"I'll kill her," was all he kept saying. Sweat glimmered on his forehead, the light glinted off the knife in his hand. It contrasted sharply with the throat of the person it was held against. The man was blinking way too much. And he kept saying the same thing over and over. "I'll kill her. I'll do it." His breathing was quick and uneven and his pupils sometimes didn't focus right. His hand barely trembled, but that might have been an act of conscious devotion.
The other man sitting across from me at the table raised one eyebrow in a puzzled fashion and proffered a slim smile. "Oh I really don't think so."
That was ten minutes ago.
Before that they had all been sitting at the restaurant, perhaps ten people. He hadn't really been paying attention that much. The person sitting next to him kept glancing at him oddly, as if something about him was different. Which it was, since he wasn't who they thought he was. He didn't even know why he had agreed to this, it wasn't anything that he needed and his brother would have been much better at this. He just didn't know people that well. He kept tuning them out and finding better things to occupy his attention.
"You okay tonight, Tristian?" the man next to him, slightly overweight and with a tendency to punctuate some of his sentences with a self mocking laugh regardless of the subject matter implied, asked him. "Because you know, you seem a little out of
it tonight."
"Out of it? How do you mean?" A conversation might interest him a little more, he figured but it didn't give him enough to work with. Just one night and for a few hours, that was the deal. Though the real Tristian was going to get a lecture when this was all over.
"Oh, you know, you're just staring out into space and you've barely eaten." He looked down and it was true, he had barely
touched his food. Had forgotten. Oops. Best to keep up appearances but there were some many details. When he was with
Tristian it was so much easier, because he was expected to act completely human but he didn't want all of Tristian's friends to
think him weird or something. That might not be good. And so he had to play the game and talk the conversations and pretend that
his emotions worked exactly the same as these peoples and all their narrow ideas of black and white and grey and blue. Just
for one night, he kept telling himself.
"Oh, I'm just not hungry tonight," he lied. He was never hungry, or he could be as hungry as he wanted to. It wasn't
exactly a biological thing. More like if he felt like it. "You know how it is," he finished with a casual shrug. That seemed to
be the right thing to say. He wasn't totally clueless, really. Just out of practice.
"Yeah, well it's not only that, you just seem really out of it for some reason. Everything okay? You haven't been saying
much. I mean you're normally quiet and everything but tonight . . ." he gave him a puzzled look, "you're just different tonight."
"Sure I am," he said with a slight laugh. "I'm tired that's why. It's been a rough week."
"Oh, well then that makes more sense," and without another word he turned to take part in someone else's conversation.
He blinked once and stared back down at his food. That didn't seem to go too badly, just a few more hours and no one
would ever know that Tristian wasn't there. Not in person anyway. He had thought that he had been around Tristian enough so that he could mimic him fairly well but that obviously wasn't true. So much to remember. So much he could miss. Not that anyone would ever suspect they'd just think he was acting a tad strange that one night and they'd joke about it for a few weeks and then let it go. He knew that much.
Suddenly an odd feeling passed through him and a sensation ran through him that he could only describe as feeling slightly
sick. He put down the burger that he had started to pick up and looked around sharply. The girl next to him stared at his sudden
movement, probably the fastest he had moved all night and poked at his arm.
"Everything okay?" He had no idea what her name was, she could be Tristian's girlfriend for all he knew, though he hoped
he'd pick up on that long before now.
He turned to her and sat back down more heavily in chair. What to tell her? Lie? Blame it on bad meat? Excuse himself
and head for the bathroom? What to do? What to do? In the end he figured he'd just go for honesty. With a small smile he answered, "Sorry, something just, something didn't feel right, that's all."
She looked confused and he realized that his answer made absolutely no sense. Probably should have blamed it on the food, but he didn't want to start some sort of mass panic. Tristian probably ate this every week with no problem, knowing him he was
that boring sometimes to just keep eating the same thing with no variety. Details, details.
"What do you mean something didn't feel right?" she asked, pursuing the point. Time to talk fast. How to explain?
"Well," he gave a small laugh, casual in the right ways, "it's just one of those feelings you get, that just, that something just isn't right."
And there was a sudden cut off scream from the other end of the table. The girl, facing that end, got wide eyes and gasped,
grabbing his arm suddenly. He turned slowly to see one of the other people that had just gotten there a while ago standing behind some other girl and holding a knife to her throat. Everyone seemed to be in the process of getting up and then suddenly stopping when they realized that it might not be a good idea.
"Anybody moves, and I'll kill her, I mean it!" the man was shouting in a vaguely hoarse voice.
He turned back to the girl (realizing that he didn't know anyone's name here, next time he'd have to correct that) and said
quite calmly, "And that would be it."
That was fifteen minutes ago.
"The funny part about all of this," the Agent was saying, and for some reason, perhaps it was the light, his eyes seemed to
be glowing, "the funny part is that for some reason deep down inside of you, really deep down, you think you stand a chance here." He picked up a glass of soda and closed his hand around it completely, when he opened it again a second later, his hand was full of bubbles. He let them go with a breath and they sailed blissfully through the air, adding a bit of absurdity to an already odd situation.
The other person was staring at him with wide eyes. His mouth kept moving but there was no sound coming out. A bubble
landed on his nose and popped there. The knife was still in his hand but he wasn't looking at it anymore.
"What . . . what are you . . ." the words came with great effort and he had to swallow so he could finish, "what are you
going to do to me?"
"What am I going to do?" the Agent mused. His head was propped up with one hand on the table in a casual fashion, his
other hand was absentmindedly drawing things on the table. In another language. "Well, what I'm doing now is scaring the hell out of you." His next smile showed his teeth. "What I'm going to do is more of the same."
"Oh God, oh my God," the person was whispering. "Until when? When are you going to stop?"
"Oh, when I get bored. But you see, you did the one thing you shouldn't have done." He stuck his finger in a glass of water and swirled it around until the water started to steam, then he picked it up and sipped at it. "You got me interested."
He forgets how long ago that was.
Everyone at the table was deadly quiet when he pulled the knife. The person with the knife was wild eyed and panicky, not
at all looking like he had the situation under control, in fact only the nervousness of everyone present was the reason he retained control of the situation. The girl who had a knife at her throat was looking calmer than before but staying oddly still, as if he might forget her presence if she just stayed quiet.
"Don't anybody move," he said again. "You know what I'll do."
The Agent gave an exaggerated sigh and stood up slowly, pushing his plate away. The people on either side and across
from him gave him strange glances and opened their mouths to say something. He beat them to it. "That's right, listen to him," he said in a bored tone. "Nobody move. It's all under control."
That got even stranger glances.
"Tristian what the hell are you talking about?" someone said from behind him. He couldn't tell if it was a man or a woman.
He really didn't care. He only had eyes for the would be attacker. Casually he stepped away from the table and started to walk toward the pair.
"Hey, what are you doing?" the person said, which was echoed by several of those around. People at other tables were starting to take notice and were getting up as well.
"What I'm doing is stopping any heroics before they start," the Agent said, his voice slowly shifting back into his more normal accent. Hands in his pockets he stalked toward, his pace calm. "Because what I'd like here if we could avoid anyone getting hurt."
"Nobody will get hurt unless you make another move," the suddenly agitated attacker said, "then I'll-"
"Yes, yes I know, you'll kill her. You made that abundantly clear already," the Agent cut him off in an irritated tone. Then
he gave a grim smile. "But you see, I already know you won't kill her because if you were about to, oh how shall I put this," he grinned even wider and took another step closer, "well, you'd be dead already." His smile faded. "I don't play with lives, my friend."
"Tristian get the hell out of here and stop provoking him," someone yelled to him, his voice somewhat harsh. Probably a close friend of the young lady under duress, the Agent figured. He didn't want anybody doing anything rash though, not at this point. He had the entire situation under control but people tended to muck with things sometimes and mess it up. For some reason they never liked to think that everything was totally all right. Things couldn't be more all right at this moment.
The person who had spoken was already moving toward the pair that was the center of attention. The Agent blinked. Couldn't have that. "Oh, I don't think so," he said quietly and suddenly the person flickered out in a haze of golden lights. There was a
collective gasp and someone managed a small scream before they caught themselves.
Someone cursed. The Agent just smiled.
"Actually," he said, "none of the rest of you are really all that necessary right now. I assure you that the young lady will be returned without harm and that her attacker will be dealt with. Might as well all go home."
And then the entire restaurant of patrons flickered and disappeared in sparkles of golden light.
The attacker was looking highly disturbed at this point and his intended victim didn't seem all that far behind.
"What the hell . . ." when he had found his voice, "what the hell did you do?"
"Sent them all home, just like I said," the Agent responded calmly. "I can quite handle this on my own."
"What are you?" came the breathless question.
"Me?" the Agent answered in mock surprise. He gestured and a chair slid out for him. Sitting down in one smooth motion he
finished by saying, "I'm all the bad luck you ever had personified."
Eight minutes ago now.
"The police will be here soon," the Agent was saying, standing and staring out into the night through the window. "I'm sure someone had to call and in any event, the entire restaurant full of people vanishing will probably attract someone's attention."
"Mm," was all the person with the knife was saying. He was staring at it strangely, running his finger gently along the edge. "Yeah."
"I hope you're not thinking of killing yourself or something absurd like that," the Agent continued without turning around. His hands were clasped behind his back. He didn't seem to cast much of a reflection from the glass. "Because then I'd have to stop you."
"Why should you even bother?" The voice was resigned. He kept turning the knife over and over in his hands. His sleeves
were rolled up slightly. "Probably be a load off your conscience if you didn't have to deal with me, right?"
"My conscience will remain my business, thank you very much," the Agent responded somewhat tightly. "In any event, I'm
not dealing with you in any way, I saw a possible situation and defused it, I'm not here to right wrongs or anything. I'll keep
you here until the police get here and then I'm leaving. Simple as that." He paused for a moment, narrowing his eyes. "Though
I'd really prefer you got rid of that knife."
The man didn't answer.
"I don't think you heard me," the Agent said and his eyes narrowed further. His hand glimmered and the knife was suddenly there. The man was staring at the empty space where it had been and just slumped his shoulders, not even caring enough to protest
anymore. The Agent turned the knife over and over in his hands, much the way the man was doing it before. Then he raised his arm
and flung it straight down into the floor. There was a thudding boom that made the man blink in surprise and he stared down to see a small puff of smoke rising from the tiny hole in the floor.
The Agent dusted his sleeve off and sat back down in another chair. He picked up a glass of soda, tasted it, made a face and put it back down hastily. He gave the man a thin smile and said, "Next stop, center of the earth." The man didn't even bother
responding to this and the Agent stared at him for a minute before standing up and walking through the table toward him. "Cheer up," he said brightly, "it's not like the end of the world. Nobody got hurt and really you're making out pretty good."
"Pretty good?" he replied, with a sudden edge to his voice. "How the hell do you mean that?"
"Well, for starters, if anyone but me were here today you'd probably be dead," the Agent responded calmly. At the man's wide eyed glance, he continued to explain. "You see, if Tristian were here, he probably would have just killed you because things tend
to turn out that way for him. Besides, he's only a man and he can't take chances and to avoid having the young lady hurt he'd
probably just kill you. Oh, he'd feel really bad about it later and probably feel guilty for quite a while, he hates killing people really, but in the end that's what would happen. I'd bet on it."
"That's so heartening."
"Any port in a storm, my friend," the Agent said cheerfully.
“And of course the other person who might have been here tonight would have been my brother and he doesn't have half the patience that I do, you would have bored him in the first few seconds when you didn't start shooting flames or spouting maniacal gibberish and he would have killed you in some suitably spectacular fashion so people might pay more attention to him. But," he finished, "instead you got me and you're still alive, perhaps a tad diminished but still alive nonetheless. And that's something, right?"
The man stared at him for a minute in disbelief. "You have a brother?" he asked in mild shock. "There are two of you
running around?" He put his head in his hands and leaned on the table. "Oh my God."
With a smile, the Agent leaned forward and gently put his hand on the man's shoulder, "If it's any consolation there are
actually three of us but I can never remember if my other brother is alive or dead. He really seems unable to decide some days so
we don't talk that much anymore."
"Oh my God," the man muttered from behind his hands.
"See how much better everything seems now?" the Agent told him brightly.
Five minutes.
The man was staring with increasingly frantic eyes at the suddenly empty restaurant. He seemed to have forgotten that he
had a knife at someone's throat. To her credit, she seemed to have forgotten that she was supposed to be under attack. The Agent was glancing around the restaurant to make sure he had gotten everyone and then leaned up against the table in an utterly casual fashion. He started picking some lint off of his jacket. He wondered why Tristian always seemed to wear the same jacket all the time, especially in that ugly color. You'd think he'd have picked a host with better taste. No matter. Back to business. Slowly he turned back to the man with the knife, who had finally decided to register his presence and raised one eyebrow.
"Well?" the Agent said, after a minute. "I suppose you have something to say to me."
"What . . . what the hell did you do? Who the hell are you? You're not Tristian are you? What did you do to him, what did
you do . . . what the hell is going on?" His voice was attempting to approach the upper ranges of his vocal register for some odd reason. The Agent just started picking up a napkin and started fiddling with it, running his hands on it. The girl was watching all of this silently, probably in some form of shock.
"Would you like me to answer those questions, or do you just want to draw your own conclusions?" the Agent said in a somewhat vaguely irritated fashion. Not bothering to wait for a response, he said, "What I did was teleport everyone back into their homes. I did that by converting their bodies to energy, moving them at great speeds to the proper places and then reforming them back to matter." His voice had taken on the somewhat bored tone of a lecturer. "I was able to do that because as you correctly deduced I'm not Tristian, I'm something that's called an Agent, which would make me completely composed of energy, three billion years old and at this point a tad annoyed that you interrupted what was turning into a decent meal." He laid down the napkin which was now about the size of a tablecloth and nearly transparent and picked up the now cold burger. "You know how long it's been since I've eaten one of . . . whatever you call these things." He put it down with an elongated sigh. "Now, with all that in mind, providing you can comprehend it all, do you really think it's a good idea to continue holding that weapon to the young lady's throat? Because she doesn't seem too
comfortable and it'll be so much better for you if you just do it willingly."
The man blinked once as the onslaught of words started to sink in. He glanced down at the knife in his hand as if seeing
it for the first time. The woman looked expectantly hopeful.
"Go ahead," the Agent prompted. "Take it away. I'm not going to stop you."
With a sigh, the man took the knife away. The woman immediately jumped up and screamed something inarticulate before
turning and raising her hand in an attempt to strike her attacker. He winced in advance but did nothing to avoid the oncoming blow.
"Ah-ah," the Agent said, moving smoothly and swiftly to grasp her wrist. She gasped at the strength there, more than she
had ever expected. He seemed to be holding her arm in place without any effort. His hand was tingly and strangely warm. ”None of that here, I didn't disarm him so you could beat on him. If anything, I get first shot." He laughed a little at that, but nobody joined him. "In any event, I suppose there's no great benefit to keeping you around anymore. Much as you'd probably like to see what's coming next, this is between me and him."
And before she could say anything, she suddenly dissolved into golden sparkles that hovered in the arm for a few minutes
between the two of them before finally fading away. The man just stared at them in shock. The knife was held limply in his hand. Slowly he looked up at the Agent, who seemed taller than ever.
"This night really isn't going that well at all," he said forlornly, mostly to himself.
"Did you really expect it to?" the Agent asked somewhat in surprise.
"No. No, not really I guess."
"Well then I think things are going to live up to your expectations. Just stay tuned."
That was some time ago. But time keeps falling. Like sparkles. Drifting away.
"Don't you want to know why I did it? Or what exactly I was trying to do?" They had been sitting quietly for some time. The
Agent hadn't seem to be paying attention for some time now, instead staring out into the increasingly dark night. A spatter against the window meant that rain was starting. Other than the canned music playing incessantly over the speakers in the restaurant there were no other sounds. The man was getting edgy. He had to say something. Perhaps confession might be good for the soul.
"Hm . . . what?" the Agent seemed to be roused for a second. "Oh, that. No, not really."
"No?" the man seemed a tad taken aback.
"No," the Agent confirmed, standing up so he could pace around. If he was still pretending to be human he would have used the excuse that he was stretching his legs but obviously that didn't apply anymore. "It really doesn't matter to me what the hell you were thinking, if I wanted to know that badly I'd just look in your head and find out. It can't be anything that earth shattering." He stopped his pacing briefly. "In fact . . ." and the man felt a rustling across his brain. The Agent gave a small laugh. "Just what I expected, no different from anyone else." He turned back to the man. "I suppose you thought you were unique or something, that nobody else had your problems and that was the only way to solve it. Or some such nonsense."
"Um, well . . . sort of." He was looking rather sheepish now.
"Don't be ashamed of it, really. I mean you have to look at it from my perspective, there are only so many actual problems and everything is just mostly variations on a theme. Everyone's actions are driven by love or hatred or revenge or something silly or primal like that. They just candycoat it in different ways. The fun part is stripping away all the layers and showing people just how mediocre their solutions really are and how generic they're being."
"Is that your job or something?"
"My job? Oh no." He gave a small laugh. "As fun as that might be, I'm not here to expose everyone's sins and things like that, there really is only one person on this entire planet that I give much of a damn about."
"That would be Tristian." His voice trembled a little at this, as if saying this finally confirmed or proved in his head that the person or being standing in front of him wasn't who he thought it was.
"Sure," the Agent said, crossing his arms and leaning against the wall. Experimentally he put one foot flat against the wall and then after a moment put the other right next to it. Then, after a second, he straightened out and found he was standing parallel to the floor. He started pacing up and down the wall, not even noticing the shocked glances from his small audience. "Always wondered if I could do that," he muttered to himself.
"If I'm . . . if I'm allowed to ask you a question . . ."
"Go right ahead, if I don't want to answer it I'll just tell you."
"Ah, okay, then, well, why are you here?"
"Here tonight or here as in the great scheme of things?" He hopped back down to the floor silently.
The man gave a little laugh at that. "Just here tonight will do."
"Because Tristian wanted to do something and for some reason wanted to be here as well and since that isn't possible, this was the next best thing. I really don't know what he had planned, honestly. I didn't ask. I'm not his mother or anything." He gave a snorting laugh at that. "That answer your question?"
“Yeah, I . . . I guess. Just, I don't know, one more . . . well, you've told me a lot and stuff and I wondering . . . am I going to remember all of this?" He seemed nervous suddenly.
"Are you going to remember . . ." the Agent seemed confused for a second and then his eyes widened, "oh I see what you mean. You want to know if I'm going to tinker with your memory and give you a different version of events and stuff." He sat down in the chair and started to ponder. "Hm, that's actually interesting, I don't know. I'd have to change your memory and everyone else who
was here tonight . . . that would be a little time consuming . . ." he stood up again. "I don't see much reason why I should bother."
"But . . . why? Aren't you afraid that people are going to know about you? Come after you?"
The Agent narrowed his eyes. "I stopped being afraid of that a long, long time ago. I don't see any need to hide myself and beside who's going to believe you or anyone else anyway? No, I find that people repress stuff like that better than I could ever hope to do. In a few weeks it'll just a shared nightmare. If not, well it's not like I'm a big secret or anything, if it gets too bad I just stay away from the planet for a million years or so and then everyone forgets. Though I did have that one time when they based a religion around me, that was mildly flattering but then the General's had the same thing done to him . . ." his voice trailed off into the past.
"Must be fun to be immortal," the man noted with a cynical smirk.
"You get used to it," the Agent said offhandedly. "You get a few million years of boredom and then you have a hundred or so
years where you're basically running for your life. You see things that are good and you see things that are downright nasty. Sometimes you're a big part of either one, sometimes you're just a spectator. It's a big Universe, a lot can happen. A lot has
happened."
There was a long silence. Finally the man said, "I think . . . the hardest part for me I guess would be knowing that everyone I know was going to die. Again and again and again. I don't know if I'd be able to take that. I'd just stop caring."
The Agent smiled grimly. "Then you might as well be dead."
Outside the rain started to turn into snow.
It was late now. There was a small pile of snow coating the ground when the lights and the sirens blanketed the night and the police burst into the restaurant with their nerves ready and their muscles taut and everything on alert. They didn't know what to expect. They had been getting conflicting reports all night about what was going on there and most of them were either considering it a hoax or something along those lines.
The man they found was just sitting there, his head down on the table. He appeared to have fallen asleep one time ago, or at
least they hoped. A casual prod on the shoulders confirmed that notion and the man looked up and blinked at them. He looked around in a confused fashion but seemed relieved when he realized who it was.
Then they set about arresting him.
One of the officers as they were taking him out, wondered out loud where everyone else in the place had gone and someone
else noted that most of the food was burned, and had been doing so for a long time, like it had been cooking and everyone had suddenly vanished. Or something. They shrugged their shoulders. It didn't really matter. And one man, turning to finish turning the lights out, glanced over at the corner to see someone standing there, his hands in his pockets. He looked the officer up and down and then seemed to nod to himself and turned to walk through the window.
The officer called out to the man and then turned to call for backup but when he turned back there was nothing there, only
the faintest hint of something glittering in the air.
"Nevermind," was all he said. "Just . . . nevermind."
That's an end. But not the end. There's more to tell.
But-
Sh.
Tristian rubbed his eyes and finally closed down the book he had been reading. His computer had been off for some time now and he really felt like he should have gone to bed a long time ago. He got up and paced around the room, finally glancing in a
mirror.
Two of him stared back.
"You've got quite the cadre of friends there," the Agent said, and Tristian allowed himself the smallest of shocks before turning and sighing.
"I'd swear you get a kick out of that," Tristian said a bit crossly. And the night had been so quiet.
"Get a kick out of what?" the Agent asked innocently, throwing himself down on the bed. "Now explain to him again why
the hell you had me play your stand-in?"
"Because I wanted to finish work on my paper, okay. We went through this already," he explained, still seeming annoyed. "And I figured that since everyone always says how I take time off from them to work on my dissertations and things and I really didn't feel like hearing it this time and well, that's why. So I figured if I made them think that I was there everyone would be happy."
"Just like having a twin brother," the Agent noted. "Must be fun."
"You should know."
"Me? I look nothing like my brother," he said straight-faced.
"Sure," Tristian said with a small smile. "Sorry for getting irritated before, I had just been starting to enjoy the quiet, and I hoping it'd go on for a bit longer."
"Oh," the Agent replied, "I can go."
"No, don't bother. So how'd it go."
"Just fine," was all the Agent said.
"Nothing out of the ordinary happened?" Tristian asked.
"Not at all, just a regular boring night. I think I even got some girl's phone number for you, though she may not be as charmed by you as she was by me. After all, I do have more experience at that sort of thing. But then I could always sub for you on the dates too, I guess."
“Like you'd enjoy that," Tristian muttered, not sure how much he'd enjoy it either. "Anyway, I'm glad to hear it worked that well. Thanks for standing in and . . . how could that be?" The phone was ringing.
"Don't thank me yet," the Agent said under his breath.
"Hello . . . yes this is him . . . yeah I was supposed to . . . what . . . excuse me what are you . . . are you sure . . . I mean, I don't . . . oh my God, what the hell, the entire restaurant . . ." while talking on the phone Tristian glared at the Agent, mouthing something that couldn't have been all that pleasant.
The Agent looked at him for a second impishly and then threw back his head and laughed before disappearing in a shower of
golden sparks.
Tristian just shook his head and sighed.
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