The Last Man: Part Nine

My eyes were bound tightly. The cords that held my arms cut tightly into the flesh. My fingers numbed to the point of cramping. Any effort to work the circulation back into them succeeded in spreading the pain through my arms and into my shoulders. I wanted to scream but refused my captors any satisfaction whatsoever. Still a man has his limits, and mine were becoming all too familiar, but there are different limits, and for different times; limits for endurance, limits to love and forgiveness and limits to understanding. Above all there is a limit to tolerance, but that limit is also the most difficult to calculate.

The reek of sewage was distant here, replaced by the gagging stink of dry urine. It had a weighted, dry character. A fire crackled close by. It was an oppressive heat, weighted with the bite of stale ammonia. I could feel the flame’s radiated power against the left side of my face, enough that I leaned as far as I could for fear of being burnt. I was seated on the ground against a wall. I felt trapped and alone, teetering on hopelessness, and wondering why I deserved any hope in the first place.

Was I lucky to be alive? For the moment I was undecided. The beasts from the sewers revealed themselves as fearsome women fighters. As quickly as they appeared, like some sort of subterranean phantoms, I was subdued and bound. Only a fool would have dared resist, only a fool, or man intent on his own death. I was struggling with one while fighting to avoid the other.

The sound of footsteps saved me, whether it was my rescuer or executioner there was no clue. At that moment I would have preferred the blade to remaining bound and forgotten in that place. I almost wished for it. Still I tensed, straightening a bit in anticipation of a knife blade diving into my flesh, or for atrocity of a machete blow. I tipped my head back, straining to see along the sides of my nose.

I was dragged to the middle of the room, Not violently, but enough that there was no hope for any sort of resistance. The metal on metal sounds of knives being unsheathed turned the blood in my veins cold. A hand fell over my eye, pulling my head back sharply. I groaned through gritted teeth, expecting my throat would be cut. It was difficult imagining a horrible finish. I resolved not to cry out in some feeble means of robbing from my murderers any satisfaction. Oh, how time is relative in our lives. I tried to console myself that the murderous sawing characterizing the act would be finished in seconds. I fought to reassure myself that any true pain would be extinguished quickly with the gush of life’s blood. All that cold recognition seemed fruitless against the rampaging hysteria of my body. But then the knife sliced neatly through the binds, and the blindfold was torn away.

A woman stood before me. She was flanked by two female bodyguards. John Brown was behind her. There was a terrible bruise across his face, which I had little sympathy for. Through his fingers, as he felt his bruised and swollen nose, I could see he was ashamed, enough that he seemed unwilling or incapable of looking at me directly.

The woman was small, and beset with great physical impairments. A stroke had left her virtually paralyzed on one side. The arm had atrophied the hand and fingers curling and almost useless. The foot dragged behind. For balance and support she held tight to a sturdy iron walking stick that clanged or scraped as she moved. The stroke had damaged an organic beauty. The pain of a difficult life and the stress of leadership had further abused that beauty. A cloak was pulled low to cover the impaired side of her face. Still I sensed an intense and brilliant mind obstinately resisting her affliction. A dagger hung around her neck, helping to keep the cloak in place. I doubted it was there for any purpose other than to rob an adversary of taking her alive. That prideful and obstinate character is exactly the sort I ascribed from my readings to Mary McLeod Bethune, the daughter of sharecroppers who became an education and Civil Rights leader under President Franklin Roosevelt during the Twentieth Century.

“Please forgive our diligence,” Bethune said. Her voice was breathless and fragile. Her difficult and slurred words were an obvious frustration for her. “Section Twenty-one hunts us at every turn.” She glanced disappointed at John. “He has put everything at risk by bringing you here.”

“Shame consumes me,” he gushed. I was unsure just who that apology was directed to. “My attention was simply…” Bethune stopped him with a wave of her hand.

“Men are such emotional creatures,” she said, “given fully to their cravings. Your friend acted impetuously. It I that reason they are considered totally unfit for warfare.”

“Men?” I asked surprised. John Brown was head and shoulders above all the women there, and seemed more threatening, at least to me-the lump across his face notwithstanding.

“They sexualize warfare. It distracts them from any real strategy and rationale.”

“There is a rationale for war?” I asked. The conversation suddenly gained momentum.

“In truth,” Bethune hobbled a bit closer, “war represents a vacuum of intellect and morality, hence the need for rationale. When we have left ourselves no other choice, rationality and excuse are all we have to protect our egos.”

Could she not see the fundamental flaw in that logic? Like that of the Corporation, her rationale was a lie, wholly based in a rejection of intellect and morality. In that regard it was fundamentally short-sighted and selfish.

“So you have abandoned intellect and morality?”

“When presented with no other choice,” she said.

“The choice is yours, is it not?”

She grinned, the most vibrant emotion she had shown. As though it threatened to run away with her, Bethune quickly collected herself, and nodded with satisfaction.

“In any case,” I said, working the blood back into my hands, “I asked him to bring me here.”

John looked up sharply and knew I was lying on his behalf. He nodded appreciatively.

“Notwithstanding,” said Bethune, “He might have used better judgment.”

“Indeed,” he bowed submissively. “Dumb and stupid.”

She ignored him. The guards helped me to stand.

“He told us all about you,” she began. “About the trial and the Corporation. We are not unsympathetic, but it is a fact that Section Twenty-one will decipher your thoughts,” she continued. “The question now is what will they decipher?”

“What does Section Twenty-one have to fear from you, or anyone of the Low City?”

“Resistance, defiance, disdain.” Her eyes held mine. “All the true threats to any power. The Corporation alternately views us as a nuisance and threat to be eliminated, or an opportunity to be exploited. We are none of those things.”

“And what about finding some accord; mutual existence.”

“Ha!” she laughed. “There can be no peace without common agreement. There is only power and vengefulness masquerading as peace. They offer nothing and we give nothing in return.”

“A vicious circle.”

“There is no other way without humiliation.”

“No compromise?”

“Who would compromise first?” Bethune shrugged. “And there you see the dilemma. The first to concede anything becomes the fool.”

“The Corporation is so powerful! Don’t you fear that they will one day simply dispose of you completely?”

“If they dare.” She thought a moment. “I concede the point. Section Twenty-one and the Corporation can exterminate us, but they will pay a very dear price.”

She was holding something back. It was not something I could decipher. Rather it was something coldly calculating every heartbeat, every change in the wind or with the slightest variation of light. It was the dark sense of someone who has already resigned herself to death, of someone who had not abandoned life, but abandoned limits. Hers were the eyes of a soldier so filled with contempt for the enemy that no act, no sacrifice or act of brutality was beyond reason. It was not something she retreated from in the slightest, or showed the slightest remorse over.

“So why tell me all of this?” I asked. “If I return Sentinel will see all of this, just like you said.”

“Perhaps.”

“Memories can’t be hidden, not from Sentinel.”

“Ah, Sentinel’s flaw is in believing that memories represent reality. They are skewed by impression and our limited perspectives. They are also your pawns to construct or reconstruct as you please. Ultimately memories are quite malleable and alterable.”

“But why?” I asked.

“There were very bitter discussions regarding you fate,” she replied. “We came to a final consensus, and that is that you are to be the messenger.”

“Messenger?” I asked. “What sort of…”

Bethune strained to lift her impaired hand. It fell against my chest where I caught it with my hands. Her smiled held a potent mix of satisfaction and conniving guile. “And now I will show you something that I believe you will find quite interesting.”

I glanced around the room at the guards. “I suppose then I am at your service.”

Her eyes found mine. Bethune she nodded, “Quick and strong mind. You will make an excellent messenger.”

What that message was exactly I had no clue. What I was thinking of at that moment was Sentinel. Could I expect to beat something capable of seeing into my deepest innermost thoughts? I would have to find a way or my trial would be little more than an exercise in the ridiculous. Bethune took my arm and looked knowingly up at me.

“You know things,” she said. “You know things that Associates were never meant to learn. That makes you far more dangerous. The natural thing will be to prepare your arguments, but that only plays into Sentinel’s hands. Feel them in your heart. Know them better than you know yourself and react to their arguments without hesitation.”

“Not exactly sure how,” I said.

“You already have, with me,” she replied. “Now you must perfect your command of your own thoughts and memories.”

“And I will prevail?” I smiled knowingly. I held few illusions that the Corporation had not already decided the outcome of the trial.

“Against Sentinel and the Corporation?” she scoffed. “Most certainly not! You may out class them with your arguments, but they will send you for reclamation win or lose. You will be satisfied with the fight, and in the end that is all you can hope for.”