Fugazi


    Insane charcoal skies. Alley walls, canvases of graffiti
elucubrations which cogitate codicils of hatred, empirical
epithets by the heralds of the holocaust. A flickering iodine
light, feeding rainbow diffraction dances dreamt alliteratively.
A lubricant slowly invades a sea of blood in a game of densities.
Smooth crimson perimeter, broken, surface tension torn,
undulations snaking across an angry mirror of death.

    The little girl looked up, her eyes the reflection of a
reflection. Back into the shadows, the bloody claw retreated,
still dripping red.

    The girl advanced, stepping over the decapitated body at her
feet. Something shuffled, wavering in the dark, waiting for the
prompt.

    "Who goes there?"

    Silence. Again: "Who goes there?"

    A faint cackle.

    A powerful, unbearable stench preceded the vision. The woman
was ancient, everything about her was old and decrepit. All but
for her eyes. Her eyes, eyes of gold, were intense, hypnotic, and
profound. They peered from under a mass of wrinkles, a map of
centuries carved on her face. Rot and grime accentuated her
features, while a ghoulish, bloody lipstick smeared her lips.
Long, filthy strands of grey hair erupted from her balding head,
scarred by a colony of maggots which were already eating her
alive. The long, venous arms at her sides were little more than
dry twigs. A ragged pseudo silk kimono clothed her crooked
anatomy, falling limply all the way down to her ankles, covering
many horrors underneath. She walked barefoot on two black scabs,
toes lost long ago to gangrene. There was, however, pride in her
strut, and in spite of her pronounced hunch the woman's eyes
remained fixed on the girl's, penetrating, alert.

    The little girl, with no small effort, stood her ground as
the spectre came near her. The woman spoke, revealing her putrid
gums whenever her twisted lips parted. The smell emanating out of
her mouth was almost inconceivably repugnant.

    "Yohko," she hissed, "you're alive."

    The little girl froze for a moment. She hadn't been called
by that name in over three hundred years.

    "My name is Gally," she replied, studying the crevasses which
lined the woman's hideous features. "Who are you? Why did you
call me 'Yohko'?"

    The woman smiled, a toothless, repulsive grimace.

    "I knew your father, 'Gally'," she replied, emphasizing the
last word. "He was, in spite of everything, a good man."

    "My father?" Gally asked, confused. "Ido?"

    "I never knew his name. He died during the war, before I
could save him. After I could save myself for that matter."

    "He left me a gift for you," she continued, after an
uncertain pause, "a Bible. It was the last black letter Wiclif, a
precious book. I'm afraid it disintegrated between my fingers
over a century ago. But you haven't changed at all, Yohko. You
are almost a mirror to whom I once was."

    "Who are you?" repeated Gally, uncomfortably.

    "Tell me Yohko," the woman said, ignoring the question while
looking down, noting herself standing on a large pool of blood,
"why did you kill this... ah... cyborg thing?"

    Gally frowned.

    "There's a bounty on her head."

    The old woman licked her lips, as if savouring the moment.
"And that's why you killed it?"

    "She was a murderer," the little girl quickly replied,
"she..."

    Gally hesitated. The woman looked up, piercing the girl with
her golden eyes.

    "... she was evil."

    The old woman's face contorted.

    "Evil. Eeeevil. What do you know about evil?" she scowled.

    "What do you mean?" asked the girl.

    "How many have you murdered, Yohko?" the crone pressed on.

    "I... I don't..." Gally stammered, taken aback.

    "Cerberus has no choice," the old woman hissed, full of
resentment, "you are no better than I. You are a killer the
same."

    She glared at the girl with her beautiful golden eyes.
"Cerberus has no choice," she repeated.

    "Listen to me, you crazy old hag!" Gally suddenly erupted, "I
will not be judged by you! This woman ripped out her daughter's
spine to exchange it for drugs. Do you understand? She was a
monster!"

    "Like Makaku and Zapan?"

    Gally took a step back, dumbfounded.

    "You know...?"

    The old woman slowly nodded.

    "He who fights with monsters..." she murmured, her voice
trailing off as she began distractedly picking her nose.

    "He who fights with monsters," the little girl repeated, with
a monotone, distance voice, "might take care, lest he thereby
become a monster."

    For a couple of minutes silence reigned. Not even the wind
blew.

    The old woman again approached the black-haired girl.

    "Tell me, will you cash the bounty?"

    "The bounty on her head was for illegal spine trafficking,"
Gally answered, in the same flat tone. "She did not die for
that."

    "No," the woman agreed, "and none of the others died for a
bounty either. Cerberus has no choice. You did what you had to
do, and they are better off. I know. I know they are. You did
good, Yohko."

    A tear suddenly splashed on Gally's foot. The little girl
instinctively reached out, slowly wiping the woman's face with
the back of her hand.

    "Tell me," the little girl said, in a sweet voice, "were you
Cerberus?"

    The old woman nodded, unable to speak now, trying in vain to
contain the tears she had held back for centuries. She buried
her face in her hands, quietly weeping. A moment later she felt a
pair of arms wrapping around her decrepit frame, delicately
holding her.

    "It's OK," Gally whispered, gently stroking the woman's
hair. "It's OK, you did well, you did well..."

    "Don't you see? I failed!" replied Miyu, sobbing bitterly, "I
failed..."

    The little girl kept comforting the old woman, casting a
furtive, nervous glance at the graffiti scrawled on the walls
which surrounded them. At least the dread had been confirmed.

    Cerberus has no choice.


_________________________________
marco@chinook.physics.utoronto.ca
Gunnm: Broken Angel
http://128.100.80.13/marco/alita.html