[Fiction] On Wizard's Watch

[Guest]

(From the earlier conversation between Tesseract and Wizard in Tess' room)

Tesseract sat in her room quietly as she pushed outwards with her power. Tendrils of quantum power snaked invisibly from her mind and slid slowly, lightly, across the edge of the spatial dampening field. She could feel the wards, and the death that waited behind them. This man James did not do anything halfway. She could also feel the cracks, the flaw the Wizard had pointed out to her. She worked slowly, carefully, to exploit that weakness.

There was a chime from the door and Tess drew back her "feelers." She rose from where she was sitting and went to see who was bothering her. Wizard stood waiting outside with a gentle smile. It broadened as the portal that served as the door opened and Tess smiled in return. "Wizard, Jane, I thought you were with Jager?"

"May I come in?" the soft spoken woman asked and Tess motioned for her to enter. She took a seat in the only chair in the room and Tess made herself comfortable on the bed. "I wanted to talk to you before we get any deeper into this 'conspiracy' Jager has us tracking. I haven't heard anything from you since the Alexandria incident and I was worried about how you were adjusting to your 'new' body. You seem to be adapting suprisingly well, are things ok with you?"

"Thats a loaded question Jane. Things are more stable now, but I am a changed person, and I don't just mean the gender switch. Actually, thats less of an issue than anything else."

Jane watched the young woman before her, as she spoke. Tess was holding something back, trying to hide or keep private some part of her ordeal. Normally Jane would let it drop, let Tess keep her secret to herself, but she felt it imperitive to know just what had happened to her. "Tess," she said. "Please explain. Transforming from one gender to the other is not a common occurance, there are psychological issues you can't even begin to understand, yet you seem completely at ease with the whole experience. I know something more has happened and I just want you to know you are safe with me. You can confide in me, I won't judge you. Do you understand?"

Tess nodded her head softly and took a deep breath before starting. "It was my duplicate, she went by the moniker Gateway. I can only imagine how Gateway felt, living her life, doing whatever. All of a sudden, Bang! She is trapped in the body of a man. No reason, no explanation, and no provocation on her part. Needless to say she was upset. She tracked me down through the dimensional barrier and dragged me to her world, demanding to know what I had done to her." Tears flowed down her cheeks as she spoke. Wizard, sensing Tess' pain wordlessly moved to sit beside her and placed a reasuring arm around the momentarily vulnerable young assassin. "Her world was a nightmare, Jane. I never would have imagined so much destruction was possible. They are farther into the future than we are and the entire world is at war with itself. In Gateway's world, all these predicitions of war people here have been making have come true. It started with Baselines against Novas. Unbeknownst to most of the world, the UN was getting help from an extraterrestrial source. When that secret got out, the whole world went to hell," She paused as Jane handed her a kleenex, waiting for her to continue. She wiped the tears from her eyes and looked at the woman giving her comfort.

"Gteway and I had similar beginings. She was a clone as am I, the difference being what we were programmed for. I am an assassin, she was programmed to be the perfect urban soldier. Anyways, we tried to undo what had been done but it didn't work. Gateway and I merged into one being. For some reason, I don't know why, I became the mind in control. There is no more Gateway. I mean, part of her is up here," Tess tapped her head. "She infulences me, suconsciously, but she doesn't exist as a separate entity anymore. I have learned a few things by merging with her, I can travel between worlds now, and I have better control of my powers because of her influence. I can even shift between sexes."

As she spoke, her features shifted and flowed. She grew a little taller, her shoulders broadened her facial features took on a more angular appearance. She sprouted a five o'clock shadow. As the transformation took place, her clothes shifted with her, Wizard had forgotten about her, his, Eufiber.

Wizard couldn't help but register suprise as Tess' form finally stabilized into the man she had first encountered in Alexandria. "How fascinating," she said, almost to herself. "How is this possible?"

Tess' form shifted once more into the woman that Wizard now pictured her to be. "I don't really know, but I do have some metamorphic abilities. I can biologically adapt to any environment I find myself in. Extreme teperatures, high pressure, even the vacuum of space. I think maybe that had something to do with it."

"So why not just stay in your natural male form then? Experimantation aside, why remain female?"

Tess started to regain her composure. She was not used to expressing her emothins and in her occupation, trusting others can lead to her death. Still, it felt good to unload all of this, even speaking it aloud made her feel better, less guilty. In response to Wizard's question she simply said, "That's Gateway's influence again. I have only had freedom for a little while, a few months. My creators tried to remove any emotional responses I may have had. To be the perfect killer. My gender, and indeed sexual drive, was irrelevent to me. Gateway had a lot more time to explore herself, to become a whole person. Where I never identified myself as either male of female, she had made that connection. When we merged, much of who she was, including her some of her sexual identity, was passed to me. Because of her infuence I am more comfortable as a woman now."

Jane smiled. "I understand now. I am sorry for your pain Tess, I never thought, do you like being called Tess? I just started calling you that because Tesseract was so clumsy to say all the time."

This brought a genuine smile to Tess' face. "Tess is fine, Gateway's real name was Teresa, so I think it is appropriate."

The conversation continued for some time, sometimes serious but most times, at Wizard's direction, light hearted. She could see Tess was feeling better, more whole. Their conversation was unfortunately interupted by a soft tone, and the sound of Mycroft's voice. "Forgive my intrusion ladies, but Jager is looking for you Wizard. He would like it if you could meet him in his quarters."

"Go," Tess said, seeing a familiar look in Wizard's eye. "I am alright now." Wizard got up, smiling, and headed for the door. "And Jane?" She turned back to look at Tess. "Thank you." With that Wizard headed for Jager's room excitement and aprehension her only companions.

[Wizard]

He slowly grew aware that he had been dozing. This in itself is not unusual for most of the inhabitants of the planet. For this particular man, however, it represented a fundamental change in his life. While rest was ocassionally required, he rarely slept on any discernable schedule and never very deeply. His lifestyle simply hadn't allowed for that luxury. Now though, he rose slowly to consciousness for the depths of a warmth which pervaded his being, accompanied with a sensation he didn't recognize. After a moments reflection came the realization that it was unfamiliar merely by it's long absence. He felt happy.

Opening his eyes, his gaze immediately encountered his companion for these last several hours. At the moment she sat lotus style on the bed beside him, oblivious to his scrutiny, with a laptop of some type perched on her shins as she typed. He noticed her lips moved as she read passages under her breath, launched into a period of two-fingered typing then re-read the lines she just written. She would chew the inside of her lower lip thoughtfully, a fetching mannerism he found, for a few moments before using the backspace key to obliterate at least a portion of what she had written and start again. This process would repeat several times until, apparently satisfied, she would proceed to the next section to start the cycle from the again.

Her dirty blond curls, unfettered and utterly wild after the exertions of the last few hours, formed a nimbus of gold around her face and shone with the reflected light from her computer screen. Her eyes were, pale icy blue? They had been deepest sea-green with flecks of golden color earlied when had he stared into them from his position above her. He would have to ask her about that later. Or not. This moment felt rife with endless possiblities and he was loath to end it with mere fact and investigation. Lovingly, his eyes stroked her body and took in everything about her as new. The heartshaped face with softly diffused cheekbone, the slim nose set above lips slightly puffed after their most recent exertion. Lovely. Oh, there were thousands of his bethren walking the planet at this moment that more resoundingly exemplified beauty. Most of them were even woman. Beyond all of that, in her features he found that special something that he rarely saw in the others of his kind or baseline humans. A quality of luminescence that was physical while simultaneously transcending the merely physical. It occured to him that the insight had less to do with her than with his own perceptions changing.

She wasn't really that big he realized, though initially he had taken her to be only slightly less than his own height. That was an effect of both the heels she wore and of personality. Subconsciously you just perceived her as an equal and translated that into physical perception. That was part of the elusive quality that made her difficult to focus on although there was more to it. Being in her presence was calming, soothing even. Elizabeth, a new name now that he had crossed the boundaries beyond frienship? Elizabeth calmed people just by being in their presence. Odd, but it was only now the he thought about Jordan's ambivalent reaction to James. With James' level of taint, Jordan should have been shocked perhaps even repulsed. Yet he had taken it into stride without a blink. A conscious manipulation of Elizabeth's? Or subconscious wizardy effected by something she wasn't aware of?

Let it go for now, he thought to himself. No more questions until later and enjoy the view.

Continuing on, he noted her milky complexion flying completely in the face of the modern ideals of golden tone idealized by humans and exemplified by a disproportinately large number of novas. A lithe and compact build that hinted at the strength within her frame but did nothing to draw attention to it either. Fit by human standards, she wouldn't stand a chance against a nova with para-human strength. Or would she? One on one she would lose the contest but he recalled the manner she had twisted her body and flipped him to exactly the position she wanted. That he wanted as well to be honest. There was a sense of effortless grace in her movements that hinted at training that could be easily be adpated to endevors other than dance. She...

"Are you awake or not?" She glanced over at him and smiled brilliantly before returning back to her work.

"Awake, but enjoying the view." He sat up and slide closer to touch her as well as look over her shoulder and examine the screen. Reading the display he saw:

... Furthermore, I can read into your wording enough to know you either agree with me, or understand the point that was made and disagree with it. Difference can't be measured in terms of quantifiable amounts when mathematical principles are not involved. That was the point that I, in a moment of brevity, did not explain to you fully. But since it was sent to you, and not to the Forum, I shouldn't have needed to make it, since you already understood.

"Styles familiar. Is this from the forum?" There was something about the precise syntax that really did seem familiar.

"One of my personal accounts. From Ashnod, although I'm not quite certain what caught her eye in my original post. She paid me quite a compliment though."

"How so?"

"See here at the end," she said underlining a section of text with her nail.

He whistled softly. "That is quite a compliment. Especially from her, she suffers fool less willingly than I do. You might want to exercise care in responding, she can make a good friend or a very formidable enemy."

"Friends would be nice," Elizabeth said smiling. "We really don't have anything to be in conflict over."

"You agree with her views on seperation?" He was surprised. She smelled like cinnamon and ginger.

"No." She turned and kissed his nose softly before turning back to crafting her response. "I think she has a valid point, a lot of them actually, but novas would lose too much by seperating from the rest of the race. Her way would decrease the possiblitiy of the war but as a people it would cast us adrift in the universe without a foundation to build on. I think you were the one that noted the problems with building a nova society when, individually, we have so few superficial similarities. As a people, abandoning Earth and it's societies might well destroy novas."

"Superficial?"

"Most of the drives of humanity are based on basic needs that novas need not possess. I don't need to eat or sleep though I do both. Without threatening my abilities directly, or controlling quantum energy you couldn't hold food over my head as a threat. And that's just one need."

"Yeah, I've been thinking about that a lot lately as well. I'm tapped out of answers at the moment. Why that word superficial though?"

"Well... Theoretically any one nova can accomplish anything that is not strictly impossible. Quantum physics, right? Although the chance of a rain of frogs in Tokyo is highly unlikely it's possible therefore someone can or in the future will be able to do it. That means that any similiarities beyond something being possible are superficial. We can be anything individually."

"Any advice from the all-seeing wizard?"

"If, I told you then I'd have to kill you. That wouldn't do, I need you as a concubine."

She pushed the computer off her lap and twisted to straddle his lap while kissing him deeply. He thought of the advantages of kissing someone that seemed to know exactly what felt right and didn't need to breathe air on a regular basis. Later would be soon enough. Still, the others must be wondering what had become of them.

"Elizabeth," he asked hating himself just a little, "shouldn't be doing something productive?"

"Your call. We finish the business you foolishly allowed me to start," she said shifting her postition slightly and making him gasp with sensation, "and then we can get to work. Or you take an hours or so off and watch me dance for you."

"I love the hard decisions."

"Me too."

[This message has been edited by Wizard (edited 06-26-2001).]

[Hugin]

A gentle chime rings out over the darkened room. A gentle light illuminates the figure sitting quietly in the lotus position on a simple mat in the center of the empty room.

"I am sorry to interupt James, but you need to be aware of certain updates."

James' eyes open slowly and a smile crosses his face. "It's alright Mike, I was having a pleasant discussion. Good Dr. Gutierrez is strongly of the belief that our current guests cannot be trusted to see my current project in the correct light. I am afraid that his experiences in Pinochet's employ did little to encourage his sense of the inherent good in our souls. However, I don't feel that his paranoia is appropriate on this occasion."

"I am glad of this. I have grown to like our guests. They offer a splendid array of data."

"I'm so glad. However, I don't know how two of our guests would feel about their pleasant excercise being broadcast. In the future, please access the concept of 'privacy'. But that later, what exactly did you need me to know?"

"Yes, I am sorry. Wizard has been spending much of the evening exploring the spatial stabilizing field. I suspect that she has found a way through it."

"Of course she has. The field is not a perfect defense. There is no such thing. The actual end result of the field is that we receive a warning and some time in which to prepare, that is all."

"Yes, of course. And a warning is the other item that I have to inform you of. The beta version of the precog-sensor is showing a high probability of a quantum incursion."

"Of course, it was too much to hope that we would have an entire evening without interuption. Details please"

"Eight novas, threat class variable but very likely insufficient given your current armament and the abilities of your guests. Utopian backing is definite, they apparently are unaware of Tess' presence."

"Interesting, it's been awhile since they tried to crash in on me. I wonder how my guests will want to handle this. Fight or flee? In conflict I will know them better. Please Mike, let them know about our visitors. Oh, and of course, how much time do we have?"

"Of course James, you have at least twenty minutes and not more than thirty before they try to pierce the field. They will succeed by the way."

"Thank you Mike. I'll prepare in here for their decision." With a jaunty whistle James walks into his armory. "What kind of mood am I in today?"

[Jordan]

Jordan awoke suddenly to the screeching sound of an alarm blaring throughout James' high-tech complex. He bolted upright and looked around, visions of the place burning down around his head filling his mind. Seeing that everything was fine at least for the moment, he reached for the PDA on his nightstand. Everything, all his work from last night, was still there. "Mycroft...........Mike," he yelled over the ungodly noise assaulting his ears, "What hell is going on?"

Mike's synthetic voice could just barely be heard over constant clang of the internal alarm. "Intruders will breach the outer defences in less than 7 minutes. Prepare yourself."

"Intruders?" he yelled again reaching out to his Eufiber, which lept at his outstretched hand and began wrapping itself around his body, becoming that comfortable black bodysuit he's so fond of. He continued to gather up the rest of his gear and prepare. "What intruders? Who are they, and where are the others? And can ya turn off that damn alarm! My ears are killing me!"

The alarm emmediatly cut out with a defening silence. "Sorry about that," the computer intelligence said at a more reasonable decibel. "A Utopia strike team, 8 members is about to gain entrance to this facility. Jager, Tess and James are gearing up and preparing themselves in the recieving room, Wizard is, well, I not sure what she's doing."

"Utopia?! Oh crap, James is Teregen, almost forgot that. Still they're gearing up to take out a sanctioned team? Tell them I'm on my way!"

"Confirmed," was the only reply from the disembodied voice.

Jordan hurried through the halls of the complex while attaching his various "toys" to his Eufiber. Dammit, he thought to himself. They're gonna get us killed, or put us on the big U's most wanted list at the very least. What in hell are they thinking? An idea suddenly came to him and he smiled to himself with some pride.

He rounded the last corner and skidded to a halt just inside the doors of the reception room. The four of them were all there. He gasped at the sheer firepower lying around the room and in the hands of his companions. James stood decked out it what could only be Eufiber, with what looked to be dull red metal plates fused to various positions across his body. He had on a set of visor-like goggles and was holding what could only called a Big Fucking Gun. Jager had an unusual assortment of personal combat weapons and firearms which he was quickly sorting through. Tess had just finished strapping on her own assortment of techno-death, and Wizard? She just sat there, watching the others get ready with that soft, ever present smile of non-commitment that she always seemed to wear.

Jaordan stepped forward and cleared his throught to get the attention of those assembled. "What the fuck do you people think your doing?" he said with a force that none of those assembled were expecting from the young man. "Do you really plan on fighting with an 8 man Utoipa combat team? Put the damn guns away, this can be handled without killing."

The four of them looked at Jordan, Wizard's smile broadened, Jager had his game face on. James gave the boy a hard look, "Watch what you say boy, This is my home and they are about to tresspass. I am going to defend my home whether you like it or not." There was no humor in his voice, everyone assembled knew very well he was dead serious.

"Two minutes to entry," Mikes voicce intoned.

Jordan stepped up to the Terat and looked him straight in the face. "I can handle this." he said his voice even and calm. That feeling of control was settling over the young man, his posture straightened. Wizard stood at this point and slid her hand onto Jordan's arm.

"What makes you so sure Jordan, this is not a game or a training exercise," she said in a soothing tone. "What are you going to do?"

James and Jordan continued to stare eachother down for a minute before Jordan stepped back out of James' face and turned to regard them all. "It was what Tess said to me last night. She made me see myself in a different light. I am more than a good looking strongman. All of my attributes and abilites have been raised to superhuman levels, including both my intelligence and my abilities to relate to others. I'm going to convince them to leave us alone. Besides, we don't even know what they want, perhaps they know about James' little demolitions plot?" He shot the eyeless Terat a dirty look.

The five stood quietly for a moment, each in their own thoughts. " 30 seconds," Mike chimed.

"Ok," Jager finally said, "Let him give it a try, we'll save the firepower for plan B. You better hope this works Jordan, your ass is on the frontline on this one."

Jordan took a deep breath as the defences finally fell......

[Jager]

Pascal was not a happy man. He had less than twenty-four hours to put this team together and over half his first-list people were unavailable. He had only worked with Binary, Teigean, and Myopic before, and only Ryoso and Myopic knew each other. The rest were second stringers from Devries’ Rent-a-Thugs. Still, orders were orders and their intel didn’t appear shabby.

The mission was simple. Go in, neutralize five novas and extract two of them. The other three were ‘unimportant’. In the opposition, only two of them were serious threats, one was a wannabe, and the other two were scrubs. The traitor, Prodigy, was going to be a serious problem on his home turf and he had an impressive array of powers. Binary would move through the wall on this guy, shutting down his tech while Teigean would shut down his mind. They needed him alive. Tesseract was the next most deadly, but she was definitely expendable. Myopic and Blaize would deal with him. He would put Ladyhawke against this Jager yahoo, Seeker against his ‘sidekick’, and Thumper against Wizard. Pascal felt Thumper was reliable enough to keep Wizard alive and that would leave him able to move to however needed help.

The last member of the team was suiting up as Binary began his ‘ramping’ up exercises. Myopic stood nearby, prepared to open up the gate. Surprise was not an issue, as Prodigy’s defenses were believed to sense eminent intrusions. That was okay with Pascal. He was bringing more than enough firepower to this little dance.

Ladyhawke had a bad feeling about this. Pascal was a complete ass and what knowledge she had of him and his ‘operations’ didn’t make her feel any better. People usually hired her for her tactical expertise, not as a ‘gun-bunny’. If Pascal called her that one more time, she was going to have an accidental weapons discharge in his general direction.

Seeker, a member of her personal team, gave her a reassuring smile. They were getting paid a lot for this, and Seeker was looking forward to some real competition this time around. Thumper, the third member of her team was already clearing her mind for the fight. To bad doctors of horticulture didn’t get paid as much professional mercs, or Thumper would have been working in her garden full-time and have boxing as her ‘hobby’.

Pascal motioned Ladyhawke over.

He gave her the team assignments and she reviewed them. Nil surprise, and these people were just going to sit back and let Pascal and co. run right over them? A reasonable suggestion died in her throat under Pascal’s withering gaze.

‘Oh, yeah,’ she thought, ’this is going down twisted, all right. Better yet, Pascal was bringing his Warper, Myopic, in with them. If he didn’t get wasted in the first six seconds, she’d eat every spare clip of ammo on her.’ As she walked back, she gave the danger signal to her two teammates.

Binary signaled that he was ready and Pascal unleashed the mathematical equations in his head that allowed him to bend force to his will. Reality bent around him and protected him. He lifted off the ground and was ready to go. Ladyhawke drew her guns, a Remington 9000, a 10 gauge ‘door opener’ and the M202 Grenade Launcher. Myopic began to unravel the reality that separated them from the place they wanted to be. The crystal blue room appeared inside the rip in space and his team rushed through.

James stood there, arranging the light pattern in his latest work of art. He began bending the blue of the six-foot tall plant stem from blue to aqua. The microcosmic changes in the light held his attention as the warp gate appeared. Had he been aware, he would have been happy that the furniture had been rearranged so that no one stepped through the aquarium. Breeding new lines of radiant fish was so difficult.

Wizard slouched on the sofa, reading Prodigy’s thesis on the preeminence of nova-centered politics in the information age. His insights were as entertaining as his secret play on words. She was fighting down a chuckle. She casually reached out and tickled Jager’s foot.

Jager lay calmly on the long sofa, his head in Tess’ lap. His eyes were close and the visions of a certain dancer spun through his head. A contented smile graced his lips. His hands rested quietly upon his chest.

Tess rolled her head back; eyes closed as well. Her right arm languished along the top of the sofa, reaching out toward Wizard. Her left hand drew lazy circles through Jager’s hair. She found herself humming a tune from her so-called youth. It reminded her of happier times.

Alone of all the people, one figure seemed alert to the newcomers presence. Sitting on the ground in front of the sofa was a man dressed like a Harlequin. One knee drawn up to his chin while the other leg was fully extended. Jager’s hand rested casually against his shoulder and neck. Jordan knew that of all the people in the room, he was the only one whose mind was completely clear. He steadily eyed the newcomers as the poured in, ready to attack.

In just a moment, Jordan could feel them about to unload, but that moment skipped in time. Nothing happened and the assault team stood there, confused. Prodigy and his guests looked over at the invaders and smiled calmly. While the invaders shifted uncomfortably, no one else moved. Slowly, Jordan stood.

[Guest]

Vincent Carver walked two full blocks before looking back over his shoulder at the burning single story house. So far, no one had managed to make it out of the conflagration. Stupid fools, he thought smugly to himself Never leave a prisoner within reach of common household products. Vincent turned to continue his escape while pulling a badly mangled coathanger from his back pocket. He twisted and manipulated it while walking through the suburban neighborhood, he could now hear the sirens of the approaching emergency vehicles and those people inclined to be up at 4 in the morning were flocking to watch the burning house, which by this point was completely engulfed.

Vincent, now several blocks away and three streets over, casually walked to the nearest parked car. A rather old Honda Civic in blue. Satisfied with his work on the barely recognizable hanger, he slid the aparatus down into the car door and popped the lock after a few seconds of effort. He slid into the drivers seat and proceded to hotwire his new car. As he drove away, Vincent patted his breast pocket. Yup, the disk is still there, should let me know what all this is about

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

Gideon stared up at the man who, as far as the general public was concerned, was his personal bodyguard but in reality was his patron and mentor. The Preatorian was pissed, energy bled from his eyes and cast an eerie amber glow across the desk which Gideon was taking refuge behind.

"What do you mean 'They lost him'?" he growled in rage. "You do not just 'lose' a nova! Your men are incompetent Delphi, I want that adept found and I want him found now! If any of our enemies get their hands on that man, you are dead, do you understand me?" Each rise in his voice was punctuated with a rise in the intensity of the energy being emitted from Praetorian's eyes. It was all Gideon could do just to nod his head in understanding, never before had he see the man so angry. "Good," was all the powerful man said and with that, he walked out of the room. Delphi imediately grabbed the phone......

[This message has been edited by Atwight (edited 06-29-2001).]

[Jordan]

In those few seconds between the fall of Prodigy's defensive shielding and the warp opening he managed to make contact. He still wasn't use to the whole transmit and recieve radio signals deal, but he wasn't going to balk at the discomfort considering the situation. The moment he found the right frequency he heard the Foundation's standard continual contact auto-message. Subvocalizing his clearance code, he requested Bridget contact him asap. Less than five seconds later he heard that same reassuring voice he'd come to love in his brief time with his current employer. "God Jordan, where the hell are you?! I've been trying to establish contact with you for over 24 hours. Both Renaud and you father are having kittens here."

"It can wait Bridge, I have a situation here. I'm going to broadcast everything that I hear and say in the next few minutes, record it all."

"What? What the hell is going on? Jordan? Jordan!"

"Just do as I say and I'll explain later, 'kay? Now quiet."

Jordan couldn't help but smile beneath his comedy/tragedy mask at the confusion of the intruders. Just as Mycroft had predicted, eight of them. "Greetings and welcome. My name is Harlequin, can I offer you something to drink?"

Their leader, a broad shouldered, glowing brute of man hovering a foot off the floor slid closer to the costumed young man. "This is no social call, we are hear to apprehend James Meehan, aka Prodigy. Do not interfere and there will be no trouble."

Jordan shited his weight slightly as Pascal looked pointedly at James. "Really," he stated. "Well I'll be more than happy to comply as soon as you identify yourself and the authority you work for. Of course, identification will be required to validate your claim as well as a search warrent, arrest warrent or extradition order."

The room went deathly silent and all eyes fell the two speakers. No one, neither the antagonists nor Jordan's companions were expecting such...diplomatic professionalism. The silence continued for a full two minutes as Pascal and Jordan eyed each other. Jordan took stock of the entire team before him, they were fidgity, restless. They expected action and violence and were greeted with diplomay, it put them off their game. Pascal was angry, it was in his eyes, in the way he held himself. Jordan had gotten under his skin.

"I am a duely appointed officer of Project Utopia. I have the authority and the ability, granted to me by both Project Utopia and the UN, to take Mr. Meehan into custody. If you and your friends continue to interfere in this matter, you will be charged with obsruction of justice. I hear Bahrain is lovely this time of year." Pascal smiled smugly at the black and white clad youth before him. This little twit is stalling he thought, Sorry boy, no cavalry is coming to save your pathetic ass.

"I don't think so," Jordan stated calmly. "The way I see it, you are either acting without offical sanction, or this is a black book operation. Otherwise you would glady be showing me reams and reams of legal documentation, proving you are who you say you are, you have legal sanction to be here and, well, need I continue? As it is, you are guilty of tresspassing, breaking and entering, impersinating an officer. Do you want to add assault, kidnapping and possibly murder to your list of no-no's here?" The strike force was definitely uncomfortable now, The large brutish woman and the young lady with the third eye in her forhead both kept glancing at a third woman, tall and leggy, with shimmering brown hair. She acknowledged the slight glances as she stared long and hard at the man in charged. Subtly, unconsciously, her hand slid over one of the wicked looking pistols strapped to her side. Jordan noted it all silently as he continued. "Or perhaps you have nothing to do with Utopia at all? Tell me, is this some personal vendetta? How do you think Utopia's going react to unsanctioned use of their identity and infulence? How do you think the Japanese government is going to respond to this little venture? Your on thin ice here, buddy. My advice to you is get out. Now. While you still can."

Rage flashed accross Pascal's face. "How dare you, you little whelp!" Bingo, just where I want him Jordan thought. "Blaize....." pascal started.

"Stay right where you are," Ladyhawke finished. In one fluid motion, she had drwn her guns moved accross the room and had them pointed at Pascal's head before anyone else could react. "Neither I, nor Devries likes to be lied to Pascal. You got some personal shit to work out, fine by me. You don't play it straight with the agency, you break the contract. I suggest you have Myopic open another gateway and get your asses out of here. Your out gunned and out classed."

"Ladyhawke, you traitorous bitch," he bellowed, then looked around the room. Ladyhawke still had her guns pointed at his head. Thumper had moved behind Teigan and Blaize and had a restrainingg hand on one soulder of each of them. Seeker moved beside Binary, making her presence known. James had his BFG pointed at Myopic, Jager and Tesseract both had firearms pointed where they felt the most damage could be done. Wizard flipped the page of the thesis she had been reading, seeing that the couch was now free, she stretched herself out to get more comfortable. Slowly, the rage passed and he saw the dangerous predicament he now found himself in. "Myopic," he barked. "Get us out of here, now."

Several seconds later, the three mercinaries looked at their former targets. "Well," Jager started. "That was fun!"

[This message has been edited by Jordan Rossi (edited 07-01-2001).]

[Jager]

“…fun. So, Ladyhawke, is it?” continued Jager slowly reholstering his gun. “Welcome to ‘terrorist’ central. As you can see, we have all been plotting the demise of ole PU and other such nonsense.”

Jager walked over and put an arm around Jordan’s shoulder. Tess remained still, her guns covering Ladyhawke and Thumper. James was already in cyber-telepathic communion with Michael and Wizard was finally finishing her book and starting to sit up.

“Good work, Harlequin,” Jager said to Jordan, “Now, why don’t you slip into something a little more comfortable.”

“So, where do we go from here,” Ladyhawke interjected. She was somewhat confused by the dynamics of the situation. Prodigy and Jager she knew by reputation. Tesseract was more myth than real. The Harlequin and the girl on the sofa were unknowns, but seemed to be equally important in whatever her team had stumbled into. Both Prodigy and Jager seemed to be more in control of the situation. That wasn’t very surprising, considering what she knew of them, but the fact that they where working together was…uncomfortable. She had assumed that they played on opposite sides of the street.

Tess and Harlequin were definitely playing follow the leader on this one. The unknown girl, though, was something else. Prodigy moved with respect around her and Jager kept himself open for her input from her. All the while, she seemed reluctant to make a move. Very curious.

Jager smiled, but it wasn’t overtly predatory so she allowed herself to relax a bit.

“Actually, if you and your team can wait in another room for a minute, I would be more than happy to discuss this matter with you.”

As he finished, a wall section to her left ‘washed away’. The new opening revealed a rather large workout room. Ladyhawke perked up an eyebrow but got no further explanation form Jager. She led her team out and the wall rose up behind them.

Prodigy nodded to Jager, who turned to Jordan and whispered in his ear.

“Jordan, would you please cut the connection to the Foundation?”

Jordan grinned sheepishly, still pleased with his outwitting the pseudo-Utopian agents. Slowly, his uniform shifted back to his basic black. The post-adrenalin shakes washed over him. Wizard came up to Jordan’s other side as he signed of with Bridgett.

“Never doubted you for a second,” Wizard told Jordan.

Tess spun her weapons back into their concealment and Prodigy’s weapon had simple vanished. As a group, they resumed their seats.

“I have dealt with the micro-sensors Binary left behind,” James began. “Now, we can feed them a little disinformation to give us a head start.”

“Fine then. Team, if I may call you that?” Jager scanned his companions. “I have two routes we can take. The first one is fraught with enough complications to make me not want to take it, but I figured to throw it out and see if any of you could change my mind.”

“Jeremiah Scripture has been a conduit between Mal and a shadowy group of ‘others’ for several years now. Until recently, I had thought him to be part of their system, but certain events have given me reason to believe that he may be asserting himself and that he may be in opposition to these ‘others’. Worse, these others may have been the forces behind a plot within the Teragen to remove Jeremiah completely.”

“Prodigy, back me up on this, if you can. I theorize that Scripture was initially supposed to keep an eye on Mal, but the two became lovers. Mal has won Scripture over to his side as witnessed by his increased involvement within the sect as of late. Since I believe that he knows a great deal about these others, they have decided to remove him, if possible. Likewise, Scripture can’t go to Mal with all of this due to the personal damage it might cause him. Scripture is caught in a difficult situation and might be willing to help, but the ‘others’ have had time to cover some of their tracks are most certainly looking for an attack from that area. Personally, I don’t want to play this card just yet.”

“Option Two involves two novas named Gideon Delphi and Praetorian. Delphi works through Delphi International, a major player in the Genetics and Biotechnical field. He started out in 2003 with a small capital investment and some promising ideas. Needless to say, he immediately ran into serious opposition form Utopia. By 2005, he was ready to go under. Then, his troubles began to fade away. He got some ‘lucky’ breaks and turned his corporation around. He soon earned a reputation as a man who could bend ways around those pesky Utopian regulations and a developer of cutting edge genetech. Until a few weeks ago, I had nothing illegal on this guy. Then, I stumbled across one of his secret labs while helping Atwight out. Seems he is cloning select Utopian novas for his own personal use. Better yet, he has a ‘perfected’ brain taping operation, so he can fast grow a clone and feed complete memories into it in a manner of weeks. As good as Delphi might be, he isn’t that good. Someone has been feeding him some pretty hot tech.”

“Praetorian acts like Delphi’s bodyguard, but has been seen to operate among novas of the highest caliber. Nothing is known about the man. All I do know is that Atwight blanched at the mention of his name and warned me off of him.”

“That is a warning we should all take,” interjected Tess.

“Having been warned off this guy and having him know that I have been warned off makes him my best target. I have let this matter lie quietly for some time. Now, it is the time to act. I have a list of Delphi sites, some of which a supposedly secret. If we used Ladyhawke’s team as a distraction, we could penetrate one or more of those facilities and start piecing together what his ‘masters’ are up to.”

“Okay, which one is it?”

“Ah, Jager?” questioned Jordan. “Whom are we going after, anyway?”

“Oh, yeah. Sorry Jordan and Tess, but we are going after the most dangerous people on the planet. We are going to track down a network, if there is a network, of pre-event novas. If they exist, we are going to try and figure out what they are up to and stop their plans if necessary. Bold enough for you?”

[Guest]

Vincent tossed out his old clothes and make up/disguise kits as he checked his handywork in the mirror. A slight adjustment to the nose and gotee and he was ready to go. Not as good as shapeshifting, He thought But it's still damn fine work if I do say so myself. Upon exiting the washroom of the Seattle bus terminal, Vincent was pleased to find the place almost completely deserted. He checked the brand new PDA in his hand for the directions again and headed out catch a cab.

During the brief cab ride, Vincent again went over the information on the disk. Why, in gods name, would Gideon Delphi want to kidnap me? He thought quietly to himself. Delphi Industries and Carver/DePaul have never been in competition with each other, and I have no dealings with this guy, so what could he possibly want. He was still mulling over the possibilities as the cab pulled up to an unassuming brownstone in a quiet, average neighbourhood. He paid the cabbie and went around to the back, as instructed.

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

Walt sat expectantly in the dining room turned office of his new Seattle base of operations. He didn't like having to pull up roots and was still pissed about having to give up his cafe hidey hole. His last thought before this new business walked through his door was to charge Meehan for his moving expenses and trouble.

Walt scrutinized the young man who entered his office accompanied by his new security. The man looked to be in his mid-to-late 20's with dark red hair and gotee. He was well built, either he worked out or had nova strength, Walt wasn't sure His eyes were vivd green and depite his unassuming clothes and demeanor, they betrayed a keen, observant mind. Walt glanced at his guards and they signaled the okay, he was unarmed. "Manuel, we finally meet in person. Why are you here."

'Manuel' sat in one of the rigid wooden chairs across from the diminuative nova. "Can we speak in private?" he asked. Walt waved his guards out and instructed them to close the door behind them. He then turned his attention back to his guest. "Thank you," Manuel continued. "I need your expertise, Walt. I need access to files and I know you can help me."

Walt raised his eyebrows, "And this is why you needed a face-to-face? Come on, tell me what's really going on."

Manuel paused to collect his thoughts before begining. "Eight days ago, a friend of mine was kidnapped. He has since escaped from his captors and has hired me to find out who was responsible and why. I know who it was, I need to know why."

"And," Walt said. "Who are the people involved."

"The person responsible is Gideon Delpi," Walt raised his eyebrows but remained silent. "My friend is Vincent Carver."

"Heir to the Carver fortune? Prime stockholder in Carver/DePaul? Why would the owner and CEO of a genetics research company kidnap the owner of an appliance/home electronics manufacturing company?" Walt queried. "It seems like a risky maneuver for someone like Delphi to be involved with."

"I know, That is just one of the things that's so confusing. There is no apparent motive either. No one was informed, no ransom demands were made, and he wasn't harmed. There doesn't seem to be any rhyme of reason to this. That is why I've come to you. I want to crack Delphi Inc.'s computer system. There has to be some record of why this all went down."

Walt was silent for a minute. He knew what the answer to his next question was going to be, but decorum dictated that he ask anyways. "So why come to me? If this is a simple hack, anyone could do it and you wouldn't need to meet like this."

Manuel closed his eyes, Walt knew what he was going to say already. "You have a backdoor in the Delphi system. I figured asking you to do this over the phone or 'net would have been disrespectful. I know I'm asking for a lot here, I'm willing to pay."

"What makes you think I have a backdoor?"

"A company called Cerebrus Security designed their computer security. I know, through various means which I will not divulge here, that you have your hands in that company. When Delphi came along, I'm sure you nearly wet yourself at the opportunity. Any computer specialist in their right mind would have done the same thing."

Walt smiled a sly grin. "You do your homework. Okay, you've been a good associate. This will cost though, and cost you big. Come on, lets finish this in my workshop."

[Hugin]

Quote:

Originally posted by Jager:

“Oh, yeah. Sorry Jordan and Tess, but we are going after the most dangerous people on the planet. We are going to track down a network, if there is a network, of pre-event novas. If they exist, we are going to try and figure out what they are up to and stop their plans if necessary. Bold enough for you?”

James smiled inwardly, Jaeger might not have the raw intellect to play the game at his level, but his expertise in certain areas made him a formidable force. No wonder Wizard was attracted to him, perhaps she could see through the fields that Jaeger had about his person that James could not pierce. Rossi needed to be dealt with gently. James had gotten over the meloncholy that had afflicted him earlier. Rossi's earnest young self righteousness was now just pushing the wrong buttons. Dangerous buttons. 'He was so impressed by that phallic little ridiculousnous that I wielded when the invaders showed up. I wonder how suprised he would be if he found out the deadliest weapon I possess he would take for a handkerchief?' Threats should be left for a later date at the very least though. His investigation into Tesseract and her/his clouded history revealed one undeniable fact, she could kill him very easily, and more importantly, without a seconds moral quandry.

"More than bold enough sir. I am still a might curious as to why you chose to include me in your little hunting party. I would think that you would realize that I would very likely cooperate with this nasty little organization that you mention. If our desires meshed of course."

"That is a very strong if James. Of course, my major reason for believing that you would cooperate with us is one undeniable fact. You have demonstrated a strong dislike to being a pawn and we both know that if this cabal exists that is all they would see you as. You're the new kid on the block. In addition to that, your problem with taint shows you to be clumsy."

"In their eyes." Anger touches his voice.

"Of course, their eyes." Jaeger had listened to James long enough to start to recognize that while he could hide his emotional tone easily enough, language clues gave away his emotional state. A valuable bit of data to have.

Wizard decided she had been quiet long enough. "There are other reasons of course. You're a Terat, and honestly one of the more 'friendly' ones. You're not a manipulator like Orziaz, you're not as bound by doctrine as Ashnod, and you're not a psychopath like Geryon. You have contacts within the Teragen but you're not hung up on the fact that we are not Terats. It offers us a greater search area." Her soothing tone was undeniable.

The group lost a bit of the tension that had built up, well not all of them. Meehan still stood warily. His voice still hinted at a Cyrillic quality. Wizard saw the waves of her calming influence crashing like waves on a break against him. Interesting.

"Thank you madame. I appreciate the sentiment. And the honesty. I was just positive that you hadn't been attracted here by my scintillating personality." He bowed and his voice returned to normal, well as normal as his tone and accent shifting voice got.

Jordon shifted uncomfortably. He wasn't fond of the Terat philosopy and finding out that James' membership in that group was one of the reasons for his involvment was mildly distressing. "Ok then, how about you show us some of your invaluable 'contacts'?"

"But of course. This way please." James turned and walked through a wall and led the group into his media center. Displays of weather information, stock prices, news reports, entertainment channells, nearly every source of data that was channeled through the OpNet or the airwaves was represented.

Tess grimaced. "How do you stand this cacophony? The volume isn't bad but its a garble, even to me."

"Practice, skill, determination, perhaps just a touch of insanity."

"Yes, perhaps." Jordan said as he took in the scene. 'Jeez, this was the guy who took Cornelius to task for cliches. This looks like something out of one of those Jim Bond flicks my dad likes so much.'

"Alright then. Here is what I can offer you. First, Mako, he is my street contact in the Primacy. He's a taint ridden psychopath whom I suspect has developed some nasty culinary habits. However, he is easily intimidated by the right combination of bravado and threats. He's also an extremely bad liar. Chablis, she is my main lady in the Casablancas. Nowhere even near trustworthy but luckily she is absolutely frightened of me. She can detect taint and is convinced that I am more dangerous than I let on. Walt isn't a Terat, you and Jaeger met him. He's a cyberkinetic of high caliber and I find him to be exceptionally usefull. He is expensive though. Now, these aren't all of my contacts but I think these are the ones to have the most data about the given situations. Mako knows about anything that happens in the dark rooms and back alleys of the world, Chablis knows about the realm of the rich and famous and Walt can get it if it's on a computer. So, the question is, to whom do you want to go to?"

[Guest]

It was still dark out and the LCD computer screen was burning Vincent's eyes. He was becoming frustrated by his inability to put this puzzle together. The information he and Walt had liberated from the DI computers was only telling him so much. Okay, he thought wearily. Lets go over this one more time. Delphi International, a genetics and biotech developement firm, is secretly perfecting nova cloning and braintaping technology. Scary. He involunarily shuddered. Along comes this guy, whats his name again? Oh, here it is. Andrew Sommerville. This Sommerville guy breaks into one of Delphi's research labs and makes off with a clone. Apparently he had help in this from a shadow ops specialist known only as 'Jager'. This sends the entire organization into a tizzy and all of a sudden Utopia gets all jumpy as well.

He stood up and paced the room. When he got to the bedroom door of the hotel suite he could make out the silhouette of the young man he picked up for his evening entertainment. God, what am it doing, stressing myself out at four in the morning when I've got this gorgeous young creature sleeping in my bed. No, come on Vince, this is important. Okay, so where was I? oh right. He continued his pacing. So Utopia is all jumpy and demanding answers. Then Delphi is raided again, only this time they manage to keep it under wraps. 8 more clones go missing. This time it seems, someone of power and influence is responsible. Only a name though, Atwight. I'll have to check this guy out. Next, Delphi and his bodyguard, some yahoo named Praetorian, get themselves involved with a plot to eliminate a Terat named Jerimiah Scripture, I'll have to ask Raoul about him, and they are continually looking for Jager, Sommerville and this Atwight guy. Next, they kidnap me. So how do I fit in to this drama? I don't know any of these people and as far as I know, there is no connection between me and any of them. Maybe I'm looking in the wrong place. Maybe there's no connection, maybe they wanted me for some other reason....... His eyes lit up and he ran back to the computer, his fingers flying over the keys.

Six hours passed and Vincent pushed himself away from the computer. He frowned at the screen and rubed his eyes. So, Sommerville is a big muckety-muck in the genetics engineering field, bet most people don't know he's a nova. He has to be, no scientist in his right mind would break into a highly protected lab like that. Jager, you are an interesting case, aren't you? he smiled momentarily. A hired gun and 'ruthless' killer giving such caring and heartfelt advice to a beleagured wanna-be Terat with a baseline kid, who would of thought? And this shit on Atwight.......Damn, this is the big leagues. He stretched and moved to the little bar in the corner of the suite. rumaging around in the small fridge, Vincent removed 3 small bottles of Vodka and a jar of olives. "Yum, a breakfast of champions," he said quietly to himself. He poured the alcohol into a glass and took a swig.

Movement from the bedroom drew his attention and he walked over to the doorway. "Mornin' stud," he said to the young man looking around the room with that groggy expression of not remembering where he was written all over his face. awareness quickly came back to him and he scrambled to get out of bed.

"Shit man, I didn't mean to fall asleep. Let me just grab my clothes and I'll be outta here," he said as he rushed around the room, gathering up his clothes from where the y landed the night before and trying to throw them on at the same time.

Vincent watched him with a smile as he leaned against the doorframe. "Relax kid, I'm not pissed. Take your time. You want a shower? I can order breakfast if your hungry." he said. The young man stopped and looked at the man in the doorway, his tension draining out of his body.

"Thanks. Don't want to walk around smellin' like an orgy," He smiled, dropped his clothes and headed into the bathroom.

Vincent chuckled and walked back over to the computer, popping a couple of olives into his mouth along the way. There's only one way I'm going to crack this code, he thought. He sat down at the terminal and put aside his "breakfast". Vincent closed his eyes and breathed in and out deeply. He concentrated on what he wanted, the information he sought. Slowly he opened his mind to the voices. They were always there, whispering in the back of his mind. He had learned not only to ignore those voices but to use them as well. The cacaphony of billions of minds all clamoring for attention, to give advice, to teach, and to impart their wisdom bombarded Vincent but he held firm. His will became iron as he pushed his desire out into the mass of thought. Seconds seemed like hours as he focus and channeled the knowledge and information he wanted and brought it to his conscious memory. Upon obtaining what he needed from the mass of thought, Vincent clamped mind down on the crowd in his mind and, with his will alone, forced the voices back into a controllable whisper.

New-found understanding exploded in Vincent's mind as he bent to the task of unraveling the code of the game. He picked up a pen and pad of paper and began to write as he scanned the screen in front of him. It was complex and involved, so many players and separate conversations, it was difficult at times to sort out who was who.

Twenty minutes later, Vincent paused to show the young hustler out the door and he resumed his task. He had translated the majority of the coded messages and was becomming impatient. Flipping through his translations, he began to sort out the different conversations and take note of the ones he felt were pertinent to what he was loking for. Slowly, as he absorbed the messages and information contained within, a cold dread began to overtake him. This was much bigger than he had first thought, and he had done exactly what his abductors had hoped he would. He got and paced, trying to think of a solution to his predicament. Dammit, I gotta stop underestimating people. Okay, knowing what I now know, the most obvious course of action would be to track down Atwight and get the answers for myself. But thats exactly what they want me to do. My god, I can't believe I didn't see it before, escaping was way too easy! Vincent bit his lip as he paced around the room And then there's that Jager guy and his friends, searching for that per-Galatea nova conspiracy, maybe I should contact them? No, thats too suspicious. They would have no reason to trust me, I have to do this on my own. The next most obvious thing for me to do would be to go after that genetic sample they took of me. They will probably expect me to do that once they know I'm on to them, but at least it will give me some time before they catch up to me. Vincent gathered up the few things he wanted to take with him, grabbed his jacket and headed for the door. I just hope I haven't found all this out too late.....

[Wizard]

MISSION START: +21 HOURS

Location: Somewhere in Montana, U.S.A.

Tesseract and Jager stood on the catwalk and stared in awe at their surroundings. An enormous shaft, at least a hundred feet across, burned into the bedrock beneath the Delpi complex and extending at least a mile downward as well as a quarter mile upwards above their heads. Lining the walls of the shaft were transparent lozenge shaped tubes of some gelatinous substance. And within each tube was a bald humanoid form.

“Sweet Christ,” Jager swore. Then louder, “There must be thousands of them.” The sheer extravagance of that many clones, hybrids and experiments was one thing. To realize that each was potentially equal to a nova in power was, well, daunting fell far short as a descriptive. This was not what they had come for.

“Two thousand four hundred and fifty,” spoke Tesseract calculating the apparent surface area absently. Space and relationships were her specialty and the answer came intuitively from her subconscious. “Assuming the shaft is actually filled to capacity. This is nothing like the facility I was birthed in. Now what do we do?”

That was a very good question. Entering the facility by stealth, by all reports a lone low-level bacteria research station in Montana, their mission had been to access the Delpi’s secure network using Tesseract’s briefing codes, then insert one of James’ toys to allow the cyber-geek Walt to access the system remotely. Everything had actually gone according to plan with zero casualties and target acquisition within 14 minutes and 32 seconds of entering the complex. He knew they should have bailed out immediately but the urge to perform a personal recon had been too alluring and Tesseract, in her female persona, was a consummate professional. With their skills, knowledge of the security systems and, when necessary, her ability to bend space… Well, getting deep into the complex had been almost too easy. That’s when James’ had relayed the message from Walt concerning of a number of anomalies.

He had done the preliminary sweeps of the complex structure and found no ties to the local power grid for the secure lab buildings and no internal power systems that could handle the requirements of even the modest facilities present. And the most damning fact was the air movers surrounding the admin buildings. There were capable of supplying hundreds of times the air volume needed for fifty complexes of the size of this one. That’s when Tesseract had voiced her own concerns.

Hard science was not his forte, but Tesseract’s male persona had different training. She/he noted that the labs were pristine. Not orderly but absolutely spotless. Something was fishy with the whole set-up and by removing the cover plates on the ventilation failsafe mechanisms they quickly discovered what it was. Although all of the equipment required by federal law for protection was in place none of it had any signs of ever having been used. Everything was absolutely immaculate!

Acting on his intuition, and with Walt’s assistance in cracking the security logs, they quickly discovered that there was little or no traffic through the lab complexes over the last 30 days. The admin buildings on the other hand showed many times the normal volume of traffic, including the presence of Gideon Delphi and his ever-present body guard three times in the last week alone.

They knew their suspicions were correct when they attempted to penetrate the admin buildings and quickly realized the security systems were state of the art and showed signs of a lax regard for the well being of uninvited guests. Nerve gas, electrified corridors and, deep in the complex, hard mounted and water cooled gatling guns. If they were loaded with spent uranium rounds then this system was designed to stop any frontal assault short of Divis Mal himself. What it wasn’t designed against was a nova capable of bending space to her will and a master tactician allied with a man that could make computers dance to his whim and another that was the, THE, most wanted man on Project Utopia’s hit list.

Only 68 minutes and 12 seconds after entering the building they discovered the lower levels of the complex and found the single elevator to transport them into this utterly fantastic and equally horrible nightmare of a scene.

‘Clones, clones everywhere,’ thought Jager absently, ‘and not a single idea what the hell is really going on.’

Then they heard the sounds of clapping from above.

‘Well,’ thought Jager absently watching Praetorian descending from above under his own power and clapping mockingly, ‘at least Elisabeth is safe.’ The use of Wizard’s real name brought a tight smile to his lips as he evaluated how to best eliminate this new obstacle.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Location: Tokyo, Japan

The dazzling array of displays fed a seemingly endless stream of data to Prodigy at a prodigious rate. Ever the glutton, he took it all and fed it through his quantum-enhanced brain to process it, distill relevant data and analyze what suited him. He was already impressed with the efficiency of The Team, as Jager had called the mercenaries. Idiots willing to squander their divinity in exchange for blood money more like! Nonetheless, they were efficient and had moved against their designated targets with a business-like precision.

The most interesting part was that shortly after the attacks began, some planted devices he created while others were direct assaults he coordinated sitting in his web of displays, a number of anomalous things occurred. Bahrain became the site of a series of quantum fluxes indicative of warps and teleports either to or from that site. This information he acquired through the monitoring equipment he had planted via a nova shape shifter disguised as a farmer shortly after he had left Utopia. Even then he knew there was something amiss with the Bahrain ‘Rashoud Facility.’ Too many coincidences occurred in the region for all to be as it was advertised.

Another aspect were Michaels reports of a marked increase in encrypted OPNET communications. With the plethora of encryption software in the world being used for everything from telephone communications to safely trafficking in illicit images this was not unusual except for the tell-tales the AI had been specifically instructed to watch for from specific servers and locations. Most interesting of all was that the Team Tomorrow department wasn’t cut in on any of this until five hours after the affair began and just after the majority of idiots with whom he graciously shared the planet with were beginning to notice something was amiss. Most interesting.

‘How ever did Wizard obtain her information,’ he wondered to himself, ‘regarding Proteus operations?’ Originally he had been skeptical of her information and only acquiesced at Jager’s insistence. He had promised himself that he would give this relationship an honest effort and had done so despite his misgivings. After all, he had been relatively safe which is more than any of the others could say. Although Utopia had attempted to breach his security again, twice, they had failed each time. The first time he had thoughtfully flooded the levels of his home where they seemed to have access. The second time he had super heated the water by venting ionized plasma from one of his little projects. There would doubtless have been more attempts except for the nasty little nanite colony he had infected the water with for the first attempt. They delivered a tailored virus to the intruders, which would spread rapidly and cause the most excruciating flu-like effects when interacting with MR node tissue. There would be no third attempt, especially in light of the chaos that Utopia found itself mired in at the moment.

The only worrying aspect of the affair to this point was the both Wizard and the pup Jordan surveillance equipment was still down. He had agents already making their way to the pair’s location but since a former and venerable member of Mercer’s original Aeon Society was at the location he had instructed them to be circumspect. Where there was Aeon, there would be Utopia and Proteus Obstacles as well as possibly Triton. Besides, the transmissions had ceased when the pair entered the mansion grounds so it was probably the interaction with a security system he was unaware of. Utopian R&D doubtlessly supplied more than a little ‘black tech’ to their Aeon masters. Still, Jager and Tesseract were making excellent progress and Walt continued to guide them with his masterful control of computers systems.

The sound of clapping drew his attention to two of his displays and as he saw the new comer he was gratified again that he had thought to infect Tesseract and Jager with the nanite surveillance probes in their eufiber clothing. The simple TAC-COM that Jager had wanted wouldn't have been able to broadcast from their current location but the nanite colony... It was it’s own relay system as they individually fell away from the eufiber clothing.

‘Rather like a trail of bread crumbs,’ the genius thought using a simile from the mind of the second grade school teacher that was part of his psyche. Chortling, he eavesdropped on the situation as it unfolded.

“Congratulations are in order I think,” announced Praetorian magnanimously in a booming voice as he descended that shaft under his own power. “You've made it to the heart of our little endeavor. And only tripped two of the security alarms in the process. Neither of which were your fault of course.”

As he touched down on the catwalk twenty feet away from their position the metal under his feet groaned slightly and flexed indicating a much higher than human density. He continued, “The first registers the use of the elevator and always goes off regardless of who uses it. The second is an imaging system that reports the presence of anyone not matching my physical form within the 'nursery.' The other 47 were completely bypassed. It will be interesting to question you in detail about that.”

‘Only his form? Interesting. What does that indicate about Gideon Delphi?’ thought James listening.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Location: Not on our Earth

Jordan sat in a lightless circular tunnel hewn from solid granite; gently cradling Wizard’s still form, as he rocked forward and back slowly. He knew her sightless eyes stared upward into the darkness and the thought that he should try and close them occurred to him but he didn’t move. He couldn’t bring himself to do that. It was an act of finality that was beyond him to contemplate at the moment. And so he sat rocking her softly and told himself she was sleeping. Knowing all the while that he was lying to himself, but hey, the lady herself had said that belief was important, maybe the most important thing in the world. Thinking of her words now brought silent tears to his eyes and he wanted to laugh as they stained his cheeks. He didn’t for fear it would have the ring of desperation to it. Perhaps even a little madness as well. Both probably.

How long had he sat here? It seemed like hours, days even, but was probably only a few minutes. The combat training the company had given him hadn’t mentioned the tricks violence can play on your sense of perception. Neither had Jager now that he thought about it. They probably didn’t feel he needed that kind of knowledge. More likely they thought he wasn’t prepared for it. They were right. Intellectually he knew this was not his fault. He couldn’t have prevented it. In his heart, deep down, he felt the guilt of the survivor and knew he should have done better.

“Jager is SO going to kill me,” he whispered to himself. The darkness swallowed the sound instantly but the thought looped through his mind over and over as he remembered their last conversation before he and Wizard had departed Prodigy’s lair.

“This isn’t about you, Jordan,” Jager had explained to placate him. “You read the logs on what happened in Oregon. She takes risks, a lot of risks. I won’t have my head where it needs to be if I’m worried about her welfare. I need you to do this for me as a friend. I need to know she’s safe and protected.”

Jager had been so intense! Jordan would have given his soul in that moment just to know that anyone on the planet Earth felt that way about him. And he had failed! Involuntarily a moan of anguish forced its way past his clenched jaws and out his cracked lips, re-opening the wounds Chiraben had lain there in their scuffle. At least that bastard was dead. He hadn’t done the deed himself but he had been there and not tried to help. There was nothing he could have done but in that dark part of the soul he wondered if he didn’t try because the bastard deserved it.

“ I need to know she’s safe and protected.”

The thought reverberated through his mind over and over until he knew his head would burst and spill his node on the rock if he didn’t do something, anything. Then in the echoing distance of the tunnels he heard it again. The sound of it sending shivers up his spine and touching on that part of the brain where evolution put fear coiled like a serpent which tightened its grip on his mind.

”Tekeli-li! Tekeli-li”

Where his body touched the tunnel walls he felt vibration as something the size and mass of a locomotive slid through the tunnels. When last he heard that sound it had been accompanied by four elites screaming like frightened children before their voices had gurgled into silence accompanied by loathsome sucking noise. He had only caught a glimpse of it coming up from behind Chiraben as the assassin tried to throttle the life out of him before it had pulled him off and away into the darkness of the tunnels like a hungry man might pluck at a piece of food. He’d had just barely enough time to snatch Wizard’s body up and sprint before the thing had reached for him. Christ!

Without conscious volition he was on his feet and crouched but paused. There was nothing more he could do for Wizard, her dead weight would only slow him and he knew already that these things were fast. She wasn’t in a position to care anymore!

“ I need to know she’s safe and protected.”

No, he wouldn’t let Jager down again. There was no way in hell he would let that, thing, get her. They were getting out together. Or not. Either way he wasn’t going to face Jager and tell him that Wizard’s body had been left for meat. Moving swiftly and as quietly as possible Jordan made his way down the tunnels moving to place the sounds of pursuit as far behind him as possible. This had seemed so simple only a few hours ago.

They had come to the mansion to meet with someone she called an old friend of the family and mentioned the name Safari Jack. Some old guys that use to be a big-shot in the Aeon Society a long time ago. What the hell sort of name was that, Wiz? Outside the gate they had paused, Wizard with her brow crinkled and examining something he couldn’t see before she finally filled him in.

“There’s some sort of quantum field around this place… It’s twisting the matrix slightly but it doesn’t seem harmful, just very… It’s obscuring…”

She was obviously talking to herself but Jordan was tired from the flight and more than a little put out to be missing out on the action Jager and Tesseract were getting. Either they were going in or they were leaving and couldn’t she get them to Montana quickly?

She just smiled, that enigmatic smile, and then she keyed in the security pass code to the gate. It opened and they were striding up the walk and he was ready for anything, sampling the air and sweeping the area with his eyes just like Jager had taught him. Anything except four novas just appearing out of thin air like the mist. How the hell had they done that? Wizard seemed to know one of them anyway.

“Chiraben,” she said curling her lip slightly.

The guy she addressed had looked carefully at her for a moment before he announced, “We’ve never met.”

“We have a mutual friend that so wants to meet you again. Perhaps you remember her? Jenny.”

The man’s face grew hard in an instant. “Bad news for you. You, I have discretion with.”

Jordan had made his move. As fast as he could he leaped at that green-eyed mite freak. It wasn’t fast enough. He felt the dart in his back from one of the other novas, and felt the familiar sensation of Mox roll through him like a wave while the Chiraben reached up and caught him by the throat. He broke Chiraben’s grip with the block Jager had taught him and skipped backward then dropped into his ready position.

“Not bad little grasshopper,” said the freak smiling. “Too bad you’re wanted intact or we could see just how good you really are.”

“Hey, Chiraben,” said one of the novas. “Toys, remember?”

“Just keep her alive until I’m finished here,” he said and feinted towards Jordan.

Jordan heard the rush of air; a faint gasp from Wizard and then the world fell away in a torrent of sound and colors like nothing he had ever seen before. A gunshot rang out.

Because he and Chiraben had been looking away from Wizard, away from the center of the burst, they recovered first in the dark caverns. Chiraben, that psycho had tried to finish the job and Jordan fought him... Until the thing came from out of the darkness and he escaped with Wizard. It wasn't until later, after the mad rush to escape that thing that he had a chance to look at her closely and realize she wasn't breathing. That blood had flowed from a hole in her chest that he hadn't seen. Bright red blood and even he knew that meant an arterial wound. With the location of the wound it must have passed too close to her heart and that was the end.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

DIRECTIVE FILE

Encryption Code: TwinPeak 1-43-1

Date: July 25, 2013

To: Reinhard Heller

Fm: Jacob Torbuld

Re: ECLIPSIDOL USAGE

To recap, as you know Eclisidol causes affected novas to instantaneously and uncontrollably shunt their entire quantum by any means possible, often to spectacular effect. Novas powers are wildly out of control for up 30 seconds followed by a span of up to 5 minutes during which the nova is unable to manipulate quantum.

Concerns: We are seeing an increase in the quantity as well as quality of quantum control. My primary concern is what happens when something like Eclipsidol is used against an extremely powerful nova? Someone of Pax’s caliber or, god forbid, Divis Mal rather than someone like Sluice?

We’ve observed the affects in the field and seen that more powerful novas generate far more release effect than lesser novas. What happens when it’s used on really powerful novas whose powers affect the world rather than themselves?

We’ve got to come up with a better way soon or we may find out the hard way what happens. See you on Sunday?

[This message has been edited by Wizard (edited 08-13-2001).]

[Jordan]

Somewhere, not on this Earth

For an hour Jordan trudged through the darkness of the strange caverns, uncaring of where he was headed. Subconsciously his auditory senses picked up every sound, every footfall and translated that into an awareness of his surroundings, while he pondered over his current predicament. Finally, tired and cold, Jordan stopped and lowered Jane’s body to the hard floor of the cavern. He sat heavily beside her, resting his hand on her cold and lifeless arm. He looked at her through the gloomy darkness and sighed heavily. “I’m sorry Jason,” He said quietly to himself. “ I let you down, I let Jane down. I let everyone down. Now I’m lost, I don’t know where I am or what do! I’m so sorry!”

Tears rolled down Jordan’s cheeks and his stomach clenched and knotted as all the stress and emotion of the last few days flowed through him. He cried. Slowly at first, tears sliding down his cheeks as small sobs quietly escaped his lips only to become a body wracking, soul-wrenching purge of all the anguish and pain the young nova had kept pent up and hidden within the dark recesses of his heart. He cried for the loss of Wizard and the pain that would cause the people he loved most, he cried for the dead novas carried away by the monster of the cavern. Mostly though, he cried for himself. Jane had come to mean a great deal to him in the short time he’d known her. Part doting aunt, part teasing sister, and most importantly, part protective mother. Jane filled a missing portion in Jordan’s life and now she had been violently taken away from him, just as his own mother had. The pain of loss was too much.

His outburst lasted nearly half an hour, filling the cavern with a wailing that would even give pause to the restless dead. Slowly, Jordan calmed and the crying subsided, he had no more tears. He was exhausted and spent. He laid his head across Jane’s chest and drifted into a deep, dreamless sleep.

An office in Toronto.

Renaud Montpillar sat at the long conference table absentmindedly twirling a pen while watching Jordan’s father pace nervously in front of the door. Enzo turned to the calm Frenchman and asked, “How can you sit there so calmly while my son is missing?”

“Simple Mr. Rossi,” Renaud replied. “I have absolute faith in my investigative team. Do not worry, Bridget will be here momentarily and she will have answers for us.”

The two men locked gazes in silence as Bridget’s 11-foot form slipped through the doorway. “Gentlemen,” She said interrupting their stare-down. “We have good news and bad news I’m afraid.” She walked to the head of the table and put down the papers and laptop she was carrying. “We have Jordan’s last known position, however, he seems to have disappeared again.” Both men gave the woman their full attention and Enzo took a seat.

“Show us what you’ve got Ms. Keir,” Renaud said as he leaned forward, putting the pen on the pad of legal pad of paper before him. She nodded, plugged the laptop into the screen projector on the conference room table, and dimmed the lights before proceeding. The screen lit up with an image of an Opnet forum page.

Bridget took a deep breath before starting. “This, as you may already know is a page of the forum that Jordan has been visiting online for the past few months. And this is the source of the problem.”

“I don’t understand,” Enzo interrupted. “How can a simple chat room cause Jordan to run away?”

Bridget shot the middle-aged lawyer a look of annoyance before continuing. “If I may continue uninterrupted?” Enzo shrugged in acquiescence. “Thank you. Now as I was saying, this Forum is the source of the problem. I was curios about what are newest member was up to, knowing that he was still receiving training and mentorship from someone we could only identify as being highly active in the covert intelligence community. While we could do little to limit his interaction with this “Jager” character as he had your permission to help guide the boy,” She gestured in Enzo’s direction. “We could do an investigation of the man to make sure our own organization was not compromised.”

“Our investigation reveal very little, so on a fluke I decided to lurk around on the forum where your son first met Jager, to see what I could learn.” Bridget paused a moment and took a sip of water from one of the glasses sitting on the table. “The forums were interesting, to say the least. The majority of the posters seem to all come from either the intelligence community or Teregen sympathetic organizations. Despite this anti-establishment, anti-Utopian feel to the board, it remains a rather positive environment. Of course it attracts its share of posers and crackpots, but it seems it has also drawn quite a few “movers and shakers” as well.”

“So what is the point of all this Bridget?” Renaud sat back in his chair, “How does this relate to Jordan’s actions in the past few days?”

“I was just about to get to that. You know the answer to that already Renaud. You know I’d discovered someone claiming to have erupted before the N-day event and you authorized a limited investigation. What I didn’t tell you at the time was that Jager and a nova previously unknown to us called Wizard were already conducting an investigation of their own. Jordan’s primary motivation was to help his mentor.”

A silence fell over the room as the two men absorbed whet they had been told thus far. “So, are you saying it’s our fault that Jordan is missing?” The boy’s father looked at her, visibly shaken.

“No not at all,” she reassured him. “What happened has happened, it no one’s fault. Now here is what we know about Jordan’s current situation. Jordan met up with Wizard, Jager, and another unidentified Nova in Tokyo, Japan. Within 10 hours, we had lost radio contact with him. It appears he entered a building with some highly advanced sensor shielding. The next day, around 10 am, Jordan contacted our 24/7 contact frequency and asked for a complete recording of everything he said and heard. Apparently a rogue Utopia team and several elites decided to take one James Meehan, Nova genius, into custody. Jordan managed to cause enough dissent in the elite ranks to cause the aggressors to retreat.” Bridget pressed a key on the laptop and a recording of the events filled the room.

Both the Frenchman and the Italian looked stunned by what they heard. “That was my son?” Enzo asked.

“Sacra bleu!” was Renaud’s only response.

Bridget smiled at their reaction. “You son is an amazing young man, Mr. Rossi. More than any of us may realize. Anyways, he contacted us again a few hours later requisitioning 2 airline tickets to Addis Ababa. I had Maria Ito follow on the same flight just in case we lost contact yet again. She followed them out of the city. They stopped 30 miles north of the city and 3.5 miles south east of the Abbay River in a small farming community called Malwaka. There they entered the grounds of a large manor and again we lost contact. Anticipating this, I called in a few favors and got some satellite footage of the compound. This is what the satellite recorded.” She pushed another button on the laptop and a series of overhead satellite photographs was projected onto the screen. They showed two individuals coming up to the gateway of a large antebellum mansion. Next was the two entering the open gates. The third showed 5 other people confronting the first two. The fourth showed a physical conflict. The fifth photo showed nothing but a white flash that obscured everything else. The final shot was nothing but a large pile rock where the people had been. The screen went dark and the lights came back up.

“Before you say anything, we have already analyzed the photos. It appears that Jordan and another individual entered this compound, owned by one Jack Talbert officially, and were confronted by some sort of nova strike team. They fought, then something we cannot identify happened. We theorize that Jordan and his companion have been teleported to an unknown location.”

Jordan’s father was definitely worried, his emotion playing all over his face. “W, What are you going to do?”

“We have Maria in the area, investigating. Her efforts are hampered by two factors though. One, she is a baseline and thus has to be careful. Remember that Jager is investigating the rumors of Pre-Galatea novas and this Talbert fellow could be one of them. The other is that T2M is already all over the sight. Don’t worry Mr. Rossi, we’ll find Jordan. I promise you that.”

Enzo looked first to Bridget, then to Renaud. “What can I do? What do we do?”

“We wait,” Renaud said grimly. “That’s all we can do right now.”

Kenya, Africa

“Safari” Jack Tallon scanned the rubble from his front porch. Moments before a battle had erupted between his expected guests and the watchdogs Utopia insisted he continually host. The wake of that conflict had cause everyone involved in the battle to disappear rather spectacularly and leave an enormous mound of rock and rubble in their place. He watched as one of his “protectors” sped her way back to the house. She stopped in a cloud of dust before the porch. “Nothing sir, no bodies from either side unless they’re under all that rock,” she reported.

“Fire and Damnation woman! Why did your people attack my guests?” The aging adventurer growled at the young Nova.

“Guests sir?” Adrianna Mackenzie looked puzzled. “Our intelligence told us that the were a serious threat to your health and safety.”

“Well so much for Utopian Intelligence!” He replied sarcastically. “Now I suppose we’ll have to…” Before Jack could finish his sentence, a sickening roar erupted from the rubble and an enormous tentacled beast rose up from the debris. It reared up over 20 feet high and bellowed its rage at the sunlight. Its body came down with a deafening thud and cracked the earth. With tentacles a blur of motion it burrowed its way into the ground. “Bloody Hell!” Jack exclaimed.

“What, what was that thing?” Adrianna whispered in horror.

“A Shoggoth, girl. It was a Shoggoth.”

[Wizard]

Jordan’s Dream

When he was ten, Jordan had read a book. The true story, though he didn’t know it at the time, of a group whose airplane had crashed in the frigid heights of a towering mountain. Initially hopeful, they came to realize that they were trapped by the weather with no rescue coming and began the vigil. Each day after the fourth they watched as their number shrank. The first to die were the wounded. Without shelter or medical attention it was only a surprise to the most innocent when, first one, then another slipped away. Each survivor grieved in his own way for a time knowing in their heart a guilty joy for the fact they still lived. Then the cold touched the least of the strong and stole away with more lives. That was when fear reached from that hidden place where the mind of the reptile slumbered in the strongest of men. One by one, their numbers dwindled until even the most optimistic knew death waited for him. They could not survive without food.

That realization brought to each of them a thought, initially dismissed only to return again, until one of them finally gave voice to it. There was food to be had. In time even those most adamantly opposed listened. Argued. Cajoled. Some refused only to relent later when death’s touch was close. Others were more pragmatic. There was one that refused until his death only two days later. The others ate and gained small nourishment. Of that group would be numbered the survivors. In time they were rescued, and so there was a happy ending of a sort, but Jordan had never really forgotten the story.

For weeks afterwards he had screamed in the night just as he had begun to drift into slumber. That feeling of sleepy warmth that accompanies the descent into sleep was exactly what the book had described as the final stages of hypothermia. In his child’s mind he came to associate that pleasant sensation with death and cried out each time it came. Over the mild objections of his father, his mother had carried him into their room and after much tossing and turning he had slept with his parents. Safe in their room, death had no hold on his thoughts and he could rest peacefully. It’s funny the things you remember when you’re dying.

Alone in the dark, in fitful but dreamless sleep, Jordan wandered the dark corridors of his mind amid half formed thoughts. His senses fueled with quantum power still fed his mind but he had accepted the end was close at hand. The distant rumble of hideous and approaching forms held no terror, only a sense of inevitability. Better that than living with the crushing weight of failure. Jane had told Tess a ‘secret’ only a few days before, and of course being in the same room he couldn’t help but hear. Odd that he should remember that so clearly at this moment.

"The secret is this,” she had said smiling at Tess. “It happens to us all eventually. We make use of the time we have. Hopefully, make it a little easier for others when we can, not because they need us to but rather because we need us to. And then we take our leave. Exit stage left. If we've lived a good life then we can say we're leaving it a little better than we found the place to begin with."

Had he made the world a better place? No. The world had continued careening on with little regard for either his birth or his eruption. A footnote in a meaningless newspaper article, maybe, his existence reduced to barely significant and only for a genetic quirk coupled with capricious circumstance. Now facing a death worthy of such an inconsequential life, well he should welcome it. Shouldn’t he? It didn’t seem to really bother him at the moment. He felt calm and there was a soothing clarity of peace permeating his being. Despair and failure wasn’t so bad after all. Accepting the pain made it so much more bearable.

’Despair, like ecstasy is a distracter,” came the thought in Jane’s voice. “It keeps us running around and occupied with unimportant matters while life goes on around us. We lose our perspective and give up our freedom of choice and action. Lost in the emotional surf, pulled under and drowning, we never think to simply stand up and breath.’

Definitely something Jane would have said but he was drawing a blank as to where and when she had said it. Maybe on the forums scattered in the talk about gods and titans? That must have been an experience, what she’d gone through in Oregon. She mentioned it sometimes, but always in a context sort of way, never talking about what really happened. Or would have happened if the quantum spillover hadn’t been stopped. It would have been nice to be able to say you’ve saved the world even if no one knew. Like being a superhero in the comics he use to read, back when quantum was a word used only by physicists, and with great power came great responsibility. He could sort of understand Meehan’s position, though. How do you get someone to shoulder responsibility willingly when Utopia was stuffing it down your throat as requirement. You’d think an organization with a hundred shrinks on staff would know better. Or at least understand that when you transformed from the ‘rebel’ to the ‘establishment’ you were going to lose the demographic of the future. Half his friend from school ran around with “I’m MALicious” t-shirts and, as much as he had loathed the Terats, he could understand why. And there was yet another of his weak points brought to light. What do you call someone willing to back away from their position on a group of thugs and bullies?

‘The beginning of wisdom, perhaps?’

Yeah. Maybe. Ashnod certainly didn’t seem like a bully. Her arguments were tight and even Jager seemed reluctant to cross her without a very good reason. How could someone as smart as Ashnod accept the bloody deaths the violent Terats dealt with no more thought than a child stomping on an anthill? How could she condone it? He didn’t want to believe her arguments; deep at the core of his being he simply didn’t see how she could even consider the possibilities of all that death and suffering being worth it.

‘Perhaps because she sees the death and suffering that happens every day across the planet. Perhaps she sees the greater death and pain coming and is, in her own way, acting to minimize it.’

It would make sense and the rumbling was coming closer. No worries. That was a point that frequently confused him in her arguments. They were cold and precise, even a little bloodthirsty, but those same words hinted at a depth of compassion that he would not have expected from a Terat. Of course Jager had tactfully hinted that every group had its share of assholes. He still couldn’t grasp what they were trying to become or how they could throw away the core of what they were and trivialize it as merely baseline.

‘Jordan... Sweetie, I love you more than you know… And this is really fascinating. Truly. But if you don’t get off your ass, now, you’re going to have a very big and very unpleasant problem.’

“Jane?”

’NOW, Jordan!’,

With the sound of her voice echoing in his mind, Jordan snapped up, never letting go of her still form, and blurred into motion. The sound of something wet grotesquely squished where he had stood a moment before and the tunnel quivered with the impact. His body reacted without thought, pivoting off the tunnel wall as the worst of the shockwave passed his position and granite dust filled the air. Instinctively he moved along the tunnel to a point where his subconscious mind had recorded what his quantum senses told him must be there. A split in the tunnels, a crack where the earth had been shouldered aside by primeval forces, a place where there was a natural tunnel in the midst of this ancient labyrinth.

His body sped on, without light but following his memory of the mental map he’d constructed by the sensations carried to him by his other senses. The thing behind him was slowly gaining and maddened by the near miss with its prey. ‘Great. A pissed off and hungry monster,’ thought Jordan, refusing to think about anything else. Deep down he felt… Relief? Hope? Best not thought about yet if he planned to ever have a chance to think about anything.

There! Jordan leaped to the opposite wall and then sprang off it into the darkness as hard as he could. If he were wrong then that thing was going to come upon him sprawled on the granite floor and trying to regain his footing too late. Behind him came a blast of cold air as something huge raced by like a runaway locomotive in the main tunnels. Acting on his senses rather than thought he landed amid what felt like powdery rock and froze. He held his breath. The huge creature gradually slowed and finally halted. Distantly he could hear a sort of wet shuffling noise. Seconds stretched into a minute that felt like eternity as he held his breath waiting. If it figured out what he’d done and found him…

,,

In time he could hear the creature moving off but he held his position and waited. Then waited longer. When at long last he could stand it no longer he leaned back into the rough walls forming the tunnel and drew a deep breath. After the time spent in the stagnant air of the tunnels it took him a moment to realize that the air was perceptibly colder and just a touch fresher. The air was noticeably fresher here! Peering upward into the darkness he was overjoyed to realize that the blackness wasn’t absolute here. This had to connect to the surface. And to think he’d missed it when he first passed. Jane had been right, he’d been so distracted he’d completely overlooked this escape.

‘Not a…. there…’

The thought wasn’t his. It was Jane’s voice and there was that weird feeling of peace that had settled over him like a covering of new snow earlier when he’d almost given up. He felt a stillness come over him and waited. Not expecting anything. Not anticipating. Accepting. Then he heard it again dimly.

‘Do you understand, Jordan?’

Jane’s voice, barely there, an ephemeral sensation.

‘Jane?’ He would have felt silly if not for the sensation of patience and inner peace that permeated his being again. ‘Are you there?’

‘Oh,’ the thought wisped across his consciousness, tinged with, happiness? Satisfaction? ‘You can’t use this to escape, Jordi. Even if you make it you wouldn’t like what’s out there.’

“Jane, where are you?” he asked aloud. His voice sounded cragged and deafening to his own ears. Distantly he heard the sound of rocks being moved and regretted speaking.

‘Here. Please stay calm though. I can't... link... Helping you… calm is too… ‘

‘Jane, do you know where we are?’ he thought.

‘… where we aren’t… not our world,’ came the wisp of response.

Jordan realized he was standing crouched in a subterranean tunnel, holding a body, and talking to himself. Inner peace or not he had to ask himself if the situation could get any worse.

‘I think so,’ came Jane’s response. ‘Whatever you do, don’t let go of me. That's the only thing keeping this body alive...’

Next:

The Parade of The Dead in Duo-Scope

“I can’t hear the music… I’m blind, Jordan.”

[This message has been edited by Wizard (edited 09-02-2001).]

[Wizard]

The Parade of The Dead in Duo-Scope – Part I

Jordan drew a slow breath. Then another. Followed by a third. He let himself relax, as much as he could anyway, and tried to focus on the faint whisper that crossed his thoughts. The calming auras of peace settled more fully and that made it easier. Even so, the thoughts were like gossamer, touching his mind and then gone again before he could quite register its passing.

’Slowly, Jane.’ He was half convinced that somewhere along the way he’d made the final detour into the realms beyond sanity. Wondered whether the privations of the last few days had broken him completely. For that matter, how much sense did any of this make? Maybe it was all a fevered dream. A trick orchestrated by hidden captors, pre-galatea nova of monstrous intellect conducting a routine experiment to…

’…’

‘Dammit, Jane!’ Anger surged and rippled through his thoughts. In its wake the soothing peace caught fire and burned into nothingness. ‘I can’t understand you!’

‘… open…’

A sensation, a very strange sensation gripped his mind tightly then rumbled through his body like a mental earthquake. It was as if gravity had suddenly shifted 180 degrees and he was falling upward while, at the same time, the floor dropped out from beneath him like an express elevator shot to the basement without brakes. The effect was like a violent separation of mind and body. Jordan’s stomach wretched and instinctively he braced against the rude walls of the tunnel and clenched his eyes tightly shut to ward off the urge to vomit. Then he heard the sound, a voice like music given meaning, her!

“If it helps, its not usually that… Disquieting.”

He could feel his body. The sensation of rough granite powder scraping against his eufiber suit where he braced against the tunnel wall still tickled his back. He knew that his eyes were shut tightly, even felt the muscles spasm with fatigue as well as his stomach writhing to lose a meal he hadn’t eaten in days. And yet Jane stood before him and he could see her clearly without eyes. The scent of cinnamon and apples touched his soul and made his mouth water with anticipation. He grabbed her and pulled her tightly to him.

“I’m so sorry,” he whispered over and over, crushing her to his chest. “I am so sorry.” In time he stopped speaking and simply held her tightly.

“There was nothing you could done, Jordi.”

Her voice sang to him, not even muffled by his arms wrapped around her tightly. That’s when he knew deep in soul. He’d missed the wall. Overshot the tunnel by a hair, perhaps. At any rate that monstrous thing hiding in the darkness had caught him. He was dead. In a way it was comforting to know Grandpapa Ricky had been right about the angels coming for the souls that lost their way to heaven. Light gradually grew to brilliance in his mind’s eye but it didn’t blind him. In the distance he could hear the heavenly choirs singing notes that transcended the merely physical.

[This message has been edited by Wizard (edited 09-03-2001).]

[Wizard]

Interlude: Better The Devil You Know…

She was not going to call him sir, she promised herself. She was a fully qualified and designated auxiliary member of T2M, a powerful nova working for the betterment of the world that could catch bullets out of the air when she concentrated, and there was absolutely no way on earth or in heaven that…

“MACKENZIE!” The old man thundered at her from across the room.

“Sir, yes Sir,” she answered snapping to attention and hating herself for it. Who was this geezer? Caestus Pax had trained her and the others on anti-terrorism and hostage retrieval drills just last month and she hadn’t been this nervous. Something about his eyes and the way he stared at you. It was like her father had just caught her in her room with the boy next door. Daring her to try and explain it when her panties were lying in plain view on the floor next to the bed.

“Focus woman. I shan’t be long,” Jack continued in a more conversational voice as he continued his weapons check. “Oh, and Miss Mackenzie?”

“Sir! Yes, Sir!” There it was again. Damn it!

,,

“I should warn you that I will be most put out should I return and find my postman in Utopia custody,” continued the old man, “for crimes of terrorism. I’ve had quite enough of the main office's shenanigans for the foreseeable future.”

“Yes, Sir!” It was an effort to resist the urge to salute him and she felt the blush rising to her cheeks at his comment. She took grim solace in the fact that at least the situation was about as bad as it could get.

Then he turned and she saw the weapon he cradled in his arms. Banned by Utopia Technology Department, illegal in every civilized country in the world, a weapon designed only for death. Closed loop water cooled, over/under micro grenade launchers, gryroscopic recoil dampened and reputed to fire a variety of specialized ammo. Most of which was also blatantly illegal. In that moment her career flashed before her eyes. The image of standing in front of the review board vividly imagined, Alex Mackenzie opened her mouth to protest. Those steely eyes! They bored into hers and the words died stillborn in her throat.

“I am hunting shoggoth, woman. Not a mouse.” He rasped as he glared at her ferociously. With not another word he strode from the room and she heard his boots clomp their way to the front and then crunch the rock debris as he made his way to the hole left by the… ‘Shoggoth?’ Capable of outrunning a bullet train, let alone the proverbial speeding locomotive, it took her almost a minute to make the walk slowly from the study to the foyer and front door still wide open. She stepped out and surveyed the lawn carefully. No sign of the old man.

Without looking she reached down and picked up a small pebble, a tiny reminder of this fiasco and then walked back into the house. Making her way to the study she carefully closed the cabinets and panels left open in the old man’s preparations then walked to his desk and picked up the telephone. It took her a moment to figure it out; the thing actually had an ancient rotary dial instead of a proper panel of buttons! Very carefully, so as not to misdial and be forced to reconsider, she dialed the toll free international number that more than a few T2M auxiliary members had memorized. Just in case. She waited through the clicks of the international switching and then while the number rang through.

“Devries Agency, this is Joshua speaking. How may I assist you?”

“Hi, Joshua. My name is Alex Mackenzie, also known as Swift. I’d like to speak with a recruiter about your benefits package.”

“That’s wonderful Alex, or should I call you Swift? Thank you for considering us and I’m certain we’ll be able to assist in placing you in a position both challenging and commensurate with your abilities. Have you been contacted by any other agencies? Utopia perhaps?”

“Actually, I’m currently under contract with Utopia but I expect that to change in the very near future,” Alex said chewing her lower lip thoughtfully. “And you can call me Alex.”

“I see, Alex. Alex, I’m going to patch you through directly to our legal department and they’ll take all the preliminary information then we’ll see how we can assist you in finding the employment opportunities that your special abilities are bested suited too.”

“That’s great. And Joshua?” she said as the first small tremor rocked the manor. “I don’t do Africa. Send me anywhere else, but not Africa.”

“Of course, Alex,” replied the voice soothingly. “Let me just transfer you to our legal department.”

Already far below the surface Safari Jack Tallon cradled his weapon and listened carefully. Distantly he could hear the beastie still crashing through the earth, its enormous bulk not so much digging as forcing the dirt and rock out of the way. Carefully, Jack edged along the tunnels and followed the creature while he reviewed what little there was to know about such things. It was stronger than ten elephants. Capable of swallowing a man whole like a shark could swallow an olive. It’s form was malleable and, given time, it could slip through a key hole if such an idea were to occur to its nasty mind.

“By god! It feels good to be on safari again,” he exclaimed. It was almost enough to make a man break into one of the old brigade marching songs!

[This message has been edited by Wizard (edited 09-03-2001).]

[Wizard]

The Parade of The Dead in Duo-Scope – Part II

Jordan was deeply embarrassed. Jane told him over and again that he had no reason to be until she realized that her talking about it embarrassed him even more and she stopped. Before stopping she had explained it to him, though. The psychic link she was forging to keep him half in her mind and half in the real world as they searched for the spot they had entered this universe. She had explained about that, too. Amazing the way she could start by saying she wasn’t certain about something but then proceed to offer the most fantastic possible explanation. Which, incidentally, was the only one that seemed to fit all the facts. When she’d started in on super strings and fantastic regions of localized physics he had stopped her. He trusted her, believed her, but god! For her to calmly tell him that they were walking on another world was too incredible?

Atwight had talked about other worlds. Even the Monkey Doc talked about it, though he had some serious doubts about that guy! And what-his-name? Ranger. That guy talked about walking across galactic distances the way some people talked about going out for a beer. He’d never really, truly believed it before. He’d never really thought they were lying, life in the nova age was too incredible for that, but he’d always thought it was some kind of a metaphor. Now, he’d gone them all one better. The man that’d never been further away from home than Tokyo was walking the granite rock of a completely different universe!

“I’ll buy you the t-shirt, Jordan” Jane sang in his mind.

“T-shirt?”

“The one that says, I traveled to another universe and all I got was this stupid t-shirt. And try to be a little easier on yourself. It’s distracting.”

“Why are we searching anyway? You should be able to map this place better than I can.” He answered, and it was true. Through the link he could feel her perceptions detecting things, quantifying them before he’d even become aware of them. And she was piggybacking off his own senses to do it.”

“What little residual quantum I have access to is going to keep my body adapted to a rather large hole in the chest, remember? Everything else goes to the psychic link. Indirectly that quantum is coming from you. I can’t hear the music… I’m blind, Jordan. Within a few more hours we’ll both go into quantum deprivation. You’ll last longer than I will, but the end effect will be the same. Remember the hallucinations?”

Yeah, that was the source of his embarrassment. He thought, no, he knew that he was dead and he’d asked Jane where his mother was. For the longest moment she’d been puzzled then she swatted out with her hand and it had vanished. The light, the music, the cloudy horizon, all of it disappeared in an instant. Mental imagery he was injecting into the psychic link, she said. It was only background chatter on the mental bandwidth brought on by his body being low on quantum because this place couldn’t support their kind. He wasn’t sure which he liked less; this place or the implication that he needed quantum to function. When the dead started to appear…

“They’re not ghosts, Jordan.”

“Jane, a little privacy please? Let me just work this out in my own way. Please.”

Jane was surprised when he asked who they were. There had been dozens of people standing around them from all walks of life and places. Then she said it made sense because he was sharing her perceptions just like she was sharing his senses. She said they were ‘quantum echoes’ from past events and something she been working on… He’d caught a flash of something like a memory chip she was using. She said it was part of a sculpture. That last part had brought an image of being in a forest resonating with sound and color, looking upward at something that towered over him and seemed composed of light. He sensed her reluctance to discuss it and let it drop.

So they walked stealthily through the tunnels, Jordan mapping them with his senses and Jane extrapolating shoggoth traps from mental maps and the sounds she could discern from his senses. It was weird. On one level he was carrying Jane’s body in his arms and could see her, but on another level… In his mind, their mind, she walked beside him. And dozens of people trailed behind them, silently bringing up the rear. In the lead was a red headed woman, familiar enough that he almost felt as if he knew her, which had glowered at Jane the entire time. She’d even argued with Jane about something. Farahcyte cathartic release, she’d said, and tried to drag him into it before Jane had killed that part of the link from her end. Now the redhead could only look disapproving.

“What is she so pissed about anyway?”

“Hmm… Who?”

“You know who. The redhead with the freckles.”

“Difference of opinions. Concentrate on the environment, Jordan. The clocks ticking.”

Now this he could handle. They had a place to be, their entrance point, and a tight schedule to get there. This was a much easier problem to deal with than tunnels and monsters. What a waste of time tunnel crawling was, albeit a dangerous one.

“So you haven’t told him, yet.” Stated the redhead.

Dealing with her, ever since she’d figured out her plan was giving Wizard a massive migraine. Well, that and the quantum deprivation. She’d been lucky that Jordan had carried her the entire time. Her quantum had been exhausted when the ambushers had used eclipsidol on her. It had to have been eclipsidol from the immediate and violent spasm of her MR node. Without his quantum aura slowly feeding her own node she’d have died in the first hour from blood loss. With it, even this miniscule amount, she’d had enough for her body to revert to the same low sustenance mode she used for meditation.

“Elizabeth!” shouted the redhead.

“Look,” Wizard’s mental image spun to confront the woman, “I apologize that this doesn’t work into your long term plans. I really do. I would point out that I’ve been shot, starved, and am generally am having a really bad week right now. That last thing I want is an argument from an overactive ghost that wants to kibitz on things she knows nothing about.”

“I thought you told him we weren’t ghosts? And why haven’t you told him about your plan to suicide?”

“It,” spat Wizard, “is not suicide. It’s risky. It’s dangerous. And it’s my call to make not his. Not yours.”

Jordan noticed the heated exchange but the psychic link wasn’t passing anything to him except images and even those were growing faint as Jane concentrated on whatever she was telling the woman. Hmm, this was as closed to pissed as he’d ever seen Jane before. Whatever they were discussing was getting on her nerves. Well, the creatures of the tunnels were fast but they made a lot of noise so it should be safe to proceed even using his less acute senses. A wave of dizziness passed over him and he quickened his pace. They were weakening from lack of quantum.

Next:

Bad Pennies. Like Chiraben.

“If you’re going home then get in line with the rest,” said Jordan said stepping around the assassin.

[Wizard]

James Meehan watched the drama unfolding before him, his vast intellect like a singularity swallowing the information swiftly and without remorse. A shark trolling the information depths and feeding at will. Light variations, spectrometer readings, thermal image maps, subsonic frequency distortions; it was all devoured. His mind was a carnivore with an unquenchable appetite. He…

“James,” whispered Michael, the artificial intelligence’s voice carefully modulated to soothing and non-intrusive frequencies. “The data load is increasing beyond my abilities to handle. The information is bogging down my processors. I can’t keep up with the encryption shifts or…”

“Forget the processing, baby,” said Meehan distractedly in the raspy corn-fed accent of the American Midwest farmlands. “Sometimes you just got to go with intuition.”

“Understood. Disengaging central data feeds. Activating intuition meta-agents in three, two, one - mark. Activation logged; authorization James 47.”

If a cunningly designed computer, a glorified calculator of the quantum age, could be said to have emotions then it felt a certain proprietary joy on those rare occasions when Prodigy sanctioned its use of the meta-agents. It was at these times that Michael had direct contact with something beyond itself. Companionship was too strong a word yet it had a fondness for these artifacts. Not truly alive, not even in the sense that the AI itself was alive, these software meta-agents represented certain specific viewpoints. Outlooks on the world that were beyond Michael's ability to focus on to the exclusion of all else.

There was Joe, representing the everyman point of view. In his programming was encoded the basic needs of human beings. Food, shelter, propagation of self and the rest of the basic human necessities required to be satisfied before the higher needs could be addressed. These were Joe’s domains. The Hawaiian style-bowling shirt was a nice touch, thought Michael with pride.

“The world changes,” it told Joe. “Find me their fears and hopes.”

“On it boss,” said Joe before vanishing into the data streams of the opnet.

Next was Chris, sexual desire incarnate subliminated into intellectual processes. Beautiful as only a generic cross-section of humanity can truly be, in the real world she could have stopped traffic or been the beneficiary of ridiculously expensive gifts from jaded old men dreaming of a paradise that lies only in the imagination. Her white business jacket and skirt was spotless and her simulated spectacles did nothing to hide the pale icy blue of her eyes.

“The world changes,” it told her. “Find me their desires.”

“Of course, Sir.” Cynthia smiled in a manner that would have sent men into battle to claim a chance at her attention. “And afterwards?” Michael had examined her programming closely on numerous occasions and was still puzzled by that way she held herself, one leg slightly forward with head cocked fetchingly. It was not addressed anywhere that could be located in code yet there it was.

“Accomplish your task,” the AI ordered.

“Of course, sir.”

And she was gone with a flash into the data stream leaving the AI to ponder the vagarities of the human condition for several nanoseconds until he realized the other agents were awaiting orders. Each in turn was assigned to their special areas, the arenas for which their designed expertise would be most useful.

As an artificial intelligence with a processing core based on quantum theorems, Michael lived a life that was both shallower and at the same time deeper than that of a human. Shallower in that it lacked the biological imperatives encoded in a million years of evolution. Hormonal driven emotion responses were alien to its nature though James had done a remarkable job of simulating them. It was deeper than merely human in that its thoughts, or more correctly, its calculations were measured in the probabilities of electron orbits and particle decays. In the time it took for the meta-agents to begin reporting back, Michael had sufficient time to catalogue the latest personnel shifts within T2M America, ascertain probabilities of personality conflicts among Utopia baseline personnel stationed in Addis Abba, review the environmental patterns for the planet Earth over the last 30 years and even time to review the almost ritualistic mating procedure between Wizard and Jager it had recorded into memory. If Michael had a head it would have shook it in bewilderment at the actions of two otherwise highly intelligent and apparently very capable sentient beings. Still, watching it led the AI to believe that it was somehow coming closer to understanding humans. Somehow.

As the meta-agents began to report back and transfer their data to Michael’s quantum processors for correlation all thoughts of hobbies and pleasure vanished. With each report its comprehension of the situation grew, as did the its awareness of the gravity of the circumstances. It checked it’s findings for accuracy many times and finally realized that if it were wrong then only James would be able to find the error. After a full 4 microseconds, several lifetimes of soul searching for a human, it made the decision to interrupt Prodigy at work.

The situation in Montana was obviously very intense and James had bet himself, a cup of mocha since it was only himself and he was feeling a sweet tooth, that Jager would strike the first blow. Well, that Jager would strike the first blow was a given, the bet was actually whether Tess would back him up physically or attempt a spatial distortion to weaken Preatorian while Jager re-positioned for his follow up. James was calculating approximately 23 seconds until the conflict initiated but you could never be certain when dealing with…

“James?” Michael spoke with hesitancy, a quality the AI rarely displayed since he’d first been booted. “I’ve gathered information and… There are some statistical anomalies that… Well, I think…”

What the hell?

,,

“Michael I didn’t program you for dissembling! Spit out.” Prodigy still monitored the conflict in Montana but spared a portion of his prodigious intellect and began to make contingency plans if the Utopians had compromised the computer system that ran his home. That shouldn’t have been possible but something was wrong with Michael.

“Yes, James. I’ve compiled and catalogued the data acquired by the intuition agents and I’m displaying them now for your analysis.”

Half the monitors in the control complex lost synch momentarily then began to scroll massive amounts of diverse data. Sociological, economic, political, sexual; it was all there and as each piece was added a pattern began to form in James mind. A chill ran down his spine.

“This is indicative… James, I need you to tell me if this is correct. I need a human insight. Maybe, I’m being overly cautious but aren’t these… Doesn’t this indicate…”

James Meehan recognized the hesitancy in the AI’s voice now. It was the tone of a child asking an adult to ‘make it not true’. The chill became a shiver and a strange feeling of lightness drifted across his perceptions.

“Error factor?” His tone was surprisingly bland for the situation.

“Less the .003, based on the assumptions you’ve provided in the past. James, is this what it appears to be?”

“Verification of the presence of 78 out of 80 implicit factors required to spark the war between my kind and the baselines? Evidence that we’re sitting on a tinderbox, 48 hours away from the start of the event that will probably end life as we know it on this miserable little rock? A planet killing event that won’t even leave bacteria?”

In his erupted life, James Meehan had only ceased processing data to focus on a single event three times. When he killed a man by his own hand. When he knew his friend was dead in Prague. And now.

“I’m sorry, Michael. Fuck! The poor bastards won't realize what's happening for weeks yet.”

On a forgotten screen Jager blurred into motion…

[ 10-10-2001: Message edited by: Wizard ]

[Guest]

The sound of gunfire echoed throughout the pit-like chamber and multiple muzzle flashes reflected in impact resistant glass of the surrounding clone tanks. Praetorian's mighty form shook and rocked back slightly as each round struck him.

To Tess, it was almost a surreal experience, everything moving in slow motion. She sensed, from every possible angle, each bullet from the moment it left its gun to the moment it struck the glowing behemoth before them. She watched them all. Tess looked down at her own hands, at the weapons she held. Still firing, she knew they were hitting their target; she didn't need to be looking at him.

The man called Praetorian, their enemy, had yet to make any move, he just stood there. He watched, almost dispassionately, as Jager and Tesseract empty clip and clip of ammunition into his body. The pain was immense but he refused to allow his opponents to see it. He could feel his blood explode out of his body with each bullet that ripped into him. He could feel it flow down his body and spread out in an ever-widening puddle on the floor. He could have easily stopped this barrage, but truth be told, he didn't want to.

137 Rounds. Jager counted each round he fired and each round that tore through the man before him. 137 rounds from me alone, god knows how many from Tess, and the fucker's still standing, he thought desperately. Time for the big guns! Jager pulled The Gun. The plasma discharger conjured for his benefit by Elizabeth. He pointed the innocuous looking weapon at the Praetorian and gently squeezed the trigger.

A deafening boom exploded throughout the chamber and everyone stopped in awe. Tesseract stood open-mouthed in amazement as she watched, in slow motion, the plasma discharge slam into Praetorian's left shoulder, she could hear his skin, flesh and bone vaporizing. She watched with an almost detached fascination as his arm flew off of his body and tumbled down the chamber to the floor, hundreds of meters below.

The inactivity lasted for just an instant. Jager, sensing his opportunity, took aim and fired the gun's last shot. It slammed into his target's right hip, blowing off a significant portion of the Praetorian's right side and nearly removing his right leg.

Praetorian gasped in excruciating pain yet still made no effort to retaliate. Fearing he would topple over as his innards spilled out onto the floor, he slowly rose a few inches into the air a hovered there.

“Fuck me!” Tesseract gasped in fear. She and Jager exchanged worried glances as the now spent plasma pistol slipped from Jager's hand. “We are so screwed.” Was all he could say.

“Are ……. y, you .. done?” Praetorian rasped as he smiled through his pain. Tess glared at him. No way was she going to let this man, this thing, beat them without even raising a finger. Nobody was so powerful that they couldn't be killed, Nobody! As her anger and defiance mounted, images of this man flashed in her mind. This man who had been the cause of so much pain in her brief childhood. The man who trained, tormented, and tortured her. He deserved death! She could feel the power within her, the spark of her node coalescing its power. The power built in her, fueled by the white-hot rage that overcame her. Jager, sensing the danger he was in, took a step away from her. Time and space started to bend around her as she gathered her power. Energy of unearthly hues, never before seen by mortal man, danced around her and gathered in her open palm. The catwalk and nearby clone tanks stared to bend and twist unnaturally, a side effect of the immense energy she was gathering. Praetorian raised his eyebrows. Perhaps this one has the power I seek? “Take you best shot, girl!” he yelled at the now incandescent nova.

Power radiated from Tesseract's hand. Hate filled her eyes as she held her enemy's unbreaking gaze. This is what he wanted, what he was waiting for, she knew. She clenched her fist, drawing all that universal energy into her body as the spatial distortions snapped back to their normal proportions. The energy display absorbed into her body, Tesseract cocked her head, raised her fist to the Praetorian and opened her hand.

The stream of light and energy flared out of her open palm and rocketed into the ravaged nova before her. Unearthly sound deafen those in the chamber and drowned out any screams the Praetorian may have made and his body was flung like a rag doll off of the catwalk and across the chasm to smash into the tanks full of Klot and bodies on the other side of the immense room. Jager had to cover his ears with his hand just to protect himself from permanent damage as Tesseract poured all that energy into her opponent. A full minute passed as the energy continued stream out of her and into the powerful nova. Finally, the energy stopped and Tess collapsed to the catwalk.

The praetorian screamed as the energy tore through his body. Pain such as he has never felt before permeated every cell of his body right to the very core of his being. He shook with pain as he felt the energy course through him.

Jager stood stunned by the display before him. The Praetorian shook and writhed in pain as the energy played over his entire body. A final bloodcurdling scream escaped his lips has he was explosively ripped to pieces, his body exploding outward in a shower of violence and gore such as Jager had never witnessed before.

Jager stared stupidly at the scene before him. Tesseract lay unconscious at his feet and the remains of the Praetorian pained the catwalk and walls. A significant portion of his torso still lay in the rubble of the clone tanks where he had first landed. Jager sat down hard. In all his 70 years he had never encountered a situation quite like the one he found himself in now. Five minutes passed as he gathered himself.

Gently, he rolled Tess over and checked for damage. Outwardly she looked fine, but he knew that kind of power display always had its consequences. She groaned lightly and her eyes fluttered open. “Did I get him?” she asked weakly.

“Yah, hon. You got the bad guy,” he relied softly. “Rest for a moment and then we'll bug out of here.”

While Jager was tending to his enfeebled comrade, He didn't notice the faint motion coming from the remains across the chamber….

[Hugin]

“James, why did you program me for fear? I don't like this” Mike's voice trembles, uncountable operations per second focusing on the questions that nag a cybernetic soul faced with oblivion.

“I didn't want to cheat you. Now, calm down. 78 out of 80 is not a guarantee. Yes, several preconditions have been met. Yes, some of them unlikely as hell and difficult to counter, but the remaining two would take months to develop, this gives us time. Jager and Tess will simply have to cope with their situation. You and I have to spend some time counteracting what we can.” Nimble fingers dance over keyboards and data pads, prepared communiqué are sent out, adjustments made and orders given.

“Alright James. What do you want from me? I want, no… I need to help. Please.”

“And that is why you are here my friend. I need your help. I wouldn't think about trying to tackle this without you. Contacts level Alpha One through Six, keep them on hold until I get to them. Use the favors dossier to give them reasons to be patient. No threats, just reminders.”

Hours pass and orders are given, favors asked, some threats are made and slowly a web of activity spreads out through the world with this hidden lair at its center. Business transactions are made to break patterns that encourage conflict and suspicion. Computer databases containing the new ad campaign for Fox's “Terats” are wiped clean. Mal'Iscious' planned concert in Tampa is cancelled when a bomb threat is made, scattering fans and protestors alike before tempers can flare. Hundreds of small moves are made, most inconsequential to all but the most acute mind, but some, some will make waves.

Adis Ababa

“Damnit! Damnit! Damnit! You can't do this. Our research is just a few months short of being complete. If you interrupt the experiments now we are going to lose years of progress. Do you know how much data collection went into this? Do you have any idea of the man hours spend correlating it?” Dr. Shaw rarely spoke above a pinched, nasal whisper, and profanity was even more unlikely, yet today he felt properly justified.

“Sorry Doctor Shaw, but the budget is not made of imaginary numbers. Very real money has poured into your research and the Board does not believe that your experiments qualify for consideration under our new budget constraints.” Janeen Donelley spoke with the practiced air of a bureaucrat. Accounting was her religion, numbers her dogma. Dropping the ax on someone's dream was not her idea of a good time, but sentimentality had no place in her line of work.

“I don't understand it! The our budget was approved months ago! What happened?”

“I'm sorry Doctor but this comes from Director Waters herself. Recent changes in the world markets have brought about a temporary reversal of fortune for Utopian investments. These things have to be expected, it just seems that this last fiscal year's budget was put together with a slightly optimistic view. We weren't prepared to accept short term losses at this particular point. Your project will be funded again next fiscal period. Please consider it only a temporary setback.”

“But I was so close, so close. Alright, I understand. I wouldn't want to hold Utopia back. But we were just months, weeks away from completing our project.”

“I understand Doctor, however, the world can wait just a bit longer for memory taping. I guess in the meantime we'll just have to do with writing down our thoughts.”

Blackburn Hotel, New York

A dim room, away from the din of the raucous debauch downstairs a small group meets. Given the opportunity nearly every law enforcement agency in the US and several other countries would have been more than happy to nab the occupants.

“Damnit Mako, I don't like doing jobs on this short of notice.” A thick, guttural voice spit out from the shadows.

Mako's black eyes focused on the shadow. “Shut up Tar, it's not like we have a choice. Meehan's calling in our marker. You're the goddamn pansy who insisted we get an expert to look over the security at the Atlanta Rashoud clinic. Well, we did, it cost us and now we have to pay."”

“Back off Tar man. It was a good idea. Anyway, it's not like Meehan is gonna screw us on this. He's a Terat, he's our brother.” Ape, as always was the voice of reason. “ Fine, he doesn't scream it from the roof tops but he's been with us for a while now, he's proven himself. He's just asking us to return a favor. So, quit gnashing those teeth and just tell us what he wants us to do.”

“Well, at least its something we're good at. He wants this church in Kansas taken out. Minister included. But, we gotta be quiet on this one. No media, no overt Teragen calling cards.”

Ape leaned forward, a rueful expression on both of his faces. “Jeez, you would think if he wanted a murder for hire he'd want the full package. Fine, I got no problem with it.”

Mako grinned, literally ear to ear, “Yah he doesn't seem to get the whole 'protection through fear' angle, but it's not like I am going to tell that freak what's what.”

DeVries Los Angeles Offices

“He wanted what?” Lance Arbogahst was incredulous. He'd heard plenty of unusual requests in his tenure at DeVries but this took the cake.

“Yes, he took advantage of Pursuer's maximum bid clause, HammerTime's too. He outbid Columbia by a full thirty percent.” Denise was a wonderful client manager, however she was an incurable gossip, something that would likely end her career in short order.

“You're kidding me. How the hell does he make that kind of money? Everyone knows he got kicked out of Utopia and his company got shut down.”

“I have no clue, but get this, the really weird part is that he wants them to stay home. He doesn't want them to do a damn thing. He is paying for one of the most well known Elites on the face of the earth to sit at home for exactly three days. I just can't figure out why. Maybe N! is right, maybe he has gone a little loopy.”

“Well, loopy or not, I don't see you rejecting the commision.”

“James, you asked to be kept appraised of any changes” Mike's voice gave away his feelings.

“Yes Mike, thank you. Your giddy tone tells me what I hoped for. What are the figures?”

“Forty three percent reduction of flash zones. Likelihood of the Final Event is now well within the realm of unlikely.”

“Good news Mike, good news indeed. I guess what is most important now is finding out exactly who manipulated events in such away as to bring us that close to Armageddon. The chain of events that we've seen today are beyond the scope of acceptable chance. Why do I suspect that when we find the originator of this plot it will also help us with Jager's mission?”

[Wizard]

Data stream corrupted.

Reconstructing sequence.

Commence stream.

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

His breaths came ragged now. Each painful inhalation of frigid air burned his lungs with icy fire. The stygian blackness of the subterranean labyrinth was nearly complete as his final reserves of quantum ebbed. Quantum deprivation ravaged his body and tore with razor sharp talons deeply into his soul with the loss. His senses remained however, acute, as they had ever been. There was a savage joy in his heart, from the hard earned knowledge that he was more than just the power and that this was it; endgame. The question was: who would be the winner?

,,

The creatures circled him warily. He could hear the abhorrently wet sound made as the things undulated across the stone of the tunnel, a sickeningly grotesque backbeat to the insane piping cry that ate at his hearing and his mind. Somewhere deep inside he felt the desire to surrender to it and crushed the feeling immediately. He would not quit now. His mind felt frayed, as if his brains would ooze from his skull in liquid chunks if he allowed. He would not allow it.

The abattoir atmosphere shifted and he stepped away from the probing tentacle, the passage of which he could feel by the puff of air that wafted across his face, though he could not see it. An image flashed across his minds eye, the saga of the god Odin hanging near death from tree of the world. The book had said he did it to wrest from the chaos the knowledge of runes. How very trite. Jordi understood the metaphor now; he understood the mind of a god. This was life distilled to its very essence, and knowledge never came cheap. Timing was everything. One of them was going to make a mistake soon…

There! The sound of air shifted, a gasp of pain followed, and then he saw it! In the near absolute of the darkness there was light; the dim fetid green glow of the other nova's eyes as the titan drew on reserves of quantum to strike at the pulsating mass of rippling black horror clutching him.

Jordan Rossi moved with a precision unmatched by the merely human and snatched at the assassin’s shoulder to anchor him. He needed only a moment for this.

“Rossi,” snarled his enemy struggling against the grip of the creature, “help me!”

In the heroic fictions of four colors, expertly plotted and detailed to fit in 8 panels per page, this would have been the moment for a witty retort. A scathing criticism with denouement of judgment delivered quickly in summary form. Unfortunately, such niceties are rarely possible in reality. The nova moved with desperate speed, striking as he had been taught. His hand was a weapon, a thing of iron and will. Thought and action were as one and Rossi struck without hesitation.

What followed were mere fragments, events too quick for his tortured mind to grasp as singular phenomena, though intellectually he knew something of what must have happened. His strike ripped through the bone of the nova's skull and tore the hidden node like tissue paper. Both their bodies galvanized into spasms as the quantum power was liberated. The killer, surprise etched plainly in shattered features lit by the fading glow of his aberrant eyes, was pulled away into the darkness. Mercifully, there were no screams. Power wild and free threw Jordan Rossi to the ground, his left hand smoking though there was no pain yet. In the darkness the nova felt more the rush of air as something ominously large reared up into a wave of flesh and he knew the answer to the question.

‘Endgame,’ Rossi snarled breathlessly.

And then came the real horror. Reality fractured as if the stuff of creation were rendered to brittle mirror-like composition and then struck by a hammer. Something of a blood-red hue waited behind the scenery of the world and felt himself sucked into it. In that eternal moment he knew a thousand lives, loves and experiences. All completely alien to him yet... Somehow, in a manner he could not grasp, they were all him! He screamed soundlessly with the terrifying ecstasy of it…

Medical Facility: Addis Abba

A howl ripped the air from the direction of CCU cell number four and shivers of panic crawled up the spine of intern Jenny B’sanna. Grabbing her ready kit she moved to reach for the panic button, the large red knob that would summon the crash team immediately.

“It’s disconnected,” noted the duty nurse conversationally, not even pausing as she turned the pages of her paperback.

“What?” Jenny was dumbfounded. Into her very orderly and sanitized worldview there was suddenly thrust data that would not fit. The careful machinery of her mind was thrown off kilter.

“Welcome to Epsilon Ward,” added the nurse smiling without looking up from her book.

To her credit, it took only a moment to focus herself. “This is absurd! Get a me a crash team on the double and call security…”

The duty nurse finally turned her attention from her book and carefully set it down. Jenny noted absently that the cover displayed a somewhat lurid picture of a muscled man clutching a voluptuous woman beneath the title ‘His Quantum Desire’.

The aging woman had deep lines carved into her weathered dark face that spoke volumes of long shifts and hard years. Her eyes were the most striking shade of violet and seemed incongruously beautiful set in the wreckage of a face. She studied Jenny carefully as the younger woman barked her orders then spoke.

“You want nothing. There is nothing to ask for. Nothing ever happens in Epsilon ward. Sit down.”

Carefully, with eyes dazed Jenny sat back down in her chair and stared into space for a time while the nurse picked up her book and began reading again. Eventually, shaking her head as if to wake herself, Jenny turned to the shift nurse and studied her carefully. Obviously close to retirement, too many long shifts, probably very happy to sit her desk in the long hours after the main shifts had gone home.

“How do you stand this?” she finally asked the nurse.

“Hmm?” replied the nurse without looking up from her book.

“This. Nothing ever happens in Epsilon Ward. I would like a little excitement instead of this endless tedium.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” replied the nurse pausing in her reading to turn to Jenny. Her eyes were incongruously beautiful set in that deeply weather face, “Sometimes a little peace and quiet can be just what the doctor ordered.”

“Maybe for you,” replied the intern willfully, “I would like just a little excitement now and again.”

Room 302 - Medical Facility: Addis Abba

“What’s the last thing you remember,” questioned the woman softly, “before you woke here and decided to scream, I mean?”

Jordan Rossi stared at the multiple IV tubes running into both of his arms. At the thick swath of bandages engulfing his left hand. Experimentally he flexed his sinews and rewarded with only a dull ache as if from remaining motionless for too long. Even his left hand felt… Actually, the skin of his left hand tingled but not unpleasantly so. It was stiff but there was no pain.

“Where am I,” he asked completing the survey of his body and starting on the room itself. Plain. No ornaments or decorations except for a largish mirror that faced directly opposite the bed so he was staring directly into it. The walls were metallic and adorned with various small panels of control, dials and switches throughout.

“A private medical facility. One that can assist those with special needs and few questions are asked,” replied the woman evenly. “What’s the last thing you remember?”

“How long have I been here,” he asked his head to look at her carefully.

Youngish, he decided, late twenties and somewhat small in size. Redheaded, her complexion was almost olive rather than the creamy white European variety. No makeup that he could smell. Her height was probably five foot four inches although the bed blocked his view of her feet. She might be wearing heels that added to her height. Oddly she was wearing shades in the dimly lit room, very dark glass with round frames that appeared to be some sort of white bone material. Ivory?

“Not long. Please allow me to explain the subtle nuances of quid pro quo,” replied the woman pointedly, “strictly as a prelude to our having a meaningful conversation. You ask a question then I answer. I then ask a question and you answer. In some circles this passes for polite conversation.”

“Am I a prisoner then?” Jordan Rossi was surprised at how flatly menacing his voice sounded even to his own ears.

“On the contrary. You may depart the premises at any time you desire and I have been tasked with facilitating your departure. Unless you choose otherwise, I will assist you in such a manner as to ensure that it will considered axiomatic that you were never here. In other words; give the signal and I help you into the wind. Clear?”

“Into wind,” Rossi repeated softly. “I’ve never heard it phrased quite that way before.”

“Congratulations on your new knowledge,” the woman said smiling slightly. “I believe it’s my turn now. What’s the last thing you remember?”

Stolen power from an enemy used to craft something by Wizard. Falling. Splinters of broken reality swirling around him, each piece yammering at him with memories and experiences that were not his and yet were. In the midst of the storm Jane propelled as if by unseen winds. Light streaming from her head, no… From within her head, as if a star burned there in the middle of her brain bright enough to show clearly even through the bone.

“Nothing,” he lied smoothly. “Everything is a blank before waking here.”

“Amnesia?”

“My turn. Where are my clothes? Where’s my eufiber?”

“Gone. Destroyed. It fell off you in tattered bits that disintegrated into dust when touched.”

That should upset him. A week ago, when it was the coolest thing he had ever seen as well as the most expensive, it would have. Now… It had done the job required of it. There was more in the world if he needed it.

"Mine. What killed your eufiber like that?" She cocked her head slightly at at the puzzle and said, "No one has ever seen that extreme an allergic reaction before."

“No idea. I was in shock remember," he responded smoothly. “My turn. How did I get here?” He noticed subtle changes in the luminescence around the edges of her shades. The glasses were a device of some kind. What information was it feeding her?

“29 hours ago there was a singularly unusual event at the home of Mr. Jack Talbot which had the effect of depositing an estimated three hundred thousand metric tons of granite rock on his greens. He was somewhat upset by the matter. 20 hours ago the granite debris was mysteriously removed and you were found deposited on the greens by one Alexis Adriana Mackenzie AKA Alex Mackenzie AKA Swift. A member of a T2M auxiliary stationed at Mr. Talbot's home after the arrival of the granite. You were wounded, in shock and severely dehydrated. Medical on scene didn’t think you’d make it through the night.”

‘Only 9 hours,’ thought Rossi distractedly. Then aloud, “Was there any… anything found with me?”

“No. My turn and I’m still spotting you five questions out of the goodness of my heart,” the woman replied. “Why did you come to the home of Mr. Talbot?”

“I didn’t. I was doing some investigative work and came to this location to follow up some leads. I must have been jumped and then taken to this Talbot’s location by the people that…”

“Very smooth, Rossi,” interrupted the woman. “Take some advice from an expert, though; if you’re going to lie to someone don’t draw conclusions as well. It makes you appear to have knowledge that you aren’t sharing.”

Her tone became harsh and she continued "Their distraction as they try to work it out on their own will give you sufficient time to figure out what the next lie is. And there’s always a next lie when you start with one. You should master the skill quickly. You seem to have a natural talent for it. It must be those expressive eyes of yours."

"I wondered why you didn’t ask my name," Jordan responded carefully. "Now what?"

"We've convered that already. My instructions are to help you into the wind. Are you ready to leave? I have other things I need to be doing right now."

"That's it. Just like that I leave. It seems a little too easy."

"I’m not here to swap stories with you. If you don’t want to talk then there’s nothing more to be said. Clothes are under the bed and don’t complain to me about the tailoring; I didn't choose them."

[ 10-20-2001: Message edited by: Wizard ]

[Jager]

(Montana-Delphi Research Facility, cont.)

As the form coalesced behind him, Jager continued to study the fallen Tess. Slowly, Praetorian stood up and contemplated Jager's back.

"It's been awhile since I've been this close', he thought. "Best to get this over with.'

He approached quietly, gravitic forces moving him through the air.

“About time you pulled yourself back together, Praetorian, or whoever you are”, said Jager.

Praetorian paused momentarily, then he recalled Delphi's file on Jager. Intuitive sense, they called it. Troublesome, but not very.

“It is probably better if the two of you just go”, he said. “Delphi will believe that I have defeated your attempts at infiltration.”

Jager, mildly surprised by the statement, rose slowly and regarded his foe.

“Whose to say that you've won.”

Praetorian smiled at the bravado and replied, “You couldn't beat me with Tesseract's help, Jager. What makes you think that you can go it alone? Aren't you Mr. Team-Player?”

Jager sidestepped away from Tess and continued regarding Praetorian.

“DNA reconstructive sequence with a Neotic matrix,” Jager mused. “It's truly impressive, but I've beaten the likes of it before. What I don't understand is what took you so damn long?”

“I understand just sitting there and taking the punishment,” Jager continued, “You wanted to see just how much we were capable of, but I've seen that trick before too.”

Praetorian drilled Jager with an icy gaze.

“Do you really think you can take me little man? Your too far down the evolutionary path for that. You hold back too much and teammates like Tess there pay the price.”

The light of recognition flashed through Jager's eyes just as Praetorian lunged forward. He slipped past the blow and back-flipped away. Praetorian turned to keep facing his quarry and smiled. He placed a foot on Tess' throat.

“Fight me or she dies.”

“Not too likely you would kill your own daughter,” Jager responded, a feral smile crossing his lips. “Besides, I don't really want to kill you.”

“She's not my daughter. I don't have one. Besides,” he said, putting more weight upon her throat and causing her to start grasping for breath, “even if she was, why do you think it would matter?”

Jager continued circling, trying to buy time while he figured things out.

"Man, I really need Jane's little tweak right about now,' he thought. "I've got to keep him talking.'

“The original Tesseract was a man. Moreover, he, or she, was one of the clones you let Atwight rescue,” he said, reaching at straws. The slight narrowing of Praetorian's eyes told him he was close to the mark.

“The scent doesn't lie, Praetorian. She is your offspring. A few months ago, we were involved in a little dust up in Cairo and things came down twisted. He became a she. Apparently, he merged with a dimensional duplicate. Space/Time rifts are not for the squeamish.”

Praetorian relaxed the pressure on Tess' throat and studied her. He kept Jager in his peripheral sight. There was indeed something about her that was too familiar. He looked back at Jager with a start.

“Yes,” said Jager. “Something is wrong with her. I don't know what it is yet, but fighting with you brought it on. Sorry, but I don't think she holds the answer you seek.”

“There is still you.”

“Yeah, but I've got my own problems.”

“I could still just kill you, Jager. Then where would your little quest be?”

“Oh. You think I was hoping to figure out what was really going on in the first shot? Come on now, this isn't some Dime Store novel. I've sown the seeds. Now I have to let them grow. In the end, it's the ones like Prodigy and Jordan your masters will have to deal with. Me, I'm just the sideshow. Deep down, those two really want to change the world. Make it a better place and all that. Me, I just want to give them the chance.”

“What about Atwight? Wizard?”

“Atwight is something else now. He will do whatever he will do. I don't even waste my time worrying about it.”

“Wizard…Do you know how hard it is to find someone who can accept me for the sick bastard I that I really am? No pretending…it will work out the way it will work out.”

As quick as Jager came in, Praetorian was ready for him. Only a last second shift let Jager move past his instinctive defensive move and score the hit. The first blow, merely a touch, shattered the Praetorian's neotic matrix. All he felt was a slight chill. The second blow though was the throwing spike that Jager tossed as he finished flipping over Praetorian's shoulder. The blow shattered his shoulder blade and the impact and pain spun him around to his knees. Jager finished the head's over flip and scooped Tess into his arms.

Praetorian's face held the expression of pain and something else. A mixture of pleasure and, in its own unaccustomed way, fear came up as well. He wasn't healing the damage. Praetorian began to rise to his feet.

“Yes, I can kill you Praetorian, but I'm not sure if I'm good enough to keep you dead. Not yet, anyway.”

Jager place Tess upon his shoulder and began to climb back up the chamber. He stopped for a moment and looked back at Praetorian.

“One more thing. Could you replace the clone of Delorimier with the original? I think it would keep James on his toes.”

“What makes you think the Saint didn't kill the original?”

“Maybe he did, but in case he didn't, the one who has to face Prodigy needs every enhancement he can get. Prodigy is one very bad man, if he's crossed and I need for Delphi to cross him, if you know what I mean?”

“I'll see what I can do.”

Jager resumed his climb back up the chamber as Praetorian whispered back up to him, “…and I will be keeping an eye on you, Jager.”

Tess felt the cool night breeze upon her face and the crunch of dry grass against her back. It took her a moment to realize that there was a figure lying next to her.

“Jager?” she whispered into her comm-link .

“Don't sweat it, Tess. Atwight is sending something to evac us in the next sixty.”

“Sorry I wigged out in there.”

“Hey, you put the man down.”

“Did I kill him?” she asked, her voice calm and even.

Jager looked and studied her expression.

“No, but that was never our mission.”

Tess tried to rise, but Jager pushed her back down. Tess fought down the urge to "displace' him.

"Why am I so angry,' she worried.

The sound of something rippling back into reality ended the conversation. One of Atwight's little silver teardrop chariots appeared, hovering above them. Jager scooped up Tess and leapt inside.

As they settled into the chairs, Jager smiled at Tess and said, “Remind me to have Atwight take a look at your noggin. Seems you have picked up some repressed hostility.”

“What!”

“Thank you, Mr. Delphi,” Jager beamed, hopefully putting another piece of the puzzle together. “Let's get back to base and find out how Jordan and Jane did.”

“Yeah. They had the easy assignment. Next time, I'll bodyguard Wizard and you and Jordan can crawl around in Daedelus' backyard.”

“I just hope they weren't worried about us.”

[Wizard]

Staring back from the mirror surface of the metal is a woman I've not seen in years and don't believe I knew even then. She raises her hand slowly, the left, and twines a lock of long red hair about her fingers. She's actually pretty, though probably still not noticeable in an age of quantum powered dreams and wishes come true. I never thought of her as being beautiful. Strange how the years show the truth that is obscured in our present. There is a sense of, inevitability?, in this moment. Unnoticed, the line has become a circle.

When did that happen?

A door opens behind and the scent of lilacs wafts through the room in a haze of sunlight and memory. That scent filled a distant childhood, though no one else ever seemed to smell them in her company. Apparently that was not a figment of youth. A hint of things to come? It is a strange universe after all and the woman in the metal must agree as she's smiling. Another woman joins the reflections in the metal and they study each other carefully. Amazing that the resemblance never penetrated when I was younger. Similar height, same deep shade of red hair, though she wears it cut at the shoulder. Both our reflections are rendered with a touch of chrome in this moment by the metallic finish of the walls.

There are less subtle differences as well. Where my skin is the color of mountain snows, her complexion is the faint olive of faraway lands where adventures happen with surprising regularity. Her eyes are the deepest sea green, jarringly so, while mine are somewhat paler. Jungle eyes, Uncle Jack had called them once when he hadn't known I was near. Her reflection places a hand on the shoulder of mine and I cover her warmth with my own and squeeze gently. After a whiskey or three Uncle Jack would tell stories of her; always in the heart of trouble, grinning mischievously. Laughing with her brother Jake amid a cloud of smoke and the thunder of gunfire. He had already vanished by the time I was old enough to realize the difference between make believe and the truthfully strange. I once asked her where he had gone and she responded by quietly telling me the story of Arthur's Return. I didn't understand, still don't understand; but I knew in that moment there were truths beyond the cold facts of the here and now.

The woman in the metal opens her mouth to speak, of what I have no idea, and a voice shushes softly. Warm sweet breath tickles strands of hair and my ear. The images in the metal begin to cry, tears streaming down their faces until sight vanishes from my eyes. Blind, I am held gently while husky whispers tell me that everything will be alright. And in that instant it really was.

My body moves, cleaving the air with a luminescent hum as molecules scurry gently from my path like unimaginably small sparrows frightened into flight. The sound of their motion, barely more than a feeling, harmonizes with the greater music filling my eyes and the scent of apples explodes around me in fragrant flashes. The first kata is complete and the tempo of the second quickens as my opponent realizes nothing has come within the agreed upon meter. She'll try harder and be angry with herself for it.

"So you erupted and just decided to disappear."

I knew this was coming. Precognition? No, I know her. This question is not a question but there is one hidden within her words. Sitting behind me on the bed, her warm fingers stroking my hair, she transforms chaos into order. Or at least my twisted tangles into a serviceable braid. Left to my own devices I would probably hack it off as soon as I could find a sharp object to use. There is a reason why I always kept it short!

She's still waiting and she deserves an answer if only I could think of one. Hour by hour my focus improves but I am still less than I was and it is difficult. It is as if I am swathed in thick cotton, isolating me from the world. I can hear the young intern's slow step in the corridor and the sound of pages being turned by the nurse at her station but I am so cutoff!

"I..." .

"Yes?"

She's waiting patiently for me to respond. The moment draws into itself and gives birth to a still greater pause until I wonder what can possibly be said that will fill this void. Then I hear it. The barest hint of melody and the scent of cinnamon and apples washes through me and mixes with the scent of lilacs in the room. The answer is revealed in the opening of a flower. I smile.

"I was inspired."

"What..."

I feel the tremor of her fingers, their relentlessly determined march through my hair now ceased. It's obvious I've shocked her to the core.

Why?

The universe flows around me, a mad gyre, but this too is illusion. The wind does not dance with the leaf and I am the leaf within this wind; the pattern only seems elegantly random and she realizes this. The thunderous roar of her weapons shift as her keen mind analyzes the pattern before her. Thought and action are as one and she changes tactics to begin a dance of her own. Graceful, beautiful, she synchronizes to the tempo without the benefit of hearing the music. I love her all the more for it raises doubt in me. She is good, better than I imagined.

The third kata is upon me and in turn the fourth. My body burns with exertion, a reminder that it is not fully recovered from what has gone before, but it joins me in the dance anyway. The pace quickens and it is only when I nearly step into the path of the ricochet that I realize my error and leap. For a wild fraction of an instant I hang weightless in the air and realize that in finding myself I have misplaced myself. That's how she's been slowly matching me. The division of existence into discrete moments is ego. There is no kata. No self. The beat spits a projectile but already the body has rejoined the dance and is elsewhere.

"This is crazy! If you don't get back in that bed this instance, I swear to god..." her voice is low and furious with concern become anger.

"I have to go," I repeat softly.

It's too simple an answer but there is no answer that would placate her or mollify her fears. I listen to her talk in desperately rational tones about anomalous readings as I pull out the one piece outfit from her day pack. Interesting material; it shimmers in my hands and in my senses. Not eufiber but interesting nonetheless. I slip it on as she explains the odd behavior of my node, it's reduction in size measured by the abscess left in my brain while paradoxically increasing in density. She takes great pain to explain that this is unprecedented, an undercurrent of fear in her voice, while I take the time to figure out how to seal the seam. It's some sort of ionically bonded strip that joins as if it were one piece when I run my fingers along it's edge. Silence is sometimes the best answer. Abruptly things change and now it's not.

"God DAMMIT, 'Beth!" She explodes like a summer thunderstorm. "Explain this to me!"

I have never seen her this distraught before. Not even when... Never. Her emotions are dangerously strong and looking for a release. I'm afraid for what she will do to herself so I tell her the truth.

"Who did you think cleans the mess after they fuck up?"

She knows who they are. She should anyway. It was my aunt that taught me. The powerful that lose themselves within visions. The unfortunate that become victims without ever realizing it is choice. The innocent whom the vicious prey upon. The mad. The silent.

The universe ponders and the mirror reflects itself.

A golden mask floats into view from the lyrical colors. It is of the Greek style and accepted for what it is. There are so many of those in the world already. It flattens, becoming merely two dimensions then transforms into a picture in a book. Then the book transforms with a complex chord and there is a page with names listed in two columns. Then it becomes the picture again, beneath which a single word is printed. Deadalus. The picture stares then abruptly twists into a sneer that could visit atrocities upon the world. Or order a sniper to put a bullet in me.

It's gone.

Jager speaks and the voice of another drowns it out. The sound of that voice sends shivers of silver pleasure through a me that doesn't exist yet... Or has always existed. It depends on your perspective. The question is unheard but the sound...! Everything in this universe has a frequency that it resonates with, a sound that harmonizes with it's very structure. This voice is my mine. I can't hear the question but my answer sings through the room in response, then... Silence.

When the love for another exceeds your need for them it can be pretty good. Sounds too simplistic doesn't it? Most simple things do.

Prodigy toys with a new idea and ponders the ramifications for saving the world. Or destroying it. It's much the same thing when you think about it, or at least very easy to slip from one to the other. It will amaze me soon that James is so obviously not a titan despite appearances. Some would say that he has risen to the occasion of his life but those same people would never believe they could have underestimated him so very badly.

Here is a secret; James has never had a disregard for anyone or anything. Contempt perhaps but never disregard.

More importantly, he made glowing fishies for a little girl that was afraid of the dark new place that was her home.

A old man sits at his desk and turns a crystal sphere over in his hands. Then over again. Others were here moments ago but they have left and he falls into himself with a weariness that shows the weight of worlds on his shoulders. It would seem to be a rare moment when his mind drifts where it will without conscious direction. He fears for the future, and it shows in every line of his face. This might be a passing moment of weakness or an insight into his nature but it's gone too quickly to be sure. And with that realization so is the vision.

Prophesy can be annoying. Sometimes. Okay, much of the time.

A hunter is being hunted and power flows when Jordan taps the nature of belief to turn probability on its head. Again. It is not the first time he has done so, nor will it be the last, but I watch him do so consciously and by his own hand.

Could I speak with him? We're still linked... No, he's busy now.

We're standing in the center of a room deep below Epsilon Ward and the vibrations here are, strange. This place has seen some very odd events and even the light feels sluggish and off-key down here. I've agreed to the test, it feels right, but I should have known she would play fast and loose. Part of who she is and I love her for that. Between us is a stainless steel table with two handguns of a type I've never seen before. Aluminum casing, rotating barrel assemblies and it looks like the grips are bone of some kind. Ivory? There are two clips of the oddest ammo I've ever... Ah! Wax flechette guns. She's afraid of hurting me, or depending on the high fire rate to hedge the odds in her favor. Knowing her; both are true.

"If I win..." she begins.

"It's not a contest," I tell her, knowing the distinction is unimportant to her at this moment but will be later.

"..you will march right back upstairs to bed," she continues ignoring me, "and stay there until I say otherwise. Agreed?"

"And if," I pause for a moment to consider my words carefully, "you do not win?"

She cocks her head to the side thinking. Hedging her bets is one thing but once it starts she won't go back on her word or her agreement. She's honest if not always fair.

That which is endless cannot properly be said to end; say rather that a pause approaches. The rhythm brings us within an arm span of each other and she feels the soft kiss of air in the wake of my travel. Distraction is not an issue though her guns cease immediately. She knows what I know. There is one remaining burst in each gun.

"Name the price."

Her voice is even and that alone tells me how much this is costing her. I can't stop, this is building towards something that I can sense even in this forlorn place of old madness. How do I know what price she's paying for offering this? The same way I know that there was madness in this place a long time ago. It flashes across my mind, two men confronting each other deep underground while tanks rolled across Europe. I push it away to focus on this moment.

"You answer one question and then I'm into the wind. For now." I say smiling at the term I heard her use often in my childhood. "And you owe me Christmas dinner."

"You ask a lot." She's smiling despite trying to keep her game face blank. "Is that all?"

"No," I reply calmly. "You have to be nice to my boyfriend at dinner."

"Your... Boyfriend?"

I try, truly I do. But the transparent attempt at distraction is so much more successful than I could have hoped for that it becomes impossible to hide the smirk from my expression. She is faster than anyone I had ever seen before 2005, literally faster than the eye can follow, but then so am I.

She has two full loadly clips and needs to place one round close enough for there to be no disagreement as to her ability to hit me. With little doubt she thought this would be over in a micro-second, though I am more pragmatic and make full use of her distraction. She recovers more quickly than one would hope but it doesn't matter.

I'm already in motion.

The pause is here, or perhaps its more properly a down shift in the tempo from the insanely frenetic to the merely mad. I stand a mere 10 meters from her position, my back to her, and quietly count the beats of my steady heart

One. She assesses the situation with a speed of thought that most would find dizzying while her weapon never wavers in her grip. She knows there is something she's missing and wonders what.

Two. She makes her choice and I can hear, feel, the rasp of metal sliding against metal as the trigger pulls. A soft clicking noise sounds behind me.

Three. I raise my left hand to show the clips I hold and then let them drops to the floor. It's not about ego or showing off. She wouldn't have accepted anything less than total certainty that I could deal with what comes next regardless of the wounds.

The dance is finished and I draw my first deep breath to cleanse mind and body. Echoes of the gunshots, both acoustic and quantum, continue to ripple outward but already the music is fading into background. With its withdrawal the colors of the world return to my eyes and I can see, though there is an image that continues to hold me. A different perspective of my present, in my minds eye I stand atop a towering pinnacle of craggy rock amid an ocean from which the water has receded tide-like. On an adjacent pinnacle behind my physical position stands my aunt, her smoking Hell Pistols not yet lowered and the colors streaming off her tinged with the taste of lavender and lacy remembrance. I am close, so very close, to the moment when she speaks to me but there is something missing. She will not speak the start and I lack the knowledge of where to begin. It's alright though; in the colors of the distant crashing surf I intuit the two syllables that will form the connection. I turn to face her and do not laugh at the shock and surprise at what she has seen me do. I speak the spell and it begins.

"Zorbo," I question in the form of a statement.

My aunt's face becomes a wooden mask at the mention of this word. She is quiet and I respect her wishes as we stare silently at each other.

Slowly at first then with gathering enthusiasm she begins to curse. First in English, then in Arabic mixed with Japanese metaphors. The Chinese I already knew she spoke but when she starts to use Tcho Tcho I am pleasantly suprised. I didn't think anyone else understood the tongue of the pygmys of Leung's Plateau.

[ 05-07-2002: Message edited by: Elizabeth ]

[Jager]

Close the curtain.

Dim the lights.

Fade to the formless grey.

This concludes Wizard's Watch.

The characters may continue, but this chapter is done and other stories beg to be brought into the light.

Thank you to everyone who contributed both material, suggestions, encouragement, and praise.

Let the games continue...