The Pains of Abnormal.

‘Oh good, you are awake. It’s about time too or the boss was going to employ unkind means,’ he heard a squeaky voice say and thought he hadn’t been able to shake the bad dream he was having. He closed his eyes and thought, one more minute and I’ll wake up in my bed at home to mum’s shouting and Ella’s whining.

He opened his eyes and an old face was just above him. Startled him a little but it’s had to run anywhere when you are lying down.

‘Up, up, up!! We have no time to waste,’ the old man said as he walked to the wall and pushed it revealing a door. Emma stood up but his head felt heavy - drugged, and his tongue felt stuffy - gagged, and he felt the rush of blood to his hands that awoke the pain in his wrists - bound. Where was he? He wobbled a little but got his bearings. The old man showed no concern but an urgency for whatever he wanted. He must have landed onto the ‘island of the unhearted’ as Ella would say; perhaps it wasn’t a figment of her imagination.

The old man beckoned him hurry. He couldn’t shake the feeling that he was in the wrong place at the wrong time and whatever awaited him was not good. He looked around the room he woke up in. No windows, great. Where was he? Why was he here? When did he get here? How did he get here apart from the force used to bind him in? How long had he been here? The questions started to build up in his head. A steady pounding on his already heavy head.

He looked at the room again. Padded walls, but not an asylum. Bare room, not a holding cell. No bed or life comforts, his captors couldn’t be bothered with that. Concrete floors, perhaps a warehouse. He saw the vent and he felt his legs push with the need to make that jump. Was it just his imagination or was he taller? Something in his head told him he could make the jump and that his hands would figure out how to undo it. Then everything started to jump out at him. He could hear the old man’s heartbeat, or could he? He saw in his head seven different scenarios of how to get out of the room. Three with the old man dead or unconscious, four with the old man unharmed. His head was starting to scare him. He is a good boy as anyone who knew him would attest, always at the receiving end of school bullying and looking away whenever a violent scene came on the screen. Where were these thoughts coming from?

In that time the old man had walked closer to him, with curiosity and amazement painted on his face.

‘You are awakening,’ he squeaked softly with awe.

Awakening? What was going on here? Where was he? What drug had they injected in him? And why couldn’t he voice all the questions he wanted to say?

The old man must have seen the confusion chase itself all over his face for he said, ‘Everything will make sense in time. Walk with me as I explain what I can,’ and with that he walked out of the room.

It was a warehouse alright but what they were producing or doing was as good a guess as why he was here. Human sacrifice - he had the grunts and cries all over the different rooms and heard what he believed was a bone breaking. Human trafficking - he saw the black vans and teenagers of various ages running to them dressed in the same black jumpsuit he had on. Secret criminal group - he saw them haul in big boxes marked ‘Danger’ maybe drugs like the one they must have used on him, or guns. You can never know with the heartless.

‘Welcome to build,’ he heard the old man say when they reached the landing of the third floor giving them a good view of the warehouse

‘Build?’ he asked. Seems his tongue still knew how to do its duty.

‘No,’ he chuckled, ‘B.U.I.L.D. Better Uganda Into Lawful Determination.’ Emma wanted to laugh, what a name for whatever they were doing, especially given his guesses but one glance at the old man showed he was serious about this. ‘Don’t mind the name. There is a reason we all just use B.U.I.L.D. Now the facts. We have existed for a very long time,’ Emma scoffed at that and the old man ignored him, ‘we’ve gone through different names over the ages but our goal remains the same.’

‘Lawful determination,’ Emma sneered.

‘Among other things. With your attitude, it’s not hard to imagine why all those bullies picked on you,’ and he restarted the walk. Emma felt a surge of anger and power he had never felt before at that slight check. He was always able to let things go.

‘What’s wrong with me?’ he asked.

‘All in good time, now keep up. Our mission is to recruit, train and release. ‘

‘Wh...’

‘We recruit by any means, train by any means and release only the best. The end always justifies the means. Our vision… you have to have lasted four years here to figure it out.’

‘What day is today?

‘Oh I thought you knew, it’s your seventeenth birthday. We were starting to worry a little about you. Showing no signs all these years yet your father awakened at 13. One of our very best recruits. You may not get to see him though, very busy man.’

‘My father is dead.’ He replied as someone resigned to the fact for eight years now.

‘Is that what you were told?’

‘He died in a work related accident. He worked in a sugar factory further East. It was a gruesome death we were advised not to have an open casket funeral service. He loved his wife and family, toiled hard for us. Even with the little he had, he saw to it that we were comfortable. He would never abandon his family for a cause as silly as lawful determination….’

‘Among other things,’ he squeakily interjected.

‘OF A COUNTRY HE WAS TRYING TO FLEE!’ Emma was shouting now. Spit was flying out of his mouth, his hands had curved into fists and he had taken several steps closer to the old man. His heart pounded hard but not as hard as his head. He was not a violent person. Why was this happening to him? What was happening to him?

‘A lot of anger I see. We’ll channel that to good use. Now where was I,’ he said calmly as though Emma hadn’t just gone off like a bomb, ‘Oh yes, the signs. So we had to bring you in, keep you away from any inhibitors and as always we were right. Look at you now, the future of BUILD. We’ll do great things here.

‘As you can see this warehouse is just our recruitment center and cover base for our missions whenever we are in this area. For our full program, you are going to attend our college. Studies and training. We’ll feed your mind as we give you an outlet for all that information. We’ll send a letter to your mum telling her about the school. She will be glad and excited when she receives the information; she will have no option but to let you come. And you will have to keep the truth to yourself. Once am done here, someone will come in with everything you will need to ease you into your new life now.’

‘I didn’t agree to be your recruit and I can’t lie to my mum.’ Yes, sure, over the years he had lied to his mum but it wasn’t something as serious as this, ‘And besides, what sort of training is this that I can’t find anywhere else?’

‘Let’s put it this way, we’ll help you become the best human weapon you could be’. Emma laughed and thought to himself how wrong B.U.I.L.D. was to even think of recruiting him. He had no talents, no skills and no body-build for what was being suggested. ‘I’m sure it seems laughable now but follow me and see.’

The old man led him to one of the on-site training rooms.

‘How about a game of sword play,’ the old man said as he walked to the far end of the room to retrieve the weapons.

‘I’ve never held…’

‘With sticks,’ and he threw one to Emma. His hand shot out and caught it, right side up with no effort. And then the information started flooding in. Block. Sidestep. Thrust. Disarm. Tackle. Slash. Parry. Feign. He could see all the necessary movements for each move then it started to get ugly. Dismember. Behead. Kill. All the vital and fatal blows to the human body. He dropped the stick. And fell to the ground, the pounding in his head threatening to burst it open.

‘What’s happening to me?’ he wheezed.

‘Everything and nothing,’ the old man replied as he came closer. ‘You are just awakening to your true self. ‘

‘You’ve said that before.’

‘It’s true.’ He replied sliding down to sit by Emma’s side.

‘What does it mean?’

‘It’s in your blood. Every man in your lineage up to seven generations back has been a part of this. Evolution will argue that their best and fiercest traits for survival were passed on but you are just you and you are capable.’

‘I am the laughing stock at school,’ he responded in disbelief that any of this could be true.

‘Inhibitors.’

‘You said that before too’

‘Because am not making anything up.’ Though the way he said it was laced with humour only he knew about and seemed to be waiting for the right time to burst out and laugh at Emma.

‘Tell me this though, am I normal…truly? Not some engineered scientific project or machine?’

‘Normal is relative, and sometimes a little overrated. But to answer your question, you are as normal as the next man. As normal as a musical prodigy or star athlete or genius are considered normal. You are normal in the sense that you live and breathe like everyone else. Feel emotions like everyone else. You are just…,’ he shrugged, ‘gifted’.

He gave a grim short laugh, ‘Gifted to be a human weapon, what a gift!’

‘It’s not so much the gift as much as what you seek to do with it that makes all the difference. Remember, we are the good guys here.’

Emma looked at him and saw the conviction in the old man’s eyes. He clearly believed what he was saying. But he was not fooled; all evil causes started out with the belief that they were the good guys or at least had some right to what they claimed. Yet it was starting to dawn on him that whatever he was going through, he needed to be around people who understood it and were willing to help. Unless they had given him the drug that turned him this way! And the claims that his dad was still alive were true! Then he really had to stay here till he got to the bottom of things.

‘You said up to seven generations?’

‘Yes I did.’

‘That could span more than 150 years. Uganda is not that old. I mean the land existed but it wasn’t cut and defined, was it?’

‘Time to start doubting the history you’ve been taught, boy.’

The silence engulfed them as Emma sat thinking through everything he had been told. What to believe or not believe, that was the question. Perhaps this would make sense if he saw his dad for himself.

‘My dad…’ He didn’t know what to say exactly and let it hang.

‘Very busy.’ Old man said with no emotion. Just stating facts and Emma found himself nodding with deep persuasion.

‘So what would I do here?’

‘Train for a year. Mainly just to give you discipline so that you don’t go off the bat whenever you feel like. And when you are ready and successful, as I’m sure you’ll be, we’ll send you out on missions to bring back a little order to our small part of the world.

‘Sounds exciting and scary.’ He said as he got up and dusted himself off. The plan was starting to form in his head. Be here a year, learn what he could and leave, ‘Then what happens after a year? What happens outside training.’

‘Well, we influence all the major moves in Uganda. Now we are hoping to move our own person for the next elections. If you train real hard, you could be very instrumental in where we go next. As for the scary bit, once we realise our vision, it will all be worth it.’

Oh yes, the vision he was yet to find out! What a way to spend a birthday. And he had really been looking forward to 17. He knew the legal age in Uganda was 18 but still 17 was a thrill all on its own and he had his goals; get a job, earn his own money, apply for that robotics scholarship, finish out this year then relocate to where no one knew him. Life was finally looking up.

And now he was going to train to be a human weapon. Why did they have to sugarcoat it anyway? They could just say assassin and get it over with.

‘Will I have to kill anyone? ‘

Old man looked at him, really looked at him and said, ‘There are things worse than death, boy. Death could be a mercy.’ Then he looked away, ‘But we are the good guys and if it is avoidable, we walk the path of no deaths.’

A girl about his age burst through the doors with an envelope and a box of cake. Tall, confident, a face he found so beautiful and so serious at the same time. The kind of girl who would never give him the time of day. She smiled as she handed them all to him and said ‘Happy birthday from us at B.U.I.L.D. Welcome home.’

He looked at her, the box, the envelope and finally at the old man.

‘Can I wake up from this dream now?’ and the old man laughed real hard.