Jack Backstory

From Changeling Venue

The Giantkiller By Jack Freeman
These are intended to be memoirs of sorts, I suppose. I don’t know who might read them. Only that some day, it will be nice for someone to know that I was not always the Giant Killer. I was not always Jack Freeman, and I was not always as you see me today, in my faded, torn jeans and gray t-shirt that used to once be black. I have not fallen. That’s the first thing you need to know. I may have risen and dropped along the way, but I am still myself. That’s the last thing they can’t take from me. They’ll never take it from me.
At first, I didn’t remember much. I remembered my time with Them. I remembered hatred, anger. I still remember those things, to some degree, my time with Them is lessened now, but I do know I hated it. I can point to a few instances, but, memories fade, and some things have become more important now than they were. I’ll start where I think the beginning is, and we’ll go from there.
I was not born Jack Freeman. I was not born here, in this grotty little apartment. I wasn’t even born in this country. I was born Jacob Hamilton, to Miriam and Donald Hamilton of Montrose, Scotland. This is the loop you’ll be knocked for, I think. I was born February 8th, 1922. I look good, don’t I? That part is coming, don’t worry. Just know that one day in February, a nice bouncing baby boy was born to Miriam and Donald, and they were so very happy. His name was Jacob, and he, too, was very happy.
Jacob spent his childhood being quite happy. He had a brother and a sister, both younger than he, the brother by three years, the sister by six. There wasn’t a lot to say about Jacob’s early life, his childhood I mean. He was a child, a good boy. Always did well in school. Teachers loved him. He played football, soccer to most, with his friends after school, and he did have friends. A great many, actually. He was an honest sort, and one that felt intensely, and lived his life loudly and well. Jake always stood up for the weaker, the ones being picked on. He helped them, and fought off bullies. Such a great guy, Jake.
In 1939, Germany began invading. September 3rd, Britain declared war, Jake was only seventeen. It did not surprise anyone when Jake joined the military in 1940, nor did it surprise anyone when he excelled at tactics. He trained for a year, learning tactics, strategy, and combat before going to work as an agent for a new branch of Military Intelligence, Section 9. MI9, it was called. Charged with helping to extract pilots and agents caught or compromised in the European theatre. They had a secondary goal, MI9, and that was what interested Jake, making him sign on: Aid in insurgent resistance forces.
By 1942, Jake was in Poland, operating as a field agent and scout alongside agents of the Polish “Grey Ranks,” the Szare Szeregi. It was a resistance movement based mainly out of Warsaw, but they did a lot to help those downtrodden by the German forces. Jake loved every minute. Moving building to building, street to street, taking to the woods in the middle of the night to raid trainfuls of people… it was what he was born to do, and he did it damn well. Better than most. In the mid 1940s, it happened. He met a girl who profoundly changed his life. Not in that take-her-home-to-mom way, but in that touched-my-heart way.
She was young, this one. Her name was Tekli (Krista Bergeman US2002021912), and she was no more than 12 at the time. Maybe a shade older. She’d been on a train headed for… who knows. Auschwitz? We hit the train in German uniforms, rescued the captives on board, and led them into the woods. It was our intent to lead them full through the borders and off to a safe place they could rest until the war was over. Some country would be bound to take them. I remember how sad she was. She was afraid, terrified to even speak, and shy. But I remember her dancing. Beautiful, fragile in moonlight when she thought no one was looking. I talked to her a few times, and I tried to make her smile. Succeeded once or twice. To me, she was representative of everyone I could have ever helped to freedom. Young, her whole life ahead of her, yet helpless and fragile.
It didn’t happen long after that. I never made it with the group. One night, I was on scouting duty, keeping far ahead of the group as we moved. I saw something, I thought it might have been a German scout or sniper, or… something. It ran and I gave chase. We flew through the forests, I was one hell of a runner, even back then. As I closed on it, I saw that it was not a German. It was not even a human. It was a creature, with horns, and claws, and it was smiling at me as it jumped on me. As I went down and everything faded to black, I realized… these trees looked nothing like the ones in Poland…
I woke.
The thing with horns was gone, and I was in what looked like a big glass case. This is where things are fuzzy, I remember the most beautiful creature I’ve ever seen. A goddess, or something, like… an unimaginable being. Imagine not an attractive person, but the very idea of Attraction, made manifest before you. That was who this woman was. She was talking to me, telling me how well I’d serve her. I’d become her messenger, I moved fast enough to carry her words, and do that I would. Or else. My body had been warped and changed, I was no longer ME… I was thinner, faster, lighter. My hair’d been swept back and lightened, my eyes had gone blue from their original browns. I was pale.
I don’t remember a lot of specific events. I remember her cruelty and her capriciousness. She punished or rewarded at whim, based on nothing at all. I saw her murder people, destroy them, for imagined slights and shortcomings. I saw her enslave, bind, and destroy just for entertainment. I remember being sent to others like her, to carry messages, and bring messages back. I remember being sent on the wind to bring her information during imagined battles. Over ten years I worked and slaved for her. Over ten years. Do you have any idea what ten years feels like when you’re not your own person? No, you don’t. You’re comfortable in going to work every day, driving your own car, and bitching about it.
I remember two things vividly, and only two. The Door, and The Giant. The Giant was like us, only… very very loyal. He was, quite literally, a giant, tens of feet tall, all muscle and gristle. He held a club in one hand, and a sword in the other, and all day he stood in front of the open door. I don’t know how many countless new recruits I saw look at the door and decide they were fast enough, or strong enough to make it, but they were stupid. The Giant killed every one of those who made a try at the door. Ever single one.
But the door… the door was always open during the day and locked at night. She had it there to remind us of our place, to remind us that she’d taken us, that she’d never send us home. It was a door that looked out on the countryside, a door that went home. I’d put it out of my mind and accepted my fate until I was approached late one night by a Wizened Smith, forget his name anymore. Said he could make us a copy of her key, if I could get it to him – I held a place in the Lady’s chambers, and could manage to steal it. So steal it I did, and I brought it one night to the Smith. He forged the key.
From that moment on, we began the planning. It would require us to go at night, then the Giant was asleep and the door was locked. It would require us to move quickly before her guards would know we were gone… which would require distraction. Other began joining our plan. In the end, there were six of us. A single half dozen willing to try the first test run of an escape plan. We waited… waited… our opportunity came. The mistress was hosting a party. That would keep her, her friends, and her guards occupied while we had our window… We knew it was coming. We had to. She'd sent the giant to stop escapees before, and we knew that. Hell, sometimes, she let it play with its food in front of us, just to get her point across. Bitch was a cruel mistress. No. I'll never call her that again. Never. Bitch was a cruel and sadistic animal. That's a better word. What made us think, initially, that the giant could be avoided, is beyond me now. Maybe it was whatever shred of ego we had left, maybe we just figured we were stealthy enough. She was having a party, we wouldn't be noticed sneaking out. Stupid us, of course she set watch, and also set the giant. So we ran. Ran hard.
Thing about giants... they're huge. Huge and not terribly fast. Now, you would think that makes them easy to run from, I know we did. But you'd be horribly terribly wrong. We were. When you're... you-sized.... you don't imagine any kind of scale. You've raced people your own size. Maybe a head bigger, or a hair smaller, but in general... you-sized. The length of a giant's stride more than makes up for it's lack of speed. Imagine this. An ant is a whole shit load faster than you are. But you're so ridiculously huge to it, that one step you take equals like... a billion of theirs.
The party was in full swing when I went to the others. One by one, I spread the word using the same delivery tactics and speed she'd given me. That's almost a definition of irony. It WOULD be irony if I used them to kill her. It's on the list, anyway. I got them all. Not a huge group, but a test run. Half a dozen of us. We walked at first, keeping low across the gardens and lawns, pressing to the ground here and there. Dirty, grimy, that was nothing compared to the chance to being free. A shower could be had anywhere. The first thing to come was the hounds.
She'd made them, bred them, to hunt. They came tearing around the grounds searching, baying loudly. Our cover had been blown and there was no longer any use for subtlety. We ran. Full tilt, I brought up the rear, dodging and japing to throw them off. They nipped at me, caught my heel once, though... I managed to escape. I usually do escape. It stepped between us and the door and the rest skittered to a stop. I paused, slipping in front of them all, and I turned and looked. They were terrified, they were sure they were going to die, or worse. We'd seen the decorations. The tortured ones, made to be art, and stand all day forever. In that instant, I had a realization. I'd rather be giant toejam than go back to that life. To that fear. I was pissed off, and I was going to succeed, or die. I’d stolen a pair of knives from the kitchen, and hell, I was feeling squirrelly.
I ran at the giant, screaming.
I ran up his calf as he swung down toward where I'd just been. As I launched off his knee, grasping for the tails of his loincloth, I shoutedover my shoulder "Run! Get the door open and get out! I'll cover you!" and I scrambled up, just avoiding a meaty hand slapping his thigh. It darted, running along his belt to his back, where I flipped up, sinking the knives in as handholds as I moved up. At the top, I flipped to his shoulder and clung to his hair, sinking a knife in. Using the hair as a rope, I swung around his head in a circle, cutting as I went, then I flipped back off and landed. Blood exploded from the clean-cut as the giant stumbled forward, lurching. His head moved independent of his shoulders, as it hung on by only a few strands of sinew, and the spine. Howls escaped his mouth as he landed, bleeding to death.
I didn't look back, I didn't even wait for him to hit the ground. I ran. I made it through the door and caught up with the others. See? Giant Killer.
From there, there’s not much to tell. We managed to bite and claw our way through what I now know is The Hedge. We made it out the other side mostly in tact, and sort of went our ways. Some went to different courts, but me? I had no option. Now that I was out? Now that I’d gotten off the proverbial prison camp train? I had no choice. I hated them. I hated them more than any person or thing I’d ever hated. They had to pay, and I’ll make them pay. I joined the court of Summer, I joined the warriors, the soldiers. Jake became an army man again. It wasn’t too long before I discovered the bizarre thing about time in Arcadia. It doesn’t do what time normally does. I was in for almost fifteen years, and I came out in 1995. That…. is really screwed up. I tried going home, big mistake. Of course it had been about fifty years since I’d left, and I had only aged fifteen. What’s worse… someone else was me. There was a Jacob Hamilton in the world, that had been living my life. He’d moved to the States with his wife and kids, so had his sister and brother. It was like I wasn’t a person anymore. So that’s how I lived. Box to box, alley to alley. Of course now I have a new identity, thanks to Amber and her computer wizardry (Juliet Meyer US2005022980) But… I guess she was only paying me for offing her fetch. There’s a lot I’m glossing over here, but… you don’t need the whole nitty gritty. Only the big picture.
I left my fetch alone, I took up the name Jack Freeman, though… I admit, I added Giantkiller to my nicknames list on purpose. It presents an image. My time in MI9 must have rubbed off on me, because it’s like a duck to water. I jump in, and start swimming like I never left. Only now, the Nazi camps and trains and depots are in the Hedge, and instead of political and religious prisoners, I find and rescue those poor wandering souls who’ve managed to find their way out of Arcadia. My knack for tactics… my abilities… this is what I was meant to do. With the war over? With MI9 defunct and closed? There’s no better place to be doing this, than here, where I can actually give someone back more than a life. I can give them back some humanity.
I’m the Giantkiller. And someday, I’ll march back in with the rest of us at my back, and we’ll make sure those bastards can never again do what they did to us to anyone else. Until then? I’ll have to settle for being the thin red line.