Chapter 1: A Madman's Fear
A Madman's Fear
He stood in the rain again, a dark wet outline against an even darker city.
The rain beat down on him, and so did his thoughts. They weighed heavily on his gaunt shoulders. He’d been a powerfully built man once. Now he was more bone than muscle. More regret than ambition.
The constant drip, drip, drip of dark corrosive thoughts weathered channels and furrows in his mind, carving out the moments of clarity and calm.
His true self forgotten, the man he’d been and the man he’d wanted to be. He was a failure, a fraud, and a figment of an imagined self.
He’d even forgotten his name, a shambling figure in rags he stumbled through Escape, poorer than the beggars or barnies with their trolleys and their bin pickings.
He didn’t collect; he didn’t resell, and he just barely survived. But he had other skills. He could sell if a buyer were willing to overlook certain issues.
Didn’t happen often.
He called himself Murph now, the name that seemed to fit his life. If anything could go wrong, it would. That was his existence. Who was he to think that he could or should be more? He deserved nothing.
Anything else would be a lie.
“Come on, Murph. Focus. Why’re we here?”
To think otherwise would be to lie to himself and hide his true nature, to cover up his shortcomings, to blend into the fabric of some community. Become one with a tribe that didn’t recognize the mole within.
“Hmm, what’s the plan?”
A cancor or a tumor eating through their resources and waiting to rupture, to surprise and rent, to let them down again. To be cut out and cast away, a filth without worth. Less than that, a betrayer, a thief and a traitor.
His familiar swirling storm of thoughts settled on his shoulders like a cloak, caught the cold of the rain and drove it deep into his heart and his bones.
But tonight one clear thought shone brightly in the night.
A neon bright beam of purpose.
She needed his help.
He looked at her through the cold biting rain. As she sat in her cramped converted container lab. A single bulb casting a warm yellow nimbus around her shoulders as she worked.
She always worked.
Whenever he’d watched her at night he’d found her working.
Watching a young girl at night, Murph, are you that kind of man? Spying through the windows like a creep. Do you want to break in? To steal her away from her life and her family? Hmm?
“She’s in danger. “
How so? Can you even put it into words? Can you form the thought clearly of why she needs your help?
“She doesn’t know what she’s doing.”
She looks fine. She’s warm and fed and indoors. You’re the hungry wretch standing in the rain leering at a teenage girl.
“I’m not leering, I’m guarding her.”
Guarding her from what? Hmm?
Doubt gnawed at his motivation as it always did.
Nibbling down at the weak flesh until his resolve broke at the teeth gnashing at the frail bones of his mind. Cracking and splintering them in its powerful jaws.
Cackling and laughing at him in the darkness. Forever circling and driving him away from his purpose.
Doubt always won, always.
Murph turned and stalked back into the night. He didn’t know why he was there, he couldn’t voice it. He was probably mistaken.
Mad and confused.
The beacon in his mind dimmed to a faint flicker, the alert in his lenses erased.
Soon he’d forget why he’d even come.
Soon he’d drown the doubt.
Soon he’d wake in an alley, and be less than he was tonight.
Omni looked up.
She stared out into the rain, all she could see was darkness and her own reflection in the window. Ada sensed her tension and switched overlays to the various security cameras around Omni’s Lab.
Omni chuckled, “It’s hardly a lab, Ada, I’m not some mad scientist.”
< I prefer to think of you as a wizard.>
The label changed to Omni’s Tower.
“You’ve been reading too much Tolkien again.”
< Sanderson…>
“Oh?”
<Helps me sleep.>
“Boring?”
< Blasphemy! The perimeter’s clear. One heartbeat outside the ring, but it’s gone now. >
Omni’s head snapped up. “Why didn’t you tell me earlier?”
She scanned the darkness outside the window again.
< You were busy, and it’s gone. Probably just a bin-picker looking for something easy to steal…>
“Let me know next time.”
< Next time? >
“They always come back.”