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Post by Aedh on Sept 9, 2010 10:21:30 GMT -5
055[/b] At 8:05, rather than her usual 7:42, Ralna passed through the revolving glass doors in the County Annex Building, her training shoes squeaking on the marble floor. She wore office attire, with overcoat, handbag, briefcase, and sling bag, as well as eyeglasses, new ones Sir had given her, whose lenses enhanced her ability to scan body temperature signatures when that mode was enabled. She joined a line of other workers in front of the security point; there was 'bux-sipping and occasional muttered conversation, pricked with electronic beeps as someone went through the scanner or a bag passed through the x-ray conveyor. In fact, she knew, the x-ray conveyor didn't work--it was a cosmetic measure. It beeped, but that was all it did; the security officer on duty chose bags at random to look in. Ralna came up behind another worker, from her floor--Morgause, who had led the conversation about her, Ralna, on Monday. Morgause turned and broke into a grin. "Why, hello, you! This ain't your usual--are you, ummm--runnin' a little ... late?" she teased. "Affirmative," Ralna smiled, engaging with the woman's bantering mood. "I missed the seven-twenty express." "Ha! Big night last night? Hot date?" The line moved forward a step. "That's right," Ralna admitted, using one of Morgause's favorite phrases. "Thass right! Listen at you, gal!" grinned the other. "You might even wanna join us for break and give us the lowdown! C'mon!" Ralna did not reply. From a sideways view, across the lobby, there was an anomalous motion. Her indicator sensors lit up her visuals. Someone was drawing a weapon. Immediately her defense mode went up; people's movement seemed to slow as her processing speed kicked up and her auxiliaries fired her bio-assists. Male, Hispanic or Mideastern, bringing up an autopistol, a big Desert Eagle type. There were some gasps and yells, people twisting, turning, reacting: the man's head swiveling, looking for someone or something. Ralna dropped her bags and pushed Morgause down, rolling over her between two other people to come to a kneel behind a conveyor stand, not much cover, but some. The man's arms were out, weapon spitting fire slowly-- blat ... blat ... moving in an arc. People were hitting the floor, scrambling; one guard, then another, drew his own service weapon, shouting. The man's eyes were not always matching his aim. He was on the lookout for something or someone particular. An officer went down, hit; the other fired back, his aim unsteady, but the shooter's arc moved away. What-- who--was he looking for? She decided to test a theory. She stood up, facing the shooter, full front from about twenty feet, and called: "Excuse me!" He saw her, interrupted his arm motion, and--ignoring the guard--swung back around to aim at her, slowly, so slowly. His trigger finger tightened, muzzle aimed straight for her, and she flexed her knees. Then another man moved, stepping out from an alcove near the lift; he had a subgun, an Uzi carbine. From his angle, she and the guard were near together. The moment was enough for Pistol Man to shoot once, twice. As she broke to the left, a bullet creased her. That activated full combat mode. She collided with the standing guard, his arm rising, hearing Uzi Man open up; she wrenched the guard's shoulders, falling-- they hit the floor together. She laid hold of his weapon, a Glock automatic. He resisted but she pulled it away--he couldn't stand against Uzi Man, whose first burst hit several people, who dropped slowly--a newspaper went flying, scattering its pages. Ralna rolled again, palming the warm Glock, and came up behind the scanner housing--crouching, raising her head, on top coming face to face with Pistol Man. She shot him point-blank between his eyes, which popped open, saucer-wide in surprise. Uzi Man, nearer now, opened up with a long burst, side to side, first hitting her scanner unit, cra--crack--chunk--whunk ... She used her arms to help push, to go up in a jump, doubling her knees, over his arc of fire, and she landed, feet apart, on the conveyor bed, the Glock straight out at him. His head snapped back--and she looked at him for one of her moments, watching his gun arm move, slowly, slowly, that terrible human slowness. She felt--almost--sorry for him in that moment, how he had failed, how he would die--how it all came to this. Then she shot him through the head, once, and again for good measure, and watched again as he went down, over onto his back, arms spreading, the Uzi slipping away and clattering on the floor. It was over. She jumped down off the belt, dropping the Glock, her senses already slowing. Several alarms were going off. People were moving, looking around from their prone positions. Two other security people in helmets and breastplates had arrived from their ready room. One had a SAW autocarbine, the other was using a PDA. There was blood on the floor around the gunmen. She herself had been hit, twice, once by Pistol Man and, luckily, only once by Uzi Man, neither badly; her submesh wasn't penetrated. She went for her bags. "Hey! Hey, hey!" SAW Guard called, looking at her, "Miss!" But other people were getting up. "Are you alright?" "What the hell--?" This was her moment to get out--not too quickly, but quickly. It nearly didn't happen; a hand grabbed her heel. "Girl!" yelped Morgause. "I must go," Ralna told her, pulling away. "See you at break." "Miss!" called PDA Guard, pointing at her. She moved for the stairwell door, and motioned up with her head. "Twenty-eight-twenty-six," she called back, going through. "My boss is a doctor." SAW Guard nodded, thumb up--"Don't leave the building," the other called past her PDA. Sirens were already sounding outside. "We--" She didn't hear the rest as the door closed with a thunk. She had to move--the stairwell would be getting busy as the alarms triggered a lockdown of the lifts. Ralna got up the stairs, burdened as she was, twenty-seven floors, in less than three minutes, emerging into the familiar hallway, where a few people were about, a head or two poking out of a door. She ignored questions and made straight for her office--not far--and went in. Rhys Macklin was standing inside, PDA in hand, but he put it down as she entered. "Ralna! What on earth--were you at the incident? What happened?" he asked, his voice concerned. "Two gunmen, sir," she replied, setting down her bags and case. "Their target was me." His brow furrowed, and he said aside into the PDA: "Call you back." Then he snapped and pocketed it. "Are you sure of this?" "Yes, sir. One man with a pistol, shooting in an arc, at no one and everyone, trying to get people down. He dropped a guard. The other fired at him but when he saw me he fired at me instead. Then a second man with an Uzi came out from an alcove firing at me as well." "Were you hit?" She indicated her overcoat's burnt tears. He motioned for her to shuck it, and as she did he quickly undid her blazer buttons, then looked at the blouse. One had hit her abdomen, the other grazing a hip, under a gash in her pants. The lower had raised a nasty welt, bleeding a little; in the upper one, her biomesh layer had caught the slug and was starting to eject it--there was more blood there, but not running, just oozing, and already healing fast. "Stand still," he told her. In a few moments he had the aid kit out and was unsealing a swab. "The guards noticed, sir--two more came," she said as he worked. "Noticed--what do you mean?" "I ended the gunmen, sir. I--" her processing slowed--"I was aware of our conversation about ending people. I evaluated. One guard was down, one left, against two, one with a subgun, both aiming for me. The standing guard was not in control, so I downed him, took his pistol, and ended them." He gave her a sharp glance, getting out a gauze pad. "Carefully," she added. "Normal tactics, simple kenjuudo. Anyone well-trained could have done what I did." He taped over the pad, cut, and went to the second wound with a swab. "Yes. There will be video. I'm sure you did well, Ralna. But you are certain there was no other choice, and that they were after you?""The pistol shooter, when he saw me, ignored the guard shooting at him, at peril of his own life, to try to kill me, sir. That is suggestive, I believe. There is little cover there, and escape would have meant a long sprint with my back to the shooters. Either I would have had to move with extraordinary speed, or take some obvious direct hits, or both." "H'm. I can't fault your analysis." He applied the final tape and stood up. With a glance for permission, she reached over to her desk and took her headset. "Their tactics were oddly chosen, sir. If it were a simple job of ending me, they could have hit me outside, in the street--outside my apartment--with much less danger and publicity. Instead, they chose to do it in the lobby of an office building, at peak time. In a secured area, with video going. As if they wished publicity--for my death to be known. Or to force me into some action." "To reveal yourself," Rhys said thoughtfully. "In saving yourself and others, to display some abnormal ability or quality--on camera." "Yes, sir. If that was their goal, they failed. As I said, I did nothing that a trained person couldn't have done." "In which case you did well. But we have to know who these men were--" The signal bar on Ralna's desk-unit flashed an incoming call. He reached for it, but she put her hand on his, getting up, and pressed 'accept.' "Good morning, Dr. Macklin's office. How may I assist you, please ... ? One moment, please." "Who is it?" She picked up the handset and extended it to him. "Building security. They wish to confirm that I'm here. The police have arrived." He took it. "Dr. Macklin. Yes, Ralna's here, in my office ... I am her physician. I examined her--she was very lucky, two light grazes, that's all, taken care of with the first-aid kit. However, she had an adrenaline rush--a physio-emotional reaction. She wishes to go to work as usual immediately, to calm herself, get back into routine. It's a fairly normal phenomenon, and physically she's fit, so I see no reason to send her anywhere but where she wants to be ... no, if you wish to ask her some questions, it would be a courtesy if you came up and talked to her here, where she feels most comfortable at the moment ... thank you." He handed back the piece, and she looked at him. "They'll be on their way up. You can tell them just the facts like you told me. One man started shooting. A guard went down, then another man with a subgun opened up. You are highly skilled in martial arts, and it looked like the other guard was going to do nothing but get himself killed. You reacted instinctively, put him down for his own safety, took his weapon, and took down the shooters. You have no idea who they were, or what they wanted. You just did it. You don't know who they were targeting. It's all true. You know and I know that it appears strongly that they were targeting you, but we have, in fact, no proof, so you can leave that out. Let them form their own conclusions." "Yes, sir," she said. "I exist to serve." >< >< >< There was work to be done in advance of Rhys' press conference, but it was going to be delayed. Within twenty minutes, two detectives and two CSI specialists had arrived. Rhys knew all of them from case consultations and courtroom testimonies. They returned with Ralna and Rhys to the lobby, now taped off, cleared, and dotted with lights, equipment, and investigators, and had her re-enact her moves and the relative positions of the shooters to put together the sequence. Just the facts, as Rhys had said, and that was enough, until at the very end, one investigator had looked over her notes and asked: "Kenjuudo? I'm not familiar with that." Rhys looked at Ralna, who answered: "The martial art of the handgun. I am an advanced student. Analysis of thousands of recorded gunfights has shown that combatants tend to react and move in certain predictable patterns. The student can use this information to get in between his opponent's moves, so to speak, and to pro-act in ways that make use of his opponent's unconscious patterning, to avoid opponent's projectiles, or to inflict maximum return damage, or both." "I see," said the investigator. "Like a sort of ... gun kata. Fascinating." "It can be a useful thing to know," Ralna said. "And now, are we done?" "No further questions," said the other investigator. "Do you want a detail at your office?" The big man nodded. "If you could post someone outside the office, that'd make us feel better. We do have police work to get on with, on top of everything else." "Of course. We'll post someone for the day, and you can keep in touch with us from there. Anything else?" Rhys traded looks with Ralna, and shook his head. "Okay, then. We're done. But--stay around town for a few days, alright?" the male investigator said to Ralna. "Yes, sir," replied Ralna. "You know where to find us," added Rhys. >< >< >< >< >< >< "Good morning," said Ralna a half-hour later. "Dr. Macklin's office, how may I assist you, please? Yes, one moment." She clicked in to his office. "Yes?" came his voice. "Sir, Mrs. Macklin on two." "Ah! I'll take it on four, Ralna." "Very good, sir." She transferred him; another light was already blinking. Inside, the big man wheeled around in his chair and touched his own headset. "Hello, darling," he said. "I'm glad you called--I was concerned about you." At her end, Candee, in her room at the medical hostel, her hair up and wearing a robe, got up from her chair. "Hello, Rhys. I'm sorry I left like I did, so suddenly. I feel awful about it." "I understand, babe," came his voice soothingly. "I know you have your own life, you like to visit friends and get about. You can help people on the spur of the moment, and you do. I was a little concerned that I didn't get a message from you yesterday, but I was going to try calling you this morning. How are Yoshi and Yawmin? Did they save anything from the house fire?" She looked down. "I--I have to confess something, Rhys. Yoshi and Yawmin's house is still standing. I didn't actually go to see them--I went--somewhere else." "Oh?" His voice sounded sympathetic, totally unsurprised. Did he know she'd lied? Probably. Probably thought I'd gone to rehab again. "Then what is it, baby? Where are you? What can I do for you?" "I'll get to that in a minute. I was concerned about you, too, dear," she said, glancing over at the vidscreen in her room. "I don't like to disturb you at work, but I couldn't help seeing the newsfeed about the incident at your office building." "I'm alright, babe. I was nowhere near at the time." "Good. I was a bit worried because of the vidclip," she said, breathing easier. "What vidclip?" "Go to Comeau," she directed, referring to a City news site. At his end, Rhys turned again and clicked twice, then clicked a link. A scheduled backgrounder on him, giving his campaign biography, had been bumped from the top by news of the shooting at the County Annex. "Five Dead In Downtown Gun Attack." It was accompanied by a WhoToob link with an icon carrying a "Warning! Content May Be Disturbing To Younger Or Sensitive Viewers!" on which he clicked. Its banner read: "Downtown Gunmen Stopped By Office Worker."There, in grainy color, was a vid, a shaky one taken in the lobby at the time of the shooting--uploaded from someone's PDA, no doubt. It showed the floor and some parts of people, then, sideways, a man firing a pistol, swinging his arm. It moved, revealing some of the lobby's security equipment, a flash of someone's arm, and then another man firing an Uzi. It swung rapidly back and caught the pistol man reeling backward, his head bloody. Then it angled upward, showing some ceiling and a light, and then down--a pair of feet under dress slacks on a conveyor surface, shifting to show Ralna from a below angle, weapon held straight out, pointing at the Uzi shooter--two shots--ping, ping--and him staggering back and falling, his head bloody. Then it showed Ralna standing for a moment, dropping her pistol, and jumping down. That was all for the video. The link story recounted the barest facts of the incident, but noted that "Five dead so far, nine wounded in a terror-like attack in a County building. It could have been much worse, but a massacre in the making was thwarted by one not-so-ordinary office worker. 'Excuse me,' said Ralna Ochoa, an employee of law enforcement consultant Dr. G. Rhys Macklin, whose dark-horse run for County Council is expected today.""Damn," he muttered. "What?" "One sec, baby." Rhys clicked over for a moment. "Ralna?" "Yes, sir?" "You're on the news." "Yes, sir. The video is receiving over a hundred hits a second." "I'm glad I asked for that officer. Is someone there?" "Yes, sir. He's already turned away several people." "Good. Tell him he can let in anyone with an appointment--" "Done, sir." "Good. Ems or 'mails, ignore them. Any calls about the incident, you have no comment, I have no comment. Other business, handle as usual. Understood?" "Yes, sir." He clicked back. "Yes, baby, sorry. You were saying?" "Were those men after you?" asked Candee. "I worry, darling. I thought you might have been there. Why else would your PA put up like that?" "I haven't talked to her much about it. I think it was a terror incident. Sometimes a seemingly random but highly visible killing serves as a trigger for a major operation elsewhere. As for why Ralna--well, she was there on the spot, and she's an ex-cop. Trained in crisis situations. There were only two guards, one got shot down and the other was about to, and there would have been a bloodbath. So she reacted, took one of the guards' guns and stopped them. Nothing to do with me, I think." Candee turned, her face thoughtful, and looked out her room's window at the trees, the roof of the neighboring house, a big old brick thing, and the grey sky above it. "She's very different from Louise." "A job qualification to be my PA is the ability to handle situations. I work with courtroom cases, you know--not against carjackers and shoplifters, but sophisticated criminals with connections who are capable of orchestrating bad things. Louise looked like a fifty-something police widow, and she was. But she spent time on the range twice a month and she packed a forty-five in her bag that she was highly qualified with. With Louise's suicide--death--I got a little nervous. Things have been getting weird in the city. Ralna's more expert on that side, and just as good in the office." "Yes," said Candee, making circles with a pretty, slippered foot on the carpet. "Well, you be careful, darling. You come home to me every night, you big loving hunk a' man, you hear me?" "Always, baby. Speaking of which, you're not the only one worrying. Where are you now?" "It was--I meant--to surprise you. In a good way. I'm at the University Physicians' hostel clinic in Montlake. For an operation. I was accepted for the Dawn Hope Program." "The DHP?" he asked softly. "Yes. It's--" "I know, baby. An experimental fertility initiative. Very quiet, very private. Very little publicity. I've read what there is. Wonky stuff. Something to do with strategies to inhibit aldo-keto-reductase F1-C1 overproduction by targeted stimulation of adipocytes, leading to efficiencies in progesterone absorption and distribution." "If you say so. I only know what they tell me, which is this. That from being born a sterile, I have a very high chance of coming out of this fertile." "That's great, darling!" came his voice, sounding sincerely delighted. She drew a deep breath. "There's a reason why I'm going to so much trouble to become fertile ... you can probably guess." "You want to have a baby." "What do you think of that?" she asked quickly, readying herself for--she didn't know what for--for anything. "If that's what you want, I support it a hundred percent." "But, Rhys--do you want it? 'Support' would be good if I were taking up weaving or Women's League. But we're talking about a major life change. And a major investment. I don't know how much the carbon head tax for us would be, but I'm betting in the seven figures. That's a huge commitment right there." "Yes. But can we discuss this later, darling? I--" "No, Rhys," said Candee suddenly. "We can't discuss this later. I'm due to go under the knife in an hour, so I want to discuss it now. Rhys, I'm about to have my body cut open and have things done to it for the sake of something that I don't know if you even want or not. You've done a lot for me. You've done everything for me, frankly. What have I done for you, Rhys, apart from smile and look pretty for some of your friends once in a while? What have I done? Hasn't that question popped up in your mind?" "Darling, you don't have to do anything." "I know that. That's the problem. It's not about what I have to do, but what I want to do. I want to do something for you--for us. I'm twenty-five years old, Rhys. That may seem very young to you, but for a woman who lives on her looks, it's close to the sell-by date. I'm now at the height of my career, if you care to call it that. But is it? What is it? What can I do? I have a useless college degree in cultural anthropology. I can entertain. I can look pretty good in a dress, dance and sing a little, do sleight-of-hand tricks. All that and ten dollars will get you a bux. And day follows day, week after week, going down and down and down, with the occasional coke toot to keep me from going out of my mind because nothing ever happens--until today, when, out of the blue, your PA repels an armed attack which you may or may not know anything about--but my intuition tells me somebody's after you. I'm afraid, Rhys. I'm afraid for you--and me, too. What if someone came after you and found me? I couldn't do what your PA did. All I could do is scream while they killed me. I'm fucking useless, Rhys. If anything, I'm a liability. An exposed asset, as they say in business." "You're safe on the Island. It's monitored and secure even if those men were after me, which they weren't. And as for the rest, you could take martial arts classes. You could volunteer for Island causes which would keep you busy and give you company." "Volunteer? For what, Rhys? Even to volunteer you have to have skills. I don't have any, but I've got everything else. I've spent a year and a half sitting here every day. A little light training on the workout machine, bathing, dress and makeup, doesn't take many hours. I have everything every woman wants--youth, health, leisure, money, looks, clothes-- everything! And you know what? I'm starting to die, Rhys! Like those perfect roses you send home every Monday. They arrive perfect, in full bloom, beautiful. They sit here and look good and do absolutely nothing except slowly wither and fade, and by Friday I'm throwing them out. I had to do something or go mad, Rhys--so I did. I thought of something even I could do. You know what that is?" "No, what?" "I could screw, Rhys. I could show men a good time. And I have been. Every day while you've been gone, I've had men over. Lots of them." Tears started to trickle down her face as she drove on: "While you've been doing everything for me, Rhys, I've been having strange men over to your house, and screwing them. Your perfect wife, in your perfect house, with your perfect roses on the table. What do you think of that, Govannon Rhys Macklin? How does it make you feel to know that that cow Jane has been right all along--that I'm nothing but a pretty, useless bitch? What does it make you want to do?" There was silence for a moment. Then he said: "I'm sorry, Candee." "You're sorry? I'll tell you who's sorry," she shot out. " "I'm sorry! You took in a woman who had nothing--nothing but some looks and a habit, nothing to give, nothing to contribute, nothing at all. You think you snagged me in Dubai? Hah! I snagged you, Rhys, just like I'd snag some drunken tourist's wallet for a fifty-fifty split with my gawwad. I was figuring you'd let me go the minute you got me back to America. But you didn't. The trapper became the trapped. You hung on to me, kept me, because--because--well, I don't know why! I have no fucking idea! Why have you kept me?" "Because I love you, Candee," he said simply. "Do you? I wonder, sometimes. I wonder while you're in the city, or in your lab at night, which I've never been in, or while you're off to Singapore or London or Tokyo on trips. I wonder about it even while I'm in bed screwing the gardener or the deliveryman--no one you know, Rhys, never anyone you know, who might move in your circle. You wonder why Alder Island doesn't have an Insta-Bang outlet? It doesn't need one! Undercut the competition! For the low, low price of free, for a good time call Candee!" She blew her nose and wiped her eyes, and he waited. Then he said: "So. I hear you, Candee. I believe you. I accept it. What's done is done. So what do you want now?" "Rhys, haven't you heard a word I've said? I don't know what I want to do! I don't have a clue! Except one thing. It's not much, but it's all I have. One thing." "What's that?" "I want to be as good as Jane was." "What?" The astonishment was clear in his voice. "For all that your first wife was a bitch, she was strong. She did things for you. Things I couldn't do. First, she stayed loyal to you--for a while, anyway, until Jason was born, but even then she never turned against you sexually. And that's the other thing. She gave you children, Zoe and Jason. She's a mean, poisonous twat, but she made you children. Even I can't do that, with all my youth and beauty. Do you know how that makes me feel, Rhys?" "I can only imagine." "No, you can't imagine, I'm afraid. Not that. You've not gone to that hell. You have two other women in your life--your PA, who can run your office like a Swiss watch and get on the news putting down two terrorist gunmen without smudging her makeup, and you've got a shit-talking, chain-smoking, barmaid ex, who can--who could--give you children. And me? A big fat zero except for betraying you with sweaty workmen who learnt their English from cartoons. I can't live with that, Rhys, I can't. So here I am, hoping. Hoping against hope that I can get this done, and that you will love me for it. And love another child, Rhys. A child made of you and me, a child to love. So I can die knowing I've done something. It sounded fine, until I found a dagger in my heart--the suspicion that you might not want what I want." "But I do, darling. That would be perfect." "I'm sick to death of 'perfect,' Rhys! Don't you get it even yet?" she raged. "Everything you have is perfect--your house, your clothes, your portfolio, your job, your house-- perfect is your slogan, your--your mantra! Your whole world is perfect except for me. I'm not perfect--I only look perfect. But I'm not. And the perfect around me is killing me! I want to do something I can do--something-- not perfect, I'm afraid. What I want to know is, can you accept that? Is there a place in your world for it? Speak now, like the man says, or forever hold your peace." He took a deep breath. "Well! That's a lot of news, babe. First--first, last, and always, I love you. I don't know how you define 'love,' but for me it means putting you first, before everything. Before myself, before my career, my work, before anything, I take care of you. And why? Why do I love you? Honestly, Candee, I don't know. I don't know why I love you. I just do. I don't know if that's the answer you want, but it's the real one. Maybe it's just because you are who you are. My life's own beloved wabi-sabi, and I know you know what that means." She said nothing. "Do I want a child? I'll be honest there, too. I never thought about it much. Early on I imagined it once or twice, and it seemed wonderful. But--you were sterile, and I was busy, and we just never got around to discussing it much, did we?" "No, we didn't." "No. I guess I assumed it wasn't high on your priority list. It isn't for a lot of women. I suppose I wasn't paying attention to you. I'm sorry, Candee, I am. But a child--yes. Yes, darling! I want it--I want you. I want you to be happy. And I understand how you feel. If you've been seeing others--other--men ... that can't be changed. It's done. But I'm not going to hold it against you." "I did keep it kind of separate, Rhys. It was never in our room, in our bed. They never touched any of your things. I just--I don't know. I went kind of crazy." She lowered her head, tears coming again. "Don't cry, darling. We'll do as we should have done. We'll have a child, and she--he--will be beautiful." She said: "Yes--yes. I know, and when you said you didn't think it was a high priority for me--I was afraid you felt the same." "I didn't. That is, I didn't mean to put it on low priority. I just didn't think much about it. I didn't pick up on your feelings. But now I do." "Yes." "Go ahead, dear. I was going to hold my press conference to announce for office today. But if you can't be with me, I'll put it off 'til tomorrow." She shook her head. "I--I can't--they say it will be a few days. But go on. Do it without me. I can be with you later. I know how important this is. I wanted this for you even before you wanted it. I wanted it as much as I want a baby, but I wasn't afraid to speak up." "You sure weren't," he smiled. "So tell me now, how did you find out about UPH Montlake? It's not advertised at all." "I contacted them by 'net. You can't find them with a regular Yahoogle search--you have to enter the right terms. I heard about them from Jo Dunbar, actually." "Nurse Jo at the middle school?" "Yes. She had the procedure in August. It takes awhile, with medications and stuff, to bring you up to speed. Unless you had some kind of turbo-humod physiology, I suppose." "I'll have to chat with her about it. Find out what she can tell me from a medical professional perspective." "That'd be good. Okay, darling, I know you've got a million things to do. But now I know, I can do this-- we can do this." "We can, babe," he assured her. "We will." "Yes. Goodbye, then, darling. I'm sorry for being so cranky. I love you. I'll call you as soon as I can." "I'll wait for it," he promised. "'Bye, baby." "Oh, one more thing. A question. Just curious." "Yes?" "Your PA's hair color. Is it natural, or dyed?" "Huh? I don't know." "Well, don't worry about it," Candee said. "No matter." "If you say so. 'Bye, babe." "'Bye." She gave a little wave and smile out of holophone habits. The call ended, and Rhys looked up to see his com-bar flashing three different colors. "Sir?" came Ralna's voice. "Yes?" "Your event coordinator on One, Commissioner Levitt on Two, and Almy DeLer from QCTO on Three. We have had nine press contacts asking for comment. You'll have to talk to one of them, sir. I judged that, given a choice, you'd prefer to speak to Mr. DeLer." "Very good, Ralna. Tell the EC we're postponing a day, same time, same place tomorrow. Cite security reasons. And get me Councilor Espinoza. I wish to speak with him." "Very good, sir. I exist to serve." "If only I did have another like you, Ralna ..." "Sir?" He reached forward. "You'd both have plenty to do." >< >< ><
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Post by Aedh on Sept 9, 2010 10:44:32 GMT -5
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Post by Aedh on May 24, 2011 8:48:32 GMT -5
056[/b] After a spectacular ride across Puget Sound in the little two-seater 'helio'--a smaller, lighter personal version of the hovers used by government and business--Holly was let down in the side area of Alder Island High School. With a wave and a heft of her bag, and in the knowledge that another of Aziz's guys would be delivering her car in a few hours, she waved the pilot goodbye, her hair riffling as the directional tail-unit revved and swiveled into liftoff position. The pilot ascended some three hundred meters straight up, and then set course, not eastward, back to the city, but westward. A short flight brought it to the Port Orchard side of the Island and a large, secluded property with fences and animal pastures. There was also a marked helio-pad with a hangar which connected to some other outbuildings. The complex stood near an imposing ranch-style house, which--the pilot knew from a previous visit--commanded a fine view of the Olympic Mountains. The place was called Brookwood, and it was Regina Thomsen's home and horse farm. He landed on the pad, did a warm shutdown, and stepped out of the craft. Then he reached back in for a briefcase, got it and set it down, and stretched. Someone was on their way to meet him; a young woman dressed for riding in white breeches and boots, a high-necked sweater under a down vest, her hair pulled down and tied under the back of her helmet. She moved quickly, purposefully, with a smile--as did all Regina's employees. "Good morning, Mr. Aziz!" she said, putting out her hand for him to shake. "Welcome to Brookwood. I'm Shenandoah. I'll be your personal assistant." They were already walking. "Mister Aziz would be my uncle Mahmoud," he said with a smile of his own, having returned her handshake. "I'm Muad Aziz, his aide." He had to step lively to keep up with her long-legged stride; she slowed a little. "Okay, then, Muad, if I may?" she asked with a bright glance. "You may." "I hope this visit will be as nice as your last one," she said, looking at him again. "Anything I can do for you, just ask." She opened the door of a large outbuilding for him; the visitors' area, elegantly appointed--it had been nice before but had obviously been upgraded again. This was the place to be, as--officially--he was here to talk horses with Regina. "Is Mrs. Thomsen ... ?" "Regina is still out for her morning canter. You are running a little early," said Shenandoah, removing her helmet and vest, "and she had a conference call first thing. She'll be here shortly. In the meantime, there's our information area, where you can access updated information about Brookwood, testimonials, bloodlines, and other data, and the lounge. There's a little shop--for the tourists," she said, with an insider's wink, "and the bar, now serving breakfast beverages and the odd light snack if I can get you anything. There's even a private room with a bed--" she nodded toward a closed door--"if you wish to take a rest. I'm to keep you company until Regina gets back. Can I take your case?" she offered. "Thanks, I'm fine," said Muad. "Coffee?" she asked, in a tone rich with scorn for 'bux. "Yes, please," he replied. That took a minute or two as Shenandoah busied herself at the bar, asking what he took with it, and then brought it to him. He was sitting on one wing of a comfortable L-shaped settee unit. She sat down on the other wing, half-facing him, and crossed her legs. "Is the coffee to your satisfaction?" she asked. "Yes, thanks. Perfect." "If there is anything else I can do for you, just ask," she said, smiling again and reaching back to let her hair down. The action made her chest flex, and the sweater's ribbing over her bustline widened. Her face was good-looking in the American way that both Azizes appreciated, with clear skin and well-sculpted features. "My instructions are to make you comfortable. Would you like to take a rest?" "I thought you were to keep me company?" She smiled again, more warmly. "Both. Many people from around the world visit here. For some this is their first visit to our Northwest. We have much here that is good." She leaned back and raised one leg to rest along the settee. "Warm hospitality. Lush scenery. Running waters. Mountains, with volcanic earth heat underneath." Her hand, touching her thigh, moved up toward her pelvis. "Moist, fertile soil. You can plant anything here and it will grow." She half-turned, her eyes lancing evenly into his. "Is there ... anything else I can do for your comfort?" "Thank you, I was made--ah--comfortable earlier," said Muad diplomatically. The young woman rolled off the settee onto her knees, looking up at him. "I could make you even more comfortable," she whispered huskily. She had her arms up, sweater half-pulled over her head, when another woman's voice said: "Thank you, Shenandoah." She yanked her sweater down and rose to her feet in one motion. "Yes, Regina." Muad turned to see Regina Thomsen looking down on them with a knowing smile of her own, with white breeches again and a fitted buckskin jacket. "I trust Shenandoah has made you welcome, Muad?" "No man could desire more," he said sincerely, arising to shake the woman's hand. Regina sent Shenandoah about another task, to which she went, quickly again, but unblushingly, throwing him a glance over her shoulder and another smile. "We offer many services here," Regina said matter-of-factly. "Not all of them have to do with horses, but all of them involve world-class services, with a focus on breeding. People who work here tend to be minded that way. I encourage it. If you want to see her later, feel free. The resting room's always ready. And now, Muad, what have you brought for me?" The man picked up the case, looking around. "Is it--?" His eyes moved toward Shenandoah. Regina looked toward the closed door thoughtfully. "I know somewhere perfectly private." >< >< >< Nels Anderson had had a restless night and made some decisions. Now, sitting at the table of his little old-fashioned, Scandinavian-decorated kitchen, with a thinkpad and PDA sitting incongruously on the antique Formica tabletop next to a thick ceramic mug of ‘bux, he had made the first of two calls to the two people he still had a shred of trust in. That was Rhys Macklin, his election opponent. Sarah had her own plan for the race--to get him another term at the price of compliance--but Leonard’s was going to trump it. Rhys, the erstwhile token candidate, the 'goldie,' looked very good for a blowout with his Mackin’ 4 Macklin campaign--which, whether or not it was meant as a joke, was doing extremely well in focus groups. Leonard would get Rhys on the Council and try to co-opt him, make him the popular, well-heeled courtier that Nels himself had been, to take the spotlight while Leonard kept working from his preferred position in the shadows. The best Nels could do was to let Leonard's plan run its course and put Rhys on to Leonard’s schemes; if any one person had the wherewithal to take Leonard down, it was the Alder Island billionaire--if he wanted to. Having spoken to Rhys about election matters, it was now time to get out of Dodge City--by sundown, in the traditional manner, if at all possible. This call would be to someone who could arrange that. “Oscar?” he said. “Nels. Sorry to call you at home. How‘s Juan?” “”S’ alright. Juan’s the same, last I heard. You didn’t call me about that.” “No. I need a favor, Oscar.” “You? What I got that you need, you old sonofabitch?” asked the other, using--for him--a term of friendship. “Secure?” Nels asked. Oscar knew what he meant. “Sure, I have the line's routing switched randomly. Whassup?” “I want out, Oscar. Not just out of the race. Out of the city. Out of the country. I want to get to Mexico.” “So call a travel agent.” “No, Oscar. I want to go one-way. I’ll need papers.” “One-way?” asked the other slowly. “Whassup with that? I mean, sure, you’re probably gonna lose the race to the good doctor, but so what? Why not just retire here? On Alder Island maybe. It'd suit your style. Your life doesn’t depend on your job ... or does it?” “I’m gettin’ a little old to go to jail, Oscar.” There was a breath. “So it’s like that, viejo?”“Yep. I will lose the next election even if I win this one. Whichever it is, the day after, I’m toast. I’ve been assured of that.” There was silence for a moment. Then Oscar said: “I could help you. But nothing is free, friend.” “What do you want?” “You know a lot about a lot of women. What do you know about one named Liliane Perez?” Nels let out a breath. “She was a friend of Enrique’s. You know lots of friends of Enrique’s. This one you kept up with for a while--against your usual policy. She was the mistress of Campos at the Mexican consulate. Some people--not me, of course--but some people find it funny that she was killed with an FBI agent at the time you were running for re-election.” “Oscar, it’s not like that. I know what you’ve heard. It comes from Mackenzie Pratt of QCFPAC, and a stooge-ette of hers named Mona Stern, and their boss Sarah de Jong. The femmes lobby. I had it from them directly. They want me out.” “Is it true?” “No, it isn’t. It doesn’t add up. Think about it. For one, why would I tell a woman anything? Two, if she did find out something, why would she go to the Feds? You know the state of the country--anything Federal takes months if not years. Three, assuming there were some Federal charges in the offing, why would I wax the mistress of the man who could legitimately give me papers to get me away from them? It doesn’t add up.” “Then why do you want to go to Mexico? That’s the way to avoid a Fed rap.” “I’m not worried about the Feds, or the femmes. I’m worried about Leonard.” ”He wants you--out of the way?” “He wants me out of office, but handy, I think, for a fall guy because we have a history. He’s up to something, Oscar, something very big. Even I don’t know what it is. He hasn’t been talking to me a lot lately.” “Okay,” said Oscar. “Suppose I’m buying and this comes out. How do I cover my ass?” “It won’t. I have information on him I can get to you. I can't use it because I can't protect myself any more. But you might be able to.” “Anyone else know about this?” “No one,” Nels lied. “It's a little stick with big data. Stuff even you don’t know. Pac Sun and other stuff. Names, places, numbers.” “Okay. Naturally, if the rumor turns out to be true and you are in Mexico, Campos and his people will know how to find you. I'm just telling you.” “Naturally. That’s your guarantee. But it won’t happen because it’s not true.” “Alright. I’ll do you this favor. But I’ll never talk to you again, and this conversation never happened. Comprende?”“Yep.” “It’ll take ‘til tomorrow." Tomorrow's a long time away, maybe a lifetime. "You can't do it today?" "These things take a little time. There's technical stuff. You're at home? Stay put. A courier will come with everything you need. You'll give them the item.” “Alright. Thanks, old friend.” “Ex-friend, starting now,” said Oscar. You understand. “Vaya con Dios, hombre.”Nels said goodbye and pressed End. Appropriately enough, he thought wryly. And now it was time to start packing. >< >< >< On an errand which took her out of the building and across the street, Ralna saw that the lobby cleanup was well underway, and that there were extra officers on security duty wearing protective vests; workers were removing the gunfire-wrecked scanner. She also marked the presence of two unfamiliar civilians with plastic badges, one with a cam, media people. Ideally she would have avoided them via biomorph, but here and now of all places everything must be normal; she had to check in, in the usual way, under her default appearance. The wait to re-enter was not long, but long enough to delay her for them. “There she is! Ms. Ochoa! Ms. Ochoa, please!” They were approaching. “Comeau Tele--one minute please--can we talk to you for just a few moments?” She turned her head only a little, not cooperating with the cam. “I'm at work. My employer is strict about punctuality.” “Then one question while you’re in line--” the ‘cam jockey moved sidewise--"how did you feel about that--what you did?" That question was unexpected. She thought for a moment; 'feel' could mean many things. "I'm sorry, I don't fully understand." "How did you feel?" repeated the reporter insistently. A flash scan showed her bio-sigs shooting upward; annoyance. Ralna stepped forward in line. "I didn't feel anything. I did what I could, what anyone should. Duty. That is all." The reporter seemed surprised at her answer. "Really? How did you--Ms. Ochoa--!" She stepped forward again. "That is all. Excuse me." And she held up her arms for the officer with the wand. >< >< >< The other workers on Ralna's floor were not so easily escaped as the press. Morgause crossed her path in the ladies' room. "Hey, there you are, gal!" grinned Morgause. "The lady of th' day!" Ralna faced her, wiping her hands. "Ms. Mc--Morgause--let me be frank. I appreciate your gratitude and admiration. But I don't wish that you make an event of the fact that I simply did my duty. You already did more than enough in that department by releasing the PDA video you took. Without the permission of my employer or myself, I may add." Morgause looked astonished. "But that's news, baby!" "It's going around the world. I don't agree that that necessarily makes it news." "Around the world and then some! Someone set up a MyBook fan-page on you an' it's got a couple of thousand friends already." The door opened, and Sinead walked in and smiled. "Hey, Ralna! How's our enforcer?" "She's being very modest," said Morgause. "Ain't you now, Ralna?" Ralna sighed. "Please, ladies. I want to go back to work. I wish this morning’s event had never happened, and I don't want it celebrated. That is how I--feel." "What if we want to celebrate?" asked Sinead. "I mean, all the shit going on these days--bombings and bodies in the harbor and who knows what-all--and one ordinary gal like us stands up. You should go on the talk-casts." "No, I shouldn't," said Ralna. "I should be at my desk, if you'll excuse me." Sinead put her hand up. "Okay, on one condition. Two." "What?" "We do lunch. On us. Just Morgause, me, and Shari. We made fun of you the other day and that was wrong. It should be made up. We can send out for it, if you don‘t wanna go out." "If Dr. Macklin approves, yes then. What else?" Sinead drew a paper out of a folder and put it against the wall. It was a printout of a frame of the 'vid, showing Ralna with the guard's pistol. She also produced a pen. "Your autograph, please." "No autographs." "You see?" Morgause smiled. "She's actin' like a celeb already." "Just the one," urged Sinead. "Joking aside, it means something to us. Something good and real. Something--someone--to hope in. To look up to. You understand having someone to look up to, don't you?" It seemed that Ralna did. She thought again, and her eyelids fluttered a moment as she accessed the signature she had used on her official documents. "Very well, but if this appears anywhere but on your wall I'll have something to say about it." She put the paper up against the metal mirror and wrote a neat signature. "And lunch in the lounge, if Dr. Macklin approves. I like Thai, but whatever you prefer. Now, if you'll excuse me." As it happened, Rhys did approve, provided that Ralna take some of her necessary three thousand calories for lunch before or after the meeting, so as not to draw attention to her nutritional requirements. From his inner office he told her: "It is good that you socialize a little on your own, Ralna. It's an educational opportunity. You must be prepared to interact fully and naturally on the level that pemps--er, people, expect of each other, and I'm afraid you never had finishing school. So you may regard it as an instruction to go to lunch with your associates at twelve." "I exist to serve, sir." she said, and returned to her work. >< >< >< In the longer break after the third HIR, Jason took a moment to check his PDA. He'd been doing that often lately. David took notice, padding over towel-clad from the shower, his bulk shadowing the slimmer young man. "What's up, Jayce?" asked David. "You can't tear yourself away from that thing any more." "What's it to you?" snapped Jason, snapping the device shut. "You've got a steady," replied David with the born bully's infallible instinct. He stepped back, dropping the towel to fully display his Thor-esque physique. "You're a Bearer. A Bearer--a human god. You can have anything and anyone you want, and you're mooning over some silly bit who has a problem. You were an emo-boy back in your freshman year. You got squared away--kinda, I thought--but you've gone emo again." "Fuck off, Thomsen. Leave it." "You're a sad emo-boy again, Macklin, over some female." David mocked looking at a PDA and wiping away a tear. “But, believe it or not, I like you, Jayce-Face, and I don't mean that in a gay way. We're Bearers, you and me and Herkimer there," he said, jerking a thumb toward John, who was sitting on a bench, hood down, seemingly catatonic. "That's like being brothers. I'll help you if I can, like I would help him, if he could ever spit out a complete sentence to tell me what he wanted. So who is it? Anyone I know?" "No." Jason sat down. "Didn't think so. You go off-Island, I know. Word is you've been meeting some girl from Queen City at the ferry dock, and I heard you got a place on the rez. For her, I don't doubt. Well, so what? You want--she wants--a relationship? Get real, Macklin!" "For the last time--!" He cut off as David put a beefy hand on one of his shoulders. "Look, Jason," said David quietly. "No joking now. I'm serious. We are Bearers. There's not many of us, and there's one less now. Did you know they took one in Denver?" "No," said Jason, looking up at David. He felt a cold knot in his stomach. "It was on the news. Not the puke propaganda netcasts, but the real news you can get if you know where to look. Three days ago. Feds got his parents for tax evasion off money he made. They held out. Cops came and a shot was fired by someone--the family--they say. That brought the SWAT teams. The dad got shot up, the mom surrendered, and the Bearer was marched off--disappeared. Lawyers came but the cops said he was in special custody--in spec, Macklin! Spec is supposed to be for fuckin' terrorists. His lawyers can't see him, nor anyone else, and it's dollars to doughnuts no one ever will again. The taxes were the excuse. You know and I know what it was really all about. One more Bearer down, Macklin. They're gettin' us if we step off our rez. And you're chasing off-island for some female who can't be bothered to give you the time of day any more. Do you even know who she is?" "Sure--I--" "Do you know??" The grip tightened. Jason was silent. "Why do you think I signed into the Army, man? It's about the only safe goddamn place left for us. That and the Island, and my money ain't on the Island staying that way for long. So, Macklin. Whatever you're worrying about, if it ain't your life, it ain't worth worrying about." "My dad--" "--can't take care of you forever, dude. Can't and maybe won't. He's got enemies, too, plenty of them. You think about it, Macklin. Where do you wanna be in two years? Just think about it. You'd better decide. If you don't, someone else is gonna decide for you, and I guaran-fuckin'-tee you ain't gonna like what they decide." Jason thought about what he'd been looking at on his PDA: a dozen unanswered calls and messages to Jenna, and one from her to him, that he for his part had not answered: Where were you last night?Two short blasts of Holly's whistle sounded. It was time to be suiting up again. David was already doing it. Jason reached for his own bag. >< >< >< >< >< ><
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Post by Aedh on May 24, 2011 13:07:15 GMT -5
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Post by Aedh on May 30, 2011 4:13:05 GMT -5
057[/b] David had been partly right, but the woman in Queen City whom Jason had last called was not Jenna. Dr. Chantal Inouye, in a doctors' lounge, closed her device and pondered. He had answered her call in reference to the patient named Lucky McCullum. He could confirm her identity, but Chantal already had that from the DNA registry. Unfortunately, that source had also provided a make on him, and what he had done to her would be treated as sexual assault. She was a 'dogg' in the street term, a person useless to society except for menial labor, sexual gratification, or body tissue. They were, legally, citizens, but of a sort that resource-squeezed services routinely palmed off; food, shelter, and medical care doled out by dribs and drabs, just enough to keep them alive if they were already basically fit. If not, they died in abandoned buildings and parks every day, their remains collected by bio-sanitation workers--the 'bod squad'--and taken to the biomass plant for conversion into the precious electric energy that the City ran on. The dogg problem wasn't openly discussed among people on Chantal's level except as 'greening the planet,' that is, trimming excess population. No one ever bothered with what Chantal knew as a scientist: that demographics were locked on to the extinction of society anyway. While doggs were usually fair prey, that they were still citizens meant that citizens' rights could be taken into account. In Lucky's case, if she had been put into the hospital by other doggs, or 'ordinary' citizens with the privilege of employment, or cops--or most anyone else--no one would bother. But when it came out that this had been done by a Bearer, that and the son of a candidate for Council, the law would surely be kicked into action by outrage from a thousand sources. A warrant would be issued and a case prepared and there would be little that his father could do to save him; even if Lucky herself awoke and took his side, she would be overruled. The first thing was to warn Jason, if he didn't know it, to stay the hell away from the City. The second thing was to decide what to do with Lucky. Admin Feggins had given her seven days. Next Tuesday afternoon Lucky would be out of the hospital one way or another, even if it meant feet-first courtesy of a sudden fatal seizure. Realistically, the best option was to transfer her out--to Alder Island, as Jason had suggested, where resources were available. But, unless she woke, a transfer would require the signature of someone with custody, preferably next of kin, and Lucky had no one but an unknown daughter. Chantal's assistant was running a medical ID check on the 'net now, but she was not expecting anything positive. Short of that, and short of awakening, a breach of regulations would have to be perpetrated in order to get her out. Chantal closed her eyes. Come on, Lucky! she prayed silently. Wake up! Wake up--so we can save you! Then she felt a touch on her shoulder. It was Feggins. "Dozing, Doctor? Maybe you should have a quick lie-down," he advised. "I'm fine," she said. If only ... >< >< >< The man was ready, juiced up, fully loaded, waiting for the signal in his helmet's com-piece. He wore a padded body-suit resembling brown motorcycle leathers, made of cutting-edge bulletproof synthfab, constructed with vents and folds and gussets that gave him freedom of movement despite the intricate panels. He had studied the area. He had support in place, and a dose of yaba coursing through his veins. The only thing needful was for the general alert to go off. That would close the area, walling him in behind massive nuclear blast doors with about three thousand other people. Then the job, phase two, would begin. >< >< >< Leonard Chung usually did not bother watching newsvids, following his own counsel against too much exposure to one's own propaganda. However, sometimes, actual news fought its way into the headlines, and those instances were of interest. He turned from his micron-thin, transparent deskplex screen to his second assistant PA, a young Chinese woman with a typing speed well over two hundred words per minute. "The shooting incident in the County Annex--this Ralna Ochoa, Rhys Macklin's PA. What do we know about her?" Her fingers were flying before he had finished the question, and she had the answer within a few seconds. "Hired only a week ago, last Thursday, sir, after Louise Skogsted's suicide--" He held up a finger. "Do we know that?" "The report is in, sir. Cut and dried." "All right. Proceed." "Naturalized Colombian citizen. Born and raised in Medellín, graduated there from Pedro Justo Berrío Technical School, and went on to take a Bachelor of Science degree from the Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México, majoring in mechatronics." "Mechatronics?" "Holistic discipline, sir. Cybertech. Systems design, electronics, control and mechanical engineering all rolled together. ITAM is one of the best schools for it--outside China, of course," she added smoothly. "Proceed. Just the bare facts." "Bare facts are all there is, sir. Naturalized in Carson City, Nevada, three months ago via the fast-track high-demand occupations route. Seems to have arrived in Queen City only a few days before her hire. Dr. Macklin snapped her up quickly." "Very quickly," observed Leonard. "Ex-police or military?" "No service record, sir." "Legal record?" "Hmm ... it would appear that the very day she was hired, she was the subject of an attempted sexual assault at a health club downtown. She fought off her attacker, who was one Juan Espinoza. She was not charged in that incident as it appears to have been clear self-defense. She was completely nude in the women's shower room." "Ahh," said Leonard, permitting himself a small smile. "Mr. Espinoza. And she fought him off by hand, in the nude?" "Yes, sir. He took a bad fall--" "--and is now lying comatose at Bayview, yes. And now this. Another incident of self-defense, perhaps." "With respect, sir, the video and evidence so far clearly show that the two men initiated. She did not react until the first man had his weapon out and was preparing to fire. It could hardly be called anything else." "I will call it what it is, when I've decided what it is," Leonard said casually. "Do we know anything about the assailants?" "We have makes. One a small-time hoodlum named Jesus Menendez, the other a pro called Caraluma Slim. In the vid, Menendez was the first shooter." "Latinos. And a Latina woman, apparently, involved, who takes them down ... as neatly as you please, three shots: ping, ping-ping. Very handy person to have around, this Ralna, I think ... start a file on her, Sulin." "Yes, sir. You may be interested to know that as a result of this, there is already a MyBook page dedicated to her, with over ten thousand friends, and more signing up every minute." "Yes. The question is, Sulin, why this gun attack by two Latino thugs on the County Annex Building lobby? What could they want there?" "Aztlan terrorism, sir?" "I think not. A rocket attack or truck bomb is more their style. And the Annex is hardly a target of choice. It houses several of the agencies most beloved of la Raza for their social benefits. No, I believe they were there for a hit. Do we have surveillance video yet?" The assistant nodded. "Perhaps I'll watch it later, but I will bet this--they were there for a hit. They were waiting. Then they saw who they wanted and started firing." "Who, sir? This Ralna, or someone else?" "That remains to be seen. It also remains to be seen if this Ralna is who she purports to be. I am familiar with how to create an identity, with documentation. So are you." Sulin nodded. "And so, I have no doubt, is Dr. Macklin." "Would there be anything else, sir?" "You read the message from Ms. Starbird?" "Yes, sir. As I understand it, Legal believes that the city of Alder Island could be held responsible for failure to collect carbon indemnity taxes for noncitizen births there." "Work up a statement on that--" A light on Leonard's desk glowed, and something popped up on his screen. "Hmm .... one other thing. Have we managed to contact Councilor Anderson this morning? He's not in the office." "No, sir." "Interesting that our Committee Chair for Law Enforcement should be gone ... " He read for a moment, then resumed. "Be extra aware of security. I have an security update. There's a warning of possible terrorist activity, perhaps up to a Level Six incident." The woman's eyebrows rose. "Breeders--fundamentalist maniacs. Tied up with the United Patriotic Front--perhaps even with Alder Island." "Surely they just struck on Monday at City Hall, sir?" "Their classic tactic is a one-two punch. Cause one disruptive incident, then cause another with amplified effect." He pressed his control pad, and his office door slid open to reveal two of his men in black. "That will be all for now, Sulin. I'm due for an emergency conference at the police surveillance center." "Thank you, sir. Take care." The County Executive smiled as he rose. "And you do the same, daughter." >< >< >< >< >< >< The alert had gone through, and the huge blast doors that converted Queen City's central underground transit tunnel to a nuclear shelter were rumbling into place. People were everywhere, looking alarmed and apprehensive, but listening to the automatic announcement that told everyone to stay calm, stay where they were, and await official instructions. Many had PDAs and phones out, making calls. For all but a few it would be their last. The man in the suit began even before the doors were fully closed, bringing both arms up. On one was gripped to a quad-barrel MACP-41 gun fed by an enclosed belt channeling out of a backpack magazine. The other was a TF Mk IX 18mm AVW with a load of explosive points doubled with frag tips. And in front, between his thighs, armored like the rest of his body, he packed two kilos of Bearer genitalia, a cobra-like cock riding on a huge, swollen scrotum. It already ached to break free and hiss and bite. He started walking, and started firing, combing the crowd in a back-and forth pattern. At a rate of a thousand rounds a minute it made a single long roar. Chaos erupted. He could hear no screams through the all-enclosing helmet, over the juddering guns and past the voices giving him occasional talk. Bodies fell spurting blood like crimson sea-spray along the beach; they jerked and danced, some tossed in the air. He advanced relentlessly, his specially-designed soles firm on the slickening floor, keeping balance, unlike many of his victims who slipped and stumbled. Some tried to run but came up against the locked blast doors, on which his gunfire hammered like anvils, shredding any living tissue in the way. Others bunched up in corners, where he could train both guns on the writhing knot and disintegrate it slowly and squelchingly. He'd nearly cleared the International District station when the MACP's receiver locked back, empty of ammo. Inside a nearby access panel there was another pack, placed by a support person. There were plenty of those secreted through the one-point-three mile-long tunnel complex, and spare guns, too, locked in certain places to which he had the keys. He pulled the release, downing the empty mag-pack, and felt a thip-thip-thip-tap-tap on his side and helmet, someone shooting back. The bullets were hitting; he ignored them. His suit was more than proof against anything a civilian would be carrying. He connected the belt enclosure easily with his armor-gloved hands, pivoted, and resumed, mowing down the handgun shooter and some others with him. For good measure he pumped a couple of hundred rounds through each of several standing buses, shattering the glass windows and stitching holes along the sides, puncturing tires and causing an explosion. He took his time in the station, blowing doors, hosing rooms and offices, splintering furniture and destroying machines. Small rooms got grenades. He could afford it; no one would be getting out of the complex anywhere along the line. His manhood was rock-hard with the power he held, and he would use it. When the first station was a ruin of stinking smoke and drifting concrete dust greying heaped and strewn dark-wet bodies, he climbed into a hulking armored vehicle marked POLICE on every side and it grumbled to life. Then its turret autocannon pivoted around in a long blast of about two thousand rounds, finishing the destruction of the buses and of a train, throwing it off its single big rail. Then it moved north toward the Pioneer Square station, sealed off from the world like the other four stations. On the way he used the turret cannon to destroy whatever there was. >< >< >< "What the fuck?" said someone. Every alarm in the city's police surveillance center was flashing, lighting up the room and bringing officers to their feet--everyone but Leonard Chung. "Mr. Chung, sir--" "I can see what's going on," said Leonard, whose eyes were on the tunnel cam screens. "Obviously some kind of a terrorist strike. Probably one of the breeder militias that hit City Hall. Well, you're the police. Do your job. Now, if you'll excuse me a moment ... " He rose and went out into a hallway, where he used his PDA, attended by his two black-clad functionaries at a modest distance. >< >< >< By this time, Ralna's background monitoring had already indicated a remarkable surge in electronic traffic. She buzzed the inner office. "Sir?" "Yes, Ralna?" She appraised him briefly, adding: "There is, I gather, violence of a major nature occurring inside the transit tunnel, which has been sealed off using the civil defense system. No bombing, but much shooting, many dead. Every police unit in the city is being scrambled." "Thank you, Ralna," came Rhys' voice. "I'll tune in myself when I get a moment. In the meantime, carry on with your work. I know nothing about it and it's no concern of mine at this time. I will monitor the situation. I will instruct as developments require." "Very good, sir. Thank you." >< >< >< Having sent another message to Jason Macklin, Dr. Inouye was readying to start her round as Dr. Ochuko was finishing his. "How are things with you?" she asked, adjusting her nameplate and looking up. "How's your coma case? "Worse, I'm afraid," said the other. "He's now completely paralyzed. He's lost even the swallow reflex, despite Nurse Nita's personal attendance on him. She's a treasure, that one." Chantal shook her head sadly. "How's Ms. McCullum?" "Condition stable--brain activity is there. She's so close to waking up! Time is running out for her, as for Mr. Espinoza. She only has five days left before disposition has to be made--" Her com-unit went off; she looked down, then up. Ochuko's had also gone off, and so had those of everyone else in the area. There were meaningful looks around, confirmed by the tone and announcement. "Attention. Attention," said the cool autovoice. "Code Blue, Code Blue. This is not a drill. EPP Seven, QCTT Fourth and Pine, Ninth Avenue, University Street ... " A hubbub broke out. Everyone else started moving, but Chantal stood, staring at Pavel Ochuko for a moment as the litany went on. Every street touching the downtown transit tunnel was named. "Oh, my god," breathed Chantal. "This is the big one, Doctor," said Ochuko. "Good luck and God be with you. Let's go." >< >< >< In an upstairs office, Administrator Feggins rounded on another man, a small man, neatly dressed in executive style. "There, it's done. I hope you can live with it." "Dr. Feggins, the Company is smarting over Bayview’s intial response to the City Hall incident on Monday. It reflected your concern with economy in--shall we say--an adverse way, on this Company and its Board and shareholders. That was a clear CD incident and you responded as if it were a simple building fire. The Company appreciates your concern with the bottom line. But if a real civil disaster happens we must think of the publicity. We have to activate the plan and roll out everything we've got. Estimates indicate over a thousand injuries so far, and hundreds of fatalities. This hospital and this Company must be seen to respond adequately. If not--well, there's no real reason for you to be here, is there?" "The expense! Do you realize? This will put us under--" "I understand about expense. I audit your accounts. Would you rather go under for this budget year, or go under permanently?" asked the other coldly. "You'd better be right," Feggins muttered, looking out the window. There was smoke, and police hovers and 'copters buzzing above the downtown. "Or we're both out of jobs." "Speaking of jobs, you have an M.D. after your name. You'd better find a set of scrubs, if you can remember where they're kept. I expect to see you again--in triage." "You'd better be right," said Feggins again, and turned and went out. >< >< >< The arrival of a police vehicle had given some hope to the crowd in the Pioneer Square station. People emerged from hiding places in restrooms and from behind the counters of 'bux joints and snack stands. Then the turret's autocannon had opened up, throwing bodies to and fro like so many rag dolls and sowing a line of creeping wreckage along the shops and bars. The man emerged and went to work with his twin guns, walking, not running, methodically cleaning out every connecting room. A few more citizens, packing heat despite the anti-gun laws, took courage to shoot at him, and he let a few more rounds bounce off harmlessly, his visor impassive, before raising his weapons and throwing their bloody remains back against the wall. By the time he got to University Street, some attempted opposition had been organized. He used the armored vehicle to smash through a couple of buses parked sideways, climbing over and crushing the ruins. This time he got out and stood for a moment, guns up, waiting, letting his victims view him before they died, his armorsuit now caked with a bloody grey-black coating. He stood, easily, powerfully, reloaded, seemingly daring anyone to try anything they liked. One young woman ventured out of the crowd, unarmed, a fat little thing. He let her approach. She was eyeing him, apprehensive, but pushing herself on, desiring something. She might be a volunteer suicide victim of some sort--it didn't matter. They were all going to die anyway. Then she turned her back to him, pulled her skirt up and her panties down, and offered her ample ass to him. His cock had been raging at him. He used one hand to rip open a panel on his groin area, letting his member spring out, hard and hot, and with three steps he was upon her and ramming himself up her, coming immediately to orgasm, a huge wave, thrusting up to the hilt and flooding her with his burning semen, making her pasty flesh quiver like jelly. It was good--he was a god, a lifebringer as well as a deathbringer, and her boldness in spite of herself made her worthy. He fucked her for a few seconds in front of several hundred stunned onlookers. Then he raised his weapons and opened up, raping another hundred souls and more with fire and blood even as he planted his divine seed in this one. If it lived, this offspring would be his, worth all the rest together and more. He hardly felt a blow on his helmet-- an attempted trick? He stood for a second more, feeling another hit, and then stepped back, turning, using his guns to cut up two men with metal bars behind him, making them spray blood and entrails, mingling with spurting white glop as his cock kept going. He walked, firing and firing and--firing, as his Bearer's unleashed manhood spat its raging fecundity at the world. >< >< >< "Teams assembled, sir!" reported a commander at the police center. "Get those blast doors open! We're going in!" ordered another officer. "No," countermanded Leonard quietly. Activity slowed as officers looked at him. "Sir, what--?" voiced one. "You think tactically. I think strategically," said the County Executive. "You see that they've somehow commandeered an armored vehicle. But we have containment. Sadly, many citizens are sealed in with that threat," he said, with difficulty restraining a smile as he saw his man doing what Bearers did on a screen. "But that threat is also sealed in as well. Or do you really want that loose in the city streets?" "He's got a point," said Sheriff Maldonado. "What, then?" asked someone. "Go in through the ventilation system. We have the plans. It'd take a little time but it's possible," said Mal. "And the vehicle couldn't get out." "Not bad. What else?" "Gas," said one officer. "The one we see has a vented helmet but that doesn't mean he's got gas protection. "Worth a try," said Mal. "Cut the power," suggested someone else. "Aren't the tunnels mined?" offered someone. "Yes," said Leonard, "but that would cause collapse and bury everyone, including any witnesses and evidence, not to mention causing critical disruption to Metro Transit for years until it could be rebuilt-- if it could be rebuilt. Has anyone thought of, um, negotiation?" "Talking to them?" "Yes. I'm no cop, but surely that is a police tactic. First, before risking lives, try to negotiate. Get them talking. Slow them down." "Terrorists always have demands," said Mal. "They will talk. They'll have to talk. They're certainly not getting through those doors. Stop the vehicle with a LAW and then try talking. Commo, let's get a channel somehow. Link up the tunnel's PA if we can." "The other ideas are permissible but I forbid detonation of the mines. Anyone who orders it, I will have them shot." His two attendants drew their pistols. "Sir!" "What--?" exclaimed voices. "This is a civil disaster," said Leonard evenly, "and I am assuming emergency command of all City and County functions as provided by law. I am responsible to the Council and the Governor of this State, and until the disaster is over all my orders will be obeyed without question for the good of the people. If anyone can't obey them, they will be dismissed on the spot with extreme prejudice and replaced with someone who can. Do I make myself perfectly clear?" A moment of silence was his answer. "Good," he said, and pointed to a policewoman. "You. I deputize you as my general liaison." "Yes, sir," she said faintly, coming to attention. He got up. "Come with me, officer--let's say Acting Commander--Hudgens. I require an immediate conference with you for a few minutes in Room A there," he pointed. They went over to the door, which she opened, and he said to his two attendants: "See we're not disturbed." >< >< >< The man already called Deathbreeder by someone in the command center--a name that would stick--had pre-planned for police opposition by the time he got to Westlake Station, and was specially loaded for it. They had not opened the doors; therefore they had entered by a ventilation shaft, and must be lightly equipped. So when he crashed a second bus barrier, running across some spike strips that injured but did not explode the command vehicle's giant tires, he still had the TF 18 but had switched the MACP for an LG4 forty-millimeter grenade gun, again pack-fed. The vehicle, which he skidded and swerved round, was hit by one and then another light antitank round; he was out the door away from the police line, preserved by his armorsuit and a yaba-adrenaline high. The two LAW rounds were all for now. In China, they would have hit him with fiery hell, and damn a few--a few hundred--civilian casualties. That was why China was on top. They were taking a moment, naturally, to look, evaluate. He used that moment to fire a half-dozen top-loaded gas grenades, thup-thup-thup-thup-thup-thup. That took a couple of seconds reaction time from them, which he used to step out, level, and hit them with the TF's AP rounds, which brought them down. Then he waited, watchfully while making sure of the LG's next rounds, which were white phosphorus. A half-dozen officers got up, looking through the haze, coughing, still trying to mask, while others rolled around, half-stunned. That was when he fired the WP, one-two-three only, ducking behind the burning APC and closing his eyes as the station's interior dissolved in a triple blast that momentarily--even for him behind his shelter and visor and closed eyes--erased all color and vision in searing white. He had time to retrieve the MACP and switch packs before taking a walk. Anyone left alive would be in the more heavily sheltered rooms. Despite his thermal protection he felt the intense heat from the burning bodies, and could smell the acrid, putrescent fog through his filtration. It took a few minutes, but he went through every area, again blowing doors and hosing the interiors with fire. Then it was on foot, at a trot, to Convention Place, and a reload pack from an electrical alcove. Serious opposition here might just have stopped him from completion, but there was none. The police had staked everything at Westlake, and the people here, thick with those who had fled up the tunnel, away from his advance, were confused--some despairing, others doubtful, hoping that he had been killed by the cops. Whatever the mood, when he appeared out of the rolling smoke in the flickering, bluish light, there was not even an attempt at opposition. He mowed them down like grass before the sickle; they fell in ranks, their blood converging in a dark flow that oozed an inch deep at places as he walked, slowly again, his work nearly done. A few more rooms, with a leisurely double strafe to wreck what was left of the tawdry commercial establishments, and then he took a minute, standing near a pile of bodies, to down a weapon, open his genital panels, and in a few strokes bring off his manhood again, shooting his seed into the blood coursing among the body and bone fragments and scraps of clothing. He had done it. He had shown his power to the soft, decadent scum who inhabited a fairer place than they deserved. And he would do it again. Many--thousands, tens of thousands--were unfit and simply awaited cleansing, unfit for the new republic that would arise. He would cleanse them. Others were fit for breeding, and could be made to bear good-blooded young who would know how to work. He would breed them. He would be this city's god. He would kill--or fuck--every single person in it, and every child born would be his child, making a society of siblings--a gigantic family. A new land, a new country, the old destroyed by his hands, and the new made by his loins.>< >< >< The news, of course, was out. No one was sure what still lurked in the tunnel complex--there was no communication of any sort. The surveillance cams showed floating haze, sparking lights, and on the floors, masses of faint shiny starlike things; thousands and thousands of spent shell casings. Some wounded twisted in pain or tried to crawl, but there was no evidence that the threat was gone. Some counseled a wait, others action. Leonard Chung accommodated both by waiting for fifteen minutes and then ordering the blast doors opened gradually, one by one, starting where the massacre had started, in the south end in the International District. The police had some armored vehicles that went in first--not as heavy as the stolen command vehicle used in the attacks, but still better than nothing. They were followed by riot squads in their ceramic-alloy armor, and then more armed police, with the advance rescue workers. The reek and carnage inside caused more than one officer to retch despite himself. It was, as one veteran remarked, like the killing pits of Asia, quarries and caves to which entire towns were brought for mass slaughter. At any rate, uncontrolled crisis mode was over for the time being. The situation was now something that was covered by procedures and protocols, and responders swung into action. Leonard Chung left the command center to return to his office, presumably to make press statements and take executive calls from the State, Federal, and NAE levels. Reporters reported; the 'net crackled. Downtown, the person known as 'Kirin' and 'Vartan' received a rare daytime call, and, not far away, Ralna, under Dr. Macklin's orders, was analyzing PD-NET video and crunching numbers. Nearly everyone else was watching the disaster news on screens and wondering how they were going to get home. Little attention was spared for one of several security helicopters which dropped to a low elevation over the Convention Center for a minute or two, picking up a figure which had emerged from a roof shaft, and then lifted away again. Inside that 'copter, an argument was going on. "No!" said one of black-clad agents on the deck as the craft swung up and to the south and west. "Orders are orders. You followed yours and you executed perfectly. And you're done. We have our job now." The filth-caked, armor-suited man from the tunnel, in a seat but still armed, replied from under his lifted visor: "I am giving the orders now. You will do as I say or I will kill you all." "We're five hundred meters up in the air," the agent reminded him, "and you can't fly." "You will fly, or I will kill you," repeated the armored man. "You will fly to Alder Island. I will kill them all and fuck the women-- now!""You can't!" expostulated the agent, trying to buy time while others quietly communicated. "The tunnel was all set up. You had support. There's nothing for you on the Island." "I will!" raged the other. "I am invincible! Nothing can touch me! I am a god! I will kill! I will FUCK! NOW! DO IT!!" He raised the MACP and let off a burst, felling the agent and punching a seam of holes in the forward bulkhead; the craft veered dangerously. Two other agents behind him acted instantly as he turned in his seat--one grabbed a blanket and enveloped it over the armored man's helmet while the other threw herself against him, momentarily pinning his arms. The first one brought a wire rope down over him, yanking it tight as an alarm went off. The second hit the seat's release lever with her boot and let go as the first wrenched the side door open, and together they pushed him out, seat and all. He fell, screaming hoarsely, turning over and over in the air, as the roofs and cracked street pavements zoomed upward toward him. He let off a final long burst of autofire, spraying round and round aimlessly. The chopper plummeted but pulled up again. The falling man hit a concrete rail of the Alaskan Way viaduct with a soundless but sickening impact, teetered a moment, and went over the side to land on the roof of a low building, lying crushed and unmoving. "Three-zero-one, Code Blue abort, Second at Main, hopefully the tracer's working. Roof of, looks like, Ace Garage. Retrieval immediate," said one of the agents into a com-unit. "Two minutes away," came a reply. "ID?" "Beta." "Confirmed." There was a pause, then the other end said: "Three-zero-one, it's gonna suck to be you when the boss finds out." "We'll deal with it," said the agent. >< >< >< >< >< ><
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Post by Aedh on May 30, 2011 4:45:30 GMT -5
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Post by Aedh on Jun 5, 2011 8:41:42 GMT -5
058[/b] With a downtown meeting suddenly cancelled, Liam had unexpected time to spare. His mind should have stayed on business, but, perhaps due to the news, he found it drawn to matters of life and death. And this led him to think about Taylor. His message to her yesterday had elicited no reply--deservingly, he reflected. His call had been petulant and, if mostly made-up, had a basis in fact. He did know something about Nick, having got his number off her PDA and done a little research--including a 'netchat--and he'd wondered about Nick and gotten moody. On top of that he'd had a few drinks. And, so, a new day, and he was sorry. It was understandable. She was a prostitute, not an Insta-Bang 'sex worker' but a whore whose trade was illegal; and also, worse yet, vampire. which probably made being a whore seem wholesome and upstanding. She would have a few dodgy associates. Nick was certainly evasive, and just as certainly was not some two-bit street pimp, of whom he knew a few. He smelled cop on Nick, not Queen City cop either--of whom he also knew a few--and Liam's nose for cop was good. His curiosity about Nick was piqued. He'd tried to call Taylor back this morning but he found he'd been blocked, so, she was in a mood, too. But Liam didn't want to lose her. More than any other companion he'd ever had, she satisfied his dark streak, his Mr. Hyde craving for risk and danger on the streets. And--but--he didn't want anything to happen to her. Just thinking of the word made him wince, but he cared. And when William H. Bates VII, chairman of the Bates Foundation and chief shareholder in Microhard Corporation, cared about something, resources were brought to bear. He got out his own PDA and set about calling one or two people. >< >< >< David had arranged with Holly to change his break period, which was now the school's fourth period. This coincided with Vonda's break, and they used it for sex in the cheerleaders' room, on the mattress pulled off the convertible couch. She wore one of the unitards that the girls used--the firm, stretchy fabric smoothed out some of her contours and made her feel younger--and he wore his usual male version of it from the gym. She wrapped herself around him desperately, like a girl, occasionally trembling at his touch, like a girl, and shed a few tears afterward too. He lay with her afterward, running a big finger along her body and enjoying her scent. "Is anything wrong, Mrs--Vonda--what do I call you?" Touched at his sensitivity, she swallowed and pulled herself together. "Well ... I don't have a family anymore. 'Hoffman' is gone--it's like it never was. Both my families are gone. Just 'Vonda,' or 'Vonda Mae' if you want to roll back time to before I was ever married ... Do you know, David, I never had sex with a man I wasn't married to before you?" Except ... a recent memory flashed through her head. But she pushed it down, and it vanished easily. Like Merilee, whose situation she knew, being with him didn't seem like real sex at all. It was remote. There was--no feeling to it, no connection except purely physical, like a visit to a doctor. "I appreciate that, Mi--damn. I can't call you 'Vonda' or even 'Vonda Mae' like you were just another girl. It sticks in my mouth." "My maiden name was Dixon. Vonda Mae Dixon, from Sunray, Moore County, Texas. Nothin' there but dirt and wind and an abandoned petro plant that my daddy was the watchman of besides running a ranch. And the occasional tornado just to move things around a little. God's farts, my daddy used to call 'em." He smiled a little. "Ms. Dixon, then?" "If you like," said Vonda. "I don't care. All I got is you, and you'll be leavin' me soon enough." "No," David told her. "I like you. I'll take care of you no matter what, for as long as it takes." "Easy to say. I'll bet you say it a lot," she replied with a touch of bitterness. "Back to square one. What's on your mind?" "I dunno. I--I love you, David. But I don't love you--but I do. If you know what I mean." "Yeah. You love me and--and there is someone else. You think--you wish." She said nothing, but another tear rolled down. "I'll tell you a secret. No one else knows this. I admire you tremendously, who you are, what you've done. And I admired Gary, too. The both of you, your family. You were what it's supposed to be. Everyone looked up to the Hoffmans." "They shouldn't have," she said brokenly. "You don't know what we were. No one did. Hell, even I didn't know. Only Gary knew, and he was killed by one of the cheap whores he apparently used to chase after." "Wow." He shook his head sadly. "I guess I wasn't the only one with a secret. But that only makes it more, what I have to say, and that is, I'm here for you. I don't want to make you mine. I want to make you whatever you want to be." He took her hand. "You can start a new life. Right here, right now. I can help you. I want to help you. I--I love you, Ms--Vonda. Enough to give you anything you need. Anything you want. Even if it's a ticket to somewhere else." She breathed. "There, I've said it," he finished. "I've said words to you I've never said to anyone else. I mean them." "I'm flattered, David," she said after a moment. "But love isn't only about what you give someone. It's also about how you give it, and why. You say you want me--well, you think you want me, but you don't. You want the world, and it's yours for the taking. Fifteen minutes from now you'll be with someone else, someone your own age, and you'll have forgotten me." "It's not about what I want. It's about what you want. Don't tell me there's nothing I can do for you. I don't believe it. There's something you want, or you wouldn't be crying." "You couldn't help me with that. and if you could I wouldn't let you. But there are a few things I would let you do." "Name them." His blue eyes lanced into her. "I can't stay in that house. I've gotta find somewhere else. I'll take two suitcases, that's all. The rest is history. You can help me find a place. And you can--be with me--while I'm pregnant. I ain't old yet, even if that day's headin' here like a runaway train. I'll have the child." "Our child," he said tenderly. Now, she thought. Now I tell him. But the words froze on her tongue. And then a bell rang. He got up, extending a big hand, and pulled her to her feet easily. "Gotta go. But you think about what I said. I'll return the favor." He kissed her. Then he left, padding out, and slowly she walked to the cheerleaders' bathroom, which had a shower stall and a few lockers where her clothes were. She turned on the water and shucked her unitard and shoes and then stepped under the nozzle, thinking numbly that it was lucky that she now had a lunchtime to pull herself together. She put her head against the side of the stall. Her tears drowned in the steamy water. >< >< >< "Merilee," said Father Craig, sitting back, searching for a word. He found one. "I'm ... appalled." She sat, too, looking directly at him from about three feet away, in the small confessional room, having taken a paper from him and tucked it back in her purse. Such confessional rooms had long replaced the old cramped booths with screens. It measured about four by five meters, carpeted and hung with drapes except for part of one wall behind Father Craig where a crucifix hung. Other than that there were two wooden chairs, facing each other, a glass of water for the priest and a box of tissues for the penitent, and a prie-dieu sitting in one corner with a vase of flowers next to it. That was all. "This will mean bankruptcy for the parish--the diocese," he said slowly. "The end of my career. Probably the end of the Archbishop's career as well." "That's why I thought you had better know as soon as possible." He took off his glasses, put them down, and massaged his closed eyes. "I thought I'd heard everything. These nightmares about giving birth to demonic creatures. You and this Sean, as recently as this morning, in some side room because you couldn't use the school nurse's office. You and all three Bearers--sometimes at once--including your son John. And you and John also yourselves for some four years, and John and his sister. But then, putting aside mere sins of the flesh, our Family Enhancement Initiative is to be publicly treated as a sort of genetic terrorism ring for spreading defective genomes among the fertile population." "John isn't defective! He has needs! He's special!" she said fiercely. "You and I see it that way, Merilee. The courts will not." "You seem pretty clear about that--but then--if you knew this might be coming--why didn't you do something? Say something?" she shot back. "There's no use playing the blame game, Merilee. Especially given the list of your own activities that we have just gone over." Her momentary anger collapsed. "Yes," she admitted with a sigh. "You're right. I came to you. To confession. I am the one who insisted on bringing it all out, here and now. I am the one who wanted--God help me--absolution. Forgiveness." "I'm afraid that if either of us get that it will be irrefutable proof of God's existence. No one else will give it to us." At that she stood up. "Is that all, then? After so many years, we just fold things up like that and disappear? We can't leave the Island. I can't take John away from here. Here he's protected. Out there--he'd be ... " "Prey," he supplied. She twisted her lips, acknowledging the curt truth. "So what are we to do?" "Let's take a walk," he suggested. >< >< >< Immaculate Conception had a sizeable private memorial garden, surrounded by colonnades along church and parish hall, with the rectory on the third side and an outside wall to complete the rectangle. Here Father Craig and Merilee strolled along the well-kept walkways. "I'm glad you don't have to be back to school immediately. This will be a little complicated," he told her. She nodded. "Who else knows about this legal matter?" "No one, Father." "No one?" he asked. "No one on the island, that is?" "No." "We have a little time, then." "So what will we do?" "You will have to stay. I will have to go." "Off the island?" Her eyes grew wide, looking up at him. "They'll probably have a new island for me. Somewhere in the Aleutians. With a nice comfy stone floor to sleep on and bread and water as often as once per day." "'They,'" she repeated thoughtfully. You mean the Church, not the police." He inclined his head in agreement. "And there's nothing you can do?" "Nothing." She threw her arms around him impulsively, hugging him into her wooliness, squeezing her ample form hard against his, and moaned softly. He returned the gesture gently; she stayed for a moment, and then disengaged herself with a moist-eyed smile. "I know what you can do," she said. "Move out. You can come and stay with us." "What?" He sounded dumbfounded. "Sure! Our house isn't real big, but it is very private, on acreage. We do have a spare room. Nobody but nobody will know you're there. After all, the police won't be looking for you, just the Church. It's gated. No one gets in and out without my say-so. Kayleigh won't tell, and John certainly won't." They were along a colonnade and Merilee pushed open a door, steering them into the rectory. "We can help you, and you can help us." "How can I help you?" "I know," said Merilee, "you've got some business with Janine Sandoval. I've seen her and her car around here. I asked you about it once, and you gave me a mysterious reply. As if you were afraid of the place being bugged or something. Well, now, I'm asking you straight, what is it? Do you have a confession to make?" "I don't see you that concerns you--" They were now in the living area. Merilee pushed him on the chest a little and he sat back down into an armchair. "It will concern me the moment you come to stay with us. Unless you'd prefer the Aleutians. I told you everything. Confession is good for the soul. It's your turn." "I have been with her," he admitted. "Why?" She looked into his eyes closely. "She's not a parish member, not even a Christian. Or is that the reason--to prevent gossip?" "She--she has a hold on me." Merilee bit her lip. She took one step, and another, standing over his legs, and began to settle herself toward his lap, facing him very close, and pulling up her top. He stared at her, or rather at her capacious bust, which faced him like a pair of watermelons on a shelf. "Then break it now. Be with me. She's not with you if you're with me. She can't say a word then." "Merilee--I ... I don't ... " She put a finger to his lips. He could smell her body, not sweat, but the earthy tang of active female glands, overlaid with the musty-sour of recent sex with another male, wafting off soft, pale flesh whose heat was rising fast. "Shhhh. I have done bad things, but I'm a good woman. I came to confession. I need to change my ways. You have a past with Janine. We both need to make a break. Let us leave the badness, the pain, the whispers. You will leave Janine and I will leave Sean and the others. Let us give each other absolution--start over in the face of God. Devoted to each other, sharing each other, in a secret place, away from the world. Somewhere where it's warm and safe, where the other understands you and accepts you, where the answer is always yes and never no." "It's been so hard," he whispered. His treacherous manhood was quickly hardening. "You don't know. No one knows ... " "I know," she whispered, and took his head in her hands. "No more of that. Let us just be each other's from now on. 'Til death us do part." He broke down, and she slid down between his legs and started undoing his trousers. He made no move to resist her. And the door they had come in by closed quietly, and a few moments later, Janine walked down the path, her soles toc-toc-toc'ing quietly. She was smiling. >< >< >< >< >< >< The staff and press gathered in Leonard Chung's office, waiting for an event, could see his deskplex light-bar flash to indicate an incoming call, but only he could see the number, indicating that this was not the expected call from Tee-Jay, that is, President Tawnisha Jefferson, but instead a priority alert from his personal security chief. With a negative gesture to the audience, he took the call on his earpiece. "Yes?" "I know what's on, so I'll be brief, sir," came the deep female voice. "It's about Beta." Leonard recognized the reference to Won Long Dong, and knew, of course, about the disaster in the transit tunnel--more than anyone, since he had organized it, and been gratified to see the discreet liftoff from the Convention Center. He knew, also, that there were reporters a couple of meters away hanging on his every word, devices whirring. "What do you have for me?" he asked carefully. "Sir, Beta is dead." To the assembly, Leonard appeared to be only stifling a cough. "Details?" "He went mental on the chopper, sir. Tried to order the crew to fly him to Alder Island so he could, um, continue his mission. Of course, they couldn't. He got crazy and started shouting and trying to kill all the crew. They couldn't control him, so they pushed him out the door at five hundred meters. The impact caused fatal injuries. But if they hadn't acted promptly he would have killed them all and downed the chopper, killing himself with it. As it is, two crew are dead, the pilot badly injured, and the craft is barely hanging together. His body and equipment have been secured. That's all we could do. I'm sorry, sir." "Thank you," said Leonard, and ended the call. The questions came. "What is it, Mr. Chung?" "News?" He kept his face blank. "Casualties are being reported. Someone I knew was ID'ed." "Who?" "I can't name any names at this time," he replied. "Procedure must be followed, naturally. Notifications, et cetera." There were murmurs of approbation at this. They left him in silence for a moment. So much, he reflected, for his cherished Tiengguo Project, as he thought of it. There would be no Chinese Bearer into whom his own masculinity could be transplanted, to sow his seed with a Bearer's power and ensure him numberless progeny to populate a new overseas Chinese homeland, worthy to stand beside China itself, and turn the Pacific into a Chinese domain. But, in retrospect, he still had his masculinity. If Rollins and the other Medagenix staff had not been killed in custody, and had carried on the operation as planned, any chance of that progeny would now be dead on a slab with the Bearer. The nameless killer or killers had, ironically, saved him. There may still be a way, he thought. He would have to find it.The deskplex light flashed again. This time he gave a nod and pressed 'Accept.' "Hello, Madame President," he said. >< >< >< Rhys Macklin, in his office, also had an incoming call. Ralna had gone to lunch, so he looked at the number himself, and took it on line four. It was Aziz. "Salaam aleikum," he greeted. "Aleikum salaam," came the reply, and the conversation proceeded in Arabic. "First, my friend," said the vizier, "I wish to convey my most profound sympathies and regrets for the terrible news. It would seem that some agent of Iblis has struck thy city a mighty blow." "A blow," Rhys replied, "but whether from the source thou namest, I am not so sure. Many unbelievers died, so far as I can tell, and but few servants of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful, who seem to have been preserved by His hand." "Hadst thou any forewarning of this, oh possessor of wisdom?" "None, brother," Rhys admitted. "This is truth, this fool cringes to admit." "Upon hearing the news, I had thought to remove my master's wife at once. But she wishes to remain as scheduled, believing herself out of danger, and I have been counseled that there may be good press value in allowing her to make an appearance as a goodwill gesture. What thinkest thou, oh friend?" "I think the streets will be uncommonly well-provided with police and security," said Rhys. "Of a truth, were the President herself to visit, there would not be so many officers on the street as there are now and will be for the next few days." "This is wisdom indeed," replied Aziz. "I shall consider her request favourably. I also wish to render thanks for the most entertaining visit of thy ambassadress, the divine and dark-eyed houri Holly. She stated your case most eloquently." "She has powers of persuasion that far exceed my own humble capacity," observed Rhys. "It speaks much for thee that thou canst command the obedience of such able servants," said Aziz. "Your request shall also be considered favourably. Of a truth, I was hardly able to let her go. And I should like to see much more of her. And truly, I should like to have her with me permanently. As my wife." "Thou overwhelmest us, oh brother and vizier. Let us hope that she will consider thy request favourably, in due season." "Thou hast servants who truly exist to serve, oh brother. Thou art fortunate in that, and I would not lightly relieve thee of such assets. So, perhaps, as thou sayest, in due season, as the will of Allah provides. Very well, brother. I know thou hast much business, and so with thy leave, for the moment I bid thee, salaam aleikum.""Subhanallah wa bihamdihi. Aleikum salaam," replied Rhys, and ended the call. He then turned his attention to the net news, and after going over several sites, noted from the Vancouver Sun that the body of a man identified as Carlos Jenkins, an employee at the PACES Advisory Board on Information Standards, had been uncovered in a gravel pile in a Richmond contractors' yard. Police were seeking information. He would think a bit about that. In the outer office, Ralna, having arrived back from lunch, had quietly resumed her duties, so as not to disturb Sir during his call. She had not heard the entire conversation, but she had heard Aziz's compliments about Holly, and his commendation of Rhys' servants who truly exist to serve. He had been right. She existed to serve. But Aziz had not been speaking of her. It was, of course, fitting that Sir should have the loyalty and allegiance of those around him. He had made her, Ralna, and her work was to carry out the will of her maker. But he had not made Holly. Ralna was aware, of course, of the honorific Middle Eastern style of stating things. But Aziz's careless, accidental use of the phrase that she, Ralna, had adopted to express her devotion, had jarred. With a series of rapid-fire clicks she opened up her workstation and mindwindow, powering up her unimod. The matter was accidental, and not meant for her ears, and none of her business. True service included paying no attention to things not of service, and so she put it out of her mind and resumed her tasks where she had left off before lunch. There was much to do between now and five. >< >< >< The woman who was moving the minds of Rhys, Ralna, and Aziz was giving herself a good hot towel-down after a cold shower; she'd had a lunchtime quickie with an equipment repairman. She should have felt happy, to have the affection and attention of one of the world's more powerful men, and to have spent a dreamy night of luxury--and good sex--with him. But she could not rid herself of the vision she'd seen through an open door, of Vonda Hoffman leaving the cheerleaders' room doing the duck-walk of a woman who's just had a good hard fuck from a Bearer, and she knew who that was, too. That David did not belong to her, she accepted. She had helped train him to go forth and fuck anything that moved. Her resentment wasn't directed against David, but against Vonda--whose faithfulness and clean living in service to her family had always been above and beyond. And now ... her family had disintegrated practically overnight. The message was that doing things the old-fashioned way--years of hard work and sacrifice--meant, basically, nothing. The longest and hardest of all journeys, she reflected, is the one that ends on your doorstep ... and the discovery that while you were gone, everyone else moved out. >< >< >< In his underground dwelling, his preferred retreat below the ground near First Avenue and Broad Street, delved from a Victorian brick building imperfectly covered over during the Denny Regrade in 1909, a dark man, aroused from his usual slumber, pondered. Given Leonard Chung's irritating but effective policy of recruiting his security personnel from among convicts, whose entire lives were matters of public record, Vartan Iulianou--known otherwise as 'Nick' and 'Kirin'--had found it more practical to recruit an existing agent than to plant one of his own. Vartan was aware of Leonard's plans for the crumbling City. Vartan had plans of his own, but he preferred to let Leonard assume the risk of staying on top of the city as it crumbled, and to let his own plans run congruent to Leonard's until the right time. After all, he could co-opt Leonard's people much more easily than Leonard could ever co-opt his. What criminal would ever refuse an offer of extended life and superhuman power, even if it meant turning against his boss? Leonard, it seemed, was in an undue hurry with his plan. Perhaps the health conditions rumored to beset him were more advanced than anyone realized. This was inconvenient, as Vartan's own plan would not brook much hurrying. Time was on his side, but time could not be rushed. His servants were quickly acquired, but required lengthy periods for adaptation and the acquisition of discipline. Without patience they ended like--like Taylor. Upon her transit to Alder Island, Taylor had vanished, as expected. He would have preferred to also hear that her dead body had washed up somewhere. So she could not be confirmed dead. On an impulse, he picked up his PDA and dialed Taylor. "Hi, this is Taylor," said the autogreet. "I'm spending a while dead for business reasons, so don't freak if I don't call back right away. Leave your message if you want, and I may or may not get back to you after my resurrection." Then a tone. Vartan, old and experienced, was hard to shake, but this came close. As a rule, Minions died in the same way as humans. But under rare conditions, a very-suddenly-dead Minion, one who had possessed exceptionally strong and malignant willpower, could spontaneously reanimate as a true Vampire. Such a Vampire had full powers but no inclination to abide by the rules which had successfully kept Vampires out of sight, and Persecution at bay, for a few hundred years. Needless to say, the immediate destruction of such a Vampire was a priority necessity. Was Taylor one? Probably not. But until he saw her head, he could not be sure, and in games played over centuries, being sure was also a priority necessity. If you were a vampire, there would never be that final, merciful visit from the Grim Reaper to bail you out of all your problems and mistakes and give you permanent rest. Vartan recognized mistakes readily, his own most of all. He had made one here. He had been too cavalier by half. As a Minion, Taylor had been sufficiently dangerous to warrant removal; he should have seen to it personally. Assuming that she had become a spontaneous Vampire, she would be much more dangerous. In such a case, she would soon discover the extent of her new powers, and his own position would rapidly grow as shaky as Leonard's. It was imperative to act swiftly. He had planned this for another time, but there could be no delay. There had to be a Gathering. >< >< >< >< >< ><
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Post by Aedh on Jun 5, 2011 8:42:10 GMT -5
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Post by Aedh on Jun 10, 2011 6:49:07 GMT -5
059[/b] Candee Macklin opened her eyes. She was propped up in her bed, looking out her window at the roofs and chimney-pots of the Montlake district, with the white-cloaked Cascade mountains beyond. Her tummy hurt a little, and she had clouds in her head from the anesthetic. A monitoring device she was hooked up to hummed away and gave a beep once in a while. Then she noticed a nurse in the room, who turned and looked at her. "Ah, hello, Candee," the nurse greeted with a smile--but it seemed there was something amiss. Candee wondered. "Hi," Candee replied. "Your procedure went very well," the nurse said, approaching to give the bedclothes a microscopic re-arrangement. "You came through wonderfully." She smiled again, and Candee's doubts deepened. "Thanks for everything. But did it all go according to plan? Am I fertile now?" "As a nurse I can't give you a definite answer, but in this case even a doctor couldn't give you one. There were no complications, I'm told. As for whether you are really fertile--it's not like pushing a button. There are hormones and glands involved, which got a kick-start from the procedure, but they have to decide to do their own thing in their own time. Everyone's body is different. That being said, we do have a high success rate with this procedure--but the final determination is, naturally, whether you conceive or not." "When can I go home?" "That is up to the doctor. You will certainly be here for at least another day, to rest up and to have a few simple tests. But let me reassure you, Candee, everything went perfectly normally and there is no reason we know of why your procedure shouldn't have been a complete success. Can I get you anything?" "Can I have my purse, please?" The nurse nodded, went over to the antique dresser console, and took it out of a side door and gave it to her. Candee dug for her PDA, drew it out, flipped it open, and pressed a key. Immediately, her monitoring device's lights all flashed and it gave an alarm tone. Candee dropped the PDA in surprise, and the nurse moved quickly, looking at the device and pressing things. "What's that? What is it?" Candee demanded. "It's--hmm." She spoke into a com-piece. "Doctor Willow, Room Six, please, Doctor Willow, Room Six. It's--nothing to do with you, I think. The monitor seems to be malfunctioning-- hello? Doctor?" The nurse frowned and looked at her unit. Candee picked up her PDA again, but it wasn't her PDA. Carelessly, she had picked out the very similar PDA she had stolen from Carlos Jenkins last Friday and never given to Rhys to return to him. A joke was a joke, but Carlos would have to be upset about that. "I'm sorry, my com-unit seems to be out of whack," the nurse told her. "I'm sure it's nothing to do with you. I'll get the doctor and we'll check everything out. You're fine." The nurse left, stepping swiftly. Candee wondered, looking again at the PDA. Carlos was some sort of technical person. Was it coincidence that as she'd pressed the speed-dial key, her monitor and the nurse's com-piece had gone haywire? Not for nothing had Candee been married to a scientist; she looked again at the monitor. No wires--wireless. So was the nurse's com-piece. Wireless.She put the PDA--if it was a PDA--carefully under her pillow. She might do a little scientific investigation of her own--but not here. >< >< >< "Sir, you have a call from Little & Biggs, your campaign consultants. Are you available?" Ralna asked her deskplex. "Yes, thank you, Ralna, send it through," came the reply. With that, her employer engaged in what would be a fairly long vidmeet, and in the aftermath of the Transit Tunnel disaster, to which all available media, police, and medical personnel had been diverted, Ralna found herself--for the moment--with less than usual to do. The full resources of the office were at hand, including government-size bandwidth and automatic priority on servlinks. So she gave her knuckles a good, leisurely cracking, adjusted her seat up one notch, and set herself to research last night's incident on Alder Island. There was one major question to be answered if she were to fulfill her primary directive of existence to serve Sir, and as she reasoned, each of her hands worked a keypad independently, creating a thrumming noise like rain falling on a roof. Who--or what--was Jael Schlick, alias Taylor--a humod, or another PHE? With that answered, she would also know about Adela. Then it would remain to find Taylor's purpose in coming to the island and insinuating herself into Sir's company, and then whether there was a direct relationship between Taylor and Adela. The optimal method for researching Taylor would be access to her body, and this Ralna did not have. She was, however, rapidly acquiring information. A series of here-and-gone pop-windows told her that the Alder Island authorities had no cadaver in custody and had received no police report. Sir had therefore retained the body in his private laboratory. He might have begun an autopsy but did not-- had not, she ascertained--logged notes in any file she could access. Therefore, the physical evidence lay with him exclusively and she would not ask him if he had vouchsafed nothing to her. But Ralna had data he did not have: about thirty-three billion macros, and Taylor's bio-sig readings logged in her memory. She recalled them and went to work on the 'Net, the rainlike keyboard-thrumming rising to a downpour, and she brought both feet to bear on the pedals which controlled certain function keys, looking as she worked like nothing so much as a cyber-trance organist performing a Bach passacaglia, with vidwindows flashing past in a holographic andante, the texts mostly a blur but occasionally pausing for a millisecond. Retinal cross BP, sort by--control cat 25x35, alpha re-sort gen group B to C. Perth group ref 0214, beta re-sort--link to theta-wave study @ UMinn.edu via Mayo.org, ref 0312.8--password crack--cross BP macular, filter by resp viz. Kwong (Group Blue = fail), link dateline 491-2114.8 @ London ...On and on for several minutes she went as datasorts failed one after the other, one or another brute fact not fitting the pattern, until she was left with one study of dubious origin, located on a server in the Moldovan Republic. The words strigoii and moroii drew and held her attention for a full second, practically an eternity at her processing speed. Vampires. Information. She threw herself into action again, speeding andante-style through several hundred gigabytes of data, almost all of which was obvious pop-culture goth fantasy--but there were occasional usable facts. The Chişinău paper focused on nosferatu properly speaking, which had an obscure Romanian derivation, perhaps from the words for 'no-breath,' or 'insufferable one,' or else--interestingly--a further derivation from the Greek νοσοφόρος, meaning 'disease-carrier,' a highly pathogenic human or humanoid, a bearer of one or more little-understood infections who were treated as plague-carriers and isolated and destroyed ruthlessly. Thought to prey on human flesh and blood. Credited, rightly or wrongly, with extra-human senses and abilities, probably as a result of the misunderstanding of their pathologies, which could be varied and remarkable. Whatever the precise origin, the meanings were patterned--unbearable, suffocation, disease, the unknown--darkness and the underworld, terror and death. She initiated new searched on terms derived from Chişinău--whether or not the publication had survived scholarly vetting, it did fit with her data--and after a few minutes, had some suggestive results, including medical and criminal files, along with incident reports derived from various sources, with geographic and timeline distribution. At last she paused, slowly shutting down applications. She had information, and now had to decide what to make of it; it did not all fit together logically. This would have to be stored for later retrieval, and free processing-- thought-- given to it. She considered cancelling this evening’s rendezvous--but no. Her research in that field was at least equally vital to improving her service to Sir, and could not be abandoned. She decided to check on the MyBook page that had been established in her honor. There were now over twenty-five thousand friends, and those puzzling things, jokes, were appearing. How many deadly weapons does Ralna carry at all times? Four--two hands and two feet.She sighed. Jokes would be a difficult project for another time. Why that one was supposed to make people laugh she did not understand. It was a bald statement of fact, nothing more. >< >< >< >< >< >< "What do you mean, he's not here?" demanded Enrique Cabrera, facing down the PA behind the desk. "I saw him go in ten minutes ago! He knows I'm here!" She shrugged, an expressive Latin shrug. "I'll check again for you, Mr. Cabrera." She used her deskplex com-unit. "¿Está el concejal Espinoza en la oficina?""I'm here and you're here and you know it!" said Enrique loudly toward the desk. "He's not here," said the PA. "¡No digas pendejada!" shouted the businessman, and in a few steps had one hand on the inner door and was pushing the PA away with the other. It opened before he pushed it, and he was looking at Councilor Oscar Espinoza. "It's not bullshit," said the older man coldly. "It's true. I'm not here--to you.""Tio Caro!" exclaimed Enrique. "I'm sorry--I didn't mean it. I got angry, that's all. Lost my head. Can we talk?" "Okay," said the Councilor, leaning in the door. "Let's talk." "Not here--" "Here," replied the other. "Anything you got to say--no, check that. For your father's sake, come in. The whole entire world doesn't need to know what a moron he spawned." He stood aside and let Enrique in. Then he closed the door and stood. "Tio, I need a favor," said Enrique. "You need a lobotomy. What did I tell you the other day, pendejo? 'Don't whack a chica.' You not only tried, you failed! And what a fail!" He walked over to his desk and brought up the Ralna MyBook page. "Look at this shit!" He leaned over and punched a computer key, reading from the screen. "Death once had a near-Ralna experience. Ralna doesn't flush the toilet--she looks at the bowl and scares the piss out of it! Thanks to you she's not only alive and well, she's turning into a fucking cult hero! That woman's got more cojones than you can even imagine, that's what I say. What do you say?" "I owe Rhys Macklin big-time. He's gonna have my guts." "He can have them. Now you and I are done. Get out." "Uncle--" Oscar pressed a button. "Don't uncle me. We're done. You're no family of mine. My brother had no son. Get out. If you ever come back I'll call building security and have you thrown out." The door opened, and in it was a guard, with Oscar's PA peeking around him. Enrique trembled. "You're going to regret this," he said quietly. "The part I regret is over with," replied Oscar, and pointed. "Goodbye." The guard advanced, but Enrique pushed past him angrily and left. Downstairs, and out in the lobby, he pulled out his PDA. He flushed darkly as he heard the greeting: "Good afternoon. Doctor Macklin's office. How may I assist you, please?" "Get me Dr. Macklin. This is--personal business," he managed to say. "I'm sorry, sir, Dr. Macklin is in conference at the moment. If you'd care to leave your number I can have him return the call, or you can leave a message." "Don't--" he began, then thought better. "Yes, put me on his voicemail." "One moment," came the reply, then an autogreet and tone. "I know about you," said Enrique. "I know your secret, you and your PA. You and me are through, and your campaign will be through tomorrow." Then he ended the call, snapped the device shut, and, smoothing his suit, went out into the street. >< >< >< In his executive office suite overlooking Vancouver, B.C., Chairman Hong Wangxi turned from the view toward his vast desk. "What is it?" he asked. "A call from Leonard Chung in Queen City, your honor." "Thank you. Hold it for me. Bring up the current RSS feeds on my desktop, please." "At once, Róngyù."The Chairman took a minute to reach into an alabaster jar with a silver scoop, and sprinkle a few bits of food for his black carp. He watched the pieces drift down through the water, and watched the fish devour them one by one, deliberately. He had always told his top subordinates that there was an example there. Then he went to seat himself at his desk and leaned forward, punching up the holoscreen. A small 3-D electronic Leonard, about twenty centimeters high, in a sitting position behind his own desk, hovered above the Chairman's desktop, while in back of the figure, glowing words and numbers floated. "Xiàwǔ hǎo, nǐ de Róngyù," greeted Leonard. The conversation proceeded in Chinese. "And good afternoon to you. What news do you bring, Mister Chung?" "Foremost on this person’s mind, your honor, is--of course--concern for his citizens in the civil disaster of which your honor is no doubt aware." "Indeed. Casualty estimates are nearing two thousand. This is not only a political matter but a business matter. Do you have any claims for credit at this point, or any idea who may be responsible?" "We have links, your honor, to a domestic right-wing terror network comprising members of such subversive organizations as the Teabaggers, the American Legion, and the United Patriotic Front, working in conjunction with breeder scum. At least one so-called Bearer is involved--we have surveillance video. It may involve breeders form the Alder Island neighborhood, according to our sources there." "Ah. There is no question of international involvement, then?" "None that we know of so far, your honor." "Good. Domestic matters are your affair. How is the matter of the hijack from Comrade Xue Guangyong's depot proceeding?" "This person has his best agents on the matter, but results are not yet clear, other than that there were Chinese involved." "Indeed?" asked the Chairman. "You are certain?" "One of the gangsters spoke perfect Chinese with a good Mandarin accent. Unlikely to be a Westerner." "Yes, unlikely. But not completely impossible. And the Bearer my people arranged to travel to meet you--Won Long Dong. How is he faring?" "This person grieves to report, your honor, he lost his life in the tunnel disaster." "Aiya, that is unfortunate news," said the Chairman. "He had local ties through his family, which are distant relatives. He found life in China very difficult. You were expecting great things of him, and this person believes he would have flourished in the fertility subculture in your area." "Yes, your honor." "You mentioned Alder Island. What of Doctor Rhys Macklin? We are aware that he resides there. He is also standing for Council against your man Anderson, the Committee Chair for Law Enforcement. What, too, of him? How has he handled this crisis?" "He has not, your honor. We have been unable to reach him since yesterday," Leonard confessed. "No one knows where he is." "Curious," remarked the Chairman. "This person finds it unsettling that your right-hand man is nowhere to be found in this business. It does not testify to your ability to control your people, Mister Chung." "We shall have news of him by tonight, your honor." "We are no longer interested to hear news of that person," replied the older man testily. "We should rather hear news of Doctor Macklin. Might he be of use to us?" Leonard paused. "Possibly, your honor." "Could you manage him? It shouldn't be too difficult, given his past. Could he not add resources to our endeavor?" "He is a wealthy and intelligent man, with world-wide connections. We have, as you say, your honor, his past. There is also his present." The small Leonard glanced down. "There is the fact that his community has incurred a massive civil financial liability--if our lawyers are correct--and also that his son is involved in at least one serious crime in the city. For which we have not yet arrested him. But deferred prosecution is a wonderful leverage tool." The Chairman nodded, and Leonard went on: "Even Macklin's PA was part of an armed incident this morning." "Ah. You speak of Ralna." The Chairman looked at his own hovering information. "She by herself would be a worthy addition to our staff resources." "Yes--" "We are informed on this 'netsite that Ralna once won the NBA Finals, the World Cup, the Stanley Cup, the Super Bowl, the World Series, and a Test Match against the rest of the world, all in one year. Alone." "Yes," said Leonard, slightly nettled. "At any rate, we have enough on Dr. Macklin and his people to secure cooperation, or destroy them." "Good," said the Chairman. "But do exert every effort to bring him on board. We won't say your own job depends on it, but it would be very disappointing if you did not. Remember, Mr. Chung. Business. You say you are working on the matter of Comrade Xue. This person, also, has taken an interest. Carlos Jenkins has paid with his head for the matter, and so shall that fool Xue. No one is irreplaceable, Mr. Chung--no one. There is only business, and the cause. Business makes or breaks all of us, this person included. You are our representative in the public sector, as Bao Zhan is in the business sector. It is our wish--it is necessary to the cause--that you work together. If you do not, you will fall together. It is the balance, the tao; money and power, power and money. The one and the other, the other and the one. Do not forget this, Mr. Chung." "No, your honor." "Very good. This person is aware that you are busy. Unless you have any more news to bring, Mr. Chung, that will be all." "Thank you, Róngyù. Liánghǎo de jiànkāng hé chángshòu."The Chairman repeated the farewell for good health and long life, and ended the call. >< >< >< With the call to Chairman Hong ended, Leonard looked down at Sulin, who was emerging from under his desk, apparently having been searching for something she had dropped. “That’s done,” he remarked to her rather than to the black-clad security man standing motionless by the door. She stood, straightened herself, and walked around to her chair. “Good news from the Chairman, I trust?” “Chairman Hong is--" An old fool, he thought, but said: “--careful. Cautious. Speculative. As befits a man of his age. As I would be if I sat in his chair in Vancouver. Very Chinese, with the mandarin mentality; he does not move--he has people to move for him. We are those people, so move we must. I mentioned to him the report just in, that we have DNA evidence that links Jason Macklin to a sexual assault committed in this city. Sulin, draft a memo to the Prosecutor asking for his arrest, and another to Mayor Hotchkiss of Alder Island, informing her that the County has completed an audit, and will demand payment of our portion of the carbon indemnity assessment forthwith. And has anyone raised Nels Anderson yet?” “No, sir.” “Get word to him. E-mail, V-mail, and every other mail in the alphabet. If he doesn’t report in by tomorrow morning, he may consider his Chair forfeit and the Party’s backing withdrawn. I’ve just about had it with him.” “Yes, sir. Would there be anything else?” “That’s all. You may go, Sulin. I am not to be disturbed.” “Thank you, sir.” The security man let her out, and then turned to Leonard, looking at him, now that they were alone, emotionally--hopefully. “Are we to see some more action, sir? I’m sorry about Mr. Dong, sir, but it was good to do setup for him, and glorious to see him in action. We were all hoping for more--much more.” “Oh, you were, were you?” Leonard smiled and opened a tall cabinet door. He reached inside and pulled a handle; a vertical rack unit slid out, on which the pieces of an armored bodysuit were placed. The suit was identical to what the 'Deathbreeder' had worn that morning. “Oh, sir!” smirked the guard. “Who is that for?” “Now that it has been battle-tested--me,” replied Leonard, with a smirk of his own. “In fact, I have begun testing it already.” He ran a finger lovingly down along the top jerkin’s sleeve and the hip unit, and then down onto a boot. “It is not entirely complete without the remote diversion unit, which channels energy to the bio-synth material, enabling it to repair its own damage, nor the helmet’s unimonitor, which relieves the need for external sources to monitor and relay surrounding communications, by allowing the wearer to hear them himself. That is why we need to retrieve the shipment stolen from that idiot Xue, to complete those functions. With those in place, and proper armament, the wearer effectively becomes a human main battle tank. Like a fearsome humod. Except that this humod can be undone at will by taking off the suit.” The guard went down on his knees and ambulated toward Leonard. “Ah, Mr. Chung! You must let me blow you when you’re wearing it--I’m getting a hard-on just thinking about it!” He reached down to his crotch and undid his trouser front, displaying ample evidence. “Perhaps, Luke. But not with this accessory on.” Leonard had reached in and brought out something resembling a twenty-four-inch dildo, of menacing-looking flex-ringed stainless steel. Below the shaft, where the scrotum would be, was a bulbous metal mesh construct, evidently containing some micro-machinery encased in a lubricant sac. “Mr. Dong’s suit didn’t have that! What does it do--besides the obvious?” For an answer, Leonard hefted it and strapped it around himself, cinching the belt straps over his shoulders and abdomen and along his hips, and then donned a gauntlet. With a finger touch, the metal head at the end clicked open, turning into a steel flower of wickedly sharp rotary blades. With more touches, they flexed back and forth and tilted. Then they whirred and spun into very high-speed motion. The blades flexed back and forth a few times as they spun. “You don’t want that down your throat, or up your ass, I’ll bet,” said Leonard, now grinning widely. “Turn you inside out in ten seconds if I like--or considerably slower--if I like.” “The-- sir! The Harbor Killer--that’s ...” the man goggled. “Yes, Luke. And now that I have confirmation that I have nothing to fear from armed opposition wearing it--however dearly that information was bought--the Harbor Killer will, I think, be getting busy.” Leonard gave it a final whirr, making the whole unit bend upward forty-five degrees, then, seemingly reluctantly, let it down, shut it off and began to remove it. “Perfect for a visit to Alder Island, sir. Do up some of those breeder cunts right!” The guard licked his lips. “Not a bad idea, Luke. Noted.” Leonard deposited the unit in its place. “Please, sir. I know it’s been hours,” pleaded the man. “At least put on the boots and let me give you a quick blow.” “It hasn’t been so long as you think--Sulin wasn’t looking for a lost contact lens during that call,” Leonard replied. “But I’ll keep you in mind, Luke.” “Ah!” the guard laughed. “You’re a goddamn hottie, Mr. Chung, sir!” “Not only a hottie, but one with full emergency powers, complete authority, and--thanks to this--” he patted the suit’s shoulder--”practical physical invulnerability. I can not only do anything to anyone I please, I can do it legally.” The guard prostrated himself. “Start here, my hero. Start with me!” “Oh, I’ve already started,” said Leonard. “Now it’s time to do this town. And I do mean, do this town.” >< >< >< >< >< ><
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Post by Aedh on Jun 10, 2011 7:25:58 GMT -5
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Post by Aedh on Jun 13, 2011 7:49:40 GMT -5
060[/b] After ending his vidmeet with Leonard Chung, Chairman Hong Wangxi of the People's Republic's 'North America Development Corporation,' or NADEVCO, arose, stretched, and thought, removing his shoes and assuming a tai chi posture. Chairman Hong was careful, conservative, and given to meditation, as Leonard had discerned. If Leonard also believed that senility was starting to affect the Chairman's mind, so had Carlos Jenkins and many other formerly living people; he was well aware of what had been dispatched to Xue Guangyong in the containers of Fujian Shipping, subsequently stolen, and what its applications were. He had argued extensively with several Ministers in Beijing about permitting it out of China at all, and had only prevailed with some difficulty. The Chairman had originally placed Leonard in his current position for the purpose of seeing the large and important Pac Sun project to completion. There were reasons to justify leaving Leonard where he was. His dream of an overseas Chinese homeland, which in a fantastic way resembled what was a serious vision among elites in China, motivated him and made him useful for the time being. True, he played his cards away from his chest, and showed them to far too many non-Chinese for Hong's taste, and his methods tended toward crudeness. But, using a hammer to break an egg still broke the egg; and if at some point the moribund North American dragon did bestir itself, Leonard could be sacrificed with the perfectly sincere assurance that he was a nut-job renegade. However, if the Chairman's occasional lapse into mental decrepitude was feigned, his interest in Dr. Rhys Macklin was not. The overseas-homeland project existed for a reason. China, too was moribund, not spiritually but physically, most of its resources stripped except for hydro power, rare earths, and its resilient and industrious people--an ironic counterpart to America, physically still relatively clean and rich, but whose people were destroying themselves through ignorance and vice. Many Chinese had survived the wars of the last century, maintaining a population of a half-billion; one-fifth of the world's human stock. But they were aging, like everyone else, and the demographics were unpromising. Population control was still the iron rule, for new reasons of scarcity. The future lay with a strong people in a good land who had the will and ability to reinvent fertility. The people were Chinese; the land was America; and the guiding genius of the science that mattered was Rhys Macklin on the tiny island in Puget Sound. Dr. Macklin's career had long been closely watched in China, where humod was illegal for propaganda purposes, but which still evinced fascination in official circles, especially when the topic of the cleanup of contaminated waste land arose. Macklin had been quietly permitted to pursue his own work in Shanghai and other East Asian cities by the highest authorities, and whether he knew it or not, his investments prospered because Chinese funding was discreetly directed to support them, including to companies like Insta-Bang and Scrapple Computer. It was considered a fair price for enabling his work, even if what he was doing was not always perfectly understood by the experts at the Ministry of State Security, which had its own Section dedicated to him. Though Hong knew there were other players, other factors that he could not see--that no one could see--they would be revealed in due course. The Chairman would not interfere either for or against Macklin; a wise administrator always let things come to him, rather than going to them--an axiom that the doctor appeared to intuit himself. So Leonard was important, and Rhys Macklin was also important. Both men would be allowed to continue as events dictated. Hong was certain that one or the other of them had himself hijacked the shipment from Xue Guangyong. Which it had been would become apparent in due course. Hong had told Leonard truly that no one was irreplaceable. The Tao, the Way, the Path, was itself the only Tao, and would reveal itself in its own time. Until then--essence. Maintain the essence. His only task was to watch, to align, and to answer questions. If this was, as Leonard believed, foolishness, it was the foolishness of the tao, which itself made and unmade all other fools. Time would tell. >< >< >< Rhys Macklin's ferry ride to the island was earlier and less eventful than yesterday's had been. With Candee likely gone for another two days--confirmed by a PDA chat--he would need to replenish some food supplies, and to that end stopped by the Island's SaveWay Marketplace. He made a few purchases, and, pushing his shopping cart past the deli, he saw Vonda Hoffman perched on a high chair at the counter by the window, looking out to the street past the rain spots on the glass, to dim buildings and glowing lights beyond. Her raincoat was draped over her chair and there were two large suitcases next to her, but she was in her usual schoolday tailored-knee-skirt-and-matching-vest. He decided to stop for a word. "Hello, Vonda," he said. She turned, smiling, it seemed, a little sad. "Hello, Rhys," she replied. "Pull up a chair an' sit on the floor." He indicated her luggage, asking lightly: "Going somewhere? I trust you're not planning to skip out on our date tomorrow?" She let a single quiet chuckle escape. "No, I'll be there at the press conference. I already got a sub comin' in the morning anyway. I just--I'm stayin' somewhere else tonight. And more than tonight. I can't stay in that house anymore." "Do you have a place--?" "Yeah, thanks." She was silent for a moment, then said: "Full disclosure, I'm puttin' up at Regina's place a while. Until th' house is cleaned out an' sold, anyway." "Selling the house? Isn't that a rather definitive message to the family?" "Family?" she asked quietly. "I got no family. There's nothin' to keep me here except my job--is there?" She looked up into his eyes and he drew a chair over. "I like you, Vonda," he told her. "I always have. We're compatible--I think, anyway. I guess now this is where I say 'if' and 'but.' I have a wife. I could put her away, but you couldn't love a man who'd do that, even for you. Am I right or wrong?" "You're right." Her lips barely moved. "Yes. Good place to stay, Regina's. She's got plenty of room. It's out in the country but you're comfy with country. And you've got a car." She took a sip of a drink. "Rhys, you old smoothie. You know why I'm really goin' there." "It's a small town." She made a little face. "Ah might as well call th' paper. 'Teacher and student have affair, move into parents' place!'""A lot of people would say you're running away." "A' course Ah'm runnin' away!" Vonda replied vehemently. "And why not? Why stand an' fight? For who? My children? They're all grown up, or near enough. They got their own lives. For my precious reputation? Who gives a shit?" She looked back out the window. "Maybe you do ... but." He took her hand and they sat a moment while life passed by. "You know what David is," he told her. "Yeah, I do. But he cares, or thinks he does, for now. Enough to get me by awhile." She looked back at him. "I had some love left in me after all, Rhys. You saw it, but you couldn't take it. He took it. Maybe he didn't even know what he was doing, but he took it and I gave it, and it's done. I can't take it back any more than a cloud can take back the rain." "I know. Believe me, I know." It was now fully dark. A pair of headlights swung by outside the window and stopped. They flashed, and a moment later, a dark form waved at the window. "That'll be him," she said. "He's drivin' me to Regina's--his place, and tomorrow we'll go back to get my car and a few more things out of the house. That'll be it, Rhys. See ya tomorrow. Stay tuned, I guess, if you can bear ta. It ain't a real interestin' program." He took her hand again. "Okay, Vonda. I will." He gave it a gentle squeeze and looked into her eyes. "Friends?" She returned the look. "Sure. Friends." They both got up as David came in, shedding rain from a tent-sized stadium coat. Rhys traded greetings with the young giant, who picked up Vonda's suitcases as if they were lunchboxes, and David led her out. Rhys' watch beeped, reminding him with a start that he had somewhere else to be, and he went, too. >< >< >< >< >< >< Liam's afternoon researches on Taylor bore little helpful fruit until his PDA signaled him that he had a call from one--he checked the name--Bronislaw Skryplynzski. Liam's personal number was privileged information; whoever Mr. Skryplynzski was, he hadn't gotten the information off a bubble gum wrapper, so the young businessman answered. "Bates." "Bates," came the repeated reply. "You met me and my friend the other night when we were with Taylor. Word is that you lost her and you're doing a little looking around. Abdul gave me your number." "Ah, Mr. Skryplynzski, better known as Lord Margoth, I presume." "My legal name, has to go on business stuff. Pretty good, you said it almost right." "Thank my Polish auntie for that," Liam said. "I trust you're recovered from your, ah, accident." On his end, seated in a dirty place that pretended to be a coffee bar, the gaunt guitarist touched the bandage on his neck. "It's gettin' better." "I hope you don't bear her any grudge for what happened," Liam's voice came. "No." Margoth touched another thing--a little .40 caliber bulldog automatic in his coat pocket. "In fact, me and Taylor are hooking up tonight." "Aren't you worried?" "Nah. She left me a nice-nice message, and anyway, hell, dude! She bit me! That makes me a vampire, too, right? So I'm her kind now. Nothin' to worry about." "If getting bitten by Taylor makes you a vampire, then your friend is one, too. And me." "Guess so. Felt thirsty yet?" asked Lord Margoth hopefully. "Sensitive to light?" "Not so much and not so much, and she bit me before she bit you. Personally, I wouldn't presume too much on the powers happening right away," Liam told him. "I think it's not like the 'vids where it happens in thirty seconds. Takes a week or two, maybe, or more. Anyway, it's good that you and she are alright. When are you meeting her?" "Ten." "Anyplace I know?" "No. I'll keep ya posted though, dude," Margoth grinned. "Later days." He ended the call, and, once again, fingered the automatic in his pocket. If she really was a vampire, well then, bullets wouldn't kill her, would they? But they might repay her a little pain. >< >< >< It had been easy-- too easy, she thought. She'd slipped into the downtown building by the service entrance while caterers were bringing up a spread. The woman in tasteful off-white with all the diamonds had to be Cindy. Cindy had even asked the girl who was looking around uncertainly if she could help her. A pretense that she was visiting someone and had gotten lost in the building's bowels while looking for the fitness studio, and the conversation was launched. She'd introduced herself as the fiancee of--here, she'd produced a picture, and shown a certain number on her PDA's speed-dial, which Cindy recognized. Cindy had straightaway invited her upstairs--she must come--if her host could spare her. Oh, she could. They'd gone up to the penthouse via the service lift, her carry-all bag was deposited in the coat closet, unnoticed by anyone but Cindy and forgotten by her while she fussed over the set-up. There were, unexpectedly, two black-clad security men outside the condo's doors--on loan, as Cindy explained, from her good friend Leonard Chung, in the wake of the midday transit tunnel disaster--because there was a Very Important Woman in attendance, she whispered conspiratorially. Good, Jenna had replied with a smile, her first sincere smile of the day. Very important was good. Then the hostess excused herself, leaving Jenna to wander about the place while the final touches were applied and a few early arrivals welcomed. Jenna had expected to have to work harder to get in, but not the warm welcome. Not that it wasn't good, but she tried to think why. There was some sort of a party on, and she couldn't imagine how she'd be an honored guest. As it happened, Cindy felt deliciously relieved as she busied herself with the reception. She had promised her comers an unnamed 'special guest,' allowing it to be understood that it would be 'Scott.' However, when he had failed to confirm a meeting at the ferry, instead sending a text excusing himself and throwing into doubt whether he would ever, in fact, come to her again, Cindy had drawn a deep breath, snuck a dose of straight vodka from the bar, and thanked her lucky stars for the anonymity, even as she wondered who she would have to dragoon into the starring role. Now the fates had given her this girl who claimed to be his fiancee. Cindy had directed her PA to try to raise 'Scott' with calls and texts to find out if this unlikely-looking 'Jenna' really was who she claimed, but there was no reply so far. Well, Cindy decided, the show must go on. If she was who she claimed, it would be a mischievous way of honoring him and reminding him of what he was chucking after she told him all about it. If she wasn't, then an ordinary girl would have a Cinderella night, with the guests unwitting. She looked around. 'Jenna' wasn't spoiling anything. She was surveying the palatial space, sipping champagne, and chatting with a world-famous French actress and a Boston banker's wife. It looked like it was going to work. Her ass was out of the sling either way. For her part, Jenna had listened and learned. A couple of the designer-dressed guests had disclosed the purpose of the reception, and wondered who the 'special guest' was to be. There was little doubt in Jenna's mind. Jason had never intended to meet her at the ferry--all those messages of his were hypocrisy. He had meant to be here, basking in the adoration of these moneyed bitches, sipping thousand-dollar-a-bottle wine and no doubt doing some exhibition screwing. When he showed up ... Jenna smiled again, causing a California film agent to mentally gauge her as a possible face for a 'net publicity campaign. Jenna, too, felt deliciously relieved. >< >< >< Jason had been standing in an inconspicuous corner at the Alder Island ferry terminal, leather overcoat folded about him waiting for Jenna's ferry. She had not cancelled their appointment or answered any of his messages, so he had to assume she would be there. He was hoping she would be on time, as he had gone over an hour without sex and the discomfort was becoming definite pain, traveling back between his groin and his head in throbbing waves and making it increasingly difficult to think. As usual, before the ferry's arrival, passengers began to accumulate in the terminal. Most didn't look his way, but a few glances strayed toward him. One came and stayed on him; it was from a woman he vaguely recognized, a big young woman in her twenties, seated on a bench with a companion. The big young woman had some bags of stuff with her, and a stroller, and three young children, not counting the one in the stroller. He wondered how many were his ... one at least, he thought. Maybe two. He was certainly looking at one of his own progeny, and he felt nothing, nothing at all. The mother looked at him again, whispering to a companion, an older woman, and they both looked yet again. The younger one's look was now meaningful, hungry, and with a few words to the older woman and to the children, she rose up, walked around, and came over to him. "Well, well," she said, eyeing him from nearly his own height. "Jason ... Bearer Jason. My name's Potera, I graduated here three years ago. I know you. My youngest, Skyler over there, came from you. I wonder if you got a few minutes, Jason. I'm feelin' like givin' Skyler another playmate." Conscious of the Rule, Jason said: "I am waiting for someone--who's due any minute now--" "It's my turn--they'll have to wait," said Potera with a gotcha look. "My family over there will have to wait, too. On this island, you can't say no to any woman who asks you, Bearer, and it's my time and I'm askin'. Let's go, stud." Obviously familiar with how things worked, she steered him toward a door marked Crew Ready Room, in which, he knew, were some sparse furnishings, including two bunks. Inside, he removed his coat, resigned, and undid his genital restraint, while she tossed a mattress off one of the bunks onto the floor. In a minute she had unzipped the sides of her athletic pants, pulled them and her knickers down and off over her big high-tops, which she planted on the floor athwart the mattress, and pulled up her top partway, showing a big, soft abdomen streaked with pale stretch marks. The thick brown brush between her legs smelt of strong, gamy female lust, making his maleness stand out hard, demanding to enter, and he had to give in. Potera was not easily satisfied, and when at length, after a half-dozen climaxes, with whooping and yelling that made the windows rattle, she had rolled over and reached for her pants, he needed to catch his breath. She was seemingly no sooner gone than her companion entered--who turned out to be her mother, whose own sexual drive Potera had obviously inherited and which had not diminished with age or looks. The end result was that Jason was delayed for almost thirty minutes, during which time his PDA, out of reach in his coat pocket, registered six missed calls with three voicemails and two text messages. He eventually got out of the room, clearer-headed and able to cinch his restraint a little tighter, and remembered Jenna immediately. He looked for her to be waiting, had she arrived on time. She wasn't. He checked the calls and messages, but they were only from Cindy--what part of 'No' did that woman not understand?--and none from Jenna. He'd wait one more ferry for her before he called. >< >< >< At seven P.M., after an hour of mixing, Cindy tapped a silver spoon on a crystal champagne flute with a silvery ringing sound, clearing her throat. The ladies, twenty-seven of them, with close to that many million dollars' worth of finery on display, gathered around in a winners' circle of elegance. "Good evening, everyone, and thank you all for attending our reception," Cindy said. "I know some invitees cancelled as a result of today's terrorist incident, and that's understandable. But we do appreciate you who have committed to supporting us and our city. As you know, I said there would be a special guest. I've heard some speculation that it was to be our young gentleman friend, to whom we all owe so much. But we are not here so much to honor him, but to honor each other-- us,"--by which you mean 'me,' bitch, thought Jenna venomously--"and the gifts of life he has given all of us." There was a sprinkling of polite applause, and Cindy continued: "But there is one to whom he's given something more, something unique, and that is, a pledge of lifelong romantic commitment. I'd like you all to officially welcome this modest young lady--may I introduce Jenna?" If she had felt venomous already, there were no words to describe her sensation as all eyes turned to her, studying her like a mule which had turned up in the polo ponies' paddock. She was hotly aware of her thrift-shop boho outfit, plain ponytail, and lack of makeup, not that the best she'd ever had would pass muster here. He'd had every one of them, for which each of them paid more money than she would ever have at once in her life. They were all whores, every one of them, and he was the worst--no, check that. He, and these women, had all known what they were doing, and handled it as business. She, Jenna, was the worst of them, because she was the stupid one. She had given him her whole life, stupidly, as if it were worth no more than a slap. He hadn't even bothered to show up for his bitches, or even to return the last, desperate PDA call she had made five minutes before. Very well."Hi," she managed to say. "I am Jenna, and I have a gift for all of you." She reached into her shoulder bag, brought up a sleek little Tec-9 SMP, and opened fire on full auto. She let hate guide her bullets--black, screaming hate for all of them, for Cindy especially, for Jason and all his spawn they had ever carried, for Fawn and the users and the gangbangers and the rest--and most of all for herself. It served her well. She didn't care about the security men outside the door--let them come--only about making the ten-thousand-dollar dresses erupt out the backs, making coiffured hair and jewelry yank around, and making expensively-toned flesh blossom crimson and belch out dark nectar. Some went down behind furniture. She shot them through it. Some screamed. She made them shut up. She walked around and around the place, slowly, almost lazily, changing clips from her shoulder bag four times, staying aware of the door but mostly making sure each bitch got a few bullets of her very own. She sprayed the place itself with a full clip, making the silver catering service clang and dance and the plate glass of the huge windows shatter outward in a slow row of splinter-hail arcing down toward the street. It felt good. She spared some extra bullets for Cindy herself last of all. Cindy was sprawled out, half-turned over another bitch. Jenna gave her a kick in the head with her stipple-soled, nineteen-dollar thrift-shop boot. "I--I ... " Her dress soaked and spattered with gore, Cindy's head turned, the red bitch lips parting, a darker glob slipping out. Suitable last words, thought Jenna. As Cindy's eyes rolled up to meet hers, she mashed the bitch face with a final burst of bullets. At last, she was done. She walked--not ran--over to the closet, got her carry-all bag, which had more guns and clips in it, and picked it up and walked out. The security guys were nowhere to be seen. Her short-lived hopes for Jason ended, Jenna got her coat and gloves on and loaded another clip into a--MAC-10, it said on the side--while waiting for the lift. If the evening so far had proved one thing, you never knew who you might meet around a corner in this town. But then, neither did anyone else. >< >< >< >< >< ><
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Post by Aedh on Jun 13, 2011 8:11:18 GMT -5
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Post by Aedh on Jun 20, 2011 7:57:43 GMT -5
061[/b] Mona Stern was on time at Rhys Macklin's back door, climbing out of her vintage, gasoline-powered Alfa Romeo motorcar wearing a skirt-suit and spectacles--not contacts, her habit after work--and fortified with a little something for energy and alertness. He answered her buzz. There were groceries still on the counter in the side kitchen since he'd only just got in himself. He took her coat and they made chat while he put things away and told her to wander if she liked; the house was dark, but lights would come on wherever she cared to go and would obey voice commands. She walked slowly, pausing, through the lounge off the kitchen where Rhys had talked with Vonda, went on through into the main living room beyond and spent some time exploring it, and on her way back, stopped at a small room walled off from the other two but facing out to the view. Mona put a hand on the doorknob and looked at him. "May I?" He replied: "Sure," and she went in to find an even smaller lounge, roughly triangular, with a cabinet door in the back wall, three comfortable chairs around a small table with a glass thing on it, more or less facing out the window and door onto the deck. She returned to the lounge, and spent another few minutes looking at the skyline across the water through the streaky windows. At length she turned and said: "Nice place you have here, Doctor Macklin." "It's somewhere to put our stuff. Drink?" "How about a brandy?" "Good idea." He got out a decanter, and said: "I should warn you, the last strange woman I had tete-a-tete here died by violence before she left the place." "Really? Where?" He pointed. "On the deck there." "When?" asked Mona. "Last night." "H'm. Did she have a black belt in karate?" "I doubt it." He handed over her drink. "Then I won't worry," Mona returned. He joined her with his brandy. "Where do you want to sit?" Mona inclined her head toward the triangular place. "How about your smoking room there? As I infer from the presence of an ashtray on the table." He inclined his head. "Very good--a lot of people think it's a serving dish for sweets or nuts. For my part, I infer that you wish to smoke?" She set down her drink and drew a tube out of her purse, unscrewed one end, looking at him, and out of that drew a cigar. "I thought the brandy would go with it," she said with a half-smile. "Another good idea. It's been a while." He led the way, and, in the room, opened up the cabinet door and from a box selected a cigar of his own, and a cutter. She proffered him her cigar-end, and he cut hers and then his, and lit hers and then his with a gas lighter. A fan whirred quietly to life, and they sat down in chairs, he in the center one and she on one side. Outside the dark, wet glass, only a smear of light between dark and darker indicated the city across the water. "How's Candee these days?" remarked Mona between draws. "I talked to her today. She's well, thanks. So, what about Jason?" "I'm concerned about that young man. He's been out of sorts in school, distracted and, I think, depressed, so I looked into it. Are you aware that he has been hiring himself out as a Bearer, not on the Island, but in Queen City, as part of a very lucrative business run by a well-connected City woman?" "I know he has a part-time evening job in the city, for which he's well-paid," said Rhys, after taking a sip. "But it's not like he's a drug dealer or something. He's got management who take care of him. It may sound odd, but he's not just any seventeen-year-old. Being a Bearer is like being a rock star. He has a life of his own, of which I really do not know the details." "Let me fill you in, Doctor. He's close to getting himself arrested. The job is being the star attraction of an exclusive breeding ring for upper-class women, run by Cindy Shanley, whom I think you know." He nodded and said, "Slightly." "She brings in women from all over, high-class ones who aren't content with in vitro fertilization. They want to get pregnant the old-fashioned way. She delivers, for a price. Jason gets some. A share gets raked off to someone upstairs, either Saint Leonard himself or through Party channels somehow. Another share goes to someone else I'm not sure of, but he appears to be some kind of government agent--a cop." "So? Sounds like every other business in the city so far. Anyone not happy with it?" "One of Cindy's protectors demanded a bigger cut, and she told him to shove it." Rhys shook his head sadly and murmured something about greed. "The fix is off and someone is going down. Jason's involved. He is, in fact, involved with an Act Up Now student activist, with whom he's planning to run away somewhere." "Jenna? She seems alright. How far?" "I don't know," said Mona. "You might want to ask him about that. My guess is, this is going to blow up soon, before the election. Aren't you worried about the fallout--for your campaign, or about a lawsuit by his mother? He's seventeen, not eighteen. She could get custody, with all that entails. If he is arrested, I would be called to testify about his situation, and from what I'm seeing and hearing I can't say that his situation here would look good to a judge." "Maybe. But why tell me all of this? I know you're involved with women's and other groups--Choice Now Action Front, the Women's Caucus of the Blue Party, AUN, et cetera, most of whom seem to dislike me. You're supposed to be my enemy. Why give me information?" She put down her cigar. "Let me lay my cards on the table, Doctor. I am your enemy, but not your worst enemy. I'm feminist, I'm radical, I'm involved in causes--you named some--who do not work in the way approved by Misses Whiffin and Pratt and QCFPAC and the NOF. As far as women's issues and politics go, all they want is to re-fight the same old battles they won a century ago. And why not? It's easy to be a revolutionary after the revolution's been won." "What makes you different?" "Several things, the most relevant to you being that they want Nels Anderson re-elected. They're all of a kind. They're old politicians, all committees and resolutions and compromises and understandings. They are the ones who keep the vigil at the ferry terminal, standing grey and silent inside their little box, holding all the same old pamphlets that no one ever reads or even looks at. They and Nels deserve each other. You and I may be on opposite sides but we have a lot in common. We are both doctors--MIT and Harvard--young, intelligent, articulate, committed at heart, and, at the risk of repeating myself, radical. We tell it like it is. We communicate. That can be no bad thing. And my side is on your side--until after Election Day." "So, until then, you want to cooperate?" Mona leaned forward, drink in hand, letting her jacket fall open to reveal an edge of black brassiere. "Cooperation can have many mutual benefits." "I daresay," he replied. "And I doubt we're as, um, radically separated as you believe. I'm feminist myself, as far as a man can be, which couldn't be said of Nels." "You?" She studied him skeptically over the top of her glasses. "That would be a hard sell to anyone who's seen any of your election publicity. Although the tactic of having campaign volunteers network in the community to swap sex for votes is effective, if unorthodox, radicalism." "This late in the game, one does what one must. Besides, I should have thought that employing sexually liberated people to go 'Mackin' 4 Macklin' would meet with sympathy from your side. Direct action, fight the power, and all that." "If you were female, possibly. As it is, it's oppression. Anything a male does, even an intelligent, sensitive male, is oppression." "That's dogma, of course. If I thought you really believed that, I'd have to bid you goodnight. Or do you have more cards to lay down, other than just the pair?" "You certainly know that outside entities have from time to time placed, ah, assets in the Alder Island school system, to watch and report what goes on." He nodded. "My side is one of them, and we've lost a person. She's not some raw volunteer, but a professional, and she's gone off radar. She's been taken, turned, co-opted, and not only that but physically abused by--we don't know who. But together with the election, things going south for Cindy and her business, which means for the Party and for Jason, and Jason deciding to split town with an AUN activist, who has also gone off the reservation, and the terrorism ... I discern something reactionary and extremely nasty going on, which could put both our sides out of business. I may add that my colleagues don't agree with my analysis, but I'm sure of it. I need to gather evidence to support my theory, Doctor, documentation--proof. As a scientist, you understand, I think." "And you want to persuade me to help you find out." "By any means necessary." She crossed her legs and used a foot to snap a stiletto pump back and forth off her heel. "One does what one must." He smiled slowly. "I see. You really are here about Jason. You don't care about Cindy or her playmates. You have approved what it takes to get David Thomsen out of town; you're not so concerned about him or John Brunett. But you are willing to go behind the back of your colleagues and come to me, the arch-oppressor, out of concern for Jason, and you marshaled all the things to say calculated to draw me in. Good ... psychology, Doctor." "Bearer psychology and breeder psychology do interest me," she said, putting down her glass. "It is a common notion that they are all mentally defective. But Jason is different. He is obviously intelligent and has a conscience and moral character. Under a pen name I've published some groundbreaking research. I'm not ready to lose my--" "Star attraction?" he murmured. "As it happens, I think we can assist each other. You want to publish, but you can't afford to have me within shouting distance. You do wish some assistance with the matter of your--person, and you don't want Jason leaving town." "Not permanently. But the danger I mentioned is real, and it might be expedient for him to be out of the way, and I don't mean across the bridge. I mean in another State. A month or two in somewhere like Los Angeles might be a good idea." "Possibly. Very well, you laid down your hand--here's mine. You want me to help find someone--I would like you to help me lose someone." "Ooo! Intriguing!" Mona leaned forward, pushing down her glasses a little and looking at him conspiratorially over the top of the frames. "Does it involve anything illegal?" "I know how you get the gas to keep the Alfa running, so ... " He motioned toward the city again and drained his glass. "Since when was anything worthwhile not illegal?" "Never. Tell me more," she smiled. At that moment his PDA gave a tone. He excused himself, flipped it open, and excused himself again, reading a text message. "Yes? Yes ... where? I see ... mmm ... how many? Uh huh ... I see ... Do they have a description? ... Yes. No, I'll handle it. Thank you, Ralna." "Your PA? Oh, yes, the Ralna. She does some late hours," Mona commented. "And fills in with freelance police work, too, I've heard. What do you pay her?" "One moment," he said, preoccupied with his device, evidently sending a text message. When he was done with that he set the device down on the table. "There appears to be something to what you say. What was that about things 'blowing up?'" "What's happening?" "Another incident--the second today, or the third if you count this morning at my building. Cindy Shanley was gunned down at her residence. With twenty-six others, all women. Two are still alive and critical." "Oh!" Mona's face paled. "Women--what about Jason?" "Not there, it would seem." "Where was he, then?" "I'm hoping to find out presently. This will be big if Cindy's friends were of the sort you say. Possibly bigger than the transit tunnel incident." "Oh, yes. Executives, politicians' wives, heiresses, actresses, pop stars, you name it." "Oh, dear. That is not good." The PDA gave another, different tone, and he picked it up and read a text. "Jason was ... not there, but on the island waiting to meet with Jenna ... who ... did not show up." He looked up, and continued: "Which isn't surprising, because a woman of her description is wanted as the shooter." He clicked the device shut with a snap and put it in his pocket. "Another terror incident--the first one's already been spun as having ties to me. This one's tied to you, or your friends at least. I would say, Doctor Stern, it's decision time. Right now." "Yes," she said, looking thoughtful. "As pleasant as it's been, I think it's time to go." "I agree," he replied. "Do call me in the morning, whether or not you still wish to speak on behalf of your, ah, colleagues." She crushed out her cigar-end and they stood, he showing her out of the smoking room. At the outer door, with her coat on, she told him: "Thanks. You're not a bad enemy to have." "I'm no one's enemy," he replied, looking down at her. "I'm about business. Business is business. Something for something, nothing for nothing. That's how it works, Doctor. I'll see you again when you have something else. Goodnight." He turned on the outside light. With a return goodnight, she walked out toward the red Alfa and got in, starting up. He closed the door, and, having done that, leaned against it with his back, with his PDA out again, checking availability for flights to Los Angeles. >< >< >< The dilapidated, graffiti-decked buildings around the old Space Needle, still called "Seattle Center,"--by chance, not far from Ralna's block, and the reason her rent was low--were a prime area for police activity at night. A long-previous City administration, strapped for funds and enamored of shabby chic, had made the decision to give the Center over to artistic decay, which had evolved into decay pure and simple, and after the goth boutiques, noodle stands, and import emporiums, and pawn shops closed, the sex shops, tattoo parlors, and bars remained open, and the venues joined them. Drug-fuelled partying sometimes turned violent, or deadly, when a fight erupted or a deal went bad, to say nothing of garden-variety crime like using, solicitation, mugging, or assault, which were hardly remarked by the authorities. It was a good hunting ground for the hooded woman in the black leather swing coat, leggings, and chain-accented boots. She had already found one guy at a rave, lured him out, blown his mind in a doorway, and left him dead in it--intentionally just around the corner from some parked cops, so near that she could hear their radio monitors going while she was killing her mark, a gloved hand over his mouth, with his mascara-caked eyes rolling to and fro. Afterward, she checked his pockets, still listening to the cops. She took cash out of his wallet, his PDA--they could be useful--and a bag of brownish-white powdered substance. Then she left him, walking five steps around the corner, five steps more past the cop car, and went on, pausing very close behind the vehicle to make a call on her own PDA. She did it deliberately. She liked the danger; it was a delectable stimulant. Then she went on, into the night, the cops still sitting where they were. The mark probably wouldn't be found until morning, and then by the bod squad, who did routine morning sweeps here. It was a popular place to come and die, but where others found death, she found life. >< >< >< Jason had sat at the ferry dock, stunned, for some time after returning his father's text. Sure, Jenna had obviously been in a mood. But she'd met him on his way to the city. What did she think he came there for, anyway? She knew what he was ... and he, to his misery, knew too well. Clearly she'd found out about him and Cindy, and been angry. But angry enough to kill twenty-five people? No, there was some mistake. She was seen leaving. But it couldn't have been her, just her. But what if it was? And had she supposed he was going to be there as well? Would she have added him to the list? There was one way to find out. He dialed. It rang. She answered, and the tone was bitter, sarcastic. "Well, hello, baby! At last, you call me!" "Jenna? Jenna, babe--where are you?" "I asked where you were last night. You didn't answer, so I don't see why I should have to answer you. But I will. Tonight I was where you were last night." "You--?" "Yes, Jason sweetie. I killed a lot of your bitches tonight, including the queen. Funny how they're so posh, so shi-shi, so very-very. But they go down easy and they bleed red like the rest of us. I hope I don't have to do something this drastic every time I want a call returned!" "I was waiting for you, Jenna--here, on the Island, like we arranged! What the hell happened to you?" "You happened, honey, baby fuck-face million-timing darling twunt bastard son-of-a- bitch!! I gave you my fucking life, and you gave me the bat. Who are you fucking right now? I want a name and address so I can kill her, too." "Jenna, I'm not--" "Liar! I want to hear her! Put her on right now!!"A tear rolled down his cheek. "I didn't go tonight because of you, Jenna! I was done with all that because of you!""Really?! If you were waiting for me, then why didn't you answer your PDA an hour ago when I called you? I was standing there with my gun still in my bag and all the bitches were still alive. You could have answered the call and saved everyone. But you didn't--why? Because you were busy doing the only thing you can do, and you're a FUCKING LIAR from start to finish!!"He was silent, with more tears coming. "Nothing to say? If you've got no lies, you've got nothing to say. Amazing, you fucking cunt! Then let me say something. You know what I'm gonna do? I got something else to do first. Then I'm going to have that fucking thing you planted in me killed. I want to see it dead, to know it's dead. And then--make sure you get lots and lots of cunt-fucking--because, if I'm still alive, Jason, I'm coming for you. Nothing's gonna stop me." "I deserve it," he said miserably. "You do," she agreed. "You'll get it very soon if they don't waste me first. Have a nice night." Then the call ended. He sat, numb, paralyzed, holding the PDA and weeping as its screen faded to black. >< >< >< After Mona's departure, Rhys Macklin made a few more calls, and sat in thought for some time. Candee would be home soon, but he still had a night or two to himself, and some unfinished business in the lab. So he went out, across the paved drive, and in through the garage to the back door, keyed the alarm, and walked down the thirty-meter hallway into the lab. All was quiet. He turned on the lights, donned a lab coat, and spent a few minutes readying instruments. He had had very little time earlier to work with Taylor's body, having been interrupted by a call. But tonight, hopefully, he could get a few things done, and learn more about who, or what, she was. When all was in preparation, he went to the drawer where he had stored the cadaver and pulled out the handle. There was nothing inside. He scratched his head and checked three other refrigerated cadaver drawers--no body in any of those, either. He turned the entire place out. It didn't take long. No body. He retraced his steps, newly observing. He opened the box--not a locked one--where he had stored Taylor's clothing and effects. They were gone. The box had been closed and the cadaver drawer had been pushed back into place. Nothing of his own equipment had been disturbed. And the door had been closed, and the security system armed, but there had been no alarms. The--event, had to have happened sometime in just about the last twenty-four hours. The place would have been unattended the entire time except for his leaving in the morning and his return this evening, which had been late, but only by a little. He briefly considered calling the police. There was no trace that Taylor had ever been there, or anything to connect them; no sign, in fact, that anything had happened at all--nothing but a story which, for all the evidence, he might be making up out of his own head. He decided against calling them. There was, literally, nothing to say that would not raise more questions than it could possibly answer. Finally, Rhys decided to shut everything off again, and went back up to the house, to hear the gravelly crunch and click-whirr-click of Jason's electric runabout arriving. He waited as the car's lights went off, and a dark figure crunched its way with slow footsteps toward him. He opened the house door to let his son in. "Dad, I gotta tell ya," began Jason, shucking his overcoat and headed, by habit, straight for the refrigerator. "There's something weird going down." "You don't know the half of it," said Rhys quietly. >< >< >< >< >< ><
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Post by Aedh on Jun 20, 2011 8:03:17 GMT -5
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Post by Aedh on Jun 30, 2011 9:50:23 GMT -5
062[/b] Kayleigh and John had been upstairs for an hour or more, and, unusually, very quiet, so much so that Merilee stuck her head into the stairwell and called: "John? Kayleigh? Everything alright?" "Yes," the girl's muffled voice called back. "We're just coming down. Do you know when Jodenne will be getting here?" "Half an hour, I think," said Merilee, and went back to finishing the dinner cleanup, and making sure there were snacks for John's relief visitor for the night. Within a few minutes, Kayleigh, hair pulled back and in her usual cotton-fleece comfy-wear, and John in his thick hooded robe and eternal skeepskin boots, had come down to grab a drink. Kayleigh had a sheaf of papers in her hand, which she set on the kitchen table. Merilee glanced the way of the papers. "Homework?" "Yes," replied Kayleigh. "John's. It's a story project. He did it himself, actually, mostly. I helped him a little." "You wrote a story?" Merilee asked John. He spoke very little, but sometimes few words disguised many thoughts. With his lips to his tumbler John nodded, moving the tumbler along with his mouth like a toddler. "It's pretty good, I think," said Kayleigh, turning her chair round to sit leaning forward on the chair back. "Would you like to hear it? If John doesn't mind. I can read it to you." John nodded again, as before. "Okay," said Merilee, wiping her hands on her apron, pulling up a chair, and sitting on it, somewhat gingerly, as her sturdy body made its woodwork groan. Kayleigh sorted the pages into order, took a sip, and began: "In an age that was ancient to the ancients, there was a realm called Ecgeria, not the largest or most powerful kingdom in the world, but a happy one. The kings of Ecgeria had ruled in the city of Mesembria for a thousand years with the help of the realm’s gods, Maar and Naat. Maar and Naat had no temples but the city and the land itself. They stood on simple pedestals in an open square before the palace in Mesembria: the man-god Maar, sacred in war, and the woman-god Naat, sacred in peace; yet while their pedestals adjoined, they never stood together. In war Maar came to life to lead the king’s army against invaders. As a god, Maar knew all things; the commanders listened to his revelations, the soldiery believed in him, and so Ecgeria’s armies prevailed in the field. In times of peace, Maar resumed his pedestal, becoming like a statue, and Naat came to life to lead the people in the arts and crafts of the people. As a god, Naat also knew all things, and with her guidance, farmers, smiths, weavers, merchants, wives, and tradesmen prospered and made good; likewise, in war, she returned to her pedestal in deference to Maar, so that the presence of two gods at once should never divide the people, and that balance of all things in unity should be preserved; and whether they had any feelings about their separation, none knew. The gods, knowing all things, knew also that belief upheld them, for they could not help unbelievers; such was the rule of destiny, which itself was no god, but simply the way of gods and men alike, separating what could be from what could not, and moving with force should the balance of all things fall out. All had their place. The king ruled the people; the gods--who knew all things--revealed to everyone in time what was needful to know; the faith of the people upheld both king and gods in their places; and with the gods' guidance, all trod the way of destiny. People came and went over generations, and kings held their rule one after another in Mesembria. The gods Maar and Naat alone remained, for the prophecy of the ancient smith-mages who had made them with enchantment said that Maar could be unmade only by dragon-fire, and Naat unmade only by the fire of Destiny itself. Things seemed safe thus, for there were no dragons long since, and mute Destiny held the secret of its fire. And so, in the days of the king Melq Qurut in Mesembria, descendent of the smith-mages, the balance of things had been kept for an hundred decades, and the kingdom prospered moderately; neither the largest or most powerful--those titles traded hands frequently, elsewhere--but perhaps the happiest. So things were until one day, after Melq Qurut had been looking long out his window at Maar--for Naat was gone about the business of Naat--the king summoned the priest of Maar before him in audience, speaking thus: “I am Melq Qurut, king in Mesembria, the descendent of forty generations of kings, am I not?” Replied the priest of Maar: “May the king live for ever, it is so.” “I have considered. Unlike other realms with periodic troubles, such as Apyria and Symochth and their neighbors away from us, our realm of Ecgeria has been blessed and happy under our rule, has it not?” “May the king live for ever, it is so. Maar has not stirred since Your Majesty assumed the throne twenty years since.” “Wherefore, then, should we be jealous of what is ours? Would it not be good to extend the blessings of our realm, bringing the power of Maar and the help of Naat to realms beyond and to other people? As a priest, who alone can commune with a god on its pedestal, I ask you: would this be contrary to the will of Maar, who with Naat knows all things?” “May the king live for ever! The king does not know all things,” replied the priest of Maar. “That is the province of the gods, who do not consider or believe, because they know, and show their will in due course. They know all things, and know the way of destiny; so that when war is destined, Maar lives, and when peace is decreed, Naat lives. That is the way of it; so it has always been.” At this, Melq Qurut was quietly vexed, and said: “Priest! I know of Naat, who moves among my people, and I profess faith in Maar, who is like to her, though I have never seen him move. But do you say that I, Melq Qurut, descendant of forty generations of kings, have learned nothing from history and philosophy, the accumulated wisdom of my fathers?” “May the king live for ever! The gods forbid that any should say so!” said the priest of Maar. “The king has considered. He knows, but also believes. Whosoever believes does not know, for who needs faith in what he already knows? The gods do not consider, nor do they believe. They know. That is why they are gods.” “Do you say that Maar knows more of war than the king,” the other demanded, “even while he stands speechless and unmoving? And you presume to speak for him, even to the king, saying who knows what comes into your head, sitting day after day contemplating Maar as birds perch upon him and street urchins chase hoops in his shadow? Of what use is the knowledge you profess? Do nothing, do nothing, and do nothing again! Is this wisdom, or senility?” “May the king live for ever! Though the balance is invisible, it preserves the king’s realm, and averts the weight of Destiny!” “I should call you insolent, were you not a dotard. Know that I have a visitor at court, the monk Kwan Chu from the temple of Ming Lung in the realm of the Seres, ten thousand leagues to the east. Do you know of this temple? Its precinct is lit by an ancient flame, kindled in a past age from the fire of Ming Lung, last of the great dragons. He carries some of this fire with him.” The king clapped his hands. A strangely-dressed man stood out from the group near the throne, lifting up a lantern; he drew back its shutter to reveal a glow within. The king continued: “Inform Maar, if he can hear, that I desire an expedition to extend the glorious blessings of our realm, and its power. I desire Maar to lead it, if he will. If he will not, I shall cause my royal forge to be kindled from the fire of the dragon, and I shall cause him to be melted down, and his metal forged into swords for an army which I myself shall lead. Then my realm, and all who submit to us, shall have the blessings of Naat and the power of a war commander together at once, and men everywhere shall know that Melq Qurut does not wait on the ramblings of idiot priests. Now go, and bring me the response of Maar.” The priest of Maar, much disturbed, went out, and sat down before Maar in meditation, and communed, telling Maar what had transpired. But although the priest communed for the rest of the day, and all of the night, and into the next morning, Maar made no response, standing mute and still as always. The priest of Maar finally had to return to the king and give his report. So Melq Qurut gave orders, and the royal forge was kindled with the fire of Ming Lung. The king’s workmen came and pulled down Maar and took him to the royal smithy, where the king’s smiths melted him down in the fire from the east, and then set about making the swords the king had ordered. That both pedestals were now empty, and that the king's forges were very busy, did not go unremarked by the people, or by Naat, who returned to Mesembria to find a gathering of citizens in the square, who besought her, saying: "The King has brought dragon's fire, and has melted Maar for swords for an army to lead to conquest himself. What are we to do?" Naat looked at her citizens and said: "The king could not have done this unless destiny had made a way, which no man nor god can undo." "We cannot undo, but we can do," replied the people. Naat's priest said: "The king has unmade the balance of the gods, of peace and war. He now proposes to march eyeless into destiny's way, making war on other realms. What madness is this--the blind led by the mute! Who shall know what is to be done? Who shall say whether, if he survives, he shall not make war upon his own people next?" "What would you do?" asked Naat of them. "You are the god of peace, of the people," said the people. The former priest of Maar besought Naat, saying: "You lead us in peace. Lead us now, before war begins, that we may preserve peace, against no foreign foe, but against a royal criminal who is no god but only a man." "Do you say the Melq Qurut is no king?" asked Naat. "Qurut is no king of ours!" cried out the people, over and over again, “Qurut is no king, but only a man!” The commotion was heard in the palace, and the king asked his courtiers: "What is the outcry of the people?" "May the king live for ever," replied the captain of the guard, "the people cry that Melq Qurut is no king, but only a man." Then the king grew angry, replying: "Then Melq Qurut says that these people are no citizens, but a rabble of traitors. You will lead my soldiers to slay their leaders." "May the king live for ever, we have no god with us," replied the captain. "Your god is in your hands, in your swords," said the king, "and he will be with you as you execute these traitors. I, Melq Qurut, will it. Now go, and be swift!" The soldiers armed and went forth to confront the people, to find them standing with Naat at their front. The captain said loudly: "Hand over to us those who cry against Melq Qurut! Those we will slay with the swords of Maar, and the rest of you will disperse to your homes." Replied Naat: "Soldiers! For the first time Maar does not address you in assembly, but I, Naat, address you. Think! If you draw your swords it is war, but you know not what is fated, and you must suffer whatever comes. Do you truly wish to make war in the teeth of destiny, whose decrees you do not know?" The captain hesitated, but another officer, desirous of royal favor, demanded: "Hand over the traitors, or die! As for you, we have melted one god already. Obey the king's order!" Then Naat began to shine and grow bright and brilliant and hard, and said: "Your dragon's fire is useless against me. Mortals, do you have the fire of destiny?" "We have the god of war!“ cried some soldiers. “Forward!" ordered the officers, and the solders began to slay the people, who cried out to Naat: "Protect us, oh Naat!" Then Naat stepped up and slew two soldiers with a blow of her metal arm, taking the swords from both, and did slaughter among the king's soldiers. The goddess moved swiftly, silently, reaping men in blood like grain before the scythe, felling hundreds before they retreated, crying: "We cannot stand before the wrath of the goddess!" But Naat went in to the palace, slaying along the way, even unto Melq Qurut on his throne. The king watched as his guards died, with the blood of his captain spraying his robe and his face. Then he stood, facing the dripping goddess, who waited for the king's last words, which came quickly. "Falsely so-called god of peace!" he shouted. "Wherefore do you wield the sword against your own people, and the king of your people?" Naat made reply: "Of peace, but a god first of all of the balance of things, of which peace is born, and which you destroyed. Not gladly did I slay the soldiers who also believed in me as they believed in Maar who you unmade. Now you shall taste the steel of Maar which you had purposed to kill others." "You who know all things--know that you too can be unmade and remade!" cried the king. "The fire of destiny waits for you even now!" "Yes," replied Naat. "But you do not wield it." And with one sword she struck off the king’s head, and with the other spitted it in the air through the skull. Then Naat went out to the square, to where the people were rejoicing, and held up the spitted head of Melq Qurut. But upon seeing her, grim and red, they grew quiet, and in the quiet she addressed them, asking: "Wherefore, people, do you rejoice? You would do better to curse me, for I have killed your king." Some shouted that they would have a new king, others that they would have no king at all, and yet others that Naat should rule them herself. To that, she made reply: "I cannot rule you. Kings must keep faith, but gods are faithless, although this day destiny has moved to restore the balance. Now who will rule among you is for you to decide yourselves. But know; you must decide quickly. If they have not learnt already by sorcery, king Abim of Apyria and king Shapsh of Symochth will know very soon that Maar is unmade and that with many of his soldiers, Melq Qurut is dead. This land has remained inviolate for a thousand years. Do not think that they will delay the opportunity to invade and plunder it." "Lead us in war!" cried the people. "I cannot. War drains my strength. Even now I am wearied, and grow wearier. Maar thrived on it. That was why he led in war." "You slew the unking and his solders!" called out some people. "Because they believed, and it was their undoing. Abim and Symochth have their own gods, Yand and Suptu. They do not believe in Naat." "What shall we do, then?" "I cannot tell you. Men know what was; gods know what is, but only speechless Destiny knows what will be." "Can we not collect the metal of Maar from the king's men's swords, and remake him?" "No," said a grizzled old man in a leather smith's apron, standing up. "Maar and Naat were forged with enchantment by the mage-smiths of old. The enchantment was broken when he was melted down. You may collect all the metal, but the virtue was not in it. It was in the enchanting, which is gone." "Is this so?" they asked Naat. "It is so," she confirmed, laying a hand on the smith's shoulder. "My mate has gone to the abode of the gods, and none may summon him thither but destiny itself." Some of the people tried to clean the blood from Naat, but while they removed the blood itself, a crimson sheen remained in the metal, of which she said: "You can clean off the blood of men, but not the blood of the stricken balance." For some weeks she remained with the people of Mesembria, teaching and helping to the end. And at length, she was found one morning inert upon her pedestal, and the people knew that war was approaching. "What shall we do?" the people asked among themselves. There were soldiers who had survived the day of the fall of Melq Qurut, but they held out small hope of prevailing against the invaders. "If only we had Maar to lead us!" said the people, "or Naat to be with us, or even Melq Qurut, as evil as he was! But now we are to be devoured like sheep by wolves!" They besought the former priest of Maar, who consulted with the smith taught of Naat, and the smith said: "Perhaps there is a way." "What is it?" demanded the people. "It may be possible to remake Maar. His metal's enchantment was lost when he was unmade. But we still have metal of enchantment. It is the metal of Naat." "Naat revealed the last words of Melq Qurut to me in a dream," said the priest of Naat. "A god could, if they are true, be unmade and remade. But with no god who knows all to speak, we can only guess at how to accomplish it." "Must we risk losing Naat as well?" cried the people. "You began to do the work of gods, confronting destiny by yourselves, on the day that Melq Qurut put you to it by unmaking Maar," said the old smith. "If we do nothing, we shall be conquered and spoiled, and Naat shall remain here bereft, the realm forever out of balance no matter who prevails. If we attempt it but destiny denies the way, we shall still be conquered, but balance shall be restored, and Naat shall rejoin her mate in the abode of the gods. If destiny shows the way, then we can win--this time--and what to do after, Maar should have to counsel." "So let it be," said the people. "But where is the fire of Destiny to be obtained?" "That we do not know, having no god to tell us," said the old smith, taking a flint and steel. "But the fire of Destiny is the fire that Destiny makes its own. Who can tell where its choice shall fall? Anywhere--perhaps here, even." And he struck a spark. The priest of Naat and the former priest of Maar, and the old smith and his helpers, removed Naat from her pedestal and brought her to the smithy. No one was admitted who was not directly concerned with the work. For three days, hammering and the hiss of steam were heard, and for three nights a glow that varied from red to white, even to blue at times, continued, punctuated with mutters, groans, and clanks, and accompanied by the chanting of prayers and spells. Years later, one of the smith's helpers swore in his cups that soon after the work began, Naat came to life in the forge, remaining willingly but in deep agony, gasping out words of guidance to the smith as he slowly hammered her out of existence, and conveying the final spell to the priest. And on the morning of the fourth day, the smithy's door opened, and Maar strode out, looking much as of yore. Under his guidance, the remaining officers summoned what was left of the troops, together with a body of peasants and burghers recruited from volunteers. Now the story the struggle which followed, of Apyria and Symochth, of the battle of Qudrat and the slaying of Tamaz by Afgar and the founding of the Vafadar dynasty in Mesembria, that is told in the book of Shirhanmar; except that book does not tell of the end of the old gods of Ecgeria, which I shall now complete by telling what befell of Maar. After the ending of the struggle--not truly a war, since wars are between kings and there was no king in Mesembria between the death of Melq Qurut and the crowning of Shahmasp Vafadar--Maar resumed his pedestal in the square before the palace in Mesembria, and from there saw the establishment of new government, not without its troubles, but without war. The people mourned the loss of Naat, since they felt closer to her, but her former priest could only tell them that they could best honor her by remembering the many lessons she had taught them. At length, it was noticed that Maar was acquiring stains on his metal, which could be scrubbed off with care, but which always returned, digging deeper, and eventually causing pits and rough spots. There could be no doubt: Maar was rusting. The old priest of Maar was now dead, with no replacement, since appointment of the priests had been in the power of the blood of the smith-mages, of whom Melq Qurut had been the last descendent. An oracle was consulted, as well as the former priest of Naat, and the wisdom seemed to be that what had preserved both the old gods was the faith of the people, born of the balance of things; but the rust of Maar, and the troubles of the new government, showed that while one old god remained of the two, the balance could never be well restored. After a great council to debate the matter, the chief of the counsel, the man valiant in battle and wise in youth, who would become Shahmasp Vafadar, said: "We have heard the words of the oracle and of the former priest of Naat, and we have remembered the counsel of the gods. We can do nothing and let Maar rust away, or we can do something, but what? I believe it is this. We can allow Maar and Naat to reunite, finally, in the abode of the gods. It seems that the days when we could rely on the gods to know the way of destiny for us are over, and we must do the work of the gods ourselves, and face destiny without their aid. The work will be hard, but we have no choice; it has been made for us already. When we fail to find the way, and we fall, we may fall further than before; but when we find the way, so might we also rise higher than before, and with wisdom and goodness prove worthy children of Maar and Naat." So he proposed, and it was accepted, that Maar should be melted down again, this time with reverence, and the metal of Naat, of which he had been remade, should be given to armor for the fighting men who held swords of the metal of Maar. So it was done. Thus was the passing of the old gods of Ecgeria, accomplished on the tips of the swords forged by Melq Qurut to his own undoing, and to the future glory of Vafadar. But that is another story."Kayleigh took a drink of water, and Merilee sat back, making her chair creak again. "That's, um, very good," she said. "John really wrote that?" "He thought of it, and kind of tapped it out on my laptop," replied the girl. "I knocked off a few corners and smoothed a few rough edges, that's all." John nodded, this time without the glass. "How did you think of all that?" Merilee asked John curiously. "Ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-eye-eye dinn't," replied John, gulping. "Think of it." "You mean, you found the story somewhere else, and, uh, copied it?" she asked cautiously, thinking of plagiarism. "Nuh-nuh-nuh-nuh-n-n-n-nnnnnno. Ah-ah-eye-eye-eye seen it. I dinn't hafta think of it. Ah-ah-eye-eye-eye-eye-eye-eye nuh-nuh-nuh-nuh-nuh-nuh-n-n-n-n-know them. The mun-muh-muh-muh-muh-metal m-m-m-man and metal wuh-wuh-wuh-wuh-wuh-wuh-woman." "You know them? They're--based on--people you know on the Island here?" John gulped and nodded. "Can I ask who?" John looked down and said nothing. He was obviously done speaking and Merilee knew better than to press on; but at that moment a the gleam of a pair of headlights swept through a window, a car turning in the yard. That would be Jodenne, here for a shift or two with John so that Kayleigh, and Merilee herself, could get some rest. No doubt her big body, rather like a younger version of Merilee’s, would keep him feeling secure as he nestled against it. Her knock came at the door. “Come in,” called Merilee. Jodenne came, bustling in, having brought some things of her own, and soon the little kitchen was alive with talk and good feeling for the time being. It felt good, Merilee decided. >< >< >< >< >< ><
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