The spiel that Vicious gives about the embodiment of ideas and words into flesh was taken directly from Elaine Scarry's "The Body in Pain." It seemed appropriate to me that Vicious would agree with her theories.
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Beginning of the EndThe next year brought news of war brewing on Titan. Like everything else, it was just a pissing match disguised in honor. The Van determined that I would enlist. When I came back, they thought I would be prepared and experienced enough to take over some real power in Red Dragon. I didn't argue. The Red Dragon had major investments within the armed forces and no real harm would come to me unless I sought it. I knew that when I came back, I would be in a better position to wrest complete control.
Julia was furious at me for going along with their plans. She was tired of seeing me play their games, indulge their hypocrisies.
"Do you love me?" she demanded as we ate dinner in her apartment. I paused mid chew. I never had given any serious examination to what our relationship was. To me, it had been an interesting diversion from work, and not a lot more.
"What do you mean, love? I don't think I know what that word really means."
Julia looked hurt. "It's a FEELING."
A frustrated anger overtook me. "What use are feelings without actions?" I rose from my chair and walked to her. I grabbed her upper arms and made her stand. I backed her to the nearest wall. Her eyes searched mine, unafraid. "Ask me what I will do, not how I feel. I will take care of you. I will give you respect. I will be honest. I will do anything you ask me to."
She nodded, "I know you will. But I may need more. You like me how I am. You like me cynical and bitter and cold."
"I like you honest. I like you strong. I like you fearless"
"I need you to want me to be better. I need you to want me to be more. I don't think I can be happy in this life. I could do more, do things differently with this life if I had encouragement. If something was expected of me."
I gave her a hard look, not really understanding what she was asking of me.
Julia eyed me back warily and finally said, "I need you to be more, too. I need to know you. I want you to give me more than actions, I want your feelings, too."
I move my right hand to her waist and grabbed her hip and pulled her close to me. I brought up my left hand and caressed and held her face. "To me, this is feeling," I said as I kissed her deeply. Julia's body gave a token protest before melting into me.
It was then I realized that she wanted too much from me. I was at peace with that. We had been good for each other while it had lasted. It would only be a matter of time before she gave up on me.
I had 6 weeks of officer training before I departed for Titan. Spike and Julia saw me off to meet my squadron. Julia's goodbye was quick.
"I feel so tacky. 'The girl back home.' I'll never forgive you," she smiled at me and pressed a package into my hand. "Something to remember me by."
"God, you are tacky," I laughed and she kissed me.
Spike stepped up and took my shoulders in his hands. He looked into me the way he had my entire life. Words weren't necessary.
"Kick some ass, man," Spike finally said. I nodded and stepped onto the ship. As we took off, I waved.
I don't know what I expected out of the army, maybe just a change of pace, but I was disappointed. It was just another group of hypocritical assholes pretending to be a family, all the while stabbing each other in the back at every opportunity. The only real difference I saw was the surface legitimacy and the broader social values being whored to us.
Weeks after arriving on Titan, I saw action. It wasn't all that different from working for Red Dragon. Men fought and killed and died. Some were good men, some were evil, most were somewhere in between. But I built a respect for the soldiers around me. They were doing what they could to survive, helping one another and joining together tightly for a common purpose. It reminded me of my childhood. I liked it.
I was given command of a platoon. A few successful missions later, I was promoted out of combat.
The ridiculousness of moving good leaders away from the fight paled in comparison to the other ridiculous actions and skewed thought processes I saw in high-ranking officials. They thought nothing of hating and betraying the men doing the fighting. They traded men's lives like children traded baseball cards. These men, those had seen no fighting or combat and who had bought their ranks, wouldn't have survived alone in a city, much less known how to deal with an exploding world.
These jackasses all talked high ideals of freedom and democracy. But I saw them for what they were. Freedom and democracy (and whatever other key words they bandied about) were justification for using men as fodder. Men were leaving Titan with wounds and scars. Some were leaving in body bags. Those wounds, those scars, those bodies all became "freedom" in the flesh. "Hey man, why don't you have an arm?" "Lost it for freedom, man." Without the wounds and death, freedom and whatever other ideals we were supposedly fighting for meant nothing. They were just abstract thoughts that floated around without anything substantial tying them down. People, bodies, flesh, blood anchored those ideals to reality. No one could even see that we were truly fighting for was who got to control those silly words. They were insubstantial words that were worth less than breath used to utter them, less than the ink and paper used to convey them
But what confused me the most was how unassumingly most soldiers swallowed the rhetoric. They had no idea that they were toy soldiers, pawns in an elaborate and deadly game of one-upmanship. Nothing would really change if either side won. Just one side's conceptualization of freedom would become common.
When I found out about the medical experiments being carried out on our own soldiers for biological warfare, I requested to be sent back into combat.
Any faith I had in humanity at all was lost in that war. I would rather confront life and death honestly, the way the real men did on the front lines, than have to endure the presence politicians in fatigues.
It wasn't that I was completely caught up within the ugly politics of war. I had just expected more from a legitimate agency. I thought that they held themselves to higher standards than did the Syndicate. I had discovered that honest men were just as criminal as the rest of us. I preferred the honest dishonesty of my criminal life at home.
I had been getting mail from Spike. He was fairly regular, keeping me up on Red Dragon business. I suspect Mao asked him to keep me informed. Spike would also tell me what he and Julia were up to. It seemed that they had become better friends in my absence.
Julia also wrote sporadically. Her letters were cordial, but grew more distant. The music box she gave me on the day I left was a pleasant reminder of her. I missed her, in a way. I knew I would miss her even more when I got back home and she would tell me that she didn't want me any more. It was only a matter of time.
When I had 3 months left "in country," Gren came into our squadron. He adopted me immediately and kept himself tucked under my protective wing. He reminded me of Spike, his open friendliness, so I allowed it. Gren was mad for music, it was the one topic he couldn't get enough of. He took to calling me Sid, after a late 20th century punk band guitarist. I found myself liking him, for what it was worth. And I didn't mind hearing the excitement in his voice when he talked about playing and his plans for the future.
"Sid, you should come hear me play when we both get out of here. I promise that you won't be disappointed. I'm going to get a group of guys I know together after the war and tour the little clubs and bars. I'll let you know when we come by your home town."
I would never encourage him, his faith in me. His blind optimism and positive outlook were pleasantly foreign, but uninvited. But I did look out for him whenever I could.
Two months later, Spike's letters changed. He still talked about Red Dragon, but he stopped mentioning what he was doing and he never wrote about Julia. I could see right away that they had started a relationship. As soon as I could, I made a call.
"What's up with you and Julia?" I asked straight out.
Spike was at a loss for words.
"Look, if you're dating Julia behind my back, I don't really mind. I just wish you would be honest about it."
"How could you not mind?" Spike asked with what sounded like real anger. I felt my eyes narrow.
"She wants too much. I knew she wouldn't stay with me. She won't stay with you, either. Not unless you give up everything for her, your whole life. Spike, she doesn't really want us. She wants an impossible dream"
"Impossible?"
"She wants truth, beauty, love, and freedom. All of the great myths in life."
"Maybe she deserves them."
"Maybe we all do, but no one actually gets them. Some delude themselves into thinking they have them, but no one actually gets to have them."
"Maybe we won't mind the delusion."
"Spike, I've never known you to lie to yourself. It's what cowards do. It's what people who are too scared to see the reality of life do. Life for us will always be struggle and survival. We don't know anything else. Neither of us is really alive without it. I'd rather be awake and actually live than to be dead inside and dream."
"I've never really cared about life and survival the way you did. But, I'll live for her."
"We're more alike than you admit, Spike," I hissed. I was working myself up into real anger. Things had been easier for him than for me and now I was here, on this torn moon, listening to my only friend give up on real life to chase phantom butterflies.
Spike sighed with sad frustration and I knew that I wouldn't get through to him. I knew that he thought he had found what he had been looking for, what he had always been so hungry for.
I closed my eyes in frustrated sadness, already feeling the stone heaviness of loss set in me as we said our goodbyes and hung up. But then a competing emotion overwhelmed my senses. It was a kind of wrath at both Julia and Spike.
I played Julia's music box for the last time for myself and felt nostalgia for a life that I would not have. I knew that happiness would always be beyond me. I had been content with survival with those who knew me. Now that would soon be over, too.
I would never lie to myself.
I was the only thing that kept Spike around. Now that he had Julia, he would give himself completely over to her because that was what she wanted. I would be alone again. The anger simmered inside of me, orange and red. After everything I had done, everything I had planned so carefully, I would be alone. I would be alone with those dead hypocrites in the Syndicate while those who had really been living cut me out of their lives so they could dream because I reminded them of the honest struggle it was to live every day. Spike would end up betraying me. I would find a way to betray him back.
When I got back to camp, Gren beamed at me with his soulful eyes. I hated him right then because he reminded me of Spike. I adored him, too, his innocence. I made a pact with myself. If I could destroy this young man, I would be deserving of Spike's betrayal. I'll betray this Spike so that the real Spike would deserve all of the pain I knew I would cause him.
In doing so, in hurting Spike, I would also be avenging Gren. In a way, had it not been for Spike and the steps to leave me he would eventually take, Gren would have continued on towards his blindingly bright future without impediments. In revenge for Gren, I would be justified in any action I took to make Spike stay, to keep him with me or else eliminate him permanently.
My last shred of humanity died as I put a transmitter and recorder in Julia's music box. I knew that Gren would not be able to resist it. I would gather information on him, get dates and times of places he would go. I could invent some lies of treasonous behavior to mix in with the truth and report him. I would be doing Gren a favor, in all actuality. I would force him to look life in its ugly, complex face and decide whether or not it was worth living, whether he was worthy enough to survive.
I knew as Gren took the box that I had just given it all away. I lost it all. There will be no redemption. I try hard to care.
The end. Thanks for reading! I hope that you had as much fun reading it as I did writing it. -- Starzki