| |
Roland’s arrival in the atrium did not go unnoticed. Never inconspicuous, his recent encounters with the Fratre Militae elevated his status from a mere curiosity to a bona fide local celebrity. The clumps of humanity moving around the main hall going about their business stopped and gawked at him as he stomped through. Though not like they did in so many other places. Smiling faces beamed at him and pointed him out to their companions. This was new. Most people avoided eye contact with Roland, even those who knew him in Dockside. It felt strange to be universally accepted and liked, and even stranger that a planet like Gethsemane is where it might happen. Having seen a few hegemonies rise and fall in his day, Roland understood just how much a person had to fear their government to find his presence comfortable. His jaw flexed, an unbidden response to the memories this train of thought brought back. More than a few places in the galaxy would never remember him fondly.
His brooding was not destined to last long. A street vendor ran from his cart to offer Roland a meat-filled pastry of some kind. Bemused, Roland took it and uttered a flabbergasted, “Uh... Thanks?” before biting down on the morsel. The vendor grinned at him, and Roland walked past without further incident. He did not know what animal’s corpse filled the insides of the pastry, but Gethsemane was one of very few planets where Terran livestock could be raised. There stood a good chance the food in his mouth would not make him sick. He suspected rodent of some kind, though he decided to pretend that it was very bad pork instead.
He became aware of a knot of teenaged girls in his periphery. He heard their giggling and whispering to his right, just outside his sightline. He turned to look and saw three teens in what probably amounted to the local counterculture fashion. The gaudy colors and patterns of their clothing made little practical sense, so Roland assumed the flamboyant dress to be an artistic statement. The girls gasped when he made eye contact, and the bravest among them tentatively stepped forward to ask if she could snap a holo of him. Roland stopped. He realized in that instant that he had absolutely no idea how to respond to that. He stood dumbstruck, his mind bogged down to a screeching halt by the question of why any human person would want a picture of him. He knew he had to answer. Lucia would kill him if he ruined the good will they had earned by being his usual awful self. But why? He was not handsome. He was not famous. He was not even particularly pleasant.
“Sure,” he said at last. With a fervor that shamed him to his core, Roland hoped that the girls would not want him to pose or do anything weird.
The girls piled in to clump against him, the tallest barely rising to his chest. A tiny drone rose from her hand and hovered far enough away to get everyone in the shot. Oblivious to his growing discomfort, the girls struck bizarre poses and flashed hand signs Roland could not decipher. The drone whipped around them in a quick circuit then returned to the tall girl’s hand.
“Thanks, mister!” she said with an enormous grin. “Go get ‘em! Big Reds got their own bully now!”
“Go get who?” Roland heard himself ask.
“The Reds,” she replied. “’Bout time they found their own big bad, right? Fuck ‘em up!”
“Yeah!” squealed another of the group. “I hope you kill ‘em all!”
“They that bad?” Roland asked.
“High and mighty assholes swing like they are better than us,” said the tall one. “But when they get drunk or mad, they’re worse than anything.”
“Think they can do whatever they want,” said the third girl. “They snacked my daddy’s store, took all his stuff and claimed it was for some stupid church violation.” She smirked. “We snacked it all back, duh. But still. It was a shitty thing to do.”
“Hmm,” Roland replied. He needed a moment to parse the actual information from the slang. “And you think I’m here to avenge you? To beat up the Knights?”
The tall one laughed. “Brother, we don’t know why you are here, and we don’t care. The Reds have it out for you bad, so it’s beat or get beaten as far as your situation goes. But man, you swing like you know the dance.”
Roland had to acknowledge the truth in that. The girls possessed a certain streetwise intelligence he had learned to respect. He tried to smile at them and hoped they did not run in terror. “Truth is, kid, I’m not here to beat up the Sword Jerks.” He winked. “I’m kind of just doing that for the fun of it.”
The tall girl threw her head back and laughed. Roland decided he liked that sound. She gave him a playful punch in the arm and winced when her fist struck armor. “Sly roll, big man. I get you!”
“I’m in the mood to swing right now, if you really get me,” Roland said. “Any of you girls know how a big bad like me can find some action?”
“What kind of action?” The tightness in her voice made Roland flinch.
“The kind of action that lets a guy like me get some exercise in. Any way to get a sparring partner here so I don’t have to worry about someone smashing the floors with a gravity hammer?”
“Say no more,” the tall girl said, and her jocular tone returned. “Big Reds always come running if there’s a chance at pay or play.”
“Huh?” Roland was lost.
“Money or honey,” said another girl.
“Cash or ass,” said the third.
“I get it,” Roland said with a raised hand. “You aren’t going to do anything that will put you in danger, right?”
The tall one blew a raspberry in his direction. “Shit, big bad, we were born in danger. I’m in danger just talking to you. My breakfast cereal is dangerous, big man.”
Roland supposed she had a point. “Just be careful,” was all he could think to say in response to that.
“Sure,” said the tall one. “We’ll go get a Big Red and kite him back here for you.”
Roland assumed that meant what he thought it meant, so he settled in to wait. He killed the time by wandering the main atrium and taking in the sights of a dingy but otherwise thriving little economy. The parallels between Dockside, Venus, and this tiny unwashed piece of Gethsemane bothered him, and he struggled to understand it. He wanted to believe that the universe was impossibly huge. That a person might travel the unlimited vastness of empty space and eventually find something unique or special. Somewhere along the line, Roland had gotten old. No matter how many light years he traversed, no matter how many enclaves of humanity he found, nothing seemed to change. Sure, there were different structures to the outposts. They had different names and different governments. But the people were always the same. The same egos. The same conceits. Greed, lust, addiction, and selfishness were the only things that he could count on, and this irritated the big man in ways he lacked the emotional vocabulary to articulate.
Gethsemane should have been a haven for those who believed in a better life. Things like faith, hope, and charity were supposed to mean something. As soon as the thought materialized in his mind, he dismissed it for the naïve drivel he knew it to be. Gethsemane was no place for those who needed the solace of faith. It was the Garden where faith was questioned, the place where even the most devout were forced to look at what their hope and belief had wrought and despair. Roland wanted to tear it all down. A fierce, burning rage filled him. He pitied these people, and in a way that he did not like, he hated them. He wanted to grab each of them one by one and shake them until they saw sense. He wanted to scream at them to get off their knees and stop asking a magical being to make everything good. The thing they loved, the thing they placed all their hope in, actively harmed them. Why could they not see that?
He may as well go back to Venus and try to convince zealous terrorists that the dream they killed for was a lie. He might as well be in the heart of Dockside, begging yet another addict to clean themselves up. Or Prospectus. Or Galapagos. It did not matter, and this made Roland furious. People were awful to each other everywhere he went. No matter how nice a coat of paint societies slapped on the exterior, the powerful always preyed on the weak. The rich got richer by exploiting the poor. Those who served themselves first usually ate the most, while those who tried to make sure everybody got fed ended up dead or underground. What was the point of being a fixer if nothing ever got fixed?
He knew the answer, though he did not pretend to like it. The point was to try. Nobody was strong enough to defeat human nature. Nevertheless, a person who did not try was no better than those who exploited it. Roland looked down at his hands. They were large and strong. He had been cursed with great power by a horrible set of circumstances over which he had little control. What he did with that power, however, was up to him. In this, he knew he was no different than the Knights who walked these corridors. The only thing separating himself from the Sword Brothers was how he chose to use his power. He wondered if faith worked that way. Roland did not understand his drive to make things better, but he could not fight it either. His very nature drove him to fix the problems in all the worlds he visited. That was going to have to be good enough. He almost laughed out loud. Roland was no wiser than the pious man mumbling at a statue when he got right down to it. He did what he did because it felt right, just like they did.
A commotion to his left ended his reverie. He welcomed the sound with a wide grin. The overly theatrical screams of young girls told him all he needed to know. He slapped his helmet into place and stomped off in the direction of the noise. Past a cluster of vendor stalls, he found yet another red-armored goon standing over the three girls from earlier. Their faces were twisted in overwrought caricatures of fear and submission while the looming red giant bellowed in triumph. “Beg God for mercy, little whores!” the Knight intoned. “For you will receive very little from the Lord-Confessor!”
“Avenge not yourselves,” Roland intoned with mock solemnity. The Knight’s helmet swung up to face him. “Rather give place unto wrath.”
“Who dares...?”
“For it is written,” Roland took another step forward, and the crowd stepped back to give him room. “That vengeance is mine.”
The Knight lost all interest in the three girls, who took the opportunity to scamper back into the crowd. “The Fixer from Earth, I see. I should not be surprised that you associate with harlots and vandals.”
“Some of my best friends are harlots and vandals,” Roland replied. “At least they don’t hide what they are under pretty robes and lofty rituals.”
“I walk with the Lord!” thundered the Knight. The distance between the two shrank by one long stride.
Roland smiled beneath his helmet. Something about this interaction felt deeply satisfying. He pressed his palms together before his chest and tilted his head upward as if praying. “They profess to know God, but by their deeds they deny Him, being detestable and disobedient and worthless for any good deed.”
“What are you talking about?”
“What good deeds have you done today, Sir Knight?” Roland asked. Now they were nearly touching, Roland’s silver death’s head helmet dangerously close to the ornate bascinet of the Knight. “When you ‘walk with the Lord,’ how many innocent people in need do you step over?”
The Knight was slow to answer. “Do not pretend to know me, abomination. The insults you have offered my order are to be repaid in kind this day.”
“Is that why you are stalling?” Roland asked. “Killing time while a few more of your buddies show up?” Roland shook his head. “I think I will call you ‘Sir Wetlegs,’ on account of how you are pissing yourself right now.”
This barb had the desired effect. The Knight whipped a right hook at Roland’s head without warning. Roland caught it at the wrist and guffawed. “It would have been a lot better for you if you had just waited for backup, Sir Wetlegs.” Roland drove a headbutt right down the centerline. The sonorous ring of the two helmets colliding chimed not unlike a church bell. Roland did not often appreciate irony, but this time he made an exception. He did not, however, release the trapped hand of his foe. The Knight staggered back only for Roland to jerk him forward once more. Roland’s right fist made contact with the helmet just under the chin. Roland leaned into the punch, holding nothing back. His previous opponents had taught him to respect the armor and weapons of these Knights, and Roland was a fast learner.
It took all Roland’s strength to keep the Knight from flying away, but holding him fast meant that none of the energy of his blow was wasted in sending the Knight airborne. The punch did not ring like his headbutt. It made a metallic crunching sound and half the helmet collapsed under the Fist, before tearing free in a shower of sparks and blood. The chunk of helmet landed among the flabbergasted onlookers who leaped away from the grisly projectile.
The Knight stumbled and went down on one knee. Roland jerked one red gauntlet out to the side and brought his elbow down on the Knight’s shoulder. The blow drove both men to the deck with a crash, and the red-armored man screamed with pain. When they rose, the Knight’s right arm hung limp and useless. Nevertheless, the Knight lunged forward, left hand outstretched and fingers clutching for Roland’s throat. Roland caught this hand as well, turned to his left, and snapped the arm backward at the elbow. The Knight screamed again, and Roland shoved him back.
“Give it up, Wetlegs,” Roland said, a warning in voice. “Don’t make me hurt you any more.”
“The wounds are nothing!” snarled the Knight.
“What are you going to do?” Roland wondered aloud. “Bleed on me?”
The Knight answered with a wordless battle cry and charged again, this time sending a booted foot for Roland’s guts.
Roland stepped forward, letting the kick sail past his abdomen. His own boot smashed down on the Knight’s planted leg right at the knee. Again, he held nothing back, trusting the armor to take as much as he could give. Metal crunched, and the leg bent backward in a grotesque manner. The Knight fell howling once more.
“Come on,” Roland growled. “This is getting ridiculous. Stay down.”
“Never!” The Knight’s voice had gone shrill and frantic. “I am invincible!” He rolled to a sitting position and swung his remaining good leg at Roland’s knee.
“You’re a fucking loony,” Roland muttered. With a heavy sigh, Roland stomped on the offending limb, pinning it to the floor. Then he reached down, took the foot in both hands and turned the ankle 180 degrees. The Knight’s howls of agony again echoed through the atrium, far louder than the wail of broken electronics and shearing metal parts. Roland dropped the leg and stepped back from his entirely crippled foe. “Can we be done now?” Roland asked. “Or are you going to try and bite my knees off next?”
The Knight spat blood from beneath his broken faceplate and sneered. He struggled back to a sitting position, his face twisting into a horrible grimace of pain. “A draw, at best, abomination. Soon to be irrelevant.”
Roland heard the clumping of metal boots even as the red Knight spoke. “Yeah, I figured your boys would be on their way soon enough.”
The crowd parted with the arrival of two more Sword Brothers. Each held a humming vibroblade, sending onlookers scampering to avoid the lethal tools.
“Quit waving those around!” Roland barked. “You’re going to hurt somebody, you fucking amateurs!”
The Knight on the left leveled his blade in Roland’s direction. “You are correct, sinner. And that somebody is you!”
Durendal appeared in Roland’s right hand. He thumbed the magazine selector to explosive beads and grumbled, “That’s what they all say.”
––––––––
