Prologue - Meeting Fate

The following is the transcript of an interview between Kate Dennison and Colin Aodh MacGregor (17-MAR-1986 - 04-OCT-2002). The interview took place on January 30, 2003 as part of the process for evaluating Mr. MacGregor's suitability as a PLE agent for Orpheus. The interviewer's comments have been deleted, as Mr. MacGregor's responses are self-explanatory.

So, you want to know my story?

You came all this way, and went to all this trouble, just to ask about my life.  Well, yes, and my death. 

That's what I thought.   You don't want to know about my life.  You want to know how I died.  Or, more specifically, how I stuck around after I died.

The truth is, I've no idea.  There I was minding my own business, and some jackass drops my head into a tub of water and holds it there for a few minutes.

Oh, for the recording? Allright. My name is Colin Aodh MacGregor, and I died three and a half months ago, drowned by a Yakuza thug.

Tip of advice…they say drowning is the easiest way to go.  I only died the once, so I can't actually compare it to another way, but my way sucked. 

Held on for almost five minutes of sheer panic.  Yeah, my life flashed before my eyes.  All whopping 16 years of it.   Got to watch it about 38 times, in fact. 

About six times in and I wasn't paying attention to it anymore, just the raw burning in my throat as I gasped for life and got nothing but lungfuls of water.

I'm getting ahead of myself, though.

You asked about my life, first, so that's what I'm going to tell you.  Don't worry, it doesn't take long.

I was born in Galway.  No, that's not in Pennsylvania, it's in Ireland.  Where do you think I got this lovely accent to tease up the girls with?  Too bad I never got to really put it to use.  Well, I told you there wasn't much to tell.

My mother died giving birth.  Bled to death.  Another unpleasant way to go, though at least she had some drugs to dull the pain.  I nearly packed it in, too, and wouldn't this have been an even shorter story then?

Hung on, though, and lived a fairly normal life until I was 9 and my father decided that Ireland reminded him too much of Mom.  Never mind that it was all I had of her, he had to uproot us and drag me across the bloody ocean to the Land of Promise, the Land of Plenty, the Land of Yakuza.  Who knew?

Atlanta.  What a shithole.  When we got here, they'd just found out they were hosting the Olympics.   Bloody Americans, taking a perfectly good collection of sports events and plastering soda logos all over it.

But, I adjusted.  I went to school, and didn't say anything since the other kids just stared at me or asked me to say stupid bloody Dr. Who lines, or parrot back the cereal commercials.

I really hate Lucky Charms.

My Da opened a restaurant.  A Taste of the Isle.  He was a good cook, but a lousy businessman.  Got into debt with the help of a crooked manager and his own inept maths skills.  Then made things even better by borrowing money from the Yakuza to cover it up.

Not exactly the brightest moment of my late, unlamented father's life.  No, don't worry, he didn't stick around.  Not goin' to pop up behind you or anything.

Anyhow, he paid off the debts, and the Family supplied him with a manager for the restaurant.  Not that Da had any choice in whether or not to accept that appointment.

Pretty soon, they were flushing money through the place, laundering they call it.  And soon after that, the FBI decided that Da would testify against them.  No they didn't bother to ask, just pointed out that he could either testify and go into hiding, or spend 10 years in jail.

Nice fellas, those FBI blokes.

Da went into protective custody immediately, and one Agent Darryl Carver was sent to pick me up from school.

He showed up at school, right on time.  Which is to say right after Ako Hariien, a Yak enforcer that Agent Carver had called on the way over, drove off with me trussed up in his trunk.

Had some excuse lined up, I'm sure.  Couldn't have done anything, had no reason to suspect, blah blah blah.  Carver's still on the payroll, promoted to Assistant Director, even.  His sources within the Families have done right by him.

I spent an absolutely delightful three months locked in a room in a warehouse down in College Park, eating sushi and watching daytime soaps.  Apparently the Yak guys like watching American women in skimpy clothing, and God knows the actresses in soaps 'slip into something more comfortable' at the drop of a hat.

Then one day I heard Ako come in.  I knew it had to be him, noone else ever showed up.  He started filling the tub, like he did every other day so I could take a bath.  I knew the drill and went ahead and stripped down to my shorts, then followed him over to the tub when he unlocked the door.

What?  I'm just getting to the good part.   Escape?

I thought about it, but I'd seen the hand cannon Ako carried.  And he had a...I dunno, a grace to the way he walked that just screamed 'I can kick your ass and not even notice'.   And I wasn't being treated all that badly.

Ako had told me that I was just being held until after the trial, to ensure my father wouldn't testify.  I found out later that my Da never knew that the Yak had me.  Carver and his cronies had told him that I was safe in their hands, but it would be too dangerous, too tempting a target, to bring us together before the trial.

So my Da testified in front of the grand jury.

And so on this day, Ako said two words to me before grabbing the back of my head, kicking my legs out from under me, and shoving my face into the water.

'Gomen nasai.'

'Sincere regret.'

Yeah, thanks Ako, that made it all better.

Right, where was I? Oh, yeah, dying.

Gasping, floundering, splashing, and generally not accomplishing a whole heck of a lot.

I'll be the first to admit, I'm not the strongest kid on the pitch. In fact, I was much closer to the 'last one picked' club when it came time to choose teams. I wasn't quite last - after all, there were the math clubbers and D&D Goth freaks - but I wasn't ever chosen for my sports ability, that's for sure.

It was pretty clear pretty fast that unless Ako let me go, this was it for me. I had no reason to suspect he was going to do any such thing, hence the sheer panic and shrieking like a banshee. No, I don't think the shrieking had anything to do with sticking around once my body was so much lifeless meat. 'Like a banshee' - it's an expression. I'm not a banshee, anyway. Just Irish, ye know, the land of folklore and legends? Bain Sidhe?

Never mind.

Anyhow, the point is, I wasn't strong enough to do anything to save myself. So I flailed around, swallowed a whole lot of water, and died.

And that's when things got interesting.

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