The Troll (13 page)

“
So
what?”

“
See
if he’s okay,” The Guide said, speaking quickly.
“I’ll
lead them away. There’s a town about ten miles to the west. Go
there with the Rainbow and meet me at the precinct. Make sure it’s
just you, and The Troll if he’s okay, but make sure you have
Rainbow. Meet me there.”

They
found each others eyes again and The Guide desperately hoped this
wouldn’t be the last time he saw Iris. There was a time that
The Surfer and Wigeon were the faces of the revolution, but suddenly
he’d been cast into the spotlight and had run into the most
beautiful woman he’d ever seen—a woman who fought for the
same cause.

“
Find
me,” he said, and suddenly turned and ran.

Iris
ducked down and watched as The Guide sprinted for the tree-line. He
was halfway across the field, headed for the opening The Troll had
tried to escape through the night before, when the sound of The
Coach’s voice shouted and he and The Mortician abandoned the
barn and began the chase. After a moment, The Guide disappeared in
the trees, which brought a smile to her face. Thirty seconds later,
The Coach and Mortician disappeared too.

Then,
Iris was alone.

The
Guide jumped the tangles of weeds and ducked under thickets of
branches, easily evading and putting distance between himself and his
pursuers. He ran toward the left, knowing people instinctively run to
the right. Eventually, he couldn’t hear them behind him
anywhere. The thicket covered a lot of ground, and the longer they
couldn’t find him, the better the odds were that they wouldn’t.
The time for worrying about himself ended, and his thoughts turned to
Iris. He hoped she was safe—that The Pilot was dead and that
she’d be able to find The Troll in the mess.

The
Troll.

In
all the excitement, The Guide hadn’t found time to be angry,
but suddenly his thoughts were back to The Troll, who’d tried
to escape in the night, who’d tried to open the door for the
bounty hunters, who couldn’t hand over the damn memory stick
and let them end this.

If
he’s alive, him and I have some shit to sort through
, he
thought. He hoped he was dead—that Iris would leave without
him. He didn’t like the thought of them together. Iris had
chosen The Troll because on some level, she admired him. She believed
in him. She believed in the man who was willing to give up more than
the man who brought down a helicopter.

He
took a break and sat, watching the direction he came to confirm no
one was behind him. His mind spun as his thoughts of Iris and The
Troll came and went, but he reminded himself to stay on course. They
had to get the Rainbow to Vegas and kill Psi. Anyone that stood in
the way would have to be eliminated: Even The Troll.

Chapter
5

The
Troll kept still and waited until he could determine who had survived
and who hadn’t. He heard the bounty hunters run for the forest,
but had no idea what the fate of The Guide or Iris was and sensed
that if he revealed himself, he’d come face to face with The
Pilot or The Acrobat. The chopper had crushed two sides of the barn,
but there was no explosion and it fell straight down. He feared The
Pilot walked away unscathed.

But
what if he didn’t? he thought. What if we managed to kill one
or more?

On
the downside, it could be an unforgivable act. The men of Circular
Prime were not just co-workers. They were a community. He could be
blamed for their murder.

Transmitting
might not even be possible at this point. The Moderator had been
clear that perception was everything and no harm was to be done.

“
Troll,”
he heard, but it was a whisper, and the person behind it was moving
back and forth in the wreckage, searching for him. His ears perked
and he tried to make out the voice. “Troll,” it said
again, and he knew it was female.

He
slowly emerged, catching a glimpse of the wreckage before revealing
himself to Iris. Everything had caved in on one side and in the
middle of it all was the chopper.

Iris
spotted him and ran to him with relief. “I thought you were
dead,” she said, and he knew from her tone that she was happy
he wasn’t. Because he had the memory stick? Because she liked
him? He was unsure, but when she hugged him, it felt personal—not
mission related. He liked the feel of her body pressed against his
and became aware of the fact that in his usual environment, this
could never happen. The people on the boards who he spent his time
with, despised his existence. Somehow, being a troll was important to
Iris—more important than anything anyone could be.

Iris
told The Troll everything that happened and he couldn't help but be
impressed. He’d almost opened the barn door, in which case he’d
possibly be dead, but The Guide and Iris had proved to him that they
weren’t just underdogs—that maybe together they had a
fighting chance.

“
We
need to go,” she finally said. “We have to meet up with
The Guide.”

Something
about meeting The Guide was dreadful to him. He knew The Guide didn’t
like him and didn’t want to continually face him. He liked Iris
and wished they could conquer the mission together. With The Guide
around, he was just a third wheel—the guy carrying Rainbow.

They
walked around the chopper slowly, watching The Pilot closely through
the window. It was hard to tell if he was alive or not. If not for
the steady movement of his chest as he breathed, he could be mistaken
for dead. He still wore his sunglasses and golden wings on his lapel.
Under the glasses, his eyes could very well be open, watching them
with that intense focus he possessed. But as they passed, he didn’t
move, which told them he was out. He had a gash under his hairline
and a solid wall of blood had covered half his face. The Troll hoped
he was out of the game, but The Pilot didn’t feel like the kind
of guy who could be so easily defeated.

The
light of the day hit their shoulders as they exited. The Troll turned
back and smiled at the perfectly good barn which they’d
destroyed. He was seeing and doing things he’d never believed
possible. Iris saw him smile and smiled too. “What?” she
said. “You like that?”

“
Sure
do.”

“
Me
too,” she said, “But not for the same reason as you.”

“
What’s
your reason?”

“
Because
The Moderator thought this was going to be easy,
and
when he sees what happened, he’s going to know it’s not
easy. He’ll see you’ve escaped, his guys are injured, and
you brought down a
helicopter.”

“
It
wasn’t me though.”

“
He’ll
think it was. You’ve presented yourself as on his side, but
this will scare the daylights out of him.”

“
We
might have killed his friend,” The Troll said, a hint of worry
in his voice.

“
No,”
Iris said with a nod of her head. The Troll followed her gaze to
where The Acrobat was struggling to walk toward the tree-line. His
left leg looked to be crushed, and he used a board from the rubble as
a crutch.

“
What
should we do?” The Troll asked, coming to a halt.

“
Piss
off The Moderator more,” she said, a skip in her step. “Take
his friend as a hostage.”

The
Troll watched, perplexed as Iris walked toward The Acrobat with a
fearless stride. He did look harmless in his condition, but he
couldn’t understand how she was so sure of how to do this—how
easy it all was for her.

The
Acrobat easily submitted, without much choice, but they kept their
eye on him. It seemed as if he knew it was better off to be taken to
somewhere he might get medical attention. He also didn’t seem
too invested in killing them. The Troll wondered if he’d even
really wanted to go on this mission at all. He thought about fighting
him in the barn and how the only thing The Acrobat wanted to do was
let the others in. Maybe he just wasn’t a killer.

They
took turns holding The Acrobat under the arms and walking with him,
and though Iris didn’t want to talk to him, The Troll couldn’t
stop.

“
If
we help you, do you think The Moderator will call this off?” he
asked.

Iris
rolled her eyes.

“
Of
course not,” The Acrobat said. “Don’t get me wrong.
He won’t be happy about this, but he’s not one to admit
defeat. Look how he handled losing his job.”

“
Yeah,
but can’t you put in a good word?”

“
I
don’t think you’re as good at reading people as you think
Troll. When The Moderator sets something in motion, he sets one
course, and he won’t
stray from it.”

“
You
sound like you don’t like him much,” Iris said.

“
He’s
my friend,” was all The Acrobat offered.

“
So
you like that stubborn kind of thinking? You all were on board when
he wanted to kill millions of people?”

“
It
wasn’t quite like that,” The Acrobat said. “No one
knew what the fallout would be. Even The Moderator was shocked when
he saw the collateral damage, but it was too late to turn back. When
people started to rebel due to the takeover, he felt he had no choice
but to shut them down and he only had one way. I admit he was
desensitized by it in time, but at first, no one believed that many
people would die. Things settled, the heat died down, and pretty soon
the world was pretty damn orderly. When it was better, there was no
use in giving up or surrendering. We realized we were in
a
unique position to have eyes on everything and give zero tolerance to
the kind of stuff that used to go on.”

“
No
one has murdered more people than you guys,” Iris said with
disgust.

“
He
said he didn’t mean to,” The Troll said. Iris stopped and
turned to face both of them.

“
The
whole world is so used to defending Psi by force and they’ve
been doing it for so long that they forgot why they defend it in the
first place: Fear of death. The world was brainwashed out of fear.
Both of you very likely knew people who died: Your parents or
siblings, teachers, friends…”

“
Who
was it for you?” The Troll asked. He could see her passion and
knew it was very personal for her. “And why don’t you
have Psi?”

“
That’s
none of your business,” she said, walking again.

The
Acrobat fell silent and The Troll sensed his guilt. Maybe he really
wasn’t proud of the things they had done. He stored that
information in the back of his head for later.

They
walked another hour before The Troll could no longer take the silence
and re-initiated conversation. “So there was this one time…”
he said. “There was this male pop-star all the girls liked, and
there was a website for him and a message board, and all the fans
would post how in love they were and how they wanted to marry him.
His name was John Melmann.”

“
I
remember him,” Iris said.

“
Hated
that kid,” The Acrobat added.

“
Yeah,
most guys did,” The Troll said. “And so I went on his
message board and created the user-name: JMelmann1 and started
posting like I was him, feeding the girls all the lines they wanted
to hear. I had to create a dozen dualies who knew and believed it was
him just to really sell it.”

“
What
are dualies?” The Acrobat asked.

“
A
term the board used for fake profiles. I was basically one person
pretending to be about a dozen. At the center of it all was
JMelmann1, who eventually was convincing enough that the girls were
throwing themselves at me. I started getting private messages all the
time, and you know what I did? I finally messaged each one back
personally and told them I decided to get them a ticket to my show.
John was in Memphis one weekend and I said if they could get
themselves there, there would be a ticket waiting for them which
included two front row seats and a backstage pass. I don’t know
exactly how many of those girls flew out there, but the next Monday,
I had dozens of hate-mail messages from girls who actually made the
trip, only to be turned away.”

“
Is
that supposed to be funny?” Iris asked.

“
Yeah,
that’s actually pretty mean,” The Acrobat said.

“
Says
the guy who probably assisted in executing every single one of those
girls, their mothers, and John Melmann himself,” The Troll
said, effectively shutting The Acrobat up. “I just wanted to
point out the power of illusion—smoke and mirrors. I was
actually contacted once by a big organization who was getting bad
publicity. They wanted to pay me to troll in favor of them and
bombard those against them with insults. They wanted a persuasive
defender online.”