White Flag

Yesterday, I encountered Evelyn. On my own terms, this time. Or rather, instead of her approaching me, I approached her.

I was at the local supermarket, getting myself some groceries, when I saw her at the other end of the aisle. She looked different. Tired.

I tapped her on the shoulder and she turned to look at me, raising her eyebrows. "Looks like the man with no name got away in time." she said, crossing her arms. "I was wondering if you'd made it."

I asked her why she did it, and she shook her head. "You're a dangerous man." she said, smiling. "People like me like having those around."

I gave her a skeptical look, and she shrugged. "Runners armed with guns and blades are dangerous. They kill Indoctrinated. Runners armed with kindness are dangerous, because they make Indoctrinated doubt themselves. Ours is a world with little room for compassion. And you're motivated by it."

"And you like having dangerous people around." I replied flatly. "On the other side."

She snorted. "You know as well as I do that your people versus my people is a fucking lie. It's us versus It. All of us."

I shrugged, and turned to leave. "I still don't trust you." I called over my shoulder.

"I never said that wasn't a good idea." she replied, and then I left, feeling thoroughly disquieted

Fair Warning

It's been a while. I have been without internet access for quite some time. I had to go underground, which meant being homeless for nearly a month while I went through Tamora's safehouses trying to find one that had never been located.

I made the mistake of attempting to track down another blogger in my area, Ariadne Bell, in mid-June. Unfortunately, doing so not only gave me terrible nightmares, but garnered a considerable amount of attention from He That Is and from his Indoctrinated. I really don't want to let go of somebody I could have saved, but hopefully now that I am in possession of an H kit, I will be able to do more in terms of helping lesson His impact. If I can continue looking for her without being reduced to vomiting black sludge into a gutter.

Evelyn gave me warning before they arrived. I don't know why. I still don't trust her, but she gave me an hours extra time to pack up my belongings and get as far away from my old house as possible. I haven't seen her since then. There is a possibility that somebody found out she helped me and killed her.

Tamora left things in the safehouses. Money, mostly. Clothes. And a new kit. I can make people forget again. I can be more than a bystander in this gladitorial arena.

I feel better.

Good Intent

Apologies for the absence. I haven't really had anything to say.

I haven't been up to much. I ran into Evelyn again on monday- I was loitering around Albert Park and I found her with her kids. She lives nearby, apparently. I didn't stop to talk to her. Frankly, although she's pleasant enough, I don't trust her. He That Is has a bit of a history with sending female proxies after me, which is honestly a little insulting and also pointless. Proximity to He That Is does a real number on your libido, I think. Most of the proxies I knew back then, the ones that had been proxies over puberty or for a long time, weren't really interested. Also, I've seen back the trick before, trying it again is rather stupid.

I am probably going to die a virgin. I can't really bring myself to care. There are a lot of things I will never get to do, or be. There's no point dwelling on them now.

I am twenty-nine next month. It's just another number, really. I've never really done birthdays. I usually go and buy myself a piece of fudge from the shop up the road and eat it while watching Monty Python, just to commemorate living to see another year.

I wish I could help people, like I wanted to. Still want to. But in New Zealand, there's nobody I can really do anything for. I don't have the funds to go anywhere else.

A word of advice, though. The only people I know who really "won" against the monster were Vivi and Chester, and they don't remember. The ultimate fuck-you to the monster is to be happy. To keep living despite what's happening.

I try to take my own advice, with the best of intentions, but the fact that my life as it stands is pretty much defined by It is not really helping.

Shooting Star

Today, I encountered Evelyn again while going about some business in the city- more precisely, I had gone to the movies to see The Hunger Games, for lack of anything else to do. I was sitting at the bus stop, listening to Stella's iPod, when Evelyn spotted me from across the road and came over to say hello.

"Waiting for the bus?" she asked, sitting down next to me. I shrugged. "It's another fifteen minutes away, and I don't have anything else to do."

"What are you listening to?" she asked, glancing down at the iPod in my hand. "I don't actually know, some pop artist I've never heard of. See for yourself." I replied, passing it to her.

She took it and took a close look at the unlock screen, her eyes widening. "Two Face!" she exclaimed, looking at the background. The picture was one I had taken, of Stella and Kristen embroiled in a rather intense game of Connect Four. "And- what's her name, it was Latin..."

"The pseudonym she took on as an Indoctrinated or her real name?" I asked. "Both of them have Latin roots."

Evelyn snapped her fingers a few times, frowning. "Tenebria, that was her name. What happened to her? She just stopped reporting last February."

I took back the iPod, taking a while to collect my thoughts before I spoke. "She took a cure for His compulsion, and joined two bloggers in their fight against Him. When I wiped their minds, I couldn't wipe her as  integrating her back into society would be almost impossible, as to all intents and purposes she has never existed. She was killed by Him last May."

"I'm sorry." she said. "Were you two close?" The implications behind the question hung in the air for a few long, awkward second before I shrugged.

"Not romantically." I replied. "She was as close to family as I ever had."

There was a long silence before she said. "Well, nice speaking to you, anyway," and then she got up and left.

Across the road was a very familiar face. Not-Stella, my recurring hallucination. She leaned on the wall opposite, staring at me steadily, then a gaggle of people went past her and then she was gone.

As with every time I see her, I wanted to yell "What do you want from me? Why are you here?"

She never answers, and I feel like a madman, chasing shadows and shooting stars.

Old Wounds

Yesterday, against my better judgement, I went out to coffee with the Femme Fatale. For a given definition of coffee, since I had tea.

She left another note with a time and place in my letterbox two days ago. This time, I went. I brought my crowbar, concealed inside my shoulder bag, in case things got ugly.

We sat across from each other, silent, for a while before I said "I assume you didn't invite me here for the pleasure of my company."

She looked at me, unreadable, for a few seconds. "In August of last year, an old colleague of mine showed up on my doorstep, said she was going away for a while, and if she didn't come back before Christmas, to find you. I knew her as Two-Face.I've been trying to track you down ever since. I was hoping you would be able to tell me what happened to her"

"You mean Kristen MacIntyre?" I asked. "She's dead. She killed several of my friends, then went after another. He killed her."

She looked startled for a few seconds. "So that was her real name...I take it you're not Indoctrinated, then. If you don't mind my asking, who exactly are you? All I know about you is your address, the design on your mask, and that you don't drink coffee."

"I'm not anyone in particular," I told her, "I was Indoctrinated for a while, and I wiped people's minds to give them a fresh start for a while more. Now I'm just a guy with a lot of dead friends."

"I'm Evelyn Schoeman." she said after a while, frowning at the bottom of her coffee cup. "I'm an Indoctrinated, for lack of a better word, although He has little use for old ladies like me. I haven't had to do anything major in a few years. A bit of vandalism, intimidation, that sort of thing."

I spent a minute trying to process this, before I blurted out "You're not an old lady. You're what, thirty?"

Evelyn gave me an incredulous look. "Thirty-four." she said finally. "And you can't be much younger, by the look of you."

"Twenty-eight." I retorted. "Having Where's-his-face hanging around doesn't help you stay young."

She laughed. "Well, Sir-who-has-cunningly-avoided-telling-me-his-name, I have to be off now. I have to pick up my kids from school soon."

"Kids?" I asked. The thought of a proxy raising children, I admit, was a rather alarming one.

"Three boys." she said. "They're a gift, albeit a noisy and stressful one. See you, stranger."

"Not if I see you first."

Then she left, and I went home.

I don't trust her. She's a proxy, for one, although I'm somewhat thrown by the fact that she was forthright about it.

Well, she got what she approached me for. Hopefully she will leave me alone for a while.

Femme Fatale

I went for a walk yesterday, and when I came home there was a woman leaning against the fence. She looked incongruous against the dilapidated fence and overgrown yard, reapplying her lipstick with scarcely a glance at me. I thought she was just a passer-by, so I didn't spare her a second glance.

"Where's your mask?" she asked when I walked past her. I shrugged and didn't respond, taking my keys out from around my neck and unlocking the door. I don't make a habit of talking to attractive women or proxies, as both are rather dangerous, and this woman was definitely attractive and probably a proxy, which made her at least twice as dangerous.

"You're going to invite me in for coffee." she said. She didn't say it like a request, or an order. She said it like it was a certain thing, an inevitability. She was assured, certain that I was going to do as she had said.

I turned around and told her "I don't drink coffee." before I went inside, locking the door and barring it behind me.

She stood outside my house for an hour, looking for all the world like a lost puppy, before she left. I found a note in my letterbox later that day with a time (11 this morning) and a place (one of the Starbucks' in the CBD) and also a smiley face.

Honestly, how stupid does she think I am?

I didn't go.