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 people every where just stairing up at them like they were in some kind of trance, totally devoid of thought.

Holster arrived where all the people were, stairing up at the lights and started to look around for Mavaria or Kipper but didn't see them.

It was time to use his newly found communciations skill. He used the sequence of taps on his head to activate the epidermal implant.

"Kipper, Mavaria...do you read me? Are you there...Over." He waited for a response but was returned only with silence.

He tried again trying to reach them. He waited several minutes afterwards this time. He was about to try it a third time, starting to wonder if he was doing it right when a strange voice entered head.

"Ah, you must be the third," the voice said, "what do you want? Your friends? They said you would come for them. I see you got my message. I wasn't sure you fall for that phone..." the mysterious voice was interupted. For a moment. When it continued the tone was noticably different.

"Yes, come and get them if you woud like. We have no..." The voice was interrupted again. The pause this time was a few seconds longer than the first time. When the voice continued again the attention of the owner seemed distracted.

"We are on the top floor of the building directly across the street from you. The one..with the...statue...who are you..what are you doing?!" This time the voice was cut off much more harshly. The manner in which it was cut off made Holster wonder how the owner of the voice was actually communciating with him. Was there electronic equipment that allowed for broacasting directly into a person's head? That would make sense since it was likely a radio wave technology to begin with. This possiblity had never occured to him.

He waited another a minute or so, trying to figure out what he was going to do, and finally started crossing the street weaving in and out of the large number of people still standing around stairing up at the lights. Holster resisted the urge to look up with them. He didn't know why or how these people had become so transfixed on the lights or why he wasn't also a mindless person stairing up as well but he didn't want to risk it happening.

He got to the other side of the street and tried the door: it was locked. He went down th block a couple yards to another door, this was locked as well. Not sure what to do next he followed along the building until he came to an alley that ran along the side of it. He started to go down the alley looking for a service entrance or back door. A parking garage, something that would allow him access.

It did occur to him not getting in might be a good thing since this was most assuredly supposed to be a trap. By the sound of the voice in his head the springers of this theoretical trap had problems of their own. Besides, with Kipper's newly found powers that seemed a lot like that of a super hero Holster would guess Kipper was more than capable of taking care of himself.

Finally, on the far side of the enormous building, he found a small service door that was apparently unlocked. Perhaps he was being manipulated into using this small door. He had to be cautious.

Still, he didn't see that he had much choice. With a sigh he gathered up his strength and with all he strength and body wait kicked the door down as hard as he could and immediately jumped to one side of the door jam.  ¶ 9:30 AM

  Back to top Chapter 12

She watched as Holster and Kipper walked away into the night to find something to eat. She had given them some line about needing to rest or meditate or some such drivel. She just needed to get away from them for her own purposes. She really required no rest and very little intake of the form the two subjects called 'food'. She also required very little rest. In the form of mediation or otherwise. She could stay awake for days longer if she had to with no noticable drop in enery level. The only thing that might deteriate for an extended period with no rest was her various talents both heriditary and from various implants she had recieved.

She started to walk in the oppisite direction. Slowly at first then faster and faster. Finally she was at a run, trying to get away from Holster and Kipper as quickly as possible. She didn't know if she would be back to their meeting place at the appointed time in an hour or not and she didn't really care.

For now her only real worry was find a way of communicating back to her superior on the groups progress. She would not tell her superior about the deal she had made, at least not yet.

After what must have been several blocks of a solid run she started to slow down and finally stopped. Looking around she saw the tallest building around across the street from her. This building, she theorized, could be used to open a rip in time and space at least large enough to send a short burst communication through. It would be a very short message, only requiring the rip in space to exist a second or so. Such rips were very dangerous to both dimesions involved and could have far reaching concequences.

She got across the street and started to look for a way into the builidng. Upon finding the first door locked she started to walk down the block to the next door when she realized she didn't have to play by the rules of this puny little world if she didn't want to. She closed her eyes, started to regulate her breathing and turned her palm face up to access a panel she had on her right hand wrist. She clapsed her right hand rist entirely with her left hand and started to see options in front of her eyes. A moment later she was starting phase in and out of existance in the current dimension's plane. Were anyone there to see it they would have said it looked like she was starting to turn trasparent then back to opaque then transparent again in a pattern, almost like a heart beat.

Finally, she disapeared entirely only to, moments later, re-appear on the roof the the building she had been standing in front of only a moment earlier.

That had worked better than even she had expected. Now the only task left was to cause the rip and send the message. But first she would have to write the short message to be sent.

Something stating that she was in the world the subjects had come from and that everything was operating within normal parameters. This wasn't entire true since the subject known as Kipper had not only accessed his implant and learned how to use it but actually broken into the debug functionality and of the transplant to far exceed any expectations they could have possibly foreseen. For a moment she thought that perhaps mentioning this would only raise still further uncomfortable questions from the other end. Questions she did not want to think about answering just yet.

On the other hand her superiors would surely find this information out at some point in the future. At that time the question of why she apparently held back would also be a rather awkward one.

In the she decided on a compromise: she would mention the great exceeded expectations of the subject known as Kipper and that his level of understanding could have significant circumstances in the future but not go into great details about what that meant or just how far he had come in such a short time. This amount of information would give the appearance of full disclosure while at the same time not giving away so much information as to warrent what she would consider inconvenient questions.

She again wrapped her left hand around her right hand wrist and closed her eyes. Using her mind and a high level of concentration she encoded the message on a storage location powered by the circulatory system of her body and marked it with a "send this immediately" flag, a trick she had learned on her own.

Now the only task left was to set up the rip in time space so the message could be sent. Using her right hand, she tapped the top of her left hand in several places. Within seconds a utility belt that was attached her person but slightly out of face from her so as to be completely without mass yet still exist near her phased into her same plane. At the same time it did so she swung around to take the belt off and place it on the ground the smooth surface of the roof of the building.

She started taking the parts out of the differente compartments of the belt and setting up what a native to this world would have described as a parabolic dish with several more parabolic dishes of a much smaller size on several sides. All the dishes were pointing at slightly different angles and all were pointing across the street in the direction of the street she had crossed when first getting to the top of this building.

She connected her power supply units, small devices that simply attached to other units when placed near one another. With an adjustment they could made to be almost any shape including round or rectangular or even cyndrillical. She placed four power units next to each other and put in the setting to make them all cube shaped. They all attached together to make themselves act as a single unit and power on the communication dish array.

She started to quickly make some adjustments on an included interface that the array included. The settings had to absolutely perfect or a number of less than desirable concequences could result. The array interface was relatively intuitive and friendly to users in that she enter in the size and duration of the rip she wanted to make along with some settings for what she wanted to do with it. There was still some rather complex mathematical calculations that had to be entered which contained very little margin for error.

As always she was very self confident and entered in all the caclulations extremely quickly and perfectly while only half paying attention to what she ws doing. She knew the calculations were perfect. She expected the calculations to be perfect. The possibility of the calculations some not being perfect was the closest she would have known to laughable (had someone explained the concept of laughable to her).

No, the calculations would be perfect and perfect on the very first try as they always were. When she was done with the calculations she signaled that she was sure she wanted to continue without checking her work at all. Finally she pushed section of the interface indicating she wanted to rip process to start.

With a low him the array kicked into activity. The air around the array started to noticably simmer and waffle like heat eminating of a hot hiway. Within moments a brilliant multi-colored shape appeared, hanging in the air. The shape was only about three feet high and about six inches wide in more of an eliptical shape.  ¶ 9:32 AM

  Back to top The shape was almost transparent and seemed to be pulsating, almost breathing on its own.

With a few gestures and thoughts to her wrist Mavaria was able to send the message off. The only thing left to do was shut the rip down and pack up the array. As she went to do this a creature she had never seen before fluttered and flow away causing the slightest bit of a distraction. In this very small moment of broken concentration she inadvertantly moved her hand slightly to one side, pressing the wrong button only barely enough for it to register.

This caused her to further lose her focus, swinging her hand carelessly and hitting the array, if only slightly. The first rather small rip was faiding away but a new, much larger one was now starting directly over the street below. But this one was growing at an alarming rate. The rip expanded in all directions and in intensity.

She immediately started to try and fix the cause of the much larger rip but could not get it to stop growing or close even slightly. She started pressing the different buttons of the interface faster anr and faster. She was concentrating and pushing buttons so quickly an observer would think the speed of her her hands was quite literally impossible. For her such speed was simply a necessity and impossible meant very little to her. The speed of her hands did require a lot of mental energy and concentration to maintain.

As Mavaria was moving her hands at incredible speed, unknown to her, was a figure standing at the doorway to the roof, the doorway mere normal people native to this world have to use. He had been standing there for quite a while, just observing her. Wondering who she was and why she was dressed in such a way. That a giant rift in time and space was opening and getting wider and increasing in intesity he hardly noticed.

In her several minutes of working feverishly to try and close or otherwise bring the rip under control she had only barely been able to make sure the rip was of no particular threat to other side of the rip. The visibility was still there unforunately and she was still strugglying to make it shrink or other wise effect the state of it at all. She knew this would attract on lookers and gawkers if it was open any longer, excactly the opposite what she had intended with the rip in the first place.

Already the first curious onlookers were starting to show up, just stairing at it. Had she known about deer and thier tendency to stare into headlights she would have made the comparison.

No sooner had she noticed the steadily increasing number of onlookers than she was startled by a tap on her shoulder. She went from startled to expecting to see Kipper standing behind her in less than a second. This made her still more startled when she realized it was a figure she in fact did recognize as a former coworker of hers.

As she stared at him, now she herself somewhat resembling that of a deer in some sort of headlights, she followed him with out a second that as he gestured her to follow him through the doorway and back into the building.

It was at just this time, as the door to the rooftop access door was closing behind Mavaria and the mystery figure, that Kipper was using his abilities to materialize himself on the roof of the building.  ¶ 9:33 AM

  Back to top Chapter 13

As Kipper ran off into the distance he started to wonder if Holster would be alright on his own. Of course he would. Holster could take care of himself. After all, Holster had survived before Kipper had come along it was not that much of a stretch to say as much.

These thoughts were quickly replaced with the intense concentration required to maintain his running along the dark streets trying to get to the intense lights in the sky. He didn't know what he would find when he got there nor what he would do about whatever he did find.

Several minutes went by of his intense running before he started to slow down. He had learned to control his breathing so it wasn't so exhasting on him but he wanted to maintain as much energy as possible. In fact he was barely winded from the running at all.

Several more blocks at this slower speed later he arrived over the ever increasing in size glowing cluster of lights that could now be seen from all over the city. Already, he noticed, random members of the public were starting to show up and just stare up like turkeys with their mouths opened waiting to be drowned by rain. All the people Kipper saw had the most blank look on their face as they staired up at the lights.

Kipper started to look around for the source of the lights. Though they really didn't seem to be posing any threat or hurting anyone. Just attracting the attention of a large number of people. Still, when mysterious lights appear above a specific part of a large city out of no where in the middle of the night it is not usually a good thing.

Of course he had already thought of the obvious: that Mavaria was responsible in some way for the lights and may or may not have her own agenda.

He looked at the lights and around at all the buildings around them. They seemed a little closer to the tallest building in this particular intersection. The only question now was how he was going to get up on the roof to investigate. That seemed like the most likley place where the Mavaria or whatever source of the lights would be for some reason. But first, he would try and communicate with her with his implant.

He closed his eyes real tight and started to concentrate. He nad long since stopped needing to initialize the communicatoration by touching his face, he just thought about it really hard and accessed his implant. DEeper and eeper into his mind he went, reaching out looking, calling to her. He could almost feel her presense nearby but it was almost like she was blocking out all other stimulii on purpose while concentrating on something else.

Several minutes of this passed and finally he was able to gather enough that he knew she was nearby, probbly on top the very building he had been looking at, and her mind was heavinly occupied by something.

If she was trying to get rid of the lights that is exactly what he thought she should be doing. But what was taking so long and where the lights came from and what purpose they erved were all questions he wanted answers to.

Perhaps she and everyone in proximity to the lights were in danger. Perahps she needed help getting rid of the lights. If this was high prority he didn't have time he had to get up to that roof and right now. But how could he do that. There was no need to try the doros, he knew that they would surely be all locked at this time of night.

Speaking of which what time was it right now anyway? He didn't know. The sun didn't look even close to coming up so he knew it must still be early. Two or three o'clock in the morning perahps.

If the situation was serious, and he more reasons to think that then anything else, he had to get up to the roof in a hurry. He decided to close his eyes once again and this time he would keep concentrating far past what he normally did and go much deeper into the deug menu then he ever had. This time he would will himself up to the top of the building no matter what it took.

He closed his eyes and started concentrating. He accessed the menus, saw them blur into a river of color mixtures and swirl in random patterns. Faster and faster they all swirled and danced against his closed eye lids.

THen he pushed ever furhter, past the colors, through the colors, deep into his mind, where powers and abilities he didn't know he had were hiding.

In the consious world he hand were alled into fists and squeezing tighter and tighter almost to the point of breaking his fingers. He didn't notice the pain, he was past that. Beads of sweat started to break out on his forehead. His muscles started to weaken from being stretched for such a long time.

Then, suddenly, it happened. The impossible happened. Kipper, the normal person from a common plane of existance, dematarialized only to rematerialize exactly where he had visualized moments before.

As first he didn't even have any way to know this had happened. He was still in his intense concentration for several moments after the materialization. Then, he started to notice different sensations. He started to notice a light breeze and a slight difference in air pressure. He noticed a difference in the sound of the air moving over and between the buildings of the city. He started to realize that he was in fact on TOP of a building and not on the street below.

Finally, he opened his eyes. A wave of nausia hit him for a moment and then he started to regain his balance. He vision was blurry but quickly coming into focus. He saw a normal looking buiilding roof typical of what you would find on top of building in a city like this one. As he scanned around to look in the direction of the lights he aw what he could have only described as an alient device. For some reason it had a parabolic dish orbited by several other parabolic dishes around, and all of them were pointing toward the light phenomina. The lights themselves looked much different from this angle then they did from below. In fact they seemed to almost take on an organic look and feel to them. He couldn't really describe how it looked but it was definately a strange sensation to be stair into these lights in such a fashion.

He also noticed a small panel with a series of designs all around itflashing in different patterns. He had never seen anything quite like it. He had no doubt given his implant and newly found talens he could probably started using such an interface pretty much immediately. But this was not the time or place for such excusions. He ahd tofind Mavaria aftera all.

Or did he? She could ikely take of ehrslef, wherever she was. He would likely be much better off interfacing with this equipment and getting rid of these damned hypnoticc lights.

He thought about it a moment and decided he would try and find Mavaria. She wouldn't focus that hard on a task like getting rid lights caused by some equipment she had caused and then just stop midway through without a good reason. Something in this whole siutation just didn't make sense.

No sooner had he thought of this prospect then Holster climbed up a ladder and hopped onto the roof.

"Hey buddy, you are up here already, good. Where is Mavaria...and what is THAT?" He asked.

"Hi. I dont' know. and I am not sure what it is but I am most certain it caused these suspecious looking lights here. I'm not sure what to make of these parabolic dishes either." He answered.

The two of them, together again, discussed their next step and decided between the two of them that it would be best to find Mavaria before doing anything else and that she would likely be some where in that very building.

Kipper and Holster walked around the parabolic dish contraption and headed to the rooftop door. Holster wasn't sure if the door would be locked. He tried the knob and to his surprise it was open. The two of the started down the stairs into the building.  ¶ 9:34 AM

  Back to top Chapter 14

As Holster and Kipper descended down the stairs, Kipper was already starting to wonder if he had made the right decision about leaving the lights as they were there. Sure, the lights seemed stable and he didn't know enough to be sure he wouldn't make things worse but he was still confident he could have made them disapear had he tried hard enough.

The stairway going down in the the building was poorly lit, though Kipper seemed to adjust to what little light there was with reltive ease. At the bottom of the stairs was another door to access the building. This door was unlcoked as well and the two of them went through.

The top floor of the building with access to the roof was actually more of a maintenance floor with different equipment and ladders and other tools for maintaining the building. Holster and Kipper wandered around a bit as quietly as they culd until they found the fire escape leading down to the rest of the building. The floor of the building that was intended for office worker employees of the company who owned the building was just a long series of cubicles as far as either of them could see. Neither of them thought it likely that Mavaria was any where on this floor but the two of them wandered up and down the isles a while searching for her.

Holster and Kipper split up to the two different sides of the room to start looking through the isles one by one. By the time the two of them had covered the whole room and met in the center isle the consensus was rather obvious they were going to need a much faster method of searching through all the floors of the building.

Looking around, Holster realized there was a security camera in one of the corners of the room. Realizing this, and that no security guards had come up to confront them, he suggeted they find the room that controled the security system they could go floor by floor to see where she was currently. Now it was just a matter of trying to find that security room.

Kipper thought a moment and then gestured Holster follow him over to the nearest security camera. He looked up at the curved two way mirror hiding the camera and continued to stare a moment. Then he went back down a couple isles. Holster wondered what was going on but soon realized as Kipper came walking back moments later with a step stool. He placed the stool directly below the mirror hiding the camera and stood up on the stool. Carefully, he detached the parabolic mirror from the wall and handed it down to Holster who took it, placing the mirror on a nearby desk.

Kipper was still looking up at the now bear and showing security camera as if studying it. This went on for what Holster considered an awkward amount of time. He was about to say something when Kipper interrupted.

"I think I'm going to try something. I have no idea if it is possible or if I can do it but I am going to try it anyway. You may want to stand back. Don't try and help unless you really see me ask for it. In fact stay on this floor but keep looking for a room that could used to monitor the building." He was talking in a tone Holster didn't like. After all, Holster was not really the sidekick.

"Ok, but are you going to do exactly? Should I stand by with a fire extinguisher?" He ask half rhetorically.

"Just stand back, alright?" Kipper responded ignoring the sarcasm.

Turning his attention back to the camera he placed a hand on either side of it as if he was trying to form some kind of relationship with it. He closed eyes and was clearly back to doing his concentration.

Holster, tired of seeing this scene again, decided to take Kipper's advise and explore the floor they were on. Though why he should bother staying on this floor he didn't know.

Holster walked down a few more of the same isles he had seen, slower this time skimming over each of the cubicles as he moved along. Assuming he probably wasn't going to find anything he moved to the periphery of the cubicle forest and found a few hallways. They all seemed to lead back to more private offices and bathrooms.

He kept wandering along, seeing a kitchenette and some other normal office kinds of rooms and finally came to an unmarked door with no sign on it. He staired at it a moment wondering what thing of relevance could possibly be behind it. Why would a company not even bother labeling a door? Even if it was for some janitorial supplies it should still have a sign on it of some kind.

His curiousity had officially got the best of him. He to had know what was behind that door. First he tried the door knob fully expecting it to be locked, which it was. Then he started searching for something to break through the door knob or knock down the door.

He looked back down the hall and found an axe clearly intended for use by fire fighters. He broke the glass protecting and took it out of the brackets holding it up. He then went over to the door and started to try and decide the best way of breaking in to it.

First he thought he would try swinging the axe and breaking the knob off then it would be a matter of knocking the rest of the fixture of the knob off the door so he could get in. He was about to swing the axe at the knob in a downward motion as hard as he could when he heard a voice in his head.

The voice belonged to Kipper. Kipper told Holster to stop what he was doing and come back to him. Holster, using the obscure face touches to activate his implant, told him he needed to look behind this door first. Kipper was quite insistent he come back to him right at the moment as quick as he could.

With a clear feeling of annoyance, Holster dropped the axe in place and started to walk back to where he had left Kipper.

When he arrived Kipper was still standing in the same place stairing at camera most intently.

"What was so important, Kipper?" Holster asked.
"I think I have this figured out. I'm going to use my implant to interface with the security system and create a three dimensional map of the whole building." He said.
"So why didn't you just do that and then come and find me or use the implant to call me over then?" Holster asked.
"I wanted you be here in case anything happens. Besides, we not be alone. I won't exactly be able to defend myself if someone wants to sneak up behind me." Kipper pointed out.
"Oh, well how long is this going to take then?" Holster asked, starting to be intrigued.
"I don't know. It may take a couple minutes or mere seconds. I just don't know." He said.

With that Kipper closed his eyes again and placed either hand on the sides of the camera. Much like he did before he concentraded harder and harder, deeper and deeper into this own mind he went. This time he wasn't trying to will himself to another place in time and space he was trying to act as a conduit to electronic circuitry. As needing to make a different turn at a fork in a road he accessed another part of the implant. A different set of images he had never seen before came up and and seemed to move toward him in some subtle way. It was almost like a giant circuit board blanket was moving toward him with every intention of wrapping itself entirely around his mind and suffocating it him. He believed it could it. With an effort he started to move away from it.

Then something else which had never happened to him in a one his deep trance like states started to happen: he felt himself taking a physical form in his own mind. Almost like a virtual existance inside a computer system. In this case a hybrid of a computer system and his regular old analog mind but it was pretty much the same thing.

He could feel his body solidifying in his mind, as if a swarm of particles were all rushing together to slowly form him. The sensation was like nothing he had ever felt, and a little tingly. It was like some one were dumping a large amount of sand into a mold, from top to bottom, to create the virtual Kipper.

After a period of time Kipper thought was too long but was probably only a fraction of second he was once again solid. At least he felt solid. It was a much different senstation than just being in a highly concentrated trance state.

All around him was black, there was just nothing. Perhaps something would form around him the way he had achieved form or perhaps light would illuminate what was around him like a light switch. He didn't yet understand rules this being his first virtual experience.

As Kipper was thinking this a light source appeared off in the distance. It was dim and seemed to be really far away. As he staired at it the light seemed to get brighter and closer and closer. Was the light moving or was he? Perhaps neither of them were moving at all. This was all in his head after all.

When he and the light finally colided a whole environment loaded up in front of him. He found himself in a room of pure white in every direction. He looked around and could not see the walls or how big the room was. He turned around trying to look all around him and was startled when he finished his three sixty to see a figure standing in front of him.

The figure was a tall man with a beard of an inderminate age. He was dressed all in black with an overcoat. The serious expression on the man's face made Kipper unsure of where this interaction was going to go.

"I see you have made some significant progress, Kipper." the man said.
"What? Who...are you? How did you know my name? What is the place?" Kipper asked, looking at him in a perplexed way.
"All important but ultimately irrelevant questions," the man said, "who I am is not important. Your potential is the really important question right now. You have come much further in a far shorter amount time then we have ever seen." The main explained.

Still perplexed Kipper continued to stair at the man. "Who is this 'we' you are referring to?" he asked, not really expecting an answer.

Ignoring the questiont the man continued, "Mavaria is with me and I am the one who got your friend to come up to the top of this building. All for a chance to meet you. I want you to come work for me. You will find this to be a most generous offer."

"I am not accepting any offers right now, especially for men of mystery who show up uninvited in my head." Kipper said quickly, with a hint of annoyance in his voice.

"Don't be so quick to reject us. We have a lot offer if you give us a chance. If you will just let me transfer the information into your memory-" The mysterious man was cut off at this point by Kipper.

"Oh no, see you blew it. There is no way you or anybody else transfering anything directly into my head. In fact I'm starting to wonder if this whole production was just to distract me away from goal." Kipper interrupted.

With that statement two holsters with guns appeared at either side of Kipper. At a blazingly fast speed kipper took both guns out and started firing at the man of mystery baring only even more mysterious job offers.

The mysterious man seemed to phase himself in and out of existance at will, sending the bullets sailing through his incorporial person. Realizing this, Kipper re-holstered his weapons and with an effort spun around in a three hundred sixy degree turn at a blazing speed throwing one hand in the directon of mind. A projectile barely visible to the naked eye flew out of skidded along floor surface toward the man.

Man still skirted around it but was clearly effect by in some way. Now it was mysterious mans turn.

The man turned even more transparent and stood up straight, closed his eyes and exhaled loudly. When what must have been all the air in his lungs was gone he opened his eyes to reveal instead an ominous black surface. Suddenly, he jumped up and toward Kipper as quickly as possible.

In one fluid motion and without a thinking about Kipper put his arm at his side. A long broadsword suddenly appeared in it. He lifted it and swung around at just the right moment to counter the mysterious man's attack. Then there was a scream.

The mysterious man's presense seemed to desintegrate into smoke and then resolidify. When he came back to existance he was laying on the floor apparently injured.

Not sure what to expect, Kipper catiously approached the man ready to strike at him again if necessary.

This sense of caution and edginess was quickly replaced when Kipper then heard what sounded so much like laughter. The mysteroius man was laughing.

"Okay, okay. You got me. You can put your sword away now, Kipper. I yeild to your superior skill."

Kipper, still not sure what to make of this kept the sword and took another step toward the man. Finally, Kipper was standing over the man.

"Look, you don't have to listen to me any more. I will show you the blue prints, floor plans and whatever else you want to know about the building. And you can have Mavaria. She is no longer of any use." The man said.

With this statement the man, who never did give his name, disapeared in a puff. Within moments of doing so a flood information invaded Kipper's mind, flashing through his mind at an incredible speed.

As the information flashed in front of his eyes the small environment seemed to receed away, bit by bit until finally he was back still stairing at the security camera.

"Well?" Holster asked, "Did you see anything?"

"I...what happened? Did you just see...?" Kipper started to ask but stopped himself. Then another much more poignent point of information occured to him.

"How long was I gone? I mean..."

"Oh it's only been three or four minutes. I was just getting impatient is all. So, did you learn anything? You seem confused." Holster explained.

"I, I'm not sure. That was such a strange sensation..." Kipper said, still trying to readjust to the living world.

Kipper closed his eyes for a moment and started to try and remember or access information about the building. Almost before he could even gather his thoughts detailed maps and floor plans flashed in front of his eyes. Along with this came the knowledge of exactly where Mavaria was.

Kipper opened his eyes and looked at Holster, stepping off the step stool.

"I know where she is. I also know more about this building than I ever would have wanted to know. I'll tell you about what just happened some day maybe. For now lets just get Mavaria and get the hell of here." Kipper said.

Not knowing what to make of this statement, Holster only nodded and followed Kipper as he left the room with the cubicle maze. Holster and Kipper made their way back to the fire exit and then down several more flights. Kipper went to open the door to this floor when it swung open. There, in the doorway, was Mavaria stairing back at them.  ¶ 9:35 AM

  Back to top Chapter 15

The expression on her face would have only been described of one of surprise and almost terror. Moments later Holster and Kipper would realize the site of them was not actually the cause of either of these facial interpretations.

The three of them staired at each other without saying a word for several seconds when an arrow suddenly stuck out of the door jam several inches from Mavaria's head. Her eyes widened a little.
"Run!!" She yelped finally and ran forward through the two of them and started down the stairs, the door closing behind her.

Holster and Kipper only looked at each other and quickly followed behind her, not asking any questions. This was surely a very strange office building, Holster was thinking. What had happened or lead to such a place as to have some one or thing firing an arrow at someone.

As they reached one level down from Mavaria's dramatic entrance Mavaria suddenly stopped at the door leading to that floor. She used a gesture to indicate she was listening to whether or not they were being persued. Holster wanted to ask her what was going on but knew he would only be shut down faster than he could try and ask it.

Mavaria, still making a gesture indicating she wanted them to be quiet and wait, went over to the door leading from the fire escape stairs into what Holster could have only assumed to be the offices on this floor. Mavaria put her on door and left it there for several seconds. Then, without a word, opened the door and went in without so much as a word, letting the door close behind her.

Holster looked at Kipper as if he was going to ask the obvious to which Kipper merely responded.

"I think she wants us to stay here a moment. I would try to see through the door or use what I gained from the security camera but some how I think she will be back soon." Kipper said.

No sooner had Kipper finished explaining this did Mavaria re-appear from other side of the door.

"I think we can make it through this floor. It seems to be expanding outside and moving up. But if we can make it to the window on the far side we should be able to stop it." She said.

Holster and Kipper only stared at her, then understanding started to enter into their faces. She was referring to the elaborate lights that had been generated outside the building. The two of them had assumed correclty in assuming that she was responsible for the lights. And now, the two of them were realizing, the lights outside was causing some strange happenings on the floors of this building. That may even explain why there were no security guards after them as they entered this building.

"What are we going to find on the other side of the door Mavaria?" Holster asked.

"It's going to be unpredictable and can change from moment to moment. Just remember to stay together and keep your wits about you. Kipper, I know about your interface with the security camera. The actual floor space has not actually changed so we can use your new found informaiton in that brain of yours to know when we have arrived at the windows. Once there leave the rest to me." She explained.

Holster and Kipper were still rather confused about the whole situation and both thought they should know more about what they were geting themselves into. Mavaria did not leave a whole lot of room for argument and was already turning to go back through the door.

Holster and Kipper followed her through the door into what should have been office space. As they entered all they saw at first was darkness. The door closed behind them with a thud and almost made Holster yelp with surprise. Afer a moment the change in temperture and increase in moister in the air started to hit them. Slowly their eyes started to adjust to what little light there was.

Then the sounds that were all around them started to get noticably sharper and more pronounced. The sounds were almost like crickets. It felt like the three of them were standing in a jungle.

In front of Holster and Kipper, Mavaria suddenly lifted up her arm and fired off what looked like a gun. A flare shot straight up but seemed to on forever, finally exlpoding in a bright shower of light and beginning a decent.

Illuminated before them was what looked like a jungle but was much of an elaborate combintation of a lot of different environments from rain forests and swamps to deserts and foothills. But as with outside it seemed to be night time, though there were apparently no starts or traces of a moon.

Off to one side was a hilly looking region that looked more dangerious then the rest of their surroundings.

Mavaria looked at Holster and Kipper and gestured to move forward, carefully. The three of them started walking straight forward carefully. Within minutes and what could only have been a few yards the temperture started to change dramatically. First it got a lot hotter as the humidity dropped, then it started to get windy. By the time they had walked perahps ten yards.

Then a figure started to form several yards in front of them. At first it was just a silouhette then it became more and more clear. The figure appeared to a man wearing a cloke and elaborate coverings from head to toe colored black. He was walking toward them as if he wanted to talk to them.

Mavaria started to slow down at the site of this. As the mysterious man approached, he started to smile at the group of them and offer a wave. Before the man of mystery, Holster or even Kipper could say anything or react, Mavaria pulled out a knife from some place no one quite caught and threw at the man as hard as she could.

"AH! DAMN!!" He yelled in surprise. The knife had logded into one eye causing his head to fall back a litle. He recovered remarkable quickly and started to pull the knife out of his eye. As he did so the sound would only be described a metallic clinking. With some effort he successfully pulled it out and dropped it on the ground. He then started to dig through a pouch on his belt for a replacement eye.

"What'd you do that for? I am no threat to you. Come now, was that really necessary?" he asked, as he attempted to put a replacment eye back into his eye socket.

"I didn't know what kind of threat you were so I thought I would get the upper hand just in case." Mavaria said.

Another moment passed and the mysterious man finally finished replacing the eye.

"As I would have said were a large piece of metal not sticking out of my eye, my name of Eeffoc. I saw you come in from...well I don't know where you came in from...but you are the first people I have seen since I arrived." He explained.

He finally finished replacing his eye in the socket and looked at Mavaria, almost glaring.

"You said we are the first since you arrived? When and how did you arrive here? That should not be possible." Mavaria asked, an apology for the mortal wound not even occuring to her. That this Eeffoc was not dead after a knife to the eye should have been a minor question to ask.

"That is not important," Eeffoc replied, "we need to go, now. They'll be here soon." he said.

"Wait, who will be here? Who are you? How do we know we can trust you? Also, what's with the replacement eye...Eeffoc was it?" Holster asked, apparently the only one wanting to know minor details such as these.

"I am a left over relic from a forgetten time. More machine then flesh, I was produced many eons ago for a purpose long since forgotten. It was only recently a small settle of those like me was started and we figured out how to replace damaged parts on our own. This functionality was never intended, at least not with much more elaborate equipment and someone trained in such things. Now, if you are satisfied, I would like to join you in running away before /they/ come back." He said, pointing to his right.

There, to his right, was a large group of siloutes moving toward them at a relatively slow but still steady pace.

"Oh, to they are a threat you say? How do we know that?" Holster asked.
"If they catch us you will find out the hard way..." Eeffoc started to say.

An object flying past Eeffocs head interrupted him, which was enough evidence for Mavaria and Kipper to go into action. Holster dover for cover behind some nearby rocks and got his gun out and ready.

Mavaria sprinted at blinding speed toward the unidentified figures and a little to one side. As she caught up she started to retriev several objects from her belt that seemed to easily break any all known lays of physics.

Meanwhile Kipper simply started to move slowly backward away from what was now becoming an apparently large number of figures moving toward them and not looking all that terribly frinedly at all.

He closed his eyes and started his controlled breathing exercise going into a now all too familiar trance like state.

Eeffoc only took cover down behind a nearby tree as if waiting to see what was going to happen. As he watched, Mavaria took out what look like a sword and started slice through the large crowd of figures. The figures did not seem to be cut in half so much as faid away slowly into a cloud of dust or smoke.

The figures seemed to fight back to some degree but clearly did not have the capbility of fight back on her level.  ¶ 9:35 AM

  Back to top Meanwhile, Holster popped up from behind his cover and started firing at the figures. Several of them fell only to be replaced by an army more. He always kept a lot of spare ammo on him in case he needed it but it was clear that he would run out much sooner than the army of slow moving figures would die out.

Mavaria was still swinging her weapon with perfect precision, effortlessly going back on fourth almost likea highly coreographed ballet. Though she must have already taken out over a hundred of them the numbers seemed to have thined very little for all her effort.

Having watched all this for several minutes Eeffoc finally jumps out from behind his cover, holds out his hand palm down and then seems to make a fist. As if triggering something, an arrow dar flew out of his hidden projectile weapon and flew through the air, hitting one figure and exploidng and taking out several more. This attracted the attention of the others except for Kipper who was still in a trance.

Mavaria and Holster looked at Eeffoc briefly, shocked that a once less than threatening person they just met was now fighting quite well. He was clearly full of surprisees.

They couldn't reamin distracted for along, the figures started coming forward again. It was coming apparent to all of them that they could not keep this up for much longer. There were just too many of them. Holster was about to communicate as much when Kipper, who had been preparing all this time, stood up and opened his eyes. They were once again an earie solid white and accompnied by a facial expression of absolute seriousness.

With a gesture of one arm and hand an entire row of the figures seemed to disapear. He then made several more combinations of gestures with his hands and some accompanied feet movements finally ending with a braod handed gesture in the direction of the attackers which effectively froze the entire contingent of attackers in place.

This finally made Mavaria stop what she was doing and look over to Kipper. He was still standing in the same stance with his earie white eyes.

All of what may as well have been an army were just standing in place, frozen. Holster, Mavaria and Eeffoc started to get up and walk among these mysterious figures, studying them, their faces and their apparent fozen state. Kipper's head finally started to drop down a bit. He bent over as if looking at the ground for a moment. When he stood back up he eyes were back to normal. He walked over to where the other three were standing.

"Kipper, how did you do that?" Holster asked, still stunned.

"It seems I unlock a bit more of my implanted abilities every time I try and use it." He said.

"Yes, I have never seen anything quite like that before." Eeffoc interjected. Holster, Kipper and Mavaria just looked over at him. Then back at each other.

Without so much as a word the three of them started to communicate with their implants telepathically. First Mavaria asked if they could trust this Eeffoc guy and what they whould do with him. Kipper responded he wasn't sure and Holster pointed out he had use his arrow dart projectile to help them out a little in the fight so maybe he was worth keeping around, at least for a while.

Several moments passed with the three of them just staring at each other intently in a circle. This made Eeffoc wonder what in the world was going on with them but figured he would find out at any moment.

He was standing behind them for a little while waiting when he realized that he may be able to find his arrow dart and re-use it in some capacity, even if he had to repair it some how. He wandered out among the frozen army of attackers looking for it. He found it, or rather what was left of it, in splinters near where it had landed.

It was just then he wondered how that guy had done all this, freezing all these beings in place. For that matter the details of what these things are started to come up. He had fought them off before but did not really know what they were or where they came from. Here was the perfect opportunity to study them up front.

Eeffoc Went over to the closest one and started to study it. They were all wearing disturbing masks that made it looked they were frown at all times and had black loose fitting robes on. Immediately under the loose fitting clothing was some kind of armor. Both the armor and the weapons looked rather primative and Eeffoc wondered if these beings really had any will at all or if they were beign controlled some how.

He was contemplating this when he heard the voice of the interesting woman in leather, Mavaria her name was, calling him back over.

He walked over to where the group of them were.

"We have decided you can escape with us for now. But since we don't know that we can trust you yet you will be on a kind of probation until further notice. Is that understood?" Mavaia said this more as a statement than anything else.

"Yes, I would expect nothing less." Eeffoc replied.

"Very well. Our plan is to go as far that direction as we can. There should actually be a wall, though we can't see it, some where in that direction. When we get there we have a plan to stop all this, what this is that's going on, forever." Mavaria explained.

"I see. A wall ya say? I don't know about that. I would not have believed someone could freeze an army like this either so I will take your word for it." Eeffoc said.

The four them then set off running across the uneven ground toward what should be a wall in their path. Running at a brisk pace they covered more than thirty yards before running into a sudden change in environment. It was getting cold, really cold. The four of them kept running and finally Kipper, who had been at the head of the group seemed to hit something and fell backwards comecially.

"I think we may have found the windows." he said.

Holster, Mavaria and Eeffoc all stopped and walked up to where Kipper and taken his comedic fall. Mavaria reach out a hand and started to feel at the wall. Clearly it was solid though complete invisible. As far as any of them could tell the plains they were in extended out into the distance.

"Ok, Mavaria. Do whatever ou have to do to make that cloud of lights go away and set everything back to normal. How are you going to do that anyway?" Kipper asked, "Because I could probably do it myself with my implant abilities..." He pointed out.

"It would be better if I took care of this." She said without offering an explanation.

She re-synchronized her utility belt with her current dimension and started taking things out of it. She set up what looked like a tripod and placed a weird vaguely gun shaped looking object on it. On top of this she put a platform of some kind and on top of that she added what could only be described as a thermos with beads glued to the side of it. After several minutes of setting this strange device up she pushed a button and the thermos like device started to rotate on its vertical axis. Around and around it went in circles. It was almost hypnotic.

At first there was no sound coming out of it, then it started to make a low frequency hum any of them could hardly hear. The hum began to get louder and increase in frequency rate. Mavaria was was staring at a small control panel, occasionally pressing different buttons on it.

After what seemed like several minutes of this the contraption gave out a bright explosion of light that caused all them to see nothing but white for several moments. As their eyes started to re-adjust to what was around them they started to realize the strange envirnment there were in was slowly faiding out and a boring looking labrinth of cubicles in a normal looking office building started to bleed through.

Kipper wondered in passing if this Eeffoc would also start to fade away with the strange environment. The environment continued to fade, the attacking maraduers started to fade as well, but Eeffoc remained solid and standing amongst them.

As the strange environment faded away the windows becae clearer and clearer that they were standing in front of. Holster looked out of it and noted it was still night time, which surprised him. For that matter, wondered to himself, he didn't even know if the same amount of time had passed in whatever strange state there were in as had passed in the normal outside world.

Holster also noted outside that the citizens who were standing in the street stairing at the cloud of lights had grown by a great degree and were still there just stairing at the lights with a dumb founded look on the faces.

He then looked at the lights again and saw that they were starting to fade away and get smaller and smaller. The crowd still seemed fascinated by it.

"Hey, what's that cloud up there?" Eeffoc asked, "It looks kind of weird. And that crowd down there, they seem to be staring at it." He observed.

"Yes, that is what we have been trying to get rid of actually. Mavaria here some how caused it and we have been trying to get to these windows here to make the clouds go away." Holster said.

"Well, lets get down to the street shall we?" Eeffoc suggested.

"Yes, we might as well. This is starting to turn into a long night." Holster said.  ¶ 9:35 AM

  Back to top Chapter 16

Mavaria finished re-packing her equipment into her out of phase belt then said she would go up to the roof to pack up the rest of her equipment. The other three told her they would meet her on the street below. As the four them made their way back to the fire exit it was still amazing to them that floor they were looked so different from what they had just been in such a small amount of time earlier.

At the stairs Holster, Kipper and Eeffoc started thier decent down the building as Mavaria began her ascent back to the roof. Holster, Kipper and Eeffoc silently made their way down to the bottom floor. None of them know what floor they were on exactly but the stairs just seemed to go and on forever.

After what seemed like way too long to Holster they arrived at the street level and made their way out the fire exit. Holster, Kipper and Eeffoc then went out through the alley and made their way back toward the street where all the cizen gawkers had been standing and gawking. When Holster, Kipper and Eeffoc got there the gawkers were still there stairing though the cloud of light had faded signifcantly.

Holster, Kipper and Eeffoc all started to stair up at the cloud of light while they waited for Mavaria to get back and were struck by the beuty of the light cloud. In fact if one were to stair at the cloud long enough you could almost make out a shape in it, like some kind of message. The message or inisght seemed to be just out reach. It was almost like stairingat it just a couple minutes longer would reveal some amazingly satisfying insight into the world.

Holster was just thinking about this amazing possibility when he felt a hand close in on his shoulder. He turned away from the cloud and looked to see who it was who had done so. Mavaria was stairing back at him.

"Woe, when did you get back? I thought you were on the roof." He said.

"I did what I had to do up there and have come all the way down. You have been stairing up at that cloud for more than fifteen minutes. You are becoming another one of these mindless gawkers." She said.

"Wow, I can see why so many people are getting side tracked into stairing at it now. It is just so mesmerizing. So why is the cloud still there? Should it not be all faded way by now?" He asked.

"Yes, it will fade away with time. But what I really have to do now is snap these people out their haze. I think it is going to be more and more difficult the longer they spend stairing at the lights. I am not sure the safest way to do that, lets see if Kipper and Eeffoc have any ideas." With this she walked over to Kipper and Eeffoc and snapped both of them also out their hypnotic stuppor as she had done with Holster.

After some careful discussion on several ideas, it was decided Mavaria would use a carefully timed and placed device that would flash in everyone's eyes. In that short period when the crowd couldn't see the cloud Holster, Kipper and Eeffoc would jump up on a parked car in different places around the intersection and start yelling at the crowd to try and get their attention. They may not grab everybody's attention, some may go back to looking at the crowd, but given enough people taken out of the trance they just may be able to snap the rest out of the trance like state. Perhaps, they al thought, if they could keep them occupied some how the cloud will finallly be gone and this ensuing chaos will go unnoticed by the rest of the population.

This plan certainly left a lot of uknowns and ifs hanging in the air but it was the best any of them could come up with. With the agreed upon plan Mavaria set about trying to set up a device to produce a really bright flash while Holster, Kipper and Eeffoc all set out to find a different corner of the intersection with a parked car to stand on.

Mavaria worked on the flash device on her own for what must have been twenty minutes. She used ingredients from different devices she already had and packed everything into a cartridge that would fit in the flare gun she had already used. Finally, she had reached the right recipe, or a recipe she was reason sure would work anyway and stood up on a nearby car to give a signal wave that she was ready and for them to do the same.

At this Holster, Kipper and Eeffoc all climbed up on the nearby car they had chosen and signaled back they were ready and waiting. With the reciept of those signals from Holster, Kipper and Eeffoc, Mavaria raised her arm up and fired the home made flair into the air.

It arked sharply upward and made it almost almost as high as the cloud of lights itself before finally exploding. Mavaria and Holster, Kipper and Eeffoc knew enough to try and look away, a lesson learned from the strange thermous like device of Mavaria's, but as it turns out the bright light wasn't as bright as Mavaria had been hoping for.

Despite the apparent short coming the crowd did start to produce a little noice and rub there eyes a little in confussion. This was enough of a signal for Holster, Kipper and Eeffoc to start jumping up and down trying to get the attention of everyone in the crowd.

Holster was yelling something about it being really important that everyone look over toward him and that there was a prize involved, this being the only thing that he could think of.

Kipper was also yelling as much as he could toward the crowd, trying to describe some rewards and offering them a trip to lcoal casino.

Eeffoc was yelling and jumping up and down but not knowing anything about the world in which he now found himself he wasn't sure what if anything he should be promising his particular section of the crowd. So he just yelled a lot and told them the clouds always promised far more then they delivered. This didn't make any more sense to him then it did to anyone else but since it was working he didn't particularly care.

As the crowd stared up and these three strange characters jumping up and down the cloud above continued to faid away more and more.

The crowd was coming around and starting to look around and ask question about where they were and how long they had been there. Some just started to wander off, not seeming to know or care if their vehicle was still left in the intersection, though getting it out of the intersection with all the other cars and the crowd blocking them in would be a challenge anyway.

As the success of their plan started to become more and more aparent, Kipper started yelling to the crowd that it was important to snap anyone else out of any trance like states they may appear to be in and that stairing at the cloud could be a dangerous thing.

With this the crowd started to get a little agitated but started to realize what was being asked of them and doing as was suggested.

Finally, the crowd started to dissipate and the cloud finally disapeared without anyone really noticing. Another few minutes went buy and crowd was completely dispersed except for a handful of people left. This handful seemed to be more fully aware of what had transpired and wanted to talk to Holster, Kipper, Eeffoc and Mavaria about it. Holster, Kipper, Eeffoc and Mavaria came back together at the main intersection in front of the building they had just exited and started to address the small left over crowd.

Some of the citizens asked what happened and others asked how it could have hapened. Mavaria tried to answer a majority of these question as best she could but was not very good at improvising answers on the fly. Finally, Kipper jumped up on a car nearby and started to tell the crowd something of his own.

"Hello good citizens," he began, "I know you have a lot of questions right now but we unfortunately do not have a lot of time to answer them. We have a great task to take care. In fact we are need of assistance and we are willing to pay. If that sounds appealing to any of you please step forward. Unforutnately the answers to all your qeustions will just have to wait until after the impending disaster in averted." He explained.

With this another large chunk of the crowd started to walk away. The were about ten stout young people still there. They all came up to Holster, Kipper, Eeffoc and Mavaria and expressed their gratitude for getting out of that hypnotic state. All them stated they were willing to stay on and help the four of them out as best they could, whatever was required.

Holster, Kipper, Eeffoc and Mavaria met with all the volunteers and discussed what was going to happen and how they had hapened to come along. Holster, Kipper, Eeffoc and Mavaria also asked the crowd about any cults they knew of and any strange yellow symbols that looked kind of like a rose.

Not a lot of information was gathered from this but that they had a some what large crowd of willing volunteers was good news to Holster, Kipper, Eeffoc and Mavaria.

No sooner had they finished with the introductions then a large explosion took place several blocks to the east of them. They all looked at each other and started to running in the direction of the sound of the explosion.  ¶ 9:36 AM

  Back to top Chapter 17

As it turned out the explosion was not actually an explosion but rather a set of fireworks someone had decided to set off. Holster, Kipper, Eeffoc and Mavaria walked over to where the fireworks had apparently be launched and started to examine the scene. Who ever had set off the fireworks had vacated in what looked like a hurry. There were still scorch marks all over the section of the street making them all wonder why someone had done such a thing as set off a bunch of fireworks and then run away in such a hurry.

No sooner had they all started to wonder about this sort of thing then a whole series of strange noises started to become apparent back in the direction they had come. This time, insted of going back toward the sounds as they had just done they decided to find a way to the top of the nearest building to see if they could see the trouble first, and only then decide if they would go toward the sounds.

They ran over to a nearby building and started looking for a way to get up. It wasn't more than a minute they had found some stairs up. They all climbed up to the roof and looked out into the distance. There were some strange figures it looked like trying to jump up and down on a drum like object, creating the strange sounds. This was being done in the intersection where the cloud of lights had been.

The strange people making the strange sound with a strange set of objects were entirely too far off to see what they were up to with degree of certainty. Except, that was for Kipper who knew he could probably use his implant to zoom in on the people and see exactly what he was doing. Kipper seemed to think they had some time at the moment so he decided to try and teach Holster some tricks with the implant. Eeffoc decided to follow them over as well, to learn what he could about how the implants work.

As the three of them sat on the edge of the building looking at the strange people, Holster learning more about his implant, Mavaria started to talk to some of the other volunteers they had accumulated.

There were nine men and one woman who had volunteered. Some of them, she learned, had seen the cloud of lights all the way across the city while others had been working the late shift at a nearby business and were attracted by the lights.

Only two or three of the men showed any promise at all when it came to fighting abilities and she could not help but think the requirement would be there.

She started to ask them about their skills and what they could do. On man was a specialist in computers though he doubted he could contribute very much in greater scheme of things. Another man was a specialist with ropes of all kinds which may come in handy. The woman said only that she was a fast learner and was willing to what ever was required of her as it came up.

Over all the situation impressed Mavaria far more than she had expected. The small crowd they had some how accumulated had widley varying skills that turn out to be useful.

She paused to look over at Holster and Kipper. They were still apparently deep in conversation discussing the intimate details of how to zoom on things with thier implants.

The woman of the gorup walked up to her and asked how this had all started and where Mavaria was from. With a sigh she walked over to the railing nearby and sat down. The ten people walked over to listen to her.

"I came from another dimension to capture Holster and Kipper so my people could do some experiments on them. Since then the three of us have spent a lot time together and I have grown far more attached to them then I would have thought possible. In fact when I first met them I only thought of them as test subjects. Nothing more than dispensible vermin to be experimented on. As were all humans, but not any longer."

The ten volunteers were just staring at her, as if she was saying the fascinating, or possibly terrifying, thing they had ever heard.

She went on. "I made a deal with Kipper. As part of it I agreed to take them out of the experiment lab they were being held in and take them back here. When we got back we went after some hostages that were taken by some local cult members. I have a feeling we will see them again." She explained.

"Ah, so that's why you were asking about the cult, then? You sill want to rescue the hostages and stop the cult?" one of them asked.

"Yes, that is part of the deal. I will help Holster and Kipper rescue the hostages." She said, clearly not willing to talk about it further.

"After we came up from the subway tunnels where the cult members were hiding out we were going to take a break. Holster and Kipper took off to get food. Weak humans and their food, you know. I went in the other direction. This is when I inadvertantly ended up causing those clouds of light as you like to describe it. But I had no idea it would cause so many humans to be hypnotized by it or cause so much trouble. In fact what I was trying to do would have cause a small anomalie that only lasted a few second and left no trace." She was growing tired of this explanation but continued anyway.

After a moment she continued, "We came down into that building from the roof," she said referring to the building near where the lights had been, "and ran into some strange happenings while trying to make it to the windows so we could get rid of the lights. In fact I had my own adventure in that building I haven't even told to the likes of Kipper and Holster yet. I don't know if I ever will in fact." The whole group was still staring at her, fascinated. She started to wonder if they were really listening to her.

She had stopped talking only for a moment when one of the men asked her if she would tell them her story even if she hadn't told Holster and Kipper. She thought about it a moment and asked them all to stay put a moment while she conferred with Holster, Kipper and Eeffoc.

She walked over to the three of them and requested a telepathic conference. Eeffoc only looked marginally annoyed at the prospect of another conversation that would be excluding him.

Ignoring Eeffoc, Mavaria, Kipper and Holster went into the a conference telepathically and started to discuss what was going on.

Holster and Kipper explained to Mavaria that they had learned that the strange people making the strange noises were probably from the cult and probably trying to get their attention in particular. Kipper also speculated the fire works as well as what was currently going on well being used as a distraction for both their little group and any number of others while they unfurled a plan else where in the city. It was really a matter of finding out what their plan was.

Eeffoc had suggested he could try to infiltrate the cult as an operative and report back to them. Holster and Kipper had initially rejected this idea since communicating back would be difficult without a radio implant or telepathic ability. But the more he thought about it the better the idea was starting to sound to him. After all, it was not likely any of the cult member had seen Eeffoc before he had shown up in the building near the cloud of lights and likely hadn't seen him since they had left with the others.

Kipper asked Mavaria if she knew any other way to give some ability to communicate with the rest of the group while under cover in a secretive way. She said said probably not but that she would think about it a while.

Mavaria then asked Holster and Kipper if they would be much longer because the group was asking about her adventure without the two of them in that building and she was thinking about telling it while Holster, Kipper and Eeffoc continued to discuss their options tactically regarding the cult.

Holster and Kipper suggested she go ahead and do so. Holster then pointed out Mavaria could probably take apart and modify one of the many amazing gadgets she had on that belt of her and rig up something for Eeffoc. As if realzing something obvious she said yes, she could. She also remembered Eeffoc replacing the eye in his eye socket when a knife and embedded itself in it. He must be some kind of cyborg or something.

She rephased in her utility blet and took off to look for an appropriate device.

Sensing something had changed Eeffoc looked over to them, "done already?" he asked, "What have you decided?"

The entire discussion and decision making proress had taken place in a less than minute, though that suprised Holster and Kipper every time they realized it afterwards.

"Yes, we are going to use one of Mavarias gadgets, modified as necessary, to give you the ability to infiltrate the cult. You're sure you won't be recognized or raise suspucion?" Kipper asked.

"Oh no. I know how important this is to all of us. As for the device, Mavaria, just give me some basics and and I'll get on my way here. The sooner I get into the cult the better I think." He said.

With that Mavaria brought a small device over to them and held it out. It was a mostly round orb with a few wires sticking out of it. She handed it over to Eeffoc.

"This should interface with almost anything in comes in contact with directly. It may take some time to perfect its use but with it we should be able to pick up a transmission from you. Or at least I probably will, I'm not sure how well it is going to work. But I am sure it will work." She explained.

Eeffoc took the device and looked at it a bit, examined the wires a bit and thanked her. He then took off his cloke to reveal a full head of hair and then pushed a part of the back of his own head. A small panel and opening came out. He slid the small orb into his head. It slid into the place and was absorbed almost instantly.

"I will need someone to push a few buttons on the back. Just push the green one then close up the panel." He said.

Mavaria walked over took a look at the newly absorbed orb. The wiring seemed to already be taking effect. It look as though it had been designed some how specifically to interface with this strange being. She pushed the green button and closed up the opening, snapping it into place.

Eeffoc's head started to droop down a little as if were shutting down but quickly snapped back to life.

"That was a strange experience but I think I am ok now. I think it is going to take a while to get used it to it. Now all I have to do is going and find a way into this cult." He said.

With this he set off to get back down to the street level and make his way toward what were probably cult members.

Holster and Kipper went back to keeping on eye on the people making the noises. Seeing the two of them were still gather intelligence she went back to her small crowd to tell her story.

"Ok," She said, "get confortable because this story may take a while."

Chapter 18

Mavaria and the man she used to work with entered the building through the door on the roof and started to descend down the stairs. When they got to the door to the top floor Mavaria stopped and just looked at the man.

"When hell are you doing here?" She asked, "I thought you left never to return." She was clearly annoyed.

"Oh come now, is that any way to talk to an old friend?" the main asked.

"Indeed." she said. "So what are you doing here, Bucks?" she asked, a little calmer this time.

"Well I came to check on your status but you have clearly got some problems of your own." As he explained this a strange sound and some flashes of light came from several floors below.

"Oh, great. What's going on down there?" Bucks asked.

"We will go and investigate. Try and keep up, Bucks." She said.

With this she started down the flights of stairs toward the sounds and and strange lights. Finally they arrived at the door to the floor with the sounds and stopped to listen a bit. Mavaria stayed there and listened for several minutes but didn't here anything on the other side.

Without an apparent thought Bucks opened the door and went in to the floor. Mavaria wanted to say something in protest but Bucks was already going in. He had always been known for his jumping into a situation approach and now she was being reminded of this.

As they entered the floor they clearly were not looking at a normal office floor. All around them was a dence jungle. Vines were everywhere, a thick tree canopy covered up above them and the hot sun beat down on them. It was also incredibly humid. And the jungle seemed to stretch out in fornt of them as far as they could see.

Mavaria took a moment to look around at all sides of her and take stock of the situation. With a glance back she saw that the door they had entered was in fact still there and clearly visible. It almost seemed like the vines and other vegetation was actualy repelled some how by the door. She would have to remember this.

In front of her a few feet was Bucks, exploring forward without a second thought. She knew this was a bad idea but didn't say anything. After all she knew Bucks but that didn't mean she really cared if something should happen to him in this place instead of her.

Bucks was already several feet of Mavaria, walking foward without a moments hesitation for posinos plant or lurking predetor. For that matter there was no guarentee this place was not inhabited by other people. This room or whatever they were in obviously did not play by any normal rules.

SHe was contemplating these rules and her situation with Bucks ahead her by at least ten yards when she heard some russeling ahead of her. Clearly this forest was inhabited and clearly the inhabitants wanted her to know it. Bucks did not seem to notice or care, obviously not paying attention as usual. If she warned Bucks about a potenial danger she would tip off these inhabitants of how aware she was and that she had noticed them. If she did not warn Bucks then her warning of danger would be used up. She decided instead to warn him of something else and hope the natives didn't piece togther her plan.

"Bucks, slow down. There could be a snake or..." Before she could finish her warning there was whipping sound followed by a yelp. In faster than flash before her eyes Bucks was caught in sling and thrown up toward the trees. He had been caught in a simple snare trap and was now hanging by one foot from a crewd rope hung from a tree.

With that a group of strange looking people started to come out from the dense jungle. The tallest of them was about four feet tall and all of them were barely wearing anything at all. More and more were appearing from the jungle, appparently surrounding her on all sides. Most of them were holding primitive spears and pointing them at her. These natives didn't seem like a threat but then the tips of those spears could be poisened for all she knew and could hurt even her in some cases.

The only idea she could think of involved a dramatic show of something these natives had never seen before. She reached behind her back and materialized a nasty looking boomarang looking device with some nasty looking spikes coming out of it.

In the flash of an eye she had thrown the device hard to one side. It whipped around, cutting the rop holding Bucks who was still whimpering with the surprise of the snare. He fell with an undramatic thud, possibly breaking his neck. Mavaria decided she would fine with this but was not surprised when he stood back up, only to immediately raise his hands at the point of all the spears.

The heavily armed boomarange came swinging back around and Mavaria effortlessly reached up and caught it her hand, swinging her arm back and return it to her invisible belt in one fluid motion.

The natives, having watched all of this intently but not apparently impressed by it started to lower their spears. The native with the most elaborate display of feathers in his hair and about his body made shrugging gesture and started the walk away from them into the jungle. The other natives soon folllowed silently.

As they filed away into the jungle Bucks slowly struggled up to his feet. Mavaria was still thinking about their next move when Bucks strutted off into the jungle folling the natives. Mavaria didn't think this was a very good idea but followed along anyway. That plan didn't seem any more or less safe then any other idea.

It didn't take long Mavaria and Bucks had followed these short natives all the way back to their camp. A small clearing contained some huts with a fire pit in the center of it. On the far side of the camp from where Mavaria and Bucks were standing was a hut that was much larger than the rest. On the outside of it was a spear that jammed into the ground with what looked like an ornamental head dress.

Mavaria and Bucks walked through the camp barely noticed by the small natives that inhabited it. She was starting to wonder if there was really a reason for them to there at all. Mavaria was about to call Bucks over to discuss their next move which would probably be leaving when she heard a blood curdling scream. She looked in the direction of the scream to find Bucks with a large spear through his hand and the head dress she had just noted on his head backwards.

"Be very still, Bucks. You have obviously offended them." She said calmly.

In response to this well reasoned set of words Bucks let out a long stream of horribly screaming and four lettre words of which the natives would obviously not be familiar.

With a longer series of screams he pulled the spear out of his hand and continued to put pressure on it. In all the pain and screaming the head dress had managed to fall down into the dirt. He looked at it a moment. Then up at the nearby natives now once again pointing spears at him. He looked at Mavaria only gave a subtle shake of her head.

With that he started to take off into the jungle and was immediately shot at by large barrage of arrows. He fell to the ground with little fan fair. With that the natives all looked at her.

Then, from the far side of the cluster of huts, another even larger group of natives started to appear. This group was a little taller and had weapons that looked slightly more advanced. Perhaps another tribe. None of the them were looking particularly friendly towards her. She knew she could probably take out all the natives. She might even do it without a scratch on her. Still there was something in that probably that made her think it was not worth trying. With this realization she started to run.

She ran as fast as she could through the jungle dodging branches and limbs, jumping of rocks jutting into the path in front of her. She was still runnning at an incredible speed when she looked behind her to see the natives were almost caught up to her. Who ever or whatever these natives were they certainly could travel through the jungle at an incredible speed.

Finally she saw it, the door to the fire escape where she had entered. She did not so much arrive at the door as nearly run through it. She managed to stop just in time and went to open the door. She could hear the whole tribe behind her.

She reached for the horizontal bar that could be pushed to open the door. It opened and she turned to exit only to find Kipper stairing back at her. She was shocked to see him there. He was really the last person she had expected to see. In the few seconds of this shock of seeing him the tribe had caught up further. Several arrows flew through the air and landed inches from her head near the door. She quickly exited the floor and was out of that strange jungle place.  ¶ 9:37 AM

  Back to top Chapter 19

The crowd was staring at her with absolute amazement. They seemed to be on the edge of their seats.

"Well that's when I met back up with Kipper and Holster. You were expecting more?" She asked.

"Well you do tell the story so well, Mavaria." One of them offered, "I for one found it quite compelling."

Mavaria had never known she was any good at telling stories, so this comment threw her back a little, but only for a moment. It was just as well she was done with the story because Kipper was walking back in her direction, like he had some news. She walked away from the crowd and came over to meet him.

"The people down below are starting to break up. Whatever they were doing is apparently over or ending. They seem to be headed south, away from us. I think we can take some back streets and find a way to flank them unseen. We'll have to hury though, I think the business traffic will start before too long." Kipper explained.

"Yes, we need to keep an eye on him. I think we can take some subway and sewer tunnels if we really need to though. That would help with our stealth." She said.

"I do not think that is necessary. Besides with all these people with us now we have to worry about them a bit more," he continued, this time more aimed at their new crowd, "Hey, any of you people hungry or need to use the bathroom?" he shouted, "we have time to make one stop so lets make it quick!"

A few of the memebers of the crowd raised a hand indicating they had a need for one or the other of the two things that he had mentioned and started walking toward him. The rest of the crowd also got up and started walking toward Kipper and Mavaria as well.

They all started to walk down the external stairs. Upon reaching the street level they started walking south as a large crowd looking for resturants. Several blocks down they found a resturant that offered a quickly made breakfast burrito. Kipper suggested everybody eat even if not hungry because he was not sure when they would be eating again.

Every body ordered a meal and sat at nearby tables eating silently. As he watched them all he wondered if they would be able to stop the cult with this loose knit band of volunteers. For that matter he wanted to know what the cult was really up to. What scheme they had planned and to what end. There were so many unanswered questions it was enough to make a person start wonder if there was a point or end to it at all.

When the group was all done eating and taking care of what they need to do before leaving they started off again down the street southward. They were walking at a brisk pace in silence when they were from several block to their right a series of noises followed by a large bang. This was followed by more noises and a possible struggle than silence.

Kipper made a gesture indicating he wanted everybody to stop and wait a moment. He then made a series of gesture indicating he wanted everyone to stay wher they were while he went to go investigate. Everybody found a nearby alley and crouched down to wait for him.

Kipper went down an alley toward the noise and peered out into the street. There he saw what clearly looked like Eeffoc in the middle of the street challenging another man a short distance down the street. Judging by the gathering crowd the noises were to attract the attention of onlookers for some sort of challenge. Kipper did not know what was going on but it would clearly be a bad idea to stay where he was and risk getting caught by the cult members.

He went back down the alley and explained breifly what he had seen. He then suggested they not get involved. After all, Eeffoc seemed capable of taking care of himself when he had to. Holster, Kipper, Mavaria and the rest of the crowd then set off back down the street to the south in search of the building the cult was really using for a base of operations.

The group then started walking back down as they had been passing the large crowd only a block over. Finally there was a strangely out of place building for this section of the city. Kipper was about to suggest they investigate when a familiar voice from behind them rose to his hears. He turned, slowly, to see Officer Hershiger beckoning at the group.

"Ah, officer Hershiger. What are you doing here?" Kipper asked.

"Don't give me that, Kipper. What are you people doing here? What's going on?" Officer Hershiger asked.

"We are investigating some strange...that's not really your business, is it?" Kipper responded.

"You two are never up to something good, and now you've got a whole crowd. I think I can try and ask." Officer Hershiger said.

"Well you will just have to wait for our results. How's that officer Hershiger?" Kipper was starting to get a little annoyed.

"Is that so? I've got my eye on you two. All of you!" He said as he walked away.

As he left Kipper wondered if he would have see Officer Hershiger again. There was no reason to think he would not, but he couldn't help but think about it.

Kipper was about to suggest the group start again south ward and possibly look at that building when he noticed the crowd from block over had apparently dispanded. In fact none of them at all were still there, it was like the crowd just left in perfect syncronized order. As he continued to walk forward he saw the last few trench coat wearing cult members going into the building he had noticed seemed out of place. Now he knew he had to find it.

They were now perhaps a quarter mile from the building he had pointed out as out of place. He decided to suggest they stop a moment and decided on a plan. Before he had a chance to get as much out Mavaria came running over to tell him she was getting a really garbled transmission from Eeffoc. She couldn't quite make the transmission out but it sonded like he was trouble. He was in trouble and needed them to come get him out as soon as they could.

Mavaria pointed out they had no way of knowing if Eeffoc had been compromised already. Perahps this was a trap, perhaps he had been found out as a spy and the cult was trying to lure him in.

Ultimately they decided they had very few choices and would have to try and find a way in. The transmission ha not mentioned where he was but the building was obviously a good place to start looking. As Kipper discussed this idea with Holster and Mavaria they were suddenly startled by a large explosion coming from the direction of the building there were about to head towards. The explosion blew the doors off and debris came flying out. Then a large figure emerged from the door. The figure had a red glow about him and seemed abnormally tall. He seemed to be moving away from the building in the group's directon.

The figure started to make sounds, almost like he was trying to say something to them all. The words were not clear enough to make out what he was saying. Behind him several more cult members had come out of the building and were yelling them. Then there was some gun fire. The tall figure didn't seem to notice the gut shot wounds.

Chapter 20

Eeffoc took off from the others toward what he was told was a group of cult members. He knew what he had to do but wasn't as confident as he had let on that he could actually accomplish it.

He climbed all the way down the building and jumped down the last several feet. He enjoyed doing stuff like that. He supposed it was that small amount of human he still had him that gave it to him. He breifly thought back to when he had become a cyborg, how it had not been his decision but that he certainly would not change it now for anything in the world. The version of himself for that time when he was changed would certainly have found that hard to believe.

He started on the street, jogging at a brisk pace toward the strange people in the distance. He had no idea what he was going to say to them when he got there or how he would fit in with a bunch of cult memebers. He had never thought of himself as the kind of person who could successfully join a cult.

When the people jumping up and down making noise were within a few hundred yards he stopped and tried to figure out what he was going to say to them when he arrived. Or for that matter decided how human he looked given a knife was just chucked into his eye and crudely removed and placed with a fake eye. He did not have any real way to check that. He could always try and use his down trodden look to his advantage if it came to that.

Deciding he was as ready as he was going to be he started walking forward again, toward the people. As he got closer he could her some of what they were saying. It sounded like they were chanting something or perhaps cheering something. He could not quite tell yet.

As he got closer he realized they were actually repeating the same series of words over and over like a children's nursery rhyme.

Finally he arrived at the group of people. They were all normal looking except for the trench coats and bouncing on a trampoline at such an hour in the morning.

"Greetings." he began, "what is it you fine people are doing on this good morning?" He tried to sound genuinely interested in what the group of them were doing in such a situation at such a time. And actually he really did not know and would not mind knowing.

At first the group of people just ignored Eeffoc after a moment one of them walked over and glared at him, raising an eye brow.

"What do you want, stranger?" The man asked.

"Me? Oh nothing, nothing. Not every day you see something like this is all. I just wanted to know what you all could possibly be up to. That is all." He explained.

"There were lights here earlier. They were wonderious and mysterious. They made us think if we staired at them just a little longer some devine truth would be revealed. We are trying to invoke them to come back to us. To show up. This is out latest idea on how to do that. So far it doesn't seem to be working." The man said.

Eeffoc could only knod in understanding even though what he had just been told made no sense to him what so ever. How would any action arbitrarily taken some how invoke an event that happend for specific reasons to begin with? He decided as quickly as this became apparent to him that he would not point out this flaw to the group.

"I see," Eeffoc said, "these, I did not see them. There were quite some to behold?" he asked.

"Oh yes, they were really more of a cloud that hung in the air and contained a large amount of swirling lights in them. There were the most beutiful thing I have ever seen in my life. I would do anything to bring them back." the man said this with an awe struck look to his eyes.

"Well I wish I had been here for that. I did see some fireworks a little while earlier. Were those anything like that lights?" Eeffoc asked, thinking he was cleverly getting the information from the man.

"Oh no, we set those off. An initial idea to try an compel the light clouds to back. My name is Gitway by the way. Would you like to come over and see our activity...uh what did you say your name was?" Gitway seemed inviting so Gitway went with him.

"Oh, I'm Eeffoc. And yes, please show me what is going on." He said.

Eeffoc and Gitway walked back towards the rest of the group. Gitway introduced Eeffoc to everyone one by one and they all seemed quite friendly and willing to talk to him about anything. He played along, try his best to act the part but still feeling like none of what they were doing was actually making any sense at all. He was sure he had them fooled as they did not let on with any amount what so ever that they may be suspecting something.

After a while of watching there strange ritual of trying to invoke the colored clouds they all decided to stop and go back to base. The group which consisted of Eeffoc, Gitway and about ten others moved slowly through the streets towards a strange building still several blocks away.

The rest of the group all seemed quite interested in the new comer. All of them including Gitway took turns asking him different questions, eagerly asking him the next question after he answered one. Finally, after several blocks, they all reach the building. There was a big lock and a sign in a strange language on the front door. Gitway walked forward and put his hand on the sign then touched several places on the door seemingly at random. Gitway then stood back a little and waited a moment. After a moment the door made a hissing sound like it was air tight and not just the door but a whole section of the wall started to swing away.

Eeffoc watched this curiously and wondered how it had been to so perfectly mimic a real door in the way it did. Just some skilled architect? Or was it something more?

Eeffoc entered the building through the large air lock looking door with rest of the group. The inside of the building looked much larger and seemed to go up much higher then he would have guessed by looking at the outside of the building. He followed Gitway into the buidling innards and saw a small desk. He was asked politely to sign in as a guest for the duration of his stay which he did. Not knowing what else to put he used Eeffoc on the sign in sheet. Some how he doubted he could ever recgonized by anyone here in this building anyway.

He put on a guest badge on and traveled further into the building looking at everything around him as he did so. The inside was a very marvelous place of which he had never seen before. He guessed the same architect that designed that door had probably designed the entire inside as well.

After several minute of following alogn behind Gitway he started to wonder where he was going.

"Gitway, where are we going?" he asked.

"We are going to meet our leader. I just know you will love him." Gitway explained.

"Ah ok. And who is this leader? Is he a friendly guy?" Eeffoc asked.

"Oh yes. We are actually casual around here. Any old way you want to greet him will be find with him." Gitway said.

With this the two of them took one last turn down a corridor toward to a large set of double doors. The doors rose an exaggerated distance toward the ceiling, and were a dark black kind of color. The knows seemed to curve up down and be in kind of a shape of a snake.

They entered the room and saw a man sitting on a large grand chair at the far end.  ¶ 9:37 AM

  Back to top He raised an eye brow as they entered, with a serious looking facial expression. He had the look of a lot of wear on his face like he been through and seen a lot. Gitway and Eeffoc walked down through the hall toward the man almost gaining tension as they walked.

When the two of them were within a distance of a few yards Eeffoc took a closer look at the man in the chair and noted he was almost fake looking. In fact he almost looked like some kind of animitronic puppet or something. As he was thinking about this another man popped into the room from a side door. This new man was short and balding and had a wild look to him.

"Hello!" The new man exclaimed, "I hope our little mechanical puppet man did not freak you out too much. I stuck him there to give this room kind of heir I thought it deserved. It also intidates some visiters that I find necessary to intimdate. But that is not you!" He would speak wildly one second and then much queiter the next. He seemed rather unstable to Eeffoc but then that may be part of some illusion for all he knew.

"So," the balding man said, "are you preparing for the initiation? How is that coming?" He asked. Eeffoc only gave him a blank stare. "Well surely my people have mentioned your inititiation requirement? Well will not do! Gitway, take him out. Explain the rules right away. The initiation will start in thirty minutes!"

Withat that statement Eeffoc was wisked away back out of the room and down the hall. Eeffoc still was not sure what was going on. What was the initiation and what would it entail?

"Gitway, I..." Eeffoc started to ask but was interrupted.

"Eeffoc, everyone must pass the initiaiton to join our club. I should have mentioned that sooner but didn't realize his emminence would take a liking to you so quickly. He doesn't always react in such way, trust me. There must be something about you." Gitway explained.

"Ok, so what's involved? Some kind of oath I have to recite..." Eeffoc said hopefully.

"Oh, no, nothing like that. You will be in a duel with one of our members chosen at random. You don't have to win, you'll judged more by your style and how deal with the situation." Gitway said.

As he said this they came back out of the building and into the street. He sun seemed to be coming up now, small amounts of light peaking over the buildings. The streets of the city seemed calm for this time of morning. Or so Eeffoc would have assumed anyway.

As the two of them entered the street Eeffoc noted the large crowd starting to gather all around. Apparently the news of this duel had spread rather quickly and it was now of some great entertainment value to them all.

As they approached the crowd Gitway quickly explained that his oponent would be chosen at random and that they would continue fighting until one or the other of them could not go on any laonger. It was not necessarily a duel to the death though there was no penalty for for killing the other person. He had a choice of weapons and no more than one time out during the process not lasting more than fifteet minutes. Only the leader the two of had just met could call an end to the duel and he could do so at any time. At that time the crowd would be polled by sound of cheering to see would win. However on some rare occasions even a winner was not allowed to join them.

As soon as that explanation was done Eeffoc was wisked away to the street to face his randomly chosen opponent. Eeffoc stepped into the street, told by a nearby member where to stand. The crowd continued to gather around him in every direction for several more minutes.

Finally, the leader of the group came out and announced it was about to begin. He said that he had meditated on who Eeffoc who would be fighting and had name in an envelope he was currently holidng. He asked one of his assitance to come forward and take the envelope which could then be read to the crowd.

The assistant took the envelope and and held it up. In reaction, the crowd roared an cheered as if it was the greatest thing they had ever seen. The assistant than tore open the top of the envelope, which yeilded yet more enthusiastic cheering from the crowd as did the assistant's holding up the folded peice of paper which the envelop held.

Finally the assistance open the folded paper to read it.

"And so, the new potential member who so desires to join our ranks shall be making combat with...." the assistant paused for dramatic effect. A showman for sure but that didn't make any less annoying.

"The one known as...," the announcer paused again. The crowd seemed to collectively lean forward to listen more carefully to answer in anticipation, "SKIP!!!" With this most enthusiastic of announcements the crowd went absolutely ballistic with cheer, some even jumping up and down.

Not knowing who Skip was Eeffoc couldn't tell if the crowd's real enthusiasm was the result of the announcer's showmanship or because they wanted to see some one with a name like Skip perform in a fight. Perhaps this skip was a proffesional popular fighter or otherwise popular among the locals.

The leader then asked Eeffoc if he had beene explained the rules. Eeffoc said that he had been. He was then given a large selection of varying weapons. Everything from small knifes to large swords, maces something called a "morning star" and a few other devices. But not projectiles of any sort. He would rather fail to mention his built-in arrow darts. Besides none of the rules he had heard had said anything about arrow darts.

He decided to take a rather humble looking knife and conceal it in his clothing. He was told he take more if he wanted. So he took a few daggers and attached them strategically to under his wrists and in the small of his back in his belt and another one near his ankle. He doubted he would need them and he still had a few surprises for who ever this Skip was but he would save that for later.

Whe he indicated he was done selecting weapons and that he was completely satisfied with his choices he was told to take a step back while they announced Skip and let him choose his own weapons.

At this A large lumber hulk of bone and muscle of a man, probably seven feet tall to be modest, did not so much walk forward to the weapon select table and lumber to it. The man was enourmous and that he did not make the ground heave or move out of his way was a great complement to the integrity of that ground.

He looked at the table of weapons and small smirk crept across his lips. He held one massive arm up perfectly horizontal with his hand open just enough as if waiting for something. From an uknown source a rather long and nasty looking spear flew through the air and landed exactly the way he expected it to in his hand vertically fitting into his hand.

"I opt for my own weapon!" He bellowed in a large booming voice. At this the crowd once again started to cheer and applaund enthusiastically. Eeffoc started to feel strangely small and insignificant. Still this was his mission and he intended on seeing it through.

The crowd was quickly organized on opposing sides of the streets giving a large leeway of fighting room. Skip walked over to Eeffoc and looked at him a moment.

"Remember," he said, "you do not have to win be in. Just make a good show. Got it?" then, he leaned in a little further to talk a in a slightly softer voice if that were possible for such man he added, "but do not think that means you are not in danger. You really could be hurt." With a wink he stood back up and started lumbering down the street.

At about fifteen yards he stopped turned around to face Eeffoc. He held up his spear again and the crowd roared their approval and started to chant Skip's name. Finally Skip and Eeffoc were facing each other at opposing ends of the clearing on the street.

As soon as they looked ready the same assistant who had read the contents of the envelop moments earlier stepped forward about half between Skip and Eeffoc.

"So it has been decided that he who designates himself Eeffoc shall engage in an honarable duel with he that deisgnates himself skip until so ordered to stop by our great leader, one is declared the decive winner which may or may not include the death of one or the other of the fighters. Having so decleared the understnading of the rules," The two combatants nodded, "it so commanded that the fight begins...NOW!"

At the sound of that word the crowd again immediately started to cheer loudly and enthusiastically, applauding wildly and chanting "SKIP" until their voices sounded horse.

Eeffoc was not sure how to begin but knew this Skip must have a week point some where. It would just a matter of finding out what that week point was. Judging by Skip's size the logical assumption would be on Skip's lack of speed. That may be something that Eeffoc might be able to use.

After a moent of the two of them sizing each other up Skip started to run toward Eeffoc at a respectable pace. Skip raised and swung his spear in an over-arching direction downards towards Eeffoc just barely managed to duck and sumarsault away to miss. As Eeffoc recovered from this he landed on his feet and grabbed a dagger hidden near his angle threw it at Skip as hard as he could.

Skip managed to effortlessly both move out of the path of dagger and swing his spear around so the dagger in to the handle of the spear. Eeffoc was starting to get the impression perhaps speed, agility and reflexes were not the weaknesses when it came to Skip.

Perahps, Eeffoc thought, the main weakness was actually in how fast Skip could move his feat. With this thought Eeffoc started to run forward toward Skip as quickly as he could cover the several yards in seconds and going into a slide on the pavement. Eeffoc was able to do this so quickly that any one watching would not have seen much more than a blur. Eeffoc slide straight towards Skip's feet, grabbed another dagger from his other pouch attached to his ankle, and successfully stabbed the dagger through Skip's shoe, penatrating his foot by almost an inch.

The crowd was silenced in stun amazement as Eeffoc stood up immediately behind Skip, trying his best to keep a smirk from appearing on his own mouth. It was not long before the crowd unanimously and enthusiasstically decided they liked this series of events and started cheering and applauding the move.

For his part Skip only made what may have been a sound but did not change his facial expression a single bit that anyone could of told you. Slowly, he reached down and plucked the dagger from out of his foot. Still dripping with a little blood he tossed it aside carelessly. It landed on the ground a few feet away from the two of them with a clang.

Then Skip's facial expression did change a bit. It started to get a much more serious and tired, weathered look to it. Eeffoc started to get the impression perahps warm up time was over and Skip was going to start playing for keeps.

Skip started to run toward Eeffoc, this time puting an emphasis on the hand not holding the spear he threw a punch at Eeffoc as hard as he could. it was all Eeffoc could do to avoid the blow. Eeffoc was still a little off blance after the punch and was not quite ready for the secondary blow that came immeidately and first. This one struck Eeffoc in the gut, a blow with the but of Skip's spear.

Eeffoc flew through the air several yards in through the air, landing hard on the pavement of the street. He was back up in a short moment looking at his opponent. Now he was starting to tire at this whole circus and thought it was time he got a little more serious.

Eeffoc thought a moment then came up with another tactic.

"You cannot beat me. It has been foreseen by the greatest of sages." Eeffoc said while walking in a small semi circular pattern, "is my shebolden embedded in your disk drive? I...didn't think so!" He yeld this last phrase knowing full well it would not make sense. He could only help a clever roose of confusion tactics might be able to psych him out a little.

Skip started to run towards him the spear's sharp end facing Eeffoc. Eeffoc dodged this blow and moved to one side, then grabbed the spear and flipped Skip to one side.

"And where do you plan to stick THAT thing!" He yelled as he did so. Skip was successfully flipped over on his back. In the next moment Eeffoc had thrown the spear aside and was puting his boot heal on Skip's neck, holding him down.

"What do yo say Skip...do you yeild?" He asked.

With this Skip reach his hand up and grabbed Eeffoc's leg. Skip then picked the boot up off his neck and threw Eeffoc several feet into the air and away from himself, causing Eeffoc to once again make a rather hard landing on the pavement of the street. Another moment and Skip was once again standing, facing off against Eeffoc who was now also standing and facing toward him. They were at about the same distance they had started from but on opposite sides. The two of them stared and tried face the other down for another moment.

Finally, raised up on arm, stating "I hate to cheat", and firing his projectile. This unexpected turn of events hit Skip square in the abdomine, causing him fly backwards through the air several yards and then into the crowd. The crowd all gasped at once.

Skip did not get up immediately. Eeffoc decided to take this as a good sign. Eeffoc was about to turn around to face the leader as if asking the obvious question of 'is that enough' when a blow from out of no where broadside Eeffoc, knocking him out cold. As his vision started to go blurry he only saw a group of cult members dragging a mumbling Skip away and heard the crowd reacting to something their leader was saying the uproarious applause. With that Eeffoc was out cold.  ¶ 9:37 AM

  Back to top Chapter 21

As he slowly woke up he did not have any idea how much time had passed. He could only hear people around him talking about different things. By the sound of it quite a few people talking about things all around him. He tried but couldn't quite make out what was being said by an single pair or group of conversationists.

As he slowly became more and more awake he started to realize there were other sounds in around him and that he was probably in some kind of room. He heard what seemed like a humming sound coming from some where.

He concentrated on this for a moment and realized he was having trouble opening his eyes. This seemed strange him some how. He also realized he was having trouble feeling any of his exremities. He legs, his arms, his toes none of it seemed to be there. He tried agian to move a finger or something. He just wanted to feel something.

Another moment and he heard what he was sure was the sound of someone walking toward him from some where across the room. As the steps got closer he was not sure if he should be relieved or worried for his safety. He felt a strange sensation come from the back of his head and then his vision started to clear. At first he could blurring black splotches in every direction and then the splotches resmbled people much more. Clearly he was standing up in some fashion but probably restrained. He could not quite tell yet.

As he became more cognicent of what was going on he looked started to look around. He realized he was restrained but other wise probably in good shape though there seemed to be wires come out of several places on his body and leading up to different machines.

Then a face was immediately in front of his eyes. A face he did not recognize at first but soon realized was the leader he had met not that long ago, though it seemed like an eternity now after that fight.

"You did put on quite a good show, quite, yes." The man began, "better than we had anticipated in fact. We could not have you go off and kill our best showman, could we? While your were knocked out we found out the most amazing things about you. We found where you were from, how you were made, who you wer modified by. There is a whole encyclopedia worth of stuff to be found out here in fact." The man pause a laughed a bit awkwardly before continuing. All this is great news for us but I am afraid not so much for you!" With that line apparently entertaining him to no end he laughed a miniacal laugh and turned to walk away.

Another moment passed as Eeffoc thought about this information and his mind continued to clear. His vision was improving by the second and started to look around at his restraints and the room he now foundhimself in. He seemed to be held by several strong looped restraints connected directly to the wall behind him. The restraints seemed rather technologically and quite probably held in place by some kind of redundant security apparatus.

As he looked around he saw the wires he had noted before but also noticed that some tubes seemed to be coming out of him. Fluids were both pumping in and out of several places on his person at the moment which started to cause him some distress. He could feel himself changing in some way.

Another man came over to him and gave him an evil looking grin.

"We've noted the cybernetic nature of you, mister...Eeffoc was it? We are jsut going to find some minor things out about you through a series of experiments." the main explained.

This new man then went over to a bank of computers and other machines and started to push some buttons.

So, they think they know all about me, Eeffoc thought to himself. Well they may still be some things I have left to surprise them with.

Eeffoc closed his eyes and started to try and access his communications device. He hoped it still worked after the blow to the head and all the damage done from the experiments.

/Mavaria, can you here me? I need everyone's help! I need you to come and find me in the strange building as soon as.../ he stopped. There was no way to tell if Mavaria was really getting the message or not. Or if the communicaitons equipment was still there. No, he would have to get himself out this situation.

Where he came from there were rumors that every cybernetic such as himself was equiped with another hidden mode buried deep inside. But no one knew officially if it existed at all never mind if it were possible to access. He decided that was his only chance for getting out of here. He would just have to learn how to access that rumored process and use it and right away.

He closed his eyes and started to regulate his breathing. He tried to start accessing his different system functions and searching through everything he could. He searched function he had never looked in, things like diagnostics that couldn't possibly hold anything of any use. He searched and he searched.

Then he realized he may be going about this process all wrong. Perhaps it was not just one thing he had to find but a combination of things he already knew he had to run together. Maybe he had to mash several functions together and run them as if there wewre all somehow the same program or funciton. But could he do that.

He started puting other functions through function they weren't designed for. He tried running a diagnostic while getting rid of gargage data. Getting desperate he selected every thing that may have passed for a file in some other world's computer system and marked them as something that could be run. Gargage data, temparary files, everything. He then selected them all and told them to run.

There was a long pause in his system and then a slight burning sensation in his toes. In front of his eyes sensations of red and orange started to flow in front of him. He had found the secret function. He was becoming a much more powerful being and he was not sure he wanted that.

With little effort he stood up and startd to walk, immediately breaking apart his restraints. Everyone in the room immediately looked up and stared at him, unsure what to make of these most recent events. He slowly started walking toward the door. Eeffoc was now completely engulfed in what looked like flames though he did not really look like he was on fire. Nor did he entirely feel like he was on fire.

The sensation was more like a subtle warming senstion across all his extremities. The feeling made him feel like he could kick or punch through a brick wall or sending anyone or any thing that came at him flying.

He felt his whole body just buzzing, it was like electricity all over him. He could feel power surging all over him. He reached the door as most of the people still in the room continued to just stair at him, stunned and unable to move.

He continued to walk out into the hall and down the hall. Still no one was reacting.

Then Skip appeared in front of him, as blocking him way from continuing. Eeffoc only looked at him and smiled. He then continued walking. When he got to about where Skip was standing, Skip finally just moved out of his way. Skip's respect for this strange man who had held up so well in battle was emense. He did not think Eeffoc deserved the treatment he had received. Skip also had a feeling getting between a man who was apparently engulfed in what looked like flames and his destination would probably be a bad idea, even for Skip.  ¶ 9:38 AM

  Back to top Eeffoc kept walking past him with out a word. He walked down the next hall then down another. Finally he came to a door he knew some how was the exit out this building and into the streets. What he did not know was what was about to happen next. He was about to open the door when he heard a series of orders shouted from behind him followed by a barage of gunfire. He turned around slowly, scaresly noticing all the bullets.

In the midst of all the gunfire was another large noise as an apparent large projectile hurled through the air at him. With little care he moved to one side and the small missile hit the door, exploding. The once sturdy door started to teeder and finally fell forward with a large thump.

Outside more were amassing, preparing to fire at him. The new, red glowing Eeffoc continued walking foward. See Mavaria, Holster, Kipper and the others seemed some how familiar to him. Like he had known them in some dream. Without thinking about it he started to walk toward them, ignoring all the gun fire and people around him.

He started trying to talk to them, to ask them if he knew them and why they looked so familiar. To ask for their help if they could. The only thing that seemed to come out were random indeciferable sounds that did not sound like words at all.

He just kept walking toward them, making what he thought were words, asking them for help. The group only stared at him with blank looks on their faces not sure how to react. When the troops behind Eeffoc started firing at him as he was between the group and the troops Mavaria and the rest started to go into action by diving out of the way.

They all took cover and started firing back at the troops. Before anyone had realized what was going on the group of thirteen people were in a full on fire fight with dozens of cult soliders. It had started so quickly that Kipper had not started to concentrate on his implant to take them all out or slow them down in any way. Without even thinking about it he had gotten out his hand gun and started firing back at them alongside Holster.

Even in the cross fire of the two opposing groups Eeffoc hardly noticed the bullets as they wizzed by his head, somtimes stricking different parts of his body. Within minutes of the fire fight starting he was standing within a few yards of this group of thirteen people that seemed so familiar to him. He continued to stare at them in the middle of the action until another loud explosion was heard coming from behind him in the direction of the building he had just come out of.

In the doorway Skip appeared, dressed in full armor and carrying a rather large, scary looking gun. The kind of gun that had a whole trail of bullets along with it and fire out of one of a series of chambers as they rotated through. Even Skip had to wear it with a arm sling to support its weight, the gun coming down to his waist. Skip walked out into the street behind all the troops and looked as he was about to start spinning this new gun up.

In that moment Eeffoc had a sudden and amazingly cleary sense of clarity. It was as if his fate was simply laid out in front of him and there was no other course of action. In that moment he knew he had to do what it took to stop and skip and in the process take as many of the cult troops out. He faced Skip and started to run towards him.

Slowly at first, then moving more and more quickly towards him. Finally he broke into a run as the gun of Skip started to spin up. Before the first round could be fired from Skip's gun Eeffoc jumped as hard and far as he could, tackling Skip and knocking him over. But not before a few rounds did make it out of Skip's gun and toward Mavaria and the other twelve.

As soon as Eeffoc landed on skip he started to increase in temperture. He started to punch Skip as hard as he could in the head repeatedly. Skip, still weighted down with his giant gun, did what he could to black all the punches and try to get Eeffoc off of him but was really unable to do so.

Eeffoc was starting to completely blank out of what he was doing. He was wildly punching over and over again without paying attention. Finally, Skip was able to throw him off over his head, tossing a blinded with rage Eeffoc several feet behind him. Skip was back to his feet with seconds. He dropped his over sized gun to his side and just looked at Eeffoc, a smirk creeping back to his lips. By the this time Eeffoc had scrambled back to his feet, Skip was ready for him. What Skip was not ready for was the changes Eeffoc had gone through since their last fight.

Skip lunged at him throwing one large fist in his direction. Eeffoc only caught the fist in his palm. He would have started to crush Skips fist in his palm but his hands were not quite that large. Instead Eeffoc used the developing and churning power that was coming from inside him to project him several feet. The force of sent out and energy wave that sent troopers in the immediate area flying through the air while knocking down several all the rest. The wave reached as far as Mavaria and her band of fighters who felt the surge of energy but managed to not quite lose their balance.

Skip had been thrown several feet through the air, to land on several other soldiers. Eeffoc seemed to glowing more and more red with each passing moment. He felt like he was losing control. His entire body now felt like it was throbbing, like a beating heart. He knew what was coming and he knew what he had to do. He back over to the still dazed Skip and picked him. He picked up with one hand by the neck. Not because he wanted to hurt him but because he wanted to make sure he had a grip on him. He use this hand and his other hand to hold him above his head. With an effort he then ran into a nearby crowd of troops who had been distracted with their own troubles and surprised them by jumping and landing on them.

He then went into a much faster beat throbbing, faster and faster. Within seconds a final great surge of energy went out him. This surge sent some troops flying while causing others to simply collapse under the stress of the force of it.

Skips body simply started to deteriorate layer by layer until nothing was left at all. With this Eeffoc's body finally started to fade in color. The red started to subside, the parts inside his body started to wind down. He collapsed and fell to his knees, then finally on to his face.

Mavaria, Holster, Kipper and their volunteers all ran over to him, finally rid of the troops who had been firing at them. Kipper arrived first looking at him and and turning him over.

"I did..as you asked...boss." Eeffoc said, stumbling each word.

"Do not talk, we may be able to save you yet." Kipper tried to assure him in vaid.

"It is alright. I have served my purpose. I am not on fire any more. I can finally rest..." He managed out as his parts started to wind down.

With one final surge of noises and whines Eeffoc winded down for the last time, coming to rest, still staring at Kipper.

Kipper looked up at everyone standing over him.

"I guess we will never know where he came from or what he became so loyal to us in such a short time. He was truly a great hero though." He said.

Then Eeffoc's body started to make more noises, not as friendly this time. Kipper started to move away from him and gestured for everybody else to move away as well.

After a moment Eeffoc's body stated to catch on fire and deteriated quickly in front of him. In less than a minute there was only a scorched place of street where he had once laid.  ¶ 9:39 AM

  Back to top Chapter 22

The thirteen of them just stood there for several more moments stairing at what was once Eeffoc, a man or cyborg or some sort of being that had been willing to so readily sacrafice himself for the rest of them without so much as a second though. All of them now felt like they should have spent so much more time trying to get to know him better.

After several minutes of silence Mavaria noticed that although all the troops were now either dead or knocked out on the ground all their guns were still in the wide open waiting to be picked back up by those same troops or any more troops that happen to come along.

"I think the greatest respect we can pay this Eeffoc would be to continue the fight, would not you all agree? I suggest we pick up all these fire arms before these guys start to wake up or more troops start showing up. Come on, everybody pick up a weapon or at least take the ammunition clips out...and clear the chamber!" She said.

The rest of the group startled by this sudden series of orders jumped into action going through the crowd of downed troopers, finding guns and ammo and making sure everyone had a gun and lots of ammo.

Once they all had something to fight with they made sure the guns were all safe stored away. Until one of them realized all these troopers also had convenient holsters on their person as well. So the the group went through all the troopers once again getting all the holsters they could find and fitting themselves with it.

Once everybody was ready to go they left the intersection in front of the strange building to find some where to discuss the next move.

As they all headed towards a nearby side walk to start walking south there was another series of sounds. Then, in the distance several people were running into a building. With that they all started running in that direction. The locaiton was at least two hundred yards away and they ran as fast as they could.

By the time they still had a hundred yards left there was the sound of an alarm as several figures started to come out of the building. The figures were then about to get into a vehicle, until they say the thirteen people running twoard them. As if in recognition they all ran back the other direction, back into the building.

Holster did not know what was going on or these people were but they did not seem to be up to any good. So he continued running on to the front of the building.

When the all arrive the started to take places behind columns and barricades the found. The doors of the building flew shut and then sound like they were being locked. From a window next to the doors it looked like they figures were now taking hostages or threatening the people inside somehow.

Then there was the sound of the doors unlocking again. With a thrust the doors came open and several figures came stumbling out. One of the group's volunteers fired in the figure's direciton, hitting the figure in the leg, causing the figure to collapse.

Kipper ran forward and grabbed the figure and started to drag the figure back to where the rest of them were hiding.

Upon closer inspection the figure was actualy a woman with her mouth taped shut. She had tape over her mouth and had been dressed up in a trench coat. Kipper ripped the tape from her mouth. With a slight yelp the woman exlpained the strange figures who had come into her building and started demanding money. The strange thing was that this particular building did not actually have any money and there were several signs stating as much on the front entrance.

The figures insid started to move again. Kipper only glanced at Mavaria who gave a mostly reluctant shrug and took the woman, running her away from the scene to what was hoped to be a safe distance. Why, Kipper wondered, had these inept robbers run into this building and further why had they let this woman in particular free? Was it just so they all knew this about the robbers?  ¶ 9:39 AM

  Back to top That was probably it: they let her see just enough information then sent her out knowing she could give them the inforamtion. But that still did not explain why they would want to do such a thing. There must be some other reason.

There was always the possibility this was a diversion. Or perahps the hostage taking action was some how related to the incident in the subway the day before. But what reasons would there be for them taking such actions? What would they need all those hostages for?

That question would soon be answered. Sooner than Kipper had expected an answer. The door to the building opened again and everyone raised their weapons in anticipation. Another hostage was stumbling toward the door. The one a man who looked middle aged some how and also had tape covering his mouth. And, for some reason, he had his legs and hands binded. He stumbled out and started hopping and jumping toward the group. The volunteer who had mentioned something about ropework managed to lassoe the man and pull him up closer.

When this hostage was close enough they took the tape from his mouth and took off the bindings on his legs and hands. They asked him if he knew anything but it was mostly about the same as the woman had reported before: demanding money even though there was none to take and binding all the hostages. When he was done he was taken away form the scene to join the woman who had come before him.

Kipper was now starting to tire of this whole situation. He wanted answers to all these questions and he wanted them now. He was not willing to wait any longer. Since he had the power and the will to do something about it he was going to do something about.

"Everybody take up a position and get ready for trouble." he instructed, "We are going to find out what is going on in there one way or another."

With this he took a position next to Holster, already in a position of cover behind a beam in front of the building.

Kipper decided he would not tell anyone around what he was planning on doing. It would only attract more questions from them all and they really did not have time for all that.

Getting out his gun, he acted as though he were preparing to go in to the building or perhaps anticipating some gunmen coming out. What he had decided to do was attempt to use his implant while appear to be completely in the moment to everyone around him.  ¶ 9:40 AM

  Back to top With an effort he kept his eyes open and started to control his breathing as tightly as he could. He pushed once again into his mind, using the implant. Further, and further inside he went until he had reached the place he knew he was the last time he had thought he had reached his limits. Still he pushed on further. He was actually in a completely different space than he had ever been, but on the outside he looked completely in the moment: no all white pupils or drooping his head down. The only thing that had changed was his breathing.

As he did this a figure appeared in the doorway, this one was running. This time it was not a hostage, this time it was something else. The figure finally emerged from the doorway holding what looked like a weapon. The figure started to point it at them all. Without thinking about it Holster fired several shots at the figure.

The figure did not move only stayed where it was. Then from behind the figure a number of loud sounds started. No one was sure what it was at first, then the sounds started to sound closer and closer.

The figure finally started to move forward again, stepping into view. An apparently uninjured man was walking forward with a large shotgun, and a strange expression on his face.

The as of yet unidentified started to bring his shutgun down in to a position that would be pointing at the group of them. It was at this moment that Kipper knew what he had to do and that he had to do it quickly.

Using his mind, he started to create a bubble around the group surrounding him, sending them all into a hyper fast forward state. To any one observing it would have appeared all thirteen of them simply disappeared from view. In fact, even in an idle state, they were all moving faster than any human eye could perceive.

In the next moment Holster was observing a slowly cracking window, veins starting to form and splinter in every direction. He started to wonder what that was and why it was happening.

Things seemed to be completely slowed down to Holster and he didn't know why. What was going on? Then he heard more gunshots as things started to speed up again. The glass shattered as a bullet came out of it. Then several shots right over his head. Holster stayed hidden behind his column, trying to avoid any exposure.

More figures started flowing out of the window and door to the building. All of them holding large assault weapons. and firing at the thirteen of them.

Kipper, who had slowed everything down briefly then lost concentration and allowed everything to speed up again unbeknownst to everyone else, did close his eyes this time. He closed his and started to concentrate, this time trying to send everyone, including those among them who should not have the ability to receive it, a message telling them it to take one shot at a time at those posing a threat but to try and keep in mind there would probably be hostages in the mix.

He was sure Holster and Mavaria got the message, he was not sure about the rest of the group. One brief glance around the faces of the group and he knew that some how they had all received his message sent through his mind.  ¶ 9:40 AM

  Back to top The thirteen of were spread out in front of the building, al crouching behind verious forms of cover. Men started to appear in the doorway holding weapons and firing wildy in their direction without little regard for their own safety. Each figure who apeared in this manner was shot and either killed or possily only injured.

Wave after wave came out of the building, each one taken down. Kipper and Holster both started wonder how so many people could be inside the building like this. That there must be something else going on here.

Kipper decided he was going to try and slow down time again, this time he would let his head droop and his eyes go all white. He would slow down time for himself along with Holster and Mavaria so they could sneak into the building and see what was going on. It would take a lot out of him to maintain it but he did not see many other options.

Kipper crouched down behind some cover and closed his eyes. He started regulating his breathing and trying to reach inside as far as he had gone before. The process was starting to get faster and faster which he assumed meant he was starting to get really good at it. And, he thought to himself, there didn't seem to be any side effects or concequences.

He finally reached the familiar state of being as deep into his own mind as he ever had before. He reached out and pointed his concentration at the nearby Holster and Mavaria. For all three of them everything started to slow down agian. First everything was in slow motion. Holster looked around and wondered what was going on only to see Kipper in his state and know he was behind it. Then time seemed to slow down even further, bullets could be seen flying by at about the speed of a passing humming bird which is about what the sound of the bullets were.

Then Kipper went even deeper. He found a place he still yet hadn't seen before and went to it without hesitation. At this last step the entire state of time seemed to freeze entirely. It was as though the entire existance had coming to a screeching, abrupt, absolute, halt.

Holster got up for his cover and walked over to Kipper.

"Kipper, what have you done?" He asked the obvious question.

"He has slowed time to such an extent it appears completely frozne, that is what he has done." Mavaria explained before Kipper could come up with the words.

"That is partitially correct," Kipper said in a very slow, deliberate tone of voice, "what I actually did was speed the three of us up to such an extent it appears the rest of the world is frozen. It take a lot of concentration to do this but I believe I can maintain it long enough for us to go inside and learn what is going on along with some intel on the this cult's plans." He said.

Holster and Mavaria only looked at him, then after a moment at each other. Without saying a word both of them started to walk toward the entrance.

It would be true that the two of them would have preferred discussing this approach and being warned they were about to be shoved in to hyper speed. It was further true the both of them wanted to know if this was safe and how easy it would be to get back out of it. For that matter would there be any side effects short or long term on any of them especially Kipper. All those questions were on the tip of Holster and Mavaria's lips but neither of them were going to ask it right now. There would be time later, if the were still alive, for questions like that.

Seeing Holster and Mavaria going toward the building Kipper slowly walked behind them, still moving slow from the heavy concentration this whole state was taking.

Holster and Mavaria walked past all the seemingly frozen figures outside the building, looking at them frozen time. The figures outside seemed to have strange looking facial expressions. Holster and Kipper reached the front door. The two of them hesitated a moment before going in, looking in from the outside for a moment. Then, walked in, first Mavaria then Holster. Kipper was behind them by several feet and still moving and think a little slower than normal.

Kipper approached the door and looked in. He was very surprised at what he finally found on the inside. In fact he never seen anything quite like it.  ¶ 9:41 AM

  Back to top Chapter 23

Kipper slowly walked in to the First Savings and Loans building on East 21st street. Kipper walked passed all the people in the entry way. Some of them looked like hostages, while some of them looked like fanatics who wanted to attack some one or some thing but could not figure out what or who that was or why they want to do such a thing.

As Kipper ventured further in to the building's lobby area, amongst the cut outs promoting out standing loans and possibly better savings were more people crouched down on the floor, terrified looks on all their faces. Kipper felt sorry for them but as of yet did not know what he could do for them. He looked toward one of the counters and saw a tall serious looking man seemingly in the middle of barking some order. This, Kipper surmised was probably the leader of the operation.

Holster had ventured to another part of the lobby area near some of the loan officer desks. He found pushed over desks and papers little all over the floors. He also found some people he assumed to be more hostages hiding from the terrorizing hostage takers under some of the desks.

Mavaria had started to look toward the back. The woman who had let out of the building was right in saying there was nothing to rob here. Clearly, who ever these people were they were not here to rob anything. What ever they were there for would require a bit more deeper research.

Holster looked like he was about to touch one of the hostages. Kipper quickly yelled something to stop him, pointing out even he did not know what would happen if they touched some one while moving at this speed. Maybe the person would not notice or maybe the speed at which the frozen person was touched be effected like recieving a bullet wound.

Holster agreed the consequences would be unknown and that it would be a bad idea to find out at this point. Holster did ask about inanimate objects. Taking away guns from the robbers for instance. Kipper could not think of any faults to it but still suggested avoiding it just to be on the safe side.

Mavaria then suggested they follow the trail of supposed robbers back to another room where more of them were apparently hiding. They went to the back and found several more people who looked like robbers as well as some bound up hostages who seemed a lot less scared for some reason. In fact the guns of the robbers were casually left leaning against a wall and the robbers seemed to talking casually.

All of them agreed this seemed rather strange and wondered what had lead to such a scene. The three of them then left that room and moved further down the adjoining hallway. Eventually the three of them arrived at another small room, this one apparently with a door ripped off and several people inside. The room was quite small in size. Not much larger than a broom closet. Yet for some reason there was a lot of people both inside and out of it. This begged the question from the three of them why this one particular room was getting so much attention.

Mavaria cautiously slid between several people into the room to have a look around. That is when she noticed the whole in the floor of the small room. Down the whole was a roper ladder that seemed to go down into it. She could not see the bottom of the hole at all. She yelled back at the other two what she had found and started to come out of the room.

Holster, Kipper and Marvaria discussed what could be going, what was down the hole and whether they should explore where the hole went. In the end it was concluded they did not have a lot of choice but go down the hole and see where it went. Mavaria seemed to be the only one slender enough to safe fit in between all the people and slip down the rope. Holster and Kipper, they decided, would stay in the building and continue exploring. They could always communicate with each other with their implants if they had to.

Mavaria went back to the small room and looked down the whole. Wherever it went it was really dark a short way down. She no way of knowing how deep it went or if there was some frozen on the rope a short distance down. On the other hand the tunnel could not go very far down since, as she already knew, there was a series of subway tunnels and most likely many other tunnels some where beneath this building. With a last breath of wondering what she would find the knelt down and grabbed the rope. With a small effort she repelled off the entrance to the whole and started down the rope.

Holster and Kipper watched her go down, wondering if that was the right decision. After all, three of them would probably be safer together than anyone of them by themselves. Mavaria had certianly proven by now she could take care of herself, and there was very little reason to fear for her.

Holster and Kipper then turned and went back down the hall trying to find anything they had missed before. Holster turned a corner and noticed a stair case. Wondering what he would find, he went up the stairs to find a long hallway with doors on either side. He walked down the hallway, assuming all the doors would lead to private offices. Then he could see at the end of the long hall way several frozen figures. He walked up to them and started studying their state

Both figures were dressed like the robbers on the floor below but these two seemed to be in mid arugument over something. One was obviously yelling at the other, most probably at a very high volume. The recipient of this exchange was just standing still seemingly indifferent at the chewing out he was recieving. The door to the office behind them was open, so Holster started to venture inside.

Inside this office he found several papers all over a desk and several of what looked like blue prints. He went over to the blue prints and started study them carefully, not full sure at what he was seeing. He kept looking and flipping through the pages of the blue prints trying to make sense of them.

After several minutes he thought the plans were starting to make some sense to him. He could see the building he was in and the different floors and roooms along with the broom closet sized one Mavaria had disapeared to. Then on another page another set of information and seemed to lead away from that room and go into a whole other set of rooms and hallways.

This he took to be as a set of plans for the tunnels or sub structure under the savings and loans. The plans lead away from Mavria's entrance back towards another set of rooms and what looked like hallways. He didn't know where that was but it could be the subway system.

There was also another hallway that seemed to go off into nowhere. He then remembered the blue prints he had seen the previous day. That seemed like such a long time ago now. He tried to remember what those plans looked like and whether these looked like those at all. He did not have the kind of memory that could bring up something like a blue print in a perfect picture inside his mind.

He thought about calling over Kipper and his fancy implant abilities to look it over. Holster knew Kipper could do it but he also knew he could probably do it if he just practiced and concentrated. Maybe he could even start accessing his implant and learning how to get something out of it on his own.

Holster closed his eyes and started to concentrate on his implant. He was not sure how he could do this at first but then he started to see things in front of his closed eyes. Just random bits of color at first then something started to come into focus. It looked like a series of menus. The menus looked like they would control everything the implant was capable of but everything was greyed out like it was disabled. Some how Kipper had managed to get past this point. Or perhaps whatever runs this implant had a bug in his verison. Kipper had never mentioned anything about that.

So Holster started to try different things. Attempting to access different parts of the menu, trying to access more than one menu at once, trying to push the menu into the back of his mind. Nothing seemed to work at all. Then he remembered playing with some strange computer as a child. There was some strange secret section of the screen he would try to access that would unlock hidden features. He did not know if this would work in this case but he was running of ideas.

With a bit of effort, he started to concentrate on access different random parts of the screen. First around the corners of the image then at the egdes of the different images. He was about to give up when the whole menu just suddenly started to light up and become more colorized.

He was amazed for a moment and then realized he could do about anything he wanted with it now. He started to access to different menues and concepts, different images flashing in front of him. Faster and faster different things flashed through his mind. He was starting to get carried away when suddenly a single image stopped and froze in front of him. It was an exact images of the floor plans he had looked at the previous day. With another bit of effort he then pulled up an image of the floor plans he had been looking at in the room his was still standing in.

Then he made the first set transparent and over laid the plans over the second set. THe plans were a remarkable close match with a few key differences. Working quickly, he started to mark the over lay with the key differences between the two. A different hall here, an extra room there and make notes off different things to look more into later on.

He was proud he had figured out all this on his own and was sure this information would be envaluable to both Kipper and Mavaria. Now that he thought about it, he had not heard from either of them in what seemed like way too long. He started to back out of his interface with the implant when a strange sensation and series of sounds hit him from behind.

He then heard a gruff voice yelling something about someone not doing his job. But the voices sounded really slow. Holster started to realize Kipper was losing his grip on the state he had placed them all in making time appear frozen but really being moving a lot faster than everyone else. But why had not Kipper tried to call out to him with his mind's communication? This started to worry him. He finished coming out of his trance and moved back to the doorway as quicly as he could, hiding to one side.

The two men outside were still saying something but it was hard to tell since their voices still sounded like they were in slow motion.

In the next instance was a loud bang or crash, he wasn't sure which, followed by a crying out from one of the men. The bang had sounded a lot like a shotgun blast.

Chapter 24

Kipper saw Holster make his way up a flight of stairs. Kipper some how convinced himself there was nothing to be learned by going up there but didn't say anything. He already knew it would not be very long before he started to lose his grip on the frozen state he had some how managed. He was not even sure how he had done it never mind how long he would be able to maintain it.

He always dreamed of freezing time and walking around a world seemingly frozen when actually he was moving really really fast so as to make the world at large seem as though it were frozne. He just never thought it was actually going to happen.

He started wandering down a few more hall ways, trying to look for more clues in what was going on in the strange buildng and strange situation he had found himself in. He was starting to think he was not going to find anything when he started to get a funny feeling in the back of his head. Something like he was in danger or someone was out to get him.

Suddenly and before even he could realize what he was doing he ducked backwards to the ground. No sooner had he landed then a silenced bullet shot right over his where he had been only a moment earlier. He looked int he diretion he thought the bullet had probably come from but did not see anyone. He walked in that direction and again without realizing it dropped to the ground, narrowly misisng a bullet.

This was now starting to annoy him. He would have to find out what the hell was going on. He again started walking in what he was now sure was the direction of the gun shot. He saw a slightly ajar door and a running jump and slide to it, catching it just barely.

He went inside some how, propping open the door with his foot. Inside he found a strange looking man holding hand gun with an attached silencer. He was pointing it in roughly the same direction as Kipper and looked really confused.

Kipper started to say something but stopped when he realized he really did not know what he could possibly say in this particular situation. He just looked at the man, waiting for him to say something. Finally, the lowered in hand gun with the attached silencer.

"What...what is going? Why is everyone stuck in place like that?" the man asked finally.

"I have frozen time. It should be frozen for everyone including you actually. Do you not know why you and only you are not affected by my ability to speed me and my friends up to such a degree it looks like all ohter time is frozen but really it is not?" Kipper asked.

"No, I don't know. I was in this office hiding from men with guns and the next second time is frozen. So you say that you are responsible? How is that possible?" He man asked.

"It has something to do with my strange implant I got only a day ago. I have some how managed to unlock it and have been finding all kinds of strange new abilities I was never intended to find in the strange implant of mine." Kipper answered, then continued, "the fact that you are not frozen must mean my concentration is already starting to wear off. It takes a lot of energy to keep this effect up consistently. My concentration is already starting to crash. I am not going to hurt you by the way, you can put the gun away. We were on the outside trying to face off against the robbers and trying to save the hostages. I'm Kipper." He explained.

"I see. Well, lets get out of here then." The man said.

"You just get out here of this building as quick as you can. I don't know how much longer I'll be able to hold this frozen state like this and you do not want to be around when it where's off i think." Kipper suggested.

"Ok, I think you know what you are talking about when you say that. I am getting the hell out of this place." the man said.

With that the man ran out the door and then out the building and away as far as he could. Kipper was glad for this, or at least that no one else was firing bullets at him. He was still in the room the strange man had occupied and he started to look around. There were a few random objects around. A desk, a chair, some papers mostly releateing to saving and or loaning. Then he looked under the desk top for no particular reason and was surprised. There, held up with several straps, was a shutgun. Probably for self defense apparently it hadn't done any good.

He took the shotgun, picked it up and checked it. There appeared to be some live rounds still loaded and it appeared to have one already loaded in the chamber. He put it back into a fireable state and decided to run up to see how Holster was doing. And probably ask him for help. He could tell his mind was still unraveling with so much riding on his mind.

He ran out of the room and then up the stairs. He saw the long hallway and figures at the end. He ran down the hallway toward the two figures and had a sedden sensation of neasuia. He stopped a moment, then fell forward to one knee. Another wave of confusion and nasia hit him hard. The control over the frozen reality was definately coming apaprt at the seams. Despite his diziness, he managed to get up and stumble to one of the doors in the hall way. He tried the knob but it was locked. I he tried the next door and the next. Finally he found an open door and stumbled inside.

No sooner had he stumbled inside that room then he started to hear the sound of voices he could only assume belonged to the figures at the end of the hall. But for some reason the voices sounded like they were in slow motion.

The world, Kipper thought was starting to unfreeze. It was all unraveling and would soon be back to full speed. Further he wasn't sure what was happening to him right now. He felt very strange. At least, he thought, he could give Holster and possibly Mavaria a head start. At least he could slow down the robbers in the hall before he passed out or something else happened to him.

With this decision fresh in his mind he slowly edged out toward the hallway. He carefully looked around the corner down the hall and saw the to figures. The two of them seemed to be arguing about something Kipper could not quite make out what.

Thinking he was running out of things to lose, strange since he had little evidence to convince him of as much, and came out into the hall and fired two shots. The first hit the man on the right, the second shot missed both of them. Kipper quickly gave the shotgun another pump and fired again in the direction of the two and missed again. By this point the two men had started to look down the hall in Kipper's direction, probably seeing not much more than a blur moving back and forth across the hall way.  ¶ 9:42 AM

  Back to top Chapter 25

Mavaria was still climbing down the rope into the hole in a room that was the size of a broom closet. The hole turned out to be deceptively deep, much more so than she would have guessed. The hole seemed to specifically dug just for going down into whatever place she was getting down to. The rope had been attached to a trapaze like device attached to the ceiling. It looked like it was securely attached to some supports and a joyce.

She had used a special epidermal layer to conver he hands on the way down since she did not have any gloves to keep from burning her hands.

As she repelled down the rope, enough give in the slack to indicate there was no one in a frozen state already on the rope, she started to wonder if what she was doing was really the best thing she could be. After all she was supposed to be doing a job, not rescuing hostages or uncovering plots that may or may not exist.

Still, she could hardly think of anything she would rather be doing for some reason. Perhaps it was going through so much in the presents of Kipper and Holster. Though Kipper impressed her very much she some how had a feeling that Holster actually had a lot of potential. More potential than even he know, never mind Kipper.

She was deep enough down the hole it was getting difficult to see now. She activated her the light feature of her suit tohelp her see where it was that she was going.

She looked down again and was relieved to be able to just barely see the bottom of the hole. She continued to repel down at a slow state taking care to watch for any changes in the environment.

Decenting in this way it was only another few minutes and she was on the floor of a cavern at the bottom of the hole.

With a minor adjustment she adjusted the settings on her suit to throw light in every direction. What she saw upon doing this surprised even her. Spread out before her was not a cavern but an amazingly large room with man frozen men all around her in various states of talking or discussing something. Some of them seemed to be yelling at other while some of them seemed to be talk to someone calmly. At one end of the room was large table with several people sitting behind it, presneting some sort of authority over some situation.

She moved over to the table with what appeared to a council of people and started looking over the shoulder of each of them in sequence. There were various papers on the desk but nothing of any paritcular use. She could no figure out what they were talking about. Or for that matter why had all these people been here in the dark. Some thing about that also did not make sense.

She looked around a bit for light switch. She spotted it and moved over to hit that switch, across the room from where she was. The room instantly lit up and and she realized she was looking at a strange set of maniquins all over this room, that these people were not really frozen from Kipper's implant.

This further raised questions in her mind wondering why someone would go to so much trouble. The explanation she could think of was that some one was expecting them all down here and know some how that Kipper would be freezingtime. That seemed like a realy far fetched idea since Kipper himself did not know he was able to freeze time nor did he know that he would be doing so at all never mind at this particular time and place.

Still, it was not impossible that some could have some how figured out a way to know what was happening.

She thought about all the possibilities as she explored the room full of apparently fake humans made to look a certain state when something from above caught her attention. It sounded like some one jumping for one place another and may have even been a silence gun going off. But that could not be the case since everyone but her and the two guys were frozen in time. She froze a moment listening and did not hear anything for several seconds.

Finally, she heard some muffled voices followed by foot steps, then some more foot steps going up some stairs. She stood still, listening quietly. Then there were some muffled bangs that sounded like gun fire. She started to wonder if she should figure out a way up or stay where she was. In the next instant both Kipper and Holster were half climbing half falling down the long shaft only barely holding on to the ropes.

Mavaria ran over to the rope to try and hold it steady. Holster and Kipper some how managed to make it down the hole faster than she would have thought possible. They two of them landed with a thud and started to get back up slowly. Kipper walked over the Mavaria and told her some strange things were happening and that the grip on this frozen time would be ending soon. About the time he finished explaining all this he started to look around and noted all the people in a frozen state around him. He started to ask what it all ways when Mavaria interrupted.

"Actually they are maniquins. I have no idea why these would be here like this or who put them here but I have looked closely. In fact when I first got down here all these figures were in the dark. That is what first made me think something was wrong." She explained.

"Yes, that is very strange," Kipper started to say, "I think there something more going on here than we can tell, really." He agreed, starting to walk around the room. Holster also started to look around, not sure what he was looking at.

As Holster started to walk around the room suddenly started to shake and rumble like an earth quake. The lights started to flicker a bit, a sensation of rolling started to go through the building. With the next shake the lights flickered out only to be replaced by some emergency lights that were red tinted. The shaking started to subside and eventually the regular lights flickered back on.

Holster just looked at Kipper and Mavaria looking a little pale in the face as if to ask what the hell was that and how soon were they going to die when a figure appeared at the end of the room in an elaborate puff of smoke, the figure's back facing the three of them. The figure was wearing what looked like a cape and and jet black hair that probably quite long were they able to see it.

Mavaria, Holster and Kipper just staired at him a moment and then looked at each other. Kipper used his implant to ask the other two if they knew what was going on. He also mentioned that time was no longer frozen and he was not going to be using any more of his powers any time soon.

Holster and Mavaria did not seem to acknowledge his message but some how he knew that his message had been received.

Slowly the figure started to turn around and face them. He was a tall man, with a very angled face. His chin seemed to come down into the shape of triangle. He had a black triangular shaped beard as well, adding to the over all look of the menace. His close was something about of a victorian era novel, he looked something like a count from a fictional story with a large amount of layers and shirt some among us may refer to as poofy.

He was wearing a rather goddy necklace around his neck it what was probably supposed to be a cross but looked a lot more like letter 'T' some how.

All these things were immediately apparent to Holster, Kipper and Mavaria but none of them were the most noticable or relevant characteristics. What all three of them should have noticed right away was how he was levitating several inches off the ground, a clear sign they were not dealing with any normal person with a an open tab at a costume shop.

"Who are you?" Mavaria asked.

Man hardly seemed to notice the question but after a few seconds replied.

"I think you know, Mavaria." the man replied.

"What do you want with us?" Kipper asked, trying not to let his voice shake.

"Oh, I think you know, Kipper." The man said.

"What uhh...you know my name already, don't you know?" Holster finaly said after a moment's thought.

"Yes, I do Holster. In fact you have all ben running through my experiment with remarkable speed and skill. For that I should want to congratulate you." The figure said.

"Experiment? What? Who the hell ARE you anyway?" Kipper asked, sounding angry.

"Oh come now Kipper. I think you know. I have been watching you since the beginning. Did you really think finding all those abilities was just your incredible skill? Could you really be that stupid?" The mysterious man was starting to sound condescending.

"You are saying that you are responsible for all these newly found abilities I have been exhibiting?" Kipper asked unbelievingly.

"Yes, of course. Hard for me to belive that it has not been obvious up until this point. Mavaria kidnapping you into her world, your coming back here, Mavaria's mishap with her parabolic dishes, all of it. An eleborate scenario set up for me and a few others to satisfy our curiousity." The man still sounded some how condescending.

"Wait...my mishap with the dishes? You some how made that happen?" Mavaria was asking.

"Yes, that is right. We triggered a small rodent like bird from behind you to fly up at just right time, distracting you and causing those strange clouds of light. Everything went according to plan. We found out how the population respond which was better than we could have hope..." THe man stopped mid sentence. Mavaria and taken out a small knife and through it as hard as she could at the figure.

The man had simply suspended the knife in mid air and held it there.

"Really Mavaria, was that necessary?" the man asked, "I was talking."

Holster and Kipper only looked at here surprised, as if expecting some kind of explanation.

"What? It worked for me once before." She said.

The knife dropped to the floor. "As I was saying," the main continued, "We had some questions about this population and these questions answered quite well by the three of you."

"And why have you shown up now, and told us all of this? Just to brag?" Kipper asked.

"Brag, oh no. My species is well beyond all that. I have shown up to administer your final test. Explaining all that was just something I enjoyed doing becuase the subject does not usually survive this final test." The man said.

Kipper was about the ask more questions about recent events, what this last test consisted of and why they were being forced to be subjects in anything when the maniquins all around suddenly melted away into puddles. Then the furniture melted away as well to make slighly larger, slighly more wooden colored puddles.

The puddles then started to drain or evaporate, it was hard to tell, leaving only a lighly carpted, large room with three subjects and a strange man ina cape levitating off the ground.

Kipper would have asked what the test was going to consist of but knew the man would not bother answering. This question direclty or other wise.

After all the poeple and maniquins were done melting the light carpeting started to melt away into and evaporate. What they were left with was a large room with black and white alternating tiles. The room, now fully realized thanks to all the evaporating, was about four hundred square feet and seemed to be perfectly square. All the walls, now completely bare and also tiled in a similar pattern, were completely bare.

With a smile the man said, "Before the test begins, will you not share your much speculated upon deal with Mavaria Kipper? That is the one thing we were some how unable to acsertain despite our elaborate mechanisms for watching you." The man asked, sounding nice for some reason.

"What? You are going to kill us and now you want me to do you a favor?? Ok, fine. I should tell Holster before whatever happens next anyway. The deal we made was..." as he was talking he was interrupted a stinging sensation in his his hand. He held it up with his palm facing him. It was actually starting to glow red some how. It did not so much hurt as make feel a little wierd or slighly unconfortable at worst.

Then he started to feel the same sensation in his other hand. He held it up as well and noticed that it too was starting to glow a little red. This was starting to weird him out a little and he was not sure he liked the sensation.

He turned to face Holster and Mavaria, only to catch them in an amazingly shocked expression. Pale expressions were getting common from Holster. But when Mavaria has the same expression of puzzlement and shock and is herself starting to look rather pale, Kipper knew something was definately wrong.

Suddenly his whole body started to glow red and throb. It was the stranges sensation. Kipper's entire body was throbbing with his heart beat and it was almost a sensation that was not entirely un pleasent. Still, he would have preferred a non-throbbing body. He tried to speak but found he could not.

He looked again over at his two companions, who were backing away slowly.

"Well, what will happen next, hmmmm? C'mon ya experiment rat! do someting!" The nameless man mocked.

The end?  ¶ 9:41 AM