[i]Table of Contents of "For What It's Worth": [url=https://www.bungie.net/en/Forum/Post/257262707/0/0][/url][/i] [i]Previously: [url=https://www.bungie.net/en/Forum/Post/257200565/0/0][/url][/i] [i]This life is a farce, but no less reality. Escape is always next door, should you find yourself there. Had you been inside the helm, well, it went something like this: [/i] The city lights came in to view over the horizon, glaring my windshield and illuminating my cockpit, as I went over the last notes that were given to me of an "investigation". The words spoken over Callum's last breaths in the back of my mind. I eyeballed [i]'Merciless'[/i] at my side, snug in its holster on the right of my chair, wondering how hard it was going to be to kill this idea. [i]"Well, this is why I swapped out that flimsy magazine for the yellow pages."[/i], I say. Wesley chimed in, [i]"Mono-log."[/i] To check, I reached into my left mag pouch on the other side of my chair, and handled to inspect my triple-corps drum battery. [i]TeslAr.[/i] Entirely made out of gold. [i]"Aye, aye."[/i] Wesley affirmed from his perch. [i]"I ain't a hero,"[/i] I said, pirately, for the sake of it. [i]"Maybe,"[/i] piped Wesley, [i]"to an ass." [/i]🐴 I smirked, and nodded intuitively. [i]"but I don't not win championships."[/i], I said at last, putting the booty away. [i]This was bad business.[/i] The most observant would see ol me as a fool with no definite sides. A dope that proposes as many stupid questions, as they are statments, of entropic deregeneracy; like water. Pehaps man who simply does what is asked, dons a white cloak that veils his eyes from prudence. However, there is a method amongst my madness. I root out every single possibilty, even if know they are a false lead. It defines what I do know, a flawed process of elimination, at the cost of how people view me in the light. I clutch a fist my right hand, and beat it to my chest, letting out a howl in the fool moon. [i]"aRrrooOOO0OOOoo"[/i] Somewhere, a tree fell, but no one heard that. No matter the losses, there were better out there, but I was the best. I don't shoot unless I'm shot at. Even then, it's hard to say whether or not I pulled the trigger on Uldren. He was under the control of a mind-flayer. I would never blame him for that. It was what the forsaken had done; what took Cayde-6 away from us folks. That flayer knew he was rotton guilty, but Cayde never put him down, did he? I pressed a button with two cross rifles on the dash, and held it for the PA to clear. [i]"Popped em like a sour patch, coulda been a cowboy, ya'know?"[/i] This fired off in to small megaphone, placed in the corner Banshee-44's shop, just to break the silence. Banshee didn't process much on the fly, but he could remember a voice, and every weapon in the system. Cayde taught me this trick. [i]"Have we met? I know that gun"[/i] Banshee-44 perked up from his monitor, saw no one, and shrugged. [i]"What do you know, wise guy?[/i] I said, in proper retort, with no context. [i]"What do you think?"[/i] he replied, looking around his shop. [i]"Oh, yeah, you've been there a while",[/i] he said, looking to the speaker. Nailed it. I open the back hatch, letting some air in. It was chill; Autumn is nice. A small breath of cold wind slapped me. [i]"Hot air may rise, but it does rain."[/i] Wes was looking out the window again, in a different world of thought. A philospher in his own light. Where enlightenment truely shined, was when everything hit the fan. Where I could focus through the shit to see the picture I was covered in, and win hard. Ready for it like a goalie that could kick one in from his own box. Everything seemed so straight-forward during the Red War. The Cabal are a simple people, proud warriors with a single directive. Kill, die, crown a new emporor. Predictability was and is their downfall. Despotism at best. Mankind is not so simple. Every waking moment is taken accounted for by a world run by bureaucrats, rampant with half-truths and words bent for a "better" tomorrow over the horizon. Their work is never done, just like mine. Coincidence? I think not. Snakes aren't the worst thing in the grass, when you step in to the concrete jungle, you better watch your own ass. Those in the field know only the present, as they feast and teeth on the enemy, to survive the passing time. It was the 8th message in my hands, the others were filled with phenciled propaganda, old news that painted the Drifter with a target on his back. I'm sure he knew, since there were five; with marks from nine. What the Drifter may have may done in the past was hear-say, as far as I was concerned, when I saw Callum's shadow blasted straight through the chest on that rock. I got nervous, the kind of evisceral feeling of dread, hearing that shard of such discernable rhetoric of a man on the run, just to keep himself busy, and Callum's back-handed judge. A zealot, crucifying a miscreant bug behind a glass.. ..sauntering in and out with a righteousness that served only he, a culprit that may burn the entire city down with his inquisition of heresy. I found out real quick that I may have gotten Callum killed while running a fool's errand to the Spider; that I was being used to round up wayward men of their own cut and cloth.. Sure, by now, I figured who did it.. ..and these tapes didn't point any fingers It didn't make much a difference, [i]as we were all being played[/i]. I bought a trombone yesterday, [i]and I'm gonna blow this horn.[/i] From a flask, I poured myself a glass of Scotch. [i]This may damn us all.[/i] [i]"This -blam!-ing chain of lies will be broken, as long as I am a part of it."[/i] Trembling the card in my hand, full of rage over a man's death I never met, I grit my teeth realizing I was placed as a cog for another's murder scheme. I loosen my grip, and burns out in my hands.. They warned of the Dredge.. ..but all I saw was someone tying up loose ends.. [i]..it could've been me.[/i] The Drifter said he gave out that title for people that sought it, just to piss em off.. ..and to see em in plain sight. [i]..as I would have done the same.[/i] [i]"Wesley, I need to go in alone. You won't be yourself when I enter the Annex, or active, for that matter. I don't want to fry your circuits."[/i] My ghost piped up with a backspin, [i]"I have no idea what you're talking about, this is just the Tower, another walk in the park, right? What possibly could-"[/i] I cut him off, knowing he would get too curious for his own good, for [i]our[/i] good, until this was settled. [i]"This isn't a matter of trust."[/i] [i]"Oh, no, you can't bullshit me, man," [/i] he said, now cutting me off, knowing I never said that word. I don't ask anyone to trust me, it's courtesy of a gentleman to leave trust up to the willing, and never be paid forward as a token of goodwill. [i]"Alright, lad."[/i], I approve. Heck, I chastised the Drifter so hard after that word left his mouth, I'm not sure if we we're going to make it. It was way too suspect for comfort. The Tower has rules, outside does not! Hawthorne once said this, and I told the Drifter to ship it out. This is all I asked, for the people; instead, he gave me an ultimatum: [i]"Trust!"[/i], Drifter said. [i]He knew it would push that button.[/i] I wish I could have, [i]but he might never know I did.[/i] Tower security is cold joke, [i]and that ain't me, in your open casket.[/i] None of these people I knew were in charge. In-fact, since the Speaker was KIA, the tower didn't have a tangible leader. Was this anarchy.. ..or just a clear indication that was a joke, too.. [i]"Wow, I hate politics."[/i] Wesley was persitently wound up as lost as a compass over the North Pole after surmising that I wasn't listening, and continued. [i]"If you're leaving this ship, I'm coming with you, 'Whether through hell, or to high water.' You said that, right after Ghaul kicked your ass off that cliff. I don't believe you'd be so apt to forget it after all the shit we've seen, including your s-"[/i] There, then, he should have stopped. I had a feeling of he was going to say, as dissonance washed over the cockpit. It was broken, he needent remember. Every time we forget, because it breaks. I turned to Wesley, as his light faded in its housing. [i]"Don't remind me."[/i] I took a long drink, and said nothing else. Wesley fell to the deck. The avionics simultaneously died in my ship; everything was ka-put. My engines died, along with the generator. [i]"w-wha-#s# h##p#n#--?"[/i] Wes seemingly went in to a stroke, [i]but it was me, -redacted-.[/i] I realized I -blam!-ed up. It was too soon. I had planned for this happening eventually, with my two feet on the ground. My heart dropped like a hat. Nothing worked without a wave, and that weave was just broken. If I had just kept my mouth shut.. ..and left him there on deck.. ..he would have never noticed. π π π π π π π π π Next in the series: [url=https://www.bungie.net/en/Forum/Post/257236109/0/0][/url]