Degenero Angelus

Hey, I'm cute enough for both of you at once So I get to be Tania's boyfriend in all this mess. Let's go with.. Zachary Evans, average teenage high school popular kid.

I'm in. Can I play the boyfriend?

Well, you know... *blushing madly* I'll accept

Ghosty: Aye, for chris'sakes youngin's ya killed t'e bloody baner. I hope dem wolves get ya an' tear out yer eyeballs. OOC: Go Wolves, go! (Trator? Yeah, maybe)

"Oh fo' the sake o' the Lord people. Runnin' 'round randomly 'cussin people an' sayin' stupid stuff 'bout knowin' who was killin' people. Only t'e killers know who was doin' t'e killin'." OOC: Vote for Gnarlitch

"Oy, fo' chrissakes people, runnin' round throwin' accusations like they' darts. I's obvious the 'merican boy di' it, we aint 'ad no prollems wit' murdrers 'round these parts, then 'e comes an' shows up, an' fine men star' dyin'. Yer all a bunch'a bloody fools if ya can' see da connection..." The old man stutters to a halt, and looks around, trying to plead with the other guests.

"Oi, je'us, ya'd think we all wen' an' turned inta savages 'ere, runnin' 'round accusin' people an' all a dat. Now 'e aint no savages, 're 'e? No, ah didn't think so. But......... 'e do need ta be catchnin' this killer 'fore 'e 'as a chance ta get me. I nev' trusted them foriegners anyway." OOC: Eyremon - Edwyn Cooper

"Eh, bloody 'ell. Can' get a' damned thing done in thi' place." The old Sir Alfred Peterson steps out of his carriage into the Courtyard of Sir Garnavon's manor. "Sorry I'm late, ma frien's, i's bee' a long ride, I'm 'fraid," he looks around blankly and puts his hands in his coat pockets, "can we ge' on wit this? I'm a' ol' man, ya know, I got places t' be."

Definitely in on this one. I'll be voting for Holmes too, my dear Watson.

Just drop the "the"

Congratultion on being accepted, it's a wonderful place, the Pen is. And since it seems you're quite the poet, I'm glad to have you around. Always nice to see more good poets around here. *Deg hugs Tanuchan* Again, congratulation.

I made a new friend

"Ahh, so sorry. I'm a bit preoccupied, you know, being out of my head with fear and all. I guess I figured a Tavern would be the best place, so my busy mind naturally assumed I was already in one." Deg smiles weakly and gets up to move. "I'd still like that drink, though."

"Sitting.... ah, I guess that does sound like a good idea, when you put it to me that way." Deg walks over to a stool on the opposite side of the bar. "I want to live through this just as much as anyone, but I could like a drink...."

"Composed? Yes. I don't see what advantage there is in crying my eyes out. At least if I'm calm I have a chance of running from whatever out there wants to eat me. You can hang me if you like, but I'd suggest you spend a bit more time looking for the wolf, and not killing off the villagers. I'd give you a doggie treat, but it seems you prefer flesh." With that, Deg turns and walks to his own home.

"As much as I hate to be rude to a pretty lady," Deg nods his head towards Celes, "you are reacting a bit harshly to this, almost like it's an act." OOC: A vote for Celes.

Deg sits on a stool and watches the bottle fly by Gwaihir's head. "Hmmm.." he wonders idly. "I thik we should work together a bit more than we are if we want to get rid of this wolf before it eats all of us alive."

"Bleh, why do *I* always get stuck into stuff like this?" Deg wonders silently as the fellow villagers violently accuse each other of such butchery. "Why would any of *us* do this to one of our own? Mira did it! It had to be an outsider."

Yay! New members are always a good thing, especially the poetic type. *coughs* Not that I don't like the current members, of course. At any rate, welcome to The Pen, I'm sure you'll enjoy your stay here as much as the rest of us will enjoy your stay

Ooooo! Lemme in! Please?

Yeah, I posted a poem and it gave me an error. EMAIL ERROR Could not find the 'mail' address But it still posted the topic, so *shrug*

Bows his head in so much sympathy, and so much understanding From me, to you, as your friend. Things are not always what they seem they are, Will, don't ever forget that, and I hope it helps you as much as it has me. As always, Ken

This was co-written by me and a friend in our government class, 'cuz we had nothing better to do. ------------------------------- From Ancient Greece to Arrakis, from Metropolis to Middle Earth, from New York to Neverland, from Tatooine to Tokyo, the story never changes. There's the Bad Guy, a true threat to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. There's the Good Guy, who fights for truth, justice, and the American Way, or whatever. The Good Guy is brave and noble and Good, and the Bad Guy is cruel and dangerous and Evil. Then there's the host of minor characters who help out the Good Guy: the Funny Sidekick, the True Love, the Wise Mentor, the Innocent Bystanders and Grateful Citizens. There's the Desperate Authorities and sometimes the Valiant Steed or the Really Cool Car. And last and least, there's the legion of nameless, inconsequential stooges and syncophants, whom the Bad Guy employs as cannon fodder, servants, guards, scientists, soldiers, whipping boys, sacrificial lambs, and so on. These sorry minions have very poor life expectancies; they rarely survive to receive the blanket amnesty the Good Guy usually offers in the afterglow of his triumph. Simon was one of the survivors. Afterwards, people said that amnesty was not what he wanted. He just wanted to be heard. To the Hero, enemy mine, my hero now and forever, damn you - I know you think I owe you an explanation, but I don't think you really want to hear it. Wouldn't you rather go on thinking I was seduced by his power, or blackmailed, or threatened, or greedy? At least if you don't know the real reasons you can go on wondering if I obeyed him for whatever foolish or vile rationalizations. At least if you don't know you could forgive me by believing that I was merely saving my own skin or protecting people I love. All of it untrue: I was neither a dupe nor a slave; I chose freely; I will not say that I am ashamed. I know I owe you an explanation, and here it is: the person you see when you look at me, your best friend since before you can remember, whom you loved and who loved you - that person is dead, and has been for many years. That kid died in a fire in your worst enemy's penthouse twelve years ago today, a month after you emerged from obscure normality and were revealed to the City as a Hero. Twelve years ago today, the last day of my life: when the sun came up that morning, I was a sophomore in college, beginning to think seriously about going to medical school. I remember the weight of my quilt and the sag of my second-rate mattress. I remember my low-grade anxiety about a midterm I'd taken the previous day. I remember my simple bright pleasure at the fact that it was Friday. The day I died was a total cliche: It was a bright gorgeous day, one of the first real warm days of spring. By a feat of careful scheduling I didn't have class on Fridays. I did homework for a while and then walked to the lab where I worked, a few blocks from campus. I remember walking down the street towards the lab in the spring sunlight, jingling my change in my pockets and just feeling fine. Do you want to hear the list of things that worried me that day, twelve years ago today? It's a stupid list of stupid things: my GPA. My email, which for some reason wasn't working. That what's-his-name would win the Republican primaries. Whether I'd mailed my car payment on time. Organic chemistry was the bane of my existence. My friends and my family were prosperous, ambitious, happy. Everyone I loved, loved me. Life was sweet. The lab group I worked with was part of a much larger laboratory complex, with many groups all focused on different aspects of the same problem. We often worked together, so we tried to keep up with what each group was doing. At the end of each week we held a lab meeting to discuss our progress. By popular consent lab meetings took place Friday afternoons, on the theory that if nobody had anything interesting to say we could go home early, and if somebody had something earth-shattering to tell us, it would be worth staying late to hear it. Nobody has breakthroughs every week, so people mainly kept their presentations to the point and under ten minutes. This week was going to be different. My group, which had had nothing special to say for weeks, had suddenly made major progress. Being only a lowly lab tech, I didn't really understand what exactly we'd discovered, but my boss suggested with a grin that we'd essentially solved the problem the whole lab had been investigating. As the only people with anything noteworthy to say, we had the honor of going last. I sat with my lab group, tense with excitement. My boss and his post-doctoral assistants struggled not to fidget. Everybody was smiling at us. A post-doc from another group nudged me during someone else's boring presentation and murmured, "Hey kid, your name gonna be on this paper?" I put my hand over my mouth so I wouldn't laugh out loud. "Yeah," I told her, "It's gonna say 'Special thanks to Simon for running the autoclave.' Right on the top." Finally it was our turn. My boss and I were trying to connect the projector to his laptop when I heard the door behind me open and close. I'd just got the connection almost working so I didn't look up right away. My boss did, though, and said in a tone of mild surprise, "Hello, Sir, I was hoping you would come." Must be the lab's owner, I thought. Chairs moved as everybody turned to look at him and the room abruptly went silent. At the same moment the projector suddenly decided to cooperate and flashed the correct image onto the blank wall at the front of the room. I turned around and froze as I saw for the first time who I was really working for. "I'd actually rather you didn't present your results today," the man said calmly. I never heard anyone call him by his real name and I never dared ask. His own employees called him the Overlord. Someone once asked me what we called him to his face. I said, did you think we called him Mister Bad Guy? We called him Sir. My boss began to protest. "But - we've made a major breakthrough - you're not considering -" The Overlord cut him off smoothly. "That's enough, Doctor. " He nodded at me. "Turn it off, Simon." To this day I have no idea how he knew my name. I obeyed mainly out of surprise. Now wait! Do not make assumptions. Do you think this is how it went for twelve years? Do you think I was eternally surprised? Do you think from that moment my soul evaporated like a puff of smoke and I never after had a coherent thought? You always want the simplest answer. That was always your problem, always a weakness for you as a Hero: seeing the world in black and white. The most complexity you could ever accept was shades of gray. My enemy, my friend: I am telling the truth in shades of blue, all the colors of sorrow. The Overlord dismissed everyone else with a sentence I didn't hear and a gesture I barely saw. He made another motion, said some more words, and my group collected their papers and equipment and moved towards the door. The Overlord watched them file tensely out of the room and then suddenly gave me a pointed look. "You too, Simon," he said. I made some kind of answer, but it may not have been coherent, or even a word. I followed him out to his limousine, numb with fear. I understood that our research had displeased him, and I knew what he was: the Evil One, the living nightmare that hung over the heads of every man, woman, and child in the City. He was a monster, thinly disguised as a human and walking around in broad daylight as though he had a right. The blood of innocents dripped from his fingers at every careless gesture, and the price of his displeasure was death. And it was. There was no one else in the limo; there was no one else in the elevator. We rode in silence. Every second of the journey I hoped with all my soul that you would show up in time to rescue me. The Overlord spent the whole trip watching me with a look so focused I felt transparent, like he could read my thoughts off the front of my skull like the crawling update strip on cable news shows. Just before the elevator chimed and let us into his penthouse, he suddenly smiled at me. On anyone else it would have been a gentle smile; from anyone else his tone would have been kindly and reassuring. "Are you scared, Simon?" he asked me. "Yes sir." He nodded. "Good." The elevator opened its chrome-shiny doors into a small anteroom, and the rest of my lab group was waiting for us, sitting on fragile-looking wicker furniture. The room struck me as odd, though I couldn't think why. There was a fan running in the ceiling and no windows, and I thought I smelled ozone - the dangerous electric smell you get before really wild thunderstorms. I thought it was only my imagination. Also, my ears popped when I walked into the room and I felt a rush of air go past me into the elevator, as though the anteroom was pressurized, like an airplane cabin. Ridiculous. I dismissed the idea from my mind. We weren't that high up. The Overlord nodded to my boss and crossed the room quickly. He pressed his thumb against the black square next the door. The door clicked and the light under the black square changed from red to green. Thumb-print locks, I thought. Paranoid. I imagined getting out of there alive, helping you find a way around those stupid thumb-print locks. I imagined us breaking in there together, how proud you would be of me, especially if I managed to get something actually valuable, like a thumbprint from him that we could use. "Come with me, Simon," the Overlord said. "The rest of you wait here." I remembered that I was about to die and followed him uneasily, leaving the others to breathe that thick coppery fear-scented air. The Overlord turned and gave me a wolfish look, like a smile with too many teeth. The door slid back into the wall with a slight sucking sound as the seal broke. I looked at it as I went through: it was steel, three inches thick. It would stop any kind of bullet, and it was probably soundproof. Paranoid paranoid, I told myself. You're going to die, Simon, and no one will hear you scream. Who's paranoid now? "Sit down," the Overlord said. "We have some things to discuss." I sat down gingerly on the edge of the sofa. It was buttery-soft leather, the dark cream color of eggnog. It even smelled expensive. I looked around, impressed. This was the palace of a corporate lord, a man with virtually unlimited funds and the taste to spend wisely. Everything was elegant and subdued, at once comfortable and intimidating. The Overlord stood with his back to me, looking out the floor-to-ceiling windows at the city below, spread out alive and glittering in the early evening sunlight. I know you never looked when you were up there, but it was an astonishingly beautiful view, and I grew to love it. I think the Overlord loved it too, as much as he was capable of loving anything. I didn't think of that at the time. I just saw him standing there with his hands clasped behind his back, elegant and calm and deadly, like a Samurai sword or a well-fed tiger. I imagined the sound the glass would make as you came through it just in time to save me. I stayed well back from the window, out of range of any hypothetical shards of flying glass. I opened my mouth to say something full of sarcasm and imitation courage but he spoke without turning, before I got past the first word. "From your hopeful stares out any available window I surmise that you don't actually know the implications of the study you've been aiding. I suggest you open that laptop and actually read the presentation the good doctor intended to give. It will give you something to look at, besides the lovely view." "Um," I began, surprised and trying to remember the witty remark I had all lined up fifteen seconds ago. He turned around and stared at me. I think I shivered. "Do as you're told," he ordered coldly. "You haven't earned the right to ask questions." I put my head down and turned on the computer. When it was done booting up and I was looking for the file, he sat down on a chair across from me and said my name softly. I looked up. "You can stop hoping now. He's not going to come. I have arranged a number of suitable distractions." I found the file and started clicking through my boss's presentation of his experimental results. I wondered if the Overlord was lying. I thought probably he was: why else would he tell me that? It would be much worse if you didn't come and I had no idea why. I felt a little better. Then I felt a lot worse. What we'd been studying, after all, turned out to be you. Genetic anomalies, and specifically the ones that in higher primates, i.e. humans, resulted in individuals with exactly your powers. The secrets of your strength, speed, resiliency, and all those other things you use as tools and weapons -- the whole of who you are and why -- all unfolded before me, outlined in cheerful bulletpoints and helpful graphs. That was the first half; the second half of the presentation concerned "Solutions for Neutralizing an Individual Displaying Specific Genetic Aberrations." In other words, ways to kill you. Ever since you'd confessed your powers to me years before, it had been an honor and a privilege for me to keep your secret. Seeing it typed up for publication made me faintly dizzy. I couldn't be sure I had it right. I went back to the beginning and read the whole thing again, reeling with vertigo. Then I read it a third time, thinking, This can't be right. I knew you were different -- special -- a Hero -- but the powers and abilities described in my lab's experimental results were beyond anything you'd ever suggested you could do. In fact there were some things I'd seen you attempt and fail at. This last made me feel a little better. I knew you weren't hiding things from me, but I was worried that maybe you could do things you didn't even know about. Like, maybe there were some things that you couldn't do unless it was an emergency. But if they were wrong enough to include things I knew you couldn't do, maybe the whole thing was wrong. I looked up and told the Overlord, "Some of this is wrong." Dear God, what a fool I was! I was a child, I was naive, I was ignorant. I've learned to speak more carefully since then. The Overlord said mildly, "Is it? I haven't actually read it yet. But you must be wondering where your friend is. Let's watch TV." "I -- what? I never --" I realized finally where this was going and shut my mouth. The Overlord turned on the TV and gave me that dangerous smile again. "Never what? Never said you were friends with our fair city's newest would-be savior?" I nodded and he said, "Are you?" "No," I said. How easy would it be for him to follow me and simply kill all my friends? Even if he didn't know which one was you. "That's once," he said, which made absolutely no sense to me at the time. He turned back to the TV, which was showing the news of the day, which as you recall was you clearing up the Overlord's newest engineered disaster. "As you can see," he told me, "Your friend is busy. He won't even learn you're here until it's too late." "He's not my friend," I said, determined to protect your secrets. I felt cold. Too late too late too late, I thought. The Overlord lifted an eyebrow at me. "Are you sure?" I nodded and he observed, "That's twice." Huh? I thought. On TV you were proving all of my assumptions false, and all my fears true. Any ordinary hero needs friends - needs backup, needs help once in a while - but you didn't, never had, wouldn't ever. We watched in silence for a while, but finally the Overlord sighed and turned it off. "They are so rare," he said, and though his face was grim his tone was soft and pleased. "I've had my suspicions all month, but this is adequate proof as far as I'm concerned. It seems your friend is indeed a true Hero." "I told you, he's not my friend," I burst out, but my heart sank. You'd been my hero since I was six years old. There was a time when I would have died for you. I wanted nothing more than to help you bring down this smiling, damned villain, and at that moment, if I had to die to prevent him from killing you, I was resigned to my fate. You're a Hero after all, and I'm Nobody Special. I don't have any special powers; I'm not particularly brilliant or particularly brave or even particularly funny. All I ever had to offer in the way of Sidekick-ness was the simple fact of my existence. "Peter wept," said the Overlord, confusing me yet again. He reached for the laptop, humming forgotten on my knees. "Let's see those results." I snapped the computer off and hugged it to my chest. The Overlord smiled. "Yes, yes, very nice. Hand it over, kid, I'm a busy man. Places to go, things to do, people to kill, that sort of thing." He was amused, not angry, and later I wondered if this was the moment my fate was sealed. He reached for the laptop again, slower this time, and I jumped to my feet, away from him and towards that terrible steel door. I stared out the windows as though the force of my fear could materialize you out of thin air. "Never!" I said, before I realized how melodramatic it sounded out loud. The Overlord opened his mouth and laughed, eyes gleaming malevolence. I backed away hesitantly, too frightened now even to shiver. "Ahh, Simon, I admire your loyalty. But really, I haven't time for this. There's a new Hero in the City and I've never faced one before. I'm eager for the fight." "It'll be your last," I said, looking away from his terrible eyes and recovering some of my bravado. "You think so?" he asked. "How old are you? Nineteen? Twenty?" "Um," I began, but he dismissed me with a wave. "I've been ruling the City as my own little corporate fiefdom since before you were born, and let me tell you, heroes are a dime a dozen in this town. Every few months a new one pops up to rescue you all from my evil clutches. I squash him in a few weeks or a few months, everybody is terribly sorry to have supported him or offended me or whatever, life goes on. And the quality of said heroes has been notably lacking in recent years. Even the competent ones are no real threat to me. Truth to tell, kid, I'm bored. Destroying a real Hero will be a challenge." Not with this, I thought, clutching the laptop to my chest. I could swear I didn't say it out loud. I could swear all my face showed was fear. But maybe not. The Overlord lifted an eyebrow at me and asked, "Is it true, then? My pet scientists have found a fool-proof way to destroy a Hero?" I swallowed but didn't answer. I'd said too many wrong things already. He sighed finally and turned away from me, looking for something in a cabinet across the room. I looked around frantically, searching for a way to smash the laptop, but there wasn't much and anyway I was too slow. He came back holding a handgun and I stopped moving. "Put it in my hand right now, Simon, or I'll shoot you in the head." I couldn't look away from the gun. I tried to think rationally and failed. He said, "Simon, if you don't hand it over I'll shoot you and then take it." Ah, well, that cleared things up. I came up with a whole coherent sentence and said it before I could forget. "But if you're going to kill me anyway, why should I cooperate?" "Actually I wasn't planning to kill you." I opened my mouth but nothing came out. Later I found out this was true: he wasn't planning to kill me. He thought I would commit suicide. He liked to play with people's minds that way. I opened and shut my mouth a few times and he laughed, "Poor boy, you look like a fish. I'm not going to kill you, unless you're really uncooperative. I'll even let you go home, if you still want to, after you do just one little thing for me." This I did not believe. I took another step backward, tripped over a chair, dropped the computer, and fell on the floor. Before I could move the Overlord was crouched next to me. He put a hand on my knee so I wouldn't get up and spoke softly. "Simon, it occurs to me that my reign of terror may be coming to an end. Good must triumph over Evil eventually; everyone knows that. And by God I am tired of being opposed by amateurs and half-wits. What's the point of lording it over a City no one thinks is worth saving? I want an enemy who will put up a real fight. I am willing to destroy all this research and consider the money spent a loss, in exchange for a mythical creature even rarer than a living, breathing Hero. Do you have any idea what that creature might be?" I shook my head, skin crawling from his touch. He smiled at me. "A fair fight." The Overlord stared into my face as though waiting for something, or maybe trying to melt my brain with the force of his gaze. If the later was his true intention, it was working. I shut my mouth before I could say "Huh?" again, and tried to regroup. When I was sure I could speak clearly I closed my eyes and said, "I don't get it." He stood up and righted the chair with one hand, still watching my face. "What you don't get is what any of this has to do with you." I nodded. "Well Simon, I am torn. It would be easier and safer for me to simply destroy this beloved Hero of yours, and leaving him alive will almost certainly get me killed. On the other hand, if I found the way to destroy him once, I can find it again. And real Heroes are very, very rare. It's unlikely that another one will come to the City in my lifetime. I shall not face such a worthy adversary again." He held out a hand as though to help me up, but I scrambled to my feet without touching him. "Therefore, Simon, the choice is yours." What? I stared at him in silence, thinking, he has got to be kidding. Is this a joke? Am I hallucinating? Maybe this is all just a bad dream. The Overlord walked away from me and tapped something into the keypad next to the anteroom door. The red light under the thumbpad started flashing. I picked up the laptop, which had survived being dropped on the floor unscathed. Too bad: I was hoping it was broken, but no such luck. It was much easier to think clearly when he wasn't looking at me. I took a deep breath and asked, "What's the catch? Obviously I'd rather you didn't kill him." He turned back and gave me that predator's smile again, all bright eyes and bloodlust. In twelve years I never got used to that look, and at that moment I felt sick to my stomach. Of course there was a catch. It must be something appalling: like what? I tried to think and under the pressure of his evil stare an astounding number of suitably horrible scenarios presented themselves. I hugged the laptop like a little kid with a protective teddy bear and swallowed against my rising sense of nausea. "Did you notice anything odd about my little anteroom?" he asked, indicating the steel door. He was still smiling and now I found I couldn't look away. "The air is pressurized; did you feel it? Your co-workers have been breathing almost 100% oxygen for about twenty minutes now. Their tissues are saturated." Pressurized? I thought. And that funny-smelling air. I had thought it was not possible to feel worse but suddenly I did. Is paranoid still the right word when they really are out to get you? He went on explaining; I didn't want to understand where this was all going. I don't remember his exact words anymore, how he described the whole room without me comprehending what it was for. Wicker furniture. Ceramic tiles on the floor. Heat-proof paint over concrete walls and ceiling. Recessed lighting. No windows. Had I noticed the grates in the floor? I shook my head. I couldn't speak: dread had clamped heavy cold hands around my throat and stomach and squeezed a little tighter with every word out of the Overlord's mouth. "You see," he said, "in every scientific enterprise there are two primary repositories of data. The first is the expected place: on paper, in computers, etcetera. And the second should be obvious, but for some reason it's frequently overlooked, even though it's actually a much better storage system. Can you guess what that might be, Simon?" Suddenly it all became clear. "Sure," I said. The mind-numbing dread of anticipation dropped away, leaving me with only the sharp terror of imminent death. "The people who did the experiments know what they did and how it worked and what it means." Obviously he'd been lying to me the whole time. He was going to kill all eight of us, myself and the seven others in my lab group. I still didn't understand why he singled me out, and I never afterwards had the nerve to ask. What the Overlord knew about me that day remains a mystery. At the time I just assumed he chose me at random to toy with before he killed us. "Very good. Except you're not really one of those people, are you? You're just an intern. You had a very limited understanding of what you were researching. You have no idea how to implement any of the solutions in that computer you're clutching so desperately, and you've already begun to forget the specifics." Abruptly I was back to the "Huh?" stage. Before my sense of impending doom closed my throat again I managed to utter the only intelligent thing to pass my lips that day. "So what is it exactly that you want from me?" I asked. He laughed again, softly, not the practiced Evil Laughter that had so terrified me earlier, but an entirely different sound, almost a chuckle: quiet, relaxed, sinister. "I told you, I'm not going to kill you. If you like, you can leave by the other door, which is actually the usual exit. I just wanted you to see my elegant little crematorium." Crematorium, I thought. It sounded musical and for a few sweet seconds I turned the word over in my mind, enjoying the fluty taste of it, and then my brain suddenly came up with the definition. Oh no, I thought. Oh no no no no no. I know there are worse things, but I honestly couldn't come up with any of them at the moment. The Overlord moved away from the keypad and gestured at me to approach. "I already typed in the sequence. There are only two buttons that will do anything at all at this point: Enter or Cancel. If you press Cancel, all the doors open, and everyone goes home. By this time tomorrow your friend will be dead, and I'll rule the City until the end of my life. Eventually I'll get around to killing you. Press Enter, and you can go home by the other elevator, the one that doesn't have to be washed. All the evidence disappears in a bright cleansing flame, and someday, Good will triumph. The choice is yours, Simon." I stood staring at him, breathless with horror. "You can't mean this," I said, and I don't know if it sounded more like a question or a plea. He only raised his eyebrows at me and waited. I couldn't think. I wanted to fall on the floor and cry. I stared at the steel door uncomprehendingly. They were my friends; I liked them. I looked behind me at the wide windows and the Overlord spoke softly. "He won't come, Simon." I waited and waited, but you didn't come, and you didn't come, and you didn't come. You know that saying about how the lives of the few must be sacrificed to save the lives of the many? I thought of the seven people trapped in an oxygen-saturated room on the other side of a steel door, and I thought of you and how you would never need me. I chose the fire. The door was not soundproof. I leaned against it and felt the metal grow warm, and my soul seeped through three inches of steel and burned to ash and smoke with the rest of them. I walked away a corpse, mobile but empty. Please don't think I did it because I was angry at you. Twelve years is a long time to hold a grudge when you hadn't done anything wrong. All you ever wanted from me, I know, was my loyalty and my friendship. You never lied to me, never hid what you really are, and I knew it. My whole life I saw what I wanted to see and heard what I wanted to hear. Afterwards I learned to accept the world as it is, and not as I'd like it to be. The next day I went back to the lab, and the Overlord was waiting for me. One of his guards showed us in and I watched as a group of them wrecked all the samples and burned all the paperwork and went over all the computers' hard drives with high-powered magnets. Afterwards the Overlord noticed at me staring blank-eyed at the mess. He put his hand on my shoulder and this time I didn't even flinch. He gave me that signature Overlord stare, a piercing gaze like a butterfly on a pin, the same look that always made me feel like he could read my thoughts off the inside of my skull. After a few seconds he took he stepped away from me and said, "Well, Simon, repeat after me: Of my own free will ..." "Of my own free will," I repeated in a dull monotone. "... I hereby surrender my name and my identity ..." "I hereby surrender my name and my identity." "... I offer to the Overlord of the City..." "I offer to the Overlord of the City." "... all the hours of my life, and the use of my death." "All the hours of my life and the use of my death." "Congratulations," he told me, "You're a Henchman." I've told you what I did and why and I know you still don't understand. In fact you're probably more lost than ever, wondering why in the hell did I stay with him? Maybe you think I've left something out, that he did threaten me. Or maybe you think I was so deluded I didn't think he was really as bad as he was. No. I knew. He was an evil man, and I knew it. However manipulative the setup may have been, I chose the fire of my own free will. Chilling? Sickening? Maybe; I'm not sure anymore. The Overlord was far less human than you, always. He was not redeemable; there was no Good in him. His malevolence was so pure he didn't have to be monstrous all the time. He could keep promises, help people loyal to him, even be kind, and no one ever forgot, even for a second, what he really was. You had only to look into his eyes to see it. It's just that I was dead already, so the oath didn't mean anything. You only live once, and I'd already died for you. Honestly, I know what you think when you look at me. You saw me standing beside your archenemy when he did something you didn't approve of, and you thought, backstabber! sell-out! But I wasn't, and I'm not. I loved you and admired you and wished desperately that I could be you, and none of that has changed. I never sold you. I paid for what I got, and I've lost more than I gained. I wasn't greedy; I was weak. There's more than one faithless friend in history, and I'm not the one you're thinking of. Besides, I like my own name. I am the one who swore undying loyalty and then turned apostate when it really mattered. I am not Judas. I am Simon Peter, the traitor who loves you.

Yay for college! I'm getting a nice fat degree in Psychology, with a littler, less fat, degree in Theology. Yay for *useless* minors, eh?

Bad Stick. My thread, damnit! Deggy *loves* Tralla. Oh, and I'm back.