Intermission: Smoke of War, The Deception of Gregory Fischer (Pt. I)

  --- Gregory Fischer ---

  “So… what kind of play is this going to be?” Maeve asked him.

  He recalled his own ‘play’ barely a week ago now, his face half twisting. “Well it won’t be pleasant but… it did help me cauterize a few… wounds I left sitting for too long.”

  “A riveting review…” The vampire drawled, before shaking her head. “I doubt it’ll be the worst transition I’ve undergone at least.”

  “Oh, I’ve taken great efforts to make sure those wishing to become a librarian can’t die during the process.” Briar assured them with a smile as she walked over with a small stack of books and papers in her arms.

  “That’s good to know.” He figured, still distinctly remembering the feeling of getting stabbed even if it wasn’t quite as painful as the times he’d actually been stabbed. (Though I wonder if the emotional trauma counts as being stabbed in the heart?)

  He’d definitely felt that part.

  “Yep, and even if you get a brain aneurysm from staring at the Book for too long the safety rails will fix you right up.” Briar happily nodded as she set a pile of pages on a trio of pillars. A setup very similar to when he’d first entered the library.

  “Brain aneurysms?” Maeve repeated, her tone making it clear she didn’t know what to think of that statement.

  “You get used to them.” He joked, really hoping he hadn’t had one himself with the way the Book tended to make his head hurt.

  “Just be careful about reading too much until you do.” Mr. Peabody warned from where he laid on top of the front desk of the library. “Things get odd if you don’t.”

  Ignoring the talking dog, he instead looked at the stacks of pages each with a different rose insignia sitting above a title.

  The first being ‘The Theater Rose Blooms’ on what appeared to be a stage with a spotlight shining down. The second spread thorns across the page, each dripping with what he was pretty sure was blood, as emphasized by the title ‘The Bloody Rose Feeds’. The third wasn’t quite as dramatic as the previous two, as ‘The Wilted Rose Endures’ stood surrounded by what looked like wilting petals.

  “What’s with the pages instead of books?” He frowned, pretty sure that the Books were the Library’s entire theme.

  “They’re stage scripts.” Maeve answered for him as she stepped on top of the emblem in the center of the library atrium, her eyes drifting over each with a face that twisted a bit more with each that she saw.

  (Yeah, I know that feeling…) He couldn’t help but grimace.

  “Given how these are your stories, they reflect you in a way.” Briar explained. “They’ll still coalesce into a book by the end, but… This part is supposed to be personal. Your choice and your choice alone.”

  “I see…” Maeve nodded, before taking a deep breath and taking one of the scripts into hand. The stack of pages erupting into a swarm that quickly cocooned the rose.

  “So I guess now we wait?” He sighed, hands itching to take a smoke break.

  “You could watch her story unfold?” Briar suggested, making his face twist.

  “That feels… wrong…” He confessed. (I wouldn’t want her watching during my… interview… I’ve no right to violate her privacy like that. Her past is her own.)

  If it hadn’t given him a spark of hope near his darkest… he would not have responded half as well to the fact that Briar had been watching him at the time.

  “I thought you’d say that.” Briar admitted before showing him two very familiar books. “Which is why I brought these.”

  (The Flames of War, and the Smoke of War…) He read. “My books…”

  “You were talking about how you had more power before joining the Library and… while part of that seems intrinsic to surviving the transcription process into the Library’s records, that doesn’t mean we can’t transcribe more of your story. Get some of your old skills and power back.” His boss told him, holding the two books out.

  “I… I’m not sure I want to go through… that again.” He grimaced with a nod towards Maeve’s paper cocoon.

  “You won’t… Or rather you won’t go through all of it.” Briar assured him. “The first time is more complicated due to the initial transcription but the following ones are simply us adding to what’s already there rather than starting from scratch.”

  “So I won’t have to fight my younger self in a street full of cremated corpses?” He had to double check, even as he began reaching for one of the books.

  “You shouldn’t…?” The young woman answered, sounding more than a little unsure.

  He let out a sigh, aware that this whole process was based on his past and his demons. Neither of which Briar actually had any control over. (Just like Maeve’s past is hers… Mine is mine…)

  With hesitant fingers he picked up the Smoke of War, more because if his guess was right, this book would be far less traumatic to experience than the other.

  Much like with Maeve and the first time he’d done this, he found himself once more surrounded by a flurry of pages that erupted from between the covers. And even more like the first time he’d done this he heard an echoing voice begin to read his story to him.

  “Once upon a time, there was a soldier named Gregory Fischer.”

  The pages shifted to once more show him a younger version of himself saluting in his uniform.

  He took a deep breath, having accepted this, which is why when the voice started reading once more he voiced the story he couldn’t, wouldn’t, forget. “Gregory was a good little soldier who followed orders, no matter how much he hated them.” He refused to look away from the bodies in the picture, even if he was relieved when they shifted to him receiving that order. “Until he was given an order he couldn’t follow. So he didn’t.”

  There were a lot of things he regretted in his life, and while the consequences may have sucked, he did not regret his decision that day.

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  When the image shifted to him sitting in the canteen alone he half expected the voice to repeat the story it had told him the first time he’d opened a book, but instead it followed along to his changes from before. “The men he viewed as his ‘brothers’ abandoned him for failing to follow his duty.”

  “Of course, just because he abandoned his duty didn’t mean his ‘brothers’ were willing to abandon theirs.”

  “And he accepted that, unwilling to have ‘brothers’ who chose ‘duty’ over ‘morality’.” It took him a moment to realize that he and the voice had said two completely different lines, and when it did his heart froze.

  The pages parted and he found himself standing on a dirt road in a barren field of mud and craters. He knew if he looked up he’d see a moonless night sky just barely visible through the thick fog of smoke surrounding him.

  In front of him was a truck knocked onto its side, one that he could distinctly remember desperately chasing after before forcing it off the road.

  “Fuuuuuck.” He cursed, knowing exactly what memory this was.

  The door to the truck was blasted off, launched into the air just before a cloud of smoke rushed out from within.

  He closed his eyes as he shakily pulled out a cigarette and put it between his lips, not needing to see to know what was happening in front of him.

  The smoke cloud condensed into a dark skinned man (Jordan), a cigarette in his mouth as he glared at Gregory in confusion. From the other end of the truck a blonde woman with short hair (Marie) stumbled out followed by two clouds of smoke that turned into a tanned man (Carlos) and a woman with dark hair in a ponytail (Mei).

  All of them wearing the same uniform that he’d been wearing that night.

  “Fischer? The fuck was that about?!” Jordan yelled, as the others said his name in question.

  (They’re a memory… They’re not real people… They made their decision already…)

  He knew what he should do, what would make this whole thing easier than before, but… “I’m sorry!”

  “What?” Marie frowned, looking at the others to see if they understood him.

  It was something he’d wanted to say to these four for nearly a decade now. “I’m sorry about… I’m sorry about a lot of things…”

  “The fuck are you talking about?” Carlos blinked, looking at him as if he were crazy.

  “I’m sorry I grew distant from you guys. I’m sorry I chose the job over your feelings. I’m sorry I let my promotion go to my head. I’m sorry I never gave you guys the credit you deserved for helping me get so far. I’m sorry I didn’t protect Mei from the racist assholes more! I’m sorry I didn’t give the promotion to Marie who deserved it more! I’m sorry I never gave Jordan my time off for his family! I’m sorry for giving Carlos so much shit when he joined us! I’m sorry! I… I… I’m sorry for-for-” He fell to his knees, tears streaming down his face as his cigarette fell to the ground.

  A stunned silence fell over them as the rest of his unit stared at him as he cried in a way he hadn’t in years, some valve inside of him having opened and refused to shut off until he got out as much as he could.

  He wasn’t sure how they stayed like this but, eventually the others slowly made their way over, and Jordan crouched down to eye level with him. “Fischer… Greg, what’s this about?”

  “The… the place they’re sending you…” He tried to explain, like he had hundreds of times before as he replayed this day in his head over and over. “It’s not a military compound, it’s not a supply depot, it’s a civilian settlement! They’re sending you after a civilian settlement!”

  “Yeah. It’s gotten close enough to the war front that they abandoned post.” Jordan nodded, repeating the (lies) in his edited orders. Ones very different from the orders that had been given to Fischer. “And since it was being used as a supply depot they filled it with more of those flesh monstrosities we ran into a couple weeks ago. Last thing we need is them getting onto the field and pincering us.”

  “No, you’re not listening.” He moaned, remembering how hard he’d tried to convince them before… before… “There are still civilians there. There are no flesh sculpted monsters. Just people. Men, women, children! That’s why they said not to go near the settlement, firebomb it from a distance! So that you wouldn’t see.”

  Just like before he could see Mei’s concerned look towards the others, while Marie crossed her arms in thought. And unlike last time everyone actually seemed to be hearing him out even if Carlos still asked him, “If there are civvies there why would

  “Because Osmond is a warmongering racist asshole!” He growled, his mind drifting to things he’d let himself ignore until it was too late. “Think about how he treats Mei just because her grandparents came from here?”

  He hated the way Mei flinched, but the way Marie and Carlos’s frowns deepened they remembered that and all the other times people had given her shit over her race. Something he’d tried to help with but… (It was happening so much and… and it was so much easier to just…)

  Just because he dealt with the worst of it didn’t mean he dealt with enough of it.

  “How… how do you know about any this?” Jordan asked, actually hearing him out before a frown marred his face. “Actually, how are you even out here? Aren’t you supposed to be on lockdown right now?”

  “I… I was on lockdown because I told Osmond and the rest of command to shove their orders up their asses.” He snapped remembering how the bastard came to taunt him in his cell, before shaking his head and remembering what was actually important. “We’ve done… I’ve done a lot of fucked up shit for this war but… but I… I can’t burn a bunch of civilians alive, and as far as my head has been up my own ass I know that’s not something any of you would do either.”

  When he saw their faces, the faces of his unit, his family, he knew that he’d convinced them. That this time would be different.

  Until a wave of something washed over them, the world briefly flickering into the pages it was made from, rippling over his old unit, their flesh turning to paper for less than a second.

  “Fuck you Fischer!” Jordan yelled out of nowhere, shoving him back. “You blast us off the road, then you come here demanding that we listen to you after you got your ass court marshalled? How do we know you aren’t just trying to drag us down with you?!”

  He flinched at those words, remembering them, remembering when a younger hotter headed him hadn’t explained things half as well as he had after a decade of playing this day over in his head.

  “Yeah,” Carlos nodded. “We never got in your way when you always went off on your ‘secret missions’ and now you want us to ignore publicly given orders for what exactly?”

  “Hell, you only got that shit because we had your back even when you fucked us over and left us to rot!” Marie added.

  Somehow the way Mei refused to look at him was worse than the yelling.

  Rather than continuing to argue, he simply laid there as his unit continued to yell at him, some part of him wondering if he should let his old unit just… do whatever they wanted to him.

  “Should just tie his ass up and drag him back to base when we’re done.”

  (I was lying to myself when I said my brothers chose duty over morality…) Everyone else could go fuck themselves, but the fact was his unit his actual brothers and sisters hadn’t even known what they were fighting for, why he was fighting them.

  He honestly could not remember which of them lit their chem smoke first, but with it they also lit the fuse to an escalating time bomb, one that he… one that he wished had burned him instead.

  His eyes slowly closed as he laid there, ready to accept whatever fate these four decided for him.

  Something thudded against his chest, forcing him to look away from the abyss creeping at the edge of his thoughts.

  On his chest was his book, standing with the cover open. (‘For Gregory Fischer, The Man Who Burned So Others Wouldn't Have To.’) Only underneath that was a new line. (‘Beloved Librarian of the Black Briar.’)

  It was just one line, one that meant next to nothing in the face of his sins, and yet…

  It reminded him that he still hoped for a better tomorrow.

  Picking himself off the ground, he stood and faced the demons of his past knowing that there was no changing it. (You can only face it and hope you do better…)

  Still, looking over the hateful glares of his old unit, the people he once called family, he found that he still had to tell them, “And most of all… I’m sorry that I killed you.”

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