Halo 08: The Sound of Silence

"Fools" said I, "You do not know
Silence like a cancer grows.
Hear my words that I might teach you,
Take my arms that I might reach you."
But my words like silent raindrops fell,
And echoed
In the wells of silence

And the people bowed and prayed
To the neon god they made.
And the sign flashed out its warning,
In the words that it was forming.
And the sign said, "The words of the prophets
are written on the subway walls
And tenement halls."
And whisper'd in the sounds of silence.

                        --Paul Simon, "The Sound of Silence"

Garufo activated the keypad next to the door leading to Folken's small lab sector of the Vione and slipped through the hermetically-sealed barrier as soon as it slid open with a soft hiss. He was once again in his cloak, though beneath he wore his civilian tunic and pants. There was no point in changing back to his robes. Nobody could see beneath his cloak, and he was not planning upon working in the lab where the protective vinyl would be necessary.

The initial chamber was a small locker room with an adjoining lavatory and shower. The room was bathed in deep blue light, casting the characteristic cadaverous pallor so associated with sorcerers across Garufo's face to contrast with his cloak.

This poor light nonsense again. Seeing well should be more important than image—

As Garufo took a step into the room, fluorescent lights flickered to life. Garufo closed his eyes in pain and allowed his pupils to halfway contract in reaction the light filtered through his lids. He nodded approvingly. Good lighting, safe. The kid wasn't so far gone as to think himself allergic to good lighting.

Betraying Folken was not Garufo's choice action after having shared dinner with him and dispensing heartfelt paternal advice, though there was no choice. Folken did not have jurisdiction over this new subject, nor did he have proper containment equipment. He had quit the organization. Science belonged in the capital, not on the floating rock.

If he wants to study this so badly, he can come to the capital just as he always does to do his Fate Alteration Project. The guilt did not alleviate with this deduction. Garufo sighed. And just where is that young boy being kept, anyway? Surely not in the lab. There are many potential weapons for him to attain—ah, so simple.

The lavatory. Of course. It was the most sensible place to leave somebody for several hours. Running water and facilities. Garufo had always been opposed to the medieval practice of leaving prisoners in confined cells with neither available; it was demeaning and disgustingly unhygienic. Idiots who ran dungeons in the more backwater countries either didn't care or didn't have the simple foresight to see these problems. You would think that they would learn after a few centuries. It is a good way to harbor a breakout of plague.

Sure enough, the door had been securely dead-bolted and padlocked from the outside. The fixtures were crudely placed within a matter of what Garufo estimated was minutes. The shavings from the drill were still on the otherwise swept floor. With the aid of a pair of priers Garufo had in his coat the locks were broken in a matter of minutes. He knocked on the door.

"Excuse me? May I come in?"

There was a scrabbling, then silence. A voice answered: "Ah, welcome, welcome. Come in."

English. Good, good.

Garufo set the priers on the table behind him and opened the door, noticing immediately that the walls had been slashed with black out of the corners of his eyes. He detoured his focus on the young man curled up in the corner to the wounded tile. He choked in surprise. The bathroom had become a makeshift shrine to insanity. Every expanse of free space had been scrawled up with haggard, angular print that must have been written with bold, angry slashes. Some statements were written in huge print, other smaller passages scribbled underneath in paragraphs.

This must have taken a month! What in the hell?—He's crazy. He's utterly barking mad. Where the hell did he get a pen? This is utter lunacy. Folken, what have you brought to us?

The words towered above him, on the ceiling, reaching up, doming the room. The rail-thin young man in the corner was looking up with him, following his progress with a detachment that seemed to originate in the roots of his eyes. He was thinking himself a prophet.

"Amazing, isn't it?" asked the young man.

Garufo continued to read. It wasn't as amazing as it was haunting. This sort of insanity—this detachment from reality, this delusion, the last boy that you saw like this is now commanding an entire troop of our army. Our elite. But never like this. He never took it out like this. This is almost artistic. This is…pathetic. But I can't help but feel sorry for this boy.

MY MIND, MY BODY, MY SOUL, OFFER IT TO HEAVEN AND SPIT IT BACK OUT.

HATE ALL, LOVE ALL, NO MEDIUM, THERE IS NO ALTERNATIVE. HUMANS ARE PIGS.

HATE YOU. HATE ME. I AM A GOD. I AM THE WASTE LOCK.

AND THE SOUND OF THEIR TORMENT SHALL BE AN ANGEL'S CHOIR TO A DEMONIC SOUL. I AM SO DARK. I HATE GOTHS.

NAILBUNNY, COME BACK TO ME. I HAVE TACOS.

BAND STICKER.

AND ONLY THAT I COULD BE A CREATURE THAT DOES NOT FEEL. EFFICIENT. DEADLY. I WANT TO BE THE SAMSA. SAMSA IS DEAD. I WILL BECOME A MACHINE. NO GHOST IN THIS HAUNTED SHELL.

KILL ME.

WATCH ME NOW, FOLLOW MY MOVEMENTS, CALL ME GOD AND THEN WHAT HAVE YOU? NOTHING. I AM NOTHING TO YOU, I NEVER WAS AND NEVER WILL BE. STOP TRYING TO BE LIKE ME. I HATE MYSELF. I HATE MYSELF AND I WANT TO DIE. IF POSSIBLE, I HATE YOU EVEN MORE. HUMANS ARE HELL. HUMANS CREATED HELL ON EARTH. EARTH IS HELL AS LONG AS HUMANS ARE HERE. KILL THE HUMANS AND END THE TORMENT. ROBOTS. I WANT TO LIVE AS AN INSECT, FEELING NOTHING. I WANT TO CUT OUT MY HEART. HEH. IT ONLY PUMPS BLOOD. BUT THAT IT WAS TRULY THE SOURCE OF EMOTION, THAT I COULD CUT IT OUT AND BECOME A MACHINE, NO FEELING NO~~~~

HELP. PLEASE. HELP. HELP. HELP. HELP.

NAILBUNNY I WANT YOU BACK.

AND THERE WAS A RAVEN, KNOCKING KNOCKING KNOCKING—

Whacked. He's completely whacked. Raving, barking mad. But this is still somehow haunting, not scary, just haunting. Just sad. Just pathetically sad that anybody could be in this state. Definitely adolescent, probably schizophrenic, possibly a sociopath. I am sure he thinks himself a genius of some sort. Some sort of lost prophet, anyway. He really is no different. He's not that brilliant.

Telling him that is the first way to piss him off, I am sure. What is a nailbunny?

CAN'T GO BACK, NO PLACE TO GO BACK TO LIFE IS LOST, FLOWERS FALL IF THIS IS A DREAM, COME WAKE ME UP IF IT'S ALL REAL, JUST KILL ME.

"Enjoying the show, old man?"

Garufo furrowed his eyebrows and looked back down at the young man, the latter of whom was still gazing at the walls as if he had no intention of making eye contact. The gesture was a familiar mechanism of defense or a scattered mind, whichever would apply in this case. Probably the latter. Perhaps the former. This young man has social problems, in any case.

"An interesting job you've done on this room."

"It's the least I could do for my captor, wherever the hell he is right now. It is also quite therapeutic. You see, I could have flooded the room by breaking the pipes as an alternative and then drowned in the process, but that would put a rather untimely stop to my search for meaning in this life."

"So you are not suicidal?" At least that's something. I won't have to have him under constant guard.

"Oh, very, but it never works. I can't die."

"You're an immortal."

"No, nothing like that. I just can't die. You see, one time I stuck my head down the garbage disposal, and I still didn't die. I tried to electrocute myself, and I didn't die. Granted, the probes were uncharged at the time, but some cosmic force made me forget to charge them. Something in the universe wants me to remain alive to collect all of the pain and the shit in the world. I'm a fucking martyr. An effigy that isn't allowed to die. Isn't life a bitch?"

"You don't say." Garufo looked around. "Do you mind if I have a seat?"

"No, not at all." The young man looked up and, with a sudden change in disposition that caught Garufo off guard, grinned and offered a spidery, gloved hand. "I am Johnny C., though since you are one of the few people I can stand at the moment, you may call me 'Nny'."

"Hain Garufo." Garufo took the offered hand and shook it firmly, taking a seat on the closed toilet. Despite appearances, Johnny's bones seemed very stable. His grip was firm. "I go by my surname."

"Garufo, then. Pleased to meet you. Charmed, encantado." Johnny slipped away from the handshake and sat back against the wall. He was still smiling, however thinly. "So, where is Mr. Scissorhands?"

"I know nobody by that name. Do you mean a tall young man dressed as I am with a bionic hand?"

"Um, sure, yeah. Mr. Scissorhands. Or Clawhands."

"It would be Clawhand, and that particular young man is named Folken. I assure you that despite outward appearances, he's completely harmless."

"Folken what? That his surname?"

"It's his given name. He prefers not to use his surname for personal reasons."

"What, like, he thinks he's too cool for a last name? Thinks he's a god? Like Napoleon? Madonna?"

"Neither of those names are familiar to me. Wait…" Garufo tried to recall his sparse lessons of Atlantean mythology. The class had never been a great interest to him, being more a time to sleep and complete other homework than anything. Years ago. Damn, I'm an old man. "Madonna, a goddess of some sort?"

"Um, well, I guess if you're really into eighties pop, sure. Thought he was wearing makeup. Didn't get a clear look at all. Sort of grunge thing going on or he thinks he's really hardcore. Sounds like an ego trip prick to me. I already dislike him."

"Well, I don't know what you mean by 'grunge' or 'hardcore', but as far as titles are concerned, I can assure you that his case is nothing of the sort. It is not the sort of thing he likes to discuss. I believe that you two would actually get along quite well." Sadly. So very sadly. "Despite appearances… well, I don't know; he is much younger than everybody thinks he is. I believe you two are about the same age."

"Well, good for him, yes. Maybe he won't be a closed-minded old prick. Or a barely post-twenties washed-up junkie who still thinks himself rebellious because he wears black. Ph3r3 the goths."

"He's… twenty-five." I could swear I heard a 'ph' sound in 'fear'.

"Yes, very interesting." Johnny's attention already seemed to be wandering out the corners of his eyes. "Yes, extremely. Fascinating. Twenty-five cents will no longer buy a soda. Sad, these days."

"You don't say. Tell me, is your surname just 'C' as in a letter or 'See'?"

"Just 'C'. I forgot the rest at some point. Never really needed it. My business transactions aren't that legal. I never seem to need anything like that. Like I'm born above the system, or at least outside of it somehow."

"I see."

"But isn't it closed-minded to think that just because people would be old they would be washed-up? Yes, most little teenagers are annoying-as-hell little yaps that think themselves so cool and different, so lost in their delusions of pseudo-detachment and social rebellion while immersing themselves in the social circle of their own making that while condemning society for laughing at their fishnets, laughs at a guy because he doesn't listen to their bands and drink five dollar coffee while laughing at other people who aren't just like them. Isn't that bloody ironic?"

"I know what you're talking about, at any rate." Garufo had seen the sort of thing around the university. A nation of youth gone to waste, depressed and hopeless, rebelling against the technological society and instead finding their answers to life in visions spurred by hallucinogenic mushrooms, not in particles racing around an accelerator, as had his generation. Either philosophy seems equally pointless anymore.

"Guy wears a lot of makeup? Thinks he's really hardcore?"

"Um… well, he does wear makeup." And it makes him look like a damn fool, as I keep telling him, but kids like to keep their quirks. What is it with you and makeup and 'hardcore', anyway?

"Yeah, bet he has tattoos as well. Pierced up. I really have nothing against that stuff. Beautiful, but you see, I am so delusional that I cannot separate the genuine articles—the ones with any true intelligence, the ones who are depressed because they really see what a shithole the world is—and the ones who are just so pathetic and insecure that they join a herd of 'spooky' black sheep. So I just kill them all. I haven't met one I like yet."

"You've committed murder."

"Oh, in horrible ways. It's quite therapeutic. Think of it as a public service."

"I see." Lunatic, homicidal, dangerous. Definitely. To establish some things… think clearly and STOP shaking, Hain. What the hell is wrong with you? The kid is fine. Worse is probably running free with a sword around the Vione right now. Yes, the kid is harmless at the moment. You have a dagger under your cloak; he is probably unarmed. Folken would not leave him with weapons.

But I do believe that he would commit murder. So what? – calm down. He's just an angsty kid.

"So…" Garufo steepled his hands in front of his mouth and watched Johnny carefully. "Nny? Do you think that you are insane?"

"What? Oh, yes. I'm horribly insane. Utterly whacked. I know that I belong in a padded cell on the corner of a hill. But I do believe that sometimes I am more sane than the rest of the world. And in some ways, not. At least the rest of the world doesn't see floating decapitated bunny heads. Or something."

"So, you are aware of the fact that you hallucinate." Floating decapitated bunny heads? The hell? Morbid.

"Painfully. But how can I tell that I'm not right now. How can you tell that you're not? How do you know that your entire world is not just a hallucination, that you are not just a dismembered conscious spirit in a world of your own creation? That you are not truly living? That your entire life is not just a fabrication?" Johnny brought his forefinger and thumb together as if trying to draw his argument into a fine point, pushing back so hard on the joints that it appeared that his finger would snap. "IS THERE REALLY A SPOON?"

Spoon? What in the hell?

"I do not see a spoon anywhere, Mr. Nny."

"Yes, you wouldn't, would you, you closed-minded old man? But that is not my point. You have not seen The Matrix. Yes, not in this world." Johnny watched Garufo out of the corners of his eyes, still hugging his knees. "I am not from your world."

"Yes, I know. And this is precisely why I wanted to talk to you this evening."

"Oh." Johnny sank down below his folded arms. "Only because of that."

"No." Actually, yes. "I also wanted to get to know you."

"Oh, that's very good. You see, I've always wanted a friend. I need a friend to talk to. It gets rather lonely, no matter how much I try to detach myself from humans in general. That is part of my 'succumbing to my urges' complex I so hate. It's like trying to quit smoking. I can't go cold turkey on human contact, but I'm working on it."

"That is rather depressing, young man."

"Life is, isn't it?"

"If I may detour from talking about your home planet for a moment…"

"Of course."

"I think that you're one of the people you hate. One of those closed-minded people. But I see a lot of potential for so much more. Why do you tend to think that depression is the only way to be enlightened? That if you're happy, you're ignorant? That the only way to be 'deep' is to be insanely depressed? Isn't that amazingly closed-minded?"

Johnny stared at the black-slashed canvas of wall, not seeming to listen for a moment. Then he turned his stare to Garufo. Garufo stared back, inwardly preparing himself for some sort of assault. Curses, you fool! Why did you have to piss him off—just see how far he goes. See how much he understands. Try to reason. You might win his respect this way. Give it a chance. Get your hand off that dagger handle.

"Oh, you're right." The ghost of a smile hovered around Johnny's lips. "Oh, you are so very right, old man! Yes, you're scraping the surface; very good! I utterly loathe myself! I'm aware of all of this! But you, you had the balls to come out and say it. Or ovaries. Most people just nod and smile and agree while sweating their brains—or their balls, hah, you see—off and not listen to a word I say. The just want to appease me. But you challenge me. You're thinking about what I say. I appreciate that; I really do. It makes me happy. We could be great friends."

"I am glad to hear that." Thank god. Thank god. "And just scraping the surface is no fun. Our entire conversation so far—very hackneyed, very trite? Hardly, I would say, but you seem bored with it."

"Because we don't just dive past the surface. Yes, let's dive!" Johnny jumped up and raised clawed hands toward heaven as if trying to draw down divine intervention from some deity, trying to center himself in a microcosm of grandeur. The black insanity-slashed room domed above him. "Let's swim together! Let's frolic like dolphins! Let's psychoanalyze! Let's think of something I haven't heard before! It would be lovely." Johnny lowered his hands. "Yes, it would be lovely. Shame, shame really."

Johnny was now twisting his toe on the ground in a coy manner. Garufo blinked. What now?

"Is something wrong? I believe you had a lovely idea."

"Oh, I want to do this. I really, really do. No, wait." Johnny looked up and braced his chin at the juncture of his thumb and index finger, thinking. "…that uniform, what does it signify?"

Garufo looked down at his cloak, ridiculously high-collared and cumbersome in his opinion. And annoying. Stupid ornaments on the collar. "This? This cloak is part of the uniform of the Sorcerer organization."

"Sorcerers? What, is that a band or something? Sounds like a backlash of industrial gothic operatic rock."

"I beg your pardon?"

"Band. Rock band. You know, band stickers, shirts that claim how un-corporate you are, lead singer always kills himself."

"A musical band? No, no." Garufo started laughing in spite of himself. He was having vivid mental images of Foruma playing the sitar and Paruchi on bongos. And I sing lead, I suppose. "God, no. Nothing as exciting. We are just an elite group of intellectuals. Experimenters. Scientists."

"Scientists, eh? I like science. I want to learn more about the world. But can science explain the fragile web of fucked-up human relations?"

"No. Some people think that it might, but it never will. Science is cumbersome and earthbound."

"I'm glad that we see eye-to-eye." Johnny nodded approvingly, still holding his chin in thought and sizing Garufo up. His eyes were roving up and down the man carefully. In spite of himself, Garufo's hand strayed toward the dagger handle once again.

"Yes," Johnny said, "so glad. So very glad. It's too bad. We could have been very good friends."

Garufo's stomach gave a jolt. He's going to try something. He's going to try something bloody stupid. Damn it, I don't want to hurt this kid. He's valuable, yes, but I feel damned sorry for him now. We need him alive. Damn it…

"What is too bad, might I ask?"

"It is too bad that I have to kill you. So sad."

Garufo grasped the dagger at his waist, maneuvering his shoulder so that the movements were shrouded in a loose curtain of his cape. Damn it. Don't do it, kid. I don't want to hurt you. You're unarmed. I'm older, but I'm bigger. You look like you'd snap. Come on.

"Strange. We were getting along so nicely. Why must I die?"
Garufo was staring Johnny down, using the sort of stance that he would use to calm a wary tiger. Showing dominance, but hiding needless aggression. Firm, disciplinary. Don't do it, kid. Don't do it. But do what? What the hell can you do?

An odd thought occurred to Garufo at that moment: I know this is reality because there were some things in my life that I felt, beyond a doubt, were true. Kid, have you felt those things? Have you fallen in love yet? Science can't explain that, kid. Damn—concentrate, man. Watch his movements. What's he going to do? Follow his eyes.

"Because I need your blood."

Garufo blinked. This was not the answer he had been expecting.

"My blood?"

"The corporeal manifestations of my inner demons tend to follow me, you see." Johnny patted one of the graffitied walls. "You see, I can hear him pushing through the wall. Blood on the wall tends to keep him at bay. So you must die."

Garufo compared the wall Johnny had indicated to their relative location on the ship. It was the wall closest to the laboratory.

"That wall is directly adjacent to a laboratory. Maybe you are hearing machinery."

"Oh, no, no. I know the sounds my demons make."

Mental. Bats. Come on, Hain, nerves up. You still have those reflexes you had when you were younger. Watch him.

"But there is also," Johnny continued, now beginning to stalk forward—Garufo held his ground and slipped the dagger out of its sheath millimeters--"the fact that you have come too close to the truth, the fact that I am only an experiment to you, and the fact that you think you know me well enough to analyze me. That really pisses me off. You have no way of understanding!"

No, kid. You have no idea of understanding.

"Are you that insecure? To harm me because I come close to the truth?"

"AND BECAUSE YOU MUTILATE IT."

And a few seconds after Johnny had yelled that, Garufo knew that it would be one of the last things he would ever hear.

Johnny did not move exceptionally quickly, nor did he exhibit exceptional skill in combat. Garufo should have been able to immobilize him easily. But he could not. The dagger would not hit Johnny. The blade refused to hit the young man.

Something was throwing it off course.

Garufo drew the dagger and held it at ready—Johnny yanked on a shower curtain; the rod crashed down, ripping its supports with it—Garufo shook his head and yelled one last chance for Johnny to settle down, this isn't worth it, just calm down and we'll talk—Johnny had yanked the rubber nub off of the end of the curtain rod; it was a sharp, circular edge; he held it like a battering ram—Garufo readied himself to dodge—running—the metal flashed toward him—Garufo slashed at Johnny—miss—miss—duck—Johnny tripped over his back—the boy's back was back exposed—hit him in the head—the head man, the head—but—

The dagger hilt would not make contact with the skull. In the way that like charges between magnets repel, so was the pommel stone of Garufo's dagger from Johnny's skull. Garufo lost his grip. A million things coincided at one time. Garufo was immobile. All of his skill and dexterity, such as it was, left him. Muddled, immobilized, he could only watch in horror as Johnny spun around in the enclosed space, the rod scraping against the tiles and the curtain swishing, and readied his weapon, aiming for Garufo's chest.

Garufo closed his eyes, straightened, and dropped his dagger, almost amused, terrified and weak. This was a fortune-enhanced individual, just as Folken had guessed.

And in the last few seconds of Garufo's life, it all made sense.

Why he was brought here.

Garufo's last, steadying breath was cut off by excruciating pain, mercifully quick in implementation—harsh, horrifying cracking—his sternum cracked—the rod shoved through his organs and punctured his lungs—blunt end, dragging tendons, snapping vessels—out his back, through ribs, missing the spine. Garufo screamed in pain and fell to his back—no, I cannot even die on my back, not even lying down—rolled over onto his side, away from the bar, feeling the air slip right through his lungs.

I'm going to die. This is really it.

Through blurred vision he saw the steel toes of heavy boots walk into his view. Garufo looked up. Johnny was standing above him with a look that almost resembled pity and regret, thinking about something.

He was covered in blood. My blood—that is my blood, this is my blood spilling out, pooling under me, flooding my mouth. God, let it end. Please. Let this end. Have mercy on somebody who wronged you in so many ways.

The walls spun above him, an almost cathedral-like presence of immaculate white marred with black messages. The writing on the wall. I'm dying in hell. I'm going to hell, but I'm dying in hell.

It was mercifully beginning to get numb. Garufo closed his eyes, trying to process the last thing he had read.

CRUCIFY ME, BLEED ME TO DEATH. YOU HAVE ROBBED ME OF LIFE.

How trite. How very… trite.

Johnny was riffling through his cloak, relieving him of the keys he kept on his belt and his daggers. Oh no. He's loose, he's going to kill—he's going after everybody. He's going to—Folken, get the hell off the ship now.

"Don't—" Garufo choked on blood. "Don't—"

"You see, there was another reason I had to kill you, but I forgot to mention it. Yes, I am now on a mission of revenge. I'm going to do more public service. Think of it as spring cleaning. Now." Johnny leaned down and whispered in Garufo's ear, moving his lips in such a way that Garufo numbly registered it as a soft kiss. He wanted to recoil—this was not his right to perform, the boy did not have the right to touch him that way, only—

"Where is the albino in red armor?" whispered Johnny.

Dilandau Albatou? Garufo weakly registered the information. He wants to kill that demon? How ironic. Can't say that it would be a waste… though pity on both of them.

"No answer?" Johnny whispered. "Come on, old friend. A last request."

Garufo did not answer.

"I really am sorry, old man. Mr. Garufo. Hain."

Garufo closed his eyes. Irony that the last person to use that name is one who took everything from me, now giving me my goodbye kiss. I'm dying in his presence. Marica… Marcia, I'm sorry. That's all I can think of right now. At least you can't see me right now. That it were you right here instead. Even dying by your hand wouldn't be so bad… I wouldn't mind…meet me on the other side…but you're still alive, aren't you, love?

"Why, since I have your keys I don't have to stay in here! So I don't have to worry about the wall. Isn't that ironic? You didn't have to die after all! Life's a bitch."

You're a bitch.

"Yes, a slow bleeding death. Oh, I'm sorry; I guess you did have to die for me to escape. But I could have let you die more quickly. I really am sorry. Yes."

Garufo was going blind already, but he had the gut inclination—almost as if he had extrasensory sight heightened in death, a sort of phenomenon that occurred at times during his life—that Johnny was dragging his toe in a coy manner once again.

"No last words? No? It's too bad. You really are my only friend on the whole planet at the moment. Consider this my last and final gift to you. You are at last free."

Maybe he is right in a way after all.

Johnny ran from the room, the jangling of the keys moving further and further in the distance. Garufo barely heard the hermetically-sealed door open and close. One way door. God damn it, one way door… one way…

One way… out of life… good…

Seconds after Johnny's escape, Garufo was indeed free. Approach a prisoner, leave a free man. Good bye, Johnny. And may your karma backlash with all of its power.

---------

Recognize X-Japan lyrics on the walls? "Art of Life"—not mine.