muse: Between the Walls, more
Jun. 6th, 2003 12:32 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
coronaviridaeOh, I cared very passionately at first. I thought--amazing! I'm the ultimate informant, serving my cause even after death.
Then I started running into the walls.
Walls? Yes. I cannot interact with the physical world as we know it, except in the most scanty, limited sense. I can watch; though I don't know how. I can...do some small, limited things. Move tiny objects. Stop clocks, change the temperature. Little things, of no consequence. Only enough to spook those who're addled enough to believe in ghosts anyway. (Ha!) And more than like as not they make up enough incidences of the same to get hopelessly confused whenever I do something.
So. It makes for very poor communication, and it leaves out entirely direct intervention.
Direct intervention? Oh, yes. I can still speak to people, and such, but it does take their knowing I'm, first, there, and second, who exactly I am. That is the real problem with the walls, that what remains unnamed can't pass through them. And, sadly, those few who know my name are far too practical to believe in ghosts. I'd thought to surround myself with the best people, and I had--but the unfortunate consequence is that they no longer believe I'm here.
---
No, that's not quite true. Melissa remembers. Or remembered. Of course, for the past--two months or so after Seoul fell, nobody believed the rumors of my death. They were convinced I'd cheated it again; I'm not surprised, really. They still haven't found my body.
Not that there was much to find. I made a very messy corpse, and that was before being buried under several hundred tons of concrete and incinerated by a neutron bomb.
That's another story, however.
---
Two months. It took two months for the doubt to finally begin setting in among Interpol's survivors. I'd promised them I'd keep in contact, even flippantly supposing that I could do it beyond death's barrier. (And we all see how well that worked, hm?) When they finally managed to regroup, they realized I'd failed to contact any of them--and when they realized that it was impossible to raise my radio anymore, they naturally assumed the worst. And truthfully so.
It took another four for them to declare me most probably dead.
But even after that, and all the convincing Misha tried to do, Melissa steadfastly believed that Daddy was still around. Which I was; by that time, I'd gained my metaphysical feet--and that is another tale--and turned to haunting. Misha's apartment was as familiar as any place, and my first concern was that my assassins would go after him and Melissa both. This, you see, was before I understood the impossibility of my predicament, and thought that--at the least--I could give them an advance warning of attacks.
More the fool, I, but there's no need to dwell on that.
---
Melissa knew I was there, though. She'd taken the news of my death hard--lord, she was only eight; that's when I lost my parents--and still wanted to believe I was alive. Believing I was a ghost wasn't much of a jump.
Tenuous as that belief was, it gave me a chance to say goodbye, to tell her a few of the things I should have while I was still alive. This lasted--perhaps a month. I can't blame Melissa for what happened next; she was only eight, and had no idea that leaking word that her Daddy still talked to her would lead to intesive therapy--and the damned psychiatrists nearly beating it into her head that she was only seeing things, that I wasn't really there.
Three days. It took three days with those mind-murderers to break her belief in me, sever my last connection with the world--lord, if I could have, I would have killed all of them for that.
---
She's still convinced they helped her, even twelve years after the fact. I've been watching her in my spare moments, had the pleasure of watching her grow into a fine young woman. She's followed in her godfather's footsteps--but thankfully, the footsteps left by his gentler half. Graduated with honors from Stanford, and working on her doctorate in cybermedicine.
I wish I could tell her how proud I am; I wish I could have been at her graduation as more than just an unseen presence. She's probably forgotten everything I told her when she was eight, repressed it as a memory of a time of madness.
Though sometimes she cries herself to sleep at night, and sometimes, I wonder if she doesn't know I'm still here.
---
A little of my legacy lives on, at least. I never managed to produce the heir to the Vorlaikal line that Misha wanted; I think it hurt his heart that I couldn't overcome my...difficulties, find a nice Russian girl, and settle down to raise a brood. He loved Melissa as much as he loved me, but he wanted to know the line would be passed on.
And I failed him.
It's not entirely my fault--or didn't you know? I'm gay; or was, as I doubt matters of sexual preference matter much to a ghost. Not the least interested in women, which rather crimped Misha's plans to get me married off safely. I'd begun to consider humoring him, down near the end, since I was so sure I could find a way to make everything work out...but, alas. There was only one woman I'd even consider, and proposing to her would have felt almost Oedipal.
---
Bridgit Elizabeth Cascio. She had fiery red hair and the temprament to go with, and was a Canadian, bred and born. She was also possessed of a large heart, an illegitimate child, and the damndest sense of duty I'd ever seen, outside myself. A police officer, turned mechanic, turned tank commander--and when I stepped into the role of Director of Interpol, my enforcement commander, and then my Assistant Director. She was Interpol's den mother, and I'd needed her care often enough to appreciate this.
She was my friend. Above all else, despite all the grief I gave her, she was my friend. She forgave me, sheltered me, counseled and consoled me, and genuinely cared about my well-being. When most people wanted me dead, or just out of sight and mind, Bridgit still treated me as a human being.
I came to rely on that. I think I loved her.
---
I didn't ask much about her past while I was alive, and I haven't found it in myself to go digging yet. I do know that her 'real' family did not treat her very well--not abuse, merely neglect--and that she had imprinted on the United Nations as a surrogate in their place.
It's unfortunate that I didn't realize this until far too late.
When the UN fell--at last, after all our work--Bridgit was...devestated is putting it too mildly. Her entire world had been torn out from under her; her crew--her friends--had mostly been killed in the infighting. She fell in with my band of loyalists for a little while, then fell out again to go attend to her daughter...then fell in once more.
Then fell out. Permanently. Took a service pistol to her head and blew her brains out.
---
Losing one of my few rocks of stability was one of the first signs that things had gone dreadfully wrong. Or perhaps, not so much 'wrong' as...not the way I had planned it.
I had had this glorious vision, you see. Stretching back before I died the first time, before I was a soldier or a diplomat or Director. Long before Pavel approached me to tell me about the 'shadows' in the UN's heart. I knew they were there from a--very young age.
And I wanted to change that. Two very lucky happenstances gave me that chance, and set my feet on that fatal path. One was named Procyon; the other, Pavel Alexei Cossack.
---
Procyon was a Stardroid, a member of a race of near-godlike beings. Even now, I don't know what they were about or why, only that they WERE, and took a certain delight in meddling in the affairs of mortals.
Several of them appeared all at once in the November of 2215. They were fleeing a creature called Nigh, one bent on destroying the universe. You know. Holovid fare. I didn't pay much attention to their struggles; I was on the run at the time.
Why, you ask? I fell in with Procyon.
He was...charismatic, intelligent. VICIOUS. Absolutely vicious. But he embodied much of what I felt made 'sense' for an omnipotent, omnipresent being, so when he offered me power, the chance to finally make a change...I took it.
Then Pavel branded me a traitor, but that, too, is another story.
---
Either way, Procyon offered me power. Nothing happened immediately, beyond the United Nations suspending my status as a diplomat and putting a warrant out for my arrest. So I spent most of my time on the run. Met the most interesting people, too. Then it all came to a head when Procyon went insane and tried to off Kelly McLaren, Secretary General of the United Nations.
I don't think he ever meant to give me power; no, he was far too vicious for that. But I did pledge my word to help him, and I do take my word quite seriously. I judged him rightly mad by his behavior, and knew--knew--that his killing McLaren would stymie whatever mad cause he had in mind.
So I stepped in his way. Took quite a beating, too, and then McLaren promoted me on the stop to Director of Interpol.
Funny, how things work out.
Procyon...it turns out, was originally a human. The human antecedant who brought all our people here from Mars. Whatever he did, he was rewarded in the end, and was absorbed back into Earth's population as just another man. I saw him, once--he seemed happy.
I haven't been able to find him, since. I assume the Stardroid ineffability still covers him, and even we ghosts cannot pierce it.
---
So I had power. I blundered about with it for a few months, trying to get my feet under me, trying to stabilize Interpol. It was hard going. Both my commanders were cracking under the stress, and so was I. At the same time, I was slowly dying of the wounds Procyon had inflicted, and playing a madman's game of chess with my nemesis, AND trying to raise my daughter--who started as just another pawn.
It was not a situation conducive to what I'd wanted to do. Ferreting out the shadows I knew were there--nearly impossible. I ran a purge or two, and only managed to flush a little of the darkness into the light where we could eradicate it. One of those shadows turned into my nemesis; even now, I don't know whether to curse myself or be glad that he escaped when he did.
Perhaps five months after Interpol's official creation, Pavel approached me about the shadows.
---
I must explain Pavel to you. He was--for many years--my everything.
---
Pavel Alexei Cossack was and still is a man of the highest kind. He is the peak of what Mother Russia and cruel life, working hand in hand, can produce. He bore an unthinkable amount of grief and guilt on his shoulders for all he'd done and all he'd been made to do--and it this sense that he needed to make reparations, and his love for his daughter, that drove him on. It still drives him, though in the years I've been dead, I've seen the fire banked somewhat.
Which is good. Even with the intervention of others in my life, I admired Pavel--cared about him more than life. Of course I went about this in a completely backward way--he'd been married once, never remarried after his wife's death (and I only found out about his reasons long after that), and I was sure he'd be horrified if he knew one of the UN's little pet diplomats was sniffing after his favor. His denunciation of me as a traitor only cemented that fact in my addled mind, and I was caught between walking my own path and believing the man I adored for a while.
I never did express my feelings to him, though he did find out. Eventually. Through an intermediate. I hated her, I still do, and I would rather erase her name from my memory than bring it up again. But Pavel found out, denounced me once again--as a degenerate--and I despaired of ever finding even a scrap of favor in his sight.
---
Did you know this, Pavel? The UN taught you--just another of their bloody lessons--to be a keen student of people. You had a calculating mind; you already knew my feelings toward you. Did you know how much I hungered for even the smallest sign of your approval?
Though I grew out of it--found my own ground to stand on, defined my morals more clearly--in my short life with Interpol, there was a short period during which I slogged along in desperate doubt and worry that I was doing anything right. Pavel caught me in the middle of that period--and I say 'caught' with a full sense of irony, because I'm not sure, even to this day, if his acceptance of me was truthful--or merely another way to use me as a tool.
Either way. He enlightened me as to his knowledge of the shadows--Black SHIELD--within the UN, and his own plan for combating them: Topple the organization, and with that, wipe them out. Completely. None of my subtle strikes from within, no; Pavel wanted the United Nations brought down in ruin and flame, and I was too happy to go along with it.
I had my doubts, even at the first. But--by that time--I was so used to being a tool that I felt nothing more than a sense of resign in switching ownership to a hand I liked much better.
I still have my doubts.
---
But whatever his intent in approaching me, Pavel got what he wanted from me--I obliged, and threw my position and power into shattering the United Nations.
And now?
Ahh. Pavel has made of himself a czar, ruling Mother Russia with an impartial and a protective hand. The Mavericks have tried overrunning at least once in my death, and Pavel--and his army, and the country he has built--have repulsed them.
He will continue to do well, I think. His daughter, Kalinka, heir apparent to his empire, has finally matured into a confident woman, married and raising a brood of wunderkinder of her own.
He has his legacy, and I can't help but be a little jealous that I'm not included.
---
Enough of that, however. If I dwell too long on Pavel, I begin to grow miserable; and an unfortunate side effect of my half-way existence is I can no longer drown my sorrows in vodka.
---
Ah, what else.
Interpol. Interpol disintegrated with the fall of the UN; it did not become what I had wished it to be, instead fragmenting in the infighting. I moved too fast, pushed too hard, and broke everything I touched.
Good has arisen from it, of course, but it is...not what I wanted. There's still a band of my staunch supporters out there, running around and making sure I'm not forgotten. They've even forged together in an organization rather like the Maverick Hunters, wiping out the last remnants of Black SHIELD's taint.
I wish them well. They have quite a job ahead of them, and then they will need to turn to the Mavericks, and perhaps the Robot Masters. I say perhaps--because Wily has shown himself to be a capable manager of his land, and it will be only just, in the long run, to bring him back to the fold.
---
Most of the Interpol I remember is dead and gone. All the officers I knew by name, my command staff...many of them were killed when Seoul fell, or died in the fighting before that. There are some who are still out there, alive and living life as fiercely as they know.
Edward Hampton, one of Intelligence's more...exuberant...agents has matured just a little over the twelve years since the UN's fall. He's the fomenting agent behind that little band of vigilantes I've mentioned before, and he's risen to become a terror in his own right. A skilled infiltrator and a competent commander, as well as something of a technologist, ever since he's had to maintain LETHE on his own. Of course, he has not been left wanting for a good teacher--his wife, Sarah Hampton (nee Fairchild) is brilliant in her own right.
As an aside, I was not particularly surprised to see Edward and Sarah marry. It did happen shortly after the UN fell, and with all the associated stress, I can see why two souls so likeminded would seek each other's comfort and company.
Another person who did not surprise me with his success was Ernest Fairbanks. I met Ernie on his first day in Interpol; he was definitely green, but showed potential for both deep intelligence and courage. He'd won a battlefield promotion to sergeant within a month, to the day. During the fateful year and a half or so of Interpol's existence, he continued to serve faithfully and well.
When the United Nations fell, and Bridgit killed herself, Ernest took over her work. He managed to hold the remainders of the UN Tank Corps together, and now has a tidy little mercenary unit of his own. He and Edward often work together, from what I've seen--they were fast friends since both entered Interpol, and that friendship has only grown in the trials they've faced.
Gale Sorcerer's death was the opening skirmish in my war with Black SHIELD. He had always been unstable, but he was a good commander--one night, they just pushed him too far. If reploids have souls, I expect his is in paradise somewhere.
Ayla Ericson--Opera--the mastermind behind the Power Armor--escaped with her family back to Sweden just prior to the fall of Seoul. Since then, she has migrated eastward. Last I knew, she had a signed and sealed invitation to the Maverick Hunters. That was seven years ago.
The last I heard of Valor/Lieutenant, he had finally caught Vile and had his final showdown. I assume he won--I have neither seen nor heard word of Vile since then. Nor have I seen Valor...but I expect he did not die. He's far too stubborn.
With Opera gone, the rest of the Musica scattered. Bluegrass/Serena Gilbert and Funk/Kendra Njara died with Seoul. And me. Muse and Ska eventually followed Opera's path, and they, too, are Maverick Hunters now.
That bastard Arkady Bogdanov and the rest of his dogs are another story I will save, and cherish. They will fit better into my account of the fall of Seoul, I think--as is proper.
---
Oannes...Misha...Mikhail Caspianovich Vorlaikal. My older brother. One of the last orphans of Interpol to flee Seoul, before it fell. He wanted to stay with me--he always had an overwhelming protective streak, that carried even through his own first death--and I drove him away. Melissa, I told him, needed someone to raise her--and if we died together, who would take care of her?
I did not want her living the kind of life I had, after Misha died the first time.
Misha is another one I have been tracking, assiduously. Right now he is with Edward's coterie, though I expect he will move on soon. He has been a drifter since my death, pursuing God knows what goals now. He speaks very rarely, doesn't keep a journal, never gives the slightest indication of what it is he wants out of life anymore.
My poor, dear Misha. The United Nations was all to you, as well. And you always thought I was cracking from the stress, when I raved about shadows you never saw.
---
I'm not surprised that Misha was devastated. Afflicted with a selfish, mad little brother he loved with all his heart--and then lost, one final time, because said mad little brother had one last mission to carry out.
Bridgit, Bluegrass, Funk, Misha, Gale...the casaulty list mounts.
---
Misha never got the chance to raise Melissa. That fell to my nemesis, who spirited her away before the fighting in Seoul reached a fever pitch. I think he meant to keep her safe, and then merely...kept her, when word spread of my death.
---
The good doctor Nathan Xiang was a series of mistakes on my part. Half happy accident, half misborn nightmare, Xiang was--and still is--the sanest man I know. In some ways, at least; the fact he voluntarily rent his own mind in twain for the sake of a very elaborate ruse is not the act of a sane man.
He and I were both victims of Black SHIELD. I, through being raised from the dead the first time in their service--and he, by raising me from the dead. I was the turning point in his life, blissfully unaware as I was at the time.
I found him again during my initial purges of Interpol's ranks. Somehow he caught word of it and ran free before I could capture him. I swore then that I would bring him to justice--and anyone even nominally 'sane' could see why.
Xiang was both a monster and a creator of monsters. Very Frankensteinian, in his way--a cyberneticist of unparalleled renown, much like Dr. Light is a roboticist of unparalleled renown. However, Xiang had this charming film noir flair to what he did. 'If I am to be a monster, then I will be a monster without compare,' was his credo. Or so I assumed.
But he had his quirks. In his quiet, cold way, he cared about justice as much as I. He would not harm innocents, but acknowledged there were very few of those in the world. He wanted to perfect humanity, but had no compunctions about building it up on the piled corpses of those who opposed him.
He was also obsessed with me.
This obsession...produced a great deal of good, though I could not see all of it. Two persons who were of great import to my life had their origins in that obsession. One was Melissa; the other was Dr. Alexander Cheng.
---
Dr. Cheng was what Xiang should have been. Compassionate, paternal, concerned only with doing good and righting the wrongs he had erroniously caused.
Ah. I should clarify--Cheng and Xiang were one and the same person; or rather, they were two persons, but inhabited the same body, and shared the same mind. The name Alexander Cheng was something Xiang stole off a dead man, but the Cheng persona was something else. He was everything bright, noble, and 'good' about Xiang, compressed into a tiny package and tucked away in his own little life, to keep from distracting Nathan Xiang as he worked.
I can't begin to describe the difference between the two men. Suffice it to say, this...rift...between their personalities is likely the only reason either remained sane.
I only found out that Cheng and Xiang were one and the same well after my death; it felt--at first--like a betrayal.
Then I observed the body they shared a little longer and realized that Xiang was both Cheng and seperate from Cheng at the same time. My poor nemesis was, in his heart of hearts, a little confused--and it only got worse as he had to step up and take charge of Melissa's care once more.
---
I haven't been keeping too close of an eye on him, squirreled away as he is in China. He brings up too many painful memories--painful in straight anguish and sweetness both--that I am not ready to deal with. So I glance in, now and then, but these little glimpses haven't been more than hints to the idea that the seperation between Xiang and Cheng might be dissolving. Just a little.
Either way, he has done a fine job raising our daughter, and taught her the things I valued most in life. Out of a sense of fondness, or grim practicality, I can't be sure, but nevertheless...there stand the facts.
---
Xiang was not the only affiliate of Interpol to survive its convulsive death. There was another man, just as confused, with two personalities of his own to tend. Thoroughly amoral, excessively charismatic, and the handsomest man I have ever known, Feste was...something else.
---
The man who became Feste was born Andruw Nisse. A Norwegian, and a child of fishermen. Or so he told me. His own erasure of his own life prior to taking on a persona of his own crafting was slightly more thorough than my own; I did manage to find his name and a little of his history through the usual networks, but that was all. The rest was up to him, and he was very, very capricious with what information he bestowed and where.
In fact, 'capricious' rather sums up my dear Fool completely. And yes, I do say Fool--note capital--for my Feste was a Fool and a fool both, in all senses of the word. He took the appelation of capital-F Fool upon himself for reasons unknown even to me, selected the name Feste, and went out to wreak himself upon the world.
He was utterly mad, and I fell for it. Or did he fall for my own face of madness? I'm not sure. As far as I know, from our chronology, we fell for each other at about the same time. Whatever. It was a delightful, whirlwind courtship, and we were both so scared of our own feelings that we ended up screwing ourselves over more than once before I died.
In fact, from all the time I spend haunting his flat, I can definitively say he's carrying on the trend well into its thirteenth year now.
---
My poor, dear Fool. I wish you'd wake up enough to notice me, once in a while--there's much I have to say that I never had the chance to say, and now I have the opportunity...if you'll just call my name. Recognize me. We can have that one last talk I meant us to have. I can say goodbye. I'm told that ghosts continue to linger because they have some task to fulfill; I almost wonder if mine is to excuse myself to all of those I cared about in life. When I say my last goodbye, might I merely dissolve?
It's an appealing thought.
---
At any rate, I'm going off on tangents within tangents. I was talking about Feste--my Fool.
For the time that Interpol existed, Feste was one of our informants. He offered himself in the position; I didn't dare presume that he was anywhere near tame (nothing that bold could be), but accepted anyway, and put him on Interpol's payroll. Covertly. Of course I couldn't help but recognize he was drop-dead gorgeous, and this merely on first meeting him! (You could make a clever jibe at me for thinking with the wrong portions of my anatomy when it came to him, but I assure you, I was not. Or rather, the 'wrong portion' you may be thinking of is not what you think. Ha!)
Thus began our association. Over the time the Fool and I knew each other, we had several spectacular fights--though stabbing him on the steps of the UN building was rather the most spectacular of them all, I would say--and made up very gingerly for all of them, sang to/at/through each other, fretted, screamed, read scripture, went out drinking, teased, flirted, celebrated, and even developed the most elliptical and stilted method of communication I've ever experienced. (It mostly involved music, which, while universal as a language, can also be very confusing. It's very easy to break someone's heart with an ill-chosen song.)
Oh. And kissed. Once...or twice. I do remember that, most of all.
I'm tempted to be flip, lie, and tell you all the sex was great--but it wasn't, because there was none of that. That was not the nature of my relationship with Feste, by far.
---
I don't know if you have ever experienced the act of finding that one person God has placed on the earth just for you. Some people call this person a soulmate; I'm not so sure that's the best descriptor. But there is something about stumbling across this one person--the one person who thinks like you, who sees the world through eyes very much like yours, who, even if he doesn't understand you, still has an inkling of why you might act as you do...
I might be arrogant to assume that Feste was that 'one person' for me. But of a sureity, he was as much an outsider to the world as I, and in much the same way. There was a distinct feeling of not belonging in the world that I had carried with me most of my life; it was one of my reasons for giving up my birth name, taking on the moniker of 'Abernathy', and living as I did. I suspect--am not certain, but suspect--that it was for similar reasons that Andruw Nisse became Feste.
The world told us that we did not belong. So we snubbed the world, turned our backs, and made our own ways. Unfortunately, the world STILL did not like we were doing, and reinforced itself in surprising and painful ways. I learned over the years that most of the time, life would disappoint me. I believed in ideals, in truth and justice, in...a hundred thousand patterns of behavior that were radically different from most of those around me. So I never quite fit in, and I was always, always disappointed. Was it any wonder I became a cynic and a goth?
Feste's answer was, of course, quite different. He became a cheerful, antic creature--though woe betide his frowns! I think, from what I knew of him, he was often disappointed with life as well, the failure of the world to meet his expectations.
What I wouldn't have done to change the world for him, to make it more like what he expected and wanted.
---
That was, perhaps, the critical feature of our relationship; or...at least...what I got from it. He never disappointed me. Surprised, frightened, angered, yes. Disappointed? No. He knew where I stood in relation to the world, understood some of why I acted as I did. I could rely on him, not so much as a rock of stablity in a sea of changes, but as...as...
Words fail me at last. I've had my way with them, and they've finally given out.
---
I love him.
---
There is an old quote that goes--and I paraphrase--that, 'if everyone on Earth only had two minutes to live, the phonebooths would be jammed with people calling to stammer out their love for someone.'
I had thirty seconds. Thirty seconds in which I could see death yawning before me and knew I wouldn't escape this time.
Melissa. Misha. Bridgit. Andruw-Feste. Pavel.
I never told any of them.
I failed.
---
I hurt the most for my poor, dear Fool. Bridgit was my friend; she knew, intuitively, that I would look out for her. Misha is my brother; he knew, I knew. Melissa...my daughter...there was not a day that went by when I did not tell her that I cared, and worried, and thought the world of her. And I still had a month's chance, after dying, to tell her once more. Pavel...knew. And I always felt as if my feelings were some kind of imposition on his life, so it's just as well.
But Feste...
---
The word 'love' never came up. It just wasn't like that. I was--I was ashamed of who and what I was, and he just didn't have it in him to commit that way. (Even if he tacitly had, and even if I tacitly didn't care about living in sin, or whatever the hell I was scared of.)
It was an association, an alliance, a partnership, a...something. But we weren't lovers, or boyfriends, or...anything. Allies is the best word I can think of, heart-hunger the best word to put to how I felt without him.
Yes. An ally. That's what my Fool was.
And heart-hunger is another matter entirely.
---
I wish, I wish, he'd notice me. Twelve years of dedicated haunting, interrupted only as I watch over my other few dear ones, and he's too blind to see.
Whatever shall I do?
(muse: con't, later, as usual)
Then I started running into the walls.
Walls? Yes. I cannot interact with the physical world as we know it, except in the most scanty, limited sense. I can watch; though I don't know how. I can...do some small, limited things. Move tiny objects. Stop clocks, change the temperature. Little things, of no consequence. Only enough to spook those who're addled enough to believe in ghosts anyway. (Ha!) And more than like as not they make up enough incidences of the same to get hopelessly confused whenever I do something.
So. It makes for very poor communication, and it leaves out entirely direct intervention.
Direct intervention? Oh, yes. I can still speak to people, and such, but it does take their knowing I'm, first, there, and second, who exactly I am. That is the real problem with the walls, that what remains unnamed can't pass through them. And, sadly, those few who know my name are far too practical to believe in ghosts. I'd thought to surround myself with the best people, and I had--but the unfortunate consequence is that they no longer believe I'm here.
---
No, that's not quite true. Melissa remembers. Or remembered. Of course, for the past--two months or so after Seoul fell, nobody believed the rumors of my death. They were convinced I'd cheated it again; I'm not surprised, really. They still haven't found my body.
Not that there was much to find. I made a very messy corpse, and that was before being buried under several hundred tons of concrete and incinerated by a neutron bomb.
That's another story, however.
---
Two months. It took two months for the doubt to finally begin setting in among Interpol's survivors. I'd promised them I'd keep in contact, even flippantly supposing that I could do it beyond death's barrier. (And we all see how well that worked, hm?) When they finally managed to regroup, they realized I'd failed to contact any of them--and when they realized that it was impossible to raise my radio anymore, they naturally assumed the worst. And truthfully so.
It took another four for them to declare me most probably dead.
But even after that, and all the convincing Misha tried to do, Melissa steadfastly believed that Daddy was still around. Which I was; by that time, I'd gained my metaphysical feet--and that is another tale--and turned to haunting. Misha's apartment was as familiar as any place, and my first concern was that my assassins would go after him and Melissa both. This, you see, was before I understood the impossibility of my predicament, and thought that--at the least--I could give them an advance warning of attacks.
More the fool, I, but there's no need to dwell on that.
---
Melissa knew I was there, though. She'd taken the news of my death hard--lord, she was only eight; that's when I lost my parents--and still wanted to believe I was alive. Believing I was a ghost wasn't much of a jump.
Tenuous as that belief was, it gave me a chance to say goodbye, to tell her a few of the things I should have while I was still alive. This lasted--perhaps a month. I can't blame Melissa for what happened next; she was only eight, and had no idea that leaking word that her Daddy still talked to her would lead to intesive therapy--and the damned psychiatrists nearly beating it into her head that she was only seeing things, that I wasn't really there.
Three days. It took three days with those mind-murderers to break her belief in me, sever my last connection with the world--lord, if I could have, I would have killed all of them for that.
---
She's still convinced they helped her, even twelve years after the fact. I've been watching her in my spare moments, had the pleasure of watching her grow into a fine young woman. She's followed in her godfather's footsteps--but thankfully, the footsteps left by his gentler half. Graduated with honors from Stanford, and working on her doctorate in cybermedicine.
I wish I could tell her how proud I am; I wish I could have been at her graduation as more than just an unseen presence. She's probably forgotten everything I told her when she was eight, repressed it as a memory of a time of madness.
Though sometimes she cries herself to sleep at night, and sometimes, I wonder if she doesn't know I'm still here.
---
A little of my legacy lives on, at least. I never managed to produce the heir to the Vorlaikal line that Misha wanted; I think it hurt his heart that I couldn't overcome my...difficulties, find a nice Russian girl, and settle down to raise a brood. He loved Melissa as much as he loved me, but he wanted to know the line would be passed on.
And I failed him.
It's not entirely my fault--or didn't you know? I'm gay; or was, as I doubt matters of sexual preference matter much to a ghost. Not the least interested in women, which rather crimped Misha's plans to get me married off safely. I'd begun to consider humoring him, down near the end, since I was so sure I could find a way to make everything work out...but, alas. There was only one woman I'd even consider, and proposing to her would have felt almost Oedipal.
---
Bridgit Elizabeth Cascio. She had fiery red hair and the temprament to go with, and was a Canadian, bred and born. She was also possessed of a large heart, an illegitimate child, and the damndest sense of duty I'd ever seen, outside myself. A police officer, turned mechanic, turned tank commander--and when I stepped into the role of Director of Interpol, my enforcement commander, and then my Assistant Director. She was Interpol's den mother, and I'd needed her care often enough to appreciate this.
She was my friend. Above all else, despite all the grief I gave her, she was my friend. She forgave me, sheltered me, counseled and consoled me, and genuinely cared about my well-being. When most people wanted me dead, or just out of sight and mind, Bridgit still treated me as a human being.
I came to rely on that. I think I loved her.
---
I didn't ask much about her past while I was alive, and I haven't found it in myself to go digging yet. I do know that her 'real' family did not treat her very well--not abuse, merely neglect--and that she had imprinted on the United Nations as a surrogate in their place.
It's unfortunate that I didn't realize this until far too late.
When the UN fell--at last, after all our work--Bridgit was...devestated is putting it too mildly. Her entire world had been torn out from under her; her crew--her friends--had mostly been killed in the infighting. She fell in with my band of loyalists for a little while, then fell out again to go attend to her daughter...then fell in once more.
Then fell out. Permanently. Took a service pistol to her head and blew her brains out.
---
Losing one of my few rocks of stability was one of the first signs that things had gone dreadfully wrong. Or perhaps, not so much 'wrong' as...not the way I had planned it.
I had had this glorious vision, you see. Stretching back before I died the first time, before I was a soldier or a diplomat or Director. Long before Pavel approached me to tell me about the 'shadows' in the UN's heart. I knew they were there from a--very young age.
And I wanted to change that. Two very lucky happenstances gave me that chance, and set my feet on that fatal path. One was named Procyon; the other, Pavel Alexei Cossack.
---
Procyon was a Stardroid, a member of a race of near-godlike beings. Even now, I don't know what they were about or why, only that they WERE, and took a certain delight in meddling in the affairs of mortals.
Several of them appeared all at once in the November of 2215. They were fleeing a creature called Nigh, one bent on destroying the universe. You know. Holovid fare. I didn't pay much attention to their struggles; I was on the run at the time.
Why, you ask? I fell in with Procyon.
He was...charismatic, intelligent. VICIOUS. Absolutely vicious. But he embodied much of what I felt made 'sense' for an omnipotent, omnipresent being, so when he offered me power, the chance to finally make a change...I took it.
Then Pavel branded me a traitor, but that, too, is another story.
---
Either way, Procyon offered me power. Nothing happened immediately, beyond the United Nations suspending my status as a diplomat and putting a warrant out for my arrest. So I spent most of my time on the run. Met the most interesting people, too. Then it all came to a head when Procyon went insane and tried to off Kelly McLaren, Secretary General of the United Nations.
I don't think he ever meant to give me power; no, he was far too vicious for that. But I did pledge my word to help him, and I do take my word quite seriously. I judged him rightly mad by his behavior, and knew--knew--that his killing McLaren would stymie whatever mad cause he had in mind.
So I stepped in his way. Took quite a beating, too, and then McLaren promoted me on the stop to Director of Interpol.
Funny, how things work out.
Procyon...it turns out, was originally a human. The human antecedant who brought all our people here from Mars. Whatever he did, he was rewarded in the end, and was absorbed back into Earth's population as just another man. I saw him, once--he seemed happy.
I haven't been able to find him, since. I assume the Stardroid ineffability still covers him, and even we ghosts cannot pierce it.
---
So I had power. I blundered about with it for a few months, trying to get my feet under me, trying to stabilize Interpol. It was hard going. Both my commanders were cracking under the stress, and so was I. At the same time, I was slowly dying of the wounds Procyon had inflicted, and playing a madman's game of chess with my nemesis, AND trying to raise my daughter--who started as just another pawn.
It was not a situation conducive to what I'd wanted to do. Ferreting out the shadows I knew were there--nearly impossible. I ran a purge or two, and only managed to flush a little of the darkness into the light where we could eradicate it. One of those shadows turned into my nemesis; even now, I don't know whether to curse myself or be glad that he escaped when he did.
Perhaps five months after Interpol's official creation, Pavel approached me about the shadows.
---
I must explain Pavel to you. He was--for many years--my everything.
---
Pavel Alexei Cossack was and still is a man of the highest kind. He is the peak of what Mother Russia and cruel life, working hand in hand, can produce. He bore an unthinkable amount of grief and guilt on his shoulders for all he'd done and all he'd been made to do--and it this sense that he needed to make reparations, and his love for his daughter, that drove him on. It still drives him, though in the years I've been dead, I've seen the fire banked somewhat.
Which is good. Even with the intervention of others in my life, I admired Pavel--cared about him more than life. Of course I went about this in a completely backward way--he'd been married once, never remarried after his wife's death (and I only found out about his reasons long after that), and I was sure he'd be horrified if he knew one of the UN's little pet diplomats was sniffing after his favor. His denunciation of me as a traitor only cemented that fact in my addled mind, and I was caught between walking my own path and believing the man I adored for a while.
I never did express my feelings to him, though he did find out. Eventually. Through an intermediate. I hated her, I still do, and I would rather erase her name from my memory than bring it up again. But Pavel found out, denounced me once again--as a degenerate--and I despaired of ever finding even a scrap of favor in his sight.
---
Did you know this, Pavel? The UN taught you--just another of their bloody lessons--to be a keen student of people. You had a calculating mind; you already knew my feelings toward you. Did you know how much I hungered for even the smallest sign of your approval?
Though I grew out of it--found my own ground to stand on, defined my morals more clearly--in my short life with Interpol, there was a short period during which I slogged along in desperate doubt and worry that I was doing anything right. Pavel caught me in the middle of that period--and I say 'caught' with a full sense of irony, because I'm not sure, even to this day, if his acceptance of me was truthful--or merely another way to use me as a tool.
Either way. He enlightened me as to his knowledge of the shadows--Black SHIELD--within the UN, and his own plan for combating them: Topple the organization, and with that, wipe them out. Completely. None of my subtle strikes from within, no; Pavel wanted the United Nations brought down in ruin and flame, and I was too happy to go along with it.
I had my doubts, even at the first. But--by that time--I was so used to being a tool that I felt nothing more than a sense of resign in switching ownership to a hand I liked much better.
I still have my doubts.
---
But whatever his intent in approaching me, Pavel got what he wanted from me--I obliged, and threw my position and power into shattering the United Nations.
And now?
Ahh. Pavel has made of himself a czar, ruling Mother Russia with an impartial and a protective hand. The Mavericks have tried overrunning at least once in my death, and Pavel--and his army, and the country he has built--have repulsed them.
He will continue to do well, I think. His daughter, Kalinka, heir apparent to his empire, has finally matured into a confident woman, married and raising a brood of wunderkinder of her own.
He has his legacy, and I can't help but be a little jealous that I'm not included.
---
Enough of that, however. If I dwell too long on Pavel, I begin to grow miserable; and an unfortunate side effect of my half-way existence is I can no longer drown my sorrows in vodka.
---
Ah, what else.
Interpol. Interpol disintegrated with the fall of the UN; it did not become what I had wished it to be, instead fragmenting in the infighting. I moved too fast, pushed too hard, and broke everything I touched.
Good has arisen from it, of course, but it is...not what I wanted. There's still a band of my staunch supporters out there, running around and making sure I'm not forgotten. They've even forged together in an organization rather like the Maverick Hunters, wiping out the last remnants of Black SHIELD's taint.
I wish them well. They have quite a job ahead of them, and then they will need to turn to the Mavericks, and perhaps the Robot Masters. I say perhaps--because Wily has shown himself to be a capable manager of his land, and it will be only just, in the long run, to bring him back to the fold.
---
Most of the Interpol I remember is dead and gone. All the officers I knew by name, my command staff...many of them were killed when Seoul fell, or died in the fighting before that. There are some who are still out there, alive and living life as fiercely as they know.
Edward Hampton, one of Intelligence's more...exuberant...agents has matured just a little over the twelve years since the UN's fall. He's the fomenting agent behind that little band of vigilantes I've mentioned before, and he's risen to become a terror in his own right. A skilled infiltrator and a competent commander, as well as something of a technologist, ever since he's had to maintain LETHE on his own. Of course, he has not been left wanting for a good teacher--his wife, Sarah Hampton (nee Fairchild) is brilliant in her own right.
As an aside, I was not particularly surprised to see Edward and Sarah marry. It did happen shortly after the UN fell, and with all the associated stress, I can see why two souls so likeminded would seek each other's comfort and company.
Another person who did not surprise me with his success was Ernest Fairbanks. I met Ernie on his first day in Interpol; he was definitely green, but showed potential for both deep intelligence and courage. He'd won a battlefield promotion to sergeant within a month, to the day. During the fateful year and a half or so of Interpol's existence, he continued to serve faithfully and well.
When the United Nations fell, and Bridgit killed herself, Ernest took over her work. He managed to hold the remainders of the UN Tank Corps together, and now has a tidy little mercenary unit of his own. He and Edward often work together, from what I've seen--they were fast friends since both entered Interpol, and that friendship has only grown in the trials they've faced.
Gale Sorcerer's death was the opening skirmish in my war with Black SHIELD. He had always been unstable, but he was a good commander--one night, they just pushed him too far. If reploids have souls, I expect his is in paradise somewhere.
Ayla Ericson--Opera--the mastermind behind the Power Armor--escaped with her family back to Sweden just prior to the fall of Seoul. Since then, she has migrated eastward. Last I knew, she had a signed and sealed invitation to the Maverick Hunters. That was seven years ago.
The last I heard of Valor/Lieutenant, he had finally caught Vile and had his final showdown. I assume he won--I have neither seen nor heard word of Vile since then. Nor have I seen Valor...but I expect he did not die. He's far too stubborn.
With Opera gone, the rest of the Musica scattered. Bluegrass/Serena Gilbert and Funk/Kendra Njara died with Seoul. And me. Muse and Ska eventually followed Opera's path, and they, too, are Maverick Hunters now.
That bastard Arkady Bogdanov and the rest of his dogs are another story I will save, and cherish. They will fit better into my account of the fall of Seoul, I think--as is proper.
---
Oannes...Misha...Mikhail Caspianovich Vorlaikal. My older brother. One of the last orphans of Interpol to flee Seoul, before it fell. He wanted to stay with me--he always had an overwhelming protective streak, that carried even through his own first death--and I drove him away. Melissa, I told him, needed someone to raise her--and if we died together, who would take care of her?
I did not want her living the kind of life I had, after Misha died the first time.
Misha is another one I have been tracking, assiduously. Right now he is with Edward's coterie, though I expect he will move on soon. He has been a drifter since my death, pursuing God knows what goals now. He speaks very rarely, doesn't keep a journal, never gives the slightest indication of what it is he wants out of life anymore.
My poor, dear Misha. The United Nations was all to you, as well. And you always thought I was cracking from the stress, when I raved about shadows you never saw.
---
I'm not surprised that Misha was devastated. Afflicted with a selfish, mad little brother he loved with all his heart--and then lost, one final time, because said mad little brother had one last mission to carry out.
Bridgit, Bluegrass, Funk, Misha, Gale...the casaulty list mounts.
---
Misha never got the chance to raise Melissa. That fell to my nemesis, who spirited her away before the fighting in Seoul reached a fever pitch. I think he meant to keep her safe, and then merely...kept her, when word spread of my death.
---
The good doctor Nathan Xiang was a series of mistakes on my part. Half happy accident, half misborn nightmare, Xiang was--and still is--the sanest man I know. In some ways, at least; the fact he voluntarily rent his own mind in twain for the sake of a very elaborate ruse is not the act of a sane man.
He and I were both victims of Black SHIELD. I, through being raised from the dead the first time in their service--and he, by raising me from the dead. I was the turning point in his life, blissfully unaware as I was at the time.
I found him again during my initial purges of Interpol's ranks. Somehow he caught word of it and ran free before I could capture him. I swore then that I would bring him to justice--and anyone even nominally 'sane' could see why.
Xiang was both a monster and a creator of monsters. Very Frankensteinian, in his way--a cyberneticist of unparalleled renown, much like Dr. Light is a roboticist of unparalleled renown. However, Xiang had this charming film noir flair to what he did. 'If I am to be a monster, then I will be a monster without compare,' was his credo. Or so I assumed.
But he had his quirks. In his quiet, cold way, he cared about justice as much as I. He would not harm innocents, but acknowledged there were very few of those in the world. He wanted to perfect humanity, but had no compunctions about building it up on the piled corpses of those who opposed him.
He was also obsessed with me.
This obsession...produced a great deal of good, though I could not see all of it. Two persons who were of great import to my life had their origins in that obsession. One was Melissa; the other was Dr. Alexander Cheng.
---
Dr. Cheng was what Xiang should have been. Compassionate, paternal, concerned only with doing good and righting the wrongs he had erroniously caused.
Ah. I should clarify--Cheng and Xiang were one and the same person; or rather, they were two persons, but inhabited the same body, and shared the same mind. The name Alexander Cheng was something Xiang stole off a dead man, but the Cheng persona was something else. He was everything bright, noble, and 'good' about Xiang, compressed into a tiny package and tucked away in his own little life, to keep from distracting Nathan Xiang as he worked.
I can't begin to describe the difference between the two men. Suffice it to say, this...rift...between their personalities is likely the only reason either remained sane.
I only found out that Cheng and Xiang were one and the same well after my death; it felt--at first--like a betrayal.
Then I observed the body they shared a little longer and realized that Xiang was both Cheng and seperate from Cheng at the same time. My poor nemesis was, in his heart of hearts, a little confused--and it only got worse as he had to step up and take charge of Melissa's care once more.
---
I haven't been keeping too close of an eye on him, squirreled away as he is in China. He brings up too many painful memories--painful in straight anguish and sweetness both--that I am not ready to deal with. So I glance in, now and then, but these little glimpses haven't been more than hints to the idea that the seperation between Xiang and Cheng might be dissolving. Just a little.
Either way, he has done a fine job raising our daughter, and taught her the things I valued most in life. Out of a sense of fondness, or grim practicality, I can't be sure, but nevertheless...there stand the facts.
---
Xiang was not the only affiliate of Interpol to survive its convulsive death. There was another man, just as confused, with two personalities of his own to tend. Thoroughly amoral, excessively charismatic, and the handsomest man I have ever known, Feste was...something else.
---
The man who became Feste was born Andruw Nisse. A Norwegian, and a child of fishermen. Or so he told me. His own erasure of his own life prior to taking on a persona of his own crafting was slightly more thorough than my own; I did manage to find his name and a little of his history through the usual networks, but that was all. The rest was up to him, and he was very, very capricious with what information he bestowed and where.
In fact, 'capricious' rather sums up my dear Fool completely. And yes, I do say Fool--note capital--for my Feste was a Fool and a fool both, in all senses of the word. He took the appelation of capital-F Fool upon himself for reasons unknown even to me, selected the name Feste, and went out to wreak himself upon the world.
He was utterly mad, and I fell for it. Or did he fall for my own face of madness? I'm not sure. As far as I know, from our chronology, we fell for each other at about the same time. Whatever. It was a delightful, whirlwind courtship, and we were both so scared of our own feelings that we ended up screwing ourselves over more than once before I died.
In fact, from all the time I spend haunting his flat, I can definitively say he's carrying on the trend well into its thirteenth year now.
---
My poor, dear Fool. I wish you'd wake up enough to notice me, once in a while--there's much I have to say that I never had the chance to say, and now I have the opportunity...if you'll just call my name. Recognize me. We can have that one last talk I meant us to have. I can say goodbye. I'm told that ghosts continue to linger because they have some task to fulfill; I almost wonder if mine is to excuse myself to all of those I cared about in life. When I say my last goodbye, might I merely dissolve?
It's an appealing thought.
---
At any rate, I'm going off on tangents within tangents. I was talking about Feste--my Fool.
For the time that Interpol existed, Feste was one of our informants. He offered himself in the position; I didn't dare presume that he was anywhere near tame (nothing that bold could be), but accepted anyway, and put him on Interpol's payroll. Covertly. Of course I couldn't help but recognize he was drop-dead gorgeous, and this merely on first meeting him! (You could make a clever jibe at me for thinking with the wrong portions of my anatomy when it came to him, but I assure you, I was not. Or rather, the 'wrong portion' you may be thinking of is not what you think. Ha!)
Thus began our association. Over the time the Fool and I knew each other, we had several spectacular fights--though stabbing him on the steps of the UN building was rather the most spectacular of them all, I would say--and made up very gingerly for all of them, sang to/at/through each other, fretted, screamed, read scripture, went out drinking, teased, flirted, celebrated, and even developed the most elliptical and stilted method of communication I've ever experienced. (It mostly involved music, which, while universal as a language, can also be very confusing. It's very easy to break someone's heart with an ill-chosen song.)
Oh. And kissed. Once...or twice. I do remember that, most of all.
I'm tempted to be flip, lie, and tell you all the sex was great--but it wasn't, because there was none of that. That was not the nature of my relationship with Feste, by far.
---
I don't know if you have ever experienced the act of finding that one person God has placed on the earth just for you. Some people call this person a soulmate; I'm not so sure that's the best descriptor. But there is something about stumbling across this one person--the one person who thinks like you, who sees the world through eyes very much like yours, who, even if he doesn't understand you, still has an inkling of why you might act as you do...
I might be arrogant to assume that Feste was that 'one person' for me. But of a sureity, he was as much an outsider to the world as I, and in much the same way. There was a distinct feeling of not belonging in the world that I had carried with me most of my life; it was one of my reasons for giving up my birth name, taking on the moniker of 'Abernathy', and living as I did. I suspect--am not certain, but suspect--that it was for similar reasons that Andruw Nisse became Feste.
The world told us that we did not belong. So we snubbed the world, turned our backs, and made our own ways. Unfortunately, the world STILL did not like we were doing, and reinforced itself in surprising and painful ways. I learned over the years that most of the time, life would disappoint me. I believed in ideals, in truth and justice, in...a hundred thousand patterns of behavior that were radically different from most of those around me. So I never quite fit in, and I was always, always disappointed. Was it any wonder I became a cynic and a goth?
Feste's answer was, of course, quite different. He became a cheerful, antic creature--though woe betide his frowns! I think, from what I knew of him, he was often disappointed with life as well, the failure of the world to meet his expectations.
What I wouldn't have done to change the world for him, to make it more like what he expected and wanted.
---
That was, perhaps, the critical feature of our relationship; or...at least...what I got from it. He never disappointed me. Surprised, frightened, angered, yes. Disappointed? No. He knew where I stood in relation to the world, understood some of why I acted as I did. I could rely on him, not so much as a rock of stablity in a sea of changes, but as...as...
Words fail me at last. I've had my way with them, and they've finally given out.
---
I love him.
---
There is an old quote that goes--and I paraphrase--that, 'if everyone on Earth only had two minutes to live, the phonebooths would be jammed with people calling to stammer out their love for someone.'
I had thirty seconds. Thirty seconds in which I could see death yawning before me and knew I wouldn't escape this time.
Melissa. Misha. Bridgit. Andruw-Feste. Pavel.
I never told any of them.
I failed.
---
I hurt the most for my poor, dear Fool. Bridgit was my friend; she knew, intuitively, that I would look out for her. Misha is my brother; he knew, I knew. Melissa...my daughter...there was not a day that went by when I did not tell her that I cared, and worried, and thought the world of her. And I still had a month's chance, after dying, to tell her once more. Pavel...knew. And I always felt as if my feelings were some kind of imposition on his life, so it's just as well.
But Feste...
---
The word 'love' never came up. It just wasn't like that. I was--I was ashamed of who and what I was, and he just didn't have it in him to commit that way. (Even if he tacitly had, and even if I tacitly didn't care about living in sin, or whatever the hell I was scared of.)
It was an association, an alliance, a partnership, a...something. But we weren't lovers, or boyfriends, or...anything. Allies is the best word I can think of, heart-hunger the best word to put to how I felt without him.
Yes. An ally. That's what my Fool was.
And heart-hunger is another matter entirely.
---
I wish, I wish, he'd notice me. Twelve years of dedicated haunting, interrupted only as I watch over my other few dear ones, and he's too blind to see.
Whatever shall I do?
(muse: con't, later, as usual)
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2003-06-06 03:45 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2003-06-06 06:50 am (UTC)I want to give Abby-ghost a hug. ;_; Poor Abbyghost!
It's so sad! (We're so mean!)
But! AAAAAAAA!!
I am humbled. :D Ever so much. That was excellent, in the sort of way where I want to track you down and strangle you for leaving it undone like that. XD
But I guess that just means... it's my turn. X)
CEM, fleeing to Buffalo in two and half hours hence