Read Online Superego by Frank J. Fleming - Free Book Online Page A

initial reasons most civilizations exist is to keep kill-happy barbarians at bay.
    I try to avoid religious disputes. Well, I try to avoid people most of the time, but I especially have no interest in debating religion. One can point out that religion is just a bunch of superstitious, irrational beliefs; but is that any different from the beliefs of atheists? Everyone likes to think they’re logical and reasonable, but I find all people to be equally absurd and irrational. The main difference is that the religious tend to be a bit more organized in their irrationality.
    Now, a lot of people consider thinking a giant killer robot is a god to be laughably ridiculous, and I get that. I just don’t get how it may be socially acceptable for me to laugh at the Calabrai and their poorly examined beliefs, but wrong for me to laugh at how people mindlessly go to their jobs every day and provide for their families with no real introspection as to why and to what end. It’s all nonsense, but at least the Calabrai are acting with some real purpose.
    That purpose right now was to kill me. I didn’t take it personally; they would kill just about anybody, and I simply happened to be there. It’s like when people get killed in the crossfire when I’m on a job—nothing personal there either. That’s just how things are. And I really did kind of admire their zeal. I kill people because it’s something to do. They feel they’re doing something right and good, the way others might when helping poor people, but with fun killing instead. And I don’t have any concept of what that’s like. I don’t know how you just choose to believe something like that. But it does seem like it might make life easier.
    Life was not easy at the moment. For about half a second, I sat there in the open contemplating what to do—a very dangerous use of time. These people had nothing to do with my assignment, and it’s a pretty drilled-in rule that I don’t kill outside the job, so it took me a moment to realize I was going to have to kill them. This was most definitely a kill-or-be-killed situation, so it was clearly an exception to the rule. And while that might appear to mean that I would simply draw my guns and shoot the five assassins until they stopped moving, I still had my mission to consider. If I killed them expertly, it’d be obvious that I’m a trained killer. The mission would be ruined, and I’d be forced to flee…and I’d probably fail at that because of the tight security lockdown. Big mess. Lots of people dead—including me.
    Luckily I had planned for a similar situation: being discovered with guns before a hit was carried out. My story would be that I’m a cop on vacation, and I always bring my guns out of habit. It was believable, at least. Cops can be arrogant (just like me—though I would argue that I have more justification). Killing five attackers should be a feat for a cop who capably uses a gun but doesn’t kill people every week like I do, so I would have to make this look a bit lucky—I could be skilled but not too skilled.
    Which takes a tremendous amount of skill, incidentally.
    I drew one gun with my right hand and fired twice at one terrorist, missing the first shot on purpose and burning him with the second, the lizard-like creature devoting a dying shriek to his robotic master. I shot him again to make sure he was dead. I really don’t like these weaker guns that can’t destroy a whole torso. One shot per kill makes things much easier.
    I fired three more shots as I went for cover (a cop would use only inanimate objects and not other people as a shield, so I had to watch myself). Two of the three shots struck a human terrorist, and the remaining three now focused on me, the only armed resistance the Calabrai were facing (“civilized” people do nothing but panic and scream in these situations, which would seem to be the