Another spasm wracked his body. He had to empty his mind to control the madness, but the unbidden review of his early life was proving to be wondrously indulgent. The metal archway that lead to the Honnecker School for Military Studies flashed through his mind. It was a brutal, primitive place that changed little while the world beyond its stone walls experienced cataclysmic change, but Klaus Reisch had found himself there.
Unconsciously, he began to rub the small tattoo on his right wrist. In faded black, the words ex chaos ordo were into his skin. Out of chaos, order. He had done it himself, and the beating he received because of it only made him all the more proud. It was the school motto, and it had taken him more than three years to fully understand its meaning; a moment of epiphany prompted by public humiliation. His philosophy professor had asked him to explain the phrase’s apparent contradiction in the context of the ancient Greek belief in a god of order and a god of chaos. Klaus couldn’t remember his response only that it caused his teacher to launch into a tirade that somehow ended with Klaus being removed to the disciplinary cells. Hours latter, as he sat in the dark on the cold concrete bunk, his thoughts of revenge and violence slowly being consumed by a growing exhaustion, his mind began to clear and an understanding crept into the void: he was completely alone. He had no family; by mutual consent he hadn’t seen his parents in years. His schoolmates feared more than respected him, and he was fairly certain that most of the faculty held the same opinion. He had no one to trust, no one to tie him to a society that he found both restricting and absurd. If he was going to survive, he would do it alone. From the chaos that threatened to stifle and control him, he would create his own order. It was in this moment that Klaus Reisch was born.
For the next six years Reisch reworked himself. In public he fought to control the innate abilities that were viewed by others as antisocial, but in private he honed them to a fine edge. When he was sixteen, on a school trip to Berlin, Klaus killed a man simply because he felt that the experience would be beneficial. His victim wasn’t important. Death was a personal and special event for the individual involved, but Klaus was only interested in generalities. He stalked several people before he found his test subject, a middle-aged man who had the misfortune of turning, at the wrong time, into a dark alley to urinate. Klaus stabbed him in the back four times and then quickly turned the slumping body over so he could watch the man’s dying face. All Klaus saw was a pained look of surprise as the man bled to death. No soul left the body; no great insight was muttered with a dying breath. The man gasped, then shuddered a little and was dead. Moments earlier this decaying mass had been a living breathing human being, with thoughts, desires, a future, maybe even a family, and Klaus had taken all that away with the slightest of actions. A very small part of him reveled in his power, his ability to effect great changes with the smallest of actions, but a greater part of him was disappointed. Human life was so fragile, so easily extinguished, and so inconsequential. Where was the dignity, the sanctity of human existence? Perhaps, he thought, it’s only reserved for a select few, a very select few. Klaus left the body and found his group at the hostel. No one had missed him, and life went on exactly as it had all his sixteen years.
A snowplow rumbled down the street below Reisch’s room, its blade scraping snow and pavement and grating his nerves. He opened his eyes and cursed; the reminiscent spell broken, he was left with only the shaking chills and the imminent madness. He crawled out of bed and pulled back the curtains of the hotel room intent on killing the driver of the plow, but the truck had already turned the corner. It had snowed again. God, how he had learned to hate snow; as a child, it was one of the few things that he had loved, but after six weeks of watching it fall unceasingly, he could die quite happy if he never saw it again.
It was still dark but close to dawn, and a handful of people filed into the large church across the street; for a moment Klaus watched them. He felt the smallest measure of kinship with those poor souls. They sought understanding in a world filled with chaos, and prayed for transformation, not just for themselves, but for society as well.
“Fools,” he said. The order they sought was false, artificial. They denied their true selves, sacrificing in the name of a greater good. God, society, it didn’t matter what they called it; all they accomplished was to contribute to the very chaos they feared. Human society was the greatest force of disorder ever devised, and religion was its most potent weapon. Jesus, Moses, Mohammed, Buddha were all agents of chaos. Each of them, in their own way tried to supplant the natural, universal order with their own perverted version.
Klaus let the curtain fall; it was cold and he had to start moving. There would be no stopping the madness now, it had a hold on him; he could already feel the gnawing inside his belly. “An incomplete immunity,” the virologist had told him long ago, “similar to shingles.” Reisch rubbed the blisters and the usual yellow fluid ran down his hand. The image of Jaime Avanti floated through his mind; the virologist had helped to save his life seven years ago, and up until the end, had a pivotal role in the overall plan, at least until he had tried to betray it. He would be with the Americans now, unless he was dead.
Reisch smiled again. Everyone, from Avanti to the terrorists to Reisch himself, had their own agendas, and it was the sticky yellow fluid that steadily oozed from his blistered hands that held them all together. It was the true agent of transformation. He was the first to experience its power and was convinced that Amanda was the second. The thought of her produced a wave of desire that bordered on panic. He had to find her, and, if it was appropriate, protect her from the forces that wanted to destroy her.
Another, more powerful rigor wracked him; the demons were stirring. For a moment, his desire and their needs were balanced, but as always, the equilibrium was fleeting. Amanda would have to wait, because the madness wouldn’t.
Klaus took less than ten minutes getting ready. His movements becoming more frantic as the need grew. Normally, he was meticulous in his grooming and presentation, but for the time being basic hygiene was all that was required. A part of him hated the madness, the periodic and unpredictable interruption in his life to feed the demon that lived inside him was demeaning; a little like defecation, necessary but repugnant. Still, it was a small price to pay.
“Ex chaos ordo,” he said while stepping into his shoes.
His jacket came next, and as he slipped into it, he wondered if Amanda had her own demon and, if so, what it demanded of her. The thought of Amanda quickened his pulse, but she would have to wait, his demon was almost overwhelming conscious thought. He never considered himself a violent man. It was true that for almost twenty years he had made an excellent living from the strategic application of violence, but it was never a random act. The planning, the anticipation of obstacles, and finally the dispassionate execution were intellectual tasks that demanded precision and clarity. Violence for the sake of violence was new to him, but it was the price his demon demanded of him.