"Okay, what is this stuff called again?"

The Other arrived at the border of New Jersey at midnight and slowed down until it could sense the Conqueror. It sent out fliers, two dozen winged nightmares, razor sharp wings and wicked hooked talons. Each had large shining eyes absorbing light across the spectrum, able to see everything moving in the night. Most were smaller animals, scurrying as they sensed the will of a predator cross their naked backs. Some froze, hoping they would not be seen under the cover of darkness, but if the Other were hunting for prey, they would have been food instantly, their immobility would not have protected them at all.

There were larger animals here, genestructs left over after the Last War. Genetic constructs, created by mad Proctors, designed to hunt down renegades who eluded the Theocracy. Their scientists claimed they would not be able to breed and would die off after a few months. Fifteen years later, many of those constructs are still alive and breeding, creating new niches and fighting for dominance against the humans who were still forced to make their homes in the new forests that sprung up anywhere mankind had stopped building, and had spread seed to recreate forests for their simple woods. In that way, mankind had returned to nature, reseeding the world with plants and animals created in labs and which had made mankind has to struggle to return to his role as the dominant life form on the planet.

As the Other flew over the genestructs, it sampled several of the creatures violently ripping their spines out or allowing them to engage the fliers to sample their speed and power. Many of the animals were indeed quite powerful, for animals born on Earth, but were no match for even the weakest fliers created by the Other. Convinced of the lack of hazards in the surrounding forest countryside, the fliers continued their flight pattern over the state, slowly spreading out toward the city, proper.

Once they reached the city, they were forced to move slower, there was a greater density of prey, both human and other, much of it beneath the city streets or inside of buildings. It would take a day or two to continue to scan the city but the sense of the Conqueror was close. It was only a matter of time until a trace could be found, the Conqueror would be vulnerable and able to be destroyed. Then the Other would be safe. Its fliers sent back visual images and the Other processed them in parallel, breaking each second down, looking for the genetic markers on the wind.

"Kilo Two Alpha, status report." The radio blared out waking the sleeping drivers who were pulled over to the side of the road.

"This is Kilo Two, we are twenty miles from the processing plant. We had to stop and rest, both of us had pulled triple shifts." The driver wiped his eyes and looked out onto the expressway. Traffic was slow, even at this time of night. He hated driving out into Jersey because there was only a few working roads and they were always backed up.

He agreed to take one more shift because the triple shift pay was extraordinary and he was bucking for a promotion, and a desk job someplace warm; perhaps the New York Arcology Dispatch Office, Then he could make annoying calls and harass drivers on the radio while enjoying some Khava and eating some soy jerky.

"I know you two are napping on the side of the road. I pulled your vehicle up on the freeway map. I also know you pulled a triple so I left you there for two hours, but you need to get that load to the plant. Is that going to be a problem?"

The second driver, now also awake, checked his stunner in his lap and picked up the mike while the driver got the truck started and back into traffic. "No dispatch, we won't have a problem getting back into traffic and we will drop the load in sixty minutes. We will report in when we're on our way back. Kilo Two Alpha, out."

"Geez, you think we were late or somethin'. These guys don't have no freshness quota or nothin'." Shotgun laughed and slid his hand into his sleeves to keep warm. The cabin's heater did not work when the engine was off, and it was freezing outside.

The driver looked out over the freeway and thought they were making good time as the road cleared out ahead. They would likely arrive ahead of schedule and anyway you looked at it, it was a good thing. They would be able to get at least three days off the road, maybe even stop at the Church-sanctioned pleasure palace to spend some of their hard earned cash. Transport paid well today, maybe even better than ever since the lack of major aircraft in the UNAA. Flight was reserved to the Elites and the Oligarchs who could afford the astronomical costs associated with new the new AG ships.

They were less than two hours outside of Trenton and were heading toward the river where the processing plants were. The driver always hated this part of the trip because the roads were not always the best kept and often had detours into the surrounding forests which were not ideal if you were carrying cargo. There were rumors of the gene-hacked running amok in the forest looking for good God-fearing folk to turn to their sinister ways. Fortunately, the route looked as if it was going to be clear and he could see the mountains on the right side of the road in the distance.

In the truck space in the back, the passengers were getting sick and many were vomiting. Most tried to reach the back door and vomit into the seams that drained out the back of the truck. Most were successful. Those that were not spread the contagion further. By the time the truck arrived, almost everyone would be infected with the fast spreading viral agent.

The vomit drained from the back of the truck and landed in the snow dotting the road for miles. A flier crossing the road tasted the genetic markers on the wind and dropped out the sky to sample the vomit. As the flier landed, it tasted the Conqueror's lunon and for a moment became confused.

It shook violently and staggered around the road. It tried to take off and inform the Other but another driver of a transport late for deliver struck it and crushed it under his rig's eighteen wheels. He didn't even look back.

Jump to Part 17

'Metal Organism Designed only for Cuddling' © Thaddeus Howze 2010. All Rights Reserved

Justin looked up and found himself in an arboreal forest. Trees of red and copper leaves waved in the wind. Large insects whirred in the air and swirled around each other as they danced in the hot sun.

The sun! He could see the sun. It was big and red and not at all what he expected. Justin had dreamed in the past about the world as he thought it might be. He had lost his vision completely by the time he was three years old. He had learned the nature and names of colors and could remember some of the things like buildings and cars, but he hadn't seen enough to know the nature of the world completely.

His father had made great efforts to expose him to the world using scale figures, texture models in clay showing him the towering scales of buildings in the environment, comparisons between trees and other organic things, but nothing prepared him for the panoply of color, of shapes, sizes. It was more than he could bear. He closed his eyes and fell to his knees. Tears welled up in his eyes and he brushed them away before opening them again.

Looking at the sun, it was so large and so red. No matter that he had never seen the sun, he never remembered his father describing it as a large orb filling a section of the sky. He also did not remember his father describing a purple sky or red trees.

He thought about it for a moment. His father did mention there were times when the leaves did change colors but then they fell to the ground. There were no leaves on the ground. And he remembered grass. Grass was green. This stuff was red with gold trim around each blade. He realized no matter what he was seeing and he was happy to be seeing, this was not home.

And then he heard the voice. He first thought it was Max. Soft and barely audible. He did not understand it. It was talking but it made no sense. But it kept talking and soon he was able to follow only a few words. They walked and talked to each other in nonsense words and soon more language came out. Justin began to teach the voice how to use language and within a few days, the two of them were able to discuss more complex ideas.

On the fifth rising of the fiery orb into the sky, the voice spoke to Justin, but it sounded just like his father's voice. He knew it was not his father, but it had the warm, strong yet gentle sounds he associated with him. "Justin, our time here will be ending soon."

"What do you mean? We have been talking for days. Why can't we just keep talking?"

"We can't because in a few minutes you will be waking up and you will barely remember this conversation. You will think you had a nightmare or at least a very strange dream. But it wasn't a dream."

"Then what was it?"

"I am inside of you. I am a part of you that is new to you."

"I don't understand."

"Do you remember the doctor's office when you were sick?"

"Yes."

"You were first exposed to me there."

"Are you a disease?"

"No. But what I am is less important than what I have to tell you."

"What are you, why haven't I ever been able to see you? I can see everything else here but not you. Are you a monster? Are you going to jump out from behind a rock and eat me? Were you just talking to me to make me think I was safe?"

The voice chuckled and continued. "No Justin. I am not a monster. You cannot see me because I am inside of you. You can hear me because I am inside of your consciousness. I created the landscape you are seeing because I missed my home. Your mind is particularly imaginative so I decided to see if I could make a place in your mind we could communicate. I tried to make someplace you would be comfortable, but I did not see anything to reference, so I made the place where I was first aware and thought you would enjoy seeing it."

"When I wake up, I won't remember you?"

"Probably not. From what I can tell, your conscious and unconscious state particularly in your current condition, seem to have barriers between them. So I am going to tell you something and you will have to trust me."

"Trust you? How can I trust someone I just met? I am not even supposed to talk to strangers." Justin had stopped walking and looked around at the landscape and did his best to remember everything he was seeing. Every leaf, every shape, every tree, every insect, each stored away as best he was able.

"All I can say to you at this point, is we are stuck together. I am bound within your lunon, your DNA, and can never leave. I have begun to reshape your lunon, to allow me to better interact with you. I can only make minor changes because I do not have sufficient mass or control over your body's processes. But I can do one thing for you, if you want."

"I don't understand what you are saying? We are stuck together? For how long? What lunon, what's DNA? What can you do for me? I am sick. Can you make me better? I don't like being sick."

"I will explain lunon in greater detail when we talk again. Your sickness will pass as I learn more about your body. I will put things back the way they belong or better. I will even be able to give you your vision if you want it."

Justin looked at his hands and realized for the first time he was not seeing, he was imagining with some help from his new friend. "You can give me my eyes back?"

"Yes, I hoped you would want such a gift and I have been working to fix the problem. It will be a while before I will be able to complete this. I do not understand much about your world, but from what I can hear around you, there is something to be afraid of. The others to whom I am now bound to, are experiencing fear. There is so much you will need to know, but for right now, all I can say is stay alive."

The sky darkened as if black clouds had rolled over the sky and the beautiful red trees faded in the distance. The grass had turned the color of blood and Justin's vision shrank away until he could only see himself and a few feet all around him.

"I am with you, Justin. Even in the dark."

And then the darkness was complete.

Justin woke sick and empty. His stomach had voided itself several times. He reached out to look at his hands and realized he couldn't see. He was lying down in someone's lap and for a moment got excited.

"Mom," he croaked.

"No, honey. Your mom isn't here. My name is Naomi. You just lay here. The truck had been stopped for a while but now it's moving again. I am sure we will be getting wherever we are going real soon. Just be still."

"Miss Naomi, where are we going?"

"I have no idea, honey. But I bet it isn't anyplace good. Go back to sleep. It will all be over soon. I promise."

Jump to Part 18

'Metal Organism Designed only for Cuddling' © Thaddeus Howze 2010. All Rights Reserved

The natives were restless.

They were always that way whenever they came to the outpost. When it first appeared, it came in the night heralded by the loudest sound the natives have ever heard. It was so great, it became a legend amongst The People. It was the sound that shattered Heaven. The speaker said a piece of heaven must have broken away and fell to the world of The People because they had never seen anything before that could do what this piece of Heaven did. On the first day of Heaven-fall, the people surrounded it and touched it, tasted it, smelled it and thought to it. It was massive, the First Female indicated its size had to be a sign of its heavenly origins because it was longer than a handful of the giant grasses of the forests. Only the mountains were larger. So in language of the people, they called it "Heaven's Mountain."

For many days, they watched Heaven's Mountain from a discrete distance. It was assumed the spirits would disapprove of their watching a piece of Heaven and so the People tried to not appear to be watching it, while they studied it intently. Rocks were hurled in the direction of Heaven's Mountain to see if they could harm it. They couldn't. Even the greatest hunter, Far-slayer with his leathern rock thrower, capable of killing the largest of bouncers at nine hands worth of strides, did not leave a mark, as he hunted near Heaven's Mountain and "missed" a bouncer that strayed too close to it. Far-slayer claimed that a wind spirit took his aim but the old ones bared their fangs and woofed in a conspiratorial tone, indicating their approval of his hunting skill and their acceptance of his reasoning for his inaccuracy. He flexed his muscles in agreement, and sought out a new stones from which he would "hunt" near Heaven's Mountain the entire day, catching dinner only late in the day.

By the third day, the People were brave enough to approach the Mountain of cool, blue, stone-not stone and after much physical experimentation decided Heaven's Mountain was a relative disappointment after its spectacular arrival and gathered up to leave when there was series of daylights appearing all over the shape. It could only the day coming far earlier than normal because suddenly day was everywhere. The People ran back into the thick cover of the tree-grass and vanished from sight and sound. The daylight moved around the outside of Heaven's mountain coming from the very cold flesh of the mountain itself. There were sounds, a booming, something like the speech of The People, but it was harsh to the ear, a bitter coughing noise as if the speaker was near the end of its life and could only curse the spirits in its final death-voice. The People could not understand what they were hearing but were sure it was a sign the spirits were displeased. The People moved as only the People could, swiftly, lightly, shadows in the brush. Younglings were gripped, oldsters were assisted, though they were only a little less surefooted than the primes who composed the tribe.

The People began their retreat not a moment too soon as the ship flashed its warning lights. "Stand by for flash sterilization of a five hundred foot region outside of the ship. All hands are reminded to remain in the ship during this time." Lights on the outside of the hull and the inside of the ship, repeated the warning before the ships external coldbeams began to range and mark the distance before the hotter and more powerful lasers, destroyed the nearby foliage, rock, sand and unfortunately for The People who had not been swift enough, the animals who were too near the ship. This was a standard operating procedure to ensure the build area around the ship was rendered safe enough for the crew to disembark and begun building the outpost around the body of the landing craft. This landing pod was one of sixteen dropped to the planet across the world allowing the Oligarchs an array of choices as well as increasing their ability to subdue the planet with the proper applications of technology.

# # #

Oligarch Esteves Sandobar was the leader of this landing pod and was awakened first two days before the pod was ready to drop from orbit. He had been warned of the effects of cryosleep and had experienced it first hand for two months before the ships five year journey to Proxima Betalis, a yellow orange star one hundred and twenty light years from Earth. He woke after five years of having nearly no blood -- it was replaced with a nutrient fluid that resisted expanding once cold and yet could be supersaturated to allow cellular energy absorption, albeit at a very low level, essentially slowing cellular activity ninety percent, ravenous yet the very idea of food, made him slightly nauseous. He could not stand or move for a week upon reactivation because his body simply had not had the strength, nor energy to rise.

As his blood was restored to his body, he was also pumped with regenerative serums designed to re-energize his cells, causing them to replenish themselves and return to their previous vigor. All of the Oligarchs on this journey had been treated with experimental genetic materials designed to allow them to fast-grow bone and muscle tissue once exposed to the regenerative serums. Within a week, he was strong enough to stand and after another week of physical therapy regained his superhuman stature. Once he was active and capable, he began waking his core staff and providing them with the understanding of his value of them based on who was awakened first. It was important to impress upon one subordinates, early in this expedition, what was expected of them. Esteves did not have any doubt of his teams loyalty, but it was good to let them know what was expected.

After the core team of seven members were awakened they scanned the star system and prepared to drop the other landing pods on to the planets nine major continental masses. Proxima Betalis was a dual star with seven rocky planets and four gas giants, very similar to the Sol system. Early probes indicated that this planet, called Betalis Three for now, was very Earth-like and subsequent scan clarified the first scans of the planet as being able to support human life.

The crew prepared the drop ships and they fell away from the primary body of the drive mechanism and fell to Betalis Three and landed in the best visible areas chosen by the ships computer and checked by the Oligarch Sandobar's hand picked agents. The rest of the crew would be awakened on the planet's surface, allowed to grow accustomed to the gravitational difference. The air would also be circulated on the ship further allowing the genofixing done on Earth to complete itself once on the planet. For the Oligarch and his chosen few, they would be forced to spend a week in agony as their genofixing was applied after they arrived and were awake but it could not be help. Someone would have to suffer to ensure the rest of the crew had the best chance of survival on this planet, their new home.

"Genofixing complete. Commence crew debarkation. Preparation of ground for deployment completed." The crew of the landing pod were terribly sick and did not have any burning urge to go outside, so for the first week, they allowed robotic devices to build the defensive perimeter. There were several physical threats in their new home, dozens of animals only seen from space and categorized by the computer. So to be safe, the system designed a protocol to ensure a safe space around the landing pod, while the area was prepared with habitats until the crew could live off the land. No one but the setup robots and a few crew would be allowed to leave the ship until the Oligarch Sandobar had completed his genofixing.

Days later, Far-slayer, who was out hunting when Heaven's Mountain belched its deadly fire, returned to find a few primes left and the forest-grass around Heaven's Mountain destroyed. His entire people decimated by the light of Heaven's Mountain. His agonized warble echoed through the remaining forest as he stared at the continuing sweep of energy flattening the terrain. He could see the skeletons of primes who were caught at the edge of the swath of destruction.

Such carnage had never been seen by anyone of the People, except in the most terrible of conflicts or when confronting the thundergiants of the Plains. Far-Slayer, was now the leader of this remaining band of the People and soothed them with gentle whisperings and tended wounds as they moved away from the Mountain. It would seem the Mountain was not filled with gentle spirits after all. Far-slayer vowed as he took The People away toward a nearby valley, he would destroy whatever spirits inhabited this monstrosity. Thinking of his family, destroyed he would never call this thing Heaven's Mountain again. For him, it would be called Hell's Rock, and he would vanquish and banish every spirit dwelling within it. As he watched the spirit beings boil out of Hell's Rock and begin their transformation of the land, he hoped a spirit could suffer.

He intended to find out.

Jump to Part 13 - Missing Pieces

'Metal Organism Designed only for Cuddling' © Thaddeus Howze 2010. All Rights Reserved

I read the first issue of Damage Control when it first hit the stands back in the early 90's and asked myself, who would have thought about the wreckage of a superhero battle and the logistical nightmare it must be to clean up; someone who had a little bit of experience cleaning up after other people. I related to the comic immediately, and though I had no idea who Dwayne McDuffie was at the time, I was certain I would hear from him again, if for no other reason, he saw the world from a different point of view and was persuasive enough to convince someone to take a risk on him. 

Imagine my surprise when I found out he was black. Thus began my relationship with his work. I made an effort to find anything he was involved in and whenever he was involved, it was something I liked, approved of and respected his efforts to quietly bring change. I guess we will never really know the story of what it was like for him to deal with the challenges of working in the comic industry, but I am certain they were monumental, thus making his successes that much greater. He was versatile, he wrote the entire range of comics, from the magical to the super-scientific, pulp to space opera, his stories were logical, well-considered, and even when he missed the mark, it was never by much. The man was also prolific, he worked on a number of projects simultaneously, yet did not sacrifice quality. He could be counted on to tell solid tales and to make the most of the characters, their histories and always showed respect for the work that had come before.

His great respect for the history of comics allowed him to recreate classic ideas in new ways. Dial H for Hero became the wildly successful Ben 10 series spawning multiple iterations of the character, hundreds of new aliens, new ideas and spurring an entire generation into the ideas of space, science, aliens and the indomitable human spirit. His work with the Justice League managed to maintain the icons comfortably in their roles as the premiere heroes of their generation and still found ways to keep them fresh and evolving. The role of John Stewart, which has been so quietly pushed back in the comics, spoke volumes about the lack of heroes of color and McDuffie's effort to bring some parity in that regard. John Stewart was as heroic as any of the icons in this modern pantheon and the work of JLA will be considered a classic in animation for decades.

Static in both of his iterations (comic and later television adaptations) had all the hallmarks of the quintessential superhero, optimistic, serious, wisecracking and yet serious about wanting to make a change in a world that seemed to have forgotten how to change. Static's onscreen presentation gave young people of color a chance to see themselves represented in the heroic model as the leader, as the initiator, as a member of a family, with obligations to both school, friends and to their duties as a superhero. The animation also allowed McDuffie to address social issues that affected black youth and to show them the possibility of a life different than the one they thought was their only choice. I read an interview with him in the Atlantic last year and enjoyed learning so much about his personal views.

Dwayne McDuffie's passing is the loss of an industry giant. He helped to dispel the myth of there being no place for a black man in an industry dominated by whites. His work was always inventive, creative, but still respectful of the history of the genre. His greatest successes include the work on Milestone and Static Shock, creating black heroes with depth, dimension and character. At a time when no one believed there was even the potential for black heroes, McDuffie went about the business of making it happen. Twice nominated (as part of the team) for an Emmy for Static Shock, McDuffie gained the respect of his industry winning numerous prizes and nominations for awards.

Writer, editor, visionary, leader, dreamer, persistent, focused and undoubtedly a bastard from time to time, it would take all of these qualities for a brother to make a way into the comic and later movie industry, making Dwayne McDuffie a hard act for anyone to follow. And yet we must follow. He paved the way showing us we could not only make a difference, not only create something new, but to bring our stories, our views, our dreams to our children because if we don't, who will. Dwayne McDuffie inspired me greatly and I can say my current efforts to write heroes of color and to portray them in ways worthy of respect, not as caricatures is reflected in my own work.

We are great because we stand upon the shoulders of giants. Dwayne McDuffie was one of those giants. He will be missed. We salute you, sir.

Thaddeus
@ebonstorm

Lightning flashed.

The Archangel Michael waited. He heard the warning claxons, not activated since the Great Pogram, six centuries earlier and extended his senses to the Guardians at the Four Gates. Each had turned its attention skyward. They all locked onto a streaking meteor blazing brilliantly over the horizon heading toward the Celestial City. He moved toward the center of the city and rose skyward, his two wings slowly carrying him into the storm of Heaven. Rain covered him once he was beyond the radiance and he welcomed its cooling embrace. He felt too little these days, filled with the administrivia of managing Heaven. The unknowns of battle were his meat and drink, figuratively speaking, since he rarely ate or drank. This new threat was what he was made for.

The fireball moved fast, fast enough to be nothing but a threat. The outer defenses did nothing, as he had asked. He sensed they would not be enough as it approached them. He saw them cringing as it flew overhead, with a heat terrible enough to burn an angel. Heaven made ready below him and Gabriel stood by beneath him should he not be enough. There had never been a threat that ever took more than two Seraphim to deal with except for Him. And this, this clumsy thing was not his way.

Michael summoned his power and his two wings became four and his two eyes became four. Flame began to rise from him and his four wings became six and his four eyes became six and flame began to come from them. He increased in stature and his glow cast a light onto the Celestial City. He opened his mouth and began to sing in the tongue of Enoch, the language of Angels and could hear the Litanies of Heaven being sung below him, and the city harmonized with him.

He moved away from the city and flew out over the wall, gaining speed, preparing to stop the fireball before it even reached the city. The Four Guardians activated their Enochian patterns and the City's radiance hardened, a great shield protecting the walls of Heaven and its attendant suburbs. Michael streaked away from the Celestial City, a brilliant star, as tiny as the fireball was huge. He could feel the heat. He could smell the smoke as it passed through the air, miles away, he could feel life. It was alive... He could hear it screaming. Seconds away, he prepared himself for the impact.

Jehoel watched awestruck as Michael streaked away.

The skies above Heaven were momentarily lit with the light of a thousand suns. Multiple streaks of lightning covered the dark sky. These flashes were arrhythmic but constant, and the rumble of thunder cascaded ceaselessly. There were clouds but their movement would be strange to an onlooker. If one were to watch one would see this was a never-ending storm, moving constantly. It always rained here. Sometimes less, often more, but it never stopped, and had not for at least six and half centuries. Moving through the cloud cover and dodging the lightning were tiny flying figures, some human in appearance, others not so much, heading to and from a magnificent city of immense size in the distance. Its magnificent spires and minarets, towers and cathedrals, skyscrapers and monoliths all glowed with a pure radiance that soothed the weary flyers, or walkers who approached the city and came within its glow.

This city provided the only other light visible in this place. A steady source of golden light similar in tone and warmth to a gently rising sun. The only difference was the light did not illuminate the darkness past a few hundred miles from the city proper. Beyond that region was darkness, only punctuated with the never ending flashing of lightning in this permanent darkness. There had not been a sunrise in Heaven for almost seven hundred years.

A flying cloud of winged eyes dipped down from the sky and approached the Easter Gate. The breathtaking speed of its approach was noted by the sentries and by the city itself. The cloud of eyes began to slow as it came down to the Eastern Highway and merged with the oncoming traffic. The Celestial City proper is a huge structure, a perfect cube, but there were the Celestial suburbs as well and these stretched on for hundreds of miles outside of the City walls. To imagine the City properly one would have to image a cube on one of its points, half above the ground, half below. There are dwellings in both halves of the city and all types of entities lived there. 

Jehoel Softspeaker was returning to the city and hated the traffic that had been growing worse in the recent decades. She was an Angel of Mediation and returned from a negotiation with nearby Paradise Realms discussing terms of merger with the Celestial Host. She had been unsuccessful in convincing these other paradises to join with the Host in the coming War. Elysium wanted nothing to do with the war. They would not commit any of their divine resources, energy or heavenly servants to the cause. The Celestial Host was not trying to coerce anyone into serving, at least not yet. There were many angels negotiating on the behalf of Heaven, each going to realms they were familiar with and welcomed.

Jehoel was told to return to the city and report the results of her trip. Waiting in traffic would take several days before she would be able to enter the city, and while she waited, she Sang. This close to the Celestial City, everyone sang while they waited to be admitted. The walls of the city comprised of precious stones, resonated, reflected and refracted the songs of the approaching visitors or residents. Each stone of diamond and with flecks chalcedony returned the exalted songs of Heaven to its visitors in a way that soothed their souls, warmed their bodies, calmed their spirits and ensured everyone, no matter how long they waited, no matter how cold or tired they might be, were in a perfect state of bliss when they entered the shelter of the city.

The songs, each different, each unique to the singer created a greater harmony as they were woven together in a magnificent chorus lead by the wall's sentry angels. Clockwork mechanisms were seen patrolling the walls of the city. Great machines that resembled a variety of natural creatures, great lions with greater roars to match, capable of melting steel, bears with huge paws with stone rending claws, and clockwork eagles flapped their mechanical wings in the rain, circling the city in every rising spirals, each wing the length of a football field and capable of shaving the edge of a diamond. Heaven was known for its automatons of clockwork, each a veritable work of art from an Angel of craftsmanship and their attendant servants. Each piece was completely unique, and possessed of a singular nature that allowed each to come to life and fulfill a task assigned by the Angel upon their completion.

This song was heard throughout the realm as an echo in the soul of every person who came to Heaven. It was the Celestial Beacon and often when humans were in the act of dying, they could hear and see the Beacon as a tunnel of light they were drawn inexplicably toward. When you arrived here, you had to walk, down one of the cardinal roads which approached the city on one of its four points where each gate directed you into the Celestial City where you began your new life as a servant of Heaven. The Celestial Beacon was nearly irresistible to anyone who arrived in Heaven but if you chose to resist it, you were able to reach the only other destination here, Sheol, the City of the Archangel Lucifer Light-bringer. This other city has a variety of names, Dis, the City of Brass but it was most commonly known by its residents as Hell.

There are other Paradise Realms for the non-believers and with those the Celestial Host were in good relations with, had portals to those Heavens were accessible from here. As the primary religion remaining after the Compact on Earth, nearly all souls passed this way before they went to their personal Reward. Unaffiliated souls were able to be directed to whatever Afterlife they believed in but they were processed at the halfway point between Heaven and Sheol. Nothing is known of those souls that are processed there and the Angels there do not speak of it. Traffic between Heaven and Hell was always a constant as souls that had been released from hell were slowly migrated toward Heaven and newly arrived souls that needed the cleansing fires of Hell were directed there. All in all, an efficient arrangement.

In the central processing center of Heaven, where the spirit energy of prayer was processed and stored for later conversion into illiaster, cocoastrum and aether, there was a problem. This problem had presented itself in fits and starts for the last decade, but recently, it had grown to new proportions. Enough of a problem, that it needed someone to look into it, preferably by someone who would not make the problem worse, be seen by Humans and thus cause a religious event. Once upon a time, such a schism might not be such a bad idea, but now schisms divided resources that should be spent best on the Celestial Host, not on any rival gods or god-lings, trying to make a comeback against the Holy Church.

She fell. A shooting star in a place that has not seen stars for the dark clouds that perpetually cover it. Unconscious and unaware of her peril. As she fell, she burned. She burned, not from the fall but from that which made her fall. A machine unlike anything she had ever seen. She had been around since the making of the Celestial City and had never seen anything like this thing. It was more fearsome than the Malakim, warrior angels to heaven, whose wrath and ferocity have few equals, more horrific than the great Iron Golems, with their hidden hearts, that protected the Gates to Heaven and whose gaze, when released, destroyed all things, mundane or celestial.

She arrived in The Happy Hunting Grounds expecting what she always experienced there. Blue skies, except when it was needed to rain, warm days, and the sun shining overhead. It was a place so beautiful that if she did not know this was Heaven, a particular heaven, she would think she was back on Earth. The great plain below her was always covered with buffalo migrating from west to east covering the ground from horizon to horizon. This was her memory of the place, beautiful, grass-covered plains with verdant wildlife, and spiritual beings enjoying their ease in this paradise.

It was not what she saw when she crossed The Veil Between Worlds.

There was a pyramid, immense and coal black, standing in the Great Plain where all visitors to the Realm first appeared. Jagged bolts of black lightning leaped from it and struck the ground around it. Where it struck, creatures made of stone and glass, six legged, vaguely horse-like rose from the Earth. Ferocious, these creatures immediately joined the fray. Their screams chilled her blood, and their speed, grace and lethality became immediately apparent as the creatures engaged anything living within range. The black pyramid had doorways open upon it sides and creatures streamed forth like black locusts or black ants, and anything touched by these clouds was stripped to the bone in seconds.

The ground rumbled constantly as if it were experiencing an earthquake. Distant mountains already aflame with fire and smoke erupting. This was a paradise realm, volcanoes were simply impossible here. The air was choked with sulfurous smoke. The fields of grass were blackened with burns and the buffalo lay as charred skeletons across the plains from horizon to horizon. There were no spirits in repose, they were in battle against a variety of foes, whose eyes burned with a bright light akin to searchlights. And the things those lights touched, burned. She hovered in the sky above a battle, her hundred eyes taking in everything, the wind, the smoke, the flames, the battles both on the land and in the air.

She heard the howl of Coyote and saw the flash of lightning from the Thunderbird. They were surrounded, standing guard over the bodies of the Great Bear and the Rattlesnake. Each in their iconic forms, they were twenty to thirty feet tall. Each of them glowing the power of the Great Spirit of this place, each a guardian of their people's spirits. Those spirits were fighting for their very existence against enemies whose skin was like stone, dark and heavy and deflected the lightning from the Thunderbird's flapping wings. Coyote howled again and the creatures stopped their advance, shook and exploded into shrapnel fragments destroying their brethren who were proof against his howl. The Thunderbird's flapping wings created a great wind driving the shrapnel away from the gods' defensive position.

The Great Bear rose to his feet, having taken one of the black pyramids strikes directly to his chest. Towering over his enemies, bleeding profusely, he released a mighty roar and waded into his enemies again. The spirits of Men were here along with these godlike icons of this realm. They wielded magic and weaponry, ancient and modern with great effect but the enemy was numerous and powerful.

Medicine men summoned lightning from the burning sky, striking the ground with great explosions, casting defensive spells from their tribal staves against the burning light of the hexapeds. Tribal women wielded clouds of feathers from their headdresses as flying razors slicing into the armored hides of the enemy. The women conjured and the Earth opened and swallowed their giant enemies.
Horse thundered into the fray, his shining and sharp hooves flashed and dispatched enemies in a single strike. And yet with Coyote, Snake, Bear, Boar, Horse, Crow, Eagle and Thunderbird, all iconic gods of this realm, they were unable to stem the tide of the battle. The best they could do was to hold their own and refuse to give ground.

This battle raged for days. Nonstop. More Men appeared, more weapons appeared. No quarter was asked for and no was given. The horrors were supplemented by the hunched forms of man-like creatures each with huge hands, misshapen heads, each with the strength of ten men. There were monsters that flew and breathed a liquid fire all over the battlefield. Others bled acid, some had flaming vision. One by one the gods fell.

Bear fell first, surrounded by Men he led into the fray, they held their ground protecting him. Bear had engaged several of the enemy's larger ogre constructs and slew them all. He began to move toward the center of the enemy line, confident he would be able to disrupt it. His bear men, wearing an armor of bearskin, channeled his ferocity and his power, each of them filled with the strength of a great bear. He lent them courage and ferocity and they took the vanguard toward the structure the invaders arrived in. The men fought with great axes headed with razor sharp obsidian. They were once legendary warriors in life and in spirit they were even greater.

The tower targeted Bear again and black bolts flew like arrows toward him. His men leapt to his defense and time and time again blocked the blast, each giving his life for a few more yards. Bear drew closer to the center of the battle. The tower redoubled its efforts, and soon Bear was forced to take those strikes himself. He never stopped moving and mere feet from the largest of the ogre-like giants leading the battle, he was struck with six black spears of lightning. So fierce was the strike, for a moment, the entire area was hidden in darkness. When vision returned. Bear was dead. His men fought on but without the ferocity of Bear they were soon overrun and trod into the mud.

Snake crushed creatures and spit venom across the battlefield but he was the next to fall. Large winged dragons dropped down from the sky and savaged him and all were unable to reach him so embattled they were, all they could do was watch. Snake wrapped his coils around the aggressors and bite one of them who died as the venom burned through it. The remaining dragons released their liquid fire and Snake burned and died. In his death throes, he squeezed the life from the remaining three dragons. The dragons and Snake thrashed about and when the smoke cleared the dragons and Snake were still.

She watched, her hundred eyes remembering every detail, every creature, every structure, every shadow, every movement, spell, construct, machine and every sound that took place on the battlefield. But she took no other action. It was not her way, nor her duty. She had already predicted the outcome of this battle. Her actions would not change that outcome, only delay it. This information had to be returned to the Celestial City, so she watched and waited.

Raven and Coyote fought side by side, while the Thunderbird and Horse had been split apart from them. Boar lead a group of humans and buffalo against the enemy and they managed to reach the foot of the pyramid. A cloud of darkness exploded from one of the open doors and the darkness covered them. When the cloud disappeared, only bones remained. Boar was unaffected and proceeded to climb the pyramid. Lightning struck him as soon as he touched the pyramid, but his rage was all consuming, so he kept climbing, even as the lightning carved holes in his flesh, he kept climbing. His screams were heard all across the battlefield and were so horrifying everyone stopped and turned to watch. As he reached the main door on the pyramid, a man stepped out. A tiny man compared to the giant form of Boar. He had two flying snakes over his shoulder, each with scales of iridescent black and huge feathered wings. The snakes open their mouths and a terrible light surrounds Boar. His movement slows and his tusk stops mere inches from the strange man in the red cloak. The two snakes scream again and Boar is blasted into chunks of stone that land at the foot of the pyramid.

There was nothing she could do but return to the Host armed with this information. She could feel the Raven and Coyote sealing the realm and any passages to other nearby heavens. She knew that if she planned to leave, she would need to leave now. The Thunderbird bought them time by intercepting the lightning strikes directed at them and reflecting them back into the enemies legions. Instinctively she knew this was nothing more than a test. These creatures could have won this battle days ago, they were simply testing their capabilities against this relatively weak Paradise. They would be seeking stronger test subject soon.

As she turned to go, She could feel the will of the Enemy directed upon her. She made ready her magic and could feel Heaven on her mind as she tried to Transit. Her computations indicated she would not make it. In those seconds, she compacted all of her observations, conjectures, calculations, her dreams, her love and her life and sent them before her, a sigil streaked away into Transition; being without mass, it could transition instantly. The black pyramid extended a great cannon from the point and swiveled it in her direction.

She flew faster turned her eyes toward the sky. It was only then did she realize hundreds of other pyramids were descending on the Happy Hunting Grounds. Only one had devastated nearly every major deity in residence. They would not know this. She had to make it home. The Great Cannon fired and she was enveloped in flame.

 
She transitioned into Heaven, taking the flames with her.

Michael became aware of a waveform approaching him and stopped. He was far enough from the suburbs of the Celestial City for the confrontation. As the waveform reached him, he realized what it was. The Resonance of an Angel. The last will and testament as it were; all they knew, all they dreamed, all of their life was encoded in the Resonance. It was hers.

He braced himself and flew directly at the fireball, he would have to time this just right. At the moment of impact he separated becoming Guardian Michael and Warrior Michael. Guardian grabbed her from within the fireball and slowly descended to the ground, she was covered with burns, and all of her eyes were closed. Her wings were burned off. Her flesh crackled and sizzle with the energy of her life-force oozing out of the cracks. He covered her in his Light and she was soothed. But Michael was not very good with Light so he could do little for her but ease her pain, and protect her from his Warrior.

Warrior extended its four wings and blocked the path of the fireball and the sky lit up with its pallid sickly green color. Warrior thought he could control the explosion, his powers were strained to their limit. Moving through time, he summoned other versions of his temporal self and they combined their powers increasing his ability tenfold, but even that was not enough.

The sphere seemed to only grow stronger the longer he delayed it. Warrior extended his awareness into the flame and saw this weapon only grew stronger the longer it was delayed in reaching its target. The weapon only grew more powerful the more energy he put into trying to stop it. Whoever this was, they knew the defenses of Heaven too well. The Guardians at the Gates would have tried to annihilate this only increasing its power. They counted on someone trying to delay or attack it with energy weaponry. He knew he had only seconds to decide how to deal with it. Since he had already summoned his temporal selves he knew instinctively that time was the element needed. He directed his power and his temporal selves into moving the object through time but not space and his temporal selves surrounded the object until it would have reached the Celestial City. In those seconds, the Guardian erected a shield over himself and her. Nothing would penetrate it. He only hoped the Warrior would not need it more.

The bomb detonated lighting the skies of heaven in every direction, and a fierce shockwave swept from Warrior Michael's position. Gabriel ran from the gates of the city and moved as if time had no meaning. He streaked through the bomb blast debris as if it was not moving. The Gate Guardians directed their vision toward any debris that moved through the clouds and destroyed it before it could reach the outskirts of the suburbs. Gabriel took five seconds to reach the Warrior as he fell from the sky. Warrior Michael had lost an arm during the explosion and was blackened and burned. His wings were shriveled and mere wisps of their former greatness.

Guardian Michael was also unconscious. His left arm was also gone and he was covered with burns, but he protected his charge from any further harm. Gabriel angry that Michael had insisted on doing this alone was incredulous as his Light began to heal the catastrophic injuries Michael had suffered. Michael was an Archangel, what could do this to him?

Jehoel Softspeaker, along with everyone else standing outside of the Celestial city cowered as the super-hot winds blew through the streets, miles from the bomb blast seen in the distance. She had not been the only agent to return unsuccessfully. It would appear our enemy has decided to let the Host know of their intentions. Heaven was at war.

"Chief Scientist, Neikhia, get your people ready to go. We are about to have company. Do you still have those mercenaries you hired earlier?" The Resurrection Frame stepped clear of the stasis housing, its repairs completed, it glowed with power.

The Chief Scientist appeared annoyed, several tentacles flailing, with the commanding tone of the armored form. But once the Major had activated the Frame,  it was clear who was now in charge. "Yes, Major. There is still one company of thirty with a supplementary group of Corvans acting as support fire teams."

"Good, we'll need them. Get your people ready. Leave everything that isn't necessary for your research. I assume you have a plan?"

"It is not ideal, but I believe the answer can be found at the Malcanari Rift. Our intelligence operatives tell us there are a series of outposts that are used to manipulate the destabilizing quantum signal used to keep the rift closed. These stations will be found within a light year of the anomaly. It is believed these outposts were actually created by the Precursors. We would only need to take control of one, maybe two to prevent the signal from being effective."

"How many people will you need for your exploration? Our ship will not carry more than a couple of extras, assuming I still have a crew at all." The major's turned his face toward Essver, Chuntra and Wex who had not moved since the two had related their tale and he had stepped into the Frame.

"We have three ships and we will deploy them with the remainder of our forces to the other stations, the more of the signal we can stop, the better." Neikhia turned a bright orange indicating a satisfaction with his planning. The Major did not counter the order.

Having recently recounted how they came to be involved in the hunt for the Major both Chuntra and Wex looked back at the Major in the glory of his fearsome armor, Wex defiantly, Chuntra apologetically. "We are sorry, Major. We did not know what to expect once you were reunited with your Resurrection Frame. You seem so very different." Chuntra was changing colors rapidly indicating her confusion and inability to regulate her current state of mind. Wex stood quietly and let her speak for the both of them. "To be honest, we would be honored to continue to fight with you. It is clear to us now, Bogumil knew of what he spoke, when he said you were our best chance of understanding the threat of the Nox. Command us."

Essver simply nodded his assent, as he had for the decades the three of them had worked together. There was never any doubt of his support.

The Frame stood quietly for a second and then a softer, less modulated voice came out of it. "I am the same man I was before I stepped into this technology. It does not make me something different. I have come to rely on your abilities and was hoping you would stay. The weeks ahead promise to be the most challenging of our time together. For a few days, I will be remaining in the Frame, so that my neural network can be backed up, and any further repairs completed. Being without the Frame so long has compromised my health and it will be a many days before I am back to full strength. I will need you, now, more than ever."

Turning to Biyu, "Pilot, Traveling Light is enroute, repaired and restored and she will need you. I need a flight coordinator, can I count on you?"

"Of course, Major, to hell and back if need be." She continued, "Scientist Neikhia, I need one of your people to take me to the surface so I can get a place for the ship to set down and get your gear together. Teela says she will arrive in fifteen minutes and the Danikans will be right behind her about six or seven minutes. Pack light, get your crews in the air. We will work out an escape plan."

Neikhia gestures and two of the technicians begin grabbing boxes full of data crystals and leading the Pilot to the surface. "Will let you know when we are ready, Major. Master Wex, Ambassadors?" The five strode off toward the surface in a brisk fashion.

The Frame strode clear of the platform where it had sat imprisoned and walked up behind the Chief Scientist. "Now that we are alone, Neikhia, What are you not telling me? I have the distinct impression you still have secrets. I am not a patient man right now, so please spare me any further lies."

Neikhia turned toward the Major and puffed himself to his full size. The Major's lack of response caused him to immediately deflate and turned all three eyes away. "I have not lied to you Major. But I have not told the complete truth. There are many other elements to this story that I could not reveal without letting the others know the hopelessness of our situation." Neikhia turned to the Major and reflexively shuttered.

The Major leaned close to Neikhia and whispered."Tell me everything."

Onboard the Command cruiser, the Admiral, rarely seen on the command deck floated impatiently while the captain and his crew completed their telemetry and preparations to engage the Danikan pirates. In addition to the pirates, the Lorus-class attack gunship detected escaping Lorissi was detected on the same heading as the Danikans. This means their target is close. 

With the effectiveness of their last jump they were positioned to jump directly to the small habitable moon of the fifth planet in this system. With only one operating jump gate, the Danikans tiny ships could not possibly hope to out run the fleet and escape back to the empire. Their ships are only system-capable preventing them from being able to out-maneuver or escape once the fleet's smaller and more nimble frigates lock onto their signals. The age of the Danikans vessels ensure they will either surrender or flee, combat against the Corvan Fleet would be suicidal at best.

"Five minutes until we drop out of interstellar warp, Captain." The astrogation officer was recalculating the drop points against the subspace eddies trying to drop out of warp as close to the moon as possible.

The Captain depressed his comm speaker for a ship-wide broadcast. "All sentients report to your battle stations. Activate condition one defenses and ship readiness. Activate all fluid-tight seals and compartmentalizations. All weapons batteries take your targeting from your gunnery leaders. All brace for combat actions."

A young sub-commander calls up the system holograms and begins the predictive assault against the Danikens. As the Admiral expected, its outcome was a foregone conclusion to the predictive engines. Their light corvettes were converted from system corvettes left here over five decades ago when this area was part of Bel-ha space. Their weapons while powerful compared to the civilian ships they were designed to police, were no match for the armors, shields or defense systems of true military ships.

As the local conflict caused the main stargates in the surrounding space to shut down, the Bel-ha retreated from the area, deeming it simply too resource poor to bother with, despite its popularity as a tourist destination. Local police forces tended the region for a century or two until local crime corrupted the police and military station here. The Bel-ha left the region in the hands of their uplifted charges, the Danikans, but the Danikans were susceptible to corruptions and when left without the influence of their Patron were inclined toward less-than-savory behavior. As long as their actions did not cause an undue loss of life, by the Bel-ha standards, how they maintained order was, relatively speaking, their business.  Such criminal scum would have been exterminated in the Imperium but this area was outside of his jurisdiction, technically speaking. This would not stop him from destroying them if they interfered in Empire business.

"Captain," began the sub-commander, "based on the designs of the Bel-ha Police Corvettes in our database our predictive engines indicate a ninety five percent probability of success with only light casualties in our frigate fleet. We will be able to solidify those numbers once we are able to get full scans of the enemy ships to understand local variations in the ship designs. Even with considerable modifications, their hull sizes and power plant limitations still place their power output beneath even our smallest ships."

"That said, sub-commander Tha'al, we shall assume the most powerful configurations possible in our current database, and prepare for the worst case scenarios. We shall offer them one opportunity to surrender. After that, terminate with extreme prejudice. Nothing matters more than capturing the traitor, Majoris Wilks. Baring his capture, he is to be destroyed along with his ship and co-conspirators. Is that understood?"

"Yes, Captain," echoed across the command deck from all of the officers present. The Captain turned toward the Assault commander's station.  Commander Kreltan, do you have a team ready to drop to the planet?"

Kreltan was a veteran of two centuries of warfare and his body had been genetically altered for combat. Large bony ridges covered all of his tentacles and his gripper arms were larger and stronger than most. His eyes had hard nictating membranes that covered them all the time, giving him an even more menacing appearance to the common Corvan. The most unnerving thing about him was his lack of color transition. Kreltan maintained the same color no matter what answer he gave, no matter what kind of conversation he had. He was completely immune to the Corvan skill of color-interpretation because he never changed color. Even his voice seemed colorless to anyone but another extremely ancient Corvan.

The Admiral listened intently. "The team is prepped to fast-drop to the surface. Transit time, four minutes. Each Elite is super-gravity trained and wearing heavy armor. Each has had experience in combat against the various species of the Humani, the Subaki and standard Mercenary tactics. If any of the Danikans are there, they will be factored into our combat predictions and annihilated. I will be leading the assault. If the rebels are there, we will capture them. If they resist. We will destroy them. We await your orders, Captain."

The Admiral thrummed the water in approval of Kreltan's report. Then he added "Commander, if it possible, we would prefer the traitor alive. Stress this to your team. He, and his sponsors of the Resurrection Program, need to be taken to task. The program is a violation of our spiritual beliefs and has only been allowed since the Humani have the support of their reptilian brethren. If we can show signs of duplicity on their part, that program can be halted politically." 

Kreltan paused for only a split-second, just long enough to let the Admiral know he did not like the idea. "Your will be done, Admiral. To Serve the Empire!"

"To Serve the Empire, Commander. Carry on."

Third eyes were all focused on the interaction between these two veteran warriors of the Empire, each having served longer than almost any others in the fleet, and each commanding the loyalties of their troops with fanatical zeal. But there was no love between them personally. Each did their best not to interfere in the dominion of the other. All ground operations were under the control of the Commander when he was on the ground. Commander Kreltan was a legend amongst assault teams in the entire empire. A warrior dedicated to battle above all else. He was assigned to the Admiral's fleet nearly one hundred years ago and they were friendly once.

 
Battle-brothers, they destroyed enemies of the empire for nearly seventy years. Narrow escapes that became the stuff of legend are still told in quiet corners when either of them are around or especially when the two may be in the same room. Their friendship had become strained when an Imperial world infected with an alien parasite had to be destroyed by orbital bombardment. The Commander believed the world could be saved and attempted to redouble his efforts to destroy the parasite which painfully consumed their hosts from the inside.

The Admiral did not agree and forced the Commander to leave the world. Unknown to the Admiral at the time, this world held the entire clan of Kreltan. The Admiral could not allow the infestation to spread. They had already lost two dozen worlds before finding the latest spawning point of the alien horde. It was the right thing to do. It was the humane thing to do. Kreltan hasn't changed color since that day nor spoken again to anyone outside of their duties since that time. He vows to never allow a world to fall to Extermination again.

The Admiral hoped that would never be the case as well. But he still missed his old friend.

The battle against the Danikans in space lasted approximately one hour. They had maximized the output of their Bel-ha corvettes. This made them the equal of only the smallest of frigates in the fleet. Eighty percent of the pirate fleet was destroyed. The remainder surrendered and powered down their shields, armor and weapons. The Admiral dropped with the Commander and his crew, both wearing Relic Armor covered with numerous campaign badges of their adventures together. In their armors, it was almost impossible to tell the two of them apart.

 
The conflict with the mercenary force took another hour, as they were well dug in and had terrain on their side. Once the Imperium forces began to do considerable damage, the Mercenaries surrendered, as was their right under the Galactic Military code. They would be treated fairly with dignity and after being ransomed by their Mercenary Guild, returned to service. In the meantime, their contracts would be purchased and they would fight for the Empire. Standard delaying tactic on the part of the rebels.

The Admiral moved through the remnants of their headquarters which aside from the rushed nature of their departure, showed no sign of fear or distress. As if the fleet had been expected. 

Two communications technicians were reviewing the outgoing transmissions attempting to figure out who the rebels were in contact with but all message logs were destroyed. Only one message remained in the queue. The Corvans began to listen to the message and after a few seconds deactivated the message.

"Admiral, begging your pardon, you will want to see this. I recommend a classified status immediately."

"Send it to me, I will be the judge of its status."

"To the commander of the Imperial Fleet, I greet you and salute you, by the standards of our Imperial Treaty between Empires ratified in the Sjurani Accords. This information is classified and can only be accessed by using your Imperial codes, unique to command officers of fleet vessels. I have encoded it in this way because I believe this to be a threat to the Empire at large. You will require two command officers to access this datastream."

 
"All of you, out. Kreltan, I require your assistance and your command key."

Both of them strode to the command holo-display in the station as their subordinates grab any remaining technology and returned to the surface. Neither has stood this close in nearly a decade and their discomfort would be noticeable to any who knew them. But they were both professionals and as they entered their command signatures and used their command signet bracers, neither was prepared for the horror of the recordings of transformation of normal Corvans into the atavistic monstrosities created by the alien quantum signature. 

The recording continued. "Officers of the Imperium, my name is Major Thomas Wilks. I am an Elite and in service to the Resurrectorum, part of the branch of the Corvan Assault Military. I understand I have been flagged as a rebel and likely a traitor, but I promise you this: what is being done here, is being done by your government. I do not pretend to understand what it to be gained by it, or who is perpetrating it, but I am duty-bound to stop it.  Analyze any data you find here, as best you can. I have ensured all of it has been left behind for you to study. The Chief Scientist and I are on our way to stop it. Knowing the Corvan Military as well as I do, you will be focused on your honor and serving the Empire. Do so. Prove what this data says is true and there is only one way to do that. Understand, this signal will affect nearly every Corvan in the Empire.  I have included the recording of the signal as well. Once you verify it, you will have no choice but to follow me and stop this from happening. We are not hiding from you. You will know where to find us."

The hologram of the Major grows larger and the camera zooms in close on the face of the Major as he makes the armor transparent. "Do not try to stop me. The lives of billions will hang in the balance. You will have another completely different mission. When the signal is activated, it will destabilize the program that has closed the Rift for millions of years. Preliminary data from the Rift monitoring system shows thousands of ships held in flux by the program. You can figure out the rest. You have two choices, hunt for me or stop the enemy from coming through the Rift. Choose wisely. Either way, if you come after me, I will not hesitate to kill anyone or anything else that keeps me from destroying the quantum array that will emit the Atavistic transformation."

The camera goes off and a stream of visual information, including coordinates, shield variances and gene sequences are displayed along with a variety of other information neither officer can decipher.  And then the audio continues. "Now, I know what you are thinking. Why am I telling you this? It is not because I have any particular love of the Corvan Imperium, because frankly, I think you could do better. But you could do worse, and this would be much worse. The truth of the matter is, I would hate to be wrong and fail and allow millions of enemies to flood into our space from what arguably may be another more technically-advanced universe."

There is a long delay before the Major continues. "I am telling you this because I need support and there is no one else I can turn to. I need your help. I cannot force you to help me, but I will do what I was trained to do; stop all enemies of my Empire, foreign or domestic. Yes, humans have not been members of the Imperium for long, but I believe in what the Imperium stands for in theory, even if we don't always live up to it in practice. Humans have simply wanted to give back to the Imperium and now it appears we may have more to offer than you thought. But we don't have much time. Within the data pack are favorable shield calibrations against the Q-signal. If you have time, I would suggest you experiment with others, the rebel scientists believe it may help offer your crews resistance against the signal. I would implement them if I were you, unless you fancy spending the rest of your life as one of those things. The Rift is fifteen days away for me and about twenty for those massive beasts you fly around in. Hunting me, or helping me, don't be late."

There is a momentary pause. Then the Major speaks one more time. "Oh, and if you call the Corvan Homeworld hoping to get support, remember this, The Corvan homeworld is the closest star system to the Rift in the Empire. Our scientists believe anyone who is living on the homeworld in the last six months has already begun their transformation since they were within the range of the test signal. Since the first test signal, the government has only stepped up their efforts to expedite the progress of the Q-array. So if you call for help, you may find yourselves branded traitors, as well. Good luck, in whatever you decide to do. End transmission."

End of Part II

'Revenant: Resurrection' © Thaddeus Howze 2010. All Rights Reserved

The satellite circled the world in a decaying orbit, its purpose long fulfilled. As it became a fireball over what was once Kansas, its re-entry fire showed a land long unvisited by man. Destroyed by radioactive fire when an outbreak of Chin-dromeda appeared before the Last War on Earth, no humans had lived here for decades. And that was just as well, for now no human could.

Kansas, destroyed in radioactive fire, had been avoided by humans for decades. And it was just as well, for while no trace of deadly radioactive poison would be found, if there were geiger counters to account for it, a creature unlike anything known to man, had spread across the landscape, with an intellect, cold and unyielding and a body mutable and nigh-invulnerable. When the Oligarchs returned to Earth in terror of the creatures beyond, one returned with them. They assumed it was unintelligent, just a beast of the field. It was the dominant life form on its planet.

The creature caused the ship it was on to crash in the radioactive ruins of Kansas. The Plutocracy sent forces to destroy it and were no more successful on Earth than they had been on its home planet. They even made the mistake of trying to use nuclear weapons, but the creature absorbed the energy and grew larger, much larger. After feeding on the radioactivity, the creature grew sluggish, perhaps from so much rapid growth, and during that period of torpor, the mighty Oligarchs opted to contain it and created, the Barrier.

Stretching into the sky, crystalline towers resonated with powerful electron fields of energy between them for thousands of miles. Drawing its power from the nearly limitless energy of the molten core, occcasional bursts of electricity shot between the towering spires, illuminating the blasted landscape. Bordered by this terrible wall of destruction, the Other waited and slept. The Barrier was build almost entirely by machine. Those humans who were involved in its creation, save for the Oligarchs themselves, were accused of Heresy and put to death.

In the calculations of its distributed intelligence, spanning thousands of square miles, the Other decided the fate of a species, corrupted by power, by fear and by its lusts. There was no redeeming this species. The barrier allowed it time to contemplate this world and its riches. Already its tendrils were in the soil, penetrating rock and mantle and drawing up both minerals, metals and energy.

The Other feasted on the satellite, absorbing the energy of its re-entry, hot, bitter and metallic, molecule by molecule. In its prodigious mind, it rebuilt the device down to the parity of its atoms. It decoded the satellites information, stored on data medium designed to survive direct nuclear attack. Reading its logs of communications, It learned about humanity and its plans, hearing only the occasional whisper in the secret spectra, that few humans remembered, and it knew the lie of the Theocracy. Once space was safe, those who worked would die, poison coursing in their very genes. The Other had access to computer networks that were still active on the planet and monitored all communications whose security could not keep it out.

Very few networks could withstand its distributed intellect and a new one fell every week. In its latest conquest, it found information about a genetic experiment using alien genetic material with a series of humans. There was one survivor. While the Other could sense itself everywhere it was on Earth, it could feel this new Hybrid, but only faintly. The Other could control all aspects of its molecular identity no matter how far away it was, except for this, new thing. There was a wrongness about the Hybrid, something from a time distant in its memory;  something that could not be allowed to spread.

The Other realized it would need to seek out and eliminate the Hybrid, before it could spread. There was a threat greater than all the military machines of this world. To complete the claim, there must be no challengers, that was The Way.  Once the Hybrid was removed, Man would be next. Most would starve, some would resort to the natural order and consume their neighbors, and when they were weak and fractious, the Other would consume all but those needed for breeding to feed its young, and return Humanity to its proper role on the food chain, making way for a new, wiser ruler of the Earth. And when the off-world Oligarchs returned to Earth, it would lay claim to their worlds as well.

The creature comprised of both plant and animal genetics slid up to the barrier and touched it with a woody tendril. Arcs flew from it and the tendril withdrew. Nearby, a rumbling began, and another larger limb, calcified with minerals touched the barrier and neatly slid through it. It gathered a portion of itself on the other side, and then slid back into the ground. A slight rumbling could be felt as the creature moved away from the Barrier. The creature stopped, felt the diminishing power of the field and the earth shook, staccato, as if laughing at the futility of trying to stop it. The rumbling continued for several miles.

Jump to Part 12 - The Outpost

'Metal Organism Designed only for Cuddling' © Thaddeus Howze 2010. All Rights Reserved

A satellite from an earlier age circles the quiet Earth. The Earth was not always this quiet. Once she communicated in thousands of languages across hundreds of tiny spectra, a rainbow of communication shouting out to space, that we are here, we are here, we are here... Those voices spoke with no unity and the fears and loneliness which allowed for retail therapy eventually gave way to wholesale slaughter. South America was the first to feel the sting of Envy.

Now the Earth sits quiet, its communications by directed cold beam or submerged fiber-optic keep random signals to space to a minimum. Mankind's exposure to the stars, has left scars, not easily healed. Remnants of First Contact has left humanity with a fear of the stars, but a need for them. The cradle of humanity is aflame, set afire by Earth's greatest and most terrible creation, Man. But fear or not, dangerous or not, humanity must ascend or starve to death on a world too hot or too cold, whose air is too dry and rainfall far too rare, whose people are still too numerous, even with fratricide practiced all over the globe, with infrastructure just barely strong enough to keep its tortured billions working around the clock for a future most will never see. And these are still better times than mankind has seen in nearly five decades.

This satellite hailed from a time when the world was changing and it looked as if mankind had learned the lessons it needed to mature and not a moment too soon. Scientists placed it in orbit to monitor the ever increasing and erratic world-wide weather patterns of the time. And for fifty years, it had an eye on the world and took photos of the world as it changed mostly for the better. Those photos were collected and studied by men and machines until the year 2073. And then the world was silent. 

This satellite saw a happier world, prosperous beyond anyone from the early 20th century's expectations, those predictions of Malthusian doom would wilt under the bloom of the early twenty first century's super-economy of Brazil. Under the leadership of one of its first, in a line of female presidents, caused the country to soar to a level of economic prosperity never seen in its modern history.

Preventing the last of its rainforests from being destroyed, Brazil capitalized on the rainforest's biodiversity with a new explosion of science, genetic engineering and pharmacology. In the year 2021, a viable cure for cancer cell development was synthesized from the seeds of a barely known plant found in a tiny fifteen acre section of the rain-forest, that was slated for demolition before the forest was saved. This plant was found nowhere else in the rainforest and its benefits caused nations all over the world to reconsider their primal forests and an explosion of planting and reforestation began. The world was rife with cancers from rampant industrialization and a lapse of standards due to the profit-mongering of the greediest of the world's remaining superpowers. This panacea was literally in the nick of time and made Brazil the envy of a world growing sicker by the day.

The cancer cure was tightly held by the Brazilian government and scientific community and once the clinical trials were over, the Brazilian government created an agency to oversee the management of the drug, its licensing and distribution. Overnight Brazil became one of the most important destinations in the world. This caused South America to grow both in population and world-wide importance.

Central America benefited from this overflow of popularity and these nations of the southern hemisphere finally achieved prominence in the world, befitting a country that had placed biodiversity higher than raw profit and easy exploitation of the rain-forest. Lamentations of what other cures might have been lost were shouted around the world, but Brazil's latest crop of scientists and explorers would canvas the remaining rain-forest for any insect, venom, genome, or bio-plasm that might have another amazing offering.

Meanwhile, Africa under the guidance of Communist China began to change and its tribal wars began to be diminished. Unfortunately, there were several full scale wars that ended in the complete annihilation of one side or the other. Once those wars were done, the victors welcomed the Communist Chinese and their offers of factory development, manufacturing, food, resource management and wealth for anyone willing to work. But the Africans were canny. Too often before, they had been exploited and would not allow the Chinese to do what had been done in the past. All deals were made with strict legal management and the unified armies of the African continent ensured no one would ever take advantage of the Continent again. 

China with its billions, closed its borders to immigration and built its Second Great Wall, surrounding the country's borders with an impenetrable barrier to protect itself from the rapacious powers scouring the world for resources. Building the wall concentrated the populations of China and helped to spread a slow viral disease for which there was no cure. Mutations of this new virus spread across the world and did not act the same as it did with the Chinese populace. Outside of China, the disease acted more like Ebola, spreading fast, killing quickly and without mercy. Accused of creating a bio-weapon designed to attack non-Chinese, the remaining superpowers rattled their sabers weakly but did nothing. At least, for a while.

The only area of the world apparently immune to the rampant effects of Chi-dromeda (as it was called in the West) was much of Russia. So China and Russia combined their resources and became a new world power. This benefitted Russia more than China, who was nursing an aging populace with a corrupt government. The Communist Chinese, executed the current Russian government suspected of corruption and annexed Russia. Russian and China scientists developed a medical scanner that could detect the virus and only allowed the serum-negative to leave the country. Those that chose to leave were never allowed to return. Taiwan became a Mecca for China's dispossessed but many fled to the factories of Africa and were welcomed for their skills and training. China lamented the loss of talent, but the country was still powerful, vibrant and with the union of Russia, they still had access to the last great stockpiles of petroleum left on the planet and had the manpower to expend to reach it. Millions died for the next five decades reaching those oil stockpiles further cementing China's worldwide supremacy. Prejudice against the Chinese, mostly from fear of Chin-dromeda, would last for decades and would eventually erupt into the Last World War.

This infusion of the Chinese immigrants displaced from China, many who were forced to come with the factories, gave Africa an infusion of highly educated, willing workers to work on one of the greatest projects on the Earth to date, the Solar Pavilions of the Sahara Desert. Eight hundred square miles of the Sahara, a relatively tiny portion was covered with a newly discovered quartz matrix created by Chinese and African scientists allowing them to harness nearly fifty percent of the energy from the sun, storing the energy in a treated silicon slurry below the desert acting as a battery, storing the intense solar heat of the day into an energy to power the United Nations of Africa, which included the Muslim Alliance nations of Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, and Yemen. 

The Solar Pavilion was a project that provided power for India, Greece, and the southern parts of Europe as well. With a nondestructive form of energy being focused into the continent of Africa, for the first time in millennia, the people could devote themselves to lives free from warfare and now spent their time harnessing the natural beauty of their country, replenishing the land, caring for the genetic diversity of the remaining wildlife that had not been hunted into extinction. As the Solar Pavilion employed millions laying the power cables, crafting the Pavilion itself, maintaining the cities near the edges of the Pavilion, raising families, creating schools, moving resources, the continent was buzzing with activities, each vying for which would continue to transform this collection of nations seeking redemption from the ravages of the nineteenth century. Africa was poised to be the power-plant of a world in desperate need for a solution as fossil fuels grew more scarce, more irreplaceable, and the tensions over how the remaining fuels would be used, escalated. India also formed relationships with Africa and the combinations of manpower, resources and education, turned Africa into the worlds, second greatest potential superpower.

The West, now called the Old Men of the Century, suffered greatly under the new prosperity of the Southern Hemisphere. A brain drain of their best and brightest fled the country seeking opportunity in the new stock markets, new scientific communities, new construction works that sprung up virtually overnight all over the world. China, now the world's premiere superpower and super-economy, was in economic control of the direction of the world's development and while it paid lip service to the Old Men of the West, the US and the European communities, their power was more of a figurehead than actually possessing any real say in the current direction of the world.

The last of their powers were waning under the weight of their overburdened economies saddled with ridiculous debt from their maintenance of militaries they could no longer afford. The nations of Mexico and Canada realizing they were burdened with the United States did what they could to prop up the US's fading economy and became the United North America Alliance (UNAA) in 2034 right after the Black Monday, in December 2034 when the NASDAQ collapsed for the last time, driving almost all but the richest American corporations into bankruptcy. This collapse restructured the West for what would later become the beginnings of the Oligarchy. Corrupted later by the blood-wealth and power of the surviving nations of a European Union, shattered by treachery and the destruction of the poorest nations of the EU to become the Plutocracy. The Plutocracy armed with super-advanced technologies created in secret labs practiced greed at its purest and most destructive. They were believers in commerce before all other things and would use whatever means necessary to further their goals.

The Plutocracy appointed the remnants of the world's religions as the tenders of men's souls, creating the legendary and apocryphal, Theocracy who would lead the desperate masses of the UNAA in what would be known as the Last War on Earth. Every religion was asked to join the Theocracy and send their representatives to create the last great religion, humanity would ever need. Those that refused were exterminated by the Plutocracy's mighty and alien-derived war machines. Those religions whose members still practiced their religions did so in secret. When discovered, the Theocracy's Inquisition was brutally effective. There was no word that inspired fear like Inquisitor, except for, Proctor, the War Dogs of the Theocracy.

Proctors lead the war which would kill billions. Nearly as many people died in the Last War  as had ever died in every war ever fought on the planet. The aftermath would cause plague, madness, and psychological dysfunction on a planet wide scale. The advances of the last seventy years, and they were many, those that could run automatically continued to do so until they failed or the Plutocracy's Technical Services restored them. The rest disappeared into history. Countries and superpowers retreated into themselves and waited for the storm to clear.

In this vacuum of technology, in this vacuum of society, a cabal of scientists would discover the secrets for faster than light travel and offer this shattered humanity, the stars. Except the Plutocracy decided who would go, and they did not vote for any of the wretched refuse. They sent themselves to the stars instead. And eight years later, many would return, but not all. It would seem Space was too dangerous for just the rich and a new plan to offer the rest of humanity an option to build ships and head out to the safer worlds and with the manpower of a determined humanity take over those worlds.

But Humanity was not told of the secret war waged by the Plutocracy against an enemy who had made it to Earth and while held in place by the Technology of the Plutocracy, could not be destroyed. And so mankind began its race to escape its cradle before the new inheritors of the Earth could escape their prison.

The Theocracy rallied the souls of men while the Plutocracy provided the resources for the Great Ships of the Diaspora to be built. And for a while the world was quiet. But that quiet couldn't last. There were too many secrets. The Theocracy learned early, the best way to keep secrets was to sanction anyone who knew too much. The dance for the leadership was always to know just enough to do your job, and not enough to be considered unwisely knowledgeable. 

Proctor Grimaldi was such a man, vicious, but not savage, intelligently but not too curious, callus, but not completely unfeeling, he walked that line of cruelty required by this new world of extremes. Powerful, yet appearing beneficent, he lead the Scavengers of the West toward their ultimate goal, the completion of the Great Ships. The three ships under his leadership were nearly seventy percent complete. His successes led him toward his real goal, the head of what remained of the UNAA as its Theocrat. Once his ships were completed, he would gather only the most sacred of his flock and return to the stars, leaving the rest of these unfortunate souls to whichever terrible fate would claim them first.

The Proctor's ambitions while carefully measured, still suffered from the vagaries of fate. He had no wife, nor any interest in one. But the Theocrat must be married, so he arranged to acquire one. The woman's husband was a heretic and the records will show that. His home will be destroyed in a fire, ensuring no one will be able to disprove that. His son will die a tragic death, a disease of the brain stem. Incurable. And once he was Theocrat, he would imprison the wife in a corporate apartment and maintain his catamite in the lifestyle to which he would grow accustomed. It has been said, Man Plans, God Laughs. The Proctor did not believe in God, so he might be excused for not knowing the expression. 

MODOC - Part 11 - Dining Out

'Metal Organism Designed only for Cuddling' © Thaddeus Howze 2010. All Rights Reserved

My name is no longer important. You have received this email or document depending on who you are because I believed you would be a person who would take what I have to say seriously and that ultimately you would see that this information would be released to the public.

I have spent months chronicling my adventures and I know that I will not live to see the results of my work. But you must not think I am crazy. You must look at what I have to say with a critical eye and ask yourself. Could this be true? But enough of this, let me tell of you the last day of my life. I knew what it would be and have included it in the documentation you are about to view. Some of it is recorded, some of it is a vid feed.

No matter the form, you will be able to substantiate three things. No feed, whether audio or video has been altered in any way. You see it or hear it the way it was recorded. It is important to stress that because without that information, nothing else matters. Once we record any video or audio, it is locked and cannot be altered. It used a triple encryption sequence that none of us could break, nor wanted to. The only thing the encryption sequence will reveal to people with the correct skills, is that the information gathered here is unaltered and has never been changed.

The second, is that we did not make any effort to hide or disguise or faces or voices. We understood that for you to take us seriously, we had to be serious and we understand our lives would ultimately be forfeit. The third thing, and for you the most important, is that we made every effort to hide what we were doing from the prying eyes of the Powers That Be. I capitalize that so you understand I mean that they are literally Powers, they control every aspect of our lives and yours.

By engaging this report, you are opening yourself to every Power of the world today who will kill to keep this secret. Let me repeat. If you engage beyond this point, you will likely die. Put your affairs in order. Take a few days with your loved ones. Spend any savings you have. Do anything you think is important for you to do. Because once you read this and likely distribute it the same way I did, in a week to a month, depending on how well you hide your tracks, can move from place to place and can live off the grid, you will be dead. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

With that said, I will show you the feed of my last day and let you decide for yourself if what I say has any merit at all.

It is cold this time of year. For the last ten years, we have known nothing but bitter cold. But this winter is unlike any before it, because it will be my last. I know this as sure as I draw breath. I have packed up everything of value and have already made all of my mail drops today. I have given my cat, Sasha to my old neighbor in the flophouse I have been staying at. She has been a good mouser and kept my place clear of disease-carrying vermin and been a good and warm companion during the night. The flophouse has no heat, nor hot water so a day there is a choice between stinking or freezing. I must admit I have chosen stinking on especially cold days. My thin blankets and pitiful rations have also been donated with Sasha, my neighbor Demitri, is old and cannot bear the cold as easily as he once did. I know that he loves Sasha as much as I do, and will take good care of her. Sasha is a strong cat, in her prime and liable to serve him for many years to come. I trained her to catch rats and bring them back to share during the lean times and it looks like those times are on us again. He will need her skills. I am beyond their reach now.

The sky is bright and I am in good spirits despite myself. I am filled with a sense of purpose and feel that all of the work that we have done in the last few months have been good and valuable and I feel there will be much done after I am gone. The neighborhood I live in is dirty. The walls are covered in graffiti, layered like sedimentary rock, over each other, each layer more garish and more desperate than the last. Each layer shows the hopelessness of each group as they wrote their names, trying to immortalize themselves in a world that did not count them at all. Blood decorates some of those walls as well, as earlier generations kill the next who would cover their bid for immortality.

I see the hookers and drug dealers selling their particular drug of choice, knowing that only the desperate would seek any solace here. Yet, there are no lack of customers for either of their particular crafts. The worst part of it all, is that I can see from where I am standing spires of gold, stretching into the heavens. Narrow buildings like spun glass reach into the heavens and tiny streams of vehicles streak between them on innumerable errands, each a sparkling grain of sand against the sanguine sky. I hate them. I hate them because I was once one of them. And because of a twist of fate, an accident of my genome, I learned of a thing so terrible, I could only be cast out from heaven, lest the secret destroy it. The secret is known as The Carrier.

Once heavenly bound but no earthly good, I trod along the dirty streets of New Haven, the industrial complex of Kenopoli, one of the major cities on an Earth-like planet, lightyears from where we were born. But Kenopoli was so much like Earth, mankind flourished here just like he did at home once. And here he made the same mistakes. Separated by generations and the barriers of space-time, we landed here, a one way ticket into space and two thousand years separate us from our ancestors and just like man of old, we grew, we prospered, we lied, we cheated, we stole, we killed. All of our great achievements fell away when our old ideas and old ways came back to us. Our utopia became a dystopia and greed became the order of the day.

Robots were how mankind escaped Earth, but there was something in the atmosphere, or the magnetosphere, no one has ever been sure, but for whatever reason, this world that did not allow robots to continue to function or new ones to be made. Factories made them, but they simply would not function. Their higher functioning brains simply did not process information. For a while they were dumb laborers, then even those functions died. They worked for one hundred years and when they died, they could not be replaced. Thus the Second Age of Man began. Men were no longer able to manipulate matter as easily and the great cities could no longer be made. So the lesser buildings like New Haven were made in the shadows of the Last Great City of Kenopli.

Then came the stratification of Man. We decided that some men were better than others and soon a new caste system appeared. It was not spoken. It was not written. It simply was. And soon our society segmented and those that were less were cast out from the Spires and sent to the New Havens around the world. But work needed to be done without robots and thus manpower was required. So men were forced to work in factories and those factories would darken they skies with their coal and other burnings but those dark clouds never rose into the Spires and those people never knew the dirt and darkness of our mean and cold lives. But a mistake was made. Our economies were mixed and things created in the Spires were needed by the Workers. And the Spires needed resources and manpower from the Lowland, and so trade and corporations and guilds were created and this was momentarily good. But it did not last. We were not vigilant.

The came media, new media, all consuming media designed to give us hope, make us feel beautiful, keep us blind to our suffering, inured to the hopelessness of our tasks, unconcerned about our diseases, unaware of the lower quality of life we were leading. And it worked. We consumed blindly, we sought opportunities whenever we could, we joined the corporations in the Midworld between the Spires and the Lowlands and we thought it was good and that it would last forever. And then people like me were born. A few at first but then there were others.

They called us damaged, they called us mutants, but in the Old World of Earth, we were called autistics. Humans with subtle genetic variations that kept our minds, every so slightly different from the normal minds of our people. Sometimes you could see the difference. They could not function in society; they had no speech, no capacity for learning beyond the most simple of tasks, their lives were filled with suffering and the State did not acknowledge them as viable members of society. In the beginning they were tolerated, but as time progressed and their numbers increased, they were persecuted because they placed an inordinate drain on society's resources.

It was not as if those resources could not be spared, it was simply one more indignity to heap upon the masses, one more shame they were forced to bear as if, they had not enough to deal with. It was claimed there was no known cause of autism, or of any of the myriad of mental issues that began to plague our people in greater numbers than ever. We had lived on this world now for over two thousand years and had a population of two billion people. Strict controls on birth and death kept populations manageable and ultimately the severely autistic were eventually put to death. But there were other autistics whose minds allowed them to do amazing things, to see and hear and think of things no norm ever could. To be aware of patterns within patterns. To be aware of new ways of seeing and hearing and understanding numbers in ways previously unconsidered and that is where I became aware of the Carrier.

All of this, you already know, I only restate it so you can understand what you are dealing with. As a child who was only mildly autistic, I became aware of a particular sound I could sense in my environment that I noticed no one else could hear. I did not know that as a child and my issues prevented me from telling anyone about it. Whenever the radio was playing or a datafeed was being broadcast, I could hear this sound and it made me sick to my stomach. I burned inside, my head was on fire, my stomach would void and it would last as long as the media was available to my senses. I could not hide from it, and covering my ears offered some limited relief. I learned it was not all music or all datafeeds and things my parents considered Old Music did not cause me that sickness. So my parents catered to my needs and we only played old recordings of music. It was only when public feeds were available did I get terribly ill. I eventually learned to grit my teeth and bear it, and only occasionally threw up in the presence of music or live datafeeds.

By the time I learned to speak effectively, I could not tell anyone because no one I knew could hear it but me. I knew my parents did not condone such silliness as imaginary friends or imaginary sounds, so I learned to keep it to myself and would have never thought anything of it until I reached high school and met my first friend like me. His name was Kenneth Watson. He was the first person I knew to die when he made his teachers aware of the Carrier.

The Carrier - Part 2

'The Carrier' © Thaddeus Howze 2011. All Rights Reserved

Running out of the doctor's office with Justin in tow, we tried to look inconspicuous as we got on the elevator. I did my part to look particularly robotic and Justin wiped the sweat off his face. The elevator had several people on it. Initially I did not pay them any attention until I turned my ears toward them and noted their incredibly fast heart rates. Something was wrong, terribly wrong. They has the heart rates of people engaged in a full out sprint. Their breathing was short and raspy. I pushed up against Justin's leg and he moved in the direction I pushed. His leg was hot and dry. He was already running a mild fever. All we could do was hope he would maintain until we got home. 

The two nervous people ran out of the elevator as if they were on fire and fled down the hallway away from the security station. As we got off the elevator, an alarm sounded, its high pitched repeating whine made me want to turn off my auditory sensors. Justin was counting on me. I tried to maintain an air of calm and was confident the paralytic I gave the doctor had not worn off sooner than it was supposed to. But judging from the behavior of the thronging masses already crowding the main doors, this had nothing to do with me.

"Cat, can you hear me? I am piggy backing off the security grid near where you are. There is a riot near the building you are in."

"Too late. I see it. Tell me there is another way out." I could see the Religious Police forming up outside with their shields and batons swinging. I could hear the alarms for the Active Denial System which should have them running away, but the people were wearing padded clothing, likely something designed to disrupt microwaves. So instead of beating, demoralized, screaming masses, the RPs were having to fight an aggressive and magically well-armed mob, as weaponry appeared from underneath jackets and long coats.

"All the security cameras tell me the building is surrounded and the crowd is ten or fifteen deep in some places. And more are coming every second, calculating escape avenues. Stay hot, Cat."

"A damn flash mob." I was disgusted. A fad started almost a century ago had been perfected in this age of implants and pocket computing. A flash mob could form in less than five minutes and be thousands strong in ten. Justin had moved toward one of the walls to lean against the cool marble while I deliberated on what to do. And then all hell broke loose.

The nervous and sweaty people who were on the elevator were now running down the corridor leading a thronging mass of shouting people. Without warning, the hallway was full of people who swung improvised clubs against anything or anyone not identified as a member of the flash mob. I tugged Justin alongside the wall near the security desk, but the mob just swept him up and pulled him into the tide.

The building's security team was immediately overcome like sand against the sea, even as they were firing their neural stunners. The masses just flowed over their downed comrades and kept coming. I tried to keep my eye on Justin but as one of the security people was waving his stun wand nearby, I was caught in its effect and had a cold-beam and video glitch. No more than fifteen seconds, but it was long enough. When I looked up again after my video feed reset, Justin was gone.

The mob was tearing into the Religious Police and began pushing them back. The mob was likely being updated in real time by someone who was not part of the attack on the ground but coordinating it from somewhere else. As the mob expanded, it became less controllable and more dangerous.

"I lost the boy." I tried altering my vision and swept the spectrum, but nothing helped differentiated Justin.

"I will try and lock onto his visor signal. I need you to use your cold beam for targeting." The House, Max, had a cool and professional sound to his voice. He didn't panic. 

I jumped up to the top of the security desk and then to the top of the scanning gateway, giving myself a nice fifteen foot height advantage. I turned my cold beam out onto the crowd and hoped to get a reply signal. The beam indicated dozens of interface units, but none of them responded with our preprogrammed code. I tried to gauge the flow of the crowd and turned to where I thought he might be moving. There. By the front door, he is moving outside. "Got him. I am going to try and grab him and get out of the crowd. Can you get us a cab? Two blocks down the street would be good."

"I'm on it. Don't lose him. Move fast, this is getting out of control."

I jumped down onto the heads and shoulders of a number of the pushing and shoving flash mob participants and by the time they realized what was happening, I have skipped from their heads to the next ones toward the mob outside. My weight always surprises them, but by the time I am felt, I am already gone. As I approach the doors, I see there is full scale fighting outside and the RPs, in their efforts to be humane are being trashed, surrounded and trampled. It looked like a full scale rout until I see and hear the roar of the black aero-drones of the Corporate Police.

Now, it was officially out of control.

"This area is surrounded. Lay down your weapons or you will be fired upon." The voice came from one of four triangular aircraft with an internally shielded rotor providing lift. These were smaller drones so they were likely unmanned. I could also see a number of ground vehicles pushing their way up the street, brutally running over anyone stupid enough to get in front of them. The teams that leapt from the back of them began stunning everything in sight and drew the ire of the crowd. The crowd, instead of being cowed, exploded into action, grabbing the RP's riot shields and equipment and turning this into a full-scale battle.

"This is your last warning! Cease and desist!"

And just like that, the Corporate Police were everywhere, corralling the shouting and crazed mob members but staying at the edge of the group. The aero-drones began moving closer to the center of the crowd and spread out to maximize their effect. Each point of the tri-cornered flying wedge mounted a sonic cannon bristling from beneath the ship, looking like a terrible claw of a black flying insect. Lights activated on the edge of the flying wedges indicating the weapons were hot.

"Cat, get out of there."

"I am just a few feet from him. I can't stop now."

I ran up to him and put my face against him. He grabs my still dragging leash and comes with me as I try to get through the crowd. I can see a large column not to far way and try to drag him toward it. He has hunkered down and pushed as hard as he can. He reaches the column and presses up against it.

I press my paws against his head and push him down low to the ground. People are hearing the warning siren of the aero-drones and taking their vengeance against any of the ground-based forces before the flying wedges fire. More Corporate Police vehicles arrive on the scene and they boiled out of their big black vehicles like ants, their weapons flashed and the terribly flying wedges fired systematically into the crowd. Their fire designed to demoralize and shatter the resolve of the mob, each sonic burst is calculated to spread the devastation across the entire group. They used ultrasonic weapons which struck into the crowd with destructive effect. Direct hits were shattered into piles of steaming meat by the beam of condensed sound and the splash of sonic energy cast a circle of crippling force, shredding flesh from bone, knocking people off their feet and rendering them unconscious, blood dripping from their noses, ears and eyes. The screams of panic now overpower the previous sounds of rabble-focused courage.

A man falls near Justin and I push Justin under his body, using the stunned man as a shield. A second blast resounds mere feet from us and the force of the weapon, blasted me away from Justin and over the crowd. I crash into the building's shatterproof glass and bounce to the ground. His human shield was nearly liquefied. All that is left is his skeleton as the flesh is ripped from his bones. But as I whirl away, I see Justin still moving and relatively uninjured, but covered in the flesh of that unknown man, before I lose sight of him. Once I land, I am in diagnostic mode and unable to move. The sonic weapon did not damage any of my vital duotronic processor systems but my physical superstructure required a systematic restart to determine if I was physically damaged. 

In a matter of moments, the riot was all but quelled, as the flash mob disappeared with the same speed it formed. There were hundreds of casualties and anyone who was unconscious on the scene was placed into one of the transports that arrived soon after. The Corporate Police moved with a terrible efficiency, gathering up identifying interface technology that survived their sonic weapons. The interface IDs were processed and then bagged, viscera still dripping from them. Their medical agents, dressed in white, rather than the normal Corporate Police black, tended the wounded before loading them into the vehicles.  

By the time, I had rebooted and the Corporate Police were approaching my location, they thought I was dead. As they reached for me, I jumped up and ran through their legs toward the truck that I saw the boy being carried to by one of the nurses. The nurse, a huge fellow, carried Justin as if he had no weight at all. He put him into the truck and into the hands of the other mob members. Many of the uninjured had a look of absolute terror on their faces and the Police stood at the of the truck making sure no one tried to escape. An aero-drone provided a more than menacing backup measure hovering behind him, its sonic cannons aimed into the vehicles.

Ducking out of sight, I had become one more strange thing in a day of strange things to the police and was just as quickly forgotten. The two nurses who were helping several of the mob who were a bit more injured than most were having a conversation whose tone I was not sure I liked.

"Why do they bother making us fix them up at all? I don't even see the point," said a attractive female with short brown hair. Her whites were covered in blood and she was still wiping her hands after depositing another survivor into the truck with her companion.

"You don't actually believe the myth of where they take the dissidents do you? That is just a media blurb. They get taken to the precinct and are released," said another young looking Indian fellow. He was a bit thin and his uniform bagged on his spare frame, flapping in the wind of the nearby aero-drones.

Brown hair retorted, "Hey new guy, get your head out of your ass. Does this look like the kind of scene you want anyone to tell people about? Haven't you found it a bit strange, how rarely these things end up in the news anymore? I have been to almost ten of these this month alone." The venom in her voice was apparent and she did not seem to care who heard her.

The Indian fellow shook his head in agreement and continued,"I just figured there were so many of these things, all over the city, they just stopped being news. What they were telling me was these people were taking to re-education camps in Pennsylvania and send to work on the Great Ship Project." He seemed to have a problem with his own propoganda.

"I heard they were taken to New Jersey and processed."

"Processed? Is there a camp there too?" Having taken the last person where they were working and placed them into the vehicle, the Indian fellow reached into his back to take out a dull-wrapped package and ripped it open with his teeth.

Miss Brown Hair, turns after placing her equipment back into her bag and as the Indian is about to place the food into his mouth, she slaps him and the food out of his mouth before he could take a bite. She vehemently stomps the product into dust on the ground.

"What the hell? What's wrong with you?"

"That was Humox, wasn't it?"

"Yeah, what about it? Some of us new guys, with our heads in our asses are poor and can't afford to eat like kings. We get a food subsidy where I live. They drop it off twice a week. That was my last bar for a few days. Lauren, what's got into you?"

"Promise me you will never eat that again, no matter how hungry you get. Promise me."

"Why? You know, you are starting to worry me."

A Corporate Policeman walks by the two of them and I crouch under a car so that I am not seen. The policeman waves his hand toward the truck and gives the go-ahead signal. He says into his vox, "Take them to processing in Jersey."

"See Lauren, they are going to processing." The young man was smiling as if he had just figured out some great secret.

"That is what I have been trying to tell you. I have a friend who works on the trucks. She tells me that there are these new plants springing up in all of the major cities around the world." Picking up the wrapper, she shows him where it says 'Made in New Jersey' on the wrapper. "There is a new plant there. Just opened last month. Before that, people were sent to Tennessee for processing." She lowers her voice, and looks around. She slides up close to the Indian and whispers just loud enough for me to hear. "My friend says Humox is people."

I didn't wait to hear any more. I tore up the street, chasing that truck like all the demons of hell were after me.

MODOC Part 10 - War and Pieces

'Metal Organism Designed only for Cuddling' © Thaddeus Howze 2010. All Rights Reserved

Getting out of the technician's office only required that I wait for a few minutes until he came back. While I waited, I did some research on the doctor who was working on Justin's case. He was a middle-aged gentleman, Dr. James Peterson, 46, a wife and three children living on the outskirts of the war torn borough of the Bronx. Used  as a point of invasion, in the last wars a decade ago, much of the Bronx was still being rebuilt. New tenements sprung up there and privileged members of society were allowed to enjoy those new areas with their better food, water and energy facilities. 

The doctor and his family were recently moved out there, almost simultaneously with his appointment here. When I tried to get further information regarding them, I was immediately flagged as requesting classified data. Since most data flags are annoying and can often be wrong, I transmitted information that would reroute that signal to another terminal in the building and continued my investigation. The most damning thing was that the doctor's children did not attend any local schools in the city, anywhere. And when I searched for an occupation for the wife, nothing was listed. So I accessed their shopping lists and noted that no one in their family went outside to shop. Now, unbeknownst most people, every time you leave your home in our illustrious society, something notes your movement, by either an implant or an appliance you wear. The doctor's family did not move. Ever. And had not since they were relocated. That was all I needed to know.

Skipping out between fat boy's legs was easy enough but there was something wrong with him. His heart rate was wrong, highly elevated and irregular. He was pasty and he appeared to be having trouble breathing. After he closed the door, I heard a crash and then no other movement. Normally, I would chalk it up to a bad lifestyle leading up to a bad ending, but there was something wrong with this. Once the door closed, I could not get health information, but I used a medical code override and triggered an alert with this technician's door  and zipped down the corridor back to the office I was supposed to be sitting in. Big man was no longer my problem.

I tapped on the door to get Gorgeous Boy to open the door and he looked up, put down his compact and let me back in.

"How did you get out?"

"I walked."

He stood there struck for a moment and then realized, "You are a robot, aren't you? You are realistic looking, I really thought you were a cat."

"Wow, no fooling you, huh? Do you think you could take a look back there and see if my boy is ready?"

Recovering his ennui and trying to look unaffected he said, "Sure thing. Flashing back."

I hate the abuse of the language. But my database included a variety of slangs programmed from modern vids, so that I would be a better communicator with my charge. But Justin did not use much of the modern slang and I was grateful. It was always about being fast or being in sync or being smart and most of the people using it were never any of these things. As he turned away, I immediately followed in his path and as he opened the door into the chamber, I slid in behind him and caused the phone to ring. He reflexively turned around and headed back toward the phone. Never saw me and evidently once he realized no one was on the phone, he forgot my request to see the doctor as well. Short attention span. A wild animal should eat that one to keep him from breeding; never a tiger around when you need one.

Once I entered the doctor's office, I noticed the immensity of the space and could hear Justin talking with the doctor deep in the office behind a series of curtains. I could hear a number of other voices, but most seemed to be coming from displays and were not people. I could only detect two scents in the room, so I knew I had the place to myself. Dropping down, I could see the doctor's feet beneath the curtains and made a path toward them. Justin was lying down on a table and answering questions as the doctor's diagnostic table took sophisticated biometric readings. I decided to take the direct approach. Finding a terminal with a cold beam access, I managed to find the office vox and transmitted my voice from every corner of the office.

"Justin, go outside. Wait for me there." I jumped up on the edge of the table and watched Justin turn and sit up. He remembered our conversation and went outside to wait.

"Doctor Peterson, I presume. I work for the Proctor, just like you do. Actually, not quite like you do. How is the boy's therapy going?"

"Uh, well. The course of therapy is going well and he should be fine in a number of weeks."

"Okay, that was for the listening public. Now cut the crap. What about the real therapy, how long is it going to be? The Proctor is an impatient man and wants to know how long he is going to have to wait."  Borrowing the House's fractal attack, I laced the vox output with a signal designed to intimidate and cause a visceral fear reaction. He would not notice it at the audible level, but his level of fear was already off the chart.

"Tell the Proctor everything is according to plan and the subject will be sanctioned within eight to ten weeks."

"So tidy. So clinical. Say the boy's name, Doctor."

"Justin."

"Say it again. This time with some feeling."

"Justin Pennyworth."

"And that is about what he is worth to you, isn't it?"

"What do you want from me? What do you want me to say?"

"I want you to say that you are sorry for doing this."

"Who are you? What do you want?"

"Your family lives in the Bronx. Imprisoned in a new tenement there, isn't that correct?"

"You people said if I did what you wanted you would not hurt them."

"What else did the Proctor promise you?"

"That when the boy was done, I would be able to get my family back."

"That deal is over. This is the new one. Reverse what you have done and I won't kill you and your family, today."

"Excuse me?" The doctor looked visibly shaken. He dropped his diagnostic wand and slumped back into a chair.

"Can you reverse what you have done to the boy? And if you lie to me, I will know."

"Yes, the process required significant setup and he is not past the point where it could not be undone. But if I do that I am dead, and so is my family."

"Doctor, I am not a cat or a toy. I am a sophisticated weapon with only one objective. To protect that boy in there. If you intend to leave this room alive, you will undo what you have done. Wave that scanner in the air and tell me what you detect."

The doctor waved the wand and his face turned completely bone-white.

"I have an antidote. I will administer it only when my boy is safe."

"Why should I? According to you, my family is dead either way."

Turning on a cold beam, I connect to the House and relay the address of the Doctor's family. A few seconds later, his response is what I hoped.

"Your family is secured by electronic systems only. I can arrange for them to be outside of that building in two hours and I have a window of fifteen minutes in which they will appear to all surveillance to be sitting in the house quietly. Be there with a car and disappear. I don't care where you go but know this: You better be right about this being reversible because if you don't I promise you, I will create the most corrosive acid possible and cook the flesh right off the bones of you and your children. And don't think I can't find you. Just like I found your family today, it took me five minutes."

I jump down to the floor and come over to the chair where the doctor is sitting and climb up so that he is looking me directly in my very cold eyes. "You think the Proctor is a monster? I am as close to dying as you have ever been in your life. Now get my boy in here and get it right. Once I am satisfied, you get your family, go into hiding and hope to never see me again. Because if you do, it means you are about to die."

The doctor presses a button on the phone. "Would you send Justin back, please?" He walks to a nearby terminal and begins making a new recombinant viral cocktail. It takes him ten minutes.  He walks up to Justin after leaving a synthesis system and loads an air-pistol injector. "He will be slightly feverish and sick while the new viral infection removes the previous transformations. It will pass. Can I go now?"

I run across the room and jump up to the table, and continue my leap onto the doctor and knock him to the floor. I bite him about the neck with my steel teeth and inject him. He screams and writhes in pain. But it is momentary and then he is still. He can hear every word I say.

"What I have injected you with will last about ten minutes and then you will be able to move again. It will also counteract the earlier poison. Can't have you calling anyone. I am a machine of my word. In one hundred and twenty minutes, your family will be able to walk out of that building and no technology will see them. If anything happens to my boy, no technology will be able to hide you. Blink if you understand me." He blinks, with tears in his eyes.

I looked up at Justin and he is already starting to sweat. "Let's go, kid, before you start to get really sick."

"Good luck, Doctor. Pray we never meet again." 

MODOC - Part 9 - Public Gatherings

'Metal Organism Designed only for Cuddling' © Thaddeus Howze 2010. All Rights Reserved