TOOL

### Location

Phasmatis' Apartment Building (Chapter 1)Sewers (Corporate District), WorldCorp HQ Floor 4, WorldCorp HQ Sublevel (Chapter 5)

Aunt Betty Industries Interior (Chapter 7)

## Info

### Chapters

3

**TOOL** is a series of books written by Jonas Waever. Dr. Dumb Lunatic claims it "has as much depth as the pool on the floor" and that "whoever the author is, he's a worthless hack who should just sit down and examine what he's doing with his life".

## Text

### Chapter 1

1: The Pain Associated

The moment I hit the release button I can feel my strength growing. The stuff almost instantly kicks into effect. I can feel it flowing through my body. My heart beats faster, the muscles in my body tense and it's as if my nerves stop working. I become faster, stronger and much more accurate. My mind starts working in double-time, making the world seem to fall into slow motion.

I lurch forward, flaming metal flying from the muzzle of my weapon. Oddly, I wonder who mined this lead. Who brought it to the refinery where it was turned into what it is now. Shaped it into these pellets of death that now reside in my unsuspecting victim. He was dead before he ever felt the pain. He falls to the floor, blood pouring from the four small holes in his back.

I didn't really need to fire four bullets, but before I had managed to release the trigger, they were already off. Just the same; I fire again. And again. And again. They drop before me as before an angel of death. I am superior. I am oblivious to the heat and the stinging pain that I know I SHOULD feel. I just fire and fire and fire.

There are seven dead bodies on the floor. As I stand in the grey haze of smoke from our weapons, I feel my muscles relaxing. I feel my heart slowing down to just a bit more than its normal speed. I feel the world once again speeding up and I sit down in reply to the dizzyness that sweeps over me.

Then comes the pain.

*It always does.*"

### Chapter 5

5: Recalling Tears

It's like emerging from a haze of darkness and blood. It's like being reborn from the shadow of Death himself. It's like waking up from a very bad dream.

No... it IS waking up from a very bad dream. And realize it wasn't a dream. I've experienced it before, that realization. Every time my neural enhancers shut down, dumping me back into the cold, hard brutality of reality, I feel like that. But this is worse. I immediately know I lost it this time. I remember her pleading in a voice filled with terror. I remember gripping the bread knife impulsively. Compulsively. I remember falling backwards out of my own mind.

She's lying there in a small puddle of blood. It looks unrealistically small compared to... compared to the amount of blood smeared and splattered on the walls around me. I look at my clothes. My shirt is torn apart. My pants are soaked in blood. My hand, still gripping the bent bread knife dripping with blood, bears the marks from her desperate attempts to defend herself with her nails.

I can't cry. I've forgotten how to. This is my job, killing is what I do. Yet I know this should be worse. I try to figure out if I regret killing her, but I just don't know. I don't remember how to identify regret. I know I loved her because that feeling was so rare and unusual. I know I loved her because I don't usually do that. And yet, all I remember thinking when I realized she'd figured it all out, when I realized she knew so much there was no way I could risk letting her live any longer, all I remember thinking then is "I wish she hadn't, we had such a good time together." All I want to do right now is break down and cry.

But I can't cry.

*I've forgotten how to.*"

### Chapter 7

7: Suicide

I register the terror in his eyes, hidden well - but not quite well enough - behind a mask of caution and calm analysis. He wants me to think he's got everything under control. That he's attempting to come up with a solution to the situation. Maybe he is, but he knows as well as I that he's already failed. He's staring down the barrel of a loaded gun, and what he sees down there, his own private vision of death, is wiping his mind clear; eradicating his ability to think logically. He wouldn't be able to put 2 and 2 together right now.

I smile. Maybe to see his reaction. It's a cold smile, my smiles always are. I've caused too much suffering to smile properly. A smile is no longer within my physical abilities. For a moment, his mask drops and I can see straight into the depths of his horror, but it also seems to set his mind in motion.

"You snapped. When you killed Monica, you snapped." He wants me to think he knows how my mind works, but he knows as little as I do. He can't help me. "Look... don't kill me for no reason, man. I've known you since high school! I can't imagine what it's like to kill somebody you love. I... I know it was terrible, man, I know you're hurtin'. Don't make it worse than it already is! There was nothing you could do, man, you had no choice! You just need some help, for God's sake! You just need to talk to somebody. I'm here for you! I am... Talk to me. I want to help you."

I don't want help. I want him to know I'm not mad. I felt nothing when I killed her, that's the problem. I wanted to feel sorrow. I NEEDED to feel sorrow. There's nothing wrong with me, except... I'm not hurting. I need to hurt a little. This will help. This is bound to help. If this won't hurt, nothing will ever hurt. What am I then? Am I real?

A murder is just an extroverted suicide, I once heard. It's true in so many ways, I know that. I have years of experience with it, killing myself a piece at a time. One day maybe, I'll kill the last piece and die with it. Or maybe I already have.

He falls silent. I pull the trigger.

*It didn't help.*"

## Links

* https://web.archive.org/web/20110502121505/http://rooc.offtopicproductions.com/blog/2005/09/03/stuff/