Fated (6 page)
Authors: S. G. Browne
Tags: #Humorous, #Romance, #General, #Contemporary, #Fiction
Jerry’s a sucker for Internet hoaxes and urban legends.
One time, he even sent out an e-mail about the U.S. Mint releasing new dollar coins that omitted the motto “In God We Trust.” It took us a while to calm him down about that one.
I figure the e-mail is another one of Jerry’s lame warnings or pleas, but I can’t just delete it. For one, almost all of Jerry’s e-mails are titled “Important” or “Urgent” or “Please Read,” so I’m never sure if it’s crap or something actually relevant. And two, Jerry still uses AOL and forces all of us to use it so he can check the status of his e-mails to make sure we’re all reading them.
The thing about Jerry is that he’s a control freak.
When I open the e-mail to read the body of the message, all it says is:
Big event coming!!!Stay tuned!!!
This is typical Jerry. He likes to keep us in the dark about his personal projects. Build up the suspense. Make a big deal of promoting some big history-changing event and then fill us in on the details at the last moment.
Noah.
Jesus.
The 1969 Mets.
While Destiny, Death, and I play a more significant role in the paths of humans than the Intangibles, the Emotives, and the Deadly and Lesser Sins, Jerry still controls the big picture. Which is his way of reminding us who’s in charge.
The thing about Jerry is that he’s a megalomaniac.
When it comes to things like biblical floods, messiahs, and one of the greatest upsets in World Series history, we don’t typically know Jerry’s timetable. At some point, he has to fill at least one of us in on his plans, but he doesn’t always give us a lot of advance warning—though Destiny had Mary on her radar from the moment of the Immaculate Conception, so she knew something was up. But even though I knew the Orioles were going to blow the Series, I had no idea they would lose to the Mets. And none of us knew about the flood until the weather forecast came out predicting that the floodgates of the sky would open for the next forty days, which pretty much screwed our spring-break trip to Tahiti.
In spite of the fact that I control the futures of more than four-fifths of the world’s population, I have no idea what Jerry’s got up his sleeve. And it’s not like I have a lot of spare time to deal with his cryptic messages. So once today’s fates have finished uploading, I save his e-mail into my “Jerry’s Annoying Announcements” folder, shut down my laptop, then turn my attention to a twenty-two-year-old barista who’s about to decide that the unemployed slacker ordering an iced mocha would make a good boyfriend.
CHAPTER 7
I’m in the
Red Light District in Amsterdam just past dusk, meandering along the Oudezijds Achterburgwal canal, trying to figure out how these people actually communicate with this language. I can’t even get past the first syllable. It doesn’t help that I just came out of the coffee shop Extase, where I sampled something called White Widow.
Red Light District in Amsterdam just past dusk, meandering along the Oudezijds Achterburgwal canal, trying to figure out how these people actually communicate with this language. I can’t even get past the first syllable. It doesn’t help that I just came out of the coffee shop Extase, where I sampled something called White Widow.
Most of the time I tend to avoid alcohol or pot or psychedelic mushroom tea with honey and ginger, but I haven’t been to Amsterdam since the Vietnam War, and quite a bit has changed since my last visit. And when in Rome . . .
Across the canal, there’s a sign above a closed entrance that says LIVE PORNO SHOW. Next to that, a set of stairs leads past a window with a neon sign advertising CANNABIS COLLEGE. Just up the canal, you can visit the Hash Marihuana & Hemp Museum and the Sensi Seed Bank before heading over to partake in some legalized prostitution.
And I’m beginning to wonder why I’m still living in Manhattan.
On my side of the canal, open doorways with red neon lights above them and red curtains pulled to the side display women of various shapes and hair colors, all soliciting the men who walk past. Some of the doors are closed, the curtains pulled shut over the glass, the light above the doorway dark, indicating that the occupant is temporarily indisposed.
A young French couple ahead of me is arguing about whether or not they should ask if one of the prostitutes would be interested in a threesome. The woman, a nineteen-year-old student from Paris, is going to end up with an undergraduate degree in communication and a PhD in failed relationships, while her boyfriend, a twenty-one-year-old studying history, is going to be doomed to repeat it.
I can’t help but laugh.
The couple glances my way and the boyfriend calls me an asshole in French.
Apparently, I forgot I wasn’t invisible.
Maybe it wasn’t such a good idea for me to get stoned before going to work.
I give a wide berth to the couple and continue along the canal, past the Hash Marihuana & Hemp Museum and a twenty-eight-year-old virgin from Branson, Missouri, who’s going to end up falling in love with the first prostitute he sleeps with, until I reach an alley I can turn down and go invisible without drawing any unwanted attention. Kind of like Clark Kent looking for someplace discreet to morph into Superman, except I’m not exactly here to save anyone.
I’ve often wondered what it would be like to be a superhero, endowed with powers that I could use to help damsels in distress or thwart villains and criminals. Except I don’t think my persona would exactly evoke a sense of security.
Captain Fate.
Fatal Man.
Mr. Fatalistic.
Plus I don’t think I’d look good in tights and a leotard.
Halfway down the alley, I realize I’m not alone. I also realize this alley doesn’t cut through to the other side.
When I turn around, I see the outline of twenty-four-year-old Nicolas Jansen in the shadows between me and the entrance to the alley. Although I can’t see his face, I know he’s going to be spending most of the next two decades of his life in and out of jail and drug rehab, neither of which is going to make much of a difference.
“What’s up?” he says with a Dutch accent, walking toward me.
I don’t tend to have many interactions with humans, especially not in this manner, and considering that I marvel at their overall ineptitude as a species, it’s not surprising that my people skills are a little rusty.
“Go away,” I say.
He hesitates, momentarily caught off guard by my reaction. But he mistakes it for bravado and closes the distance between us.
“I’ll go when I’m ready,” he says, producing a stiletto knife.
It’s not like I’m worried about getting injured or killed. Sure, he can do some serious damage to my man suit, but I can just have Ingenuity make me another one. The suit I have is getting kind of worn-out anyway, which isn’t surprising, considering I’ve had it since the Reformation.
But I don’t want to have to deal with getting mugged and stabbed right now, especially since I just got stoned and it would really bum my high. Plus I still want to visit the Anne Frank House.
“Give me your wallet,” he says.
“I don’t have any money,” I say. Which isn’t true. In addition to my own cash, Sloth gave me a hundred bucks and asked me to bring him back some really good hash.
“Give me your fucking wallet,” he says, brandishing the stiletto for emphasis.
I can see Nicolas Jansen’s face now, young and strung out, a couple of days removed from his last shave. He hasn’t been consumed by this lifestyle yet, but it’s beginning to sink its teeth into him and is slowly sucking his will down to the marrow.
I could just give him my wallet and let him continue on his downward-spiraling path to desperation and failure, but I really don’t want to have to deal with canceling my universal credit card or getting a new photo ID. I hate going to the DMV.
I could just do what I came in here to do in the first place and go invisible. Just blink out of existence. But that’s generally frowned upon, ever since Heroism and the Joan of Arc fiasco.
Rule #6: Never dematerialize in front of humans.
On the other hand, I could try to talk him out of this, tell him it’s not too late, that he can still make something out of himself, even if his best-case scenario is working for the sanitation department. But that would be interfering. Getting involved.
So instead, I opt for a different approach.
“Eat me,” I say.
“What?” he says.
Diplomacy has never exactly been my strong suit.
“Eat me,” I say again, taking a step toward him. He takes a step back, still holding the stiletto out in front of him.
“Don’t fuck with me,” Nicolas says, stopping and holding his ground. “I’ll cut you. I swear to God, I’ll cut you.”
“Then cut me,” I say, taking another step forward, calling his bluff.
While Nicolas Jansen is built for threatening people and stealing from them and using the fruits of his labors to purchase and consume mind-numbing drugs, he’s not a violent person. And he most certainly is not a murderer.
“I will,” he says, without much conviction.
“Here,” I say, holding up my wallet and dangling it in front of him. “Take it if you’ve got the guts.”
His eyes shift back and forth from the wallet to me. I can see the uncertainty in his expression, can almost feel the confusion rolling off of him in waves. And I know he’s mere moments from turning around and discovering that life as a sanitation worker isn’t so bad.
Maybe it’s because I take another step forward or because I have the audacity to show him how much money I have in my wallet or because I call him a spineless pussy. Or maybe I just misjudged him.
Before I have the chance to react, Nicolas Jansen is plunging his knife into my chest and grabbing my wallet out of my hand and running away to join the growing crowds along the Oudezijds Achterburgwal, leaving me for dead in the shadows of the alley.
CHAPTER 8
It’s embarrassing enough
to get mugged and stabbed in an alley in Amsterdam by a mortal with a drug addiction, but once your man suit is breached, it makes it impossible to transport. Instead of making the journey as one unit, you might slip out through the opening, leaving your empty man suit behind and creating a lot of problems. Sure, it gives Hysteria and Conspiracy something to do, but the last thing we need is for the human race to figure out that something is walking around impersonating them.
to get mugged and stabbed in an alley in Amsterdam by a mortal with a drug addiction, but once your man suit is breached, it makes it impossible to transport. Instead of making the journey as one unit, you might slip out through the opening, leaving your empty man suit behind and creating a lot of problems. Sure, it gives Hysteria and Conspiracy something to do, but the last thing we need is for the human race to figure out that something is walking around impersonating them.
It’s happened once before, not long after the collapse of the Roman Empire near the end of the fifth century. It was so bad Memory had to be sent in for an emergency overhaul that had ramifications for more than five hundred years. Although the human race commonly refers to that period as the Dark Ages, it’s known among the Immortals as Jerry’s Big Screwup.
So, not wanting to be responsible for another five centuries of repressed written history and cultural achievements, I have to find a way to get back to New York. And without a wallet, a passport, or any fingerprints to verify my ID, I can’t exactly jump on a plane or board a transatlantic cruise, even if I had any money to pay for a ticket.
So I’m forced to take desperate measures.
“Ouch!” I say, as the needle pierces my skin, pulling the stitch through after it.
Even though we can’t be killed, we can still feel sensations through our suits of human flesh. Heat. Pleasure. Pain. And this feels like pain.
“Be quiet,” says Secrecy. “Someone might hear you.”
“It hurts,” I say. “Couldn’t you have given me a local?”
“You’re lucky I even showed up,” she says, piercing my chest again with more enthusiasm than I’d like. “You have any idea how much trouble I could get in?”
The thing about Secrecy is that she’s paranoid.
We’re sitting on the bed in a room on the second floor of the Victoria Hotel, a little over half a mile from where I was stabbed. The curtains are drawn and the doors are locked and I couldn’t even so much as whisper until Secrecy swept the room for bugs.
“Ouch,” I say again.
“You’re not taping this, are you?” she asks.
She’s still mad at me about Watergate.
“That was out of my hands,” I tell her. “I didn’t force them to reveal their secrets. They caved in to political pressure. It was their fate.”
“Whatever,” she says. “At least Woodward and Bernstein had some integrity.”
I’ve known Secrecy for most of the past six thousand years. Not a lot of secrets to be kept among the human race before that, other than hiding food from one another or masturbating. More than once our paths have crossed and she’s been left feeling screwed over. It took her a long time to get over the whole Judas thing, but eventually she realized it was for the best.
Secrecy finishes sewing me up, adding a couple of extra stitches either because she wants to make sure I won’t leak out when I travel back to New York or because she enjoys hearing me scream.
“That should do it,” she says.
“You sure?” I ask, fingering the puckered flesh on my chest.
“No,” she says. “But you can call someone else if you want a second opinion.”
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