Circle of Fate and Pain
by Elliot Bowers
Chapter 10—Ripped by Nightmares and Dreams
1.
Jack Bent made into to a bar—didn't exactly know how, didn't remember exactly how. So here he was, sitting at one of the daytime drinking places with both doors open, a view of the street outside. He had a tall mug of--oddly enough--root beer in front of himself. This was him just biding his time in waiting for the right time of day. It was when he was supposed to get up out of this place and go to the border.
It was getting to be late afternoon too fast. Or was it? For some reason, Jack Bent was having a hard time telling what time of day it was because there was...something wrong with the sunlight--at least to him. Or it could be for the very same reasons that he didn't remember how he got to this bar in the first place! Let's see... It's the afternoon, early morning, or something like that. The sun out there was just too bright for him.
That sunlight out there blazing down on the cityscape was like the angry glaring focus of a nuclear-powered security spotlight. That bright light illuminated everything. It was so bright to him that it seemed to reveal each and every wrong and shadowy detail, every patch of grime, every bits of grit, every scar and blemish of all people and all things. Jack Bent took on the idea that, just maybe, people could read the expression on his face right now and tell what a rotten low-down criminal scoundrel he had been all of his life.
Sure, he had done wrong in his life. A career criminal, he had to do wrong to other people for the sake of just eating. He had sold the drug lycanthropazine to other fleshies--knowing full well that it turned the users of it into monsters. Ah well, if they want to become mutants, let 'em: more money coming this way. More than once, he had helped load trucks with crates that he knew were full of stolen body parts--human body parts. They're just street trash. Nobody is gonna miss 'em. And then, it was found out that Jack Bent had a knack for smuggling: Any smuggling shipment he had been involved in had never been caught. So they set him up with more than a few "special" jobs.
This was one of those special jobs. This afternoon, he was supposed to go to a certain part of Tire-Wire Alley and stand by--to be ready to perform the act of kidnapping Kyrie. But he couldn't tell if it was afternoon because the daylight looked all funny and wrong. What time of day was it at all? Or maybe...
He thought back to this morningHe remembered not being able to see out of his left eye for a little while, the result of having taken a blow to the head during his recent spate of beatings. And there were the headaches. Oh Hell yes... There were the headaches. Add to that how he was feeling just a tad bit confused about the time of day right now. So maybe it was not the daylight that was wrong. Maybe it was just him. Brain damage, that could be it. The thought of concussion-induced brain damage was enough to make him give pause, all of the beatings he had taken.
Brain damage, thought Jack Bent. He also thought back to when he was having trouble seeing out of his left eye and how he couldn't quite think straight for too long without something bizarre sneaking into his mind. Or maybe he was just losing his mindWhy not? An awful lot of people seemed to be losing their minds as well. Losing one's mind could easily explain nightmares about their brains being cut out by strange scientist-monsters in dark places. It would also explain the idea that a person thought he or she could see what was going to happen two days from now--like how there was going to be a karmic inversion blast that would nuke and obliterate everything within sixty kilometers.
No... Now that's just stupid. He really must be losing his mind. What wasn't stupid, though, was his inability to tell the time of day. Was it afternoon or late afternoon? He leaned away from the table and squinted to look beyond the doors. Well, there was a modest crowd of people out and walking the sidewalks--meaning that it was likely after working hours at most Factories. So it had to be getting around that time.
He stood up from his seat in this bar. It was either he get up and do this, or there would be even more beatings. Do the job, or the beatings will continue. More beatings, more threats, and now there was GiB involved. He couldn't afford to skip out on this job; that was for sure. It was either he kidnap the girl today--or maybe he would not live to make the choice again. And today, there was going to be the only opportunity for this.
The door out of this drinking place was that way. Unfortunately, there seemed to be no way out of this particular series of events. It was as if Jack Bent knew ahead of time what was about to happen. He would go to that street. And then...
Now he was standing across the street from those two buildings that faced that broad field of wasteland that separated Scrap Iron City from the Scrapyard--that vast wasteland covered with hills of metal junk dumped from Zalem. He was looking across the street and looking between the two machine-buildings--looking off into the distance and seeing the sandy field, the first hills of junk off in the distance. Now when did he walk here?
Oh no, not again, he thought. He was not seconds from just having walked here—or something. He had to have taken all of those steps between the bar and this street. The bar he was just in, it was blocks away. It's not like he just blinked out of existence—and blinked back in at another place. The ol' think-works in his noggin failed to cooperate just now. He did not remember walking, did not know, could not recall...as hard as he could.
What mattered now was that here he was in standing on the sidewalk and breathing in the wonderfully polluted city air that came in from deeper within Scrap Iron City. He was just standing here, a sick and dizzy feeling swirling around in his head. And the hot sun was shining down on everything. It was that nuclear-powered spotlight feeling...
People were walking by plenty of fleshies in casual businesswear--those business people who were generally in charge of the Motorball business. Those people walked by as cars went by. All the buildings were in place, too. And so the stage was set. Just like a Motorball event, scheduled to go right on time, thought Jack Bent. Going with that sick-and-dizzy feeling was that idea of everything being just right for what the Hell was going to happen.
He found himself looking around the crowd--looking for something or someone. Those two usually came to the city more than twice a week. They were not due to come by here. But that feeling was telling him, You're wrong, sucker! That sweetie moonsilk-haired girl and her sexy bodyguard are going to come right on in here--any freakin' minute. Just you wait.
That's crazy talk, he thought in response. After all, there is no way a person can see random events without specific information. Nobody can see the future. People only believe that they can. If this was a thousand years ago, that sort of people would have been strapped up and locked away in soft-walled rooms. Jack Bent was certainly not that sort. He knew with all the solid-stoned sureness of reality that the only way to know the future is by having lived through it—and remembering. There was no way that there was going to be the girl and her bodyguard walking around the corner...
Then two things happened at once. A sudden whimsy of a thought made him turn his head to the left. Sechs was walking along this sidewalk. Then, that same whimsy of a thought made him tu-ur-r-rn his head to the right—to face those two big machine-buildings that flanked the entrance to this neighborhood. Right there, Kyrie and Sieben stepped right on into this neighborhood. And he didn't even see them coming in this direction. What the Hell is going...?
He opened his mouth to shout, Hey you, short cute girl with the replicate! Go home, Kyrie! A great big cyborg-monster from five different flavors of industrial nightmares is going to kill your best friend and bodyguard!
His mouth was open. And he was sure that the words were coming out. Except...there was now...too much noise. Trucks and traffic, cyborgs and the crowd, they were all suddenly very loud at the very same time that he was trying to be loud. A great big truck came r-r-rumbling on by at the very moment that Jack Bent tried to scream a warning to beautiful Sieben and petite Kyrie across the street.
So he...stopped shouting. There was no way that a fleshie could scream over the riotous chaos of noise generated by a random crowd of cyborg-people walking along this sidewalk. He tried to raise his arms, to cup his hands to his mouth, to try and shout louder! Except some cyborgs walking by started bumping into him and kept him from raising his arms. The harder he tried, the harder came...the...random interruptions. Then he saw the midgets.
At least he thought they were midgets: muscular, short red-skinned men with bald heads, dressed in gold-colored coveralls. They climbed up out of the hot summer-time city sidewalk as if the sidewalk was water to them. Left and right, the midgets in gold-colored coveralls began to approach him.
What the..? I'm not seeing this. I'm...not, not, not seeing this, thought Jack Bent. He squinched his eyes shut and kept thinking thoughts of pounding denial. There is no way those short men can be real. They're just products of my imagination. Yeah, that's got to be the answer.
Oh-ho, but he was seeing them. As that sick-and-dizzy feeling fell steeper into his abdomen, so did the solidity of the crimson-skinned midgets in gold-colored coveralls. He saw the details in the musculature of their arms left bare by their courdery coveralls of a gold color. The midgets all had blurry heads, but there they were.
Jack Bent turned to try and get away. Whank-k-k! One of the little muscular midgets pounded a copper spike into his left foot--the spike really nailing his left foot to the concrete sidewalk
Whank-k-k! For symmetry's sake, another one of them punded another copper stake into his right foot. "Elkric!" declared one of the red-skinned midgets in coveralls before climbing down into the sidewalk. The rest followed suit. And...he was still standing here.
The mutant-midgets in gold coveralls were gone. And, of course, there were no copper stakes penetrating both feet and impaling his feet to the sidewalk. What was true, though, was how the man could.not move...his...feet... There was pain beginning to creep up from his feet and keeping him from moving as he watched the events that happened on the street. Sechs... Sechs walked right past Jack Bent--coming so close that he could see the individual strands of straight and crazy hair radiating from the nightmare replicate's scalp, seeing the tiniest of grains in the ridged dark bodysuit. Stop, he tried to say--only to be interrupted by a sudden blast of wind that snatched away his words.
Sechs had since run over to where Kyrie and Sieben were standing. That nightmarish replicat was shouting something. Jack Bent could not hear it because a sudden and random crowd appeared and was walking out of an alley—to go into another alley. As they walked by, they made for that same feeling generated by those swarthy skinned midgets in the gold coveralls. That nightmarish replicate had already called out Sieben for a fight. Don't do it, Sieben, thought Jack Bent. He could not shout the warning because of random interruptions. Neither could he move his feet--feeling impaled as they were. It was just a matter of him watching what was happening just now. It was as if the event was set by a mind that was thinking, You must watch.
Still not choosing to give up, Jack Bent tried to walk over and stop Sechs. He tried to take a step--and nearly blacked out from the Hellish pain in both his feet. Stupid, stupid, stupid... Okay, he could not see the damned copper stakes now pounded into his feet. But he could sure as Hell feel those suckers! You must watch, went the idea, yet not interfere.
The Sechs replicate grow-w-wled with such a fury that the air itself seemed to quake--that Jack Bent could feel the sudden fear and worry of people in the midst of such a loud and frightening roar. Strange was how he seemed not to be hit with the ferocity of the noise himself. The same odd force that made those midgets appear and drive copper stakes into his feet also severely muffled the explosively loud sound coming from Sechs. It was as if something pulled him back a bit from reality itself. He could see everything--even if the daylight seemed a little odd; hearing was the problem now.
Sechs approached the place where Kyrie and Sieben were standing. He saw that beautiful and petite girl-woman in shorts, tee shirt and open jacket in a position of misery and worry. She was trying to keep hugging Sieben around the waist—Sieben, a replicate that was going to be beheaded and destroyed. Run away! Run far and away, shouted Jack Bent. Nope, the wind just snatched his words again. Get out of there! That crazy Sechs is in a killing mode! Somebody...! Save the girl!
Maybe Sieben heard a hint of a shout on the breeze. Or maybe beautiful replicate-girl just loved Kyrie so much that she would sacrifice herself to save the girl. Whatever... What happened was that Jack Bent saw Sieben look over hugging Kyrie and made eye-contact with some people standing by. Those people went over to Sieben and grabbed Kyrie's arms to pull her back. Kyrie was just such a dollish and slender thing that it was too easy for them to pull her away even though she put up such a frenzied effort.
Now those two could commence combat. He expected the Sechs replicate to open up the fight with something appropriately brutal... Ah, there it was: a blur-fast swinging swipe with one of those huge construction machine arms. Sieben tried to duck. Tried was the word because Jack Bent saw Sieben's head flick to the side in the direction of Sechs' blow.
What next...? There should have been Sieben kicking or something. Yes, Sieben did kick Sieben—the right foot impacting the thick metal shinguards of Sechs' armored boots. Jack Bent was glad to see that there was at least some damage to Sechs. He actually expected Seiben to have a chance. But there was no real chance after all. Suddenly one of the Sechs' replicate's gigantic fists was clutching the top of Sieben's head--a head with silken dark hair that was uncommonly long for a GR-model replicate. Then Sechs yanked off Sieben's head. The headless body collapse to the street--sparks and oil spraying from the metal neck-stump
No! It wasn't supposed to end like that! Jack Bent could think those words... As soon as he did, there was another thought coming to mind. Namely, how did he know at all how things were supposed to go? There was just that general feeling of knowing what was supposed to happen--the same feeling that made him come here at this time. It wasn't supposed to...be..this...way...! His mind was screaming with that thought as he weakly and painfully struggled even more with those unseen copper stakes in his feet. One of his feet came free, then a sudden headache clutched his entire head in a vice of chopping pain.
2.
…
Fight it, you low-down scalawag...! Don't let it beat you. He thought that as the pai-i-in gripped into his skull. Except it was as if he was fighting his own head. Even as the headache made the vision out one eye seem like looking through a cracked camera lens, he fought it--fought the insane torturous agony. And the agony was actually so bad that he did not know which eye was giving him trouble. It drove him to his knees. Still, though on his knees, he had his left hand clutching his head while he pounded the sidewalk with his right.
You are not going to beat me! Not this time...! I'm getting away from here. I'm going to…stand myself up and be gone. In my head, it's all just in my head. I can beat this before it beats me!
That in mind, Jack Bent crawled away as the headache...began to lessen. He gasped for air and staggered—but was standing. But the fact that his head was clearing now showed him the sad and dark events happening. Then came an inner voice of anger and guilt. What about the girl, you rotten loser!
I can't do anything for Kyrie, thought Jack Bent as he staggered away. He stopped stagger-walking just barely long enough to glance back at what was happening. Over there across the street, little Kyrie was still being held back by some bystanders--though the girl squirmed and struggled in their grip. And still, the Sechs replicate was standing over Sieben's headless body—the replicate-girl's head being held up in a machine-hand. Sechs plunged two fingers into the replicate-girl's eyesockets…
Hell, Jack Bent couldn't watch that any more! He quickly turned his head—a flash of a headache coming when he turned his head too fast. Then the inner voice spoke again. Dumb idiot, it said. Now you go get some help!
Yes, that was it. There had to be someone he could find. That crowd of gawkers and bystanders was doing little but watching the dark and grotesque series of events. It was just like watching television to them--except with much better picture quality and stereo-sound. And since the cheap little televisions of these times had rotten picture quality to begin with, it was even more of a show for them--this wanton destruction of Kyrie's friend.
He staggered and strode towards a certain dark alley. It was as if sunlight was being swallowed up by it. There was the sound of wind howling into the alleyway--as if the wind was being sucked into a hole in the universe. Never mind that, he thought as he stepped...into the darkness...
...And somehow, he stepped out of another alleyway—into…a dimly lit place. It had a wooden floor. The walls were made out of big blocks of rusty metal--the metal blocks being somewhat uneven. Above was a ceiling that he could just barely see--a ceiling with rusty pipes. Thick liquids gushed through the pipes, while grime-smeared wires tied to the pipes hummed with intense electricity. In the middle of this dimly lit place was an engine-looking sort of machine. This place had no windows, but Jack Bent had the definite idea that he was somewhere else...
Fwick! TwinLights came on. Now there was a pretty young female--late teens or something--sitting atop an old engine-sized machine. Her legs were crossed. She was dressed in tight jeans and white tee-shirt that clung close to the shape of her slender body, with a open leather jacket worn over--knee-length biker-boots hugging her legs below the knees. Her fluffy brown hair framed a round face with a peaches-and-cream sort of complexion. And sitting right next to her was the same young woman. There was the same tight-fitting jeans, same tee shirt and jacket--with the boots--the same face with the same head of hair. Except her legs were crossed the other way.
Their dark eyes stared at Jack Bent--who made a come over here sort of gesture with his right arm. Both girls robotically uncrossed their legs to stand up on the floor. They then walked in synchronization in getting over to where Jack Bent was standing. It was time for them to go. So go they did. Jack Bent and the two artificial girls went...into that howling darkness again...
...And the artificial twins appeared...in the crowd--standing in the crowd seconds after Kyrie was knocked away by the Sechs replicate. The rest of the crowd was too busy ogling the scene of continued violence to care about the twins who suddenly stepped seemingly out of nowhere to be here. Jack Bent was not in sight at the moment though he went right with them.
He was instead back across the street again. It afforded him a view of Vicki and Vanessa blending right on into that crowd. Would they be willing to help Kyrie? He could not have been sure of that. Then again, he was not sure of too much of anything these days. What mattered was making sure that--in the course of doing his current job--that Kyrie not end up another body being sent up for the sake of usage in Zalem.
Kyrie broke loose from the people holding her! She had something in her right hand and was running right at the nightmarish Sechs replicate. Please don't try it, thought Jack Bent. You can't win against that thing. He took a step towards the street itself...just as a truck came rr-r-rumbling by from out of nowhere. Nope! They're not going to let me interfere.
He was right about Kyrie not being able to make it. What happened was, Sechs merely gave a flick of a gesture with one of those huge construction-machine arms. Kyrie was knocked up and back...like a doll thrown aside by someone angry. Except Kyrie was a real person--a person who was left lying unconscious when she landed.
A flash of headache made him stagger. Oblamah, declared a squealing, annoying voice. Jack Bent looked around. He was not sure where that declaration came from. Somewhere--nor did he know what language it was. Scrap Iron City had multiple languages, but that language wasn't one Jack Bent did not think he heard before. But it was a bit familiar... Elkric, nog-floggin, declared the same voice again. It was likely the voice of those short men in gold coveralls again--the ones that climb out of the sidewalks. They would likely come out of the sidewalk at any moment. They were probably going to come and stake his feet to the sidewalk again.
He saw a concrete section of this sidewalk go lifting up--opening into darkness. Oh no, he thought. First Jack Bent glanced down at the square hole in which he heard the first sounds of those strange midgets. Then he glanced over across the street where the petite girl with pale-blonde hair was lying unconscious. They were not going to let him get over there; he just knew it. And staying around here meant that they were going to get him--those muscular midgets in sunset-colored coveralls that came out of nowhere. But he could not leave yet--until he saw Kyrie being cared for.
Whichever happened first, Jack Bent was not sure. One of the artificial girls in biker clothes walked into the street to go help Kyrie. Something began to crawl up out of that square opening, emerging with muscular arms reaching out of the darkness to take a grip of this sidewalk. One of those alone was enough for him to turn away--and run. So he did so and made a staggering run to get the Hell away from here!
Being a person on the run was something that took on its own kind of sense. Jack Bent was not exactly sure why he was running right now--running from the appearance of those midgets in sunset-colored work-coveralls. It was not that they had ever done anything to him, not that he knew. It was just that there was the possibility of them maybe getting him. So he dipped into a right turn and ran through the alley.
An old metal crate made for a convenient foot-boost for him to get over this next wall. Why there was a wall there, Jack Bent did not know. And he did not care right now. It went back to being on the run and things making their own kind of sense. Things just do. There was no use mentally debating the existence of an end-of-alley wall. There was just the need to climb over it.
Thump-p-p! He landed a bit too hard on the other side of the wall and stumbled as he caught his feet in some metal junk--nearly shredded the soles of his sneakers. Damned local sneakers, they were barely comfortable. There was no way that this footwear was up to the quality of goods up in Zalem... Never mind, so long as the soles didn't shred.
And so he was on the run again. This time the alley ought to take him out the alley on the other side of the street. It would probably take them a while to sense where he was. A squeaky left turn on these sneakers let him go left and away some more. They would have to try harder to get him now!
Now...who were they? They were more than just very muscular midgets in sunset-colored coveralls. No, they had to be something else--probably one of Zalem's latest tricks. Zalem was always pulling some new kind of joke on the people who lived on the ground... So paying cheap bounties to bounty hunters wasn't enough to keep things in line? And those flying eyeball-creatures—those eyes in the sky—were not enough, either. What more could Zalem do to keep the people on the ground in line and working? Create an underground underclass of mutants, that was what!
Or maybe those mutants existed for another reason. Maybe the midgets were present to maintain the city itself--an upgrade to lowly worker-cyborgs that barely made enough money to live with. But if so, why had no one else but himself seen these creatures? Tire-Wire Alley is a big neighborhood--right on the border of Scrap Iron City. Someone else had to have seen the midgets even he and others had not.
He came to a stop next to a rice vendor's cart--the male vendor dressed in billowing red jacket with a circular collar and matching pants--cloth shoes. The rice vendor stared at Jack Bent before staring away again and perhaps thinking of something.