A nearby street punk, his hair dyed pink and pictures of Betty Boop tattooed on both cheeks, snickered at the man. "YOU," the man bellowed. "You know why they won't stop!" The punk kept laughing, until the man started running. The kid turned to run, but the man tackled him to the ground, holding him down with sheer body weight. "Little bastard," the man rubbed his face, "why don't they stop. I know you have their secret." The kid began to struggle, and tried to break free of the man's hold. The man reached in the punk's jeans and pulled the kid's wallet out; the man stashed the wallet in his own faded pants. "I don't know shit man. You better let me go," the kid threatened. The man grabbed the back of the kid's pink hair, slamming his face into the pavement below. Onlookers watched, but did nothing. The man continued, "I know (the punk's face was slammed into the ground again) they told you (slam). So, unless you want me to bash your little nose off, I (slam) suggest (slam) you (slam) tell me." With the last word, the man got up and kicked the kid in the ribs.
The kid got off the ground, his face shredded from impacts with the sidewalk, Betty Boops reduced to red tatters. A steady flow of blood fell from the punk's face, his nose and eyebrows horribly mauled. "I'm sorry man, I don't know nothing. Just let me go," the kid tried to say between sobs and blood filling his mouth. The man seemed to understand, and smiled. "Then let me tell you their secret," the man said before he whispered something into the kid's ear.
After finishing, the man continued to stagger off in the distance.The punk wiped the blood from his nose, still numb from adrenaline and pain, and looked up into the sky. The sun stared back at him, filling him with its heat. The punk held his face together and walked away.
The exact secret changes from person to person. Sometimes it's the U.S. government after him, other times it the Soviets, occasionally it's city's rat population. Whoever it is, they always think the man knows their secret, and the man knows many secrets. Sometimes it's how the U.S. is secretly controlled by the spirits of the dead president's, trying to possess the bodies of the living. Other times it's the pinko Reds, busily plotting to kill all men to impregnate American women. Lately he's been convinced that it's really the rats, every day working to poison the world's food supply to eradicate all of humanity.
Ultimately however, all of Them (whoever they happen to be at the moment) are using the same method to eliminate him. They are using orbital spy satellites equipped with invisible microwave beams to fry him. He knows that the beam will fry him from the inside out, making it look like spontaneous combustion. The police and fire departments are already utterly infiltrated by Them (due to mind controlling waves sent through TVs and radios), so once he's dead Their secrets will be safe again. However, he knows how to escape their satellites; he must keep moving. The microwave beams need a stationary target to lock onto, so as long as he doesn't stop moving he is safe. Therefore he must continuously take coffee and speed to stay awake.
It's All True: Sort of. The man's delusions are real. There really is a satellite aiming an invisible heat ray at his head, under orders from the rats. However, unknown to the man, is that there is even more going on. In the past, as the man slid into madness, he entered the Machine City of Metropolis. While there, he was attacked by Techrones after learning about their experiments with cybernetic rats. Managing to escape (if only barely), the man returned to the Illusion, his mind trying to understand what had happened. The Techrones, wanting to protect their secrets, sent a special satellite and batch of cyber rats through the Illusion to destroy the man (this was also to prove as a field test for the rats). Now the man flees from rats , never knowing which ones are real, and which are in control of the lethal satellite above.
Guinea Pig: The man is an experiment of some force from beyond the Illusion. This force (Lictors of Malkuth? Techrones again? Something even worse?) opened the man's mind, accidentally gifting him with pyrokinetic abilities. However, it also utterly unhinged the man's psyche (already weakened due to the abduction and experimentation). Now, the man believes that bizarre groups are after him because he knows things he shouldn't. In fact, the man's subconscious mind is destroying people who know the secret (the man assumes that it's really "Them" killing the people he talks to). However, the man is totally safe for the moment, as his (subconscious) mind is not yet degraded enough for him to destroy himself.
It's All False: This is best used for groups that are already paranoid and have read all the Kult books. The man is a nut, plain and simple. No satellite, no secret conspiracies, nothing. However, in order to keep suspense up, a GM should have weird things happen. Maybe after hearing the man's "Truth", tell players they feel warm whenever they stand still. Have them wake in the night covered in sweat and feeling like they're on fire. If the player's figure out that what they're feeling is really just psychosomatic, then hit them with a whammy. Have the man talk to another NPC about the secret, then have that NPC suffer spontaneous human combustion. Such a connection seems to great to be a coincidence, but that's all it is. What the player's do next is up to them, but the wild goose chases they undertake are inevitably more dangerous than the lunatic's psychotic delusions.
Game Mastering Hints: Always dart your eyes back and forth, but
occasionally seem to slow down. When using body language constantly switch
speeds; slow and sluggish one second, trembling another, and lightning
fast a third.