[Fiction] Keys to the Kingdom (Completed)

[Wargear]

The laugh started low and soft, gentle and sweet and mocking as a night breeze scented with jasmine. Alexandra's shoulders shook softly, eyes closing as she leaned her head back on the diner wall and allowed herself the long, rich laugh of a woman enjoying a moment of fancy. It rolled through the diner like a soft warm sea, shimmering and fading and finally gone, and when she finally relaxed in her seat and opened her eyes again there was a hint of wry satisfaction in her voice. "I've just been called a liar twice in as many minutes. How utterly refreshing." Shaking her head, she extended a hand and snagged her whiskey glass out of the air, finishing the rest of the shot at a long swallow. "I think you'll find on knowing anything about me, Meaghan, that I pull nothing 'out of my butt'. Gerad wanted Nova here as a moderating influence to counter-balance my input, or so I'd imagine, because frankly I couldn't care less what kind of body count might be required for a project like this; a hundred and eighty thousand people shuffle off the mortal coil every day for reasons far less interesting or worthwhile than anything being proposed at this table, and adding a few to that number doesn't exactly concern me greatly. Now, if you're finished calling me a liar and insulting my ability to read basic personal motivation, I'd like you to get out of the booth; I'm going outside for a smoke, and you three can finish this little farce in whatever fashion pleases you. Gerad, you know how to call me back in if either of these two decide to do anything more than make castles in the air."

A moment's awkward shuffling cleared a path for her to slide out of the booth, and she gave the three of them of a final look of dry amusment before dropping a buisiness card on the table in front of Mithril and strolling out the front door; the evening air greeted her like an old friend, the last of the sun sinking slowly against the horizon, and she took a moment to appreciate the dying light before extracting one of the carefully rolled cigarettes from the case in her inner pocket and lighting it. The first drag of smoke was a bitter tingle on her tongue, and she rolled it in her mouth a moment before letting it slip back out into the growing night. Waste of time, Gerad. She doesn't have the sense God gave a sheep.

[Doctor Nova Madigan]

Into the awkward silence, Nova's phone rang.

"That's Neil," Nova said, recognizing the ringtone she'd assigned to his number. She thumbed the answer button. "Hi honey," she said. After a pause she continued: "Be right there." Nova hung up and looked to Meghan and Gerad.

"Be right back," she said. A moment later, she was, holding hands with Neil Preston.

[Neil Preston]

Neil looked worn down, but his eyes still danced with irrepressible optimism. He started out be leaning down and giving Mithril a kiss on the cheek.

"Hey Megs," he said before turning to Gerard.

He offers the gloomy nova a handshake.

"Hello Machina," Neil offers warmly. "I'm sorry I'm late."

At the same time he greeted one of his oldest friends, Neil marked out the territory of the table. Meghan was holding the corner for someone with a propensity for neatness. From the way she was standing next to him, Nova was therefore sitting on the outside of the booth and Machina was there alone. With the time honored power of good wait-staff everywhere, the largish woman behind the counter got Neil's attention as he moved to slide in next to Machina.

"Two Large Apple juices," Neil said as quietly as he dared.

Once he was sitting, his gaze bopped back to Meghan.

"So Meghan, what have I missed and who isn't here right now?"

[Doctor Nova Madigan]

Meghan slid back into the booth and folded her hands on the table, unintentionally mirroring Nova's posture a few minutes earlier. Where do I begin? she wondered.

"We're at a bit of an impasse," Meghan began thoughtfully, employing understatement. "Machina and Wargear want to change the world for the better, but they won't take killing people to do so off the table. That's a non-starter for Nova and me, so we're stalled." Meghan glanced at Nova, who nodded in affirmation.

"That aside, we're doing about as well as can be expected!" she continued with false cheer.

[Machina]

A frustrated snarl unfurled from Gerad’s throat at the first break in the conversation. Up until that point, he’d sat mutely, teeth gritted under his lips, his face twisted into a frozen mask of Clint Eastwood’s famous cowboy sneer. His hands clenched underneath the table; between Tin Tramp and Mecha Shiva, he couldn’t decide who he wanted to strangle most. Or first.

Glutted on frustration, he gave no warning as he rather suddenly bashed his own forehead into the tabletop. He came up, eyes blazing, teeth gritted, his hand stretching the skin of his face as it dragged from his forehead to his chin, revealing his utter exasperation. Part of it was a show for Neil; ”You see this? THIS is what you’re coming into. Welcome back.” Smiling forcefully, sharklike, his forehead still creased with his unspent agony, he extended his hand across the table to Neil, trying very hard to be accommodating and welcoming in spite of the circumstances. “Neil!”, he huffed out, his voice somewhere between joyful surprise and tooth-grinding frustration. “How’ve you been, brother?” The gleam of mania glinting in his eye told Neil without a word needing to be said that things were pretty far from going well at the moment.

[Neil Preston]

Neil nodded and didn't seem surprised or put off by the less than sterling news. He used the lull brought about by the waitress's arrival and departure to shape his words.

"Of course its a no starter," he began. "I don't think that someone as smart as Machina would even consider bringing in two licensed MD's into a project. He knows me and how I feel. He knows I'd never try to marry anyone who had any less stringent beliefs. I hope everyone here knows that we couldn't associate ourselves with anyone on a professional basis if that group did killings. We aren't moral cowards either."

Neil takes a long pull on his apple juice before continuing.

"Within those parameters, I am interested in seeing what a Strategic Intelligence Analyst and a Military Theorist Paragon want with two nova physicians and a Shapeshifting transhumanist?"

Neil smiles easily back to Machina,

And that sort of answers your questions a bit too. I'm good. I'm with two wonderful women living it up in the land of Eternal Sunshine. This is pretty much my life," he lies.

[Doctor Nova Madigan]

"I'm not transhumanist," Meghan muttered quietly. "I'm just not human."

[Wargear]

That was the one downside to enhanced senses, of course; leaving the room didn't mean you didn't still have to listen to the conversation. Alexandra shook her head slightly as she let go of another breath of smoke, Meghan's mutter of protest lingering in her ears. Neither are the rest of us. Tugging the door open in front of her with a thought, Alexandra finished the last of her cigarette and tossed it out over the concrete of the parking lot; she leaned in the doorway a moment, long dark hair framing her face as she studied the tableau at the table. Machina's simmering rage was almost a palpable force in the air, something she could have run her fingers through and left traces of regret and frustration swirled on the walls. Mithril's despondent, waiting-for-the-other-shoe slouch was eloquent, and Flicker's rigid posture communicated perfectly exactly how self-righteous she felt and how on-edge she was. The new arrival, Neil Preston MD according to her flawless memory, was a gleaming shell of blustery cheer wrapped around something soft and rotted through with pain. We few, we happy few, we band of brothers... Chuckling dryly at the irony of it, she walked to the bar and tapped her fingertips on it just firmly enough to get June's attention. “A large iced tea, if you'd be so kind.” She half-turned, watching the table and reading body language, her lip curled in the hint of a smile. What are you going to do with this lot, Gerad? Sell the world Girl Scout cookies?

[Machina]

“Neil”, Gerad looked back at him, eyes meeting the other man’s, “I’m not really interesting in rehashing the argument Nova and I just had. I got a feeling that there wouldn’t be an inch gained for either of us to do so.” Knowingly, June had brought a cup of black tar coffee to the table along with the glasses of juice, and Gerad unceremoniously crushed a packet of half-and-half and three sugars into it before slurping down a desperate swig.

“Let me tell you a little story, Neil.” He took another sip of coffee and produced another cigarette, which he rolled around in his palm thoughtfully before lighting. The look in his eyes was wistfully grim. He had gone somewhere else, and a barely perceptible tensing in his neck and the tendons in the back of his hands spoke volumes of where, if one could read them. “I signed up for the army out of high school. I was seventeen when I went in. This’d be, oh, nineteen-ninety. I did alright to start. Made Ranger real quick. I served in the 75th and was involved in the Persian Gulf conflict. But I suspect you know that. The details of my time in the Persian Gulf ain’t what this story’s about.

"What you probably don’t know is that I was in Rwanda in nineteen-ninety-four. In April, after the genocide, the eye-cee-arr-cee lost over fifty of their staff. Dee-double-you-bee, over a hundred. They appealed to the yoo-enn and the French military to handle the situation. You remember the slogan, Neil? The one Medeciene Sans Frontierse coined in response to that atrocity? ‘One cannot stop a genocide with doctors.’ And they were right. The French military responded with what was known as ‘Operation Turqouise’, moving in a few thousand troops, a hundred aye-pee-cees, ten choppers, some one-twenty mortars, and half a dozen fighter jets. They established a buffer zone between the Hutus and the Tutsis until they could get things under control.” Gerad inhaled from his smoke, his voice and his eyes thick with the fog of unhappy memories. “As it happens, there were a couple of additions to Operation Turquoise that aren’t in the official report. While the rest of my battalion was dealing with Billy Clinton’s cock-up in Haiti, me and seven of my brothers – barely a fireteam – had the shit luck to go straight from Somalia to France. I held an M14 while doctors patched up civvies who’d been torn to shreds by sectarian violence. I hated having to see innocent people all fucked-up by war. You know it well enough: the quiet desperation, the glassy eyes, swollen bellies, torn limbs, boils full of pus and larvae, hollow cheeks, desperate, pleading, skeletal, childlike hands.” He sighed angrily and lit another cigarette, still staring into the tabletop, haunted. “I guess I killed an awful lot of people back then.” His tongue clucked, his nostrils flared. “I killed people so that doctors could patch people up without getting a bullet through the fucking head. The only thing that the kind of degenerate psychopath who likes to mutilate and rape civvies likes better than that is killing doctors, especially pale-faced, opulent, first-world, imperialist swine like yourself.

“You have know me for some time”, he spoke rather calmly, with an edge of menace at his voice, his eyes glinting alive with anger. “You have at least some idea of where I’ve been and what I do. What I’ve done. You two”, his eyes glanced to Neil, then to Nova, “have the luxury of being able to be pacifists, Neil. I never had that choice. Neither does your father, and neither did Bill - rest his black little soul - who in a roundabout way allowed us to be having this conversation. You are privileged in that you are not forced, compelled by circumstances beyond your control, to act violently. For the same reason that there are no vegans in Darfur. Pacifism”, he went on, slowly taking another gulp of coffee, scrunching up his chin, “is a morally indefensible position as long as there are people who oppose you. Your scruples become weapons in the hands of your enemies. In a society of pacifists, one anomalous madman could quite literally kill everyone as easily as we prepare chickens. Maybe someday we’ll live in a world that won’t need fighters, anymore. But we don’t live in that world today. The world still needs the rough men who stand ready at the gate.

“Neil”, he said it again, flatly, plainly, pointedly, “I love you like a brother, but this impasse to doing something noble and wonderful and right that has been erected by your Pollyanna inability to cope with the reality of the world is as ridiculous as it is sad. I want to make you a part of this because I need my actions to be tempered with humanity and mercy. I don’t want to have to hurt or kill anyone. But I’m not going to promise you that’s never going to happen.” He drained his cup of coffee and looked back at Neil, hard and deliberate, something not quite condemnatory in his voice, but nevertheless somehow damning. “If you cannot resolve that, if you really can’t be a party to violence, any violence, then I suggest you brick yourself up in a fucking cave. Because nobody’s hands are bloodless. My hands have been stained by the blood of Tutsi and Hutu warriors at the behest of your predecessors, whose hands are equally as stained by the people they condemned to die in their pursuit of saving the innocent.”

[Neil Preston]

"I mostly speak for myself, but in some parts I think Nova and I voice the same concerns as well ... We know there is violence in the world and that violence gets things done. We aren't blind to everyone's willingness to grab up a gun, or a debit card, to get what they want when they want it. We both know that DWoB's hires elites, and accepts elite volunteers to go with them out in the field. That is the reality that the world gives us."

"What I feel is that someone, somewhere has to stand up and say no to violence as well. We have to break the cycle of vengeance and reprisal. We have to turn the other cheek. What we believe is that our skills and gifts will not be used for violent ends, but rather to end violence."

"There is a reason I have never joined DeVries, or Project Utopia. They perpetuate violence to get what they want. The same goes for the Teragen. The same goes for my father."

Neil takes a deep drink then looks over to the two smartest novas at the gathering.

"What inspires me is that both you and WarGear know all about it. You know about how difficult it is to control conflict. You both know how violence is used as an ends to a means, and how that violence radiates far beyond its point of origin."

"The thing is Nova and I are dedicated to saving lives. You two know this. So, how is it we can all work together without killing? How can we short circuit conflict before it radiates, track down its originators, and make them face some form of justice?”

[Wargear]

Clap. Clap. Clap. Clap. Clap. The cool, methodical slap of Alexandra's gloved hands together hummed through the room like the toll of a bell, too precisely measured to be anything but what it was: a carefully studied mockery. “Very nice, Neil. Are you running for MP? Prime Minister? Secretary General?” There was no malice in Alexandra's voice and scarcely any tension in her stance as she leaned against the diner bar, but the icy weight of her scorn was almost palpable in the air. “The practice of war is embedded in the human character, Doctor Preston. For ten thousand years we've slaughtered each other with whatever tools were at hand, from the flint knife to the quantum fire of an elite, and you think that the weight of brilliance in this room is going to put a finger on the scales and make a difference in that through what, exactly? Public relations campaigns? Personal appeals to the involved parties to resolve their differences through negotiation? Turn them over to the city constable? Tip off some other organization more willing to do the bloody, necessary work and sit back in smug and superior satisfaction because the carnage doesn't spatter quite wide enough to stain our garments?” She tossed the thought aside with a flick of her fingers.

“There are no 'originators' of conflict, Doctor, no great villains hiding in the shadows to be struck a mighty blow and then dragged off to the local police station for some convenient crime; nations and peoples make war out of self interest, fear, and simple greed without ever needing backstage prompting. All the medical care and improved technology in the world won't cure it, not even if it ensures everyone in the world gainful employment and a crime-free life, because the essential impetus of conflict is the simplest in the world: 'They have it, we want it, let's take it.' Can you cut that out of the human character? Gerad's proposal to try to reduce the scope and carnage of that conflict is ambitious enough, and will need every tool available to have a chance at success; every tool, Doctor Preston, not just the ones that make us comfortable. Saving lives is going to cost more than money and time, and if you and your fiancée are so eager to encourage the people being cut to ribbons on the gears of war to turn the other cheek...” Alexandra shook her head slightly, a bemused smile on her lips as her steel gray eyes settled on Neil's. “'Violence is the world's most unpleasant necessity, with consequences that are barely calculable. Yet we must, from time to time, allow the greater weight of lives in the balance to prevent us from flinching from the task we have been set, even if in doing so we pay in the coin of our soul.' One of your great twenty-first century doctors wrote that, Neil, and it applies to you today as much as it applied to him on the killing fields in the Congo and Kashmir. You want Gerad to swear a blood oath of some sort that this nascent little club he's forming won't kill? I'm sure that will be a great comfort to you when we find ourselves in a position to prevent the next San Paulo or remove the threat of another war like Kashmir and discover that our hands are tied by your ridiculously narrow brand of ethics. On the sharp end, Doctor, sometimes you pull the trigger or people die by the hundreds. This is no different, and if you haven't either the vision or the spine to acknowledge that then at the very least restrain yourself from preaching homilies to those who do.”

[Neil Preston]

"Secretary General Preston ... my Dad would be proud," Neil muses then dismisses the thought with a wave of his hand.

His eyes remain locked with Alexandra's for a moment. Neil shakes his head.

"Don't equate pacifism with moral cowardice, Doc. I have found it to be quite the opposite. It’s very easy to give into the impulse to lash out, to hurt and kill others. Being a nova only makes that easier."

"As for every tool; not just the ones we are comfortable with, all I can say is you're right. You've been right for ten thousands years. The best tool to stop violence is superior, pre-emptive violence. Its working wonders. Better yet, there are already plenty of agencies out there who already apply your beliefs and methods."

Neil's voice is not mocking, but more of a sincere acknowledgement of the realities of life. Neil sighs.

"I'm not here to argue with you about our philosophies of life. You've killed more people than I've saved. Does that make you happy? You win."

"Now, I came here because my friend asked me too. He's a hell of a lot smarter than I. He's more wired in to the world than almost anyone else I could name, and he has a plan. I want to hear that plan, because I know he already understands how I feel yet he believes I could help him make a difference."

After a momentary pause,

"I trust him. He's a decent man and he wants to do something to make the world a shade better and I at least owe him a few minutes to hear him out."

[Machina]

Gerad heaved out a sigh. Alex wasn’t making this easier; if making it clear to everyone involved exactly who they were getting into bed with on this wasn’t of such grave importance to the form and function of such an endeavor, he’d have done these meetings privately. As it stood, though, there was nothing to profit in hiding the truth of one member from another. Shiva, meet Jesus and his fiancé, Mother Theresa. Well, maybe not Mother Theresa, since in reality she was a sadist fundie nutjob and by consent of most who knew her, a titanic bitch, but you kids get the idea. Little Orphan Annie St. Vincent Millay makes three! To say nothing of the fact that he’d be almost instantly re-walking the same path he’d taken Flicker down a moment before. Swell, another opportunity for the kid to chime in with her thick-headed invective and Nova to listen to half of what I say, respond to a quarter, and ignore everything in between that might clash with her absolutist house-of-cards view of the world. This ought to be a fucking riot.

“Alright, Neil”, he rubbed his temples, genuinely suffering from a headache, “here’s the score, same as I laid it down for the lady. What I’m proposing is that we put our heads together to stop treating the world’s ills – war, famine, plague, resource scarcity, social upheaval, breakdown of relations, etcetera – and start vaccinating. Between us, we’ve got enough brainpower to keep a close eye on what’s happening all over the world, and a computer system I have in development – and apparently, Alex has something similar to – can help us with that, drawing logical extrapolations on data collected from media, academic, financial, scientific, and intelligence sources and filtered through a series of protocols we devise. But that’s just foreplay. The skinny is that we take that information and instead of waiting for the shit to go down so someone can rush in to save the day and start reparations, we do something about it before it even starts. Obviously, there are going to be unpredictable elements, ecks-factors, that can’t be predicted, but that sort of shit is more Argyle’s deal, anyway. What I’m talking about falls into the category of the subtle vicissitudes of the political, financial, social, diplomatic, scientific, agricultural, and religious worlds that are the ultimate cause of the majority of strife and misery in the world.

“Instead of providing famine relief, we come up with a working theory regarding agricultural and meteorological activity and buffer up to prepare for the coming blight before it even happens. Instead of acting as peacekeepers and medics, we tick onto the animosities and miscommunications that are the ultimate cause of an oncoming conflict and don’t let it even get as far as young men with guns. If a group like this had existed a hundred years ago, they couldn’t have done anything to prevent the assassination or Archduke Ferdinand or the Sao Paolo bombing, sure. But guys like Idi Amin and Adolf Hitler and Stalin may have never come to power. No Great Depression, no Holocaust…no Rwanda.

“You could argue – convincingly – that humanity, both baseline and nova, should be left to its own devices. After all, we haven’t managed to kill ourselves, yet. Even if that sort of laissez faire bullshit does it for you, though, it doesn’t for me, and I will tell you why, because it is the reason that people like us, people who aren’t just out there for number one and have something other than an atavistic, mercenary desire to come out on top, should feel not simply an impetus, but a moral dictate to meddle in the affairs of fate. And that is because there are people like us out there, people who have all our intellect, all our power, and none of our scruples. There are mutants in this world right now who are making cat’s cradles with the threads of fate while the Moirae are out sharing a spliff, but the only interests they have in mind are their own. They will kill, ruin, or destroy people and entire nations to achieve their personal ends. Multinational companies are like chess pawns to them. What I am trying to say, here, is that there isn’t nobody at the wheel; there is somebody at the wheel, but while we all agreed to go to DisneyLand, he’s decided to take us to a titty bar and a crack house. Is that what you want, Neil? To go to a titty bar and a crack house?”

More or less finished, Gerad leaned back and lit up another smoke. “Metaphorically, I mean. I could really go for a titty bar right now, to be honest.”

[Neil Preston]

“I’ve had my fill of crack-addicted whore houses,” Neil says sadly. He worries his lower lip before responding further.

“What we will have is the problems of perception. Working with aid agencies has taught me the value of going in with military assistance. If we don’t, we are begging one side or the other to come in, steal our supplies, rape and murder our workers, and render our efforts meaningless. Still, they know what we are. They know our agenda ends with helping out those in need and not expanding the confines of our mandate beyond the bounds of our camps. This makes us a low priority target. The hard part is balancing the need for self-protection against the perception that we are a military force ourselves. It’s not easy.”

“Now, how would we be perceived and what would our mandate be? I know we are going to try to contain and manage conflicts, if not head off the conflict entirely, but what kind of parameters are we working within? What kind of resources are we going to exert? How do we counter activities that oppose our agenda?”

Neil looks toward Alexandra.

“You’ve spent most of your life working within mission parameters and limited resources. Otherwise, most conflicts would be accomplished with a few drone over-flights followed by tac-nukes = problem solved. Of course, we don’t want to irradiate large swaths of the planet. Directly targeting civilian populations gets you drug up before the World Court and most employers don’t want to shove out the money for the nukes needed to guarantee the job. You have to deal with time constraints as well. Go on too long and the UN will get around to intervention. Constraints.”

“Beyond our personal abhorrence with the taking of life, Alexandra, there is the very real benefit we gain from sticking to our pacifistic beliefs. We gain a level of support and trust on the global stage no level of tactical or strategic genius will ever get you. At the end of the day, you will be perceived as a mercenary who will kill anybody if the money is good enough. Now, I’m not saying you are like that. Most elites I’ve dealt with have very real and serious limits about what they will and won’t do. I am talking about perceptions.”

“Nova and I, on the other hand, go into hell-holes of someone else’s making, and risk our lives to save others. You can’t buy that kind of positive public image. People perceive that we are there to heal, not hurt, and most innocents would be surprised to learn we don’t go in unarmed. We are the selfless saints of this New Age,” Neil adds with a true taste of bitterness.

“Any action we are associated with is protected by that mantel of selflessness. If the American government goes in and overthrows a military strongman, everyone decries the use of military force against a sovereign people for base corporate interests – true or not. If you do something like that while standing arm and arm with Nova and I, people will actually look at the culprit first. Its unfair, but it’s the way it is.”

“I don’t want to belittle the moral stand that we have undertaken. It is a heartfelt undertaking to take and keep to our Oath. As novas, we have plenty of opportunities to strike back against some utter bastards. Face it if Nova really decides you don’t deserve to exist, your body will never be found. I can break people down on a molecular level making DNA analysis somewhat problematic. We choose to see life as sacred, and that’s no joke. Now, you can see us weak, or you can see the benefit of the limitations we choose to live with.”

Neil looks back to Gerard,

“What we need to look at is alternative responses to simply killing someone. Obvious, it would be best if we could simply catch someone in some wrong-doing and hand them over to an international authority, but that’s not really going to happen all that often. We need to look at ways to bolster people who are more open to seeing the world the way we do. We have to look at what laws we can accept as bendable. We need to accept that if we have people working for us, we can not in good conscious send them out into a hostile world with a can not kill order. In too many places they would have to go in the world, life is too cheap. Nova and I, if we join, are going to have to accept the possibility that people working our name may end up taking a life. That’s a tall order for us.”

He finishes up looking into Nova’s eyes.

[Doctor Nova Madigan]

Nova smiled sadly to Neil and held that smile for a moment, then turned around and retrieved a chrome and vinyl chair from the adjacent table. She turned it backwards and sat on it the wrong way around, facing the booth where her would-be co-conspirators sat, minus Alexandra who still remained at the counter.

"I don't know," she said. "This is a lot to take in all at once, and given the importance of the matter, I don't want to make a hasty decision. I'll think about it."

Meghan cast a sidelong glance at Nova. Oh really? her featureless eyes seemed to say.

"Yeah, really," Nova continued, acknowledging the unspoken question. "There are more factors to consider here than just matters of morality, legality, and historical inevitability. There's also the matter of personality." Nova avoided looking at Gerald or Alexandra as she said this, unwilling to provoke an angry interruption. "Even if I turn a one-eighty today, are we really going to get over the acrimony that's dogged us so far? We're not getting along well at all, you know." Now Nova looked at Gerad, and Alexandra, and Meghan, and then significantly at Neil.

"What chance is there at success if we disagree on such a fundamental matter?" she asked.

And was I really talking about Machina's proposal just now? She wondered. Nova glanced in Neil's direction again.

[Wargear]

“Nobody here's going to sign their life on the line without thinking it through.” Alexandra's fingers tapped the plastic surface of the bar in a slow percussive tattoo. “If we're going to do this, and do it right, this little club is going to have to be black as pitch. No bows, no public acclaim, no press releases; we'd be a whisper, at best, even quieter if we could manage it. Because the moment people start talking about us or looking over their shoulders to see if we're watching, we find all the serious problem cases buried under six layers of disinformation. Things will be difficult enough as they are.”

[Machina]

Finally, we're fucking getting somewhere. Thanks for the hot sanity injection, Neil. Gerad's shoulders slouched into a more natural posture as he listened to Neil, then Nova, then Alex. He decided to address them all at once.

"Alex is probably right. We're going to have to be secret, we're going to have to get along." He enunciated his next words, adding a period to each one, "We are going to have to trust each other. Because if we don't, everyone on the outside will pick us apart in the time it takes to have breakfast.

"But", he crushed out his butt and lit another, "trusting each other and agreeing on everything are totally diff'rent things. Nova, I'm sorry to tell you, but I got no acrimony for you. I can disagree with someone - to the point that I'd be willing to meet them in the parking lot out back to settle the matter with broken glass and chains - without disliking them. You an' me an' Neil an' Alex got different ways of seeing the world, and there's nothing wrong with that. If I didn't want different perspectives, none of you would be here. Havin' said that", he took a long, easy drag, "we're all mature, intelligent folks, an' I think that the end of helping create a better, more liveable world for all is worth the comparatively minor annoyance of occassional bickering. Neil knows the score", he gestured to him with his lit cherry, "Alex's forte is efficiency, yours and his is humanity, and I'm somewhere in the middle. The reason I am doing this is because I want to see a better world for all; I'm simply not afraid to get my hands dirty to accomplish that, but I ain't gonna sell my soul, either. Frankly, I think you're worrying too much. We got caught up on this whole 'thou shalt not kill' business for too long. Murder ain't exactly the kind of thing I see even coming up as an option in most cases. Most of what we're talking about, here is a nudge here, a shove there. A little information to the right people at the right time. A few supplies to the good guys before a decisive moment. A word of caution to someone who may be getting over their head. I'd never expect you, Nova, or Neil or Meggers, to bloody your hands. Frankly", he grinned somewhat wryly, "I like you two having the moral high ground. S'good for perspective and morale. Somehow I don't think I'd like either of you quite as much if you thought the same way I do. You got your virtues, an' I got mine. All I'm askin' is for you to accept the possibility that in pursuit of creating a better life for all, some people are going to get hurt by people you work with. Don't kid yourselves, huh? Just because dee-double-you-bee didn't come right out and tell you that when you signed on, it doesn't make it any less implicitly a part of the nature of what you do.

"Point is, I ain't promising I can 'do no harm', but I'm not proposin' all this for aggrandizement or profit. I wanna help the world. I'm sick of sitting on the sidelines, throwing money at the world's problems. I wouldn't propose we do anything unless we have a clear and concise accord of action, and I promise you, Neil, yours, Nova's, and anybody involved with this is going to have just as much a voice as me or anybody else. I chose you because I trust you both to help us find the right path."

[Neil Preston]

Neil's nod shows a strong degree of understanding of what Machina is aiming at, but his words are somewhat disappointing.

"To a degree, this is a direction I thought we were going in, but I think Meghan, Nova and I need some personal time to talk this out and reason it through. This is a expansion of what Alexandra knows, and old ground for you Machina, but this is a totally new direction for the three of us."

"Just speaking for myself, I can tell you I find it a rare thing that I can pick out the better, if not the best, side in a conflict I find myself in. I find myself working with a lot of self-doubt and I could definitely profit from having better intelligence and more trained perspectives on a situation than I currently have. I still don't know if I'm prepared to help in making those kinds of calls."

"I feed off of Megh's and Nova's good judgement and common sense as well. Because of them, I know this is a real possibility, but right now, I think we need to share this council on what comes next. Do you two mind?"

[Mithril]

After listening quietly for several minutes, Meghan leaned forward and locked eyes with Neil Preston. Finally she revealed the thought that she'd been concealing behind her nearly unreadable visage.

A totally new direction for the three of us, Neil had said, as if Neil, Nova, and Meghan had ever really been a threesome. Neil loved Nova, hell, had even given her an enagement ring. Nova loved Neil too, and had agreed to marry him. Every night, it was that shared bed in which the two of them slept together. Meghan, on the other hand, reposed (she really didn't need sleep, and avoided it wherever possible, but that's another story) in her own bedroom, alone. Sometimes Nova would visit Meghan's bed, but afterwards, she'd return to Neil. Meghan was forever the third wheel on Neil and Nova's motorcycle-- a detachable sidecar that could be left in the garage when she proved inconvenient.

"Yeah, I mind. I think I mind a lot," she said quietly, experimentally dropping a small bomb. Then, more sure of herself, she continued decisively. "I don't need any more time to think about it. I'm in. I know what I've said in the past, and I still believe it, but what Machina's saying makes a lot of sense. I figure I can either sit on my adorable keister and wait for the necessary level of genius to come along and bloodlessly create heaven on earth to my specification, or I can hook up with the best alternative going and contribute something to the effort."

Meghan looked down the table to Nova, who still sat backwards in her chair. Behind Nova, Alexandra leaned--impossibly elegantly--on the diner's counter.

[Doctor Nova Madigan]

As Nova listened to Neil and Meghan, she idly twirled her enagement ring on her finger. After Meghan's declaration, she stopped and put her hand to her chin and posed meditatively. Meghan still looked at her expectantly, and Nova didn't need to use any special ability to know that Alexandra still stood behind her. Neil, too, watched her with his absurdly adorable brown eyes.

I'm caught in the middle, Nova realized unhappily, forced to confront the dilemma she'd she been shunting to the back of her mind for months. Neil had given her the ring and a promise, but had never followed up on it. Meghan had given her love and constant companionship, but had always deferred to the pre-existing relationship Nova and Neil had shared. Not once had Meghan spoken ill of the arrangement. How much longer is she willing to wait for me? Nova wondered, feeling Alexanda's presence behind her. Not much longer at all, she guessed.

Nova waited for Neil. Meghan waited for Nova. Now Meghan was moving, and Neil was stalling. Nova nodded once, a visible sign that punctuated her thoughts and signalled that she was ready to share them. I'm through waiting for you, Neil.

"I'm in, too," Nova said without further elaboration.

[Wargear]

"Far be it from me to hold up the parade; I was in from the first word, Gerad." Alexandra's eyes flicked to Gerad's face, held his eyes for a moment before giving him the slightest of nods and returning to examining Meghan's metallic features with restrained interest. "Nova, Meghan, welcome to the conspiracy." Her lips curved into the hint of a smile, delicate and playful as a cool spring breeze. "If you see a rabbit in a waistcoat wandering around, tell him he's in the right place."

[Neil Preston]

Sometimes it is the reaction to something that wakes you up to the reality of life, and not the actions.

At first Neil is happy that Meghan and Nova taken this larger step into the Nova world. A few seconds later, as WarGear is speaking, does the greater consequences of their actions impact him.

They didn't care to ask. They either assume I stand a certain way or ... they don't really care what I stand for.

That is like a knife in his soul.

To spare him some sanity, Neil examines just what it is he stands for. He wants to heal and to help, but does he want the commitment ... any commitment.

Neil nods his head in understanding. Its not enough to want. He wants to be wanted and here he thinks that only one person here really wants him. Neil stifles a nervous laugh. It beats crying.

He looks to Machina.

"You have a good team here, Machina. I hope you can always consider me here for you if needed, but I don't think this is for me. Its not what I'm looking for, though thank you for helping me realize it."

Neil looks around the table.

"If you need me, I'm easy to find. Good luck with this."

Neil gets his backpack and gets ready to leave.

[Doctor Nova Madigan]

Nova put her hand on Neil's wrist, stopping him with a touch.

"Wait," she said quickly, concern evident in her eyes. "Where are you going?"

[Neil Preston]

Neil smiles with love in his eyes.

"The group has you, Love. It doesn't need me and I think I need to deal with my problems with commitment before I take on anything as big as this."

He looks around the table.

"I can be a healer when you need me and if you ask for advise, I will be happy to help out as best I can, but I have to feel comfortable with taking decisive action for myself before I'm really capable of being the co-conspirator this group needs."

"Wanting" ... you, "is not enough. I need to be equal to the tasks the rest of you will be facing. I'm not there yet."

[Doctor Nova Madigan]

Still holding Neil's hand, Nova hoped that Neil was eavesdropping on her thoughts, as he was sometimes wont to do.

We'll talk more at home in a bit, okay hon? she thought, and smiled enigmatically. If Neil wasn't listening in, then she hoped her expression would send the correct message. Nova rose gracefully from her chair and scooted it to the side, its worn bumpers skidding unevenly on the diner's floor.

"I understand," she said softly. "Can I give you a ride home?"

[Neil Preston]

"A ride home would be great, Nova."

Neil shoulders his pack with one arm and wraps the other arm close around Flicker. Not looking away, he adds,

"Alexandra, nice to meet you. Machina, I'm sorry I couldn't work this out with you. Meghan, good luck with this."

And with this, he rubs the small of Nova's back indicating he's ready to go.

[Machina]

"It's Gerad, Neil", he replied calmly, strangely quietly, considering who he was. "You know that." He stood, inhaled through his nostrils with a flare, and offered his hand to shake with Neil. "I can't fault you for demanding that you tend to your own ship before you sign up for a hitch on someone else's vessel. Get your shit in order, and when you do - and I know you will - we'll be waiting for you. In the meantime, if there's anything I, myself, can do f'r yeh, don't be a fuckin' stranger, huh?"

Gerad swallowed a lump of remorse that swelled in the back of his throat. He wasn't altogether sure what had just gone down between Nova, Megs, and Neil, but something had gotten real different real fast, like someone came along and cut one of the strings that bound the three of them in some cosmic Punch & Judy show. It would have surprised the others in attendance to know how rotten he felt, as he turned over in his mind the possibility that he had somehow driven a wedge between an otherwise happy couple-trio-thing. You know that's a load of shit, though, Ger. You didn't cause this. If anything, you just helped things along, maybe something that was a long time coming. Still. Doesn't help feeling any less like dogshit.

Neil took his hand and Gerad shook it firmly, clasping his other hand over the back of Neil's. If not for the table between them, he might have even offered a brotherly, consolatory hug, but the awkwardness of the moment forbade such a gesture for more than one reason.

"Nova, Meggers, glad to have you aboard. We'll talk more when you get back. And Neil", he turned his sobriety back to his friend, "You an' me, let's go out and have a guy's night out, okay? Next time you got a free day. Don't stiff me."

[Doctor Nova Madigan]

"Be right back," Nova said. She teleported away, taking Neil with her.

"Wow, that was awkward," Meghan said quietly from her corner of the booth.

[Wargear]

“I see you haven't lost your touch, Gerad. Bit of the classic black thumb?” Alexandra's boots clicked softly on the tile floor as she walked back to the table and dropped herself almost casually into the booth next to Meghan before extending her hand to brush a fingertip over one metallic wrist. “It's good of you to join us, Meghan. Hopefully we'll make you proud to have done so in the next few years.”

[Mithril]

"For what it's cost so far, I hope so too," Meghan murmured, unable to feel joy at her surprisingly easy victory. It felt too much like Neil had simply forfeited the match, so there was nothing to celebrate. I've got Nova now, she thought, now what?

She considered Alexandra's touch. Now I try to live up to what I've done, she decided. If I've really prised Nova away from Neil, then I ought to be faithful to her.

Meghan smiled chastely and pulled her hand back into her lap.

[Machina]

"Yeah", Gerad nodded glumly, lending his assent to all sentiments spoken.

He lit another cigarette, making no attempt to hide that he was somewhat emotionally drained. "So", he let a jet of smoke uncurl from his lips, "I know Nova's a doctor. How well-read a scientist is she, Megs? If medicine is her primary aye-oh-ee, we might need to start thinking about someone else to come in and fill the gap. Which, now that we've reached somethin' like a consensus, I guess it'd be worth asking if there's anyone else anybody can think of who might be worth bringing in."

[Wargear]

Well, well. You do like to play games, don't you? Alexandra's lips twitched in the ghost of a smile as she leaned on the table, the slight tilt of her head and her silence eloquent in expressing exactly how the little tactical drama between Gerad's other three guests bemused her. A well played hand, young lady. Perhaps you'll even be able to keep your winnings... but I doubt it.

[Mithril]

Meghan forced herself to look away from Alexandra, and she thought about Gerad's question.

"No, not much of a scientist at all," Meghan said after a moment's consideration. "She's brilliant make no mistake, especially with money, but her science is limited to just medicine."

"I do know another scientist, though," she mused, wondering if it was really wise to bring a former love interest into the circle, "but I don't know if she's a good fit. Ever heard of Regina Newcastle?"

[Wargear]

"I've read her work. She's brilliant, an elegant thinker, but her interests are almost entirely in the hard sciences and biology. I doubt she'd be cut out for the sort of work we'll be doing, though worth consulting now and then." Alexandra steepled her fingers, leaning back in her chair a moment and half-closing her eyes while her brain snapped through names and fields of expertise faster than a supercomputer could have managed. "Regina would be a poor choice for the same reason you didn't ask our mutual friend, Gerad. Not the right temperment for it." Assuming you didn't just leave Rachel out of this because you couldn't stand to be near her again she carefully didn't say.

[Machina]

"I didn't ask her because I can't fucking bear to be around her", he half-snapped at Alex, his eyes momentarily hard and sharp. He breathed, relaxed, and turned back to Meghan.

"The British girl", Gerad remembered, scratching his chin. "The one with the attitude who dropped off the map after she decided everyone on enn-pee was too stupid to talk to? Hrm. Actually, Al, last I read in Nature, she was putting her focus into nova sociobiology. If she's got salt, she might be a good person to talk to when going up against other novas, if only as a consultant-analyst." Gerad clucked his tongue and took a drink of his recently refilled coffee. "But I don't really know her, to be honest. She's certainly a big enough bore to be that brilliant. You know her, Megs?"

[Mithril]

For a moment, all Meghan could remember was how Regina had tasted through her panties.

"We're acquainted," she said neutrally. "She really helped me to understand my body. She's quite talented."

[Machina]

Gerad raised a single eyebrow incredulously, eyeing Meghan with a belabored grimace. "Yeeeeaahhh...I don't want to know. Point taken. I'll check her out. Anyone else?"

[Doctor Nova Madigan]

Nova reappeared abruptly and without making a sound, three paces away from the corner booth. Her eyes were rimmed with red, and it was plain that she'd just been crying.

"Back," she said simply. She glanced at Meghan, sitting next to Alexandra, then sighed and sat next to Gerad. "Did I miss much? Mind if I have a shot of that?" she asked, eyeing the whiskey bottle.

[Machina]

"Not one bit", he conceded very matter-of-factly, doing his best to awkwardly console Nova. He gave a thought to patting her on the shoulder or something, his instincts telling him the proper, gentlemanly thing to do would be to comfort a crying dame as best you can, but quickly decided against it for more reasons than he had fingers. That was Megger's job, anyway. He sloshed out a jigger of liquor into one of the empty glasses that had been brought by earlier. "We were just discussing other potential recruits, anybody who might have the sort of character we're looking for and a specialty that would serve useful. 'Course, I don't want to turn this into a huge damn council, either. Too many cooks."

[Doctor Nova Madigan]

Nova accepted the shot gratefully, and took a large sip. Grimacing, she took a breath and finished the shot, setting the small glass next to the bottle.

"That's terrible," she croaked, relaxing visibly. "Mind if I have another?" Without waiting for a reply, she continued. "I can't think of anyone right offhand," Nova said. "I've not been too social the past year. I've been in med school full-time."