Remarkable
We're at a rather remarkable juncture here, you know.
Actually, you probably don't know. I mean, I'm sure you recognize it as a remarkable moment, but not for the reason I'm thinking. After all, it's not every day you find yourself surrounded - pretty much as far as the eye can see - by debris and fire and corpses, with a gun to your head. That's pretty remarkable, sure. Even *I* don't often find myself about to die in a vast sea of destruction all *that* often.
But I have, on occasion, and it's the first of those occasions that makes *this* occasion so remarkable.
I'm sure you're still wondering how this happened. One minute, you're confidently moving in with the rest of your large, well-trained, heavily-equipped team. The next, everything's exploding and shooting and there's gore going everywhere. Now everyone's dead except for you. And us, of course. Us.
As you might be starting to guess now… we're what happened.
Who we are… how we got trained… where we've been, what what we've done and to whom… Almost none of that matters for the moment. Only a few things matter, and they're all very easily explained. One of those things is that we, us - the ones who "happened" here just now - have been shaped by the world at its very darkest. Honed like blades. Polished like silver. Ground like lenses. There is nothing we do not see and there is nothing we cannot do. I try not to blaspheme - and I try to retain some fleeting shred of humility in the face of a universe that I know is bigger than myself - but even so, the simple fact is that if there are demigods walking the Earth, we're probably it. There are five of us. For all intents and purposes we're effectively immortal - not because of any supernatural protection, but because the fears and failures of ordinary human beings simply fall beneath our noise floor anymore.
I say "effectively" because of course nothing lasts forever, and that's the second thing that matters right now. See that enormous wash of gore over there among the burning rubble? Somewhere in that tangle is whatever is left of one of our five. I have known him and fought alongside him for thirty years… slain small armies and exploded reactors with him without so much as a scratch… but it would appear tonight he was fated to be done.
Fate, I am quite certain, drives us - us, even more than most.
You see, I first met that particular man - the one who is now extremely dead over there - in almost precisely this situation. I was a very capable street cop called to what sounded like a drastically overstated emergency call, and when I arrived… well, something happened. Was happening. And I found myself in a scene of gore and destruction much like this one. They say hot dogs are made out of lips and assholes, you know? Whatever "meat" from the animal isn't useful for anything else. That's what it was like. Hot dog blender. An entire city block of lips and assholes. On fire. And somehow I was still alive, the only one on the scene except for… well, at the time it was "them". And one of them, the man who died over there tonight during all of… this… had a conversation with me very much like the one I'm having with you. WIth a gun to my head, just like this. He told me it was clear that I was a cut above. He told me that they never left survivors. That I was already dead, one way or the other, but I had a little bit of leeway in when it happened. He told me they were supposed to be five, but were down one. And he made me an offer which I could have very well refused.
But I didn't refuse it, obviously, which is why I'm here thirty years later having this conversation with you.
We watched your whole team come in and it was obvious that you stood out. We always need to keep an eye out for the exceptional candidate. Noticed you right away. Didn't go any easier on you than anyone else… mostly… but here you are anyway, the only one left. Only, we don't leave survivors. So really, you're already dead. This gun says so. But… you know this is coming, right? We're supposed to be five, we were five just an hour ago, but now we're four and here you are.
So you can forestall the death that happened to you here tonight and try walking with the demigods. Or you can join this scattered field of lips and assholes, just another hot dog in the blender, your name in the morning news story alongside as many others as they can identify.
You don't have long to decide. Hear those sirens? Being a seriously talented cop, you know as well as I do how far away they are, probably to the block. Maybe you're hoping they'll get here and stop me from doing this. But I know how far away they are, too, and two seconds before the first one rounds a corner into sight, I pull this trigger and disappear behind that wall of smoke my companions have gotten started.
So you know more or less how long you have to decide the rest of your life.
Pretty remarkable, huh?
------
For consideration: mental footnotes in the wake of finally getting out to see RED
Actually, you probably don't know. I mean, I'm sure you recognize it as a remarkable moment, but not for the reason I'm thinking. After all, it's not every day you find yourself surrounded - pretty much as far as the eye can see - by debris and fire and corpses, with a gun to your head. That's pretty remarkable, sure. Even *I* don't often find myself about to die in a vast sea of destruction all *that* often.
But I have, on occasion, and it's the first of those occasions that makes *this* occasion so remarkable.
I'm sure you're still wondering how this happened. One minute, you're confidently moving in with the rest of your large, well-trained, heavily-equipped team. The next, everything's exploding and shooting and there's gore going everywhere. Now everyone's dead except for you. And us, of course. Us.
As you might be starting to guess now… we're what happened.
Who we are… how we got trained… where we've been, what what we've done and to whom… Almost none of that matters for the moment. Only a few things matter, and they're all very easily explained. One of those things is that we, us - the ones who "happened" here just now - have been shaped by the world at its very darkest. Honed like blades. Polished like silver. Ground like lenses. There is nothing we do not see and there is nothing we cannot do. I try not to blaspheme - and I try to retain some fleeting shred of humility in the face of a universe that I know is bigger than myself - but even so, the simple fact is that if there are demigods walking the Earth, we're probably it. There are five of us. For all intents and purposes we're effectively immortal - not because of any supernatural protection, but because the fears and failures of ordinary human beings simply fall beneath our noise floor anymore.
I say "effectively" because of course nothing lasts forever, and that's the second thing that matters right now. See that enormous wash of gore over there among the burning rubble? Somewhere in that tangle is whatever is left of one of our five. I have known him and fought alongside him for thirty years… slain small armies and exploded reactors with him without so much as a scratch… but it would appear tonight he was fated to be done.
Fate, I am quite certain, drives us - us, even more than most.
You see, I first met that particular man - the one who is now extremely dead over there - in almost precisely this situation. I was a very capable street cop called to what sounded like a drastically overstated emergency call, and when I arrived… well, something happened. Was happening. And I found myself in a scene of gore and destruction much like this one. They say hot dogs are made out of lips and assholes, you know? Whatever "meat" from the animal isn't useful for anything else. That's what it was like. Hot dog blender. An entire city block of lips and assholes. On fire. And somehow I was still alive, the only one on the scene except for… well, at the time it was "them". And one of them, the man who died over there tonight during all of… this… had a conversation with me very much like the one I'm having with you. WIth a gun to my head, just like this. He told me it was clear that I was a cut above. He told me that they never left survivors. That I was already dead, one way or the other, but I had a little bit of leeway in when it happened. He told me they were supposed to be five, but were down one. And he made me an offer which I could have very well refused.
But I didn't refuse it, obviously, which is why I'm here thirty years later having this conversation with you.
We watched your whole team come in and it was obvious that you stood out. We always need to keep an eye out for the exceptional candidate. Noticed you right away. Didn't go any easier on you than anyone else… mostly… but here you are anyway, the only one left. Only, we don't leave survivors. So really, you're already dead. This gun says so. But… you know this is coming, right? We're supposed to be five, we were five just an hour ago, but now we're four and here you are.
So you can forestall the death that happened to you here tonight and try walking with the demigods. Or you can join this scattered field of lips and assholes, just another hot dog in the blender, your name in the morning news story alongside as many others as they can identify.
You don't have long to decide. Hear those sirens? Being a seriously talented cop, you know as well as I do how far away they are, probably to the block. Maybe you're hoping they'll get here and stop me from doing this. But I know how far away they are, too, and two seconds before the first one rounds a corner into sight, I pull this trigger and disappear behind that wall of smoke my companions have gotten started.
So you know more or less how long you have to decide the rest of your life.
Pretty remarkable, huh?
------
For consideration: mental footnotes in the wake of finally getting out to see RED