dismantling the Wall. I scan the data hastily, taking in as much as I can even
as it downloads to my drive. 22%
I’m definitely onto something here. KiteShark has all the tell-tale signs of a Council front. I
should know, I’ve shut down a dozen of them. Add KiteShark to the list. I’ve got access to files on here
that look out of place- different structure, different software designs, these
look like ours. 48% I press closer, magnifying the documents
in front of me. Names begin to flicker past. I pick some out. Reece Hendricks is in here. Seph Nexus, the
new kid. Jed Kingsley. They’ve got shit on Jed in here too? Stevie Sol. There I
am, data’s out of date though. And then… wait, that can’t be right… The jolt hits me like an electric shock, a
mind-shattering piercing drilled right into the base of my skull. I lose focus
instantly, the files flying off somewhere into the Void, the neon databank lost
somewhere below me. I feel my arms go numb, my legs tremble. Can’t see my hands.
Stars in my vision. Searing pain. Shouldn’t. Feel. Anything. In here. It’s
real in there. Icebreaker gone. Firewall wrapping around
me. Orange fire. Mustn’t black out. Not
in here. You
come out all epilepsy. Throbbing in my temple. Muscles frozen.
Veins pulsing. Darkness. Blacking out. Total
mindfuck… *
* * The mental health center was full of their
voices. He could hear them all around him, pulsating out through walls and
doors, rattling around in his head. The mad often found their way into minds
without meaning to. They understood things in ways that the sane couldn’t, were
open to ideas that most would reject. For many years he had been called ‘mad’.
From his debut in GWO, when he had been thrust in front of the public eye, he
had been judged. And he had been found ‘lacking’. Like the lost souls in this place, society
could not accept that he thought differently to them. Felt differently to them.
He had been told that ‘Jackrabbit’ wasn’t a real name. Told that the words he
used didn’t exist, the ideas he had were ridiculous, impractical. Insane. They
dubbed him The Unorthodox One; perhaps it sold more T-shirts than “freak.” The voices in the walls had heard these
things too. They were not like everybody else, so they had been outcast. They
had failed to bleat like the other sheep, and so they had been locked up.
Chained. He knew chains better than most. He had
been chained all his life. Chased and hunted. From the Doctor Libor Radnik, to Tero Haber, to his best friend Talon. They all
sought to confine him. Shackled him to hold him down. But the Jackrabbit had taken the chains
and wrapped them around the throat of civilization. He had hung society from
the rafters, and he had cast them out. He was not the freak; he was not insane.
He was different. And different was
special. His chains made their comforting chatter
behind him as they rattled against the polished floor. He dragged his finger
nails against pristine walls, scraped the numbers on the doors that he passed. Clack. Clack. Clack. He sought a specific door, a specific
number. A number given to a man in place of a name. This man had many names
once, until the Jackrabbit had stripped them from him in an abandoned car lot. The
man was 01673 now. The receptionist had granted Jackrabbit access.
She had denied him at first, but he was bored of being denied. He had found
ways to be most persuasive of late, and she had quickly reconsidered her
stance. The cell wasn’t a cell. The Jackrabbit had
seen cells before. This room had a video game console, a desk, a treadmill. A
bed. A toilet. 01673 sat at his desk, writing his
journal. Not unlike the old man that the Jackrabbit had visited in his
apartment recently. The old coot had been left a very different man after the
encounter, but the man Jackrabbit met now in this cell was already different.
The Jackrabbit had seen to that a year ago. Jackrabbit could feel the confusion
eradiate from the man like heat on hot coals. His mind erratic, 01673 jumped
from thought to thought like stepping stones on a lake of acid. No bridge here.
Jackrabbit had burnt that down. He gave out a laugh, savored the sound
bouncing off the sound-proof walls. 01673 jumped up in fright, those stepping
stone thoughts colliding with one another in their panic. “Y-you…”
he stammered, pointing a finger accusingly at his
guest. “Spykey…” Jackrabbit said,
taking no small amount of pleasure from the man’s reaction. He had every right
to worry, every right to fear. The Jackrabbit had discovered that loathing and
fear were kinder than jeers and jests. “W-why
are here? W-what do you want?” “I
want what you know,” he told him bluntly. Once the mouse is in
the trap, no sense warning it about the cheese. “Didn’t
you t-take enough already?” It had been over a year now. Spyke had
deserved the punishment the Jackrabbit gave him. For wanting Vanilla. For
loving Vanilla. The Jackrabbit had known the solution, it was simple. Plain as
day. How could you love someone you did not remember? So he had taken her away from him, put
things right again. “Spykey Spykey, don’t be like
that. Can’t we just be… friends?” He began to laugh, but 01673 cut him off,
standing from the desk, shoving the chair away. “Friends?!
You took my life from me. Nothing makes sense any more, some days I’m fifteen
years old. Sometimes I’m twenty-five... I remember nights that did not happen,
I forget nights that never did. They gave me photos of places and people… I’ve
never seen them! I don’t know any of them! But there I am… stood there right
beside them them! RIGHT BESIDE THEM!
” When he took her away, he’d left gaps.
Chasms where the silver orbs once sat. And so Spyke had stayed in this cell,
spent his pointless days trying to piece a jigsaw with only half the pieces. “And
you know something… they … they don’t believe me! No one in this goddamn place
understands a word I’m saying and it’s because of you! They say I’m mad, they
say I’m dangerous, but nobody tells me why. Who am I?! Who was I!?” So they locked him up. Spyke had become a
danger. A danger to himself. “Let
me tell you who you were, Spykey,” the Jackrabbit growled, menacingly close to the inmate now, his six-foot
frame towering over the smaller man. “You
were a low-life, a weasel, a man dependent on substances and dependent on the
charity of others. And so I have granted you a life dependent on substances.
Dependent on others. I have made you a fate.” Spyke cowered into a ball when the
Jackrabbit found him in the parking lot. When the Jackrabbit tore his memories
into tiny shreds, Spyke whimpered. But here he stood now, and did not back
down. Here he had nothing to lose at last. “Made me a fate, you
sick bastard!? You broke my fate!” “So
I have been told.” And the Jackrabbit laughed. People laughed
with him once. Not anymore. Now he laughed at people. Now he laughed at this
shell of a person. When he entered Spyke’s
mind the first time, he did so in rage. He tore into it like a wolverine. He
set off a mind bomb that ruptured the strands of existence. But now he entered
like a surgeon. A bomb has no effect on a bomb site. The mindscape was undeniably damaged. A
tear in the fabric of Andrew Taylor’s lifetime. A train track with slats
removed, a tunnel collapsed. The Jackrabbit looked for a single image
in the kaleidoscope of people, shadows now in the mind of a broken man. Amongst
them all he searched only for the rainbow hair, the pierced face, the tiny smile
and baggy hooded sweater. There is nothing to find. He’s clean. “You
know the saddest thing?” Spyke says, unaware of the intrusion he
has just experienced. He is on his knees now, gripping the Jackrabbit’s jeans. Andrew
Taylor, Spyke, 01673 at his mercy again. Where he belongs. Like everybody else.
“The
saddest thing is you’re the first person to visit me.” The Jackrabbit laughs brazenly, pushing
the man down to the ground, leaving him there to sob into his own shoulder.
Still a coward. Still a victim. A part of the Jackrabbit is frustrated at
the news. His visit has been a waste. He is no closer to performing the
mindbomb that Tero Haber has prescribed. She hasn’t been here. Yet deep inside him, buried away, his
heart skips a bit. She hasn’t been here.
*
* *
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