16 John Forces Conrad to Choose
"Well, John, what will it be? Life…or death?" Conrad made a grand gesture with his hand as if he were balancing the scales of whatever one handed. If he had both hands available it wouldn't have mattered. John kept a straight face as he had all night.
"Well, Conrad, you're the reaper, your call."
John and Conrad were standing not far from a developing life or death situation. Conrad was holding John by the arm ghosting them both as they observed two men in a room arguing over a third who was tied to a chair. John guessed that one of these two was going to kill the third, the one tied up, but it wasn't clear who exactly had the appointment, and Conrad wasn't saying, not yet anyway.
"John. You are a police detective. One of the best in Seattle. You are sworn to protect and serve the community. You would stand by and let one of these men die? When with a word from you, just one word, you could stop it?"
"Conrad, please, it's your choice, not mine. I have nothing to do with it. If you want to stop it, then go ahead. If you don't, then don't, either way it's on your head, not mine."
John had the holy one here sized up. Conrad had taken him to a room somewhere where he talked his ear off for a few hours. He was earnest, of that John had no doubts, but he was young and seriously naive. John thoroughly felt the irony as he tried to reason with Conrad, explaining to him the role of a reaper. After all John was one of the living. Taylor understood the situation perfectly. Conrad was young, still had his feet on the living side of the great divide, but there was more. Taylor didn't give the details, but John could feel the connection between the horrendous ordeal this kid went through and his current fervent true believer single minded obsession with his vision to remake the world, to remove violent unnatural death. John could detect no ill will in the man, no evil, he was totally sincere in his belief in himself, his vision, and what he aimed to bring about here on Earth, in the here and now. He actually liked the kid, even admired him. But what he was shooting for was futile. Whatever reason the upstairs powers at work allowed this little party to get going and continue for the last few weeks had nothing to do with weakness on its part. John was pretty sure that this kid was doomed. Conrad didn't try to hide his little plan. He really believed that if he just explained his vision to John that he would be overcome with awe, work with him to convert George, and then all would be well. John had been with reapers now for almost a year and knew something about how this was all going to end. This kid was going to come face to face with upstairs management wearing the pretty face of his ex, but the end would be the same. Like with Maria, in some ways the older reapers and upstairs management had been extraordinarily patient with this guy. But John guessed, like Maria, there was a point once reached where there would be no turning away from the consequences of his foolish refusal to collect souls.
Conrad's brow was all furrowed. John was not cooperating with his plan and so far hadn't expressed any awe whatsoever for the saintly goals of his holiness. He really seemed to believe he could force John into a moral dilemma and from there use him to convert George. "Look, Conrad, I believe you mean well. I really do. Do your reap here and cross the guy over, up or down, whatever, and take me back to the hotel. I promise I will put in a good word for you with George."
"You'll reason with her?"
"Conrad. You have to tell her, you have to promise to follow the straight and narrow from here on out and I will ask her to go easy on you."
"No, John. No. You don't understand. Not yet."
But he seemed to accept defeat in this little skirmish. The appointment deadline was working against him not John. Conrad came out of ghosting, scared the two men, both ran away. He brought John out of ghosting and Conrad untied the man on the chair and sent him out the opposite door. Conrad frowned, ghosted them both again, and took John back into San Francisco. They moved across some body of water towards many tall buildings. Conrad knew the area well and moved directly to a location where he brought them out into…an alley. No one saw them appear behind a big dumpster's deep shadow. They walked out onto the street.
John asked, "Can I go now?"
"Let's have a beer and some breakfast. This is a great little bar here." Conrad pointed towards a little hole in the wall window front.
Out of ghosting all John's senses were back on line. He examined the bar's street front and saw a menu posted. He was hungry and he could smell breakfast. There was an exhaust fan assaulting passersby with breakfast grill aromas. It had been a long night following a long day of driving, and it was now past dawn but still early morning. He really didn't have a choice. He also didn't have his wallet and had no idea where he was. Why not? He was sure his rescue was imminent. Conrad was ignorant of a great many aspects of reaper culture, and John had thought the better of explaining such things unless he was asked. Conrad had not seen the Dark, for example, and the kid seemed to doubt that it existed even after John had described it, attested to its existence. He had asked about the dusting power of George and doubted that too. He was deeply skeptical about a lot of things. Personally John felt that if he had died and been drafted to become a reaper he would have kept a more open mind. But it wasn't his place to enlighten the saint here, who seemed to John predisposed towards what he believed to be his mission personally assigned to him from God Almighty. Maybe his kind of obsessive one track mind was a necessary part of the skill set to become a prophet. Noah had to be more than a little immune to third party judgements. Anyway the fact was John was hungry. "Are you buying?"
Conrad smiled, "I'm buying."
Conrad really was a nice guy at heart.