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The Origin of Theodric Worth It is, apparent. We – I don't know, perhaps I'm on my own here. The air is so humid, yet so cold, and here we are all standing gathered straight and stiff like statues. My smartly creased black tuxedo, identical in style with the rest of my group, seems to be strangling me. This is the tux I wear to receive assignments. And to receive awards for completing said assignments. I've also been proud of all that I've done. Not many people know, and it's better that way, but I know if they need they would be filled with awe. I'm an impressive specimen. What can I say? But, right now, all my accomplishments hang around me like a noose. I wonder if my comrades are feeling the same way. All of us stone faced. No way to tell. We all know we have been called for a reason, but it is this moment, this moment that determined how we are to know. So this – deskman, he who sits while we do the work, he puts his hands on the table as if to implicate some form of emphasis. Silence. He glances from face to face. What is he looking for? Behind him, the undraped window let bright golden sunlight fill the room. The light silhouettes much of the deskman's face and chest. Though the sun is shining in our eyes we don't squint. We don't need to. I wonder if this puts him ill at ease. He is keeping his face calm. Solemn. But I notice the little globules of perspiration that are forming on his neck and trickling down his collar. I know my comrades do, too. This – deskman, he prepared his office for us. It's supposed to be unsettling. It wasn't, but we – well, I, appreciate the effort. I don't know about my comrades. Its somewhat lazy, but it saves him from straining his voice saying, "I have a mission for you." It was lazy, but he had dedicated so much of his time to it. They are curtains on that window. And there is he was there, sitting right in front of us, letting the light pierce into our eyes. And he waits. And we wait, obligingly, without any incentive for protest or compromise. He is scanning us in his void, looking to see if there could be a denotation of self-consciousness, fear, flinching, nervousness, irritation, some change of being. This is maddeningly dull. My hopes of sound are gradually turning into an ardent prayer. Just because I can sit still for hours on end doesn't mean I like to. There is a difference in waiting for a target to leave his house, hands on my rifle, my scope right at head level, and this. One is enjoyable. Thrill of the hunt, so to speak. This is just dull. Still, I don't move or flinch, repressing my eyes instinct to blink as I stare ahead. The joints of his swiveling chair let loose a small squeak as he shifts his weight. "Gentlemen," his voice booms out. A deep baritone. Slightly theatric. "We are here, because there has been a dilemma. As you may all know, we recently had a president assassinated. You, comrades, are here because we want to prevent such an act from recurring once again." So there it was. The president. THE president. Interesting. Why the president? Why the president, of all the people, and animals, and even plants amongst everything else you might expect to find in Khazan? His figure as head of Khazan is only an importance in a matter of speech. He is often personified as a puppet, and quite nearly, in the literal sense had he become one when one of the syndicate mentalists had held his intelligence for ransom. He has nothing in Khazan. He is nothing. There are pizza boys in Lowtown who earn more in a day that the president can in his career. Everyone in Khazan is always so busy fighting to think about the president, or so has been the conceived presumption. Why would someone kill the president? What could be gained? The masses won't take it well. Not. At. All. There will be panic and confusion when this leaks out. "It is imperative we find this assassin." I nod in unison with my comrades. We stand together and being silently filing out the door... Personality Theodric Worth's mouth closed, breathing in one last gasp of air, leaving a thin trail of blue-tinted smoke to quickly evaporate in front of his lips. His pupils reappeared from the pure whiteness that had been, seconds before, the entirety of his eyes. He blinked several times and shook his head. "So the president is dead," he said to himself. He belched quietly. Assassinated. It hadn't been on the news. But, that really wasn't that surprising. Wouldn't want the masses getting hysterical. It would probably be announced in the next few days that the President had entered the hospital and the Vice President was now in charge. A couple of months, long enough for everyone to get used to the VP, and the president would die due to complications or something. Rubbish. He felt a sneeze coming on and stifled it. He glanced downwards into the face he was holding between his hands. The wide, soulless eyes of the dead greeted him blankly. He squinted and mentally commanded the man to give him more information; a pointless, futile gesture. The man was utterly vacant now. The feelings of pure satisfaction he derived from draining lingered throughout his body. He smiled sadly as the feelings settled out and disappeared. He felt another burp straining inside him. He pounded on his chest until the gas expelled itself. Letting go of the head, he took an embroidered, white handkerchief out of his jacket pocket and blew his nose. His wife had sewn it for him. He had a certain affinity for such things. There was a distinct crack as the face landed and the fragile jawbone met with a thick steel grating. He blew his nose a second time, shook the handkerchief out, refolded it, and gingerly placed it back into his jacket pocket. Worth cracked his knuckles and exhaled sharply. Grabbing the dead man by the neck of his jacket, he dragged him over to the back of the dark green storage truck and loaded him in. Before pulling the backdoor down, Worth surveyed the night's findings: twenty some odd gangbangers, six soldiers and a cache of professional weaponry he could fence for a nice bonus profit. "So the president's dead," he murmured softly as he got into the driver's seat and cranked the engine. He wouldn't have killed the six if he had known they were "good" guys. Probably. But... it was midnight. It was Lowtown. It was a dark alley. And, they had had guns. Mistakes were made. Oh well. As he pulled up to a red light, he took out his handkerchief again and blew his nose. He always had a problem with his sinuses in the spring. He tapped on the steering wheel while he waiting for the light to change. "The president... is dead..." he repeated. And now he had killed the ones going after the President's killer. Well, one group that was going after the President's killer. There was most certainly a nigh countless number of other such groups. Nonetheless, this could have been the group that worked everything out. The thought stayed with him for the duration of the ride to his restaurant. It stuck with him as he loaded the bodies into the basement. It twittered in his conscience as he chopped the bodies up into pieces and fed them to the giant grinder, the one responsible for churning the assorted parts into the sweet, uniformed paste that was his restaurant's signature dough. It was that unique taste that got him voted Best Pizzeria the past four years in a row. He cut up one last leg and fed it in. Worth waited for his grinder to whirr to a stop before turning off the lights and heading upstairs. "The president is dead." He hadn't voted this past year. And that bothered him. His mind was capable of cataloging and keeping track of vast amounts of information and running streams of data simultaneously. Much more so than the average man. Much, much more so. And yet, Election Day somehow slipped his mind. He got so caught up in business and running his store and keeping customers happy and making sure his staff was in line that by the time he remembered the polls were open, the polls were closed. And now the president was dead. The president. Dead. The president. Dead. The soldiers were headed south. Dead. He knew all their briefing now. The president. He hadn't voted this year. Worth slumped over the counter and rubbed his temples gently with his fingertips. He fished a black, ballpoint pen out of his coat pocket and tapped rata-tatat tat tat ta-tat on the register as he stood there in the unlit restaurant. He debated with himself for about half an hour. Coming to some conclusion, he quickly jotted a few words on a napkin, placed his pen back in his jacket, and hastily exited to the truck. The next morning, the manager picked the note off the counter, read it, and scratched his head in a very stereotypically quizzical manner. | The Origin of Armageddon Arms Dealer It's been fifty years since this shit started. By shit, I mean Armageddon. You'll hear it called by many names, but they all mean the same thing. The Reaping, Soul Harvest, Chaos Theory come to life, the list goes on. As to how it happened, I don't have a fucking clue. One day I was Jack Richards, proud owner and operator of a small tobacco and firearms shop on the lower-east side of New York City. The next day, all this crap seemed to happen at once without warning or explanation. And as I said, it's been fifty years since it started and still no one knows why. I guess I should explain what is going on right now, or this story will make no sense at all to you. First, all corpses and buried people have come back to life. Sorry and those people who were cremated, but that was their choice right? Sounds cool right? Your grandma and favorite cousin back from the dead? Well, that's a kind of cool part. But it also means every power-mad dictator is back. Napoleon, Hitler, Genghis Khan, Stalin, King Henry the VIII, and all the others out there. And of course, they were power-hungry when they died, and they've picked up right where they left off. They started carving up the world piece by piece, grabbing any territory they could. Here's the tricky part though, nothing kills them. Bullets go right through these guys and they keep walking. Launching a missile at them just means they have to walk through a crater instead of level ground. No one has figured out a way to stop them yet. All of the major governments on earth have fallen. There really is no safe place. Really pisses me off. As if that wasn't bad enough, whatever the hell triggered this whole mess also opened portals to different worlds. Most of them were unpopulated, just free territory for the taking, but one such portal opened to a place called Khazan City. Pretty bad news for both sides of the fence. Khazan gets to deal with the Immortal Raven, Friedrich Kammerstein, and all the other dictator-fascist-psycho-deranged-powercrazed lunatics I mentioned. Earth gets to deal with the Semi-Rational Penguin, Lovecraft, and Quietus to name a few. Yup, absolute, take no prisoners, rags to riches and back in 2 seconds, chaos. And I'm stuck right in the middle of it. Personality My role in this "world" is pretty tenuous, but I'll take it. I sold firearms back when things were normal. I still sell them now. I've had to expand my business a bit to accommodate these supernatural forces, but I'm still doing good business. I'm in high demand because I have great selection, I deliver, and because I'm one of the only guys doing this. And let me state this for the record, I'm in this for the money. I don't care who wins or who gets crushed into oblivion, I'm just doing this to make money and profit. Not as easy as it sounds though. First, since no government is really stable, currency has gone down the toilet. It's materials now. People deal in iron, steel, aluminum, tobacco, cows, anything tangible basically. I've recently stopped taking credit cards too. The companies just have too much trouble collecting from clients. A client will rack up a huge bill buying weapons from my shop on credit, and then when the card company tries to collect, the client blows them up with weapons bought from my shop. Savagely ironic, amusing to a point, but it's not amusing in my favor, so I end up pissed off and collecting from them myself. I do take some satisfaction in collecting. Not only do I get my goods back, I frequently test new products while doing it. I took my guns back from that farmer, strapped him to his barn, then fired a liquid nitrogen filled RPG (rocket propelled grenade to you) at him. What was left of him made a nice looking statue. | ||||||||||||||||||||
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The Powers and Abilities of Theodric Worth
... "Well, Dave, he didn't come home last night... Can you..." ... "No, listen, are you sure? Did you check the backroom yet? I know..." ... "I know you just got there Dave, listen, I'm just asking 'cause you know sometimes Theo gets busy and just sleeps in the backroom." ... "No, I'm not worried... Just could you..." ... "Thank you so much, David." ... "Yeah, I'm still here. Did you find..." ... "He left a note?" ... " 'Civic Duty Calls?' 'Don't let sales go down the shitter?' Is that it?" ... "That's... that's it?" ... "That's it?" ... "He didn't mention where he was going?" ... "He didn't mention, say... his WIFE? Or his CHILDREN?" ... "God... Dave... I swear to God..." ... "I can't believe him sometimes, Dave." ... "Hahaha, No, no, don't worry about it, thanks though." ... "You're a sweetheart, Dave." ... "Thanks, listen, could you do me one more favor?" ... "When he comes back into work, and we both know he'll stop by the restaurant before he comes home, tell him his daughter almost missed her recital because he was supposed to take her." ... "Yeah, you can tell him I'm pretty pissed, Dave. Thanks." ... "Okay, Dave, thanks, bye.
The soldiers had been heading south. He turned off the radio. Seems like the press found out about the assassination, after all. Now, no one was talking about anything else. Another car changed lanes, allowing Worth to speed past. His mind went over the information he had picked up. Harold Epes. 55. Black hair. Short. Swept back. White around the temples. Old school wire framed glasses. Fond of classy suits. 1331 Drumont Lane. Lowtown. Southside. Gang territory? What part of Lowtown isn't? Nothing too bad. We set him up in a clean area. Nothing too serious. Who is he? He's the original Syndicate mentalist who was responsible for holding the president's mind for ransom a few years back. I thought he was killed. Witness protection. He read his interrogator's mind and ratted on all his mates to save his own hide. If he's witness protection why are we going after him? He bypassed security once. Yes, and he told us how he did it. He could have lied. We couldn't crack into his thoughts. We're going to go check up on him. Worth drummed on the steering wheel absentmindedly. Regardless of whether Epes had anything to do with this or not, he'd have to expect that people were coming to "meet" him. Worth took his foot off the gas while he quickly dived into the mind of the driver in front of him. He slipped out, the driver changed lanes, and he sped along his way. He was curious to meet this Mr. Epes and see if he was truly powerful as they said. It would be a little exciting if he were. Worth just hoped he got there before Epes skipped town. Or was killed.
"Mommy?" Karen put her hands up to her face. "Mommy?" Karen turned around and smiled at her daughter. Her face was perfectly composed. Just like always. "Yes, sweetie?" "Mommy, I wan cookie." Karen picked up her daughter and shushed her. The little girl wrapped her arms around her mother. She squeezed her neck as she begged, "Pleeeassee." "No, baby, no sweets before lunch." Karen kissed his daughter on the forehead who, dejected, immediately began squirming to get loose. As soon as her little feet hit the floor she took off running to her playroom, her mind already set on games to play with her toys. Karen watched her girl run and felt herself swell with familial love. Then, she remembered Theo. He was a good man. He hadn't always been, but he was now. He was also a workaholic. He didn't used to be that, either, but he was now. She was responsible for both. When they first met in school, he had been a terrible kid. But, he changed. For her. She never knew why. There is a small portion of the population who, for whatever reason, are inherently immune to any sort of mental probing. That's what drew Theo to Karen: he couldn't get inside her head. When he couldn't do that, he could never take advantage of her. She was mental adversary he could never overwhelm. He found that undeniably attractive. She changed him. He was terribly addicted to minds. He feasted on the information flow. And, before he met her, he didn't care about getting caught. He didn't even worry about it. It was his love for her that changed his "feeding" habits. He couldn't break the addiction, but he could control whom he hollowed out. He had spent a lot of time brooding over how to deal with his problem, and it seemed like he had come to some sort of a solution. He waited at night and picked up gangbangers and street thugs. He opened up a restaurant so he could dispose the bodies. He didn't make great money, but it made his wife happy that he worked hard. And it let him get his fix.
He reached for his suitcase. He paused. He really wasn't the sort to just leave with the television on, even if he had no intentions of ever returning to the house. He quickly walked back into the living room and turned it off. Then, he felt something press into his mind. Boss, what you're offering is— We'll be rich. We're already rich. You're already rich. There is no way we can go through with this and— And what? And not be caught. Or be hunted down. We'll be target. Forever. We'll have nowhere to hide. That's where your wrong. What do you mean? We've figured out a loophole— — — Epes knew that feeling. Someone was in his head! Rooting through HIS memories! He quickly blanked his thoughts. He felt... something continue to pry at his old recollections. He closed his eyes and concentrated fully on keeping his mind fastened down. He felt the pressure grow in intensity. He struggled to fend it off. He pressed his back against the wall as he slid to the floor, totally engrossed with the battle in his mind. His body trembled. He breathed a sigh of relief as the pressure lessened. Only seconds later he realized he had relaxed too soon. The cold invisible fingers of someone else's mind were prying out his memories. As soon he managed to lock one small portion of his mind up, he felt another immediately be assaulted. This power struggle continued for several minutes, moving from section of the brain to section of the brain. Epes finally felt the pressure relent almost completely as he closed off the last section of his mind. Then, it was there again. Assaulting different fronts, switching off rapidly. But, Epes had built up his fortifications well and the intrusions went nowhere. He open his eyes wearily and exhaled. Although the pressure was no longer on the offensive, he still felt its presence. Someone was still in his head. One of the now protected portions of Epes's mind began actively scanning all nearby sentience for hostile capabilities. Unbeknownst to him, his assailant, too, was one of those people with an untouchable mind. Epes was becoming very, very concerned. H...Hello? he thought. Outside of the Epes house, Theodric Worth sat in his truck; hands on his chin, a broad smile across his face. Epes was good. I know you're in here, Epes thought. I know someone is in here. What do you want? Worth rubbed his hands together as he contemplated what to broadcast back. What do you want?! Epes commanded. The president is dead. Epes bit his lip. So they've come, he thought out of reach of his assailant. The president is dead, Worth thought. It is believed that you may have been involved. That's preposterous. You once took the president's mind hostage. Yes, Epes thought, Yes, I did. And I have paid dearly for it. I'm a marked man. The Syndicate has a huge bounty out on my head and I have to rely on the government for my protection. Even dogs know better than to bite the hand that feeds them. Worth paused. Perhaps, though, you have information on how the deed was accomplished. Could have been accomplished. You slipped through security once. I told you government dogs everything. That was part of my deal when I sold out my Syndicate acquaintances. Maybe you did. Maybe you didn't. I'm going to need access to your mind, Mr. Epes. And if I don't give it to you? I'll take it. Worth's pupils began to dilate; they expanded until the hazel of his hazel eyes were swept over by blackness. Then, the black began to shrink, the whites of his eyes taking over more and more space as the blackness diminished into nothing.
Memories. To-day was unusually warm. Did I leave my car keys in my jacket? Burnt the coffee. Damn. Someone spilt some drink on his [my] tweed. Completely messed it up. Sounds. Sights. Smells. Everchanging. Revolting. Overwhelming. The sound of breaking glass, the stench of something like eggs and something much worse, and that revolting stain on my –[his] –suit. He may as well curse it out all over again. It doesn't matter though. Not any more. There is an intruder in the midst; only he isn't amongst his presence but engulfing it. I must know where he is and I should be given the time to guess. He may have heard the deep, grumbling sound of a hard-worked motor engine pulling slowly, but briskly up the driveway. It is singing, perhaps. A deep, flat tone. It's hard to tell from this position. Is it a song of anguish? Epes began to shake. The torrents of sound and color flooded his eyes and ears. He sat there, hands wrapped around his knees, his bad knees, he shouldn't be on his knees. He tried to sit straight, caring more for his dignity than his health, should anyone happen to emerge into the room. He looked around, becoming disorientated as the room rapidly shifted through shapes and colors. There was no floor, only a black hole that was grow around him completely. Something suddenly caught his attention from the corner of his eye, but he can't trust that part of his perception anymore. He felt his stomach rise into his throat as he fell into the hole. A never-ending hole. Bright lights flickered around him from a thousand, spinning disco balls. This feeling. This indescribable feeling. Something like fear but so much more. It was everywhere, tattooed in red on his stained suit, on his moustache, in his house. The harder he resists this force, the more persistent it becomes. Not making sense yet, but it really doesn't matter at all. He is still willing to defy this new force, unwilling to be outdone in his own field of expertise. The roar of some unquestionably bloodthirsty beast sounded behind him. Red. All over, and with the smell, the sickening smell that followed on with these sounds and sights. It was such a potent smell, and it brought about – memories? Memories! No, no, no! He must resist at all costs! He knew why this was happening, if only he had the chance to assess the facts and do something. Anything. Hands. Small, ghostly hands. Children's hands groped at his face and he scrambled to escape their icy touch but he could not find his arms or legs. He was a disembodied head floating in a sensory overload. But for all intents and purposes, within all the prodding, the searching, there was the most horrible forlorn torture brought about by his inability to fight back. It filled him with such shame, but he could only cling tighter to his legs. The sounds reeled on, moaning silently, screaming, cackling, banging of pots and pans and bones and clapping hands, bringing to his eyes something else entirely different. Everything disorientated. His legs? He found his legs! He was clutching his legs in the bathroom floor. But he had been in the hallway... Thick red liquid dripped down his cheeks and off his chin. He had all the information regarding his mind, and now he wants to believe that his lack of capacity to stand up and confront this mystery person is due to his own will, but he has it all. Including the fact that all quadrants of his brain had been infiltrated. And the little corresponding fact that the optic transmitters, audio receptors and the spinal inlet were thus taken, as well. And with that came the feeling that couldn't go away; the sights, the sounds, the evil smells that sprawled on the bathroom floor with him. He was loaded, overloaded, but his tenacity kept him fighting. Redness, working, sound. Little ants, soldiers for a queen, somewhere in their concealed, but vast underground kingdom, a microcosmic universe reigned by order. From daybreak to nightfall they work. And work. And WORK. All day, marching, collecting, fighting, cooking, preparing and arranging hives for the offspring. He saw them all. Crawling out of the pipes and cracks in the floorboards. Covering him in red. Taking him apart. Carrying off little pieces. Working. And he was done. Working. Work. Something he had never done before. He had worked, alright, but not all the time. And he never worked for any queen, or president. Only one man. More of a partner anyway. Just one man. A man whose mind was untouchable. Epes' biggest asset had been the people – his personal preference had been mentalists. He taught young, inexperienced mentalists how to use their powers, but he only opened their eyes just enough to allow them to complete their tasks. The mentalists' kingpin, he claimed himself to be, and he was truly one of the most potent around. He kept records in his mind, hundreds of them, from the most trivial mishap, to minor corruption scams to plans for overthrowing the government. He was very familiar with the power of his mind, but perhaps, he had been too familiar. The so-called coup had been attempted, but as usual something had gone wrong and as the real army closed in to their scheme, a couple of trucks managed to avoid the authorities as police sirens and army tanks ran amok throughout the whole city. Or so his comrades thought. They gathered into the bunker, him and his co-operatives. And in the middle was a man, pale with fright. Epes walked towards the frightened man and looked deep into his eyes. The iris of is his boss was a ghastly grey colour, and it added to his show of terror. "How could we not see this coming?" the man asked him. And Epes merely shrugged while the transmitter he had hidden, taped to his chest, broadcasted their location to the authorities.
He set down the sandwich and plucked out a fresh handkerchief he had acquired out of Epes' pocket. He blew his nose. He always had a problem with his sinuses in the spring.
| The Powers and Abilities of Armageddon Arms Dealer
In addition to this plethora of arms, I've got a plethora of clients. Some of them are ordinary people like that farmer I froze. I've also got several noteworthy and recognizable clients. Hitler buys Holy Hand Grenades on a pretty regular basis. He's always muttering something about cleansing the world of inferior beings. Thomas Bishop stops in once in awhile for ammo and a new gun. Even Arick Huebris, the Mortician comes in pretty frequently. Never buys a gun or any heavy equipment. He mostly sticks to smoke grenades, knives, and some anti-spirit sprays. Stupid bastard killed my nice desk plant just by touching it. I would have charged him for it, but something in my head told me it wasn't worth it. I don't know for sure what these guys do with the weapons once they buy them, that's none of my business as long as they don't use the stuff on me. Bottom line is that I'm profiting big time from all this.
This sector is where about 70% of my business happens. I like it because I usually charge double here. I mean, it's one thing to walk in off the street to buy stuff. It's another thing entirely to be desperate on a battlefield and needing ammo or you die. If you're calling me a capitalist, money-grubbing pig, I have to agree for the most part. It's not pig though, it's business. I don't care who wins, I care about profiting. And the way I see it, I can take all their money and leave them broke on the battlefield, but I think they prefer that to being dead.
That's the point where where I pull my plasma shotgun from beneath the counter and blast them. Same concept as a shotgun, but with blasts of energy. Pretty sweet I thought. Anyhow, that's usually enough to stop them. They usually leave whimpering, wondering where they can buy a bionic arm that will replace the one I just obliterated. I don't shoot to kill, if I did my customer base would dwindle. A couple of them have even come back with nice bionic arms. They came back to buy weapons to mount on the new arm. As a humble merchant I gladly sell to them, I even throw in an extra ammo or energy clip. Guess I feel kind of guilty for shooting them. Ah well, such is life.
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