Shattered Minds

He was to be beaten again.

He licked his lips in anticipation as the guards arrived. Soon he'd feel them—explosions of anger at his stomach, back, head. Soon he'd hear them—strident voices beginning with jeering insults which rapidly deteriorated to harsh grunts of sadistic effort. Soon he'd taste their adrenaline—metallic and sharp over the heavy greasiness of their anger and dark secret pleasure.

He closed his eyes.

It would be beautiful.

Just a few hours ago, he had Freed another prisoner from the brute and fleshy entrapments of his body, using a plastic spoon to loose crimson tides from a sallow throat. He was not uncaring, he was indeed magnanimous.

The problem, he mused, a placid smile spreading to greet the approaching guards, was Purgatory. Here, he was limited to the Unworthy and the Unclean—evil, evil men and their corrupt guards had no right to his Gift. Still, when one is Bound by Duty, one cannot complain.

He had Faith. He would be free to reward the Good—he had dreamed it. A scarlet phoenix would come and loose a conflagration upon this mire of decay and he would rise—reforged and resplendent—to continue his Duty.

He shut his lids but Saw the Glory-that-would-come.

A gauntleted arm gripped his shoulder harshly and spun him about.

A booted foot slammed into his flesh.

It would be beautiful.

The blows rained down.

Billy lost himself in ecstasy.

….. … ….. … … …

It had not been long—or had it? He could not track time in this place of never-ending gray—when the shadows of New and Unfamiliar people crossed his cell. Between blows, Billy chanced a look to the viewing window and his heart nearly stopped.

A woman. A woman in armor as red as the Fluid of Life. Beside her, a scarred turian in blue and a slender salarian in strange uniform. A sign, surely a sign! He forgot to hide his pleasure and a boot caught him in the face.

Beautiful whirling explosions of black and yellow danced in his head and he opened himself for more.

Yes! He cried inwardly, Yes! The acceptance of fleshy pain would make him Pure and all the more worthy to continue his work.

The blows stopped.

No, no, why? He was Worthy!

Billy looked out the clear wall and Saw—the woman had stopped it. Her copper hair curled to her shoulders, her eyes were green. Green! There was no green in Purgatory and it was Beautiful. But this green was cold, disapproving.

She had stopped it. She had Judged him and he had failed.

No! She turned away without a backward glance and her companions fell in line. Billy rushed the glass to watch her go, palms at the barrier, searching.

She would Know. He lusted for her then, the only woman he'd seen in years, but not in the pathetic, carnal, animal way that many of his fellow inmates surely did. He would find her and show her his Work, show her his Worth, and then he would Free her. The thought excited him and, as she moved down the corridor, he began planning the event of her Release.

… … ….. ..… … …

Alarms screeched, red, beautiful red, lights strobed. Something had happened and he knew the woman was at the heart of it. Doglike mechs and frenzied guards rushed by.

He could not smell them or hear them through the glass, but he knew that they had the static-sweat smell of fear and that their voices cracked with earnest.

Red. Red. Red. The flashes were mesmerizing. He watched them dutifully in his chamber of silence.

More guards and mechs sped past—moving in and out of view like shades in a dream.

This was a good dream.

The station groaned beneath him, around him. A sign. He stepped to the barrier and put one long finger against it. It hissed open and a terrible sun blazed in his heart. He was free.

So, he noted mildly, were his fellows. No matter, he shrugged. They were Lower Beings, Unworthy, and would keep the guards distracted.

He ran down metal halls, rejoicing in the strength of his limbs, the slight burn and stretch of wonderful activity. Billy's breath rasped in his narrow chest and his heart beat thunderously. He could feel his own blood, the sacred and savory Fluid of Life, rush through him. It was beautiful.

Billy came across the bodies of guards and the twisted remains of mechs. They were littered across the hallway like…like…he searched for an appropriate phrase and was saddened when he could not find it.

He had always loved words, Billy had, always loved the various twists and turns they made in one's mind, the streaky pictures they painted. In the beginning, he had gifted the Worthy before and after their release, crooning exquisite words, always words, to calm them and honor them. But for some reason they had never been grateful for his Care, never appreciated his Art, and often spoiled his words with their inelegant screams. No matter.

He searched the bodies and found several acceptable weapons—a sleek rifle, a solid heavy pistol, and plenty of heat sinks. He secured the extra clips in the deep pockets of his jumpsuit and held the guns distastefully. So little Art in them. A knife was far better—cleaner, more intimate—but no one had a knife so, as was his lot, he stoically made do.

Billy did not know which way to go—the ugly sounds of amateurish scrapping came from all directions. Left, right, or back the way he came.

He chose right.

He loped down the corridors, settling into a rhythm, largely left alone by the other prisoners. One snarled and grabbed at the rifle he'd slung across his back. Billy shot him in the head with the pistol. Gore flew through the air—chips of gleaming white bone, ribbons of beautiful scarlet, chunks of shamefully pink-gray brain.

Billy moved on, cutting over the orange pit. He paused at the window.

Flames flickered below, beautiful tongues of red-orange-yellow-white, spitting shreds of black-gray, slate-gray, dove-gray smoke. Figures moved around the flames, around the still and baleful corpses of heavy mechs and blue-armored prison guards, streaks of death rattling from their weapons. It was the woman in red again, and her team.

She was so Perfect—her movements were efficient and fluid and her determined expression never faltered. Guard after guard after mech fell beneath her and her companions—she Released many of the Unworthy.

He pressed against the glass again, reaching out with his mind and his purpose. She dealt Death, like him, but was not as discerning. A guard far away fired at an innocuous canister in front of her. A fireball enveloped her.

Billy's hands clenched. No! She was his Other, she could not—

The red-armored figure flew through the flames and was frozen in Billy's mind. Her copper hair streamed behind her, her green eyes were dark and piercing, her face was drawn, fearsome. In that instant he knew—she was the Phoenix, come to set him free.

"Beautiful." He whispered on the glass as she vaulted a crate and shot a surprised guard in the heart.

He stroked the smooth pane as if it were her flesh. "Beautiful."

He would find her and repay her in the only way he knew how.

Beneath him, she looked up, met his gaze, and he felt an electric shock, pleasantly painful, crack at his spine. Her eyes, beautiful deadly eyes, narrowed, and she coolly raised her weapon (a heavy pistol, he noticed numbly, fingers tightening on the one he carried) and fired one precise shot that hit the glass in front of his face. Cracks spiderwebbed from the impact and he felt their rough divides in awe.

She Knew him—she could tell he was Worthy.

While the thought was pleasurable and flattering, he was not ready for Release. He had so much work to do.

Over the loudspeakers, a turian voice was yelling for the blood of a "Shepard". Her name. It had to be.

Shepard. Billy savored the word like a delicate aroma—to be fully inhaled and never forgotten. Shepard. It was beautiful.

He lost sight of the Phoenix—her absence freed his legs and he broke into a run down the corridor again, moving ever towards the escape pods he'd heard a dying guard plead for. Shepard. Soon.