Warhammer 40k in the Year 2024: Kurze and Three Conversations
a fanfic by Daniel Trump
open source not copyrighted
This is fanfic and includes violence, sex, language, inappropriate ideas, rebellion, etc. Please read and follow. I’m a novelist trying to make this a paying profession and so far failing. If you want to help look up and buy Death Love Madness by Daniel Trump on amazon for three measly dollars and read it. It’s a book I worked hard on writing about mentally ill teenagers in a horror story.
Celestine laughed.
I looked at her next to me in the bar, seated there, pretty white dress, drinking beer. We were twenty-five and no longer in high school. We sat at a bar with thirty or so patrons drinking mostly alcoholic beverages and chatting about our respective miseries and trying to connect with someone else.
I was Konrad Kurze, Night Haunter, barely still a chaos marine, and she was a sister of battle. We had grown up together but were supposed to be on opposite sides – but both respected each other. She had become a goddess, one of the leaders of the good guys. I had vanished into obscurity. It’s a curse – I fail. It’s one of the things I do. Last time around I died before making it to the year 40,000. This time I crashed and burned trying to be a chaos marine. I just didn’t impress them.
We were with mutual friends, catching up, having a few drinks.
She remained beautiful – but now her beauty felt eclipsed by her intelligence and demeanor and means of projecting herself as an intelligent and successful adult. I remained one of the mentally-ill outsiders. She wore a white dress – not a really formal one but one that showed her as a beautiful and powerful woman. Her lover wore leather pants and a plain white t-shirt and stood behind her drinking hard liquor.
“Do you remember high school?” I asked.
“Yes,” Celestine said. “Everything was the most important moment of our lives. I dreamed of going to the most important parties and having the most important adventures. I needed my social life to be the most important thing in the entirety of existence.”
“I role-played and dreamed of being connected to you through tragedy,” I said.
“That’s sweet,” Celestine said. “You were a weird kid. No one noticed you.”
“I fought plenty of battles.”
“No one doubts your courage,” Celestine said.
“You should,” I said. “I get fucking scared in battle. That shit is terrifying. Have you ever had a tyranid warrior charge at you with boneswords? Fucking scary.”
“Aren’t you a mentally ill demon worshipper with overwhelming supernatural powers?” Celestine asked.
“Yeah,” I said. “I scare people. I’m supposed to be the monster in the dark. But the secret is that I scare people because they hate and fear the crazy person who could burn it all down if he wanted to – and he doesn’t want to because he’s better than the people who fear and abhor him.”
“I’m pretty sure I could stop you,” Celestine said.
“No,” I said. “If I tried to burn down reality, it would burn. A lot of it would burn.”
“Maybe,” Celestine said. “But you wouldn’t.”
“No,” I said. “I fight for causes that I believe in. I help demons that need help. I support the demon community. Sometimes that means helping someone who has fucked up. But I understand people not being perfect. I’m willing to give people more chances.”
“Why?” Celestine asked. “Why do you – a godlike paragon of military might – fight for demons? Most of these demons are just assholes fighting to break the place. Or buy people’s souls. Or something equally sinister. And don’t give me that woke they are just another race of people bullshit. That’s bullshit. They’re demons. They want to fucking buy your souls and then kill everyone and then take over. We fight them. We should fight them. You should not work for them. You are one of the good ones. There’s no reason to fight for them.”
“I know,” I said. “I realized that. Somewhere along the way, I realized that my bosses were the bad guys.”
“And you didn’t immediately quit?” Celestine asked.
“No,” I said. “I love too many wonderful demons to betray the team.”
“I understand that,” Celestine said. “I love the sisters of battle. I would do anything for those girls.”
“And I shouldn’t do anything for my beloved demons?” I asked.
“You should,” Celestine said. “You should.” She smiled and hugged a beautiful woman who walked up to her. “Kurze, meet Melissa.”
Melissa barely shook my hand and then wandered off. She didn’t seem to talk to me at all.
“No more Grayfax?” I asked.
“She will always be a beloved friend, but no, we’re not together,” she said.
“I thought you two would be forever,” I said.
“No,” Celestine said. “We did not end up together forever.”
“Nice to meet her. Celestine, are you okay physically? Is medical a problem?” I asked.
“No, I’ve recovered from everything. You?” Celestine asked.
“Yeah,” I said. “Being a mentally ill veteran, sure. It’s a nightmare. Helping schizophrenics? There’s no cure. There’s no getting healthy. There’s just getting a little better. Improving the condition to where I can finish sentences and hear people when they talk to me.”
“Awesome,” Celestine said.
“Yeah,” I said. “Schizophrenia is a disaster. Being a veteran is a disaster.”
“Shobu?” Celestine asked.
I nodded. “Sounds good,” I said.
We sat down at a table. I drank my whiskey. Celestine drank a beer. We set up the board for Shobu, a game sort of like chess – with marbles on four different boards.
She smiled.
She played the black pieces. She immediately moved a marble up the board.
We played. I moved the lower left board’s white pieces to try to move her black pieces off of the board on the lower right board.
I didn’t think too hard about the game, just casually trying to win. I got three of her four marbles off of the board before realizing that my pieces had become irrevocably in the wrong places. I couldn’t have a chance to win. I held out my hand.
“You win,” I said.
“Thanks,” she said.
“You’re really good at strategy and tactics,” I said.
“Thanks,” she said.
“Do you remember Bryan Wattsell?” I asked.
“That’s what you wanted to talk about?” Celestine asked.
“He’s dead,” I said.
“Good,” Celestine said. “Good riddance to that asshole. He was one of your chaos marines. I’m sorry. I don’t care. I’m not sad that he’s dead.”
“He was a good person,” I said. “He bounced around from cell to cell for the last few years. I wanted to look into what turned him into a criminal.”
She shrugged. “I don’t care. He was one of your creepy friends.”
“What happened when we were fighting tyranids?” I asked. “Remember?”
“I remember the tyranid invasion,” Celestine said. “We were in high school, fighting bad guys. We fought impossible battles while the bosses pretended that we were not doing just that. They would lie and say that we were volunteering and moving boxes behind the lines and the like.”
“And they tossed Bryan and me into the front lines,” I said. “He saved my life. He helped me in my first fight. I was losing. I was barely hitting anyone, and genestealers were charging me. There was Bryan, telling me that we had this, helping me to shoot the enemy. He gave me confidence to win. He took down half a dozen genestealers by himself. He was great. He was a wonderful person, back then.”
“And then he fell,” Celestine said. “He became someone you weren’t proud of.”
“I understand,” I said.
“I just remember him trying to fuck me repeatedly and being a scumbag who would say anything to get my girlfriends into bed with him,” Celestine said. “He just did anything – tell any lie – to get laid. He was an idiot and an asshole.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I want to know what went wrong.”
She shrugged. “Nothing. Some people are just bad. Some people fail.”
“No,” I said. “Something happened to him. He was a perfectly good geek, and then he was hurting innocent people for scary demons. For the wrong demons.”
She shrugged again. “I don’t know. I didn’t have much to do with Bryan. I know that he fucked pretty much everyone. Then he broke their hearts and moved on. He wasn’t a good person.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I just want to know who could tell me about him, in that era.”
“I know,” she said. “Talk to someone. Talk to Bobby G.”
“Bobby G?” I asked. “He would know anything about Bryan? They wouldn’t like each other.”
“They didn’t,” Celestine said.
“I need to talk to Bobby G,” I said.
We stood up. I finished my whiskey and asked for my Uber. I hugged Celestine.
“Don’t be a stranger,” Celestine said.
“Take care,” I said.
We finished talking and went home. I went to bed after taking my nighttime medications and let the anti-psychotics knock me out for the night. In the morning I looked up Bobby G and made an appointment to talk to him at lunch that day.
The following day.
Lunch.
I had arranged to meet with Bobby G at a popular lunch deli sandwich joint in Libertyville.
I sat there, at a sandwich deli.
I had a roast beef sandwich with mayo and onions and lettuce. I drank a water.
People sat around the cafe. They wore warm clothes – it was January in Illinois. People talked on their phones. They sat around, working on laptops. They ate sandwiches and chips and soup and other foodstuffs. People expected great food, courteous service, and a clean restaurant, and mostly received such treatment. Everyone worked hard to provide for the customers.
Bobby G, aka Roubute Guilliman, the leader of the space marines, walked into the cafe. He smiled. He wore a dress shirt and dress pants and a nice warm brown coat. He hugged me. He looked flawless. He was in impeccable shape, strong beyond belief and in great cardio shape too. He had flawlessly combed hair and smelled beautifully. Everything about him screamed competence.
“Kurze,” he said. “How are you? I always have time for a consult. I’m available to talk about whatever concerns you.”
“I wanted to catch up and then talk about Bryan.”
I wore a comic-book t-shirt and some casual pants with a rip in them. I hadn’t shaved my beard in a few days. I hadn’t combed my hair. I was a mentally-ill man in America.
“I’m sorry for your loss,” Bobby said. “It always is terrible when someone dies. That’s why I obsess over history – I obsess over learning about people before us. I want to remember them, to honor them, the soldiers that came before us. I honor them with my life and my battles. You understand, Bryan was a villain, but he was a wonderful person, and I appreciate that. We had a lot of the same friends.”
“I know,” I said. “I was his friend. He was my friend. I owed him everything. And he became someone who could not be relied upon.”
“He needed to fuck people very, very badly,” Bobby G said. “That was his undoing.”
“I think he always was unreliable,” I said. “But that turned. He became someone who did scary things to get laid.”
“Agreed,” Bobby G said. “That’s a shame.”
“Why?” I asked. “Why did he turn into someone that wanted to do anything for sex? Why did he turn out to be that person?”
“There’s a reason for people’s decisions in life?” Bobby G asked. “I don’t know if that is true. He just turned out to be a scumbag. A wonderful person, a beloved marine, but a scumbag.”
“I don’t know,” I said. “Something happened.”
“What?” Bobby G asked.
“What are you doing now?” I asked.
“I’m in between jobs,” Bobby G said.
“You have enough money?” I asked.
“Yes, I have a lot of money,” Bobby G said. “I went to a good college and invest wisely and get good jobs protecting important companies. I do good jobs. I make a lot of money.”
“Why?” I asked. “Why do I fail as an adult? Why am I an unemployed and poor mentally ill guy on disability? Why are you rich?”
“I don’t know,” Bobby G said. “Some people plan. Strategize. Do things to improve our chances to succeed in life. Plan. Network. Think about what would make you do your job better. Figure out what works for you and what doesn’t work for you. Understand people. How they work. What they want. Understand. How to lead. How to talk. How to be a winner.”
“I’m not,” I said. “Usually. A winner.”
“But if you decided to fuck up one of those winners?” Bobby G asked.
“I could fuck them up beyond all reason,” i said.
“Exactly,” Bobby G said. “You have skills.”
“I have stupid skills,” I said. “I can see the future but choose to never do so. I can royally hurt people, just about anybody. I can scare people.”
“Marketable skills,” Bobby G said. “I could make millions with those skills. I do make millions, and I have some of those skills.”
“I know,” I said. “It just pisses me off, me failing to make it. Why can’t I be that guy? That everyone loves and reads and swears is the great writer, the legendary hero? Why the fuck are you the hero and not me?”
“I don’t know,” Bobby G said.
“I was going places,” I said. “Bryan and I were going to succeed in life. This isn’t fair. This isn’t right. We were going to save the world. Beautiful people should be thanking us. They should love us. Presidents should need us. Instead I live with my parents, doing virtually nothing, fighting an occasional scuffle against low-level ruffians, not really doing anything memorable.”
“I’m sorry,” Bobby G said. “I wish that everyone could succeed in his or her chosen profession. That’s just not how the world works. Most people are stuck in the middle.”
“I could fuck up almost anyone,” I said. “So why am I not successful? Why didn’t I make it in life? Why are the Night Lords an obscure group of nobodies compared to the Ultramarines or the World Eaters? Why didn’t we make it?”
“I think that it’s nice that you try, but you don’t know how to do what you do very well,” he said. “You don’t know what works and what doesn’t. You are a failure. We will not need you going forward, Konrad Kurze. I am nicely showing up to tell you that you used to fight fine in high school but that you are not getting hired by the space marines or the chaos marines. We don’t need the likes of you.”
“Ouch,” I said. “You don’t need me? And why was Bryan killed? Why was he the bad guy and you the hero?”
Bobby G shrugged. “Because I am a good person.”
“Not really,” I said. “You are an arrogant asshole who is great at everything and believes that he is more important than everyone else and lies about that particular fact.”
“I am an important person,” Bobby G said.
“Everyone matters, Bobby G,” I said. “I matter. I, a random, mentally-ill ex-soldier, who cannot keep a normal job – I matter. I am an important person. I change reality in interesting and important ways. You cannot stop me from fighting enemies.”
“We will see what you do with yourself,” Bobby G said. “We will see if you do something to fight to improve yourself. Or if you stay in your parent’s home, living there, doing nothing, not making it in life, while I work hard and make millions and win the strategy gaming tournaments where you get somewhere near last place.”
The whole truth is that I wanted to make it and didn’t know if I could do so. I walked out there and asked him – asked him straight out.
“You killed Bryan in a raid?” I asked.
“Kurze, no,” Bobby G said. “No. I didn’t kill him. I didn’t kill him. Celestine and I watched him walk away from the battlefield. I’m sorry that you blame me for your friend’s death, but I didn’t kill him. I’m not some scary monster. I’m a person who fights for a better world for the normal people in the world, fighting to protect all of them and their interests. I’m sorry that you think that I am a villain and a bully. I fight to protect reality from people like you and Bryan.”
“The crazy people,” I said.
“You worship demons,” Bobby G said. “That’s just a fact.”
I did it then.
I used my power.
I hate using my power.
I projected into the future and realized immediately that Bryan was alive and well and living in Indiana. I decided to drive down to see him.
“Listen, thanks for seeing me,” I said. “It’s nice to see you, Bobby G. You are always a good person, and I respect that.”
He stood up and shook my hand.
“Take care,” he said. “Check in regularly.”
“I will,” I said. I wouldn’t.
I left that meeting with Bobby G, the lead space marine, and then decided to visit Bryan to see if he was actually alive – as my power indicated. My power enabled me to see the future – and I saw that I would talk to him in a couple of hours in Indiana. I then got into my car and drove to Indiana to confront my friend.
I drove an hour and forty-five minutes to the Indiana border. He was standing there, outside a mundane apartment complex, waiting for me.
Bryan stood there, very much alive.
He was a skinny man, twenty-five, with a goatee and brown hair, with a wry smile and a prominent nose. He looked like someone who wanted to like you and be friends with you. He looked approachable. He wore blue jeans and a nice shirt.
I walked out of my car, a Toyota. I looked at him as I locked my car by touching the door.
He smiled.
“Hello, my friend,” he said.
“Hi,” I said. “You were reported as dead.”
“Sorry,” he said. “I needed to dodge some people.”
“Right,” I said. “What happened?”
“What do you mean?” he asked.
“What turned you into this?”” I asked.
“This? What?” he asked.
“A monster,” I said..”An unreliable person. Someone who works for the scary demons, doing terrible things.”
“I don’t do things that are that bad,” he said. “I actually live a reasonable life. I try to be a good person. I just have a lot of ex-friends that you know.”
“You betrayed them,” I said.
“I know,” he said. “I betrayed people. Well, I did that. I betrayed people. I hurt them. I may have sold out Fulgrim. I let his people get ambushed. I sold him out to the enemy forces. Sold out his location for money.”
“Jesus, Bryan!” I said.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I needed the money. I needed to impress a girl. I had multiple loyalties to honor, and I couldn’t honor all of them every time, and so it looked like I was betraying us, the chaos marines.”
“We aren’t! Not any longer. You betrayed the chaos marines, and I barely qualify any longer. I don’t do much for them any longer. They won’t hire me for anything but the bottom level of missions.”
“Do you want to know the truth?” he asked.
“Yes!” I said.
“All of them hated and feared and mocked and demeaned me,” he said. “I wasn’t considered a beloved chaos marine. I wasn’t a worthy Night Lord. No one gave a flying fuck about me. All of you let Bobby G’s awful Ultramarine friends bully me and laugh at me and scream at me. They screamed at the idea of me walking up to talk to them. They were so outraged, so mad, at the idea that I talk to them that they screamed at me. They made fun of me. Ceaselessly, all the time, made fun of me. And then they expected me to be a loyal soldier. Why the fuck would I lay down my life for them? You, I would fight for. You never made fun of me. You never looked down on me. You I fought for. Them? I never fought for them.”
“You weren’t a loyal chaos marine?” I asked.
“Never,” he said. “I hated those guys. I had nothing to do with them. I just wore the uniform to impress the demons, the demons I wanted to work with.”
“And now?” I asked.
He shrugged. “I’m regularly a Night Lord in your employ,” he said.
“And I allow that,” I said.
“And you allow that,” he said. “Because we’re friends.”
“Because I owe you a debt, and because we are friends,” I said.
“I don’t know what else you want to know,” he said. “I have killed countless enemies for people I loved and respected. I felt that they were in the right to kill said people.”
“I understand,” I said.
“If I killed the wrong person then I am sorry,” he said. “I never intended to be the monster.”
“You are,” I said. “We are. The mentally ill. The outsiders. The freaks. The people who can burn it all down.”
“And I don’t,” he said. “I restrain myself. I don’t. Burn it all down. I probably could. Wreck people. Take planets. Do real damage to the galaxies. Fuck up Earth.”
“But we don’t, because we are good people and mentally ill,” I said.
“Exactly,” Bryan said. “Because we are good people, fighting for causes that we believe in.”
“And the Emperor’s forces really, really pissed you off,” I said.
“Like you wouldn’t believe,” he said. “They pissed me off. They let a demon die. It wasn’t tactically sound to save her. She wasn’t worth saving. Those fuckers. Wouldn’t throw away twenty marines to save one demon, said she wasn’t innocent enough. Fuckers. They let a wonderful person die. And now I wreck them whenever I can.” He shrugged. “And I live in a nice apartment with a reasonable upper-middle-class salary.”
“You always spent more than you made,” I said.
“Still do,” he said. “Can I borrow some money?”
‘“No,” I said.
“I gave you an easy one,” he said.
“Funny,” I said.
“So anyway,” he said.
“Yeah,” I said.
“I have this thing,” he said. “I have to do.”
“I don’t want to know?”
He leaned in. “No.”
“Understood,” I said. “Good luck, my friend, with everything that you do.”
He smiled and gave me a hug.
“I will see you around, my friend,” he said.
I let him go.
That was the only guilty person I ever really just let go.
Control: Life with Mental Illness 