The Weapon
A story of tools and their uses
The Weapon dabbed the last of the steak sauce from his chin and laid down his knife. He sipped his Chardonnay. Eating here was a perk of the job. He’d never normally get a table here. They were very selective. Security was very tight. He could see several famous actors, at least one pop star.
He’d just ordered dessert when the contractor arrived.
“You’re The Weapon?” she asked.
He didn’t say anything, just reached into the back of his mouth, found the growth, tugged. It hurt. There was a lot of blood. He handed her the inch-diameter orb he’d just retrieved. She took it gingerly, went back to her own table.
The waiter brought his flourless chocolate cake.
There was a prominent politician sitting at the bar. Suddenly he started to scream. Someone had thrown something at him. No-one saw who. It had exploded, splattered him with something that made his skin boil and froth. He was dead before he hit the ground.
The Weapon left before he got to eat any of his cake.
#
Isabelle approached the Weapon on the street. He didn’t know her name at that point, though. Didn’t know how she knew him. But she knew what he was, what had been done to him back during the war.
“It isn’t right,” she said to him across a café table. He wasn’t entirely sure how she’d talked him into the place. “They’ve abandoned us.”
“I’m doing ok,” he told her.
“Killing people for a living is a screwed-up way to live.”
“I don’t kill anyone,” he said. “I just provide a tool.”
She put her hand on his. “We’re more than tools.”
He looked at her hand. It had been a very long time since someone touched him. Anyone who knew what he was.
#
He went to a movie premiere, smiled through security, took a seat in the back row. A man took a seat beside him. The Weapon pulled a new growth from his throat.
At the beginning of the third act, an outspoken actor died painfully. People screamed. The Weapon never got to see how the movie ended.
#
Isabelle kept hounding him. Except it didn’t feel exactly like hounding.
“There are more people like us,” she told him. “People they tried to reduce to tools during the war. People whose humanity they tried to strip away. People who want those responsible to be held accountable.”
“Us?” he said. He’d noticed the pronoun.
“Us,” she said.
“What did they do to you?”
She licked her lips, played with her cuticles. “I remember everything,” she said finally. “Everything. Every moment. Every word. Every movement. I can’t ever forget. All the things they made me look at and I can never get them out of my head.”
#
The Weapon went to a ball game. He walked through all the scanners just fine. They’d got him a private box. In the third inning a contractor came to see him. The Weapon went home before the fourth inning even started. That night he heard about the industrialist who’d died there from the news.
#
He wasn’t sure how he and Isabelle ended up in bed together. He wasn’t sure what she was getting out of this. He was, he was forced to admit, a very broken man. He couldn’t see what anyone would want with him. Except for the one obvious thing.
But Isabelle didn’t want that. Seemed to think it was the least interesting thing about him. She seemed to be broken in a way that somehow fit with his broken, all their jagged edges lining up.
She lay next to him in the dark and rested her head on his shoulder.
“We’ll make them pay for what they did to us,” she said. “We’ll hold them accountable.”
He held her close and wished that doing so would take her hurt away, so that she could just for a moment be at peace. But she could never forget what had been done to her. To him. To so many of them.
#
The Weapon went to a park, set out a picnic blanket, watched families play around him.
“Are you the Weapon?”
The contractor was a young man, maybe less than twenty-five.
“I don’t normally get asked to be parts of jobs like this,” The Weapon said. “I’m usually used to bypass security.”
“Like I give a shit,” said the contractor.
The Weapon reached into his mouth, gave the young man what he wanted.
After the contractor was gone, The Weapon lingered. It felt good to be here, in the sun, surrounded by life, and laughter, and dogs, and children, and people living normal lives. It felt good to be included.
And then he saw Isabelle. She was across the park, walking with someone, their heads bent low, the two of them talking. And he didn’t understand. He recognized the man, he thought. A politician perhaps. But why was she…?
And then he realized, and he started to run towards her, screaming, but he was too far away, and there were too many families, and kids, and dogs, laughing, and shouting, and barking.
She died when he was still a hundred yards away.
#
The old colonel looked at The Weapon in confusion. Perhaps there was a glimmer of recognition. Probably not. Around them, the ball was in full swing. Military men and women, their spouses, wine, cocktails, a brass band.
“Do I know you, son?”
The Weapon shrugged. “From the war,” he said.
A blank expression.
“You made me into a weapon,” The Weapon said.
Recognition. A smile. The colonel clapped him on the shoulder. “You men were good tools of war,” he said. A knowing look. “You still have your uses. Ways to stop the boat from rocking.”
The Weapon nodded back, but he didn’t smile. He just reached into his mouth, tugged, swallowed the blood. The colonel’s smile faltered.
The Weapon showed him what he’d retrieved. “I’m not someone’s tool,” he said. “Not anymore.”