RAOS - Beached Dreams

He awakes to his own screams of pain and the roar of waves crashing on a shoreline.

Hands hurriedly grope for wounds half-remembered as he struggles into a half-sitting position. Fingers pressing against skin beneath fur that was whole instead of broken. But the agony within him spoke of wounds, of pain, of having died. I've been shot, he thought in panic. Hadn't I? Was it all a dream? One was truth, one a nightmare -- Amarouk doesn't know which one is real.

Tattered remnants of winter gear cling to him as he sweats profusely in the jungle heat. Clawing apart the pieces, he sheds the outer-wear as a night sky looks on with billions of beady eyes.

Shivering despite his undersuit, he stands only to drag himself to the water. An empty gaze casts its net upon the sea before he falls to his knees in the foam. A shuddering breath escapes from his mouth. His mind is in turmoil, trying to understand what was happening, what had happened.

"I remember-," he begins. "I remember being shot. Dying. But it wasn't here."

"Amarouk!"

The shriek splits the air.

His head snaps to a side to see her -- Kristav. He calls her name, yells it, screaming until lungs feel ready to burst. But her eyes are dead, fur falling out in patches as rot sets in. She stands not of her own will -- mouth moving again and again, forming his name in a desparate plea for help --but held in place by the restraining hand of another Vadasian.

Watering eyes weep into an ocean without need. He can't breath. Each a gasp to cling to his own life selfishly, faster and faster. His mind screams as his body shakes. Move! But he cannot. Amarouk! she shrieks a last time as a hooked blade is torn from her back. Blood, gore and spine follow explosively.

A raw throat wails as finally, Amarouk comes to life as his world turns black. Cold, empty, feet pound against the sand as his listless form takes flight. He viciously throws himself at her murderer while her crumpled frame falls into an ebbing tide.

He can't see. Black, red -- there is nothing but the hollow, the anger burning about it, within it, dying amid the pool of his own emptiness. There is nothing but her and this Vadasian with the blade. Nothing but the subsuming rage that follows. He feels her, a brush of the incorporeal. Her soul flies off, a wistful phantasm and takes his with her's, leaving a dead husk to fight on. He sees himself. He sees her. But she is dead, and he follows. The anger is rising, erupting in furious blows that fail again and again against the coldness of his foe.

Eyes bulge and he coughs up blood. The hooked blade is exiting from his abdomen taking with it the binding cords of his internals. The world begins to shrink, black eating the edges of color. He looks for the first time into the face of his own murderer.

"I'm sorry," he gasps. He isn't sure at that moment if he says it his wife, Kristav, or his assailant. "Forgive me, Son."

Everything fades...

---

He awakes to his own screams of pain and the roar of waves crashing on a shoreline.

Confused, his eyes look about as a solitary eye burns bright in the sky above. A sea before him, a jungle behind. Slowly, he gains his feet and with trepidation, enters the jungle...

RAOS - Edge of the Seat

The slide is pulled back. It flows forward, taking a round from the magazine and moving it into the chamber. The trigger depresses, activating the striker. Instantaneous pressure causes the ignition of the primer that burns up the gunpowder in a flash. The quick-burning reaction creates an overpressure that shoots the bullet through the barrel while simultaneously moving the slide back to eject the casing to reload another round...

---

A card table was flipped over onto its side sending chips and cards cascading through the air. The airborne debris fell faster and in lower than normal. Large, angry men rushed a lone red-haired figure hanging on desperately to a look of smug satisfaction that could almost be a grimace. Pained, Wolfe spared little thought to the table he had thrown that was heavier than first thought and instead focused on his soon-to-be assailants, all the while screaming "Get some!" over and over again.

Ducking behind the table, he watched in rising fear as splinters cascaded past him as the makeshift cover was shredded. Wave after wave of crunched splinters made him realize he was fast losing his only defense. Well, might as well get the show over with, he thought, as he came to his feet in a turn. With the minimum pressure necessary, he began to pull the trigger. Four quick staccato bursts and four bullets, each nudged telekinetically by his innate powers, found themselves propelled by physical and spiritual to their targets.

The first round burst through a rushing figures right temple, slashing up and through the eye socket. An eruption of liquid, blood and gore mixed with shards of bone follows before the mashed bullet exits just above his eyebrow. A destroyed pustule of an eyeball seeps while the connecting nerve dangles precariously as the figure drops to his knees screaming incoherently with hands clawing at the ruined hole in his face.

The second is taken in the shoulder with a grunt as it passed through muscle, but does little to slow the man.

The third passed through the side of the neck, dropping a man who's final expression was of pained shock. Momentum carried him forward while the nicked arterial spurts blood like a fountain.

The final onrushing figure fell flat, the bullet having penetrated through his nose before being deflected by the contour of the inside of his skull. A blender that dripped mashed gore and blood through the crater.

Before Wolfe can celebrate -- or fire off more rounds at others now moving in to engage him -- he's jumped. Attempting to grapple, he slammed his knee up into the figures groin. An exhaled grunt punctuated the movement along with a loosened grip. Wolfe began to squirm free. He looked left and saw a boot coming for his face...

---

More coming later...

Well, it's been over a year. How about some fiction?

The interstice rippled open, a blackened wound on reality that gushed exotic particles that wavered in the air as smoke and just as ephemeral before dissipating in sulphur fumes. From it stepped something, a something that didn't walk so much as jump and wavered there on the precipice of being here and being elsewhere. The mind was still trapped beyond, but here, the body seems to shrink while growing into itself, trailing wisps of the exotic that channel off it in an oily aura while slitted neon-green eyes began to adjust to the here, the now and no longer the there, the gone. But even as it landed, it's arms flapped to regain balance while the newly adjusted eyes looked downward, startled. That was when it felt the heat of the air and was nearly blown away.

High above the drifting magma sea of Hulyait IV, the cargo train flew from the mining operations to the main spaceport more than thirteen hundred kilometers away for refinement, processing and shipping. And atop it stood Stent, a Baajin of Daluquen III. Rivers of fire ran in relief down the sides of the blackened husks of mountains in the distance while smoke clung to the sky like an infested, pulsating wound.

Alien, xeno, unknown -- Stent dropped down to hands and knees, clawed fingers and toes gripping the metal roof as the machine clocked in at speeds over four-hundred kilometers an hour. The attempt was futile and the creature began its backward slide into the void and the waiting fire sea below. The Baajin's HUD came to life, a strange mashup of iconography and menus and command lines, all tied into and activating portions of the technology embedded within the body and jumpsuit of the creature. The kinetic accelerator came online creating a shield to divert the slipstream ravaging it. The press of hurricane winds diminished to nothing, but a bar representing the power draw flared to life within Stent's HUD -- time was limited.

Standing, Stent's profile was silhouetted against the red and black. Too, the Baajin was black scaled with some being orange and yellow along arms and legs that could alternate colors and patterns (green and red respectively), a unique method of communication for the Baajin race. Tall, standing bipedal atop hock-jointed feet with a long, curved dewclaw at the ankle, it turned its bald head to look about. Lipless with a mouth, noseless but for two slits, and earless but for two holes representing them, the creature was strange, dressed in a black and orange jumpsuit with sleeves rolled up and the legs cut off below the knees. Tactical gear was strapped onto it, along thighs, waist, back. A strange handgun, diskettes along the right thigh, magazines along the left, a knife on the back of the waist. Utility pouches holding more gear for easy access, and cradled on the back, something akin to a sub-machinegun.

A forked tongue tasted the air as the trim and vaguely feminine form began unfurl the cutting torch from a pouch and began to apply the beam directly to the surface of the train, intent on creating an opening...

WPCA - Just Business

The door flung back on its hinges crying out in a deranged squeal. A man came through, bobbing as he held onto a pair of zap-strapped legs that jerked back and forth. A second man appeared, hanging on precariously to the shoulders as the bound figure spasmed and jerked. Muffled screams from behind a gag mimed the doors previous cry while tears ran in rivulets beneath the awning of a blindfold.

Unceremoniously, the bound figure is lumped into a corner like trash and kicked several times for emphasis as to who is in charge while the second grabs a chair, noting their captive assuming the foetal position. The chair is set up while the gag and blindfold are removed, revealing a sobbing, weeping man in his mid-thirties. "Up," one says, partially hefting the figure onto the chair who keeps repeating "please, pleas no" in hypnotic mantra.

"You know why you're here?"

"Please, I didn't mean it. It wasn't my fault!"

A fist connects with the side of the bound mans face, rocking him in the chair, but not falling him.

"Look, you dumb shit, answer the fucking questions, or I get the bolt cutters and pretend I do fuck-damned manicures. Got me? Now shit-for-brains, why are you here?"

"I do- I don't know."

Another hit. "You know why! Tell me why, tard-face!"

"I-," he gulps, blood drooling from the side of his head while tears pool in the crook of his eyes. "I told the cops about Blacklight."

"You told the cops about Blacklight. And you know what we do about that, don't you, Randal, right?"

Another gulp, a nod as eyes turn to downcast, trembling orbs half hidden in tears, lashes and lids.

---

He thumbed the device up against the mans forehead. It unfurled, twined wings wrapping around the front of his skull.

"It's a Gurdak," he said nonchalantly, conversationally. The other man, strapped to the chair, was sweating.

"I know Gurdak. Doctor Gurdak."

"Yes, and now you'll begin feeling the pain, as the nanites drill through your skull, begin to envelop your brain. Neuron by neuron, synapse by synapse, you are being copied. In the end, your brain is gone. All that's left is a flesh-like spongy mass of nanites pretending to be you. And you know what, I hear that Gurdakites still believe themselves to be, well, themselves."

He began to scream, beg, plead.

"It's okay. Hush, hush. The pain will go away. You didn't want to talk, we don't need you to talk. Instead, your copy will."

A heart-rate monitor was spiking, crying out in sync to the man strapped to the chair. After minutes that seemed like hours, he drew into silence. Compelled by his rewritten mind.

Reaching a hand forward, he thumbed the button on the front of the skull, the wings retracting. He yanked and what looked like gore-dusted nets slipped out from the newly drilled holes.

A flick caused the last flecks of a mind to sputter off onto the floor while he thumbed the bead again. The nets expanded, forming the mind that had been devoured. He turned it over, this way and that, looking at it, inspecting it. A human mind, digitized in complete.

WPCA - Erumid

"Captain on the bridge!"

"At ease. Status report, Commander."

"Everything is clear and in the green, Captain. A number of new ships have exited slipspace and are making for the planet. They've already signed in with Erumid Planetary Control and transponders all flagged green."

"Excellent."

The captain took his chair for the last time.

---

The blinking, black eye of near darkness of slipspace opened and snapped shut, and from it, an object emerged shaped like a small-scale spire. Having exited slipspace nearly on top of the the planetary gravity well, the resulting gravitonic shockwave rippled outward playing havoc with sensors all about the system.

The Erumid Defense frigate Natalissi crumpled inward, folding in on itself from the force of the impact as the object ripped through the unshielded mass. At the point of impact, matter became ions, and supersonic droplets of molten hull metal sleeted through from the top down, arriving before the vibrations of the impact could, and shredding all persons within before their nervous systems had time to register anything amiss. Behind came the shockwave of superheated air expanding with such fury that blast shields bent and warped, searing everything in its path.

The resulting fireball erupted into space like, moments before a secondary explosion caused by a magazine misfire as the ordinance detonated. Bodies and metal flaked off into space as the object continued on unabated, the Natalissi folding in on itself in silence like a toy before the two ends wrung itself apart as the engines continued to fire, sheering off the fore in an almost comic fashion.

---

Warning icons flashed amber in the holo-displays of his HUD. Giant, glaring red exclamation points punctuated by information. It could be summarized by a single phrase: shit hit the fan - hard.

He looked down and nearly threw up, forgetting how the inside of a Needler was an all-encasing holographic nexus of information, turning the inside of the deployment vehicle into a vertigo enticing entourage. It was like he was falling feet first toward a planet and the burning, ionized atmosphere was slashing super-heated claws lunging up the sides of his legs as the dark of space turned to the blue of sky.

He did puke, the regurgitated mass escaping from his mouth and floating there, nauseating him further. Gravity was a swell thing when traveling to at a T-norm speed of 9.8 meters per second squared. Although in this case, Erumid was something a little higher with a rate of 9.913 meters a second, and even with that information supplied by the TACNAV telling him terminal velocity had come and gone like a gentleman caller in the night left his stomach falling while his bile rose.

The capital of Erudimaz crawled into tangible existence, the circular city with wide-ranging wall to fend off the tropical forest that beset it on all sides and tall towers that spun like lazy minarets into the skyline. Plazas and parks were plentiful, and Paradise Canyon, a winding river, slashed through the whitewashed center of the ovoid mass.

---

It streaks down on a coil of flame and fury, sonic booms reverberating in the sky. People point, awestruck. People die...

Newspaper Airplanes Prt 3

Yuri backpedals, eyes wide in stringent shock.

"What!?" He yells, stepping forward now. Aggressive, alpha, predatory, hunter. "WHAT!?" Fists slam into a desk before convulsing fingers grip the edges and throw the construct with more physical force than the look of a gentlemanly older man he'd so cultivated would be capable of.

Brent backpedals as Yuri approaches him. "Look, man, look, it's just not working out."

"Is not working out!? You-!" Yuri spat, his language jerking into something altogether foreign. Brent has his hands up to appease or calm Yuri, only the older man backhands him strong enough to bawl him over. He shakes his head, hard, trying to find grounding. His neck is smarting something fierce.

"We come to this city, you promise us much. Now you wish not to fulfill deal?"

"Look, man, Yuri -- it's..., it's just, what you're doing man, it ain't right."

"Is not right? We give you money, weapons, power, you give us...minerals. What is hard?"

"Have you even fucking looked outside, Yuri!?" Brent shrieked.

"Is beautiful, yes."

"You can't fuckin' destroy the city, man! It's wrong!"

Yuri falls silent. Brent waits, watches, feels his gut turning. He's starting to smile wickedly, like this is a game, a joke with a punchline he isn't getting.

"Yuri, are you even listening to me?"

The wrenching in his stomach becomes reality as a blade shivers through his spine into his abdominal cavity. He's falling now, eyes staring at a ceiling just as disturbed as the landscape outside. Craters everywhere. And Yuri, he walks over to stand above him, a monolith.

"You understand little,... Brent. We do not care about your cities, only resources."

He then nods and Brent never sees again as a foot connects with the base of his skull.

Newspaper Airplanes Prt 2

Dvor is still talking with the older gentleman. They're ironing out details of the exchange, deciding on a place and time for the drop point. He's asking about the technology that will be received as payment for the transaction. Outside, the rumble of diesel engines quakes in the night, echoing with the onslaught of the disturbed reverberations as trucks pass by not even a hundred meters from the meeting place with seacans straddling their frames.

A horn bellows as a cargo ship begins to cast off farther down at a different pier. Crisscrossing slashes of lightbeams cut through the darkness that feels heavy with fumes. Yosef coughs as a flicker of a spark erupts from his lighter and he inhales deeply on the cigarette. His face becomes subsumed in an orange glow a moment before being drowned in a small eruption of smoke.

Dvor is talking, explaining that the technology needs to be handed over, and soon, or there may be repercussions. But the old man isn't paying any mind to the threat, only molesting a dull brass coin in his fingers. That silence extends, awkward, frustrating, perhaps irritable as that man places a reassuring hand upon Dvor's shoulder.

"I'm afraid you misunderstood my intentions," he says. "I said I was going to take it. All of it."

Dvor turns his face to reply, only as his head turns, it crumples beneath a sudden surge of light and noise. Green/black blood, grey bone with grey matter and what looks like computerized parts all smudge together in macabre art painting a scene on the floor as Dvor's arms go slack and his legs give as his dead body collapses in on itself in a heap.

The old mans attention turns. Yosef stands at the doorway, the stub of a cigarette clutched in his hand. His face is set in rage, almost impotent. He shifts, trains, but Yosef is moving. Outside, away. Another display of shock and awe ripples through the muffled night. Only there is no shuffling off of a mortal coil.

"You missed, boss."

Newspaper Airplanes Prt 1

The white static of an overcast sky scudded over the bustling port. A dark parapet wavered off in the distance, the musings of a storm slowly percolating forward. Later with the onset of evening, the usual rumble of the cranes removing cargo from the ships on Pier 19 to be loaded onto trucks and ferried off ground to a halt with the shift change in process. White spotlights came on, drowning the darkness in some sections as evening turned to night in a slow parody of death.

Yosef danced past a forklift and through the maze of sea-cans. A little further in, into and out of pools of light amid the sudden beginnings of renewed hustling, and he arrived at the warehouse. Through a sliding door and past holes that glinted beneath the light pollution burning at the edges of shadows with vigor, he checked over a number of carry cases piled together. His crew was opening some, pulling the contents out of the foam packing.

Behind him, an older man was being shown about the varying displays of technical force application. He was grandfatherly, Yosef thought, but his motives were fairly clear in this regard -- a need for the application of will to make known a resolute disposition that force would indeed be used as the ultimatum. The means would make for a rich end for some, and a dead end for others. He heard Dvor talking. "This you will like. Is railgun, but better. Fires two foot long self replicating explosive nanites. Kinetic blast, it acts as primer, trigger, for self replicating explosive. You can destroy whole city block with one shot."

The man nodded as Yosef passed by, moving toward another case. Looking over the markings, he opened it and glanced at the weapons inside. Styled after an assault rifle and chambered for what looked like a twelve-gauge slug. SD20s. Nasty business, those. Shockwave rounds capable of pulverizing most anything through blunt force alone. If those didn't sell, well, Yosef didn't know what would.

"You will like these," Dvor began again, going on about some new gadget that would pulverize the tallest skyscraper and the most heavily armored vehicle. Capable of turning them into disfigured corpses, twisted amalgams of metallic polymer constructs mimicking a functional form no longer. There was definitely an allusion to macabre artwork in there, somewhere.

The old man, he nodded again. "I'll take it," he said. "Which ones?" Dvor asked. "All of it," he replied with a glint.

Yosef spun his right arm around in a quick circle over his head, calling for everything to be packed up and moved. Dvor and the man were now talking details while Yosef moved the materials out. Outside, the rustle of machinery echoed as the whine of a diesel motor rose and fell, churning. A few liftgates were lowered, doors opened, equipment loaded. It would be dropped off at a location yet to be decided -- Dvor and the old man were deciding that now. Yosef just liked the fact he'd be getting paid. Who cared who died or what got destroyed? Who cared...

Dominion/Crossover - The Alliance Prt 3

The place was disgusting. A projects styled, reject of a building done up in plycrete. The glass was stained, same with the building. Runny blotches of goo and lubricant and other unnamed chemicals that collided together to create a strong, wafting perfume that overpowered her delicate sense of smell. It was in the battered quarter of the city that was Argul, and the Baajin would have left the vehicle, only circumstances changed. Suddenly the driver was crying, hands held in the air in that "I'm not being threatening" kind-of way as the vehicle went dead. Defensive mechanisms came into place as scanners came online. They didn't broadcast, only pulling in the information of the pings assailing her. It was all outward information, blasting against her and she took it in like a sponge.

Failsafe systems began to become active. She was expendable -- her data, however, was not. A dormant system within came online. It echoed a moment, fleeting, a call into a level of quantum timespace strata beyond mere dimensional twisting. A superstring vibrated and reality echoed a moment, seeming to shiver like water after a rock had been tossed into it. The Baajin simply pushed her duffel in with a quick warning transmission about the circumstances before the eddie collapsed in on itself. The data would already be in the hands of her handlers by now.

The driver, though, he was still bubbling tears. "I didn't mean it," and "I surrender" and "It's all her fault! She did it!"

Stent had underestimated the citywide tracking system, and although she had uploaded monitoring software of her own, apparently it had been found and destroyed or outright firewalled into place with no means of communicating to her that her own impending doom was at hand. She was calculating even now as the driver slid the door open and flopped out, hands above his head, eyes streaming and bubbling about how he had never meant to abet and abide a known criminal. He was a good man, so he said. Law following. Pudgy as he was, the Baajin could not fault him his cowardly behavior. But she had two options as well -- surrender or die.

Her armor was interfacing and informing her that the information being blasted at her were messages: surrender or be destroyed. At least, it was something along those lines. She moved, slowly, the door swinging open in that graceful, semi-pneumatic and soundless way. She stepped out, slitted eyes blinking slowly as a prehensile tail swung and a forked tongue flickered about. Tastes like death, she thought.

"Go home," she said. "I've got nothing for you."

And then...she died. The systems within her began to turn off failsafes. Power surges started, and with all the failsafes off and the overload started, the time between the shut off and the erupting explosion were near simultaneous. From the sky is was a column of light as the last vestiges of the alien forcefield kept the majority of the blast and redirected it. Then everything was consumed. All that was left was an expansive blast of superheated air that immolated the nearby, groveling driver. He fell, slumping as his body turned into a consumed husk. The only thing left where Stent had been standing was a massive, empty epicenter of a blast drilling several hundred meters into the ground and quickly filling with water.

---

The group had gathered in a small shack along a provincial road in ill repair. A backroad off the beaten path that had grass overgrowing at its edges, the pavement worn down to look like a glued together mesh of broken up rocks. The shack was up a path. An old log cabin, again in ill repair. The windows were tattered fragments with glistening sharp edges protruding upward and outward from the frame. The door, too, was laid to waste, sitting ajar with the upper portion smashed off. Around an old, dilapidated table with one leg shorter than the rest they had assembled, five in all. On the table was a holographic, scrolling map, covered in various spiraling concentric lines with numbers representing varying heights. More lines down in grids ran along, also annotated by ascending numbers preceding by two letters. Cities were done in red with the name above it. Green suffused some areas -- forests -- while lingering blue lines slashed waveringly through.

The area highlighted was called "Argul." They saw the continent wide-city with all its streets, boulevards and alleys. A complete representation of buildings, their names, heights and possible security was detailed away on the semi-organic map in pop-up scrolling boxes when a building was highlighted. The view kept shifting as the four brainstormed routes into the city as well as handpicking targets of interest. Some wouldn't even be noticed. Others, though, those targets would inspire a lot of attention. Both from media and possibly even a military response.

Stent was motioning to the Naruda Argul tower. The monstrosity that towered into the stratosphere. She volunteered herself for it, knowing it could quite well be suicide. The others weren't quick to agree, but this one Baajin was well trained, almost better than her three sisters. Their target list assembled, they began drawing out extraction routes as needed. Falsified documents and information that would stand up to the most serious scrutiny were passed about. By dawn they would be in the massive city-state that was Argul. From there on, all they would have left would be their wits.

---

She watched from a rooftop through the enhanced vision of her inserts the explosion as her sister died. A great funeral pyre. She noticed dozens of others in surrounding buildings who had yet to be evacuated from the area due to standing orders of the state legislature were watching, too. Some even had cameras, probably news crew. She could already see the spiel coming down the pipes from that one -- Confederacy blunders big. There would definitely be questions about what had been going on, why the military had been called in, and if it was related to the rumored murders. Heads would role, inquiries would be made, and tax-payer money would be wasted to assuage someone's ego or fears or even both. But for her, it was horrible. She had lost a sister. But there was no mourning the loss of life -- tragic though it was, this Baajin would graciously accept the mantle of precious life she still had. Accepting of her sisters death, she moved on. Kajil was quiet, forked tongue flicking in the dusk and tasting the disaster. She knew her sister well -- there would have been no foul ups. The handlers would have what they needed. Beyond that, well, Stent was expendable, like they all were.

Returning to the interior of the apartment, Kajil began to apply the cosmetics and dermal masking tech that would make her appear human. Gone would be the multitudinous scales that could flash in various shades of orange, yellow, red and black. She affixed a nose to her face to cover up her lack of one. Contacts for her eyes. An adhesive tongue to hide the fact hers wasn't human. Her sinuous, prehensile tail would be glued to her back with a special adhesive as well. Ears, follicle implants. Kajil looked like a tall, leggy brunette by the end of it with sharp, blue eyes. The attire the people of this planet wore made that all the easier to disguise and hide herself away.

The monitoring programs that she had inside the city data nodes informed her of police coming up the floor, clearing people out. Final checks in place, the Baajin packed a few sparse clothing items and some make up, mostly for appearances, as the door burst open. "Police" came the shout. She appeared in the hallway looking up toward the entrance. A sergeant and two constables in their blue livery stood firm.

"Ma'am, this building is to be evacuated immediately." Kajil read his badge. Sergeant Watkins.

"Yes. Well, just give me a moment to gather a few things."

A moment later she appear with a small bag as if for an overnight stay someplace. One of the constables offered to carry it for her and she obliged. No point in making a scene that she was a big girl, especially since anyone of the rich stature would expect the police to carry their things for them like stewards.

Down the opulent hall to a lobby packed with other like persons all dressed in the latest fashions circa a year the Baajin had never heard of. The constable apologized as he handed her back her suitcase before following his sergeant off to collect another few persons from another deluxe suite. Everyone in the lobby was complaining as they were shuffled into elevators and brought down. Kajil found herself crammed into close proximity to an elderly couple. The man smelt of booze and "fine" tobacco. The woman of anxiety and fear. Together they nearly overpowered her sense of smell.

The click, the ding, the rumble and the doors slid open. Police were down there with a number of security checkpoints set up. Mobile scanning equipment. Everyone passed through. Kajil did as well. She handed off her papers and ID card airily. It read "Ms. Dawn DuMont." The card went through the scanners. Unobtrusive forensics took a swab to her throat. The DNA showed up human belonging to the individual in question. Credit portfolio and spending habits were also brought up. She was a well-off upper-class woman. Even walking through the corridor of invasive scanners revealed a human woman.

Her luggage followed along beside, going through a series of invasive scans designed to reveal the contents, all of which showed them to be woman's clothing and necessities, along with various little dainties, some of which made some of the younger constables bawdy with insidious looks.

She reached the end of the line where the constable who had taken her ID handed it back to her and told her to have a very fine evening and that she would be put up in the Galacia Hotel over in the Pemberton Quarter. That was roughly two hundred kilometers away.

A multitude of cabs was outside waiting, and even for their number, multiples of the opulently rich were filed into the vehicles without regard for whether they wanted to be in proximity to one another or not. Kajil found herself sitting beside what in human terms would have been a handsome man, if not for his air of arrogant superiority. Opposite were a couple young and tittering woman, probably trust-fund children.

"What was that explosion? Did you see it?"

"Went straight up into the sky! I think I saw soldiers down there."

"You think maybe terrorists?"

"Terrorists?" the man snorted, moving his attention from the window of the now moving cab to the two girls. "In this day and age? Not likely."

"Then what of the murders, huh?"

"Political posturing."

"Posturing. You think someone is trying to oust another?"

"Yes," the man said. "Those murders were intentional. Someone, somewhere, is scheming this even now. In the end, some department head is going to find him or herself out of a job and someone will take their place. Same thing in the political circle. Just wait, there'll be resignations soon. Always happens."

Kajil remained silent. It wouldn't be long until she was at her new residence, and she had much to do.

---

The space within the Byorentu System did not stay empty for long. The vast reaches around the rock that had became the headquarters of the Joint Alliance was quickly filled up. At first it was just ships -- warships, cargo ships, and construction vessels of every shape, type and nationality. Every species was represented in the growing armada that ringed the system, and with the construction of the Monolith coming along, the next stage was put into effect. A shipyard for the construction of new warships along with science facilities were built in a sprawling manner covering whole sectors and arcs of the system. A massive, hazardous minefield of industrial endeavor. About the systems sole gas giant, Jyural, a series of science and mining facilities were build, draining off the rare and precious gases and their isotopes to be put to military use. The main shipyards was a long, third-ecliptic ring about the entire system, set up so as to avoid collision from other celestial bodies. About the sun itself, the advanced technologies of the Dalaquen Sovereignty Pact were put to use building a giant ring that would slowly rotate about, drawing off excess energy to create a system wide shield. Using wormholes, they could instantly power every facility within the system, straight down to The Monolith and the Gateway itself. There were other stars on the list to harvest as well.

Fleet Commander Amarouk Visarett was touring one such facility that was nearing completion. Just another out of thousands, tens of thousands really, and those that were completed were already building warships. The labyrinthine corridors had wall panels off with wiring and cables and crystal memory strands interspersed within. Technicians were going over these doing finals checks before bolting the panels into place. The whirr of bolt guns attaching said panels to the wall made for a high pitched and prevalent echo.

A visual inspection really wasn't necessary. It was all pomp and protocol, really, meant only to satisfy someone higher than him that things were progressing well. He watched as people snapped-to as he walked past. He saluted in turn, a massive furred fist drawn across his chest in return. A series of aides followed him like a paper trail. Other high ranking officers who were more audacious in how they acted toward the non-commissioned troops of the Joint Alliance.

But his mind wasn't on the task. Information was being sent to him via the Intra-System Solar Datanet. It was a field report from the INTDIV NAVMAR agent, Daek'tar. There was also a summary by the intelligence division about the data. So much it would take days for the quantum algorithmic computers to sift through it all and find what was needed. Appended was a memo requesting more personal with data management and information analysis skills. Amarouk authorized the request, sending it on to his own office and requesting one of his Galandrian aides go over the information and find the suitable persons necessary, preferably of DSP origin.

He wondered what Valorian was up to. There was always something, some new scheme or plan. If the information they had was all they needed, then the Joint Alliance would know what Valorian was up to. They didn't interfere with him -- that wasn't the point of the operations. Merely to keep watch. Valorian was one of a few people outside the Aka'eehnLaa to be classified as a threat. And while most threats need not be neutralized if they didn't move in any way of making good on their threatening nature, Valorian was of a kind that he could invariably change his mind about certain aspects of an unspoken treaty. It wasn't even that he was that large a threat, either; just another interesting individual who could make things more interesting if he so chose. It did, however, make Amarouk somewhat nervous, if the Vadasian could even properly comprehend the human emotion.

What was more, there was a secondary memo attached -- Daek'tar was dead. She had been found out and had sent off the data in question before enemy agents had surrounded her. She had committed suicide rather than being captured. Amarouk made a religious motion with his hand, which the technicians saw and recognized for reverence. Amarouk made a mental note, appended it to an internal memo and sent it along the right routes. There would be a proper Vadasian memorial for the dead Baajin. They were still to new a species to have created any proper culture yet.

Appended was another set of instructions for the remaining INTDIV NAVMAR agents to continue on, and if necessary, retreat. Amarouk had liked Stent as an agent. She had been extremely competent, and although she lacked a bit in the personality area, she had caught the Fleet Commander's eye for her abilities and efficiency. The Vadasian hoped there wouldn't be any more needless bloodshed, but at the same time knew it was more than likely to happen. In a way, he suddenly felt sorry for the soulless creatures that the Baajin were, and what they had been tasked to do.

---

It was the usual upheaval. Politics. All ruthless politics. Just business as usual. It was surprising that anything in the country ever got done, let alone the people who did live there continued to do so. Economic turmoil cost people jobs, but also led to opportunities. And while the government continued to play its games (if it could even be called a proper governing body), external forces continued to strip Volutia of its resources. Invading forces of labor that came, brutalized the land, took what they wanted, and fled. The in-fighting meant that nobody ever really paid much attention to the fact that the massive "country" that was Volutia was a loosely knit group of malcontents each looking to rip each others throats out. It made for a people who would gladly roll over and let outsiders have what they wanted -- as long as the price was right.

Olek sauntered through what could be the remains of the Volutian capital. A massive, molested wreak of a city spewing black smoke and cringing inward like a broken thing. Once proud buildings sagged inward under the strain and weight of their own lack of structural integrity. Hunched, weakened buildings looking like the people cluttered in the streets like trash, skulking in the shadow of the mountains afraid of the light. The Gothic architecture was mangled and smeared with so many substances that a forensics test would be needed to identify them all. Gargoyles that were horrifically disturbed in their visages stood at odd angles, some missing pieces as repair was overlooked in favor of embezzlement. It wasn't his kind of place, but it was the place to strip-mine.

He was here mostly as a relations officer for the fictitious company that was stripping the planet of all their resources directly under the noses of the people who lived on it. Soon they would find themselves living in a dust bowl with no means of getting away. A place so drained as to collapse into itself. The starvation rates would grow exponentially once the task was complete in the next three months or so. Olek didn't care. These people were outside his universe, they didn't belong to the Joint Alliance. He felt no shame for the empty and desolate.

He approached a building, tall, ornate if not a little on the ostentatious side. It was the only place that seemed hallowed ground, and the only building on the street that wasn't in ill-repair. Up the steps two at a time, he moved in through the gilded glass doors into a reception hall with vaulted ceilings. Footfalls clicked against marble floors that were a combination orange, cream and a red-pink color. He approached with certainty the circular desk situated in the center of the expanse overshadowed by overlarge and overbearing men in black suits.

A woman offered up a basilica of pleasant resentment -- a smile -- before asking him his purpose. Olek offered up his own disdained smile before saying Null Calvert. Her eyes widened a moment, surprised, the smile wavering like a mirage in the desert. The hallucination reasserted itself while she thumbed through a massive tome of a book before arriving with the information that, yes, Olek was expected, and that yes, he wasn't to be brushed aside, else bad things might happen.

The receptionist motioned with her hand at one of the guards and he lowered himself so she could speak into his ear. Olek, whose hearing was far more exceptional than these people probably thought, heard everything.

"Take him to Director Calvert. Do not let him out of your sight until he has met with the Director. Understood?"

The giant man nodded before coming around the counter to escort Olek toward the only elevator on the floor. The doors slid open and the two men slid inside. The doors closed. There were a number of buttons, but the large suited monkey pushed a sole button. Olek didn't complain, keeping his back to the big man. Show him that the Vadasian wasn't afraid.

Eventually, after an agonizing number of silent moments spent under the atrocious siege of invasive music piped in from invisible speakers within the former prison, Olek and his unwanted companion made their escape. The number said it was the two-hundred-forty-third floor. A hard right and they began to walk. Olek counted out a few hundred meters before they arrived at a set of doors that were ajar. Inside was an older man, slim, tall and extremely stern.

A white shock of hair cut short and crystal blue eyes set deeply in an unforgiving, frowning face. Those eyes directed themselves at the grunt behind Olek.

"You can leave."

The guard excused himself, closing the doors behind. Calvert turned his attention on Olek.

"So good of you to come, Julian," Calvert said. His tone suggested the opposite.

"Yes, Director. I was just, oh, concerned," Olek said, looking about Calvert's office.

A massive arched window looked toward the South with bookcases against the wall, red carpet running the length of the room from the door to the desk and its five chairs with statues of ancient and terrifying looking creatures standing freely about the room.

"About what, Julian?"

"Just rumors. Gossip, really. Something about the Rii Confederacy. I heard they're offering to accept Volutia into the fold, become another cog in the massive bureaucratic machine. I found it amazing that they'd be so interested in such a backwater and out of the way planet."

"And what does this have to do with me?"

"Oh, come now. You can't have that short a memory, especially when it concerns our deal."

"I remember."

"So what are you doing about it, Null? Or will I have to find someone else?"

Calvert sighed a moment. "The people are restless. Half of them want an end to the war in the streets with the gangs and the warlords. You have seen the state of this world and its people, haven't you? They want it to end. But the other half, they fear outsiders. They believe the Confederacy will only bring a return to the ancient war."

"Which means?"

"Which means that the negotiations for joining the Confederacy are a tad tricky at the moment, Julian. They want full discloser of everything on Volutia. They want to do an audit, Julian, learn who is crooked and who isn't." He laughed. "They fear our ties to certain parties, parties much like yourself."

"The Confederacy must be kept off Volutia, Null. I don't care about tricky. You'll do it."

Calvert nodded. "You forget, Julian, that were the Confederacy to gain access to and jurisdiction of Volutia, my own personal days as Director would be numbered in the negatives."

"Then make sure they stay off planet, Null."

Olek walked toward the doors and exited. There was no need to negotiate with Calvert. He'd do what was necessary, or he'd die along with everyone else on this planet.

---

Null Calvert was shaking when Julian left the room. Visibly so. The impudence of that man drove Calvert to the very edge of his sanity. Of course the Rii Confederacy must be kept at bay! The judicial courts would have a heyday with his financial records were they to get their paws on that, nevermind the other corrupt bureaucrats. They'd all be tossed into the fire to burn, publicly no less; locked away on penal colonies with the other scum of the universe. And the crooks? The Rii Confederacy would have difficulty locking everyone away on this planet. It already was a penal colony in its own right. The Confederacy would just be shipping everyone away from one prison to another; but they'd do it, oh how they would. And all in the name of good, in the name of progress, of banishing the evil from the world.

Julian wanted one of the old cities off to the South, Voldengrad. He'd talked about moving the people out and taking the city. Peaceably. Null would have said no, but the money. So much. And surprisingly, Julian had moved the people out peaceably, then locked down the entire region. It was the old capital. What the man wanted was unknown, but he wanted it. Null normally wouldn't care, except Julian was constantly paying him visits to make sure the Confederacy didn't show up to crash the party. That's how he'd said it, too, initially. Null began to wonder what it was that Julian wanted in the area, because it hadn't been more than a month or two later that the Rii Confederacy came knocking, talking about peaceful negotiations that would bring the people of Volutia into the fold, to increase their level of life to the standard of all persons in the Confederacy. It seemed so much like the Confederacy was following Julian, or wanted him. Who knew, maybe the Confederacy was moving against Julian in the background and was merely making small-talk as a pretense.

Calvert didn't believe it, but it was enticing to many people. If it weren't for the fact that the Confederacy wanted so much information about the goings-on of Volutia, they might have already entered. But anyone with an inkling of power knew, and understood as Calvert did, the implications of the Confederacy stepping foot on the planet. Mass trials.

The judicial system wouldn't even pretend to be fair. Open and shut cases, summary trials that were more farce then actual trials with the ability to defend against the onslaught. He wouldn't stand for that, not in the slightest.

Sighing, he walked toward a mirror. Smoothing back his frazzled white hair, he readied himself to meet one of the Rii Confederacy dignitaries with their military attache. This would be interesting.

He went to his desk, depressed a button and said as smoothly as he could, "Show them in."

---

'I remember,' he wrote, 'the few odd times Valorian and I were together. Hazy memories, memories that happened, but not quite. Like watching a play in Huzgibar. The actors are real, the act is fiction.'

There was a pause, then the scribbled notes continued.

'He spoke grandly. Not simply, as I might have expected him to. No, he spoke like a man possessed of a million lives and a million experiences to tell. He didn't do quaint. Nor did I. Probably why we spoke to one another. He kept speaking about an object, but my memory, even with neural-subconscious aid, cannot dredge the depths for what it was. But it was important. I know if I were to hear of it, it'd all come back. That's a pretty big if. But I'm willing to make a bet on it.'

'I don't much care for if's, either. They're worrisome. They wear at the soul, the mind; the antithesis to morale. Anti-everything. But, I do know, that with time, I will remember. The memories will come, first a trickle, like the beginnings of a mighty river before I am drowned in the onslaught of my own fickle remembrance. I will know, and at the moment they return, I will fear. Because knowledge brings more than power -- it brings fear for who else may know, and how they may use their own knowledge.'

'I fear greatly.'

---

Kajil checked herself in the mirror. She appeared as a tall brunette with dark brown eyes. Clad in the pompous dress the locals of 'her' status wore, she ventured out. Well aware of the security nodes, she had unleashed an ASAI, an almost-sentient-artificial-intelligence (since actually sentient intelligences of the digital were banned for multiple reasons) that would follow her through the digital world and disrupt those scanners. The code was multiplying as well, embedding itself deeply into each node hub. It would require a complete removal of the physical system to get rid of it. As long as there was something there, the code would self-replicate. The perfect virus.

It wasn't that what Kajil was doing would be too open to scrutiny. With the disruption to the security nodes, a disruption not likely to be noticed, she'd be able to move about freely.

She descended the elevator at a cool clip, the numbers for the floors flickering like a spastic in the thralls of a seizure. It reached zero with a ping and she stepped out. A massive lobby complete with a few guards. She waved at a few that she knew liked her, blowing a kiss or two and giggling -- all for show -- before slipped through the glassed-arch doors. Outside, she smiled at the doorhop before taking the steps down to the sidewalk where another man in uniform stood, holding the door to a cab open.

"The Bellingham, please," she called in a clear voice.

The automated system picked it up and pulled off into the traffic, moving at an easy clip. While it wove its way through traffic, Kajil pulled out a hand mirror and checked herself over. Might as well make herself look more like a woman. After what seemed a horrifically long time, the taxi slowed to a halt. It demanded credits before she could leave, which she deposited appropriately.

Stepping out onto a grand, tree-lined boulevard, she looked up. And up, and up. The Bellingham was what one would consider an exclusive club. Almost a high-end club, it was just low enough that every day police officers were likely to be found in it during their off hours.

Inside it was all dazzling lights done up in soft tones flashing back and forth. Brightly lit, it seemed like an exclusive club. She wandered her way through the tables like a medieval labyrinth, each island its own oasis with drinks and people leaning in close. Colorful concoctions, both the drinks and the garments, fluttered about the room like birds in a tropical paradise. The mawkish dialogue sputtered like a broken sink valve splurged everywhere intermingled with perverse, girlish giggling.

The dance floor was alive with the thrashings of the rich, the famous, the bored, and the purveyors of easy women. Kajil avoided it. What she was looking for was a special kind of man. She recognized a number of officers here and there, done up in their uniforms still, having come from work to throw away money at drinks bought for women in the hopes of scoring.

She was looking for a special kind of someone. An officer with enough rank to know what might be going on, and drunk enough not to have the presence of mind not to stop his own slathering tongue.

It was an eventuality that she would find him. A man by any other name, celebrating like any other man. Oh, how most everyone was celebrating. The news had broke the story that the individual that had instigated the murders had been caught by the military arm and killed in action. The massive explosion was detailed as action against the villain. The end result was a panel of personal talking about how the fight had gone and that in the end they had needed to result to powerful weapons to subdue the terrorist. That was what they were labeling it, now. Not just some random murderer, but a terrorist. But Kajil knew better. Even more, she knew that the man she stalked toward knew better too.

Moving into the seat next to him, she turned and smiled demurely, batting fake lashes with practiced movements. He was already inebriated, heavily so. He smiled back, sloppy, gushy. His badge identified him as an officer. Kajil's intel informed her that he had been the second in command on the investigation at the Naruda Argul. He would have answers, and all she needed was to entice them out of him.

He bought her a drink. She made small talk. Oh, how he personally had solved the case, and how he had informed the military arm himself. So boastful, so easy. She made the appropriate noises when he talked of his accomplishments that had led to the death of the terrorist in a parking lot out in the Darvaigh District outside a run-down apartment complex.

Slowly, though, she managed to wheedle more information out of him. A man -- a creature. His boss, Donavan, had called him Greyfield. A man with pull. Unsure of his origins or whereabouts. She watched his eyes, the way they flicked a certain way -- fear, distrust, apprehension -- when he spoke of this Greyfield. Was he the key to them having found Stent? Or was there a bigger picture and Stent had merely stumbled into the limelight only to be caught in the resulting act and attempt to fumble her way through a play where she didn't know her lines?

No, Kajil thought, there was more to this. This man, this Greyfield, he sounded dangerous. And the fact that she was told that he had personally witnessed the only man who could have possibly been a witness to Stent's incursion into the Naruda Argul commit suicide, that implied something. Didn't it? More questions than answers. It didn't help that there was now a military ship somewhere out there watching Argul.

He continued to talk, though. Kajil listened. They weren't sure how Stent had infiltrated. They still wanted answers themselves. And what was more important, what information had the terrorist gotten away with? Had the terrorist transmitted it? Oh, he said he'd solve it, eventually. But it wasn't as pertinent now that the terrorist was dead.

Kajil offered to buy the man his next drink, a small favor. The drink was brought over, she paid the bartender, and deftly dropped in a small, minuscule pellet. It would destroy all memories implanted within his head for the past two hours plus stop the formation of any short-term memories. He'd think it was the booze. It was a precaution. Excusing herself as if going toward the washroom, she made for the exit.

Hailing a cab, she made to for her apartment. There was still a lot to accomplish.

---

Morning broke like a splattered zit on the face of a planet ruined in the mire of political corruption. Proud spires jolted up from the planet surface, wrangled about the engineering feat of internal superstructure resplendent in form and function. From orbit, a giant circular dome peppered with more towers urged upward by sheer will and engineering design. The dome, in truth, was the main spaceport for all of Argul, a honeycombed structure of internal bays and massive jointed, folding apertures combined with suspension fields for the larger cargo and cruise vessels.

Naruda Argul.

Kajil watched it and the sky-skimmers that circled with warning hazards flashing and warning away pedestrian traffic. The police were still there in full force, and with the arrival of the Rii Confederacy, their own brand of military justice machines flirted in and about the much slower police ones. She understood that it would be suicide to even attempt a re-infiltration of the building in its current state, and with the planet currently in lockdown there was no leaving either.

There was however a small glimmer of hope for her investigation of what had happened: Greyfield. It was an interesting enough name. A simple scan of public directories yielded nothing, and using remote programs infiltrated into public terminals, the only thing she turned up were men in blue suits with dark glasses. They came by and ransacked every terminal looking for the culprit.

She sat in an open bar on the roof of a tall building looking across with enhanced vision to watch as the police force swept in and began a forensics investigation. A small smile faded behind a tall glass of something fruity and fizzy. At best they'd find the remnants of the program and the fragmented pieces of code that had once been its whole. Putting it together wouldn't yield an origin, only a massive question, but Kajil couldn't be careless.

One officer began to gesture manically. He was jamming fingers at neighboring buildings. She'd worn out her welcome, and with that, gathered her purse and ambled toward the exit. Paying, she smiled welcoming at the man before hitting the elevator with two other couples. She began to flirt with one of the men whose girl began to scowl.

The buzzer pinged, the doors opened, police rushed in. IDs were taken, but she appeared part of the group. They were allowed to leave as the police shambled into the elevator and ascended. She caught a cab with them, much to the other two girls chagrin. It was definitely a method of evading.

---

Harsh breath, back and forth as lungs fought for oxygen. It shouldn't happen, some logical portion of the mind still intact reasoned. My blood is so full of machines that the feeling that I'm short of breath shouldn't be there. But the primal, the animal in him was panting, body screaming in pain as he rushed up the slope. The crest and red triangles flicked over moving objects. He was already pulling on a mental trigger, left arm coming up and moving of its own accord. Combat programs guided him like a machine designed to let him think when it was necessary. A blast of coherent energy jumped the distance in the fraction of time it took to blink. Indicators began falling, red triangles flickering away to yellow exclamation points. Other triangles refused to leave with return blasts bustling in expansiveness like an angry wasp cloud. Stinging bits flung everywhere.

He felt himself shaken. Both physically and mentally as something to a side of him exploded. Diving, he began scouring for snipers. Ranged sensors pinged the area, looking for blotches more dense than others. Disturbed air, disturbed harmonics. There, five kilometers distant in a high tower. The chatter on his COMM was alive, and then: "Jameson! The fucker got Jameson!"

Fire was concentrated on the area where sensors reported the sniper being, only something else happened.

"Incoming," was one of the two warnings, the first being a klaxon in his ear. It took that moment, that fixated second of actualized thought to percolate into realization as to what the warning was. Incoming enemy mortar fire. There was no sound, just the ping of disrupted air, the vibrant discord of a warbling quantum string. The explosive force, however, whipped out several indicators on his map. Five down. Shield overloads combined with a disruptive flechette field. The rounds penetrated the armor maybe a pico-meter, enough to upload the virus that would overload the system. Instant kill.

Information began to infiltrate the minds of the soldiers moving along the battlefield as Overwatch provided coordinates for the mortar position. Eight kilometers off, East-Northeast, relative. Already assignments were being randomized and parties were gushing over the ground to take flight on anti-grav thrusters at speeds that would put them into position within seconds. The sniper struck again as the first mortars had fallen, taking out Kregov as he flickered into the air amid a burst of his anti-grave field.

The tower exploded, a thin cloud trailing away from it. Missile strike. More red triangles began to wink out. He jumped into the air, anti-grav coils catching and thrusting him a half kilometer forward where he landed. A yellow point next to him turned red. Fake death, buying time. Whatever it was, he acted with visceral precision. The enemies bioarmor split in half as coherent energy washed up and out his hand to eviscerate the opponent in question. Warnings were screaming again. Enemy lock. Overwatch was pinpointing and assigning vectors. Friendly mortar fire.

He fed all power to shields as the enemy attack washed overhim. The HUD flickered red. Icons showed power fluctuations. He'd nearly been killed. And just as quickly as that attack had happened, Overwatch suddenly had the enemy positions locked down. Positions known, numbers known. It went from being an offensive action to merely a police-mop-up action as accurate trans-dimensional lasers from Overwatch fired through the quantum strata to disable or kill the various enemies.

Overwatch, a semi-cognizant entity fused with a Vadasian mind and dumped into a quantum strata invisible to the eye. Any motion, any action, it becomes aware of it and the possible outcome those actions have. It has influence over all troops and disseminates its findings down to the lower levels, increasing the chances of survival. The system was a bit of a joke, though. Like all living beings, it could be distracted, and although it provided invaluable information when it worked, when it screwed up, the troops found out the hard way.

But today, today was a good day for Overwatch. A good day for everyone.

When the dust cleared, the troops began to pull out. Overwatch oversaw the transition as the troops fled through the dimensional gateway. Eventually, Overwatch too, warped out, leaving a newly killed system to languish in the throes of its distress beacons.

---

"She's here, Sir," the aide said.

"Send her in."

A tall, lithe creature walked stolidly into the office. She had the trademark scaled skin of the Baajin, her multitudinous scales flickering to varying shades between orange, red and yellow. She was distressed, that much Amarouk could tell. She ducked her head in a casual salute despite the flickers of multicolored scales.

"Sir," she began.

"And what can I do for you, Special Operative Deak'tar?"

"About the Killjar Operation: I have the data, sir."

"You've handed it off, I presume?"

"Yes, Sir. Your technicians said they should have the information sifted in approximately a week."

Amarouk nodded and dismissed her, telling her to report to mission control. Valorian, what were you up to?

---

Stent walked out of Fleet Commander Visarett's office and down the hall. That had gone better than she'd expected. The FC had been briefed about how she'd broken cover to escape and faked her own death. Using a system overload as cover, she'd created a dimensional gateway inside her suit that shunted her across the planes of existential universes into her own, destroying the suit she had been wearing it, scrambling to machine down to the lowest quark level.

She was certain the explosion would have been massive.

Entering operations, she looked around. A ping on her internal netcom informed her that her mission had been updated. She'd be going back to run interference, and soon. Her compatriots needed extraction, most likely. She would facilitate that with minimal casualties if at all possible. And another lost of ECHO would not be allowed.

The Baajin moved out of ops toward the gateroom.

WPCA - Incorpreal (Unfinished)

The hobbled form flirts into the room like smoke. It penetrates, like a fog, encompassing all. The room is filled with his being, corporeal or incorporeal -- it's hard to tell. Then, colliding like an implosion, a darkness erupts from beneath the doorjam. Blown back on hinges, it saunters in with a kneejerk spasm. Glazed over crystal orbs of indeterminate depth glance about the room. Dead, deep pools -- only they hold no meaning in this undead form. A vast deepness, like the unknown chasm in the earth. Serving no purpose, and like a hole in the ground, provide no light. It lacks a soul, or perhaps, it is a soul? Its jaw works back and forth, unhinged, handing from strips of flesh and a gurgling flush from the system. A disquiet, unease, it filters through the ambiance of the room.

Floorboards creak with each shuffled step.

Casting about, inflexible hands crack as joints long since neglected fracture back into motions once taken for granted. Searching, scrabbling, it falls to knees long since worn by the abuse. Tears slithered down cheeks turned to mired dust. Sluicing between the craters that mark his face, arms extend upward in a room where no light exists. A form of ventriloquism occurs as he cries out with a voice no longer his own. The speaker, unknown even as the creature weeping screams, cries out. "Please," it says, a broken record repeated idly with scratched, hypnotic vibrations.

The floor oscillates, then; a bridge caught in a crosswind before it caves inward. It falls, thrown into the abyss as it is cut by splintered, wooded flooring and its own internal agony. Throat constricting, it vomits as it falls and the vertigo rises. And just as quickly, the glade reaches up grassy knolls and freshwater streams to catch the incumbent denizen bound by gravity to fall from heaven. The body crunches against the ground with satisfying freshness, like celery hit by a stick. The crumbled shape of the creature dissipates, condensing into rain before oozing into the ground. Toxic, the grass about it begins to die, plagued by the disease of the creatures self-realized pain. A tree shatters as it explodes from within. The creature, a living timebomb turned to reality, steps forth with renewed purpose, if not demoralized by its fate.

The shambles of its life is reflected by the shambles of its person as thorns rise from the ground to imprint themselves on the creature. Twisting about its body in macabre artwork, they spiral into a form of tattoos before stitching the hanging jawbone back into its face. With new vigor, it looks about. Down at hands marred with dirt and feet suspended at the length of what was once the burned out husks of legs. Flesh wounds repaired, it looks at the disjointed world about it.

A red-orange-pink sky casts a stack contrast at the floating entities that circle about the creature. Ruined buildings and wild bushes populate all. Crumbling stone walls that bleed black blood and cry in the howl of a relentless wind eat at his soul. Nearly consumed, it searches for the comfort of shelter. Vagrant rebukes pound into the indomitable wind, spoken with force and understanding of identity. Repulsed and offended by the voice carried over by the harried creature, the wind retreats to another island to scream obscenities at the form huddled beneath the overhang of a maladjusted branch beset by the creatures own nefarious toxic force.

WPCA - Dead Head

Oh, she stands there before the mighty a moment. Eyes glazed over crystal orbs of indeterminate depth. Deep oceans -- but they hold no meaning. The vast deep more like the unknown of a massive hole dug into the earth. They serve no purpose and like a hole in the ground, provide no light. Merely mediocre mandibles masticating maliciously. Open and closed like shutters in the wind, her jaw flaps away with her gum squashed up against molars. Read the menu, hum and haw. Read some more. Whatever percolations are happening in her mind to create a coherent, sibilant thought appear to groan on more slowly than the drip of the coffee pot.

A hand moves to her hair and begins to curl it about a finger. Is this supposed to make her look coy? A child yanking on knots with a comb. The continued creaking of her jaw, the sluice of saliva over teeth and the irritating sucking sound at the top of her mouth combined with the gum infuriates. A man approaches. He stands next to her, but lacks the kind of nuance that would indicate proper intelligence. "Combo," he says, like the world holds any actual meaning. A conjurers trick occurs -- voices amid dolls. What form of ventriloquism it may be, their mouths moving but the sound coming for an altogether different location.

The Misadventurous Trio - 2

"Hey, Gar?"

"Yeah?"

"Mind letting me pilot for once? I mean, I did build it."

"Yeah, that's true, you did build the ship. You also crashed it right after you finished it then spent three weeks fixing it back up."

"What's your point?"

"Do I need one."

Kish came up and put a hand on Wolf's shoulder. "It's okay. He's just saying you pilot like a blind man. Actually, I think the blind man might do better."

"Gee, thanks for the vote of confidence, Kish. Fuck."

---

Kish walked up to Wolf while he sat at the table, a cloth spread over it and random parts were placed about. Kish went to reach for one. "Don't touch."

"Why, what harm could it do?"

"Well, the part you were about to reach for can explode if you aren't properly grounded, and unlike you, I'd rather keep living."

"Oh. Well, what about this-"

"-no. Like I said, don't touch."

"What? Not every single one of these parts can explode."

"Yeah, but you seem to gravitate to "stuff that could make life miserable for Wolf", so I thought it best to cut you off."

"I'm not that bad. Gar, am I that bad?"

"Yes, Kish, you are that bad," Gar called from the cockpit.

---

"Gar, you stay with the ship. I'm taking Kish."

"And why do I stay with the ship."

"Because I fly like a blind man of psychotropic drugs, and Kish flies like a...well, we really don't want to know how he flies."

"Fine. But why take him?"

"Well, more to act as a distraction."

Kish walked up wearing a purple cape. "I'm ready."

"See what I mean?"

---

"Kish, wait here."

"Why?"

"Just, guh, just do it."

"Fine."

Wolf stalked off further into the interior of the bar, glancing about left and right. He approached a table in the back while Kish made his way to the front.

"Hey," Kish said, his purple, silk cape fluttered. The bartender looked at him, eyes wide a moment before he glared sharply.

"And just who in the fuck are you?"

"Oh, I'm Kish."

"Why the purple cape? What are you, some kind of superhero?"

"Well I am super."

The Misadventurous Trio - 1

"Where's Wolf?"

"Working, Kish."

"On what?"

"Not getting killed."

"Where is he?"

"Not here, obviously."

"Well-"

"Kish,-" Gar put his palms to his face, dragging them downward for a moment, "-it's times like this I wish Wolf would take you with him. Then it'd be a two-way split."

"What? And why wouldn't I get paid."

"Because you lack a skill Wolf has."

"And that is?"

"Not getting killed."

Kish grew quiet. He would have made himself useful had Wolf been there to tell him to make himself useful. Instead, he just sat in the navigation seat waiting, wondering what it was Wolf was doing. The best answer he knew he'd get out of Gar was "working." Working for who? Was this another contract? Who was their contact? He couldn't help but feel he was sometimes treated like a child and kept out of the loop. He was the best guy for dealing with people, surprisingly, despite being the most antisocial of the three. After about an hour of sitting there, waiting, the comm crackled to life.

"Start the ship! Start the ship!" a tinny voice squawked.

"What?"

"Dammit, Gar! Start the fucking ship!"

"What's wrong?"

A flash of red laser fire splattered in the direction of the ship. Gar watched through the HUD Wolf running back at breakneck speed, hopping over debris and past obstacles. Behind him, trailing but catching up, were a series of guards taking pot shots at him with sidearms.

"Oh."

"So," Kish began, "that's what 'not getting killed' looks like."

Wolf came rushing past as Gar brought the main forward weapons online and began to send furrows of coherent red energy flashing into the oncoming enemy force. Bright explosions of dirt and debris and bodies, whole and otherwise, flung everywhere at once. He held down the trigger until a status light on his console clicked green signaling the hold having been sealed and Wolf now being inside. He rushed up into the cockpit, dressed in a black jumpsuit holding a plasma assault rifle. He had a pair of goggles hanging around his neck from a strap and began doing up his crash restraints, all the while screaming "Go, go go!"

"What the hell did you do down there?" Gar asked.

"Stirred up the hornets nest, that's what! Fuck! I hope they aren't getting any air support, that'd just screw my day over."

Gar grimaced at that remark, lifted the Grinning Jackal up on its anti-grav thrusters before kicking in the main engines and blasting skyward at speed. Wolf began monitoring the tactical console he was sitting at.

"They're sending fighters. Looks like a half squad of 'em," Wolf said. "Kish, get a jump course plotted out of this shitpit."

"Working on it."

The Jackel jerked about as Gar sent the craft through a series of evasive maneuvers. But the larger craft was still taking strikes from the more agile fighters.

"Jump course plotted!" Kish said before bringing up a tactical display. Six fighters, all blasting away, and more incoming. "Uh, more fighters incoming. I'm gonna take the guns."

WPCA - Excerpt from 'All Good Things' 02

"What is this place?" Chrysanthemum asked.

"What place?"

"This...maze?"

"Oh, well, as you can see, it is a maze. Actually, it's a labyrinth."

"But what is it called?"

"The labyrinth."

Chrysanthemum made a face.

"Well, I know that. I mean, where is it?"

"You should have asked that from the start."

She made another face.

"It isn't anywhere, and it's everywhere. It branches into all the states of life and reality wherever they may be. To every world and every time and every memory, all linked together."

"But, what are those Tigermen? And why do I always feel like this place doesn't want me here?"

"Because the labyrinth wants to preserve itself. A last bastion for all things."

"Bastion?"

"Yes, a fort. Memories I often see in here, winged as it is, searching and seeking."

"Memories? You say that like it is...a person."

"An insect, actually. It has never seen me before, though."

"So, you can go anywhere from here?"

"Well, almost anywhere. Some places have been shut off, kept aside and away. Much harder for Memories to go there."

"Why are they shut off?"

"Because some things don't want to be remembered, or its better not remembering, or most of all, some things are just hiding."

"Then how do you get there if they're hiding?"

"Between the cracks, my dear."

"Does the memory thing know how to get between the cracks?"

"Not really; if it knew where to look it could, but its relying on memories of mortals, not...ascendants. In this case it cannot know. And it's Memories."

"You said Memories hasn't seen you before."

"That's right."

"Why is that?"

"Because it can't see me."

"But,..."

"I don't exist to Memories. In fact, the labyrinth isn't even a labyrinth to Memories."

"What is it then?"

"A library."

"Then how come its a labyrinth now?"

"Memories wants it a library, to make it easier to find things. If it was a labyrinth, Memories would spent far too much time searching for memories. So, it's a library."

"I'm confused. Memories searching for memories?"

"The bug looking for a book."

"Oh. Well, can I make it a library, too?"

"Where's the fun in that?"

Chrysanthemum was quiet a moment, pondering this.

"How can you not exist to Memories?" she said.

"How can you exist to Memories, my dear?" Vadel Mayr Veldrosky said.

"You aren't answering my question."

"If I answered all your questions, then you would have more questions. Questions beget questions, not answers, my sweet. Answers are found with pain, not talk."

Chrysanthemum glared at Vadel Mayr Veldrosky. The enigmatic creature in its pajamas walked, seeming to be going no place in particular. He seemed to be playing a game with her and enjoying it, liking how she didn't understand or know anything about this place, or any place. Daddy had never told her about this place.

"Could daddy come here?"

"Oh, dear, no. His life would snuff like a flame in the wind; it would die out so fast if he wandered here. No mortal can survive here; existence itself makes it so."

"But..."

"Look for your answers instead of asking for them."

She made a face like a petulant child, crossing her arms for emphasis in the cliche. She wanted to throw a tantrum. Part of her mind was screaming, in a very adult voice, I'm a seven year old girl. I shouldn't even be having these kinds of conversations yet, let alone thinking what I'm thinking. Why can't I be simple like before? Why can't everything be simple like before?

"But everything is simple," Vadel Mayr Veldrosky said. Chrysanthemum jumped as she was jarred from her thoughts, turning a glaring, surprised face on the figure. How could he read her thoughts? Before she could even ask another question on that regard he simple held up a finger to his lips and made a shushing sound. She scowled.

---

It was in the blackness of reality, a reality where even a Before God feared to tread. It was a kind of non-reality, a non-existence, an enigma where time and space had no rule, where Memories turned to ash and forgetfulness overrode the norm.

---

Kee Drovnich stormed through the halls of the Defense Forces Central Command, weaving his way through the wake of disturbed subordinates and NCOs that seemed flustered at the High Admiral and Intelligence Devision Head Chief. Doors parted for him as me moved, his neural implant sending access codes ahead of him and keeping him aware of specific data as it came in. He was in a sour mood.

He entered the conference room and slid along the wall in the darkness like some kind of snake before assuming his seat. Several other high level Vadasian and Galandrian were here, either physically or projected over the Gatekeeper system, the MaskNet hierarchy of defense systems all around the Dalaquen system.

"What's this all about, Drovnich?"

"You remember that errant fool of ours, brilliant, but a fool nonetheless."

"I'm only looking at one fool, Drovnich. Cut the crap."

"Fleet Commander Visarett, and his taskforce that was following the Hagasian extra-dimensional threat has vanished."

"What do you mean, vanished?"

"What other way can I say that it has disappeared? Would you like me to grab five foreign language dictionaries and find new ways to say that there's no evidence of the taskforce whatsoever?"

"Don't be a jyrakeit Vadas, Drovnich."

"Our scoutships have reported of the complete annihilation of the enemy Hagasian extra-dimensional force. At least our taskforce succeeded in something before going AWOL."

"What do you think the Fleet Commander's reasons were for that?"

"Nyrock sent in a report about fifteen standard units before their disappearance, just prior to dimensional slipspace travel. The Fleet Commander had been killed in the engagement."

"So who was in charge?"

"Oh, High Admiral Lypsing Nyrock decided to play tag-along. So, if he were here, we could ask him why it is five ships disappeared," Kee Drovnich said.

"What are we doing to fix this problem?"

"We've alerted the LDE and Jyollener Federation, among others. I figure that whatever makes our ships go boom should be as equally feared by them as it is us."

"And why would you want to release such information?"

"Mutual reassurance."

"Reassurance? Of what?"

"Of coopreration."

---

Chrysanthemum starred at Vadel Mayr Veldrosky with petulance. He talked in riddles, made fun of her for not understanding. Well if nobody answered her questions, how would she learn? Vadel Mayr Veldrosky talked of the penetrating blackness like it was something to be feared. She took a step toward it.

"I wouldn't do that, child. The jaws of fate laugh at your ignorance and would gladly swallow you whole if you go there."

Chrysanthemum thought about it a moment, turned to Vadel Mayr Veldrosky and stuck out her tongue before stepping forward into the great deepness. And then felt like her life was being stripped away. At first her flesh was being torn apart, deep gouges appearing. Her skin became the tattered ruins of some strange clothing, looking flayed and ancient. The black carapace came off her in scabs, her blood swelling up in bulbous droplets before bursting in strange implosions with popping noises. She felt her eyes implode then, her organs turning to mush before being torn apart by the epicenter of some massive wrenching wind.

And then as her body fell into the blackness and disappeared, consumed, Vadel Mayr Veldrosky blinked.

"What has she done," he started. "What cruel fate is this?"

Then, louder, "Why do you mock me with the idea of hope for a new start and take it away?"

He threw a fist against the labyrinth, screaming and pounding. "What cruel game are you playing at? Why do this?"

And from the darkness, laughter ensued.

And for the first time in perhaps his entire memory, Vadel Mayr Veldrosky cried.

---

It floated as it always did, the cylindrical object. It had a light on either end, red, that flashed back in forth like a pair of eyes constantly blinking. About the center-most portion of the cylinder, a band of yellow and black set in slashes, with compartmentalized openings and entrances set about the thing. It was two meters long, and although it floated, twisted, the solar winds that kicked up about it couldn't do anything. It just stat there, winking at the nebulae surrounded by the Auktaurian asteroid belt in the Velvandi system. There were several such devices, warning buoys, and beyond them, set just inside the belt was a monstrous object of ancient origin and design.

--- The blackness was intransigent, but even so, the girl-turned-woman-turned-ascendant felt a rising feeling of vertigo. The feeling that she were falling was hard to shake, the sudden pitches of free-fall playing havoc with her quickly maturing mind -- and even so, her feet, some corner speculated, were firmly planted on the ground. What was more, even for all the darkness about her, she could see the light, burning so brightly. She waved a hand in front of her face to shield it from the darkness, never once moving her arms in the motion. Something kept whispering that whatever she did, it would occur and not occur.

Two halves of her mind warred with one another. One said she was standing, the other insisted she were falling. So much gravity, the standing one said, that its knees were buckling from the strain of carrying the world and more upon her shoulders. But the free fall was puking away, nauseated. Still there were other forms of herself, arms strung outward attempting to feel in the darkness that was so fully illuminated. And then there were the walls that pushed in. Chrysanthemum had never been claustrophobic in all her life, but at the moment, a part of her was straining against the walls pushing against her while another form of herself pointed and laughed because there really wasn't any walls nearly turning her into a compact cube.

She screamed, the sound echoing forever and ever and ever and ever. The noise rang toneless until it returned to her own ears, and in fact, she hadn't screamed at all. She hadn't even opened her mouth, but she was certain that the part of herself trapped in the light was watching herself quizzically as she wailed again and again in lost confusion.

Land of confusion...

She was stumbling, a part of her saw, and as she stumbled, she was kicking at the ground like a petulant child with something in her eyes. So very blind, I am, she thought offhandedly.

But she wasn't walking in this world of blinding light or overbearing darkness. She walked worlds, planets, and saw wonders and horrors and felt herself awed and disturbed. Until finally everything stopped, something snapping into focus, twisting just so, like a camera lens clicking into place and everything made sense.

Land of understanding...

But she found that she didn't understand, standing as she was surrounded by faucets of herself in this twilit realm with a purple sky and orange trees with diamond leaves. The blue grass waved about in a wind that refused to blow because the pink sun was scolding it on the parapet of a rock overlooking a lake of pure brown muck. But she was certain a coolness was there.

She spoke.

But no sound came, only an echo of her intent to speak, echoing in the thousands of ears she possessed. She looked in at herself, billions of pairs of eyes intent, mocking, pleading that she absolve herself of whatever sin she had committed so that she might return to being the innocence she once lay claim to. But the woman-turned ascendant with a leathery-tan-hide for skin accentuated by leaf-like black carapace and dotted more by strange, swirling orange and yellow carapace markers turned in a slow circle.

"Come to me," the intent echoed.

And then, she walked into herself, feeling all at once a child and a woman and a goddess. She saw what each of her former selves had seen, knew what they knew, understood and puzzled over what they had understood and puzzled over. And in the midst of it, she saw another man.

He had the burnished skin of bruises that looked weeks old. Purple, and his face was misshapen, with strange bulges here and there. He had no nose except for slits, no lips and no eyelashes or eyebrows. Completely hairless and naked, the creature was anorexic, or looked it. Skeletal, with a lankiness that belied its strength. Bipedal, it moved on two legs, only it had three toes with a fourth thumb-like one at its heal. Its hands also had three fingers with a thumb. it wielded no weapon, although Chrysanthemum was certain the claws on its feet and hands were sharp enough.

"Hello," her intent echoed, ringing off the walls.

The creature ignored her.

As she looked more closely at it, she saw it was playing with several toys in a sandbox. It was playing a game, its own intent making strange sound effects like lasers going off. It make explosive noises, too, holding its action figures and smashing them into one another.

Chrysanthemum glided toward the creature before hunching over and looking closely at the creature and its toys. There were things that looked like spaceships and things that looked like dolls and things that looked like chess pieces and still more toys arrayed around it. She went to pick one up, only the creature snatched the toy up quickly. She looked at it and found a pair of blazing yellow eyes glaring at her, cat-eyes that held no love for her.

"Mine," it hissed.

"Can't I play too?" her intent echoed once more. it didn't seem to hear her, but only looked at her with the same distrust. Chrysanthemum moved her jaw slowly, hinging it open and closed experimentally, trying to make some kind of noise. She squawked.

Again she tried to ask if she could play to. Still only the intent of a sound ringing off the inside of her skull, and still the creature staring at her coldly.

Finally: "I lost some of my toys. If you find them, I'll give you one."

Chrysanthemum regarded this statement, then tried to ask where the creature had lost its toys. And for the first time, she spoke. She sounded as she expected herself to sound, were she back to being a child. Gone was her usually sultry voice that she had somehow picked up somewhere.

The creature pointed to a pile of weeds that were black instead of blue with thorns. She walked toward it slowly, and thought the thorns were alive. She looked for a while, feeling bored. She turned her head and saw the creature looking at her. A feeling that she knew who it was played at the back of her mind, but when she attempted to grasp it, she felt confused, and turned back.

After what seemed hours, she spotted what had to be the silver glint of one of the ships she had seen the creature playing with. She reached in to grasp it. The grass wrapped itself around her arm, thorns biting deep. She bled strange orange colored blood and felt weak. The ships were there, five of them, and thousands of the action figures. So many toys. And yet she couldn't reach them. She put her other arm forward to grab them, but the grass wrapped around her other arm. It was pulling her in, biting at her, sapping her strength. She felt dizzy, woozy, the world was spinning.

And then Chrysanthemum fell into the grass.

WPCA - Excerpt from "All Good Things"

All Good Things was a bit of writing a friend and I put together. Absolutely massive. We did it back in 2007. This year, in 2009, we hope to put something together that's a bit more -- how do you say -- refined. I'll probably post excerpts from that somewhere along the line. In the meantime, here's a random part from All Good Things.

---------------------------------------------------------------

Chrysanthemum wandered. The labyrinth was playing games with her, she knew. Every time she saw a gate that led to a new area and attempted to get there, the way would turn severe. The ground would rise up, become smooth to the point where she couldn't scale it. Trees would block the path or scrubby grass with thorns and strange poisons that bit into her skin and forced her to lie for hours as her body regained whatever strange health she had. What was more, packs of roving tigermen things with spinning, cutting blades chased her now and again, following her, hunting her.

It was at those times she began to discover her own powers. At first afraid, tentative, like a baby taking its first steps in wonder and fear. She could distort her reality if she concentrated hard enough, and it was in those moments she could cause the most damage. A darkness that crept from the shadows to dismember and consume the tigermen that sought her. At first, they didn't seem afraid of her and her newfound abilities, but then, she began leaving one alive after every attack, a messenger to go back and tell the others of her power.

Some gates looked twisted when she passed them, with strange worlds beyond it. It was like looking through a mirror; mirror worlds abounded, each with their own style. Some seemed sunny, beautiful, wondrous; others were dark, sinister. She wandered pathways that had no walls, areas that had no light, areas that had no floors and she floated in space. She wondered in an off-handed way if this was what it must be like to be an addict.

She slumped against a wall, one of the few she had seen. This area was a plains clouded over in twilight; the tigermen roved here frequently, but had left her alone thus far. Why was she here, she asked herself. She groaned in annoyance. Everything was just getting so messed up and she felt she was somewhere in the middle of it all. And why couldn't daddy do something? But what could he do?

As these thoughts swam through her brain, a feeling of utter terror filled her. She opened her eyes and saw a woman lying on the ground, weeping, beaten and bruised. She sobbed for such a long time, and Chrysanthemum simply felt terrified of this woman. I know her, she thought. But who had done this to her, and why? Why would they hurt her so? What had she done to deserve this? And then a wave of anger and hatred washed over her as the phantom righted itself and stalked off into the abyss of nothingness, dissipating in a wake of fury. Chrysanthemum stared, feeling hollow for a moment.

"Why?" she said. "Why is it like this?"

"Because, child," a voice whispered, "those who have are envied, and those that have not desire to have and covet what their neighbor has. The concept of shared life, of union and charity is dead. Find those who have nothing and you will find those who have everything."

Chrysanthemum turned and found a strange man in a pair of pajamas staring down at her. He seemed different. His skin looked like water, his eyes were the color of empty jade. Hair that looked like space flecked with stars hung about his head in a wizened way about a balding spot and he shared a smile of crooked, black teeth with her. She suddenly wanted to poke him and see if it would cause a ripple.

"Vadel Mayr Veldrosky," he said, extending a watery looking hand, "attorney at law." The smile broadened. "Come to present my closing arguments to the jury, but they're out and the witnesses were all killed. I'm afraid this mob boss just might get away. Sad thing, too; the racket he's running is hurting a lot of people."

WPCA - Depths Updated

Added a few paragraphs to WPCA - Depths today. I figure I might turn this into a full-blown story or something. No idea what I really want to do with it. I should start writing again; actually get back into it. I haven't written anything really major in so long.

WPCA - Junkie

The parody of intelligence keeps talking. I watch him blather on and on about something I'm in no way interested in. His mouth is moving, but my ears hear the Charlie Brown "wah wah wah" of "Adultspeak." Testing what little patience I have, I know that much. Doesn't help that he's talking in some badly formed accent that I just couldn't give a damn about -- telling me all sorts of things. Bits of wisdom designed to illuminated the dark recesses of my mind. Give me purpose. I have a purpose, and I don't need some jacked up idiot in a pinstripe to tell me what it is. Gimme the gun, I'll get the job done.

He laughs. His flunkies laugh. I throw up a basilica of deferent contempt, with teeth glaring in a half grimaced-smile of polite hatred. Get on with it. And then, as if the God of all gods answers my prayers and grants a miracle,-

"-so, here-," he says, and I'm paying attention now as a ginger-haired boy tosses up a case on a table and flicks the tabs so the top can flip open. He swivels it in my direction and my eyes gloss over it, drink it in. Yes, I think as my saliva glands begin to equate what's in front of me to a steak. Blabber-mouth continues his little song-and-dance- "-it is. Fine piece of military hardware. But you only get it 'cause we want-"

"-I know what you want," I say cutting him off and flashing the picture of the man on some steps with his wife and two kids. "Family job. Done deal. Just gimme the goods and it's a done deal."

He shrugs, laughs -- the flunkies laugh with him.

"What's a man to do? Okay, it's all yours. Have fun."

He knows when to take his exit. Makes it stage right, taking his bunch of groupies with him. I'm cackling in my head at this point, eying up the hardware. Biotech enhances, top grade. It's like a black mans spinning rims. Pimp your ride? Son, how about we pimp that body of yours and turn it into the kind of lethal weapon that make action movies so good?

It's a bunch of hypodermic needles -- long ones. Stab 'em in all over. Three for my spine alone. Gonna have to find somebody to do that one. Maybe I shouldn't have sent Carl away so fast. Could've gotten one of his floosie puppets to do it, before I broke his neck. Time to get down to business. This is gonna hurt.

WPCA - Depths

The Technicolor verb of the pastel holograms blasted past on the periphery of her vision. Giant cascading mono-graphic entities displaying the latest and greatest in consumer items. Things for the home. Things for the family. The brand new hoverbike, the Yukazi Samurai. The horn of a slow-moving garbage disposal vehicle bellowed causing a number of pedestrians to jump back. Dressed in their singlesuits, most. Some, the hookers, the prostitutes, wore dual suits, clothes that covered in a strip around the waist and around the chest, covering and revealing at the same time. Built in microchips and holographic displays turned the clothes into their own advertisements. Sex shops and toys flashed flamboyantly along in a mismatched circle about the womans frame as they cantered about. A halo like that of an angel seduced by the darker side.

Madeleine rushed, skirting through the crowds on the edges and through gaps and openings. She could hear the ruffled people behind her squawking and flapping their arms in mid-stride as she rumbled past. Her heart was pounding. She saw in the corner of her vision, where her neural and cellular wetwiring interacted with her vision kept throwing up a word in bold, red typeface: INFECTED. Infected. A lie. It was the program again. She had dived into some nether region of the NETs. The mainframes where the arrays were undefined. Where there was data, but you couldn't see or understand it. Her avatar had drifted in the black sea, beyond the interpreted glow of the digital world. And when she had come back to her analog self, she had a new gift. A change, a morphing, a shift. Dizzying, she had unlocked things. A great many things were cast off, but never truly forgotten or lost. The NETs held everything, and things thought hidden could be found. Things thought buried could be unburied. And Madeleine had found just that -- a something.

And now it was overwriting the programming of her implants.

Military grade. It had to be that. She was rushing because she didn't know how much time she had until it overtook her. Until this virus, this computerized digital artifact overtook her analog self and overwrote her entire being. So much of the analog and digital were amalgamated into one. She was scared. She didn't want to lose herself. But...was it even possible? She was hoping the Advanced Neuroscience & Wetwiring Department of the St. Patrick's Hospital could help her.

Her vision crackled. White snow. White noise. It was like standing in a snowglobe. Someone was shaking her world and filling it up with dazzling sparkles.

"GO AWAY!" she screamed.

The crowd about her stopped. Jerked a moment. Eyes, weary, watchful, fearful, annoyed -- every spectrum of the emotional rainbow -- turned upon her. Then like a stop-motion camera jolting onto the next scene, they moved again. The stop in the automation of the human walking on the sidewalk ended, and they resumed their conveyor belt motion in their given direction to be deposited like varied and packaged goods. A bubble formed around Madeleine. She was given wide berth now. Nobody wanted near this young woman on the verge of tears who cradled her head in her hands, who got to her feet, who stumbled forward into a mad dash with brazen brunette hair blazing a broken and shaky path through the air and crowd alike.

A spattered response as a siren wailed for attention. Authoritative, it demanded respect. Whizzing past on invisible jets of plume, hot backwash assaulting the pedestrians below who made rude gestures at the passing so close to the ground. The vehicle dropped, a rock caught in gravity, before stopping dozens of centimeters above the ground. An officer stepped out, blue singlesuit with blastplates inserted. Pockets full of gear and a belt filled to near bursting. He was clutching his compact-slug thrower to his chest, black visored face scanning behind a veil of anonymity. His attention caught itself on the wayward child and he began to approach.

"Citizen," a voice barked out, loud, using not only his own audio enhancement but the speakers wired into the lampposts. Everyone halted, machines programmed by their masters. "Citizen Madeleine Young: halt."

She found herself turning, tear-flecked eyes seeing a monster. She screamed. Everyone near backed away. The officer began walking toward her, and she looked upon the faces of those around her. Dead, gone, lost -- lost within the NETs, uploading and downloading, showing what was happening to this girl now, soon, at what would be the hands of the government agents ready to sweep her up into their squadcar and into the night air.