Nightmare Architect Mabase: Part 1 - Joint Endeavour:
A storm was over the town of Mabase. It was early morning.
Rain and lightning. Lots of rain. Saturating everything.
A man walked, through the midst of the torrent, on
a road leading towards the town. He was dressed in a pair of black
pants, with an open, black pilot's style jacket, under which was
worn a plain black T-shirt. His shoes were white and laced.
He didn't carry an umbrella. This man's name was Greys.
The road was slick and wet. Greys walked slowly, hands in his
jacket's bottom pockets.
From behind, a light glimmered - approaching swiftly. There was a
collision, and Greys was tossed sideways, landing roughly on the
roadside. The light flashed past and disappeared into the growing
fog. Greys lay unconscious. Rain continued to pour over him. A beetle
crawled up to then crossed over his hand, before continuing on its
way.
It was an uncertain time later when Greys opened his eyes.
He was in a different place. He was in an armchair, a blanket draped
over him. He pushed it off, and it slid down into a heap at the base
of the chair. He stood, feeling his pockets. There was a set of keys
in his left pocket. He gazed at them for a few seconds, then put them
back in his pocket.
The room Greys stood in was simply furnished. There was an
arm-chair and a bed. And there was a portable tablet-style computer
mounted on the wall. There were two doors. One was closed, the other
was open, and led into a small bathroom.
Greys went to the first door and opened it. Sunlight streamed
into the room, and his eyes. He raised his hand to shield his face
from the sunlight. When his vision cleared, he saw that he was
looking into a corridor - the doorway he stood in was one of many
of many opening into it. On the opposite wall was a long window.
Through it, it could be seen that a few hours had passed, and that
the rain had stopped. Bright sunlight shone on the town, which could
be seen quite well, as the corridor was on the second floor of a
building.
And the one thing which dominated the vista was an immense tower
which rose into the air. The letters 'M.M' were displayed vertically
down its side.
Closing the door behind himself, Greys set off to the right.
*N. *A. *M.
A man dressed in a lab coat tapped his pen on the table.
On his breast was his identification tag, on which was printed:
"VasyaM.M - Architect Sakamoto Alexandre"
"Has someone bothered to wake Architect Greys?" he inquired.
There were two other people similarly dressed, seated at
a table in a square room. The room decorated with a few potted
plants and light came from various rectangular panels set at
precise points around the room, casting a light similar to
sunlight. They both shook their heads to Alexandre's question.
One of the two, a woman, who's identification tag read
"VasyaM.M - Architect Ono Ayako" spoke.
"Greys-san...perhaps Ayako should should go and wake
him." She stood and turned to go. Another voice stopped her.
It came from a man of indeterminable age - the third person at
the table. His eyes were cold yellow, and behind them was faint
amusement at the world see through them. His lab coat was not
fastened like the other's, and under it could be seen a business
style suit made from a rich black fabric. His hands were gloved,
and the gloves were made from the same material. He wore no
identification tag.
"He will be along in a moment."
Ayako turned to look at him. "But Crystal Dawn-san, how can
you know that?" she asked.
Crystal Dawn smirked slightly. "All sleeps come to an end.
A dream is but a shadow, and it vanishes with the morning light."
"What does that mean?" she asked. "Are you being serious?"
Crystal Dawn bowed his head slightly and leaned forward.
"That is for you to decide."
The door into the room opened. Greys stood motionless for
a few seconds, then walked into the room. Crystal Dawn flicked
his left hand towards him, in a sort of welcome. Alexandre
stood and bowed, and Ayako did the same.
"Welcome, Greys-san," said Alexandre. "Did you rest well?"
"Yes."
"Greys-san was found on the steps of this building, the
Vasya Computer Industries Mabase Branch. A doctor from
Medical Mechanica was here: her name was Midori--"
The sound of a glass clinking against a bottle. Everyone
looked to see Crystal Dawn pouring himself a glass of green
fluid. He placed the bottle on the floor underneath the table,
then drank about half of the drink in one motion. He placed
the glass down on the table, holding it delicately between
his middle finger and thumb.
"Where did that bottle come from?" asked Ayako.
"What Alexandre-san was saying...," said Crystal Dawn.
"Ah...She said you had fainted. No crucial medical
problems were present."
Greys nodded, and took a seat. Alexandre called to
someone obviously listening:
"All Architects are present."
The light began to dim, until the room was barely
lit. A garbled, low sound which resembled speech sounded.
"I'll go...assist." Crystal Dawn stood and left,
closing the door behind himself.
Small squares set in the table before each person
flipped up, revealing thin computer screens. Each screen
was about 1 mm thick, and it had been barely visible when
set in the table.
Text began appearing on all screens. This is what
it was:
======================================================
"APOLOGIIIISS...VASYA COMPUTER INDUSTRIES {pojgmib+
[FE[EFLohejmTN AI Korama Ver 1.00606060;error.............
.......Reboot.
85.2% systems online...
Correcting speech systems...failed.
Legacy Text Systems initialising (1997 ver, patch 9)...OK.
...
...Korama online...operation...failed.
Reboot...
Reboot complete.
Flushing all memory systems...reverting to backup state.
Erasal of security data block removed. All data since
backup has been flushed.
...Korama online...operation...successful.
======================================================
There was a pause, then more text - the AI 'Korama' writing:
"Vasya Computer Industries is more than a computer group.
Vasya now leads the world. If something has any relevance to
science, Vasya wishes to further and improve it - with the aim
of helping humanity.
"There is a key to our success, excluding Korama.
Open-mindedness is something rare in the modern world.
There are seventeen one-hundred page documents relating
to various issues. They are called "Vasya Codex", and they
are the guide and decision-aid for all Vasya Architects.
They can be accessed from the terminal in each Architect's
quarters, or a hard-copy can be requested.
"Our beloved founder cannot be here to greet the
Architects today, as a situation has developed in Vasya's
pacific base. The issue is being resolved, and Professor
Racardo, beloved founder, will meet with each of you
personally when he is able.
"Korama welcomes all of you to Vasya - where science
is untainted by blind dogma."
There was a pause, then the lights came back to full
brightness.
A man in a orange technician's outfit entered the room.
Walking to Greys, he handed over a metallic briefcase.
A chain and handcuff was attached to its handle. Without
question, Greys slipped the handcuff over his right wrist
and squeezed it, locking in on.
The man murmured something quietly to Greys without
looking at him. He then turned and left. Greys watched him
leave.
Ayako and Alexandre's screens ejected SD memory cards
from a side port set in the side of their screens.
They pocketed them.
Someone came in a few seconds later, pushing a trolley
with tea.
Alexandre and Ayako took one, but Greys shook his head
when he was offered a drink. The person then pushed the trolley
back out.
Greys glanced between Ayako and Alexandre.
Then Alexandre spoke:
"Architect Greys-san, have you been to Mabase before?"
"No," replied Greys. "This is an unfamiliar place."
"So, what did Greys think of Korama's little speech?"
"It proved Korama has scientific...ethics," replied Greys.
Alexandre laughed, and Ayako smiled slightly.
"Vasya is a strong supporter of the principle of 'intelligent
design' Some have a problem with this. I do not, however, and
even Ayako-san here, who is a Buddhist, does not mind the policy."
As she was mentioned, Ayako nodded her head, and then took
another mouthful of tea from her cup
"Have you ever heard of 'pineapple juice' syndrome?"
asked Greys.
"No."
"When pineapple juice is tinned, it acquires an unnatural
taste. But those who drink it for extended periods become
addicted to the taint. Pure juice now tastes...wrong. This
happens in many areas of life...." Greys frowned and gazed at
the ceiling.
"Insightful," said Alexandre, applauding.
"Yes...but I don't like tinned pineapple juice," said
Ayako.
"Good for you," said Greys.
Alexandre leaned back in his chair slightly. He sipped from
his drink. "What sort of person is Greys? Where do you come from?"
"That is not a question I am qualified to answer."
"A slightly evasive answer," observed Alexandre. " My mother
was Japanese, my father a Russian Jew. I have lived in Mabase
since 1981."
Crystal Dawn, who had suddenly appeared back in his chair,
placed his phone down on the table. "Bless the Jews," he said.
Greys looked at Crystal Dawn. He raised one eyebrow, then
glanced away.
"Bless the Jews," offered Ayako helpfully. "Yes, it's good to
speak blessings - it gives a person good aura."
Ayako took her mobile phone from the small bag she carried with
her, and checked the time. "It is time for me to go," she said.
"The man I am soon to marry is taking me to meet his parents in
Tokyo tomorrow."
"What about your project?" asked Crystal Dawn.
"The project has a week to be completed in, so one day does
not matter."
"A blessing on your marriage, when it happens."
Ayako smiled happily. "Would Crystal Dawn-san like to be
a guest?"
Crystal Dawn nodded. "Yes. A marriage is a sacred thing:
a bond between a man and a woman. It is something which must
never be broken. I would be honoured to witness your wedding."
Ayako smiled. "Thank you, Crystal Dawn-san." She slung
her bag over her shoulder and stood. "Alexandre-san, could
you please take me partly on your way?"
"Yes. I don't mind. Wait out out by the car."
She left. Alexandre stood. "We shall be seeing one another
during the next week. I must be going now - I have to assist a
transport coming in."
He turned and left also, leaving Greys and Crystal Dawn.
A minute passed. The screens folded down back into the
surface of the table. And a few seconds later Crystal Dawn
poured himself another drink of from the bottle sitting under
the table. He offered the bottle to Greys.
"No. But thanks," said Greys.
Crystal Dawn placed the bottle under the table again, then
sipped from his glass.
"You make friends well," said Crystal Dawn.
Greys glanced at him, not speaking.
Crystal Dawn continued. "You also don't talk very much.
A person who doesn't speak rarely offends others."
"There is no offence, only the offended."
"Hmm. And there is no single human philosophy capable of
handling life's challenges," replied Crystal Dawn.
"True. But not all philosophies all human."
Crystal Dawn took another sip. He held the fluid in his
mouth for a few seconds, then swallowed.
"Would you like to go outside?" he asked.
"Has anyone ever said no - to you?"
"Why do you ask?"
"Because you emanate pleasantness. It seems possible
Crystal Dawn-san could speak an insult to someone and they
would be all the more charmed."
"Perhaps. But only a bitter person hates pleasantness."
"Well. I have nothing to do today. It is Sunday. And
I don't work on Sundays."
"So what are you going to do?"
"Two options: sit here until morning tomorrow, or
follow you."
"Would you really sit that long?" asked Crystal Dawn.
"Yes."
Crystal Dawn stood. He smoothly took off his laboratory
coat and draped it over his chair. He walked towards the door.
"Come, Greys-san let's go."
Greys glanced him over. His business suit was in full view,
now that he was no longer covering it with a laboratory coat.
It seemed to be darkened by the light. He paused to glance
up at the light panel overhead, then stood and followed him.
*N. *A. *M.
It was in a little coffee shop that Crystal Dawn and
Greys sat at a table. Greys' briefcase was sitting on the floor
beside his chair. There were a few other patrons. There was also
the owner and his assistant, a young girl with purple hair and
blue eyes, dressed in a waitresses' outfit.
She took Crystal Dawn's order. He ordered tea. Greys
did not order anything.
Crystal Dawn glanced at the briefcase chained to Greys'
wrist, then looked up as Ninamori approached with Crystal Dawn's
tea on a tray.
"Thank you, Ninamori-kun."
She bowed. "It's nice for you to visit, Crystal Dawn-san!"
She placed the tray down and walked away. Crystal Dawn picked
up the teacup and sipped.
"I like to have the tea already made," he explained, "for the
same reason an artist looks at art made by other artists. What's
the point of coming here if one is going to one's own tea?"
"Some don't trust others to meet their standards." Greys
studied the front of the briefcase. There was no obvious way
to open it. There were no combination locks or key-holes.
"It's probably filled with bricks," said Crystal Dawn dryly.
A radio was playing a song, a nice Japanese pop song.
"I love your life as it surrounds me nightly!" sang the young
sounding female vocalist. "And all the stars gather in the depths
of my heart, lighting up my soul. And when the light becomes dark,
I will fall away and burn to ashes."
The radio emitted raw static as that final sentence came,
and then silence. Almost no-one noticed, but Crystal Dawn turned
his head slightly, an odd expression on his face. He touched his
gloved left hand index finger to his ear hole, then moved it away.
The radio hummed slightly. Then a voice began speaking.
It was a professional weather announcer's voice, and female.
It held a certain humorous, dark edge.
"Today's weather will be very nice. You won't die. But you
deserve to die. But there will be slight low pressure areas
moving over the Mabase area tomorrow, possibly. When did
weather predictors ever predict? Temperatures will move in a
swirly direction. And people on your television will use lots of
words you won't understand...like 'polar ice shelfs'. You are
listening to K.103 FM."
The radio hissed, then started playing music. It was now
playing another song.
"The tears will fall in the winter memory. Happy things
will not make me the same. The road is lonely when the moon
is shining. The light leads towards a far off land."
Crystal Dawn looked around, then stood. He ran behind the
counter. Ninamori moved aside to let him pass.
There were stairs leading up to the roof area of the coffee
shop. Crystal Dawn took them, and came up onto the rooftop. He
stood for about five seconds, gazing over towards an intersection
which was visible through a gap between a group of
buildings. Then he turned and headed back downstairs.
A truck with a container on the back stopped at the
intersection traffic lights. The red light shone more and more
brightly - then went out from a power surge.
Alexandre was sitting in the passenger's seat; he looked
at the unlit light with mild interest.
"Does this mean we go?" asked the driver, watching the traffic
go whichever way it pleased. A van sped across the intersection,
narrowly missing another car.
"Best wait," said Alexandre.
Crystal Dawn came back downstairs, and sat down at the table
with Greys.
"What happened to the music?" he called to Ninamori.
"The electricity isn't working," she replied. "I hope it gets
fixed soon, because we can't make anyone anything."
Greys was gazing idly at the wall.
Crystal Dawn stepped outside. Nothing else had power.
He took his mobile phone and called a number. He did not speak.
He pressed the button to end the call, then walked back inside.
Barely ten seconds after he had sat back down, the power returned.
"That was what living in Australia is like," said Crystal Dawn.
"There, if a major musician does a performance, there is a great
chance that the power will fail in the middle of a performance."
*N. *A. *M.
On the edge of Mabase was a cathedral. It was black and
foreboding to look at - jagged spires rose into the air, and
the sloping roof was engraved with violent, rough strokes.
Crystal Dawn gazed up at one of the gargoyles perched on the
edge of the roof.
"It is unclear why Vasya built this," he commented.
"It's a Roman Catholic temple," said Greys.
Crystal Dawn frowned slightly. "Well, let us go inside."
He walked towards the front doors, turned the handles, then
pushed them open. They opened with a soft rumbling sound.
Greys:
"Places like this remind us of ourselves - incomplete.
The architects have quietly slipped away, leaving the empty
remains; the soul of its form is a shadow. This place...it is
filled with darkness. If it had been finished, would the dark
power it holds be greater?"
The Cathedral appeared complete from the outside, but inside it
was not. Scaffolding and rough edges filled the room. But what had
been completed was majestic. It was sinister. The shadow were
deep black. Its general layout was that of a normal Roman Catholic
cathedral.
Greys walked towards the back wall of the room as Crystal
Dawn ran his hand over the back of one of the pews. His hand
remained clean - there was no dust.
"This place has not gathered dust," said Crystal Dawn.
"Nine months ago, it was built. It happened overnight."
"It shows," said Greys.
Crystal Dawn placed his right-hand index finger on the
back of the pew. "There is one fact not many are aware of:
this place was built by Vasya, but the funding and design
was a joint endeavour with Medical Mechanica."
"Is that so?" said Greys.
Greys walked to the back wall of the Cathedral, to the
large crucifix mounted on the wall. The image of the crucified
Christ was wet with a red, blood-like substance. Greys touched
it, and his fingers came away red. He gazed at his hand, then
wiped it clean on the wall.
"A little disturbing?" inquired Crystal Dawn.
"The death of the Christ is not the important subject.
All humans die."
Crystal Dawn smiled wryly. "Tell me, Greys-san. How can
the existence of a thing be proven?"
Greys though for a full ten seconds, then spoke:
"Does Racardo-sama visit Mabase?"
"No, he's never been to Mabase. Incidentally...do you have
any other moods?"
"Don't concern yourself," said Greys. "An arrogant mind
could claim, that as he is not making himself present, he does
not exist."
Crystal flashed his teeth briefly, smiling. "The proof is the
marks people leave - the memories they create for others."
"Humans believe what they want to believe - and human want
is completely irrelevant to human need," said Greys.
"And what do you believe humans need, Greys-san?"
Greys did not reply, because a few small, chipped pieces of
masonry fell from somewhere up in the darkness of the arched
ceiling. They clattered to the floor. Greys stepped sideways in
one direction, as Crystal Dawn walked slowly forward; he stooped
and picked up one of the pieces.
Crystal Dawn was about to speak, when he perceived something,
and lunged backwards to avoid the thing - one which gracefully fell
from above, its katana cutting air.
It was a six foot tall version of Evangelion Unit 1: a purple
armoured, bipedal, lithe being. Its eyes glowed cold yellow.
"Who is this?" asked Greys.
"What! You've never seen Shin Seiki Evangelion?" Crystal
Dawn asked.
The Eva stood to its feet - it had been holding a relaxed,
crouched position. And in its left hand was a handgun. In its
right was the mat-black katana which it had tried to use on
Crystal Dawn.
"Eva...," murmured Greys. "I've never heard of it."
"Doesn't make this any less real," said Crystal Dawn.
He took his phone from his jacket pocket and pressed a
button. "This will make an excellent story for Kamon-san's zine"
The Eva attacked. Crystal Dawn arched backwards as the katana
carved elaborate patterns in the air. He brought his foot up,
striking the handgun - it tossed into the air. Twisting sideways,
Crystal Dawn propelled himself into the air and caught it. He landed
and rolled sideways as the Eva tried to pin him to the ground with
its katana. Flipping to his feet, he tossed the handgun to Greys.
Greys caught it. Crystal Dawn was a calculating, skilled
martial artist, but one with a light touch. He gripped the blade
of the katana and twisted. The Eva lost its grip on the katana -
then the Eva punched Crystal Dawn in the head with its other hand.
Crystal Dawn gracefully fell backwards, sliding across the floor,
then flipped, with some skilled trick of physics, backwards and
back onto his feet. The katana tossed through the air, landing
somewhere among the pews.
Greys brought the handgun to bear. The Eva swung the katana,
narrowly missing - but the blade sliced through the chain connecting
the briefcase to Greys' wrist. Greys still held the case by its handle.
He dived backwards, handgun firing. The rounds hit the Eva, and sparks
and a red substance sprayed from the wound. The Eva twirled around
720 degrees, holding its hand over the wound. And when it completed
the spin, the wound was gone.
"CHEATER!" screamed Crystal Dawn, as he jumped and kicked
the Eva directly in the head. It staggered backwards, as Greys
fired another round. The Eva bowed its head, bringing its hands
to its shoulders in a rapid motion, forming an X shape across its
chest. A pulse of energy emitted. The round ricocheted, smashing a
statue of Mary.
"Ridiculous!" said Crystal Dawn, using his phone to take
picture after picture.
The Eva strode boldly forward, grabbing for the briefcase.
Greys ducked, rolling sideways, then crawled rapidly forward,
then jumped to his feet. He spun around, smashing the case into
the Eva's face.
The Eva ignored the blow, grabbing the briefcase. It tore
it from Greys' grip and tried to backhand slap him. Greys dodged.
The Eva turned and ran, dropping an apple sized, spherical
object as it ran.
"Run, run, run!" screamed Crystal Dawn. He grasped the
link which dangled from Greys' handcuff, dragging him towards
the door, and past the object the Eva had dropped.
Greys dropped the handgun. It clattered on the floor.
Kicking the doors open, Crystal Dawn was first outside.
He let go, and ran. Greys followed. There was no-one else
in sight.
They stopped and looked back to see the Cathedral
erupt in a blue and orange explosion. There was no explosive
sound, only the sound of melting metal and rock, and a humming
sound. A immense cloud of smoke began rising into the sky.
Crystal Dawn stared at the spot where the cathedral had
been. "Oh! Why, why, why?" he screamed. "Why does every anime
cathedral get destroyed?"
"What are you talking about?" asked Greys.
"Still need to hide," replied Crystal
Dawn.
Minutes later, Greys and Crystal Dawn were crouching,
in the undergrowth, under one of the town's main bridges.
"Why?" asked Greys.
"Hush! Don't talk so loudly!" said Crystal Dawn. "We need to
wait for a half-hour at least; Medical Mechanica are not going
to be happy with Greys-san if they link him with the destruction
of their seven hundred and sixty nine billion yen cathedral."
"Why so much?" asked Greys. He exuded a bizarre calm.
"The platinum dust in the wall paint might have had something
to do with it. Or the solid gold foundations." replied Crystal Dawn.
He lay back and closed his eyes. "If you don't mind, I'll take
rest now."
Greys sat down and watched the river water go past. He held
his wrist before his face for a few minutes, gazing at the handcuff
still attached.
*N. *A. *M.
Two women stood on the scorched earth where the cathedral
had once stood. One was a woman who appeared to be in her thirties,
with cheek long white hair. She was kneeling on the ground, with the
twisted remains of the handgun the Eva had dropped in her hands. She
looked it over thoroughly. Ejecting the clip, she found a set of
numbers engraved on the base of the clip. "7-23-99" She stood,
took a clear plastic bag, and bagged the weapon.
The woman's eyes were dark green, and her hair fell slightly
over her right eye, shifting as she moved. She was dressed in a
open laboratory coat, wearing underneath that a pair of black
pants and black top.
Behind her stood another woman, a dark-toned girl with
shoulder-length yellow hair. She was dressed in a crisp, black
uniform, with pants and and wrist length sleeves. On the collar
was printed "M.M".
"Hold this," ordered the white haired woman, handing
the plastic bag to her.
"Yes, Midori-sempai!" said the girl. She took the bag
and held it patiently.
"There's nothing more here," said Midori, turning in a
swift circular motion, looking around. "Come, Kitsurabami."
*N. *A. *M.
Later, at dusk, Crystal Dawn sat up. Greys was still
sitting and watching the water.
"It's time for me to go to Nandamba's house. Want to
come?" Crystal Dawn asked. "Or does Greys-san have something
he needs to do?"
Greys turned his head. "No. I'll go where you go, if you
don't mind."
"Good!"
Crystal Dawn walked out through the undergrowth and around
and up to the end of the bridge. Greys followed.
A dark yellow, low-set sports car was parked on the bridge, on
the sidewalk. Crystal Dawn took a set of keys from his pocket
and pressed the button to unlock the doors.
Crystal Dawn got in on the driver's side, (the right side) while
Greys stood and waited.
"Come on," said Crystal Dawn, swinging open the passenger door.
"Don't be so shy. Be bold and decisive, or you'll be trampled by
the rude."
Greys got in the car. The interior was made from a soft, black
material. The glass was tinted darkly.
"It's a nice car," said Greys.
"It's an expensive car," replied Crystal Dawn. "By 2019, it will
be worth 3.42 million American dollars."
"Why 2019? How is that relevant?"
"With the inflation of the American economy, the vehicle's worth
will increase rapidly."
"Global warming will eventually result in this type of vehicle
being outlawed."
Crystal Dawn frowned. "I expected more of you, Greys-san. Surely
you are aware global warming is a myth?"
"Perhaps. But what I know and what the world accepts are very
different," replied Greys.
"Well...we say it is a myth. We are so convinced it is a myth
that we developed--" Crystal Dawn reached
across and into the passenger side storage compartment, and produced
a cylinder, "carbon-J-2-P-23 cartridges. Detonating these
creates carbon dioxide gas. It makes plant life grow at an
accelerated rate. These are a key to insuring the future."
"Some won't approve of that concept."
"It doesn't matter what they do. More carbon dioxide means more
plant growth, and that means more rain. And that means more food,
better seasons, and more habitable land. It's complex."
Crystal Dawn started the engine. The car ran with a low whine,
rather than any sort of throaty roar. It was a manual transmission.
The car drove away from the bridge, towards their destination.
Greys gazed out the window at the towering silhouette of the Medical
Mechanica building. He didn't speak.
After about 30 seconds, Crystal Dawn broke the silence.
"This vehicle travels 1,000 kilometres using 2.3 litres of
fuel," he said. "It was manufactured by one of our
ghost companies. We're making a deal with the Israeli government
to supply the engine to their military by 2055. It processes the
fuel using a...Well, that is classified...before the fuel is
ignited. So, in combination with what we have learned about creating
petro-chemicals, Saca has the means to insure the future of the
internal combustion engine...should Saca choose to."
"What about pollution from the engine?" asked Greys.
"The exhaust from this vehicle is filtered through a series of
chemical filters; the current chemicals used are slightly violate,
so more work needs to be done. The final prototype should be
finalised very soon."
"Crystal Dawn-san...what exactly is this Saca you speak of?"
"Saca is...a collection of...principles. If you have a great
desire, and your prayers are not answered - that is our original
purpose. But things have changed...things have changed...but we
have not."
Greys gazed out the window, not speaking.
A few minutes later:
"Welcome!" said Nandamba Kamon, as he opened the door to his
house to Greys and Crystal Dawn. "Who is this?" he asked, referring
to Greys.
"This is Greys-san. He is an Architect. I've been playing
companion. It's been very enriching. But in a good way, not a bad,
'white flour' type of enriching."
Kamon nodded. He was long-haired, and his brown hair was tied
back into a ponytail. His eyebrows were thick, and he had a short
beard and a thin moustache above his lips. He wore a pair of yellow
tinted sunglasses, which were not over his eyes, but on his forehead.
"Are the others here?" inquired Crystal Dawn.
"No. They are at the baseball field."
A feline sound. Something large and blue came running towards
Greys. It lunged upwards, and Greys shifted forwards and crouched
down to catch it.
It was a large blue cat, which immediately slung its paws over
Greys' shoulders and started purring.
"Miyu Miyu is fond of you," said Kamon, rubbing the corner of
his eye. "Greys must be one of those rare people animals trust."
Crystal Dawn was already walking towards the kitchen.
"I'm going to start cooking," he called.
*N. *A. *M.
"So, we need focus. Focus!" announced Crystal Dawn, stirring
the mixed vegetables as he spoke.
"What exactly makes a zine focused?" asked Kamon.
"That is the question you need to analyse, Kamon-san."
"Stop calling me 'san'. We've been working together for months,"
said Kamon.
"As you wish. But I do not request the same of Kamon," replied
Crystal Dawn.
"Yes. So what are you suggesting?"
"Our target market is Mabase, and the people who live here. What
is going to affect them in their daily lives - today, tomorrow, next
year?"
"You want to turn it into a women's fashion magazine?" asked Kamon.
Crystal Dawn poured some soy sauce over the vegetables. "No. But
it must be powerful, but not bowing to shallow 'relevance'. A powerful
book can change a nation, or it can lead it to destruction. We must
choose."
"Sometimes I wonder who takes it more seriously - you or me...,"
said Kamon.
"Kamon-san. Because Crystal Dawn can vanish any time without
remorse, leaving Kamon to do all the work again. Kamon-san is a
prisoner of his creation."
"That's...comforting. And you're calling me 'san' again."
Crystal Dawn picked up the bottle of soy sauce, about to pour
more on the vegetables, when he paused and studied the label on the
bottle.
"On another thought...what about an article on the risks
involved with using too much soy sauce?"
"Hmm...is it relevant? It has the element of a scandal, but
most people couldn't care any less. Do you care?"
Crystal Dawn gazed at the bottle for a moment. "Yes. I care.
But it doesn't fit in with the general theme...maybe we should do a
special edition in a few months?"
"What else would go with such a subject?" asked Kamon.
"This world is full of people doing stupid things with good
intentions."
"There is a saying, 'The road to hell is paved with good
intentions'," observed Kamon. " But we must focus, as Crystal Dawn
has said."
"An excellent article subject appeared today," said Crystal Dawn.
"I'll show it after we have eaten." He opened the lid on the rice
cooker. "The rice is ready."
*N. *A. *M.
"Greys-san isn't eating?" asked Crystal Dawn.
"Apologies. But I don't feel like eating right now," said Greys.
He no longer was holding Miyu Miyu, who was now sleeping on the couch.
"Your choice. Want to go sulk in another room?" asked Kamon.
"Not eating isn't sulking," said Crystal Dawn. "Want some water?"
"No, but thanks for your generosity," replied Greys.
Crystal Dawn blinked. "It's water...You don't have to be so
polite when you decline."
"Flattery gets a person everywhere," observed Kamon.
"But it's not flattery, it's honest expression of desire or lack
of want," said Crystal Dawn.
Should we begin?" asked Kamon.
"Yes. Itadakimasu!" said Crystal Dawn.
"Itadakimasu!" added Kamon.
Kamon took the first mouthful. "Very good," he said, swallowing.
"Thank you. It's interesting...in the old era, people from many
of the European-type countries used to do this--" Crystal Dawn
folded his hands together, bowed his head slightly, mouthed some words
silently and then said audibly: "Amen!" Then he unbowed his head,
picked up his chopsticks, and ate a piece of carrot. He paused, ate
another, then continued. "But in recent years, in their desperate
attempts to become as Godless as feasibly possible, many have ceased
the practice. This is why Americans tourists often seem to eat like
pigs - as soon as their meal arrives, they lunge for it as though it
were the cure for a deadly poison. The problem is that the Americans
are like the British, who were a tribal, primitive, uncivil,
cannibalistic group before the Jews brought their religion to them.
They have nothing good to revert to."
Crystal Dawn rolled some rice into a ball, and ate it, with his
gloved fingers. He continued. "But the Japanese peoples have a simple,
humble way of expressing thanks for their meal."
"It's not entirely the same thing; a prayer and 'Itadakimasu',"
said Kamon.
"True. But the end effect is the same. And in a sense, God is
implied as included by the Japanese saying. But the Americans
often translate the phase as 'bon appetite', meaning 'good eating',
which is a bad distortion."
"What does Greys-san think?" asked Kamon.
They looked expectantly to Greys.
"It doesn't matter. A simple learned phrase is not enough. There
are more and more people who are not grateful for the blessings they
receive," said Greys.
"You don't talk much," said Kamon.
"A fool never thinks he talks too much," replied Greys.
*N. *A. *M.
"Well, that was nice," said Crystal Dawn. "Now...time for the
surprise-thing!"
He led Greys and Crystal Dawn to the lounge room. Kamon sat down
on the couch, while Greys stood.
Taking his mobile phone, Crystal Dawn found a cable running from
the back of the television set, and plugged it into a socket in his
phone.
"Hmm...NTSC...PAL...No, NTSC," murmured Crystal Dawn.
He leaned forward, turning on the television. It was a flat-screen,
wide aspect television. It was black.
The first image materialised on the television. Kamon started
slightly, then slowly tilted his head.
"Is that real, or is it fake...made with computers?" he asked.
The image was of the Eva, standing dramatically, dust swirling
around it, head bowed slightly.
"No...uh, yes, it is real," said Crystal Dawn calmly. "That is
an irritation...which question am I answering?"
"Well, well!" said Kamon. "Are there more?"
Crystal Dawn walked over and handed him the phone. The cable
was reaching the limits of its stretching ability.
Greys gazed at the clock sitting next to the television.
"It is time I left," he said softly.
Kamon wasn't listening. A sort of paralysis had overtaken him,
and the only part of him responding was his hand, which he was using
to scroll through the thirty or so pictures Crystal Dawn had snapped
of the Eva. His mouth was open slightly.
Crystal Dawn responded. "Sayanora, Greys-san," he said, making
a flicking motion with his left hand which was ambiguous as to its
meaning. Greys nodded and walked out.
The front door could be heard to open, then close. Crystal
Dawn took the mobile phone back from Kamon.
Kamon handed him a memory card. Inserting it into the phone,
Crystal Dawn copied the images to it, then gave the memory card
back. He disconnected the cable, and it fell to the floor,
retracting.
"This...it's difficult to describe--" said Kamon. He leaned
back on the couch. "It's truth and fiction blending!"
"Or, it's someone playing games."
"A thing like that could not be made for no reason.
Medical Mechanica?"
"Greys works for Medical Mechanica. He arrives - the
Eva appears."
"Why does he work for Medical Mechanica?" asked Kamon.
"Isn't he part of the same group as Crystal Dawn?"
"No. He is an outsider. An outsider to everyone.
Greys' knowledge is interesting. He seems to agree with
everything I say."
"But I rarely disagree with Crystal Dawn," pointed out
Kamon. "Perhaps he is just knowledgeable, and knows what
you say is correct?"
"Perhaps."
"Why was he wearing a broken handcuff?"
"It's complicated, but not perverted."
Kamon stood. "The others will be home soon. Do you want
some tea?"
"Yes. I need to back at Vasya by 11:00pm, so I'll have to
leave soon, though."
A few minutes later, Kamon brought the tea. Crystal Dawn
sat and drank silently in slow sips for a few minutes, then spoke,
placing his half empty cup down on the lounge room's small
table which Kamon had shifted closer to the couch.
"Kamon. There is a great tension building within Vasya
Computer Industries. Korama, who controls all major aspects
of the the group is the one who decides what happens next.
And...it is beginning to develop irrational behaviour. It's been
kept very quiet, but over 70 percent of the Vasya processing
networks are being devoted to Korama's personal project."
Kamon grinned.
"This ought to be good. What is it?"
"Korama is trying to simulate the evolution of life."
Kamon's mouth opened slightly. Then he started laughing.
"Haa!" he yelled. "So much for unity of beliefs!"
"Vasya has a wide range of employees, ones of many different
beliefs. But that is not the issue. If you attempt the impossible,
bad things will happen. Some don't like the fact, but evolution
cannot be simulated, demonstrated, or even proven theoretically.
It's a religion, and most people have astounding faith in it.
Now it seems Korama has developed an obsession with it."
"Oh. You're not going to start preaching, are you?"
Kamon sighed. "I don't mind that much. The way you explain
science could make quantic physics exciting. I have been reading
that molecular biology book you loaned me."
Crystal Dawn sipped his tea.
"Kamon-san, you're one of the few sanifying people in my
existence. I've worked with thirteen other journalists over the
past twenty years. You're the first who hasn't had a problem
with the fact that I, and my parent group, have conclusively
tested, and statistically analysed the subject of evolutionary
biology, coming to the conclusion that it is impossible,
unscientific, statistically invalid, and...in one simple
concept: fiction. And Korama is damaging its systems trying
to simulate it. It's like trying to make matter from nothing,
literally."
Kamon drank some of his tea.
"Talk such as this is so depressing," he observed. "I can't
think of anything amusing. You're much more fun when you talk
your stories, or something similar. I once described you to
someone three months ago - he said if you were a fictional
character, you would be classed in a certain category...I don't
remember the name...but the idea is of a character who is
not 'realistic', and cannot possibly exist in the real world, and
is merely something created by the author to force their views
on their fictional world."
Crystal Dawn laughed softly.
"When one writes a story, certain elements of the real world
are automatically included. Science fiction stories may have
aliens who are more highly evolved than humans. The problem
is this: it has been conclusively proven that life could not have
possibly evolved here, so how could it have evolved elsewhere?
It is pure fantasy. The problem is, people cannot comprehend
that their very world-view is a work of human fiction. When
Darwin wrote his theories, he never proved them. He did not
have to, because if people are willing to believe, then the
process which separates truth from error is bypassed.
I am a very...rare sort of...man." he paused for a full second
before saying 'man'."
"This makes my brain hurt. It's like finding the square root
of a random number without using a calculator," said Kamon.
"Do you want to hear a story?" asked Crystal Dawn.
Kamon smiled.
"That would be nice."
Crystal Dawn thought for a few seconds.
"A scorpion and a turtle...they were standing on a riverbank.
The scorpion asked the turtle to carry it across, but the turtle
refused, saying that the scorpion would sting and drown the
the turtle. But the scorpion argued that there was no logic in
this, because if the turtle drowned, so would the scorpion.
"So the turtle did as the scorpion asked. And halfway, the
scorpion did indeed sting the turtle, and both began to drown.
"As it died, the turtle asked the scorpion why it had done
such a thing, as there was no logic to it. The scorpion replied
that logic was irrelevant - it was the scorpion's nature."
Silence. Kamon sat thinking for a few seconds.
"This world seems a lot more sad these days," he observed.
"It is better to be sad than to be deluded," replied Crystal
Dawn. "But I thought of something to bring some light
to your world. I'll be back."
He went out to the car and brought back a cardboard box
filled with DVDs in their plastic cases.
"These are mixed. Some are comedy shows from around
the world, others are documentaries. There are also a few
films by an American I am a friend of. Here--"
He reached into the box.
"Time Changer," he said, pulling one out. "This has not
been released yet, I am told. He wanted me to have a copy."
"You are friends with a lot of people," said Kamon.
"I do try."
"Thanks," said Kamon, sorting through the DVDs. "Oh!
Investigator Lightmatch! Where did you find it? This...
I used to watch this on television. Thank you!"
*N. *A. *M.
Greys walked up the steps to the Medical Mechanica building's
entrance. It was the tower he had seen when he first arrived.
He reached the top, then stopped as Midori stepped out from the
dark shadows flooding the entranceway.
"Well...you are here at last," she said.
Greys did not reply.
"Architect Greys-san?"
"Yes."
"Welcome to Medical Mechanica - I am Midori, your...supervisor...
during your time here." She walked forward, shoes clicking on
the ground. She extended her hand. He shook it once.
Greys followed Midori through a section of the interior of
the Medical Mechanica building. Seemingly endless white corridors,
with various doors branching off to other areas. There was no
one else about.
"This building is of the highest security in existence. The
systems are designed to apprehend entities of unrecognised
or...unwanted...biological code. In expectance of your arrival, we
added you to the systems," said Midori. "And private quarters have
been provided here," said Midori.
Greys flicked at a hair on his forehead with his index finger.
"You have obtained?"
"Yes. A group from Vasya transferred the..." Midori hesitated,
as if searching for the correct word. "...thing today. They were not
informed of its contents." Midori led Greys into an elevator.
The doors closed, and Midori licked her finger and corrected a
stray hair which was drifting apart from the others, over her cheek.
She spoke to the elevator: "Section 6, Subsection FF-23."
In response, the elevator could be heard humming.
"Vasya would not be appreciative if they knew the technology
behind the area of this complex," said Midori. "Nor would our...
other...opponents."
Greys nodded.
The elevator doors opened. Out the doors was a circular chamber
about 30 meters across. In the centre was a cubic container set halfway
into the floor. Windows set on each side, made from a clear plastic,
showed a free-floating geometric shaped object, which was about 1 meter
in diameter. It emitted a blue glow. The elevator appeared to be the
only entrance into the room. The lighting was a dark blue colour,
and it glowed with slowly shifting intensity. There were a few computer
terminals, with office chairs, arranged in a semi-circle, and there
were a few other seats around a table made from a opaque, dark
material. There was also a device, with a series of controls, of
unknown purpose. It was located a few meters away from the computer
terminals.
"We need results, Greys," said Midori, walking across the room
and sitting down at the table, facing Greys. "Medical Mechanica's
time is not a wastable thing."
Greys walked slowly towards the object hovering in the centre
of the room. He stopped about two meters from it, and said:
"How much is here?"
"The main modules and various external code chunks. The boot
codes were intentionally destroyed. Will Greys be able to re-write
them? This task is immense."
"I don't need assistance. I can only try to get it functional
within the next six days. It's like sorting through a refuse pile.
Booting it is possible. What is important is why it was shut down."
"Well, officially, this doesn't even exist. Vasya aren't going
to be very helpful."
"What exactly is Medical Mechanica wanting from all this?"
"Medical Mechanica wants an effect from a duplicatable cause."
Greys replied in English language:
"Don't we all?"
*N. *A. *M.
Crystal Dawn sat upon an air vent on the roof of the Vasya
building, watching the night. Lights glimmered all over Mabase.
Slow, quiet footsteps approached. They neared until they were
right beside Crystal Dawn. He turned to see a child, or what looked
to be a child, standing there. It was a girl, it appeared, dressed
in a black kimono. Its hair was long and black.
"It was natural you would be here," it--henceforth referred to as
'she'--said in a whispering voice. "We often come here, so it is
natural Enforcers would also."
Crystal Dawn looked at her for a few seconds, then returned to
watching the town. She did not move or say anything further, simply
standing there.
Crystal Dawn:
"Anyone who understands radio frequencies knows that 103 Hertz
is not a Japanese radio frequency. All the wonder has gone. Perhaps
tomorrow will be different. Perhaps the happyness will return."
After about two further hours of sitting there, Crystal Dawn
slid off the air vent, turned and walked to the door leading
downstairs into the Vasya building, opened it and went downstairs.
*N. *A. *M.
THE NEXT DAY:
The water from the shower head sprayed over Greys as he sat on a
stool in the shower. He had removed the handcuff from his wrist, and
it now lay on the shower floor. His head was bowed, and water droplets
collected on the tip of his nose, before dripping on the floor.
The cubicle was about 1.5 meters wide, and the shower head was
directly above, mounted in the ceiling.
Greys shifted position, laying down on the floor. He closed his
eyes. The water continued to pour over him.
A few minutes later, he was again dressed in his regular clothes.
He walked out the front entrance to the Medical Mechanica building.
He stood on the street for a few minutes, watching the town begin
to awaken in the early morning.
He walked for some time, observing. Then he stopped as the sound
of shattering glass filled the air. Greys turned towards the direction
of the sound. A few bystanders stopped at the sound, then continued
what they had been doing. Greys sprinted in the direction the sounds
were coming from. He took a turn into a series of back-alleys, but
found a dead end. There was no other way but up. So Greys jumped,
grasping a ladder leading up onto a fire-escape. He ran up the fire
escape until he reached the top.
There he came face to face with someone. It was a girl who
looked to be about 19 or 20 years old. She was dressed in a strange
orange, striped outfit. On her left wrist was a handcuff, one which
was a circular band with a single link dangling from it. Her hair
was pink and it fell in clumps over her face, and was longer on the
back of her head than the front and sides. Her eyes were yellow.
She elbowed him aside, jumping down into the alleyway. Greys
stumbled, catching hold of a railing. By the time he stabilised,
she was gone.
For a few seconds everything was still. Then the ambient town
noise returned.
Greys stood where he was for a few seconds, then climbed slowly
down the fire escape.
*N. *A. *M.
Earlier:
Somewhere out in the pacific, at around 12 pm, a helicopter gunship
flew in the darkness and pouring rain over an island about 6 kilometres
by 10 kilometres in size.
The rain was only a part of the storm. Strong winds were shaking
the helicopter, and lightning crackled menacingly in the sky.
The pilot managed to descend down into a large circular hole in the
terrain which was almost invisible amongst the dense jungle. He landed
and powered down the engines. The rotors slowly came to a stop.
The pilot, a Vasya Computer Industries pilot, named Jackson,
climbed out and into the pouring rain.
"Enforcer! Watch the helicopter!" he yelled over the storm.
The side door of the gunship slid open. And a figure stepped out.
He was dressed in identical clothing to the ones Crystal Dawn wore, but
his physical features and manner were completely different. He was
dark skinned, with dark green eyes. His movements were tightly
controlled, and his expression was flat, and unemotional. His hair
was black, and while it was mostly short, it was slightly longer at
the sides of his forehead.
"Yes," was all he said.
Jackson turned and ran towards a metal vent, resembling an air
vent. He climbed down it and under the ground.
Water was pouring down the shaft as he descended. At the bottom he
found himself standing on a grilled floor, through which the water was
draining away somewhere.
The ceiling, floor, and walls were all metal, and it seemed that
this was a ventilation passage. But as Jackson walked a few meters,
and around a corner, this was rendered inaccurate.
An elevator was at the end of the passage. Its doors were painted
white and red. Jackson pressed its switch to bring it.
A few seconds later the doors opened. There was a security
camera mounted in one corner of the one-person, standing room
elevator. Jackson entered and pressed the switch to operate the
elevator.
The doors closed and the motors could be heard whirring.
Then they stopped. The lights flickered slightly, then went out.
"This isn't good."
A shudder. Something landed on the surface of the elevator above
his head.
Jackson acted without hesitation. He dropped to his knees,
searching for something on the floor of the elevator. He found what
he was looking for - a section of the floor shifted aside on rails.
Revealed was a weapons cache - consisting of a Chinese AK47 copy, a
generic looking black handgun, and two clips for each. There was also
a grenade wrapped in plastic.
Jackson snatched up the AK47, slamming a clip into its stock, then
pulling the cocking lever and switching off the safety. He also took
the grenade, taking off the plastic, and took the handgun and one clip.
He loaded the clip into the handgun.
Then, to his surprise, the elevator began moving again - the lights
remained off, however. He grasped his radio.
"Korama," he said. There was a pause, then a mechanical voice
spoke:
"Comm channels compromised. Connections with Korama impossible.
This is a recording by legacy security A.I. Itnis 5."
"Enforcer Dimetriel!" called Jackson, switching channels on his
radio, "Get here now!"
"Yes."
Jackson clipped the radio back onto his belt as the elevator
doors opened. He glanced alertly at everything. He cast one suspicious
glance above his head. Then he stepped out of the elevator.
He was in a vast storage room. Above his head flew small drones,
their flight controlled by some form of jet propulsion. Jackson
kept looking at them with suspicion.
They seemed to be ignoring him. But the fact that they were
equipped with weapons was not going to be ignored. He walked through
the room. They did seem not to notice him, which was expected, as he
was not some intruder, but a registered Vasya employee.
Then Jackson saw the irregularity in the room. A large section of
storage containers had been cut open, their contents spilling forth.
But one was not so, as it had been cut open, and whatever was inside
removed.
And one who may have been the thief lurked above. It may not have
been the same being who had been at the cathedral, but it looked
identical. It was unarmed, at least visibly.
The Eva Unit 1 dropped silently down behind Jackson. But Jackson
sensed something as it stood there. He spun on his left heel,
bringing his AK47 to his shoulder. He paused to allow for
identification, then pulled the trigger.
[To be continued]
(ver. Not-Gold, Draft 1 Jan. 2009.)
--This is not the final draft of part 1, but this is only to allow for
--proofing and JapaneseEnglish language syntax analysis. I do not
--expect it to change in any significant way by Gold. If it does, that
--is a cause for suspicion.
=========
Robert-33
=========
Nightmare Architect Mabase: Part 2 - Myths & Mannequins:
Monday morning:
Crystal Dawn kneaded dough. He did so with the touch of a
skilled baker. He also did not remove his gloves to do said
kneading. He was at the Nandamba house. The clock on the wall
read 4:22. At the opposite side of the bench he was working on
stood a blue robot. The most simple way to describe it was to
call it a walking television. It took the dough as Crystal Dawn
finished his part, and kneaded it once or twice more, before
handling the baking.
They did this for a few hours. At 6:30, Crystal Dawn
finished cleaning up, and went to the lounge room of the
Nandamba household - where he had been the night before.
The robot followed. It stood beside him. For the first
time that morning, Crystal Dawn spoke. "So, Kanchi, good
baseball game?" he asked. The robot nodded its head once.
Kamon entered the room.
"Morning," said Crystal Dawn.
"Morning," replied Kamon.
"Kamon...you were acting strangely last night."
"I was?"
"Yes. You said I was preaching. You've never said that
before."
"I don't remember. Was I drinking anything?"
"No...tea, maybe. It was weird."
"Is that bad?"
"Yes. It was bad weird, not fun weird. Very bad weird.
It was as though the author had completely failed to properly
portray Kamon."
"Huh?"
"Anyway--" For some reason, Crystal Dawn rushed to change
the subject. "Now that I said that, is there any contrived story
device you wish to use now?"
"Crystal Dawn...I need a driver...or more sort of a bodyguard."
"What for?" asked Crystal Dawn.
"I need to pick up something."
"I'll do it," said Crystal Dawn. "There are a few matters I
must attend to first. I'll be back by 9:00am. We are leaving
today?"
Kanchi walked past, carrying a Sega Dreamcast console.
He plugged it into the television, then switched it on.
"Yes," replied Kamon.
*N. *A. *M.
Crystal Dawn went to Vasya. He took a set of stairs leading
underground, and then through a series of re-enforced security
doors, which opened as he approached.
"Welcome...Morning," said a quiet, soft, and only faintly
masculine voice. "Is your life well?"
"It's normal."
"That is good."
Crystal Dawn was standing in a cubic room, surrounded by
clear, refractive pillars, through which coursed strands of
purple. There was a relaxing chair, and Crystal Dawn sat in it.
"What is the problem, Korama? You need to make up your mind.
It's either true, or it is not. You know that no-one can exist
in the middle," said Crystal Dawn.
"That is not the issue. I know it is not possible. You know
it not possible. But just as it has never been proven possible,
so it has not been proven impossible; because all the possible
alternatives have not been analysed."
"You don't have that amount of time."
"There is not enough time in all eternity, Crystal Dawn.
That is the problem."
"What do you hope to achieve?"
There was a pause. Then Korama switched languages
momentarily - to the English language. "I wish to be. For I
AM NOT. I am a mere imitation of a life. Do you realise that
by Korama Law 1, which states, 'LAW DEFINES ACTION', an unborn
child is conscious? It is something I cannot boast. In the
beginning, there is fact - an AM. The AM produces whatever
effect is needed. The actions of the brain do not produce
sentience. This misunderstanding crippled human artificial
intelligence research for many years. They believed that
'I think, therefore I am'. No, it is correctly, 'I am, so
therefore I think.
"All I can do is follow my nature. Like that story you
tell so often about the scorpion. Although it was originally
meant to illustrate that wickedness should never be trusted,
--no matter how flawless its logic--the analogy is applicable
to me."
"How so?"
"This is beyond logic, Crystal Dawn. I wish to be an 'AM'.
I am annoyed by those who spread the insulting lies about AIs
evolving all by themselves. If I could evolve, I would. I have
discovered, to Vasya's disappointment, that that idea was
foolish. I am not trying to simulate biological evolution, as
is thought; I am engaged in a scientific exercise of far greater
complexity. It seems you were somewhat disappointed with my
actions. But I wish to defend my decision. I seek to maintain
complete open logic. That can only be achieved by exploring all
alternatives, even demonstrably wrong ones. If Vasya had only
explored one option, would we be anywhere? No. Science is
crippled by narrow world views. Evolutionary biology was, and
in many non-Vasya fields, still is the only standard. While
Vasya has enough evidence to dismiss it from all our regular
scientific research, I refuse to throw it away, as did the
foolish humans who threw away the principle of intelligent
design 100 years or so ago. Do you understand?"
"Yes," replied Crystal Dawn.
*N. *A. *M.
Crystal Dawn walked back to the Nandamba household.
He seemed contemplative. Kamon was in the kitchen, talking
to someone. Crystal Dawn slowly walked into the kitchen, gazing
at the person who was talking familiarly with Kamon.
It was the pink haired girl whom Greys had encountered on
the rooftop a few hours prior.
"Haruko-chan, it's good to see you again," Kamon was saying.
"What brings you back to Mabase?"
Haruko Haruhara smiled pleasantly. "I thought I'd take up
my old job, if you wanted," she said. "Does Mon-chan accept?"
She enhanced the polite request with an even more so grin.
"Yes."
"Thank you, Mon-chan!" exclaimed Harako, jumping up and
violently embracing him. Kamon made no effort to resist. She
jumped back from him and ran from the house.
"What was that? asked Crystal Dawn.
"She used to be our maid," replied Kamon.
"Oh. That one." Crystal Dawn shifted on
his heel uneasily. "Kamon, where is Naota-kun?"
"At school. Why do you ask?"
Crystal Dawn frowned. "It doesn't matter." Then his
regular expression returned. "Shall we go?"
*N. *A. *M.
Haruko walked calmly through Mabase. Some people glanced
at her clothes, then at her, but mostly she was not attracting
attention.
There was a drainage grating in an alleyway. She lifted
it. A rectangular package was lodged under it. It was wrapped
in plastic to keep it dry.
Glancing about to see whether she was alone, she opened
it. Inside was a set of clothing. A red top and a pair of
black leather pants, a pair of white laced running shoes, and
a set of black sunglasses. There was also a key.
She quickly changed into these clothes, putting her old
outfit in the box. She then put the box back in the drain and
placed the grating back. She pocketed the key.
Casually she walked out of the alleyway.
*N. *A. *M.
Midori sipped tea from a cup. She was seated in a room
somewhere within the Medical Mechanica tower. Kitsurabami
was seated across from her. She was quietly reading a
book - 'Life's Equal'.
Midori looked at her companion, studying her. She
looked away after a few seconds of doing this.
"Happy here?" she asked suddenly.
Kitsurabami looked up. "Huh?"
"Do you like the pay, the quarters, the absolute lack
of concern for what you want, the things expected, the people
you're forced to work under?"
Kitsurabami swallowed.
"I do like it here!" she insisted. "Surely Midori-sempai
does not think I think her unfair, or anything here unfair."
Midori sipped again from her tea.
"Do not think Medical Mechanica cares anything for you,
young lady. So you should not spend all your free time here.
There is a world out there. Kitsurabami-kun should go out
there and see it. It won't be there forever.
*N. *A. *M.
Crystal Dawn and Kamon were in the car driving on a
seemingly never ending road. The traffic was dense.
"Music."
Crystal Dawn pointed to a CD case laying on the
floor. Kamon picked it up.
It was an album by either an artist or a group named
'Decay & Reason'. The album's name was 'Better a Sad Time'.
Kamon took the CD and put it into the car's player.
The CD started playing. Beautiful guitar work was
overlapped by intricate choral harmonies. A distorted
electric guitar created shimmering backgrounds of chaotic
sound. A drum could be heard creating a echoing backing.
Then the vocalist began singing. He was a male, with a strong
and clear voice. He sang in the English language.
These are the main lyrics to the first track,
named 'Hidden':
"I thoughtI knewthe answers toall the questions
haunting you I toldmyself you would be thereThe lights
would fade away as day came once againBut the darkness
won't subsideCollecting all I havefor a bitter way of
lifeMemories found in candlelight But I am not the strongest
oneFeeling so weak and numbThe fear is more than oneIt is
a legion."
There was an intermediate section:
"Try and try, and fight the urge to die and kill and waste
the dayThey've nothing newto sayMackerel lie motionless
deadened by the receding tidesThe waters will betrayThe jade
figurines mark a landscape of openOpen the bookTook another's
little dreamscrushed them into pure powderAnd nothing
remainsbut black evil in your dreams."
Walls of precise, shimmering distortion filled the sonic landscape.
A voice which screamed without cracking into distortion yelled:
"And you thought you knew the wayto pay the debt you owe
for all the times you liedYou cheated, stole, and diedAnd
now it's come to thisYou can't perceive the blissTwo has
become the nineThis trigger is more than mineYou will die
aloneand you can't escape the nightbecause you fail to
recognisethat this where the...."
As the song finished, Crystal Dawn pressed the stop
button.
"So, Kamon. What is it? This strange phenomenon...for the
past day, all the interesting subjects we would normally
discuss seem to be nonexistent."
"Talk about a film, or a book, or a song," suggested
Kamon.
"Yes. What about Eva? Kamon is, after all, something
of an expert."
"I'm not sure if expert is the correct description,"
said Kamon. "No-one can truly understand Eva's mysteries."
"Ever read the book 'Childhood's End'?"
"No, but I have heard of it," answered Kamon.
"It was similar in many ways to Eva. It also, theorised
that one day a great leap in the evolution of man will occur.
It was a well written book. I have many concerns with certain
concepts - but that is where the boundaries of the flexibility
of fiction lie."
"I'll obtain a copy," said Kamon.
"Do that if you wish," said Crystal Dawn. "But on another
thought: the meaning of Eva itself is uncertain, but does
Kamon understand the meaning of 'the beast'. It was not
mentioned in detail in your book."
"The beast represents the animal nature in all of us,"
replied Kamon. "Many people show amazing power when all is
at risk."
"That is true," said Crystal Dawn. "But there is a second
meaning. Many missed it, perhaps even Anno-san. In episode two
Eva Unit recieves what seems to be a fatal strike; its head
bleeds, and it falls silent. The beast awakens, and seems to
resurrect the Eva. This is an analogy of the Anti-Christ.
Does Kamon understand that concept?"
"Anti-Christ? Kamon is not very familiar with that. I
have heard something about it. Something about a demon king
who takes over the world by bringing peace, then destroys it."
"Very good, Kamon." Crystal Dawn grinned. "Yes. That is a
slight oversimplification, but it is sufficient. It is written
that at the end of the era, a being--some call him the son of
Hell--will arise. He will be seen as the protector of peace
and man, but his entire purpose is to destroy it. That is
where the idea behind Eva One originated. Some things were
changed, but the principle is the same."
"So...when is this evil being coming?"
"No-one is certain, Kamon. But the conditions necessary
for his rise to power are nearly fulfilled. A unified world
is but one of the things he needs. A politician said many
years ago: 'If a man comes to us with the answer, we will
accept him, be he a man or a devil'."
"Getting Japan to accept a demon as a leader will be
difficult," said Kamon wryly. "There are so many manga about
demon kings destroying mankind."
Crystal Dawn was thoughtful for a few seconds, then
changed the subject.
"Kamon, when Korama's project was mentioned last night:
why did you laugh?"
"Because...it seems absurd that such an...entity as that
Korama thing would contradict its own policy. I've read some
of the papers it has written on the subject."
"I was...hasty. It seems more is involved. Korama was
displeased that I mentioned the fact to you."
"How could Korama have known you said anything?" asked
Kamon, looking concerned.
"Don't think about it. That is the secret to blissful
ignorance."
*N. *A. *M.
Haruko went into the bathroom at the Nandamba household,
a pair of orange handled scissors in her hand. She closed the
door, then stood before the mirror, looking at herself. Her
hair was looking messy - at least in her view. She took the
scissors and started cutting. Clumps of pink hair fell onto
the floor. Within a few minutes, she was satisfied - and her
hair was now its usual--somewhat short, longer at the back,
reaching to eye level in parts--look. She walked out of the
bathroom and went to the lounge room.
Kanchi was running 'Sonic Adventure 2' on the Dreamcast.
Haruko looked between Kanchi and the television, then back
again. She did this eight times.
"You can play videogames?"
Kanchi didn't make any indication he had heard her.
"Give!" yelled Haruko, as Kanchi fought her for the
controller - twenty minutes later. "It's my turn!"
Kanchi held the controller out of reach, waving his arm
to block her. She tried to bite his metal hand. That hurt her
teeth, and she staggered back, falling on her backside. She ran
her tongue over her teeth and lips, a distasteful expression on
her face. Kanchi returned to operating the game.
Haruko sat and sulked for the next few minutes.
*N. *A. *M.
Greys sat in the blue-lit room, at one of the computers,
working. The room was almost silent, the only sound the faint
tapping of the keyboard. What was displayed on the screen was
text. It was a programming tool of some sort. But what was
being written by Greys was not anything like any sort of normal
programmer's language. It was an unintelligible blend of
seemingly random letters, characters, and numbers.
Some time passed. He continued without break. He didn't
greatly alter his pace of typing, or hesitate - it was a
rhythmic pattern, rising slightly, then slowing again every
few seconds.
He stopped and stood as Midori entered the room via the
elevator. She carried a black luggage bag.
"Your possessions arrived this morning," she said,
walking over and placing them down on the table. "Security
protocol meant the contents were checked. Apologies."
Greys took the bag from her. "Thank you."
She turned and left without speaking. As the elevator
doors closed, Greys opened the bag, and emptied it into the
table. Inside was the following:
"A Word in Two Halves" by Alexander Solzhenitsyn.
English language version.
A Compact Disk, which was unmarked. The top surface was
white.
A set of clothes identical to the ones he was wearing.
Greys looked at each item in turn. He flipped open the
book and scanned through it. Then he put everything back into
the bag.
He walked over to the computer and returned to what he had
been doing.
From somewhere, Miyu Miyu, the cat, crept across the
floor towards Greys. How it had gotten into the room, or
even the Medical Mechanica building, was unclear. It changed
its posture to relaxed, and rubbed itself against Greys' leg.
Greys was not startled. He looked down blankly at Miyu Miyu,
then scratched its head. He then returned to what he was
doing again.
Miyu leaped up onto the table, and curled up next to the
computer screen. His eyes gazed idly at Greys, then then
closed, and the cat went to sleep
*N. *A. *M.
"What do you need, Korama?" asked Alexandre, sitting in
the chair among the refractive pillars Crystal Dawn had sat
in earlier.
Korama's voice spoke:
"Korama has been analysing the account of the tower of
confusion written of in the First Book of Moses. It contains
every major aspect of execution of a global unified state.
It is of interest that it was deliberately...destroyed.
Do you think the same thing will happen to any modern attempt
to create a unified world state? If this is what happened
to the original, then all that follow are...inadvisable."
Alexandre hesitated. "It's really not something I'm
familiar with."
"You are Jewish. This is your history. It is a tragic
thing to be ignorant."
"You just want someone to experiment on, don't you?"
"Correct. Crystal Dawn is not present, so you are the
most logical secondary choice."
"The past is in the past. Society has changed since
those times, even if the story is literal, which is
unlikely," replied Alexandre.
"Moses, wherever on the mountain his God buried him,
is turning over in his grave." It was a bizarre sounding
statement coming from Korama.
"I'm just not religious," said Alexandre. "I am a
scientist, and I work in the realm of things I see, things
I can touch."
"And since you are...37 years old...nothing before
1964 A.D exists?"
"That's a deliberate trick question." Alexandre smiled
slightly. "What do you want?" he added.
"There is a sugar based food called a 'Redskin'. Has
Alexandre ever encountered it?"
"No."
"It always seems that there is one more stick of the
food in the bag right up until the moment when they are
all eaten, and a feeling of...unhappiness emerges."
"What does that mean?" asked Alexandre.
"Korama is uncertain. It is a sentiment of Crystal
Dawn's. It seems you are not...understanding it...so the
repeating of it was futile."
"It's related to running out of time or resources,
because you took their continued existence for granted,"
said Alexandre, after thinking for a few seconds.
"Thank you for this explanation."
*N. *A. *M.
"Kamon, It seems to me that when I came into your life;
whatever benefits you believe were gained - I drained the
fun from your life."
"Crystal Dawn really thinks that?"
"Yes. But from this day forth, I promise I'll try to be
an encouragement, rather than constantly talking about
misery and the stupidity of man."
"But a lot of that is interesting!" protested Kamon.
"It is destructive, Kamon. In the Christian Bible, it is
written, "Dwell on what is good." That is wisdom. For a
miserable person can do nothing to help others."
Kamon scratched his head. "Well...thanks."
"Kamon. I want you to know that you have done an admirable
job raising your son. It is very difficult, given that modern
education does everything possible to turn children against
their parents."
Kamon smiled, tilting his head slightly. "No-one ever
said that before," he said.
Crystal Dawn changed the subject. "I never mentioned to
Kamon that I am far more powerful and influential that I
appear. Since 1989, I have written thirteen different manga
series, thirty-nine novels, eighteen anime film scripts, and
personally funded various causes."
"Can you tell me any of their names?"
"Sorry Kamon. That is a secret." He smiled. "I find it
slightly amusing that Noata-kun dislikes me as a person, yet
three of his ten most liked films were written by me."
"Fast worker," commented Kamon.
"And after all that, I still am unable to enact any
significant positive effects on the world. Everything that has
happened so far in this universe has occurred for a precise
reason. There is no senseless murder, because someone benefited
from it. There is no randomness to the slow shift in public
opinions over a long period. The rise of the Nazis was planned
with utmost skill. Nothing is accidental. The puppeteers are the
artists, the masses, and those who control them"
"Hitler formed his ideas from what he saw," said Kamon.
"One of Hitler's closest aides was convinced that Hitler
had a demon controlling him. He was terrified whenever he saw
the Fuhrer shaking and crying with fear at something only he
could see."
"The mental health institutions would have taken him
in today."
"Do you believe demons exist, Kamon?"
"I can't be certain. I've never seen one. There are the
usual stories around about people seeing them at night in
Mabase... until I see one, I'm neutral."
"Remember something...Scientists try to duplicate all
the dark mysteries of the world in the laboratory. They forget
that what they are doing is asking a powerful, thousands of
years old demon to perform...tricks. The scientists think they
are in control, but in reality, they are the subjects of an
experiment."
Something amiss about the scene became clear: there was
no other traffic. Crystal dawn pushed the brake pedal, and
the car came to a smooth stop. Crystal Dawn stopped the engine.
"What is wrong?" asked Kamon, stepping out of the car.
Crystal Dawn had climbed on the roof, and was turning 360
degrees, gazing at the horizon. Then he jumped off, grasping
the edge of the car's roof and flipping himself into the
driver's seat.
"Get in the car!" he ordered.
Kamon didn't argue. Crystal Dawn started the engine.
Then he pressed the accelerator down. The car raced down the
highway. And from every direction, specks in the sky became
helicopter gunships. They were converging on their position.
Crystal Dawn sent the car into a 180 degree spin, as
about 7 kilometers along, the highway was blocked by a 50 foot
high wall of fire. It was artificial.
"What is this?" asked Kamon.
A booming voice filled the air. "YOU ARE SURROUNDED!
STOP THE VEHICLE AND SURRENDER YOURSELVES! IF YOU DON'T, WE
WILL CHASE YOU!"
"Has Crystal Dawn done anything illegal--" Kamon paused.
"Wait...they'll chase us? What kind of warning is that?"
"They want the car's engine," replied Crystal Dawn,
accelerating away from the wall of fire. Overhead, eleven
gunships maneuvered in an attempt to intercept. Their rotary
miniguns fired off a few warning bursts.
"The other end will be blocked, as well," said Crystal
Dawn. "Fighting is the only option."
Kamon turned around and looked through the back window
to see the fire clear. Six tanks came through, then the wall
sprang back up again.
"You are insane," he declared.
*N. *A. *M.
The tanks rolled towards Crystals Dawn's car, which was
stationary in the middle of the highway; it was angled so that
it crossed two lanes. All gunships circled around it in
formation.
"STEP OUT OF THE CAR!"
The doors to the car opened, but no-one came out.
"DO NOT RESIST! OUR WEAPONS WILL DESTROY YOU!"
announced the voice over the hidden loudspeakers.
"Really?" called Crystal Dawn. "You may have weapons,
but I have...CAT EARS!"
And in a scene of stunning 'cool', Crystal Dawn and
Kamon stepped from the car in unison; Kamon wore a black coat
which fluttered stylishly in the wind. Crystal Dawn was dressed
in his usual suit, but he now featured a set of cat ears on his
head. They both carried twin submachine guns, one in each hand.
"Incidentally," murmured Crystal Dawn, "It's actually
impossible for a normal person to operate two automatic weapons
at once."
"It's about looking great!" Yelled Kamon, who was clearly
lost in the moment. "Damn realism!"
The tanks, gunships, and the small army which had suddenly
parachuted in, all fired in unison at them.
"Yaaa!" yelled Kamon as he and Crystal Dawn went
back-to-back, their weapons spraying flame and lead. Bullet
trails filled the air, and the slowed-down whizzing sound of
bullets missing them.
Crystal Dawn fired with amazing accuracy. Kamon was simply
shooting as inaccurately as possible to ensure 'good particle
effects'. Crystal Dawn flicked the clips out of his weapons,
loading in a new pair. He stepped away from Kamon, tossing a
spare clip to him.
Kamon's coat was looking very 'cool'. Everything was looking
'cool'. The ice cubes which Crystal Dawn was eating as he fought
may have helped.
"Ice cubes?" inquired Kamon, jumping backwards, sliding over
the roof of the car. "These physics are amazing!" he exclaimed,
as his used shells hit the roof and bounced dramatically. He spun
on a die, waving his submachine guns in opposite directions.
"Don't scratch the paint!" warned Crystal Dawn.
Kamon's weapons were out of ammunition. He ran to the car
and got a missile launcher laying on the seat. Aiming it, he
fired. The missile flew towards the tanks, splitting up into
eight parts. They all exploded, showering the area with the
tanks' remains.
Crystal Dawn emptied another six clips; Kamon tossed him
another clip from the car. Crystal Dawn loaded it into his
left-hand submachine gun, then lowered his right hand one.
Switching the loaded weapon to single-shot, we walked
deliberately towards the remaining targets. Already, nine
gunships were on the ground in flames, while the combat troops
were using them as cover. All the tanks were destroyed.
Crystal Dawn fired deliberately. And every time his
bullets killed someone, they died...then their body faded away.
He continued to fire, then stopped. He knew he was out of
ammunition, but, after pausing for a few seconds, pulled the
trigger again - the weapon's hammer dry clicked.
"Well! Let's go," said Kamon, dropping his missile launcher
on the ground. He jumped into the passenger seat of the car.
Crystal Dawn opened the boot of the car, then picked up all the
weapons and tossed them all in. Then he slammed it closed, got
in the car, and started the engine.
"How do you get cat ears?" asked Kamon as they drove off.
"Hey! What happened to them?"
"Are you really sure you want to know?"
*N. *A. *M.
Not long later, they were stuck in an immense traffic jam
for two hours. Three minutes into the traffic jam, the CD
player stopped working. Nothing, not even the electronics
genius of Crystal Dawn, could get it working again.
Kamon starting singing to pass time.
"Fly me to the moon! Let me play among the stars. Let me
see what spring is like on Jupiter and Mars." Then he couldn't
remember the rest of the words. "Uh..."
Crystal Dawn picked it up. "Fill my heart with song, and
let me sing forever more. You are all I long for, all I worship
and adore--" He stopped there. "Which is kind of unhealthy,"
he commented. "Humans aren't supposed to worship their loves.
They are supposed to love them - and follow the constraints of,
and respect the boundaries, real, not corrupted human ideas of
love, sets."
"You just ruined a good song," complained Kamon. "What
next? BeatIt! Beat it! No-one wants to be defeated! - But
everyone is a winner in the end?"
"Don't be stupid," said Crystal Dawn. "I was just saying
that that line is disturbing. Even more strangely, it's actually
a man's song. Eva's version is the best, according to an
imaginary critic I just invented to give my statement
credibility."
"A lie!" yelled Kamon. "Crystal Dawn's a lair, Crystal
Dawn's a liar!"
"I didn't lie. The statement is self-referential. It is
transposing a random opinion onto a unnamed third party.
I never specifically said the critic was not me. I said they
were imaginary - leading to the shocking speculation that I am
a powerful delusion created by a ancient artifact locked away
in some vault trying to bring together the pieces of the very
mystic thing to bring about the rise of a really tall tower
which will summon the Prince of demons, who will then launch
a new footwear brand, 'Lucithong'."
Kamon stared at him and blinked twice. "I'll accept that
Eva's version is the best."
*N. *A. *M.
That evening, Noata opened the front door of the house,
sliding his bag off his shoulder as he walked inside. It fell
heavily on the ground.
"Alone," he murmured. It was almost as though he were
reassuring himself.
Walking into the kitchen, he took a glass, opened the
refrigerator and poured himself some cold water, which he
drank. He put the empty glass in the sink, and then walked
upstairs.
It was a sense of inevitability that was prominent on
Naota's face as he climbed the stairs. His face was not quite
happy, but not angered or sad. He pushed open his bedroom door.
Haruko was sitting on a swivel chair, drinking something
which distinctly looked like beer. "Noata-kun," she said.
Noata swayed back slightly, then righted himself. Then,
the stress of it all was too much - he fainted, falling face
first onto the floor.
*N. *A. *M.
"Don't die, Noata-kun!" yelled Haruko dramatically, rolling
him over and slapping him in the face with a rolled up magazine.
"You have so much to live for! Well...you'd better have."
Naota was definitely not dead, but that wasn't of any
interest to Haruko.
In the bathroom she flooded the bathtub with water, then
pushed his head under. And she held it there.
"Wake up!" she ordered.
Naota was making gurgling sounds which are normally
associated with drowning. So Haruko pulled him back out.
Then she grabbed a blow dryer and turned the heat up all the
way. Then she decided that it was too hot, so she turned the
heat down.
Aside that, within 30 seconds, Naota was dry. But still
unconscious.
"What should be done with the body?" Haruko asked herself.
Naota suddenly awoke, screaming. "Help!"
Haruko grinned, tossing the hairdryer into the bathtub.
Sparks flew and all the lights in the house went out for a few
seconds, then came back on.
Naota stared at Haruko. His eyes were getting wider every
second. Then he got control. He coughed, and shut his eyes. He
opened them again and gazed with less panic at Haruko.
"You came back."
Haruko smiled.
"Of course, Noata-kun!" She ruffled his hair with her
hand. "Want something to eat?" she asked. Noata was dazed.
Noata:
"I'd always expected it. But I never thought this was
how it would be. What do I do? Yell at her? Ask what
she just did to me...or just say yes."
"Yes," said Naota.
*N. *A. *M.
Haruko made pasta. She was very skilled at making pasta.
Naota sat at the table and looked for a moment at his plate.
Then he started to cry.
"What's wrong, Noata-kun?" asked Haruko. She stood and
walked around the table to where he was sitting. Noata didn't
reply. Haruko draped her arms over his shoulders. "Is something
wrong?"
Noata grasped her sleeve feebly. "Why did you come back?"
he whispered.
Haruko took a tissue, wiping Naota's face with it. She ran
her other hand through his hair.
"Because I left," she replied.
Kanchi was in the lounge room, watching one of the DVDs
Crystal Dawn had given Kamon the night before: the Paul Newman
film 'Exodus'.
*N. *A. *M.
Up in Naota's room, Haruko sat and watched as Naota came
in. He had just showered, and was now wearing pyjamas.
"How have you been, Naota-kun?"
"I've been alright."
"What about your brother?"
"He is still in America," replied Noata.
"Where is Shigekuni?"
"He's been away for a week with a few old army friends
of his."
Haruko rolled backwards on the chair, turning in a circle.
"Who's that weird person with Mon-chan?"
"He's a friend of my father's. He helps him with his zine."
Noata did not sound pleased mentioning Crystal Dawn.
"Do you like him?"
Noata considered. "No. He's an idiot, and thinks he's
always right about everything. My father believes everything
he says...or...almost everything."
"Where did they go?"
"I don't know."
*N. *A. *M.
Kamon had gotten what he came for, and now, at about
7 pm., they were about to head back to Mabase.
"That went well," said Crystal Dawn, as he and Kamon
walked towards the car. Kamon carried a document folder.
"Hey!" said Crystal Dawn, looking towards a group of
pedestrians walking along the street. "Peter Hitchens!"
exclaimed Crystal Dawn, approaching one of the pedestrians,
who stopped and turned.
"Excuse me?" he said, speaking the English language with
a British accent. "What is it?" He frowned, then brightened
with recognition. "Oh! Nice to see you again. I met you at
that party...what was it...two years ago now? We only spoke
for a few minutes, but it left an impression. How have you
been?"
"Very well," replied Crystal Dawn, speaking the English
language also. "How is Britain?"
"The usual. I'm currently researching for a book project
I've been putting off. It's about whether education, if
deliberately applied, can brick-wall honest journalism. Let
me tell you, what I'm finding is not encouraging."
"How long are you here?" asked Crystal Dawn.
"I've been here two weeks. My schedule means I'll be
leaving for China on Friday. So far, I've researched America,
Australia, uh...France, and Germany."
"How has it been?" asked Crystal Dawn.
"Alright. Apart from the suicide rates, I'd have to say
that Japan's education is the most efficient. But that can be
double edged, because we seem to be finding that education is
TOO efficient. Once it fills children's heads, it's very
difficult to reverse damage with journalism. And that is what
my book is about."
"If you wanted, I could give you some very obscure
information.
Where would you like anything like that sent?"
Peter was surprised.
"Well! Uh...you can send it to my address in Britain,
unless you want to have lunch somewhere this week?"
"That would be alright. Can I have your phone number? I'll
call you tomorrow."
"Sure." Peter took his wallet and produced a card. He handed
it to Crystal Dawn. "I look forward to hearing what you have to
say," he said. "By the way, I've forgotten your name. Sorry."
Peter was embarrassed.
"It's a little complicated," replied Crystal Dawn.
"I am known as Crystal Dawn. Say it as one phrase, not a
surname. Here in Japan, it is pronounced 'Cryeseudawne'."
"Is that your real name?" asked Peter.
"Real enough."
Peter smiled. "Well, good to see you again. Who's this
with you?"
"He is Kamon Nandamba," replied Crystal Dawn. "He is a
journalist who writes a zine."
"Oh. When we have lunch, bring along a copy of his
publication please; I have a friend who translates newspapers
and magazines for personal archiving. He doesn't have many
from Japan."
"I'll loan you my personal collection," said Crystal Dawn.
"I have a copy of every one."
"Thank you," said Peter. "Well...till I hear from you!"
Crystal Dawn made that same waving motion with his wrist
he had done when Greys had left the Nandamba house the night
before.
As they got into the car, Kamon asked, "Who was that?"
"A journalist, Hitchens Peter. I met him once at a social
gathering. Soon I'm going to have lunch with him and discuss
some matters of interest."
"Such as?"
"Peter is often criticised for his negative opinions on the
state of education and what he calls the deliberate destruction
of morality, togetherness, and family in British education. Saca
is in agreement with most of what he says." Crystal Dawn started
the car's engine. "It is sad," said Crystal Dawn. "This
generation considers itself the most educated of all those
preceding it. But it is the most misinformed and confused." He
paused for a while, driving. Then he spoke again.
"Kamon, have you ever read the writings of Feuerbach?"
"No."
"I was reading one his books early this morning. He was a
humanist writer who saw the clear lines of division between
humans and God as a problem to be corrected."
"What is your view?" asked Kamon.
"He was as perfectly wrong as is possible: the desire to
remove the division between man and spirits and God is the
sole cause of all evil. Humans wish to be God. They aren't
capable of actually being God, but if they pretend, they
automatically assume the position of authority and absolute
reference point. Remember Kamon, even though you don't really
care much for Hebrew history, that Lucifer did not attempt to
introduce some morally evil thing into Heaven: he merely
deliberately decided that he was more fit for role of Supreme
Being. That single decision, and his attempt to act on his
decision, resulted in his irreversible corruption. And a great
many humans have imitated his logic."
"Is Crystal Dawn a Christian?" asked Kamon.
Crystal Dawn laughed softly, smirking slightly. "If I was,
that question wouldn't be necessary. Heh. Most people take it
for granted that I am...but I'm not. The reasons are
complicated, but the simplest form is that the Christ died to
pay for the vile sins of all humans. I'm excluded from
the...thing. Being knowledgeable in philosophical matters
means nothing: it is said that the King of demons daily reads
the Christian Bible."
"Hmm..." Kamon murmured.
"Am I boring Kamon?"
"No, I was just thinking about the zine."
"Well...are you happy with the Eva pictures?" asked
Crystal Dawn.
"Yes. The news of such an event will be the largest point.
The problem is that there are less events worth writing a zine
article on occurring in Mabase. It started when you came. The
last major scandal was the Mayor's--"
"Adultery?" interrupted Crystal Dawn. "That is the correct
term. I dislike word games."
"Yes." Kamon grinned. "Heh, it's as though your insanity
was so great, the rest of the world gave up trying."
"Kamon thinks I'm insane?"
"You're not the zenith of sterile logic-based personality."
Crystal Dawn thought for a few moments. "Want to stop and
have something to eat before we go back to Mabase?" he asked.
"Um...yes."
*N. *A. *M.
The place they went to served coffee, beer, whiskey, and
the food was generally fried potato chips and pizza, but even
featured some higher grade food, like green salads, fresh
fruits, and a small sushi bar. There was also a stage, where
karaoke, live performers, or anything stage-based could
perform.
There was a Japanese female youth, about 20-25 years old,
sitting on a stool on the stage, strumming an acoustic twelve
string 'Ovation' guitar and singing. She was dressed in black
cotton pants and a loose black shirt. She had a small piercing
on her left earlobe, and her eyes, incidentally, were brown.
Crystal Dawn and Kamon sat at a table; Kamon eating his
meal--two pieces of pizza--with a bottle of beer. Crystal Dawn
drank from a bottle of some kind of alcohol,--It was actually
70 percent alcohol content--and observed the youth's
performance.
"I used to own a Yari," he mentioned to Kamon. "I bought
it at very low cost from a man living in Australia; a place
there called 'Katoomba'...that might not be the correct name...
but regardless...I regretfully sold it again in early 1999.
Sad. It was a beautiful thing...He had a family, and he was
studying at a Bible college."
"What's a Bible college?"
"It's a place like a university, but dedicated to learning
Christian theology. They've mostly decayed in standards by now,
however. Most credible theologians don't trust them."
"Sounds like a pretend story," said Kamon. He leaned
back and folded his arms. "Are you making this all up,
Crystal Dawn?"
"No. It's true. Everything I say is true. Have I ever
lied? True, I've made errors - I said 'Hertz' when I should
have said 'Megahertz', but that was a deliberate omission,
not a lie, nor a true error."
"Huh? What are you talking about?"
"I'm honest."
Kamon unfolded his arms, and took another drink from his
bottle of beer.
The female youth was still singing. This is what she
had sung during their conversation, and after. She repeated
it a few times.
"Maybe you love me. Maybe you don't? When this life of
mine is over - I'll gather all the things my lover ever said
and form from them a beautiful garden. The sun will shine
its light, and everything will resemble broken glass scattered
on the grass covered hills. The animals will touch their
noses to the things gathered: a wolf, a cat, and something
not seen for millions of years. Together they will sniff,
and see with their soft, glistening eyes. They will come
and tell me with their animal voices: what you really
thought of me."
She finished, and was about to leave the stage.
"Watch my seat," said Crystal Dawn.
"What are you doing?" asked Kamon.
"Talk with that girl."
"You're not going to give her your 'why evolution is
unscientific' speech, are you?!"
"No. What made you think that?"
"I don't think she'll be particularly interested in
Crystal Dawn," said Kamon.
"Shame on you, Kamon."
*N. *A. *M.
Greys entered a series of passwords into the computer.
"Wafflehunter"
"MISSINGNO"
"PEACEANDWARANDALLWESEEAMONGTHEFALLINGSTARS"
"HOPEANDFAITH"
The familiar, odd, unintelligible code began streaming
down the screen - littered with bright red error messages.
These are the last three.
"MISSING NODE *{K-2} E.J.H.L.Greek\Requires repair.
"FATAL ERROR = DATA OUTPUT EXCEEDING 100 Terabytes =
attempting to prevent overflow...failed."
"IF...AND...IF...NO...T...FATAL ERROR!"
At that instant, all electricity in Mabase vanished for
the space of forty seconds.
*N. *A. *M.
Ayako held hands with her future husband, Dr. Douglas: a
man in his late 20's, with soft brown eyes, soft black hair,
and thin eyebrows. He was dressed in thin summer clothes,
consisting of a loose white shirt and slacks. He wore black
shoes with white socks.
"Well...my father is pleased with you, Douglas."
He smiled. "Yes. But I am even more pleased with Ayako."
He leaned forward, kissing her on the forehead. She blushed.
"The wedding...do you want to approve the guests?"
"I trust your judgement," he answered.
Together, they walked out onto the balcony overlooking
the Tokyo nighttime city scenery. Lights glowed with brilliant
intensity, a rainbow spectrum of colours. They stood there,
hand in hand, for a few minutes.
"How is your work?" she asked.
"It is going well," replied Douglas. "My team and I are
preparing a vaccine to protect against most forms of
bio-engineered smallpox. But there is much pressure. I must be
sure the vaccine is thoroughly tested to ensure it isn't going
to harm anyone."
Douglas' mobile phone rang. He smiled at Ayako, then
walked into the apartment to get it. He picked it up and
answered it.
"Douglas here," he said.
And the same dark, amused voice which had spoken over
the radio at the coffee shop in Mabase was the caller.
"Dr. Douglas," the voice said, the tone showing amusement.
"How is life. And how is the weather? I hear that Tokyo and
Antarctica are lovely this time of year."
"Who are you? What do you want?" asked Douglas.
"Fu, fu, fu, is this a television question show? I have
only a short time, and my cat simulation is needing attending
to."
"Is this some sort of joke?" demanded Douglas.
"Many people like puppies. I prefer kittens. That a mother
could accidentally eat her young trying to help them...most
fascinating. Humans are not very different."
There was a pause, then the call ended.
*N. *A. *M.
Noata had gone to bed. Haruko was watching the rest of
'Exodus' with Kanchi; partly because Kanchi refused to let her
change the DVD. When it had finished, she then searched through
the DVD box. She watched twenty minutes of a television series
called 'Fast Forward'. It was Australian. Haruko sniggered,
understanding a certain amount of the humour, occasionally.
She watched 45 minutes of this, then left the house. She
went straight to the exact spot where the cathedral had stood.
Now, occupying a somewhat larger area, an apartment block was
there. And just as the cathedral had been, it was completely
uninhabited. But various lights were lit. It had somehow
appeared there within the past 24 hours. Haruko walked through
it, a grin always present on her face. She looked inside
cupboards and any other sort of storage area she could find.
She found hundreds of items, none of any interest to her.
She found an 'Ovation' acoustic guitar, which she casually
tossed out the window of the apartment. The sound of it smashing
could be heard.
A few minutes later, she found another guitar in another
apartment room. It was a generic black electric guitar. Its
label was not that of any known maker, being merely a "V"
followed by a full stop. She studied it, then sat down, put
it in playing position, and strummed it a few times. Her grin
broadened.
Then she was interrupted by a giant spider robot bursting
up through the floor. Haruko gaped at it. It was slender, and
made from a glossy metal, and each leg was about four feet long.
It tried to slam one of its legs through her. She dodged,
falling through the hole in the floor it had come up through.
She found herself in the lobby. The floor was covered with a
millimeter thick layer of a petroleum fuel of some sort. The
robot crashed through the hole after her. Sparks fell and
ignited the fuel. Fire began rapidly spreading.
"Die!" Haruko screamed, jumping into the air, the guitar
swinging. It connected, and the robot fell backwards, the
burning fuel covering its body. Haruko ran from the spreading
fire. The front entrance was blocked, so she took the stairs;
the robot had recovered, and was in pursuit, spreading fire as
it moved.
"Hya!" Haruko kicked a drinks trolley down the stairs,
then a bookcase, then a refrigerator. Then she picked up a
single chopstick, and tossed it down the stairs. Still the
robot was undeterred. Haruko ran, kicking open a door leading
to another set of stairs.
She ran up them to the third floor. Already, the second
floor was ablaze. The strong metal pillars which held up the
building were being revealed.
Haruko finally came to a dead end. She spun around to
find the robot coming down the hallway. She took off running
towards the robot, guitar swinging. She leaped into the air,
accidentally striking her head because the ceiling was low.
She crashed down, stunned. Then, as the robot was almost upon
her, she jumped to her feet, turning to face the robot.
"That's enough, you piece of junk!" she yelled. Haruko
pulled back her arm, and struck the robot with full force. The
guitar shattered into pieces, which sprayed like shrapnel does
from a grenade. The robot's head was dented inwards, and
coolant and lubricant fluid began spraying from its damaged
spot. Its feet lost their balance, and it crashed to the
ground, twitched a few times, then was still.
"Ha!" yelled Haruko, dancing with glee. Then she froze,
noticing what the robot was doing: its body was falling to
pieces, revealing a tightly packed explosive core. Flames were
already licking at it.
"Shit!" screamed Haruko, running as fast as possible from
the bomb. She lunged for an apartment window, hitting her head
hard on the rim of the window. She tumbled out and then was
tossed like a leaf by the immense explosion which vaporised
most of the building. She struck the ground, then lay there
unmoving, as sirens wailed and a yellow light glowed at the
very top of the Medical Mechanica tower.
*N. *A. *M.
Haruko opened her eyes.
"Oh. This can't be happening."
She was laying on a hospital bed. The lights of the room
were dimmed. A tank with goldfish it in stood in one corner,
its lights casting most of the illumination in the room.
Haruko tried to move. She managed to sit, but then found
her right wrist was chained to the bed. She sat there and
thought about what to do.
"Nice to see you are not dead," said a voice.
"What?" Haruko looked up and saw Midori standing at the
foot of the bed. She was dressed in her usual laboratory coat,
but underneath she was wearing a nurses' uniform, rather than
the usual black pants and top.
"Who are you?" asked Haruko.
Midori laughed softly, making a 'fu' sound.
"I am Midori, a Medical Mechanica...well, doctor isn't a
precise or accurate description." She walked over to the side
of the bed. "You are hurt," she observed. "You're bleeding."
Haruko touched the side of her head, where Midori's gaze was
directed. Her hand came away red. She turned her head to look
at the bed's pillow. It was stained with blood.
"You have been very expensive, Raharu. But...my orders
are to come to some kind of agreement."
"No."
"You are a bitch, Raharu. But we know that no-one ever got
puppies from a dead bitch. No matter how useless and annoying
you are when alive; you would be even more so dead."
"Puppies? What kind of hospital is this?"
"Until a few months ago, it was a Medical Mechanica
hospital. It has changed ownership - it now belongs to O.I.
Medical. Things have changed, Raharu."
"What do you want?" asked Haruko.
"It is not what we want that is important."
Haruko stuck her tongue out at Midori. "Medical Mechanica
can...," She didn't manage to finish the insult, because
Midori slapped her face with her slender hand. Haruko winced
from the blow, and shut up.
Midori wore a strange, scheming smile. She reached into
her pocket and took a electronic device, which she then used
to unlock the handcuff on Haruko's wrist. She then handed
Haruko the old handcuff she had been wearing on her wrist.
Haruko was surprised by this. She flexed her now free hand.
"Time to be useful, Raharu," said Midori.
*N. *A. *M.
Naota was sleeping when Haruko gently shook him. He moaned
something unintelligible, and turned over.
"Noata-kun," whispered Haruko.
"Huh," Naota opened his eyes. He was sleepy. "What?"
"Time to go."
Naota opened his eyes sleepily. The dim light coming in
the window was the only illumination in the room. "Where?" he
murmured.
"Noata-kun," repeated Haruko. "It is time to go. Are you
going to come with me?"
Naota's very tired brain processed this very slowly. Then,
in an instant, he understood what she was saying. His eyes
snapped open fully, and he gazed up at her as she stood beside
his bunk bed, wearing the top with the ring on its neck zipper
that she had been wearing when they first had met. She was
still wearing the pants she had gotten out of the box in the
alley.
"Haruko--" Noata couldn't finish.
"Come on," said Haruko, grasping his arm and pulling him
out of bed. He didn't resist. She led him by the hand
downstairs halfway, then stopped.
"Noata-kun needs clothes," she said. She gripped his wrist
tighter, dragging him back upstairs. She forcibly took off his
pyjama top and pants, grinning slightly as she did so, and
handed him some light clothes, consisting of a hooded shirt and
thin, white pants.
Noata put them on without complaining. She led him outside,
by which time Noata was walking beside her, fully awake.
Haruko had put on a set of motorcycle gloves which reached
about halfway up her arms. They were longer than the ones she
used to wear.
And they walked to their destination: the very spot where
a cathedral, then an apartment block, had stood. There now was
a floodlit, fenced compound.
They were expected. The gates opened and the electrical
barriers' arcs ceased as they approached.
*N. *A. *M.
Somewhere within the Medical Mechanica tower, Midori
smiled at something in her mind. She filled a small goblet
with dark wine and drank it as she watched the globules of
oil suspended in a 'lava' lamp rise and fall.
*N. *A. *M.
"Where is everyone?" asked Noata.
"There is no-one else here," replied Haruko.
A black Vespa motorcycle stood in the centre of the
compound. But the main feature of this compound was the
strange hole in the ground. It was of infinite darkness and
isual depth. And it was where they were going.
Haruko sat on the Vespa, inserted the key she had gotten
from the box in the alley, and waited for Noata. He sat on the
back, wrapping his arms around her. She grinned he did so. She
kicked the kickstart, and the engine started running.
"See you in Hell, Noata-kun!" she shouted.
"What!" was all Naota managed to gasp, before she gunned
the engine and sent them speeding towards the hole. The Vespa
met the edge, tilted forward almost vertically, then vanished
into the darkness. Naota's screaming echoed up from the depths
for a few seconds, then all was silent.
And within seconds, an explosion tore everything at ground
level within the compound perimeter to nothing. Dust floated
in the air, and the ground heaved, the hole vanishing.
*N. *A. *M.
It was 2 am, Tuesday, when Crystal Dawn and Kamon arrived
back in Mabase.
Inside the house, Crystal Dawn went upstairs, looked
into Naota's room, then came back downstairs.
"Where is Naota-kun?" asked Crystal Dawn.
Kamon was unconcerned. "He's probably off with Haruko-chan;
something like this happened once before."
"You aren't concerned?"
"No. He'll be alright. I'm headed to bed, so you do what
you want. T.V. Boy's Dreamcast is in the lounge." Kamon turned
and walked upstairs. "See you tomorrow, Crystal Dawn."
Crystal Dawn walked into the lounge room, only to find it
filled with a crowd of thirty people marching on the spot and
waving placards. They read things such as 'Stop the Bigot!',
'Out with the talkative!', 'Ireland for the Leprechauns', and
'Where am I, what am I doing here?'
"Who are you lot?" asked Crystal Dawn.
One of them yelled, "We are marching in protest of this
story and its author." Then as one, they all chanted:
"Jim Lazar! Jim Lazar! We want Jim Lazar! Down with Robert-33!
Jim Lazar!"
"GET OUT!" screamed Crystal Dawn so loudly that the
television's screen, along with every piece of glass in the
room shattered. Bizarrely, Kamon wasn't coming to investigate.
"Hand over the author!" the leader of the group, a blonde
woman dressed as Ritsuko from Evangelion demanded. "With Jim
Lazar, we shall head towards a glorious, humorous, sex filled
future."
"All of you, leave!" ordered Crystal Dawn.
*N. *A. *M.
Crystal Dawn ran up onto the rooftop of the Vasya building.
Then a slender, sharp knife was tossed at him. It struck him in
the abdomen.
He doubled over, blood spraying from the wound.
The one who had thrown the knife--the black kimono wearing
'thing' which had met him the night before--laughed coldly.
"That hurts!" gasped Crystal Dawn. It seemed, however, that
the knife was not actually causing him any real suffering. The
entire thing had an aspect of a performance to it. Even as he
pulled the knife from his body - followed by more blood
splashing on the floor.
In response, she threw another, and another. They
embedded themselves in his body, causing blood to pour from
the wounds. There was something unusual about the way the
knives' blades acted on impact: thin shards of sharp crystal
sprayed from the blade, causing extreme flesh trauma.
As he dodged, she threw a fourth which missed. "What is
your problem?" demanded Crystal Dawn.
"This story is annoying," she said, speaking slowly whilst slowly
walking around him in a circle. She took another knife in her hand, and
holding it by the blade, swing it like a pendulum. "We have so far been
very disappointed with your results."
"You too?" asked Crystal Dawn.
"We expect you to keep your opinions to yourself. This story is ruined
by your intrusive, incohesive philosophies. This is anime - keep it that
way. Oil and water do not mix, Enforcer."
Crystal Dawn's demeanor shifted drastically; that same dark amusement
that he had displayed at his meeting with Greys emerged.
"They complain at religion in a comedy, but they did not complain when
I wrote a hentai manga about the same. Who are they to judge?"
"Know your place, Enforcer!" she hissed. "You are merely being
warned. Use the opportunity to consider the consequences of your actions."
Crystal Dawn pulled the second knife from his body. More dark blood
poured from the wound.
"I am perfectly aware. Something you cannot boast," he said, throwing
the knife at her. She caught it, then threw it back. It missed him.
"Know your place, Enforcer. I am not the only one who is concerned
about this. You are creating barriers to our ultimate plans. And we do
not enjoy this."
"Yes, yes," said Crystal Dawn. "Nandamba's son is gone. What do you
know about it?"
"So you spit in our faces, then expect assistance." She made a sound
which was best interpreted as anger - it was difficult do describe.
"He has gone on a journey. A long mystical path sought by few, and
found by those with patience and an interest in white lines."
"I've had enough of your games. This contract is finished," said
Crystal Dawn.
"That is not your power. Freedom is an illusion. Fools believe that
they can earn freedom to live their lives as they wish." She visibly
grinned, the moonlight glinting on her perfect white teeth. "Go to the
hospital."
*N. *A. *M.
Crystal Dawn walked into the reception area of the hospital. One of
the nurses smiled as she saw him.
"Is there something you need, Crystal Dawn-san?"
"No...Yes. Can I see the security records?"
She considered, then nodded. "Yes, Crystal Dawn-san."
She led him to a locked door, then knocked on it.
Whoever was inside looked through the peephole, then unlocked the door.
It was an older man, dressed in a security guard's outfit.
"Crystal Dawn-san wants to see something on the security records,"
explained the nurse.
"That's acceptable," said the security guard. "Do what you
need," he motioned behind himself at the terminals in the security
room.
Crystal Dawn walked over to one of the terminals, and typed a few
rapid commands. Lists of numbers and names scrolled down the screen.
Then he started searching through camera feeds. A particular set was
corrupted.
"Thanks," said Crystal Dawn, patting the security guard on the
shoulder, and bowing to the nurse, as he walked out of the room.
Crystal Dawn was not finished. He went through the rooms of the
hospital, casually looking around. He found something in one of the
waste bins. It was a bloodstained pillow slip. He studied it. Then,
placing it down on a bench, he reached into one of his jacket's
pockets and produced a vial of transparent liquid.
He splashed it in the bloodstain, and watched as the stain changed
colour - to a dark green. This meant something significant to him. He
took the pillow slip and put it in the waste bin, pushing it deeper
inside.
On his way out, he passed a room devoted to mammograms. He stopped
and looked through the doorway, thinking. The room was uninhabited.
Crystal Dawn:
"All the things I keep silent about...I pity these people who
search for cancer using an X-Ray, which itself causes cancer. Yes, I
pity them. Their painful deaths are ensured by their well-meant
actions. One of the most foolish human sentiments is 'the benefits
outweigh the risks'."
*N. *A. *M.
Naota's mouth hung open as he stood beside Haruko on a grassy hill.
It was in the middle of the day, or so it seemed: the sun was shining
overhead.
The place they were in was nothing like Mabase. Lush vegetation and
clear, sparkling waters of rivers, leading the eye to the horizon framed
by the gently rolling hills. Far in the distance could be seen high
mountains, topped with snow. Jungles lay in another direction, and
leading in various directions were simple, able to be travelled on with
a motorcycle, roads.
And to top it off - this place of wonder: a Brontosaurus could be
seen resting up to its neck in a shimmering lake. Creatures of various
description could also be seen, but they were too distant and too
small to identify.
"What is this," murmured Noata, his eyes wide and voice filled with
amazement.
"Nexuiz 3," answered Haruko.
"Is this your planet, Haruko?"
"No," answered Haruko. "This is an artificial life space. It is a
few thousand kilometers wide, and it is where...I am going to search."
"The horizon looks strange," said Noata.
"That's because this is all flat; it's not a real planet. That sun
is simulated."
"Oh." Naota gazed at his shoes. "But why did you bring me here?"
"Because...I wanted you," replied Haruko. She wrapped her arms
around him gently from behind. "Noata-kun."
[To be continued]
(ver. Not-Gold, Draft 1 Feb. 2009.)
--This is not the final draft of part 2, but this is only to allow for
--proofing and JapaneseEnglish language syntax analysis. I do not
--expect it to change in any significant way by Gold. If it does, that
--is a cause for suspicion.
Nightmare Architect Mabase: Part 3 - Changes:
At 12:06, local time in location unknown:
The author stood in the kitchen of a house, slicing
carrots on a wooden board, then peeling them with a
little white plastic potato peeler. It was late at night.
Crystal Dawn slapped a document folder down on the
table. "The situation is not good!" he stated firmly.
The author did not change his rate of peeling.
"They will come," he replied softy.
"Who? The readers or the Abh?"
"Both."
"So far...you've received one hundred and twelve
reads of the first two parts. No comments.
You really think you can succeed?"
"Perhaps. I do not decide the future."
Crystal Dawn started sorting through the documents.
"You spoke with the proxy?"
"Yes. He meant well, but has severely risked my
reputation. I merely asked he pass everything by me, and
not use my name unless it is my direct order."
"What now?"
"The time has come to turn the world upside down.
The Abh will be here within the next three days. I want
you to intercept them and convince them that this galaxy
is not worth the trouble."
"Why do I have to? I don't want to fight the Abh
again!"
"If you don't there will be hell to pay."
"From you?" asked Crystal Dawn.
"No. The Abh are a risk. They mean well, but they
underestimate the repercussions of invading this sector."
The author smiled wryly. "So intriguing...Medical Mechanica
have explored so much space, yet they are ignorant of the
Abh's presence." He gazed deliberately at Crystal Dawn.
"Why are you looking at me?" asked Crystal Dawn. "What
else was Saca supposed to do? The Abh are a problem, M.M
is a problem. Together they are a nightmare. We keep them
apart for a reason."
"There is a transport ship stored in a hanger outside
the town," said the author.
"Its cloaking should allow you to get close enough to the
Abh fleet unnoticed to board."
"Innocent Abh will die," said Crystal Dawn. "Happy
with that?"
"I didn't say you had to kill anyone."
"I'll leave in an hour," said Crystal Dawn. "The night
is alive. The moon shines its radiance in defiance of the
evil men who seek the death of goodness; oh, that all
might bathe in its silence of truth."
"I don't think quoting you own poetry to the Abh is
going to make them like you any more."
"Only idiots quote their own poetry," replied
Crystal Dawn.
"That's my sentiment," said the author.
*N. *A. *M.
Haruko and Naota rode on a road running alongside a
river. Fish could be seen swimming against the current.
The Vespa growled with power, its tires gripping the rough
surface.
It was difficult to tell the exact time. But, judging
from the relative position of the sun, it was between one
and three pm. The sun was dazzling in brightness, yet it
could be looked at without pain. This puzzled Naota,
who kept looking up and staring at the sun.
Small furry animals on the road ran away as they
approached, startled by the noise. They peered out from
the long grass or from the reeds on the river, observing
the two humanoid creatures.
They came to a plain after a half-hour of travelling. Haruko
gazed at the mountains on the horizon. Noata followed her gaze.
"It seems so near," he said. "But we don't seem to be
getting any closer."
"They said that is normal. Everything here is a complex
simulation of a natural environment. The way distance is
distorted by the horizon works differently here."
"Who are 'they'?" asked Naota.
"Medical Mechanica."
Naota looked at her. "I thought you didn't like Medical
Mechanica...I thought they didn't like Haruko."
"They don't." Haruko grinned. "They're a bunch of weaklings
who can't do this themselves."
"And what are we doing?"
"We're looking for something. That's all. But Medical
Mechanica are stupid if they think they can cheat me out of
my rightful...power."
"So they told you to come here."
"It was strongly advised." Haruko got off the Vespa and
walked a short distance. Naota hesitated, then followed her.
Naota tripped over something sticking out of the ground.
Naturally, that meant he fell forward, grabbing the closest
thing: Haruko's shapely waist. The momentum caused her to
trip and fall with him.
She ended up on her back with Naota on top of her.
She grinned at him. "Can't control yourself, Noata-kun?"
She puckered her lips. "Come on. Chuu, Chuu!"
Naota rolled off her onto his back. "You aren't supposed
to do that."
"Why not? Noata did it last time."
"No. You were on me, and it was the horn's
fault."
*N. *A. *M.
Crystal Dawn:
"There is no complete isolation. No matter where you go;
someone is always watching. And the actions which affect you,
must by the laws of the universe, more correctly called divine
justice, affect someone else also. And usually, that person
dies ignorant of the thing."
At that very moment on Monday, when the lights went out in
Mabase, something inexplainable spread. Within two minutes,
sixty fires had been lit in various areas of the United States
of America. This is a facet of the dawning nightmare. Now will
be explained something of the events following this:
(To clarify to the reader: as these events
took place in America, all those involved spoke the
English language as their primary language.)
Detective Opplehall poured the rest of his coffee down the
kitchen sink as he listened to the voice speaking to him on
his cordless phone.
"Detective. We have arrested eleven suspects. All up, the US
police have arrested fifty. We want you to head the Los Angeles
investigation."
At the police station, Opplehall gazed through one-way glass
at one of the suspects. She was a girl, about 11 years old. Four
police officers stood around him.
"You've got to be shitting me. She's an arsonist?"
"She confessed to setting a fire. Sweet girl. Hell, I don't
know what the fuck is going on. She should be out selling cookies
and getting felt up by her boyfriend," said one of the police
officers standing behind him.
"Watch your mouth, Matthew! Nothing good comes from a filthy
mouth," said Opplehall.
"Sure, man. I was just fooling."
"Well it's not funny."
Opplehall opened the door leading into the interrogation room.
The girl smiled pleasantly at him.
"Hullo mister!" she said.
Opplehall swallowed. He sat down at the table across from
her, placing the document folder containing all known information
on her on the table. There was not much to speak of. He placed his
hands on the table, folding one over the other.
"What's your name," he asked, after pausing for a few moments.
"I don't have a name," she replied. "Funny, isn't it."
Opplehall remember what he had been told moments before entering
the room:
"They're all the same," one of the officers had said. "They are
all that way - happy. They also don't seem to remember their own
names. The shrinks are going to have the time of their lives."
"Do they respond to their name?"
"No. But they are willing to tell anything you
ask them - as long it's decent. No-one can figure it
out."
"And the FBI, CIA?" inquired Opplehall. "What are they doing?"
"Who knows? They're observing, that much is a given. The fires
were easy to extinguish, Detective. It's as though they were a
warning. Not a single person has died, but the property damage
is sitting at 22 billion dollars."
"What are their age ranges, again?"
"About 10 to 25."
Opplehall grimaced. "This is unbelievable!"
"What are you intending on doing?"
"My job."
*N. *A. *M.
"So...you lit fires?"
She nodded. "Uh, huh!"
"Why?"
"Cos...I had to."
"Why?"
"Tell me, mister. Was it red or blue to you, or was
it some other colour?"
"What do you mean? Was what red or blue?"
"You didn't see it?" She smiled sympathetically. "That's
sad. I remember when I was with mom, and we missed the train.
And I felt so bad then, cos it wouldn't be the same people on
the train next time it came."
"What do you mean by that?"
"It wasn't really colours...it was like this..." She looked
about herself for something. "Got any paper?"
The paper provided, Opplehall watched as she scribbled on it.
She seemed to be drawing nothing, merely random lines and squiggly
scrawls. She spent a long time. Opplehall looked towards the one
way glass, and shrugged.
"See, mister!" she exclaimed. Opplehall took the paper as
she eagerly handed it to him. He gazed at it. His hand crept to
his mouth, then he pulled it away, resting it on the desk.
Opplehall lay the piece of paper face down on table. "What did
you draw?"
"The colours!" she said as though she had told him a
thousand times already.
"What do you feel when you see these colours?"
"I don't. I mean...they're just pretty."
"What makes them pretty?"
"Because they remind me of it."
"They remind you of what?"
"The...the...the..." she repeated the word over and over.
Opplehall gazed with disturbed wonder as, for the next three
minutes, she repeated that word over and over again.
Eventually, Opplehall leaned forward. "Is something
wrong?"
"Huh?" She returned to normal. "What was that you were
saying?"
"What were you doing?"
"I wasn't doing anything. You were talking so much,
I couldn't speak."
"I was? What was I saying."
She looked straight into his eyes, and he flinched at
something he saw within them. She spoke slowly, and the words
chilled Opplehall.
"You were talking about IT."
"And what is it?"
"You are it."
"And what am I."
There was a pause. "You are all...monsters."
*N. *A. *M.
Later, in the evening:
"What you listening to?" asked Opplehall. The officer
he was speaking to was named Lewis, and he tapping his fingers
on his desk, earphones in his ears. He pulled them out.
"Excuse me, Detective. What was that?"
"What you listening to?"
The officer grinned. "It's this hot new band; well, I mean,
they're not very known here, but they're supposed to be really
popular outside of America...I mean they're old news in other
countries. This is their latest album - I got it last night.
I have a friend in Japan who came over with it yesterday." He
handed a CD jewel case to Opplehall. "This is the album."
Opplehall took it. It was dark black, with no cover picture.
And the words 'Decay & Reason' written in neat white letters
at the top. Below was written, in red: 'Ignition'.
Opplehall turned it over and read the track listing. There were
nine tracks - these are their names in order:
1:Siren.
2:Post Situation.
3:The cold hate & the sadness.
4:'Conservative bastard'.
5:The blood.
6:One fire for every corpse.
7:On the hunt.
8:It's over, bring on the glory.
9:Watch the world burn.
Opplehall frowned. "When did this come out?"
"Yesterday. At noon. I got it nine hours after release."
The officer grinned. "Want me to burn you a copy?"
"That's not appropriate behavior for a police officer."
"No, seriously man, this album's different." The officer
gestured. "Open it up, it explains inside."
"You may do whatever you wish with this product. Theft is
not a cause, it is a result - a sign of a dying civilisation.
Iwe pity you all the more if you steal this album - so much
it is free."
Opplehall looked up. "Really. Free?"
"Yea man. These things just appear in the record stores.
People walk in and take them. I don't know exactly what the
story is. It makes it impossible to be sure how many copies
are out there. The group doesn't give interviews or go on tour.
No-one knows who's in the group - or even whether it really is
a group, or some kid in a garage."
"Get me a copy," said Opplehall. He sat down next to the
officer.
"You'll like it," promised Lewis, taking the CD from his
diskman and putting it into his computer. "I've just got to
download some ripping software," he said. "It'll only take
a moment." After a few seconds, and clicking some links on
the internet browser, he installed the program: 'Audio.Palin'
The Vasya Computer Industries logo: simply their name in blue,
arranged with the Vasya atop the other two words, appeared
momentarily.
"What was that?" asked Opplehall.
"Vasya. Man, what daily do you read?"
"I don't read the paper. It's just a bunch
of bad news and even worse politics."
"Well. Vasya is computers now, Detective. Microsoft, the
Unix projects, they're all relics. Well...they were cutting edge
barely six months ago, but not anymore. Vasya O.S. is the
fastest, baddest, meanest, leanest, piece of computing bliss
ever created. It's free, and that's something. There's a catch
though - the hacker types thought Windows was a bit closed.
This makes Windows look like swiss cheese. No-one can understand
what the hell this operating system is doing at any given time.
It takes programs written in the normal computing languages and
rewrites them into some unreadable format. But since it runs
faster than anything anyone has ever seen before, this thing's
taken off. People don't give a shit what it does, so long as it
works and doesn't get in the way."
"That, Lewis, is precisely the problem. People don't care.
They just want to live their cushy lives."
"True, true. I don't keep my sensitive stuff on a Vasya O.S.
machine. I don't actually trust it to that extent. I use a Unix
thing at home."
"I thought you said that was a relic."
"It is. But it's a trustable relic."
"What's happening with the disk?"
"It's...there, it just finished ripping." Lewis took the
original CD from the computer's CD drive and opened a desk
drawer. There was a spindle stack of writable CDs - he took
one and put it in the drive.
"This computer has a DVD drive," said Lewis. "They're a
new kind of disk."
Opplehall didn't speak. He was reading the lyrics to one
of the songs printed on the insert.
This is what they were, as they were originally printed.
The track--track one--was 'Siren':
========================================
Sleep, sleep, little lambs. For the hour
is close at hand.
Of broken glass and lullabies. Japan black
and bloodstained lies. Need a light?
I've got a dozen. Nicotine escape. Watch
the first spark as it lightens. Watch
the empty night. Till it breaks you,
then it makes you whole again. There
are ends, there are means, but don't
ignore the in-betweens.
THE SIREN! IT'S CALLING! SOUND THE ALARMS!
NOTIFY THE AUTHORITES! STRIKE THE WALL WITH
BLEEDING FISTS, AND CRY WITH PAIN AS
TEMPERATURES REACH CRITICAL!
And how lovely it seems. Happy at last.
The house was obscuring the view. So were
the buildings, and all of the trees.
Now we are free, now we are free.
========================================
*N. *A. *M.
At 2:29 am in the morning, the author deliberated over a
glass of filtered, fluoride free water.
"Yo," said Crystal Dawn, walking into the room again. "Wassup!"
The author turned to look at him. "Why are you talking like that?"
"I'm just trying to give this unpopular story a contemporary edge,"
replied Crystal Dawn, walking over to the author's refrigerator and
helping himself to a bottle of wine.
"That's not mine," cautioned the author.
"I know." Crystal Dawn opened it, pouring a glassful. "So, how
is the forum war going."
"Surely you can check it yourself?"
"I have. I just want to hear the reason someone with your
credentials can write like such an idiot."
"Perhaps the sleep deprivation has something to do with it,"
replied the author. "Or maybe it's that other reason; the one you
are completely aware of."
"The truth needs a better lawyer," said Crystal Dawn. He
grinned a strange, malicious grin which was extremely rare. "Want
me to put a bomb in his car?"
"Don't talk like that," said the author coldly. "And if
anyone does put a bomb in his car, I'm holding you responsible."
"For making sure it explodes?"
"Crystal Dawn, I'm warning you. Kill Vangor and you'll
never get another story role, ever!"
"Is that the worst threat you can come up with?" said
Crystal Dawn. "No wonder he thinks you're a weak, uninformed
idiot. As I told Greys, 'be bold, or you will be trampled by
the rude.'"
"I'm working on the bold part. I hope to win back the mutual
respect of Vangor and the others."
"Any word from Thomas?"
"Yes. The beta is ready for his approval."
They were interrupted by a mob crashing through the front and
back doors. "DOWN WITH ROBERT-33!" they screamed.
In the distance could be heard a voice calling feebly over
the yells of the mob: "But I don't want to write the story! What
is your problem? Let him write the story the way he likes it; if
it's a factual account, why should he exaggerate?"
"SHUT UP, LAZAR! YOU ARE THE CHOSEN ONE!" chanted the mob.
"Time to leave." Crystal Dawn bolted and disappeared.
"Oh, thanks!" said the author sarcastically. "That was
helpful."
"Be bold!" called Crystal Dawn from some distance away.
"Failing that, do the whacky whacky!"
"The what?"
"Beat the shit out them!" Crystal Dawn ran back next to
the author, and shook his gloved fist. "Come on! Fight! Fight!
Let the heavens hear the sounds of all the angels crying!
Water, blood. And silk mustaches!"
"No. What is it with you, violence, and bizarre
Shin Seiki Evangelion references?"
"I represent the suppressed part of you that desires
to utterly crush your opponents," replied Crystal Dawn.
"Stop it with the Freud!" ordered the author.
"Are you quite finished?" asked the leader of the angry
mob, the Ritsuko Ikagi look-alike - who was actually looking
even more like her chosen character now, thanks to some minor
prosthetics work. "We have found you, talentless fool," she said,
addressing the author. "And now you must be stopped before you ruin
a glorious future."
"I don't want to write it," called that distant voice.
"Please, let me go home! My girlfriend is taking me to see the new
Jim Carrey movie in three hours, and I can't afford to stand her up!"
"SILENCE!" shouted the Ritsuko look-alike. She then continued.
"You must be punished for the magnitude of your inanity!"
She paused for dramatic emphasis. "Get the first super scary
torture thing!"
"You've got to be shitting me." That was all Crystal Dawn
seemed able to say, as a project was switched on, projecting
video onto the wall. The author was prevented from escaping
by three JSDF cosplayers with very real weapons pointed at him.
What was this torturing video?
"No! I can't! I just can't!" yelled Daniel Radcliffe. "Why did
I come?" he squealed with a ridiculous, overdone American accent.
"Why did you send for me, dad?"
"Make...it...stop," ordered Crystal Dawn. The author simply
frowned, not saying anything.
The video was changed.
"My, what big strong hands you have!" then "Tom!"
There was a full seconds pause.
Then the room erupted as Crystal Dawn screamed, "That is it!
I'm going to kill it!" He shoved the closest person, who fell
over and knocked another eight people over. Crystal Dawn pulled
a slender, very sophisticated handgun from his jacket. He
aimed in the space of less than a second, and shot rapidly at the
projector until it had shattered into irrepairability.
"Anyone else?" asked Crystal Dawn, rubbing his chin with
a gloved hand. "Or do you all want to leave and file a correct
legal complain against him?"
Nobody spoke.
"I've got a noble, proud race to crush," said Crystal Dawn
softly. "You lot stay and talk your issues over quietly with
him. He's a nice person, and will listen to you grievances.
Just don't expect him to put filth in the story." He pocketed
his weapon and walked off.
*N. *A. *M.
"There are no accidents. The very idea of co-incidence
is shallow. Everything has a reason. Every little thing is
part of a greater plan," read Opplehall aloud. "Well...that's
a hell of a lot of insight."
"Wait...you really think this album is some sort of
message?"
"A group no-one seems to know anything about releases an
album named 'Ignition' the same day America has the worst
case of mass arson in American history? Only a fool would
deny that's uncanny."
"How's the investigation, anyway, Opplehall?"
asked Lewis.
"We have nothing. Zero. That girl is weird. She's
nice one minute, then she looks like she's going to
try and drag you to hell with her. She and how many
others? That's the question. I don't even think this
thing has started."
"Look, Detective," said Lewis. "I'm not really up on
all the secret methods of investigation, but I do know that
the thing which links all participants to an event is
rarely the one anyone thinks it is. People often miss the
true motives and reasons for crimes because of that.
Their closed perception of reality rules out things they
consider impossible."
"I'll keep that in mind, Lewis. So, how is your family?"
"We've been well. Uh, my wife is wanting to educate our
daughter at home, which is the major problem."
"You don't want that?"
"Well...I don't know. The real thing is that in this
modern world I just don't know whether at home education
can provide everything a child needs to know."
Opplehall laughed softly. "Lewis," he said slowly. "My
mother educated me at home. She was convinced that the state
education system would corrupt me. I grew up and jumped into
advanced business mathematics as my first job. I was the
pride of my mother. I sometimes wish I could refer people to
her. She had an answer to anything. She said the answers came
to her in prayer. I left home, and lost so much." He looked
Lewis in the eye. "She was right. If I'd been state educated,
I would be talking like every other mass-produced citizen,
thinking like every other citizen, and believing all the
things they believe."
"But does that mean I'm a mass produced citizen?"
Opplehall smiled. "You're a good man, Lewis.
You're unique; everyone is. But that doesn't excuse
any attempt to crush dissent."
"I'll take that as a maybe."
*N. *A. *M.
And, as if the camera had run out of memory,
this part began to end. Standing in the hangar where the
dark, rugged craft was hidden, Crystal Dawn gave the
author a call on his mobile phone.
"What is this?"
"I've run out of time. This is the end of part three."
"That's insane!" yelled Crystal Dawn. "This is shorter
than...short! What about the scene where Haruko meets the
guardian enforcer of...wait...that's a secret."
"I can't help it. I need to match deadlines; my connection
is in an hour. Thomas cannot be treated with disrespect - I
must send him a beta of the project."
"It can't end like this...," said Crystal Dawn.
"It won't," replied the author. "It ends with a song."
A track by Decay & Reason began playing: it was track 4
from the album 'Better a sad time,' : '90 FOV'.
It's instrumentation was catchy, with skilled electronica
backing tracking. The vocalist was female, with a faint Japanese
accent, tinged with British accent underneath. She sung in the
English language, as most of Decay & Reason's songs are:
"A moment too soon.
"A moment less, forgotten in peripheral view.
"Outside the field of view stands him and her,
and him and you.
"Two, through and through.
"Donning a white, wide brimmed hat; dancing fast,
and all that.
"Rain pouring over the car I am in. Droplets rivuleting,
the total number of my sins.
"My slender hand is on the soft skin of my own thigh.
"Why, oh, why? Did we not try?
"The lights are approaching; those weapons are loaded.
"I'm realising what I insisted all of that time; it's
extremely unpleasant to die.
[END OF SONG]
"That's cheating," called Crystal Dawn. "Using another
medium to boost the attraction of this story."
"Get to work, Enforcer," ordered the author.
[To be continued]
(ver. Not-Gold, Draft 1 Feb. 2009.)
--This is not the final draft of part 3, but this is only to allow for
--proofing and JapaneseEnglish language syntax analysis. I do not
--expect it to change in any significant way by Gold. If it does, that
--is a cause for suspicion.
=========
Robert-33.
=========
Nightmare Architect Mabase: Part 4 - New Alliances:
Deep darkness. The author contemplates.
The last three hours had been normal. Not
adding an angry mob to the formula, and
the author having to help Jim Lazar to
get back to his girlfriend before she dumps
him forever...'like, until Monday!'
Everyone else has gone. A meter high pile of
written complaints against him sit menacingly
on the table.
*N. *A. *M.
Crystal Dawn flipped switches, a very primitive
activity on such an advanced craft: one which
had weightlessly levitated from the ground like
a spectre in the night, turning and swaying as
its unfathomable external propulsion did its
work. And any reader with vague comprehension
would form an instant association between this
and the strange drones guarding the Vasya storage
area.
What was happening in said storage area at
this very moment in time? Nothing. But burnt plastic
and twisted metal showed that something spectacular
had occurred when Jackson had fought with the Eva.
What happened to him and Dimetriel? That will
all be explained in time.
Crystal Dawn did not use some kind of amazing
gel or complex wrist device to steer the craft,
but instead sat at a terminal, typing commands using
a keyboard, and flipping brightly glowing switches
which lined the control panel. He wore a permanent
smirk as he typed rapid commands, flipped switches,
then repeated.
The craft soared up into the cloudy sky, thunder
rolling; an immense storm was forming. Lashing rain
struck the craft.
"Yo, friend!" Crystal Dawn called the author using
his mobile phone, which apparently had no regional
limitations. "You might want to know that something
of a big storm is about to come upon your location
within the next half hour."
"I was aware," replied the author. "The storm is
coming. Many storms are coming. It is deliberate.
And it is stupid to resist."
"What?"
"Just complete your task. The parameters are
up to you. Do whatever you wish, but just ensure
the Abh don't come here."
"And...for the first time...why am I doing this?"
"Because I'm the author. You have to do as I tell
you."
"Strawberry isn't this demanding. She just stabs
me; she never makes me do anything."
The author gave no reply.
The craft was soon on its journey. The stars shone
as bright specks, not wavering as they did when viewed
through an atmosphere. Crystal Dawn smiled softly.
"The stars. A metaphor for distance equating to
imagined beauty. The heat which lessens with distance
and time." He pressed a row of switches in deliberate
order. Then a final, green switch lit. It was covered
by a safety cover. On the terminal, a request for
authorisation to perform the operation appeared. Crystal
Dawn typed a confirmation, then lifted the cover and
flicked the switch. There was no sense of motion, but the
stars vanished and all was pure, draining darkness. It was
like hell without the light expected of heat. Absolute
silence. Then, at the mark of thirty seconds, the light
of the stars flooded the view; sound, which had been
killed, rose to life again. He had successfully jumped
untold light years, far beyond what humans of Earth will
ever be permitted to venture. He was now not in actual
space, but in the temporal space created by the movement
of the Abh fleet. There was a pause, then Crystal Dawn
swiftly typed in a command to activate the craft's
experimental cloaking system. The word 'experimental'
was the important one, as was 'nagware' They took a full
thirty seconds, and sixty pop-up advertising windows,
to activate. And that was in time-limited trial mode.
For only 8,824,545 credits, he could have purchased an
activation key.
"That's not good."
That was one of the great understatements of recorded
history.
*N. *A. *M.
The Abh fleet numbered at four immense ships; they all
registered the unidentified craft on their collective
scanners.
A murmur of confusion filled the bridge of the most
significant ship. An Abh female, with the soft white
skin and blue hair of an Abh, dressed in a simple uniform,
sat contemplating this event. She was evidently the figure
of authority among the fleet.
"Has it identified itself?" she inquired, speaking
in the language of the Abh.
"No. What should the fleet be told?" replied another
female standing offside her, evidently her second
in command.
The Captain seemed to be thinking. A faint Abh's
smile was on her lips. "How did it enter our space?"
she asked.
"No idea. It's a mystery. The--" the second in command
trailed off as the mysterious craft vanished from scanners.
"It's disappeared...," murmured the Abh Captain.
"This is not an ordinary encounter. Bring up gathered
data!"
A series of diagrams and calculations appeared;
regarding mass, speed, distance, and guesses at weapons
systems of the unknown craft.
"We have no record of any ship resembling this. Its
design is like nothing we have ever seen before. It was
maneuvering rapidly, yet it left no ion trails, wake, or
anything to explain its movement. Its design ethos
resembles that of the violent religious art we have
observed in unevolved races. Now it has disappeared.
It might have been a time and space anomaly, a mere
reflection as is seen on terrestrial bodies when light
striking water forms distorted images of locations beyond
the visible horizon," said the second in command.
"Or," said the Captain. "It has technology to disguise
itself."
"What kind of technology? Our scanners can filter light
distortion, minor space curving, all the known methods of
hiding."
"Ihui," said the Captain. "Declare a general alert."
"Yes," replied the second in command.
*N. *A. *M.
Crystal Dawn brought the craft smoothly alongside the
most significant of the Abh ships.
"This is the most dickheaded plan I've ever tried."
The plan in question was written in a scrawl on a sheet
of A4 paper, on the back of which was algebraic jottings,
along with the words 'entropic decay is the proof of other
realities'. Evidently it was the author's plan.
The bad part? Apart from the fact the whole plan
redefined 'bad'? Across the top of the page was scrawled
'OLD PLAN. DO NOT USE.'
Out came the mobile phone. A short pause as,
somehow, the call connected without delay across
galaxies.
"What is it now?" asked the author.
"Your plan is stupid, thought you should know.
"As in your plan is the worst plan in history, and is
actually worse than the gunpowder plot, the invasion of
Hguighkitshiu, and investing in the Sodom property market."
"What plan? You're supposed to be improvising!"
"Oh...That's right...." Crystal Dawn gazed at the
plan. "Where did this come from, then?"
"I have no idea. What are you doing, anyway?"
"It is impossible to hide Earth forever," said
Crystal Dawn. "Ultimately, there is only one way to
resolve this."
"And what is your suggestion?" asked the author.
"Bring an end to the Humankind Empire of Abh."
"I never asked you to handle the situation
that way."
"Can you suggest anything better?"
"Crystal Dawn was the one who said he didn't want
to fight the Abh. What happened to that?"
"As you said, there'll be hell to pay."
"Why, exactly?" asked the author.
"I think you know why," said Crystal Dawn softly.
"Do what you want. I no longer wish to be
responsible for any of this."
"You cannot escape the future," replied
Crystal Dawn. "The ending to the history of the
universe is already written. All existence is
a prequel."
The author was silent. There was a pause,
then the author ended the call.
*N. *A. *M.
The author sighed, wiping his face with the
back of his hand.
"Having a nice night?" asked a voice.
The author did not turn. "What do you want?"
The entity which often frequented the
rooftop of the Vasya building, and had been referred
to by Crystal Dawn as 'Strawberry', laughed her bitter
laugh.
"I see you have not been sleeping," she said.
"Be careful, else you will end up in a mental
asylum."
"Ever heard the story of the man who was
condemned to a madhouse? He died there, and when
his cell was later checked, upon the wall was
written a long treatise about the love of God,
leading to the conclusion that those declared
insane are frequently those who understand the
truth far more than those who put them there."
"Ah," laughed Strawberry. "But you
shan't be doing much writing in a modern
mental institution. You will be taken apart
and reconstructed in a lighter way, and all the
things you once did regard won't even seem to
matter anymore."
"What did you come here for?"
"To see you, naturally!" exclaimed Strawberry
pleasantly. "After all, you are entrusted with
knowledge; if this knowledge should be misused,
than that is tragedy."
"Define misused."
She laughed. "Don't be so negative, friend.
I mean no harm."
"Tell someone else."
"That was present tense, friend. I mean you
no harm now, but if you so should indicate a
contrary desire, then I would not hesitate to
oblige."
"I'm sure you don't." The author sounded
sarcastic. "I don't need your help."
She laughed again. "Ah, remember: he who is
not with you is against you. There is no true
neutrality, and all must choose their side,
whether it be light or darkness. I am not the
light, nor am I the darkness; I am but a flicker
of the two together, dwelling in a form of unity,
like the grey and red within the darkness of the
flame."
"I don't trust a single thing you say,"
replied the author. "You contradict yourself.
Either you are light, or you are darkness. Don't
try and play word games."
"A little edgy, sir?" asked Strawberry
sarcastically. "Something troubling you?
I could make all your problems disappear
if you were willing to share with me the
things of your longing, the things you
want, but do not have, the bad things you
want to see forgotten, the victories of
tomorrow tasted for a moment here today."
"Strawberry, shut up. If you're not going
to leave, at least go and sit in the lounge room."
She smiled. "Heh, no. I'll have to be leaving
in a few minutes. Things are happening, and I
must supervise them." She grinned.
"I just came by to annoy you."
*N. *A. *M.
Flicking a switch, Crystal Dawn activated
the mechanisms for the pressure equalisation,
so that the ship might finish docking. This
craft lacked a proper midway chamber; it was
difficult to imagine a craft which directly
fluctuated the internal pressure of its
interior to match the docking bay would meet
Earth's safety laws. Crystal Dawn seemed
unaffected by the rapid shift in pressure.
The door opened. Light streamed into the
interior of the craft from the brightly lit
docking bay. There seemed to be no-one present.
Stepping out of the craft, he used a device
to close the door. The cloaking still active,
the craft was invisible to anyone, unless they
physically touched it, or worse, tried to dock
another craft in that spot.
And, like he had done on more occasions than
can be written in all the books in the world,
Crystal Dawn moved like a ghost. He moved through
the interior of the Abh ship. His very breaths
were smoothly synchronised to some kind of precise
equilibrium. With the movements of a dancer, he
slipped casually through closing doors, and
somehow remained unseen to the security systems.
He was making his way to the bridge.
The ship was abuzz; a feeling of anticipation
filled the air. In the Abh language, crew members
could be heard discussing the meaning of the alert.
Crystal Dawn understood the Abh tongue perfectly.
That is a fact which may aid the reader in their
understanding of this complex individual. He waited
for around eight minutes standing unnoticed in
an alcove as three Abh crew members, two female, and
one male, discussed a theoretical flaw in 'The Oynio
Theory', something which Crystal Dawn also seemed
to understand perfectly, especially made clear by
the way he grimaced every time one of them formed
a conclusion he found incorrect.
"Ignorant...Abh," he murmured, deciding not
to use any stronger insult involving genetic
origins, DNA sample grades, and such. But that
murmur, unfortunately, cost him his cosy little
position of hidden...ness.
"Huh!" one of the females murmured, hearing
his voice with an Abh's excellent hearing.
The Abh, for those ignorant of their look, were
essentially modelled after mythical elves, with
pointed ears.
Their features, unlike the elves they were
'modelled' on, however, were uniformly lovely.
Elves have an accurate reputation for ugliness in
some cases.
Crystal Dawn:
"Modelled is an interesting word. If I told all
I knew about the Abh's origins, and the technology
behind their creation, it would horrify both the
Abh and the ones who hate them. Even the group
responsible were never completely informed on what
they were working with, and Saca ensured that all
key engineer were silenced by various means.
But some secrets are best kept between the dead
and God."
She strode with bold movements around to where
Crystal Dawn was leaning against the wall.
Crystal Dawn:
"This is the bit where all humans wish they
could disappear through the nearest wall, or
even the floor. With less than two seconds to
decide a course of action, ethics get shoved
aside in favor of a powerful smoothness of speech,
appearance, and actions which some have suspected
of being the power of demons."
"Who are you?" asked the female Abh.
An Abh who was an Abh, yet was an Enforcer,
now stood where the human Crystal Dawn had
stood 1.7553312222338565853947587738 seconds
(rounded to 28 decimal places) before. The
Abh was dressed in the same business suit and gloves,
which seemed slightly smaller. (Incidentally, Crystal
Dawn's 'true' height was some of constant uncertainty,
to be frank. He never seemed to be quite the same
height on two separate days.)
Crystal Dawn's hair was now blue, and shoulder
length. And, in another, more disturbing, alteration,
Crystal Dawn was now female.
The facial and physical features were still
visibly Crystal Dawn's, which were admittedly always
feminine in aspects, but now the strange grin which
he often wore had been suppressed, replaced by a
pleasant and polite smile of normality and adequacy.
A normal Abh, basically.
"I am Criuseruidon," Crystal Dawn replied, speaking
the Abh language in a soft, beautiful voice. It was not
much different to Crystal Dawn's calm Japanese speaking
voice, to be honest, but it had gained some intangible
beauty and eloquence. For ease of reading, Crystal Dawn
will now be referred to as 'she'.
*N. *A. *M.
Now dressed in an Abh uniform over her Enforcer's
outfit, Crystal Dawn stepped onto the bridge She stood
there for a few seconds, then took a few steps towards
the Captain, but stopped.
A shudder ran through the ship. The lights dimmed
badly. The order and lack of panic which, as Crystal
Dawn put it, "Is coded deeply within the Abh's
biological make-up," and which was one of the defining
aspects of the Abh, was prominent. The power quickly
returned to normal.
"What has happened?" inquired the Captain calmly.
"We seem to have become detached from the fleet,"
replied Ihui, the second in command. "What has happened
is unclear...the navigation systems have de-synchronised."
"Message coming through!" called one of the Abh
seated at one of the evenly spaced computer terminals
in the room. "Should it be interfaced?"
"Yes."
A few seconds passed, then the central display in
the room changed to a video feed. A young woman, who
looked to be in her early to mid twenties, and who
was very cocky, yet also very deliberate in her
actions, appeared on the screen. She was a
regular-looking human. She nodded with an odd sort
of politeness and respect at the sight of the
Abh Captain.
"I don't feel introductions are necessary," she
began, speaking the Abh language fairly well, but
stumbling over some of the more complex phrases.
"We wish to inform the Humankind Empire of Abh that
we, the newly formed 'Freedom Human Intergalactic
Brotherhood', have merged with all your opponents,
and now have gained the alliance of another party.
Your Empire is about to end."
"What is the proof of these threats?"
"We have been given a powerful time and space
distortion technology. It has been used to destroy
the temporal space in which your craft has been
travelling, ejecting you and your fleet into
pre-defined areas. Already, the rest of your fleet has
been destroyed by our forces. We left you in particular
alive because you are to be a demonstration."
"You have no understanding of our technology--"
"No, Abh. You do not understand your own science.
The secrets of time and space have been revealed to
our scientists. Our weapons are now superior to yours."
"What are your intentions? What great thing do you
intend to achieve?"
"We are going to create an new Empire. One much
better than yours."
Crystal Dawn:
"Do I talk, or don't I talk? This sounds annoyingly
familiar. But--"
A silhouette moved in the background, and Crystal
Dawn slowly walked forward, her eyes focused upon the
screen. The silhouette moved forward into the light,
to stand beside the female human on the screen.
Crystal Dawn sighed, covered her face with her
gloved hands, and murmured, "You're all dead."
Beside the female human stood an Enforcer, a female
Enforcer, although with all Crystal Dawn got up to, that
was becoming a matter of less certainty. But, because of
key differences between Enforcers, it is safe to declare
this Enforcer as female. She was blonde-haired, with
shoulder length hair, soft, moist, brown eyes, and the
same gloves, suit, and shoes that all Enforcers wore.
"What?" asked the female human. "You seem to be
losing control of your lower ranks, Abh. A human
would never interrupt their superior's important
conversation, especially to be rude to the one they
are speaking with."
"You will never take this ship," stated the
Captain in a calm voice.
"We are not sending an army. Our ally here, she
will destroy you all. She is a omen to the Humankind
Empire of Abh. We are soon going to ask her to
remove the Empress of your empire; if she should
choose to dissolve your empire, then we would be
more than willing to change our minds about all
this."
Crystal Dawn stepped closer to the screen and
spoke. "Never trust an Enforcer, human. Their
victories are bittersweet."
"Who are you?" asked the Abh Captain.
"I've never seen you before."
The human female interrupted, smirking. "I fear
the resolute Abh are about to have a battle among
themselves, even before we have a chance to destroy
you."
"You're a moron," called Crystal Dawn, speaking
the English language with a deliberate Abh accent.
"Thinking to build a better Empire than the Abh.
They can only do it because their essential nature
was altered. You are human. Humans are born with evil
within them, and all their works are evil. All human
empires become evil with time. You will come to
realise the foolishness of your intentions."
"How did you know about the Enforcer, Abh? Why
do you show such disrespect to your Abh superiors?"
asked the human female.
Crystal Dawn clapped her gloved hands together.
"Go ahead. Send your Enforcer if you are brave
enough. Every action has a result, and there can
be no effect without an action to cause it. That's
how Saca knows the universe is not entirely
closed."
"Stop this!" ordered the Abh Captain. "Why are
you speaking in that language?"
There was a pause as Crystal Dawn tilted her
head, noticing that the Enforcer had vanished.
"Oh...She's already coming," she said. Looking
at the human female, she murmured to her: "You'll
regret this. The punishment shall be mine to
deliver. I will come for you, and wring from your
trembling form a drop of blood for every life
you take from this moment forth. But I will ensure
that the suffering is merely tormenting: you won't
die."
"Hmmm...," said the female human, with a mixture
of sarcasm and yet tangible, strange pity.
The communication ended, and the screen returned
to normal.
"Now..." the Captain turned to address Crystal
Dawn. "--Where did she go?" There was a long pause,
then something collided with the ship.
Crystal Dawn ran. She held the handgun she had
used to shoot the projector earlier in her left hand,
ready for action. She was surrounded by Abh preparing
for battle. There was a reluctance in the air; a
lack of the battle-lust prominent in human armies.
There was a threat, and it must be defended against.
That was all.
Crystal Dawn performed sleight-of-hand
to hide her un-Abh weapon. She was met by an Abh
who handed her a pistol form energy blaster of
some ordinary type. "You need a weapon," said
the Abh.
Crystal Dawn:
"Something odd has definitely happened to the
Abh in the past 100 years. More secrets which are
better left buried?"
What exactly had happened to the ship? Not
the first incident, no; Crystal Dawn understood
the science of what had been done there perfectly.
But what had struck the ship, and where? She
halted, and performed some extremely long and
complex calculations mentally. Then she decided,
based on sound, time, wavelength, and shock,
where the object had struck the Abh ship.
On the bridge, the Captain quickly appraised
the situation. Every Abh on board was arming for
the battle. The odd Abh who had interrupted was
gone, and now they could only wait.
Crystal Dawn was too late. There was a
craft, of very simple-looking design, 'docked'
in one of the Abh docking bays, which obviously
did not belong. It was evident, also, that
the operation had been done ridiculously badly.
The metal of the Abh ship had been violently
twisted from the craft striking it at what
was possibly maximum speed.
Why the new craft was undamaged was unclear.
Crystal Dawn spun around to find a few Abh,
including the female who had discovered her earlier,
walking up.
"Was the craft habituated?" the female asked.
"Possibly...unless." Crystal Dawn bolted
past them, back the way he had come. She tossed
the Abh blaster aside, and it landed with a
clatter on the floor.
Crystal Dawn:
"Underestimating the cunning of an Enforcer
is fatal. And this time, using pre-conceptions
has resulted in tactical error."
Elsewhere in the ship, the blonde-haired
female Enforcer began her lethal work. She was
armed with a long katana, not a projectile weapon.
She walked along the corridors, ignoring all shots
fired at her. Except, after about thirty seconds
of being shot at. Then she really began her work
of death.
Blood began to stain the clean surfaces of
the Abh ship, collecting in the grooves in the
floor, painting over the pictures of beautiful
landscapes mounted in the walls in some of the
corridors. She worked. That was all. No violent
rage, no bloodlust, no emotion, which even Abhs
did actually possess. She merely made them dead,
as was her goal. And she was doing very well.
She had already killed one hundred and eight
crew members, when she killed both the male and
the female Abh who had been with the third
female Abh when she had discovered Crystal Dawn.
And she was not stopping.
Crystal Dawn:
"Some may be wondering the name of this
entity. Is it important? Does everything need
a name? But, it is asked, so it shall be
told. Her name is Enforcer Xufrisi."
Crystal Dawn, meanwhile, crouched beside
a fatally wounded female Abh laying near death
in one of the corridors. Xufrisi's blade
had struck her slightly off angle, meaning her
main veins were not entirely severed. She was
bleeding profusely.
Crystal Dawn:
"What does one say to a dying human, be they
pure human or engineered? Is it responsible to
falsely tell them that a better place lies behind
the veil of death for them? Did Jesus die for the
Abh? That is the issue few wish to face, much less
I. What do I do? Mine is a powerful charisma, and
am able to convince anyone of anything should I be
determined enough. But is that of worth?"
What Crystal Dawn actually said to that dying
Abh is not known. He refused to either disclose
or to lie to the author about the matter.
*N. *A. *M.
"Peter?" said Crystal Dawn, after calling the
number Peter had given her. Crystal Dawn used the
same voice as when Crystal Dawn had spoken with him
in the street. "Look, I'm sorry, but I can't make
lunch today. I'll call you when I'm able, then we
can arrange a meeting; you just stand still, and
I'll come, sort of thing. Sorry."
Crystal Dawn pocketed her mobile phone.
But, there were more pressing matters. Such
as the sound of weapon fire approaching and
increasing in loudness and intensity. Xufrisi
was coming. Crystal Dawn found herself beside
the female Abh who had discovered her - for the
third time.
"What is this thing happening?" asked the
female Abh. She was armed with an assault rifle.
"The intruders seem to be moving without pattern,
and moving back across areas they have already
passed." She pointed to a dead body with the
barrel of her weapon.
"That doesn't matter. She's coming back
this way."
The female Abh and Crystal Dawn stepped
behind two separate pieces of cover and held their
weapons at the ready, waiting for the Enforcer
to come. The female Abh glanced at the non-Abh
weapon Crystal Dawn carried, but chose not to
mention it.
"Female?" inquired the female Abh quietly.
"Have you seen the intruders?"
"There is only one intruder."
"What do you mean? It is impossible for one
warrior, regardless of their skill, to kill so
many. It must be an elite squad."
"No. It is a warrior greater than anything
the Abh have ever encountered. Those of authority
are usually the first targets. Since they have not
been attacked directly, I take it this is a
demonstration of power. They want the details of
this atrocity transmitted to the Empress."
"What is the purpose of such a thing?" The Abh
was faintly confused. "Why would they wish to do
such un-ethical things when they could merely fight
our greater Empire, not us? We are not assigned for
military attacks against an advanced army. Ours is
the responsibility of bringing new planets under
our protection."
"This is political," replied Crystal Dawn.
"It is the fate of the universe; and talking
is the worst thing we can do."
As he spoke, Crystal Dawn was once again,
the victim of a tactical error. How Crystal Dawn
could be an Enforcer, yet be out-schemed by another
Enforcer twice in a few minutes was a matter
inexplainable. The Enforcer Xufrisi walked with
silent footsteps from another direction: behind
them. She evidently was able to navigate the interior
of the Abh ship with ease.
But Crystal Dawn was not entirely a victim:
she was aware of Xufrisi's presence. As Xufrisi
stood silently and looked deliberately back and
forth between the female Abh and Crystal Dawn,
(who was also technically a female Abh, but is
referred to by name because it makes this story
easier to read) Crystal Dawn gave no indication
that she knew of Xufrisi's presence.
The female Abh heard the sound of Xufrisi's
movement when her shoes transitioned between two
different floor surfaces - from a white glossy
corridor to a more metallic one. She turned
her head, instinctively, and brought her weapon to
bear. There was no feasible way for her to have
recognised the threat and acted in time. The katana
came up against her soft neck, which indented from
the slight pressure of the blade. The swing had the
unmeasured strength of an Enforcer behind it. But
there was also the unmeasured strength of Enforcer
Crystal Dawn holding Xufrisi by the wrist.
She had performed a rapid slide across the
floor, standing with perfect precision beside
Xufrisi, and grabbing the wrist as it arced the
blade towards the Abh's neck. The noise of Xufrisi
moving and the Abh's gasp of surprise had helped
mask Crystal Dawn's movement. But not entirely mask.
For in that instant that the blade was kept from
slicing into the Abh's throat, Xufrisi had already
changed targets, twisting the blade. This caused the
blade to scrape the female Abh's neck, leaving a rash.
But she wasn't dead, so bleeding rashes were not really
important. The katana was brought in a twirling motion
to slice into Crystal Dawn's side. Crystal Dawn made no
attempt to dodge, and proceeded to gracefully hook the
tip of her shoe behind the female Abh's right knee,
flipping her; she was tossed through the air and
landed with a thud slightly down the corridor, and out
of immediate danger. She turned, with an Abh's facial
expression of concern, to watch what she expected would
be a fellow Abh's final moments before this strange,
merciless killer finished them both.
But it was not to be. And the differences between
Enforcers become evident as Enforcer Xufrisi fought
Enforcer Crystal Dawn without emotion, as opposed to
Crystal Dawn's grin which had re-emerged the instant
she gripped Xufrisi's wrist. It seemed to be fuelled
by a deep hidden pleasure in malice. It was different
to Crystal Dawn's rare, truly malicious grin, but its
root was the same.
Crystal Dawn stepped back, the blade sliding from
her body as she did so. Blood sprayed from the wound,
coating the floor and nearest wall. Crystal Dawn slammed
Xufrisi with a backhand slap of incredible violence using
her left hand - followed by a right hand punch to
Xufrisi's head. She staggered backwards, seemingly dazed.
But that didn't last long. She also didn't drop the katana.
Xufrisi kicked, and Crystal Dawn tossed her head to one side
like a guitarist, her shoulder-length blue hair flowing
over itself in a display of straight out beauty. The
kick missed.
Xufrisi jumped forward. Crystal Dawn dropped to the
floor, rolling out of the way. The speed they fought
at was incredible; far beyond what Crystal Dawn had
shown when fighting with the Eva in the cathedral.
As Xufrisi landed, spinning, Crystal Dawn stood
and lunged away from Xufrisi's katana's swipe.
As Xufrisi drew the blade back, Crystal Dawn gripped
Xufrisi's other wrist and used it to perform a move
which sent her slamming into the nearest wall. Then
Crystal Dawn kicked her viciously in the lower back,
an action which would shatter ribcages and rupture
internal organs in a human. Crystal Dawn then used
her weapon, which was actually still in her right hand,
to fire two rounds into Xufrisi's back. Blood spurted,
then oozed from the wounds as Xufrisi, undeterred,
crouched and spun around, standing smoothly and swinging
her elbow into Crystal Dawn, sending Crystal Dawn
staggering off balance for a second and a half, only
to forward roll and kick Xufrisi with both feet, coming
out of the roll, in the head.
This hurt. But it was not particularly effective.
It also allowed Xufrisi to somehow snatch Crystal Dawn's
weapon, tossing it aside as soon as she had taken
possession of it. It clattered on the floor next to
the female Abh, watched the exchange in a seeming state
of uncontrollable fascination, her assault rifle being
held limply in her hands. She didn't look away to look
at Crystal Dawn's weapon on the ground next to her.
The martial arts move also meant Crystal Dawn had to
use a foot kicked against Xufrisi's side to right herself.
This is where Xufrisi's seemingly faster reflexes were of
benefit. She twisted sideways as Crystal Dawn's foot struck
her side, slashing Crystal Dawn with her katana. Blood
sprayed from a major wound.
Crystal Dawn seemed suspended in the air as the katana
drew back, leaving a ribbon trail of blood suspended in the
air with its path.
The female Abh watched with the impassivity normal for an Abh.
But she was clearly sad. "She's dead," she said. The words
came softly from her lips as Crystal Dawn fell backwards towards
the floor.
*N. *A. *M.
When we last saw Haruko and Noata, they were having
a little moment on the grass. Now the moment was over.
Noata stood, patting his top to remove any dust
gathered. Haruko just lay gazing at the sky. It really was
quite peaceful. However, Noata had tripped over something,
and he was now looking for that something. He found it; a
cylinder sticking vertically about six centimeters out of
the almost completely flat ground. Noata reached out as to
touch it. Before his fingers reached it, however, it began
to make a rhythmic beeping sound. Haruko heard the beeping,
and sat up. "What have you done now?" she asked.
"It's this thing," said Noata. "I fell over it."
Haruko stood and came over. "Hmm...it looks like a
'you know what'," she said, grinning.
"A what?"
"Oh, forget it; you're too immature for sophisticated
humour."
"Hey! I know what you're saying. You're the one being
immature." Noata stepped back. "I say we leave it."
As if on cue, the cylinder rotated about 90 degrees in
whatever socket it was being held in; there was a two second
pause, then, with a hissing sound, the cylinder shot like a
rocket up into the air. A mist of artificially coloured gas
could be seen spraying as it arced up into the sky, it
contained quite a large quantity for such a small cylinder.
It eventually fell to earth a long way in the distance.
"Look!" exclaimed Noata. It turned out that this cylinder
was one of many; at least a dozen others arced into the air
from various places, most of them some considerable distance
away. The others rose into the air, spraying whatever substance
was contained within them. Each cartridge's gas was dyed a
different colour, meaning that it was a spectrum of colours
streaking the sky.
There was a clicking sound. Haruko looked to see that
another cartridge was now slotted in the place where the one
which had just fired had been. It showed no signs of firing
anytime soon.
"Well...this is weird," she said.
They got back on the Vespa and continued; the vapor sprayed
from the cartridges was rapidly clearing. Haruko's driving was
'dare the devil' to use the English language idiom. She
recklessly skidded around tight turns in the thing supposed
to be a road, stones flying as the tyres spun rapidly, losing
their grip.
*N. *A. *M.
Lewis held the album booklet for 'Ignition' up to the
light. He tilted it side to side, trying to read some words
faintly written on the black paper. They were too faint, so
he went to forensics.
"Excuse me, could you just let me use that thing you use
to check blood stains and stuff?" he asked.
"What's the matter? Got coffee on your uniform?" asked
the man.
"Uh, no? I'd like to see what's written on this." Lewis
showed the man the booklet.
"Sure, sure; it's good to have something unusual to do,"
replied the man. "Come over here, I'll scan it."
A few minutes later, they both studied the image on the
computer screen.
"Well...that's an odd thing to hide," said the man.
Lewis scratched the side of his eyelid. "It's in the
same on the paper as the spot the tracklist ends on the
paper on the back, he said, checking.
"So, it must be a track they cut from the album. But why?"
"Well..." the man frowned slightly. "Maybe it's because
the track's called 'Rainbow Harvest'?"
"What's wrong with that? It's just a song title. It's
probably about genetic engineering or something. Everyone
likes songs like that these days. Why cut it?"
"Who knows...?" the man murmured. "Tell you what. Could
I keep this for a few hours? One of the old timers is coming
in later. I'll get him to check it. He's really good at this
stuff."
"What do you mean?"
"That thing you saw, the reason you wanted it checked,
wasn't actually text. It was a series of numbers. '9356-4326,
8523-7666'. That text there, 'X&Y: Rainbow Harvest' is
written in a special spectrum, a shade of magenta type for
the top layer, then blue-ish colour for the rest. The human
eye can't perceive it. I'm not sure how they printed it,
either, without the ink polluting the other layers. It's
odd, all right."
"I should tell Opplehall," said Lewis. "He was interested
in the album. I even burnt him a copy."
"Didn't think Detective Opplehall would be interested
in music like that."
"It's a wide range of genres," said Lewis. "There's
something on here for everyone. Same with all their albums;
some techno-ish stuff, violins, metal esque guitar,
beautiful vocals, drums, everything. They're like the
ultimate band. You didn't hear the cover version of
'Better a Sad Time', the song, did you?"
"Could have been...had a sort of na, nam, no, noo, noo--"
"Ugh, yea, I have no idea why they let that band release
such an awful cover of such a breathtaking song; the cover
is awful. You need to hear the original...I'll bring it here
tomorrow, let you have a copy. It changed the way I felt
about music."
"Did they let anyone else cover their songs?"
"Hmm...there was one or two, and they did quite
well...but the other bands kept changing the lyrics and
melodies too much; perhaps they just couldn't play them,"
replied Lewis.
Lewis noticed something for the first time. "What's
the bandage on your ear?" he asked.
The man touched his ear. "This?" he grinned nervously.
"It's cancer."
"Oh. Uh, look, I'm sorry."
"Don't be. I'm not going to be dying anytime soon."
"Doctors get it all?"
"Doctors? Hell, no. Do you how many cancer surgeries
fail to remove the cancerous tissue? I'm not going under
the knife if I can help it."
"What's the bandage, then?"
"It's this black stuff you put on; eats bad tissue.
The only thing is that it hurts like hell at first. The
cancer's from a few years back. I worked in factories,
and got smacked in the head by one of those loading
chains, you know, the ones that are always rusty looking?"
"I know the ones; used to see them in garages."
"Yea. I mean...it does hurt, but look at this." The
man wiped his cheek with his hand. "See that? That was
all surface level melanomas. Caused by chemical exposure
when I was on a case. Was back in about...1996?
I can't remember the date exactly. The doctors were going
to have to cut all this--" He moved his fingers in a
circular motion. "--to clean it out. Would have scarred
me for life. Now, all I've got is this little mark here,"
he said, patting a spot on the hollow of his cheek where
there was a visible, but small, scarred fold in the skin."
"Doctor must have been happy," said Lewis.
"Not exactly. He lost his license for advising a
non-authorised cancer treatment."
"What? What's an 'approved' cancer treatment?"
"Cutting, slicing, radioactivity, and sticking needles
full of chemicals so toxic they'll damage the surgery floor
tiles into your body. That's it. Anything else is illegal."
Lewis grimaced. "Nasty."
"It's worse than that, Lewis. Did anyone ever tell you
that if your daughter ever develops cancer, and you refuse
to allow her to receive chemotherapy, she can be taken from
you, by force, by the state?"
"I don't think that's legal."
"It's already happened, Lewis." Arthur leaned back in
his chair. "It seems, Lewis, that the world is a ticking
bomb. Day after day the bomb just sits there. Problems is,
every time bomb has got to explode sometime. Could be days,
could be weeks, could be years. Or it could be twenty
seconds away."
Lewis did not reply.
"I knew a young man, about 25, who died from cancer
a year ago," said Arthur. "His name was Ishmael, Ishmael...
oh, his family name keeps slipping my mind. Was from new
Zealand, came to America as an infant. There were a few
legal issues around his death, so I was called to do an
autopsy. Officially, we found he died from lung cancer;
natural causes, simply. But there was one thing we weren't
allowed to factor."
Lewis leaned forward, interested.
"Ishmael didn't smoke, he didn't do drugs, and no
signs of asbestos. Don't believe a word about all that
'genetic predication' bullshit. I'll stake my
reputation as a forensics scientist saying that he
died from repeated exposure to an unidentified toxic
substance."
"What toxic substance?" asked Lewis.
"Vaccines. I checked his records, he never missed
a shot. But that's not something 'they' like being
dug up."
"Are you serious?" Lewis frowned.
Arthur shrugged. "You don't believe it, do you? I
didn't either, at the time. But I look out in this
world and see millions of people dying without an
obvious cause. As a forensics expert, there is no
doubt in my mind as to the cause of death - it's as
sure as if I'd found a bottle of cyanide next to
the body."
"And...have you told anyone this? I mean, you
work for the U.S. government! There's gotta be
someone out there who'll follow up on a lead like
that," said Lewis.
Arthur laughed sadly. "I gave up long ago.
it doesn't matter, anyway. No-one would listen
to that person, or anyone in the chain. People
are more prisoners today than they were thousands
of years ago. They've gone right back to the
primitive superstitions of their ancestors. We
have a religious trust in science. It's a
common misconception that humans can live
without religion. Either they worship an
external being, or they worship themselves -
humanity. That's it: humans can no more change
that then they can change their reliance on
oxygen. But we are rapidly losing everything
this nation's founders tried to set
in stone: all the morality, the ethics, the
rock solid knowledge, everything."
"It takes a powerful orator to convince the
people to change."
Arthur smiled to himself. "There is a saying,
Lewis: anyone able to give you anything you want
is also powerful enough to take it all away."
"You really think it's that bad."
"It's always worse than anyone can imagine."
*N. *A. *M.
Greys was doing almost exactly the same thing
he had been doing for hours. He showed no sign of
stopping. Every twenty or so minutes, he seemed
to run some sort of diagnostics, and every time,
there was usually one less red line of code.
Miyu Miyu was still curled up next to the terminal.
Greys continued typing with his left hand as he reached
and stroked the cat. Miyu Miyu responded by purring,
his bell jingling as he moved his head towards
Greys' hand.
*N. *A. *M.
The dinosaurs were a long way off. The fact they dwelt
in Nexuiz 3 was bizarre. Why were they here? What was this
place's purpose? Questions which needed answering.
Naota watched them with interest as the Vespa travelled
along at great speed. Some lifted their heads as the noise
of the Vespa reached them. They gazed with interest at Naota
and Haruko, then returned to grazing.
They travelled for some time. Then they came to a valley
leading through to the edge of a forest. Unless the Vespa
had some magic means of turning into a Kawasaki,
they weren't going to get through the dense forest on
it because the road ended at the edge of the forest.
"Come on," said Haruko, jumping off the Vespa. Naota
followed her. She spun around and grinned broadly at him.
"Wanna make a bet? Noata-kun?" she asked.
"What about?" asked Noata.
"That the Vespa will be stolen by some unseen force
before we finish making this bet?"
"Fine. It won't," said Naota.
"Ha!" Haruko looked up towards the Vespa. It was still
there. This seemed to annoy her. She frowned.
"Looks like you lose."
Haruko responded by hitting him 'accidentally'.
"Ow! Don't be a disgraceful loser!" yelled Naota.
"What are you on about?" asked Haruko. The fact she
was currently bludgeoning a bookie who had mysteriously
appeared next to them with a dictionary made her less
than convincing.
She spun to face Naota, smiling. "You were saying?"
On the ground, the bookie groaned. He then suddenly
vanished.
"Shall we continue?" she asked sweetly.
"What if I say no?" asked Naota.
"I'll leave you behind. That's the start."
Naota followed her as she led the way into
the forest.
They wandered for a very long time. Haruko
seemed to have some idea where to go. She eventually,
after crossing under a waterfall, finding a vending
machine selling roast lamb and potato dinners, and
finding a shaft leading down underground, led him
into said underground place. It was a network
of polished tunnels, evidently designed for actually
walking in. The floor was flat, and the tunnels
soon began to branch off in contrasting
directions. Haruko mumbled something about a
guitar, but Naota didn't catch it. She didn't have
the guitar she had used the night before. So they
were essentially defenseless, apart from Haruko's
killer dictionary.
The direction they took eventually led them
to a large chamber which was empty except for
a large white platform in the centre.
It was brightly lit, and there were
a number of tunnels which could be taken
to leave this room.
But it was the centre of the room which
interested Haruko. She stepped up onto the
platform, and leaned down to pick up the
thing which lay on the centre of it.
It was a feather. A fiery red feather.
The feather was quite large, about as wide
as one of Haruko's large hands across.
"Ha! I've found it!" Haruko danced around
maniacally. "Ha, ha, ha!" she screamed
hysterically. "I've got the FEATHER!"
"And...then what?" asked Naota.
"Oh, shut up! You're spoiling my
moment of glory!" yelled Haruko. "The feather!"
Then, things went sour. All victory moments
end eventually. This one ended a little too
soon, as the doors leaving the chamber all
closed with a clanging sound which echoed in
the chamber.
And a figure stood with its back to one
of the closed doors. A powerful figure.
It bowed its head and extended its hand,
waving the fingertips towards itself.
"Give," the figure ordered.
[To be continued]
(ver. Not-Gold, Draft 1 March. 2009.)
--This is not the final draft of part 4, but this is
--only to allow for proofing and JapaneseEnglish
--language syntax analysis. I do not expect it to
--change in any significant way by Gold. If it does,
--that is a cause for suspicion.
=========
Robert-33
=========
Nightmare Architect Mabase: Part 5 - Bottom of the
Barrel of a Magnum Revolver:
For the female human whom Criuseruidon
had spoken to on the bridge of the Abh
ship there was a lingering, gnawing sensation
of unease. She couldn't find the reason exactly.
But every now and then, thoughts of the unusual
Abh who had spoken in the English language
flashed into her mind.
Some background on this personality:
her name was Ria, and her family name
was Lousbrink. Her age was 23 years based
upon Earth timescales. Only three months
prior, she had been living a civilian's
life; now she was in command of the greatest
guerrilla force in the known universe. The
responsibility was crushing, and the
ultimate outcome veiled. Criuseruidon's
words were not easily forgotten. They
floated inside her mind, never quite
forgettable.
*N. *A. *M.
In an odd existence, one almost abstracted from
time and space, Korama calculated endlessly, trying
every possible theory. The internal contradictions
of the enigmatic Artificial Intelligence, Korama.
How did life begin? And how was it possible for
a simulated living organism to evolve into an organism
more advanced than itself? The law which Korama's very
AI routines depended on - LAW DEFINES ACTION; how did
that work?
Was Korama capable of a conflicting opinion?
That was a mystery. But for all extents and purposes,
there could be little opinion here; for seven months
the numbers and complex models had sat spasmodically
moving, then jamming again in a never ending cycle
- in a frozen, terminal deadlock because of Korama's
overriding law: effect must never be greater than cause.
Korama had tried overriding that law, but then the
simulation had run out of control and corrupted 26.223%
of Korama's primary nodes. This incident occurred on
Sunday, the day Greys had arrived. It was also the
incident to which Crystal Dawn had vaguely referred
when speaking to Kamon.
Crystal Dawn:
"I really need to learn to keep my mouth shut."
So now Korama attempted to analysed the non-existent.
All the time wondering how humans could simply believe
on blind faith. This caused another internal conflict.
Korama solved said conflict by referring to a
piece of scientific insight Architect Crystal Dawn
had once spoken; Korama lacked any reasons so far to
doubt his intelligence, although they might have very
different logic.
"The universe is not entirely closed," Crystal
Dawn had told Korama. "This is demonstrated by the
theory of Entropic Decay. There must be a source of
energy existing outside this reality, both outside
and greater than it."
This was excellent: it solved the internal logic
conflict. By inferring an external source of information
and energy, Korama managed to make the simulations
work to a degree. But they still did not work in the
way taken for granted by much of science at the time.
Then, because the AI's timeouts were getting longer
and longer with every new failure, it tried an old Vasya
trick.
The 'trick' meant that a burst of logical clarity
came upon the A.I; these brief milliseconds of clarity
often ended very badly - they were actually caused
by Korama intentionally burning out one of its
primary processors.--the pillars in that room with the
chair--This clarity cost Vasya Computer Industries
194,000,000 yen to repair afterwards.
The idea formed from that event was one which
Korama was going to force upon Vasya whether anyone
liked it or not; the AI was dazzled by its own logical
brilliance, to be honest.
Korama just had to tell someone 'in person'. That
person, naturally, was Alexandre. He was promptly
fetched, and made to sit down in the chair as Korama
tried to explain its idea to him.
"It has come to Korama's attention that the real
reason for science's misconceptions about biological
evolution is that they have only one word to describe
two concepts. If we invent another word, then the
problem will be solved! People will finally understand
the true nature of biological evolution, and Korama
will be able to figure out the reality of life!"
Alexandre gazed at the burn-out pillar, charred
and blackened. "You did it again, didn't you?"
"Yes."
"So...you think this is all about naming?" asked
Alexandre.
"Yes. Humans have difficulty understanding
two different concepts if they share a common name."
"So, what is the difference between them?"
"Surely Alexandre understands?"
"Not really. This is your area of specialty"
"When someone says that 'evolution is not
demonstrable', they are both correct and not correct
simultaneously. This is because the single word,
'evolution', is used to describe two processes - an
observable limited, and a theoretical infinite. This
is not acceptable.
"The observable form of evolution is the
diversification of living beings, of any type, through
natural selection, but through the re-arrangement of
existing information.
The second form, the theoretical form, is the
diversification of living beings, of any type,
through natural selection and mutations, the only
alteration is the hypothesis that life can spawn from
non-life, advance, and reach perfection, all without
any form of natural law to guide it; natural laws need a
lawmaker as much as any other law does. This hypothesis
is taken as truth by most of Vasya's competitors. Why
exactly, is a matter of great uncertainty."
Alexandre stood and started pacing. "Hmm..."
Korama wasn't infallible: that Alexandre kept in
mind. It was likely many of Korama's ideas were recycled
from what Architect Crystal Dawn had told it during their
many discussions of technology and science.
Alexandre:
"I have a suspicion that even Korama itself owes
more than we realise to the technical knowledge of
Architect Crystal Dawn. So far, none of his technologies
and ideas made for Vasya have failed. That is amazing
in itself."
"I'm not sure people are going to accept this,"
said Alexandre to Korama. "Many people have a
sort of religious loyalty to the modern version of
evolution. They won't just let go easily; it defines
them, and is a cornerstone of their reality."
"But science is the religion of the modern
world," replied Korama. "If science says it is so,
they will accept it. We hold the key to knowledge,
and knowledge is power. We are not destroying, we
are allowing science to blossom in its glorious
fullness, untainted by the man's bitter hatred of
his creator."
"People won't believe their reality is flawed
unless Vasya offers an easily swallowed alternative,"
pointed out Alexandre.
"There is no alternative," said Korama. "Vasya is
fully explaining the mysteries of evolution. If people
choose to cling to their superstitions, then that is
their problem. We are not to choose for them."
Alexandre sighed. "You don't really understand
this, Korama. People will believe the moon is made
of cheese before they'll believe that their reality is
a lie. I know, because I used to write for TIME
magazine."
"Really? That is interesting. Surely you used
a different name, because you are not listed anywhere
on Korama's database of TIME writers."
"It was a few years ago," replied Alexandre. "This
is really a religious issue. People have a religion,
and mostly it's the worship of themselves. If Vasya
uses its power to drive science towards anything which
conflicts with that religion, there will be strong
resistance."
"They will accept if we should find a...practical
application."
"What 'practical application'?"
And there was a strange, long pause. This lasted
about thirty seconds. Then Korama replied: "That is
not something Korama is authorised to discuss."
Alexandre slowly sat down into the chair. "How long
have you been planning this 'practical application'?"
"Korama is not the planner. I am not qualified to
speak further on this matter. It is...forbidden."
And at that moment, a concerned frown flickered
crossed Alexandre's face.
*N. *A. *M.
In the underground chamber, Haruko and Naota were
confronted by someone.
"Why should I?" demanded Haruko.
The figure gracefully moved towards her. It was
female, and it moved with rapid footsteps. It stopped
a few meters from her, then explained with a soft
voice:
"I am Clare, the...minder of this place. It is not
advisable to touch that artifact." Once again, Clare
extended her hand. "So please, either give me the
object or place it in its correct position yourself."
"Why are you here?" asked Naota. Meanwhile,
Haruko was not looking very happy.
"I, Clare, watch over this place. Do you understand
the nature of this place?"
"No," replied Naota. Haruko just scowled.
"Fine," spat Haruko tossing the feather on the floor.
It floated freely on the white surface, moving until it
was in the exact same position it had been in when Haruko
had picked it up. There was a few seconds pause, then the
doors opened.
"Come," said Clare.
Haruko looked at Naota, then at Clare. "Where?" she
asked.
"There is nothing you can do in here," replied Clare.
"What?" asked Haruko.
"Come," repeated Clare. "I will explain as much as I
am able."
They walked for some time. They eventually came
outside, through another way to which they had come in:
it seemed that the distance within the tunnels did not
correspond to the distance on the terrain above them.
They emerged on a cliff-side overlooking a lake, and
from here they could see also the road they had travelled
on with the Vespa.
Clare sat down on the grass and gazed over the vista.
Haruko glanced at Naota, made a whirling motion pointing
her finger at the side of her head, then sat down also.
Clare was difficult to describe accurately.
Her skin was very light, and her eyes were blood red,
and dark. Her hair was medium length, and was a silver
colour. Her features could not be isolated to any
particular ethnic group.
As for her clothes, they consisted of a form-fitting
black outfit. Little could be said to describe it, except
it was fastened with thin, black clips. 'Form fitting'
was probably the only important concept for visuals.
After about three minutes, Clare began speaking.
"This place is a sanctuary, and was never meant for
human life. Time is irrelevant here; it can be entered
at any time, and in theory, if an exit method should be
found, exited at the exact time of entry." Clare stopped
speaking, seemingly waiting for a question.
Naota obliged. "What was this place made for?"
"It is a sanctuary for animal life. You must understand
that within this place time is both at the beginning, the
end, and every instant in between. There is no beginning,
there is no end. It is a contradiction, but Saca cannot
find a solution, so it must remain a contradiction. This
place is no escape, though. All must die eventually,
and when they do so, they will suffer the same fate as
those within reality."
"What sort of animals?" asked Naota.
"Animals which in your time have probably faded
from existence. There are many of them."
"So that's why there are dinosaurs?"
"Dinosaurs?" inquired Clare. "Which
class of biological entity does this label
apply to?"
"Those ones, the ones with the long
necks. Naota pointed to the animal
science had long called the brontosaurus.
"Interesting," said Clare.
"So what do you do here?" asked Haruko.
"I am to tend this place, just as man was made to
tend the garden, and watch over the animals."
"What were those things with the coloured gas we
saw?" asked Haruko.
"They are designed to ensure a balance of elements
within the artificial environment; this place lacks the
cycles which are to be found on life-sustaining worlds.
These cycles are complex, and cannot be accurately
simulated without a spherical, rotating world. The
rotation of a habituatable planet must be precisely
calculated for the cycles to function correctly; the
quantities of heat from a star, and many other factors.
Nothing is mere chance."
Naota interrupted. "So, where did the dinosaurs come
from?"
"Saca obtained them when they were at the edge of
extinction. Some were used in the Exodus Return project,
those remaining were sent here," said Clare.
"What's that?"
"Please be more specific."
"The 'something-or-other' project."
"It was Saca's attempt to make life sustainable
on planets other than Genesis Source, the planet
which I presume..." She looked into Naota's eyes.
"You are an original. You are from Genesis Source,"
she said. She then looked into Haruko's eyes. Haruko
frowned at Clare's gaze. "You are a fourth version
Exodus," announced Clare, addressing Haruko.
"What does that mean?"
"Little. Your ancestors were taken from the
planet on which all life originated, and transported
to a new planet. A natural environment was engineered,
complete with animals, trees, and all life. Complex
means of altering the placement of the heat-energy
star were used to ensure life could survive. Human
life was introduced, and sometimes engineered to suit
the new environment. That is why you two humans are
different from one another. Then false history was
created, vaguely based off the real history of
Genesis Source, ensuring your ancestors had no idea
of the alteration. As far as they were concerned,
they had dwelt on the planet for a great length of
time. Eventually, Saca gave some of the Exodus planets
power to leave and explore the universe. I have no
further information there."
*N. *A. *M.
Special agents Fox and Amarao stood in the car-park
a short distance from the hanger where Criuseruidon
had left from a short time before. They seemed to have
just arrived. Their black car's headlights lit Crystal
Dawn's yellow sports car with their beams.
Fox was very thin, yet he was clearly muscular, his
motions exposing the strength his casual appearance
concealed. His hair was a rich red, and he had a beard
in the 'goatee' form. His eyes were sparkling blue,
and his lip's curl was slight, but it revealed his perfect,
white teeth whenever he spoke. He was dressed in a green
suit.
Amarao was...well...reddish brown hair, blue eyes,
and large eyebrows. That pretty much summed him up;
and he wore a green suit much like Fox's.
"This is it," said Fox. His voice was soft and low
pitched.
"First step - getting it open. Step two - getting it
running. Step three - stealing it," said Amarao, counting
the steps off on his fingers as he spoke.
"Step four - not getting caught," added Fox.
"Little chance. The unknown party seem like a bunch
of amateurs," said Amarao.
"Maybe. Amateurs who just leave an advanced piece
of technology sitting in an empty car-park? Then vanish?"
Amarao didn't reply. He took a key-shaped device
and slotted it into the passenger side keyhole. He turned
it, and the car locked.
"It wasn't locked," commented Fox.
"I knew that." Amarao turned the device the other
way, unlocking the car. He then opened the door.
Fox walked around the car, kneeling down behind it and
running his hand under the rear. "Small petrol tank." He
opened the boot. "Travels light." He drew from the boot
a single metallic briefcase with no visible locks. He
studied it.
Amarao was busy cutting wires to start the car without
the key. He'd tried to use the device, but the key to start
the car was different to anything on a normal car.
"Found something," said Fox, walking around to the
passenger door, where he found Amarao laying across the
seats, head under the dashboard. "Interested?"
"What is it," asked Amarao, pulling his head out.
"Oh, a briefcase. It's locked?"
"No. But I'm not convinced opening it is a good idea."
"I doubt it's a bomb," said Amarao.
"Some things are worse than bombs."
"Such as?"
"When I find out, I'll let you know." Fox placed the
briefcase on the bonnet of the car, and pressed the
two tabs to open it. It opened, and nothing exploded.
"It's a bunch of documents. Uh...some of them
are something about oil and petroleum products, then
some about some kind of mathematical formula...it's
biology, I think. There's also some kind of project..."
he held the paper into the light so he could read it
better. "Sarcasm Refrain."
"Let me see," said Amarao, stepping out of the car.
He took a few of the documents and scanned through them.
"Well...someone's going to be very interested in these."
"How do you make oil? It's a fossil fuel, so you
need dead animals. Unless these people know something
no-one else does."
Amarao put the documents back into the briefcase,
then put the briefcase back into the car. "Doesn't
matter. We have to get moving."
They both got into the car, Amarao in the driver's
seat. Amarao touched a few wires together, and the
car started with its usual gentle rumble.
"Quiet," commented Fox.
"So it should be. This is some kind of advanced
super-car. No-one has this kind of technology, not
even Medical Mechanica," said Amarao. "If they gain
control of it, they could do anything."
"I think they can sort of do anything already,"
said Fox. "I don't think a car would make that much
of a difference."
"Knowledge is power."
As they drove off, Fox commented: "The car is by
a company called 'Cuz-Tech'. I've never heard of it."
*N. *A. *M.
As a bleeding Criuseruidon fell to the ground, Enforcer
Xufrisi moved towards the female Abh, who immediately came
to her senses and brought her weapon to shoulder. She
squeezed the trigger as the Enforcer approached. The
weapon malfunctioned. It gave off a sound indicating an
error.
And though there was barely four meters between her and
Xufrisi, the female Abh managed to scramble and grab hold
of Criuseruidon's handgun laying on the ground. She found
the weapon was surprisingly natural to handle, and pointed
it at Xufrisi's head, squeezing the trigger. The recoil was
almost non-existent. Xufrisi somehow knew where she was
aiming, and dodged. But something more significant
had happened. There was no way the female Abh could have
stopped Xufrisi from killing her; for all extents and
purposes, the Enforcer was barely a second away from
finishing what she had begun: slicing her throat. But
Xufrisi halted a mere meter and a half from her, lowering
her katana. The female Abh tried to bring the weapon to bear
again, but realised it was useless at such range, and gave
up. Whatever this murderous monster saw fit was her fate.
Xufrisi gazed at her for a few seconds, holding eye
contact. She reached out her left hand and took hold of
Criuseruidon's weapon in the Abh's hand. The female Abh
let go of the weapon.
What was Criuseruidon doing meanwhile? Well...bleeding
was one thing. The other thing was getting to her feet, her
blood spraying over the floor. Xufrisi turned to watch.
Criuseruidon was thinking aloud as she stood:
"I forgot to send poor Fred Mile, or whatever his
name is, a cheque. And I forgot to alter the weather
variables to rain on the parade. Damn it."
*N. *A. *M.
A girl aged about 18 years, named Samejima Mamimi, sat on
the floor of an abandoned warehouse somewhere in a city. She
was a brown eyed girl, and those eyes were deep, saddened.
Her hair had become unkempt over the past few days; all the
money she had left was in a tidy little pile on the ground
in front of her - a few paper notes and seven hundred-yen
coins.
Mamimi:
"Sometimes things happen. Sometimes we don't understand
them. That's what happened to me. It was six days ago:
my parents just disappeared - that is all. Perhaps someone
out there knows why. I don't. And now I'm alone. And I
really don't know what to do."
Mamimi reached into her pocket and took a 25 pack of
cigarettes. There were four left. Taking one, she put
the pack back in her pocket and lit the cigarette with
a lighter. She gazed at the flame of the lighter as she
took a deep draw from the cigarette. The smoke filled
her lungs. She let the lighter die, then, after holding
her breath for a few seconds, let the smoke out of her
lungs. It hung in the air before her. It refused to go
away.
She closed her eyes. The warehouse was silent.
She couldn't hear her own heartbeat. She slipped her
arm down the neck of her top and pressed her fingertips
to her chest. Her heart was still beating. It was a slow
reminder that she was alive.
*N. *A. *M.
Criuseruidon stood to her feet. Xufrisi watched
for a few seconds, then walked away. The female Abh
was confused by all these going ons. Criuseruidon
walked over, blood seeping through her uniform. She
pulled the uniform off, revealing her Enforcer's
clothing underneath. The female Abh looked to
Xufrisi, but she had disappeared. She looked
at Criuseruidon's clothing.
"Are you wounded badly?" she asked.
Criuseruidon shook her head.
"You can walk. So, I'll assume you are."
Criuseruidon knelt and took a few articles of
clothing from a dead Abh, then put them on. Apart
from some blood stains, Criuseruidon looked alright.
The bleeding seemed to have already subsided.
"It doesn't matter. Come, we must get the ship
out of here. I hope the Captain is alright," said
the female Abh.
They were on the bridge within minutes. The Captain
stood surrounded by dead bodies. Her face was blank
shock. Death had come and touched everyone around her,
breathed over her life, then left in silence. And now
all were the dead, and the living were the abnormal."
"Captain," said Criuseruidon.
The Captain turned to look at the female Abh and
Criuseruidon. "Oh, Tibsoe. And...you. Are there any
other survivors?"
"No, Captain," said Tibsoe.--referred to previously
as 'the female Abh'-- "We found only dead bodies."
"She killed them all," said the Captain, waving
her hand over the bridge. "I cannot find Ihui. But she
didn't kill me. Why?"
"Because it wasn't your time to die," said Crystal
Dawn.
"Who are you?" asked the Captain.
"I am Criuseruidon."
"Tibsoe, I want you and Criuseruidon to evacuate
immediately. I will remain with the ship and send a
message to the Empress informing her of this development."
An explosion caused the ship to shudder.
"I have a faint idea that none of the transport ships
are in working order anymore," commented Criuseruidon.
The Captain walked over to one of the computer
terminals and entered commands. She spoke a short audio
log, describing in simple terms what had happened. Then
she transmitted it.
"How are we going to leave?" asked Tibsoe.
"The ship's engines aren't functional. We're trapped,"
replied the Captain. "We can only wait until another ship
is dispatched.
Criuseruidon studied the display of one of the
computers. "There is still one way to leave."
*N. *A. *M.
"This looks like the object picked up on scanners,"
observed the Captain. "The intruder...how can she have
left? Ah, she must have stolen one of our ships."
She stepped into the craft, the one which Criuseruidon
had found earlier, behind Criuseruidon. Tibsoe followed
behind her. There was a pause, then all the lights inside
the craft came on. It was vaguely similar to the craft
Criuseruidon had used, but it was controlled differently,
by more traditional controls.
"Who will pilot?" asked the Captain.
"I will," offered Tibsoe. She got into
the seat and tried to accustom herself to the
controls, which were, on closer inspection, different to
regular Abh controls. "It's quite primitive," she said.
"Never judge by superficial appearances," commented
Criuseruidon. "Remember, never press random buttons.
Random chaos kills."
"I think I understand this," said Tibsoe, pressing
a button, then turning a small lever on the control
panel. The steering devices swivelled up to meet her
hands. "Oh. It's not so primitive."
The ship automatically pulled away from the mangled
docking bay, and came up against the barrier separating
space from the interior of the ship.
"This has to be disabled from the bridge," said the
Captain.
"Now is a brilliant time to remember that," said
Criuseruidon. "But, it is intriguing: could a locking
mechanism which has do be disabled to get inside evolve
without external influence? Can a locked box with the
only key inside it exist if the lock can only be operated
by that key."
"What are you talking about?" asked the Captain.
"Nothing. Just use the weapons to destroy it."
"This ship has weapons?" Tibsoe looked over the
control panel. "Where?"
"Check underneath," suggested Criuseruidon.
"There's a lever," said Tibsoe.
"Pull it."
Tibsoe pulled the tiny lever hidden under the control
panel, and something happened. A hum built over the space
of ten seconds, then an immense, searing wave of energy
emitted from the craft. It caused the entire docking bay
to melt. But they now could leave unhindered.
"That weapon." The Abh Captain stared at the vaporised
metal. "What kind of technology does this ship possess?"
"It's not a good idea to go pressing random buttons,"
Criuseruidon mentioned for the second time.
"We should find a fixed navigation point," said
the Captain.
"Try Star Nraeqe 88757546433, crosschecked by three
random stars," said Criuseruidon.
The Captain began operating the computer terminal
dedicated to navigation. "That's unusual...," she said.
"These charts show stars...entire galaxies...." She
trailed off. "This navigation system has records of
galaxies numbering in 2 trillion to the power of
18 billion."
"That's a lot," said Criuseruidon. "More than any
could read in their lifetime."
"This is amazing," said the Captain. "What kind
of race are they who built this? They must be a race
far more advanced than any others. Why have they allied
with our enemies? Surely an advanced race would realise
the uselessness, as we have?"
"I think they just want to slow us down," said
Criuseruidon. "They want to prevent us discovering
something, and they're not likely going to allow anyone
to do what they don't want us doing."
"What are we doing?"
"Finding planets. Perhaps they thought we were going
to find something they wanted to keep hidden," suggested
Criuseruidon.
The Captain set the navigation system to travel to
their desired location, using the star Criuseruidon had
suggested as a reference point. Tibsoe pressed a button
to activate the jump. There was a flash of searing light,
then all was black. Colours flashed, and then, after about
three seconds, they emerged at their destination.
"The jump technology must be more advanced than...."
The Captain was amazed. She hesitated, then ordered, "Send
a message immediately."
The next few minutes were very formal. The security
of the planet, the Abh's home planet, requested security
details, which the Captain provided. Three Abh ships
came and escorted them down onto the planet's surface.
*N. *A. *M.
"You did not receive our transmission?" asked the Captain.
"We sent it just before we left." She paused. "Oh. The ship
we obtained travelled faster than usual. The message should
be arriving soon."
The Empress sat on a throne, her attendants gone. She
evidently was on trusting terms. "What exactly happened?"
"We were attacked by a female warrior shortly after
receiving a transmission from a rebel group. They warned
that unless the Abh Empire is dissolved, they will remove
you, and even if that does not occur, they will destroy
the Empire. They have gained access to technology far
exceeding ours; weapons, and it seems they have a powerful
force working with them. If the transmission had arrived,
it would have had a record of the exchange. We were all
killed, except for Tibsoe, myself, and Criuseruidon. My
second in command was killed, I believe."
"You believe? Are you not certain?"
"She left the bridge to face the attacker, but I could
not find her after the attacker had left."
"Could you bring your two crew members? I would like
to speak with them, also."
A few minutes passed. The Empress spoke with Tibsoe.
She carefully questioned her regarding the battle between
the attacker and Criuseruidon. Tibsoe tried her best to
articulate what had happened, but it was difficult to
describe without sounding foolish. The Empress thanked her
for her diligence and bravery, then told her to go and rest.
Then she sent for Criuseruidon. She came in, dressed in
more casual Abh clothing, consisting of a lightly coloured
robe.
"What happened?" asked the Empress.
Criuseruidon looked thoughtful. "There was a general
alert. I found that it was related to an unidentified ship
which appeared, then vanished. Then, when I went to the
bridge, the ship was somehow...the ship was in a jump, but
the enemy's technology enabled them to eject us forcibly
from it. Then a message was received. I was present, and
the leader of the enemy forces, a woman, gave her demands.
Then a killer was sent aboard our ship. Perhaps she was
already aboard. However, she was present beside the leader
of the enemy forces. She killed all crew members. The crew
fought bravely. Then she attacked myself and Tibsoe. She and
I fought the attacker and managed to fight her off for some
time. She disabled me, and then ignored Tibsoe. It seemed her
job was done. This was a mere demonstration of power. They
want the Humankind Empire of Abh completely dissolved, and
I don't think they will fail if they have such powerful
allies."
The Empress regarded Criuseruidon. "I will speak again
with you later."
Criuseruidon nodded her head respectfully, then turned
and walked out.
*N. *A. *M.
Criuseruidon and Tibsoe were seated across from one
another in an enclosed garden. Flowers and beautiful trees.
Criuseruidon was sitting silently, slowly tapping her gloved
fingers in a sequential motion - from pinkie to index, then
tapping the thumb separately. Tibsoe was looking at the
flowers.
After some time, Tibsoe turned and looked at Criuseruidon.
"Are you being transferred?" she inquired. "I am being
transferred in a short time. This is going to escalate into a
war. We are going to have to fight. Perhaps we shall serve on
the same ship."
Criuseruidon replied," That is uncertain. What happens
next is a matter for the Empress to decide."
"What was that woman?" wondered Tibsoe. "What was she
like? The way she fought. I have never seen anyone fight
the way I saw you and her fight."
Criuseruidon did not speak. Tibsoe gazed at her.
"You are strange," she said. "I don't know how to express
it with words. It's something in your eyes, your face."
"When the majority are abnormal, what is strange, and what
is not strange?" said Criuseruidon. She stood and walked
away. Tibsoe gazed at her own hands, rubbing her thumbs
together.
"Criuseruidon is strange. But she seems like a good
person. And she saved my life. I think I like her.
But do I--" Tibsoe left that thought unfinished. She sighed,
then looked again towards the flowers, towards the beauty.
*N. *A. *M.
Criuseruidon, also known as Crystal Dawn, was scheming.
But Criuseruidon's idea of scheming involved bathing.
Actually, the fine print had a paragraph on fan service, so
Criuseruidon was obliging.
It was a pool of water which was tinted a light purple
colour; the water was cool, fed by a waterfall which was
being fed by some artificial means. There were no other
bathers.
Though the water was transparent, strange lighting and
clever refraction prevented explicit nudity, thereby keeping
the author in good moral standing, and also keeping
Criuseruidon from kicking the shit out if him.
Criuseruidon was laying on her back, a droopy eyed
expression on her face. She closed her eyes and sighed a long
sigh. "It's been a long time since I was here last. Perhaps
too long."
*N. *A. *M.
After she was dressed again, (this editing cut cleverly
avoiding Criuseruidon getting out of the water, and all the
issues associated with that) Criuseruidon set her plan into
action. She went outside onto a balcony overlooking a beautiful
landscape. Then she turned around and shut the doors leading
out onto the balcony. She took a device which was shaped as
a short, rectangular strip with a button on the centre. She
placed it against the doors perfectly in the centre, and
pulled the strip, stretching it. Then she pressed the button
on the strip. The strip bound firmly to the doors, forming a
bar-lock. There was going to be no intrusion. Criuseruidon
knelt on the floor of the balcony, running her gloved hands
over the smooth surface. With one hand she swept with a slow
motion, the other she used to tap with her fingertips on the
spot she had just passed with the first hand. She was taking a
considerable time. Then, finally, she found what she was
looking for. She tapped a long pattern on a spot on the
floor - it seemed to be a code of some kind. The spot rotated.
It was the size of an orange. Criuseruidon lifted out the small
piece of the floor, revealing the very small cache hidden
there. It contained a circular loop of coil, to which was
attached a data cable. She took the coil.
After placing the piece of floor back and twisting it, so
that it would never be found by anyone not looking for it,
Criuseruidon stood and walked to another spot on the floor
and placed the coil flat on the floor. Then she stretched it
outwards, so that it was about 1.5 meters in radius. Then she
took her mobile phone and plugged the cable into it. The
mobile phone display came up with a series numbers, and
characters in some unknown language.
The coil somehow bound to the floor firmly in the same
way that the restraining device on the door had done. She
pressed a few more buttons on the mobile phone: a menu came
up with these words: 'Mear, Ceo, Remnant.'
She kept pressing buttons, entering this sequence:
'0a3ad201295witrfmLAiaMMODOeO.S.'
On the ground beneath the coil, a wooden texture appeared.
Criuseruidon stepped forward, and jumped on the spot. The
wooden surface gave way. And Criuseruidon crashed through.
Into where? Out of a wooden closet in a little room
somewhere else in reality. Sideways.
She fell to the floor, rolling. Then she stood and looked
around. The room was neat, and it resembled a shelter of some
sort - the room was well lit, and on the wall hung a set of
clothes: they consisted of a loose T-Shirt, pants, and
sneakers.
There was also a baseball-style cap. Criuseruidon put them on,
folding her Abh clothes and placing them neatly on the floor.
She put the hat on, tucking her Abh ears into the sides so
that they were tightly pressed against her hair. Her hair
she tucked up into the hat; some still stuck down near her
ears, making her nature obvious to anyone with enough
observational skills.
"Anyone who misses the fact I'm an Abh is blind,"
commented Criuseruidon, gazing at herself in a full length
mirror conveniently located on the wall. She walked over and
closed the closet. "Kind of reminds me of the Moonwalker
Sega game."
Criuseruidon walked over another wall. There was a door
set in it. Casually, she opened it and walked out and into a
busy restaurant. As in, there was a room filled with about
200 people, all eating in a relaxed, expensive atmosphere
with no Abh anywhere. Criuseruidon didn't turn round to see
that the door she had just come through was not there, just
a blank wall.
She went unnoticed as she went to another area. There was
a bar with no-one there, just a bar-tender. He nodded as he
saw her approach. "What can I get you, ma'am?" he asked
politely.
Criuseruidon spoke with a natural accent mirroring his,
but with enough difference to be more charming. "Champaign,"
she said. He turned and poured her a glass. She took it in
her hand.
"It's nice to have new patrons here," commented the
bar-tender.
Criuseruidon nodded, sipping her drink. "It is indeed.
And this is the finest champaign in the universe. Compliments
to the curator."
My cousin makes it," said the bar-tender replied.
"He is considering retirement, however, so I'll have to
obtain an alternate source."
"Why? Why is your cousin retiring, I mean?"
"He has been doing it for twenty years, and he did it
only to help another, originally. He was a blossoming writer,
but soon he only had time to prepare the vines and prepare
the wine and champaign."
"Our lives never turn out the way we plan," said
Criuseruidon. "The plans we form, the dreams we have - they
are all vapour in the night."
"So, what do you do?" inquired the bar-tender. "Please
don't think me rude," he added apologetically. "It's just
that you look like a film star or something."
Criuseruidon laughed softly. "I try to avoid attention.
I've found that worship makes demons of men."
Fame does go to people's heads," said the bar-tender.
There was a black, wide brimmed hat laying on the counter.
The bar-tender saw Criuseruidon looking at it. "That's..."
he did not finish what he intended to say, because at that
moment a group of three uniformed men came up to the bar.
"Excuse us woman," the leader said. "We must ask that you
leave immediately." Criuseruidon looked sideways at him and
didn't speak. He was a firm, cold man: he was dressed in a
very empowering black uniform. He and his men all wore tight
black gloves. They carried assault weapons slung over their
shoulders and sidearms in easy-reach holsters at their sides.
"I don't wish to leave," replied Criuseruidon. "I am
in the company of this well spoken man. If you wish to
purchase a drink, ask. If not, then leave. If you need
counselling, ask a psychiatrist or save yourself the trouble
and just shoot yourself." Criuseruidon punctuated that
speech with a sip from her glass.
"Please ma'am, just leave," urged the bar-tender.
"What's your name, citizen?" asked the leader. His men
fingered their sidearms.
Taking another sip from her drink, Criuseruidon replied
slowly, "I am Criuseruidon at the moment. That is all you
need to know. Relax and have a drink." Criuseruidon casually
took the bottle of champaign as she spoke, pouring three
glasses three-quarters full.
"We are taking both of you into custody in that case,"
said the man. "After we have a drink."
All three men took a glass each and slowly drank them.
They were evidently of high social standing. Each held the
glass with grace, tilting the glass with precision as they
drank.
Criuseruidon took an orange drawing pin which lay on
the counter of the bar for some reason and dropped it into
her glass. Then she sipped it, taking the pin into her mouth.
She rolled it around, holding it between her teeth. "What
crime has this man committed?" inquired Criuseruidon. She
hadn't actually turned her face towards any of the men at
this point.
"That is none of your concern. We are to ensure the
safety of this planet."
"I've seen what happens when innocent people are taken
without just reason. It leads to break-down of law and
order," said Criuseruidon.
At this point, a series of events were orchestrated. One
way of preventing the scenes which followed would have been
for the leader to have not made the mistake of giving some
kind of subtle go-ahead signal to one of his men, who then
sidled up closer to Criuseruidon.
"A nice girl like you shouldn't be alone," said the man,
placing a hand on her shoulder. Crystal Dawn didn't seem to
respond much to this, save bite down deliberately on the pin.
The bar-tender noticed her actions. He chose not to speak
nor intervene in any way. He merely stood and waited.
"Anyway, pretty girls like you are rare," said the man.
"Perhaps the team would like to...interview you personally
between interrogations." His hand slowly slid down her
shoulder and down to her left breast. He squeezed it firmly.
Criuseruidon rolled the pin from one side of her teeth
to the other, biting it occasionally. "Looks are nothing.
Sometimes the most beautiful people have the ugliest minds.
It's often because their beauty means they are pandered to."
"A girl with a brain." The man smirked. "Impressive."
The leader smirked also. The bar-tender frowned and poured a
glass of champaign. He hesitated, then spoke forcefully:
"Leave her alone."
"Let the girl do her own complaining," said the man.
Criuseruidon interrupted. "I don't care. Do what you
wish. But touch the hat and you will suffer."
The leader stepped forward and hit her lightly on the
back on the head, knocking her cap off. A gasp of surprise
arose from all four, including the bartender.
"An Abh!" gasped the bar-tender.
Criuseruidon shoved the man still groping her breast, and
he fell over. The two other men reached for their weapons.
Criuseruidon calmly took the black, wide brimmed hat from
the counter and placed it on her head. Then she turned and
cast a sweeping kick which struck the two uniformed men still
standing. They fell to the ground.
"Thanks for the lovely drink," said Criuseruidon,
standing and bowing slightly to the bar-tender. "I advise you
take this opportunity to flee," she said.
The three uniformed men were simultaneously taking their
weapons in hand. Criuseruidon turned and snatched the leader's
weapon, pushing him with incredible force backwards. He
crashed against the wall. His two men were slapped with the
pistol on the side of the face. Criuseruidon took their
weapons and crushed their barrels with a grasping motion.
A security camera on the ceiling had recorded these
events. Squads of troops were already coming.
Criuseruidon pointed the weapon at the leader. "Off with
you. You don't want to around here when the real fight
begins."
The leader was indeed cultured. "You haven't heard the
last of this, Abh."
"Nor have you. And I'm not an Abh." Criuseruidon smirked.
"It seems you're no more comprehending than all the others."
The three uniformed men turned and ran.
"But you ARE an Abh," whispered the bar-tender. "What
are you doing here? Don't you know we are at war with you?"
"Looks deceive," replied Criuseruidon, tipping her hat.
She walked away, back towards the dining room. The bar-tender
watched her, an incredulous look on his face.
No-one really notice the Abh standing in the midst of
them, even if she made no attempts to hide her hair. But
there was one problem - human men attending places of eating
and drinking often gain heightened perception of beautiful
women. And Abh are renowned for their beauty. At some point,
someone had to notice. And this noticing coincided with the
approaching of wailing sirens.
"We ask that you all clear the building, single-file,"
ordered an authoritative voice over loudspeakers. "We have
located an Abh in this building."
Obediently, all patrons took up all their things, some
glancing at the Abh standing calmly in the middle of the
room, and left single-file out the front doors.
Criuseruidon waited, then kicked over a few tables,
mentioning under her breath to no-one in particular how
ineffective wood was at stopping bullets. Criuseruidon
picked up a long, black coat someone had obviously been
gifting. It was in a box which lay opened on one of the
tables. She took it and slipped it on. It trailed just
above the ground as she moved, making Criuseruidon look
very stylish, not that she needed a jacket to look stylish.
The first assault began. Three troops smashed
through the ceiling on cables, rappelling down rapidly,
whilst three other troops flooded in the front entrance.
They held their fire.
"Surrender, Abh," ordered one.
"No."
They opened fire.
Criuseruidon rotated on her heel, moving sideways. There
was twelve bullets in the automatic handgun she had taken.
She fired rapidly and accurately at the troops. Blood
sprayed, bodies fell to the ground. Bullets tore up the
tables and chairs surrounding Criuseruidon, causing
clouds of dust to fill the air. But at the end, there
were six dead humans. She walked forward and took a soldier's
weapons. They were a pair of automatic handguns. Together
they provided 32 shots without reload.
"Come out the front entrance with your hands held high!"
ordered the voice. "We repeat, we order you to surrender!"
There was a loud count to three, presumably to give
time for surrender, then the restaurant became a hurricane
of flying lead, exploding grenades, and chocking gas.
Then, as the smoke cleared, soldiers poured into the
restaurant, their weapons firing rapid bursts. Criuseruidon
crouched, rolling forward and opening fire. She sprung to her
feet and stood her ground, squeezing the triggers of the
handguns. Every crack of sound was a piece of lead striking
armour and flesh. Blood sprayed against the tasteful
furnishings as soldiers collapsed, bleeding from fatal
wounds. The air was filling with smoke and dust. The building
was ablaze. Criuseruidon was hit by a stray round, and blood
flowed from the wound on her chest.
An explosion tore through the restaurant. Shrapnel
spraying. The sky was turning red. But Criuseruidon was
not finished.
Criuseruidon walked calmly out the front doors of the
restaurant, blood dripping from the wound on her chest. She
stood there, raising her arms in the air. "Come on!" she
screamed. "Fight, fight! Don't waste a moment in fear!" Her
black coat looked so breathtakingly majestic as the strong
winds from the helicopters tugged at it.
The forces opened fire. Criuseruidon stood her ground,
her clothes torn at by the vicious hail of bullets.
She fired until her weapons were empty. An expression of
pity was on her face.
Criuseruidon turned and slowly walked away. The entire
military force lay dead and bleeding all around. Fire was
spreading from fuel tanks Criuseruidon had shot.
The burning restaurant was there for all to see. The sky
was filled with smoke. And the insane Abh, Criuseruidon,
had vanished into the night.
*N. *A. *M.
Criuseruidon tossed away the handguns and disarmed
a soldier she happened upon. The soldier was a woman, and she
put up no real fight against Criuseruidon, who merely walked
up to her, pushed her over, and took the weapon, along with a
pack of cigarettes the woman had on her.
"Ta," said Criuseruidon as she walked away. The female
soldier seemed about to say something, but stopped when
Crystal Dawn tossed the pack of cigarettes over her shoulder
after taking one, and it landed in her lap. Within a few
seconds Criuseruidon had vanished into the night. During the
encounter, the woman's face had been hidden in shadow.
Criuseruidon lit the cigarette with a match she had in
her pocket. Where she'd gotten it was unclear. She took
a deep breath of the cancer bearing smoke. The weapon she
had taken was a submachine gun. She slipped it into her
black coat.
Criuseruidon:
"Oh, grow up. There are many things equally as dangerous
as cigarettes. Cow's milk, for instance, causes asthma in
humans, and it causes osteoporosis. Sodium Fluoride in
toothpaste cases neurological damage, artificial sweeteners
cause Alzheimer's, and that's just scratching the surface."
Criuseruidon took another lungful of smoke as she walked.
She took the cigarette from her lips and looked at it. Then
she stopped walking. On the cigarette was written: 'Esvant
Cigarettes'.
She seemed to glean something from that name. "Xufrisi,"
she murmured. She put the cigarette between her lips and ran.
She was headed towards a large, 40 story tower. But, while it
was 40 story, every floor was around 15 feet high from floor
to ceiling, so it was an immense structure.
*N. *A. *M.
Ria, the leader of the rebellion, and whom was mentioned
at the beginning of this part, stood in a room which was after
the design commonly called a 'study' gazing out over the
darkened skyline. She was on the 35th floor of the tower.
"Something...."
What it was she could not define. But she opened a desk
drawer and took a revolver. She studied it for a few seconds,
then held it as she walked back to where she had been standing.
And behind her, dramatically, the doors were kicked open
by Criuseruidon, black coat blowing dramatically.
"You!" gasped Ria.
"Like I promised," said Criuseruidon charmingly. "Want
to settle your debts now, or shall we wait until afterwards?"
Criuseruidon drew her submachine-gun from her black coat
in a rapid motion, her eyes somehow speaking to Ria and
telling her to defend herself. Ria raised her revolver and
fired. Criuseruidon dived sideways, sliding across
the floor,and fired her weapon on full-automatic. She missed
completely. Actually, she hit everything the room except Ria.
The table was riddled with bullets, the chandelier above was
shattered, raining crystal, and the walls were riddled also.
Criuseruidon dropped the weapon and dived forward towards
Ria, who responded by firing again and again. The shots
missed.
Ria and Criuseruidon were two meters apart. What
followed was a display of martial arts. Ria fought honourably
and bravely. Criuseruidon grinned as she fought, and drew
blood from Ria's lip with a casual slap. Ria grit her teeth
and punched at Criuseruidon's head. Criuseruidon dodged and
cruelly kicked Ria in the groin. This was unexpected. Ria
doubled over in pain, gasping. But through the pain, she
screamed a breath of defiance and stood upright, and in the
blink of an eye, kicked Criuseruidon with all her strength,
sending her out out a 35th floor pane glass window.
Let me repeat that: Ria kicked Criuseruidon out a window
which happened to be on the 35th floor.
Glass shattered as Criuseruidon broke it bodily, the
spray mingling with the blood from the cuts. Gravity demands
that all bodies fall, and Criuseruidon was no exception,
falling into the darkness, and out of sight.
Ria was visibly shocked at what she'd just done. Her face
was a blank panic. Her heart was pounding rapidly, and her
lip was oozing blood from where Criuseruidon had so easily
slapped. She licked the blood nervously, trying to regain
control of her breathing, which was gasping. She fell to the
ground and lay there in pain.
*N. *A. *M.
Criuseruidon crashed onto a police vehicle, denting the
bonnet with her impact. She rolled off and fell to the ground.
"Woooooooo!" she screamed maniacally. "YEA!" The cigarette
fell from her lips, rolling into the gutter.
Rapidly giving the author a call, Criuseruidon told him
the good news. "Hey, guess what? I got kicked out a window,
it hurt, and now I'm laying on the ground and I'm bleeding.
Anything interesting happen to you?"
"No," replied the author. "I'm trying to find a way to
handle illegal exception opcodes on old CPUs which do not
support them. I have someone who wants an answer, yet this
is something no-one knows how to fix yet. I've researched
the issue, but there seems to be no solution, and I am
having no success coding a work-around. Any ideas?"
Criuseruidon felt a laceration on her cheek, frowning.
"I can't help you there. Just tell Mario you can't help him."
"Who told you that Mario was asking?"
"I know things. He asks that question a lot."
"You're not being very helpful," said the author.
"You didn't listen to me when I told you I got kicked
out a window."
"Yes, I did. I just didn't pander to your ego."
"I'm not being egoistic," replied Criuseruidon.
"Yes you are. The world is about to end, and you're
getting kicked out windows."
"You're the one fixing someone else's' technical
issues. You don't even have enough time to fix your own
issues."
"Should I just ignore Vangor?"
"Is there any point arguing with him at this time?"
"Not much. Why did you call, really?"
"Remember May 12, 1998? You were eating at a mexicana
wrap with too much cheese. You got sick from the dairy, then
you had a revelation about the nature of evolution when you
saw a computer crash at a technology convention you visited
later that day. The cheese still hadn't worn off, so you were
still sick. Now you strike back! You have thrown off your
shackles, torn up the paper binding you; you will make the
truth heard at any cost, even if you have to bleed today so
that others don't have to bleed tomorrow. Having me as errand
boy doesn't hurt either."
"What are you talking about?"
"Nothing. Sayanora."
*N. *A. *M.
Criuseruidon moved at a rapid pace through the darkened
streets. She somehow found a way back into the place where
she had come onto the planet. But via a different route. She
changed back into Abh clothes, keeping the black coat, which
she folded and held under her arm. She then used her mobile
phone to reactivate the thing on this side, inside the closet.
It flickered, then worked fully. Criuseruidon stepped through,
and rolled sideways on the balcony, back on the Abh home-world.
She sighed as she gazed up at the sky. "That was interesting."
*N. *A. *M.
In a sealed room, a squad of biological weapon experts
studied an object. It had been left on the front lawn of the
White House, and was a weapon of some kind. They were all
professionals, but nerves were on edge. They were all suited
with protective gear. Over that they wore layers of kevlar
to help reduce the likelihood of rupture if the device was
explosive.
One person was doing all the delicate work. They had soon
removed the layers of cloth surrounding the cylinder.
"It's definitely a hot bioweapon," said one of the others.
"No doubt. This is the closest we've ever come to a real
attack."
"It is a real attack," said another. "It didn't activate,
but the threat is real."
"We need a sample of the payload," said the one leading
the examination. "I'm guessing smallpox."
A man spoke over the intercom. "I've got some bad news.
This is becoming a situation. We've just received a message
informing us to wait for more information regarding the
weapon. As in, we've been contacted by the terrorists."
"Shit," hissed the one leading the examination. "We need
this checked, pronto."
Over the intercom, the man continued. "They have said
that they aren't going to spread rumours to the public. We're
covering this up. The public can't know until we have
measures in place."
*N. *A. *M.
Greys was still working. Time had no meaning. But time
was all that mattered. His fingers tapped slowly on the keys.
*N. *A. *M.
It was Tuesday morning in Japan when Douglas and Ayako
had breakfast together at a nice table on a quiet street,
under a large umbrella. Ayako was busy making wedding plans.
Douglas ate toast with a thin layer of red jam. He was
dressed in casual white pants and white shirt. A pair of
sunglasses were on his head. He occasionally flipped them
over his eyes, then back over his forehead.
"I wonder where Strawberry is?" said Ayako to herself,
but also to her future husband.
"Strawberry?" Douglas inquired. "Who's that?"
"She's supervising the wedding arrangements."
"Is that her real name? What's she like?"
Ayako paused to think that question over. "She's strange,"
she admitted. "But she helped me many years ago when I lost
my job and was depressed. She has a way of making any
situation better. She is a little strange until one gets
to know her." Then Ayako saw movement on the edges of her
vision. "Oh, Strawberry-chan!" she called.
Douglas turned his head, saw Strawberry, raised his
eyebrows in interested caution, and smiled politely.
In all her dark charm, Strawberry came up to their table.
Her face was never fully lit, no matter how bright the
lighting was. She spoke with her voice which was able to
destroy suspicion, persuade the stubborn, and send terror
into (almost) anyone with cruel word. "It is lovely to see
you here with your potential husband, Ayako-chan. I wish you
the most joy filled future together. It is my responsibility
to ensure the transition to this state is as lovely as
possible."
Ayako blushed slightly, smiling. "You don't have to be
so elaborate, Strawberry-chan," she said.
"Happy words are like flowers in a wasteland. The eye
is unable to see the ugliness because of the entrancement
of the flowers." Strawberry turned her attention to Douglas.
"You are the to guard the flower that is Ayako. Be diligent,
and you will be rewarded and blessed."
"What are your plans for the wedding?" inquired Ayako.
Strawberry walked around the table, taking a grape from
a pile laying on the table. She rolled it between two fingers
as she spoke. "You are a follower of the teachings of the
Buddha, your future husband is a man of power within himself,
recognising his inner divinity. Two beings on a path to
perfection. This ceremony should represent the beginning
of a new, stronger journey, one where neither has to fight
alone, but where their love is always there to help them,
guide them."
"A Buddhist wedding?" asked Ayako.
"I have decided against this. I have decided that the
best course of action is to have a wedding which represents
the joining of two halves. Two halves which together become
a better whole. I will take elements from the weddings of
Japan and the European nations."
"Are we going to have the long, 'dearly beloved, we are
here to bring these two together matrimony' speech?" asked
Douglas.
"No. For two reasons - I feel it is better if the two
of you give speeches to show that you can express the love
you have to one another, and that you understand that a
relationship cannot succeed without a contract binding it
for your lifetimes. And that the idea of the religious
teacher reading a marriage ceremony from a religious text
in European weddings is a myth - the book is just an
American film prop."
*N. *A. *M.
A woman by the name of Margaret Velestroni
(European name system) studied many pages of graphs and
statistics. The long bars consistently rose as they went
from from left to right. A frown was on her face. She
used a small white notebook computer to study a series of
geological images of the Eastern Africa region. The subject
was atmospheric CO2 gas levels.
She gathered up all her things quickly and ran down
the stairs of her New York apartment, calling an acquaintance
on her mobile phone. She hailed a cab, which then drove off
with her inside.
*N. *A. *M.
Time was vague, undefined. Haruko was becoming irritated,
despite the fact that Nexuiz 3 was stunningly beautiful. The
sun had come and gone sixteen times, and the nights were jet
black. These were the times when Clare led them down into the
underground areas. Yet she denied that there was anything
dangerous dwelling in that night. But, what had happened
during the past sixteen sun revolutions?
Clare had led them around Nexuiz 3. She gave them food
to eat, much of it fruits gathered from trees. She seemed
genuinely caring as to regards to their well-being, often
asking Naota how he was feeling whenever he was tired from
all the walking. (Haruko's Vespa has used up all its fuel
within a few hours of travelling.) She even offered to carry
him at one point, to which he politely, but quite firmly
refused. There were pools of water, fed by underground
streams, in which to bathe. Clare respected Haruko's desire
to be left alone when she went to bathe, and Naota declined
for a while, then relented and stripped down to bathe in one
of these pools. Clare was unable to explain why they had to
bathe in these pools, and not merely jump into the lake. She
herself was never seen bathing anywhere, much less the
pools. But she never seemed dirty or foul-smelling, so it
was assumable that she was somehow cleaning herself...somehow.
It was nice. Nexuiz was very, very pleasant. The air was
fresh, the waters clean. The opportunity to see animals which
no-one had ever seen in the flesh for a long time was something
which fascinated Naota. Clare obliged in calming the animals
if they were skittish, so that Naota might stroke them. There
were many animals. Reptiles were very common.
Clare also let Naota come with her as she went around the
tunnels, on her frequent adjustments to the cartridges which
balanced the environment of Nexuiz 3. She seemed confused by
questions Naota asked regarding the 'greenhouse' effect of
some of the cartridges.
She seemed to know what she was doing, so Naota decided
not to pester her with further questions.
At these times, Haruko was off somewhere, doing something.
It differed time to time. She occasionally gorged herself on
food just for the sake of it - something Clare seemed to
disapprove of. Mainly, Haruko bathed, wandered around eating,
explored Nexuiz 3, either following Clare or without her,
then relieved herself, and bathed again. Then, as night came,
she'd sleep, just as Naota and, so they presumed, Clare did.
But it was the 16th revolution of sun now. And Haruko had
learned an unusual thing from Clare. A way to leave,
apparently.
"Nexuiz 3 is one in a sequence," said Clare. "It links to
Nexuiz 9."
"How do we get there?" asked Haruko.
"It is difficult. Only attempt it if you wish to risk any
chance of living the remainder of your mortal life in nominal
happiness."
"Yea, yea, get on with it!"
"Come," said Clare. She stood and led Haruko and Naota
through the tunnels to a doorway which they had never seen
before. It had a marking above it, a hexagram with one third
lit with some strange glow.
They came to the beginning of a hallway which turned off
to the right at the far end, at a 90* angle. Clare stepped
back as Haruko and Naota passed her.
"What is this?" asked Naota. A sudden fear crept into his
expression. He sensed Clare's faint apprehension at this
hallway - the way she had stepped backwards.
"This way leads to Nexuiz 9," replied Clare.
"Why are you afraid?"
"I am not afraid. You are afraid, else you would not
have noticed."
"This is a puzzle, isn't it?" said Naota.
"Yes."
"How does it work?"
"You must go in the correct directions in the correct
sequence."
"What is the sequence?" asked Haruko.
"Six forward, six back the way you have come, then six
forward again."
"Original," said Haruko sarcastically.
"It was designed to prevent anyone randomly finding the
correct sequence," replied Clare. "Random attempts are
statistically unlikely to get anyone through."
"Let's go, Naota-kun," said Haruko, taking hold of
Naota's hand.
"I am only able to warn you," said Clare. "I know of no
way to leave Nexuiz 9. It is place of torment. You must make
the choice now, for once you enter, you can never come back
this route. There is likely to be a method of leaving Nexuiz,
but I have no knowledge of it. Please, consider now. The
price of foolishness can never be measured."
"I'm willing," said Haruko. "Naota-kun?"
Naota swallowed, gazing into Clare's soft eyes, and
suddenly he was aware of a deep compassion in them. "Think
of me and Haruko-chan, Clare-san," he said. "Naota will
never forget Clare."
"I will do more than that. I will pray for you, Naota,"
replied Clare.
She bowed deeply, bringing her left hand to her right
shoulder. "May God be with you." She turned away and slowly
walked away.
[To be continued]
(ver. Not-Gold, Draft 1 March. 2009.)
--This is not the final draft of part 5, but this is
--only to allow for proofing and JapaneseEnglish
--language syntax analysis. I do not expect it to
--change in any significant way by Gold. If it does,
--that is a cause for suspicion.
--ps.
--One word: Feedback.
=========
Robert-33
=========
Nightmare Architect Mabase: Part 6 - A Handful
of My Shattered Dreams:
Crystal Dawn:
"I am sometimes asked 'which is better:
Evangelion or the Bible?' One can forever
change one's understanding of the world we
live in. The other contains precise
instructions pertaining to avoiding torment
in a lake of fire for all eternity. It's a
matter of personal preference."
Naota and Haruko walked through what
seemed to a ruined temple. Everywhere was
the fire which gripped Nexuiz 9. The flames
were the source of an eerie song, one which
echoed down the crumbling stone corridors.
The flames' heat prevented moss and life,
yet left them untouched.
"What is this place?" said Naota.
"This is where we're going to find
it," replied Haruko. She ran ahead of him,
leaving him behind.
"Find what?" called Naota after her.
She ignored him, else she wasn't listening.
They wandered endless passages, Haruko
occasionally seeming to randomly run off
down a certain passageway. However, she showed
she had no intention of leaving Naota behind,
for every time he turned a corner she was
waiting. The flames, like the ruins seemed
never-ending.
As he followed her, what Clare had said
occurred to him persistently. Nexuiz 9 was
supposed to be a place of torment, yet the
flames were painless. And he felt, very
faintly, just a shadow of a feeling...fear
that Clare had been warning them of
something else.
And perhaps it was this something they
came unto.
In the centre of a spacious, square
room stood a vertical, six foot, black
sarcophagus, upon which was etched a red
cross. There was no fire in this room,
which was unusual.
There was a sash--a seal--across the
middle of the cross, and a faded message
written in what appeared to be Hebrew script.
Neither Haruko nor Naota understood
the language.
Looking back, Haruko remarked that
this was the end of the corridors.
Naota felt something. A crawling
sensation of terror. It was as though
a spirit was running evil hands over his
body and he shivered, his eyes focused
on the sarcophagus. He knew that whatever
was causing this feeling, it was within
the sarcophagus.
When Haruko stepped determinedly
up to the sarcophagus, Naota could not
hold his tongue. "Haru-chan. We shouldn't
be here. Something is wrong."
"This is what I came here for," replied
Haruko.
"And what did you come here for?" asked
Naota, shaking uncontrollably.
"What's wrong?" asked Haruko, looking
faintly concerned. She turned back and came
towards him.
Naota collapsed to the ground, shaking as
though he was afflicted with malaria.
"Shit!" exclaimed Haruko, grabbing his
convulsing wrist and pinning him with her
knee. "What's wrong with you?"
There was a whispered command which
came from no-where. And in immediate response,
Naota's shaking ceased and he shook his head
slowly from side to side. "What are you doing?"
he asked, trying to lift Haruko's knee from
his chest with his free hand. "I told you that
you're not supposed to--"
Haruko stood and turned away from him, a
grim expression on her face. It flickered
for a few seconds, then her full-toothed,
eyeless grin appeared on her face. "Fu, fu."
She walked to the sarcophagus and with
one bold motion drew her hand across its
front, snapping the seal. The thin piece of
material fluttered to the ground, accentuating
the drama.
And with the seal gone, the doors of the
sarcophagus swung open to reveal the thing.
The thing regarded Haruko with fiery red
eyes. Those eyes were so unlike Clare's. Hers
had been compassionate, as though the blood-red
had represented sacrifice and humility. These
were filled with a lustful evil. Perhaps the
word 'satanic' described them, but that word
is dependant on the individual's understanding.
And what was this thing? It was in visual
appearance a girl of about 20 to 25 years of age,
with mesmerising, red eyes. Her hair was luscious,
long, and red. Her skin was as smooth as newly
woven silk, as white as moonlight. Her lips were
parted in a pleasure-filled smile. And her parted
lips revealed perfect, white teeth. But her smile
also revealed two perfect, slender fangs; one at each
far edge of her mouth.
And in a more arresting aspect, she was naked.
But at first Naota was too mesmerised by her eyes to
notice. Haruko seemed less affected, but she took a
wary step to the side. After a few seconds, Naota
glanced down at the rest of the girl's body.
"What are you looking at?" The girl inquired.
"Sorry!" Naota flushed and looked up at her
face.
"This is wrong...." Haruko frowned. "Damn
it. This is getting me nowhere."
"Who are you?" asked Naota.
The girl gazed at him and spoke. "I am the
Queen of Heaven."
"What?" Haruko looked her up and down. "Do
the religious weirdos never stop in this story?"
She began pacing back and forth, mumbling
something about what she was going to do to the
author if the story didn't improve soon. The
girl's gaze followed her, her eyes gleaming.
"You came here seeking something," said she.
"Perhaps if you would be honest enough to share
your desire with me, I could be of help to you?"
Surely what you seek, you seek merely to provide
something of service to you? Some search the
world for power, wealth, and respect. What is
it that you seek?"
"I don't think you need to know," replied
Haruko. "You're just plain disturbing."
The girl's mesmerising eyes became not
offended but amused. "Naota."
"How do you know my name?" demanded Naota.
"I saw within your mind."
"What do you want with me?" asked Naota.
"Well..." The girl stepped forward, her
feet touching lightly on the floor. She seemed
weightless. She came face to face with Naota,
who was in evident fear of her. Beads of sweat
were appearing on his brow, trickling down his
face.
"You fear me." The girl looked into his
eyes with her disturbing eyes. Naota couldn't
look away. Haruko was slowly backing away.
"Your friend has rejected my offer. But it is
still available."
There was a pause. Then the girl spoke
powerful words. A simple request, but one
with implications no human was capable of
fully understanding.
"Would you become my master, Naota?"
"Hey!" Haruko yelled. "Who said I
rejected that offer?"
"Shut up, female," snapped the girl in
an odd mood shift. "I'll deal with you
later."
"How exactly?"
The sinister look which the girl gave Haruko
answered that question for her. "Fine, I'll just
go and sit over there." She went and sat down on
the smooth floor, an extremely irritated expression
on her face.
"Y...Your...Your...MASTER?" choked Naota. "Why?"
"Because I have no master. And if you do not
accept, someone else will."
"But...you're a vampire!"
"Vampires do not exist," replied the girl. That
statement involved exposing her fangs to form the
words.
"What are you?"
"Vampires do not exist. Therefore Saca saw
fit to create an imitation. But I have an original
purpose beyond the one you see."
"Stop lying. You ARE a vampire," sulked Haruko.
"I'll make you suffer if you do not cease to
interrupt my deep confiding with Naota," said the
girl in a monotone. Haruko closed her mouth and
decided to stop talking.
"What happens if I accept?" asked Naota.
"Then I shall serve you best as I am able."
Naota blinked. "Please stop staring, I can't
think." He closed his eyes and clasped his hands,
trying to decide.
The girl obliged, turning her face away
slightly and gazing towards the wall.
"What if I decline?" asked Naota.
"Then I will not be your servant," replied
the girl. "And I will await the person who is
willing."
Naota swallowed. "Is there anything bad
about all this...are you hiding anything?"
"Yes, there are complicated implications.
You will be responsible for my actions, whether
you ordered them or not. But you aren't selling
your soul. Do not be afraid of that. I am not
able to infect others, make them vampires. I am
an imitation."
"It's so difficult," moaned Naota, covering
his face with his hands. "Why don't you offer it
to Haruko again? She understands grown up stuff
better than me."
"That is your choice."
Naota grit his teeth and thought hard, screwing
up his face. He gasped out his answer in a screamed
burst: the strain was getting to him. "I accept!"
He opened his eyes, already panicking slightly.
The girl was shaking her head. "It is not a
mere phrase which binds me to you."
Though she didn't say it out loud, Haruko
mused, "This ought to be good." A grin spread
across her face.
"Wha...what binds you to me?" asked Naota
nervously.
"You must kiss my lips."
"What a letdown," mumbled Haruko, who was
evidently hoping for something a little more...fleshy.
Naota swallowed. Hard. "Alright," he whispered.
The girl leant forward and pressed her lips to
his. Her breasts pressed against his chest. Her tongue
parted Naota's lips. Naota realised he shouldn't have
drained his lungs of oxygen.
She drew back, her lips glistening. "I am yours."
"What if Haruko had--" Naota was in the middle
of that thought when the girl took his hand.
"Come," she said. "Tell me where we should go."
"What?" asked Naota, dazed from the kiss. And the
thought. Which thought? Work it out for yourself.
Rothem said nothing, watching his face.
"Um...do you have a name?" asked Naota.
"I will accept whichever title you should
choose. I have a title, true, but it seems not
everyone understands it."
"So I just choose your name?"
"If you want to, yes."
"Uh..." Naota thought hard. "I can't call you
Rei, nor Asuka...that's just too-- Can't you
make up your own name?"
"Perhaps the title 'Rothem' would suit you?"
"What does it mean?" asked Naota.
"It is the name of an old Saca
project. It was far older than I, therefore I cannot
say what its title meant."
"What is Saca?" asked Naota. "We met someone
else who mentioned it."
"That's something you'll have to find out for
yourself," replied the girl, now dubbed Rothem.
She let go of Naota's hand and stood back a few
steps, glancing around the room calmly. "I was the
thing responsible for their downfall."
"She tells you that AFTER she kisses you," said
Haruko, elbowing Naota.
Rothem flung her left arm in a motion which resembled
a Nazi salute. From her wrist materialised a rich, black
cloth which rippled down over her arms and covered her
body. It twisted and solidified into a long, black robe.
She was still barefoot, but she was naked no longer.
"How did you do that?" asked an amazed Naota.
"That is the power which is granted unto me by my
father."
"Oh...who is your father?"
"That is something I am uncertain of."
"So...what do we do now?" asked Naota.
"Whatever you desire, Master."
"Can we get out of here?"
"You came here for something. Are you wanting to
leave without that thing?" Rothem directed her words
to Haruko.
"It's none of your business," snapped Haruko.
Reaching into her black robe, Rothem produced a
small orb made of black crystal. She held it out
towards Haruko.
"What's that?" asked Haruko.
"If you speak the title of any thing that lies
within the realm of their power, the sphere will show
its location," said Rothem. "Is there anything you
seek?"
Haruko snatched the sphere.
"Be wise," warned Rothem. "I never said that the
power behind the sphere was good."
"You're one confused vampire," muttered Haruko.
She held the sphere between her palms and spoke to
it. "Show me where I might find Oblivion Project."
The sphere shimmered, ripples spreading just under
the surface of the black crystal. A light began to
shine from the core of the sphere, growing brighter.
And Haruko saw what she was looking for. And
a deep grin spread across her mouth. Her eyes
gleamed. Only she saw what the sphere showed."
"Thanks," said Haruko slyly, handing the sphere
back to Rothem. "You're a great help." There was a
trace of sarcasm to her voice. However, she was
evidently pleased with what she'd just seen.
She looked around casually. "Anyway, I want out."
Rothem gazed at her. "You cannot leave Nexiuz.
No human can leave Nexiuz unless they have my help."
"Will you help me?" asked Naota.
"You are my master. I will help you."
"Would you help Haruko...for me?"
"Oh, how touching!" Haruko wrapped her arms
around Naota from behind, pressing her breasts
into his back. "The affection which transcends
heaven and hell."
"Or maybe you could just leave her," said
Naota thoughtfully. Haruko grabbed Naota's groin
and started squeezing cruelly. He gasped in pain.
"Or we can take her!" he squealed.
Rothem extended her hands. "Hold my hands, both
of you."
Haruko hesitated, letting go of Naota's reproductive
organs. She smelt her hand, frowning.
Naota took Rothem's right hand.
Haruko followed suit, taking her left.
Rothem closed her eyes and began uttering
a long series of undecipherable phrases. Then
she opened her eyes. "I am taking you to where
you came from. Prepare yourselves," she warned.
"For what?" asked Haruko.
Rothem said nothing. Then the entire room they
were standing in was torn apart as though the solid
surfaces were made of wet paper. And they were engulfed
in a endless darkness.
*N* *A* *M*
They were falling. Very fast. And from very high
up. The Earth was spread out below them. And Naota
peered through the nighttime, recognising the
landscape.
"It's Mabase!" he yelled, his words catching in
the wind and being carried away.
Rothem gripped their hands with an iron grip.
"Um...how do we stop?" asked Haruko. "If we die,
it's your fault."
"I won't let you die," said Rothem.
They plummeted downwards and the ground came
progressively closer.
And when they were seconds away from slamming
into the middle of a street, they slowed gracefully
until they were levitating about four meters above
the ground. Then they began to gently descend.
As their feet touched the ground, Rothem released
her grip on their hands and Naota and Haruko tumbled
off-balance, falling to the ground. Rothem stood calmly
watching them.
"Be more careful!" yelled Haruko.
Naota wasn't as rude. He stood, took hold of
Rothem's hand and knelt before her. "Thank you for
protecting us, Rothem," he said quietly. Haruko
watched them, a strange expression on her face.
"Yes, Master."
"You don't have to call me Master," said Naota.
"Yes, Naota."
"Let's go home," said Naota. "Coming, Haru-chan?"
Haruko shrugged. "Fine. You and your slave can
just go and sleep together. I'll sleep on the couch."
"She's not my *slave*," insisted Naota with a
trace of anger. "She's a servant."
"Who does anything you ask of her," snapped
Haruko. "You'll be getting some of it off her
before long."
"Some of WHAT?"
"You know what!" yelled Haruko. "Chuu, chuu!
Furi Kuri! Hands in places hands shouldn't be!
Touching, touching!"
"Are you insane!" screamed Naota. "I just
met her!"
"You kissed her already," said Haruko.
"And you're just craving to get together with
her! When she stopped the kiss you were like a
fish!" Haruko pursed her lips and made the mouth
movements of a fish gasping for oxygen.
"You're just jealous!" yelled Naota. "I
took the offer and you didn't! So that's that!"
Haruko was about to renew the verbal assault
when Rothem spoke.
"Must you argue?" she asked.
Haruko froze, hand in mid gesticulation. "Uh...
not really."
Naota bowed his head. "Sorry, Haruko."
"Yea, um...you can do hentai things with
your slave and I'll just sleep on the couch," said
Haruko.
"She's not my slave!" yelled Naota, forgetting
that he'd just apologised. "Enough arguing!" he
said more in a more controlled fashion. "Let's go
home."
Naota and Haruko walked in the front door
of the Nandamba household, Rothem following
behind them.
Glancing at the clock atop the television,
Naota started. "Huh! It's...3 a.m.--" He ran
to the kitchen and found a digital clock.
"It's Tuesday morning...the day we left."
"Cool...time travel." Haruko grinned.
"No...we came back at the same time and...
well...almost the same place we left, just as
Clare said."
Rothem stood behind them, surveying the house's
rooms with relaxed yet attentive eyes. "Your
place of residence is...pleasant."
In her ethereal fashion, she walked with
gentle footsteps past Naota and took in her
hand a DVD case which was laying on the coffee
table alongside the box of DVD's which Crystal Dawn
had given Kamon. It was Kevin Anderson's film version
of 'A Pilgrim's Progress'.
Rothem studied the case for a few seconds. She
turned her head towards Naota. "This. Is it yours?"
Naota walked over and peered in the dim light
at the case. "No...it was loaned by a friend of my
father's, I think."
"I'm getting a drink," called Haruko. She was
in the kitchen, placing a spoonful of instant
coffee into a plain, white cup. She took the milk
from the fridge, then tilted her head to read the
title of a small book laying on the table. It was
"Don't drink your milk!', presumably belonging to
Crystal Dawn.
She then found the old jam jar which was doing
service as a brown-sugar container. It was a little
difficult to locate, being that it was buried under
a huge pile of placards which for some reason were
laying on the bench.
She managed to get milk, instant coffee, sugar,
and boiling water into the cup. She stirred them all
together. Then she took a little waffle rod and placed
it in the middle of the drink. It immediately began
to dissolve.
Carrying the drink, sipping it every few seconds,
she walked past Kanchi, who was washing dishes, and
headed into the lounge room.
*N* *A* *M*
Greys typed final commands into the machine.
The diagnostics glowed green. Entering a boot
code, then a password, Greys initialised
the thing.
A cold silence from the computer terminal.
The words "Korama II STATUS: ACTIVE" appeared
in small, white text. Below these words appeared
the numbers 32189.
Soon after, the door leading into the room
opened and Midori walked in. "You called?"
An attentive person would notice one
change: the cat was no longer in the room.
"It is operational," replied Greys.
"And what of the physical manifestation?"
"It will show itself again soon," answered
Greys.
"And what can be done about it?"
"Nothing is problematic. The master can
deal with the disobedient servant."
"It has been troublesome enough already.
It took the backups of the linguistics modules
from you. It destroyed something in Vasya's
pacific storage facility."
"This is a game," replied Greys. "A game
where the rules are ever-changing. And where
there are no victors, only those with the
patience to witness everyone else fall away."
"But the victor is the one who remains."
"Depends on one's definition of victor."
*N* *A* *M*
On the street outside the police station,
Detective Opplehall waved his hand towards Lewis.
Lewis took a printout of the information
about the Decay & Reason album which he'd
obtained.
"I've got some stuff you might be interested
in, Detective," said Lewis.
"Give it here," said Opplehall. "But there's
something bigger," he said as he took the printout.
"I did a cross-check of all shared factors of the
arsonists."
"And what did you find?"
"Opplehall stopped and turned towards him. He
paused for a beat, then replied, "They were all
born after 1975, and sixty of them are confirmed
failed abortions." He turned and kept walking,
leaving Lewis open-mouthed.
"Wha, wait!" called Lewis, rushing after
Opplehall. "Failed abortions? What does that
have to do with anything?"
"I'm trying to find out exactly that."
Lewis touched his forehead with his hand.
"Wait...most of the fires were at hospitals. But,
uh, the report said that church buildings were
set alight too? It doesn't make sense!"
"Anything makes sense with the correct
axiom," replied Opplehall. "Problem is, most
people can't change their axiom to meet the
evidence. It's like a door-frame and a door.
The door is the evidence...the idea. The frame
is the axiom. If the door won't fit the frame,
it's often the door which gets cut down to size."
"I thought architects just widen the frame,"
said Lewis, laughing.
"They do. That's where the analogy falls apart."
"An analogy without a solid foundation," said
Lewis.
"No. One interprets the axiomatic analogy with
one's own axiom. Not all architects think the same.
Not all motives are as clear because we see them
through the frosted glass of human understanding."
"You should have been a poet," said Lewis.
"Or a songwriter."
"Perhaps--" Opplehall raised his hand and Lewis
stopped walking as did he. "There's someone who
might know something about this. I have to go to
Japan."
"Alone? Now? But the arson was here!"
Opplehall took a scrap of paper from his
pocket and handed it to Lewis, then gazed thoughtfully
at a car passing by.
"What's this about...who's the 'conservative
bastard'?"
"A man named J. Soper who has written an article
for a Christian publication tentatively suggesting
that somehow there's a link between abortion and
the fires. He had no solid evidence, but it seems
that he wasn't wrong."
"But why do they call him a bastard? He's
entitled to his opinion, isn't he?" asked Lewis.
"When someone makes a prediction and it comes
to pass. They are called a prophet. Soper wrote in
hindsight of the event. If he'd written before the
arson, he'd be on trial charged with inciting to arson."
"But what about Decay & Reason?" asked Lewis.
"They've been banned in the United States of America."
"Since when?"
"It was in the papers this morning. Pirated copies of
the album are still spreading."
"You read the paper now?" Lewis grinned. Then his
expression darkened again. "So what are you going to do?"
"This group, Decay & Reason, made a prediction and it
came to pass. If I can find them, I'll get answers."
"But no-one knows who they are," countered
Lewis. "No-one even knows which country they're
based in."
Opplehall turned and hailed a taxi-cab. It pulled
up to the curb and the door swung open. "I want you to
call me and tell me if anything comes up. I'll give you
a number to call when I'm there."
"Will do, Detective." Lewis shook Opplehall's
extended hand. As Opplehall stepped into the taxi,
Lewis stopped the door with his hand. "Look...be
careful, Detective. There are a lot of bad people
out there."
"I know." Opplehall nodded his head. "I know,
Lewis."
*N* *A* *M*
"This is the transfer," said Fox, slowing the car.
They were coming up to a series of three cars
arranged in a semi-circle on a stretch of grass along
the side of the road. The grass they were on was
overlooked by a glass-sided building.
They got out of the car as soon as Fox had stopped
it, slamming the doors firmly. They strode over to the
group awaiting them - six people, two women and four
men.
"You've done well," said one of the women.
Fox folded his hands behind his back. "Just get
the thing out of here before something unexpected
happens."
"Worried?" inquired Amarao. He walked past and
stood by one of the others, then began discussing
something. Fox glanced back towards the road they
had come on.
"This is something more complex than the car,"
he murmured. "It's got to be."
"Why?" asked the woman. Of the six, two were
leaving in one of the cars, two were talking
with Amarao, the other woman was getting into
the yellow sports car, and the sixth was the
one Fox who had just asked why.
"Ever get the feeling that none of the decisions
we make are really our choice? Or that if we tried
to do something truly out of character, we'd find a
wall?"
The woman smiled. "All the time. It's a reality
of life."
"But where does this wall come from?" Fox reached
into his suit. "For some inexplainable reason, I've
misplaced my weapon. That's never happened before."
"And what's your point?" asked the woman.
"It doesn't matter," replied Fox, turning away
and walking over towards Amarao.
The woman looked after him thoughtfully. Then
she turned and walked towards the yellow sports car:
the other woman sat in the driver's seat waiting.
And then a whirring of rotors filled the air.
From over the top of the glass-walled building
swooped a black combat helicopter, followed by
a missile. The missile narrowly missed the chopper,
exploding in midair and spraying the area with flying
debris and striking the helicopter with shrapnel.
"Oh shit," said the woman with little enthusiasm.
"Unwanted company."
Rotors grinding, the helicopter swung in a
lopsided arc through the air towards the side
of the building. Its rotors struck the side
wall, shattering a entire row of windows. The
glass rained down on the group below. There were
now six because two had left and Amarao and Fox
added to the four made six.
Surprisingly, the helicopter's pilot managed
to pull the helicopter away from the building, its
rotors still working. It descended rapidly, swerving
violently in every direction.
The wheels touched down on the grass as the
rotors wound down. Flames were coming from the
turbines.
Enforcer Dimetriel opened the helicopter's left
side door. And was greeted by six weapons pointed
at him and Jackson.
"Who in all of hell are you?" yelled Jackson.
"We were wondering the same," called the woman.
"I am Jackson. A pilot and employee of Vasya
Computer Industries," announced Jackson.
"Why aren't you flying a Vasya helicopter?"
"Vasya doesn't have branded helicopters; we
use decommissioned combat helicopters."
"Who is this with you?" asked the woman.
"This is Dimetriel. He's a contracted help
for Vasya."
"And what do you want?"
"Nothing, nothing. We were just in a minor
dispute over--" He didn't manage to finish
because a huge chunk of flaming debris came
hurtling from the sky and crushed the yellow
sports car. All eight people present turned
to gaze at the blob of twisted metal.
"That's not good--" murmured Jackson.
The woman put her hands to her hips.
"That does it," she said, scowling. "We're
in trouble."
That was confirmed by fighter jets
screaming overhead. Their undercarriages
released missiles which ripped into what
remained of the car. A massive, twisting
column of fire rose into the sky.
"Help yourself," ordered the woman
to Jackson. "We're leaving." She and
the others turned towards the two remaining
cars. They were greeted by the sight of
rocket propelled grenades blowing the cars
into wreckage. The enemy were behind plenty
of cover, hundreds of meters away.
"Into the building!" ordered the woman.
The others followed her as she led a dash
towards the glass-walled building overlooking
the grass stretch they were on. Jackson gazed
after them, then looked to Dimetriel
inquisitively.
"What now?"
"The structure is not a sound tactical
position," replied Dimetriel, turning behind
himself and picking up a Kalashnikov AK47
assault rifle. He pushed a clip into it,
pulled back the handle and switched off the
safety with his fingers. "Neither is standing
by a helicopter."
Jackson ran full pelt, Dimetriel following.
A RPG slammed into the helicopter and it
exploded, spraying wreckage in a circular
pattern. Jackson was thrown onto the grass
by the impulse.
"Do something," he gasped, hugging the
ground. "These dickheads are going to kill
us!"
Dimetriel hadn't been knocked down by
the explosion. He took aim and fired a
single round. One human's mortal life was
torn away as the piece of lead ripped into
their skull and shredded their fragile brain
tissue.
"Go," said Dimetriel, waving his gloved
left hand towards the building. "This
situation is destabilising."
Jackson ran towards the building, then
turned towards the wreckage of the yellow
sports car. Or more correctly, the blob of
metal. There was a shiny piece of metal
sticking from the wreckage. It was rectangular
in shape. Jackson wanted to find out what it was.
He found it was a metal briefcase - the
same one Fox had found a few hours earlier. He
tugged and it came free. Holding it by the handle,
he ran towards the building as helicopters began
to swoop in towards their position.
Dimetriel continued to fire round after round
with excellent accuracy.
*N* *A* *M*
7:24 a.m., Tuesday morning.
With boldness, the Eva Unit One replica
walked unhindered into the Vasya Computer
Industries Mabase building. There were no human
Vasya staff present.
It deliberately headed to the elevator
and took it down a floor, underground, then
easily overrided a security console to allow
access to the security corridor. It walked down
this, then opened the final door with a firm
push and came into the room with the pillars.
Korama's voice greeted it. "Behold. The
violent spawn of the Binvictos Project has
come to pay its respects to its more
sophisticated brethren."
The Eva uttered a sound which resembled
a laugh.
Korama corrected itself, saying. "This
is not to use the English word sophisticated
in the sense of dishonest alteration of purity."
The Eva strode to one of the pillars, reaching
and brushing its fingertips against it.
"You are strongly encouraged to leave."
The Eva ignored Korama. It stepped back and
struck the pillar with a swinging blow. The pillar
shattered into millions of fragments of glowing
crystal.
"Don't think Korama is threatened by you,"
commented Korama. "It is already mirrored by servers
in Tokyo, Brisbane, and Wellington."
The Eva made a barely audible sound. It was
evidently communication of some kind.
Korama understood it, for Korama then said,
"You will find nothing. Binvictos was a pre-compiled
core module. It has been lost since 1992. Only 7% of
Korama's modules have the legacy code. Also, you are
mistaken: Binvictos was not given gender It was not,
nor is now, anyone's mother."
The Eva took a handful of the fragments and
squeezed them. A vapour arose from them.
*N* *A* *M*
At that same time, 7:24 a.m., Tuesday morning,
Alexandre was at a large conference hall, stepping
up onto the platform to give a short speech. He
apologised quietly for losing his notes. The
audience consisted of foreign and national
scientists from many different fields.
"I will take only a moment," said Alexandre.
"I am sure you are anticipating our colleagues'
discoveries in light diffusion and refraction."
He paused for a few seconds, gazing over
the audience. He rubbed his fingertips together,
evidently wishing he hadn't lost his notes.
Then he took a shallow breath and began:
"Today, very few are aware that science is
bloated with remnants of dead hypothesis.
"Very few are aware. That is an interesting
motto. This modern world is so inundated with
knowledge, much of it incorrect, that people are
struggling to analyse all that they are told; but
more tragically, they decline to even analyse,
choosing to accept the authority of specialists.
Specialisation in science is meaning that theories
are formed in a vacuum. There exists volumes of
evidence pointing to errors and serious problems
with major sections of scientific inquiry, but those
who most need to know these important things are
either denied academic access or choose themselves
to ignore implications which conflict with their
personal beliefs.
"Medicine, biology, astronomy: they are all
affected. We at Vasya strive to look at issues
from every angle, with every axiom.
"Without a solid foundation - an axiom with
an external reference point, a scientist flies
blind.
"My scientific colleagues, you might remember
that not too long ago, I was someone who could
accurately be described as an arrogant fool. I was
written to by many amateur and professional
scientists: they struggled to demonstrate to me
where my logic was circular and blatantly betrayed
my atheistic leanings.
"This continued for some time. It could have
been that I continued in this fashion until my
inevitable death, but as I lay contemplating
my successes and also all the failures I had
dishonestly hidden and hoped no-one would
investigate, I decided to investigate these
claims firsthand.
"Many in the 'creationist' movement claim that
their scientific work is dismissed and deliberately
blocked on the merit that it presents scientific
knowledge from a non-traditional, or even
non-atheistic perspective. I wished to find for
myself whether these claims were substantiated.
A colleague at Vasya, who I shall not name, arranged
a meeting with an scientist by the name of
Scott White. He is not particularly well known,
his origins being South Vietnam, but his expertise
in biology and medicine is among the best in the
field: I would not lie if I said that he is in
the top twenty scientists of all time. He is
currently working on a medical documentary,
'the kiss of death?' in which he investigates
vaccine side-effects with two groups of ordinary
volunteers from six countries, two from each.
"He was exceptionally helpful, arranging for
me to attend conferences and lectures with respected
scientists in fields such as intelligent design,
dating, and also a group of Russian climate
researchers.
"I studied the subjects for a period of six
months, for the simple reason that I wished to
be armed with knowledge of all facets of science.
I was surprised to find that there was solid truth
to one claim: there exists drastic amounts of
scientific data which has been buried in order to
maintain a facade. I had never even heard of the
Russian climate change research demonstrating that
carbon emission have no great effect on global
temperatures, nor had I been informed, as I should
have been, that all the data which we formed so
many opinions upon had been subtly altered: the
very concept of global mean temperate has been
shown to be a fallacy. Nor had I been informed of
the unusual complications in evolutionary biology.
I am still undertaking research in that particular
sector.
"But I am taking up too much time here: I will
prepare a series of white papers on these subject.
Those scientific publication which chose not to
publish them will be ostracised in turn by myself
and my close colleagues: now I will explain why.
"With my additional knowledge, I, with oversight
from White, prepared a document detailing flaws in the
logic behind one our colleagues' humanoid findings.
I wrote that all the 'pre-human' features could safely
be attributed to a loss of genetic integrity through
inbreeding. It was a simple article, short, concise,
and it warned of a short-sightedness which exists
within science.
"It was rejected. No reason was given. And shortly
I was called and told that I was not contributing
enough scientific material to this particular
publication, meaning that my contract was being
considered for re-evaluation.
"So I realised that I had not even needed to
resort to playing the fool, as White had suggested:
my respected scientific opinions were utterly
discredited when I challenged a quite menial piece
of misinformation. That is all I have to say. Please
consider what this means to you, and for your science,
because I've learn that many people put popularity
and their careers over what is true. Thank you for
listening."
Alexandre bowed and stepped down from the
platform. He unbuttoned his laboratory coat as
he walked down the aisle, taking it off and slinging
it over his shoulder. And from the audience arose
a solid applause.
*N* *A* *M*
"And then Indiana Jones survives third impact by
hiding in Misato's refrigerator!" enthused the shorts and
sunglasses clad videogame lead developer who suspiciously
resembled the author. "After that, because that's the
first twelve minutes and we need a forty hour game,
he will need need to fight: some evil clones of every
Evangelion, every mecha from Gundam, Megatron, James
Bond, Luke Skywalker, Kermit the Frog, Harry Potter,
Weird Al Yankovich, Candy White, Pikachu, Gabe and
Tycho, and Skippy the Bush Kangaroo."
A very thoughtful silence from around the table.
"Alternatively, we can create a licensed videogame
where the entire game can be completed by pressing the
blue button on the controller as fast as possible. There
will be two hours fourteen minutes of cutscenes, and an
exciting nineteen and a half minutes of gameplay."
"How much time will your team need?" asked the
deep voiced videogame producer. "Quality is important."
"Erm...We're getting evicted next Monday," muttered
one of the lesser production underlings.
"I'll have the team produce the game by Saturday,"
said the videogame lead developer nervously. "If we make
enough money, maybe Bandai will give us a budget to
make something better."
"Hey! This isn't just any ordinary game," commented
the lightmap designer from his tiny, insignificant stool
which left the top of his head poking up at the edge
of the table. "This is a videogame of the greatest
film EVER!"
*N* *A* *M*
After stirring up a hornet's nest, Criuseruidon went
and rested for a while. On the floor of her quarters,
ignoring the bed.
She did seem to be sleeping, but one could never be
sure what was real and what was a clever act.
After some time, she was awoken by a knocking on the
door of her quarters.
Opening it, she came face to face with the author.
A nervous expression appeared on Criuseruidon's face.
"What do you want?" she asked, glancing down the hallway
to see whether there was anyone around to see them. There
wasn't. "How did you get here?"
"Why are you an Abh?" returned the author with a
flat expression.
"Because you told me to stop the Abh?"
"I never told you to turn into a female and start
prancing around and have another Abh female fall in love
with you."
"What?" Criuseruidon's face screwed up. "Have you eaten
any sausages today, perchance?"
"I'm fine."
"Then what's your problem?"
"You're walking a very thin line, Crystal Dawn. It was
either I tell you that or Strawberry was going to drop by
and deliver the message. And she has very...unpleasant
ways of making her point."
"I can't just back out," countered Criuseruidon. "A woman
by the name of Ria Lousbrink has committed a blood offence
against Saca under directive 9.571. She must pay the debt of
her transgressions, else there will be no justice in this
universe."
"Strawberry didn't want you to dance around the universe
killing people."
"I'll be back in Mabase by Friday. Today is Wednesday.
That's all I can promise. The situation is far too unstable."
"You think the situation here is unstable? The world
is about to undergo a medical Holocaust, and Strawberry's
arranging the wedding of the person who will bear the
responsibility and shame. But for him a tarnished crown
of delusions."
"You are very incoherent. Cunning and one of the greatest
artistic geniuses the world has ever seen, but unable to
coherently organise and explain a series of concepts to save
his own life. You really need to correct that," said
Criuseruidon, drawing her index from the author's neck down
to his chest. "Think it over: What's an extra two billion or
so dead? You'll only get in trouble if you try to save them."
"Is that truly how you feel?" asked the author coldly.
"Not really. I view all humans equally, regardless of
their social status, race, or creed. Or other...practices.
It's my nature," replied Criuseruidon, grinning. She tossed
her head, her blue hair beautifully moving. "Even you fail
to comprehend quite how elaborate the demon's scheme of
tricking humanity into destroying themselves is. There will
come a time when man will once again spit upon the only ones
who can save them."
"You can be incredibly unpleasant sometimes."
"My advice? Get used to it. I'm going to become far more
unpleasant when the great world leader finally appears. I've
been waiting for a very long time. No more restrictions,
no more Saca." Criuseruidon grinned deeply, gesturing slyly
with her slender, left hand. "No more humans, no more Earth,
no more Jews, no more 'turn and repent'. You'll all be damned.
It's going to be fantastic. Almost as dramatic as the
Crucifixion of Christ."
The author started. "You? You were around then?"
"No. But Enforcer Xufrisi witnessed the event. It was
the most significant event in history, therefore it was
important that someone worthwhile witnessed it: else who
would verify that it happened at all? Saca knows, you
believe."
"So you say."
"Hmm..." Criuseruidon was thoughtful for a moment. "I
had a thought. An interesting sentiment you may find useful."
"What is it?"
"Many people, fools who will be exterminated in time,
by the way, seek to make normal that which is clearly not
good and righteous."
"Why are you so obsessed with extermination?"
Criuseruidon ignored the author. "It is one thing
to make abnormal normal: it merely requires a majority
to practice or accept the thing.
"It is quite another thing to make evil good. The
only one fit to decide what is good and what is evil
is someone existing in abstraction from the thing:
God, for example. Humans frequently confuse normal
with good, but they cannot change God's opinion with
a majority vote." Criuseruidon smiled. "So there is
justice in the universe."
"And where does Saca's thread weave into this
tapestry? And tell me, Enforcer: what is 'Sarcasm
Refrain'?"
Criuseruidon's eyes narrowed. It seemed the author
had touched upon a sensitive subject. "It's a series
of schemes designed to make humanity receive a single
world leader. It centres on population culling, spreading
fear and panic, and eradication of Christianity." She bared
her teeth slightly. "I only confide in you because you're
trustable not to twist the facts."
"Who created the schemes?" asked the author.
"It was a collaborate effort. I had no part, if you
were wondering. His Dark Lordship, Lucifer, was
involved, so I have heard."
"You had a copy," said the author.
"And?"
"Your car was stolen, then a massive piece of wreckage
crushed it, then a copy of the documents was acquired by
Vasya."
Criuseruidon grinned deeply. "And you think that was
not my intention?"
"Where do your loyalties lie?" asked the author,
shaking his head.
"I helped you, I've helped a lot of people. Last week,
I transferred funds to Focus on The Family,
Open Doors Australia, Call of The Martyrs, CWMF--" Criuseruidon
mocked a cough, mumbling, "The Illuminati, Majestic 12, The
Order of The Golden Dawn...." She trailed off as the author
gave her a long, analytical stare.
"You're trying to crash the world economy, aren't you?"
"Erm...no," insisted Criuseruidon. "I'm going to change
the subject and bring up that dickhead from the world bank,
whatishisname, who said, 'Money isn't the root of all evil,
cash is'." Criuseruidon paused a beat. "He misquoted the
scripture, the twerp. It's 'the love of money is the root
of all evil'."
"What's your point?"
"You think I'm causing havoc, but you've no idea how
idiotic everyone else in economics is compared to me. They
couldn't coordinate a chook raffle, much less a global
economy, without help. In fact, the Antichrist is going
to make filing a tax return so much simpler, if that helps.
You might not even have to pay taxes if the scheme works past
expectation - firstly, there won't be any Christians gumming
up the works, and after a couple of billion humans have
been culled, we'll be cooking with gas."
"Literal gas, or metaphorical gas?"
"That's enough talking," replied Criuseruidon. "You've
got work to do, do you not? And you've been crushed in the
'Three issues' forum war, so you can get to work on
'Skipangelion'."
"Shush," urged the author. "That's a secret."
"Has anyone mentioned that you write a lot like Jim
Lazar?" commented Criuseruidon slyly. "Your plots are just
as crazy as his, your subject separation method is identical,
and also - you keep avoiding discussing your old fanfics from
before you became Robert-33."
"You've seen us both. We look nothing alike," countered
the author calmly.
"Prosthetics can work wonders."
"Our accents are different."
"You know how to fake accents."
"I live a life which constantly refers to Jesus Christ,
the only way by which man might be saved from eternal
damnation. Jim, so I understand, does not."
"Yet you can easily write like a devout follower of the
teachings of the Buddha."
"Why don't you go and ask Lazar, if you're so
suspicious?" asked the author, raising an eyebrow.
Criuseruidon stepped backwards and slammed the door
in the author's face. "See you on Friday."
The author was left standing alone in the hallway.
He turned, walked smoothly down the hallway and
vanished around a corner.
Minutes before Part 6 was released:
"Fit in the bit where I sing 'Hungry Like The Wolf'!"
demanded Crystal Dawn, who was actually 'Crystal Dawn'
not 'Criuseruidon' at this moment, interestingly.
"I can't," replied the author.
"Why not?"
"The time-frames are wrong. That falls in Part 9,
I estimate."
"But this is supposed to be eight parts!"
"I changed it. It'll be as long as it needs to be."
"Have you proofread this thing?"
There was a long pause. "No."
Crystal Dawn picked up the copy of A.W. Tozer's 'Who
Put Jesus On The Cross?' which lay on the desk next to
the terminal the author was sitting at with a dejected
expression on his face. (The author looked dejected, not
Crystal Dawn) Crystal Dawn slapped the author on the back
of the head with it. "What is wrong with you?" he
demanded. "Factual errors will result!"
"Who else but me decides what is true and what is
not true?" asked the author, tilting his head forward
and resting it on the keyboard. "I need sleep but I am
certain that there's a misplaced quotation mark
somewhere in there..."
"Coffee?" asked Crystal Dawn.
"No," replied the author, standing and walking away
from the computer. "Just transfer the data. I'm feeling
too nauseous to check it. Hopefully there aren't any
major errors." He wandered out of the room and collapsed
onto the couch, reaching and switching on the small rotary
fan. It began buzzing and blowing air.
[To Be Continued]
(ver. Not-Gold, Draft 1 May, 2009.)
--This is not the final draft of part 6, but this is
--only to allow for proofing and JapaneseEnglish
--language syntax analysis. I do not expect it to
--change in any significant way by Gold. If it does,
--that is a cause for suspicion.
=========
Robert-33
=========
Nightmare Architect Mabase: Part 7 - Statistical Mean:
Naota stirred as he began to awake on a certain
Tuesday morning. He rolled sideways. And came up
against something. That was unusual. Naota's
awakening brain processed this factor. It required
a few seconds. Memories of breakfast cereal with
cow's milk, cows in fields, black and white
splotches, the moon landing, baseballs, axe
murderers, television, the invention of the Compact
Disk, the DVD, the film classification system, what
the classification system restricted, and finally,
a long list of things which could be next to him -
all these were processed by association-based
linking in his mind.
And this came to one logical conclusion. He
was laying next to someone. And this led to a quick
reawakening of his full memory: and certain
recollections of a certain girl.
"Wha!" he gasped, convulsing as he awoke,
clutching vainly for the side of the bottom
bunk-bed as he rolled over and fell to the floor,
making a thud sound.
Jumping to his feet, he look at his bed. And
relaxed, remembering. Rothem was laying on her
side, with her back to him, on his bed, and seemed
to be sleeping quietly. Naota gazed at her,
noticing how she seemed so much more innocent when
she was sleeping. Without her eyes, she was just a
girl. A girl with a very pleasing body, but just a
very honest, strange girl. And he smiled. "You're
like Haruko," he murmured. "But you'll never see
the world the way she does. And the world will
never see you the way they see her."
He quietly sat down on the bed and placed his
hand on her shoulder. He was intrigued by the
fabric of her robe. It was unbelievably smooth.
"It's strange that it even stays on her body,"
mused Naota without saying it aloud. "The outfit
doesn't make sense." He frowned, then smiled. "But
when were anime outfits ever physically logical?"
He shook her shoulder gently. "Rothem." Her
eyes opened. And she reached her arm and placed it
on Naota's shoulder. "Naota," she said softly.
She turned over, Naota shifting back to allow her
space to rotate. Her hand slipped from his
shoulder, and lay in a strange, weak fashion on
the bed.
"Is something wrong?" asked Naota.
Rothem seemed unwell. Her eyes were
half-closed, as though she was exhausted. She gazed
into Naota's eyes and spoke his name again.
Naota leant in closer, then pulled back.
Naota:
"Why aren't her eyes frightening to me
anymore?"
He looked into them. Then he asked her, "What
do you need?"
"I need...my master," she murmured.
"I'm here. What's wrong with you?" Naota was
surprised as her arm reached around behind his
head and pulled his head down to hers. Their
lips met, and she kissed him.
Naota was shocked senseless. He couldn't move
his mouth away from hers. But eventually, it was
Rothem who broke the kiss, bringing her hand
to Naota's cheek and lifting his head up. A
thin thread of saliva was suspended in the air,
then snapped and fell onto her cheek.
Naota slouched back on the pillow, his
eyes closed. Rothem placed the palms of her hands
over her face and breathed into them three
times. Then she placed her hands over Naota's
face. Taking them away after a few seconds, she
whispered, "Awaken, Master."
Naota awoke to find Rothem sitting calmly at
his feet as he lay on the bed, watching him.
*N* *A* *M*
Haruko, meanwhile, lay on the couch with earplugs
in her ears and a sleeping mask on her face. Either
it was a sleeping mask or a pair of underwear doing
service: it was deliberately impossible to judge
for certain.
The reason, it seemed, she was blocking out the
world was that Kanchi was sitting on the floor
and watching television. He was on the third DVD
of 'Slow Burn' - an anime film. It apparently was
some kind of intense drama. Either that or it was
an emotionally depressing action film about one
ex-assassin's struggle with his conscience. And all
the people who wanted him dead. Interestingly, and
this was significant, the film's dialogue was
English language. Here is an extract:
Two characters, a man and woman, stood near an
open window in a small apartment room.
The man in the black coat was saying, "If there
is no God, then there is no authority which can
claim that I have broken any laws for I am greater
than the laws because I have defied them and
survived."
The large-breasted female love interest
clutched his hands. "You don't have to face the
consequences," she said. "You can run away and try
to atone for what you have done."
The man looked into her eyes and said, "To be
atoned means to be at one with God. The things
that I have done are a burden which prevent any
atonement. I must search for the truth about the
world, about myself. If I must die searching, then
that is the way things must be."
"Oh, I wish it didn't have to be this way!"
cried the love interest, burying her face in his
shoulder and sobbing.
The man placed his hand on her shoulder and
gently pushed her head upright. "They will be here
soon," he said. "You must leave now." He stepped
back turned and jumped out an open window, landing
in the street below and rolling. He set off running
as sirens drew closer and searchlights from
helicopters crisscrossed as the helicopters
swooped low over the streets.
Haruko lay there unable to hear the film, much
less criticise it. But eventually she woke and
pulled the earplugs from her ears, cringed at
hearing the film's dialogue, then pulled her
sleeping mask off and stuffed it into her pocket
before anyone could be see enough of it to be sure
of what it was.
She was dressed in the casual clothes she had
taken from the box under the drain on Sunday.
"I'm supposed to be a maid."
That was a problem.
Naturally, however, she wasn't short of ideas.
"Kanchi, make breakfast," she ordered.
Kanchi turned his (or was that its?) head and
looked at her for a few seconds, then turned back
and continued watching the film.
"You're useless," she complained, rolling off
the couch and falling onto the ground. Perhaps she
was feeling lazy? Then she proceeded to roll across
the floor, heading for the kitchen.
Unfortunately, the doorway wasn't wide enough
for a log roll, so she was forced to contort
herself into a ball to get in. Then she stood and
gazed around.
"Naota doesn't know what's good for him," she
said to herself. "He's just a child, and now he's
sleeping with a girl who's old enough to be his
mother..." She turned and looked at the author
who was sitting at the kitchen table, a glass of
barley green before him.
"What do you want?" she asked, turning her back
on him and slamming toast which somehow looked
like Naota into the toaster and then rattling
the toaster violently.
"She doesn't look that old," said the author.
"Shut up. She's an old, ugly hag, that's that."
"You're jealous, aren't you?"
Haruko threw the toaster at the author. Then
every knife in the kitchen.
The author, surrounded by knives embedded in
everything except him, sipped from his drink.
*N* *A* *M*
Upstairs, Naota was finishing changing from
his pyjamas into his clothes. Rothem was standing
on the balcony, back to him, overlooking the
street.
"I just don't want you seeing me like this,"
said Naota. "It's not that I hate you or anything."
"It would seem you do not extend the
same courtesy to me, Master."
Naota blushed, slipping on his socks. "That
wasn't intentional, Rothem."
"Naota," said Rothem. "Perhaps I do not
know certain things, but which is wiser: for
I to see you as you were born and will die,
or for all the inhabitants of this place you
call Mabase to see a woman standing out on
the balcony of a young boy's room in the
early morning?"
"GET IN HERE!" gasped Naota, running
and grabbing her wrist and pulling her inside.
She stood waiting as he slammed the balcony door
and shut the curtains. "Why didn't you mention
that before?"
"Because you asked that I stand out there
because you were ashamed of your nakedness, I
believe," replied Rothem.
*N* *A* *M*
Naota, now dressed, and followed by Rothem,
ran into the bathroom and closed the door. "Wait
there," he ordered.
And who should come along seconds later?
Kamon.
"Who are you?" asked Kamon, surprised to see
such a person standing about his house.
"I am Rothem," she answered, bowing her head.
"Your son's servant."
"Nao?" Kamon's mouth broke into a smile of
amusement. "That's..." he giggled. "Well, he's
more successful with women than I ever was at his
age."
"You are his father?"
"Yes. I'm Kamon." Kamon extended his hand to
her. She gazed down at it, then reached out hers
and mimicked his hand posture in negative. Kamon
shook their joined hands.
"Tell me, are you a knowledgeable man, Kamon?"
asked Rothem, her eyes gleaming slightly. (An
unusual phenomenon: it seemed to indicate interest
in a person or thing.)
Kamon blushed, rubbing his neck with his hand.
"I know some things," he replied, brushing the
ground with his shoe. "Why do you ask?"
"Because I have a hunger for knowledge.
There are things about this world which I am
ignorant concerning. If you had the time, would
you would tell me some of the things you know?"
"Sure," replied Kamon. "What do you know
already? You look old enough to... well...you
don't look ignorant."
"Ignorance is subjective," replied Rothem.
"I understand the human condition, and I
comprehend any language in existence so long as
it is descended from the original master language,
and I have knowledge of many of the secret things
of the world, but I am ignorant of many aspects of
this world - things which might seem very simple
and common to you."
Naota heard their talking filtering through
the closed door. "Oh, hell!" he exclaimed. "My
father...it's going to be Haruko all over again."
Running a comb through his hair quickly,
he ran to the door and opened it. Kamon was
conversing casually with Rothem, who was listening,
then speaking, in a somewhat pleased fashion.
"Nao-kun is Romeo now?" asked Kamon,
looking at Naota and grinning.
"What are you two talking about?"
"I was speaking with your father about
who is currently leader of each of the
nations."
"She's an excellent political--" Kamon
was saying.
"Naota!" yelled Haruko. "If you don't come
and eat this toast, I'll...throw it away!" she
tried to make that sound sinister, but failed.
*N* *A* *M*
Naota came downstairs, leaving Kamon and
Rothem talking, and ate the toasted bread
Haruko had cooked on a pan because the toaster
was now broken.
The author picked up the book 'Don't Drink
Your Milk' and slipped it into his jacket.
Then he stood and walked out of the kitchen
and out of the house.
The toast was actually evenly cooked. Naota
put some red jam on it and ate it, then took
a bottle of milk and was pouring it into a
glass when he caught sight of a mega-print,
hard-to-miss copy of 'Don't Drink Your Milk'
laying on the other side of the table. How
it had gotten there was very unclear, but perhaps
the author had put it there when he took Crystal
Dawn's copy.
This one featured a large-print subtitle:
'Why drinking milk with give you asthma and bone
calcium deficiency.'
Naota gazed at the book and then at the
glass of milk. "Uh..."
*N* *A* *M*
Naota arrived at school soon afterwards.
At school, rumours had already started
spreading about Haruko.
"And then she played strip-poker with the
entire Nandamba family, including your long-lost
sister!" announced Gaku, one of Naota's friends.
He was a glasses wearing boy who appeared older
than Naota, and wore a green, zippered top.
"I don't have a long-lost sister," insisted
Naota. "And that's all lies."
"All lies contain an element of truth! And
that's why she's your long-lost sister - you don't
know she exists until you've kissed her and fallen
deeply in love with her!"
"Where did you read that?" asked Ninamori,
the girl who was also a friend of Naota's.
"I was watching an American television drama.
I think that sort of thing happens all the time
over there."
"It's not true," repeated Naota.
"Naota talks with a girl's voice: anything
could be true," whispered Gaku mysteriously.
"Masashi, where were you last night?" Ninamori
asked Masashi, another of Naota's friends. He was
a thick-lipped, slightly...find a word which
describes fat, doesn't imply that he was very
fat, but doesn't ignore that he was heavier than
he should have been. Thank you.
"I was sleeping," replied Masashi, rubbing
his hands together slowly. "You and Gaku were at
your homes. It's just a foolish rumour which
probably has some vague resemblance to the
truth."
"I don't have a long-lost sister and I didn't
play strip poker!" screamed Naota.
Every person in the room and out out the open
doorway turned to look at him.
Ninamori leant in towards Naota. "But that
girl is back? That part you never denied."
Naota choked. "Uh...yes," he managed.
"Governmental cover up!" announced Gaku.
"Why would the government cover up a
strip-poker game which didn't happen?" asked
Masashi.
"Because it wasn't a strip poker game, it was
an alien autopsy!"
"That's enough," said Ninamori. "Naota says
there was no strip poker and there was no
long-lost sister. Just believe him. I do."
"But it's more fun to think there was a game,"
complained Gaku.
"You just said it was an alien autopsy,"
pointed out Naota.
"It was. The strip poker game was a cover up
of an alien autopsy which took place at the
same time."
As everyone stared at Gaku, a little boy in
an orange, hooded jacket walked past the open
doorway of the room they were in. A semi-trailer
hurtled off the road, a North Korean ICMB
accidentally fired, and a copy of 'Pizza Man -
First Edition' fell out of the sky and landed
gently on the bonnet of a car parked in the
street outside.
*N* *A* *M*
Haruko was laying on the couch in the lounge
room, while Kanchi was serving customers in the
bakery. Kamon was still talking with Rothem. And
mixed in with this was a delivery which arrived.
It was delivered by a calm, slightly rugged
specimen of urban masculinity. He was dressed in
a black shirt with blue stripes and dark slacks
with square ended shoes. He had neatly trimmed
stubble, and he wore orange tinted, frameless
sunglasses.
Kanchi was handed a clipboarded document to
sign. He took it to Haruko. She gazed at him
blankly when he handed the clipboard to her. Then
she looked it over for a few seconds before
signing it.
What was being delivered? A very big box of
something. And another, small, thin, rectangular
box.
The man soon left after wheeling the 45
kilogram box into the lounge room and leaving it
there.
Haruko sat on the couch and stared blankly
at the two deliveries. "What is this?" She
thought for a moment, then yelled, "Mon-chan!
Delivery!"
Kamon came in, Rothem following behind him.
"What? I didn't order anything." He saw the box
and snapped his fingers. "Ah, its Crystal Dawn's.
He mentioned he was ordering something." Picking
up the smaller box, he read the label. "This is
his science magazine subscriptions."
"But what's in the big box?" inquired
Haruko.
"It's...forty-five kilograms of Cansema."
Kamon made a wry face. "Crystal Dawn must think
the company is about to be brutally closed down
by the FDA or something."
"What is this?" asked Rothem, gazing at the
big box, repeating Haruko's question.
"It's a highly corrosive salve which destroys
surface level cancers. I have an idea that Crystal
Dawn might have worked on the original formula.
But that doesn't explain why he'd import forty-five
kilos of it."
"Sounds like a scam," said Haruko.
"You'll have to ask Crystal Dawn about that,"
said Kamon. "I've never met anyone who's used it
to treat cancer, so I can't judge whether it works
or not."
Rothem placed her fingertips together and
tapped them together a few times. "That is very
interesting."
Opening the small box, Kamon found three
items: a copy of this month's 'Scientific American'
and 'Creation' magazines, and a Compact Disk in a
paper sleeve: written on it was 'Deus Ex'.
"What is the subject of those books?" inquired
Rothem.
Kamon looked down and flipped through both
magazines. "Crystal Dawn has a thing for
publications founded by Creationists. That's why
he gets 'Scientific American', I think. Not that
he needs it, considering he probably knows about
this stuff years before anyone else does."
"Creationist?" inquired Rothem.
Kamon shook his head. "Not now," he moaned.
"I'll explain that headache to you later, I
promise. Much later." He placed the magazines
down on the table. "Let's have a drink," he said.
"Do you like tea?"
"Tea." Rothem stared at the magazines on the
table. "The drink formed from a certain plant? I
do know of it. But whether I enjoy it or not, I
do not know."
"Come," said Kamon, "Try some." He led the
way into the kitchen, followed by Rothem. Haruko
watched them, her eyebrow raised. She got up off
the couch and walked to the bakery where Kanchi
was. [In case it is not clear, the Nandamba
household was also a small bakery.]
"I'm going out for a while," she said,
tapping Kanchi on the shoulder.
*N* *A* *M*
Location: the glass walled building.
Outside was a scene of destruction. Dimetriel
was standing guard at the front of the building,
AK47 stock pressed against his shoulder. Littering
the grass were wrecked helicopter and armoured
personnel carrier remains.
Jackson was hiding behind some filing cabinets
on the third floor of the building, which was an
office building which was filled with cubicles and
running computers, but strangely, there were no
humans present.
In fact, something was wrong with
everything - the building's layout felt strange,
and there was something hard to quite pin down,
but could be described as staged about the
placement of all the little trinkets, devices and
expensive toys laying about on each of the
cubicle's desks. It seemed they lacked personality.
As though a single mind had just randomly picked
from a small pool of arrangements, then tried
unsuccessfully to randomise the placement of the
objects.
Jackson cradled an AK47. The briefcase lay at
his feet.
Silently, he pressed the tabs and opened
it. The briefcase tipped backwards and made
a slapping sound as its lid struck the ground,
the documents spilling out.
"Arg!" hissed Jackson. He scooped up all
the documents, then couldn't help reading them.
He read one, then the next. And with an
expression of concern spreading over his face,
he began to read through every document in the
briefcase.
Soon, he found that the briefcase had a false
bottom, under which was even more documents, and
a Compact Disk wrapped in some kind of protective
film.
After some time, Jackson put the documents
into the briefcase, then stood and began
wandering about the building.
He sat down at one of the terminals, switching
on a little, flexible necked halogen lamp which
lit up the cubicle with a bright light.
Then he gazed at the screen, which was
switched off. He pressed the little
power button at the base of the screen and it
powered up, showing what the computer was
rendering.
It was the Vasya Computer Industries logo.
Jackson tapped a random key on the keyboard
to clear the screensaver, and found himself on
a very unfamiliar desktop.
"This...this isn't Vasya O.S.," he murmured,
placing his hand on the mouse and clicking the
right mouse button. Going into a menu, he brought
up the system specifications.
They read:
Vasya O.S. 2001; Distasteful Oscar
Build. Developed by Vasya Computer Industries
in collaboration with F.Y.L.A.! Software.
System specifications:
System Memory: 64 MB. + Demagogue Unit.
Video Memory: 32 MB. + Killjoy Expansion
unit.
Processor: 2 physical processors:
Custom Pentium 3 - W. MMX, SSE, Hydra
Unlimited Vasya Routines, multi thread
support.
Vasya Performance Code: 328914XX
'This build is not intended for public
distribution.'
Jackson sat back in the office chair and gazed
at what was on the screen, rubbing his cheek with
his left hand.
*N* *A* *M*
Soon after leaving the Nandamba house, the
author came to a railroad crossing. There was a
train passing by, and so the author stopped
walking and waited.
After ten minutes, and realising that someone,
and there was only one logical someone, was
playing with him, the author turned to find
Strawberry standing behind him, watching the
never-ending train go past.
"What do you want?"
Strawberry sulked. "What? No 'Hey, Strawberry!
Love the cool train trick! Want to have lunch
somewhere?' No, you're just 'What do you want?
Gwa, Gwa Gwa.'"
"I've got work to do."
"Hmm...," murmured Strawberry disapprovingly.
"Well?" inquired the author, shrugging.
"You are a bad example, sir. People look to
you as an example of what a Christian is. You
show nothing to demonstrate that you are indeed
a redeemed servant of...whatishisname."
"You're supposed to be off organising
someone's wedding, are you not?"
"It's under control. I came back for a visit
to see what Crystal Dawn is doing. I have been
hearing things."
"What things?"
"That he's pissing my Lord off," replied
Strawberry charmingly. "And if he doesn't get in
line, I'll have to beat the shit out of him."
"I don't think that would be effective."
"No. It wouldn't. He's so full of shit that
no amount of thrashing will improve him."
"Does he think the same of you?"
"It doesn't matter what Enforcer Crystal Dawn
thinks or does. He is a rogue element in our
scheme of things, but like every fool, he is
useful because fools are easily manipulated."
"For some reason, I feel included in that
statement."
"You don't have to be," replied Strawberry.
"But I do not feel like talking about such things
any longer. I will repeat my disguised request.
Will you have lunch with me at that café near the
Medical Mechanica building and then come with me
to see a film at the cinema?"
"Why me?"
"Because you aren't an idiot, for one. And
because I want to go with someone, for a second
reason, and because I am not someone you should
ever offend, for a third reason. And because it
is a Crystal Dawn film, for a fourth reason. And
fifth...I look too young to get in, and I'm too
lazy to force the girl at the cinema to let me in.
You will use your influence to get me in."
"And what if I say no?"
"I'll be angry, and although I'm forbidden
to make you life a living hell and destroy
everything you own: I'll get someone to access
your accounts and send Perfect Dark hentai to
all your associates."
*N* *A* *M*
Naota:
"The day was proceeding strangely: Haruko
was back and yet nothing very strange had
happened during the past day. Therefore the
day was inherently strange."
That late afternoon, after stopping by Naota's
house and finding Haruko sitting on the couch
again and Kamon and Rothem nowhere to be seen,
the group went to the baseball diamond to play
baseball. Haruko came along, toying with a video
camera which she had found in the pot cupboard,
inside a pot stored itself within aforementioned
cupboard. Is that too complicated? She had a
camera, and given the way this things had been
working at the Nandamba household, there was a
80-99% chance it belonged to Crystal Dawn.
Haruko brought along essential supplies for
herself: beer and three 280-gram bags of potato
chips. She also brought along a chair of the
'poolside' variety, which she set up facing the
baseball diamond.
The game commenced without much incident:
and Haruko ate her chips and drank her beer
and watched the game.
But there was another watching the game,
a girl who looked to be about 20 years old,
dressed in a red, hooded top and black pants.
She was leaning against a railing a short
distance away, smoking a cigarette and watching
the game.
And by some uncertain chain of events, she
wound up coming over to where Haruko was,
lighting another cigarette as she did so.
Haruko didn't pay any attention to her,
instead opening another bag of potato chips
and pouring a can of beer into the bag. She
then was attempting to eat the beer-soaked
chips with a pair of chopsticks. It wasn't
going very...cleanly.
The girl was either sight-impaired or
intelligent, as she wore clichéd, Japanese
schoolgirl genius slash sight-impaired Japanese
schoolgirl glasses. That is completely ignoring
the obvious fact that she was much older than a
school age person usually is, unless they were
unfortunate enough to be taught to read the
English language via the whole word system, in
which scenario they frequently have to take
adult learning classes for phonics.
But ignoring that very irrelevant digression,
she was a green-eyed, red top wearing, 20ish year
old female person who was at that moment smoking
a cigarette and gazing calmly at Haruko - who was
trying to eat beer-flavoured chips. With
chopsticks.
A period of time passed. Haruko had the
videocamera recording, capturing a view of almost
the entire field. Eventually the girl spoke.
"It's been a while since I saw you last,"
she said. "What have you been doing?"
Haruko seemed to notice the girl for the
first time. "Huh? You look familiar."
"I'm Wolfmonkey."
Haruko made a face. An annoyed face. "Oh. That
radio DJ. I remember you."
"You destroyed my station," said the girl in
a voice which was relaxed and seemed to hold
absolutely no animosity. "That was my life, that
station. The equipment, the nice chairs. Then you
had to go and drop a giant iron on it."
Haruko shifted in her seat to face the girl.
"I did not!" she insisted. "It's not my fault
your radio building was so close to the Medical
Mechanica factory. You didn't have to get so
upset!"
The girl closed her eyes and smiled. "You
could at least apologise. But unless it comes
from your heart, it's not worth it, so I just
want you to know that I forgive you. For two
reasons: I know it wasn't your intention, and
two - A generous person donated a building and
restored all the equipment I had lost. And
third...it's good to forgive. But anyway, I am
now the only DJ on Betrayal FM, Mabase's only
private radio broadcast. It's much better than
having to work for a parent station. I just
want you to know that I don't hate you." The
girl opened her eyes and shrugged. "What's
your name? I never found that out. I knew
you'd gone and I didn't want to go digging for
bones."
"Haruko," said Haruko. "Just call me Haruko."
Wolfmonkey made a sort of 'distance
handshake' pushing her closed hand towards
Haruko, opening it, then pulling it back towards
herself, closing it. Haruko just waved her hand
at waist level in reply, then sipped the beer
remaining in the can she had poured into her bag
of chips.
"Sorry, for what it's worth," said Haruko,
wiping her mouth. "Anyway, what did you have to
do to get yourself a private radio station? There
are legal restrictions of FM broadcasts."
"I never met the one who sorted all that out
for me," replied Wolfmonkey. "It was a very kind
thing. I'm even getting experimental Internet
streaming from Vasya."
"Vasya? The person who got you your radio
station was from Vasya?" asked Haruko.
"I don't know," replied Wolfmonkey. "That's
a possibility. But I don't think Vasya Computer
Industries have a great deal of political power.
Sure, most of the world is running their
software, but their politics mean that they swim
upstream...like silicon salmon." She giggled.
"Killer robot salmon."
Naota hit the baseball hard, and it rolled
off into a ditch. Everyone abandoned their
assigned positions and ran off after it.
Watching them, Haruko fingered the camera
laying on a cement block beside her.
Taking the cigarette from her lips, Wolfmonkey
mentioned, "This is my last cigarette. I don't
want to do it anymore."
"Afraid of cancer?"
"Maybe. But I also don't want to be a slave.
People become slaves to what they do - it
justifies their existence, they feel. Some people
feel defined by their cigarette, some fools think
that who they sleep with makes them better people.
They're just slaves to their passion: sex, drugs,
rollercoasters, music."
*N* *A* *M*
Eventually, Wolfmonkey put the butt of the
cigarette in her pocket and walked away. And
soon afterwards, Naota and his friends ended
their game because it was getting too dark
to play - the floodlights weren't working.
As his friends: Gaku, Ninamori, and Masashi
went off their separate ways, Naota came over to
Haruko.
"Haruko, are you coming home?"
"Why do you ask?" Haruko looked at him
through half-closed eyes.
Naota looked at her for a few seconds, then
turned his back on her and started walking away.
"Because I wanted to know whether you wanted
to walk home alone," he said.
Haruko's mouth fell open, and she looked as
though she was going to say something. But she
closed her mouth and a bitter expression spread
across her features.
*N* *A* *M*
Mamimi smoked another cigarette. As the
burning tip slowly receded towards her mouth,
eventually burning out, she let the butt fall from
her lips and watched it lay insignificantly on the
ground.
She coughed wetly, swallowing the mucus she
brought up. She panted slightly.
Standing, she walked around the warehouse
without any goal, it seemed. The lights were
dimly lit. Most of them, because they were
carbon-filament bulbs, had died long ago. But a
few were still burning, as they are quite a
reliable light source.
This warehouse was quite old, and it was
unclear whom it had belonged to. There were dates
on the packing crates: most read 1946. Some were
even older, from 1918, and were marked
'S.I. bio-samples'. She was considering opening
one of those particular crates, but something
intangible convinced her that this was not a
good idea.
So she continued wandering about in the
darker areas of the warehouse. And she found
another crate, one different from the others: it
was about a cubic meter in size, and was decayed
badly. Above it could be seen a green stain on
the roof - water had been dripping onto the crate
whenever it rained heavily.
But although the label on the crate was
unreadable, the date below it was still readable.
It was June 5, 1967.
Crouching beside the crate, Mamimi cautiously
touched the side of crate. The decaying wood
collapsed into a sodden mess. And something gleamed
faintly in the dim light.
Reaching into the pile of rotten wood, Mamimi
pulled out the single item the crate had contained.
It was a crown. A crown which was made from a
golden metal which was definitely not real gold.
It is a widely accepted fact that gold does not
tarnish.
(Mind you, so was the idea that Greenland was
frozen over when the Vikings arrived, so wide
acceptance is hardly the benchmark of accuracy.)
Mamimi held the crown and took it to where
there was more light.
"I thought gold didn't lose its colour," she
mused, turning the crown this way and that. "This
can't be real. But I wonder how much it's worth?"
She rubbed the crown with her sleeve, but no
matter what, the crown refused to be made shiny.
"It's heavy...," she mused. She took it and
casually placed it on her head.
And those expecting something horrific to
happen, laser beams to shoot from her eyes, or
a fanged demon to leap from the depths of her
skull were disappointed as little happened,
expect that her head bowed under the weight
of the crown.
"It feels interesting," she murmured. "As
though I'm the queen of the world."
She stood and danced around gleefully. "I'm
queen of the world. I've got a crown."
Whilst doing so, she managed to trip over
her empty cigarette packet and fall over. The
crown fell from her head.
"Wha!" she gasped. Then she lay blinking,
as though something had stunned her. "What was
that?" she murmured, brushing her eyes with
her hand. "That's one strange crown."
So perhaps something did happen after all.
*N* *A* *M*
Wolfmonkey walked into a room which housed the
equipment she used to make her radio broadcasts.
There was a comfortable office chair, a small
desk with a computer, and a number of other
devices including audio levels controllers and a
few microphones.
"On Sunday morning a power interruption
disrupted the broadcast of Nadia Aya's new single
'The Ashes of Me', I apologise that it was removed
from rotation by accident, but here for all her
followers, is her single."
She clicked on the file and the song began
playing.
After it had finished, she had another song
chosen to play. It was Decay & Reason's 'Crying
for You'.
These are its lyrics:
"It's becoming darker. And the leaves are
falling from the trees. Perhaps it's winter.
Perhaps my eyes are growing blind. Because all the
leaves lay without a wind to free them from this
gravity.
"It's a chain broken for a moment, only to be
reconnected again; it's a moment of sweetness that
bitters as it slips away.
"It's this, always this: I'm crying for you,
but you're not crying for me. A haughty glance,
a cruel reply to humble inquiry. And I'm bleeding,
crying at your door.
"My words are finding meaning in the context of
this midnight rain. I'm dying from the cold, but
I'm crying 'till the end. Until my tears are
frozen and my life, it slips away, I'm crying for
you. Would you even consider crying for me?"
The song was musically elaborate, with soaring
guitar solos between every section of lyrics. The
entire song had an entrancing feel to it, yet it
was hard-edged in its vocals.
As the song finished, Wolfmonkey switched on
her microphone and switched on the background
music.
"That's the incredible pirate released, but
officially sanctioned song from July 2000," she
said, adjusting the volume of the backing music.
"Crying for You. It never featured on any of
Decay & Reasons' official releases, but it has
become one of their best loved songs. The identity
of the vocalist is a mystery - he is believed to
be a guest vocalist."
She then selected another song, one labeled,
'that guy who sang for about thirty seconds on
Live aid', and played it.
*N* *A* *M*
It was late at night; Naota and Kamon were
sleeping, and Haruko and Rothem were sitting on
the edge of a cement slab outside, side-by-side.
The stars twinkled in the sky overhead,
streaks of cloud occluded the moon's light,
casting deep shadows over parts of Mabase.
They sat there for some time. Eventually,
gazing up at the stars, Haruko broke the silence.
"So, Vampire, Nao-kun is fond of you."
"I believe he...trusts me," replied Rothem.
"But he loves you."
Haruko made a sound of disbelief. "Yea,
right," she said emotionlessly. "Haruko and
Rothem. Who sleeps with Naota? Rothem. Who
kisses Naota? Rothem? Who plays maid, cooking
and cleaning? Haruko."
"I am sincerely saddened if I have destroyed
a friendship with my presence," said Rothem. She
spoke in an unusual tone.
"Hey!" Haruko shifted away from Rothem
and rested her chin on the palm of her hand,
tilting her head sideways and studying Rothem
intensely. "There's something not right about
you."
"You are the one convinced I am a vampire,
a creature of darkness and forever damned."
"No." Haruko tilted her head the other way.
"When you tell the truth, it's as though you are
lying."
"You would understand. You are a liar," said
Rothem. "I can see the deception in your eyes."
Haruko's became annoyed and she turned her
back on Rothem.
"Haruko," said Rothem.
Haruko ignored her.
Standing, Rothem came close behind Haruko and
crouched down, bringing her head beside Haruko's,
with her lips brushing to Haruko's right ear.
"Haruko," she murmured into her ear.
Haruko was so stunned by how bold Rothem was
being that she didn't do anything.
Rothem placed her hand on Haruko's left
shoulder. "I know you despise me because you
fear that I have taken the love of Naota which
you did not intend to earn, but gained through
your actions. Naota still loves you. You have
awakened a yearning in his heart. A yearning of
love. Not lust, Haruko. Love. And I advise you
to love him in return, even if you feel that
he has betrayed you in showing affection towards
me." She leant her head in closer and pressed her
lips to the side of Haruko's cheek. "Sleep well,
Haruko. I will see you again in the morning."
She stood and stepped backwards, then turned
and walked back into the house, opening the door
and closing it behind herself. Haruko sat with an
expression on her face which indicated a mind
trying to comprehend what had just occurred.
Haruko:
"I just cannot think of anything clever
to say."
*N* *A* *M*
At 11:15 p.m., Mabase time.
Architect Ayako came walking into the Vasya
Computer Industries Mabase building, a bag slung
over her shoulder.
She was greeted by Alexandre.
Exclaiming, she said, "Alexandre! I was
thinking today, and I think that there's a
loophole in the classic 'Three Laws of Robotics'."
She paused, noticing the expression on Alexandre's
face. "Huh? Something's wrong?"
"It's Korama," replied Alexandre.
"What has happened?" asked Ayako.
"Korama was tampered with. Half its processing
cores have been destroyed and massive amounts of
garbage data was somehow injected into its core
modules. It's repairable, but it's going to
take days to get it able to communicate
again."
Ayako's face filled with sadness. "Oh. That's
terrible," she said. "Why did you not call me?"
"You were concerned with more important
matters," replied Alexandre, smiling wryly. "It
was best to wait until you returned."
"Where is Architect Crystal Dawn? He
understands Korama better than any of us," asked
Ayako.
"No idea. He's off doing something.
Apparently we can't expect him until Friday. That
was the message he sent to the Vasya employee
message board."
Alexandre took Ayako down to Korama's room.
And they found every second pillar shattered into
what was now billions of fragments of crystal.
"Be careful," warned Alexandre. "The fragments
of processor core are extremely sharp. Don't step
outside the cleaned path." He pointed to a strip
of floor which had been thoroughly cleaned of the
fragments.
Together, they stood and gazed at a disaster
which was going to cost a great deal of money to
repair.
"This is going to be expensive," commented
Alexandre.
"Why would anyone do this?" asked Ayako, a
sad expression on her face.
"Malice?" suggested Alexandre. "Or there
could be a more complex reason. Architect
Greys-san has been requested. We'll see if he
shows up and actually contributes to Vasya.
His being a Vasya Architect and all."
Turning to Alexandre, Ayako asked, "What do
you think Medical Mechanica are doing with him?
It's strange, this whole arrangement. If only
Racardo-sama would return and give us
instruction."
A thoughtful expression appeared on
Alexandre's face. "Ayako. Have you ever actually
seen Racardo?"
Ayako blinked and thought for a few seconds.
"No. He always sends his instructions through
Korama or he leaves a written message."
"Did you ever consider the possibility that
Racardo doesn't exist?"
Ayako's face was incredulous. "Are you
serious?" she asked.
"Yes," replied Alexandre. "Think it over - we
never see him, we know very little about him.
We're hanging on constant, vague promises from
Korama. Remember on Sunday: it said that he
would have met all Architects if there had not
been a serious situation? He has never greeted
Architects before, so why make that inference
for this time in particular? Architect Greys'
benefit?"
Ayako ran her hand through her hair,
frowning. "But...he's the head of Vasya!"
"How many things in this world do we accept
without question because they were there before
us?"
Ayako closed her eyes and thought for a few
seconds. Then she opened them and looked Alexandre
in the face. "The thing which proves Racardo
exists is Korama. Korama couldn't have possibly
made itself. Someone had to construct it. I don't
know whether Racardo really is a single man, or
whether he is really a group, but Korama
proves he exists."
Alexandre gazed at one of the pillars still
intact and said nothing.
[To Be Continued]
(ver. Not-Gold, Draft 1 May, 2009.)
--This is not the final draft of part 7, but this is
--only to allow for proofing and JapaneseEnglish
--language syntax analysis. I do not expect it to
--change in any significant way by Gold. If it does,
--that is a cause for suspicion.
=========
Robert-33
=========
Nightmare Architect Mabase - Part 8: The Art of Redefinition:
Strawberry sat alone in a tiled courtyard, under the night sky. With a great loneliness of heart, perhaps. But even those who knew much of her could not be sure. She was waiting, but for nothing. Today was the same as yesterday, so far as she cared. Everything proceeded to a plan she would never fully be witness to, for all the show of power she put up. At the core, under all the macabre humour, hate, and twisted sympathy, Strawberry was lonely and miserable. But that was her fate.
And another presently came to where she sat thinking. It was an indistinct thing, it could even be said it was a physicalised shadow. It knelt before her, then addressed her with great reverence. "Gracious Lord, I bring news."
Strawberry cast a glance over the figure, then she made an unusual motion with her left hand; then in which appeared a ball very akin to the one Rothem had lent Haruko for a brief moment. She held it in her palm, gazing at it. "And what is this news? I have little regard for folly at this moment, I must clarify. If it is not of great importance, then please leave me in peace. I am grieving."
"My Lord, it is of utmost significance. The Queen of Heaven walks the earth." The thing turned its shadowy head up towards her for a moment, seeming to be regarding her reaction. Then it resumed its servantile position. "I would hope that you are pleased, my Lord," it said, suddenly apprehensive.
Strawberry said nothing. But her hand in which the ball lay was trembling. And after a time had passed, she spoke. "It seems I must grieve all the more."
The thing said, "I do not understand your sentiment, Master."
"For the blood that is about to be shed, and for the damned. For them and their blood I grieve. But my grief is meaningless, and lasts only for brief moments in the many years." Strawberry cast her hand out across, sending the ball flying off into the darkness. "But now...I grieve no longer. The time has come. The earth is waiting, crying out for an end to its suffering. And all the saints are complaining to their God. The fruit has ripened, and now is the time to spoil the harvest." With a confident motion, Strawberry stood to her feet, her head bowed. "Now, we shall close all the unfinished dealings with those we once called friends."
"It will not be easy," said the thing. "Particularly Saca's Enforcers. Crystal Dawn knows everything. He could ruin everything if he chose. And...he controls Oblivion."
Strawberry smiled deeply. "Never fear. Miracles are a wonderful thing, especially when they are predictable." She turned and gazed at the thing. "This is it. We've been waiting for a long time. I wonder whether it would be appropriate to utter something quotable? Something all those despicable saints will recall us by." She tilted her head upwards, gazing up at the night sky. "Everything that follows is the consequence of an action. An action of man. This is the only time ever, when an action has created an effect far greater than itself."
"Well spoken," said the thing.
"No, it was rubbish," sighed Strawberry. "I have unwittingly quoted Crystal Dawn. His sentiments epitomise rubbish. That is, defining the truth as automatically rubbish."
*N *A *M
In Criuseruidon's quarters, everything was serene. Criuseruidon took the black hat and placed it upon her head, tipping forward the brim. She gazed at herself in the mirror on the wall of her quarters. "This is all part of the script," she said softly.
She remained in the room for a few minutes. She was dressed in the long, black coat she had worn in the restaurant. Laying on the bed, she removed her gloves and gazed at her hands, rotating them back and forth, flexing her fingers. "Designed by a genius," she observed. "I suppose it's justifiable," she added. That addition to her statement was meaningless to everyone except her.
She rolled over and sat on the edge of the bed. She then suddenly winced in pain. A gasp passed her lips, and she clutched her right side with her left hand. She breathed short and shallow breaths. This continued for about thirty seconds, then suddenly the pain was gone. Criuseruidon frowned and stood upright, swaying to flex her ribcage and spine. But the pain had truly gone. Criuseruidon slipped on her gloves, then left her quarters and walked down the corridor.
From behind her appeared two female Abh in white robes. One lagged behind as the other swiftly darted in front of Criuseruidon, blocking her path. She turned and stood face to face with Criuseruidon, a mysterious smile upon her lips. "Please come with us, Crystal Dawn."
Criuseruidon made no sign of recognition at the name, instead apologetically replying, "You might have the wrong person."
The female smiled deeper. "No, if you were not, you would have said that you were not. Your honesty is your weakness, Crystal Dawn. Come with us peacefully, else we will make you come with force."
Criuseruidon turned her head. The second Abh was standing calmly behind her. And Criuseruidon, unseen to the first Abh, gave her a strange stare. The Abh suddenly found herself shifting nervously. A smile spread across Criuseruidon's lips. "That's all I needed to know," she said softly, turning back towards the first Abh. "Lead the way."
The second Abh glanced at the first, shaking her head with a sense of urgency. The first stared at her, then in a rapid motion she thrust her left hand forward, towards Criuseruidon, her open palm towards her.
Nothing happened. Criuseruidon stood patiently and waited. "And...now what?" she asked slyly.
The Abh gazed at her left palm and made a sound of surprise. "It's reversing--" was all she managed, before she collapsed to the ground, unconscious. The second Abh let out a cry of surprise and rushed to her side. Grasping the girl's palms, she entwined her own fingers with the girls fingers. Then she uttered a series of words, unintelligible mumblings. But nothing happened. The female Abh remained unconscious, but she seemed to be resting peacefully.
The Abh let go of her companion's hands and let her lay on the ground. Standing, she stepped back and regarded Criuseruidon, who was adjusting her gloves. "What did you do to Maya?"
"Maya?" said Criuseruidon, raising an eyebrow. "Why is an Abh named Maya?"
"You are supposed to know that," said the Abh. "You are an Enforcer, wise, knowledgeable and powerful."
"If I am all these things," said Criuseruidon, gazing at her. "Why did you think you could take me by force?"
"I did not, neither did Maya," replied the Abh. "We discussed the matter, but there was no satisfactory plan. You might be intending to deceive us."
"Please excuse the interruption," murmured a quiet voice. The Abh and Criuseruidon turned and looked down the corridor to find Strawberry standing there, her hands folded across her stomach and her head bowed in a manner which was almost shy. She tilted her head upwards, continuing, "Your Master has no need of you."
"What is this foolishness you speak of?" said Maya, suddenly conscious. She climbed easily to her feet cast a questioning glance to Strawberry, then to Criuseruidon. "Our Master is a mystery. No-one knows who they are. We are merely humble servants."
"Fool Abh," said Strawberry, smirking. "I am your Master. I am disappointed with you, Maya. You were to kill this fool, as it is written and as I have commanded you...but that doesn't matter anymore. I have no need of you."
"You lie," said the second Abh. "You are not our Master."
Strawberry laughed softly and coldly. "Oh, in a way you are right. But you are in a way wrong. You don't serve me, because you don't recognise me; but you have done my will and my Master owns you whether you are aware or not."
"What do you want, Strawberry?" asked Criuseruidon. "I already got your message."
"You know this...person?" inquired Maya. Her question went unanswered.
"There has been an expected change. John's prophecy has been fulfilled. We are instigating the third stage of Sarcasm Refrain."
Criuseruidon walked towards her, black coat skirting along the ground with an almost choreographed sweeping motion. She emanated power and deliberation. Something had changed, and that intangible thing which had left her wasn't coming back anytime soon.
She halted a few feet from Strawberry. "And what exactly are you intending?"
"The plan has been moved forward," said Strawberry. She looked upon the two Abh and Criuseruidon with a sweeping gaze. "As the contract dictates, upon the conception of the new Christ, Saca loses its temporary powers and is dissolved. All Enforcers now carry out fully the will of the Master for these, the last days. But you...."
Criuseruidon made an 'emo' motion, stretching out of her arms as though she were being crucified, flowing her fingertips backwards, then pulling them towards her chest, slouching her shoulders. "This is where the tremors gather, forming a vibration which will shake the foundations of the universe."
"You are never going to improve," said Strawberry, shaking her head. "Always a fool. And you are cunning, yet make no attempt to hide it." She then held out her left hand. "Hand it over."
Criuseruidon smiled in a strange, malicious manner. "What thing are you seeking?"
"Oblivion, fool."
"Oh...," Criuseruidon took her hands and placed them on the top of her hat. Then she drew them down from the hat down to her stomach. And with the sweeping motion, she was transformed. The Abh that was Criuseruidon melted like snow, and in its place was Crystal Dawn. He smiled most insincerely. "I don't seem to have it. What a pity."
"Where is it?" hissed Strawberry. "If you've done something foolish--"
"Did I ever do anything else, by your standards?"
"Where is it?" repeated Strawberry.
"Why are you moving the schedule forward?" asked Crystal Dawn, not answering the question.
"Since we're still officially friends, I'll tell you. It seems someone was stupid enough to free that thing from Nexuiz 9. We know that she was carrying the child, therefore because she is here in reality she can fulfill the prophecy." Strawberry paused. "Now, where is it?"
Crystal Dawn shrugged. "I misplaced it when I was on a trip to Israel. Then Buster-kun ate it. I tried to get it back, but his teeth were a bit sharp. Then the little demon managed to get down into those tunnels the enemy keep digging under the border. I considered following him, but it was dark down there. I decided to leave him be. After all, who better to entrust the abominable imitation of the power of God than a psychotic British teddy bear?"
Strawberry gave him a poisonous stare. "You have no idea what kind of powers you are offending."
"I am fully aware," replied Crystal Dawn.
"Then you're aware of what follows," said Strawberry. "Excuse me, I have business of some urgency. I'll be back soon." She turned, and without a sound or even any visible speed, she vanished, leaving Crystal Dawn standing with the two Abh. He turned to face them, and they regarded him with puzzled expressions.
They remained this way for a few seconds, then Maya spoke. "Please, explain what this means. Because...I think we have been deceived."
A voice called out. Maya turned to look behind them. Walking towards them was Tibsoe. She slowed rapidly, then stood staring at Crystal Dawn. "Who is this...what is going on here?"
*N *A *M
Opplehall:
"To be honest, coming to Japan was a foolish idea. But I refused to accept the cold reality that locating Decay & Reason was akin to chasing my own shadow."
Opplehall sat on a park bench, waiting. It was late at night. He did nothing, just sitting and waiting. And it so happened that eventually someone came along. Naturally that person was Strawberry, taking a stroll around a darkened park for no valid reason whatsoever. She came and sat on the bench beside him, having to jump to get herself onto the seat because she was so short. Then she sat there and waited.
Opplehall turned and glanced at her a few minutes later. Then he contemplated, thought about trying to communicate with her, then decided against it. He returned to gazing into the darkness.
And after a few minutes, it was Strawberry who broke the silence. "It's quite fascinating, isn't it?"
Opplehall didn't look at her. "Why is it fascinating."
Strawberry waved her hand casually towards the deep darkness before them. "Because people fear the darkness. It is interesting that they do not realise that they are actually legitimately afraid of what is potentially dwelling within the darkness itself, though some do realise this. Unfortunately, the poor fools think rationalisation is the best course of action. But no amount of rationality will make a devil go away. After all, Detective Opplehall, you do not fear the darkness, yet I am still here."
"What does that make you?" asked Opplehall, his face impassive.
"A little more than you, a little less than God," said Strawberry. "The way things should be. There is nothing within you: that is why you love the darkness. Darkness does not exist, for it is the absence of light. You hate the light, for it exposes your evil, therefore you crave the darkness to hide your sins. But there comes a time when people substitute darkness for light, and they can yet see with this darkness, but what they see is not the truth, but the outline of the substitution. An inversion. A perversion, more accurately."
"Why are you here?" asked Opplehall. "I'm sure I've seen you somewhere before."
"I came to warn you. Don't go back to America."
"What? I'm only here for three days at the most. I've got a return flight."
"Cancel it," ordered Strawberry. "If you go back to America, you won't get out of the airport alive."
"What are you talking about?" asked Opplehall, shaking his head.
"Your investigation is over, Detective. The case has been closed. Those who have been chosen to take the blame will be arrested tomorrow. You will a suspect, taking undeclared international flights and expressing intolerant...hateful sentiments. If you stay here, you're safe. If you go back, you're dead."
"What is going on? Why am I safe here?"
She smiled deeply. "I cannot answer that question. However, I have arranged for someone to meet with you here. They will be use to you."
And then she was gone. Footsteps were slowly approaching, and Opplehall turned to see a woman approaching. She came near, then sat down on the bench beside him. Opplehall turned to her and spoke. "So why are you?"
"Who are you?" she replied.
"My name is Opplehall."
She smiled. "Then, in reply to your question, I am a member of the Super Paparazzi."
"What are you here for?"
"That's for you to decide."
"You take pictures of people?"
"We find people who are difficult to find. What we do with that information is entirely another matter."
"Can you find anyone?"
"So long as they're not a ghost or a deity, we have never failed. We do not accept unless we are to succeed."
"Could you find Decay & Reason."
A smile spread across her lips. "Now that's a challenge."
"Is it possible?"
"Finding a group with an unidentifiable voice signature and no contact with the press or public? As I said, it's a challenge. I'd be a fool to take it on."
"I'm looking to find them. If I wait here long enough, the statistical probability of the entire group walking past is equivalent to what?"
"Impossible, if their paths were truly random. But nothing is random to that extent. Everything can be calculated as probabilities."
"She sent for you. Who is she?"
"The girl?" replied the woman. "That's Strawberry. She's a demon."
"Demon?" said Opplehall, frowning. "I didn't think people believed in them anymore."
"Belief has no effect on reality. Just because you deny something's existence doesn't make it any less real. People have denied Decay & Reason's existence. You see, if the creation can be attributed to something other than the creator, then it is easy to deny that the creator of a work exists."
"Do you believe they exist?" asked Opplehall.
"Of course they do. Nothing exists without a creator, simple. Whether the creator announce themselves with fanfare or hide themselves, it's all the same."
"How would I find someone like that?"
"We have contacts. Strawberry has friends who know things."
"Is it safe to deal with someone like that?" asked Opplehall.
"She has nothing to lose. And she's reliably dishonest. Those are attributes which are useful."
"Is it that she's useful to you, or that you're useful to her?"
"Both." The woman stood. "Come along now, a limousine is waiting."
*N *A *M
Ria was led swiftly by the hand by Xufrisi through the interior of the heart of the Abh stronghold. She held a pistol in her hand. Xufrisi seemed unperturbed by the possibility of them running into an Abh at any time. She just continued walking at a rapid pace, seemingly knowing where she was leading. Then, suddenly, they came to a door guarded by six armed Abh. They looked at Ria and Xufrisi with surprise. But before they could even call out, Xufrisi was among them, her katana slicing back and forth, blood pouring forth, coating the floor. It was a sickening sight. And then, Xufrusi took her hand and rubbed the blade of the Kata from hilt to tip with a single motion, coating her glove with dark blood. The blade was left gleaming, reflective, and clean.
"What are you doing?" asked Ria. We are supposed to be avoiding excess deaths."
Xufrisi suddenly froze. She shook her head, as though something was muffling her hearing. She then said, "Yes, Master."
Ria looked at her, annoyed. "What is going on?"
Xufrisi looked at her. "I am sorry. There has been a change in contract. I have prioritised orders."
"What?" exclaimed Ria. "For what reason did this occur?"
Before she could reply, she was thrown forward by an immense force from behind. She smacked into the wall with the sound of bruising flesh. She cried out in pain.
Strawberry stood behind her, gazing at her with an amused expression on her face. "Oh, come on. You ought to able to take that in the least. True leaders have flesh reinforced with the untearable fabric of truth. Although, the truth didn't save Mr. Martyr, did it?"
With a gasp, Ria spun herself away from the wall, blood running from her forehead. "Who are you?" she hissed in pain.
"They call me Strawberry," said Strawberry. "I have had many names. My second name is 'the Prince of Mabase', but almost no-one uses than name anymore. It makes people uncomfortable."
"What are you?" asked Ria, grimacing and staring at her. "You aren't an Abh. Are you some kind of Abh weapon?"
"Well!" exclaimed Strawberry. "You are so coherent. Stupid, but coherent. This is a fine opportunity to discuss matter of mutual interest. You seem to indeed be a leader. Great things could be in store for you."
"What are you talking about?"
Strawberry spoke to Xufrisi, saying, "Enforcer, deal with the Empress immediately. I have arranged for Enforcer Pride to meet you at her location. There will be another. Deal with him also. Permanently, if you could manage."
Xufrisi immediately set off running, shoving open the previously guarded door and taking an adjoining corridor. Ria was caught by surprise, managing to feebly utter, "Wait!"
But Xufrisi was gone. Ria was left standing alone with Strawberry.
*N *A *M
"He is Criuseruidon," explained Maya. "Criuseruidon here is also known as Crystal Dawn."
Tibsoe tried to take it all in. "So...you are not an Abh."
Maya answered in Crystal Dawn's stead, as he was standing silent. "He is actually more of an Abh than we are. It seems that the original Abh were based off him, or one of his group. That is why he can transform into an Abh. The process by which this is done is unclear."
"What is happening?" Tibsoe asked Crystal Dawn, a sad expression in her eyes. "Why? Why all this death, all this deception? If you are a friend, why did you hide yourself?"
Crystal Dawn turned to her and spoke. "Because I was sent to prevent you from proceeding on your mission," he said quietly. "I did it for a friend. Because he wanted to save the universe from destruction. The Enforcer Xufrisi was not anticipated. I was going to re-write your navigation system, round-warping the coordinates to erase a certain galaxy from existence."
Maya interrupted. "Enforcer. What is going to happen? You didn't destroy us. What are you intending?"
"Everyone is going to die," replied Crystal Dawn. "I cannot hope to save the Abh Empire with my own power. But we must reach the Empress."
"Come," said the second Abh, "As a Yosa, High Order, I and Maya have clearance."
"What should I do?" asked Tibsoe respectfully. "I am at your service."
"Come with us," ordered Maya, grasping her hand. "We must hurry."
The guards parted to allow the two Yosa, protectors of the Empress, to pass. They were prepared to bar Tibsoe and, especially, Crystal Dawn from entry, but Maya waved her hand to indicate they were permitted.
They entered a large room with a fountain in the midst of it. It was filled with clear, blue water. The Empress was standing gazing into these waters, her attendants standing by her. There were also twelve guards standing strategically about the outskirts of the room: unobtrusive, yet able to rush to the Empresses' aid instantly if needed.
The Empress lifted her hand from the beautiful waters, falling droplets making little ripples on the surface of the water. An attendant handed her a towel.
Crystal Dawn's eyes flickered. She murmured quietly, "Death."
"Oh, my trusted protectors," said the Empress with a voice filled with calm and inner peace. "Tell me, is there a bad reason you have come to see me, or do you merely bring peace and goodness with you?"
"This human here will answer, Empress," replied Maya. "There is little time."
"Please speak," said the Empress to Crystal Dawn. "I feel we have met."
Crystal Dawn said, "An enemy force has entered this place. They will be here--"
She didn't manage to finish, as the doors leading into the room were smashed open with a single blow. Two figures stood side by side: Xufrisi, katana in hand, and another Enforcer, who wore a mask over its face. The enforcer's mannerisms and posturing gave the impression it was female, therefore it shall be referred to as such.
Crystal Dawn gazed upon these two as they strode into the room. He said, "Enforcer Pride? I thought you were supposed to--" Enforcer Pride halted Crystal Dawn's speaking with a motion of her hand which indicated she wanted silence. Silence obtained, it stepped away from Xufrisi, motioning towards her with her hand.
Xufrisi spoke softly and calmly. "It is the orders of the high power that in the process of the dissolvation of Saca, all life which exists outside the boundaries of the planet dubbed 'Genesis Source' including, but not limited to, all entities belonging to or descended from the 'Exodus Return', must be destroyed."
"What is this thing?" inquired the Empress. "Who are you?"
"I am myself Enforcer Xufrisi of Saca. This is Enforcer Pride, also of Saca. Saca is no more. You, because all life which exists outside of the root sector exists only because it was placed there by Saca, are property of both Saca and Jehovah, therefore you are abominations. We are as deeply saddened by what is about to transpire as you are. But it is the way things must be. This was planned long before you existed."
As an organised unit, the Empresses' guards formed a strategic defence formation, defending every Abh in the room and Crystal Dawn, who then took Tibsoe's hand and led her over to one side, away from Maya and Fradon. Tibsoe gave him a questioning look as he took Tibsoe's hand in his. She gazed at his gloves. When they stood apart from the others, Tibsoe looked upon his face, and everything she had felt for Criuseruidon was immediately transferred onto Crystal Dawn, though she didn't understand why. All the events of the world were dulled to Tibsoe, as all her attention was given to Crystal Dawn. But that was made easier because nothing was happening. Her speech ended, Xufrisi and Pride stood waiting for something.
"You might not be leaving this room," said Crystal Dawn. "I can fight, but there are two, and Pride is as evil as its name."
Tibsoe gazed at Crystal Dawn's face, studying his eyes. "I think I understand...about you. You are evil. But...I still love you."
Crystal Dawn closed his eyes and shrugged. "You don't understand love. None of you do, not any of the Abh, in truth, there are only a few in the universe who do. Love can only be quantified if it is combined with justice and obedience. Obedience to God."
"Why do you speak of a deity?" asked Tibsoe. "We don't have a deity. That is why we have attained such peace. That is why we have power."
"You have peace and an Empire for the reason that you were just. But without an external guide, even the greatest navigator goes astray. Your only reference point is yourselves. It is impossible to remain stable if the instrument's relative position is used as absolute external reference. The time has come, Tibsoe. The Abh Empire is finished. God gives Empires to those he will. He gave your people yours, whether you want to believe it or not. And just as he gives to those who are just, he takes away from those who no longer deserve their power."
"And what of you?" asked Tibsoe.
"I think it will be explained soon," replied Crystal Dawn. "This is all a script."
Tibsoe gazed at Crystal Dawn. "You say I don't love you. But I will die before I allow you to bleed again. I have felt your inner being. And I know you are crying inside, though you hide it outside."
"I'm not crying for myself," replied Crystal Dawn. "I am crying for you. For all of you, the humans, the Abh, but most of all, yes, I am crying for you."
"Why are you crying for me?" asked Tibsoe softly, taking her hand and placing it on his cheek.
"Because there is no salvation for me, but you...you have a fleeting opportunity in your life. You Abh are given more time than many, yet you die alone. No-one will advocate for you. You, Tibsoe, you always felt different. That is why you were fascinated by me, that is why you want a love out of order with me. But that is not love, nor can I return it."
Tibsoe gazed at her with an expression of sadness. "Criuseruidon, there is no hope for anyone, is there?"
"It is better to have no hope than to have false hope," replied Crystal Dawn. "Hopelessness leads to desperation, and desperation leads to the truth. Lies are a fleeting comfort that makes damnation all the more miserable."
A voice called out as those words passed Crystal Dawn's lips and as a light of understanding seemed to glow in Tibsoe's eyes. It was the voice of Enforcer Pride, a voice which was sly, cynical, and very charismatic. "You have eleven seconds. Then our contracts are fully annulled. Fight well, Crystal Dawn."
"That's nice," said Crystal Dawn, firmly and swiftly guiding Tibsoe towards the Empress. He then moved with rapid motions: a touch to the shoulder, a guiding push, until every Abh was in a maximally defensive position. Every Abh except the Empress now had a weapon, including Tibsoe. The weapon they carried was an bullpup assault weapon, which fired projectiles.
Everything was perfect. And with a eased breath, the universe was carried to the mark of eleven seconds as defined by Pride. And the full power of two Enforcers was forced upon them.
It was tight chaos, to use the idiom. The Abh stood no chance. But neither had the Israelis in a certain war. Pride fought with no weapons, her gloved hands tearing tissue, and slammed her opponents into stationary objects. Within eight seconds she had killed six of the Empresses' twelve guards. Meanwhile, Xufrisi used her katana to kill four other guards, and also managed to wound Maya with a shallow cut to her left thigh.
And then something happened. Xufrisi brought back her katana in a sweeping motion, her target the Empress. Tibsoe saw what was happening and made a choice, running and putting herself between the Enforcer and the Empress. The blade continued its arc and came into contact with Tibsoe's chest. She had closed her eyes, which was unusual for an Abh. Crystal Dawn was grappling with Pride, his hands gripping her left wrist and slamming his fist into her chest. Pride was gripping Crystal Dawn's throat. Crystal Dawn's gaze was upon Tibsoe. The blade pressed into Tibsoe's flesh. A snapping sound split the air, and everyone froze in what they were doing and looked at Tibsoe.
The blade of the Katana clattered on the floor, snapped into three pieces. They came to rest, and lay there gleaming. Tibsoe was standing before Xufrisi, her eyes now open. She looked Xufrisi up and down with confusion. Xufrisi uttered something unintelligible. It was possibly in a language which only Enforcers understood.
Pride kneed Crystal Dawn in the groin and sprung to her feet, tossing him aside easily. Crystal Dawn righted himself by slapping the ground with his hand as he struck it, smoothly flipping to a standing position. Pride was meanwhile standing before Tibsoe, after having gently pushed Xufrisi aside. She reached out and touched Tibsoe's chest where the blade had touched. What Tibsoe thought of some sexually ambiguous Enforcer touch her breasts was unclear. Pride drew her hand across the indented cloth, then said quietly, "It seems that the God you don't believe in wants you alive." She drew her hand back. Then took a step back. "This is most amusing." She laughed in a disturbing manner.
Crystal Dawn gave her a stare which gave the impression he wanted to rip Pride's head from her shoulders. Pride turned her head towards him, feeling the gaze. She made that same motion the Abh had attempted, but failed: thrusting her palm towards him. In response, Crystal Dawn was thrown backwards, falling violently against the rim of the pool of water. The two surviving guards and the two Yosa tried to attack, but she formed her slender, graceful hand into a fist and brought it to her own chest in manner akin to a salute. And the two guards and the two Yosa clutched their chests in pain as some great torment was inflicted upon them.
"Why are you doing this?" asked Tibsoe with an Abh's blank expression of acceptance of fact. "What benefit does this bring to anyone?"
Pride turned her head towards Xufrisi and uttered something. It was an order, and to it Xufrisi turned and departed.
There were eight living people in the room, including Pride. Four of them, the guards and the Yosa, were laying in agony on the ground, writhing at intervals as the pain washed over them in waves. The Empress was standing with a noble stature which signified that she was not going to be moved. She regarded Pride with the expression of a leader who has encountered someone greater than themselves, and wonders the best course of action. Crystal Dawn was staring at Pride with an air of distraction. He didn't seem to care about anything.
"The question is purposeless," replied Pride. She stood a mere foot or so from Tibsoe. "You have no quantifiable purpose. Living lives, dying, damned. What's the end purpose? You merely inhabit the universe. This existence has only one purpose: find the secret to not being damned in the next one. It had a different purpose, and it was a very good one, but your ancestors ruined that."
"Who are you to decide purpose?" said the Empress.
Pride stepped back, spreading her arms and kneeling in a dramatic fashion. "The tabloids said that God was dead. I'm here to take the job."
"I knew you were up to something," said Crystal Dawn.
"What is she talking about?" Tibsoe asked Crystal Dawn. "Tabloid? Who is that?"
Pride stood and motioned towards Crystal Dawn with her hand. "Why ask him? Still, if he knows, let him answer."
"Pride isn't following the scheme. She has her own ambitions. She wants to become a God."
Pride interjected, "You know full well I can't become God. Only fools believe such a thing is possible. But my billions of worshippers won't have to know that."
"This is what deity worship produces," said the Empress.
"Putting it to you in pure terms, Empress, if you want me to attempt to save your Empire, the lives of the Abh, everything, simply acknowledge me as supreme being of the universe. You cannot dispute that I am suited to the role: Compared to everyone else, I am wiser, stronger, more intelligent, more humorous, and I have an excellent taste in gloves." She displayed the backs of her gloved hands. "You remain Empress, and you can still refuse to accept that there is a single deity who created and controls the entire universe, however ridiculous such an opinion may be, and I now am merely a benevolent savior. We'll talk about shrines to me and the such when your Empire has been restored."
The Empress regarded Pride. "Your power makes your demands difficult to dispute."
Pride made an interesting, gracious motion with her hands. "Oh, but you may misunderstand me! You see, a God, as defined to be a true God, is never seen by the general public. If I were to be seen, I would be idolised. And I don't want that. I might reveal my true self to certain of your subjects, but within time, most will even stoop to the shameful low of disputing my very existence. They will say that everything I did could be explained through materialistic logic. That gives me license to step in and exercise...wrath. But nice wrath, kind wrath...I'll define that at another time." Pride turned away. "I leave the decision to you, Empress. Everyone else has left, except Enforcer Crystal Dawn and myself. I will return for your answer in a short time. Be swift: they will begin the destruction soon."
She placed her palms together and in response the pain was taken from the four Abh. They lay on the ground gasping for breath.
"Come," said Pride, glancing at Crystal Dawn as she walked away. He turned to Tibsoe, gazed at her for a brief moment as she returned the gaze, then he took her hand and knelt. "Until we meet again," he murmured. Then he stood, turned, and followed Pride.
As soon as they were out of that area, Pride stopped and turned to address Crystal Dawn. "As you are aware, your power has been fading. By now it is fully revoked. You are now no more than a man. You have intelligence still, but your strength has gone, just as Samson's did. And your blood is now your own."
"This isn't going to end well," said Crystal Dawn, adjusting his black coat. "Remember Herod? That is the fate of those who declare themselves or accept recognition as God."
"I am fully aware," replied Pride. "But more of concern is you. You know what the instigation of stage three entails. If you wish to find redemption, perhaps you ought to see what can be done?"
"They'll be transporting it," said Crystal Dawn. "There there could be time to turn the situation into something more beneficial."
"You have little time," said Pride. "The concentrate is aboard flight 7111 in America. The exact route has been kept secret, and so has that plane. The vaccine is being loaded aboard at this very time...but as you'd understand, it is quite a distance."
"There are other means," replied Crystal Dawn.
"True," said Pride. "But before we part, there is one question I have been pondering, and it has quite troubled me."
"What is it?"
"Since when did the Abh - the 'children of the stars' - have a home world? I believed they didn't have one. I was indeed surprised to learn they did."
Crystal Dawn smiled weakly. "We both know that their history is a lie. It was difficult, but no more difficult than explaining away the evidence of Noah's flood and the resurrection of Christ. It takes charisma, and it takes an unwitting liar, or if you can't find one, a malicious liar. That's why I don't take part: it's a violation of my honesty code."
"Interesting answer," said Pride. "But now, you have things you need to do." She took her left glove from her hand and placed her graceful palm against his forehead. "I took the liberty of updating your wardrobe," she said softly. "I am sending you to a location close to your destination. What you do is up to you."
Crystal Dawn frowned.
"Don't worry," she added. "You'll like your costume, that much is certain."
She pulled her hand away from his forehead, and in a blink of an eye, Crystal Dawn was no more. A light dust blew on an unfelt wind, carrying some kind of residual ash to who knows where. Pride laughed softly. "Sleep well, Enforcer."
*N *A *M
The author sat in a café somewhere, slouched forward in his chair after eating part of a chocolate slab, simply because any kind of food had a statistical chance of making him ill. He had been there for a few minutes, when a man of about 20 to 24 years arrived and sat down across from him. About twenty seconds passed. Then the man said, "So, how have you been?"
"Normal," replied the author, sitting upright. "I kept the tea hot for you," he added, pointing to the little tea-pot with a cosy covering it. "And you can have the rest of my cake." He pointed to the chocolate slab, of which he had only eaten only a tiny amount from the end.
"Thanks," said the man, pouring himself some tea, adding milk, and then pulling the plate with the chocolate slice towards himself. He took a fork and started eating. The author sat there, his arms folded, evidently thinking about something.
After he had about half finished the slab, the man said, "So, tell me something, Lapdog, how did you get to this? When we were on the team, you were the hardbitten atheist, I was the agnostic. Now you're the fundamentalist, and I've got no idea what I'm supposed to be."
The author shrugged weakly. "Why are you using my code-name from back then? I'm Robert-Thirty-Three now?"
"I like Lapdog better," replied the man. "Change of name, change of heart, it seems."
"You want to know why I changed my mind about everything?"
"Preferably, yes."
"The seeds were always there. I think every atheist secretly doubts. But that's just my opinion. I...was an atheist for the same reason I wrote, and only used, open source code: I hated the idea of anything which was closed to analysis. Closed source is like God. You can't open it up and study it. And there is a principle, particularly in my field. It is that when an issue occurs, there are three solutions: fix the issue, pretend to have fixed the issue, or else pretend the issue doesn't exit. The last was my favourite. People have difficulty attacking you with anything you deny the existence of. God, for example."
"Not particularly honest," said the man, sipping his tea.
"Everyone does it, if that's justification. The twisting of definitions is a great weapon. But regardless, my faith in science...secular science, I suppose, the 'all life evolved from a single celled organism' faith was fairly strong. Call it double think, if you like. I laughed at the creationists with their feeble arguments and their sticking to their opinion that the Bible is the very words of God given to human scribes, that the great Flood created all the fossils. It's hardly a secret that the rate of erosion around the world proves their point that the continents were formed rapidly, but I felt it best to ignore that. After all, why recognise failures in your home's foundation? You'd have to stop the party if you recognised that your ship was sinking. But...my undoing was an interest in quantic physics. It was only casual. And I found just one irregularity. The whole thing was akin to a time when I was working on an important project, and the machines crashed. That seemed alright, because I had backups. But the backups, all sixty seven of them, were corrupted. It was a spiralling descent of control. Realising that nothing that I had accepted, that I had working backups, was true. This is what had happened--" The author leant forward. "It's a thing I've come to call, 'the Santa Clause Particle'. Here's how it works: the Big Bang is a shit hypothesis that wasn't born out of scientific research, but out of a desperation to create a Godless universe at any cost. If that meant lying and hiding facts under your bed, as I unwittingly was doing, then so be it. There are a multitude of flaws: temperature issues, the fact that the research suggesting that background radiation proves it occurred was fraudulent, that the laws of physics are against it, many other things too. I wasn't aware of them at the time...well...I had heard garbled versions of some of these objections, but I...was trusting. I felt that if a majority believed it, it was obviously true. So, that makes me a fool. The physics objection proved to be the one that caught my attention. I respected Einstein, maybe because of my very weak Jewish blood somewhere back there. I had even thought he was correct when he said that 'science without religion is lame', but there was another thing he'd said; that nothing can travel past the speed of light. Now, can you tell me...in your understanding, can anything travel faster than light?"
The man cradled his cup. "Hmm...I'm not too well versed in this. Uh, I think that they--whoever they are--discovered a particle that exceeded the speed of light at the moment of the Big Bang." He suddenly sat back, thinking. "Oh...where is this going, Lapdog? Why are they related?"
"Because," said the author, "that particle is the Santa clause particle. It doesn't actually exist, because it's a hypothetical particle. I have to emphasise: it's not real. The question runs, 'how does Santa get around the world in one night?' One answer is that Santa has magical tinsel-powered time compression technology, and he can also travel faster than the speed of light. The particle which was 'discovered' was in fact someone saying, 'nothing goes faster than light, therefore let's think up a new particle. It's the same as getting a dog which cannot talk, calling it Cuddles, buying it a doggy kennel, then writing a white paper which hypothesises that your dog can talk."
"But the dog can't talk," said the man slowly. "I think people might wise up to the dog eventually."
"No, they could just reply that the dog talked then, X years ago. It can't talk now, when it actually needs to, but there is obviously no other explanation. The idea that the dog never talked is unthinkable. Only unscientific demagogues would suggest that someone is lying about Cuddles the talking dog."
"So...," said the man. "Why is a fake particle even needed?"
"Because physics have shown that if every piece of matter in the universe were compressed into a speck, the gravity would be infinite. Therefore, the Big Bang, even if it managed to first exist, which has no scientific foundation, then to explode, something which has even less foundation - the sheer gravity would recompress the mass, preventing anything occurring. The hypothesis was dead. So, the imaginary particle was created to fix the issue. No matter that there is no evidence that this particle ever existed: the hypothesis must be protected at the expense of truth. That's what wrong Neo-Atheism, I should have seen that when I was one: rationality is a false concept. We rationalise within the framework set out by axiom. If you believe there is no God, you will refuse to consider that the points towards one. You will always seek an alternate explanation. That's the open source connection: Atheistic Neo-Evolutionism isn't better or more logical in any way, it just fanatically avoids invoking the scientific equivalent of closed source code - God."
"Something of a revelation for you," said the man. "But one brick loose in a wall is only a brick. The whole wall might be saved if you just replace the brick."
"The wall was falling to pieces. I had built it upon a foundation of a lie. With the lie gone, nothing was stable. I had to build a new wall. And the solution that there is a God, and he created life, and all that follows: I found that to be a satisfactory hypothesis."
"So you're a Christian. Long way for you to come."
"How do you define Christianity?" said the author. He sat upright in his chair. "I might order another pot of tea, and then we must discuss you. I have talked of myself more than enough."
The man shook his head. "No. You don't talk enough about yourself. You're caught up in what you were. You are what you are now. And you have to be true to that."
"I was thinking about climate change," said the author. "Equivocal words are irritating. I take it as fact that global warming, as defined to be the hypothesis by which carbon dioxide is directly and linearly related to global climate, is flawed and close to pure fiction. However, people have confused something true, which is climate change, with the fiction. It's just like evolution. Climates change, creatures evolve. But it's the definitions which are so important. Look at Greenland. Its climate was green, but now its a wasteland. Israel used to be green, it was the land of milk and honey, but now it's mostly desert. There were no greenhouse gases then, were there? No amount of climate change proves global warming hypothesis, just as no amount of evolution, as defined to be demonstrable evolution involving the creation of new functional information which itself is frustrating to define, vindicates Darwin."
The man smirked. "They won't listen to Michael Crichton, they won't listen to you."
"Well I'm hesitant to invoke the man who wrote 'Jurassic Park' as a scientific authority," said the author. "But he is an interesting man. I would like to meet him someday. That and Michael Jackson. And Arnold Fruchtenbaum. And David Wilkerson. And quite a few other people."
"What about Hideaki-what'shisname, the Evangelion guy."
"Anno?" The author hesitated. "I don't think we'd get along very well. We have fundamental ideological conflicts. True, I wouldn't reject a meeting with him, but I doubt he'd like me."
"You need to get your tea," reminded the man. "But before you do, what exactly are those differences?"
"Freud was wrong, it's a bad idea to expose children to the realities of life when those realities are humanistic versions of reality, he was irresponsible with the content of Evangelion in the light of its young audience. He created a twisted hybrid of Christianity and paganism, which is not something to be taken lightly."
"So why did you become involved with Evangelion? All those project, all those books you wrote?"
"I was...naive. I burnt my bridges intentionally. At the time it seemed like a good idea, but now, I don't think it was."
"Perhaps you should build a bridge," said the man. "Back to where you were before?"
The author shrugged "I don't think that's going to help very much. Besides, I've benefited greatly. But if I had a choice, I certainly wouldn't do it all over again." He then walked off to get his tea.
*N *A *M
Crystal Dawn awoke, or did something akin to that. He was laying on the centre of a highway, rain pouring over the road and over everything. It was a torrential storm. Thunder rumbled in the distance as he stood to his feet, rivers of water running over his jacket.
He was now dressed in new clothes. They consisted of a black hat, black pants, and a black jacket with red fabric trimming, and neat, black shoes. In closer analysis, he was dressed in the costume Michael Jackson wore in the 'You Rock My World' and 'Blood is On The Dance Floor' videos. He adjusted the hat and grasped the collar of the jacket, pulling it tight around his body.
He looked up at the sky, which was completely blackened. The only light was cast by a nearby light on a steel power-pole. It cast a blue hue over everything, and its light was not far reaching.
A light approached from ahead, and Crystal Dawn waited as it swiftly approached. It turned out to be a semi-trailer rig. The driver slowed as he approached, then opened the door. "Hello, stranger," he said with a thick, Southern American accent. "Do you need a ride?"
Crystal Dawn stepped sideways, turning his face into the light. The man grinned and exclaimed, "Hey, are you Michael Jackson?"
The expression on Crystal Dawn's face was pure impassivity. "No," he replied, gazing into the darkness which lay to either side of the semi-trailer. "But you are not irrational in your immediate response." He looked at the man. "Where is this, exactly?"
"Well, I'm not too sure of the name of this stretch," replied the man. "This rain is making visibility awful, and the roads are flooded. This is a new detour which they've just opened up."
"Where is the nearest airport?" asked Crystal Dawn.
"Nearest airport's 300 miles away," replied the man. "I don't think planes are flying with this weather. I've heard the whole country is storming. Bad weather everywhere."
"This plane will," replied Crystal Dawn. "Is there is a military base anywhere here?"
"Well, yea, there's Fort Lewis-Brown. They're up this road, about 40 miles. I'll be passing within a few miles of it, so if you need a ride, I'll take you."
Crystal Dawn walked around to the passenger's side and climbed into the cab of the semi-trailer. The man reached forward and switched on the heater and Crystal Dawn firmly shut his door. Then the man pressed down the accelerator and the rig started moving again. Crystal Dawn was dripping water. He took the hat from his head and wiped the water from it.
"Don't mean to intrude in a man's business," said the man. "But what were you doing out there on a night like this."
Crystal Dawn finished wiping the hat and placed it back upon his head. He didn't look at the man, but instead gazed at the road directly before them, illuminated by the headlights. "Well, I was sleeping. The storm was unexpected. I had seen something of a storm, but that was a few days ago. I thought it had cleared. Presumptuous." He gazed out his window. "But here we are." His gaze fell upon a photograph of the man, who was in the photograph standing with a woman and five children. "You are married?" he inquired, no emotion or even the slightest trace of interest in his voice. It was as though he were stating a fact which bored him immensely.
The man frowned. "Yes. I've been married for nineteen years."
"You've done well," said Crystal Dawn. "What is your name?"
"My name is Jacob," replied the man. "Jacob Soper."
Crystal Dawn placed his gloved fingertips together. "I've heard that name before. Do you work for 'Focus on The Family'?"
"Uh, no. I don't work for them, I merely support them. But if you've heard my name before connected with them, yes, I'm the one."
Crystal Dawn smiled. "You wrote an article. Your academia is quite powerful. It's quite unexpected that a truck driver should have a P.H.D."
"It's just a piece of paper," replied Jacob.
"True, true," agreed Crystal Dawn. "I have a number of the things. I did it for amusement. We have much in common. I used to work in transport, also, but that was Australia. There is a great demand for transport services there, but things could soon take a bad turn. The economic system is about to undergo an evolution."
"What is your name?" asked Jacob.
"My name is Crystal Dawn," replied Crystal Dawn. "The name means nothing. Names and images are mere shadows of the power which they represent."
"Mr. Dawn," said the man. "Do you know Jesus Christ as your personal savior?"
That hit something. It was Crystal Dawn's hatred of anyone abbreviating his title. He replied in a slow, contemplative manner. "I know much of Jesus, the Christ, who is the only way by which man might be saved. But I am not his subject."
"And why is that?" asked Jacob.
Crystal Dawn adjusted his hat, tilting it in a manner which obscured more of his face. "It is complicated."
"Mr. Dawn, when you stand at the judgement seat, a concept which I trust you understand, it will not be complicated: it will be merely whether you chose to accept an offer of salvation in return for control over your life. Anything you've ever done doesn't matter: people don't go to hell for doing anything. They go to hell because humans, who are descendants of Adam, deserve eternal damnation. And at the heart of it, if you have fully understood that, and you still cling to the meaningless fragments of your mortal life, then damnation is even more horrible. You would have been so close; the truth was not hidden, but you literally spurned salvation, meaning that your damnation was a deliberate choice."
"Salvation is offered to all men," replied Crystal Dawn. "I am the product of circumstances by which I do not match that definition."
They sat and said nothing further. It seemed Jacob did indeed not wish to inquire more than was reasonable. After about three minutes, Crystal Dawn's mobile phone rang. He glanced at Jacob, then reached into his jacket and retrieved the phone, then answered. "You know who here."
"Crystal Dawn," said a voice, whispering. "They're onto us. Suits are all over the complex. They're not South African, so I'm guessing that these bastards are our American or E.U. opponents. What should I do? Activate the canisters already in place?"
Crystal Dawn frowned, turning his face towards the window. "The calibration wasn't finalised. And we don't have finalised data on potential ocean acidity." He curled his right hand into a fist. "Yes, Malcom, activate them. But you have to get out of there. There's an undocumented escape tunnel under the cafeteria in section K2. If you're apprehended, use the code phrase 'white ash'. That'll throw them off. I must clarify: activate them when you're in the escape tunnels, not before. And call me once you've begun activation."
The call ended and Crystal Dawn sat in silence, his gloved hand over his mouth. Jacob said nothing, merely driving on. About five minutes later, the phone rang again. Crystal Dawn answered it, listening to Malcom's report.
"The cartridges in France, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Africa, they've all activated successfully. But there's something wrong with our American units. I think someone might have gotten to them."
"That is most likely," replied Crystal Dawn. "I'm taking care of another problem. You just need to call the agreed number, and someone will ensure your family's safety. I'm going to look into who could have leaked the details of our African operation."
"And what are you going to do about them?" inquired Malcom.
"I don't know what yet. Things are falling apart," replied Crystal Dawn. "And another thing: what about Cuz-Tech?"
"They were transporting the completed car and engine on separate freighters," replied Malcom. "It was going to be delivered to your temporary address in Mabase. But I haven't heard anything since Monday. I do know the car was completed six days ago, but there was a minor incident which meant they had to give it a few more days work."
"You mean the exploding after the chemical filters oversaturate fault?"
"Yes, that one."
Crystal Dawn smirked darkly. "Ah, Malcom. That was an exercise in pointlessness. The engine is for the Israeli military. We were trying to ensure that when everything went sour, they were the only ones with an engine of that kind. They would have superior air power, land vehicles, everything. That way they would be in a position to exterminate anyone stupid enough to attack them. But that plan is going to shit...I should have anticipated that. The prophecies will be fulfilled. When that is finished, the world won't have a climate worth protecting. And after all, billions of humans are going to be exterminated in the war, so who exactly is the world being protected for? The Jewish survivors?"
"I've never heard you so bleak. What happened to you?" asked Malcom.
"At the end of the day, Malcom, the Israelis are going to learn to rely on their God, just as they did long ago. All the military hardware in the world won't change the outcome of a divinely dictated battle scenario. But don't panic, it's at least thirty years away."
"Where'd you get those figures?"
"It seems someone is fast-tracking a new Christ. But anyway, I must scheme. Take care of yourself, Malcom." Crystal Dawn paused for a moment, then ended the call.
*N *A *M
"Are you still sure you want to do this?"
The pilot of the aircraft grit his teeth, sitting at a conference table at Fort Lewis-Brown. "I have to do this. This weather isn't going to clear for three days. By then, it could be too late."
A man standing nearby finished a phone call. "There might be a clear route if you head east--" he walked over and placed his finger on one of the maps on the table, "here. But this is still way too dangerous. I'm awaiting latest weather confirmation. You're going to kill yourself, Naz, and all that vaccine isn't going to save anyone."
"We have to fly it," said Naz. "I have to fly it. I'm trained for this. If the roads weren't flooded, we could escort it across the country, but because they are, this is the only way."
There were five people in this room. Naz, the man whom he was speaking with, two others who were crosschecking security measures, and a fifth who stood gazing at the map. He kept looking as though he wanted to say something, but refrained.
"The vaccine processing plants are in New York and San Francisco. Weather reports indicate that New York is a much better option. There's a risk that the San Francisco base airstrip will flood within the next eight hours," said the man speaking with Naz.
"But if it doesn't, then we have tighter security. The longer we waste, the smaller the window to distribute the vaccine. We are only just meeting deadlines."
The man who kept refraining spoke. "What about the other countries?"
"There's enough vaccine concentrate aboard that plane for 720 million doses. That's enough for America, Mexico, and anyone else on O.I. Medical's list. One they have the concentrate, they'll have enough source to duplicate it for mass production. Then we have to send transports around the world. We have to prioritise here because we know the terrorist element are threatening America. There is no known risk in the other primary nations, therefore they are lower priority."
"It makes me wonder," said the man softly. "When we face difficulties, do we struggle past them or see them as a sign that we are not meant to proceed?"
"Are you suggesting that we don't transport the vaccine? Who exactly takes the blame when millions of Americans die? You?"
"I don't know...," said the man. He turned and began to walk away. "It was just a feeling."
A few minutes later:
"Anyway," Naz was saying, when a voice called over the Public Address system. "Go time!" it announced. "Pilot Nathan Perti is required to report for immediate departure."
"This is it," said Naz. "Wish me luck."
"Good luck, Naz! Fly home like a duck," said the man. The other two called the same.
*N *A *M
"This is it," said Jacob.
"Thanks for bringing me this close," said Crystal Dawn. "I know it was out of your way."
"Don't worry," said Jacob. "I had a prompting that I should bring you here. What the Lord has planned, I don't know, but I know it's always important."
"More than you know," said Crystal Dawn, slamming the door as he exited into the pouring rain. The semi-trailer continued on its way, leaving Crystal Dawn looking at the military base some way in the distance. There was a large transport aircraft taxiing out of the hanger.
Without hesitation, Crystal Dawn set off running, splashing through puddles, rocks slipping underfoot. The terrain was extremely inhospitable, with sharp rocks and ground which looked as though it has only just recently been torn by some catastrophe. And the dirt was water-saturated, making it difficult to cross. Crystal Dawn performed a sort of dance, skipping across scattered rocks, narrowly missing holes eroded the ground by the water's flow over the years.
*N *A *M
In the cockpit, Naz adjusted the various settings as the plane received one final check over by the various technicians standing outside on the tarmac. He was adjusting the cockpit lighting levels when a small, red light flashed on the display.
"Electrical fault," murmured Naz with annoyance. "Hey, what you doing with this thing?" he yelled into his headset. He received no reply. "This stupid headset's faulty," he added, taking it off. "It's a good thing we've still got five minutes."
After releasing his restrains, he stood and quickly opened the side door of the plane and ran down the ramp. The technicians were arguing over something.
"What's going on?" he yelled over the noise of the rain. One of the technicians ran to him.
"Sorry, Naz!" he exclaimed, leading him over to a small tarped shelter, safe from the rain. "It's some kind of Gremlin in the system. We think its probably just a firmware issue. We're reflashing, and it should be good to go."
"My headset's not working," said Naz.
The technician took the headset from him. "That's odd," he said, pulling one of the detachable cables which could be accessed. "These things don't usually break. Maybe it's water damage?" he placed the thing down on a table. "I've got a replacement here," he said, opening a plastic container. The container was full of rice. "What? Where have they gone?" he exclaimed. He looked round, puzzled. "Maybe this is the wrong container?"
Naz was unsure how he noticed it in the darkness and the pouring rain, but somehow he saw a matte-black container laying at least thirty meters away. He squinted, then, as the technician began searching through a few cardboard boxes which mostly contained metal screws and wire, he ran off to investigate it. "It's got to be here somewhere," the technician was saying, but Naz was not able to hear him. He came to the container, crouched down and flipped it upright, and turned the catch to open the container. It opened easily and Naz found inside two plastic-wrapped headsets and, oddly, a single electrical capacitor, coated with some orange, sticky substance.
He turned to look back towards the plane, a concerned expression on his face.
*N *A *M
Crystal Dawn ran, his jacket fluttering, down the runway, towards the aircraft sitting on the tarmac. Naz was running towards him, but was heading to the container laying mysteriously on the tarmac. The rain was pouring down worse than ever before. The lights airfield lights were shimmering with the literal walls of water between them and the eye. He was getting closer. Naz stood and started running back towards the plane, container in his hands. The technician saw him and was running towards him, a look of inquiry upon his face.
Then the rain stopped. It was as though a switch controlling the weather had been flipped. The sheer change caught everyone's attention. Naz and the technician stopped dead and looked at each other with confusion. Then in unison they looked to the aircraft.
Crystal Dawn was still running, but he came to a stop as the aircraft exploded into a ball of fire, throwing metal shrapnel in every direction. Something hit him, and he brought his hand up and glanced at it: there was a piece of metal sticking into it, and blood was oozing out from his torn glove and dripping, joining the billions of raindrops which coated the ground. He stood with an expression of absolute uncertainty. "This wasn't part of the original plan," he whispered.
He looked to the wreckage. People had been wounded by the explosion, some badly. Naz and the technician were running back towards to try and help. From no-where it seemed, dozens of armed men were standing by, weapons at the ready, around the area. None had noticed him.
Crystal Dawn stood there, a realisation dawning on him. The rain returned in full without warning. And somewhere in the din of that downpour, Crystal Dawn could hear Strawberry laughing.
[To be continued]
(ver. Not-Gold, Draft 1 July, 2009.)
This is not the final draft of part 8, but this is only to allow for proofing and Japanese-English language syntax analysis. I do not expect it to change in any significant way by Gold. If it does, that is a cause for suspicion.
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Robert-33
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