Second Chance, Stolen to Order
Six solid years of ferrying mysterious packages for shady people, and that was the first and only time any of them insisted on shackling the parcel to my wrist. My contact was a jerk about it, too, and not just by accident like with some of these guys. He made a point to fasten the handcuff way too tight around my wrist and I could feel the muscles throbbing gently in time with my pulse the whole time. Of course I complained, but the bastard wouldn't adjust it as much as a smidge. Stickler for the contract, that one, and the contract said that the cuffs didn't come off under any circumstances until after delivery. “We pay you well enough to put up with a little discomfort,” he said, and I couldn't argue the point – the customer is always right and all that nonsense, even (maybe especially) when the customer is an asshole. And usually, it’s the assholes who pay the best, at least when they’re self-aware.
It wasn’t just the one asshole, though. I got variants of the same story at every stop, and I do mean every stop - every time an airplane touched the tarmac, every time a car pulled over for gas, there was another faceless shady freak in a nondescript suit ready to hassle me. I must have dealt with at least a dozen of them, pushy creepers who didn't bother to introduce themselves before they examined the case for signs of tampering. Thorough, too, like doctors scrutinizing a patient with some weird, exotic disease that everyone thought had been wiped out. If there was any change in the case or the cuffs, anything as much as a smudged fingerprint or a patch of unusually colored dust, I had to explain it, and they expected details - “I don’t know” or “Maybe I brushed up against something” weren’t nearly good enough. If that’s all I had for them, then they started the grilling, probing my story for some hint of a lie, some proof that I was selling them out. I had to account for every step I took, every time I sat down or stood up, every stranger who as much as brushed past my arm or asked for directions to the can, every time I took a sip of something and turned my head for a fraction of a second. Even after all of that, they still didn’t believe me half the time. Yeah, like I'm nervy enough to steal a parcel. If I had that kind of ambition, I wouldn’t be doing this bullshit for a living.
You know, they didn’t tell me much when I signed up for this job - not much they need to know, and all I need to know is that I have to eat - but they made a point of telling me this: “Never look in the package. Never even think about the package. Don’t get curious. Our clients aren’t big on second chances.” Yeah, well that’s not a shocker. Guys like me don’t get second chances, not ever. Why should it be any different now?
These guys, though, they were barely ready to give me a first chance. Do you know that they told me I couldn’t sleep while I had the parcel? I guess these suited automatons don’t get that the humans get a little wiggy when we’re up for dozens of hours while being juked all over the country (and don’t get me started on the weird route they had us take). Biology always wins out in the end, of course - I took a power nap whenever their attention drifted, and when I was a really good boy they actually allotted me a few minutes to close my eyes before bringing me back to reality with a friendly elbow to the solar plexus. Nice guys, those freaks.
It wasn't all that restful anyway, not with the weird-ass stress dreams I started having. The dreams come with the territory - each job is a little tense, and there's nothing the least bit odd about having images of arrest or ambush come running through your head at night. These were a lot stranger than that, though. The first time I nodded off, I had a vision that the briefcase popped open a hair and this creature, this angry stone-faced matron of a fairy flew right out and gave me the hairy eyeball.
"What do you want?" I said. You know how dream logic works - I wasn't shocked to see a fairy but I did want to know what she was doing.
"Say my name." Voice like a razor slicing across granite, that one.
"But I don't know you."
She slapped me across the chops, hard enough to knock the syllables out of my lips. "Say my name."
"I don't know your name."
She struck me again - those little fairy palms are like iron skillets - and grabbed me by the sideburns. "Yes, you do. Say it."
I didn't get a chance to refuse as my babysitter gave me a slap himself to rouse me. Not that it mattered - ten minutes later I was out again, and there was the fairy, slapping and spitting in my face. Crazy shit, man - like that every single time I drifted off. To be honest, it put thoughts in my head, made me question what was so goddamn important to justify this treatment. I’ve never questioned the contents of a parcel, but all of this made me really want to know what was in this one.
Not that they told me what was in the briefcase, of course, they were totally mum on the subject. It's not like anyone ever goes into detail – not like I'd even want details or know what to do with them, there’s some information that can only suck more misery into your life. But even the shadiest of clients – and all of my clients are plenty shady, though a few stand out from the pack – even the worst of them still gives me enough information to guarantee that I'll handle the parcel properly. Not this pack of charmers, though. “We pay you well enough to keep your curiosity to yourself,” they said, and they weren't kidding. Three million dollars – enough to keep a chintzy errand boy like me sitting pretty for ten lifetimes. Three million dollars, and the only things I had to deal with were bad circulation and sleep deprivation. They must have figured that if they dangled that kind of dough in front of me, I'd shut up and do whatever they wanted. They were right. I figured it was illegal, or hazardous, or wanted by the wrong people – probably all three. I didn't care. Hell, I'm not sure that my whole life is worth anything close to three million dollars, especially not after the shit I’ve done to it.
Does it sound like I'm complaining? Don't think that for a second. True, I certainly never imagined that I'd be doing this for a living when I was six, but it was fated to be and I accept it. What else was I going to do? I've never been the smartest one around, and I certainly don't have any notable talents, unless you count my knack for dealing with scumbags. The only things I have going for me are desperation and disposability, which might be the most valuable skills around these days. When you’ve got yourself a surplus of humanity lingering around, the most important person might be the one who realizes that he isn’t important at all, who knows what he can get out of taking crazy risks. Being a tight-lipped no-name errand boy has worked out all right for me, I certainly do better than some of the people I know. And yes, maybe there have been a few times when I've been up really late, maybe really wasted, and started looking back through my life for that one junction where I took a wrong turn and ended up here. I’ve hurt people, it’s true, and there are other people I trusted when I should have known better, and some great opportunities that I just threw away like they were nothing. I get a few drinks in me and I start going back over my life story. Everyone does that, I think, even though it's ultimately meaningless.
Well, meaningless for most people. Those thoughts aren’t so meaningless if you know the right people, like some throwaway loser willing to bet his soul on the stacked deck of life. But hey, I’m getting ahead of myself.
Having a case shackled to your wrist loses its charm pretty quick. I know a lot of people harbor some kind of espionage fantasy where they're the agent tasked with transporting the critically important plans while dodging enemies spies bent on their murder, and the handcuffed briefcase is a big part of that. In real life, it's a pain in the ass. It's real conspicuous, for one – nothing draws eyeballs like handcuffs, except maybe handcuffs and a briefcase that’s too bulky to sit nicely in your hand. People see the cuffs and they either slip away, avert their eyes and pretend that everything’s normal, or they edge closer, hoping that they can glean some secret piece of information about the spy among them. Actually, given what a mess I am, most of them probably assumed I was involved in the drug trade, or the gun trade, or one of those other trades tied to international crooks. It’s a shock to me that I never got questioned by the cops - maybe the rich prick behind this whole job had connections, I don’t know. I do know that it would have been a lot easier if they gave me a plain piece of luggage no one would notice, but it's not like anyone was going to listen to me. “We pay you well enough,” etcetera and all that.
By the last leg of my little mission, I was totally out of it, the stress and pain and exhaustion mingling together and working a special kind of magic on my brain. The whole thing felt like some awful dream, the kind that you talk about when you’re hammered and don’t have any more intelligent or interesting topics to bring up. That weird fairy…I saw her everywhere, dancing around just outside of my field of vision, treating me to a collection of ugly stares and quietly mocking my ignorance. And this was when I was wide awake, it was worse if I even tried to sleep - the eyelids drift shut for a second and there she was, in my face, screeching “Tell me my name.” I questioned my sanity, but what’s sanity when three million bucks are on the line? My thinking was that I had enough dough to buy a shitload of marbles to replace the ones I was losing on this job. Just a few more hours and I could tell the fairy to go to hell.
My last stop was a giant, gaudy mansion at the end of some little inlet out in the middle of nowhere. I'd be more specific, but the suited freaks had a bag over my head for the last leg of the journey. I didn't think people did the whole head bag thing in real life, but I guess the rich prick who commissioned this job was a paranoid crank. That's my assumption, anyway – when the shady suited freak du jour pulled out the head bag and I registered a complaint, all I got was “We pay you well enough to follow orders” just before the lights went out. They had a point. Dignity's another one of those things I gave up for the paycheck. I’d have sold it long ago for a lot less if I only had a buyer, but instead I got the opportunity to dole it out piecemeal to whatever shady weirdo needed a throwaway person. This guy just bought a bigger share.
They unfastened and unblinded me only when I'd reached some inner chamber deep in the bowels of the rich prick's house, halfway to the Earth's core judging by the length of the elevator ride. There were only three of us down there in that featureless little room. There was the last of the shady freaks, who may well have been one of the freaks from earlier - none of them had enough personality to tell them apart, they could be clones for all I know. There was the rich prick himself - no one you'd know from the news, but you can always recognize that special sort of imperial pomposity that only comes from years of having your ass kissed. Last, of course, was yours truly, their disposable errand boy. The whole situation was plenty tense, and I was ready for the rich prick to give that little nod that meant it was time for some unseen triggerman to blow off the back of my head. But the way he really acted...I've never seen that exact light well up in a grown man's eyes, that look of impossibly deep boyish awe, like he was on the verge of the best Christmas anyone would ever had.
The shady freak dragged me over to a sterile metal table and forced my arm onto the steely surface. “Don’t move.” A quick flash of movement and the jingling of keys and the handcuff was freed from my wrist, the throbbing ache stilled for the first time in an agonizingly long while. “All right, step back.”
“This is it.” The rich prick had to will himself to step back from the case long enough to complete the transaction. “...Three million dollars, correct?”
“That's right, sir,” I said.
Pricks like this don't deal in cash. He waved to the freak, who passed over a manila envelope. “It’s the safest option, and I threw in a little extra for the inconvenience. You do know how to turn that into money, right?”
“I can figure it out,” I said. “For three million, I'll hire someone to figure it out for me.”
“It was worth every penny, believe me,” said the rich prick. “The finest acquisition I've ever made.”
I'll be honest – it was killing me not knowing what was in that case. I'd assumed that the rich prick was having me transport something he'd had stolen to order, a rare piece of art or a coin or something else for one of his less public collections. But when I heard him talk, and I saw that rapturous glean in his eye, I knew that it was something bigger than my limited little mind could grasp. There was magic in there and I wanted to share in that magic, to know that it was real.
The rich prick must have seen me staring at the case, because he got this weirdly whimsical expression and suddenly turned chatty. “...They didn't tell you what's in here, did they?”
“Not my business, sir,” I said.
“But you're curious?”
“Of course.”
“Would you like to know?”
It could have been a trick by the sadistic old man, taunting his trained monkey with something tantalizing. For a moment, it crossed my mind that this could be a trick, and by showing off my curiosity I could demonstrate that I was too dangerous to keep alive, and then the triggerman would do his dirty work. It wasn’t a trick, though, or sadism. I looked into that rich prick’s grinning face and I knew that it was killing him that he had to keep this acquisition a secret. Someone needed to know - why not the monkey?
So I bit on his bait. “...I’d like to know, but you don’t have to tell me anything.”
“No, but I will tell you, just so you know what you’ve done for me. This is a second chance. The most valuable thing in the world.” The prick caressed the case as tears welled up in his tiny piggy eyes. “A second chance…”
I’ve heard my clients say some weird shit, but this just plain did not make sense. “What do you mean a 'second chance'?”
“A second chance at anything. Any mistake, any failure, any sin – undone in an instant.” The prick was sobbing under his words. “Most people never get one, you know, not even me. It’s not something you can just buy or make. You have to earn it. My God, what I did to earn this one.”
“I don't understand.”
“Then you've lived without regret,” said the prick. “And that means you are a luckier man than I.”
“You’re saying that when you open this case…”
“...I get to go back.” The rich prick showed me this manic sort of joy that I’d never personally witnessed in all my years doing this garbage. “Just one chance, just one! But oh, what I can do with that chance…the wounds I can heal, the pain I can erase…I’ve been waiting years for this.”
“A second chance...” Without thinking, my hand drifted toward the case. It was obviously crazy, but I believed the prick. I don't know, I guess it was wishful thinking. Losers like me never get second chances, and yet here was one that I could touch, one that I held in my hands as I traveled across the country. The one thing that could answer all those questions that led to all those long nights, or at least one of them.
The rich prick’s jaw locked and he thrust himself between my greedy hands and the object of his desires. “Don’t think of it, don’t even dream it, boy.”
Don’t dream it. But I already dreamed about it, and it was at that moment that I understood what those dreams meant, what that weird fairy thing was trying to tell me.
“Tell me my name. You know my name.”
I claimed ignorance, but I knew her name - sure I did, I’d been chasing her my whole damn life.
“Redemption.”
“What’s that?” said the rich prick.
That was the name, the one that had been reverberating in my head for years even as the sight of her eluded me. Redemption, the one I'd been pursuing for so long, hoping just for the satisfaction of brushing my fingers against her wings and getting some moment of relief from all that pain and regret, some genuine healing that would end the need for rotgut analgesia. How like me - to spend so many years chasing after the girl, then reject her when she came calling for me. This was her show, wasn’t it? She was the one who led me here, made me sign that contract, turned my eyes so they fell on that case at exactly the right moment and at exactly the right place.
The shady freak flashed a sidearm. “You’ve been paid, now it’s time to go. Get away from the case, you're done.”
I didn’t move from the spot, not even as he lifted his piece - but I barely noticed that. My eyes were on the shadows, the flick of some unseen wings off in the corner of the room. Redemption - she was there, too. It was a scene designed just for me.
“I’m done playing with you,” said the shady freak. “You’ve got five seconds to back away. Five-”
Maybe it was fate that put me in the perfect position to get the freak’s gun, or maybe Redemption guided my hands. A second earlier, a second later, I'd have been splattered all over the walls. An inch closer, an inch further back, and I’d have met the ground with my face shortly before the freak put some fresh holes in my skull. Maybe I'm just an egomaniac, but I could feel the universe itself spurring me to action. It only took one shot to put him down – clean through the heart at barely a foot away. And then it was just me and the rich prick and that look of shock and agony on his piggy face.
“You can't do this!” wailed the prick. “You don't know what I've done, what I have to fix!”
“I can guess.” The gun was steady in my hand, the barrel resting level with the rich prick’s head as I stared him down. “But there are things I need to fix, too. Lots of things.”
“You are young! There are other ways!” The rich prick had the second chance cradled in his arms like his only son. “I need this second chance! It's the only way!”
“It's no different for me, I guess.”
I squeezed the trigger again. You know, if he was smart enough, the rich prick might have considered using his second chance to shut his big mouth and move me on my way. Then again, maybe he had thought of it and just couldn’t stand the thought of wasting his chance. A second chance - more valuable than a man’s life. A second chance - more valuable even than the life of the owner.
The universe must have come to my aid again as there's no earthly way I could have escaped from that estate. It was impossible, and yet I did it, all the while carrying the most valuable thing in the world. I still have it, hidden in my crappy apartment, tucked away quietly in my closet under a pile of old memories. Every so often I take it out and hold it, but I've yet to open it up. I won't even touch the latches, won’t even look at them too hard. There's another life inside of that case, a solution to all of those regrets that loop through my mind at night, but the idea of it terrifies me in the way that I can't really articulate. I keep waiting for Redemption to appear again and give me some guidance, but the weird lady isn’t making herself known. She’s done her part, I guess. But as for the case, and whatever’s really in there…I don’t know. Maybe it would be wrong to open it up, to use this second chance that I got through bloodshed and betrayal. Maybe it’s too dangerous to use it at all.
Then again, maybe I just don't want to squander it. Guys like me don't get second chances, you know. Not ever.