member, a foot soldier in one of those Chinese organizations that had once plagued the state since the nineteenth century. Had the world kept turning as before, by now he would probably be dead or incarcerated, a sacrificial lamb cut short in a hit gone wrong or a failed drug deal. He doesn’t seem so smart to me, really, because I could kill him easily, no matter what else happened next.
This thought has not occurred to him, perhaps. Then that same broad grin returns to his face and he leans backward into his leather office chair.
“Oh, I get it. You’re the suicidal type. I guess that’s my mistake. I thought you were the crusader type, instead. We’ve been following you up the coast for months, you know. Not that we had much trouble tracking your trail of dead bodies. Like bread crumbs in the forest. Ha! I should write a poem about that! Maybe I already did. Did I? I write so many, I sometimes have difficulty keeping them all organized. Up here.” The Guide taps the side of his head. He sucks his tongue to clear his mouth of his own blood. He swallows pointedly. “Maybe it’s a good thing we took on extra work this year. You know. To pay the bills. Oh? You didn’t know The Clan of the Immaculate Strangulation has branched out into other enterprises. Your ignorance is no surprise, really. It’s something of a secret. Do you mind?” He gestures behind him at the array of monitors, keyboards and other controls.
When I nod, without fully turning he reaches behind him to zoom one of the cameras. He says, “Look at them, Scientist. My lovely Terminals. Burn-outs, every one of them. By the end of the year, most of them will be dead from brain-fry, and nothing I can do about it. Oh, sure, I could hunt up replacements, but they’re hard to find these days, what with all the competition. In fact, I’m no longer sure they’re worth the trouble. The quality of available offerings has plunged. I’ve been scraping the gutter for months just to keep the ranks filled. No,” sighs The Guide authoritatively, returning his attention fully to me, “the future is in non-Terminals. After all, there are enough broken minds out there to fit the need. Most of them are suicidals like you, of course, and that makes them a bit difficult to handle. No leverage, you understand.”
Again, he motions for freedom of movement. Again, I nod.
This time, he reaches into a box resting atop the desk. To my delight, The Girl has the knife under his chin again before he can thrust his fingers beneath the lid. The Guide chuckles blackly, continues forward with this hand, though more thoughtfully now, and then he extracts a fat cigar, waggling this between his fingers to show how harmless it is. Hissing angrily, The Girl retracts the knife and then rifles the remains of the desk. Unsurprisingly, she finds no weapons. As I said earlier, something about the Terminus agent drives us to use our hands.
After he offers me a cigar and I refuse, The Guide shakes his round Asian head with its close-cropped bang of hair, and he says, “A c-note. That’s what this brand cost before the end of the world. Now? Free! Not a bad deal, I suppose, but it takes the fun out of life, not having to hustle for it. Don’t you agree? Oh! You don’t mind if I smoke. Do you? Of course you don’t! No more worrying about cancer! No more worrying about the mortgage! The car payment! Insurance! Tuition for the k-,” he starts to say the k-word, but remembers that savage rap across the lips and catches himself with a smile.
Instead, he clips the rounded end of the butt, then puffs the cigar behind a lighter until its flat-end glows. “Ah, that’s fine. Are you thirsty? No? I have a hundred-thousand-dollar case of Burgundy stacked over there, along with a case of five-hundred-dollar-per-bottle Scotch. Caviar. Smoked oysters. Buttered
This thought has not occurred to him, perhaps. Then that same broad grin returns to his face and he leans backward into his leather office chair.
“Oh, I get it. You’re the suicidal type. I guess that’s my mistake. I thought you were the crusader type, instead. We’ve been following you up the coast for months, you know. Not that we had much trouble tracking your trail of dead bodies. Like bread crumbs in the forest. Ha! I should write a poem about that! Maybe I already did. Did I? I write so many, I sometimes have difficulty keeping them all organized. Up here.” The Guide taps the side of his head. He sucks his tongue to clear his mouth of his own blood. He swallows pointedly. “Maybe it’s a good thing we took on extra work this year. You know. To pay the bills. Oh? You didn’t know The Clan of the Immaculate Strangulation has branched out into other enterprises. Your ignorance is no surprise, really. It’s something of a secret. Do you mind?” He gestures behind him at the array of monitors, keyboards and other controls.
When I nod, without fully turning he reaches behind him to zoom one of the cameras. He says, “Look at them, Scientist. My lovely Terminals. Burn-outs, every one of them. By the end of the year, most of them will be dead from brain-fry, and nothing I can do about it. Oh, sure, I could hunt up replacements, but they’re hard to find these days, what with all the competition. In fact, I’m no longer sure they’re worth the trouble. The quality of available offerings has plunged. I’ve been scraping the gutter for months just to keep the ranks filled. No,” sighs The Guide authoritatively, returning his attention fully to me, “the future is in non-Terminals. After all, there are enough broken minds out there to fit the need. Most of them are suicidals like you, of course, and that makes them a bit difficult to handle. No leverage, you understand.”
Again, he motions for freedom of movement. Again, I nod.
This time, he reaches into a box resting atop the desk. To my delight, The Girl has the knife under his chin again before he can thrust his fingers beneath the lid. The Guide chuckles blackly, continues forward with this hand, though more thoughtfully now, and then he extracts a fat cigar, waggling this between his fingers to show how harmless it is. Hissing angrily, The Girl retracts the knife and then rifles the remains of the desk. Unsurprisingly, she finds no weapons. As I said earlier, something about the Terminus agent drives us to use our hands.
After he offers me a cigar and I refuse, The Guide shakes his round Asian head with its close-cropped bang of hair, and he says, “A c-note. That’s what this brand cost before the end of the world. Now? Free! Not a bad deal, I suppose, but it takes the fun out of life, not having to hustle for it. Don’t you agree? Oh! You don’t mind if I smoke. Do you? Of course you don’t! No more worrying about cancer! No more worrying about the mortgage! The car payment! Insurance! Tuition for the k-,” he starts to say the k-word, but remembers that savage rap across the lips and catches himself with a smile.
Instead, he clips the rounded end of the butt, then puffs the cigar behind a lighter until its flat-end glows. “Ah, that’s fine. Are you thirsty? No? I have a hundred-thousand-dollar case of Burgundy stacked over there, along with a case of five-hundred-dollar-per-bottle Scotch. Caviar. Smoked oysters. Buttered
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