Sanity

Chapter Four

   As I already told you, back in the war I did not have to march in the mud and dig the trenches like many of the other soldiers did. I had a knee injury and some papers which said that set me apart from most of the blank face footmen so I was in the technical division of the front line. This still meant quite shitty conditions near the fight, moving with the artillery and living in cold tents for twenty months. We managed radio transmissions and tried to send or defend against cyber attacks on the newly rebooted Astral. Actually, the Astral never needed a restart, it never stopped, it was just running and collapsing without supervision for decades after the Third Apo. Long story short, that time actually gave me a basic training in this technology which I solemnly thought I will never use again. That is however not the reason why I am telling you all of this. My last days at the front were long before the war was over on the Sunken Coast. Our air defence system went offline just twenty minutes before we saw bombers approaching. It was sheer panic and we were ordered to either solve it or die there. See, that is a reason I stopped following orders; our captain believed that we can solve this problem before the enemy hits us. He was wrong. Normally if one man is wrong that doesn't mean a lot. But in war one man being wrong and also in the position of giving order costs the lives of many others. The frontline and artillery was carpet bombarded as the Chaldean greeting. One bomb hit near my tent and shrapnels played a game of chance with all the witnesses. I got a sharp piece of metal in my chest, the guy on my left was decapitated and the guy on my right made it out without a scratch.

   I was in stasis for days before I was on the operating table and they extracted half of my ribcage. They replaced my heart with an ugly engine block to pump my blood and according to the docs it should have lasted for the few years I had left. They told me that I got a lethal dose of toxins and I was in stasis for too long, so no need to work hard on long term investments. I could have given up there, but I was still an idiot: young and motivated. I made a few deals and seeked out a few illegal alchemists to see what can be done and to my surprise there was a lot to be done actually, but for the right amount of money of course. Eventually I ended up with a new system of implants in by torso and a debt for generations to the Bazaka Clan.

   My point is that I really wanted to bleed out there in the rain, under the shadows of the towering ugly buildings of this godforsaken city, but Death never showed up. I suppose even he got lost in the chaotic traffic of Yilbegän.
A murder of crows took flight as I yelled and cursed my fate. It hurt like a bitch, but my implant soaked up the killing shots and my arm was not hit on the artery. First of all, let me comment on this piece of shit who half-assed the job. Either you go for the head or at least you check if they are out cold before you leave. It was either the cheapest hitman I've ever seen or something was not right. I had time to discuss this with myself over and over while I walked to the train station holding my side. My left shoe was drenched from my blood and I thought I won't make it. All along on the crowded train I was thinking about that pistol. Somebody once had it in his hand, talking about it, showing it to me. It was the lowest quality antique that nobody wanted. But where was that, I kept asking myself. I kept passing in and out between stations and rested my head on the mirror image of my face as the train rattled in the late afternoon. Raindrops distorted the pedestrians while they walked in front of colorful shops and vending machines. Gangs, loners, couples all just a second long snapshot of their lives as I passed by. Maybe I envied each and every one of them for their careless and meaningless role in this city. Could have traded places with any of them and I was surely better off, but that's not how it works. It's like you just have to nail the major decisions in your life the first time or suck it up for the rest of your days. Nobody tells you the rules, schools won't tell you these things but eventually we all learn it one way or the other. It's only infuriating that some of us get a different treatment and we don't even know why. Their family, their connections, their money, their likeability puts them in a position most of us, the rest of the folks never experience. And if you were not lucky enough to be in the top few, then you are in the crowd fighting, crawling your way through the mud, trying to wiggle your meaningless existence a bit above the other while all of the others around you are desperately pulling you down to crawl over you and this struggle of worm life never stops until you die or fall to the bottom. You crawl too high and the boots of the privileged will kick you back, you sink too deep and there is no way back up again. And I dare you to step out of line and scream "fuck this" and immediately the whole flock turns against you. The secret is to never understand the situation, to never grow smart because that's when the misery starts. I honestly wished that shrapnel hit my brain instead of my heart back then. Maybe I could be happy in a vegetative state. You get the irony, how I honestly wished for such a thing at that time? It's funny how things can turn out.