The Pardoner (Steve Henry): Fanatical mass murder, believes he is doing The Government's work by murdering people like Maude; says that in doing so, he is pardoning/absolving their Transgressions.
MAUDE HENSON (Excerpt)
“Nice to see you, Maude,” he says. “Looks like you’ve had a relatively uneventful year.” He taps at his desk screen and swivels it toward me. The year’s list of Transgressions, color-coded by severity, are neatly laid out in an attempt to shame me. I smile shrewdly and turn the screen back toward him.
“What’s my bracket?” I ask. I’m not interested in making my face-to-face interaction with this bastard any longer than it needs to be.
“Not so fast,” he says, the makings of a smile pulling at the corner of his mouth. He taps on an item listed in a color I haven’t seen used before. “This morning, I detected something unusual with your vitals. An…acceleration of your heart that is unrivaled by anything in your medical history. You sure you don’t have something to confess?”
(Like Hell I do!)
“Not at all. If you must know, I was experiencing a particularly difficult movement.”
“A what, Ms. Henson?” Grensen asks, clearly amused. I look him straight in the eye and lean in close, hoping to unnerve him.
“A movement. I was taking a shit, sir.”
“Must have been one hell of a shit, then,” he says. “Considering all I’ve seen you eat is whole grain and waffles. Go out to dinner on the down-low? Where were you last night and this morning, Ms. Henson?”
“You know exactly where I was, Grensen,” I say. Before my eyes, Grensen switches the display to a comprehensive overview of my vitals, containing everything from my average water intake to my libido.
“Yes” he says, looking between me and my heart and perspiration rates. “And I think you were up to something.”
I’ve remained calm through worse—much worse. I stare at him with a crude smile as my heart rate continues to blink along, fantastically unchanging.
“So, then,” I ask, raising my chin ever so slightly in a subtle display of triumph. “What’s my bracket, Grensen? I clearly have nothing to hide.”
Grensen knows his game is up. He has no grounds for reporting me. According to their records, all of my Transgressions are accounted for.
“The usual,” he grumbles. “If you maintain your current reporting level, you’ll get the same bracket you’ve managed to land yourself in every year you’ve been in the system.”
He logs out of my reporting file and smirks, his hazel eyes twinkling with something frightening.
“If, Henson. If.”
I snatch up my purse and, without another word, depart Grensen’s cubicle. I’m tired of his veiled threats. Unfortunately, there isn’t a system in place to report the unreasonable breaches of my privacy, nor a way to stop his constant reminders that he’s on to me.
Sure, I’m up to something. I just hope he’ll never find himself equipped with the means to prove it.
THE PARDONER (Excerpt)
No, her Transgressions lie with her after-hours activities. The places she goes are seemingly normal, but that perception changed soon after I followed her. It is not the bakery or the embassy at which she spent her evenings—that was but a facade! Oh, the thought of her true intentions fills me with the fullest RAGE!
I kick at her headless body, and blood spatters from her neck in an arrangement most pleasing to the eye. —Why, I should paint with her blood before it dries! Silly me, falling prey to internal digression while my materials slowly wilt away before my eyes. I must attend to spreading my message before I am discovered. It is most certainly not MY time to wilt in such a manner!
After all, friends, The Pardoner still has much work to do.
