Atticus Leer

In the field is where Atticus Leer was; he had been there for eight days. Never moving for food or water, just leaning in the same position for endless hours. His knee- length white coat snapped in a dry gust of wind that blew through a rusted swing set. The abandoned playground moaned in the breeze, sending a shrill whine through the cold air. Up in the sky was a grey tapestry of gloom, for the clouds had been stretched and pulled across the horizon forming a monochromatic smear that sulked low in the sky. Leer’s long black hair hung just below the length of his pointed chin and his emerald eyes were like little stones set deep into his head. In front of him was a rounded stone engraved with the name Penelope Leer 1888-1924. A thorny pale rose lay in front of the stone with its petals long since void of their scarlet luster and now dissipated to a flaky ash. Leer sat before the gravestone whimpering to himself quietly until the calm on the open field was broken.

The loud snaps and sputters of an engine roared through the air. The automobile made its way closer and closer to him. Leer turned around to see the car; it was new by the looks of it, a Fiat of sorts. It had a slanted grate and a lean chassis that bounced up and down as it shook to stop. It was then that Rolland Bismarck stepped out. He wore his traditional long coat and brown fedora that he always kept fastened to his balding head. His face had the same determined expression that he had had ever since Leer had met him. A hard-lined man with a thick jaw and greying hair who never gave up beyond all conceivable reason to accomplish his goal, no matter how ridiculous Leer knew it to be. Attempting to take him in, use his knowledge for the betterment of humanity, naïve idealism in Leer’s eyes. A fabricated concept of kindness that only got people taken advantage of or killed.
Bismarck walked quietly across grass towards Leer.

“Still here after eight days?” Rolland spoke in a soothing voice that Leer knew was only used when he attempted to sound sympathetic. “Aren’t you hungry?”

“I don’t need food, I can be out here indefinitely if I want.” Leer said wiping his nose.

“That’s what scares me Atticus, you would do that to yourself.”

“Stop trying to be the good guy and just leave me to be with my wife.”

“You forget that I am the good guy.”

“Right, you and your Pinkerton friends out to save the day.”

“Pinkerton isn’t around anymore Leer. I’m from the Foundation, remember?”

Leer kept his frown in place. Pinkerton, Foundation, it made no difference. Though different in name they were equal in foolishness for thinking he could be treated, that he could be helped. “The decades are a blur now, I’m starting to lose my sense of time. I feel like everything just meshes together.”

“Are you feeling confused, mixed up with time and memory?”

“No no, no symptoms like that. Though there is a good hundred year stretch around fifteen hundred or so where everything is a big fuzz that I don’t remember.”

“Were those the monk years?”

“A little after, I think around twenty years later. I was in a cave and then a town in Portugal. I remember it was before the first time you guys approached me because that was in Seventeen Thirty Four. I don’t really remember. I don’t want to think about it.”
“I understand that your…condition is hard but if you accept that we’re here to help you then you can-”

“Hard?” Leer glared at Rolland. “Every friend I had, every woman I loved has turned to dust around me and I am stuck looking like this. Feeling like this.” As Leer moved he cut his finger on a thorn of the rose. Immediately he brought his finger to his mouth just to get one quick taste of life, but as always the blood retreated into his body and the crimson cut sealed itself up in a fraction of a second. Once again the feeling of mortality slipped away from him.

“Death of a loved one is something we all go through.”
“Not ten thousand times. I know your little agency wants to salvage me but I’m beyond that. I tried hanging myself but my neck simply slid back into place. I drowned myself but my lungs just invented new air. I want to die, Rolland, there is no point in trying to save me.”
“You know I have no choice. God made you for a reason Atticus, it’s in his love that you’re the way you are.”

“Do not attempt fool me with your false allegiance with the Lord. I know that all of your Foundation types are nothing but bitter nihilists. If there is one thing I have witnessed it is that your agency has always kept to their bleak code. Even if you did believe, the God I was brought up worshipping was very different from the one you know. When I was young we were taught there were many gods. We were taught to be scared of them or else we were shot full of lightning. At least that was interesting, now everything is just a grey trudge.”
Rolland placed his hand on Leer’s shoulder. “Is there nothing you find interesting anymore? Events occur in unexpected and exciting ways. History must unfold before you in an unbelievable manner.”

Atticus shoved Rolland’s hand away. “When you have been alive as long as I have you begin to see patterns. I can see the future now. This Hitler guy in Germany for example, I know he’s going to invade Europe. It will be the Schlieffen Plan all over again just bigger. ”
Rolland raised an eyebrow, “Hitler? He’s a humanitarian, a road builder. Why would he attack Europe?”

Atticus rolled his eyes. “Do you remember what Kaiser Wilhelm said about German borders?”

“Yes, he said Germany was a satisfied power.”

“Right, and how did that work out for everyone?” Rolland was about to speak about to speak when Atticus interrupted. “Exactly. Boom. Total war, machine guns, fire, death, and mustard gas. Everyone dies.”

“Okay. But how do you know this will be the same?”

“I’ve seen it before. Leaders enter countries acting like Jesus incarnate only to kill everything in their path. I saw this with Torquemada, Charlemagne, it happened three times in France.”

“I think you should give it a different perspective.”

“I already have tu es mater fuitio.”

There was a pause before Rolland spoke. “Why do you do that?”

“Do what?”

“Do that, speak Latin? I’ve tried to help you out of this mindset for months now and you still haven’t told me why.”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“This won’t get any better if you don’t.”

Leer exhaled slowly, “I believe this is what your boys back at the Foundation call unresolved childhood trauma.”

“I have helped many people get over unpleasant experiences, the first step in coming to terms with your trauma is accepting it. Trust me.”

Atticus sighed. “I grew up with it. It’s what you would say my native tongue is.” Leer tightened his eyes and spoke very slowly like he was telling a once upon a time story. “Rome was dying; of course we didn’t know that. As far as we in Britannia were concerned the empire was just as strong as it had always been. We were what you would call a little off the grid. Hell, I remember that we hadn’t gotten word of Emperor Glycerius’ death until one hundred and thirty years after the man had died. When my family and I discovered I could heal from injuries my parents initially said I was blessed by Zeus, or was it Apollo? Either way I was seven when our little fantasy of our faraway capital was shattered. They came by night, a barbaric horde without name, rhyme, or reason rode in and set fire to my village. My parents died of course but I…I wouldn’t die. My skin charred and melted but just grew back as I burned and burned. They used what we called Greek fire so I was on fire for a good day before it went out. It was then that I realized that this was not a blessing, it was a curse. I stopped aging at around thirty so I guess I’m lucky I’m not a decrepit old man.”
Rolland didn’t say anything, how could he say anything? He simply stood there flabbergasted. Leer had rarely told this story but he knew what Rolland was thinking, people reacted the same when they hear awful stories. There is a point where something is so terrible that saying ‘Oh, I’m so sorry’ is just an insult. How could anyone be sorry, how could anyone do anything but just stand there after hearing that.

Leer narrowed his eyes. “What do your people want me for? Is it my knowledge?”

“Sure.” Rolland said. “Yeah, your knowledge, that’s what we want. We could solve a lot of problems with your know-how. Predict disasters, set up better systems, make lives better.”

“Really?” Leer’s eyes lit up. “That’s so kind and considerate of you. What a beautiful cause you represent.”

“So will you come?”

The light in his eyes disappeared. “Of course not you dumb shit. I know when someone’s trying to trick me. Kindness is not a natural emotion, it is a weak feeling for weak people.” Leer turned back to Penelope’s gravestone. “Only she showed me true kindness, true love. But like all the other hopelessly deluded individuals before her she was tricked and used by others, taken from me. You disgust me brutus asina.”

“You remember what I said earlier about not having a choice?” Looking at the gravestone Slate heard a click behind him. He knew it was meant to be discreet but nothing escaped his ears. He knew the sound of a gun cocking when he heard it. “Because I seriously don’t have a choice and neither do you.”

“I’m assuming my knowledge isn’t what you want.”

Rolland laughed, “You may be immortal but you act like you were born yesterday. Being a hermit hasn’t suited you well. In forty years we’ll have machines that can predict this kind of stuff faster then you can even find out about it. What do you think we want? Make a deduction.”

“Well let’s see what the years have taught me. Your Foundation has approached me seven times in the past one hundred and twenty five years and always with a different excuse. I would assume that if your so called ‘containment’ was a priority you would have done it by now. My blood then, you want my blood. Good luck, your would need one hell of an arm to force my blood out of its vein.”

“Bravo. You see one simple drop of your blood could stop everything. We could end polio, influenza, the pox, everything. The League of Nations could get the army it needs to keep the balance, an immortal army, one that would secure, contain, and protect every threat, country, and citizen.”

“You forget the part when the soldiers grow tired of taking orders for five hundred years. You know if you keep up this mentality there will be a god damn civil war.”
“What like in Germany?”

“No you simpleton, in the Foundation. Outward interference will only provoke those more loyal to your covert code. Could you imagine a war with those…those things you keep locked up.”

“Not my problem and most certainly not what your should be worried about right now. You’re coming with me.”

“And what if I refuse?”

“This is a Colt 1917. Immortal or not this thing will make minced meat out of you before the words leave your mouth.”

It was Leer’s turn to laugh, but this was not the sarcastic snivel that Rolland was used to, the scoff that he made over people’s predictability. This one was high and raspy, like the moan of the nearby swing set. “You know you people can still surprise me every now and then with the fathomless depths of your stupidity.” Then faster then Rolland could even react Leer whipped around and grabbed his gun. Endless years of experience loosed itself on Rolland. Rolland himself could take on ten men at once but Atticus’s movements were almost unnatural. He blocked and countered every attack thrown at him. He twirled and spun like a tornado, striking Rolland with overwhelming force while simultaneously being impossible to land a blow onto. Rolland threw a punch that Atticus caught in his mouth and snapped Rolland’s wrist with his teeth. He screamed in pain as leer sunk his teeth into his flesh before tearing off a good chunk of his hand.

Thrown to the ground, Rolland looked at the menace above him and reached for his pocket, unsheathing a spare pistol. He opened fire and tore across Leer’s shoulder but pain meant nothing to Leer nor did danger. Bullet after bullet shredded through him but his wounds compressed and smoothened in an instant.

Leer straddled his enemy and howled like a feral animal. “You think you can betray me? I lived one hundred lifetimes before you slithered out of the womb mortal. I am eternal, ever-lasting, a god. I have had specks of dust beneath my fingernails that lasted longer than you. I have been burned to ashes, shredded, blown apart, poisoned, incinerated, yet I still live. Do you think your feeble instruments can harm me? You think base mites such as yourselves, plebian parasites, deserve to suck from the teat of divinity?”

Rolland was wide eyed, “Now listen here, be reasonable, I was only going to take you to a nice house with food and surveillance. We could find a woman for you to replace Penelope.”

Atticus’s eyes dilated before he spoke in a low rasp, “You think you can replace her? No.” Leer grabbed the hilt of the gun and brought it down onto Rolland’s head. “No.” He smashed it against him again. “No no no no. No one will ever love me like she did. Nobody!”

With the final blow came a wet crunch and a deluge red gushed out of Rolland’s forehead. Leer then felt it, the warm blood on his hands, the palpitations of another heart ending, the last final breath. It was beautiful. It was death. He could feel it, mortality. It was unlike anything else he had ever dreamed of. It started slipping away so he wet his hands in the viscous fluid and splashed it against his face and felt the warmth fill him. It was indescribable, but it was gone now, the brief fleeting moment of termination escaped him and he had to feel it again.

He had to know more of it, he had to experiment. Would slitting the throat be better or would crushing, strangulation, or impalement be better? Does it taste good? Atticus licked his hands. Yes it most certainly tasted good. He smiled and stood up knowing that he could, after hundreds of decades, find a hobby. He had millions of years and billions of people at his disposal. He was a man born again, they could lock him up but the jail would eventually crumble around him. He was Atticus Leer and he would roam the Earth for eternity finding death one person at a time. He laughed, he had a world war coming up, a civil war about to break out between the Foundation, and he was ready to plague them forever.