Introduction



30 Nov. 2007

It occurred to me I hadn't described very much my last few thousand words. See, I wanted to stop at 49,999 words because that would be cool. I was really drawing it out with those last few words. I remember I had like 800 words. And I thought there's no way I could longer. But I kept writing. Then I had 300 words. And I thought 'I'm almost done, but to do now?'. Then I had less then a hundred words. Like 67 words or so. So I stopped and went into the IRC chat room and said "oh look, 67 words left". And talked and whatever. Than I wrote a few more and had 20 words left. Then it was back to the IRC room. Then I kind of gave up and wrote the last few words. I ended a sentence with exactly 49,999 words just to be cool. Of course that excludes the title.

Anyway I finished it, finally. It's now 11:15pm and I want to go to a LAN party tomorrow. So I'll probably leave the write-in.

29 Nov. 2007

As you can tell from the image I have finished the novel for 2007 (you might notice this is a REALLY long page). I have to say I am rather glad to have this over, really. I can start doing other things now. It was certainly fun while it lasted! I even got done a day early!

26 Nov. 2007

Below is my latest NaNoWriMo novel for 2007. To your right is a link to my WriMo Novel from 2005 as well as a table of contents and a list of fellow participants.

First the purpose of this post: I went through with a find/replace and got rid of most all of the contractions I could find (I left one or two on purpose). This increased my word count significantly. Or a few anyway. So if someone were to past the contents below into a word processor and do a word count it would be different from what is reported at your right. Why anyone would that I have no idea.

As I thought would happen I did very little writing over the holiday. I did go to a Borders books and write out 2000 words. Took me a long time though (two hours or so). I am getting to the point I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. It's like this whole thing is do-able or something. At least I would think that if I wasn't in a slump currently. To make things worse my XBox 360 just got back from red-ring-of-death repairs...must..not..play.....

22 Nov. 2007

Well I decided I on Sunday I wanted to be at 40k by the Wednesday before Thanks Giving so I didn't feel so pressured to write over the holiday. Which I successfully made at 11:00pm Wednesday night. So I'm now all caught up through Saturday. I don't even have to worry about it.

Of course, I could keep writing when I find the time. In fact I could be done by this Sunday if I wanted to. That would be awesome. I mean not only reaching 50k but reaching it a week ahead of schedule? It's very tempting...

18 Nov. 2007

This wasn't actually intended to be a mini-blog about the NaNo but that's what it's turning into. The post below is what some random visitor commented on. I just wanted to thank that person for doing so. Any and comments welcome! Well not spammers. Boo spamers. boo...

I'll also say I had a lot of fun at the "Write in" the other night. I got to meet some people I had talked to only through the forums at the WriMo site. They seem a lot smarter than me. That's ok though, I write because I like it not to show how smart (or not) I am.

(below is before 11-15-07)

I am actually some what proud of how I set this page up this year: I renamed the file of this same page from 2005 and then just over-wrote all those entries with this year's story, generating a new page via blogger. That would make sense if you'd ever made a page on a web server and tried to use blogger (really). I wish I had thought of that last year. So now I have an archive of 2005's novel as well as a perfectly formatted version of the blog for this year.

One thing I've discovered this year: the chat room is way too distracting for me. I have started using a new editor I found through the WriMo forums called Q10. When you bring it up it covers the entire screen including the task bar so you're not distracted. Along the bottom is kind of status bar with things like the time, how many pages you've written and if you want the percentage complete you are of some word number goal (like 50,000 or the current day's word goal). It also makes fun type writer sound effects as you type. The whole background defaults to black which you can adjust along with the font color (I changed mine to green to give it kind of a monochrome look).

Also, if anyone notices, I'm purposefully avoid hyphens and contractions to make the word count that much better. Hey, it works...

Lastly I know this isn't a very engaging story. No "sub-plots" or "character development" or whatever. It's still about as close to a real story as I've ever done. And way better than the last two years attempts. I hope next year will be even better.  ¶ 5:49 PM

  Back to top

Chapter 1

The glass was beginning to crack and chip. Soon veins of glass would start shoot out in every direction. Craig "Holster" McHolister already knew this was inevitable as the eventual shattering of the window.

Sitting as he was, behind a large support column, he started to think how he had come to this point. The last 24 hours had been the most harrowing of his entire life. Never had he thought such a thing could happen at all, never mind happen to him.

The glass started to chip and crack a little further. Holster tightened an already white-knuckled grip on his gun.

He sat behind the support column, hot in his Kevlar armor and other equipment, thinking about his decisions and trying to figure out which ones he should have made differently. He always came back to the same conclusion: nothing he could have done differently would have lead to a better situation then the one he was in now. No, this was where he was supposed to be right now. This situation was his fate and this was it.

The glass continued to split crack. The source of the pressure on the glass was obviously coming from the other side. Holster could feel his heart pound though it seemed to be rather slow. In fact he was pretty sure that was first beat in he didn't know how long.

He turned his back to his right to see that his partner was there beside him, as always. He, also, was looking rather intense and gripping his weapon.

Holster started to think about how he first met his partner. It was ten years ago; almost to the day now that he thought about it; he had walked in the front door of work to find this stranger sitting at his desk with his feet up.

Holster had tried to kick him out, without much hesitation. The nerve of some kid to come in and take over his office. And now, ten years and a lifetime later, he wouldn't trade his partner Ken "Kipper" Kissenger for anyone. Nor is there anyone he would be sitting beside in this current situation.

The current situation: how could it have come to this? Holster had been so confident of the precations he had taken.

From the other side of the column there was suddenly a load crash followed by several more loud bangs. The window had finally shattered.

Holster took a peak around the column to see the glass crumbling down. Was his adrenilen really so high all these thoughts had taken place is the time it took a single bullet to penetrate a window? He didn't have time think about this right now.

More by habit than anything else he check the ammo of his weapon: it was the same as the last time he had checked which was full and ready to fire as always. He turned to kipper.

"Kipper! How's the Ammo?" Kipper looked in his direction.

The expression on Kipper's face was all the answer Holster needed. He was locked and loaded as always.

In the next instant several more guns were heard from inside the building. Instinctually, both of them ducked a little lower.

Holster looked around again, finding the rest of his time still all sides of him.

"Get ready, everyone! They will be through soon..." He tried to say. More gunfire.

All sides of him were the hired hands brought in the previous night to help him and Kipper out. They all looked at him in confirmation.

Suddenly a figure appeared at the window, the another and another. None of the figures seemed to be armed but that could be decieving.

"Don't fire until you're sure! You know the drill!" Holster yelled.

These figures were joined by several more, moving slowly toward the opening provided by the large shattered window. As the first figure came into the light outside the building it was obvious what they were looking at: hostages, bound and gagged. Holster and his team were smart enough not to go forward at this sight however. This they had learned many times over the hard way.

"Ok! Now!" Kipper ordered.

At this a rope flew over his head and lassoed the first figure. The loop dropped to the figure's feet and was pulled tight. The figure fell to the ground unceremoniously and was then dragged back behind the barricade.

In the next several more figures came running out of the opening at full speed. But these figure weren't tied-up, they had ski masks on and what looked like dirty t-shirts. They were carrying large assualt weapons and shouting something. Suddenly the figure who was first to run out was falling the ground. It appeared as he had been taken out by a sniper.

Realizing what had to be done holster suddenly leapt into action, spring from his position behind the column he fired several shots from his trusted hand gun, instantly taking out two more running figures. He know he would hear a lot of guff for that but the threat as he saw it had been taken care of. He landed hard and scrambled to find another position behind another support column. He was bleeding now but didn't notice. His heart was racing.

More hostages were struggling out now, retrieved one by one with a lassoe or other method. Holster knew this was going to take a long time. He had to end the situation now.

***

It had all started 36 hours ago. He had received an urgent call to his private line. Only three personal friends had that number and that could only mean it was worth taking. The voice on the other end refused to give his name. The voice, a male in his 30s by the sound of it, had explained there was a a pending action that Holster may have been interested in. Normally he would simply have hung up at such a line but on this occasion for some reason kept listening. There was going to be a robbery downtown and, the caller contended, only Holster and Kipper could with their unique way could deal with it.

After taking a few notes Holster and Kipper were out the door and on their way to a local bar to see if any of their sources could be leaned on for information. The first one they tried was a slippery fellow but usually lead to solid leads. The bar was a few blocks from the office and definitely not the kind of place either of them would want to come into on their off time. As with most bars there was a mirror behind the bar and a bartender that seemed to glare at everyone who came in.

It always seemed to cliché the way all the bars seemed to have the same maladjusted regulars who always seemed to be sitting in a booth in the back and only partiallly sober at any one as well as having that same length of facial hair every time they were seen. How is that even possible, Holster would sometimes wonder in days.

The informant was one of these regulars. He performed his normal dance of holding out for more cash but ultimately delivered very little.

The next stop was a small, out of the way café in a more up scale neighborhood. At least it looked upscale: in Holster’s experience the nicer it looks the seamier the the seamy underbelly ended up being. This exchange was much more surprisingly straight forward: cash paid upfront, reliable information if any was to be had from the café employee. The only information to be had was about a new character buying bizaare parts in another part of town. That wasn’t very much to go on.

Holster and Kipper came out of the café and heiled a taxi. The day was already starting to get late and both of them were hungry. Holster ordered the taxi to local deli the both of them enjoyed.

The trip only lasted a few minutes but it already seemed like too long to Holster.

“So are you going to tell me what this is all about?” Kipper asked.

“You know what I know, Kipper.” Holster said.

Kipper continued to stare at him, as if trying to will more information out of him. Finally he want back to looking out the window.

When they finally arrived at the deli there seemed to be a commotion out in front. There was yellow police tape. As they approached a police officer stepped forward.

“Hey, you two! What are you doing here? You know we don’t your help.” The officer said, annoyingly.

“We’re not here to help, we just wanted to eat at the diner…hey what is going on here?” Holster replied, curiousity suddenly piqued.

“That’s not for you to know, Holster,” there was tint of sarcasm they he said Holster’s name.

“Oh come…Larry…you know I’m going to find out anyway.” Holster was getting his own kind of annoyed now. Kipper only put a hand on Holster’s shoulder, as if to tell him it was time let it go.

The officer, Larry, looked like he was about to reply but instead turned around and went back toward another group of officers. From what Holster could see from the police tape something had fallen from a sky scraper and possibly hit a passer by. At least that was what the it looked like. Something didn’t seem quite right and Holster couldn’t put his finger on what it may have been. There was just something about that crime scene that seemed off.

He was about to ask Kipper when another office started waving the gather crowd toward the deli. Holster could think about it then.

As Holster and Kipper sat at the table eating their sandwiches neither one of them knew they were thinking exactly what the other was thinking: what was wrong with that damned crime scene. There was smashed cement all over the street. What looked like fresh paint. And a giant yellow tarp covering up what either of them could only assume was a smashed up car. But why bother cover a car up?

Suddenly, they both turned at looked at each at once, a look of instant understanding and big eyes on both their faces.

  ¶ 11:17 AM

  Back to top   ¶ 11:18 PM

  Back to top Chapter 2

The apiphany was immediate and universal between the both of them. Either of them could tell the other was thinking the same thing.

“Could it really be? Is it that time already?” Kipper was starting to look pale now. He already knew the answer.

“Yes,” Holster was saying, “our old nemesis is back.”

They both turned to look out the window toward the crime scene, staring. It seemed obvious now. The escaped mental patient, former celebrated scientist, had some how survived the former encounter with Hoslter and Kipper and was back doing what he did best.

As a scientist he had been the head of his field. A brilliant doctor working with stem cells and genetic minipulation. It was all too much Holster to know or care about. What he did know is something had gone terribly wrong at some point. There had been an explosion, a spill and a once good doctor had gone to into hiding.

Holster and Kipper had been hired to find and bring the doctor in by the company the doctor worked for. The cirumstances had prevented exactly that from happening but after a fall from a great distance the two of them had been sure he hadn’t survived.

“Well I guess we should go out and talk to Officer Kissenger again. If he hasn’t already realized it I think he’ll want to hear this.” Hoslter suggested.

They both knew what was coming. It was unavoidable but there was no way getting around it.

* * *

Officer Kissenger Hershiger was the first to arrive on the scene. There was a general sense of anarchy still around the area but he knew what had to be done. He started ordering a group of officers to corner off the scene with tape and keep any media as far back as possible. After a little more thought he ordered a tarp thrown over the whole thing.

Officer Kissenger didn’t know how it had happened but when a giant piece of sky scraper falls and hits a paint truck, causing it to create such an obvious pattern on the street around it even he knew there must be something going on he didn’t understand. As a way to distract attention, he thought, he had the officers throw a yellow tarp over the cement piece from the sky scraper sticking out of the truck.

The scene was starting to calm down when a real blast from the past had shown up. It was almost like they were on queue for something. He refused to explain anything, just hoping his reaction would distract them from the street. Holster had said they would find out eventually and Officer Kissenger knew this was probably true. As the two of them walked back toward the old deli/diner for lunch he couldn’t help but have a bad feeling.

He knew he didn’t have much time. It was already five o’clock and media would be showing up soon for the 6 o’clock news. He called over a group of officers to discuss what was happening.

“What exactly is going going on Hershiger?” one of them was asking.
“The tarp makes no sense,” another one was saying.

He tried to explain the set of circumstances made no sense and something else was going on and that he didn’t understand how the paint had made the design it did but got only blank stares in return.

He was about to divulge more when Holster and Kipper interrupted.

“Officer Kissenger! We figured it out. We know what’s going on. It’s…” Holster was interrupted by Officer Kissenger.

“Hold it you two,” he voice was more serious than usual, “wait over there and deal with you in a moment.” he said, gesturing towards a squad car.

Holster and Kipper only looked at each other and started walking toward the car. Officer Kissenger turned back and kept talking to his officers. Holster and Kipper, upon arriving at the squad car, jumped up on the hood, putting their feet on the bumper. They both knew this would annoy Officer Kissenger but didn’t really care.

As Holster waited for Officer Kissenger his mind started to wander. From where he was sitting he could see the whole crime scene. It was in a rather large, usually busy intersection of this city. On all sides were sky scapers seemingly reaching up forever toward the sky. He imagined had their been any trees the colors of the leaves would be changing color about now. He started to think that is what he was like now: a leaf changing color with the season. He was getting old and he knew it. Most people would say he still had a lot of years left, that was true, he still felt like he was getting on in years.

He had never married and now wondered if that had been a mistake. Still it wasn’t like he hadn’t had the opportunity to- -

“Holster!” Kipper was inturrupting his thoughts, “what the hell is that?” obvious tension in his voice.

Holster looked up and didn’t see what Holster was referring to at first. Then, slowly in the waining light of the sun, he it. A shape that looked like a large bird or possibly a hang glider appeared. It was large and appeared to getting closer and closer. It was at this point Officer Kissenger interrupteded them.

“Ok, you two, what was so important?” he asked.

Holster looked at him, “Officer Kissenger, didn’t you see the…,” he started to point up but didn’t see anything. What had he just seen.

“Do you jokers know anything, or not?” Officer Kissenger asked.

“I…oh. Yes, we uhh think the doctor could possibly…could uh, he..uh..Kipper, didn’t you see that in the sky a moment ago?”

Kipper, still looking up, as if almost mesmerized by something seemed to snap out his state. He looked at Holster and Officer Kissenger, staring at him expectantly.

“Yeah, I though I saw..something.” He finally replied.

“Yes, Officer Kissenger, we think our old nemesis the doctor is back. He survived somehow.” Holster said.

“That’s not likely, and you know it Holster. What would make you think something like that?” Larry said almost mockingly.

“Well the pattern of the spilled paint, the cement from a sky scraper that just happened to hit the truck to create the pattern at that particular time. Just that. Seems obvious.” Holster was trying to mock back now.

“Ah, the pattern. I knew there was something about it. But that can’t be all. What aren’t you telling me?”

“I got a call to my private line. This morning. The caller said something was going to happen that only me and Kipper were really prepared to deal with. We’ve been trying to gather information since. We were going to visit one of my sources when we came across your roped off crime scene.” Holster was divulging more than he had intended but that it was worth the risk.

“A phone call, interesting.” Larry looked like he had more questions but instead said he had to go.

Holster and Kipper, assuming they could leave the side of squad car now, left to try and find information.

The further searching that day was largely unsuccessful. One source, a weird little man with an apartment near some train tracks, almost seem to know something about the caller but he acted so skittish it was hard to tell if he was hiding something or general just squirely.

At this Holster and Kipper decided to head further downtown. The city was large and had a lot of hidden corners and sources of information you wouldn’t guess to look at for. Since traffic was so bad Holster and Kipper took a taxi to the subway station.

The subway was a filthy, terrible source of transportation. If either of them had any choice it would have been avoided above all else. Being the only really effective way to get down town they took it anyway. As the two of them were depositing the tokens into the turn styles several hooligan looking guys ran past them, jumping the turns styles. Kipper only stared as they ran past.

Once down on the platform waiting for the train the crowd seemed unusually thin for this time of night. Usually more young people would be waiting for a train to visit a night club or some where similar. Something about that observation bother Holster and Kipper but neither of them said anything.

After ten minutes of waiting the subway finally pulled into that station. It was seven o’clock now. Holster and Kipper borded the subway.

As the crowd gradually came in to the car with Holster and Kipper, a number of young men with long trench coats climbed on board as well. All the guys were about the same height, same build and wearing identical trech coats. Holster and Kipper both had a bad feeling about this.

Finaly the train started to pull out of the station with a lurch. As the train moved a long Kipper’s mind started to wander. He had never told Holster that he had known Kipper’s Dad twenty years ago. Or that Kipper had grown up hearing about Holster’s adventures about this and that. He wasn’t sure why he had never told him. Still, there were now rather effective partners on solid footing by anybody’s standards.

He remembered he had gone through the special training school. Marksmanship, hand to hadn combat, and similar. The day after graduation he had run over to Holster’s office and sat in his chair, waiting for him to come in. He had never expected to accepted fully. Especially at such a young age. And now, ten years later, he seemed perfectly matching with Holster.

Suddenly there was some comotion at the other end of the train, some gasps then a woman’s scream. Befor Holster and Kipper could even think to respond there was a giant lurch from the subway, throwing everyone forward then back again, acompanied by the lights flickering and finally going out. Within seconds the emergency lightly flickered on and a looped record of a friendly female voice came on to assure everyone the breakdown was temporary. The crowd didn’t seem to buying that as the whole crowd seemed to be freaking out at once. Holster was about to speak up and to try and say something calming when there was a loud bang from some where to his right.

One of the men he had noticed in the trench coat was now holding what looked like a shotgun in his hands.

“Everybody shut up and this will all be over in a moment!” he was yelling.

All the men in the trench coats had positioned them selves strategically among the crowd and at different parts of the train, each seperated by some many feet of distance.

Suddnely the doors to the train opened. The subway was stopped in the middle of a tunnel miles from the nearest station and the passengers were now being filed out. All the other men in trench coats were now also holding some form fire arm. Only the first one was speaking. Were they part of some kind of cult? What was going on.

Once the crowd was off the subway car the subway suddenly lurched back into motion and started off into the distance. Several in the crowd just stared at it as it left, bewildered.

Another sound then grabbed their attention from behind them. One trench coat wearing man was opening what looked like an access pathway probably used for maintenance. The opening was nearly seven feet in heigh and the door was oddly round shaped.

The first man in the trench coat spoke again, “Everbody into the tunnel! As long as you do what we say no will be hurt.

Holster and Kipper exchanged glances. Amazingly none of this group had recognized either one of them. With the glance they both knew what to do next. Gradually they drifted back toward the back of the crowd until the two of them would be the last to enter the panel.

Then, before any trench wearing guy could respond, Holster and Kipper jumped back, pulled out their pistols and fired several perfectly aimed shots, taking out two of the trench coat wearing guys. Holster and Kipper both had fired two shots and all four shots and hit their targets in the head, killing them instantly.

At this the startled crowd started to panic and run forward into the access tunnel, nearly trampling several elderly citizens. In the ensuing anarchy Holster and Kipper took off running down the subway tunnel, away from the captives.

* * *

The escape from captivity was less than twenty four hours ago. Now, stairing a bank with those same men in trench coats and what were once subway passengers inside, that seemed like such a long time ago. Looking back it had all started with the crime scene. The paint, the cement piece, and even the name of the sky scraper unbeknownst to him at the time.

The paint that had spilled in a highly coincidental kind of way on the ground had some how shaped a symbol of an ancient order of a secret cult like society. This group, at least according to legend, had learned some special method of manipulation events to out a certain way. Holster had studied this cult as a teenager and was strangely fascinated by it. They believed they could, through changing one subtle thing in one place purposefully cause a change reaction that eventually lead to the outcome they wanted. Most people didn’t seem believe this.

Some how this situation was fitting into this very set of circumstances. But what was the cult’s plan? Holster took a quick peek at his watch. It was four thirty in the after noon. Sixteen hours ago. It had started to unwind sixteen hours ago.

* * *

Several more cult members came back out of the access tunnel. A few fired some shots in Holster and Kipper’s direction but were entirely off. Holster and Kipper kept running, adrenalin already high. The two of them didn’t stop for more than twenty minutes, cover well over two miles. As they started to slow down the gravity of the situation started to close in on them.

At nearly the same time the two of them stopped and fell to their knees as they breathed so heavily. Remembering their training they tried to take deep breaths through their nose and exhale through their mouth.

After several minutes they wre starting to feel better. Both of them knew they would be sore tomorrow when the adreniline had finished wearing off but they could worry about that later.

“What…what was that all about?” Kipper was asking.

“I think…I think it was the cult. Some how they’re manipulating events. We were meant to get away.” Holster said.

Kipper was about to respond when a female voice intervened.

“I guess you were meant to meet then.” The female voice startled Holster and Kipper.

Holster and Kipper looked up in the direction of the voice. There, standing in front of them, was the most strikingly strange yet beautiful woman either of them had ever seen. She could have been anywhere from her early twenties to late thirties in age, probably six feet tall and a rather slender body any guys could only dream of seeing much less standing with several feet of. She had dark hair and the kind of perfect face you almost have to look away from as if it was the sun or cleavage. She was dressed entirely in skin tight leather. On either hip was a rather creative created, to put it mildly, handgun.

“Who…who are you?” Holster managed to get out eventually.

“That’s not important, Holster. All you need to know is that you must come with me. Now!” the mystery woman explained.

“Wait, why. And where exactly did you have in mind. Those hostages probably don’t have much time after all.” Holster was trying to hold his ground even though he knew he would probably do whatever she told him to do without thinking about it.

At this she reach behind her back and brought out a small device circular in shape. She quickly pushed several buttons and spoke in strange dialect. There was then a bright flash and a flood of sounds and light. In the subway tunnel all three figures who were standing in place just a moment earlier blinked out of existance.  ¶ 11:19 AM

  Back to top Chapter 3

When Holster started to wake up it was quite by accident. At first he didn’t know where he was or what had happened. Then, slowly, flashes of what had happened began to flood back. The subway tunnel, the mystery woman in the leather, the hostage situation. He then started to notic the sounds around him. It was either a large number of people bustling about a hospital or the sound of the ocean. In his state the two sounded incredibly similar and it be either one. He couldn’t feel any wind on him at all. Maybe it was ajust an open window or a recording. But then where was he? Then he noticed his eyes weren’t open.

Or, he thought to himself, perahps they were and there was just nothing to see. As he gained more and more consiousness he started to notice more about his surroundings. He didn’t know how he knew but some how he knew this was a place with white walls and a flood of light.

Perhaps he was dead. Or just thought he was dead. He thought he should proabably try and move one of his extremities. First he tried a a hand. He was trying to make a fist. He thought he was doing it but cuoldn’t quite tell. It was almost like he was num in some fashion. Suddenly a voice cut through his thoughts and spoke to him.

“The transition has left you largely numb. Just releax and your feeling and eye sight will come back with time.” The voice was warm, reassuring. Holster some how didn’t like it already.

He started to try and speak only to be cut off by the voice once again, as if it could read his mind.

“Your friend is ok, he is similarly recovering.” The voice said.

At this Holster started to releax again. It seemed obvious there was nothing he could do about his situation at the moment anyway. And bsides, if he was going to be hurt his apparent captors could have done so at any time they so chose.

Meanwhile, at the site of Holster apparently relaxing at hearing his friend was alright, the mysterious female in leather smiled a little from behind a two-way mirror. The specimans she had found were turning out entirely better than she could have hoped.

Turning, she looked at her superior, obviously asking the question of his approval. At this he only nodded little. A sign of approval very over whelming for likes of him.

The two specimans, their names unimportant, she had captured would be used for experiments and then fed some line about being chosen and released to rescue what they had referred to as hostages. This would be the first field test. It would likely be very confusing to them, and for all she knew the experience would destroy them like it had some others before them. She hoped it would go better than that however.

The two specimans were laying flat on sterile examination tables. They each had electrical diodes on various parts of their heads and special helments covering up their eyes with red lights flashing on them in specific patterns. Right now their bodies were fragile from the trip so it was very pleasant waking up sort of stimulii.

The two of them had been flashed with a psycholgically signifcant flash of light which had overwhelmed their senses and caused them to pass out instantly, falling to the hard tunnel floor with a thud. At this she had attached what the specimans would have described as disk shaped and about the size of a nickle with a red light on one side and a nasty looking need on the other. The disk shaped device was attached at the top of their spinal cords. Upon contact it had sprouted extra legs and further attached to them, the red light blinking with their heart rate.

She then took out another device, pushed a sequence of buttons and all three of them had been transported to her lab.

The recovery of the transport was actually fairly painful. She had grown accustomed to it in her lifetime and was able to recover within a few minutes. The specimans would have needed more time than that but the lying them out on the table was purely for the experiment and other wise not necessary.

It had been several minutes since she had spoken to them over the speaker. The vacation was over, it was time to test these new specimans. At this she turned a dial and punched in a few parameters then sat down to watch the results.

It was at the point the sensations in Holster’s head took a decidedly much more unpleasent turn. The sound of the ocean and the sense the room was white and flooded with light was suddenly replaced with a much more distressing sense of danger and darkness. He could feel his heart pounding in his chest. In fact a lot of the feeling in his extremeties was coming back. He could feel his arms and legs and the sensation of making a fist. He could also feel a rather hard and unconfortable table he was apparently laying on.

This sensation was immediately replaced by that of heat. At first just a little on the backs of hands and his toes but then quickly growing in intensity. He tried to move, to identify the source of the heat and move away from it but it seemed to all around him. He tried to move his arms but couldn’t. Were they constrained in some way? It was hard to tell.

Then he started seeing some strange things coming up in front of him. First it was a bunch of rocks and flames, like something out of a popularized personification of hell but then it started to clear up. He realized he he was actually looking at a model of something like that. As his vision began to come into focus furhter, he realized he was actually looking at a highly decorized fish tank made up to look like a highly polpularized imaged equivalent of hell. He could see little devil fish swimming around in side it. Strangely appropriate, he supposed.

But then where was the heat coming from? He started to look aroundand realize he was a in what looked like a big office or possibly someone’s private den. To his left was a large raoring fire and two large logs burning in it. He was suddenly not feeling very comforatble. He started to look around the room and saw what looked like a big desk oppisite the fish tank. The chair was empty. He then scanned the rest of the walls and noticed there were no doors at all. This seemed odd to him and less than practical.

Then he started to realize he was probably imagining this whole thing, that he was being manipulated in some way. As he thought about this a stabbing pain shot through his head. With a cry of pain he started to hold his temples and lower toward the floor on his knees. This distracted him long enough he forgot about the imaginary theory he had and the pain started to subside.

He wasn’t sure what was going on but he didn’t like it. He knew on some level there was a way to control what was happening to him but he also knew he would probably be in enormous pain if he did so.

Then, without warning several figures appeared in the room with im. Within moments they had formed a loose circle around him and were wearing what looked like some kind of combat sword.

They were dressed in all black from head to toe and wore some kind of special mask over their heads. Only their were visible. Theyalso seemed to have some kind of wire coming up their backs. A microhone perhaps? Perahps something else. In any case these figures didn’t look like they were going to wish him a happy birthday. As he was thinking this he looked down to realize he was earing his normal street clothes and even had his favorite hand gun in his favorite holster. One of htem directly in front of Holster started reaching up to grab at the hildt of his sword. At this Holster started to reach for his gun.

Then in a remarkably fast motion that seemed to happen all at once and in a single blur all the figures, at least six them of them Holster counted, started to run at him, swords raised. He took out his hand gun as he dove out of their way in one fluid motion. As soon as he landed he started to fire at all the attacking figures as quickly as possible. As always his marksmanship was perfect, but instead of injuring and disabling the attacking figures they simply vanished into a puff of smoke as if they had never been there at all. Holster kept firing and firing until, at last, there was onl one figure left. This figure had landed on the other side of room by some twist of fate or perhaps that just made the figure the most likely to survive the fight.

Holster raised his weapon, pointed it at the figure and pulled the trigger only to hear the familiar click of an empty clip. Putting up a face that could only be described by a a long string of four letter explitives, Holster put the gun back into his Holster.

“Who, or what, are you exactly?” Holster asked.

The figure in black only looked at him, sword raised in front of him.

“Why have you been sent here, to attack me of all people?” He moved from his position to his right slowly as he said this tring to study the details of this new nemesis.

The figure still said nothing. Then, suddenly, started to to vibrate and shimmer. Or at lest the air around him did. The figure fell to his knees, dropping his sword. He still made no sounds but was clearly in pain. Then there was a bright flash of light.

As Holster’s focus began to return he saw the figure on the ground. At least what he thought the figure should have been. As he looked closer he started to realize he was actually stairing on someone very familiar.

“Kipper? Is that you?” he asked.

First there was no response. Then, slowly, a sound of pain came from Kipper.

Kipper slowly started to get this feet. He seemed to be surprised to be where he was and even more surprised to see Holster. Though the look in his eye was not one of ‘glad to see you so much as ‘you son of a bitch’.

After several second of obvious painful climbing to his feet, Kipper walked over the Holster. He looked like he was about to say something but instead punched him in the nose as hard as he could. Holster screamed and pain and held his now extremely painful nose and struggled with his vision.

Chapter 4

Stairing through the two-way mirror, Mavaria was more than shocked to see that holsters nose had begun to bleed. That had never happened to a subject before now. What the hell was going on? The combat scenario should have still been going on with all the normal sofegards turned on.

She then turned and sent through a door to her left. There, as she expected was kipper in a identical room also knocked out and going through similar tests and scenarios. She didn’t know what was going on but knew it couldn’t possibly be good. She could only hope her superiors didn’t find out before she wanted them to know. If she played it right she could spin this situation to her benefit.

She went back to the first room. A nose bleed. That didn’t seem right some how. Could it really be? Could Holster be the one they had searched for? It was a crazy idea.

She picked up her radio and started to issue orders. Some staff medics came in and started to clean the blood from Holsters nose. One of the medics radiod back from inside the room that Holster’s nose was broken and that he seemed to be trying to talk or ake up. This, Mavaria, knew, was impossible. All the precations had been taken to prevent either of them from waking up a minute before she decided as much.

She picked up the radio and responded, telling them to do what they could now and she would deal with the rest later. The medics acknowledged this and packed up the supplies and left.

She was dreading how the superiors would respond to the news but it was better they here it from her.

She walked over to the red communicator and put it into her ear and pushed some buttons on the console. The communicator started to make some ringing sounds and then a voice answered.

“Yes? What is it” the voice asked.

“Sir, it may be what we have been waiting for. One of the speciman’s noses is bleeding. I, I think it’s the one.” She said this trying not to let her voice shake at all. She only half succeeded.

“Really. Interesting. Keep me up to date on the situation Mavaria. Out.” With that the voice was gone. She wasn’t sure what was going on but she was going to find out.  ¶ 5:34 PM

  Back to top Chapter 5

Holster was on his knees, eyes watering and still trying to deal with the extreme pain in his nose. The pain was so intense he could hardly think of anything else. After what seemed like several minutes he looked up to see Kipper still standing in the same place, just looking at him.

“What the hell was that…” Holster trailed off.

There was something about the look in Kipper’s eye that made him stop talking. He wasn’t sure what it was but he knew he couldn’t say everything he was thinking.

“While you were messing with the ninjas I was actually doing something about our situation. I punched you to hopefully distract our captures and or that woman in leather long enough we could talk undiscovered.” Kipper was speaking quickly and quietly.

Holster thought a moment and then nodded.

“What have you learned?” he asked at last.

“That we’re under heavy sedation and part of some kind of experiment. There’s some kind of equipment over our eyes manipulating what we see and feel in our unconscious states.”

At first Holster only stared and Kipper. Then slowly he started to ask questions. The obvious one was about how he had learned all of this and how the two of them were able to communicate as they were. At one point even wondering if Kipper was in fact some portion of his imagination. This was eventually dismissed as unlikely given the pain in his nose and the apparent lack of any interruptions for what obviously an unplanned event.

Kipper answered all of Holster’s questions as quickly as possible and as best he could. The explanation of the how they were communicating seemed glossed over some how. The explanation was something about finding how the equipment worked and using that to cross over between while tricking the machinery.

Kipper went on to explain that he had also had an encounter from a group of seeming adversaries but had realized they posed no real threat. Using this he had captured one and willed himself to take control of it and learn as much information from it as he could. Using this figure as kind of conduit he then projected himself into Holster’s mind. In a split decision to demonstrate he was real he decided to punch Holster in the nose.

The question then became what they were to do at this point. How were they going to escape? Was that even possible?

These were the questions on both their minds just as a wave of pain hit both of them square in the frontal lobe. Holster and Kipper both screamed in agony and were driven once again to their knees. As the pain subsided their surroundings began to change at first then started to subside.

As Holster opened his and started to gain consiousness he could sense someone in the room with him. He could also feel the large heavy contraption covering up his eyes. With an effort he started to move his hands an arms and managed to reach up and take it off his face, letting it fall to the floor.

He took a moment to let his eyes adjust. Some how he knew the room he was in was flooded with light and he was right: really bright and immediately above his head, shining into his eyes. He squinted and finally started to focus in. He started to look around at the room.

It was bare except for the steril exam table he was laying on. The walls were completely white, as was the floor. As tried to sit up he noticed large mirror right in front of him. That’s when he noticed his head had been shaved and he had what looked like electric diodes with sunction cups attached to various places on his head. He reach up and started yanking them out.

It was about this time he noticed except for a generously placed towel he was completely naked. Although why his captures had bothered with that he didn’t know. After all, it was fairly obvious he and Kipper were ntohing more than lab rats to these people.

Thankful at any rate he finished sitting up and swung his legs around to one side of the table. Carefully taking the towel and wraping it around him stood on the sterril tile floor and started to wonder what he was going to do now and where Kipper was.

No sooner had he begun to think about this he heard a large crash coming from a wall to his left. This was followed by one or possibly two load but muffled voices which was fololowed by still more crashes and finally a sound of a lot of glass breaking.

Then silence. Holster sat in the room, straining as much as he could to hear something, anything else from the other side of any wall if not the wall where the sound had come from. Finally a portion of the wall wall where the sound had come from swung open silently. It was amazing to Holster: never had he seen a door designed into a wall in such a seemless way.

From the other side of the wall Kipper stepped forward dressed similarly with a towel around his waist and a shaved head. Holster was half expecting him to punch him in the nose again.

Kipper was immediately followed by the woman from the subway tunnel dressed in the same tight leather.

“Kipper, what is going here? What was all the noise? Also, where the hell are we?!” Holster could hardly contain the tone of his voice.

“Holster relax, I’m taking care of it. This is Mavaria from the subway tunnel. We were just…having an aggressive negotiation. It took some time but she has agreed to get us out of here. She does have a price but I think we can live with it. I’ll explain later. For now we have to get out of here before any alarams are raised.” Kipper explained.

Holster only staired at the two of them, dumb founded. Of all the gall and nerve of this set of actions. He was quite literally struck for words.

“What do you mean…” he began, “you reach a deaa…” he started again. The words were not coming.

“We really don’t have time for this, er, subject. We have to go. Follow me and we will get your clothes back.” Mavaria spoke in a neutral but strong tone.

“Hold on a moment!!” Holster had suddenly found his words again, “I don’t think we can trust her. Who is to say she won’t just take us to straight to some other lab? How do we know this isn’t part of some other experiment? Or a further portion of the same experiment? Have you thought of that Kipper?” Holster was turning visibly red in the face, clearly upset.

“Holster, we don’t have time for this. We have to trust her long enough to get out of here. Besides, I think the deal I made is incentive enough to keep her honest.” Kipper explained back.

Mavaria only watched this interaction calmly without saying a word. If her plan didn’t work out she would pay most dearly for these actions. But for now she had to keep he plans to herself and she knew it was the best course of action.

“Fine,” Holster said at least, “get us to some clothes. Preferably ours. And no more of that ‘subject’ stuff. Our names are just fine if you can managed it. Mavaria.” He did his best to add a tinge of sarcasm to that last bit though he was clearly still intimidated by her.

Mavaria said nothing but managed a menacing glare at him. She pulled out a science fiction looking remote from an apparently high capacity utility belt attached to her back and started pushing buttons on it. The mirror in the room slid up and the rest of the wall silently slid apart, creating a doorway. She walked through the newly created doorway without saying anything.

Holster and Kipper followed behind her. On the other side of the mirror was a small control room with a control panel and a several monitors Holster and Kipper could only assume were used for keeping track of vitals and observing the “subjects” as Mavaria called them.

She lead them out of the control into a long corridor, also sterile, white and with bright harsh lightly. All the walls seemed to blend seemlessly into the floor and ceiling but that did not mean there were no doors as Holster and Kipper and recently learned. Neither one of them could see any kind of servalance or cameras of any sort either. Both of them also knew this most likely didn’t really mean there was no security in place as well.

As Holster and Kipper followed Mavaria down the hall Holster noticed whatever door they had come out of had gone back to completely blended into the wall. That was it then. If Mavaria wanted to double cross them they would have no recourse. But then that was just as true back in the experiment room with the cold hard sterile tables.

After what really seemed like too long Mavaria stopped at a seeminly random place. She touched a wall to her right in several places and then left her palm on it for a few seconds. A breif blue light came out from behind her hand and then a door silently appeared. This time Holster and Kipper didn’t see or hear how it had appeared, it was just kind of there.

She walked in to the waiting room out of the hall without a word and Holster and Kipper followed her silently.

The room appeared to be some kind of locker room, or at least the closest equivalent this place could offer. At the far end of the room, folded neatly on a bench, was Holster and Kipper’s clothes along with their weapons apparently unmolested.  ¶ 8:01 PM

  Back to top Chapter 6

Holster and Kipper walked over to their clothes and started to pick them up. As they touched the clothes they started to feel tired and by the time they had completed dressing and putting their guns in holsters they were asleep completely.

Mavaria walked over once again and put her hands on their temples. With a smirk she stood back up and took out her transportation device. With a blink all three were transported back to the same spot in the subway tunnel.

Upon arrival Holster and Kipper’s bodies sank to the floor like the way a feather doesn’t.

Mavaria picked up both bodies and easily lobbed them over each shoulder. The two of them would wake up in a short period of time but for now she had things to do that only she could do.

After gently setting the two men down in an alcove that looked safe she took off down the tunnel in the direction of the service tunnel entrance a group of subway hostages had been forced into mere minutes before. Mavaria’s device had just transported the three of them to another place, it had also transported them to a place in which time acted much differently than it did for Holster and Kipper’s plane of existance. She wasn’t going to tell them that, at least not yet.

She arrived at the entrance and swung it open. A rather pungent smell came out at her and her much harder than she expected. She strongly disliked this demension or plain or whatever it was technically called. The smells and conditions were always so terrible and hard to grow accustomed to.

She entered the tunnel and pulled the door back behind her, leaving her in absolute darkness. She could have, with an effort, continued in this darkness but she decided against it. Instead she activited her darkness ready eye sight with a thought and activated an ultra violet glow to her leather clothing. This was far better than any flash light or torch could ever have provided for her.

She knew she probably didn’t have very much time so she started to run. Slowly at first than faster and faster. It had been a while since she had such sprinting. Even though she felt completely confident in her abilities she still felt the adrenalin start to hit her as she ran faster and faster down the tunnel.

After only a few minutes she started to hear voices ahead of her. It was them, the hostages and cult members. She was only half convinced that Kipper, as he was insistant she called him, would hold up his end of their arrangement. Truth was she enjoyed destroying what she considered vermin so much she would love to be doing so anyway. Still, there would be concequences if Kipper tried to go back on the bargain. For now she would hold up her end.

She came to a sharp corner in the tunnel and silently listened. Just around the corner was the last of the hostages who were being forced to move at a slow jog, the cult members on all sides, guns ready.

Mavaria stopped to contemplate her options. She could use her gadgets in various ways to disable all the cult members quickly, possibly taking out some hostages in process. She could of course accomplish this task with no casualties but that would not hold her interest nearly as much as she would have liked. So casualties or no casualties, it didn’t matter to her.

She was also more than capable of talking her way into the group. Joining the cult members, keeping the hostages in line until the right time. Then turning on the cult members and killing each one of them at her leisure just for the pleasure and pursuit of it. Just the possibility of the power of such an action made her tingle with anticipation.

No, none of those methods would do. Something, in this case, requiring a much more straight forward and to the point approach would be more suitable.

Mavaria stepped out from behind the corner and walked up behind the nearest cult member and shoved him hard enough he fell onto his face. Mavaria immediately turned her suit into dark mode once again. There was more light now then there was before filtering in from various directions but her suit made her virtually invisible to the naked eye.

The cult member falling on his face provided both a distraction and some psychological warfare as the hostages tittered and smirked at him and the other cult members only glared and scowled. The fallen cult member only silently climbed back to his feet and caught up the rest of them.

In the time all this had happened, effectively distracting a few people, Mavaria had managed to silently glide and move to the front of the crowd of people without anyone noticing.

Once at the front she continued to run along side the crowd silently following along. The crowd moved at a brisk pace and the cult members seemed to know exactly where they were all going.

Reaching out with her mind and using a little technology to aid her she started to sink her mind into the nearest cult member in an attempt to learn their plans. As soon as she did so she had to pull out again almost immediately. She really really didn’t like what she saw in there. Even she could get a little unconfortable with a site from inside of a cult members mind. Even if he was an inferior being in an inferior dimension. She had at least learned where they were headed.

They were headed to a section of the tunnel the cult had carved out themselves to make a meeting place. It was like some cliché underground layer from a bad 80’s cartoon. Mavaria didn’t know what that even meant but was sure it was relevant in some way.

Once there they would learn the rest of the plans for the hostages. This some how managed to pique Mavari’s curiousity. What would these inferior creatures possibly have planned after all this time and effort?

She had been running hidden with the crowd for probably ten earth minutes by now which meant Holster and Kipper were probably waking up right about now. Either that or being run over by a train. So much the better for her.

The crowd of hostages and cult members were starting to slow down. They nearing the end of their trek to the underground layer. The tunnel suddenly switched from a man made metal one to that of a cruedly tunneled through rock tunnel. It was about five feet high and only two or three humans across. After about twenty feet of this it opened up into what appeared to be an old mine entrance.  ¶ 8:02 PM

  Back to top Chapter 7

It was cold, so cold all around. He could feel tingling in all of his extremities. It was not a pleasant feeling. As he gained consciousness he realized there was a draft. The draft was cold rushing over him. Then he realized he was laying down. He was on cement, cold cement. Then sounds started to come into focus. The wind blowing past him and water dripping in the distance.

Then there was a vibration in the cement. This brought Holster more fully back into a full functional state. His eyes opened and he looked around. He was back in the subway tunnel. And by the vibrations the subway was coming. Though he didn’t seem to be in any danger. He was well away from the tracks back in an alcove.

With an effort, he stood up and started looking around for Kipper. He was still knocked out a few feet away in the same alcove. He began to stir as the vibrations became more pronounced. Within moments he also was standing. The two of them looked at each other for a moment, the unspoken question of what went on between Mavaria and Kipper answered before it was asked. Kipper wouldn’t be saying anything.

Kipper was really trying to figure out if it had all been a dream. After all they were in the same tunnel in the same place. Maybe there was a gas leak and they had passed out. That didn’t seem very likely on second thought. But what were they to do now?

Kipper turned to Holster to ask this just as Holster started to explain what they should do next.

Hoslter’s idea was to find the nearest maintenance office, which this subway tunnel was bound to have at some point, and use the floor plans of the tunnels to figure out where the hostages were being taken. From there they could cut them off or figure out where they were all staying.

Convincing officials to let them see the floor plans would be an issue. But if Kipper could strike a deal with Mavaria he could probably talk his way into some floor plans.

That was a lot of ifs to deal with. Was there even a maintenance office down here? The only way to get find out was to start jogging down the tunnel, avoiding the oncoming subway as it passed.

The two of them kept jogging and jogging for another ten minutes before they saw another door in the side of the tunnel. When they tried it, the door was locked. So they jogged on eventually found an unlocked, unremarkable door.

Inside it appeared to be a storage closet of some kind. There were several shelves full of junk and various parts for maintaining the subway line and for some reason a leaf blower. To one side of what Holster was realizing was a rather large storage closet was a desk with a bunch of rolled up papers on it.

Holster and Kipper went over to the desk to take a look. This apparently little used or possibly completely forgotten storage closet had some back up hard copies of the entire subway tunnel. Perhaps the conversion to digital had prompted the move. It didn’t really matter, they had found what they were looking for.

They rolled started unrolling the various sheets and looking them over. It didn’t take long for either of them to realize they didn’t actually know how to effectively read a large floor plan of a subway. They studied it a bit longer and started to see how it worked. They could see the subway station where they had left, the approximate area where the subway had stopped and based on that where the access tunnel was that the hostages were taken into and where they were now.

Based on the blue prints they the tunnel with the hostages lead off to several more maintenance tunnel that formed a whole labyrinth work of access tunnels of varying sizes. There was on particular area that looked like it was under construction but never finished. Holster and Kipper both agreed that was probably where they were headed.

Neither Holster nor Kipper mentioned anything of Mavaria even though both of them were thinking about her constantly.

The next stop would be to decide what their next step would be. Kipper was sure the best course of action would be to simply follow the same tunnel until they came across the hostages then decide the best course of action from there. Holster thought they should figure out where they would all be likely headed next and sit and wait there to make a move.

In the end they decided to split up and do a little of both. It was unfortunate they didn’t have any kind of portable communications device, Holster thought. That would make communicating back and forth so much easier.

As if sensing some how what he was thinking Kipper turned to him and said, “there may be some things they did to us in that lab we don’t know about, Holster. That and we are capable of things we didn’t know we could do. I mean I was in an active participant in your dream after all. Let me, let try,” he stopped talk and stepped back a little ways.

Holster only stared, a strange look on his face, as Kipper tapped various parts of his face and ears in combination with movements of his jaw. It was like he was expecting to just randomly figure out how to communicate with him by facial expressions. Or possibly he was having a seizure. Holster wasn’t entirely sure by the looks of it.

This thought was starting to amuse him a little when he heard an electronic sound beep and a voice vaguely like that of Kipper’s. Holster and Kipper’s face both shrank to nothing immediately as they turned to stare at each other. Apparently they could some how communicate with each other.

“Kipper . . . how did you do that? What is going on here??” he asked.

“Well,” Kipper started, “it’s not like this is planned or something. I just thought maybe who ever those people were with Mavaria perhaps like all good lab people they decided to tag their lab rats. In this case some kind of sub-epidermal two way microphone and receiver running along our jaw bone directly to the inner ear. The implant is harmless probably. All you have to do to activate it is go like this.”

Kipper started open is mouth a few degrees and tapped the side of his jaw just in front of his ear and below his temple.

“That is how you activate it. Two more taps to the same place deactivates it again. I think it works both ways so we can talk over each other. But lets use the walky-talkie idea of saying over after our lines anyway?” Kipper explained.

“Ok, so you activate it like this,” Holster said imitating him, “and deactivate like this,” Holster said deactivating it again.

“Ya, you got it. Lets get moving.” Kipper said.

Holster and Kipper left the storage closet and closed the door behind them, not bothering to lock the door.

With a glance back the two of them took off in different directions. Kipper was headed back the way they had come, Holster the other way toward another access tunnel to wait for the cult members to make their move.  ¶ 8:03 PM

  Back to top Chapter 8

Mavaria was still waiting and watching the cult members as Holster set out on their path to try and help the hostages. Mavaria had learned of their discovery of the epidermal implants as soon as Kipper had started to try and find it. The plan for the experimental vermin was going better than she could have expected.

While Holster and Kipper were asleep back in the lab they implants had been put in. She had wanted to know how long it take them to find out they had the implants, if they ever did. She would have, of course, offered subtle clues. But they seem to have just found the implants anyway. To exercise some small amount of control she had made their implants patched in to her own. It would robably take them a while to realize this. And even if the did realize it there was nothing they could do about it so it didn’t really matter.

In front of her was the crowd of hostages and an even larger crowd of cult members all dressed in identical trench coats and almost all of them holding some kind of weapon. At the head of the crowd was a man in his 30s, at least that was what Mavaria’s eyes told her anyway she could be wrong, and he was giving a speech to the crowd. He, Marvaria could only assume, was the cult leader.

The leader was talking about taking back this and striking out at that in a very self-agrandizing sort of way. It was all non-sense to Mavaria as such things never really interested her.

This, she decided, was going to be a largely recon mission to learn what the plans were. As the cult leader neared the end of his speech he started to raise the pitch of his voice while raising his hand. The crowd responded in kind by raising their arms and cheering in response. These action were quite fascinating to Mavaria. Was it some kind of mind control? Or was the crwod just drawn in by the this lone figure? Perhaps there were on some sort of chemical subversion. This was all of only a mild interest to mavaria. These were vermin after all. Sheep. Vermin.

Finally, after way to long in Mavaria’s mind, the leader brought up a easil with a large piece of paper showing some bullet points. He outlined what the were about to do step by step. He turned the page and showed a big map of a building. The map was actually a set of blue prints. Mavaria didn’t know that term, but would have used it had she been aware of it.

The blue prints outlined an entry into the building, hostages in tow, followed by an ellaborate charade of some sort. This was where the, the leader said, a key portion of the plan was going to unfold. The most important part of the whole plan in fact.

Mavaria had been tought from birth to develop a photo graphic memory. She was taking in every one of the words and all the details of the pages on the easil. She could recite very word and re-produce every detail of the whole plan. She had momentarily forgetton herself and was listening for the final details of the plan.

Just then a noise was heard from the back of the room. Not a very loud noise but just enough it grabbed weveryone’s attention away fro what the leader was saying for a moment. It sounded kind of like someon had knocked a plike of cans or something similar over. A few of the armed clut members ran in that direct to investigate and returned seconds later. They made some hand jestures at the leader.

The leader’s facial expression changed slightly but only rutrned a hand jesture. In response the cult members returned to where they had started. The leader continued what he was saying before about the master plan.

They would break into the building through the floor and and bring the hostages with them. Once verything was in place they would try and break into the something, purposefully setting off an laram and alertying the authorities. When the authorities arrived they would pretend the hostages were from that building and had been taken earlier.

While all this was going on antoher team of cultiests weould be setting up cameras and different devices around the city to aid them in the rest of the plan. For security sake he said wasn’t going to go into details about the second party of the plan. Although what security easures were rally necessary down here in a secret under ground layer she had no idea of what so ever. She was sure she was the only expert observer and that she had not been detected. Perahps the hostages were seen as an uknown variable.

The plan would start in a couple hours so the crowd was dismissed to make the necessary preperations for the big night.

As the crowd disperssed the hostages were gathered up and taken through a far entrance into what looked like a distant room. Mavaria assumed this was some kind of holding area for the hostages. She started to wonder how long it had been for the hostages and whether or not they had been given anything to eat at all. The thought of think of their health sickened her, of course, but it was a valid qeustion.

The time was starting to arrive. She had lnaned to rescue the hostages and that was what she was still planning on doing.

The meeting room was almost empty now which made this a perfect time to try an get into the room with the hostages.

She was about the make her move when she felt a tap on her should. Startled, she turned around to realize Kipper was standing directly behind her. She didn’t know how he had managed to sneak up on her undetected by her like that. She was a far superior being than after all. The concept that it was even possible for such an act seemed unlikely. And there he was. Of cours, of equal question was how Kipper had suck passed the cult emember’s guards as well. This question never crossed mavari’s mind seeing as though she had never gotten passed the first bit of him sneaking up on her.

Mavaria started to ask the question but was stopped by a jesture. He only indicated with a series of vaguely sign language like gestures that there were several cult member sentries aaround and that shey shouldn’t talk here. Still border line impressed with his feat she only agreed with him by nodding.

Kipper then gestured for her to follow back out the entrance where they could talk further.

Kipper lead, Marvaria following behind in her own way. Kipper was quit skilled in getting throug the narrow cave tunnel entrance back to where the tunnel met with the subway tunnel.

As soon as the two of them were safely outside of the door in the subway tunnel and out of ear shot Mavaria only looked at Kipper as if to ask “can I talk now?” to which Kipper only nodded.

Mavaria started to speak but before she could get a syllable out Kipper only tapped a side of his head several times in series causing Mavaria’s eyes to roll up into her head and then collapse.  ¶ 9:23 AM

  Back to top Chapter 9

It wasn’t long after he had left Holster he started playing with the newly found implant. There were things he was keeping from his long time partner but they were important to over all plans. He didn’t like lying or keeping secrets from people but this time he felt it was definitely necessary.

As he ran along the subway tunnel back to the entrance the hostages were taken he began to tap randomly on parts of his face. Were anybody watching they would have thought it looked most ridiculous. He made faces, tapped parts of his face and tried again with a different combination each time. Finally with one particular combination he heard a little bit of a high pitched electronic sound.

Then a series of translucent images flashed in front of his eyes. It was like someone was projecting a computer display into the inside of his pupils. The images were transparent though and really not that distracting. Clearly a piece of technology that had been around long enough it had been nearly perfected. He stopped cold studying what he was seeing. A bunch of text was scrolling past his eyes.

Finally it stopped and an interface which would only be accurately as a human interface in the purest sense was in front of him. After experimenting a bit he discovered that if he concentrated to could move a cursor around to various options on the screen and run them with an eye gesture. It would take practice but the interface was so intuitive he knew he would be going through it effortlessly before too long.

Kipper began to run again, watching where he was going but also trying to practice moving the selection point around the screen that was really his pupil.

At some point the words began to look more like icons, the icons like streaks of light in front of him. As he started down the tunnel after the hostages he had already reduced the series of gestures to a simple eye movement about as close to the sped of his thoughts as an interface could ever get.

He moved through the tunnel effortlessly apparently streaming access schematics on these tunnels from some unknown source and transferring this information to his legs and other forms of that instantaneously.

It did occur to him he may be giving up something in exchange for such a fantastic new feature but the thought only lasted a moment and was forgotten almost as quickly.

Finally he started to come up on an opening in the tunnel. Several yards in front of him was what appeared to be a crudely dug tunnel off from the main tunnel. He looked through his new programming and found he could activate some kind of stealthy mode. He was starting to think he could out maneuver even Mavaria. And there was only one way to find out.

He silently made his way through the newly created crude tunnel to a bigger gathering area. There, nearly invisible was Mavaria staring out at all the cult members and an apparent leader at the head in the middle of a grand speech.

He decided to broadcast a noise to everyone in the room, this would test his ability and see how aware of his new abilities Mavaria was.

Kipper closed his eyes and began to concentrate. Colors started to swirl in his eyes. More and more colors. Now they were moving from one side to the other. One side to the other, a river of colors; each one a thread of some action or concept. At least just let go and like a weight on a pulley suddenly released broadcasted the sound to everyone in the room.

Apparently it worked. The cult leader stopped talking and sent several cult members to investigate. Mavaria didn’t seem terribly concerned with it. Or maybe that wasn’t entirely true.

He decided to approach as silently as she could. When he tapped on her shoulder she turned around, clearly shocked by the concept of, as she had once called him, subjects, able to sneak up on her. After a series of gestures they left the large room in which the meeting was apparently breaking up and found some place to talk.

As soon as they were out of ear shot Mavaria was about to ask something about how he had snuck up on her. He didn’t want to deal with that right at the moment so he tapped side of his head to sequence to knock her out temporarily. Her eyes rolled into the back of her head and she collapsed.

As she did so he caught her and picked her up to carry her. He ran down the tunnel a little ways and sat her down gently.

Placing his thumb and forefinger on either side of her temple he concentrated again, watching the colors fly in front of his eyes. He was trying to carefully get some inside information for her while simultaneously some how waking her up. He wasn’t able to find any information but soon she opened her eyes.

As her eyes came into focus she almost wanted to strike him but resisted the urge.

“You’re ok now,” He said, “just had to try that, you understand?” he was almost nervous about her answer.

She just started at him for a long time. Then explained that wasn’t really necessary and that she had formed a plan though it was probably out dated by now.

For a while they talked about what they would do and how they would get in. She started to summarize what the cult leader had mentioned and was interrupted. Kipper asked her to put her hands on his temples and just try to think of the information. Within seconds of doing so she had inadvertently transferred her entire photographic memory laden account directly to Kipper’s mind.

“How did you learn to do that?” she asked stunned, “It took me quite a while. That you have come to such a level in so little time in quite a surprise.” Her voice took on a much different tone now. It was not that of smug superiority, more of amazement and clearly impressed.

“I don’t know. I just started to tap my head and brought up a menu. I started playing with the interface and it started to go by faster and faster. Finally I concentrated hard enough I started to unlock some abilities I didn’t know I had. Or implants you people put in me while I was asleep.” He explained.

“Oh, this is much more than we did. Your mind is apparently quite adept at the implant we put in. In fact the menu has more of a diagnostic purpose than anything else. You were never meant to see that. You must have a genetic marker we missed. When our deal is done hope we don’t catch you, as there will be many tests to be performed on you.” She said.

Kipper only nodded. The plan, as they had agreed, was to go back in and sneak in to the room where the hostages were and see what was going on. They would then communicate back and decided what to do after that.

No sooner had the two of them agreed on this minimalist of a plan than a large crash followed by the sound of gunfire could be heard from inside the cave.

Kipper and Avaria only looked at each other and took off into the direction of the noise.

As they re-entered the hand made tunnel there was yet more crashing and bangs followed by even more gunfire.

As they entered the cave where the cult was once standing they saw a giant scene of complete anarchy. Cultists were running in every direction and firing in seemingly random directions.

Avaria and Kipper looked over to their left and saw a glimpse of what looked like Holster at a far part of the cave. He was dressed rather oddly and seemed to be completely unnoticed by the members of the cult.

He caught a glimpse of Avaria and Kipper and then turned around and left through a far entrance away from where Kipper and Mavaria were.  ¶ 9:26 AM

  Back to top Chapter 10

As Holster took off in his own direction down the subway tunnel he wondered how the hell he had gotten into this situation. He also wondered if he and Kipper would ever get back to their original task of investigating whatever the caller had been calling about. Unless this was some how related. Perhaps it was.

He jogged at a brisk pace for several minutes and finally came to a corner. He stopped to catch his breath and look around the corner carefully. There appeared to be another tunnel going back into the bwels of the maintenance tunnels of the subway line. If he remembered the blue prints corectly that may take him to where he wanted to go. Or at least in the right direct. He went over to the door and tried to open it only to find it securly locked. He was about to try again when the door suddenly started to unlock and swing open. He immediately took a step back and hid immediately behind the door. Two cult members in trench coats stepped out from the tunnel. The last one out started to close the door back again behind him. It was now or never. Holster jumped out from behind the door did a sweeping kick along the floor and punched both of the men as hard and quickly as he could to knowck them out, all in one fluid motion.

Both cult emembers fell to the ground in a lump.

Kipper then dragged both of them, one by one, over to an alcove out of site of the door. He then stripped the one that most matched his size and dressed up in their clothing as best he could. He didn’t know how well the disguise would work but it was worth a shot. Besides, he still had his hand gun, if it came to that.

He re-entered the tunnel the cult members had come out of wondering if what he was doing was really such a great idea. After all, as soon as they woke up they would probably report him to their leader. They could even sneak up behind him later.

On this thought he went back out and use the belt of the toher trench coat to tie them and to each other as best he could. It was unfortunate he didn’t have any rope to use in this situation.

The belt wouldn’t hold for every long but it would at least slow them down for a little while. He didn’t think it would really be necessary to kill them.

Satisfied with his tie-up job he set off down the tunnel to try and find the cult member lair. He knew from the two members coming out he was probably on the tright track. He again jogged at a pretty good clip not really knowing where he was going but finding clues as to which way to go when he came to a split in the tunnel. Maybe they did that on purpose to make it easier if one of them got lost.

Eventually he found what looked like a crewdly widened tunnel leading to the abandoned portion of the tunnel he remembered. Once inside the opening it was a little easier to find his way because the path looked so worn from use and constant walking.

He followed along for another while when he ran into, almost literally, two more cult members. At first the three of them just staired at each other not sure what to do. Then, in flash, Holster took the heel of his palm to both their noses followed by several punches, knocking them out.

These two he didn’t really have any place to store them so he just positioned in the tunnel like they had fallen asleep on the job.

Holster continued jogging along for another quarter mile and finally came to a break in the path. Just ahead of him was what looked like a large meeting room. He looked out into it and saw all the people as well as what looked like another room with several people standing in front of it.

That must be where the hostages are being held, he thought. He looked across from him, still hidden, and saw Kipper sneaking up behind Mavaria. Holster didn’t think this was possible but he some how did it. The two of them looked at each other and then left, unnoticed.

Everyone in the room had turned at one point as if something was heard in the distance. Holster had not heard anything, which he thought was strange.

Once Kipper and Mavaria had left the room Kipper stayed and studied the environment for a while trying to decide what to do next. With all the confusion he had forgotten he could have simply communicated with the both of them through the newly found epidermal implants.

The room used for the meeting was now empty except for a few. The eazle was still in the same place with the same notes on it conveniently dsiplayed out for everone to see.

Holster was looking down over an embankment onto the meeting room floor. The two entrances that Holster, Kipper and Mavaria had used thus far were several feet above the rest of the floor and there was a walk way down to the meeting floor. There was then the crudely made stage a bit lefted up from the floor.

On several sides of the this room on the lower elvel were some other doors leading off to side passages. Diagonally from where holster was and below him was the room he thrhought all the hostages had been taken.

He was trying to think of a way to create a distraction when a sudden over whelming feeling of nasgia came over him. He felt dizzy for a moent and then felt better and thought nothing of it.

Then a plan started to come to him suddenly and most assuredly. As a bonus it would most certainly attract the attention of Kipper and Mavaria and allow them to finally get out of this place.

The plan came from a glimpse of another side room. It seemed to contain a bunch of ammunition and other supplis. All he would have to do is figure out a way to get down to the room and cuase an explosion and use the resulting anarchy to find the hostages or at least disrupt whatever plan they cultists apparently had long enough for them to learn more informaiton.

Looking at the cult members haircuts and the way they all seemed to have no facial expressions at all he knew he would have trouble blending in. But he would try anyway. Maybe they wouldn't notice if they were too focused on their own tasks.

He waited around a corner for some group of cultists to walk by. After several minutes a whole group did. Walking almost in lockstep and none of thm saying a word. At the appropriate time came out from behind his corner spot and fell into line behind the rest of the group.

He tried to walk in lockstep behind them as best he could and the rest didn't seem to notice. After a few feet he slipped away from them into a doorway and out of site. Holster then carefully slipped into the room with what looked like ammunition. And he was right, it was amunition. Now all he had to do was figure out some way to igniteeit or turn it into some kind of trap.

The ammunition was stored in large barrels and on a series of selving units not unlike that they found in the old storage closet. He looked around a bit and found what looked like an old paper bag. He then looked rond some more and found a lot cache of shotgun shells. If the works of fiction he had in his life were any indicator he could the gun powerder used int he shotgun shells to make either an explosion or at least some fireworks that would cause some kind of chaos.

The only other question was what to do with that chaos once it was caused. The only thing he could think to do was go back up to the entrance where he started and wait for Kipper and Mavaria to come back in. That seemed like a really bad plan but he was passed trying to think of something better for now. He was sure that Kipper and Mavaria would come up with a much better plan.

Then more details of the plan started to occurt to him. He would empty some gun powerder into the paper bag then also put some live ammunition in the paper bag. He would then light the paper bag on fire and put it in a crate or barrel and run back up the pathy way to where he had come in. After what he hope would be seeral seconds the ammunition would start to explod and go off which cause a lot fhte cults to start running in every direction. He would have to around the corner in some instances but he was fairly certain he would be away from any kind of chance of being hit with a stray projectile.

He began by dumping some of the shells into the bag. Then he started to put other ammunition into the bag. Some more shells and some much heavier looking shells that he never seen before. Then he found what looked like a hand grenade though it was unlike anything he had ever seen. It wouldn't hurt anything to try it in any case. He left the munitions room and went about finding a barrel or crate to put the bag in.

He placed the bag in a barrel very carefully and then took out the grenade. He pulled the pin, dropped it in the barrel and then started moving away from the barrel as quickly as he possibly could. As soon as he got back to the spot he decided he would be taking cover he bent down a little.

Not soon after there was a series of explosions and what could only described as gun fire coming from the barrel. With all the ricochets it was actually quite diffuclt to tell where the explosions and gun fire like noises were actually coming from.

As soon as the explosions started the cult members seemed to suddently jump to life. Formally expressionless faces suddenly came to life as some individuals shouted orders while others started to set up barricades and prepare for anything that might be about to happen. It was almost comical that all of them would be responding to something like Holster's little prank involving a little gun powder.

About this time Kipper and Mavaria came back in and saw him standing on the oppisite side just smiling.

Just then another explosion went off as the heat of the fire started in the barrel started to spread to the ammunition room. Holster only communicated to Kipper and Mavaria that they should get out there rather than risk the hostages getting injured with his mind. He also told them to come over to him and that this would be the best way to get out. Not having much choice Kipper and Mavaria ran over to him and followed him out the way Holster had come in.

As they ran down the tunnel explosions continued to off in the distance. None of them knew what was really going on at that cult meeting but some how all three of them knew they would find out one way or the other.

The three of them started to communicate through their minds as they ran along through the tunnels. They were trying to run as quickly as they could in the dim lighting so the conversation wasn't the most robust as the running took some concentration.

Kipper and Mavaria obviously wanted to know what the hell had happened and why he had done what he did. He did his best to try and explain his reasoning for making the diversion. Mavaria and Kipper were still not very happ about it but agreed anyway to discuss it once they were clear.

At last they reached the end of the tunnels and came out into the subway tunnel. They could hear yet another subway coming down the line. Holster, who was in the lead, stopped just short of the subway tunnel, hold up his hand in a gesture of suggesting they stop where they were.

He took of the trenchcoat he had borrwed, taking mental note that he didn't remember seeing the two cult members on his way back out of the tunnels, and flinged it as best he could in the shape of a person out the opening. The coat was immediately shot up by waiting gunman.

Kipper tapped his should and grabbed Mavaria's attention which was already on him. He used several hand gestures to indicate he wanted the two them to just wait a minute or two and closed his. He clasped his hands in front of himself, dropped his head, and seemed to go into a deep trance like state. Several seconds passed and there was the loud sounds as the subway passed. Just beyond the sound of the subway passing by was another sound. It almost sounded to Holster like a group of men gurgling and chocking. One of them screamed. Then silence as the subway drew away into the distance.

When Kipper opened his eyes again his pupils were completely white all over. Holster stared at him, dumb founded and started to say something. He stopped with a hand gesture from Kipper.

Kipper seemed to still be trying to sense something. Several minutes went by but Holster and Mavaria just stood in front of Kipper silently waiting. Finally, Kipper closed his eyes again and shook his head back and forth a couple times. When he opened his eyes again there were back to the more familiar pupiled state.

"Lets go," he said, "I have knocked out any persuers temporarirly. We will be safe for about an hour. Lets get back to the street." He said.

Mavaria and Holster just looked at each other as if expecting to get an explanation from the other but said nothing. Kipper turned around and left out the tunnel and started walking in the direction of what he knew was a subway station. Holster and Mavaria just followed behind.  ¶ 9:28 AM

  Back to top Chapter 11

The subway station turned out to be a bit further than they had anticipated. None of them seemed to mind since they didn't see the need to run any longer and they certainly had a lot of catching up to do.

Kipper did the best he could to try and explain how he had accessed the maintance mode of the implants some how even though that wasn't supposed to be possible. He had offered to simply show them by puting his hands on their temples and transfering the concepts by thoughts but Holster and Mavaria both declined the offer. For some reason they just didn't want that kind of interacting with their minds without really knowing what was happening.

Kipper explained the menu, how he learned how to navigate the menus and how he the information would go by so fast it was just a solid stream of colors flashing in front of his closed eyes. Holster thought maybe he had had some kind of embelism but kept his comment to himself. Sure he had only barely learned how to communicate with the others by tapping his face but that didn't mean he was bitter. Or maybe it did.

The three of them climbed the stairs leading up to the street. It was pitch black outside and the streets seemed deserted. Holster started to wonder what time it was. Before he could even ask Kipper said it was one in the morning. They had been in that tunnel for a lot longer than he thought. He suddenly felt very tired and very hungry, remembering the last time he had something to eat was at the diner near the crime scene. That seemed like such a long time ago now for some reason. He had been transported to another universe or dimension or whatever since then. Experimented on, implanted with who knew what and then made to run around underground tunnels making trouble for cult members.

"Kipper, I am going to go and find an all night taco stand and find a bath room. What do you say we meet some where in an hour?" He sugegsted.

"Yes, that could be acceptable. Why don't we just meet back here in one hour. Mavaria, what are you going to do?" Kipper said looking over and Mavaria.

"I do not require the same things as you humans do. I am going to find some place quiet and meditate. I will be back here in an hour." She said, not sounding like she really cared that much.

"What about you Kipper?" Holster asked.

"I don't know. I will relax and try and learn some more things about my new powers. Or abilities from the implant. Whatever." He said.

"Why don't you come with me? I know even with your fancy implant abilities you still gotta eat, right?" Holster asked.

"Yes, alright fine." Kipper said.

With that Mavaria started walking off down the street to find a place to meditate. Holster and Kipper set about trying to hail a cab so they could find that taco stand. The two of them started walking in the opposite direction of Mavaria not knowing or caring if she could really deal with what would obviously be an alient culture to her. It would seem logical to assume if she had suvived in such a way for this long she could probably survive this city without much of a problem.

As the Holster and Kipper walked along the street waiting for a cab to heil they started to talk about all that had happened up to this point. Holster started to wonder further about the anonymous caller and why Mavaria had shown ope in the first place. Kipper mostly listened to these questions and musings not really feeling like talking at the moment.

Holster also wondered out loud about how long they had been at the place Mavaria had apparently taken them off to. Where had it been? Why had they been taken there? And how much time had passed?

To this Kipper pointed out that they had been taken away to some other time and place but that Mavaria had returned them to a point in time or a few minutes after she had originally taken them. He didn't go into details as how he knew this and Holster didn't ask.

Holster then started to wonder why they been chosen and if this whole series of events had some how been manipulated into hapening by the mad scientist they had discovered was back in twon having some how survived his accident.

Kipper said he thought it was unlikely but after Mavarias kidnapping of them he supposed anything was possible.

Holster, clearly in the mood for talking desite the lack of interest on Kipper's part, then wondered abou that object they had seen in the sky. Kipper offered no opinion of ths one way or the other.

Finally a taxi went by and Holster whilstled loudly to get the driver's attention. The taxi immediately pulled over to the side of the road to let them in. Holster and Kipper both got in the back and asked the driver to take them to the nearest taco stand that was open this time of night. The driver pushed the meter and started on the way.

The taxi was playing some kind of wierd music neither of Holster nor Kipper had ever heard before. It was only a few minutes and they were let out at Stan's all night taco stand, a small hole in the kind of place that looked and smelled extremely dirty. But Holster and Kipper didn't particular mind all that.

Holster and Kipper each ordered several tacos a piece and and sat down to wait for the order.

Kipper sat down and closed his hands in front of him, then closed his eyes. He looked like he was concentrating on something but at the same time relaxed and at ease. Almost like he was meditating. With nothing better to do Holster just sat down and looked out to the horizon letting his mind wander.

The single employee running the stand called out that the order was ready. Holster got up and retrived the tray with their tacos on it. He was about to say something about that when Kipper only said thanks and opened his eyes.

The two of them ate in selence, trying not to think about the quility of the ingrediants or how healthy this meal may or may not be. Several minutes passed when in the distance some bright multi-colored lights started to flash in the sky. The light didn't look so much like spot lights as they did the northern lights that are supposed to appear every year in the northern pole of the planet.

The lights got brighter and brighter and displayed on the sky almost illuminating it.

The lights were shining down from what looked like strands of ribbons of light moving and slowly dancing about. Holster and Kipper just sat, gaping stairing at this strange behavior they had never experienced before.

Finally, Kipper broke the silence and suggested they finish eating and perhaps investigate. Holster agreed it was time to leave and got up.

The two of them left the taco stand and started walking twoard the lights, almost in a trance. Kipper stoped a moment and told Holster that he wanted to try and communicate with Mavaria to see if she knew anything. For all the two of them knew she was the one who was causing the lights. Before Holster could say anything one way or the other Kipper closped his hands togther and closed his eyes already concentrating on trying to communicate with Mavaria.

After a moment or so his eyes started to shut even harder andhe looked like he was struggling with something. His hands started to be clasped even tighter than they were before and he looked like he was about to break out in a cold sweat. Holster just watched and started at him in mild annoyance and impatience. It seemed to him Kipper was either going to communicate with Mavaria or he wasn't. What was with all the intensity of the process?

Any longer and he would have spoken up. Just as he was thinking thiese things Kipper was suddenly almost thrown back, falling backwards uncerimoniously and hitting the ground. With a start he looked up at Holster.

"We may have a problem," he began, "Mavaria, she's done something. We must get to her right away." he said.

Holster offered a hand to help him up but was refused.

"What? What the hell is going on Kipper?" He asked.

"There's no time Holster. Just follow me and try and keep up. We'll take a taxi if one comes along but for now we just have to run and get to her quickly." he said.

The two of them started jogging along the street trying to reach her. Holster knew he proably wasn't going to be able to keep up but he would try as best he could to keep up with Kipper. He was just too tired and exchasted from everything that had happened already. He hadn't even sleped in he didn't know how long.

Kipper for some reason seemed to be runing along at a god pace and hardly even winded at all. Perhaps it was the years of difference in their age or maybe it was some function Kipper had found in in that implant interface of his. Whatever the reason he knew he wasn't going to be able to keep up with Kipper for long.

Holster started to slow.

"Come on Holster, we have to get to her." Kipper said, a tinge of annoyance in his voice.

"I...I don't think I can keep up with your pace Kipper. It's just too much. I'll only slow you down anyway. Let me catch my breath and find a cab driver willing to drive me toward the lights as opposed to away and I will meet ou there." he said, trying to catch his breath.

Kipper stopped and looked at him for a moment, looked like he was about to say something and then seemed to think better of the idea.

"Ok, you do that. I will communicate back to you if you are needed some place else." Kipper said at last.

With this he took off down the street and was gone into the distance within moments.

Alone, in the dark of night on some street corner Holster started to wonder if he had made the right decision. Upon looking up again at what looked a lot like northern lights he decided that it was.

He walked along the street looking up at the tall buildings looming over him and trying to imagine how in the world Mavaria or anyone or thing else could have possibly made such a sight. He also wondered why there seemed to be so few people. Even in the middle of the night there whould be a little bit of activity some where in the distance. Traffic or something. This seemed strange some how to Holster but he did not know what it meant.

He started to think about the old nemesis, the doctor he and Kipper had come across all those years ago finally defeating. Or they they thought they had defeated him.

He had used a strange symbol at the scense of al his crimes. It looked like a circle with several straight lines inside, almost like an octogon or something. And in inside the series of straight lilnes was what he had always assumed to be an abstract syymbol that looked a lot like a flower, a rose perhaps but not quite. Maybe his uncreative mind just wasn't seeing the obvious. The symbol was always colored yellow for some reason.

The doctor had been a very charasmatic man, able to easily draw many people to him seemingly with no effort. This he had used to his advantage even as a good person before the incident..

The "incident" itself was still something of a mystery to Holster and Kipper. All they really knew was that something in him had changed and after that he had moved out the city and started up a large cult following of followers.

There, like so many other successful cult leaders he had used social pressures to get money and derive all his power from his followers. Eventually he had the followers so brainwashed and believing whatever he told them all that he convinced what were other wise peaceful people to start training with firearms.

This is when the good doctor formally attracted the attention of law enforcement and the wrong people started to ask questions. Questions the good doctor didn't want asked. That was when he broke out the special sugar based red drink.

All his followers drank the official drink as they were told and almost all them died from it. This even was a big scandal around that time but among a small contingent of the populace caused a smaller cult following to form, ironic considering it was a scandal involving a cult in the first place.

Perhaps the men in the trench coats were actually a new form of that original cult or some how related to the small cult following.

The lights ahead of him were still dancing around and had even seemed to get brighter and grow in intensity. He could hear some sounds now, perhaps a crowd was forming ahead of him.

He was starting to catch his breath and was feeling a lot stronger now. He thought about trying to contact Kipper but thought better of it. If there was anything vital Kipper and his amazing abilities would certainly have contacted him already. Besides, if the lights in the sky meant something ominous or otherwise bad he just assumed not hear about until much, much later.

He walked for another ten minutes until he came to an intersection, as lifeless as the rest of them, and stopped a moment. He looked both ways for no particular reason before continuing. As he crossed a wave a nasuia came over him. When he got to the other side he sat down on the side walk and rested another moment. Was there something about where he was that made him feel that way or did he just happen to feel that way when he got there? Perhaps it was the tacos not agreeing with him.

After a moment he got back up and continued walking towards the lights. Afte several more blocks the question of all the people and cars started become quite apparent. The number of parked cars and people also walking toward the lights increased with each building he passed. Finally he could see the intersection that was directly below the lights. There p