Interlude One...

Interlude One: An Excerpt from How Much You Can Take: The Story of Deathmatch and the Legacy of Black Iron University.

Ian O’Brian.

I parked behind Nyle’s car.  At that point, I had lost the mohawk.  My hair wasn’t very long, but it covered the few scars I had gotten and…well…I looked better.  Let’s just leave it at that.  I mean, I looked in the rearview, made sure that they were covered, and… See, here’s the thing.  Some shit you don’t mind being reminded of.  You know?  And some shit you want to forget.  And some shit you just deal with – and the scars, how we got them, what they meant, they weren’t for others.  You know?  We weren’t on the news for a week, no be fund raiser, no big worry.  Ok, those miners, right, a few years back, they were stuck for a lot longer, but they were safe.  We weren’t.  We were dealing with fucking carnage, and…

And I didn’t know what to expect.  Really.  No clue.  I mean, I had had people with me for the day I have been stuck.  Nyle had been on his own for four.  And I wasn’t sure if people had visited him.  I knew where he lived, we had used it as a way-station when we went to concerts, but I didn’t think anyone had visited.

I saw Nyle come out of the garage where his parents’ kept their cars, carrying a sledge hammer in both hands.  He looked like the weight of the thing would snap him in half, I mean – toothpick arms sticking out of a black t-shirt, and it looked like he hadn’t gotten a haircut in months, so he looked like a younger version of the Iron Maiden mascot.  He didn’t even glance at my car, just walked to the big stone bar-b-queue they had in the backyard.  The thing was ancient, looked like it had to be the oldest thing in the fucking town.

So he got to it, and let the hammer head fall a little.  He put on this half mask and goggles like he was going to go snowboarding, and took up the hammer again.  And he just lays into the fucking thing – just slamming into it.  There’d be a grunt, then this sound of thunder, just crack you know?

Did he know you were stopping by?

Nah.  I tried, but nothing got returned – e-mail, text, call, nothing.  I had called his folks and told them I wanted to stop by and…they seemed relieved.  I dunno.  It’s like, there was always a wall between Nyle and the rest of the world anyway, but you didn’t know if it was the quiet condescension or the guy who just liked everything.  I mean…I thought he was bipolar, but…he wasn’t.  Whatever he was, he had changed.  I mean, duh, right – no one got away clean from that shit, and, like, we talked about posttraumatic stress disorder and other stuff that you only hear about in major tragedy.

But we all knew Nyle – he had started out as a theatre major, and was an attention seeker.  And some of the cats, man, they thought he was just pissed that he hadn’t been the center of attention.  That’s only partially true – he was pissed that nobody seemed to care.  Part of it might be the fact that we’ve seen it before, but you’d think…it was a cross between Columbine and 9/11, and what was worse, it had no reason behind it, you know?  It was just this freak thing that happened and everyone seemed ok with it.

I mean, you spend a few nights under wreckage, bleeding to death, and trying not to freeze solid, and when you see that no one seems to give a shit about close to fifty dead students – and that was just in the collapse, that doesn’t count the kids who froze to death waiting to get dug out, or who… [Ian says nothing for a few moments] I watched him begin the process of dismantling the stone bar-b-queue and I didn’t want to get any closer.  I wanted to get in my car and just drive off.  Fuck him, and fuck whatever he was going through, you know – we’d all been through shit at that point, and…I couldn’t take the noise.  That sound of metal and stone.  You know?  When I was down there with the others, that’s what we heard.  That sound of girders giving, and the stones sliding against one another.  And each clash was just another reminder of what had happened.  I mean – I wanted that shit behind me.  And I knew…I know…he wasn’t done with it yet.  With whatever had happened.

So I went forward and kept a few yards away when I called out to him.  He stopped in mid swing, and rested the hammer on his shoulder – the right one.  It was weird – seeing the hammer like that.  I couldn’t think why, but it seemed wrong.  And he looked at me.  I mean, I saw Nyle looking at me, but it was like he was looking at me behind his eyes…does that make sense?  Like, I could see who he was, but there was something in front of it, and it was him.  I’m not making sense, am I?

That that was what I was looking at.  That’s what I saw.  I said, “Hey,” again, and Nyle said ‘hey’ back, but didn’t put the hammer down, like I thought he would.  “How’ve you been,” I asked.  You know.  The fuck else you gonna say to someone you haven’t seen in a little under a year.

“Well, thank you,” he said, “and you?”

“I’m doing ok,” I said.  I knew that he knew that I had just driven hours to get here.  But for a long moment he just looked at me, as though he was sizing me up, wondering where to land a blow with the sledge.  After what felt like a long time he asked if I needed the bathroom or wanted a drink.  I said yes to both, and he finally put the hammer down and led me inside.  The house was like I remembered it – the grey carpets, the stone fireplace and the narrow hallway the held the bed and bath room(s).  I could hear his parents in the kitchen, and I pissed hearing the muffled voices.  I went out and to the kitchen, catching the water bottle that Nyle tossed to me.  I smiled and talked to his parents.

The Turlas are...they’ve been through a lot.  His brother’s troubles, his father and mother’s health issues, and then Black Iron, all of it was on their faces – the smiles are tired and weary, but their cheerfulness wasn’t forced.  Just…strained.  Like threads plucked a few times too many.  Not ready to snap, but getting there.  And…I watched Nyle try to be cheerful, too.  He just couldn’t seem to let himself be cheerful, like he thought he was expected to be grim and angry.  I think that was when I realized how much I missed him – the smirk and disdain and good natured black humor.  I don’t think he could let himself through his own walls, and he knew it.

I asked to talk to him in private, and we went out, back towards the cars, and lit cigarettes and talked.  And that’s when I mentioned DeathMatch.

Did you mention who ran it?

Ivan?

Yes.

Are you fucking serious?  Look, I’m all for being honest with my friends, but telling him that the guy who had actively wanted him dead was running it?

But wasn’t he the one to find Nyle?

Yeah.  He told me that.  Ivan, I mean, when I met him my first time at DM.  Have you talked to him yet?

Have you talked to him yet?

Yes.  He was one of the first interviews.

Then you’ve got that story.

Yes.

Well.  [Ian pauses for a moment]  I told him that it had helped me.  That…if you’re not careful, you go around looking for purpose, and you end up finding it in bad places because it’s easier.  I mean, bad thoughts, bad habits, bad actions.  All of it.  But here was a game – not a distraction, not one of those ‘we all get trophies for taking part’ type deals, oh no – this was a work hard, do your best, and with a little luck here and there, boom.  You could take the prize.

Nyle chain smoked, and finally just said, “I’ll think about it.”  I nodded, cause…yeah.  I mean, the fuck else could you say to that.  ‘Please do,’ I guess.  Then Nyle said, “You want to grab dinner,” and I said yeah.  So we got in his car and drove to one of the last diners to have a smoking section and sat down.  He asked me more about game.  I told him what I could…probably getting a bit too excited.  He knew about the…well, the mass market term is ‘adreninal suit,’ but we call them battle armor since we have to make our augmentations.  But for whatever reason, it was the melee bit that really caught his attention.

Looking back…

No.  No, I couldn’t see what would happen at that point.  I mean…I knew that Nyle was in there.  But…that was the first time he told me to call him Garrett.  I asked why and he said he needed a change.  And I was telling myself to be ok with this because, like, he wasn’t shooting up or drinking himself blind or anything like that.  So he wanted to be known by his middle name – fine.  He was still Nyle, you know, Nyle, the Nyle, was still in there and just…needed to heal.  I mean…later, I saw that in Emily Merrin, later.  And that…have you talked to her?

Not yet.

She was important.  When he was rebuilding, in those final stages.  And in a way, he was important to her – although I don’t think he understood it then.  Or now, frankly.  Maybe she does.  She always seems quick on the uptake.

Did you explain the teams to him at the time?

Well, teams existed in Atrocity only.  We called them Armies, or squads, but that led to some confusion.  But, yeah, I told him.  Mentioned that Kylie was now head of the Angels, and about the Dragons and the Core.

Did you mention who was starting the Revenants?

No.

Was there any reason for that?

What – to tell him, or my not telling him?

Your not telling him.

Yeah – it really didn’t seem like it mattered.  His Darkness reveled in being unknown – he preferred people not knowing who he was when the helmet came off.  And those suits – I mean, unless you were an extreme body type, everyone looked the same.  Like – exactly the same, just color coded.  And His Darkness – and there was only ever one ‘His Darkness’ – reveled in it.  You couldn’t target a higher up unless you knew what kind of weapon they used.  And His Darkness’ sword – this really sweet dark blade based on Elric’s sword from Moorcock – stood out.

Anyway – His Darkness hadn’t gone through Black Iron.  He just knew about it.  And this was his idea of helping out – guess he knew that some of the cats wouldn’t really like it that he wasn’t one of us.  I mean…we had changed, like I said.  And the fucked up thing was, there was, like, a thick black bar between, like, you and me, right?  But there were lines between kids who had been in the wreckage and kids who had been in the buildings that had stood.  I mean…it didn’t even matter how long you were under – if you had been under at all, you were different from those who hadn’t been.

So to have this outsider say, yeah, hey, I want to help you?  I don’t know – to this day – if His Darkness had any training in psychology or anything like that.  What I do know is his heart was in the right place.

So, that’s why I kept mum.  It was respect returned.

And people like Calv-

The Bastard.  [There is a long pause here]  Trust me – do not say that name around Nyle.

What was the rift there?

That’s not my story.  [A pause] Ask those two.

Oooh..kaay.  Was it that bad?

Some wounds don’t heal.  And everything the Bastard did after what happened made it worse.  You say the interviews, right?  The ones on the YouTube channel?  Especially after “Black Iron” was announced – it’s all him, all the Bastard, because that’s the face you know for Black Iron.  They don’t talk about Kylie keeping us all sane, or how she spent a fucking day with us, all of us almost crushed to death, doing four things, sometimes all at once – praying, crying, keeping our spirits up, and digging.  They don’t talk about it, and neither does she – because it’s too fucking big, and if you weren’t there, you can’t understand it beyond the theory.  Ok!  I talked to some guys in the Core, and they got it – but they knew my shit was as alien to them, as theirs’ is to me!  You can reason with an enemy solider, right?  But gravity, pressure, rock, metal, fire, snow, the shit we were dealing with – you can’t fucking talk it down!  The…[a pause] the closest I’ve come to guys who got it were some of the fire fighters who were there once they got the roads passable.

You’re going up against nature.  The world is literally against you.

[a pause] That’s why I was cool with His Darkness doing this.  I mean…ok.  Beyond intent, there’s no difference between what he did and what all of the bad guys do.  It’s give you a purpose.  ‘No job? No future? Here – blame these guys!’  ‘Can’t sleep at night?  Angry for no reason?  Go beat the fuck outta some other people who can’t sleep and are angry for no reason!  In the woods!’  Fuck, man – it was a Fight Club ploy, but it worked.  And no one bombed Delaware as a result.  So, there’s that.

Any neo-fascistic overtones?  Or homoerotic overtones?

Combine Fight Club and video games.  Yes to both.