[A lower class black man from Brooklyn, NY. He was born to a single mother in 1980. He never got along well with her and ran away when he was 16 and ended up in a foster home for a couple of years before getting his own place and going to college. He started trying to get his Bachelor's but ended up dropping out and settling for an associate degree. Part of why he dropped out what that he started to develop bi-polar disorder. So he would go days at a time with no will to get out of bed. After dropping out of college he joined national guard and became a medic.]
I've been out of work for a bit. And I hadn't gotten out of bed in days. It's one of those weeks.
There was a knock at the door. I didn't get up. It didn't matter. But I heard something being slipped under the door. A few hours later I finally got up to get some food in me. You can't live without it, no matter how little fun it is to eat. And I found an envelope just inside the door. Inside it was nothing but a card with an address and the words "I have a job for you". An address in Rome. It had been a while since I'd worked in Europe, and anyway I had nothing going on here. Doing some work might get my mood up. So off I go.
Getting out did help. I'm at maybe 3/10 today instead of 0/10 [this is not meta game this is him using a scale his therapist taught him to judge his level of depression]. There is some reason to my life today. I finally found my way to the address outside of Rome and after some investigation just drove right up to the gate. I was let in by a butler (who has a butler these days?!) and taken to a sitting room of sorts. And I met a older man who claimed to be another person hired for this job. I've never had to work with another person before on a job. I wonder what I'm really here for. Also I'm pretty sure that the other person is the infamous Ghoto. He's an Yakuza assassin. I'm very surprised he is here.
Eventually our employer arrived. And just as he was about to start explaining what was going on, all hell broke loose. I say a laser sight on our employers chest and then he was on the ground I was next to him. I checked him but he was a goner. So I just started crawling out of the room. The place was being riddled with bullets. Honestly he got lucky. Nice clean shot through the chest. Not much pain in that. He did not die with the reality of life.
The next few minutes were a blur. I took a couple of shots at the guys with the machine guns but then my gun jammed so then I went looking for the sniper. I managed to make it to the grove he was in without getting shot and I found him. He had a little position dug out that he was standing in. He had me pinned behind a tree, but I pulled out the pain gun (it's been a while since I've been able to use it) and started shooting and quickly dodging back into cover. He got some shots at me but only managed a little scratch and my armor soaked most of that. Finally I hit him, but he also got me in the shoulder. As I felt the pain hit me it was like I was a new man. I heard another shot from behind the tree and I looked out and Ghoto was standing on the other side of the sniper with his sword at the sniper's throat. I guess he managed to sneak up behind him. I ran forward and tried to get an answer out of the sniper but he wouldn't respond even with all the pain he must have been in. One whole side of his face was swollen up from the dart, his eye was almost swollen shut on that side. It was a thing of beauty. It could have been better, he could have been crying and begging for mercy, but you can't have everything. He didn't say a word and then suddenly the old man stabs him through the jaw into the brain. He was dead instantly of course; he got off easy. Not fair really.
Without a word the samurai (for that is what he must be) walks back to the house. The body of our employer is gone and in it's place is a bunch of raven feathers. There is more here than meets the eye. The samurai agrees. And we begin to search the house. There is no one else there. Eventually I notice a journal. It is written by our employer (one Mr. Carmichael) and it describes dreaming of ravens and fearing them it is not clear why. Maybe he is insane. We shall see.
Then again without a word the samurai runs off down the stairs. I follow and find him leaning on the banister coughing up blood. He says there is nothing I can do to help. If I had to guess I would say lung cancer in it's late stages. He truly knows reality and the anguish it is. He seems to call it the truth. He is an interesting man.
We make our way down to the foyer and there is nothing to be seen but then we notice another raven feather on the floor next to the wall and some scratches on the floor. It's as if a bird walked through the wall. It's intriguing. But honestly this is not my kind of work. I torture people, I don't solve mysteries. But I start looking at the wall; maybe is a secret door. After over an hour I finally find a switch on the base board that causes a part of the wall to slip back. It slides away and to reveal a stairway down. It's like a dungeon from some horror film.
I walk down following the samurai, at the bottom is a tome. Like a real one, with carvings all over the walls and a sarcophagus. It's a really creepy place. The samurai starts going through some ritual I'm not sure why. But eventually he pushes open the sarcophagus …. And the suddenly a huge bird beast drops from the ceiling on us.
I take a couple shots at it but in under 10 seconds and with less than 6 cuts Ghoto has killed the beast. It was amazing to see. Ghoto is an amazing swords man. But as soon as the beast is on the ground bleeding out it starts to change back into Mr. Carmichael. It was a bizarre thing to see. He is obviously dying but I apply pressuring to his wounds giving him another few moments to live. He owes us some answers. He finally explains that he wears a powerful ring that gave him long life and great strength but also took him over. Then Ghoto took the ring off his finger and Mr. Carmichael was no more. He literally turned into dust and bones.
Ghoto went to put on the ring and I tied to stop him but he would not listen to me. I really wanted him to give me the ring so I could study it, but you cannot have everything and he could cut me in half so I don't want to piss him off. In the end that was that. We had solved the mystery I guess.
I spent a few more days in Rome. It's a fun town. I had three days of 8/10. It was like seeing all the pain and such had filled me with new life. I'm sure I will be back to reality soon enough but it is an interesting change. Even torture work had never given me this kind of high.
Finally I was back in Brooklyn. My apartment is a mess. I think I'll hire a cleaner. I can get one of those young women who really needs the money and then tell her she's a piece of crap. You can really play on the emotions of the young ones. Leave them truly feeling the pain of reality. They never come back a second time after I do that though. I'm also going to find Emanuel (My friendly voodoo shaman) and see if he knows how to make any healing poultices. I think I need some to patch my self up. And anyway the world is a dangerous place.
I'm gonna go looking for some work. I want to keep this high going as long as I can. I'm sure someone needs information out of someone. They always do.
It has been a while since I wrote in my journal. My psychiatrist tells me I should and maybe he is right so here it goes.
Life is getting stranger and stranger. I have now been on several of these strange little adventures. I must say that it does help to take my mind off the gnawing emptiness. It's almost better than torture. Also as I was promised the payment for this work is far more interesting than merely more money. Though it does have it's costs.
I have found is easier to control my mood. Though as usual I need to "get my hands dirty" to really feel good. Also I have found that I experience pain differently. I'm not sure how yet. It has not become clear what this will mean about my life and my work. Pain is still pain. But I feel as if I can channel it into other people at times. I have experimented with it some but I have had not really had a chance to see how it works. On the other hand I have also started develop a twitch in my left leg. I think it's related but I also think the cost is worth it. I have a new power flowing through me.
About these adventures I think they may be more missions than just adventures. I do wonder who is organizing them and what there goals are but I'm starting to think that they are working for the greater good. We will see if that theory holds up to future data. I like to think that I am using my powers for good. I may do things that many people think of as horrific, but it needs to be done.
Trever called me and said he was in Anchorage on a mission. I wonder why I was not called. How do they choose? Maybe my specific skills were just not needed. I'm not really sure what those skills are sometimes. The future will hold strange things. These coming months and years will hold many things of a dark and unknown nature.
Oh and while I'm in the mood a couple other things that my shrink would say I need to "get out".
On these adventures I have been finding my self on the wrong end of the torture (or at least incarceration) situation more than I like. It's odd to be there. It's not what I'm used to. But I think there may be something to be learned from it. Especially when I was in that weird steam punk world. Those torturers knew what they were doing. I will be the first to admit their technique is better than mind it was like they just opened my mind and read from it. It was truly disturbing. Maybe someday I will have that level of skill.
I've also started to have dreams about the one man I failed to crack. His name was Akim Nikitin. He was the toughest man I have ever met. He has information. We know he did, but he never gave it up. I worked on his for the better part of 4 days and by the end he was nearly dead and he was still in cowed and defiant. And then I walked out the room at one point and came back and he was dead. He had managed to kill himself my swallowing his own tongue. So in the end he won. I have to respect his for that. But anyway I've been dreaming about him. Working over everything I did to him to see if I can figure out where I went wrong. I really don't know yet.
Another adventure, or maybe I should call it a mission. I feel like I might be doing good in the world. It's odd though. I arrived in a city in Delaware. The city was burning. Both literally and figuratively. People were being killed in the streets. It was a scene from after the apocalypse.
Then just to give it more of a sense of being a movie, Tonio appears. I had no idea he was involved in this sort of thing, but I guess he is. It was surreal to see him though without a camera and a screen between me and him. He had a camera crew with him of all things but they were getting massacred. It was like they didn’t know there were in a war zone.
Eventually we met up with a few other people.
- A rich, drugged out, party boy named Richard. I certainly thought he was an idiot at first but in the end he turned out to be pretty useful. Sometimes knowledge of drug paraphernalia is what you need.
- A sniper from some army, who lead the defensive and offensive elements of the mission for the most part. Her name was Srgt. Rowen.
- A Mexican superhero/wrestler named Azul (I think). He was totally insane but could put up dukes with the best of them.
- And to top off the insanity, a pygmy. If I had to guess I’d say he was from New Guinea (from the markings on his gear). He was also useful because he was carrying a medicine pouch full of herbs and animal penises (I am not joking). Which turned out to be what we needed when good old western medicine was not enough to cure zombie-ism.
We soon fled into an ally so as not to be shot at as much. And we started to make plans. Rowen turned out to be just as good as she looked. totally capable of getting the group to a safe location. But just before we left our cover we a “zombie” (for lack of a better word) jumped down on us. I wanted to try to question it but with 3 seconds it’s head had been crushed and its hand was on the pigmy’s spear still twitching. However at least Rowen was willing to wait the 2 or 3 minutes it took for me to get a good look at what was wrong with the pour bastard. He should have been dead LONG before our guys took his head off. I had no idea what was keeping him going. A bit of a quick autopsy showed that he had all sorts of extra organs; not added but “naturally” grown. It was the weirdest thing I have ever seen.
We made our way to a flop house of sorts. It was safer than the street, but it was full of junkies. Richard showed him self to be useful here when he took some of the drugs from one of the junkies and figured out that it was no normal drug. He had no idea what it was and if he doesn’t know it’s probably not available on the market anywhere. I investigated some including taking apart some of the dead junkies and found similar strange extra copies of organs. It was as if the drug killed some, but made others turn into zombie maniacs. But it would make all of them grow extra organs if they lived long enough.
We decided to go to the hospital to see if we can figure out what the fuck is going on and how it started. So we made our way over and found some panicked nurses and other staff trying to figure out what to do. We ushered them back into the hospital where they would be safer but suddenly Richard and the pygmy were blowing powder in each others faces and cursing at each other. I’m not sure what was going on. I must admit I just ignored them. Why are so many people on this live of work who are totally insane?
One of the nurses said that there had been some people in the lab downstairs working on a cure/antidote. So I went down stairs with Rowen and Tonio (who is an amazingly good guy to have on your side in a fight because everyone attacks him and he seems to just shrug it off but you have to know how to tell him what to do. There it more to him than meets the eye.) In the lab I found some scribbled notes and half-finished work. After some study I figured out what they were trying to do and was able to continue their work. It was actually kind of nice to be in a medical lab. It had been a long time and it was comforting to be doing something I know.
After maybe an hours work, Richard came down and started to help me. He’s not a scientist but I must admit he knows his way around a lab. He was quite helpful. Rowen, the wrestler and Tonio defended us while we worked. There really was fighting the halls. It was a little too exciting at times. The pygmy appeared a bit later and although he doesn’t speak in anything except clicks he turned out to be helpful. We were able to communicate with pictograms on the white board and he let us use some things from his medicine bag. I think what we ended up using was a tincture of ground tiger penises. It was Richards idea and at first I though he was insane but I realized that we needed some magic here. The only big problem then was keeping Richard from fighting with the pygmy.
After a few more hours work we had a little bit of very concentrated antidote. Or at least I was pretty sure it was antidote. I loaded some of it into a dart from my pain gun and took it out to Rowen and ask her to tag a zombie with it to see if it works. She went off and I started working on making more of the stuff. Eventually Rowen radioed back that the antidote did work!!!! And with another hours work we were able to make a large diluted batch and load it into a sprayer. We tested it on the ER lobby and it worked. We cured a small crowd of people and were able to bring them back into the hospital to give them some medical treatment. Richard and Tonio managed to find a helicopter and build a large sprayer system. So they went out to spray down the city as much as they can.
I spent time working on the people we had cured in the lobby. They were very beat up but they were intact. I was able to treat their surface wounds and they were otherwise fine. However X-rays and MRIs (I managed to get both done because we had the equipment and I was curious) showed that they still had extra organs; healthy organs. It was very strange.
Finally the man who initially gave me the mission appeared. He seemed to be happy and there was a strange number of prevent security around with the letters “HMS” on their arms. He asked for the recipe for the antidote and I immediately knew what was going on: Some attempt at organ farming had gone wrong. At that point I was definitely not willing to give up the recipe for nothing and the man seemed willing to bargain. In the end I got a really nice skin tight bullet proof suit. I fear for my life on these missions so I’m happy to have a little better protection that just a slim line bullet proof vest. For a moment I thought I shouldn’t give him the formula. But they would have figured it out in the end anyway and there was all sorts of evidence as to what it was in the lab. Anyway organ farming is not a wholly bad thing. It can save lives. So that was the end of things and I made my way home.
So in the last few weeks I’ve been experimenting with pain. Both on my self and on others and as I’ve written before I think something is changing. It’s getting more and more pronounced. I think I am gaining some interesting powers from doing these missions.
I’ve also been dreaming more and more of Nikitin. It’s like my mind is trying to tell me something. I wonder what it is. I’m going to start keeping a dream log.
Dream log Nov 22:
Nikitin was laying on the ground in the forest and I’m kicking him in the head. He is laughing. I stop. He says “Your abuse is so brutish I can barely feel it”. Then I woke up.
I went on another mission this week. It was rather dramatic. I almost drowned.
It started with a little kid who accosted me on my way home. He said his "Uncle" needed help from me and gave me a letter and told me to call Sam (the journalist). So the next day I called Sam and by that night I had met up with a mottle crew of people involved in this way of life. The most interesting among them was a man by the name of Charles Raslow. He seems to be a bit insane but very well educated and full of useful skills. Other than that there was a Muslim militant (they make their own faith look like a bunch of fucks, it's just sad), a prostitute (a Russian immigrant I think, a very nice lady), that half-wit sharp shooter Heroes, and a Zorro look-a-like.
Within a couple of days we were on our way to the SW to visit what we had figured out must be the target of our mission. I really wish they would just tell us what needs doing. The whole riddles thing gets old fast. Oh well. Anyway we soon found ourselves going into a cave full of water and muck. Not pleasant. I was just happy to find that the new armor they gave me for that Zombie cure where completely waterproof. Technology is great sometimes. We slogged through the muck (Some acidic muck that burned our feet) for what seemed like hours and finally found ourselves in a room of hanging platforms. It was like a scene from a bad action movie. We spent a tense hour getting across. I turned out not to be very good at jumping from one swinging platform to another. Go figure. But we eventually made it to the other side. I was tired and drained but still alive at least. Irena (The prostitute) was nice enough to do some magic on me to take the edge of the fatigue and I healed Raslow a bit but I'm pretty sure he drained me again somehow. It was rather disturbing. I think I need to be more careful about who I touch and who's eyes I look into. Oh well live and learn. Oh and before the room of platforms we where asked a riddle by some Frankenstein monster things. But it was just about prime number so it was really easy. I had totally forgotten it was so easy.
After a rest we took a look into the next room. It was pitch-black. More than just darkness it was like something in the air was sucking up the light before it would reach our eyes. Then Raslow sat down and passed out. I think he may have gone into the spirit world. I think there was a fight I couldn't see going on in the other room. Then suddenly Heroes was dragged into the darkness. There were a couple of shots and then silence. Heroes stumbled out the dark again. I guess he had killed a vampire. We spent a few minutes stumbling around in the dark room trying to find the object we had been sent for and finally ended up flipping the coffin over and finding it underneath.
So we made our way back to the fork in the roads and took the next fork. We walked into a large cave that had a lake in it. Then I guess I blacked out, because I don't remember anything until I was coming to all wet and feeling like I'd been drowned. Sam was nice enough to tell me that some magic had given me a compulsion to jump in the water and I'd almost drowned. So I don't really know what happened there. It must have been interesting though because Raslow had become a weird moster like Mr Hyde from the league of extraordinary gentlemen. And he was swearing constantly. It was odd but he seemed since enough even in this form. We found another object in the cave underwater.
We went on to the next area since we knew there were 3 things to find. We climbed through some odd holes in the ground and then walked into a room and discovered there was no friction on the floor. Raslow went sliding across the floor and into a hole in the room. The swearing was amazing. Then there was the sound of rending metal and rust hunks of metal started flying out of the hole. I think something made him angry. Anyway there was an exciting slide across the room which involved me getting skewered on one of the spikes and Irena freaking out a bit and healing me I guess. I'm not sure what really happened there, but I feel fine and I didn't get tetanus from the rusty spikes so I guess it worked.
Anyway we made our way down the hall after the ideal-room (physicists would have a ball in there) and found a strange bubble shaped room with a giant crab in it. The damn thing was HUGE. I tried to dump some of my pain on it but it just made me hurt more. I'm not sure what's up with that. I gritted my teeth and bore it. Anyway the gun and sword toting members of our group took it down but in the process they also punched holes in the walls and lava and steam started poring it. So we made a quick escape. Thankfully Raslow had managed to pull the last item from inside the head of the crab of all places. The pain hit me again on the wait and they had to carry me home but the next day I was feeling fine. Pain has become more of a nuisanse than a real problem for me. It's nice really.
Since this little adventure I've been working more. I've started channeling my pain and using it to torture my victims. It really creeps them out when I cut my self, heal the cut and inject the pain directly into them. The screaming is well worth the self abuse. Scaring people is an art though. I've been learning to read people. It's like 1984, you figure out what scars people most and then use that. No reason to use the big guns when all you need is a spider or a huge leech. Peoples phobias are fun to play on. Good times.
I've also started dating. It kinda odd. I've developed a bit of false persona. If they ask what I do I just evade. And they assume I'm in organized crime; which is true I guess. I met a hot chick at a bar 3 nights back. She was goth and she took me home (she took ME home not the other way, we live in interesting times). Let's just say that it was not a vanilla night. She said I should call her. And I will. The pain really puts the life in me.
Well my second date went well. Her name is Liz. It's really interesting to turn the tables and take the pain my self. It has been most illuminating. I am getting better at what I do. The Pain I feel is getting easier and easier for me to channel. Regardless Liz and I are getting along well. I haven't told her much about me. I wonder if I ever will. It's odd to have such a secret life. I sometimes wish I could just tell people what I did and that it would be OK. But society cannot accept the likes of me, but they need me whether they know it or not. I am doing good in the world.
This most recent mission was interesting. Especially since I went to the MOON. That's amazing! I was actually on the moon. Also I had a chance to use my powers to their potential. Our employers were HMS (the same corp. that gave me my armor). And they had been attacked by a paramilitary group hired by another company. Sort of serves them right, but the powers have their reasons so I will help when asked.
Anyway we ended up on the moon fighting cyborgs with bombs in their chests. Good times … I guess since I'm from Brooklyn I should say it was "Wicked". Oh well I guess I'm losing touch with my roots. As I said I got a chance to use some of the power I've just started to develop. When the cyborgs attacked us I was able to grab them and channel my pain into them. It was amazing to feel the pain flowing from my body into theirs. And I got the pain from healing Mr De Vries. So it was a good thing both coming and going.
Also I took apart one of the cyborgs. So now I have a bag of bloody high-tech implants. Pretty interesting. I need to study them some or even better find someone to help me study them I am good at the medical part but the technology is not my thing. I wonder who could help. Maybe Dr. Raslow knows someone. I'll have to ask at some point.
Well I have another date with Liz tonight. So I will cut this writing short and get ready.
This mission did not go as well as past ones. I guess I'm not cut out for visiting the middle east. I got rolls not once but twice. But luckily I only got all my stuff stolen once. It's going to be expensive to replace it all. So here is a list of lessons I learned:
- Don't looks like a tourist in Morocco.
- Don't carry expensive equipment in Morocco.
- Don't mess with the homeless people in Egypt.
- Try not to get involved with Egyptian gods, because they are dangerous.
But I did survive as did everyone else on the mission. Which is for the best. We almost had to sacrifice Irina to the cause, but luckily we found a loop-hole and where able to deal with the god that had her captive in time. Again my powers came in handy. But the urges to hurt people or scare them are getting worse. It makes it hard to function and it almost got me killed this time (Like I said don't mess with the homeless people in Egypt).
It's nice to be back in Brooklyn. I've been working as much as I can I need the cash. I'm getting better and better known, which is good and bad. It's good in that I can find work. It's bad in that I'm worried I'm gonna pop up on America's most wanted any day now.
Liz and I have been on a couple more dates. I've had to ask her to pay. I feel awkward about it but she doesn't seem to mind, though she does take it out on me afterwards. But that's fun too. I think she is starting to notice that I am more unusual that your average kinky fuck. I reflexively healed once while she was beating me and I think she noticed. Oh, well. I'll have to tell her the truth eventually anyway. Who knows maybe she is part of this whole thing too.
I've also been dreaming of Nikitin again. I think it's my mind trying to teach me. I've been taking notes on my dreams when I wake up. And when I read them later they read like a how-to manual. There is something deep inside me and it is rising to the surface…
I have been tired. It has been a couple of months since I went on a mission. I've been depressed. My therapist would tell me to start journalling. But i find it hard to do that when the journal would be incriminating in a very real way.
Liz and I are still dating. I'm surprised honestly. My twitch is getting worse and my hands are getting weird. I'm not sure why she puts up with it. I think she may be more like me than I know. We have been playing very intensly and I've been healing my self more during our evenings together. She definitely knows that I am special and I'm starting to think she is too.
I'm looking forward to my next mission. I want to let my powers out more. And I want to torture the wicked.