Topic 36(A): Waking Dream
Jul. 30th, 2012 05:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
java_fiendWelcome to HELL WEEK y'all. Here is the first of my SIX entries for the week laid upon the altar of the mighty Idol gods. As always, may they be exceedingly kind and generous...
“Contrary to popular belief,” I say. “Murder, not prostitution is actually the oldest profession.”
“Is that so?”
I swirl the Scotch around and take a swallow, eyeing the kid over the lip of the glass. There is nothing like a good glass of real Scotch. It’s just tough to find anymore. The kid is cocky, arrogant and a bit too anxious to do the job. He’s one of those that seem to get off on killing people instead of treating it as a simple business transaction. Those types are always trouble.
“What makes you think you can do this job?”
“What makes you think I can’t?”
I smile. See? Arrogant.
“Look,” he says. “Somebody obviously thinks I can do the job otherwise they wouldn’t have instructed you to train me. In fact, the way I heard it, you’re only training me because you don’t have the stomach for the job anymore.”
I take another swallow of the Scotch and nod.
“Eventually, you’ll have had enough too,” I say. “And allow me to correct a few misconceptions you have in that little pea brain of yours. I’m the best there is in this firm and have the most mission completions. The powers that be defer to me in personnel decisions. So I haven’t been instructed to train you. I’ve been instructed to assess you. See if you’re capable and competent enough for this job.”
I drain my glass and set it on my desk, looking at him coolly.
“And I have to tell you, kid,” I say. “Right now, you’re not impressing me very much.”
The kid at least has the decency to look slightly sheepish and abashed.
“So let’s start again,” I say. “Why do you think you are fit for this job?”
The kid clears his throat and looks at my forehead rather than into my eyes. “Because I love my country, sir,” he says. “And I’d give my life to keep her safe.”
I nod. “That’s a good place to start.”
*******
I sigh and drink down the nanochip solution. It’s probably my least favorite part of a mission because it tastes like shit. I sit down in my chair and wait for the solution to take effect. The kids they recruit these days are a little too gung-ho about doing this job for my liking. Cold-blooded murder is an artifact from our brutal and barbaric past. Here in the 26th Century, murder is unheard of. As is outright war. Peace and prosperity reign and we can finally and rightly claim that the human race is finally civilized.
But that doesn’t mean that people aren’t still being killed. Targeted elimination is the world government’s softer, gentler way of justifying murder. It’s up to people like me to preserve the peace by taking out those who seek to create unrest, instability and incivility. But there should be no joy or excitement in eliminating a target. It’s a job. A means to an end. And kids like they one they fobbed off on me today all seem a little too eager to pull the trigger.
I look at the folder in my lap one last time, committing his face to memory before I lean my head back, close my eyes and slip into the twilight space between waking and sleep that we call our worldscape.
It’s always a little dizzying to step into that realm and the experience is usually different for each technician. Technician being the civilized term for assassin, mind you. Each one of us creates a different worldscape to operate in. For myself, it’s easiest and most efficient to envision my worldscape as a long hallway with doors on either side. The nanosolution contains a really complex setup of DNA and electrical impulses that will lead me straight to the door of the intended target. I don’t understand how it works, it’s all a little too complex for me. I just know whatever magic the scientists have created works and has led me to the right place every single time.
I walk down the hallway, my footsteps loud on the wooden floor beneath me. Old fashioned looking numbers cut from brass hang on the doors that I pass. I’m always tempted to open one just to see who’s on the other side and what they’re dreaming about. But I never do. I’m here to do a job, plain and simple. And besides, though I may be a lot of things, a Peeping Tom isn’t one of them.
Like a homing beacon, the nanosolution leads me to straight to door number three-twenty-four. I take a deep breath and focus my mind. One of the most fascinating aspects of the job is stepping into somebody’s mind and seeing what they’re dreaming about. How people see themselves and what they do in their dreamscapes has alternately fascinated and repulsed me over the years. It can also be disorienting at first so total focus is necessary. I unclip the holster on my hip and make sure I have free access to it.
Taking one more breath, I open the door and step inside of the target’s dream.
The sound of violins and the gurgling water float through the air. The music is beautiful and soothing. I part a set of gauzy curtains before me and step into a large room made of marble. A waterfall pours water down into a large pool in the center of the room. Steam rises off of the water as well as the bodies of the lithe, nubile young women, naked of course, frolicking in the pool. The target, a thirty-something year old Egyptian man sits on a long couch being orally pleasured by a dark-haired nymph while two others sit next to him pleasuring one another.
Typical.
He doesn’t seem to notice me as I make my way around the pool and toward his couch. The girls all giggle and coo at me, inviting me into the water with them. I stand over the man and look at him in disgust. Laying there naked, he doesn’t look like somebody capable of throwing an entire region into instability. But his face was definitely the one in my mission package. Sometime you just never know about people. Perhaps finally sensing me, his eyes fly open and the fear is plain upon his face.
“Who the fuck are you?”
“This is quite the party, Ammon.”
A large, curved sword appears in his hands. That’s the thing about dreams, if you can learn to control them, you can make something happen just by imagining it into life. Like having a big, wicked looking sword that can cut your head off appear in your hands. Most people can’t but every now and then, you run across somebody who can. Which makes things all the more interesting. When I was younger, I once got into a fight with a guy who dreamt of himself as a Minotaur. Big, strong fast and beastly, he kicked my ass for a while. I eventually got the better of him and put three into his head but I came out of it stiff and sore. Some of the other old timers still give me shit about it to this day.
I move quickly as Ammon starts to rise. I pull the pistol from my holster and fire three shots into Ammon’s face. It’s quick, clean and efficient. No need to showboat. The sword falls to the ground with a loud clatter and his lifeless body slides back on the couch. The naked girls, constructs of his imagination carry on like nothing had even happened. Though in Ammon’s dreamscape, I turned his face into bloody pulp, he’d be found dead in the waking world as if he’d had a heart attack in his sleep. That was the nature of dreams. While you don’t carry physical wounds back into the waking world, you still feel them and can still wind up very dead.
The room around me begins to deteriorate. This always happens when a target has been eliminated. Darkness begins to creep in around the edges until eventually, you’re standing in a big black space full of nothing. I casually make my way back to the door and into the hallway of my worldscape. Turning, I walk back down the hallway, open the door at the end and come back into myself.
*******
I open my eyes and sit up. Another bad guy gone and the world is a safer place.
I walk to the kitchen, order a beer from the food processing unit and head out to my patio. The night air is cool and the lights of the city twinkle in the distance. I’ve spent ten years in the military and have been doing this for more than twenty years now. It’s time to pull the plug, to live and enjoy my life. I’m tired of the killing, tired of waking up battered and bruised. Though I’m proud of my service, it will never be publicly recognized because nobody even knows we technicians exist. Not that we do what we do for glory but still, a little recognition makes you feel good. I’m just tired of the life and feel like it’s best if I move on and turn it over to somebody younger.
I finish my beer and drop it into the disposal unit. I’m tired and it’s time for bed. I take a shower, brush my teeth, put on a pair of boxer shorts and slip beneath the covers. As I wait for sleep to take me, I can’t help but reflect on my life. And on my loneliness. I had a chance to have a wife, maybe kids once. A chance to have a normal life. But my dedication to my job cost me that opportunity. And not a day went by that I didn’t miss it, still want it.
I sigh and close my eyes. A few more weeks and I can try to figure out what a normal life feels like.
*******
I’m sitting on a rock next to a stream in the shade of a large tree. Endless fields of green grass and brightly colored wildflowers surround me. I have a fishing pole in hand, the line cast out into the middle of the river. And sitting next to me reading a book is Autumn… the one who got away. The one I still dreamt of every single night.
My pole bends as a fish strikes the line. Autumn laughs as I fight the fish on the other end of my line.
“You’re welcome to try if you think you can do better,” I say and laugh.
“I’d rather just sit here and laugh at you, if you don’t mind.”
Her voice is rich and sweet and it fills my heart with joy to hear it again. Her body is pressed next to me, warm to the touch. Her skin and hair smell of citrus and honey. I’m happy and feel genuine love filling my heart, making it ache with longing. I know that if it were possible, I’d never leave this dreamscape again.
Everything changes when I feel the gun pressed to the back of my head.
“You sure you’re ready for this, kid?”
“I’ve been ready,” he says. “Dawkins has been training me in secret, getting me ready. He says this is your retirement gift from him.”
Dawkins. A complete asshole and another one of the young guns who showed promise but had an alarming need for violence that I find entirely disturbing. Despite that, he’d moved up the ranks and was firmly number two. Behind me.
“You know that one day you’re going to be in the top spot,” I say. “And somebody just like you, full of hate and ambition will come gunning for you, right?”
“I’ll take my chances,” he says. “Unlike you, I won’t get caught with my pants down. What is this fucking place anyway?”
I turn and look him in the eye, the barrel of his gun still pressed to my forehead. I glance at the construct of Autumn who is unaware that anything is happening and take her hand, squeezing it tightly.
“This?” I say. “This is something you’ll never know, kid. This is happiness.”
I can see something flickering behind his eyes. Longing? Desire? Need? I know in that moment, as I see his finger tightening on the trigger that in twenty years or so, he’s going to be sitting in a pasture of his very own, just waiting for the next kid to come gunning for him.
“You’ll get it one day,” I say.
And then the world goes black.
This has been my entry for![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
therealljidol Season 8, Topic 36(A): Waking Dream. We're down the Final 8 left standing and things are getting intense! As always, thank you so much for stopping by to give me a read and thank you for all of your support over the course of this season. It really does mean the world to me and I know that I wouldn't be here without you guys. Should we have a poll this week, don't forget to stop on by, read some of the other fantastic pieces and spread some voting-love around! THANK YOU EVERYBODY!
“Contrary to popular belief,” I say. “Murder, not prostitution is actually the oldest profession.”
“Is that so?”
I swirl the Scotch around and take a swallow, eyeing the kid over the lip of the glass. There is nothing like a good glass of real Scotch. It’s just tough to find anymore. The kid is cocky, arrogant and a bit too anxious to do the job. He’s one of those that seem to get off on killing people instead of treating it as a simple business transaction. Those types are always trouble.
“What makes you think you can do this job?”
“What makes you think I can’t?”
I smile. See? Arrogant.
“Look,” he says. “Somebody obviously thinks I can do the job otherwise they wouldn’t have instructed you to train me. In fact, the way I heard it, you’re only training me because you don’t have the stomach for the job anymore.”
I take another swallow of the Scotch and nod.
“Eventually, you’ll have had enough too,” I say. “And allow me to correct a few misconceptions you have in that little pea brain of yours. I’m the best there is in this firm and have the most mission completions. The powers that be defer to me in personnel decisions. So I haven’t been instructed to train you. I’ve been instructed to assess you. See if you’re capable and competent enough for this job.”
I drain my glass and set it on my desk, looking at him coolly.
“And I have to tell you, kid,” I say. “Right now, you’re not impressing me very much.”
The kid at least has the decency to look slightly sheepish and abashed.
“So let’s start again,” I say. “Why do you think you are fit for this job?”
The kid clears his throat and looks at my forehead rather than into my eyes. “Because I love my country, sir,” he says. “And I’d give my life to keep her safe.”
I nod. “That’s a good place to start.”
I sigh and drink down the nanochip solution. It’s probably my least favorite part of a mission because it tastes like shit. I sit down in my chair and wait for the solution to take effect. The kids they recruit these days are a little too gung-ho about doing this job for my liking. Cold-blooded murder is an artifact from our brutal and barbaric past. Here in the 26th Century, murder is unheard of. As is outright war. Peace and prosperity reign and we can finally and rightly claim that the human race is finally civilized.
But that doesn’t mean that people aren’t still being killed. Targeted elimination is the world government’s softer, gentler way of justifying murder. It’s up to people like me to preserve the peace by taking out those who seek to create unrest, instability and incivility. But there should be no joy or excitement in eliminating a target. It’s a job. A means to an end. And kids like they one they fobbed off on me today all seem a little too eager to pull the trigger.
I look at the folder in my lap one last time, committing his face to memory before I lean my head back, close my eyes and slip into the twilight space between waking and sleep that we call our worldscape.
It’s always a little dizzying to step into that realm and the experience is usually different for each technician. Technician being the civilized term for assassin, mind you. Each one of us creates a different worldscape to operate in. For myself, it’s easiest and most efficient to envision my worldscape as a long hallway with doors on either side. The nanosolution contains a really complex setup of DNA and electrical impulses that will lead me straight to the door of the intended target. I don’t understand how it works, it’s all a little too complex for me. I just know whatever magic the scientists have created works and has led me to the right place every single time.
I walk down the hallway, my footsteps loud on the wooden floor beneath me. Old fashioned looking numbers cut from brass hang on the doors that I pass. I’m always tempted to open one just to see who’s on the other side and what they’re dreaming about. But I never do. I’m here to do a job, plain and simple. And besides, though I may be a lot of things, a Peeping Tom isn’t one of them.
Like a homing beacon, the nanosolution leads me to straight to door number three-twenty-four. I take a deep breath and focus my mind. One of the most fascinating aspects of the job is stepping into somebody’s mind and seeing what they’re dreaming about. How people see themselves and what they do in their dreamscapes has alternately fascinated and repulsed me over the years. It can also be disorienting at first so total focus is necessary. I unclip the holster on my hip and make sure I have free access to it.
Taking one more breath, I open the door and step inside of the target’s dream.
The sound of violins and the gurgling water float through the air. The music is beautiful and soothing. I part a set of gauzy curtains before me and step into a large room made of marble. A waterfall pours water down into a large pool in the center of the room. Steam rises off of the water as well as the bodies of the lithe, nubile young women, naked of course, frolicking in the pool. The target, a thirty-something year old Egyptian man sits on a long couch being orally pleasured by a dark-haired nymph while two others sit next to him pleasuring one another.
Typical.
He doesn’t seem to notice me as I make my way around the pool and toward his couch. The girls all giggle and coo at me, inviting me into the water with them. I stand over the man and look at him in disgust. Laying there naked, he doesn’t look like somebody capable of throwing an entire region into instability. But his face was definitely the one in my mission package. Sometime you just never know about people. Perhaps finally sensing me, his eyes fly open and the fear is plain upon his face.
“Who the fuck are you?”
“This is quite the party, Ammon.”
A large, curved sword appears in his hands. That’s the thing about dreams, if you can learn to control them, you can make something happen just by imagining it into life. Like having a big, wicked looking sword that can cut your head off appear in your hands. Most people can’t but every now and then, you run across somebody who can. Which makes things all the more interesting. When I was younger, I once got into a fight with a guy who dreamt of himself as a Minotaur. Big, strong fast and beastly, he kicked my ass for a while. I eventually got the better of him and put three into his head but I came out of it stiff and sore. Some of the other old timers still give me shit about it to this day.
I move quickly as Ammon starts to rise. I pull the pistol from my holster and fire three shots into Ammon’s face. It’s quick, clean and efficient. No need to showboat. The sword falls to the ground with a loud clatter and his lifeless body slides back on the couch. The naked girls, constructs of his imagination carry on like nothing had even happened. Though in Ammon’s dreamscape, I turned his face into bloody pulp, he’d be found dead in the waking world as if he’d had a heart attack in his sleep. That was the nature of dreams. While you don’t carry physical wounds back into the waking world, you still feel them and can still wind up very dead.
The room around me begins to deteriorate. This always happens when a target has been eliminated. Darkness begins to creep in around the edges until eventually, you’re standing in a big black space full of nothing. I casually make my way back to the door and into the hallway of my worldscape. Turning, I walk back down the hallway, open the door at the end and come back into myself.
I open my eyes and sit up. Another bad guy gone and the world is a safer place.
I walk to the kitchen, order a beer from the food processing unit and head out to my patio. The night air is cool and the lights of the city twinkle in the distance. I’ve spent ten years in the military and have been doing this for more than twenty years now. It’s time to pull the plug, to live and enjoy my life. I’m tired of the killing, tired of waking up battered and bruised. Though I’m proud of my service, it will never be publicly recognized because nobody even knows we technicians exist. Not that we do what we do for glory but still, a little recognition makes you feel good. I’m just tired of the life and feel like it’s best if I move on and turn it over to somebody younger.
I finish my beer and drop it into the disposal unit. I’m tired and it’s time for bed. I take a shower, brush my teeth, put on a pair of boxer shorts and slip beneath the covers. As I wait for sleep to take me, I can’t help but reflect on my life. And on my loneliness. I had a chance to have a wife, maybe kids once. A chance to have a normal life. But my dedication to my job cost me that opportunity. And not a day went by that I didn’t miss it, still want it.
I sigh and close my eyes. A few more weeks and I can try to figure out what a normal life feels like.
I’m sitting on a rock next to a stream in the shade of a large tree. Endless fields of green grass and brightly colored wildflowers surround me. I have a fishing pole in hand, the line cast out into the middle of the river. And sitting next to me reading a book is Autumn… the one who got away. The one I still dreamt of every single night.
My pole bends as a fish strikes the line. Autumn laughs as I fight the fish on the other end of my line.
“You’re welcome to try if you think you can do better,” I say and laugh.
“I’d rather just sit here and laugh at you, if you don’t mind.”
Her voice is rich and sweet and it fills my heart with joy to hear it again. Her body is pressed next to me, warm to the touch. Her skin and hair smell of citrus and honey. I’m happy and feel genuine love filling my heart, making it ache with longing. I know that if it were possible, I’d never leave this dreamscape again.
Everything changes when I feel the gun pressed to the back of my head.
“You sure you’re ready for this, kid?”
“I’ve been ready,” he says. “Dawkins has been training me in secret, getting me ready. He says this is your retirement gift from him.”
Dawkins. A complete asshole and another one of the young guns who showed promise but had an alarming need for violence that I find entirely disturbing. Despite that, he’d moved up the ranks and was firmly number two. Behind me.
“You know that one day you’re going to be in the top spot,” I say. “And somebody just like you, full of hate and ambition will come gunning for you, right?”
“I’ll take my chances,” he says. “Unlike you, I won’t get caught with my pants down. What is this fucking place anyway?”
I turn and look him in the eye, the barrel of his gun still pressed to my forehead. I glance at the construct of Autumn who is unaware that anything is happening and take her hand, squeezing it tightly.
“This?” I say. “This is something you’ll never know, kid. This is happiness.”
I can see something flickering behind his eyes. Longing? Desire? Need? I know in that moment, as I see his finger tightening on the trigger that in twenty years or so, he’s going to be sitting in a pasture of his very own, just waiting for the next kid to come gunning for him.
“You’ll get it one day,” I say.
And then the world goes black.
This has been my entry for
therealljidol Season 8, Topic 36(A): Waking Dream. We're down the Final 8 left standing and things are getting intense! As always, thank you so much for stopping by to give me a read and thank you for all of your support over the course of this season. It really does mean the world to me and I know that I wouldn't be here without you guys. Should we have a poll this week, don't forget to stop on by, read some of the other fantastic pieces and spread some voting-love around! THANK YOU EVERYBODY!
