A small wearhouse just on the border of richland in the crumbling dristricts of westview, a man paces back and fourth beneath something - adorned in a strange outfit with a helmet with a painted visor.  

Commitment.

You see that's what it's really all about, people these days don't want to commit to anything, they don't want to be evil, or do things that people don't agree with. No one can really commit to a cause and follow it without straying from the path or wandering off the road that lies before them. People are so bloody pro-peace sometimes they forget that too much peace means your a doormat for the guy who is anti-everything.

The only thing worse are the warmongers who tell you that peace is what they are fighting for, cause then you get two armies that don't just believe they know what's right, but are willing to kill and die and do terrible things for what they've been lead to believe.

People can't commit to themselves cause they are too busy giving in to other people, people, beings entities, AI's. Were all on the same bloody boat that's being ripped apart by the tide and sinking fast. And then there's complacency, my god - were all quick to act but the problem is were all waiting for the time to act - or acting like those little things we do on the side really matter. Sure they matter to us - but do they really matter?

Does any of it really matter?

I don't, you don't, this doesn't - no one is going to know what this is.

The bloodied body suspended upside down from the cieling of the small wear house shifted slightly. It stirred and moaned, as it tried to see past the crimson slipping over it's face at who it was speaking to.  

"Why....why are you doing this......."

The man in the painted swat mask continued to waltz around the hanging focal point, as he tapped the baseball bat in his hand against the palm of his other hand.

The why, an interesting point to tangeant on, I could go into cause and effect, and what you've done to wind up here, why i'm doing this to you, but let's say there is no why. Say this is completely random - in a system of control how can anything be random, a bullet that riccochets, a coin toss, the way the wind blows, if it's all controlled then perhaps something else has controlled your pressence here.

Perhaps this is where you were destined to wind up, that's the problem with destiny, if it's set in stone people are destined to fail, if it's changeable then it's not really destiny is it? Perhaps you can change your current posistion, perhaps not.

It's now that he reaches out with the blunt instrument to poke the man hanging upside down and dripping onto the floor. 

You know the saddest thing about people these days, is that they only react, they don't anticipate. Oh well, batter up.

"What - no - please please no don't!"

Some screams go unheard for a few minutes within the decaying district, and then only the sound of something splashing against the floor and sound of footsteps moving away.

The demon's army thug hadn't a second to react before he'd found himself pinned down by a silenced pistol and strange man with a helmet on. His own gun had been sent flying across the cobbel stone walk way as he found himself staring into eyes that had been crudely drawn onto the helmet.

You're just as bad as we are in this place, never amount to anything, never do anything, just wander around protecting your territory as if anyone wants it. Everyone here is so content to play in the sandbox building empires of dirt.

"Your making a mistake you freak."

Freaks, were all freaks - your running around in leather with your face painted, the only difference here is that your a bunch of freaks, and i'm just working extra hard on my own. Working - another concept lost to people sitting around aimlessly doing nothing, playing with themselves while they wait to be to told who to shoot at.

"I know who i'm going to shoot - "

You know nothing - your just as bad, the gang mentality, puppets on the strings of goons on someones payroll who doesn't give the slightest pause to think about those who die. Well guess what, he's not the only one whose not worried about it.

"..... when my boss - "

He won't care, he's somebodys errand boy just like you are, but not me kiddo - no sir-e, i'm doing my own wet-work and it feels grand. More people need to embrace the freedom of the world around them, not let it idly slip by while they sit there behind monitors - then again with the freaks on the streets it's not safe to leave your home.

"What do you want?!"

Nothing, i don't want anything, and soon you won't either.

By the time his friends get there, they find his lifeless body and drag it into an alley, his coat is removed and someone in the gang is minutes from a promotion, in a few alley's over, a silenced pistol is being reloaded while a tune is whistled.

From up here the insects don't look like anything, but that's why there's a scope, buildings, cars, sermons, you name it i can spot it, from about a mile away at that. The only thing i can't spot is someone who actually has any idea what they are doing in this place.

Then again what do i know, what am i doing? Right right - aiming.

Pop goes the weasel and all that.

Gunfire echoes from the church rooftop and the people inside scream and run in terror, outside of the church people run rampantly as a man in his news stand dives for cover like he has so many times before, slashes in the parking lot return idle fire as they get gunned down mercilessly by a man with a high powered rifle.

You know my friends - the road that is fun is often the one less travelled, or the one travelled the most dependant upon why your travelling it - especially if your travelling it the wrong way..... or if they are on foot and you're in a car - but i digress i must speak of deep things lest stark raving madness replace a point i was trying to make..... eh need to get my head back on the ground.

He leaps from the roof and lands, watching more of the blades pour forward from the alley's, low level thugs with revolvers and uzi's trying to do damage to him, he sings off key and strangely, a concoction of La's in high and low pitches all of which sound off key. He casually switches the rifle to automatic and lets loose volley after volley of round against the cars and rougher buildings behind the church. A car that's caught fire in the midst of things explodes and even he recoils but only for a moment, he reloads his rifle and aims again - waiting for a shot when the sirens sound.

Law enforcement in a place with no law, justice or enforcement of anything, people don't even fear death here, fat cats sitting around with fat wallets and no fear, how useless. God this place.....this place......

The sirens clearly break his concentration.

Bah - save that thought for later i suppose. The important thing to remember kiddies is that if you aren't willing to kill for something, something is more then willing to kill you - besides something might kill something else while your too busy doing something - now.....

Wouldn't that be something?

=== 

Spilling blood, spilling ichor - plasma - red, blue, green and black - these are the colors of the rainbow of blood i  bleed.

He lays under the back of a long limosine parked in a large underground lot in hampton green, it's the middle of the afternoon, the club isn't open to the public, and the guards are laying dead behind a random car in the lot.  The driver is slumped over the wheel, his brains painted across the interior of the front seat, his passenger is slowly descending in the elevator.

The red wire's connected to the - timer,

The timer's connected to the - detonator,

The detonator's connected to the - plastique,

The plastique connected to the - fuel line.

And soon they'll all be apart!

He continues to whistle the tune as he makes the last adjustments to the wiring and takes off running through the parking lot. He get's back outside and takes a seat on a nearby bench, watching as the suits try and figure him out, staring at the strange man with the paint on his helmet. Back at the limo a man emerges from the elevator and looks around for his driver or the guards, he moves to the front passenger door of the limo and opens it, before his brain can process what it's seen it's flying in different directions, and the explosion echoes across the court yards of Hamptons business district.  

A dialgoue spoken aloud by a man in a painted swat helmet, spoken unto a closed circuit security system camera as he held a security guard on his knees.

You know your all the last of a dieing age, or the first of a dieing age, it depends on how many of you actually die i suppose. You used to be the last of a dieing age - people that mattered that tried to matter, that didn't just wait to be told when to learn and hunt and think - they were always on the ball, always shifting it was cut throat but not as bloody as it is now - though it was bloody more effecient.

Secrets -the last bastions of knowledge and power, knowledge is power - back when there was enough of it to go around. These days if brains were dynamite most of you kids couldn't blow your nose, but hey it's ok, i think your content to keep whiping it on your sleeves or waiting for the people who run your lives to whipe them for you. I mean it just makes more sense.... well as a concept of rediculousness it makes more sense. I mean if your going to do something inheriantly stupid like not run your own life- you might as well logically in the sense of illogic - have someone else run every aspect.

But secrets- yes yes secrets- are power, they can still save worlds or end them, the little answers to the questions you don't dare ask but whisper - if any of you are even asking questions at this point, let alone whispering them. But as far as secrets go - i've got one for you, i've got a secret about this place we call home, it's a wonderful secret - it has so much power - and i'm going to reveal it to you.

The biggest secret about this world we live in - is that there are no secrets left.

A deafening band drops the lifeless security guards body to the floor and the camera watches the man in the helmet walk away.

Each time he stabs in with the blade the same sickening 'thuk' sound echoes through the darkened alley, he pins a man in an orange jacket against the brick and let's loose volley after volley of the vicious stabs in his mid-section, the blade isn't very long, but it's the amount of wounds that causes the profuse amount of blood to pour from his chest.

You just can't win. You keep telling yourself that things might work out, and you hold on, you grasp at straws you know?

"P-P-Please d-d-d-on't....."

He splutters as the crimson crawls past his lips and down onto his chest.

Don't interupt me i'm on a - roll - here.

The man in the helmet growls continuing his work on the mans torso.

You just hold onto threads, and you find mindless busywork to do - pretending maybe next week it will matter, that it will all come together and make sense  - that things will really click you know? But they never do - the pieces don't come together because they don't fit - not when you look at it the way we all do - the way were told to, taught to.

"Oh---oh--- please--"

It's not a single stupid puzzle - not a bloody game - it's several puzzles - it's a god damned web of lies and truths that have been spit on! There are no truths anymore, there aren't constants, what we've believed all along what we thought we knew- it's nothing, there aren't any rules that are true - there aren't any constants left to the equation, variables - everything is variable - there's so many bloody shades involved forget grey were dealing with the essence of a color no one can even remember - not that it matters - you can't see colors with your eyes closed.

The moans and whimpers of the man in orange have subsided and the color of his skin has faded to a ghostly white, the only vivid color is the crimson soaking his coat.

I can be a constant, i can be the truth of what it all comes down to, i can be the face of the undeniable, the only thing that still holds any real affect here, that still shakes people from their faulty towers, throws them from their cushiony chairs. They know who they are too - deep down there - anyone whose ever sit above someone looking down on them knows that there's a whole pack of wolves out there, a whole lot of them that might seem loyal to you, but when all is said and done, the only ones that have always been loyal are the ones who pay the biggest price.

He lets the lifeless body slide down the wall and hunch over against the rubbish in the alley.

They never realize it until they've been destroyed and betrayed - they don't realize it - worse when they are being picked to pieces and they continue to let it happen. You could wheep for them if it didn't make you sick to your stomach.

The man in the painted swat mask steps back and shakes his head lightly, before turning and walking from the alley.

Somewhere in westview, three can't move or see, can't speak past the duck tape over their mouths, the three of them stand on a bench, their hands bound behind their backs, cables draped across a wooden beam close to ceiling extending down and wraping themselves around the three necks. The one in the swat mask paces back and fourth in front of them continuing one of his many speeches. From left to right it's a man in a suit, a member of one the gangs in rogers, and a female, their heads are black-bagged and they all seem to shake and uneasily wobble on the bench.

Oh this is clearly the way to go my friends, flashy and in style - you can just taste it on this one. Everyone is so blah, so dull so done and repeated. That's really the problem, the person who tries to be an individual is guilty of the same sins as so many other prototyped predecessors, first they develop that distaste with their generated idea of the 'masses', then they try and convince themselves they are completely different, completely their own concieved ideal, then they get so drunk on their own concepts of what they are they begin to generate lies they openly accept to cover their own faults, and from that point on it's all about acceptance and force feeding.

He places his foot on the bench.

First you accept that all the crap you've fed yourself is true, and that it must be true becuase there you are in the flesh, there you are the individual. You are infallible, incapable of fault - everything that you do is done for a perfect cause in a world that is truly black and white.

He rocks it back and fourth gently watching the three shift and wiggle trying to maintain their balance.

Then the force feeding, you make everyone choke on your opinions and delusions about yourself and the world you know and live. You make them eat your words and practically suffocate them with all your irrelevant thoughts and opinions on how things are the way you believe. How things are the way you've concieved them to be and that you were the first and only to do so in that way. You are the original, the only the finale. Everyone who thinks your wrong is imbecillic and their ideals could never stand against your own.

He takes his foot off the bench and passes back and fourth once again.

And the part that makes it oh so wonderufl - oh so delicious - is that you find yourself face to face with the people who do the exact same thing - and what do you do? - You sit and argue with them, sit and throw rocks and stones from glass houses. I get to come along and collect the shards, and i make such pretty things with those shards.

Crimson paint and dull and dreary canvas.

How easily disputes from morons consumed by this idea of individuality, the same concieved notion shared by all the individuals - that big group of people who follows the same path and concept behind what it is that makes them something that isn't, it's all delightfully and absolutely the same bloody thing - how easily these disputes accomplish nothing, change nothing, prove nothing, educate no one show nothing, lead nowhere. And how so desperately like drowning sailors in a sea of chaos you cling to them.

It's so easy to loathe you.

And it's even easier to know i'm right, when i can't hear you speak.

A swift kick knocks over a bench in westview, and the echoing thud of it hitting the floor is the last sound, the three hanging by their necks hear.