WIP: “‘Mr Brightside,’ by the Killers”
As I've mentioned, I've been writing WIPs for months but not finishing anything so thought I might post them here to see if anyone has anything to say that might help or let me know if anyone is interested in them. Writing in mostly monk-like solitude can be dispiriting and alienating. (It does get seen by the wonderful akira17, who does beta for me in e-mails, which I greatly appreciate, but I never fully recovered from the loss of speaking to multiple people about these things in AIM in real time.)
Here's a Weiß Kreuz WIP that has Schuldig and Crawford working--though separately--in New York City in 2021, COVID pandemic era. When a bored Schuldig senses Farfarello in the area after not hearing from him in many, many years, so of course he has to check it out.... (A look at what an older Schwarz is up to.)
RATING: currently PG-13
NOTES: The radio station mentioned here was NY’s 92.3 FM alternative station, a favorite of mine. Unfortunately for me, its corporate overlords didn’t think it made them enough money with alternative music so they turned it into a simulcast of an AM news station instead October 27, 2022, which is why I don’t ever listen to 92.3 anymore.
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“‘Mr Brightside,’ by the Killers” WIP
by Viridian5
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July 21, 2021
After Schuldig pulled the knife out of Gavelli’s thigh and the guy finally stopped whimpering, Gavelli said, “I have a wife and kids. They have to be suffering while I’m gone.” Although he’d already been broken in a lot of ways, he apparently still had some capacity for nonsense.
“You have two girlfriends who don’t know about each other,” Schuldig answered. “I doubt they miss you that much, and they especially wouldn’t if they found out about each other.”
The chair Schuldig had him tied hand and foot to made a harsh sound against the floor as he squirmed around in it, not that the sound would escape this windowless basement room given the soundproofing foam glued to almost every surface: walls, ceiling, floor, and door. Gavelli still had a lot of energy in his desperation, too much, so Schuldig would have to work on that in the near future.
“You don’t know that!”
“Oh, but I do. You’re a thorough piece of shit who thinks he’s slick. It’s one of the reasons you’re in this room right now.” Although Gavelli wouldn’t be able to see Schuldig smile behind the Guy Fawkes mask, Schuldig smiled widely anyway, unwilling to do things like this by halves. “You thought you were slick about everything and nobody noticed what you were doing, but you were wrong, and you’re going to keep paying for it until the person you wronged decides it’s time to stop.” That person needed to fucking decide on that already because Schuldig wanted to move on. It’d been a boring five days for him. “I’m going to leave now and let you bleed for a bit. Maybe I’ll feed you something in a bit. Maybe.” Keeping everything randomly timed and not giving this victim any time cues further screwed with his head and wellbeing.
“You could leave the light on!” Whenever Schuldig turned the light off, the room became very, very dark.
In answer, Schuldig started to sing, “Turning saints into the sea, swimming through sick lullabies, choking on your alibis....” Gavelli had listened to the local alternative radio station, which played the Killers’ “Mr Brightside” a *lot*, so Schuldig had said he’d beat on him every time the station played that song. (Not that Gavelli could know for sure it really had.) Though Schuldig also could’ve chosen “Royals” by Lourde or “Bring Me to Life” by Evanescence for the same reason. If he’d decided on MGK songs in general, he’d be in there beating the guy up constantly.
“But you don’t have to! I’m fine!”
“Good. Are you going to try to protest being gagged too?” The gag might not be necessary due to the soundproofing foam, but Gavelli hated it, making it worthwhile.
“No.”
“Excellent. You *can* learn. See you later.” After firmly gagging his victim, he locked the door behind him and turned off the light, the switch being outside the room. Gavelli’s increasing fear of the near total darkness didn’t even give Schuldig any jollies anymore.
It felt good to take the Guy Fawkes mask, hooded raincoat, and surgical gloves off, since it got hot and sweaty under them even with the air conditioning on. The client had Schuldig wear a full mask to give Gavelli the hope that he might survive this and be let out since he couldn’t see his captor’s face, not that the client had decided on letting the guy live yet, to Schuldig’s frustration. Full mask on his face, hair hidden under the raincoat’s hood, and surgical gloves on his hands. The last year and a few months had at least made surgical gloves a lot easier to find and buy, without anyone asking questions about the purchase. Wearing the hood got old and messed up his hair, though he lessened that a bit by fastening it up with a claw clip; he’d fully neaten it up before he went on Twitch, his recreational escape from tedium these days.
This job was really getting old, so Schuldig needed to share his annoyance with the man who’d gotten it for him. A light mental touch told him he wouldn’t be interrupting anything Brad could get killed by or for, so he started the mindlink and his complaints. ~Hey, Brad, has he decided whether he’s going to make me keep doing this or finally kill this guy yet? Because I am bored as hell and feeling wasted here. I’ve laid down a strong foundation and anybody can do it from here on. Just keep him in the dark most of the time; brutalize, feed, and let him take a piss or a dump at random intervals so he can’t keep track of time; and verbally abuse and taunt him every so often. I am *done* and want to get out of here. Get me out of this soon, or *I’ll* do it, and you probably won’t enjoy how.~ Schuldig had let Gavelli piss himself once or twice but dealing with the smell became annoying for *him*, especially with how ripe Gavelli had become from everything else going on for the last few days, so he didn’t just let him wiz all over himself every time.
~It’s not possible that you’re subconsciously picking up on and assimilating the man you’re holding prisoner?~
~You must think I’m an idiot *and* a terrible excuse for a telepath with absolutely shit shielding. I’ve had this ability for over thirty years and been training and refining it the whole time so *no*, I’m not unknowingly being influenced.~
~Just mentioning the possibility.~
~Just being an irritating, condescending jackass is more like it. You *know* me--you’ve known me for most of my life--and you’ve seen me dealing with lockdowns over the past year and months and you don’t think this feeling is all me? Please.~
~...true. Though you did pick up on some people’s cabin fever *hard* now and then in that time.~
~That’s thousands of people simultaneously feeling something similar versus one guy I know to screen and filter against. A *population* versus one man. Don’t try to pretend it’s the same thing, it’s insulting. If my shields and skills sucked as badly as you just suggested, the last year and nearly a half would have left me dead or drooling, and I’m neither.~ The problem with working with a guy who’d known him for most of his life was that Brad sometimes seemed to forget that he wasn’t a callow kid anymore, something even more likely to happen when Brad hadn’t seen him for several days. Maybe Schuldig’s mental voice still sounded younger to him? Schuldig thought it sounded like his contemporary voice.
There had been times since the pandemic started when Schuldig had been so affected by everyone around him--despite his best shielding because there was so *much* simultaneously, too *too* much, overwhelming--that he’d wondered if he still *wanted* to stay alive if he had to keep telepathically picking up all this misery, fear, anger, pain, uncertainty, and death. Fortunately, he made it through the worst of it. He never talked to Brad about that kind of thing.
Brad apparently hadn’t sensed Schuldig’s turn of thought because he said, ~This job... other people’s suffering usually gives you serotonin and, knowing how you work, he has to really be suffering by now, so what’s the deal?~
An entire population’s simultaneous suffering might be too much for Schuldig, but he still enjoyed the suffering of a few people, especially if he caused it. But: ~He’s becoming like a good meal that had been left on the table for too long, going stale, cold, and off.~
~That’s picky of you.~
~I’m a connoisseur. Because I’m worth it. I’m going to try to kill my boredom by going on Twitch and making some money. At least there I can *pretend* to be doing something and killing people. I’d be putting together something for my OnlyFans account if *somebody* hadn’t become such a massive prude in his golden years.~
~You know that’s not why I gave you so much heat about having an OnlyFans. Consider yourself lucky that I let you keep those TikTok dance clips up.~
~Why are you and our client working so hard to stifle my creativity, self-expression, and ability to make money? Jealous haters, the both of you.~ Not that the money mattered that much to him, since he had as much as he wanted, but you had to use Brad’s viewpoints to explain some things to him sometimes. The internet stuff kept Schuldig from being even more bored than he was and helped him keep up with the Zeitgeist, important for any telepath so they could understand what they mindread. Plus, there were people using OnlyFans who actually appreciated some of his perversions. Validation.
~Are you being careful about your Patreon content?~
~*Yes*, Daddy. And you don’t have to worry about people tracking me through any of this because Nagi taught me well.~
~I’m stunned that he still talks to you.~
~I’m not the one who bitch-slapped him and ordered his girlfriend’s murder.~
~That was decades ago, and you *know* what I mean.~
~People don’t forget things like that.~ Brad often saw relationships as transactional and it often showed, while Schuldig enjoyed the journey as well as the destination. Besides, Nagi got a kick out of a telepath, especially him, trying to make connections with people online amidst the dead silence. ~I do know what you mean, but it’s more fun leaving you in the dark.~ If he *really* wanted to give Brad a heart attack, he might someday mention that he had his memoir on a zip drive that he sometimes thought he might edit and fictionalize a bit and self-publish, maybe on Amazon since he was used to dealing with delusional despots with more wealth than they deserved. Psychic spies and assassins in global action/adventure stories? Demons and Nazis? People would eat that up. (He could probably make more money selling bad porn, but he had standards.) Or maybe he’d never show it to anyone; he wavered on that. ~Are you making any fun or interesting kills on your job at least? Since I have to live vicariously through you these days.~
~Ish.~
~Tell, tell.~ Wait, something... *that* was it?
~Schu, what is it?~ They’d known each other and been mindlinked long enough that Brad could sometimes read into the silences in Schuldig’s mental communications, which had pros and cons.
~Something just clicked for me.~ All day, there had been something small, subtle, and unrecognizable pinging the back of his brain, the telepathic version of having a small pebble in your shoe under your foot that you couldn’t quite find and remove, but now: ~Farfarello is wandering the neighborhood with our old team link open looking for me, and there’s no way he’d coincidentally be in a residential area in Queens I happen to be working in. He has to have been sent, and it’s probably fuckin’ Eszett.~ They’d killed a team of psychic agents from Eszett over a month ago, but if new Eszett was anything like old Eszett they wouldn’t learn their lesson and stop trying to forcibly bring Schuldig and Brad back under their control. It didn’t help that the stresses of the year and a few months had killed so many telepaths and some precogs, making him and Brad more valuable. ~He’s putting up a very strong static and broken glass effect to make him harder to read; I’d have to *tear* into him to rip what I want out, but I want to see what he has to say for himself if confronted and so do you.~
~You also want to get out of the house for a while.~
~I multitask. You love it. Don’t worry, I have a lot of security stuff linked into my phone so I can check on things even away from the apartment. There’s an app for everything these days.~
~Then check the area for any other Eszett people aside from him and find him and grill him. I’m curious myself about all this.~
~Jawohl, mein Herr. I’m on my way out now before he gets much closer. I’ll catch-up with you when I have more facts.~
From what Schuldig sensed, Farfarello might be a block away and he didn’t want to catch up with him too close to the location he did his current job at.
Schuldig set up all the basement apartment’s locks and alarms, grabbed and donned a facemask because who knew what situation he’d soon find himself in, then went outside, hating the summer heat the moment he left air conditioning. He’d never guessed New York would be so fucking hot or require so much sunscreen. While he wanted to get out more than this current job let him, he hated getting a sunburn and sweating bullets. It made the holster hidden under his shirt at the small of his back more uncomfortable to wear. The blue-tinted sunglasses he put on didn’t make him feel any cooler but at least they blocked out some of the glare of the blazing sun. When possible, he chose shady parts of the sidewalks to fast-walk through as he telepathically followed the beacon of Farfarello’s mindlink and looked out for any Eszett operatives, so far finding no one.
The elephant in the room was that Schuldig and Crawford had survived the last year and change when so many other telepaths and precogs hadn’t because they took care of their health and safety while Eszett had always just flung psychics into bad situations or executed them on a whim, so busy being evil edgelords that they disadvantaged themselves with it. Schuldig and Crawford did their research, kept up with the news, and wouldn’t charge into a situation they knew was too bad or stay in an area that became too dangerous. They’d also kept themselves alive long enough to really train and develop their abilities, something that made Eszett nervous.
It didn’t surprise him that Eszett had an idea of where he and Brad operated because they still had to advertise their services in some fashion or another to get clients. It wasn’t like Schuldig was going to work in fast food or become an accountant instead. Not that a telepath wouldn’t make a great accountant, but that wasn’t Schuldig’s kind of thing.
If Eszett had sent Farfarello after them in another effort to bring them in....
Occasionally, over the years, he’d idly wondered what Farfarello looked like since they’d parted ways, if Farf hadn’t already gotten himself killed. Farf had been a teen the whole time Schuldig had known him, hadn’t finished growing and maturing yet. Also liked to physically torture and sometimes starve himself. Maybe he tortured himself less or started to eat better. Or eat a lot, who knew? People could change. His shoulders would probably be broader. With how reckless he could be with his body and his inability to feel pain, he might have finally gotten a serious, permanent injury so debilitating even he couldn’t ignore it. Some men unavoidably became somewhat wider and stouter as they reached middle age, like Brad had, though Brad carried it well. Did Farfarello still kill people professionally or continue his hobby of torturing priests?
He didn’t have to wonder if Farf had gone gray, but maybe he’d gone bald?
A block and a half away from his current home base, he saw his objective. From what he could make out, Farfarello looked good, though unavoidably older. A little broader in the shoulders and arms, a little gnarlier, though he didn’t have many more visible scars with so much of his body covered in long sleeves and light jeans and the bottom part of his face with a facemask. He walked with a limp that he didn’t or couldn’t cover up. He looked a little softer, but from what Schuldig could tell Farfarello could still seriously hurt and kill people. Impossible to see if his hairline had receded any under the trucker hat he wore. Between the hat and dark sunglasses he had on, most casual passersby wouldn’t notice that he had an eyepatch. All of that prevented him from seeing Farfarello’s *face* though, which annoyed him. When Farfarello saw *him*, a bright flare of pleased emotion traveled over the link, though Schuldig didn’t trust it. Farfarello thought *he* looked good and still dangerous.
“You still have that shirt?” Farfarello asked the moment they reached each other, his voice sounding harsher than it used to. “Unbelievable.”
Schuldig’s “Fuck art, let’s kill” T-shirt he’d had since his twenties, its former black now more of a slightly green-tinged dark gray, showing off a few small holes, the collar and hems a bit worn out, the lettering a bit eroded. His occupation and lifestyle had killed a lot of his shirts over the years, but not this one. Had his telepathy known Farfarello was in the area--even when he and it consciously hadn’t realized--and picked out this shirt this morning? The initial line from the snippet of “Mr Brightside” he’d chosen to feed his victim earlier had been “Turning saints into the sea.”
Or it could all be coincidence.
Unlike Farf showing up.
He still didn’t detect any Eszett operatives nearby but they could be keeping tabs on Farfarello somehow. Did they have him wearing a recording device? Maybe they had a drone overhead? Not that Schuldig could see or hear any.
Farfarello said, “I didn’t know if you’d survive all this, mindreader that you are.”
“I survived living in New York City in 2020, so I’m stronger than we guessed.” He knew he sounded proud of it, and he deserved to.
“I’m surprised Crawford isn’t with you.”
“Maybe you just don’t rate getting the both of us. You haven’t done anything for us in nearly decades and we can’t exactly trust you.”
“Maybe he’s just risking you and keeping himself safe.”
“The man who hasn’t seen us in years is telling me the sordid truth about the man I communicate with daily? Try harder. Do you think pissing me off is going to get you anywhere? As for Brad being willing to do anything for you, you *know* he’s going to want something in return. *I* could just tell him once I got it out of you. Your cooperation affects what I’d do to you to get the information.” *Schuldig* really wanted to know why Farfarello had come to see him after all these years and especially wanted to know if Eszett was involved, but wouldn’t reveal what Farf could use as a weakness against him. Though Farfarello might remember how powerful Schuldig’s curiosity could be and what it could lead him to do, having remarked more than once that Schuldig somewhat resembled a particularly big fluffy cat.
“You don’t have to resort to force because I’m willing to tell all. We could use the team mindlink to talk.”
“No, because I mentioned earlier that you haven’t been part of our team in decades, we can’t trust you, and you don’t deserve it.”
Farfarello smirked. “It sounds like it really hurt you when I left.”
“Hell no. You just didn’t leave us on good terms, and we didn’t like your girlfriend.” “We,” as if he and Brad were a monolith, which *no*, but they had to present a united front here. “At best you get a conference call to bring Crawford into the conversation. He doesn’t do FaceTime or Zoom unless he’s getting very well paid for them so don’t bother asking.”
“No mind speech between the two of you during the call then. I can tell when you do it.”
“Worried about us plotting against you?”
“Only because I should be.” Farfarello wasn’t a total idiot.
Schuldig didn’t really want to rip through Farfarello’s mind if he didn’t have to, and his curiosity was killing him. “We’ll talk elsewhere. It’s too open here.” He didn’t sense any bystanders along the block or anyone looking out their windows but wanted more of a feeling of privacy. Also, too many areas had cameras. Some people had those fucking doorbell camera systems that recorded everything in front of them too.
Farf looked a bit nonplussed by the surroundings Schuldig chose for their chat: Quick Brown Fox Triangle, what New York City called a “greenspace” since the small triangle of plants, some trees, two weathered benches, a very full trash can, and an identifying sign with a small statue of a fox next to it couldn’t really qualify as a real park, though some might try. The trees should provide some shade from the lethal sun and a bit of coolness. The high wall across the street came from an attempt to muffle some of the sound coming off the highway on the other side of it, though you could still hear a rush and hum.
“This is public.”
“Not many people linger here for long, the highway noise will muddy up the sound of our discussion, drivers don’t really pay attention to the sides of their cars while driving past here, and if anyone approaches looking for a seat, they’ll get telepathically turned away. Again, I’m not letting you see where I work.”
“Because I don’t deserve it.”
“You *do* listen sometimes. Wonderful.” But he was enjoying this sniping with Farfarello, better than what he was settling with online these days. And Farfarello was enjoying it too.
Farfarello said, “We used to share a set of earbuds, we two. Doing it again now means nobody else would hear Crawford’s part of the conversation here.”
It would be intimate, too intimate. “We used to see each other daily. We used to live in a world without a pandemic. I used to know where you’d been and where you’d be going. I used to have earbuds that had a cord connecting them, but my airpods don’t and they cost a stupid amount of money. We’ll survive.”
As they both sat on a bench, Schuldig sent a very swift telepathic pulse of ~Expect my immediate phone call~ to Brad that Farfarello didn’t notice before pressing the numbers. When Brad picked up the call, Schuldig said, “It’s Schu, with Farf. I’m putting you on speakerphone because he has something he says he needs to tell you himself.” Farfarello might notice active, involved telepathic sendings but probably wouldn’t perceive Schuldig leaving his mindlink with Brad just... open so they could feel into each other during the phone conversation.
“Fine,” Brad answered, sounding--and feeling--annoyed. “What is it?”
Any vision Schuldig ever had of the future had never included him and Farfarello huddling around a cell phone in a tiny “park” while having a conversation with Brad via speakerphone. Despite being a professional precognitive, Brad probably hadn’t foreseen it either.
“The new Eszett has been very interested in grabbing me, my wife, and son,” Farfarello said. “I’m sure they’re eager to get you back as well.”
“We’re already dealing with that so you’re not telling us anything new,” Brad replied.
“Wife?” Schuldig asked.
“You met her,” Farfarello replied.
Wait? Oh, *c’mon*. The “girlfriend” Schuldig hadn’t liked. “The witch? What’s her name... Sally? Schumars. I’m not a fan.”
“I don’t need your approval.”
Still together nearly two decades later, and they had a son. It surprised Schuldig but also didn’t because a lot of Farfarello’s personality had revolved around family in the past. Of course, he’d *murdered* that family, but.... People could change. Farfarello seemed to care about this new family he’d created and not in an “I need to murder them” way. Interesting.
“That sounds sad for you,” Brad said, “but you never should’ve made a family because you should’ve known Eszett or somebody like them would take and use them. Schu and I did that equation. We *met* Sally Schumars while she was on the run from Rosenkreuz, so you *really* should have known better. The only reason you had some more peaceful years with her is that Schu and I destroyed Eszett.” The “you should show some fucking gratitude for that” was unspoken but palpable. “I’m not going to take any risks or lose my freedom for you because *you* made some bad judgment calls.”
If Eszett hadn’t been always so obvious about being willing to do that, the psychics who’d escaped them would’ve been more willing to reproduce and thus offer a pool of new talent for free.
“If I refused to let God tell me what to do with my life,” Farfarello answered, “I sure as hell wouldn’t let Eszett tell me who I was allowed to love and have children with. Besides, it’s a son, not a daughter, who would’ve been more valuable to them for her Malefici blood lineage, and he doesn’t have any psychic abilities.”
He’d still make a fine hostage but Schuldig figured Farfarello already knew that.
Brad said, “I don’t care.”
“We’ve been on the run all this time, but it’s gotten harder lately to escape places with the various global lockdowns and vaccination protocols and paperwork. I’m not asking you to take us in and take us with you, just give us new options for escape and some help with IDs and paperwork. Surely you don’t want to give new Eszett any advantages, which is what they’d get if they take me and my family.”
“I still don’t care.”
Brad cracked him up sometimes. “I have a little more sympathy for you and your situation than Grumpus here does,” Schuldig said with a smirk, “but that still won’t make me want to stick our necks out for you. The heat already on us would just get hotter if Eszett knew we were helping you.”
“I doubt you’ve amassed much wealth after decades on the run,” Brad said. “It sounds like you don’t have any allies of your own that you could give us connections to. All you’re offering us is more trouble.”
“This is about my family, and I thought maybe you two would help me, that perhaps you’d see that standing by doing nothing while Eszett grows larger, greedier, and stronger would become a problem for you later. A longshot but I had to play it: If I asked you, you might agree to help me, but you definitely wouldn’t help if I never asked.”
Farf did have a point or two. Letting Eszett fuck around with their lives with impunity was *also* a risk because if they kept getting away with it they’d keep escalating.
“How do we know that Eszett doesn’t already have a leash on you and sent you here to lure us in?” Brad asked. “I’m sure that thought has already occurred to Schuldig. It’s more likely that you got here because they directed you to come here than you getting a strong lead on us on your own.”
“It did occur to me,” Schuldig said, “but I *could* read his mind to make sure he’s not lying. It won’t be pleasant but it’s doable. Don’t smirk at that, Farf, since I’m a lot stronger and more skilled than I used to be. If you’re hiding anything, I’ll find it.” Plus, Schuldig wanted to know *now* what the son looked like because he had such a variety of possibilities in his head and he deserved nice things. “But it would make you seem more trustworthy if you agreed to it. To put a spin on what you just said, if you let me read your mind, we *might* agree to help you, but if you don’t, we definitely won’t.”
“...then get it over with.”
**To Be Continued**
Here's a Weiß Kreuz WIP that has Schuldig and Crawford working--though separately--in New York City in 2021, COVID pandemic era. When a bored Schuldig senses Farfarello in the area after not hearing from him in many, many years, so of course he has to check it out.... (A look at what an older Schwarz is up to.)
RATING: currently PG-13
NOTES: The radio station mentioned here was NY’s 92.3 FM alternative station, a favorite of mine. Unfortunately for me, its corporate overlords didn’t think it made them enough money with alternative music so they turned it into a simulcast of an AM news station instead October 27, 2022, which is why I don’t ever listen to 92.3 anymore.
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“‘Mr Brightside,’ by the Killers” WIP
by Viridian5
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July 21, 2021
After Schuldig pulled the knife out of Gavelli’s thigh and the guy finally stopped whimpering, Gavelli said, “I have a wife and kids. They have to be suffering while I’m gone.” Although he’d already been broken in a lot of ways, he apparently still had some capacity for nonsense.
“You have two girlfriends who don’t know about each other,” Schuldig answered. “I doubt they miss you that much, and they especially wouldn’t if they found out about each other.”
The chair Schuldig had him tied hand and foot to made a harsh sound against the floor as he squirmed around in it, not that the sound would escape this windowless basement room given the soundproofing foam glued to almost every surface: walls, ceiling, floor, and door. Gavelli still had a lot of energy in his desperation, too much, so Schuldig would have to work on that in the near future.
“You don’t know that!”
“Oh, but I do. You’re a thorough piece of shit who thinks he’s slick. It’s one of the reasons you’re in this room right now.” Although Gavelli wouldn’t be able to see Schuldig smile behind the Guy Fawkes mask, Schuldig smiled widely anyway, unwilling to do things like this by halves. “You thought you were slick about everything and nobody noticed what you were doing, but you were wrong, and you’re going to keep paying for it until the person you wronged decides it’s time to stop.” That person needed to fucking decide on that already because Schuldig wanted to move on. It’d been a boring five days for him. “I’m going to leave now and let you bleed for a bit. Maybe I’ll feed you something in a bit. Maybe.” Keeping everything randomly timed and not giving this victim any time cues further screwed with his head and wellbeing.
“You could leave the light on!” Whenever Schuldig turned the light off, the room became very, very dark.
In answer, Schuldig started to sing, “Turning saints into the sea, swimming through sick lullabies, choking on your alibis....” Gavelli had listened to the local alternative radio station, which played the Killers’ “Mr Brightside” a *lot*, so Schuldig had said he’d beat on him every time the station played that song. (Not that Gavelli could know for sure it really had.) Though Schuldig also could’ve chosen “Royals” by Lourde or “Bring Me to Life” by Evanescence for the same reason. If he’d decided on MGK songs in general, he’d be in there beating the guy up constantly.
“But you don’t have to! I’m fine!”
“Good. Are you going to try to protest being gagged too?” The gag might not be necessary due to the soundproofing foam, but Gavelli hated it, making it worthwhile.
“No.”
“Excellent. You *can* learn. See you later.” After firmly gagging his victim, he locked the door behind him and turned off the light, the switch being outside the room. Gavelli’s increasing fear of the near total darkness didn’t even give Schuldig any jollies anymore.
It felt good to take the Guy Fawkes mask, hooded raincoat, and surgical gloves off, since it got hot and sweaty under them even with the air conditioning on. The client had Schuldig wear a full mask to give Gavelli the hope that he might survive this and be let out since he couldn’t see his captor’s face, not that the client had decided on letting the guy live yet, to Schuldig’s frustration. Full mask on his face, hair hidden under the raincoat’s hood, and surgical gloves on his hands. The last year and a few months had at least made surgical gloves a lot easier to find and buy, without anyone asking questions about the purchase. Wearing the hood got old and messed up his hair, though he lessened that a bit by fastening it up with a claw clip; he’d fully neaten it up before he went on Twitch, his recreational escape from tedium these days.
This job was really getting old, so Schuldig needed to share his annoyance with the man who’d gotten it for him. A light mental touch told him he wouldn’t be interrupting anything Brad could get killed by or for, so he started the mindlink and his complaints. ~Hey, Brad, has he decided whether he’s going to make me keep doing this or finally kill this guy yet? Because I am bored as hell and feeling wasted here. I’ve laid down a strong foundation and anybody can do it from here on. Just keep him in the dark most of the time; brutalize, feed, and let him take a piss or a dump at random intervals so he can’t keep track of time; and verbally abuse and taunt him every so often. I am *done* and want to get out of here. Get me out of this soon, or *I’ll* do it, and you probably won’t enjoy how.~ Schuldig had let Gavelli piss himself once or twice but dealing with the smell became annoying for *him*, especially with how ripe Gavelli had become from everything else going on for the last few days, so he didn’t just let him wiz all over himself every time.
~It’s not possible that you’re subconsciously picking up on and assimilating the man you’re holding prisoner?~
~You must think I’m an idiot *and* a terrible excuse for a telepath with absolutely shit shielding. I’ve had this ability for over thirty years and been training and refining it the whole time so *no*, I’m not unknowingly being influenced.~
~Just mentioning the possibility.~
~Just being an irritating, condescending jackass is more like it. You *know* me--you’ve known me for most of my life--and you’ve seen me dealing with lockdowns over the past year and months and you don’t think this feeling is all me? Please.~
~...true. Though you did pick up on some people’s cabin fever *hard* now and then in that time.~
~That’s thousands of people simultaneously feeling something similar versus one guy I know to screen and filter against. A *population* versus one man. Don’t try to pretend it’s the same thing, it’s insulting. If my shields and skills sucked as badly as you just suggested, the last year and nearly a half would have left me dead or drooling, and I’m neither.~ The problem with working with a guy who’d known him for most of his life was that Brad sometimes seemed to forget that he wasn’t a callow kid anymore, something even more likely to happen when Brad hadn’t seen him for several days. Maybe Schuldig’s mental voice still sounded younger to him? Schuldig thought it sounded like his contemporary voice.
There had been times since the pandemic started when Schuldig had been so affected by everyone around him--despite his best shielding because there was so *much* simultaneously, too *too* much, overwhelming--that he’d wondered if he still *wanted* to stay alive if he had to keep telepathically picking up all this misery, fear, anger, pain, uncertainty, and death. Fortunately, he made it through the worst of it. He never talked to Brad about that kind of thing.
Brad apparently hadn’t sensed Schuldig’s turn of thought because he said, ~This job... other people’s suffering usually gives you serotonin and, knowing how you work, he has to really be suffering by now, so what’s the deal?~
An entire population’s simultaneous suffering might be too much for Schuldig, but he still enjoyed the suffering of a few people, especially if he caused it. But: ~He’s becoming like a good meal that had been left on the table for too long, going stale, cold, and off.~
~That’s picky of you.~
~I’m a connoisseur. Because I’m worth it. I’m going to try to kill my boredom by going on Twitch and making some money. At least there I can *pretend* to be doing something and killing people. I’d be putting together something for my OnlyFans account if *somebody* hadn’t become such a massive prude in his golden years.~
~You know that’s not why I gave you so much heat about having an OnlyFans. Consider yourself lucky that I let you keep those TikTok dance clips up.~
~Why are you and our client working so hard to stifle my creativity, self-expression, and ability to make money? Jealous haters, the both of you.~ Not that the money mattered that much to him, since he had as much as he wanted, but you had to use Brad’s viewpoints to explain some things to him sometimes. The internet stuff kept Schuldig from being even more bored than he was and helped him keep up with the Zeitgeist, important for any telepath so they could understand what they mindread. Plus, there were people using OnlyFans who actually appreciated some of his perversions. Validation.
~Are you being careful about your Patreon content?~
~*Yes*, Daddy. And you don’t have to worry about people tracking me through any of this because Nagi taught me well.~
~I’m stunned that he still talks to you.~
~I’m not the one who bitch-slapped him and ordered his girlfriend’s murder.~
~That was decades ago, and you *know* what I mean.~
~People don’t forget things like that.~ Brad often saw relationships as transactional and it often showed, while Schuldig enjoyed the journey as well as the destination. Besides, Nagi got a kick out of a telepath, especially him, trying to make connections with people online amidst the dead silence. ~I do know what you mean, but it’s more fun leaving you in the dark.~ If he *really* wanted to give Brad a heart attack, he might someday mention that he had his memoir on a zip drive that he sometimes thought he might edit and fictionalize a bit and self-publish, maybe on Amazon since he was used to dealing with delusional despots with more wealth than they deserved. Psychic spies and assassins in global action/adventure stories? Demons and Nazis? People would eat that up. (He could probably make more money selling bad porn, but he had standards.) Or maybe he’d never show it to anyone; he wavered on that. ~Are you making any fun or interesting kills on your job at least? Since I have to live vicariously through you these days.~
~Ish.~
~Tell, tell.~ Wait, something... *that* was it?
~Schu, what is it?~ They’d known each other and been mindlinked long enough that Brad could sometimes read into the silences in Schuldig’s mental communications, which had pros and cons.
~Something just clicked for me.~ All day, there had been something small, subtle, and unrecognizable pinging the back of his brain, the telepathic version of having a small pebble in your shoe under your foot that you couldn’t quite find and remove, but now: ~Farfarello is wandering the neighborhood with our old team link open looking for me, and there’s no way he’d coincidentally be in a residential area in Queens I happen to be working in. He has to have been sent, and it’s probably fuckin’ Eszett.~ They’d killed a team of psychic agents from Eszett over a month ago, but if new Eszett was anything like old Eszett they wouldn’t learn their lesson and stop trying to forcibly bring Schuldig and Brad back under their control. It didn’t help that the stresses of the year and a few months had killed so many telepaths and some precogs, making him and Brad more valuable. ~He’s putting up a very strong static and broken glass effect to make him harder to read; I’d have to *tear* into him to rip what I want out, but I want to see what he has to say for himself if confronted and so do you.~
~You also want to get out of the house for a while.~
~I multitask. You love it. Don’t worry, I have a lot of security stuff linked into my phone so I can check on things even away from the apartment. There’s an app for everything these days.~
~Then check the area for any other Eszett people aside from him and find him and grill him. I’m curious myself about all this.~
~Jawohl, mein Herr. I’m on my way out now before he gets much closer. I’ll catch-up with you when I have more facts.~
From what Schuldig sensed, Farfarello might be a block away and he didn’t want to catch up with him too close to the location he did his current job at.
Schuldig set up all the basement apartment’s locks and alarms, grabbed and donned a facemask because who knew what situation he’d soon find himself in, then went outside, hating the summer heat the moment he left air conditioning. He’d never guessed New York would be so fucking hot or require so much sunscreen. While he wanted to get out more than this current job let him, he hated getting a sunburn and sweating bullets. It made the holster hidden under his shirt at the small of his back more uncomfortable to wear. The blue-tinted sunglasses he put on didn’t make him feel any cooler but at least they blocked out some of the glare of the blazing sun. When possible, he chose shady parts of the sidewalks to fast-walk through as he telepathically followed the beacon of Farfarello’s mindlink and looked out for any Eszett operatives, so far finding no one.
The elephant in the room was that Schuldig and Crawford had survived the last year and change when so many other telepaths and precogs hadn’t because they took care of their health and safety while Eszett had always just flung psychics into bad situations or executed them on a whim, so busy being evil edgelords that they disadvantaged themselves with it. Schuldig and Crawford did their research, kept up with the news, and wouldn’t charge into a situation they knew was too bad or stay in an area that became too dangerous. They’d also kept themselves alive long enough to really train and develop their abilities, something that made Eszett nervous.
It didn’t surprise him that Eszett had an idea of where he and Brad operated because they still had to advertise their services in some fashion or another to get clients. It wasn’t like Schuldig was going to work in fast food or become an accountant instead. Not that a telepath wouldn’t make a great accountant, but that wasn’t Schuldig’s kind of thing.
If Eszett had sent Farfarello after them in another effort to bring them in....
Occasionally, over the years, he’d idly wondered what Farfarello looked like since they’d parted ways, if Farf hadn’t already gotten himself killed. Farf had been a teen the whole time Schuldig had known him, hadn’t finished growing and maturing yet. Also liked to physically torture and sometimes starve himself. Maybe he tortured himself less or started to eat better. Or eat a lot, who knew? People could change. His shoulders would probably be broader. With how reckless he could be with his body and his inability to feel pain, he might have finally gotten a serious, permanent injury so debilitating even he couldn’t ignore it. Some men unavoidably became somewhat wider and stouter as they reached middle age, like Brad had, though Brad carried it well. Did Farfarello still kill people professionally or continue his hobby of torturing priests?
He didn’t have to wonder if Farf had gone gray, but maybe he’d gone bald?
A block and a half away from his current home base, he saw his objective. From what he could make out, Farfarello looked good, though unavoidably older. A little broader in the shoulders and arms, a little gnarlier, though he didn’t have many more visible scars with so much of his body covered in long sleeves and light jeans and the bottom part of his face with a facemask. He walked with a limp that he didn’t or couldn’t cover up. He looked a little softer, but from what Schuldig could tell Farfarello could still seriously hurt and kill people. Impossible to see if his hairline had receded any under the trucker hat he wore. Between the hat and dark sunglasses he had on, most casual passersby wouldn’t notice that he had an eyepatch. All of that prevented him from seeing Farfarello’s *face* though, which annoyed him. When Farfarello saw *him*, a bright flare of pleased emotion traveled over the link, though Schuldig didn’t trust it. Farfarello thought *he* looked good and still dangerous.
“You still have that shirt?” Farfarello asked the moment they reached each other, his voice sounding harsher than it used to. “Unbelievable.”
Schuldig’s “Fuck art, let’s kill” T-shirt he’d had since his twenties, its former black now more of a slightly green-tinged dark gray, showing off a few small holes, the collar and hems a bit worn out, the lettering a bit eroded. His occupation and lifestyle had killed a lot of his shirts over the years, but not this one. Had his telepathy known Farfarello was in the area--even when he and it consciously hadn’t realized--and picked out this shirt this morning? The initial line from the snippet of “Mr Brightside” he’d chosen to feed his victim earlier had been “Turning saints into the sea.”
Or it could all be coincidence.
Unlike Farf showing up.
He still didn’t detect any Eszett operatives nearby but they could be keeping tabs on Farfarello somehow. Did they have him wearing a recording device? Maybe they had a drone overhead? Not that Schuldig could see or hear any.
Farfarello said, “I didn’t know if you’d survive all this, mindreader that you are.”
“I survived living in New York City in 2020, so I’m stronger than we guessed.” He knew he sounded proud of it, and he deserved to.
“I’m surprised Crawford isn’t with you.”
“Maybe you just don’t rate getting the both of us. You haven’t done anything for us in nearly decades and we can’t exactly trust you.”
“Maybe he’s just risking you and keeping himself safe.”
“The man who hasn’t seen us in years is telling me the sordid truth about the man I communicate with daily? Try harder. Do you think pissing me off is going to get you anywhere? As for Brad being willing to do anything for you, you *know* he’s going to want something in return. *I* could just tell him once I got it out of you. Your cooperation affects what I’d do to you to get the information.” *Schuldig* really wanted to know why Farfarello had come to see him after all these years and especially wanted to know if Eszett was involved, but wouldn’t reveal what Farf could use as a weakness against him. Though Farfarello might remember how powerful Schuldig’s curiosity could be and what it could lead him to do, having remarked more than once that Schuldig somewhat resembled a particularly big fluffy cat.
“You don’t have to resort to force because I’m willing to tell all. We could use the team mindlink to talk.”
“No, because I mentioned earlier that you haven’t been part of our team in decades, we can’t trust you, and you don’t deserve it.”
Farfarello smirked. “It sounds like it really hurt you when I left.”
“Hell no. You just didn’t leave us on good terms, and we didn’t like your girlfriend.” “We,” as if he and Brad were a monolith, which *no*, but they had to present a united front here. “At best you get a conference call to bring Crawford into the conversation. He doesn’t do FaceTime or Zoom unless he’s getting very well paid for them so don’t bother asking.”
“No mind speech between the two of you during the call then. I can tell when you do it.”
“Worried about us plotting against you?”
“Only because I should be.” Farfarello wasn’t a total idiot.
Schuldig didn’t really want to rip through Farfarello’s mind if he didn’t have to, and his curiosity was killing him. “We’ll talk elsewhere. It’s too open here.” He didn’t sense any bystanders along the block or anyone looking out their windows but wanted more of a feeling of privacy. Also, too many areas had cameras. Some people had those fucking doorbell camera systems that recorded everything in front of them too.
Farf looked a bit nonplussed by the surroundings Schuldig chose for their chat: Quick Brown Fox Triangle, what New York City called a “greenspace” since the small triangle of plants, some trees, two weathered benches, a very full trash can, and an identifying sign with a small statue of a fox next to it couldn’t really qualify as a real park, though some might try. The trees should provide some shade from the lethal sun and a bit of coolness. The high wall across the street came from an attempt to muffle some of the sound coming off the highway on the other side of it, though you could still hear a rush and hum.
“This is public.”
“Not many people linger here for long, the highway noise will muddy up the sound of our discussion, drivers don’t really pay attention to the sides of their cars while driving past here, and if anyone approaches looking for a seat, they’ll get telepathically turned away. Again, I’m not letting you see where I work.”
“Because I don’t deserve it.”
“You *do* listen sometimes. Wonderful.” But he was enjoying this sniping with Farfarello, better than what he was settling with online these days. And Farfarello was enjoying it too.
Farfarello said, “We used to share a set of earbuds, we two. Doing it again now means nobody else would hear Crawford’s part of the conversation here.”
It would be intimate, too intimate. “We used to see each other daily. We used to live in a world without a pandemic. I used to know where you’d been and where you’d be going. I used to have earbuds that had a cord connecting them, but my airpods don’t and they cost a stupid amount of money. We’ll survive.”
As they both sat on a bench, Schuldig sent a very swift telepathic pulse of ~Expect my immediate phone call~ to Brad that Farfarello didn’t notice before pressing the numbers. When Brad picked up the call, Schuldig said, “It’s Schu, with Farf. I’m putting you on speakerphone because he has something he says he needs to tell you himself.” Farfarello might notice active, involved telepathic sendings but probably wouldn’t perceive Schuldig leaving his mindlink with Brad just... open so they could feel into each other during the phone conversation.
“Fine,” Brad answered, sounding--and feeling--annoyed. “What is it?”
Any vision Schuldig ever had of the future had never included him and Farfarello huddling around a cell phone in a tiny “park” while having a conversation with Brad via speakerphone. Despite being a professional precognitive, Brad probably hadn’t foreseen it either.
“The new Eszett has been very interested in grabbing me, my wife, and son,” Farfarello said. “I’m sure they’re eager to get you back as well.”
“We’re already dealing with that so you’re not telling us anything new,” Brad replied.
“Wife?” Schuldig asked.
“You met her,” Farfarello replied.
Wait? Oh, *c’mon*. The “girlfriend” Schuldig hadn’t liked. “The witch? What’s her name... Sally? Schumars. I’m not a fan.”
“I don’t need your approval.”
Still together nearly two decades later, and they had a son. It surprised Schuldig but also didn’t because a lot of Farfarello’s personality had revolved around family in the past. Of course, he’d *murdered* that family, but.... People could change. Farfarello seemed to care about this new family he’d created and not in an “I need to murder them” way. Interesting.
“That sounds sad for you,” Brad said, “but you never should’ve made a family because you should’ve known Eszett or somebody like them would take and use them. Schu and I did that equation. We *met* Sally Schumars while she was on the run from Rosenkreuz, so you *really* should have known better. The only reason you had some more peaceful years with her is that Schu and I destroyed Eszett.” The “you should show some fucking gratitude for that” was unspoken but palpable. “I’m not going to take any risks or lose my freedom for you because *you* made some bad judgment calls.”
If Eszett hadn’t been always so obvious about being willing to do that, the psychics who’d escaped them would’ve been more willing to reproduce and thus offer a pool of new talent for free.
“If I refused to let God tell me what to do with my life,” Farfarello answered, “I sure as hell wouldn’t let Eszett tell me who I was allowed to love and have children with. Besides, it’s a son, not a daughter, who would’ve been more valuable to them for her Malefici blood lineage, and he doesn’t have any psychic abilities.”
He’d still make a fine hostage but Schuldig figured Farfarello already knew that.
Brad said, “I don’t care.”
“We’ve been on the run all this time, but it’s gotten harder lately to escape places with the various global lockdowns and vaccination protocols and paperwork. I’m not asking you to take us in and take us with you, just give us new options for escape and some help with IDs and paperwork. Surely you don’t want to give new Eszett any advantages, which is what they’d get if they take me and my family.”
“I still don’t care.”
Brad cracked him up sometimes. “I have a little more sympathy for you and your situation than Grumpus here does,” Schuldig said with a smirk, “but that still won’t make me want to stick our necks out for you. The heat already on us would just get hotter if Eszett knew we were helping you.”
“I doubt you’ve amassed much wealth after decades on the run,” Brad said. “It sounds like you don’t have any allies of your own that you could give us connections to. All you’re offering us is more trouble.”
“This is about my family, and I thought maybe you two would help me, that perhaps you’d see that standing by doing nothing while Eszett grows larger, greedier, and stronger would become a problem for you later. A longshot but I had to play it: If I asked you, you might agree to help me, but you definitely wouldn’t help if I never asked.”
Farf did have a point or two. Letting Eszett fuck around with their lives with impunity was *also* a risk because if they kept getting away with it they’d keep escalating.
“How do we know that Eszett doesn’t already have a leash on you and sent you here to lure us in?” Brad asked. “I’m sure that thought has already occurred to Schuldig. It’s more likely that you got here because they directed you to come here than you getting a strong lead on us on your own.”
“It did occur to me,” Schuldig said, “but I *could* read his mind to make sure he’s not lying. It won’t be pleasant but it’s doable. Don’t smirk at that, Farf, since I’m a lot stronger and more skilled than I used to be. If you’re hiding anything, I’ll find it.” Plus, Schuldig wanted to know *now* what the son looked like because he had such a variety of possibilities in his head and he deserved nice things. “But it would make you seem more trustworthy if you agreed to it. To put a spin on what you just said, if you let me read your mind, we *might* agree to help you, but if you don’t, we definitely won’t.”
“...then get it over with.”
**To Be Continued**