Thursday 15 September 2011

14) Chaos Agent

    David woke up under his shining golden sleep pyramid. He rolled up his mat and stored it in the closet. He did his normal routine of stretches, tendons snapped into place and muscles groaned. He silently cursed his ever aging body, at twenty five he could no longer keep up with the dream apes and that made him tender and sad. But then he let it go as his blood began to flow and his lymph nodes were activated.
    He padded off to his studio apartment’s half bathroom and voided his bowels. He inspected his new clade tattoo in the small mirror, a huge nine arrowed compass branched out from his neck the size of his palm. The flesh around the edges was still a little pink and irritated. He slathered on a healthy bit of lotion and it felt marginally better.
    David put on his jeans and a stained silk shirt, back from his days as a painter and dilettante. Now as an official agent of chaos he had certain rights and responsibilities that no longer included getting drunk by noon and buggering heiresses. He walked over to his apartment’s one amenity, the view.
    South Boston sprawled out to the horizon in the gritty grey haze of morning. Just like the one he was in now more high rises placed precisely every kilometer pierced the clouds.
    It was his first time as a serious devotee, so he felt a little nervous saying his morning prayer to Eris, but its well practiced syllables slipped out of his mouth easily. He felt the sounds and meanings resonate as they had never done before. This was the voice of chaos, he thought, my voice.
    A soft chime came from his wrist along with a gentle vibration. He looked down at his watch, time to go. He threw on a coat, slipped his keys into his pocket, and stopped dead in front of his dice bowl. There were at least a hundred dice in there of every description. He savored the power there, the wild unalloyed force that he would wield. He closed his eyes and shoved his hand in. He pulled out a cracked black and white bakelite casino dice, its spots were scratched, a logo barely visible, and a hole drilled all the way from the one hole side until it came out in the middle of the six side, making it a seven. He hefted the universe’s fulcrum in his hand and grinned.
    David left his apartment and stopped. “Odd for stairs, even for elevator.” He said and threw the die to the floor. It bounced and spun. The two came up. He picked up the die and hit the elevator call button.
    He waited and waited. Eventually the doors slid open and there was a well dressed woman standing there with a small sheep under one arm. David saw that her neck was tattooed with justice’s scale. The sheep looked up at him, but she kept her gaze forward and bored.
    He walked in, politely turned around, and faced the door as it closed. He reconsidered and thought, “Anything over three and I try to chat her up.” He fiddled with the die in his pocket and pulled it out, a four.
    “Just don’t bother.” She said.
    “I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about.” David said.
    “Look, I know you’re a new acolyte. Your mark is still puffy. Work on your patter a bit then try again.” She said. The sheep bleated in agreement.
    Dave was crestfallen for a second. He didn’t think it would be easy to be an agent. He’d seen the claded around his whole life and they’d seemed more than human, more than someone you could just talk to. He thought that there was some secret society of acceptance there. But maybe it was just like any other hierarchy, just a pecking order. He refused that idea. He was an agent of chaos. That was his life blood now, make those random chance driven choices that couldn’t be made otherwise, to make the universe unique.
    While he was deliberating the elevator stopped and the doors opened on the ground floor. The justice said in a cheery tone, “Don’t worry, kid, you’ll do fine.” The sheep gave out a long sympathetic baaa as the doors closed behind them.
    The Chaos Acolyte continued down to the twenty third basement and got out to sunshine and birdsong, all artificial, but still familiar and homey. He walked several blocks to the main bridge from residentials to commercial.
    He wasn’t sure what he was going to do on his first day, but that was the fun of it.
   

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